Understanding Bevin requires knowledge of conservative principles

As I listen to Gov. Matt Bevin discuss reforms to the teachers’ pension system, and to the Democrats’ response, I realize that liberals have no concept of what conservatives believe and how they approach government.

This lack of understanding directly impacts their ability to deal with conservatives in these legislative battles.

Let’s begin with Bevin’s statements that Kentucky’s teachers are “ignorant” about the problems facing the pension system, and “selfish” because they don’t want to face cuts to their retirement benefits.

Most liberals take these comments as proof of Bevin’s callousness. But these statements embody Bevin’s view of government and the economy. The conservative view of government was developed over the years by a number of important thinkers. One of the most influential was Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian intellectual who fled the Nazis and settled in England. Hayek is the author of the foundational text of modern conservatism, “The Road to Serfdom.”

That book’s central premise is that government assistance strips people of their initiative and makes them dependent upon government. Hayek also asserted that social programs are doomed to failure and the only way for government to shore up these programs is to take more and more power from the people, eventually leaving them little more than serfs.

So, any type of government program is just one more step down the road to serfdom.

In the early 1980s President Ronald Reagan, now a deity to American conservatives, said that “government is not the solution … government is the problem.” Mixing Hayek with Reagan, and sprinkling in generous helpings of conservative thinkers like Ayn Rand, creates the idea that there are two components to a nation’s economy: the productive part and the non-productive part.

Private enterprise is productive, and government — all government — is non-productive. Any dollar that goes to the non-productive side is a dollar taken away from the productive side.

According to this view, the people working on the productive side are benefiting the economy and enriching society. The people on the other side are draining from the economy and depleting society.

If you don’t think conservatives believe this, Google the American Enterprise Institute, a leading conservative think tank, and read one of its policy papers. Or listen to a Bevin speech.

So teachers, and their pensions, are a drain on the economy and a danger to society.

For Bevin and his Republican allies, the highest order of business is to foist the cost of the pensions off on teachers or privatize the plan. And the teachers who don’t understand the imperative of this are “ignorant.” Teachers unwilling to shoulder the burden for the good of society are “selfish.”

Democrats respond by saying Bevin is an insensitive jerk. He may be, but they’re missing a great opportunity to disprove the foundation of Bevin’s belief.

Here is an interesting fact: All of the most successful countries in the world — as measured by standard of living, worker productivity, product development and industrial innovation — are what Hayek (and Sen. Rand Paul) would label socialist.

They have strong welfare programs and active regulation of business. Hayek wrote his book in 1940, and since then the programs he said would lead to serfdom have instead led to the highest standards of living on Earth. Countries without those programs have languished.

Because Democrats don’t understand what conservatives are saying, they don’t have an effective counter argument. As a result, the conservative theory of cutting government to “the size where they can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub,” has prevailed.

Bevin and the Republicans are trying to do exactly that. If they succeed, do you suppose we’ll end up like Germany, a nation with an active government and a high standard of living, or Mexico, a nation with a small government and low standard of living?

This story was originally published April 3, 2018 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Understanding Bevin requires knowledge of conservative principles."