Obama's dangerous arrogance.

Barack Obama has been unfairly targeted by the Clintons and other political cynnics in a vicious personal campaign, and for this I have true empathy for him. He has engaged in negative campaigning himself, this is true, but the level to which his name has been drug through the mud is astounding. Be it the guilt-by-association game with Jeremiah Wright, cynnical race-based tactics, or a combination of both, his opponents have engaged in a horrendous campaign against him for which they should be condemned.

With that said, I have some serious issues with his campaign. Of course, my fundamental issue with him stems from his platform, particularly on economic issues. His economic policies have been described by some as "Libertarian Paternalism" (an oxymoron, I know) and based on the ideas of Behavioral Economics, the school followed by his Chief Economist, Austin Goolsbee. Behavior economics makes interesting observations, and there are smart economists in every school, and Goolsbee is most certainly a smart economist. But like many Behavioral Economists, Goolsbee, while he does adhere to some free market ideas, often comes to the conclusion that not only should government intervene in situations of market imperfections, but that it has the ability in these cases to set everything right. This is certainly something that Obama's personality seems to embrace. From this article on Reuters.com today:

"Is race still a factor in our society? Yes. I don't think anybody would
deny that," Obama said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Is that going to be the determining factor in a general election? No,
because I'm absolutely confident that the American people -- what they're
looking for is somebody who can solve their problems," the Illinois senator said
in an interview taped on Saturday.

Barack Obama comes across as someone who believes he is so great, that he can solve everyone else's problems. He has made similiar assertions like this in the past. This is an extremely dangerous attitude for a chief executive to have. For one, it is an attitude that tends to lead to Presidents going beyond their codified rulebook in the Constitution. This has been a serious problem with the current Administration, which I think many would agree has been incredibly arrogant.

Secondly, this type of mindset tends to motivate policies that often create more problems in the end. A good example is the FDR Administration in the time of WWII. The Administration set price and wage controls, most likely motivated by the idea that they were so smart that they could manage the economy perfectly in war time (or not). But alas, they began to run into a problem: the wage controls and the draft provided massive disincentives to go to work. So how did they try to get around this? With more central planning: they provided tax exemptions to employers to provide health benefits to attract workers. Over time, this has created a massive problem in the health care industry in tying health coverage to employment, which has generated tons of wasteful expenditures through the classic principle-agent problems that arise in third-party coverage, increased health care costs massively, and left tens of millions of Americans without insurance. The politicians who could "solve the peoples' problems" gave them tons more than they ever solved, if they even solved any at all.

But most dangerously, Obama's attitude that he can solve everyone's problems (and that, furthermore, he thinks everyone else wants someone who can solve their problems and will by default come to the conclusion that he can do it) comes with a corollary. Naturally, he will view many things to be problems that others may disagree are problems. Someone who believes they can solve everyone's problems for them not only thinks people incapable of solving their own problems, but believes he has the right to impose his view of what is right and wrong- and what in society are problems- on everyone else in society, including those who disagree with them. And furthermore, he believes he has the right to take their property, at gunpoint if necessary, to address what he views to be problems.

Someone's problems are his or her own. No one else is responsible for solving them, and no one who believes he or she should help someone else solve another's problems has the right to take from others in order to do it. It is in a free society with a free market economy that respects private property that the most problems can be solved, as it is only in this circumstance that the type of natural good will that it takes to motivate large scale action by cooperation of individuals can occur (this is not to say all problems will be solved; they won't be). When the role of helping others is forced upon individuals in society, the role this motivation plays is eliminated and replaced with the idea that money and professional bureaucrats can finish the job. And yet, despite social spending tripling as a percentage of GDP since the early 1960s, here we are with the greatest amount of income inequality we've ever had, the greatest amount of educational inequality we've ever had, the greatest amount of division we've ever had, a health care system increasing starkly in cost and inaccessibility, inflation we haven't seen in more than 15 years, and a whole host of environmental problems.

You can't solve everyone's problems, Barack. Only we as individuals can solve our own unique problems and help others solve theirs. Did you hear that? YES, WE CAN!