Failed Gods

Charles Krauthammer isn’t the only one who says the fiasco of Obamacare threatens liberal social policy. Franklin Foer thinks so too. In sounding the alarm in TNR , Foer gives this forthright precis of liberal faith in the transformative power of the state:

“Back when Woodrow Wilson was a professor at Bryn Mawr, he published a seminal essay extolling ‘the science of administration.’ His case was characteristic of the times and the ideology he helped shape. Wilson imagined technical experts, the new breed of social scientists emerging from the universities, who could help steer the economy. He would come to see these experts as a bulwark against the predations of corporations and protectors of the ‘man on the make.’ Government efficiency became something of a slogan for the movement. When Teddy Roosevelt thumped his fists before the Progressive Party convention in 1912the moment he pandered hardest to the nascent liberalismhe invoked efficiency 22 times, rallying the throngs of reformers behind what he called the ‘cause of human rights and of government efficiency.’”

It’s a little amusing to see “man on the make” used of businessmen rather than lobbyists and other DC hangers-on.