Intervention Doesn't Work

"Etatism is the occupational disease of rulers, warriors, and civil servants."

— Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government


For those souls blessed with immeasurable hubris, so enamored of their own perceived abilities, no challenge lies beyond their reach. Failure cannot be a symptom of wrongheadedness — it just means they haven't done enough.
What craven wretch would deny them the opportunity to make things right? 

As the Second World War raged across Europe and the Pacific, an economist named Ludwig won Mises was writing an analysis of how deluded economic thinking can lead to highly-centralized political systems and international conflict. He called it Omnipotent Government, and it was first published in 1944. Its subtitle, apropos of the time, was The Rise of the Total State and Total War.

Mises served as the chief economist on the Austrian Chamber of Commerce until 1934, when an opportunity to teach at Switzerland's Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva lured him away. Given his connections, intellect, and the zietgeist of early 20th Century Europe, it's likely he saw the writing on the wall and decided to seek a climate more welcoming of his liberal views on politics and economics. He would eventually make his home in the United States.

While not the father of the Austrian school of economic thinking — that distinction goes to the great Carl Menger — Mises is probably more responsible than anyone for bringing its ideas and theories into popular consideration, especially during the last half-century. Through his decades of books, essays, and lectures, Mises helped the every-man to understand the consequences of bad economic ideas.

One such idea is the belief that legislative fiat is sufficient to raise the production level of goods and services over the long term, and thereby increase people's living standards. In Omnipotent Government, Mises provided the following example of this flawed thinking, and its consequences:   

If the government wants to make it possible for the poor to give their children more milk, it has to buy the milk at the market price and sell it to these poor parents with a loss, at a cheaper rate. The loss may be covered by taxation. But if the government simply fixes the price of milk at a lower rate than the market, the result will be the contrary of what it wants. The marginal producers, those with the highest costs, will, in order to avoid losses, go out of the business of producing and selling milk. They will use their cows and their skill for other, more profitable purposes. They will, for example, produce cheese, butter, or meat. There will be less milk available for the consumers, not more. Then the government has to choose between two alternatives: either to refrain from any endeavors to control the price of milk and to abrogate its decree, or to add to its first measure a second one. In the latter case it must fix the prices of the factors of production necessary for the production of milk at such a rate that the marginal producers will longer suffer losses and will abstain from restricting the output. But then the same problem repeats itself on a remoter plane. The supply of the factors of production necessary for the production of milk drops, and again the government is back where it started, facing failure in its interference. If it keeps stubbornly on pushing forward its schemes, it has to go still further. It has to fix the prices of the factors of production necessary for the production of those factors of production which are needed for the production of milk. Thus the government is forced to go further and further, fixing the prices of all consumer goods and of all factors of production — both human (i.e., labor) and material — and to force every entrepreneur and every worker to continue work at these prices and wages. No branch of industry can be omitted from this all-round fixing of prices and wages and from this general order to produce those quantities which the government wants to see produced. If some branches were to be left free, the result would be a shifting of capital and labor to them and a corresponding fall of the supply of goods whose prices the government has fixed. However, it is precisely these goods which the government considers especially important for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. [Page 65]

Speaking in 2002, Ben Bernanke admitted that it was the Federal Reserve — and not some mythical boogeyman called "unbridled capitalism" — that caused the Great Depression. At a banquet honoring Milton Friedman, he said, "Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry."

But there would be no humble retreat — oh no! On the contrary, true to his interventionist roots Bernanke assured the audience that Fed officials were smarter now and wouldn't let it happen again. 

Phew!

When the housing market crashed a few years later, we were assured once more by the chattering classes that it was all capitalism's fault — more and stronger regulations were needed.

If at first you don't succeed, meddle some more!

Looked at another way: one intervention begets another.

Never mind if it doesn't work. 

To make matters worse, this "occupational disease" of interventionists extends beyond relatively trivial matters like trying to fix the price of milk or make houses more affordable. Their seemingly endless reserves of hubris have them micromanaging the rest of the world — with even more destructive results. 

I wrote Wednesday, 

In 2011, an administration enamored of the ability of American military power to right the world's wrongs — inspired, no doubt, by the success of the previous administration's foreign interventions — chose to back an uprising in North Africa against a longtime dictator. 

NATO warplanes and special forces were deployed to assist rebels fighting to depose Moamar Ghadafi, and military weaponry, including anti-aircraft guns, were shipped to these same militant groups. 

After successfully overthrowing Ghadafi, the country has fallen into chaos — prey to the same fighters once hailed as liberators by hubris-driven politicians. 

These various — and plentiful — armed groups, no longer unified by a single purpose, fractured into a plethora of feudal authorities loyal to powerful warlords. These groups plan attacks on other countries and arm foreign terrorist groups; they attack foreign consulates; they kidnap foreign ambassadors and diplomats; they even kidnapped their own prime minister. 

They fight each other, they fight the nascent government forces, they fight civilians, and they fight the parliament. 

In the last few days, a rogue Libyan general named Khalifa Hifter staged a possible coup attempt. The Libyan government is so incompetent, it is now calling on the militias to fight him.

What has been the response to this downward spiral?

Calls for more intervention, of course!

Reporting for Antiwar.com late last year, John Glaser wrote that "Washington's plan is to further meddle in Libya's internal problems and the Pentagon, through AFRICOM [US Africa Command], is planning to weaponize and train a Libyan army. They call it 'a general purpose force' and the aim is to give the new regime some teeth."

Because the US government has such a great track record in Africa.

The Obama administration even initiated plans to train Libyan pilots and nuclear scientists.

When he was forced to flee for his life, former Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the US and NATO didn't intervene enough — there should have been "more troops on the ground."

Would he have preferred occupation? That sure worked out in Iraq.

At a minimum, American interventionists just want more. That's what Secretary of State John Kerry said.

Interviewed by the Boston Globe, Sec. Kerry lamented the situation in Africa, particularly Libya — careful, of course, to avoid any mention of his boss's role in creating that mess. 

"In Libya, we need to be able to, frankly, do more than we're doing," he said. "We want to do more than we're doing." [Emphasis mine]

He's not alone.

On the "other" side of the aisle, Senator Lindsey Graham — who, like fellow Republican John "Bomb Iran" McCain, seems to never have met a war he didn't like — assured the White House that "If the existing State Department infrastructure is lacking when it comes to trying to stabilize Libya, I would be in the camp of providing more resources."

That's nice.

What does Sec. Kerry envisage taking place in this latest American-led Libyan renaissance? The details are vague, but the implication is clear.

"After World War II, obviously, we were greatly engaged in [nation building]," he said. "Today we're not. So there are things we ought to be able to do."

Look out Libya: they're with the government, and they're here to help.

Whether they're interfering domestically or internationally, those who see themselves as wise and benevolent are usually stupid and negligent. Faced with the consequences of their actions, they rarely admit to failure. Instead they blame it all on a lack of power, a lack of knowledge, a lack of resources, the previous administration, or — as the Globe credits Sec. Kerry with implying — they blame it on those darn libertarians. But always they want to intervene some more. 

Next to such conceit, Napoleon himself would pale.