Herbert Hoover has captured the imagination of a number of writers recently, from Walter Russell Mead to R. Christopher Whalen.
Now James Grant weighs in too at The Wall Street Journal, here, contrasting Hoover's fear of tyranny with our desire for it:
Herbert Hoover, who learned a thing or two about debt and adversity, warned in his memoirs that, unless the dollar was convertible into gold, the people would lose control of the public finances, "their first defense against tyranny." Simon Johnson and James Kwak, the authors of "White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You" could not seem to disagree more. To them, the problem today isn't paper money but a government that hovers too little and taxes too lightly. More regulation—especially financial regulation—and selectively higher taxes are the answers, they contend. ...
Johnson and Kwak are special pleaders. Human life being uncertain, they wish to protect us from it. How much risk of sickness, unemployment or indigence do you, a mere individual, wish to bear on your own? "The question we leave you with is this," the pair write: "Are you and your family willing to face these risks alone, not knowing what will happen in the future, or do you want to live in a society that will protect you from misfortunes that lie beyond your control? For that is what the debate over the national debt boils down to, and its outcome depends on you."
More than likely, the outcome does not depend on you, whoever you are. It rather turns on the intellectual climate in which the people at the top frame public choices.
And Mr. Grant makes another good case for the choice of free men: gold.
