I was reading the David Brooks column today (don’t judge me too harshly), and it got me thinking. Don’t get me wrong: David Brooks is usually off in never-never land as far as I am concerned, and he had a couple of roll-your-eyes doozies today, such as starting right off the bat with “Republicans generally like Westerns. They generally admire John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave.” and then segueing to “Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days that they are no longer the party of community and order.” Right. Individualism and freedom indeed; tell the former to all of those anti-war protesters circa 2002 and the latter to all those people, Jane Harman included, who have had their phone calls or other private correspondence surveilled in the name of national security.
But even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then, and the gem to be taken from this column is this: “They celebrate capitalism, which is a means, and are inarticulate about the good life, which is the end. They take things like tax cuts, which are tactics that are good in some circumstances, and elevate them to holy principle, to be pursued in all circumstances.”
I think that just about hits the nail on the head, and it’s something that I always mull over when it comes to the big policy debates of the day, like the budget. I’m baffled as to how many conservatives out there believe that the free market system is so inviolate that it must be implemented always and in all circumstances. Some advocate this with such fervor that it makes me wonder if life is some giant, super-secret video game, where points are tallied as to how vehemently one advocated for capitalism during one’s life. What else could explain the fact that some people refuse to see the very real flaws that exist in the system?
I don’t think it’s terribly irrational to believe, as I do, that while the free market system works best for a very wide variety of circumstances, that sometimes its flaws do outweigh its benefits. Especially in cases where the means of the free market does get in the way of the end of improving everybody’s lives. I’m not an economics textbook, so I’m not going to get into the cases where that is true, but those cases do exist. For people to not even admit that it is possible for the free market system to work poorly shows a lack of seriousness when it comes to major policy arguments.
The same goes for the absolute love of tax cuts that some people have. There are certainly times to cut taxes, and there are times to raise taxes; however, it is not right to do either 100% of the time. One would think this would be self-evident, but alas it is not. The same lack of seriousness applies here: when you take a big option off of the table 100% of the time, how earnest are you about finding a compromise?
There’s a lot in that column that is knee-jerk and ignorable. However, the light it shines on the tendency for a large swath of the Republican party, especially its leadership, to insist on a narrow subset of “solutions” with little regard to consequence is worth thinking about.