In The Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato laid the intellectual foundation for a strong central government and even socialism itself. After seeing his predecessor Socrates condemned to death by the democratic Athenians, he had become very distrustful of the common folk and their ability to distinguish right from wrong. This traumatic experience led him to believe that the ideal society would not be democratic in nature. Instead, a virtuous society would be ruled by a “Philosopher-King” who would make all decisions for the good of the people. Given that Plato was a philosopher himself, it is perhaps no surprise that his preferred dictator would be one also. Projection is a powerful force in human psychology, after all.
Plato’s influence continues even to this day. The idea of the philosopher-king is alive and well, as evidenced by the endless calls for government solutions to all of society’s problems, real or imagined. Those who support government solutions over the free-market unconsciously project themselves into the role of the philosopher-king. They imagine themselves as the authors of these solutions, and they see only the commonsense wondrousness of their imminently reasonable, charitable, and highly effective central plans.
There could be a wide array of solutions to any given problem, but a government program must collapse around one single option. As a result, there will always be someone who’s unhappy about the solution chosen. Despite the fact that the market paradigm avoids this problem to the greatest degree possible, the demands for government intervention continue unabated. Let’s take a look at a few examples of government programs and see if we can’t detect the hand of the modern philosopher-king at work, making all those pesky decisions for us.
- Protectionism. Let’s imagine that you want to buy sugar. Since sugar is nothing more than a commodity item, you might think you should buy the cheapest sugar you can get your hands on. Maybe it comes from Brazil. You might think that you could just buy the Brazilian sugar and be on your way. Not so fast, commoner! The philosopher-kings have lobbied successfully for government programs to make sure that you buy the American sugar instead. You may not be happy about the fact that the American sugar costs more, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that other people want you to buy American sugar, either because they happen to own sugar cane fields in Louisiana, or maybe because they just like the whole “buy American” thing.
- CAFE Standards. Although I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress to legislate fuel economy in cars, the Feds are pushing ahead with new CAFE standards anyway. But hey, I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. After all, George Bush supports it, and he’s a Republican. The GOP stands for small government and the free-market, right? CAFE standards seek to impose certain fuel efficiency requirements for cars sold in the United States. Granted, fuel efficiency is very important to many people, but it is only one dimension of the car-buying decision. Other factors might include style, size, safety, warranty, price, etc. But now those don’t matter. By lobbying for higher CAFE standards, other people seek to impose their preferences on you, casting themselves in the role of the philosopher-king by elevating fuel efficiency above all other considerations. In essence, they claim that they know more about your car-buying needs than you do.
- Government Health Insurance. Believe it or not, some people may be a) able to afford health insurance, and b) choose not to buy it anyway. Maybe you’re a twenty-something just starting out in San Diego. You’ve got an entry-level job and an expensive apartment. If you’ve never had any major health issues, it may be a perfectly reasonable decision not to purchase health insurance. Maybe you’d just rather splurge a little at the grocery store so that you don’t have to eat yet another bowl of Ramen noodles today. But it doesn’t matter. Some modern day philosopher-kings have decided that health insurance is too important for you to do without, so they turn to the government in order to foist it upon you, whether you want it or not. They decide what to do with your money. You don’t.
- Smoking Bans. You may not realize this, but smoking is bad for you. Nevertheless, you could be one of those people who enjoy smoking enough to accept the health risks associated with it. But it doesn’t matter. The philosopher-kings have decided that you don’t have the right to make that choice for yourself. They’ve decided that you will do without your nicotine fix because they disapprove of it. By turning to the government to ban smoking, these individuals substitute their preferences for yours, because clearly anyone dumb enough to smoke needs the guidance of their enlightened minds.
- Ethanol Subsidies. There could be any number of alternate fuels or additives to make fuel burn cleaner, or engines perform better. In a free market, a wide variety of fuels would come to the fore, and people would be able to choose which (if any) they preferred. Maybe ethanol would appeal to greens because of its environmental benefits (as long as they didn’t research that claim too closely, they might be quite happy with ethanol). Or maybe some people would prefer a different fuel mix that helped their engines perform better. Others might like their gasoline straight up with a twist. But it doesn’t matter. The philosopher-kings in Congress, relying on their extensive experience in chemical and petroleum engineering, environmental science, distribution and marketing have decided that it’s ethanol for everyone. And in so doing, they crowd out other privately funded research that might produce something even more effective.
In each of the preceding examples, you will notice that there is nothing preventing us from buying American sugar, choosing fuel-efficient cars, purchasing health insurance, not smoking, or tanking up with ethanol. But nevertheless, people constantly turn to the government to eliminate all other choices, thus compelling a single pre-approved outcome. Indeed, any time people call for a new government “solution” to a given issue, they are expressing the Platonic idea that what the world really needs is someone more like them calling the shots. All such programs are merely attempts to use the government as a means to impose their own personal preferences on others.
Whether they make us buy something directly or take money from us and then spend it on our behalf is irrelevant. At the end of the day, we are not allowed to spend our money in the way that we see fit. And inherent in all of this is the idea that they are smarter than we, that they know what’s best for us, and that we are incapable of coming to the “right” decisions of our own accord. As if that weren’t bad enough, the concept of the philosopher-king also implies that these self-appointed experts have a claim to our property that takes priority over our own. Isn’t it ironic that the collectivists believe that their own individual pet programs will be able to deliver better results to society than all of the collective actions of individuals operating in the free market?
Perhaps all of this might be more palatable if it weren’t always so one-sided. You’ll notice that people only seem to support programs that align with actions they themselves have already taken. It’s always a push, never a pull. You never hear anyone who drives a standard fuel car say, “I really need a law that will force ME to buy a hybrid.” You never hear the casual smoker cry, “Why doesn’t Congress pass a law banning cigars?” The reason these things are never discussed, of course, is that we all believe that we are already following the most reasonable course of action given our own individual circumstances; the real problem is all those other nimrods who just refuse to get with OUR program! I swear, there ought to be a law! And I’m just the philosopher-king to write it!
