Most of us will acknowledge that tyrants of some sort exert power over the lives of the masses, or non-wealthy people. The big partisan difference is the nature of these tyrants. Conservatives blame “liberal elites” or “big government” as the evildoers. They claim that business people are the victims of these evildoers, who are the elitist snobs in “big government”. The conservative version of reality has a sharp divide between big government and business. Business is good when allowed to govern itself and within the free market. Government is bad and makes up rules to interfere with business.
The possibility that people from big business may enter government and make laws and regulations favorable to their interests and proft-maximization is left out of the picture. Maybe the problem is big business is running big government and the so-called “free market” is a distorted market advantageous to these big businesses whose leaders infiltrate big government.
The question I, as a liberal, ask is: Whom does government serve? Both conservatives and liberals may agree that common folks are not being represented in government. If government is viewed as some megalithic inherently dysfunctional system that automatically taints its participants, then the “solution” is consider government as the enemy and therefore put an “outsider” in it.
A fundamental misunderstanding of recent American history, of the major impact of big government programs, of policies now commonly condemned as “socialist”, allows the conservative narrative to prevail and guide people’s decisions in the voting booth. The unparalleled economic American economic growth from 1933 to 1973, saw a sevenfold increase in GDP, with an average annual GDP increase of 4.88%. From 1973 to 2016, economic growth was considerably slower, as the socialist components were trimmed away and replaced with trickle-down policies of lower taxes for the rich and slashing of social programs along with those dreaded “regulations”. In these 43 years of reduced socialism the GDP only tripled and the average annual GDP growth was 2.77%. Furthermore, the high growth rate from FDR to Nixon was more equally shared among all income levels. From 1973 on, workers’ average compensations have leveled off whereas most economic growth falls into the pockets of the rich.
The reality of big government’s success encountered the turmoil of the 1960’s countercultural movement and the recession of 1973 to 1975. By the mid 1970’s, the malaise had set in with a crooked president who had to resign in disgrace, with the ongoing Vietnam War, and “change”, the perpetual populist slogan, meant at that time the embrace of the free market and getting government off your back. Even before Reagan, Carter had numerous trilateral commission members in his cabinet, and deregulated trucking and the airlines. Also, during Carter’s term, the big tax revolt began with Howard Jarvis.