Comments on: Utopian Statists vs. Optimistic Realists

By: Randall King

Randall King — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:05:50 +0000

Great article! I’ve thought about this a lot and even considered writing on it. You did a great job of getting this point across and did so much better than I ever could. Thank you!

By: JBH

JBH — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:09:20 +0000

Ned, You hit the nail on the head. I was actually thinking of writing a similar post, but now I think I’ll just reference yours.

Hayek’s Utopia chapter from Road to Serfdom helped me crystallize my thoughts on this. It appears that every statist attempt has been driven by the thought that past attempts were failures in execution rather than a failure in logic. Their arguments always display a high level of contradiction in that they want a strong government (run by man) to protect the downtrodden from the power-hungry, yet neglect to image a case where the power-hungry become the key players in government.

I think I will attempt to build off of your post and discuss how progressives/statists have a Malthusian bias while the founding fathers had a more Schumpeterian bent.

By: Madison – Federalist 51 | CIRCLE

Madison – Federalist 51 | CIRCLE — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:38:03 +0000

[...] you to American Majority for highlighting this quote). // « Single Point of [...]

By: Douglas Price

Douglas Price — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:28:40 +0000

Thomas Sowell has a great book, “A Conflict of Visions” that looks at these two ideologies. He calls it the “constrained view” versus the “unrestrained” view of humanity.

http://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Visions-Ideological-Political-Struggles/dp/0465002056/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278527245&sr=8-1

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:26:56 +0000

I would have surmised that you would be well familiar with them and glad you know them personally! But wasn’t 100% sure.

At least the info and weblink are there for others that might not be aware of them yet.

By: Ned Ryun

Ned Ryun — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:16:30 +0000

Yeah, Wallbuilders and Dave Barton are great. I used to do some surrogate speaking for Dave until a few years ago.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:00:24 +0000

Great! That link has tons more good stuff in that regard if you aren’t already familiar with it. Wallbuilders is THE best site I know of that has the most and best reference material about the founding fathers and their works.

By: Ned Ryun

Ned Ryun — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:50:48 +0000

I was thinking of that quote today, actually. Our new “Why American is Great” pamphlet for July will deal with self-governance and the Adams’ quote seemed appropriate.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:47:42 +0000

Wow amazing.. I have had this conversation with people time and time again. The nature of man and the purpose of government. Glad to see it put succinctly in form as you have done, addressing the opposing view statism/communism and its gross failure to be able to govern people in our world.

One of my favorite quotes by John Adams.

“[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Favorite list of quotes in this regard.

http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=63