Poulos on Big Government and Virtue

James Poulos posted today at Doublethink on the subject of what we usually call big-government conservatism. He asks a provocative question, at least for conservatives: what if nobody really cares about fiscal responsibility as such? If we can sustain an age of abundance, if the doom-sayers are wrong at every turn, if we can match our ever-increasing debt with ever-increasing wealth, why worry? As he puts it, we're rich enough to afford the luxury of bad government.

The point of the piece is not that the arguments against corruption and inefficiency aren't valid arguments, but rather that they don't inspire the sort of emotional commitment that comes from taking action against injustice. I mean, on the face of things, justice sounds much more important than efficiency. And true justice, of course, really is much more important than efficiency.

So the best remaining argument, Poulos tells us, is that we are on a path to destruction: that our experts, managers, and wizards will someday run out of tricks and will no longer be able to mend the whole messy machine. But we trust our experts, and we're too busy to determine whether or not that trust is well-founded. The few remaining doubters (e.g. traditionalist conservatives) can't do much besides live a virtuous life as best they know how.

At least, that's what I got from the article.

It is a strange time to be making arguments based on the USA's ability to afford things, as some pretty dire signals seem to be coming out of Wall Street right now. But the (mainstream) reactions I've heard so far seem to confirm Poulos's point. Can we fix this with a few regulations? Can we change the tax rules and get rid of the problem? Can we simply replace our “bad” goods with better, greener goods and go on just as we have before?

But if it becomes obvious that we can't afford bad government—and this prediction is being made on the left and on the right—maybe then we'll hear some different questions.