How can the centralized State accumulate unlimited power, while still retaining the outward form of a democracy? This question has been the obsession of the American Left for over a century. The answer lies in subduing the middle class, which is always the deadly enemy of statism. Middle class voters have the numbers to secure electoral victory, coupled with an appreciation for the value of capital. They are sensitive to collapsing stock values, rising consumer prices, high unemployment, and the other typical consequences of decayed economic freedom.

To subdue the middle class, it must be made dependent upon the State. Middle class voters must, at some critical juncture, voluntarily relinquish a terminal amount of their economic freedom. The trick is keeping them quiet while the State passes the event horizon of growth.

Three crucial techniques are needed to get the State past the point of no return. First, an open-ended mission is needed. It must be possible for the State to define the terms of this mission, so that no one can ever say it has been completed, or that the State has failed. Every totalitarian government in modern history has adopted the same mission Barack Obama now openly declares: the quest for “fairness.”.....