America is not a conservative nation

This is going to be a rather polemical piece, dry on current politics and more to do with philosophy and culture. My mind, as of late, has been shifting to culture. Yes, yes I still follow the daily political news, but I feel as if that is a reflective, rearguard battle. Increasingly, I believe that the real debate within our society is over what type of society we wish to be. The political system, being fundamentally democratic, will reflect such a society. In fact, much of the increasing partisanship, rancor, and ideological clashes in politics can be attributed not to a new set of political issues, but rather to the increasing divides in America’s culture. There is no longer a hegemonic culture whose mores, beliefs, and values set the course for the nation’s cultural and, consequently, political direction. But that is for another post.

The title of this post can mean many things. Typically though, statements as to whether America was a conservative or liberal nation are attempts to identify and describe that nation’s political preferences. These arguments take the form of identifying polling data that gives a majority response to a conservative or liberal position. A majority of Americans are pro-life, and thus we are a conservative nation, conservatives will argue. Wait, say the liberals, a majority back higher taxes on the rich and support the EPA, so we are actually a liberal. Some decide to split the baby in half, and label us a centrist nation. This labeling activity is fun, but ultimately pointless since the definitions of conservatism and liberalism, popularly understood, seem to shift so readily. But this is not what I have in mind. (For the record, I think America is a center right nation, especially on economics).

Before I make my point, I want to define a few terms. We frequently hear and use the terms conservatism and liberalism in our political discourse, but I believe they are divorced from their true meanings. Liberalism in the American sense is very different from liberalism as understood by Europeans. The same is true for conservatism. An American conservative and a European conservative are two very different political animals.

I’m going force a very crude categorization onto political ideologies. Despite all of their nuances and details and thinkers, I’m placing them into three very broad and overly general camps. I freely admit to all of the errors and abstractions this implies. The three main ideologies are: conservatism, liberalism, and socialism. Let’s define each one, starting with the latter.

Socialism is any ideology stemming from Marx that seeks to maximize or is primarily concerned with equality and opposed to traditional moorings. Socialism places emphasize on realizing equality through political or cultural means. It is also an economic system that excludes private property and places all ownership within the hands of the public. We delude ourselves if we think of socialism only in economic terms. As Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School are so keen to realize, socialism incorporates and necessitates an all encompassing socialistic culture. This definition, if limited, should be relatively uncontroversial with my readers.

Liberalism is the next ideology in our list and one of the most variant ideologies. I define liberalism as any system that mentions or values rights and is primarily concerned with human liberty. Equality too has a role within the liberal system, and produces a tension with liberty that gives much of the character of the political energy within liberal systems. The liberal system is a democratic system, and as such requires, much like socialism, a matching culture. Liberal democracy produces and is sustained by a liberal political culture. Note, that liberalism has different flavors. It can be a more capitalist liberal system, such as the United States and the Anglosphere, or it can be a more state managed liberal system, such as the Nordic countries. Its variants all share the notion of private property stemming from a belief in political and natural rights. This challenges American contemporary wisdom, but capitalism and liberalism are twin forces, both upsetting the previous feudal order, both placing emphasis on meritocracy over inherited powers. My definition of liberalism is in accordance with the European and academic definitions of liberalism.

Finally, we have conservatism. In the European context, true conservatism is something very alien to most Americans. It places tradition and the natural order above all else. Conservatism is closely aligned with monarchism, though it can exist in other political regimes. Religion is highly valued, as are the traditional bonds within the community. The aristocracy rules not only because it is inherent to the definition of aristocracy, but also because the aristocracy trained from birth, is the best at ruling. The body politic is not constituted by a contract among peers, but instead by blood and tradition. Every man, from the peasant to the king, has a role within society. And everyman’s role is determined by their birth.

When viewed in this light, I come to what I mean by the title of this piece. America is not a conservative nation, because it was founded on a radical, liberal order. The constitution and Declaration of Independence, with their insistence on natural rights and the right of the people to both rule and determine those rulers, is fundamentally a liberal regime. It rejects the rights of the aristocracy, monarchs, and inevitably the church to govern. A man’s place in the world is determined by and through his own effort, not his father’s position or class. Indeed, the success of the liberal regime in America has thoroughly spread throughout the world. The old conservative natural order of duties and privileges, lords and nobles, monarchs and subjects, has been thoroughly demolished and replaced by liberal regimes. Tsarist Russia, Metternich’s Austria, and the Bourbon’s France are all dead, replaced by liberal democratic states. Even in countries that still nominally have a monarchy, such as the United Kingdom or the Netherlands, the actual governing regime is liberal, not conservative, in character with its emphasis on liberty and rights.

Under this context, America’s political parties are not fundamentally different, though they offer very different policy prescriptions and constitute very different classes and ethnicities. They are both liberal parties, arguing over what strain of liberalism should be adopted. Conservatives in the United States are the old radicals who have been redefined by the forces of time. They seek to maintain and return to the original liberal political order defined by negative rights, limited government, and liberty. The reasons conservatives place such emphasis on the constitution is because it is precisely that document, and its implied political understanding, that they seek to protect. They are liberals in the sense that they believe in rights, liberties, and equality, but they are conservative, and at times reactionaries, in that they seek to preserve and enact an earlier understanding of those concepts.

American liberalism, contemporarily understood, is just liberalism but with an increased focus on material conditions. The equal and free society endorsed by the constitution requires ever more interference in the private economy and culture to equalize man’s material and social conditions. The extent of which is subject to internal debate.

American conservatism seems to always be giving ground, especially in the cultural sense, because it is protecting something that the system it espouses rejects. The traditional family, and the implied interdependence of its parts, is not a product of the liberal order but the conservative, monarchical order. Individualism is a product of a liberal political order, and extreme individualism runs directly counter to the putative concept of the family. American conservatives want a liberal political system but with a conservative culture. But the liberal political system runs counter to a conservative culture. It actively encourages a culture reflecting the values and beliefs of itself. Whether or not a liberalism political system can survive with a liberal culture, a society of atoms and not families, over the long run is debatable and possibly, perhaps probably, unlikely.

Does this then predict the permanent ascendency of political and cultural liberalism? Not quite. It is certainly not a prediction of the permanent dominance of the American Democratic Party. If the culture changes, the parties will reevaluate their positions, in their constant efforts to seek a majority of voters. If a politically liberal system produces a liberal, individualistic culture but requires the conservative culture of yesteryear to sustain it, what then? I truly don’t know.

I’m going to end here. Perhaps more on this later. I hope this is clear, and as always, I welcome comments or questions. Part of the fun of this blog is not just in sharing my thoughts with the public, but putting pen to paper and crystallizing, through writing, many disparate and inchoate thoughts.

Who dares, wins

            I have two pieces on my mind, this one and another one on a new type of morality I’m seeing emerge within my generation, but I’ll save the latter for later. Instead, I’d like to focus on the Paul Ryan pick and specifically the left’s reaction to it. I think there’s an interesting story there that’s not being told and which, in the due course of this post, I plan to tell.

            Before we to that, just a few words on the politics of the Paul Ryan pick. As Will Ackell can attest, I was initially dismayed by the Paul Ryan pick for several reasons. I thought that he would sink Romney’s chances with seniors (Mediscare), lose Florida and possibly Ohio for Romney, and add little in the way of electoral gains. Who, I wondered, was Ryan’s natural demographic that he brought to the ticket? Not Latinos, not blacks, not women, no one except nerdy Wisconsinite wonks. I had every confidence in him to serve as Vice President, he has the intellect, gravitas, and competency to do the job well, but I thought his selection made him less likely to even get to that position. Now that he’s been chosen, I think I may have been wrong. He seems to be doing rather well in his politicking and campaigning, and anecdotally, I don’t think blue collar voters, or most independent voters, outright initially loathe him. After the Obama campaign ads come, that may all change. But so far, he has seemed to have done little harm.

            On to my main point. In attempt to avoid epistemic closure, I always try to step outside the bubble of right wing thought and blogs and read columns, articles, facebook posts, and blog posts from those with apolitical, centrist, and leftwing views. If you want to get the pulse on the more flippant, dogmatic left, head over to Reddit’s politics section. If you want to get a hold of a more measured, thoughtful segment of the leftwing community, go to somewhere like the New Republic or the Atlantic. And if you want to read stupid nonsense because you hate yourself and your brain and eyes, go over to Newsweek and read whatever bile they barf up for that day.

            Anyways, after the Paul Ryan decision I immediately scanned these sites to find that the left’s reaction to Ryan’s selection was mixed. On one hand, some welcomed his addition to the race, hoping that despite ideological disagreements, it would bring a much needed serious discussion to the campaign. On the other hand, the rank and file of the Democratic Party displayed a mixture of glee and indignation. He’s a Randian fanboy that wants to destroy the welfare state, they posted, and he’s going to sink Romney.

           There are a lot of problems with Paul Ryan policy wise (his support of TARP, the auto bailouts, the Patriot Act, etc) but what he’s right on is the need to tackle entitlements. His plan can be debated and its relative merits and demerits weighed out and judged accordingly. Yet, it is intellectually dishonest and dangerous to the fiscal health of our nation to assume that entitlement programs can continue on, unreformed, indefinitely. Federal unfunded liabilities total some $86 trillion dollars. If you want an illustration of this problem, look no further than to this chart kindly provided by the Congressional Budget Office and painstakingly pasted by myself:

What you should be paying attention to is the lime green (they really picked an ugly color) line. This is what’s going to happen if we do nothing. Public debt will explode. Eventually, interest payments on this debt will consume an ever-widening portion of Federal spending, crowding out other forms of spending. And this is in the best case. If bond traders get particularly aggressive, it is highly possible although presently unlikely that investors could lose confidence in their faith of the US government’s ability to pay its debts. As such, they will bid interest rates up even higher, potentially leading to a Greek like situation at worst, or even less money available for spending on other areas. Imagine, if you would, the bulk of your tax dollars going not to services or education or medicare or defense or whatever it is you like that the Federal government does, but instead to bond holders.

            This is a nightmare scenario, but unless something is done, it’s going to happen in some form. Paul Ryan, despite his many deficiencies, gets credit in my book for willing to tackle and engage with this issue. Even mentioning the word entitlements can cost a politico several thousand votes.

            What confuses me though is that so many on the left refuse to even acknowledge that this problem exists. Despite this being an inherently political issue, recognizing that entitlements must be reformed in some manner should not require ideology or partisanship to make. This is a factual issue. You can be an outright communist and acknowledge that America’s entitlements are in a bad state. It’s like seeing a burning building. How does saying, oh look there is a fire, require the political part of your brain to fire off neurons? It doesn’t.

            I’ve observed two reactions when I raise this issue in debate from leftwing people. First, refusal to even concede that there is a problem, or even an issue, or even a matter for slight concern. It’s all fuzzy math, they assert, designed by the right to scare people into passing austere and draconian cuts to the state. I won’t doubt that there is a political edge given to the right that comes from this fact set, but the facts still exist. If it were all an illusion, why are academics, bond traders, investors, economists, the CBO, Democratic politicians, and others all saying that it’s an actual problem? If this is some kind of grand conspiracy by the right, then why are so many non-political or leftist people raising the issue? The answer, of course, is the simplest one. It’s not a conspiracy, it actually exists, and something must be done.

            The second reaction I’ve encountered is one of flippancy. Simply repeal the Bush tax cuts and raise taxes on the rich and, voila, problem solved. As the WSJ points out (I know, evil Murdoch, feel free to engage in your two minutes of hate), if we were to tax the income of millionaires and billionaires at 100%, then we would only have “$938 billion.” Ok, great job comrade, the rich have paid their fair share, now what? There’s still trillions more to go, and that’s only addressing the budget deficit, not to mention the trillions in future liabilities. Let’s put aside what disastrous effects taxing the rich at 100% would have on the economy (one doesn’t have to be an acolyte of Laffer to see that that would cause serious problems), and now let’s look to other forms of income. The poor? That doesn’t make sense, since we are giving them money and they are, well, poor. Ah yes, here’s a group that has lots of surplus income, the middle class! It is a sheer fact of reality that if you want entitlements to continue at their current rate, you have to raise taxes on the middle class (and even that might not solve it). Yet, you’ll find few politicians, and even fewer die hard leftists, willing to admit this. If we want the entitlement system to continue on as is, we need to have tax rates approaching the levels of our European peers. We cannot have our cake and eat it too.

            And here, in closing, is where I don’t get why leftists are mocking and glibly dismissing Paul Ryan. The debate over entitlements is one we need to have. Reform will come, one way or another. Yet so far, in their refusal to acknowledge facts, the left has not shown up to the debate. Where is the Paul Ryan of the left? Let me say that again, where is the Paul Ryan of the left? Where is a policy proposal that reforms SS, Medicare, and Medicaid from the left wing perspective that doesn’t strictly rely on gimmicks such as raising taxes on the rich? Fine, raise taxes on the rich, and then what? The left is ignoring this issue at their peril. If they simply abstain from this debate, then they cede ground to the right allowing them to reframe reform on their grounds. In politics, first proposals count because they set the range on future and further proposals. In failing to offer serious policy proposals, the left continually cedes ground to the right.

            So here is my advice to leftists, communists, socialists, Democrats, liberals, or whatever other grouping out there. Talk about entitlement reform. Talk about it a lot. Come up with and then talk about what you plan to do. Entitlement reform is coming, and now is the time to sow your ideological seeds on fertile ground. Laugh at, mock, demonize Paul Ryan if you wish, but make sure you have a Paul Ryan of your own. Who dares, wins.