RIP George McGovern

McGovern in later years.

You know you're getting old when the most interesting part of the paper becomes the obituaries.

I guess I will never get old. I don't even read newspapers any more.

But I did note the death of former senator George McGovern, a figure from my youth.

I was not a McGovern supporter back in 1972; in the primaries, Muskie was my man. But I detested Nixon, still do, and would probably have voted for McGovern in the general election. Had I been American, and old enough to vote...

You will say he was a left-winger. But being a left-winger in those days was very different from being a left-winger today. Back then, being left-wing did not necessarily mean you supported bigger government and greater regulation of everyday life. Back then, there was still some liberalism left in the left.

McGovern had some of that. It was the Plains tradition. He was, most prominently, against the war in Vietnam. So was I; not because it was immoral, but because the time and place did not favour American success. If you are not yourself China or Russia, you do not want to get into a land war in Asia. A peninsular war, like Korea, is just doable for a sea power, but not a long littoral open to the interior like Vietnam.

That said, that was not a reason to vote for McGovern. By 1972, the war was no longer a live issue. Either Nixon or McGovern was going to get the US out of Vietnam, and of the two, I would have trusted Nixon to get it done with the least damage to the US's interests and reputation.

What attracted me more to McGovern, besides the essential conviction that Nixon was not an honest man, was his proposal for a guaranteed annual income.

This was a liberal (meaning, these days, right-wing) concept—indeed, a concept promoted in their day by both Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. McGovern's selling points included the valuable one that it would reduce government bureaucracy, which he generally spoke against. And it would, in the same way that a flat tax would. With a straight guaranteed income replacing the myriad social programs, the money would go directly to the poor, instead of into the pockets of various bureaucrats, regulators, and professional experts. 

McGovern in 1972.

It would probably also save us a lot of money over the current approach. To illustrate, there is a good argument that it would be cheaper to just buy homes for the homeless than to leave them on the street. Their frequent emergency room visits cost the taxpayer more than a decent condominium would. Simply giving everyone a guaranteed minimum income would be the ultimate solution to these sorts of distortions.

It would also go a good way towards restoring the dignity of the poor. At present, they must grovel before petty bureaucratic tyrants regularly to plead their case. These bureaucrats inevitably have their personal prejudices, ensuring a lack of fairness in the system. Give the poor their own money, and let them spend it as they want, making their own choices; don't treat them like children.

Of course, the problem with a guaranteed minimum income is that some people would abuse it to avoid work: the alcoholics and the welfare queens. I think that is undeniable. But the present system is also full of abuses. On the whole, might it be better if those abusing the system were at least genuinely poor, rather than relatively wealthy bureaucrats?

It might be time, once this recession is over, to give McGovern's idea a second look.