Responding to a Conservative Manifesto

Well, I asked for more manifestos, so I suppose I should congratulate Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry for writing this "Manifesto for Reform Conservatives." It isn't even that stupid. But as I will explain, it starts from false premises and then skips over a lot of key steps in deriving conclusions, resulting in something that I think is utterly useless for reform-minded conservatives or anyone else. Here is Gobry's starting point:

the central question of political economy in the West for the past 200 years has been how to reconcile the dynamism and creative destruction of capitalism with enough stability and social cohesion so that the system doesn’t self-destruct. We all love capitalism and celebrate creative destruction, but it is not conservative apostasy to recognize that creative destruction sucks for those who are creatively, well, destroyed.

I would say that the central question of political economy is how to distribute the economic fruits of modernity. The instability of capitalism is certainly one of its bad features, but not the only one and not something unique to capitalism; peasant societies also experience booms and busts, mainly driven by the weather. The modern economy has this interesting feature, that we are now capable of producing enough to give every citizen a decent, middle-class life. Why hasn't that happened in America? What should we do about it? This is a completely different question from how to help people temporarily blindsided by the "creative destruction" of global economic shifts.

Gobry has a go at explaining why people like big government:

Government grows not because of Obama’s charisma or wiles, but because demand for government increases. And demand for government increases because of economic insecurity. Because the churn of capitalism feels too harsh, and because of a lack of alternatives, people are forced to turn to government for help. . . . Obamacare is a case in point, here. Americans have always been, and remain, deeply skeptical of socialized medicine, and for extremely good reason. But the cost of health insurance, and the insecurity associated with it, and the dysfunction of the system have become so bad that, in the face of a lack of conservative reform and credible conservative alternatives, they reluctantly accepted it.

This isn't bad, but it begs a whole lot of questions. Like, why is the cost and availability of health care any more of a government concern than the cost and availability of sports cars? If you accept, as Gobry seems to, that providing reasonably priced healthcare to all the citizens is a public problem, then you have already gone a long way toward social democracy. This, it seems to me, is a persistent problem with contemporary American conservatives. Is conservatism about a social goal -- say, a society made up mainly of hardworking, church-going, middle class families, who suffer from economic anxiety only to the extent that it keeps them working and saving -- or is it all about the size and scope of government? Because the America of the 1950s did not spring up naturally from the soil of capitalism, and once you accept such a vision of society you are stuck with big government no matter how much you pretend to hate it. You know, "keep government out of Medicare," that sort of thing.

How about this: if what you care about is the nature of society, you should stop worrying about whether problems are solved by the government or the private sector, as long as the problem is solved. Your ideologues on both sides may see big vs. small government as the issue, but I don't and neither do a lot of Americans. Glancing around the world, it seems to me that health care is one of the things (like drinking water and streets) that governments can provide better than private enterprise. But moving on from economics:

Reform conservatives believe that the decline of the family over the past few decades is the single most disastrous trend of US domestic policy and reinvigorating the family the single most important challenge of the 21st century.

Gee, that really makes "reform conservatives" unique, doesn't it?

Reform conservatives believe that the GOP should put forward serious and credible policies that directly address the issue of family formation and breakdown. . . . There are a lot more reform conservative policies that would make family formation easier and more affordable, from tax credits for primary caregivers, to more flexible labor markets that would allow parents of young kids to spend more time with them, to replacing the EITC with wage subsidies, to smart infrastructure policies that would shorten commutes and let parents spend more time with their kids (yes! infrastructure is a family issue! why are we letting Democrats take this from us??), to consumer driven healthcare that would lower healthcare costs and increase economic security, to (obviously) education reform that would make higher quality education more attainable and affordable, to smarter urban policy that would make housing (and therefore that extra room for child #3) more affordable, to a “COPS II” program (perhaps paired with criminal justice/prison reform) that would lower crime rates and increase lower-middle unemployment, and so on.

How about we start with asking how "reform conservatives" are going to cut taxes on middle class people but still raise the money for all these extra programs? Does Gobry have any idea how much it would cost to build enough roads to seriously reduce traffic congestion in all of America's cities? (Think trillions.) To do all this without raising taxes we would have to gut either defense spending or programs for the elderly, neither of which is going to happen, least of all with Republicans in charge.

Here is what I think: a small government society might be highly productive and exciting, but it would not be stable and it would erode social cohesion. It would lead to ever greater inequality and an ever-expanding underclass, with a decaying public sphere and increasing separation of the rich into self-governing enclaves. If you want a middle class society with less anxiety for "hard working people who play by the rules" you need an enormous government. You cannot have both a small government and a large, secure middle class. So "reform conservatives" had better start by asking which it is that they want.