Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Governor Dannel Malloy’s economic policy does not work. But he is in good company. The nonprofit health-insurance companies set up to help people enroll in Obamacare are now failing. Mr. Malloy’s progressive economic policy may be summed up this way: State government serves as a transformer, collecting money from the real economy and disbursing it according to need, from those who have to those who have not. Karl Marx laid down the law of a socialist economy more than a hundred and fifty years ago: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” In enlightened countries, the job is done without destroying either capital or capitalists. “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope,” Marx said. Progressive ambitions in the United States have been more modest. They proceed from Matthew (19:20-24) rather than Marx, and their adherents in the United States so far have been content to await a final felicity at the final judgment:

Post Iowa, it’s all over for the losers but for the gnashing of teeth. US Sen. Chris Dodd’s gnashing, as was to be expected, was eloquent, his concession speech prettily put together. The most aggressive anti-war presidential candidate in the running, Dodd received less than 1% of the Iowa caucus vote. He did better at DailyKos, the Huffington Post and MoveOn.org, blog sites devoted to running the white flag up in Iraq and skedaddling. One of the polls at one of these anti-war cookie cutter sites rated Dodd in the high twenties. Dodd probably will be remembered, if he is remembered at all, as the William Jennings Bryant of the anti-war movement. The rest of the country will move on.