THE eerie thing about the elections now looming in the U.S. and Canada is the pro- file of the voter. The folks who head for the polls in both nations have more in commen than not, as are they in lockstep on the issues with voters in Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Overwhelmingly, Medicare and other entite- ment programs are the deciding issues, Why then have entitlement programs become the salient feature of elections in Western democ- racies? Where is the debate, for instance, over foreign policy and the nved to replace interventionism with peaceful unbounded free trade? In After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial Stare, scholar Paul Edward Gottfried offers a protound analysis as to why “democrat- ic citizenship has come to mean eligibility tor secial ser- vices and welfare bencfits,” and why “being administered and socialized by a custodial class is now the defining aspect of democracy.” As in any voluntary trade, what you give up you value less than what you gain. Citizens, says Gortiried, have willingly abnegated the responsibility of self-government for the guarantee of entitlements. _ In tandem with an explo- ration of how 20th century social planners have gained leverage over citizens by dan- gling economic entitlements, Gottfried advances the thesis that there is no coherent lib- ral tradition to which the managerial state can fay claim. Based on meticulous -exegesis of intellectual histo- ry, Gottfried proves that the liberal democracy that serves as the impetus for the man- ageriai state’s social engineer- - J ing has no connection to 19th century liberalism. comment “Ninetesath century lib- crals did not believe that public administrators should work to change social classes or social values,” writes Gottfried. The liberafism of. the 19th century, from whieh today’s faux liberals depart, stood for private property and constitutional liberty, The removal of tariff bar- fiers and the ushering in of free trade was seen as a means to bring people together. Life, liberty and property were the natural rights governments were to uphold, no more. Social equality, which compels coerced distribution of wealth, was considered incompatible with liberty. Absent its 19th century heritage, “liberalism now sur- vives as a series of social pro- grams informed by a vague cpalitarian spirit,” its power maintained by wagging fin- gers accusingly at anti-liber- als. The public administrator turned into a social reformer wielding political power with the advent of the welfare state. Along the way, these 20th century social planners, who spoke of “control of production, prices and con- RATES: Daly _orth wan. Weekly = Cars, Truc! Monthly Call for free pick-up Call or drop by for more details. ism gutted, vague sumption” — essential social: ism ---began to call their social planning “liberal.” This continuity is contrived, explains Prof, Gorutied. Noovithstanding the surrep- titious “semantic thett,” “punishing homophobes and sexists and trying to rearrange the income curve” deoesi’t jibe with fiberalism pre oper, The present managerial state certainly is not an instantiation of the liberalism of the American Founding Fathers. The post-revolution tederal government was not te fevy any taxes, and an expansion of its power required the consent of every sovereign state, “The American Revolution,” writes economist Murray Rothbard, “was against empire, taxa- tion, trade monopoly, segula- tons, militarism and execu- tive power,” all now implicit- ly embraced by the U.S. and its Western allies. Undergirding our public sdministration is an unviekl- ing ideology bolstered by a monolith of toadving jour- nalists and intellectuals The dubious precepts of sactal psychology and the enforced “public philosophy” of pluralism have become means through which bureaucrats, educators and state-anointed experts embark on crusades against “prejudice.” Together with official multiculturalism they form an instrament of con- trol, designed to privilege a certain position and to stig- matize those who chink dif- ferently. 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Any serious appraisal of the managerial regime,” cautions Gortiried, “must consider first and fore- most the extent of its control — and the relative powerless of its critics.” Come ciections, took for vestipes, however faint, of equality under the law (flat tax) — but not equatity of outcome (affirmative action), reject government caxpansion (entitlement programs) and intrusion into peuple’s fives and livings, and look to the David Neel 441 West 3rd Street, North Vancouver 988-9215 Friday, November 3, 2000 —- North Shore News - 7 Reaching every desktop on the Internet affirmation of private proper ty nights as the mother of all hberiies. The purists among you may shun most candi- dates, But we don’t five ia the and arena of pure thought. 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