Constantly quoted by the usual quoters:
Central planning always fails, THEREFORE we should trust freedom-loving Libertarian anti-centralizers like Larry Fink and Jeff Bezos and Elon.
If you think Larry and Elon are the opposite of central, you’re too stupid to breathe.
Variable truth:
Central planning by government is VITALLY NECESSARY when it helps ordinary people. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
Since I’m thinking about Ike this week, let’s look at his main achievement, the interstate system, and ask Cui Bono.
Greenies hate the system because it encourages cars. They’re right about the fact, wrong about the motivation and effects. Long before Gaia, rural people hated the interstate because it bypassed and killed small towns.
Railroads created by federal planning had SPAWNED most small towns. A town with a railroad could have grain elevators and stockyards and industries, and could attract new residents and tourists. Rivers had the same effect but you couldn’t build a river, and large areas with agricultural and industrial potential were far from navigable rivers.
The postal system, an integral part of federal central planning, helped farmers and small towns until Wall Street lawyer Nixon poisoned it and used it as a weapon against small towns. Getting a post office guaranteed stability, and the postal system made great efforts to assist small towns. The postmaster represented the government. If you needed to deal with the government you didn’t call a congressman, you went to the post office.
The New Deal used central planning intensively to strengthen and re-energize farms and rural areas. WPA focused its energy on small schools and post offices, and USDA saved farms from dusty destruction.
The interstates were a new exception to an old tradition of central planning. Interstates were officially advertised as aiding defense because that’s the only way to pass shit through Congress. Propaganda told us that interstates would carry nuclear missiles and troops to the thousands of places where Russia was always attacking and bombing, because everyone knew that Russia was attacking and bombing everywhere all the time. Biggest lie in history until 2020.
Even though we believed the lie about Russia, nobody believed the advertising for the interstates. The propaganda was solely to push the appropriation through Congress, and nobody was fooled. The same game continues now. When a congressman wants to pay back one of his bribes or increase tyranny and national suicide, he slips the monstrosity into a National Defense Authorization Act.
In variable fact the interstates often bypassed military installations just as they bypassed small towns. Missile sites were off the grid and supposedly secret for the same fake reason. Of course Russia knew where everything was. Only the American people were “protected” from the truth.
Urbanists blame interstates for suburban sprawl, but again this was more by variable happenstance than constant purpose. Streetcars, loved by the same urbanists, were the real spreader and creator of suburbs. In some cases an interstate improves access for some suburbs. I90 makes access to downtown Spokane easier from the Valley, but doesn’t serve other suburban areas. In KC, Overland Park was created by a streetcar line, but I35 doesn’t go near it and didn’t spawn any new suburbs.
Interstates only made one permanent constant change, true from the start and true everywhere.
Interstates replaced railroads with cars and trucks. Freight railroads remain active and profitable for heavy commodities like coal, oil, chemicals and industrial machinery. In other words, railroads carry our raw materials to ports for shipment to China, then carry containers of Chinese manufactured shit to Amazon distribution centers. Everything else goes in cars, trucks and planes.
Interstates consistently killed railroads and small towns and urban neighborhoods, and only helped the military and suburbs in a few places by accident.
THE SOLE BENEFICIARY IS TRUCKING.
Was this the quid pro quo for a bribe? Unlikely. Truckers weren’t nearly as influential as railroads at that time.
Unsatisfying answer: It seems that Ike genuinely believed the lie about defense. In both wars he saw that good roads made it easier to move troops. He simply couldn’t foresee the actual result.
Conclusion: Central planning by government is complicated, vitally necessary when it’s aimed in the right direction, destructive when it’s aimed badly. Central planning by Wall Street is deadly simple, with one permanent lethal purpose. Wall Street kills business and agriculture and civilization and humanity.
Polistra's Mill 