Is the Market a Test of Truth and Beauty?

Ȃȅȁ Partʺʺ: Politics and Philosophy

People with a negative image of government, seeing it as overly med-

dlesome, or whatever, tend to shun politics. Exceptions do exist, but they

are just that, exceptions; and they tend not to persevere in politics as tena-

ciously as career-oriented devotees of activist government. Under our cur-

rent system, furthermore, a party’s success depends on steadily recruiting

full-time talent. Government-bashing does not build majorities. Ronald

Reagan’s antigovernment rhetoric reinforced a distaste for political careers

among young Republicans.

When conservatives occasionally come to power, they do not do much

to roll back activist programs already in place. “Government programs

acquire an inertia and a set of constituencies that make repeal look like

onerous and politically costly work, even for a newly installed conservative

regime that finds them unattractive” (p.ȅȃ).

[T]hrough theȀȈȆǿs andȀȈȇǿs, the Democratic party strengthened itself

as the vehicle for people who grew up interested in government and pol-

itics and wanted to make a career of them. And the Republican party

was forced to compete as the vehicle of those who felt that government

was a dirty business and that they were demeaning themselves to take

part in it. (p.ȁȁȁ)

Ehrenhalt illustrates his points with case studies of local government
(Concord, CA.; Utica, N.Y.; Greenville county, S.C.), state government
(South Carolina, Alabama, Connecticut, Colorado, Wisconsin), and mem-
bers of Congress.
In Wisconsin, for example, the people

have never chosen the Democratic partyen blocto be the legislative

majority. Ļe question is not put to the electorate that way.... Wiscon-

sin’s voters have elected individual Democrats who outperformed their

opposition at the tasks a modern political career requires. Ļe electorate

has not sent them to govern; it has merely maintained the conditions

under which they could send themselves. (p.Ȁȃȁ)

In Wisconsin, “theGOPhas become the party of Cincinnatus—the
party of those who, in the final analysis, would rather be doing some-
thing else for a living. Ļe Democrats are the party of those who believe,
with [Assemblyman] David Clarenbach, that ‘I can’t think of anything I’d
rather devote my life to’” (p.Ȁȁȅ).
As Ehrenhalt recognizes, his observations do not fully apply to the
general election for President. For a brief period every four years, after