The New Assault on Capitalism; D. Bandow

Potomac Principles The New Assault on Capitalism C apitalism has long had more than a few critics on the left. For years it was said that collectivism would eventually outpro duce the market. That claim died with the Soviet Union. What remained of the left then began to complain that capitalism generated too many material goods. The charge alwayswas incongruous coming from a Gucci-clad elite who enjoyed the best the market system had to offer. But now similar attacks on capitalism are coming from an even stranger source, the right. The mar ket, it is said, is a threat to family, human relationships, values, and virtue. Government programs like Social Security are said to be pro-family. Both freedom, which, of course, is what capitalism is all about, and virtue are obvi ously under assault today. Government takes and spends roughly half of the nation's in come. Regulation further extends the power of the state in virtually every area of people's lives. Increasing numbers of important, per sonal decisions are ultimately up to some public functionary somewhere.

Virtue, too, seems to be losing ground daily. Evidence of more decline is plentiful enough in America's political leadership. Things are scarcely better elsewhere in society, as family and community breakdown continues apace. Unfortunately, the problem is being com pounded as onetime supporters of both libMr. Bandow, a nationallysyndicatedcolumnist,is a seniorfellowat the Cato Instituteand the authorand editor of severalbooks, includingTripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World. by Doug Bandow erty and virtue are setting the two against each other, treating them as frequent antagonists, if not permanent opponents. At the very least, they suggest, you cannot maximize both lib erty and virtue, but, instead, have to choose which to promote and which to restrict. However, it would be a mistake to assume that one must be sacrificed for the other. Rather, they are complementary. That is, liberty-the right to exercise choice, free from coercive state regulation-is a necessary pre condition for virtue. And virtue is ultimately necessary for the survival of liberty.

Virtue cannot exist without freedom, with out the right to make moral choices. Coerced acts of conformity with some moral norm, however good, do not represent virtue; rather, the compliance with that moral norm must be voluntary. There are times, of course, when coercion is absolutely necessary-most importantly, to protect the rights of others by enforcing an inter-personalmoral code governing the re lations of one to another. The criminal law is an obvious example, as is the enforcement of contracts and property rights. However, virtue reflects a standard of intra personal morality. As such, it is an area that lies beyond the reach of state power. Of course America today does not seem to be a particularly virtuous place. But then, the natural human condition, certainly in Chris tian theology, and in historical experience, too, is not one of virtue. "There is no one righteous, not even one," Paul wrote in his letter to the Roman church, citing the Psalms 283 284 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1997 (Rom. 3:10). This explains the necessity of a transcendent plan of redemption.

Societies can be more or less virtuous. Did ours become less so because government no longer tries so hard to mold souls? Blaming moral shifts on legal changes mistakes corre lation for causation. In fact, America's one time cultural consensus eroded during an era of strict laws against homosexuality, pornog raphy, and even fornication. Only cracks in this consensus led to changes in the law. In short, as more people viewed sexual mores as a matter of taste rather than a question of right and wrong, the moral underpinnings of the laws collapsed, followed by the laws. What Government Can't Do Government has proved that it is not a particularly good teacher of virtue. The state tends to be effective at simple, blunt tasks, like killing and jailing people. It has been far less successful at reshaping individual con sciences. Even if one could pass the laws without changing America's current moral ethic, the result would not be a more virtuous nation. True, there might be fewer overt acts of immorality. But there would be no change in people's hearts: Forcibly preventing people from victimizing themselves does not auto matically make them more virtuous, righ teous, or good. It is, in short, one thing to improve appearances, but quite another to improve society's moral core.

Indeed, attempting to make people virtu ous by force would make society itself less virtuous in three important ways. First, indi viduals would lose the opportunity to exercise virtue. They would not face the same set of temptations and be forced to choose between good and evil. This approach might thereby make their lives easier. But they would not be more virtuous, and society would suffer as a result. In this dilemma we see the paradox of Christianity: a God of love creates man and provides a means for his redemption, but allows him to choose to do evil. Second, to vest government with primary responsibility for promoting virtue short changes other institutions, or "governments" in Puritan thought, like the family and church, sapping their vitality. Private social institu tions find it easier to lean on the power of coercion than to lead by example, persuade, and solve problems. Moreover, the law is better at driving immorality underground than eliminating it. As a result, moral prob lems seem less acute and people may become less uncomfortable; private institutions may therefore be less likely to work as hard to promote virtue.

Third, making government a moral en forcer encourages abuse by majorities or influential minorities that gain power. If one thing is certain in life, it is that man is sinful. Yet the effect of sin is magnified by the possession and exercise of coercive power. Its possessors can, of course, do good, but history suggests that they are far more likely to do harm. They may start with the best of inten tions, but that doesn't prevent them from turning a supposedly family-friendly Social Security into a coercive public Ponzi scheme lurching toward fiscal disaster. And as America's traditional Judeo Christian consensus crumbles we are more likely to see government promoting alterna tive moral views. This is possible only if government is given the authority to coer cively mold souls in order to "promote vir tue." Despite the best intentions of advocates of statecraft as soulcraft, government is more likely to end up enshrining something other than traditional morality. All told, an unfree society is not likely to be a virtuous one.

In the end, people need to be more willing to tolerate the quirks and failings, even seri ous virtuous lapses, of their neighbors, so long as such actions have only limited effect on others. They should leave the punishment of most sins to God. The fact that government can do little to help does not mean that there is nothing it should do. We would all be better off if public officials adopted as their maxim "first, do no harm." Although the community-wide moral breakdown most evident in the inner city has many causes, government policy has exacer bated the problem at almost every level. Governments punish both marriage and thrift through their tax policies. The state has spent years attempting to expunge not only religious THE NEW ASSAULT ON CAPITALISM 285 practices but also religious values from the public square; the public school monopoly discourages moral education. Nevertheless, freedom is not enough.