« Will any future book series approach the success of Harry Potter? | Main | Why should a good economist blog? »
Conservatives vs. conservatism
Attacking conservatism, Greg Anrig writes:
I think it’s fair to equate Heritage with the conservative movement...the whole unitary executive concept about executive power began to be formulated in the Reagan Justice Department. Those guys were pretty much all conservatives, wouldn’t you say, Tyler?
I find the clarity here extraordinary, namely how much Anrig focuses upon labeled individuals and groups of individuals. Conservatism (yes, the concept, truly understood, includes some well-known liberals) stresses that institutions and ideas are what matter, not which group of people is in power. When institutions are bad, and the general tenor of public ideas is off base or depraved, it is not better to be governed by "conservatives," and arguably it is worse. Of course conservatives, once they achieve power, will view political matters in terms of people just as Anrig does ("we can't let those guys back into Treasury"), if only because natural political selection eliminates those conservatives who do not.
That is one reason why conservatives so often act against conservative ideas, and why conservative politicians so often lie. In fact the better a conservative politician sounds to conservative listeners, the more inconsistent those ideas will be with the actual process of governing.
If you are a conservative looking to improve the world, one option is to improve the quality of religion in society. You should consider politics an inherently corrupting activity for conservative ideas; yet this fact, taken alone, does not prove it is better to follow left-wing ideas.
Addendum: Here is a link to Matt and Ezra on same.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 20, 2007 at 07:21 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
I am struck by the number of attempts to stick a fork in conservatism. None of these polemics offer a real comparison of governing theory on the left versus right wing of American politics. But they do show quite well what happens when hacks and other flawed humans try to implement conservative ideas. Well, since that's who will be governing us (us) regardless of theory, how will liberalism be better?
I guess the model for modern liberals is Europe - it seems to represent their ideal for healthcare, regulation, social safety net, etc. But Europe can neither defend nor reproduce itself. The US umbrella defends European nations and they are only 2 or 3 generations away from practical extinction anyway. So what's the point of that?
If Hillary succeeds in reducing incentives to produce, or for any personal responsibility for that matter, how long before we are too weak to resist the barbarians at the gate?
Posted by: Brian at Oct 20, 2007 9:10:53 AM
I didn't enjoy the deflection in yesterday's conservatism post:
"It's tricky to define what "right-wing" or "conservative" might mean, but let's focus on market-oriented issues where libertarians and (some) conservatives overlap [...]"
That might shift the argument onto more familiar and/or more defensible ground, but it discards the real-world meaning of this discussion.
There are a bundle of ideas that are identifiably Modern American Conservatism. They have greatly changed the character of American society. I'm not 100% on board with Kevin Phillips either, but I think the observations in books like American Theocracy are not totally wrong. There has been a linkage between evangelicals and conservatives that have reshaped both.
Today's post heads in that direction with "to improve the quality of religion in society," but what does that mean? Are we ready to learn from the Catholics of all people, and bring science back?
(I say this as perhaps a "classic" lapsed Republican.)
Posted by: odograph at Oct 20, 2007 9:13:48 AM
Wow. This isn't even a good dodge. Given the low state of institutions (a fairly standard conservative complaint), can we say that it is the duty of good conservatives to vote against conservatives for executive positions for the foreseeable future? Or is this just a one-off, like Bush v. Gore? Does something like the Federalist Society get included in "institutions," or its product labeled as "ideas," or do both get a pass?
Posted by: SomeCallMeTim at Oct 20, 2007 9:45:04 AM
What institution we should equate with liberal movement?
Posted by: Renato Drumond at Oct 20, 2007 10:20:44 AM
Renato, doesn't everything in the US flow from our rigid two-party system?
It seems a critical mass and feedback system. Positions that are adopted by one party almost need to be rejected by the other, and once adopted, opposed ideas are hard to shed.
To change becomes to lose.
Posted by: odograph at Oct 20, 2007 10:34:45 AM
"yes, the concept, truly understood"...
True Scotsman, anyone?
Posted by: at Oct 20, 2007 11:28:31 AM
Hi Tyler,
I understand the distinction your kean to make between conservatives and conservatism, but I'm not sure why you want to make it. What is the point, really, of attaching such a label to your beliefs that they end up getting dragged through the mud?
Note that the answer cannot be because there's a historical legacy of conservatism (as an -ism) that you want to associate with/pay homage to. Conservatism in the 19th century meant heavy-handed, paternalistic government.
Posted by: Dan at Oct 20, 2007 11:41:13 AM
This is sounding a bit like those true believers who insisted that "real Communism hasn't been tried."
Posted by: Brian Slesinsky at Oct 20, 2007 1:35:35 PM
I find Tyler's point entirely obvious: conservatism is a political idea which advocates a set of instututions, with the general thrust of decreasing the role of government, at least in economic life. (Historically,conservatism included nationalism and religious values which are not necessarily about limiting government power.).
If someone writes a book about how right-wing ideas are not worth while it seems like a no-brainer that he should identify the set of institutional changes that are consistent with this ideological element of decreasing government involvment, and show why this didn't work.
Instead, we see a grade-school level falacy of picking up people which have the _label_ "conservative" on them, refuting their ideas -- and then illogically claiming that this refutes right-wing ideas.
But in the end, even if Greg Anrig will not say it --as he still has to sell his book-- all that this kind of posturing manages to prove (if it can do even that) is that the policies implemented by those which currently have the label "conservative" on them are bad ideas. Nothing at all about free-market institutions.
As for this being like people claiming that "This is not true communism": if someone claims that the Roman empire fell because it was communist, it is certainly a valid reply that they were not true communists.
Without showing the clear free-market import of the "conservative" ideas implemented that were criticized, it is very silly to claim that refuting those ideas refutes right-wing ideology.
Alex
Posted by: Alex at Oct 20, 2007 2:18:29 PM
Alex, I'm (the lapsed Republican) still a fan of free markets. But tell me, why does the Republican party require that I bundle an anti-science anti-intellectualism with that? How the heck did government wiretaps without warrants become a Conservative ideal?
Posted by: odograph at Oct 20, 2007 3:15:30 PM
It is a valid point that, not only the practice of conservatism matters more than the Platonic idea of the same; but there is no Platonic idea of conservatism in the first place -- unless we take Plato's own conservatism as the archetype, in which case I am strongly anti-conservative.
And yet, am I the only one to find the view of Greg Anrig a bit narrow and provincial? Conservatism has been around for well over 2000 years, and it has never been limited to the USA. The title of his book should be: "Modern American Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Modern American Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing". Even this is a bit deceptive, because "benevolent hegemony" used to be an American-liberal idea not so long ago.
Posted by: Arthur at Oct 21, 2007 7:44:34 AM
"As for this being like people claiming that "This is not true communism": if someone claims that the Roman empire fell because it was communist, it is certainly a valid reply that they were not true communists. "
Well, the Romans did not call their system of government 'communist'. So your 'rebuttal' of Brian's comment is a bit silly. My opinion on the matter is: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Like Brian I have a strong deja vu feeling here, Tyler's posts lately remind me of marxists denouncing Castro and Kim Il Yong (but not marxism) or muslims denouncing islamist terrorism (but not islam in even the slightest way).
I for one feel that saying 'this is not communism/islam/conservatism' about the deplorable actions of one who says to act in the name of communism/islam/conservatism doesn't quite cut it...
Posted by: JSK at Oct 21, 2007 9:07:41 AM
Communism is different because the communists that accuse certain communists coutries of not being real communists approve the policies applied.
The problems rely on other factors than policies themselves: american imperialism, the corruption of the leaders, etc.
Tyler's question is more subtitle: are the politics appointed by Greg Anring exclusive of conservatism? Are these ideas even compatible with conservatism?
Posted by: Renato Drumond at Oct 21, 2007 11:25:26 AM
"Tyler's question is more subtitle: are the politics appointed by Greg Anring exclusive of conservatism? Are these ideas even compatible with conservatism?"
If we had hypothetical leaders of an hypothetical country, that might be interesting.
Posted by: odograph at Oct 21, 2007 12:01:37 PM
Oops. Sorry.
Posted by: odograph at Oct 21, 2007 12:03:43 PM
"Communism is different because the communists that accuse certain communists coutries of not being real communists approve the policies applied."
Eh.. no? I know many marxists but not a single one of them approves (in hindsight) of Stalin's purges in the thirties, the five year plans under Khrushchev or Mao's Cultural Revolution. And why should they: in hindsight they are obvious disasters, just like Bush's war in Iraq.
The problems rely on other factors than policies themselves: american imperialism, the corruption of the leaders, etc.
Exactly the excuses of my marxist friends when one speaks about soviet Russia.
Posted by: JSK at Oct 21, 2007 12:39:54 PM
"This is sounding a bit like those true believers who insisted that 'real Communism hasn't been tried.'"
I don't think the analogy holds. Real communism, whatever that is, CAN'T be tried because the path to it involves violence and repression. Communism can only work if every single citizen is on board. Since they aren't, you need the kind of violence we have seen in many a communist regime to keep them in line. That is why attempts to implement communism fall short every single time.
There is no such problem with conservatism. There is nothing systemic preventing, say, a flat tax from being implemented. After all, we've see it done in Europe. Right-wing ideas about limited government CAN be implemented, but for whatever reason it hasn't seemed to happen very often.
Posted by: Colin at Oct 21, 2007 1:19:28 PM
"Right-wing ideas about limited government CAN be implemented, but for whatever reason it hasn't seemed to happen very often."
What if we know the reasons, but ignore them?
I mean, don't we all know why George W. Bush was elected in 2004? It was a coalition. A coalition between those who said:
"I'd prefer a hypothetical conservative leader to a hypothetical liberal leader ... and GWB is the closest we have to such a hypothetical conservative"
and those who said:
"I'd prefer an explicitly evangelical President to one who is anything else."
Throw in more people with point-causes, individual litmus tests, that they must map into the two-party system and you have our outcome.
It's really too bad that the coalition building happens on Party level in the US, rather than on a national level (ie. parliamentary systems).
But the way it works now, people like John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani must first go to the religious right to build their Party coalition.
... it's really tragic to me that in this system "gay marriage" is a bigger hot button than "balanced budget" ... but there it is.
(Indeed, "conservatives" have yielded the "balanced budget" position to "liberals" as the conservatives put all their eggs in "tax cuts.")
Posted by: odograph at Oct 21, 2007 1:44:31 PM
JSK, when I said that communists approve the policies applied, I didn't mean that they approve the form that the policies are applied, but rather that they don't oppose the policies per se.
Like I said, they blame other factors. It's rare to encounter communists that blame the socialist reforms for the famines that ocurred in communist countries.
And maybe you know diferent marxists that I do, but here on Brazil is quite common to encounter marxists that praise Stalin and even Mao.
Nonetheless, I think that the Stalin government didn't dismiss the IDEAS of marxism. Marxist ideas are wrong for diferent reasons.
Posted by: Renato Drumond at Oct 21, 2007 1:59:18 PM
I agreed with Anring more before I read his responses. His response on school choice is to point to the foundations who fund some of the researchers. That is pretty much always, in my experience, a signal that one has no other intellectual ammunition to offer. It is also a signal that he is not serious (in the sense that he is more interested in petty politics than in getting it right) and thus casts a shadow over all the rest of his stuff.
I am consistently puzzled by the interpretation of the school choice literature. There are some positive estimates and some zeros but not any negative estimates as far as I am aware. All refer to small and/or short-run programs that one would not expect to have much, if any, effect on the industrial organization of the education market. If zero is the lower bound, we are still better off, because parents always report greater satisfaction even when the impacts are zero. More generally, a market-wide system that was "permanent" would change the industrial (and labor) organization of schools in ways almost certain to improve student learning. Also, parents and children would learn to use the system better over time (and information producing intermediaries would arise in larger and more permanent systems). It seems to me that, if you think about is being evaluated - short, small programs - relative to a permanent complete implementation of the policy, the results are very encouraging as we should be getting a lower bound.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff Smith at Oct 22, 2007 8:37:25 AM
"This is sounding a bit like those true believers who insisted that "real Communism hasn't been tried."
Conservative free-market ideas have been tried thoughout history and in many parts of the world. They have been enormously successful in providing economic growth and innovation. They have fostered cooperation between people with diverse interests. We can debate our preferences about how much government intervention is necessary, but it is easy to envision an economy with far less governement and much greater reliance on free markets. One need only review the history of the United States before the 1960's or, perhaps, before the 1930's.
There are no examples of a successful communist economic system. This is because for communism to work people have to behave in a manner that is fundementally inconsistent with human nature.
Posted by: Paul D at Oct 22, 2007 10:11:38 AM
I am not opposed to school vouchers, but I see them played out more as a party litmus test than anything else. It's like a certain lowbrow response to the fall of communism is to say, therefore, that everything should be a market.
It's a standard fallacy, isn't it? To say that that the failure of one idea proves its antithesis?
Really, it was a moderate and lightly regulated US economy that out-performed the Soviets ... and "conservative" that I am, I'd like to stay with that high-performing model.
(I suspect that a dynamic and changing school system will outperform a static one, and that the mode of change is less important than change itself.)
Posted by: odograph at Oct 22, 2007 10:28:22 AM
"If you are a conservative looking to improve the world, one option is to improve the quality of religion in society."
I was honestly shocked to find this one sentence in the article. For all the ideas which the US is praised for (like free enterprise, trade, etc.), it is astonishing to see the power religion still plays in your society. I mean if there is one idea that has been tried million times and in million places and that only holds misery and sorrow. And one can hardly deny that those deeds have been (and still are) perpetuated in the name of religion.
I mentioned the high value of free enterprise in the US because I'd think it fosters something that goes against religion: individualism. And -as far as I know- it springs from something that gained ideological power after the first "anti-religious" movement, the French revolution.
Bálint (Hungary)
Posted by: erdibalint at Oct 22, 2007 11:56:40 AM
Peggy Noonan's fisk of Nancy Reagan comes to mind:
With Republicans, it's about money. With conservatives it's about ideas. Nancy was a Republican.
(This is approximated from memory--I don't have Noonan's "When Character Was King" in front of me at the moment.)
Posted by: caveat bettor at Oct 22, 2007 2:46:43 PM
Posted by: 鑽石 at Apr 2, 2008 10:52:13 PM
