Catastrophe

The word “catastrophe” comes from a Greek word meaning an overturning, as in the capsizing of a boat. It can also mean an abrupt ending. In a recent article at The New Criterion James Piereson argues that we are in the process of reaching an abrupt ending in the political strategy we have employed for the last 80 years:

The conflict today between Democrats and Republicans increasingly pits public sector unions, government employees and contractors, and beneficiaries of government programs against middle-class taxpayers and business interests large and small. In states where public spending is high and public sector unions are strong, as in New York, California, Illinois, and Connecticut, Democrats have gained control; where public sector interests are weak or poorly organized, as in most of the states across the south and southwest, Republicans have the edge. This configuration, when added up across the nation, has produced a series of electoral stand-offs in recent decades between the red and blue states that have been decided by a handful of swing states moving in one direction or the other.

This impasse between the two parties signals the end game for the system of politics that originated in the 1930s and 1940s. As the “regime party,” the Democrats are in the more vulnerable position because they have built their coalition around public spending, public debt, and publicly guaranteed credit, all sources of funds that appear to be reaching their limits. The end game for the New Deal system, and for the Democrats as our “regime party,” will arrive when those limits are reached or passed.

I think he’s both right and wrong. I think that the federal government can continue on its present path for some time. It is a monetary sovereign and the dollar remains the reserve currency of last resort. We can either borrow or simply spend money into existence as some have suggested for some time to come. I do not believe we can do either of those things without both economic and political repercussions and those are hard to predict.

However, I think that states are very literally coming to an abrupt ending of the strategy they’ve been using for the better part of a century. For the states, which do not have their own currencies, are finding borrowing increasingly expensive, and may find themselves unable to raise additional revenue through increased taxation, there may not only be a catastrophe but a cataclysm (also from the Greek; a violent upheaval, deluge, washing clean). It could result in a collapse of the federal system, something that some long for but I believe would be both a catastrophe and a cataclysm, or an end of the Union itself.

Or there could be a sudden expression of prudence, temperance, and wisdom. A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?

Read the whole thing. In the article the author examines what he characterizes as the three previous political revolutions in our history: the Jeffersonian revolution of 1800, the Civil War, and the New Deal.