We’re already at war
James Poulos thinks I’m wrong to advocate against Arthur Brooks’ culture war:
Alas, the cultural conflict is already blazing. Some people think a federal tax on tanning is a legitimate tool of economic policy. Some don’t. Some think the President is entitled to bestow a $400 million guaranteed loan on a single company because he favors their product. Some don’t. Disagreements like these are not the result of idle preferences. Whole worldviews are at stake.
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E.D.’s insinuation that social democracy merely reflects some peoples’ preferences simply begs the question. But economics takes preferences as it finds them. Its refusal to look deeper — and it refuses because its refusal makes its behavioral leverage possible — reveals the truth: statism is a cultural project, a vision of the highest, that conflicts at the level of first principles with the culture of free enterprise. Arthur Brooks is right, like it or not: there already is "a struggle between two competing visions of America’s future." It’s been underway for at least a hundred years. Obama knows which side he is on. Do you?
I’m always loathe to draw hard lines in soft sand, but I nevertheless think James has a point. There really is a cultural struggle under way, and while the sides in question may be murky at times – as evidenced by the ongoing liberaltarian debate – that struggle isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.
I’m not sure James is very far off in his assessment of this cultural conflict, but that doesn’t particularly change my own argument: namely, that cultural questions need not necessarily become culture wars even though it is inevitable that they will lead to disagreements, struggles, and so forth. Nor does picking sides necessitate an ‘us against them’ mentality – or at least, not always. I think amidst all of our disagreements over economics, there is still room for common ground. And these are the places I’d like to take the conversation. Perhaps there is a place for soldiers on the field, for partisans and generals, but there is also a place for diplomats. That doesn’t mean we have to meet in some blurry middle. There are questions that require us to hold firm to our convictions.
But treating our economic differences as a culture war – however cultural those differences may be – will not shed any more light on the debate. It will only serve to obscure.
“War” is generally a bad addition to any phrase in the political realm. I think you made that point already E.D. It sounds right to me.Report
Well if Poulos is correct, which i don’t think he is, then Democracy itself is permanent cultural war. Of course policy differences relate to different world views….no duh. But is every difference a binary difference between good and bad. How are we supposed to have a future as a country if every issue will be looked at as as a war? Seeing issues as a culture war is about demonizing the other side, assuming you have all the answers and seeing every issue as a winner take all problem with no common ground.Report
I don’t believe there is such a cultural conflict. Or rather, if there is one the number of people genuinely on the side that dislikes government loans to car companies and taxes on tanning is tiny. There’s a much larger group of people who’ll cheerfully wave the banner of fiscal conservatism as long as the cuts concerned only affect people they don’t know and don’t much like, but who’ll furl their flags and limp home the minute the really expensive programmes they personally benefit from come under threat. Given that Brooks is who he is, one rather suspects that he’s targetting the latter, and that the result if he has any success will merely be the diversion of money from programmes that are well-intentioned but misguided, to programmes that are merely misguided.Report
Would it be relevant to point out that Poulos’ fear-casting over whether “the President is entitled to bestow a $400 million guaranteed loan on a single company because he favors their product” is almost completely devoid of merit as a point of debate? “The President” didn’t loan the company $400 million. The federal government did, in much the same way the federal government has incented oil-based energy for decades. Perhaps Poulos wouldn’t be so agitated about the economic “culture war” if he bothered to think the event in question through completely.Report
In a reasonable world of course people work on common goals, but when there are two contrasting directions in which to proceed, there has to be a battle of ideas in the marketplace of ideas in order to establish direction — between these contrasting worldviews, in spite of common areas of cooperation, there are differences which can’t be resolved in compromise — decisions have to be made to follow one or the other, and they will be made, if not by you, then by others. Those who opt for indecision will have to settle for watching the direction shift one way or the other, and just hope it doesn’t harm them. We’ve tried the mixed economy idea of finding the perfect combination, but when power is at stake, statism wins in all compromises because of the monopoly of coercion we’ve given government — that power is either strictly limited, as in separation of State and economy, and State and religion, or it expands. Our founders knew this, as did Alexis de Toqueville and many others who have far too few intellectual heirs today.Report
@Mike Farmer, The problem is that the opposition being set up isn’t real. The genuinely anti-statist or limited-statist faction in miniscule, and statism-as-statism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Statist means are adopted for particular ends. In practise when people write books about “free enterprise” they’re no really advocating an anti-statist agenda but advocating redirecting the energies of the state away from protecting individuals against predatory monopolies and towards protect the monopolies. Its not a step forward for the most part.Report
@Simon K,
Who do you read? That’s not my idea of a free market. Perhaps you need to read more intelligent libertarian work.Report
@Mike Farmer, Oh I read plenty of smart libertarians. I just have a jaundiced view of libertarian rhetoric when its used by national politicians. Whether its out of dishonesty or political feasiblity only the part of the program that hurts the politically weak ever gets implemented.Report
@Simon K,
Well, of course — you’re talking about politicians — I’m talking about human beings.Report
I think, honestly, that as is usually the case, Poulos misses the point, so committed is he to his finely wrought ideology. I mean, to some extent I do agree with him, insofar as I agree that democracy is culture war – where I disagree is that he assumes that people actually have worldviews that make sense. He assumes, wrongly, that most people are like him. But if you’re not an intellectual ideologue or a committed partisan, then odds are, the sort of things he dismisses as “idle preferences” are your worldview.
(Incidentally, I have always taken him to be the truest form of ideologue – one whose devotion to principles is entirely untainted by either partisan emotionalism or fact, never mind that an absence of logical fallacies does not equal truth.)Report
@JosephFM,
I believe people understand the division at a basic level much better than you think — sure, there are inconsistencies in their ideas regarding government interference and a free market, but they understand the contrast. Plus, more and more people are educating themselves on these issues since the issues are getting more play in the media and on the internet. But I imagine Poulos was talking about the politically active and fairly knowledgable in society — among these the divide is pretty obvious.Report
@Mike Farmer, so basiclly Democracy = Us vs Them
Yeah that is exactly the high minded idealism of the founders.Report
@gregiank,
I’m not defining democracy, simply addressing the cultural divide and contrast in worldviews which is being debated.Report
@Mike Farmer,
It’s not like each side is sending cruise missiles at the other. So far, there have ben no casualties. We need to be caregul using military terminology — this is a legitimate debate and perfectly healthy, even if it gets heated — that’s nothing new, and mostly milder than older debates, when violence wasn’t unheard of.Report
It’s hard for me not to hear Philip Rieff whenever Poulos opens his mouth. I get why that is, given he’s a research interest, but that’s what I see here. For years, Rieff wrote that intelligent people need to ‘hang back’ from the culture wars, before finally deciding that there is nothing outside of endless culture war, whether we like it or not. So, whole worldviews are always at stake.
I don’t think that Poulos is saying things should or shouldn’t be this way; just that they are. But part of the total insanity of political discussion in the U.S. right now is tied to this inability to have a dispassionate debate about friggin anything! It reminds me of the worst parts of hanging out in college.Report
Are there really any disputes-of-fact left, on which “light” may usefully be shed? Or is it, as I believe, merely time for the good guys to prepare for a conflict in which almost any means is justified (whether or not it quite qualifies to be called a “war”)? I believe the latter. Everybody’s mind is made up, and the ones who should change theirs won’t as long as they are in power.Report