American Malaise

Former President Jimmy Carter's 1979 speech was labeled the malaise speech, though Carter did not use the word in his speech.

A malaise speech would be appropriate today. Americans have become more and more dependent on government than their own self reliance.

It is primitive instinct for humans and other animals to look for the best way to survive and insure their genes are reproduced. Nature works that way.

Humans will try to avoid pain. They seek safety over liberty. Self reliance, liberty, and responsibility can be painful. If there is a less painful alternative we will take the least painful. This is why governments become too big and too complex to be efficient at providing the basic functions of government, that is, protection of life and property.

Sermonizing by government officials with their promises of a life free of pain and safety is irresistible by the fearful. People know liberty can be risky and unsafe. Who wants to be judged by their choices if their choices prove to everyone that you are weak and stupid. Liberty has a way of exposing one's weaknesses, thus making it more difficult for us to find a mate. Past experiments with communes had an alluring enticement, one that meant each member of the commune would have equal sex, thus ensuring a basis need, to procreate. The communes failed because some people found their mate and did not want to share, so they left the commune. Others simply did not want to produce and share with non producers. Communes have never been successful against a society that has private property rights.

Even well to do humanitarians have pain. They have mental pain caused by their conscience for the downtrodden. They think the pain caused by their conscience will go away if only the downtrodden are cared for. The humanitarians however will never be satisfied, no matter how much the government does. Thus they will always be in pain.

The humanitarians will not be satisfied even if the standard of living for each person is doubled. If each person could have twice the size of house they have now and live twice as good as they live now, the humanitarians would still be miserable because there would still be inequality. The rich people would still have more than the poor people, even as the poor people live twice as well off as before. A humanitarian's envy and the desire to rule is never satisfied.

The current government actions will only cause more malaise. People will not have to worry about food, shelter, health care, or mortgage payments. Longer unemployment benefits means an unemployed person will not be required to start a small business with long hours of work and a high risk of failure.

The malaise will continue to grow. People will feel secure as an individual while the society around them stagnates and then deteriorates.

As the government provides more, gluttony will absorb the citizens. Their gluttony will do more harm than the plague.

This has been true throughout humanity. Great creators in the ancient Arab world could have created great societies if governments had not taken the path of trying to eliminate pain and do good. The Arab world would have become great if Mohammad had not created a society that made group promises no one could keep.

China, the Incas, the Aztecs, all could have been great societies that lasted and prospered if those governments had not been so centralized with top to bottom authority.

“That body of people certainly is the strongest and the happiest in which each person is thinking for himself, is independent, and self-respecting, self-confident, self-controlled, and self-mastered.” J. Laurence Laughlin
The Elements of Political Economy (1887)

Charles Tolleson