Flight from Trantor

The Old is new again; or the Truth is timeless

I remember that whenever my parents spoke of Ayn Rand they would roll their eyes.  I never read any of her work nor quite understood her zeitgeist, but I picked up a copy (literally - for once I wandered into a Borders and bought a book off the shelf) of Atlas Shrugged.  With all the "going 'John Galt'" chatter in response to the anticipated American socialist state I had a keen interest to read it.  Within the first 100 pages I am amazed how contemporary the book is (despite references to people working at their typewriters).  I swear that in a scene concerning a railroad trade group passing some anti-competitive New Deal type of regulation, you could have changed a few words of the text and it would have read like last week's accounts of our sclerotic auto industry. And yet it was first published in 1957.

Welcome to the party; sorry you missed the fun

I used to try to imagine what it would be like standing in front of a black audience trying to convince them that a conservative free market party actually represented their interests better than the liberals.  Of course I would say that to almost anyone, and I certainly do not have superior knowledge of what might be in any black man's best interest.  But even in my radical youth we regularly derided "limousine liberals" whose only prescription for any problem was to through money at it. ' Yes, the poor should have better housing.  Take this money and go build somewhere other than my neighborhood.'  The "teach a man to fish..." ethic was always more compelling to me than the alternative.  And the conservatives I knew were far more likely to judge a man by the quality of his works than by the color of his skin.

Hopefully the election of Obama will usher blacks into the mainstream of American economic life.  Simply removing self-imposed limitations on imagination and mental shackles on self image should engage millions.  I think this will happen no matter what kind of a president Obama turns out to be. 

How ironic that the vehicle of this "transformation" carries with him a message of economic defeatism for all the black "Joe the Plumbers" who finally might start setting their lights on heretofore unimaginable heights.  If this does indeed happen, how might it affect the allegiance of blacks to the democratic party?  There are already strong social conservative currents in among many blacks (witness the Prop 8 vote in California) that under other circumstances might attract blacks to a conservative party.  How long will it take an energized black entrepreneurial class to perceive democrat economic policy as a roadblock to their own achievement?  And as those traditional ties are weakened, how soon will it be before blacks recognize that obstruction of some level of privatization of social security thwarts a modest means of captial accumulation in the black community (which due to shorter life expectancy gets hit the hardest by forfeited benefits).  I hope a conservative somewhere takes note of this opening and pursues it.  It would be too cruel to have come this far only to be denied.

Huck: Libertarian's are the enemy...

John Henke (h/t Instapundit)

Social conservatives have to realize that they need the fiscally conservative, socially moderate/tolerant voters if they want to be a part of a winning coalition.  The limited government message won revolutionary victories for Republicans in 1980 and 1994; it is the only viable organizing principle for the current Republican coalition. 

Huckabee may believe libertarians are the "real threat", but his God, Guns and Butter agenda would destroy the Right far more effectively than the libertarian cartoons that exist in Huckabee's head.

Has it already?

UPDATE:  Ramesh Ponnuru:

The competitive-grievance thing Henke goes into—should libertarians be more upset about Huckabee or social conservatives about Kathleen Parker?—is just about the last thing anyone should spend a minute thinking about. His point that social conservatives need economic conservatives is well taken. But the reverse is also true, and indeed more true. ...[H]e suggests that it was limited government that won the day in 1994, with social conservatives along for the ride. It would oversimplify matters, but be much closer to the truth, to suggest that "God, gays, and guns" powered Republican successes that year.... [my emphasis]

To suggest that social conservatives "carried the day" is just ludicrous.  There is a definite convergence of interests between the groups.  But social conservatives always seem to be the "all or nothing" types. I like the way Jonah Goldberg puts it:  "And as a committed federalist, I'd like to see most if not all of [conserative social issues] settled as locally as possible."

Leave us alone (to do the right thing)

Apropos my previous post, via Little Green Footballs I saw a link to this post entitled "Why the GOP Lost My Vote".  If you wonder whether there are any teeth to my argument that conservative cultural issues should not dominate political party platforms, here one guy who seems to agree:

I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004. I believe in limited government, individual rights, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms - positions that one normally associates with Republicans.

But I didn't vote for a single Republican in 2008. I've become increasingly alienated by the Republicans' embrace of the religious "social conservative" agenda, including attempts to ban abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage.

The Founding Fathers correctly recognized that the proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But freedom of religion also implies freedom *from* religion. As Thomas Jefferson famously put it, there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state. Public policy should not be based on religious doctrines.

I do not agree with the last sentence.  Of course public policy can be based on religious doctrine at least to the extent that religious doctrine or faith informs a secular consensus.  The point is that the secular consensus should bear the standard of the political policy, not the religious doctrine.

It strikes me that these issues are more and more a question of how to frame the political "sale."  I can't keep count of the number of people who I know who will not look beyond what they perceive as a Religious Right agenda to consider the economic policies of Republicans.

Now, whenever I read something like this, I have to wonder if the stated obsession with conervative social policy is just a red herring to rationalize voting for Obama for a variety of other non-political reasons.  I do not think that fears of the "Religious Right" bogeyman should ever be enough to vote for a Democrat (although the author of the above doesn't say that he did so - he may have voted for third party candidates) but a lot of people reportedly did.  However, the conflation of a conservative religious social policy with everything else is certainly limiting the audience.

Towards a Unified Theory

The holy grail of physics is the Unified Field Theory, a construct that will reconcile classical physics and quantum physics forevermore.  What will a Unified Theory of Conservatism look like?  A lot of people are wondering right now. 

I am begging a question, of course:  Why do we need such a thing?  It should be the end result of all the current navel gazing over the last election results and indeed the past eight plus years of a compassionate conservative agenda.  It should be a plain and concise statement of what principles any future conservative party will represent.  It should be conservatism's "elevator speech".

I start with free markets and work outward.  Free markets work, both as the most efficient allocator of labor and capital and as the lynch pin of personal liberty.  Private property requires free markets.  Individual liberty requires private property. 

Without political power, any idea no matter how great comes to naught.  The toughest nut to crack is how to attract enough people to your core principles to win elections.  The big debate in the GOP now is, nominally, over what those core principles should be.  David Brooks thinks it is a battle between Traditionalists and Reformers.  What it really seems to come down to is that some conservatives are embarrassed by the social conservatives in their midst, aka the Religious Right, and the "Reformers" are looking for ways to jettison them and moderate their views about the proper size and function of government.  Not only are the social conservatives an embarrassment, but they are now, the thinking goes, an albatross and will account for a string of conservative defeats in the years to come. They will continue to scare off the youth demographic that elected Obama (note: I am not so sure it is that simple). This same argument is taking place among L[l]ibertarians, too.

Jonah Goldberg has written an article pointing out that you won't find too many economic conservatives who are not also social conservatives, suggesting that one trait depends upon the other:

And that should serve as a warning to those, on the right and left, who would like to see the GOP defenestrate millions of actual, living, breathing members of the party — e.g., social conservatives — in order to woo millions of largely nonexistent [economically conservative but socially liberal] jackalopes. The GOP would simply cease to exist as a viable party without the support of social and religious conservatives.

Let's take that as true for the moment.  Let's also assume that without the allegiance of L[l]ibertarians the GOP will have a much longer slog to be more than the new Dixiecrats.  Now you see the problem.  Libertarians are by definition socially liberal.  (I wonder if Jonah Goldberg thinks that they are not then really economically conservative?)

The question I have is, why isn't a commitment to free markets and limited government enough given the interconnectedness with liberty and private property?  Is it true that unless a conservative party aggressively agitates for socially conservative laws that it will lose the social conservative vote?  The Democrats are busy actively undermining socially conservative agendas.  Are they going to be more palatable than a conservative party which, while not seeking to, say, enact legislation outlawing abortion, doesn't stand in the way of that question being decided locally (like most other criminal activity).  To say that this is so just does ring true to me. 

In that regard, I think I differ from Tim's post below.  Where he asks "...why can't Republicans have a party that has social values (pro life, anti-stem cell, pro marriage) while at the same time advocating limited government and a free market?", I say that it can, but it can have adherents who do not subscribe to those social values as long as the party does not insist on making the actuation of such values part of its platform - and it need not and should not do so.  It is enough that the party not stand in the way of local resolutions of such issues, and it should do everything that a party can do to cultivate a cultural environment that fosters development of those issues on that front.

A conservative party does not, and indeed cannot, be all things to everyone (otherwise you are a Democrat).  On those issues that go beyond the core, it should be enough that the conservative party, whatever it shall be called, leaves those issues up to individual conscience and/or local action.  That bright line should be free markets, limited government, private property and individual liberty and responsibility.

The bottom line is that this is a political argument and one that seems too wrapped up in dealing with a certain perception of what people in this country think based on the election results.  There is much to argue over this alone, and it also does not (and really cannot) take into account an intellectual movement to the right and whether such a thing could be engineered (or how the drift to the left could be undone).  That is a cultural issue and one that is probably more important in the long run than the political questions.  It is also the harder battle to be won, and the one we should be putting most of our energies into.  The real issue over abortion, for instance, is not and never has been whether there is a constitutional right to privacy or whether women should have "control over their bodies."  It is a fight over the lack of a consensus that abortion is murder.  Go build your consensus, and the political issues are resolved.

Change Back to Liberty and Limited Government

A free market isn't everything, nor is the market today usually truly free, simply because in modern society (ours and virtually every other) the financial system, transportation, education and so many other concerns are intertwined with government (rightly, or, more often, wrongly), even if they are not fully socialized. More on this later, but I think conservatives have to continue to promote limited government and free markets, but not make "free market" sound like a simple mantra, a meaningless chant akin to Obamaniacs' "change" slogan, without explaining in more detail the philosophy of liberty, and the respect for individual and property rights underlying it.

And, regarding the earlier post, I think we may indeed be stuck in this Republican - Democrat death grip for many years to come, as much as I would love to see a real conservative party arise if we can't get back to conservative principles in the Republican party.

So . . . why can't Republicans have a party that has social values (pro life, anti-stem cell, pro marriage) while at the same time advocating limited government and a free market?  I've always thought it tempting to be
a libertarian, but when you get down to some fundamental issues (abortion, pornography, prostitution,drugs, etc.) it is just difficult to say that one can practice whatever one likes, that it is no business of the state.

And, of course, the liberals use that intrusion of the government (however minimal by today's socialist standards) to point out contradiction and the right of government to legislate virtually everything. Witness
Chuck Schumer's recent remarks about the fact that pornography is controlled by the government, so shouldn't the government be able to regulate political speech too? Of course, the answer is "no" -- we have a First Amendment protecting free speech, including (especially) political speech.  So as much as he would like to institute the Unfairness Doctrine (let's stop using the Orwellian name the Democrats use) I sure hope it doesn't happen.   

And government legislation of moral issues goes much further as well, all covered in the criminal code (rape, battery, murder).  What are these other than moral issues?  So I see libertarianism (especially big L, but possibly also small L, if I'm following you correctly) if we say things like "it is not the function of the state to impose one person's moral code on another."

I don't think it is an either / or proposition, and this is what makes human life and politics so messy.  It is like a fat person giving up food entirely -- that is simply not the solution.  But it is much more difficult to explain
that CERTAIN foods are the answer, in limited quantities.  Government is necessary and useful -- but in limited quantity. 

But it WILL be a great chore to get the Republicans back to that principle, I must admit. . . As life gets every more complicated, and people seemingly become less literate and knowledgeable, it is very hard to communicate a coherent free market strategy.  There is just so much to try to teach.  But the mess that will surely ensue under an Obama Administration (I still can't believe it and have a hard time uttering it) will create fertile ground for a new voice.  I hope.

-- Tim

A Free Market Isn't Everything

I came across this old column by Jonah Goldberg while doing research on Daniel Bell.  It is of a piece with much of Goldberg's other writing:

It is only very recently that Conservatism has become synonymous with an untrammeled free-market. Virtually every major conservative thinker going back to Burke argued that a free-market was a necessary but not sufficient ingredient of civilization. As Irving Kristol wrote in his book, Two Cheers for Capitalism, there should be only two cheers for capitalism. Daniel Bell offered a more drawn-out argument about the cultural contradictions of capitalism in his book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Before the neocons, Richard Weaver pointed out that ideas have consequences in his powerfully persuasive book, Ideas Have Consequences.

Will there ever be a free market party (again)?

Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO: 

In developing an agenda, Republicans and conservatives need to figure out what the top challenges facing the country are and how to meet them. But it would be pointless to devise an agenda that could not possibly win over a majority of the voters.

Well, depends on whether you compromise core ideals to the point of meaninglessness like the Republicans have for the last 8 years.  He goes on to suggest that a strong free-market economic agenda has the best chance to trump competing cultural differences.  Agreed.  In fact, It's the only agenda that has a chance of appealing across cultural divisions.  If you have any doubt that we need to take a path around cultural differences, take a look at the comments to this post by Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy which Somin concludes by saying:

Reforging the conservative-libertarian coalition will be very hard. Relations between the two groups have always been tense, and the last eight years have undeniably drawn down the stock of goodwill. But if we can't find a new way to hang together, we are all too likely to hang separately.

UPDATE:  Simon at Classical Values has similar thoughts:

The Republicans are going to have to decide: are they the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage party or are they the sound governance/low taxes party.

And here is the critical question: "...[H]ow long do I think it will take the Republicans to get it? If history is any guide about twenty to forty more years. Why? For one thing preaching to America is more important to them than winning elections i.e. they are not a serious political party.."

Hard to disagree with that. And if the NY-DC corridor conservative elites keep a tight hold on the party, it may never come back.

But WHY do we assume it will have to be a revitalized Republican Party?  Is it just too much trouble to start another one?  Are we going to be Democrats and Republicans forever?

Define thyself

Can't say it any better than Evan Coyne Maloney:

Philosophically, the political label that matches my views the most would be “libertarian.” Unfortunately, it’s a label shared with a political party of the same name.

“Big-L” (as in the party) Libertarians seem to attract an uncomfortable mixture of conspiracy theorists, isolationists and pacifists. The Libertarian Party is the political equivalent of a Star Trek convention. Contrast that with “small-L” libertarians (as in adherents to the political philosophy) who tend the be the type of people you’ll have the most fun breaking laws with.

I consider myself a libertarian for two reasons.

First and foremost: for the betterment of the human race. True, these aren’t easy days to proclaim oneself an unashamed capitalist. But whatever governmental market distortions led to the current financial crisis, the simple fact remains that no single system has brought more material comfort to more people worldwide than capitalism.

In America today, people we consider poor have a standard of living that would’ve been thought of as middle-class a century ago. Sure, we can to do better for more people, but there’s only one historically proven way to do it: capitalism. By definition, government can’t create wealth. Only private economic activity can. The more economic activity, the faster the growth, and the richer even the poor become. The larger the share of the economy that flows through the government, the longer it’ll take for the engine of capitalism to grow poverty into extinction.

The second reason I’m a libertarian is because I believe that the individual should be afforded the maximum personal liberty in cases where no other individual’s rights are being abridged. In their private lives, people should be allowed to set whatever personal boundaries their consciences allow and require. And while I believe that people should abide by some form of moral code, it is not the function of the state to impose one person’s moral code on another. If you want to convince someone else to live by your rules, you’re free to do so in the private sphere. But government is too big a bludgeon to be used for such a function.

So, in a nutshell, that’s why I’m a (”small-L”) libertarian.

(H/T Instapundit)

Historic but not extraordinary

Congratulations to Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States of America.  Hopefully he was sincere in his acceptance speech and he really does know that there are very few other countries where this could be happening. 

If you ever had the faith in this country that Martin Luther King, Jr. had, you knew this day would come in our lifetimes, and that is why I say that this election is not extraordinary.  In America, the extraordinary is ordinary.  It is still thrilling that a black man has been elected president.  Over that last few months I think I have detected a lightness in the step of African-Americans where I live (Philadelphia), a lessening of the seemingly permanent level of resentment and anger that was usually an unspoken undercurrent in interactions with whites.  I hope that this election, finally, is the catalyst  black americans needed to start really believing what white America has believed unreservedly for forty years:  That they are welcome in the American Enterprise. Now let them start regarding themselves as free and responsible individuals with all imagined constraints on their potential released.  But let us not forget that this has always been the promise of American founding principles.

I was disappointed that Sarah Palin was not elected, but I cannot regret that John McCain was defeated.  I have been reconciled to this outcome since May when McCain won the nomination.   I have no party affiliation and I felt then and feel now that I am not represented in the national government in any meaningful way.  Now I am a dissident again and I will do my best to educate and agitate for libertarian principles.  And I think this is just about right:

The lesser evil is not going to win this time and much as it may not seem that way now... or any time soon I suspect... in the long run this has a far far better chance of leading to the rebirth of a genuine pro-liberty, pro-market political culture, something which the gradual incremental surrender of recent times made impossible (such as the 'pragmatic voting' of people who want a smaller state for Republican candidates who ended up growing the regulatory state).

Many will find the glee of the statist left over the next few days and weeks hard to endure, but to be honest I have been walking around with a grin all day. Finally the era of gradualism is over and the masks are going to come off. The USA has voted for statism and it is going to get exactly what it voted for at a juncture in history where it will very quickly be impossible to hide the cost of those votes.

Obama is not the start of a new era, he is the death knell for the old one.

Time to start getting in people's faces and just being there and when the socialist palliatives push us deeper and deeper, speak up and speak out.