Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It by David L. Bahnsen

Author:David L. Bahnsen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2018-02-13T08:00:00+00:00

Cronyism: Why the People Want a King

We find a disturbing ancient foreshadowing of what plagues us today in the verses prior to the biblical passage I referenced above as the birthplace of statism:

When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:1–5, emphasis mine)

Cronyism and corruption caused the people to lose faith and opt for statism. Yes, the people rejected self-government and even theocracy. They were warned of all the consequences for having a king, but they didn’t care. They traded the promise of greater freedom and prosperity for a leviathan. But underlying it all, indeed, serving as the impetus to the impulse for big government, was corruption.

Crony capitalism, to use a modern phrase, gave birth to statism. And to be sure, history has done nothing but reinforce this basic reality. Thoughtful people may think it a non sequitur, but it’s the way of raw human nature. When we fail to repudiate rent seeking, handouts, sweetheart deals, and the government selecting winners and losers in the marketplace, we risk far more than election results.

Interestingly, the citizens who’ve rejected elitist forces today have not returned to the miracles of free and open markets, despite holding government and intervening entities in such low regard. How could a society be so displeased with the results of an all-encroaching state and yet not demand a renewed love affair with free enterprise to rekindle freedom and prosperity in our society? The answer is tragic: the citizens no longer trust free enterprise to be free at all. They believe it to be a “rigged” game of special favors, handouts, and predetermined advantages for the connected class. Their cynicism isn’t entirely justified, but it has enough prima facie support to force proponents of free markets to fight an uphill battle moving forward. That struggle will continue until trust can be reestablished in the public square by demonstrating that the game is not rigged and the government is no longer choosing winners and losers.

Wherever candidates or parties are perceived as cronyist (at the local, state, and federal levels), not only will elections be lost, but truly conservative ideas will fail, as well. When people are forced to choose between what they believe to be a devil they don’t trust (corporate interests, Wall Street, big business, greedy developers, etc.) and a devil that at least offers them candy (the blue-state model of big spending, vast government services, and entrenched government programs), they tend to choose the lesser of two evils. At that

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