I just read the book Ship of Fools, “How a selfish ruling class is bringing America to the brink of revolution”, by Tucker Carlson.  I read it because a neighbor friend of mine gave it to me to read. He claimed that it explains why “we (clearly not me) feel the way we do about liberals”.  I was excited to finally be offered insight into “their” point of view.  (I am not exactly sure who “we” and “they” are; sorting this out this seems to be one of the big confusions these days). 

It is a most amazing book.  I am stunned by how it twists and turns in a grand attempt to paint a picture that the “conservatives” are wrong but correct, and the “liberals” are correct but wrong.  Mr. Carlson clearly has a very specific story he wants to tell about how his side is right and the other side is wrong.  To do this he uses any support he can find.  He cherry picks quotes by leading people, taking them out of the original context and putting them into “his” context, ascribes statements by radical individuals as representing others, interprets actions and events from his odd perspective instead of the point of view of those doing the actions, and when he runs low on things to fill in the blanks in his story he just makes things up.  This seems to be a common approach taken by the conservatives these days; it is what President Trump does on an almost daily basis, and follows the script of some conservative talk show hosts and commentators, such as Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who informally seek to change the opinions of others and thereby influence government policy

As I was reading the book I was wondering what he is really attempting to say.  It seems to come down to a rather odd twist of logic that goes something like this: (1) At the time, he vehemently disagreed with the “liberals” and “environmentalists” in the 60s and 70s, but now agrees that they were correct. (2) He insists that the liberals and environmentalists provided a necessary check on the behavior of the “conservatives”. (3) The liberals and environmentalists have been unable to check the excesses of the “conservatives”.  Therefore, the liberals and environmentalists are the cause of the problems we are having because they have been unable to stop the conservatives.  Basically, the good guys weren’t able to stop the bad guys so the good guys ARE the bad guys. His position seems to gets down to the idea that there needs to be checks and balances, and the checks have not been sufficiently strong to provide balance. This is an interesting thesis, one that I think I might agree with.  

If I understand it properly, the logic is similar to Adam Smith’s description of the “invisible hand” as a metaphor for how, in a free market economy, self-interested individuals can promote the general benefit of society at large. In a nutshell, Smith’s contention was that the market is essentially a grand bargaining table where all prices are “fair” because they are arrived at by mutually selfish negotiations.  If everyone does the best that they can to get the “best” possible deal, then the deal that is finally arrived at is by definition the “fair” price.  The interesting part is that this means that it is the duty of everyone at the negotiating table to be as strong and ruthless as they possibly can.  For something like that to work, it is also necessary that everyone has equal access to information and knowledge, there is a fair negotiation (no hint of monopolies or related problems exist), and that an open negotiation actually happens – otherwise the deals become lopsided and a “fair” price is not achieved.  None of these conditions actually exist except perhaps in friendly “back yard” face-to-face negotiations.  Another side effect is that things that can’t be valued in terms of “dollars” are assumed to have zero value in the negotiations (they aren’t worth a plug nickel).  Therefore things like environmental protection, tradition, friendship, religion and many other concerns have little or no value. The result is that power begets power and the rest make do with whatever they can get.  From this point of view, if the economy isn’t working properly (meaning that prices are not “fair” and wealth is not appropriately shared to benefit the overall economy) the fault is with those that get the short end of the deal because they didn’t “try” hard enough. 

This approach to “fairness” either with political power, or financial success, means that political and financial battles are not only inevitable, but necessary – otherwise neither system can work properly.  It is based upon conflict and power rather than working together to solve problems.  It fosters the attitude that “I got mine, I stole it fair and square – and you are no welcome to any of it.”