Nathan Scandella (personal)

The Common Conservative Thread

There has been something bugging me for a long time. Namely, the constituents of the Republican party. I never quite understood the two major factions that make up the Republican party in this country. First, we've got the fiscal conservatives. Basically, the "small government" crowd. I find a reasonable number of sane people belong to this group. And then, there are the religious fundamentalists. The folks who think somehow Republicans embody what Jesus would have wanted. To me, these two groups seemed very different. The fact that Karl Rove, and others, have been able to unite them, meant that Republicans won a lot of elections for a couple decades there.

But, now, I'm finally starting to understand the link. The link is faith. And let's be clear (as Obama likes to say :) ... in my world, faith is not a good thing. To me, "faith" means accepting an ideology without any evidence that the ideology is correct. In the case of religion, the existence of faith should be obvious. The fact that religion has turned faith into a desirable quality is the topic of another blog. It was the role of faith amongst the other group, the fiscal conservatives, that I only recently recognized.

In this faction, faith lends itself to the perpetuation of several specific beliefs:

• Everything is done more efficiently in the private sector.


• Free markets will solve all problems, because as soon as problems crop up, people will value a solution, and thus be willing to pay for it. Once this business opportunity arises, the solution will magically appear. Things like technological limitations, or timeframes, are not a problem.


• A free market economy is a living, intelligent being. Adam Smith even used the phrase "Invisible Hand".


• Cutting taxes on the wealthy grows the economy, enough even to offset the loss of tax revenue (which means that the economy actually has to grow by about $5 for each dollar of tax cuts in order to balance it out).


• Individual market participants acting in their own (selfish) best interests will conveniently yield a result that is also optimal for society


• Less regulation is preferable, because the regulators are government entities, and the regulatees are private entities, and the latter know better than the former how things should be done.
  

Well, I think recent economic events should help dispel some of these myths. The rest, I'll deal with on my own:

The private sector isn't always more efficient (see USPS or Medicare). Free markets can't solve all problems in this reactive way. Take climate change. By the time effects of climate change are severe enough for people to be willing to pay to undo them, it will be too late. Science, and computer modeling, allows us to predict this problem before its effects become catastrophic. But, waiting until solutions become economically competitive will lead to catastrophe. All problems cannot be solved reactively. Sometimes, proactive steps need to be taken, and the free market model breaks down here. A free market is not an intelligent entity. It represents chaos. The Hand is Invisible because it doesn't exist. Trickle Down Economics is bogus. See blog. Whoever thinks that individual market participants, who are not collaborating, will produce optimal societal results, has never had an introductory Political Science course. See "Prisoner's Dilemma". And the part about regulation? See banking crisis of 2008-9(-10?). See Credit Default Swaps. See my point?

But, most people actually think that economics is a branch of science. So, how can a science, with so much "data" available, have so many widely-accepted theories floating around, that aren't supported by actual evidence? The answer is that the people who propagate these theories have faith. When you have faith, you don't need evidence. If you happen upon an ideology that you find attractive, you just latch onto it. When presented with evidence in direct contradiction to your ideology, you just ignore it. Faith requires no evidence. See Mitt Romney on government stimulus.

Skepticism, not faith, should be regarded as a virtue. Ordinary citizens questioning what they're told should be a check-and-balance on the status quo. The government has abrogated its responsibility here (see spineless Democratic Congress of 2006-present). People must think for themselves. That's just not something that either side of the Republican party has been doing for a long time.

Posted at 01:45AM Feb 10, 2009 by Nathan in Politics  |  Comments[0]