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Why Conservatism Lost
It’s no secret that I’m gleeful about the crack-up in Conservatism. I’ve made that clear in audio-meetups and in the live chats. If I may be so bold, I would like to propose a simpler reason for the demise of Conservatism than many of the reasons currently floated by political analysts. It doesn’t involve climate change or demographics, and it is only somewhat related to economic growth. It is not beyond the control of Conservatives themselves. Conservatives caused their own demise for one reason, and that reason comes down to Conservatism’s lack of quantitative explanations for middle class problems.
Before I go deeper into this explanation, let me just add that Progressivism does not have this problem. Indeed, Progressive control of academia has allowed Progressives to analyze many discoveries made in economics, political science, mathematics, statistics, etc. and craft explanations for many of these phenomena through the development of models. Some of these models offer great insight, while others do not. Still, Conservatives have ceded academia to Progressives, and Progressives have been the ones to make the discoveries and apply an understanding of these discoveries to government policy. This is done directly, through government research institutions (such as the Federal Reserve), or indirectly through advice given by think-tanks and academics to Liberal politicians, who then seek to turn this advice into policy.
Now let me get back to Conservatism. Conservatives do not have the mechanism described above. Their contempt for academia has harmed them more than they would like to admit. In place of the above, Conservatives must rely upon comforting heuristics that are derived from nothing more than mere musings.
For example, consider trade. The government has mechanisms to recognize whether or not a country is engaging in harmful trade practices against the United States. The government has the means to act upon what it recognizes. The mechanisms and the means were developed through a mathematically rigorous process of creating a model of trade under certain assumptions, adding and removing assumptions to understand how this affects concepts of trade, and then using these assumptions (or lack of assumptions) to write a proof. This proof, which for the sake of an example we will suppose to be a proof of the optimal response by a government to dumping, then offers insight into what the government should do in a dumping situation. This rigorous explanation for dumping then makes its way to politicians (separate from bureaucrats at the federal trade agencies) who offer a solution to middle class communities that have been affected by dumping.
It is my understanding that the Conservative response to dumping, or any trade phenomenon for that matter, is to simply say something along the lines of “People are engaging in free exchange. If anyone tries to stop it, they are against freedom.” There is no proof that is offered. There is no deep and mathematically rigorous explanation. The framework does not exist to offer a policy prescription. Instead, Conservatives merely point to the musings of Hayek, Smith, Rand, or sometimes even Aristotle.
Now consider the above and apply it to any issues currently affecting the middle class. The Progressive can offer an explanation in quantifiable terms, with a policy based upon measurable outcomes. Conservatives can merely quote “great men and women” whose explanations for a particular phenomenon are no better than yours or mine (and often involve vague terms such as “freedom” and “virtue”). In so doing, they place many middle class issues and anxieties in a mystical twilight, seemingly beyond the realm of Man’s ability to measure. When Conservatives do this, they fail to assuage or confront the anxieties of their base, who ultimately turn to a bastardized version of Progressive explanations and solutions to their problems.
And that’s why you have Donald Trump.
And that’s why Conservatism lost.
Published in General
I’d like to see the survey that backs that up. Or would you consider, say, Goldman Sachs to not be “financiers?”
Better according to whom? The government? I don’t care. Me? I’m interested. But I’d just as soon make my own decisions about what’s best for me and mine.
This is the statist’s argument in a nutshell, isn’t it? “The government knows best, so it should be able to tell you how to live your life.”
The argument is nonsense. There are as many models showing that Keynesian economics is totally bogus as there are models touting it. The former are more rigorous, but the folks don’t and can’t read any of them anyway. There are models showing the benefits of trade. The models cannot show the benefits of minimum wages but they can show the harm. We ceded academia to liberals in the sixties when we had to expand to accommodate the baby boomers. This was the first really poorly educated self absorbed peer dominated cliche ridden generation and having quickly gained tenure, their minds were quick frozen by never having to confront the consequences of their own recommendations. There are also models that show how organized interests gradually accumulate like barnacles on a stagnant ship and strangle them. This is what is happening. And only conservatives with sand blasters can fix it.
I think Jonah Goldberg would recognize line of thinking.
ISTM that government’s interference in trade is almost never about “the dollar amount of economic activity.” I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but gov’t intervention seems more often targeted at its own “unquantifiable” values such as environmentalism and “fairness.”
Second, you suggest interference if a policy is not achieving its “optimal outcome.” How pragmatic. That freedom is unquantifiable does not mean that it has no value. In fact it becomes eminently quantifiable as it approaches zero. When you trade it away to achieve some “optimal outcome” it is not without cost.
That’s one way conservatism differs from progressive statism.
Trade is a problem for us because the dollar is the reserve currency so must always be slightly overvalued and we can’t devalue. The dollar role was great when we lived the illusion that we could fix the world with foreign aid and other costly interventions. We’ve learned a lot since Bretton Woods and it’s time to gradually undo the system but we don’t want some other country, like China to replace us, because there are imperial advantages to being able to print one’s own foreign exchange. But first we must make ourselves the most competitive economy on earth a task that is necessary whether we print our own foreign exchange or not.
VC, I wish you well in your studies, and more important, I wish you well beyond them. As a successful young person in academia lecturing the world about the relative merits of the world vs. academia, no doubt you can see the shade under which you complain about the light.
Better according to the voters, who have expressed their preferences through elections. Of course, the government should only improve upon those activities that have a measurable outcome. For example, voters may wish to see an increase in their income over a four year period (they always do, and that is reasonable of them). To achieve this for the greatest amount of citizens, the government then tries to sustain an increase in the inflation adjusted dollar amount of economic activity within the United States. We measure this outcome through GDP reports. Now, if the voters wanted something that is extremely vague, like an increase in the country’s “virtue” or “honor”, then the government should not try to achieve that. It has no definitive way of measuring success in this area.
So there is a limiting principle here. The government should only concern itself with measurable outcomes and policies.
Just a couple of thoughts:
Correlation does not equal causation.
There are lies, damn lies and
oohh what’s
that
third
thing?. . .
hhmmmm
ah! statistics!
Ah, I see. So that’s why they’re passing laws saying anyone can use any restroom they please. Because the benefit is measurable.
A bias toward measurable data is the great intellectual failing of our time. It is a bias because it is simplistic and available to everyone. Our schools aren’t just a problem because they are liberal but because they are mathematical.
Thinkers gave us the US Constitution. Analysts gave us the European constitution.
Government shouldn’t do things like that, and I’m not going to defend that; however, what I am in favor of can really only be found on one side of the political spectrum, and that side often passes laws like that. I have to take the good with the bad.
It’s just so darn cute when academics lecture us about the importance of putting other academics in charge of policy.
Please, do tell me more about this competent, informed government you speak of. I’d love to see it someday.
Such as? And how often are they used? And how’d that work out?
Such as? And how often are they used? And how’d that work out?
Examples?
Examples?
Examples?
No, the academics are in an advisory role. Politicians are in charge of policy.
In any case, the voters deserve to know the exact reasons for why they are in this or that situation, instead of being treated like children. Conservatives fail to lay the complex reasons for why many middle class voters are in some particular situation. Conservatives have lost this ability, possibly permanently, since they have little to no control in academia. In fact, now they have contempt for academia.
But Joseph, if many or most conservative politicians are more interested in protecting their super rich donors than they are are with preserving freedom, then why should anyone who isn’t rich support them?
I can give you a personal example, but I’m not going to be very specific. My first economics publication was about the government response to airport congestion. It was published in an econ journal. I’m not going to give the specific journal or paper, because I don’t want my personal information out on this site. The paper gives policymakers a mechanism to judge when to allocate subsidies to an airport, and this mechanism involves recognizing certain measurable phenomena.
I don’t know how to respond to some of the things you claim as indisputable, factual, etc.
Are people in academe are even more sheltered now than they were 10-20 years ago to the reality of much of their number crunching? My father, who moved from engineering, to operational management in heavy industry, and and an executive position, and then in the last twenty years of his career to a PhD and teaching economics, business, and marketing, loved this scene from Back to School.
For him, it summarized the failure of his peers to really understand what they were studying and teaching. Today he turns 69, and I wish I could convince him to post on here, happy birthday, Dad!
This is just blitheringly ignorant.
As if there are
A. no conservatives in academic institutions of higher learning
B. there are no conservative intellectuals producing research, or polemics of any complexity on these issues
C. no conservatives seeking to deal with both economic, statistical models
We have a dozen of each on this site as members for Crispy-Creme’s sake.
D. Conservative scholars who use their work to advance political and legal issues, including economic
E. Conservative think-tanks that rely on first class academic research
Almost as much contempt as academia has for conservatives.
The problem I have with your entire thesis is that it dates back to the early 1900s and the conceit of the Wilsonian Progressives that we all just need to concede to be ruled by the “experts”.
Yes, I suppose looking at history would not be considered academic enough, to know that we’ve been down this road quite often since the dawn of time, and especially since 1792 & 1912.
The only important Conservative think-tank producing high-quality research that I can think of is the Hoover Institution. There are other Conservative think-tanks, but I don’t think they can compare to the research done at the Hoover Institution or at major universities.
There are Conservatives in academia, but not many. The few that are in academia do not exert as much influence as their Liberal counterparts.
This doesn’t actually prove your point. That’s the problem with your thinking. You don’t understand how these items are not necessarily related in the manner in which you write about them.
No, you are governed by your elected representatives. Those representatives should give you the explanation that you deserve as a citizen for why you may or may not have particular economic or political problems.
I once had an economics class in college that was given by a Conservative. He was even a fan of Hayek. His class was a waste of time. On the exam, the answers often involved achieving the right combination of the words “freedom” and “liberty”. Of course, then you take graduate classes, and the words “freedom” and “liberty” are never mentioned. It isn’t as if I was getting the true information from this Conservative’s class and the graduate class was full of nice heuristics.
If a politician says that your issues are issues of “freedom” and “virtue” and “liberty” then he/she probably knows no more about the issue than you do, and if they do, then they seem to think that you are not fit to hear the true explanation.
They are related in the sense that Liberals make up much of academia, they have made many of the major discoveries, and they have communicated these discoveries via advisory roles and think-tanks to politicians. Conservatives also have done major work, but they do not have the legions of academics that Liberals have (nor have they made as many discoveries as Liberals, if only because of the volume of Liberals in academia). Consequently, Conservative academics have little influence within Conservatism.
Appeal to authority. Where “academia” is considered a valid authority.
Oh, yay.
My google-fu isn’t up to the task of finding the exact numbers, but the number of regulations promulgated by unelected bureaucrats apparently exceeds the number of laws passed by an order of magnitude.
No, there is no appeal to authority. The arguments that are made are laid out in proofs of theorems. If there is a flaw, point it out. Propose an alternative.
If the issue is one of data, point it out. That requires less training then pointing out the flaw in a proof.
It is an appeal to authority when Conservatives quote Hayek, Smith, Rand or Aristotle. Their words do not possess some magic. Ordinary citizens are capable of making similar arguments. Ordinary citizens are also capable of understanding the proofs that are written by academics if they are given the proper training. It’s not like I think the academics possess some special intelligence. They just have more training in their area on issues that affect the entire population. Anyone, if they care to do so (and if it is economically feasible), can achieve this level of training.
All I will say regarding this smug, triumphalist table-pounding is this: May you always be able to define your own ideas, and may you never lose control over your own messaging.
Isn’t this the problem? Your academics don’t teach that the US was set up so that the people govern themselves.
Rarely do I agree with Brad but : here here!