Arnold Should Return to Hollywood
By Anthony Gregory • Monday December 22, 2008 10:57 AM PDT • 15 Comments
When Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for governor in 2003, his supporters touted his independence, outsider status, and inspiring life story as the quintessential American dream. His detractors mocked his inexperience, but he indeed stood as a great example of what was possible in America.
This immigrant worked tirelessly and rose to the top in the private sector as a giant on the silver screen. He entertained millions, created vast amounts of wealth, and even used his fame to educate the public about the importance of personal health and, in a twist for Hollywood, market economics and individual freedom.
Oh, how the mighty fall. The governor is struggling, once again, to negotiate a budget. He seemingly becomes embroiled every year in these protracted showdowns, resulting not in responsible budgets but burgeoning deficits and growing bureaucracies.
He tries to hold the line, threatening to veto the Democrats’ plan, but it is stunning how far that line has shifted. He began promising a dose of economic conservatism after the fiscally reckless and profligate years of Gray Davis. Instead, he has overseen the state budget climb by 39% since he took office.
Arnold always had a soft spot for spending programs, vowing five years ago to produce a massive bond package to finance the school system. Since then he has saddled us with several large bonds and many billions in new spending projects.
So now he is fighting over relative trivialities, while accepting in principle California’s leviathan government and new tax increases.
This marks a sad time for the state but also a personal tragedy. Schwarzenegger had an amazing career as an entertainer. The governorship has only diverted his invaluable time toward intractable political disputes and symbolic battles over nothing. We are no better off than we were under Davis, and meanwhile the private sector has lost a talented and socially conscious actor.
The only solution to the state’s ills is libertarian reform. The government should shut down prisons and free nonviolent offenders such as drug convicts. It should liquidate its many billions in unneeded assets. It should close down entire agencies and leave their functions to the market. This would truly stimulate the economy.
But these measures would be too much for a governor to do, even if he wanted, without strong public support. With almost 40 million residents, America’s most populous state is especially difficult to tame. Perhaps there can never be a semi-functional political system as long as the state is so big, larger than most nations. In any event, genuine, sustaining reform requires a revolution in public opinion first.
Republicans often say we need a successful businessman, small-town leader, or citizen whose accomplishments are outside politics to shake things up in Washington or the state capitals. But those who work in the market labor under a totally different system, set of incentives, and institutional dynamic.
The government’s defining character renders it immune to fundamental reform by outsiders. Unlike the market, government finances itself through coerced taxation, not honestly earned profits. It maintains dominance through the threat of violence—police and imprisonment—not through voluntary exchange. Government power corrupts and cannot be purged of its intrinsically coercive and political nature. Outsiders cannot stay outsiders long once inside the halls of power.
Like Ronald Reagan before him, Schwarzenegger was the Hollywood rogue conservative who would finally produce fiscal restraint and meaningful reform. But also like Reagan, he has overseen a staggering growth in government while confusing the dialogue and giving free enterprise a bad name. Markets are free insofar as they are left alone by the state. An alleged free marketer wielding and exercising considerable government power ceases to be a true friend of the free market.
Some of his films have not been the highest of art, but even Schwarzenegger’s flops were great achievements compared to what he has done as governor, or what we can expect anyone like him to do in his place. If he wants to contribute to society, he should resign, leave the dismal world of politics to the corrupt and power-hungry, and return to the private sector where he can once again make a difference. There might still be time for him to do a cameo in the fourth Terminator film.
Tags: Budget and Tax Policy, Business, Drugs, Entertainment, Immigration, Politics, Privatization 
Couldn’t agree more. So HOW does one create the strong public support needed to enable true reform and the reduction of wasteful gov’t? That’s the question, isn’t it.
There’s a perception that libertarianism/free market ideals are brutal systems, so many with compassion and limited economic understanding automatically shy away from them.
Paula Cassin | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
It should close down entire agencies and leave their functions to the market.
Do you agree with the Carsonian syndicalist idea of not closing down said agencies, per se, but of simply cutting them off, letting them survive on voluntary patronage?
I like it. As far as public opinion goes, it would give the impression that these agencies are perhaps necessary, rather than completely unnecessary and a haven for deadbeats who can’t cut in the free market, getting to the “brutal” thing Paula speaks of.
At the very least, we should adopt zero budgeting. There’s no reason agencies should automatically get whatever they got the previous year + 1, come what may.
Dain | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Paula,
No question that economic understanding is required to undermine the state. Too bad the state is in charge of the education system. That’s not a coincidence. Their goal is not to impart knowledge, but to make people obedient. I’d say they’ve succeeded beyond measure.
There’s also a moral element to consider. For those who really feel compassion towards those less fortunate, we need to find ways to change the perception that private charity is somehow unable to cope absent the lumbering welfare state.
In fact, there is no compassion when we are forced to fund these programs at gunpoint. There is nothing noble or righteous about being compelled to help others. Real compassion must necessarily involve choice.
Steve Hogan | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
End the drug war. Now!
Independent Accountant | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Dain, sure, let the proper people homestead them in many cases.
Anthony Gregory | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Too bad the state is in charge of the education system. That’s not a coincidence. Their goal is not to impart knowledge, but to make people obedient. I’d say they’ve succeeded beyond measure.
Who is ‘they’? Come on methodological individualists, be consistent.
I can tell you that my public school teacher friends don’t get up every morning so they can “make people obedient.” These crude public choice assumptions cut right against the idea that in a voluntary society people will be sufficiently other-oriented to maintain civic virtue and fellow-feeling.
Perhaps you mean to say that as an inadvertent byproduct of state schooling, obedience is inevitable to some extent.
And all the evidence I’ve seen so far tell me that economically knowledgeable people do the opposite of undermine the state. The educated are more supportive of the state generally (as opposed to certain activities.) Those most cynical are also the least economically knowledgeable.
Dain | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Dain,
Your homework assignment for tonight: read John Taylor Gatto’s “The Public School Nightmare.” It’s a short read. You can manage it in a matter of minutes.
In it, he argues that the founders of America’s compulsory education system modeled it after the 19th century Prussian system. Their goal was explicit: to make the students obedient to the state above all else, including (and especially) that of the family. This was not a secret. They wrote about this openly.
After all, young people who are not run through the state’s propanganda mills are more likely to be independent-thinking. They may question prevailing wisdom and reject the status quo. The political elite fear this from those they rule over, and will do anything to hamper private or homeschooling movements.
As for the teachers you defend, I doubt most have the first inkling of the system’s true objectives. They are cogs in the wheel. In fact, most of them are themselves graduates of the public school nightmare. They have guaranteed employment with decent benefits, no matter how poorly they perform. Sure sounds like a perverse set of incentives to me, and the results speak for themselves.
Steve Hogan | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
I’m very familiar with John Taylor Gatto and the story of Horace Mann et al. But to think that what motivated people then is necessarily what motivates then now is a mistake.
After all, young people who are not run through the state’s propanganda mills are more likely to be independent-thinking.
Well, the jury is still out on that one. Homeschoolers I’ve met tend to either perform better academically or seem oddly out of place, almost uncomfortable, in the “real world.” Or both. But they don’t seem more independent-minded, unless an unusual point of view is ipso facto considered “independent.” But by that standard, someone separated from society at large and only exposed to the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is independent-minded.
Not everyone is Albert Jay Nock.
Interestingly, places with few educational options and all-powerful state schools do very poorly in reproducing state-loving cogs in the wheel. Usually dropouts.
I like Unschoolsers myself. Typically socially liberal academic types like David Friedman.
Dain | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
I forgot to italicize After all, young people who are not run through the state’s propanganda mills are more likely to be independent-thinking.
Dain | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Sorry, Dain. People in the 21st century aren’t that different. A few more gadgets and conveniences in life do not make us different than our ancestors. Human nature doesn’t turn on a dime, nor does our ability to learn or question authority.
Your anecdotal evidence about the shortcomings of alternative educational approaches isn’t particularly convincing. It’s also not important that every homeschooler possess the erudition of Albert Jay Nock, only that they have the opportunity. They won’t get that in the dismal public school system. They can’t. Any individual that actually emerges from the system with a decent education does so in spite of his experience, not because of it.
And while the government schools don’t appreciate a bunch of drop-outs (lower revenues, you see), the miscreants find their way into the military and growing national security apparatus.
I, for one, can’t wait to face the crack troops of the TSA tomorrow when I head off to the airport. It warms my heart to know that I’m being taxed to fund a police state populated by dim-wits, compliments of the government school system that churned them out like sausages.
Steve Hogan | Dec 22, 2008 | Reply
Sorry, Dain. People in the 21st century aren’t that different. A few more gadgets and conveniences in life do not make us different than our ancestors. Human nature doesn’t turn on a dime, nor does our ability to learn or question authority.
Which people are you talking about? Rank and file teachers, senior employees of the Dept. of Education, what? My point is that educational philosophy has undergone quite a few transformations since the 19th century. Ideals of Prussian civil service, Taylorism, John Dewey’s thought, etc. Today’s rank and file teachers are overwhelmingly dedicated to the latter, at least relative to the others.
Your anecdotal evidence about the shortcomings of alternative educational approaches isn’t particularly convincing.
It was in response to your unsupported claim that people outside of the public school system tend to be more independent thinking. Anecdotal evidence trumps no evidence.
And while the government schools don’t appreciate a bunch of drop-outs (lower revenues, you see), the miscreants find their way into the military and growing national security apparatus.
This debate started out as one of whether public schools were churning out people indoctrinated in an undue appreciation of the state. But those dropouts who do join the military or TSA (not a majority I’d bet, nor a non-sequitur as you presume) do not especially appreciate, love or worship the state. It’s simply a job, or a shot at college money.
Dain | Dec 23, 2008 | Reply
Jeesh, forgot to italicize again...
And while the government schools don’t appreciate a bunch of drop-outs (lower revenues, you see), the miscreants find their way into the military and growing national security apparatus.
Dain | Dec 23, 2008 | Reply
Dain, students in government schools have been taught
from day one that their responsibility is to be a
good citizen, which means by definition not to oppose
the state. They are also taught that a career in
“civil service”, for example, to be a teacher, social worker, fireman, or policeman, is the most important work that they could do.
Should it be any surprise that the adult TSA agent would never think of biting the hand that feeds him — even if he knows that what he is participating in, and being paid for, is both immoral and against the law of the land?
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InommedoIdola | Dec 27, 2008 | Reply
Arnold should resign! He is unqualified to govern.
bubbles | Jul 30, 2009 | Reply