The Morality of Legislating

     Let me say up front that because I try to be an orthodox Catholic, taking my inspiration from the teachings of the Church, I cannot be a libertarian; nor do I think that libertarians have much that is useful to say about the fulfillment of man's nature as a social being.  I also suspect, in my moments of sporadic agreement with the pacificst theologian Stanley Hauerwas, that we Christians in the United States have a greater need of beggars than we would care to admit -- a need of people who turn aside from the moneying game.  Some of those beggars may be unemployable for practical reasons, but others may be genuine contemplatives, who remind us that the heart of  life is not to be found in a paycheck, or in the fancy things we snatch at the store. 

     Nor do I have any natural affection for rich people.  The small town where I grew up had one or two sort-of rich people in it: the family that owned the oldest continuously-running pharmacy in the country (now defunct); the family of the town doctor; the family that ran the biggest grocery store (now a supermarket, and sold away).  I went to the local Catholic grade school with the children from these families, who lived pretty much as everyone else lived, except in a Victorian house.  My first real encounter with Money came when I went to college, and met kids who went to boarding schools (what were they?), whose parents took vacations to Bermuda (we went to visit my cousins in New Jersey), whose pastimes included sailing (our Lackawanna River was four feet deep), and who frequented expensive restaurants (we could get lobster at Sharkey's for three dollars a pound).  I found it hard sometimes to make friends with them, not that I or they tried very hard at it.

     And yet -- I don't exactly sympathize with "the rich," whoever they may be, but I don't envy them, either, and I certainly don't want their money.  They can keep it, for all I care, and for all the good it will do them.  There's something that unsettles me about the idea that they "owe" me or their country a far greater portion of their substance than I or anybody else owes.  I understand that, within reason, rich people should pay taxes in accordance with their wealth, and that they do.  But I want to be careful here.  If a bridge needs to be built, then the state has the moral duty to raise money to build the bridge, which will serve the common good.  It's justifiable, then -- one can make a case for it -- to tax wealthy people at a somewhat higher rate than others are taxed, to build the bridge; for it may be that the wealthy will enjoy a greater benefit from anything that the state does to encourage trade or business, seeing that they have more substance to invest in business to begin with.  But it doesn't seem right to me to advocate taking money from A, because he has it, to give it to B, because he doesn't have it, without making B subject to expectations enjoined upon him by the local community of which A or someone like A is a part.  That is, if I lend money to my nephew Ronnie, I have the right to expect that he will not blow it at Foxwood's, but will use it for the purpose for which I lent it.  That's not simply because it's my money, but because I could have put that same money to a hundred other uses -- I might have given it instead to my niece, or my neighbor.  The principle is similar to that of eminent domain.  The state may take my property, compensating me for it with a just price, to build something that might, in principle, be used by everyone, directly or nearly-directly, such as a bridge, a road, a harbor, or an airport.  But it may not in justice take my property merely to give it to someone else, like a developer, who happens to want it, and who dangles in front of the city the possibility of a higher tax base.  I might want to keep my house for selfish reasons, just as a miser might want to keep his money.  But I might want to keep it for good and generous reasons, just as a father who has been successful in business might use some of his wealth to build a neighborhood playground, or to set up a family member in a trade, or to buy new hymnals for his church.

     The welfare state begins by compelling people to put money aside for their old age -- the fiction of the Social Security trust fund comes to mind.  There, at least, there is some correspondence between what the state takes from you and what the state will give back.  And the state has a genuine interest in keeping people from destitution.   But what happens eventually is that people in charge of a welfare state come to think of all things as belonging to them: children, for instance, are wards of the state, lent out to their parents conditionally; families are creations of the state; money is all the state's to play with, so that refraining from raising people's taxes is viewed as a "gift" to them.  I don't see that.  Nor do I see that Death is some game-scrambler, the great opportunity to ignore the generation-spanning essence of the family, so as to rifle half of an estate, often compelling people to sell a homestead just to pay the taxes on it.

     I'm not talking here about current economic policy.  I don't pretend to be an economist.  Maybe we need to raise taxes during a recession, though that seems counterintuitive to me.  What bothers me is the sense that somehow the desire to levy taxes on the wealthy is a sign of moral maturity, and that a rich man is merely selfish to resent any use of those monies.  As I said, I don't see that.

Comments

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

An evocative essay on a topic too little taught or preached. A sermon might begin, "What is the difference between 'Give unto Caesar...' and 'Bring your tithes into the storehouse...'?"

Food for much thought. And prayer...

[Bob Srigley]

St. Paul as a pharisee was able to avoid the condemnation of the law up to a point. His efforts to fulfill the strictness of his sect allowed him to see himself as righteous until he truly reflected on the last commandment, the one that says, "Thou shall not covet," and by that one he was slain. Murder, adultery, theft and false witness are all action sins which a scrupulous and moral person could conceivably avoid, but coveting is a sin of a heart ungrateful for God's providence. Moreover it is the sin which is often foundational to the others.

The problem with modern liberalism (with its component of Marxist economics), is that it justifies, encourages and even sanctifies covetousness. If we would see the end result of this vector, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is a vivid illustration.

It’s possible that our nation is going through a course correction and that for a time conservative Christians find themselves allied with libertarians. It is not too early to decry the potential problems with this alliance. Atheistic conservatism, a la Ayn Rand, is essentially Darwinian and self-devouring. It conflates greed with self-interest, does not recognize Providence, reduces Adam Smith’s invisible hand to a mailed fist and finally is a factor in sustaining class warfare.

Many of the wealthy are inclined to altruism; most of the rest are at least inclined to invest and enable the actual creation of wealth which is by far the best solution for addressing poverty. The problem with exacting punitive taxes on the rich is that the adjustments they make in response tend to outweigh in economic harm any benefit gained.

By the way, Tony, I was deeply moved by your article “No time for S....” and your comments defending it. For a time you reminded me of Custer at Little Bighorn. You judiciously closed the comments before I had a chance to respond. I was slow in that I was attempting a poem as a response. Here it is, still a little rough perhaps.

Who’re the sappers who have undermined the city on the hill making foundations cavernous?
The last best hope is perched precariously on ancient timbers,
Suspect now,
Inviting potshots from the un-invested crowd.
More faithful are the wounds from enemies avowed.
If righteousness exalts and sin is a reproach for any people
Here at least the pointed finger of the Muslim’s rage has found its mark.

[Tony Esolen]

Dear Bob,

Thank you for those kind comments, and for the eloquent poem.

I do grow weary of having to defend what people not so long ago considered mere common sense restraints upon human sexuality. I have no special animus against homosexual men -- rather a great sympathy for them and for what they have had to endure. But their aims to redefine marriage, and to make sodomy "normal," and to visit a crisis of identity upon every pubescent boy in the country, have to be resisted, not just on their own demerits, but because they would lock us into the self-destruction of the sexual revolution. I want to say, "My friend, there's a lot more involved here than your feelings."

[R.C.]

Tony:

Let me say up front that because I, too, try to be an orthodox Catholic, taking my inspiration from the teachings of the Church, I tend either to be a libertarian, or a part time political ally of libertarians, depending on how one defines the term.

And I think that while libertarians have nothing to say about the fulfillment of man's nature as a social being, this is unsurprising because they never claimed to have such wisdom. Libertarianism is simply not about that, and while many libertines are libertarians, a libertarian need not be a libertine.

What then is libertarianism ABOUT?

The core of the libertarian argument can be summed up as follows:

1. Persons have just authority to use force to defend other innocent persons from attacks which would violate their unalienable human rights through force or fraud;

2. They do not, however, have just authority to initiate force against other persons to force them to act in a particular way when the targets of the use of force are not guilty of violating the rights of innocents;

3. Justification for the use of force by individuals therefore has a high threshold;

4. Persons have a right to voluntarily unite with other persons to organize their use of force for the defense of innocent persons, and government is an example of such organization;

5. When persons organize to form a government, they delegate some of their just authority to defend the rights of innocent persons by force to their employees, the government;

6. Since the authority of government is a delegated authority, it consists only of authority received from those who delegated it (the people).

A formal instrument of delegation (e.g. a constitution) spells out the which powers were delegated and for what purposes they may be used. Powers not delegated in this instrument may not justly be exercised by the government.

7. Also, a Constitution may not rationally delegate to the government any powers not held by the people to begin with. (One cannot delegate authority one does not have.)

8. But no individual person has just authority to initiate force against another merely to make him behave in a certain way (this is a restatement of point 2). For the use of force has a high threshold of justification both in war and in the matter of domestic laws.

9. Since no individual person has just authority to initiate force against folks for any reason not related to the violation of someone's rights, no group of persons can delegate such authority to the government. Therefore the government has no such just authority.

10. Since the government has no such just authority, government legislation may only justly criminalize activity which results in a violation of the rights of persons. This means generally that the government can outlaw unjust uses of force. Fraud is intellectual forcing, and thus may also be outlawed, which means governments have just authority to enforce contracts.

But that's it. Government has no just authority to do anything else.

That's the libertarian argument: Limit the exercise of government authority to what it can plausibly morally be justified in doing...and since this is essentially coterminous with the situations where individuals may exercise force on a smaller scale, this is a very limited range of authority.

On the matter of the welfare state, the argument is very simple:

Suppose Tom, Dick, and Harry are neighbors. Tom notices Harry is having trouble paying his bills. He's a swell guy; he slips money under the door when Harry's not looking. So far so good.

But later Tom notices Harry's still having financial difficulties. So this time Tom goes to Dick and says, "Hey, Harry needs some financial help. Can you chip in?" But Dick says, "Sorry, fellow, I'd like to help, but my kid's leaving for college in the fall and I need every dime." Tom then pulls out a gun and says, "NO, Dick, you're going to help Harry!" and of course this time Dick ponies up, trembling with fear and outrage.

Having extracted the funds from Dick, Tom goes to Harry's door and puts the money in an envelope. Also in the envelope, Tom leaves a note which reads, "Some help for you, from Tom. P.S. I'm running for neighborhood homeowners' commission next week; I hope I can count on your vote."

That is the welfare state. It is not voluntary almsgiving. It is money extracted forcibly from one, to give to another, with a strong correlation to vote-buying.

And even if the corruptive influence of the vote buying were not present, it would still be immoral. For, just as Tom had no just authority as an individual to wave a gun in Dick's face to force him to give to Harry, neither may Tom justly employ a hired henchman to do it on his behalf.

Even if that hired henchman is called government. For government derives its just authority from the governed, through delegation. And one cannot delegate an authority one does not justly have.

That's the libertarian observation, the whole of the argument. Everything else is "Libertarianism AND...." Sometimes it's "Libertarianism and Randian Objectivism," sometimes it's "Libertarianism and Hayekian Economics," sometimes it's "Libertarianism and Pot Smoking." But all those are ancillary.

The core argument is about when it is legitimate to initiate force against someone. And I think that, when they don't get sidetracked on Objectivism or Pot, the Libertarians have the better of the argument.

[Tony Esolen]

Hello RC,

Yes, that's a very good exposition of the libertarian argument. I'm sorry to say that I can't follow you in it. What it assumes is the primacy of the individual as against the state, and though your form of libertarianism guards against the aggressiveness of the state, it does so at the cost of everything that provides a culture with flesh and blood. The presumptions are Hobbesian; everyone is, at base, an opponent. There's more to life than the (negative) protection of rights; there is also the promotion of the common good. Law exists not only to protect us from harm (and you'll notice that I'm granting the libertarians their too-limited definition of harm), but to promote the good; Thomas Aquinas says that the object of a just ruler is to help to make his subjects virtuous, in the natural sense. We do have claims upon one another -- because we are social beings, not radical individuals. I'll still take my cue from Thomas Aquinas and Leo XIII. I draw a distinction between the state, which is necessarily impersonal and tends to totalitarian ambitions, and the community, which is local and used to be personal. What is not proper for a state to do may be perfectly proper for a community to do, if only to establish itself as a community rather than an aggregation of individuals. Have you read the deeply conservative social encyclicals of Pope Leo?

[R.C.]

Tony:

I have read the social encyclicals of Pope Leo; I can't say "deeply." I'll look again.

When you say that the libertarian argument assumes "primacy of the individual as against the state," isn't it also true that Christianity asserts as much?

The individual will outlive the state by an infinite duration. It's fair to assume that when, by the grace of God, I celebrate my four billionth birthday, the U.S.A. will have sunk beyond memory.

And it is to the individual human that is given the creation "in the image of God," making us little creators (in a derivative sense; exercising our free will and thereby making ripples, for good or ill, throughout all the future state of the universe), called to love but capable of not loving, called to worship but capable of rejecting.

It is the human being which has inalienable rights and free will and just authority to decide. The church teaches that these things are integral to the human being. But no (earthly) government can exist without human beings to form it; it is derivative and they are primary. It is impossible that a government should have just authority first, and then delegate or grant them to persons, because governments don't exist first, but are called into existence (in whatever form, some in accord with truth, some less so) by people.

It seems to me that the model is Person -> Family -> Community -> State -> Federation, with the arrows flowing in that direction. Why should it not? This is Biblical, is it not? God did not start with a Davidic Kingdom, then create a bunch of tribes to populate it, then create Jacob to found the tribes, then create Abraham and even Adam to father Jacob. It was the other way around.

Moreover, while the argument as stated can be interpreted in a Hobbesian fashion, it need not and I did not intend it that way, except in one regard: In a fallen world, we must safeguard the intrinsic dignity of persons against the sins and the errors of others. But this does not say that people are intrinsically in competition with one another; it says that they normally are not but that sin has caused them periodically to be dangers to one another. Thus the necessity for criminal law and the wisdom of distributing the power of government into different branches. And thus also the wisdom of Subsidiarity, reflected in the U.S. through Federalism and the like.

You also say that this view "guards against the aggressiveness of the state...at the cost of everything that provides a culture with flesh and blood." But government is not what provides a culture with flesh and blood, and never has been, except in the sense that it sometimes takes its pound of flesh and either threatens to shed blood, or actually does so, to do it.

For government is unique among all social organizations in only one way: We grant it a monopoly on the use of force to achieve its ends.

But force is antithetical to love. What people love about their country is never how the government of that country pushes them around. Culture is formed out of voluntary community associations: Men and Women marrying, towns gathering for a festival. To the extent that government promotes this and defends this against being wrongfully undermined, it assists the formation of a healthy culture. But if government compels this; if it whips out bayonets and marches the townfolk to the dance; if there are men with guns standing behind the bride and groom saying "take the vows, or else," then that isn't culture at all, but tyranny.

So it is better to say that culture is what forms so long as government allows it and defends it. But it cannot compel it; and as compulsion is by definition central to the nature of all government activity, we therefore cannot say that government produces culture.

[R.C.]

Tony:

One other thought. It might be well for you to know that I self identify as nearly libertarian, but leaning conservative, at the national level; but conservative with mild libertarianism at the state level, moderate at the county level, slightly paternalistic at the town level, in favor of strong neighborhood covenants at the neighborhood level. And in my household I am a benign autocratic monarch. (And I have my queen's permission to say so.)

In thinking and writing about American politics, I focus on the national to the near exclusion of the local. For that reason, I will tend to lean pretty hard on the libertarian view.

However, I do see a role for more "intrusion" if that's the word, at the local level. Do you regard that view to be antithetical to libertarianism as you understand it? ('Cause I don't. At the local level, the "freedom to vote with one's feet" is maximized.)

If you thought that libertarianism required either libertinism or utter autonomy and disconnectedness at all levels from top to bottom, then I would agree that a Christian could not be a libertarian. But I don't see either one being a necessary extension of the libertarian moral argument.

[Rob G]

Christianity to my mind doesn't posit sheer or radical individualism, but instead it always places the individual in community -- family, tribe, Church, etc. Libertarianism seems to emphasize the individual at the expense of the community, as if these various communities were at root simply amalgamations of individuals. In this understanding the "primacy of the individual as against the state" is problematic in that it is reductionistic: there is the individual, and there is the state, and the communities in between, so to speak, are more or less artefacts that exist out of convenience more than necessity. This would seem to indicate that libertarianism isn't really conservative, but instead is a species of liberalism.

[David]

There are many different issues here, and it may be that, for example, the dangers in having the government redistribute wealth are enough to justify tolerating extreme riches; but I think it's worth noting that the underlying motives (or at least one of them) cannot be reduced solely to covetousness. If it is unjust to deprive the billionaire CEO of some money he didn't even earn then it is worse to so deprive the successful doctor or grocer; therefore perhaps greater taxation for the very rich is defensible as the lesser of two evils. Note that I use the word "earn" literally: of course the immensely wealthy have legal authority over their money; but they cannot be said to have "gained or incurred it deservedly in return for their behaviour or achievements". The kind-of-rich grocer who makes several times more than you do may have worked several times harder, but it's mathematically impossible that the CEO worked thousands and thousands of times harder than you. Again, in terms of practical policy, it may be that any cure is worse than the disease, but the disease still needs to be identified as such. Unfortunately, as is always the case, people on one side move towards the extreme of claiming that government should redistribute all money precisely, while on the other side, people start to argue that being obscenely rich is a good thing the state should support. The Christian view is more subtle than that.

[R.C.]

Rob G:

Why do you say that "Libertarianism seems to emphasize the individual at the expense of the community?"

Isn't that rather like saying that laws against cruelty to animals emphasize individual cows at the expense of the herd? (Unless one thinks that herds only come about through cruelty.)

Libertarianism is an observation about the morality or immorality of the use of force by some against others, applied as an observation about the just limits of its use by the state.

Why should that even have any bearing on the community? ...unless one believes that the community is necessarily an artifact of persons using force against one another, and never a result of voluntary association?

I hold that healthy community and culture are not created at the point of a gun, though they can be justly defended by force when force is initiated against the individuals who voluntarily formed them. Do you hold that force is justified to start a community or culture?

You also state, "Libertarianism seems to emphasize the individual at the expense of the community, as if these various communities were at root simply amalgamations of individuals."

Well, they either ARE, or AREN'T, "simply amalgamations of individuals" depending on how you mean the term "simply amalgamations."

If by that you mean to belittle or cast as unnecessary these communities, such that they can be dispensed with by the state without injuring the health and happiness of the individuals in them or the body politic as a whole, I answer that this is not true.

But if by it you mean that these communities would not exist were they not formed by individuals, and will be outlived by the eternal souls of individuals, and represent the outcome of individuals exercising the free will they have by virtue of being created in the image of God, and thus have invested in them a share of the noble dignity of the individuals...but that this noble dignity is not inherent to the communities apart from the individuals but comes first to the individuals from God and secondarily from the individuals to the community? If that were what you meant by "simply amalgamations" then I would argue that you were correct, but had chosen unfortunate terms or tone-of-voice, for communities in that case are neither "simple" nor anything to be described in a dismissive fashion.

But again, the critical question is not about communities versus individuals, as if these things were necessarily opposed. (Why should they be?)

The critical questions are: When Is Force Justified? ...and, Where And In What Circumstances Does An Organization Obtain Its Warrant For The Use Of Force?

Ultimately if an organization takes up arms to imprison or kill Person X, the act is either immoral, or not. But if it is immoral for the organization to do it a mere vote of the organization will not make it moral. Moreover, the police or soldiery of that organization (the persons tasked with exerting force on behalf of the organization) remain morally obligated to refuse to carry out an immoral order. Thus we see that even when a vote or some similar procedure ratifies the decision of a community to act in a particular way, moral responsibility continues to fall on the individuals which make it up.

And God has nowhere ordained one Moral Law for individuals, and another for organizations. He has instead ordained a Moral Law for individuals which they do not escape merely by forming organizations, but one under which they are morally obligated whether acting singly or through organizations.

In that case, how can it be otherwise than this: That a use of force which is morally unjustified for the individual remains morally unjustified when exercised through his servants, the government? ...which is the whole of the libertarian argument.

[R.C.]

Rob G:

Let me add another thought. If the Libertarian articulation of the nature of government and the moral limits of its use of force is wrong, then there must be some alternative Philosophy X which explains the nature of government and the moral limits on its use of force differently.

Do you have a Philosophy X to propose, as a candidate?

What would you regard to be a concrete example of a situation where the libertarian view made a moral argument against the use of force, but the argument of Philosophy X would instead argue in favor of the use of force? If there is such an example, and we are sure that Philosophy X's decision to use force is the more Christian of the two, then we can conclude that the libertarian view is non-Christian or less-Christian.

Keep in mind the requirements for Philosophy X. It would have to:

1. Articulate how government is legitimately formed and under what circumstances its legitimacy might vanish, prompting its replacement with a different government;

2. Articulate how government obtains just authority to use force;

3. Be compatible with existing Catholic moral teachings warranting the use of force for self-defense and the high threshold of justification required for Just War.

The latter might not be an immediately obvious association with this topic...but it ought to be.

In the Just War Doctrine, Catholics articulate a high threshold required to justify the use of force. In general, a Country X needs to have seriously harmed Country Y for it to be moral for Country Y to go to war against Country X. That shows how high is the threshold to justify force, when we are talking about the highest levels of organization (nation-state against nation-state).

What about the lowest levels of organization? Once again, there we see a high threshold for justification: Person Y may not morally use force against Person X under normal circumstances, but if Person X has invaded his home and threatens Y with bodily harm, Person Y can justifiably use force to stop the attack.

The libertarian view is that this high threshold, which we acknowledge at the highest levels of organization (Just War) and the lowest levels (individual self-defense in the gravest extreme) also exists in the intermediary levels. There is thus an equally high threshold for the government to lock people up for doing something.

So in articulating an alternative Philosophy X to explain the moral limits of the use of force by government, one must not only explain how government comes into existence and obtains legitimacy for forceful action (when, say, the Rotary Club has no such warrant to legitimately use force). But one must also explain the limits of the use of force according to some principle which does not violate the Just War doctrine and the reasonable limits on the use of force for self-defense.

I think that's a pretty tall order. But at least I've given you the criteria by which you can prove me wrong!

[GL]

Tony,

I can't disagree with anything you wrote, but I must ask some questions about what you did not write. For three decades now, from the time I entered adulthood until now (I am about to enter late middle age), we have, with the exception of a few years in the late 1990s, run very large annual deficits. During that time, the nation was governed for two decades under Republican presidents and one decade under Democratic ones, and it was under a Democratic president that we had our brief period of balanced budgets and falling deficits. Two of the Republican presidents dramatically reduced tax rates and it is under their watches that the debt grew most dramatically. Neither was able to cut spending enough to close the budget gap. Indeed, both actually grew the size of government under their watch, the last of them dramatically.

1. Isn't it immoral for the government to run up massive debt which will have to be paid by future generations?

2. Wouldn't requiring each generation to pay for the size of government it chooses act as a governor on its willingness to grow government?

3. Do you really believe it is possible politically to cut spending enough to close the budget gap without raising taxes?

I'm not arguing that only taxes on the rich should be raised. Were that done, the other classes would have every incentive to spend the money of the rich on themselves just as they now spend the money of future generations on themselves. I'm arguing that we should pass a balanced budget amendment, phased in over a decade, with provisions for deficits in cases of formally declared wars or economic recessions by super majorities of both houses of Congress and that would require some level of meaningful taxation on all Americans above a true poverty level. The ongoing and unsustainable deficits are just as much a moral failing of this generation of Americans as is our sexual misbehavior and just as harmful to the family and the nation. And the failing is the failing of both major parties, including the one I've supported over the past 30 years which calls for smaller government, cuts taxes with the promise of cutting spending, but never gets around to cutting spending.

[R.C.]

GL:

Do keep in mind that G.W.Bush was the only Republican president to have a Republican Congress, which he had for the first six years. Reagan and Bush 41 had Democratic Congresses. None have had a majority conservative Congresses, inasmuch as the GOP majorities involved including more liberal and moderate Republicans than the margin by which they held majorities. But of all the recent Republican presidents, G.W.B. came closest to having a conservative Congress. Of all recent presidents overall, Bill Clinton had the most conservative Congress.

Congress actually creates legislation and the House has to originate all spending. So to look for the bills which contribute most to excessive government spending, one looks first to the House, then to the Senate, then to the President (and the latter, only for failing to veto the excessively expensive bills).

Still, I think ultimately that you're right: Both parties are to blame. The sole difference between them is the degree to which, in spending us into oblivion, they were obedient to, or betrayers of, their presumed core principles. If the Democrats represent the moderate-left party in the U.S., then Democrats are to blame because they were being Democrats; if Republicans are supposed to represent the conservative party in U.S. politics, then the Republicans are to blame for failing to be Republicans, for being a phony non-alternative to Democrats.

(Hence the Tea Parties.)

If Republicans ever attain a majority of the Senate again (they now have a House majority, and it's conceivable that they still have a majority after non-conservatives are left out of the count!), and especially if conservatives can achieve a majority in the Senate, one might see the size of government shrink to within its correct limits. Because only then will the relevant offices be peopled by politicians who even say they want to cut spending.

Of course, saying it is one thing. Doing it? We'll see.

One other thing: I think we're close to or at the tipping point on the Laffer curve for most forms of taxation.

That is to say: We all know that, for every form of taxation, and indeed in each bracket, one can gain increased revenues by raising the tax rate only up to a certain point. As you approach that point, the amount of increased revenues per point of rate increase gets smaller and smaller, approaching zero. After that point, increased rates actually reduce revenue.

Prior to the current economic crisis, we were below the tipping point in most areas. We may have been far enough below it that rate increases in some areas would have increased revenues, albeit not by much.

But the tipping point in each area goes down when the economy goes bad. Right now, we have a bad economy. It's pretty likely we're either at or over the tipping point in some areas, not because we increased rates, but because the tipping points moved underneath us as the economy went sour. Anyway, increased tax rates will not produce appreciably more revenue.

Let me restate that: Increased tax rates will not produce appreciably more revenue.

Therefore spending must be cut. The whole debt equation is a spending-side equation. Revenue is maxed out. It happens.

What then, to reduce? One can get a good start with a 10% across the board cut to every program, every office. But that won't do it by itself. What then?

Well, entitlements are the problem. Social Security and Medicare will become 70%+ of all outlays in a few years. That simply isn't affordable, since artificial birth control has rendered the size of the next generation too small to afford the previously planned benefit levels.

Best bet: Draconian cuts or delays in benefits to those not already receiving benefits, with some sliding transition to "ease in" the effect. For example: Set the age at which one can start receiving Social Security to be one year higher per year of age under 50, until the average becomes closer to 70; and then, index that number to mean life expectancy thereafter.

Other alternatives include not having a national defense at all, or defaulting on the nation's debt, or hyperinflation. (But those aren't personal favorites of mine: Tragedy tends to befall countries that have no armed forces or no functioning currency.)

Just some things to think about.

[GL]

RC,

The Laffer Curve, as you note, is a bell curve, with a peak. I believe we are now on the left slope of the curve, that is, we've cut tax rates below the revenue-maximizing level. That's fine if we are balancing our budget, but we are not. I'm convinced that the commissions that have studied the issue are close to the mark: the deficit can only be eliminated or sufficiently reduced to allow debt reduction (a deficit smaller than GDP growth can still result in debt reduction, as was seen during the three decades of the post-war era) by a combination of spending cuts and tax increases -- about $1 of increased taxes for every $3 of spending cuts. Draconian cuts sufficient to close the deficit by themselves are simply politically impossible.

Revenue is not maxed out. In fact, tax revenues are at their lowest level as a proportion of the economy in 60 years. Revenue can be higher and has been in the past. The two highest periods of economic growth in the last three decades both coincided with tax rates well above today's: Reagan's 50% top marginal rate and Clinton's top 39.6% marginal rate.

[Tony Esolen]

Everybody:

I'm not going to pretend to be an economist; what we decide to do regarding taxes and entitlements right now requires a considerable exercise of economic insight and prudence. I would certainly favor raising the age for collection of social security, or perhaps raising the age for collection of full benefits. The problem with raising the age tout court is that younger people need jobs. It still seems to me quite dangerous, right now, to raise anybody's taxes. If we had the political will, whole federal departments could be eliminated: education and commerce come first to mind.

I'd like to write another posting on libertarianism and Christian anthropology. I wrote something on autonomy and genuine freedom in an article for First Things last year...

[R.C.]

GL:

You and I will have to agree to disagree on our current position on the Laffer Curve.

But it is, as you note, a bell-like curve; that is to say, there's not a needle-sharp point at the top but a gradual flattening, with the revenue drawn in at the top of that curve being nearly identical for all points slightly to the left and the right of the revenue-maximizing point. It is somewhere between an Appalachian mountain and an Arizonan mesa.

That being the case, then assuming you're correct about our being currently on the left side of the tipping-point, one can increase rates and thereby draw more revenue. But one can't draw in much more revenue. The percentage increase in revenue will not be 1-for-1 with the percentage increase in rates. The implication of the very flat slopes on either side of the tipping-point is that it'll be something rather less than 1% increased revenue per 1% increased rates. (What it actually is, is anybody's guess.)

In the meantime, increased rates make the U.S. economy less competitive, increase barriers to entry for new business and enlarged investments, and encourage those with available capital to sit on it rather than investing it in business expansion -- as they are currently doing in record numbers.

I argue that even assuming you're right about our being on the left-hand side (and as I said before, I think we were there, until 2007 or thereabouts, but that the economic downturn moved the tipping point leftward underneath us until our position relative to it changed)...even if you're right, the question remains: Is it worth it to increase rates, in order to eke out a tiny increase in revenue, when the long-term impact is so deleterious, if not in revenues, then in every other way that our economic health is to be measured? Is that the best way to get "bang for our buck?"

Anyway, despite all of the above, I'm much happier with the numbers you gave ($1 increased taxes for $3 of spending cuts) than with that with which I fear the Congress will actually saddle us.

For what we have needed all along is a willingness to cut far more spending than we try to raise in taxes. (And while three times more isn't as helpful as, say, ten times more, but it's a start.) That way, when the increased tax rates fail (as I anticipate they will) to increase long-term revenues (they always increase short-term, until the economy adjusts), at least we will have made meaningful cuts on the spending side.

What I fear is that D.C. will attempt a 1-for-1. And then, when the revenue increases fail to materialize because the short-term first-year gains are undercut by long-term economic damage, we will have only done half the required spending cuts to get ourselves out of the hole. At that point inflation is the usual recourse of scoundrels, and: Goodbye to everyone's savings!

[GL]

"You and I will have to agree to disagree on our current position on the Laffer Curve."

Well, unless your in a better position to know than I am, I assume neither of us have sufficient data (if it even exists) to know with certainty. I'll concede that much. I will add, however, that the economy actually grew faster from 1950 to 1980 (and, as a result, tax revenue grew faster as well) under much higher rates than we've had since then. And since 1981, the economy grew fastest under Reagan's 50% marginal rate than it did under his and Bush 41's subsequent lower rates and again grew faster under Clinton's 39.6% rate than under the previous or subsequent lower rates. I'm not saying that the higher tax rates caused this growth, but rather that they do not appear to have stymied it. Given the severity of the fiscal crisis, I believe it is incumbent on those who oppose rate increases on the grounds that they will slow economic growth to prove this justification in light of actual experience which appears to be to the contrary.

"Anyway, despite all of the above, I'm much happier with the numbers you gave ($1 increased taxes for $3 of spending cuts) than with that with which I fear the Congress will actually saddle us."

I didn't pick the ratio. Both deficit reduction commissions (those chaired by Simpson and Bowles and by Rivlin and Domenici) came up with about this same ratio. It appears to be the point at which they at least believed that everyone's sacred cows are being gored equally. I actually took the admittedly elementary New York Times challenge on how to actually close the gap and came up with essentially the same percentages. There are really only three areas in which to really make headway: cut entitlements; cut defense; raise taxes. Everything else is so small as to be of little help or, else, is untouchable (i.e., interest payments on the existing debt). The idea of a commission was to prevent exactly what you fear, that is, to create a unified package that required an up or down vote on the whole plan, not just piecemeal where the tax increase portion could be passed, but the spending cuts once again ignored.

The tax proposals were not simply rate adjustments, but a basic overhaul which would in fact cut corporate taxes to make us more competitive in the global market and the elimination of deductions (or loopholes if you prefer) which would allow lowering marginal rates while still increasing revenue. The new code would actually meddle less in economic decision making than the current one.

I do agree with Tony that now is not the time to massively, all at once, reduce the deficit. But it is the time, well past it in fact, to put in place a mechanism to do so in a well-structured manner as, we hope, the economy recovers. The problem is not so much today's deficits as it is the deficits which we built up during the years of robust growth during much of the period from 1983 - 2007. We should have been paying down debt throughout that time, but, in fact, did so only for a brief period under Clinton. Had we done so throughout, we would have a lot more room to maneuver now and might not even have the crisis we've had in the first instance.

As to inflation risk, I think the much greater risk is deflation. We give every appearance of being caught in a situation similar to the one which has plagued Japan for two decades and shows no sign of letting up.

But this is all just academic speculation as I see no will whatsoever to actually do anything to reduce the deficit and debt. I see, instead, every indication that we will continue like a run away train, speeding down the track until we run off the tracks. Both our fiscal and sexual moral failings flow from the same ultimate source: living for ourselves and for today rather than with an eye toward our posterity and for tomorrow.

[R.C.]

Tony:

I look forward to your post on libertarianism and Christian anthropology.

I don't mean at all to tell you what to write -- and who'm I, anyway? -- but I do hope that you'll define libertarianism carefully when you do it, or distinguish between a couple of approaches to libertarianism.

For of course terminology and categorization under headings are always a big problem in such discussions. As an obvious example -- and I know you would not say anything nearly so crude -- one might get an argument like: "Libertarians tend to agree with Ayn Rand's categorization of governmentally-forced wealth transfers as corruptive and cannibalistic; therefore Libertarians are all Objectivists; Rand's writings give the ideal of man in the form of the Galt/Roark Randian ubermensch; however, this view of man is anti-Christian for all kinds of reasons; ergo, the libertarian view of man is incompatible with the Christian."

Obviously you wouldn't put an argument as indefensibly as all that!

But to avoid a lesser version of the same error, you may be forced to specify what you mean by the term "libertarian." And that is fraught with peril, for you then risk getting embroiled in the doctrinal disputes between libertarians.

Which Libertarianism?

How to resolve this? For if you adopt the "wrong" libertarianism for your designated target, and then proceed to demolish it as un-Christian, you run the risk of having Christian libertarians accuse you of attacking a straw man.

"Surely," they will say, "the version of libertarianism you are attacking is actually not libertarianism proper, but rather a compound of libertarianism with the personal and eccentric ideas of Mr./Ms. XYZ." (Where XYZ is Rand or Von Mises or Hayek or Friedman or whomever's libertarianism you happen to choose.) "Strip away their personal eccentricities and flaws, and you will find that the core argument remains identifiably libertarian, and also truly Christian. That it was imperfectly understood and stated by Rand or whomever says much about them, but little about libertarianism."

I suspect you will have only two options:

1. Adopt "popular" libertarianism as your target, as defined by mashing together the specific ideas of a lot of leading names in the libertarian pantheon. If you succeed in defining this as "libertarianism" for the purposes of your argument, you will find your job rather easy, for many of those leading names were not Christian and can easily be exposed as having un-Christian notions.

But Christian libertarians will simply claim that your arguments don't in any way apply to what they believe, and thus that their libertarianism stands unscathed. In that case you will have to answer, "Well, I wasn't talking about you."

2. Adopt as your target the most Christian version of libertarianism you can find. Select a libertarianism of which you can say, "If any version of libertarianism may be construed as consistent with the Christian faith, it is this one; and if this one can be shown not to be consistent with the Christian faith, then none of them can."

The advantage of this approach is twofold. First, if you really want to convince your fellow Christians to entirely abandon the libertarian approach, it is the only way to go. Second, it will force you to present libertarianism in a winsome way, in the most Christian light possible. This makes it a fair challenge: For only when you have beaten the best possible arguments for an idea, have you truly beaten the idea. Nobody will be able to accuse you of being unsympathetic.

Please Specify Philosophy X

There is one final consideration that I hope you, or someone, will take to heart: What is the alternative explanation of the authority of government?

I mean, libertarians agree with the American founders that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, through an act of delegation. If this is not where (legitimate)governments come from, where then do they come from? From conquest? Does might make right? (Not a particularly Christian approach to moral authority, is it?) Or is there a divine right which is transmitted directly to the autocrats, without passing though the citizens first? (If there is, how can we know who holds it? Whoever wins the relevant battles? Did the monarch of the U.K. have the right to govern the United States until they lost the U.S. war of independence? Or do they still have it?)

If one adopts the U.S. Founders' (and thus, the libertarians') view of the origin of the authority of a particular government, then certain consequences follow logically from that. If the government may wield force only because they receive authority to do so from the people, do they not necessarily remain constrained in authority by the limits of the powers delegated?

Or can the people's servants somehow wind up greater authority than that which originally existed in those from whom they received it? If so, how? (I wonder what it would mean for the doctrine of Apostolic Succession if it were possible for one person to convey on to another a greater authority than he himself started out with! Could deacons, or laity, then ordain bishops?!)

All of this is to say: If the Libertarian understanding of the origins (and thus the limits) of government authority is wrong, what then is right? What is the alternative?

"You can't beat something with nothing," as they say. If the Libertarian moral argument is incorrect, then there must be some Philosophy X which represents the truth about government, its origins, the source of its authority, and the limits of its authority. If you destroy the Libertarian understanding of these things, you must replace it with Philosophy X, whatever that may be.

And remember, it is not enough to say, "It is God who is the ultimate source of all authority, and thus the source of the authority of governments." Christian libertarians and Christian divine-right monarchists alike agree about that. What they disagree about is the path of delegation through which God delegates that authority to a particular government.

Well.

I've said my piece and of course you'll write exactly what you wish. (And as I said before, who the heck am I, anyway?) But I do hope you'll address some of the above. If for no other reason, I hope you'll address it because I myself want to know the true truth about these things. I don't want to go around thinking something wrongheaded.

Sincerely,

Cord Hamrick from InsideCatholic (a.k.a. R.C.)

[Rob G]

R.C., unfortunately I don't have the time to answer all your questions one-by-one, so I'll just stick to my original objection. It seems to me that traditional conservatism does have what might be called a libertarian streak or strand as part of its make-up. It is this strand whereby the importance of individual liberty is emphasized by the conservative. However, there is also a communitarian streak, at least in the Burke/Kirk type of conservatism toward which I lean. Both of these strands seem to me to be equally important, but over the past 25-30 years the libertarian streak has gained the ascendancy, to the point where you hear an awful lot about individual freedoms, but not so much about the importance of community EXCEPT as it serves the interest of individual.

What I'd like to see in contemporary conservatism is a bit of balance restored towards the communal and away from the individual. Burke's "little platoons" exist as goods in their own right, and not simply in relation to how they serve/protect the atomized individual.

[Rob G]

Oh, and by the way, while I'm not a Catholic, I'd recommend Christopher Ferrara's new book 'The Church and the Libertarian,' which offers a critique of libertarianism from a traditional Catholic p.o.v. My own critique of libertarianism is rooted in the thought of various conservative critics of corporate capitalism, and while I appreciate many aspects of Distributism, I cannot call myself a distributist. Libertarianism, it seems to me, has a blind spot when it comes to the threat of corporate power, and hence has trouble recognizing the fact that the modern Leviathan is in fact a two-headed monster, a business/state hybrid. As RedState commentator Paul Cella puts it, we on the Right need to start realizing that there is a difference between business enterprise and finance capitalism.

[Bob Srigley]

R. C., I find your comments fascinating and well-reasoned.
Who are the Christian libertarians you would recommend? Do they draw sharp distinctions from the atheistic branches of Libertarianism?

[Benighted Savage]

...the modern Leviathan is in fact a two-headed monster, a business/state hybrid .As RedState commentator Paul Cella puts it, we on the Right need to start realizing that there is a difference between business enterprise and finance capitalism.

Ho hum. Better yet, we on the Right should realize that if we start playing that 'ole anti-finance capitalism rag our audience might realize that the tune sounds quite similar to ones played by fascists and communists during the last century (with the accompaniment of machine guns, firing squads, and Wagner I'm told). Cella's recommendation sounds like an invitation to boos and heckling from any crowd that possesses a certain level of historical knowledge (like having read Payne's _History of Fascism_, Courtois et al's _Black Book of Communism_, and the later chapters in Remond's _The Right Wing in France_ for a start).

[Gian]

Let me ask RC if he is OK with banning of porn, censorship of books, movies, music and TV, criminalization of sodomy and adultery and strict divorce?

What exactly is holy about fraud?. Why it is obvious for State to care about fraud and not about divorce?

I consider porn to be a war against my family and I dont care for any theory of government, however logical and elegant, if that excludes repulsing porn.

People in countries with more 'chest' tear off pornographic hoardings while brainy Americans just whine about it.

Are you OK with obedience of wives to their husbands? Doesnt that put a spoke in Libertarian freedom?

[Rob G]

B.S., BS. Like it or not, we've got a plutocracy, and the money men are part of it. But you're certainly free to continue to live under the illusion that all economic problems are the gummint's fault, and that any veering from Austrian capitalist orthodoxy automatically makes one a statist. Talk about 'ho-hum.'

I've not read much about the origins & history of libertarianism, but it would not surprise me if it has its root in a Rousseauian view of man, like most other manifestations of liberalism. If such is the case its anthropology is suspect from the get-go, and it would mean that one could no more be a Christian libertarian that he could be a Christian socialist. People try, of course, but it seems to require a fair amount of inconsistency.

[Benighted Savage]

B.S., BS. Like it or not, we've got a plutocracy, and the money men are part of it. But you're certainly free to continue to live under the illusion that all economic problems are the gummint's fault, and that any veering from Austrian capitalist orthodoxy automatically makes one a statist. Talk about 'ho-hum.'

"Plutocracy"? The "money men"? Rob G, that's just so 1930s! Next you'll start hinting at conspiracies of plutocrats and/or proclaiming the virtues of third-wayism.

I know that "retro" is fashionable these days, but I pray that authoritarian chic doesn't come back into fashion. And if you think that authoritarianism and hostility towards state centralization can't coincide as a political position, then you haven't been reading deeply enough (cf. the Action Francaise, gone but not forgotten).

[Rob G]

"if you think that authoritarianism and hostility towards state centralization can't coincide as a political position"

Of course I do; I'm a decentralist. I'm suspicious of any centralization, state, corporate or otherwise.

"Next you'll start hinting at conspiracies of plutocrats and/or proclaiming the virtues of third-wayism."

Don't believe in conspiracies. And yep, I'm a third-wayer if that means I reject the tired binary of laissez-faire capitalism vs. socialism. If there's anything that's more wearisome than the claim that if you question capitalism you must be a statist/socialist I haven't run across it.

Remember that Mises was just as much of an anti-Christian agnostic as Marx was. Why Christians feel the need to offer pinches of incense to either of them is beyond me.

[Michael Bauman (not Dr.)]

Some thoughts a large:

"A business/state" hybrid..." is that not the functional definition of the economics of fascism? IMO, the United States has always been under a greater internal threat to sucumb to some form of fascism than communism.

Capitalism vs. socialism is a less than useful dicotomy. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the tendency to think in dicotomous ways in a Chrisitan context leads to heresy.

There is no such thing as a free market, or rational market--a rationalized market perhaps. There will always be inequities of knowledge and power (so the government will always be involved); economic decisions always contain a significant element of what we irrationally desire; the government will always seek to expand its taxing power; and since the function of all government is to wield power, government will always seek to widen the scope of its power; since power usually confers economic advantage, businesses will also seek to widen their scope of power.

Two ways to manage: centralize or collaborate. The more anything is centralized, the less free it becomes.

Christianity, even in its most egalitarian forms, is essentially hierarchical and yet is founded upon the greatest kenotic act in history (The Cross). Hierarchy does not necessarily connote centralization.

It is easy to fall prey to the tempation to replace the Gospel with our default political/econonomic ideology and seek power rather than Christ.

[MCModerator]

Please keep the discussion civil, or the thread will be closed.

[Benighted Savage]

Of course I do; I'm a decentralist. I'm suspicious of any centralization, state, corporate or otherwise.

Rob G, partially quoting my original statement isn't a fair response. Am I to assume that part of your "decentralist" position is to deny the historical existence of political leagues like the Action Francaise that did combine authoritarianism and an hostility towards centralized state power? If so, that doesn't make sense.

Don't believe in conspiracies. And yep, I'm a third-wayer if that means I reject the tired binary of laissez-faire capitalism vs. socialism. If there's anything that's more wearisome than the claim that if you question capitalism you must be a statist/socialist I haven't run across it.

It's good news to hear that you no longer believe in that "cultural Marxism" conspiracy that you spoke of a couple of months ago. Aside from that, I see that you've missed my point: those who think they can solve the "problem" of capitalism by keeping business enterprise and getting rid of finance capital are indulging in the same kind of destructive utopian fantasies that the fascists and the communists engaged in. Capitalist economies are not modular entities that can be addressed piecemeal, with legislators free to keep what they want and discard the rest -- they are organic wholes that have grown over the centuries through the efforts and inventiveness of many a Christian man and woman. Jettisoning M-M while keeping M-C-M and C-M-C won't result in some WendellBerrian pastoral paradise; if the 20th century has shown us anything, it's that we can instead expect a wrecked economy, a wrecked polity, and a horrendous death toll.

[GL]

Surprise, surprise. The politicians in Washington have reached a hard-fought "compromise" where everyone "gave up" something. The President "gave" the Republicans all the income tax cut extensions they wanted and the Republicans "gave" the President the payroll tax extension and additional spending that he wanted. The only problem is that the ultimate source for all the money "given" (some $900B in more debt over the next two years) are our children and grandchildren. The immediate source are buyers of bonds and, especially, the Chinese. The bond market has noticed and has decided that if we won't discipline ourselves, they'll start the job for us. See Bonds Plunge as Tax Plan Raises Debt Worries and US Fiscal Health Worse Than Europe’s: China Official. QE2 is a bust as bond prices have plunged and interest rates have skyrocketed ever since it was officially announced and now the deal on taxes and spending which President Obama announced has added fuel to the fire.

The rest of the world, including the spendthrift Europeans, are deleveraging, cutting spending while raising taxes. The U.S. continues, meantime, to increase spending while cutting revenue. Democrats won't stop insisting on spending more and Republicans won't stop insisting on cutting revenues, so the "compromise" always ends us with us doing both. So thirty years of foolishly cutting revenue while increasing spending goes on unabated while the runaway train speeds ever faster toward its derailment.

Eisenhower, like a prudent grandfather expressing timeless wisdom from a bygone era, warned us about this more than half-a-century ago when, as the last fiscally conservative Republican president he resisted calls for tax cuts and warned:

Every dollar spent by the government must be paid for either by taxes or by more borrowing with greater debt. The only way to make more tax cuts now is to have bigger and bigger deficits and to borrow more and more money. Either we or our children will have to bear the burden of this debt. This is one kind of chicken that always comes home to roost. An unwise tax cutter, my fellow citizens, is no real friend of the taxpayer.

Of course, the problem is that the taxpayers harmed are not those who insist on tax cuts now, while also agreeing to more spending, they are our children and grandchildren. What we are witnessing is legislated fiscal immorality, an immorality every bit as evil as the government-sponsored sexual immorality which appalls so many of us. We are stealing from them to pay for our lack of discipline and self-sacrifice. And no one is willing to "compromise" their "principles" to do the right thing by our children and grandchildren. So please don't tell me that it's immoral to return tax rates to the levels of the Clinton years, which were, in fact, lower than under most of Reagan's administration following his first round of tax cuts. What's immoral is making inevitable even higher taxes on our children and grandchildren.

[Rob G]

~~Am I to assume that part of your "decentralist" position is to deny the historical existence of political leagues like the Action Francaise that did combine authoritarianism and an hostility towards centralized state power?~~

No, what I am saying is that statism is by nature centralist, whether that statism is purely gov't statism or some private/public hybrid. Centralism need not lead to authoritarianism, but it usually does, even if it's of the "soft" variety.

~~It's good news to hear that you no longer believe in that "cultural Marxism" conspiracy that you spoke of a couple of months ago.~~

You misremember what I said back then. I certainly believe in a cultural Marxist movement; I do not, however, believe it is a "conspiracy," and I specifically said so at the time.

~~those who think they can solve the "problem" of capitalism by keeping business enterprise and getting rid of finance capital are indulging in the same kind of destructive utopian fantasies that the fascists and the communists engaged in~~

Please. If the utopian fantasy exists anywhere it exists among those who believe that unregulated markets and unrestrained capitalism will bring peace and prosperity to the entire world. It's simply the flipside of the Socialist fantasy. I know of no one among the conservative critics of corporate capitalism who has anything like an agrarian paradise in mind. It's just another tired binary: "You don't believe in corporate capitalism? You must want everyone to go back to subsistence farming!"

Gimme a break.

[GL]

And yet another voice crying in the wilderness: Bond Vigilantes Could Target US: Roubini. An excerpt:

Obama-GOP tax deal costs $900 billion over two years. US kicking the can further down the road. Are bond vigilantes starting to wake up?

[Benighted Savage]

No, what I am saying is that statism is by nature centralist, whether that statism is purely gov't statism or some private/public hybrid. Centralism need not lead to authoritarianism, but it usually does, even if it's of the "soft" variety.

That's a fine statement of your position, Rob G, but completely beside the point. Are you willing to address the historical connection between authoritarianism and decentralized government or not?

You misremember what I said back then. I certainly believe in a cultural Marxist movement; I do not, however, believe it is a "conspiracy," and I specifically said so at the time.

Actually, your exact words were "That's actually one I do believe in, although I wouldn't describe it [Cultural Marxism] as a conspiracy. It's more of a concerted directive movement, like that of much other Leftism." C'mon, Rob G. In the past you've cited Weyrich and Lind -- not to mention Gottfried -- where the conspiratorial import of CM was quite clear. You're just glossing the word "conspiracy" and then claiming your gloss has a different meaning.

Please. If the utopian fantasy exists anywhere it exists among those who believe that unregulated markets and unrestrained capitalism will bring peace and prosperity to the entire world. It's simply the flipside of the Socialist fantasy. I know of no one among the conservative critics of corporate capitalism who has anything like an agrarian paradise in mind. It's just another tired binary: "You don't believe in corporate capitalism? You must want everyone to go back to subsistence farming!"

You're missing my point. Aside from the fact that I'm not here defending (nor have I ever defended) laissez-faire capitalism, the fact is that there have been, are, and will doubtless continue to be utopian reactions to capitalism as it is. Some are pro-capitalist, others are anti-capitalist: some species of the latter kind of utopianism is what you appear to be advocating. As Edmund Burke was known to point out, they can all be quite dangerous when pursued as political programs.

[Rob G]

"Are you willing to address the historical connection between authoritarianism and decentralized government or not?"

I'd be happy to if I could see how it was pertinent. It's rather like bringing up the decentralist Left. Interesting topic, but not really related to the subject at hand.

~~You're just glossing the word "conspiracy" and then claiming your gloss has a different meaning~~

Nope. I said it and I meant it. If it were just a "gloss" I wouldn't have had to say it at all, right? Perhaps you equate a "concerted movement" with a conspiracy, but I do not.

"some species of the latter kind of utopianism is what you appear to be advocating"

I am far too convinced of the Fall of Man to be any sort of utopian. To my mind utopianism and conservatism are diametrically opposed to one another.

[Benighted Savage]

I'd be happy to if I could see how it was pertinent. It's rather like bringing up the decentralist Left. Interesting topic, but not really related to the subject at hand.

I'd say it's pertinent because authoritarianism was a common problem of 19th and 20th century anti-capitalist utopian schemes, even those which were explicitly antagonistic to centralized state power (economic and otherwise). Thus, it's an insufficient defense to claim that your scheme -- whatever it is -- doesn't risk being or becoming authoritarian simply because it is "decentralist" (or simply because you say so, for that matter). And with the presence of authoritarianism comes the "Boo! Hiss!" reaction I wrote of earlier, and deservedly so.

~~You're just glossing the word "conspiracy" and then claiming your gloss has a different meaning~~

Nope. I said it and I meant it. If it were just a "gloss" I wouldn't have had to say it at all, right? Perhaps you equate a "concerted movement" with a conspiracy, but I do not.

Once again, you're being paradoxical: on the one hand you write that you do not believe in conspiracies, and yet on the other hand on this forum you have vociferously defended the cockamamie conspiratorial ideas held by Paul Gottfried and Weyrich and Lind on "cultural marxism." I don't buy it.

I am far too convinced of the Fall of Man to be any sort of utopian. To my mind utopianism and conservatism are diametrically opposed to one another.

I hold them to be contraries, too. However, I don't see how you can be anti-utopian in a conservative sense and also hold to the unrelenting Anti-Capitalist (and, yes, utopian) position that you frequently express on this forum. You're being paradoxical again.

[Rob G]

All I am saying is that centralization of wealth and power tends to centralizing of authority, and that diffusion of same tends towards the opposite result. I'm not claiming that there are no exceptions to those tendencies or that they are immutable laws. If there were such a thing as a decentralist authoritarian government in the offings, I'd oppose it.

As far as cultural Marxism goes, you're perfectly free to reject the idea that there was a concerted effort on the part of the radical Left in this country to move it Leftward by means of influencing academia. I happen to accept it. But I still don't see it as a conspiracy, and neither, if I recall, do Weyrich and Lind, nor Roger Kimball, nor Tom Pauken, nor many other folks who've written on the subject. Never heard of Gramsci's "long march through the culture," I take it?

Please explain how suspicion of finance or corporate capitalism is necessarily utopian. I will grant that some anti-Capitalists are utopians, but I completely reject the notion that it's automatically or necessarily so.

[Benighted Savage]

As far as cultural Marxism goes, you're perfectly free to reject the idea that there was a concerted effort on the part of the radical Left in this country to move it Leftward by means of influencing academia. I happen to accept it. But I still don't see it as a conspiracy, and neither, if I recall, do Weyrich and Lind, nor Roger Kimball, nor Tom Pauken, nor many other folks who've written on the subject. Never heard of Gramsci's "long march through the culture," I take it?

Are you being serious? I'm well aware that there are "concerted efforts" by the Radical Left, the Radical Right, and all groups in between to persuade academics, politicians, voters, and just about everyone else in this country. This is what things like "think tanks," news outlets, private and university presses, and magazines DO. But when Weyrich and Lind write in an ominous tone that "Horkheimer and Adorno spent the war years in Hollywood" or that Marcuse "injected the Cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt school into the Baby Boom generation" (cf. pp.38-9 of their _The New Conservatism_) then it's fair to say that they're peddling a conspiracy theory (and I DO mean this in a perjorative sense). Weyrich's 1999 "alien ideology" letter and Lind's later "Origins of Political Correctness" speech are just more of the same.

As for Gramsci, what's your point? I had to read his _Prison Notebooks_ as an undergrad; so, yes, I'm familiar with him. By the way, you are aware that the "long march through the institutions" quip was made by Rudi Dutschke in 1967, about 30 years after Gramsci died. Dutschke alludes here to Mao's 1934-35 "Long March," something that Gramsci probably never heard of.

Please explain how suspicion of finance or corporate capitalism is necessarily utopian. I will grant that some anti-Capitalists are utopians, but I completely reject the notion that it's automatically or necessarily so.

Rob G, I suspect that you've gone far beyond mere suspicion of finance capital. As evidence of this I would refer you to your constantly bringing up distributism and other third-ways as replacements for, not reforms of, our capitalist economy. As for the utopian character of the several anti-capitalisms (not anti-capitalists), I would base it upon what I see as their ultra-rationalist (or, occasionally, ultra-reactionary) eliding of our nation's capitalist traditions (with their associated liberties) and also the fact that they ask us to discard the time-tested legal and economic inheritance from our forefathers for pie-in-the-sky schemes that we have no guarantee will ever work.

[Rob G]

We're just going to have to disagree on cultural Leftism/Marxism. I obviously see the thing as more of a concerted effort than you do, while not viewing it as rising to the level of a conspiracy. Read Kimball if you haven't yet, although you'll probably consider him "cockamamie" too.

"your constantly bringing up distributism and other third-ways as replacements for, not reforms of, our capitalist economy"

Baloney. I've said any number of times that while I appreciate many of their ideas I'm NOT a distributist. I've described myself on at least three occasions as basically a Southern conservative who happens to live in the North, and I've expressed my support of both Jeffersonian democracy and business enterprise or what might be called "small market capitalism." Quit trying to read my mind; I consider that as arguing in bad faith. This is Mere Comments not the Psychic Network.
Your pigeonholing of anti-corporate capitalism as necessarily utopian simply won't wash. Paul Cella, Wendell Berry, William Cavanaugh, Charles McDaniel, Jeffrey Martin, the various conservative Catholic critics of corporate capitalism etc. -- sorry, dude, but there's not a utopian among 'em that I've run across (unless, of course, by utopian you mean someone who thinks that things could be better than the status quo).

[Benighted Savage]

We're just going to have to disagree on cultural Leftism/Marxism. I obviously see the thing as more of a concerted effort than you do, while not viewing it as rising to the level of a conspiracy. Read Kimball if you haven't yet, although you'll probably consider him "cockamamie" too.

Once again, your paradox: you see no conspiracy, and yet you refer to writers (Weyrich, Lind) who do. For a critique of PC, I'd recommend writers like Alan Bloom, John M. Ellis, and Robert Bork. They're not perfect, but they do have a more accurate view of academia since the fiasco of '68. Bloom is especially knowledgeable in regards to the radical 60s (at least he acknowledges the strong Maoist influence).

"your constantly bringing up distributism and other third-ways as replacements for, not reforms of, our capitalist economy"

Baloney. I've said any number of times that while I appreciate many of their ideas I'm NOT a distributist. I've described myself on at least three occasions as basically a Southern conservative who happens to live in the North, and I've expressed my support of both Jeffersonian democracy and business enterprise or what might be called "small market capitalism." Quit trying to read my mind; I consider that as arguing in bad faith. This is Mere Comments not the Psychic Network.

I know you're not a distributist, although you point to distributism as one of your inspirations often enough. Did you bother to read the entirety of my sentence that you quoted? -- "...I would refer you to your constantly bringing up distributism and other third-ways as replacements for, not reforms of, our capitalist economy." As for your saying that I'm "mind reading" and "arguing in bad faith," I don't see where that's coming from. Please cf. the MCModerator's admonition that we keep this discussion civil, something that I've been making a great effort to do ;^).

Your pigeonholing of anti-corporate capitalism as necessarily utopian simply won't wash. Paul Cella, Wendell Berry, William Cavanaugh, Charles McDaniel, Jeffrey Martin, the various conservative Catholic critics of corporate capitalism etc. -- sorry, dude, but there's not a utopian among 'em that I've run across (unless, of course, by utopian you mean someone who thinks that things could be better than the status quo).

Rob G, I thought we were talking about finance capital. A discussion of, say, Novak or Bainbridge on corporate capitalism would be interesting but a little beside the point. I'm sorry if you found unsatisfactory my brief and general account of why I find anti-capitalism to be utopian; perhaps I could have presented something more specific if you had bothered to express a less amorphous account of what your anti-capitalist position IS. It might also help if you were to specifically address substantive claims that I've been making on this thread -- e.g., that America has a long-standing capitalist (including finance capital) tradition that's served this country well -- instead of retreating into an ad hominem defense via your "good guys I read" laundry list of authorities. C'mon Rob G. -- make your own arguments.

[Rob G]

I've read Bloom & Ellis, but not Bork. I'm always interested in reading more on the subject, so maybe I'll get to him at some point.

Basically I see finance & corporate capitalism as roughly coterminous if not exactly equivalent. They involve government "greasing the skids" in favor of big companies, whether financial or industrial, to the detriment of small market business enterprise, providing a reduction of risk and "insurance" against bankruptcy that small businesses do not have. In effect, the government tips the scales in favor of big companies, which in turn prompts said companies to support candidates and policies which favor them, and gives the companies a measure of clout/influence in government policymaking that small business does not have. It is basically a big revolving door.

Now some anti-capitalists would argue that this is a necessary aspect of capitalism; I for one do not believe that. But I do believe that if the government is going to be in the scale-tipping business, the "preferential option" should be going to small businesses and farms, not gigantic multinational corporations.

My list of names was simply to point out that there are a number of prominent critics of finance/corporate capitalism who are in no way, shape or form utopians. In fact, one could make the argument that a lot of them are precisely anti-utopian, if the utopia in question is that of the global capitalist marketplace. Ever hear the clowns at the Club For Growth talk? Who, actually, are the utopians here?

[Rob G]

Oh, and if you still don't believe me about the utopianism you can visit the two other blogs that I frequent, Front Porch Republic and What's Wrong With the World; I challenge you to search high and low and see if you can find any utopianism on either one of them.

[Benighted Savage]

Basically I see finance & corporate capitalism as roughly coterminous if not exactly equivalent. They involve government "greasing the skids" in favor of big companies, whether financial or industrial, to the detriment of small market business enterprise, providing a reduction of risk and "insurance" against bankruptcy that small businesses do not have. In effect, the government tips the scales in favor of big companies, which in turn prompts said companies to support candidates and policies which favor them, and gives the companies a measure of clout/influence in government policymaking that small business does not have. It is basically a big revolving door.

Rob G, this seems more like a concise version of your critique du capitalisme than what finance capitalism is all about. You might try reading James Macdonald's _A Free Nation Deep in Debt: the Financial Roots of Democracy_ (which has a very useful bibliography) and the historical part of Barry Eichengreen's _Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System_ for some deeper insight.

I've visited both the _Front Porch Republic_ and _WWWW_. I was not impressed.