Reply to M. re: The problem with liberalism

M.,
Why is liberalism an "attack" on Christian ethics? Or do you mean abortion again, redundantly? In other words, do you mean, "I'm ready to listen but not embrace because I disagree on too many liberal ideas like abortion, illegal immigrants, and the attack on [pro-life]"?

The basic Judeo-Christian axiom is that we must cherish and value life (because life is a gift from God, not from man). The "revolutionary" Christian axiom is that no life is more or less valuable than any other, i.e. love thy neighbor as thyself (because everyone, even Gentiles, are loved equally by the Father). From these two axioms, we can draw a corollary: That we must value many lives more than any one life, since we mustn't play favorites, not even with ourselves. Therefore, we should embrace what is the best for the most people.

I happen to believe the very same thing, but I don't need the word of God to tell me it is so. Human history tells me it is so.

Abortion is a tragedy, but I think you have to assess rationally which political philosophy -- liberalism or conservatism -- better promotes and cherishes the value of each life individually, and in the aggregate. (Studies have shown that abortion rates are linked to poverty; hence one might seek to alleviate poverty in order to reduce demand for abortions, instead of just outlawing them). Abortion may be a "minus" in the liberal column, but this is heavily outweighed by the many minuses in the conservative column, which don't value or cherish life.

For instance, pure laissez-faire conservatism preaches that there will always be human "refuse" who can't hack it and won't make the cut economically, due to laziness, stupidity, or just plain bad luck. It is a philosophy that not only assumes there will be economic winners and losers -- in order to work properly, it requires winners and losers.

Conservatives have tacked Christianity onto this economic philosophy because it's convenient. Christianity is supposed to sweep up this human refuse at the end of the day through charity. But conservatism and Christianity also flatly contradict one another in terms of how any one person is meant to behave: During my workday I'm supposed to be a selfish economic opportunist, otherwise I may lose my job, my client, my sale, or go out of business; whereas in my free time I'm supposed to be a selfless, community-minded activist, helping those whom I've just done my best to put out of business, or whose job/promotion/sale/client I've just taken away.

Yet history offers no evidence to prove that Christians do an adequate job of caring for the losers and the unfit who drop out of the economic rat race. This is not to say that Christians do nothing; but they leave the majority of life's losers with no alternative but misery or death.

To address this obvious disparity between words and deeds, conservatives have argued that in the aggregate, the "invisible hand" of unfettered free markets leads to win-wins where everybody benefits. In this magical system, each economic actor is absolved of all ethical or personal responsibility, since each man's selfish actions, combined with the independent, selfish actions of everyone else, lead inevitably to the most efficient distribution of scarce goods and resources for everyone. In other words, in a truly free market, the most "generous" thing you can do for your fellow man is to be as greedy and selfish as possible. This thinking is counter-intuitive, to say the least, but it's also a very elegant defense of unlimited greed and selfishness. It means we all get to have our cake and eat it too.

But history doesn't support true conservatives' semi-religious faith in the power of unfettered free markets and unrestrained greed. America and Britain had nearly free markets before 1900, and the disparity in wealth and well being in both countries was immense. At the same time, Christian charities failed -- and have continued to fail -- to help all of life's losers, even in a very Christian country like America.

You may respond, "Well, that only goes to show that everyone should be a Christian!" And that may well be true (I cannot prove otherwise, since it's never happened); but that would also mean that for pure capitalism to work, everyone (or nearly so) would have to be an active, committed Christian.

(This is not to mention another contradiction between capitalism and Christianity: the more time and energy people devote to one, the less they can devote to the other. It may not sound silly to call yourself "sort of" of a capitalist, but it sounds awfully weak, bordering on disingenuous, to say you're "sort of" a Christian, or, "I'm a Christian in my spare time.")

I think America will voluntarily become socialist before its population consists of 301 million Mother Teresa's.

That, in a nutshell, is why I have no choice but to turn to the alternative, liberalism, which says that people have an individual and a collective responsibility to help the poor and unfortunate. And our collective responsibility is usually best exercised through democratic government. This is not to say that I advocate socialism, or that automatically liberalism = socialism. History has shown us that putting too much of the burden of responsibility on government's shoulders (via a socialist system) in the pursuit of everyone's economic well being inevitably leads to government infringement of other liberal ideals, like democracy, personal freedom, and personal responsibility.

Therefore, if neither unfettered free markets nor government can satisfactorily allocate scarce goods and resources and simultaneously promote human freedom and dignity, the answer must be some mixture of the two. (Or some third alternative nobody's thought of yet).

That's why I, like most people, am not a pure liberal. Just like most people aren't pure conservatives. What we have today is a mix, a balancing act. And most of our political debates are really about where to find that balance.

Maybe this is all self-evident, and you think I'm just being long-winded and pedantic. But I want to show you that I've tried to consider all sides. I'm not some brainwashed zealot.

It's not helpful when we demonize each other and call names, because each side has something it must contribute. We could ignore the past 200 years of history and convince ourselves that one side is completely right and the other completely wrong, but we'd only doom ourselves to repeat past mistakes.

I admit it, I too am guilty at times of painting with too broad a brush when criticizing conservatives (although my tone is often tongue-in-cheek). But you must also admit that most Americans have a much stronger, more irrational fear of liberalism than they do of conservatism. In America "liberal" is a dirty word, but "conservative" is something you can be proud to call yourself.

I think this fear and hatred of liberalism betrays an ungrateful ignorance of our history and the liberal reforms that have given us so many of the social protections which today we take for granted -- protections which we would never, ever elect to give back.

For example, would you give up the 8-hour workday? Or say that children don't have to go to school, and instead can work in hazardous factories for lower wages than an adult? Or disband the FDA, and take your chances buying meat tainted with invisible e. coli at the supermarket or dangerous, counterfeit drugs at the pharmacy? Or get rid of the FDIC, so that all the banks that sold risky sub-prime loans couldn't honor your deposits? Or get rid of the SEC, so that stock traders could get rich giving insider deals and information to their cronies while your investments plummet? Or let logging companies cut down all the trees they want, destroying irreplaceable habitats and species and air quality for everybody? Or get rid of OHSA, and let the "labor market" figure out where it's safe to work (but only after they saw you get killed on the job)? Or shut down the EPA, so that factories could go back to pumping untreated waste and sewage into our rivers? Or erase our anti-trust laws, so that eventually our economy would be run by larger and larger corporations with the power to determine the quality and price of essential goods that we can't buy from any other source? I could go on and on like this....

I marvel at the power of markets to turn millions of independent decisions and transactions into a coherent and (fairly) efficient means of distributing scarce goods and resources. But I also revere the contributions of liberal reformers who have made sure that excessive greed, or concentration of wealth and power in too few hands, does not pervert the market and deny the majority of us the benefits of capitalism. I don't want all-or-nothing. All I want is your acknowledgment of the other side of the equation. Give liberalism its due, and -- heaven forbid! -- a thank-you.