Conservatives Very Odd and Highly Improbable Belief

Yascha Mounk has an interesting podcast on the BBC in which he traces the rise of populism along the old iron curtain in Europe.

A Polish conservative he interviews makes the most curious set of statements. First he talks about immigrants, pointing out that Poland took in a lot of Ukrainian refugees and saying that they have no problem with refugees but instead just with Muslims. The problem is, he says, that Muslims have beliefs that are too dated for Poland. Later he talks of Western Europe and how the Poles don't like their values. They're too modern.

Conservatives seem to get that norms and institutions change over time. What could get you burned at the stake in one century can become admired in another. They get that. Sort of. But in spite of the fact that they realize there are communities "behind" them in the progress of values and "ahead" of them in lifestyles and acceptance, they seem to believe that they are the only instant in time that has it just right. They don't want to return to the crude norms of the 1800s but they also don't really like these jarring norms of the 21st century.

The curious thing about conservatives is this: of all the times to be born in history, they were lucky enough to hit just the right time, the perfect mix of tolerance and tradition. It seems improbable - but obvious to them - that with thousands of years of history and thousands of years of future, they hit the evolution of society at just the right instant. It's almost like a miracle and they don't want to spoil it with change.

What Made - and Still Makes - Western Civilization Great

INSTITUTIONS AS TOOLS OR SACRED OBJECTS

The battle between social conservatives and progressives

In last week’s speech in Poland, Trump warned about a threat to Western Civilization. He mentioned “history” six times and spoke of          “the bonds of history, culture, and memory,” and “the bonds of culture, faith, and tradition.” Speaking for the right, Trump is proudly pointing to the West as having a superior tradition worth fighting for.

Douglas Murray, author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, argues that the Left in Europe is essentially embarrassed to argue that their culture is really better than any other and authorities have actually looked away number of atrocities, including honor killings (families killing their own sisters and daughters because of their shame at who they’ve married) because it might seem racist to prosecute these as crimes.

So we have the Right arguing for tradition and the Left arguing for cultural relativism. The one would head backwards and the other would stand around awkwardly, apologizing for seeming to suggest that their ways are any better than that of any other people.

What seems to be missing is the appreciation for history without treating historical institutions as sacred or a culture as synonymous with race or nationalism (which it is not).

The West was seemingly the first to do something that set it apart and set it on the road to progress. This is worth defending.

INSTITUTIONS AS SACRED OBJECTS OR SIMPLY TOOLS

How we think about institutions defines our communities. Three ways to characterize the great institutions of the West like church, state, and bank are:

1       Sacred objects that must be preserved: this the attitude of the social conservative
2.      Obsolete objects that must be eradicated: this the attitude of the radical
3.      Simply tools that everyone should have access to: this is the attitude of the progressive

The debate in the West today is between social conservatives and progressives. The radicals who in past generations argued to outlaw religion (as the French Revolutionaries and Soviets did), financial markets (as communists throughout the world did last century) and even the nation-state (as anarchists have) are largely ignored in today’s political debates. Institutions separate us from the other primates and the real argument is not over whether we should have them but how we should treat them.

The most defining revolutions of the West were led by progressives and transformed these institutions:

1.      Church - the battle between Protestants and Catholics that gave us freedom of religion between about 1300 and 1700
2.      Nation-state – the battle between royalists and revolutionaries that gave us democracy between about 1700 and 1900
3.      Bank - the democratization of financial markets that gave us the American dream between about 1900 and 2000

Each revolution turned a dominant institution ruled by elites into a tool used by the average person. These were not one-time events. For instance, democracy was a revolution but it took centuries more to extend it from white, property owning Protestant men to even 18-year-old minority women. Early forms of religious freedom just gave you a choice between Catholic, Calvinist and Lutheran, not the thousands of denominations and religions (including atheism) available today. Like economic progress, this social progress isn’t something that happens one year and then stops; it is on-going and progress is as dependent on social change as it is on technological change.

Social conservatives are more likely to wonder about the intentions of founding fathers. If you see institutions as tools, though, the idea of protecting them from change is about as odd as insisting that Rudolf Diesel or Henry Ford never intended for us to drive cars with cup holders or GPS. Even if true it’s irrelevant to those of us alive now.

It’s difficult to understand how visceral is the reaction to Trump without understanding how differently social conservatives and progressives think about our major institutions.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION

First amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As it turns out, freedom of religion, free speech, a free press and political activism are all intertwined. Our founding fathers had genius enough to see that and packaged them into the same amendment. All have to do with freedom of thought but started with freedom of religion.

In 1302, Pope Boniface issued a bull that asserted his lordship over all of Christendom. By 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia essentially took away the pope’s power to dictate religion to a ruler and the ruler’s power to dictate religion to the people. The battle for freedom of religion played out between roughly 1300 and 1700 and gave us terrible atrocities like the Spanish Inquisition and the Thirty Years War that killed about ten percent of Europe’s population before reaching a resolution.

Had freedom of religion merely brought peace, that would have been enough. There is more, though. Once you’re free to choose your beliefs, you might just choose to base those beliefs on scientific evidence rather than religious revelation. As it turns out, freedom of religion allows scientific thinking to flourish.

In the early 1600s, the Church put Galileo under house arrest; by the late 1600s, England made Newton the Master of the Mint. Freedom of religion enabled the rise of science.

Progressives see in Trump’s travel ban targeted at Muslims not just a challenge to freedom of religion, which is reason enough to be upset. They see it as an attack on freedom of thought. Trump “knows” that Islam is the wrong religion and that climate change is not real and that he’s being attacked by “fake news.” Social conservatives see Trump as protecting their true and sacred religion; progressives see him as attacking freedom of thought.

DEMOCRACY

The next big revolution played out between about 1700 and 1900. At its beginning monarchs had absolute power and by its end those monarchs were either constrained by law or had been removed. The nation-state had become a tool for the average person and not just the elites. Rule of law and a representative government are foundational to democracy and both continue to evolve.

Newton defined laws that could apply universally to any object, from planet to moon to apple. His friend John Locke argued for laws that would apply universally to any person, from aristocrat to merchant to laborer. Laws that governed the natural world and should govern the social world were a focus of the Enlightenment thinkers who inspired democratic revolutions.

When Trump asks the head of the FBI not to investigate his National Security Adviser, this is a challenge to the rule of law, taking us back to the old system of personal privilege. When he leads a task force to investigate voter fraud (that all studies suggest is nonexistent), he is actually moving to make voting more restrictive. (Although he does seem rather sanguine about foreign interference, even if he’s trying to block Americans without photo ID.)

The invention of the car was dramatic but no one with a choice between a Tesla and a Model T would choose to drive the T. Like the car, democracy continues to evolve. If 1776 was the moment Americans “invented” modern democracy it is worth remembering that voting rights continue to expand to include more people over time. It took 200 years before the 18 year olds we sent to war could vote.

The real question is, who should be able to define the policies that define the community they live in? Put differently, is the government a tool for anyone to use or is it reserved for just a few? Progressives and social conservatives have very different answers to this.

THE AMERICAN DREAM

The most recent of our great institutions to be made a tool of the masses and not just the elites is the bank (or, more broadly, financial markets that include credit and investment markets). This access has helped people to become more affluent and more able to define their own lifestyle.

The levels of consumption that enable individuals to pursue the American dream would not be possible without modern capital markets. Warren Buffet argues that his upper-middle class neighbors in Nebraska live better than John D. Rockefeller did roughly a century ago. The cars, smart phones, TVs, and polio vaccines the average American now has rely on vast amounts of capital. The billions it takes to produce and purchase this vast array of goods would boggle the mind of any adult living in 1900, even John D. Rockefeller.

Access to financial markets gives the individual access to the American dream and the credit card and 401(k) account might be the simplest symbols of this broadening of access. Keynesian economics is another element of this revolution.

One of Keynes most overlooked insights into capital markets was this: capital markets could reach equilibrium before labor markets did. In other words, it was possible for capitalists to stop investing before a community reached full employment. If capital markets were just tools for elites, communities would have to accept this; if they were to be tools for the masses, communities would have to adopt policies that changed this. Keynes gave us options for this.

Unemployment during the Great Depression hit 25%; during the Great Recession, it peaked at 10%. One big reason for the differences in severity was the application of Keynesian stimulus; Bernanke did all he could to prop up credit markets to encourage investment and consumption. Like church and state before it, the bank has been made a tool for the average person. Interest rates were used to maximize employment, not returns to capital.

Social conservatives don’t like the Federal Reserve or its charter to subject financial markets to larger goals like employment. Again, as with church and state, they feel that what we’ve inherited is sacred and should not be changed. For them, Keynesian is a bad word. The battle between social conservatives and progressives over banking regulations and Federal Reserve policy often seems obscure but there is a reason that bank is the first part of bankrupt. The consequences of getting this policy wrong are severe.

INSTITUTIONS AS TOOLS

For centuries, progress has followed from letting more people have access to these great institutions, using them as tools for their own benefit. Life got better when our founding fathers extended the use of government from just aristocrats to landed gentry; it got better again when it was extended to women in the early 20th century and to minorities in the late 20th century. There is no evidence that progress now lies in the opposite direction, in restricting rather than broadening access to freedom of religion, democracy, and the American dream. The more that people have been able to use church, state and bank as tools for their own lives, the better the world has become.

Why Americans are More Religious than Europeans

Ross Douthat writes in the latest issue of The Atlantic

Nothing divides the United States from Europe like religion. America has its public piety and its multitude of thriving sects, Europe has its official secularism and its empty, museum-piece churches. Ninety percent of Americans say they believe in God, while only about 60 percent of Britons, French, and Germans say the same. American politics is riven by faith-based disputes that barely exist across the Atlantic, while European debates take place under a canopy of unbelief that’s unimaginable in the United States, where polls show that a Muslim or a homosexual has a better chance of being elected president than an acknowledged atheist.

Americans don't just say that religion is important. We head off to church with greater regularity than our peers in other developed nations, as reported here:

Fully 44 percent of Americans attend church once a week, not counting funerals, christenings and baptisms, compared with 27 percent of people in Great Britain, 21 percent of the French, 4 percent of Swedes and 3 percent of Japanese.
Moreover, 53 percent of Americans say that religion is very important in their lives, compared with 16 percent, 14 percent, and 13 percent, respectively, of the British, French and Germans.

Among the variety of reasons for this, I would put entrepreneurship at the top of the list. I've previously argued that an entrepreneur is someone who establishes a new organization in order to institutionalize a solution to a need or want, and / or to realize a personal vision. By this definition, Martin Luther was an entrepreneur, as was Joseph Smith and John Wesley.

Beliefs, like taste in shoes, come in a variety of shapes and sizes. In Europe, if your particular beliefs don't fit, you're unlikely to translate your belief into religious practice. Within a generation or two, your children and grandchildren are unlikely even to express a spiritual belief. In America, by contrast, a religious entrepreneur is more likely to create a religion that matches your own belief. Supported by a religious practice, your spiritual belief is more likely to be passed on to later generations.

At Adherents.com, they have listed "distinct religious movements and their countries of origin." India and England are near the top of the list, each with six (e.g., Anglicanism, Quakers, Hinduism, and Buddhism). At the top of the list? The U.S., with 11! (e.g., Latter Day Saints, Southern Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Black Muslims, and Scientologists).

If pop music selections were limited to just 50 Cent and George Strait, many people might conclude that they don't really like music. But with today's wealth of musical choices, it is the rare person who can't find something to enjoy. The more diversity we have in music, the higher the percentage of music lovers. I'd argue that the same holds in religion.

In the United States, we've done more to translate our religious dissatisfaction into new religions. I would argue that this, as much as anything, contributes to a higher percentage of the population practicing religion and expressing a belief in God.

The Future of Prosperity - When More is Less

A fascinating post at http://virtualeconomics.typepad.com/virtualeconomics/ leads with this:

"Jeff Jarvis is blogging from the Davos world leaders conference, finding (amongst other things) that 53% of Western Europeans think that the next generation will be less prosperous than this one. That's compared to 37% in the US, and just 14% in China."

Why the optimism gap? It could be that the West has an intuitive sense that the model we've been using for more than a century may be appropriate for a place like China but is increasingly less so in the West. China's per capita income is about 5% what it is in Western Europe or the US and Canada, making their perspective very different.

A single scoop of ice cream is nice - two can be fine ... but at some point (3? 6?) the enjoyment turns to nausea. More is nice for those who have little but after a while more becomes less desirable. Many Chinese are only now beginning to enjoy the benefits of prosperity - getting bikes, cars, stereos, and fashionable clothes for the first time. But once they have that, what is the next stage of prosperity? What happens when more is no longer better?

For decades we have confused quantity of goods with quality of life. Given that the prosperity of the last couple of centuries was the equivalent of our first scoop or two of ice cream, this confusion has not been particularly important. But now that we're facing our third or fourth scoop, it is important to make the distinction.

Our economies are still largely geared towards more, towards quantity of goods. Walk through a Costco or a landfill to see how voluminous our appetite for "goods" is. Yet these goods to have are not the only kind of goods. In fact, philosophers distinguish between goods to have and goods to do - considering the goods to do a higher good than those we have. Quality of life is related to goods to have - it is hard to imagine aspiring to a quality of life that didn't include at least some modicum of shelter, clothing, and food - much less those delightful bits of technology like laptops, mp3 players, or cell phones. Yet the marginal utility - the additional joy we get - from more goods (to have) does gradually drop. Eventually, goods (to have) simply do less to increase our quality of life.

Those in the West may well see that we're geared for getting more even as getting more has less and less impact on our quality of life. This may be the reason for the optimism gap between the West and China. Until the West has shifted its economies to more directly go after improvements in quality of life, this sense of pessimism in the West may only get worse.