Maggie's Farm

When Roger writes, it's a safe bet that he is writing what we would write, had we the time, brains, and talent. A quote from Hillary and Hayek, Redux:

As Hayek observed, the socialist, the sentimentalist, cannot understand why, if people have been able to “generate some system of rules coordinating their efforts,” they cannot also consciously “design an even better and more gratifying system.” Central to Hayek’s teaching is the unyielding fact that human ingenuity is limited, that the elasticity of freedom requires the agency of forces beyond our supervision, that, finally, the ambitions of socialism are an expression of rationalistic hubris. A spontaneous order generated by market forces may be as beneficial to humanity as you like; it may have greatly extended life and produced wealth so staggering that, only a few generations ago, it was unimaginable. Still, it is not perfect. The poor are still with us. Not every social problem has been solved. In the end, though, the really galling thing about the spontaneous order that free markets produce is not its imperfection but its spontaneity: the fact that it is a creation not our own. It transcends the conscious direction of human will and is therefore an affront to human pride.

The urgency with which Hayek condemns socialism is a function of the importance of the stakes involved. As he puts it in his last book The Fatal Conceit, the “dispute between the market order and socialism is no less than a matter of survival” because “to follow socialist morality would destroy much of present humankind and impoverish much of the rest.” We get a foretaste of what Hayek means whenever the forces of socialism triumph. There follows, as the night the day, an increase in poverty and a diminution of individual freedom.

Read the whole thing.

From a heavy-duty but brief essay by Roger Kimball, a quote:

Political correctness tends to breed the sort of unaccountability that Stephen warns against. At its center is a union of abstract benevolence, which takes mankind as a whole for its object, with rigid moralism. It is a toxic, misery-producing brew.

The Australian philosopher David Stove got to the heart of the problem when he pointed out that it is precisely this combination of universal benevolence fired by uncompromising moralism that underwrites the cult of political correctness. “Either element on its own,” Stove observed,

is almost always comparatively harmless. A person who is convinced that he has a moral obligation to be benevolent, but who in fact ranks morality below fame (say), or ease; or again, a person who puts morality first, but is also convinced that the supreme moral obligation is, not to be benevolent, but to be holy (say), or wise, or creative: either of these people might turn out to be a scourge of his fellow humans, though in most cases he will not. But even at the worst, the misery which such a person causes will fall incomparably short of the misery caused by Lenin, or Stalin, or Mao, or Ho-Chi-Minh, or Kim-Il-Sung, or Pol Pot, or Castro: persons convinced both of the supremacy of benevolence among moral obligations, and of the supremacy of morality among all things. It is this combination which is infallibly and enormously destructive of human happiness.

Read the whole thing. As our readers know well, we view individual liberty as a moral issue in itself and as the American ideal.

Quoted from Crime, Drugs, Welfare - and other good news by Wehner and Levin in Commentary:

As for the social reality underlying this general feeling of decline, a number of conservative commentators, concentrating especially on the areas of crime, welfare dependency, and illegitimacy, undertook the task of quantifying and analyzing the available evidence. The most notable such effort was by William J. Bennett, who in March 1993 released a report entitled The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators.

Over the course of the preceding three decades, Bennett wrote, the United States had indeed experienced “substantial social regression.” About this, the data were unequivocal. Since 1960, there had been a more than 500-percent increase in violent crime; a more than 400-percent increase in out-of-wedlock births; almost a tripling in the percentage of children on welfare; a tripling of the teenage suicide rate; a doubling of the divorce rate; and a decline of more than 70 points in SAT scores. To Bennett, the conclusion was inescapable: “the forces of social decomposition [in America] are challenging—and in some instances overtaking—the forces of social composition.”

Just when cultural decay seemed hopeless, these things began to change. They conclude:

Culture itself, finally, exhibits an ebb and flow as surely as economies pass through cycles of ups and downs. In The Great Disruption (1999), Francis Fukuyama cited historical examples of societies undergoing periods of moral decline followed by periods of moral recovery. In our case, too, he argued, the aftermath of the cultural breakdown of the 1960’s had already triggered and was now giving way to a reassessment and recovery of social and moral norms. Such “re-norming” will not occur in every social class all at once; in some instances it may take hold in one stratum but not in another. That is partial progress, but progress nevertheless.

Despite persistent anomalies and backslidings, some species of cultural re-norming certainly seems to have been occurring in this country over the past decade-and-a-half, and it is fascinating to observe in whose hearts its effects have registered most strongly. In attitudes toward education, drugs, abortion, religion, marriage, and divorce, the current generation of teenagers and young adults appears in many respects to be more culturally conservative than its immediate predecessors. To any who may have written off American society as incorrigibly corrupt and adrift, these young people offer a powerful reminder of the boundless inner resources still at our disposal, and of our constantly surprising national resilience.

The government as Santa the Thief (who and what is "Santa the Thief"? We will tell you later.)

The Trouble with Limited Government, by Voegli at Claremont. One quote:

Reagan was elected president 25 years after the first issue of National Review declared its intention to "stand athwart history, yelling Stop." This was an amazing ascent for a political movement that started out, in the words of NR's first editorial, "superfluous" and "out of place." In the 25 years since Reagan's election, however, conservatives determined to scale back the welfare state might as well have been standing a respectful distance behind history, whispering "please slow down."

If conservatism has a future, those who want to fashion it need to acknowledge and understand this stunning defeat. In National Review last year Ramesh Ponnuru said the "real crisis" is that, while a conservatism whose "central mission" does not emphasize the fight against Big Government is inconceivable, a "political coalition in America capable of sustaining a majority" for that mission is unimaginable. Conservatism, in other words, can have a purpose or it can have a prospect. It cannot, apparently, have both.

This political problem will only become more acute as the challenges of governance become more severe. One yardstick may help conservatives feel a little better about themselves. In 1981 federal spending was 22.2% of GDP; last year it was 20.3%. This measure hovered in a very narrow band for the whole era, never exceeding 23.5% or falling below 18.4%. Adding expenditures by states and localities confirms the picture of a rugby match between liberals and conservatives that is one interminable scrum in the middle of the field. Spending by all levels of government in America amounted to 31.6% of GDP in 1981, and 31.8% in 2006.

Conservatives, though, can't take much solace from fighting Big Government to a draw.

Read the whole thing. Readers know my view: the only vision which can compete with the vision of childlike dependency on an omnipotent State is the old Yankee vision of the individual freedom and dignity of sturdy, honest, self-reliant family people who proudly forge their way through life, take their lumps, ask for nothin' from nobody, and want a government which only protects freedom and which "governs least." That noble vision was an easy sell in 1789, but not so easy today. From the board-room to agri-business to greedy geezers, everybody now seems to want a government Santa, and to feed at the trough of the income tax and the federal debt - and even invents ways to morally justify it. Heck, if I live to Medicare, I will probably take it too - but I will hate myself for doing so.

There is a soul-degrading vicious cycle at work: the more you tax people, the less money they have to take care of their families - so the more they will want, or even need, "freebies."

Am I old-fashioned to distrust and fear government power and control? Are we really just government-intoxicated decadent Europeans, on a different continent with different accents or a different language, instead of the stalwart, rugged, independent Americans of history? Was it just a dream?

Pontius Pilate's sarcastic, ruthless yet also sympathetic and challenging question to Christ (for which he did not wait for an answer) will echo in my mind as long as I live.

"Substituting science for religion is like swapping a series of case-notes on senile dementia for King Lear."

It has always seemed to me that non-scientists, and non-students of the hard sciences and math, put more faith in "science" than do students of science.

Non-students of science seem quick to find truth in the results of the scientific method than scientists themselves, who, like the great Polanyi, tend to be humble about knowledge, and are always questioning their methods and their findings. Science is about "theory" and a search for facts, not about Truth. Scientists never talk about Truth.

It was good to see Polanyi referenced in a piece by John Polinghorne in the UK's Times Online, titled The Truth in Religion. He uses Dawkins and Hitchins, et al, as starting points for a serious discussion of the relationship between faith and reason. One quote:

No progress will be made in the debate about religious belief unless participants are prepared to recognize that the issue of truth is as important to religion as it is to science. Dawkins invokes Bertrand Russell’s parable of the teapot irrationally claimed to be in unobserved orbit in the solar system. Of course there are no grounds for belief in this piece of celestial crockery, but there are grounds offered for religious belief, though admittedly different people evaluate their persuasiveness differently. Religion does not have access to absolute proof of its beliefs but, on careful analysis, nor does science. In all realms of human inquiry, the interlacing of experience and interpretation introduces a degree of precariousness into the argument. Yet this does not mean that we cannot attain beliefs sufficiently well motivated to be the basis for rational commitment. In his book on the philosophy of science, Personal Knowlege (1964), Michael Polanyi stated that he was writing in order to explain how (scientifically) he could commit himself to what he believed to be true, while knowing it might be false. That is the human epistemic condition. Recognizing this should encourage caution, but not induce intellectual paralysis. It is in this spirit that the dialogue between science and religion needs to be conducted.

Polinghorne's whole essay/book review here.

Image: Tintoretto's Christ before Pilate

A reposting of Bruce Thornton's 2004 essay of the above title. A quote:

If Judeo-Christian belief is so central to the ideals that created our government in the first place—if, as de Tocqueville wrote, "Freedom sees religion as the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its rights"—then the current anti-Christian fundamentalism strikes at the root of our political order. For if we are, as the secularists tell us, mere material creatures bound to one another only by contractual relations to be dissolved or altered at will, then what will provide the basis for all those selfless actions and emotions that any community depends on for its cohesion, and that keep freedom from degenerating into mere license, the power to do and consume whatever gratifies our selfish will and appetites? Where will fundamental values come from, all those beliefs that bind us into a community, and that we are willing to die and kill for, not because they have been scientifically proven but because we believe passionately that they are right and true and will benefit the greatest number of people?

The secularists have failed to provide an alternative for the religion that they have discarded. Into this vacuum has rushed any number of pseudo-religions, from Marxism to scientism to environmentalism, that are infinitely more irrational and mischievous than traditional Christianity. Yet this secularism is the creed dominating the schools, one more dogmatic, more intolerant of dissent, and more prone to self-righteous hypocrisy—in short, more fundamentalist than the beliefs of most Christians. For those concerned about the dangers of religion to our political life, then, look to these creeds, which are passed off as the fruits of science and reason, rather than to a Christianity that has been banished from the political culture it helped to create.

The whole essay here.

Cogent and stunningly right, from Jonah Goldberg via Driscoll:

In The L.A. Times, Jonah Goldberg writes, "I have no interest in 'questioning' Couric's patriotism. Rather, I'm interested in questioning her definition of it":

I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness.

Yet the strangest and most ironic aspect of our national culture is that we have an aversion to talking about a national culture. Samuel Huntington, one of the country's premier social scientists, has become something of a pariah for constantly reminding people (in books such as "The Clash of Civilizations" and "Who Are We?") that the United States is a nation, not just a government and a bunch of interest groups.

Many liberals hear talk of national culture and shout, "Nativist!" first and ask questions later, if at all. They believe it is a sign of their patriotism that they hold fast to the idea that we are a "nation of immigrants" -- forgetting that we are also a nation of immigrants who became Americans.

Exactly right. Although we have numerous local subcultures, most of us also live within, and treasure, the larger national culture which it would take a better writer than I am to define succinctly and without corniness - but I can say that it's not about "progress" and it's not about immigrants.

Professor Bainbridge quotes Russell Kirk's ten conservative principles (below) in a piece attempting to determine the political orientation of Andrew Sullivan's readers. (Exactly why the good Prof wants to do that is beyond me.)

1. The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent. ... A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be. ...
2. The conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. ... Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. ...
3. Conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. ... The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.

Read the rest on continuation page below.

This blowback against “globalization from above” has spread to every corner of the Earth. It now threatens to kill sensible, moderate steps toward the freer movement of goods, ideas, capital, and people.

What is the best way to help poor countries? What William Easterly in Foreign Policy terms "the ideology of development" entails sending in development experts to tell the country what to do, and it is all the rage these days among economists, organizations like the World Bank, and commentators like Thomas Friedman. Easterly says:

Like all ideologies, Development promises a comprehensive final answer to all of society’s problems, from poverty and illiteracy to violence and despotic rulers. It shares the common ideological characteristic of suggesting there is only one correct answer, and it tolerates little dissent. It deduces this unique answer for everyone from a general theory that purports to apply to everyone, everywhere. There’s no need to involve local actors who reap its costs and benefits. Development even has its own intelligentsia, made up of experts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and United Nations.

The problem is is that such top-down impositions of "reforms" and development plans have never worked anywhere. What does seem to work is for nations to find their own paths to prosperity, organically, from the inside, out. As Easterly notes:

Unfortunately, Development ideology has a dismal record of helping any country actually develop. The regions where the ideology has been most influential, Latin America and Africa, have done the worst. Luckless Latins and Africans are left chasing yesterday’s formulas for success while those who ignored the Developmentalists found homegrown paths to success. The nations that have been the most successful in the past 40 years did so in such a variety of different ways that it would be hard to argue that they discovered the “correct answer” from development ideology. In fact, they often conspicuously violated whatever it was the experts said at the time. The East Asian tigers, for instance, chose outward orientation on their own in the 1960s, when the experts’ conventional wisdom was industrialization for the home market. The rapid growth of China over the past quarter century came when it was hardly a poster child for either the 1980s Washington Consensus or the 1990s institutionalism of democracy and cracking down on corruption.

I think this is an important essay. Read the whole thing at Foreign Policy.

Addendum from The Editor: Closely-related. Jonah Goldberg via Driscoll argues that wealth does not come from material things: National prosperity is a reflection of a civilization - its laws, culture, knowledge, attitudes, morals, values, and personal and business habits. Buildings and dams and armies of bulldozers are the least of it. To quote Goldberg:

A potential lesson for the World Bank may be that building roads, dams, and factories in the third world is a fool’s errand until those nations have the intangible capital required to maintain such things. The Marshall Plan’s success in rebuilding Europe after World War II stemmed not from the U.S. footing the bill for concrete and bulldozers but from the intangible capital locked in the hearts and minds of everyday Europeans.

This helps explain, I believe, why some parts of the world, like much of Africa, parts of the Middle East, much of Central America and parts of South America are rich in resources and opportunities and yet remain poor by modern standards. It's the culture.

Ilya Somin at Volokh takes on the paternalistic/fascist notion that our lives should be designed and regulated by experts. I wish I had written it, because Ilya does a great job of ripping the notion to shreds.

...some advocates of libertarian paternalism try to get around the problem of political ignorance by suggesting that their policies be implemented by government-appointed experts rather than by elected officials. This is not a new argument. Totalitarians from Plato to Lenin have argued that the ignorance of the masses can be offset by concentrating power in the hands of an expert elite. So too have some moderate liberal scholars such as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and even libertarian Bryan Caplan. Breyer, the libertarian paternalists, and Caplan would never think of taking the argument as far as Plato or Lenin. But the core logic is similar: the experts know better than the average person - and therefore they should make the decisions.

For advocates of limited government, the rule of experts is like the vampire that refuses to die no matter how often we drive a stake through its heart. We've been fighting it for 2500 years, but have never quite managed to finish it off. Nevertheless, I'm going to put on my vampire slayer hat, and take a wee little stab at it.

Read the whole thing. My opinion, as you might imagine as a Maggie's Farm contributor, is that common sense beats expertise nine out of ten times; that character beats intelligence nine out of ten times, that too many people have the mental disease of wanting to control people they don't even know, and that regular folks like me - "the masses" - are much smarter than the experts think, and quite capable of making our own choices.