In 2001, Brink Lindsey wrote Against the Dead Hand, in which he contrasted the "dead hand" of central economic planning with the "invisible hand" of the market. The distinction is memorable. It is also slightly misleading. These days, the "dead hand" is very much alive.

Look around. The state has never been more in vogue. Everywhere one turns, central governments are intervening in markets. For political elites, the question is no longer whether the state has an obligation to provide economic security for its citizens. The question is how to do it.

To some degree, this move toward government intervention is natural. Reasonable, even. In times of crisis, people want protection. Randolph Bourne famously wrote that war is the health of the state. He forgot recession. And this particular recession looks like a doozy. Employment and consumer spending may reach lows not seen in a generation. There will be a recovery. But the timing of that recovery depends on what the government does in response.

Voters, then, have every reason to expect from Washington a stimulus bill that will help restore growth. But they aren't getting one. The stimulus plan is flawed. It marries a few measures that count as stimulus with tons of spending on a domestic agenda that the Democrats have waited years to push through Congress. Why? Because Obama and the Democrats who run Congress are more interested in an idea than they are in economic recovery.

That idea has two components. One: The conservative era, with its more-free-than-not markets, is over.

The stimulus bill needs to be seen in this light. It is just the beginning. For Obama, the stimulus is a "down payment" on "investments" in health care, alternative energy, education, scientific and medical research, and infrastructure. When you buy a car, you don't stop with the down payment. There are many, many more "payments" to come. How large will these payments be? How long will we be paying them?

Our newly political economy has diverse sectors. This week the administration will lay out its rescue for the banking sector. The plan likely will combine buying up bad mortgage-backed securities with guaranteeing financial institutions' balance sheets. This might or might not help the global financial system. What it definitely will do is further enmesh the government in that system.

Obama, through no fault of his own, inherited a government that has stakes in the country's largest banks and owns what was once the world's largest insurer. Last week he used that authority to set compensation levels for some executives whose institutions receive public money. And his use of his authority is likely to grow in the coming months.

Obama and Congress want the banks to lend to consumers whose finances remain shaky. The banks will have to listen, because they are on the hook. And when the debtors can't repay the debts, who will the creditors turn to? You know who.