The New York Times, this past week, chided that the days of Reganomics are over. The President, in his address to congress and the nation stated that we cannot continue the failed policies of the past eight years. Omitted in any comments, but implicit in the discussion, the policies of John F. Kennedy have also proven unworthy. Supply-side, free markets and lowering taxes, according to those leading the country today failed. 

Enter the new agenda. One with the “audacity of hope” and change to a new direction in governmental involvement. An agenda that corrects for the excesses of the past, of corporate greed and of wealthy people unfairly gaining in this society.  

However, it would not be fair to say that there is no precedence for the changes our president is suggesting. In fact, I would suggest that the current redirection of our government was first documented in Plato’s Republic in about 400 BC. He wrote of a Utopian society that defined how people should live. Society was made up of the productive, the protective and the governing. The governing (those who were, as Plato explained and as our president believes, intelligent, talented and self-controlled) ruled over the productive, utilizing their works for the common good. The governing also ruled over the protective in order to ensure the sovereignty of the republic.  Plato has served as a wellspring to many collectivist societies.  

 We spent most of the last century in a cold war where the collectivist government led by the former Soviet Union and the individual “invisible hand of the market” government was represented by the US. We thought we had won with Regan. But just as during our great depression, it is easy to suggest failure of an uncontrolled society in trying times. Hence, President Obama is taking control and with the majority of the citizen’s permission. Remember however, that tyranny by the majority is just as treacherous as tyranny of one.   Plato himself expressed concern by writing, “…until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race." We may be the first society ever to make a collectivist government work; however, with the people I see in congress today, I would prefer to bet on Kennedy, Regan and even Bush. They bet on me as an individual rather than Pelosi.