My Political Philosophy, In Brief
It has been instructive and fortunate to come of age during the ascendancy of the Republican Party, a party nominally dedicated to constitutionally-limited government, free enterprise, and self-determination. I say "nominally" because most of us are aware of that party's complicity in the erosion of personal liberty and economic self-determination that brings us to this moment of crisis, this time for choosing, to borrow a phrase. Though we will choose our leaders in just days, my concern is not that choice; indeed, if we do not pause to reflect upon ourselves, the results will not matter, and we have to wrestle with the plain fact that our purposeless running about may prevent that choice from ever truly mattering again.
The protest movements that have merited comment in the last few years share affinites with, if you will, both ends of our political spectrum: one on the right, and one on the left. The Tea Party started spontaneously as a result of a jeremiad against a political class that sought to insulate individuals from poor moral choices, which takes the form of using the government to eliminate the economic aspects of imprudence, immorality, or sloth. Naturally, those who lacked access to those resources, or who take a principled stand against being wards of their own government will be frustrated when that government can no longer be moved by those who establish it: the people. In short, the energy, or driving concern of the Tea Party is unresponsiveness. The people look on in horror as the outsized apparatus of the federal government rewards the powerful and well-connected, as well as buys the loyalty of the dependent.
The Democratic Party has been largely responsible, though because wealth follows those who seek power, they could not do it without support of large firms, and Republican politicians, who, whether out of venal self-interest or ignorance, prevent challengers to these firms' economic hegemony.
The truth of this is somewhat ironic, because the acolytes of the other notable movement, the Occupy movement, as beneficiaries of New Deal progressivism, witness the leaders of their own Democratic Party betray the anarcho-socialist populism they cherish. Those leaders get cozy with the heads of big firms who epitomize the injustice of the "capitalism" they despise. Nor can they dislodge those who sit in the seats of power, nor realistically dream of sitting in those seats themselves. If the New Deal has inspired several generations with grandiose promises of prosperity and economic redistribution, Occupy is ample evidence that those bills are coming due.
It is also tragically fitting that the forfeiture of economic self-determination should be sold to the people with the mirage of absolute personal autonomy. That personal autonomy absolutized destroys the moral basis for healthy free exchange of goods and services. "Social justice" is itself a mirage when the concept of justice has been relativized. The government cannot be an instrument of the common good when that good cannot be defined. It naturally invites the State apparatus--in many ways, it can be likened to an organism--to define its own purposes, quite apart from those it claims to serve.
But if capitalism is the mutually beneficial free exchange of goods and services, we have to ask if access to that space is important to us. Not all of us, either by accident of birth, or unfortunate happenings, come ready to both contribute and benefit from the system of free exchange. More than that, are there parts of human life that cannot be commoditized? Is there something about being human that doesn't quite get captured by the ruthless efficiency of markets? Do we owe ourselves and others something that can't exactly be bought or sold? We feel compelled to answer "yes," and emphatically, at that.
We are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights, that is, a dignity. A dignity that cannot be ignored in the march to enforce an "economic justice" that respects neither self-determination, nor personal responsibility. It is a dignity that cannot be cast aside by absolutizing personal freedom, to the point of destroying persons. If that dignity is greater than simply allowing people to pull themselves up by their boot-straps, we must also say we are duty-bound not to kill them before they have boots. Ironic that socialism and its paternalistic State denies justice, freedom, and morality, all the while claiming an exclusive high ground.
But no man is an island. We do not possess our remarkable abilities as people in order to "store up in barns" or enrich ourselves alone. Shall we bow to the god of Self instead of the god of the State? No. It was the earnest hope of our Founders that this great country would be populated by a people who recognized a higher Law, given by that Creator. One that binds government from the tendency to tyrannical domination, and one that binds men from their own selfish whims. This is why civil society is distinct from the public space, so people of good will may find and do the good for one another without interference. A properly limited government stands ready when the good cannot be bought or sold, or hardship or injustice puts it out of reach. In any case, the errors and excesses of left and right are anthropological: the rightist error makes the individual into a god; the leftist one makes the State into one.
The choice has never been between maximum coercion and none; the good is somewhere in the midst. And it is time to put human dignity at the forefront of the question.
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