There is of course a much-observed tension between the cultural-evolutionary and the free-market versions of conservatism, particularly since the untrammelled free market is the most effective device for destroying traditional institutions that has ever been devised by man. Most of what cultural conservatives and religious fundamentalists hate about the modern world – the rootlessness, hedonism, crass commercialism, loose sexual morality, anti-authoritarianism, and general lack of discipline – is either a direct product of the market, or is a tendency that is dramatically amplified by it. What brings the cultural and the market conservative together is the conviction that these unplanned processes are better than the alternative, which is “social engineering” in the rationalist style.
Read the whole thing. I arrived at it starting from Alex Tabarrok’s link.
Thinking about the quoted paragraph in terms of the three-axes model, I would say that there is a tension about markets in the civilization vs. barbarism axis. A conservative would view productive work as civilized, and markets encourage productive work. However, a conservative would worry that consumer tastes are barbaric, and markets work to satisfy consumer tastes.
Another way in which the market process is civilized from a conservative perspective is that businesses fail. Failure builds character because it reinforces humility. It keeps us from developing too high an opinion of ourselves as individuals or of humanity as a whole. (David Brooks’ latest book, The Road to Character, which I have started reading, seems to stress humility.) In contrast, progressives seem to see government as a tool to eliminate all forms of failure.
In contrast, progressives recognize markets can’t cure market failure by themselves.
Perhaps, but from the way I’ve seen progressives use the term “market failure”, public schools, gravity, and the unidirectionality of time would qualify as market failures.
If only we could discuss actual market failures.
Hey, social conservatives are big on market failures too, btw.
No argument here.
If the “untrammelled free market” necessarily includes a primary commitment to individualism, or if it’s taken to be the single most important feature of social life, then sure, it’s not a friend of cultural conservatism.
Which is agreed with here. But cultural conservatives consider that better than the progressive social engineering perspective.
Heath is charming but wrong.
“[R]ootlessness, hedonism, crass commercialism, loose sexual morality, anti-authoritarianism, and general lack of discipline” have always co-existed in a Baptists and Bottleggers dynamic, which reinforce and sustain each other. For examples, see, well, any big US city’s history from the gaslight era.
The real threat to conservatism is ALSO the real threat to markets: the rise of vast swaths of the economy unmoored to markets, such as Healthcare, Education, Governemnt (HEG) and the rise of a society ruled by the welfare state which allows basic existence unmoored to traditional values.
Progressives advocate beneficial slavery.
“Do what I tell you, and take the wages I have arranged for you. You will be happier than you would have been, and I will have more tax income to do even more good.”
“The proletariate are simple and happy people, but not good at planning for themselves. It is lucky for them that I am here to arrange a better life for them.”
Conservatives believe that the need to earn a living causes people to live conservatively.