Bingo.

Indeed, the bigger the Statist induced disaster, the more the State is empowered. Recommend reading: Crisis and Leviathan, Robert Higgs’ seminal historical study of how Big Government ever expands during crises.

National crises of war and economic depression, often instigated by the failed interventionist policies of the State, invariably see dramatic extensions of Progressive ideologies. At this late stage of the dying Republic, can anyone seriously deny that rank incompetence and the ensuant chaos that follows is not an orchestrated part of the Progressive Agenda?

“The mixed economy that has prevailed in the United States since World War II, a uniquely American form of participatory fascism, has lent itself to a substantial expansion of the scope of governmental authority over economic decision-making in society. Given capitalist color by the form of private property rights, the system has denied the substance of any such rights whenever governmental authorities have found it expedient to do so. No individual economic right whatever, not even the right to life, has been immune from official derogation or disallowance….

….Assuming that our luck holds and our society survives, we do know something — at least abstractly — about the future. We know that other great crises will come. Whether they will be occasioned by foreign wars, economic collapse, or rampant terrorism, no one can predict with assurance. Yet in one form or another, great crises will surely come again, as they have from time to time throughout all human history. When they do, governments almost certainly will gain new powers over economic and social affairs. Everything that I have argued and documented in the preceding chapters points toward this conclusion. For those who cherish individual liberty and a free society, the prospect is deeply disheartening.”