The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Through the years I have read several articles and essays by the British writer Niall Ferguson, whose main interests are economics and politics. He is a very bright, widely read, and very opinionated man. Recently I read his book The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die. He focuses on western democracies, and states unequivocally that many of them, especially the USA, are in trouble, describing what he believes are the reasons for the decline.
Ferguson postulates there are four pillars which explain the dominance of western economies over the past several centuries. They are representative government, the free market, the rule of law, and civil society. It seems to me that much of what he says about each pillar is valid and virtually irrefutable. His primary concern is that too many western governments have acquired too much national debt, which he thinks may well doom succeeding generations to institutional and personal poverty. He may be correct, although I think and hope not.
In this short essay I will not take time to explain why he believes those things. Instead I want to note that he strongly favors the ideas of the American economist Milton Friedman and strongly dismisses the notions of the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Obviously there is much more to the concepts of both men than this, but this is all I will say about them: Friedman abhorred too much national indebtedness, while Keynes did not fear but under certain circumstances even encouraged it. Further, conservatives tend to admire Friedman, and liberals tend to admire Keynes. In addition, Friedman detested too much government regulation of capitalistic enterprises, and Keynes thought generally there needed to be a great deal of corporate regulation.
Niall Ferguson is a Friedmanian in his economics and a libertarian in his politics. Libertarians are convinced that the best government possible is the least government possible. As the world population grows, he believes the size of government should shrink, not grow. He probably would never state it that way, but that is what his writings seem to suggest.
On a scale of 1 to 10 regarding opinions, “1” being someone who is too timid to say anything about anything and “10” being someone who has an opinion about everything, Niall Ferguson is a 12+. (He has much more of a learned basis for being a 12+ than I, but I am probably right up there with him in the over-the-top Opinionated Category.)
The older I get, the more libertarians alarm me. A majority of the people who attacked the US Capitol on Jan. 6 were libertarians, although I suspect relatively few of them have any concept of what libertarianism is. There are too many libertarians among the Republican Members of Congress. Their antipathy to government in general is one of the major factors causing the Great Degeneration which Mr. Ferguson decries. Adversity to government in a world as complex as the contemporary world is like (to give a completely hypothetical example) opposing vaccinations, masks, and social distancing in a coronavirus pandemic.
Ferguson also is concerned about state capitalism such as that practiced in China under its autocratic president, Xi Jinping. Most Americans, conservative or liberal, would agree with Ferguson about that. However, in my opinion Mr. Ferguson’s views on many other important issues are as mistaken as is Chinese state capitalism. A successful future for the Republican Party will largely be determined whether they will follow the political philosophy of Niall Ferguson or Mitt Romney and the late John McCain. -March 5, 2021
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.