{"id":63875,"date":"2021-01-14T14:33:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T20:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=63875"},"modified":"2021-01-14T14:33:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T20:33:16","slug":"63875","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=63875","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

California Is Worse Than You Think.<\/a><\/p>\n

My colleague from the philosophy department was becoming increasingly angry. He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was raging inside. After a few minutes, he smiled a very strained smile and excused himself.<\/p>\n

Our conversation was about California, or to be more specific, California governance. As readers can imagine, he was bullish on how the Democratic Party governs the state, California being perhaps the most one-party state in the USA. Every statewide election has gone to a Democrat in the last decade, and Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature, which means that there is no meaningful Republican opposition and whatever the Democrats want, they get.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, California governance is squarely progressive. The unions representing government employees effectively run the legislature, and as a result, pay, benefits, and pensions for those workers increasingly are straining the state budgets. (Steven Greenhut<\/a>, a libertarian journalist based in California, has documented the unsustainable growth of government in that state for nearly two decades.) Yet, the state continues to march politically and economically in the progressive direction as though the laws of economics didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

For the most part I have observed progressive California from far away, but my life took a different turn a few years ago, and the state is becoming my new home. I married a retired nurse from Sacramento in 2018, and because of health issues with her adult daughter, she has to remain in that city, something not in our original plans. Because my school’s campus either has been closed or severely restricted during the covid-19\u00a0lockdowns<\/span>, I have spent most of the past year working from my wife\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

Living and working in California has offered me the opportunity to observe California progressivism up close, and it has been an interesting experience. Yes, the state where I officially reside, Maryland, is famously one-party and progressive, but the progressivism of California makes Maryland\u2019s legislature look almost red state by comparison and surreal in some ways.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For example, the California legislature in its progressive wisdom effectively\u00a0decriminalized theft<\/a>\u00a0as long as thieves take less than $950 worth of merchandise, officially reducing such theft to a misdemeanor but in effect making it legal, since progressive California prosecutors don\u2019t like to be bothered by petty criminals. In practice, that means consumer goods are much harder to find in California stores than one might experience elsewhere. For me, the difference was quite revealing, as I recently returned to Maryland after spending close to nine months in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

When I go to the Walmart near my wife\u2019s home, I find many things openly are on display in Maryland are behind locked cases in California. Furthermore, California\u2019s\u00a0draconian<\/span>\u00a0labor laws mean Walmart has fewer employees, so if I wish to purchase something I easily could buy in Maryland, I have to wait for a long time and often I just walk away because no one is available to open the glass case. Yet, even with these provisions,\u00a0shoplifting losses for California retailers are enormous<\/a>, and the state\u2019s pro-theft laws have encouraged\u00a0organized grab-and-run rings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My progressive colleagues, like my philosophy professor friend, see no problem with such developments. To them, the\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0thieves are the capitalists, the retailers like Walmart which\u00a0refuse to pay \u201cliving wages\u201d to their employees, and,\u00a0according to Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a>, the capitalists have \u201cbeen looting\u201d Americans for years. Thus, the wave of theft in that state is a positive development, according to progressives.<\/p>\n

I can go\u00a0on, but it isn\u2019t difficult to expose the vast array of sins (economic and otherwise) committed by the California political classes, and I liken this kind of punditry to swinging a bat in a room full of pinatas\u2014one simply cannot miss. Steven\u00a0Greenhut<\/span>\u00a0has been exposing California\u2019s follies for years. However, perhaps the best recent commentary I have read on the progressive mentality that governs the state comes from\u00a0blogger Mike Solana, who deftly skewers progressive politicians<\/a>\u00a0from the Golden State who now accuse\u00a0the tech industry of having \u201cextracted wealth\u201d from California before leaving for the greener pastures of lower-tax havens such as Texas and Florida.<\/p>\n

Solana\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0rip is worth the read if for no other reason than that he exposes the\u00a0cluelessness<\/span>\u00a0of progressive politicians and pundits, and one can be assured that progressive politicians will fit\u00a0Tallyrand\u2019s description of the Bourbons<\/a>: \u201cThey had learned nothing, and had forgotten nothing.\u201d Yet,\u00a0Solana<\/span>\u00a0also is puzzled as to why Bay Area politicians who fail spectacularly also win landslide elections:<\/p>\n

Nothing in San Francisco can be set on a path to slow correction until at least six of the eleven district board seats along with the mayorship belong to sane, goal-oriented leaders cognizant of our city\u2019s many problems, and single-mindedly focused on solving them. These politicians will likewise need to be extremely well-funded. This is to say we need a political class, funded by a political machine, neither of which currently exist. Even were both the class and the funding apparatus to rapidly emerge, and even were the new political coalition to win an undefeated string of miracle elections, it would take four years to seize meaningful political power from the resident psychotics in charge, who, as per the last election, appear to be very popular among\u00a0close to ninety percent of voters<\/a>\u00a0(a curiosity for another wire). This is to say nothing of the broader Bay Area political toxicity, nor the state political dynamics, which are poised to exacerbate every one of our problems. It is a multi-front political catastrophe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During the covid-19 pandemic, which California politicians\u2014and especially Governor Gavin\u00a0Newsom<\/span>\u2014mismanaged spectacularly, California voters overwhelmingly chose the progressive\u00a0status quo<\/em>. While writers go on and on about the mind-boggling politics of California, the voters continue to send the left-wing progressives into office at all levels of government. While some might believe that \u201ceducation\u201d is the key to the so-called self-governance of democracy, voters in California clearly are choosing their candidates for reasons other than demonstrating wisdom in office. Indeed, why voters insist on putting the worst on top is perhaps the most intriguing question one asks about California politics.<\/p>\n

Typical wisdom says that voters \u201cvote for their pocketbooks,\u201d but the progressives whom the lower-income voters overwhelmingly choose to elect are responsible for California having the nation\u2019s highest poverty rates. Furthermore, for all the antiwealth rhetoric that California\u2019s progressive candidates spew out, the very poor and the very rich voters in California tend to choose and support the same candidates, and the Democratic Party is the party of choice of the state\u2019s large number of billionaires.<\/p>\n

There is little or nothing that the current progressive state government has done that promotes the promotion of real wealth in California, yet even as state authorities actively destroy economic opportunities, the voters respond by demanding more of the same. That would seem to be a mystery, but maybe not. Let me explain.<\/p>\n

In the past few years, wildfires have ravaged huge tracts of mostly public land in California (and in much of the West, although California has been hit the hardest). There are many reasons for the fires, the most obvious being that most of California receives little rainfall and many fires occur in mountainous terrain, where it is difficult to fight them. But there is much more, and most of it has to do with progressive policies. Even the\u00a0George Soros\u2013funded\u00a0Pro Publica<\/em>\u00a0recognizes<\/a>\u00a0the role of fire suppression-based land management practices in making the fires worse:<\/p>\n

The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result,\u00a0wildland\u00a0fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we\u2019ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. \u201cThe fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,\u201d (Tim)\u00a0Ingalsbee\u00a0said. There\u2019s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. \u201cWe need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet, the\u00a0progressivist<\/span>\u00a0religion that defines the Democratic Party in California cannot acknowledge that the leave-nature-alone policies could have anything to do with the scope and intensity of the wildfires. Instead, the powers that be have decided that climate change\u2014and\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0climate change\u2014is responsible, and the way to deal with the problem is to impose\u00a0draconian<\/span>\u00a0rules that make life difficult for most people living there, from outlawing new natural gas residential hookups to its infamous \u201croad diets<\/a>\u201d imposed to discourage people from driving cars. Despite the fact that California politicians, such as Gov. Gavin\u00a0Newsom<\/span>, claim that these policies will significantly reduce global temperatures and make wildfires less intense,\u00a0the reality is quite different<\/a>, as California accounts for less than 1 percent of so-called greenhouse gases in the world.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most symbolic action by California\u2019s government of progressive arrogance is the\u00a0continued development of the \u201cbullet train,\u201d an ambitious<\/a>\u00a0(to be charitable) project to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Under urging from then governor Jerry Brown, voters in the Golden State in 2008 agreed to permit a bond issue to begin funding what Brown claimed would require a maximum of $33 billion. California\u2019s mountainous terrain forced design and route changes, turning the LA-SF \u201cdream\u201d into a train that would run between Bakersfield and Merced, two cities in the flat Central Valley. To make matters even worse, passenger rail service via Amtrak already exists in the valley, and even if everything were to go to plan (a heroic assumption, one might add), the bullet train would save only forty-five minutes in travel from the existing route.<\/p>\n

As the proposed length of the bullet train becomes shorter, the costs continue to skyrocket. The\u00a0original $33 billion estimate now has ballooned to more than $100 billion<\/a>\u2014if the project even is completed. Yet the project continues to live. Last year I spoke to a former coworker of my wife who enthusiastically supports the rail project. When I asked her about the cost and the fact that there really is no demand for this service, her response was instructive: \u201cBut we NEED trains!\u201d Never mind that this is a boondoggle that dwarfs almost anything else we know as government waste; never mind that California taxpayers are being forced to fund a massive wealth transfer to politically connected contractors in which there are all costs and\u00a0no<\/em>\u00a0benefits. The state \u201cneeds\u201d trains.<\/p>\n

My faculty colleague also became angry at my panning the California bullet train, and I have wondered why progressives are so defensive about this project. There is no doubt that it is a huge waste of money and that the passenger-mile costs are well above anything else that exists in public transportation, but that doesn\u2019t seem to matter. One would think that \u201cgood government\u201d progressives would see the disconnect here.<\/p>\n

One possible explanation comes from Murray\u00a0Rothbard<\/span>, who recognized that progressives ultimately are at \u201cwar with nature.\u201d While\u00a0Rothbard was writing about egalitarianism<\/a>, nonetheless one can argue that progressive policies are aimed at producing very different outcomes than what would happen if people were free to make their own choices, and especially choices with their own money.<\/p>\n

Because of the rise of the tech industry, California has seen an increase in wealth that probably is unprecedented in the history of this country\u2014and maybe the world. Not surprisingly, the state\u2019s tax take has massively increased in the past two decades, with the\u00a0percentage of income tax revenues rising dramatically<\/a>\u00a0as tech entrepreneurship has created a new billionaire class. While one can think of these new billionaires as a new class of wealthy, in many ways their outlooks (at least after they become wealthy) often reflect the outlooks of the wave of entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie who developed new technologies, put them to economic use, created vast amounts of wealth, and then created the foundations that ultimately would be governed by a wealth-destroying philosophy of progressivism.<\/p>\n

In part, the wealth created permits foundation-financed \u201cvisionaries\u201d to demand that resources be directed in a different way than would be done in a market economy, with \u201cserve the people\u201d and \u201cmake a difference\u201d as mantras. We see that time and again in California, where tax-engorged \u201cvisionary\u201d progressive politicians seize wealth created by private enterprise in order to pursue their own causes such as environmentalism.<\/p>\n

Of course, as we already have pointed out, progressive policies tend to make the original problems worse. Not only have progressives made mass wildfires more likely, but they also have been behind the rise in homelessness in California. In the late 1970s, the San Francisco city government instituted rent controls. Not surprisingly, housing shortages followed, and the real price of housing skyrocketed. As shortages became worse, progressive politicians doubled down on the controls. Today,\u00a0more than five thousand people live on the streets in San Francisco<\/a>,\u00a0and the government\u2014bound by its own progressive ideals\u2014is helpless to do anything but hand out money and defend its policies. And this in the\u00a0city with the most billionaires\u00a0per capita<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in the world.<\/p>\n

There are three reasons why California governance will not change even as it heads toward a fiscal cliff. First, and most important, progressive ideology is intractable and does not yield to the laws of economics. Progressive politicians are feted in the mainstream media and in California\u2019s left-wing education institutions, and voters don\u2019t seem to want any alternatives. (After all, California \u201cneeds\u201d trains.) Politicians who raise questions as to this model of governance can expect to be demonized in the media and will face violent protests if they show up in public venues\u2014and especially on college campuses.<\/p>\n

The second reason is that California voters are drawn to progressive Democrats no matter what disasters these politicians might inflict. The highly educated voters do not support progressive Democrats just on economic issues, but also on the highly contentious social issues, and with the 2020 \u201crevolt of the rich<\/a>\u201d dominating Democratic Party politics at the present, it is doubtful that this current wave of progressive-favoring voters will change direction.<\/p>\n

Democrats also\u00a0have the immigrant vote in their back pockets<\/a>, and California has seen a wave of immigrants help turn it into a one-party state. For now, the numbers are just overwhelming, and we can expect California to move even further to the left as its housing and poverty problems become worse and Democrats successfully convince voters that free markets are cause.<\/p>\n

The third reason things won\u2019t change in California is that progressive government creates its own sets of monopoly rents that are distributed to politically connected interest groups. In the case of the Golden State,\u00a0state-employee and municipal labor unions<\/a>\u00a0are by far the most powerful political entity, and\u00a0they control vast blocs of voters<\/a>. Their power was recently demonstrated by their support of the covid-19\u00a0lockdowns<\/span>\u00a0in the state\u2014during which public employees continued to draw full pay even as the lockdown policies ravaged the state\u2019s tax base.<\/p>\n

Should one doubt the power of California\u2019s government-employee unions, witness the \u201csuccess\u201d of what was called\u00a0AB 5, the law that almost killed the \u201cgig\u201d industries<\/a>\u00a0in the state, putting thousands of freelance writers and musicians out of work. Written by the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) as a means of ending the Uber and\u00a0Lyft<\/span>\u00a0rideshare<\/span>\u00a0services (and protect unionized taxi and public transportation workers), the fallout was so bad that even the legislature had to back off some of the restrictions. Voters did the rest last November when they beat back most of the most onerous provisions of the law. (One doubts that the musicians and writers that lost their jobs changed their progressive voting patterns in the most recent election. Such is the staying power of progressive ideology.)<\/p>\n

If one believes that perhaps the wave of progressive voters will become \u201cconverted\u201d to a \u201cfree minds and free markets\u201d approach (the \u201cleft libertarian\u201d position), the experience of New York City should be instructive. In 1975, the economy was in recession, businesses were fleeing the city\u2019s onerous tax rates and antibusiness climate, and city officials were fraudulently selling capital bonds to pay for previously issued capital bonds. (William E. Simon, the US secretary of the Treasury in 1975, laid out the entire scenario in his blockbuster\u00a0A Time for Truth<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s problem was obvious\u2014except in the minds of progressives. Where most of us would understand that having unions running away with the budgets while suppressing productive private enterprises is a losing proposition,\u00a0progressives see a nefarious capitalist plot<\/a>. That New York City had a relatively brief renaissance in large part because of the deregulation of banking and finance (which was begun by President Jimmy Carter)\u00a0plays no role in progressive thinking at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unlike New York City, California does not have an economic ace in its pocket. Even though much of the tech industry has prospered during the state\u2019s\u00a0draconian<\/span>\u00a0pandemic shutdowns, the state government (not to mention cities and counties) is\u00a0facing the worst financial crisis<\/a>\u00a0perhaps in its history. Not surprisingly, the progressive response is to increase incendiary rhetoric toward wealth creators and demand even higher taxes and more business regulations.<\/p>\n

Progressivism is a utopian philosophy of governance that will never find nor create its utopia. If California voters and politicians do not understand the current crisis and how it came about, they probably never will understand. Instead, we will see the continuous march to perdition as California politicians refuse to acknowledge that they are killing the geese laying the golden eggs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California Is Worse Than You Think. My colleague from the philosophy department was becoming increasingly angry. He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was raging inside. After a few minutes, he smiled a very strained smile and excused himself. Our conversation was about California, or to be more specific, California … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-law-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63876,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63875\/revisions\/63876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}