How a Lie Becomes the "Truth"

Mark Steyn is a best-selling conservative author. He doesn’t seem to care much for his readers. In fact, he’ll lie to them and mess with their grasp of economic policy if it serves his agenda.

Take what he’s written about John Maynard Keynes, the most important economist of the 20th century. Keynes is a bit like the Plato of economic theory — even those who oppose him still have to grapple with his ideas. This is Mark Steyn’s dishonest attempt from his book, After America:

Give a chap government healthcare, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the other benefits, and the last thing he’s going to care about is what it means for a society as a whole. People’s sense of entitlement endures long over the entitlement ceases to make sense. And if it bankrupts the state a generation from now, so what?

In his pithiest maxim, John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century social-democratic state and the patron saint of “stimulus”, offered a characteristically offhand dismissal of any obligation to the future: “In the long run we are all dead.” The Greeks [currently in upheaval over their economic crisis] are Keynesians to a man: The mob is demanding the right to carry on suspending reality until they’re all dead. After that, who cares?

Got that? Liberals, Keynesian economists, and those who favor stimulus to keep the economy from crashing all constitute a selfish mob that doesn’t give a damn what happens to future generations. It’s not our problem because, hey, in the long run we’ll all be dead!

Except that isn’t what Keynes meant at all.  Here’s a fuller version of his quote:

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.

Remember that Keynes didn’t grow up in a world with Keynesian economics. Western economies have been remarkably, unprecedentedly stable since World War II (even counting the mess we’re in today). Before that, nations careened through great booms and horrific busts, with a terrifying financial crisis every decade or so. That’s just how life was.

Classical economists said not to interfere with these business cycles. Everything would work itself out on its own in the long run. Keynes saw this as hollow consolation to people who are starving today: Count on the long run all you want, but in the long run we are all dead.

Mark Steyn lied to his readers and presented Keynes as an advocate of spend spend spend today with no care for those who follow us. But in fact, Keynes advocated something else, called counter-cyclical policy.

• When times are bad, the government should stimulate demand for goods and services by deficit spending — cutting taxes and/or increasing expenditures.

• When times are good, the government should cut back demand by running surpluses — increasing taxes and/or cutting expenditures.

• By evening out these short-term shifts of the business cycle, we ought to find ourselves in a long run where surpluses and deficits balance out, and we’re not passing down debt or a wildly unstable economy to the next generation.

• Look at the whole picture, and you’ll see it’s possible to advocate deficit spending and stimulus during a recession and still be a fiscal conservative.

That’s the theory. And if you compare economic history pre- and post-WWII, you’ll see something has certainly improved. Even so, Keynesian policy isn’t perfect. Think of the 1970s, when the price of oil shot up and made the cost of producing just about everything more expensive. The economy — and our living standards — were going to take a hit no matter what.

It also depends on a moderately rational government. If, say, a hypothetical president (call him Cill Blinton) managed to turn years of prosperity into a budget surplus, you wouldn’t want his successor (call him Beorge Gush) to view that surplus as a political goodie bag to be refunded as tax cuts. Gosh, if you did that, you might find yourself already short on funds when an economic crisis hit!

So go ahead and criticize Keynes, but be honest about it. Sadly, Mark Steyn isn’t concerned with that. He’d much rather lie to those who trust him. And this isn’t just some inconsequential detail he’s gotten wrong — he repeats it in his books, on his website, and during interviews. It’s part of his core argument. Anyone who wants to stimulate the economy during a recession is a selfish monster who cares nothing for the future of our children. They’re not just wrong — they’re horrible human beings.

I learned about Mark Steyn’s new book while listening to Frank Pastore, conservative host of the biggest Christian radio talk show in the US (“the intersection of faith and reason” — where there’s usually a seven-car pile-up). The average citizen may not read Steyn’s book, but they don’t have to. Frank Pastore is reading the juiciest bits on the air.

And this how a lie becomes just another thing everybody knows is true:

1. Mark Steyn writes a lie.

2. Frank Pastore reads it on air. He may know it’s a lie, or may not, but surely has an implicit compact with his listeners to know whether something’s true before highlighting it as such.

3. Pastore’s listeners repeat the lie. Some genuinely trust Pastore and figure it must be true or he wouldn’t say it. Some just like him because he comfortably confirms what they want to believe

4. The listeners’ friends and family hear the lie and repeat it, too, though they’re pretty sure it’s true — perhaps because they heard it from someone they trust, perhaps because it just sounds so right they don’t need to confirm it.

5. And finally, random folk everywhere repeat it, because, well, it’s just common knowledge!

There’s a bit less dishonesty at each stage — less deliberate attempt to deceive, more reason for people to think they’re passing on truth. Ultimately, the obvious blatant core of dishonesty gets so diluted most people can’t distinguish it from truth.

Questioning it would be like asking how you know George Washington was president. If you’re not a historian, you believe it mostly because everyone else does, and why would people lie to you, especially the ones you trust.

So we end up with a whole segment of the population sincerely believing something that’s flat-out wrong.  And during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, when an honest and compassionate person says stimulus, the victims of Steyn and Pastore hear evil.