Barack Obama: Meet Walter Bagehot
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
Am I certain that President Obama is not familiar with the work of the 19th-century British economist Walter Bagehot? No, but I would bet that he isn’t. It is a curious paradox that I have observed for decades now: Conservatives of a scholarly bent will be familiar with the leading thinkers on the left, but the left-wing intelligentsia tends to be oblivious to the work of the best writers on the right.
Check it out yourself if you doubt me; ask around. Conservative intellectuals will be familiar with the central theories of Marx, Freud, George Bernard Shaw, and the Fabians, but, with rare exceptions, you will not find left-wing intellectuals who will be able to discuss intelligently the work of — just to cite a few examples — Edmund Burke, Ludwig von Mises, and James Burnham. Also, Walter Bagehot.
Which is unfortunate. Bagehot has a lot to offer as the national debate over immigration proceeds, especially on the connection between a common culture and the liberty of the individual. At the risk of oversimplifying, Bagehot understood that government by the consent of the governed can take place only in a society with a strong sense of national identity — one based on a common language, common culture, and a shared historical memory; and, more to the point, that a society lacking these common bonds will be torn apart by jealousies and resentments, as fractious groups struggle to get the biggest piece of the pie for themselves without any regard or affection for the country as a whole.
In his Physics and Politics, written in 1872 while he was the editor of the British journal The Economist, Bagehot traced the development of the parliamentary system in Europe. He demonstrated that the free societies of Europe had to go through periods of “forced unity” under authoritarian rulers before they could reach the stage where a government by discussion and national elections was possible. The authoritarian rulers were necessary to create a “felt unity” that made it possible for the people of the country to trust elections wherein their political adversaries may well gain power. It was only at that point that members of society were willing to accept being out of power, as they came to trust their fellow Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, etc., not to establish a tyranny over them once they took control of the reins of government.
Check the historical record. Normans subjugated Saxons for centuries until the common bond of Englishmen was created. Ferdinand and Isabella used military force to drive the Moors from Spain and to unite regions of the Iberian peninsula that would have preferred to remain separate. Bismarck relied upon “iron and blood” to force the German principalities to unite. Abraham Lincoln resorted to civil war to keep the South from separating from the Union. We could go on.
With the passing of time, this forced unity became unnecessary. A felt unity forged in the crucible of shared historical challenges formed the bonds of nationhood, creating the nation-states of Europe and North America. It was this felt unity, a sense of nationalism, that created the historical setting needed for the development of the parliamentary system and free elections, leading to an era of “discursive unity” within which members of society, now national brothers and sisters, debated the best path toward justice for the individual and the good of the nation as a whole, the so-called commonweal.
It formed the sense of community that made possible the taxation needed to support social spending on government programs to aid the needy and disadvantaged. People who would recoil from the notion of being taxed to support foreigners proved willing to sacrifice for their countrymen. Barack Obama and liberal intellectuals as a whole seem oblivious to all this, as can be seen in their willingness to permit millions of immigrants, both legal and illegal, from Third World countries to pour into the United States. Indeed, if one were to raise with them the idea that there is a limit to the degree of diversity a healthy democratic society can accommodate, they would respond with charges of ethnocentrism, even racism.
Liberal Democrats and those who identify themselves as progressives react with shame to the way the United States once regulated immigration in the early 20th century to preserve the then current racial and ethnic mix of the American people. They will argue for an America that reflects diversity, the brotherhood of man, and the “global village.” Those who warn of the consequences of “one-worldism” usually point to the danger that it will lead to a world government of some sort. It is not an invalid concern.
The more immediate issue, however, is the manner in which this transnational view of the world disarms those who cling to it, making them unable to take a stand to prevent the Balkanization of the United States that will result if current immigration patterns are not halted.
Before going further, it should be noted that it is only societies governed by transnational liberal elites that even ponder these matters. Asians, Latin Americans, Arabs, and sub-Saharan African nations would dismiss out of hand any recommendation that their nations be ethnically transformed through a massive wave of immigration from other parts of the world.
Does anyone, for example, think that the Mexican government would welcome millions of Americans who began to pour across the border to profit from some future discovery of vast oil reserves in the waters along Mexico’s coast?
We know that would not happen. The chants of “Mexico is for Mexicans” would fill the air. The religious leaders and humanitarians who call for the United States to open its borders to the world’s huddled masses would join in the chorus.
Yet the president and those who support him on immigration persist in promoting policies that will create a society of strangers, with levels of stress on its economy and sense of unity that no other country would permit. Is it that they don’t care about the disruptions that will result from such a Balkanization? That they think social and economic success that America has enjoyed as a thriving nation-state is undeserved because of injustices in our racial history, and that we deserve to go through such a transformation, no matter how distressful?
Or is it that they are convinced that America can prosper without the cultural cohesion of the past; that we are an “exceptional” nation in a manner different from the way that term is usually expressed; that we can be a free and prosperous society without the felt unity that Walter Bagehot was convinced was necessary for a society to endure? They are rolling the dice. If they read Bagehot they will be provided with a wealth of evidence that things do not work that way. And wishing will not make it so.
