Intellectual

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: It's time for the Right to become smarter in places where we're typically uncomfortable.

Hat tip to Jon Henke who tweeted this post from Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute:

I don’t know whether this belongs in the comic-relief category or the future-threats category, but the Harvard Law School is having a conference to analyze the “free market mindset.” The basic premise of the conference seems to be that people who believe in limited government are psychologically troubled.

The conference schedule features presentations such as “How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community” and “Addicted to Incentives: How the Ideology of Self Interest Can Be Self-Fulfilling.” The most absurd presentation, though, may be the one entitled, “Colossal Failure: The Output Bias of Market Economies.” According to the description, the author argues that the market “delivers excessive levels of consumption.” Damn those entrepreneurs for creating so much wealth!

I came out of Harvard with an undergraduate and graduate degree. This is one of the few times where I was shocked and not surprised at the same time when I read the introduction to this conference:

What is it about free markets that proves - and still continues to prove - so alluring to economists, scholars, and policy-makers alike?

The March 7 conference to take place at Harvard Law School, brings together leading scholars in law, economics, social psychology, and social cognition to present and discuss their research regarding the historical origins, psychological antecedents, and policy consequences of the free market mindset. Their work illustrates that the magic of the marketplace is partially an illusion based on faulty assumptions and outmoded approaches.

Fortunately, there are a few folks at Harvard, like economics professor Robert Barro, who keep people honest. Here's what he says in a recent Tax Foundation podcast:

The economy did very well for the next several years after the tax cuts of 2003. And it's very unfair that Obama has blamed that program for part of the current financial collapse. There's really no linkage between the tax rate cutting program of 2003 and the financial and housing collapse we've seen in recent months.

Yes, the concept of this conference at Harvard Law School is crazy. But there's a larger point to be made here. On this blog, we've talked a lot about the way forward for conservatives and the GOP. When it comes to elections, the argument has been made that we have to reach out to new places (places that we have ignored) to grow our base and communicate a new conservative message: urban areas, African-American churches, ethnic community meetings, etc. When it comes to public policy, the argument has been made that we need use principles of old to come up with new solutions for new times and new crises.

The point is that we must argue for our free market principles and new solutions in places where we feel most uncomfortable: i.e. the academic arena. We can't be afraid of taking on the liberal supermajority in academia, nor should we be afraid of trying to cultivate conservative intellectuals at colleges and universities. It isn't enough to have think tanks that act as safe havens of intellectual freedom for conservatives. And sure, we need to find creative ways to explain the complexities of the free market. The fact is that (1) more conservatives need to welcome intellectual thought and debate, and (2) more conservatives need to take the fight to the academic world. The Right needs to make itself relevant in places where it is currently seen as irrelevant, instead of sticking to places where we feel comfortable.

Oddly enough, I say this on the eve of the biggest kumbaya/"singing to the choir event" for the Right: CPAC.

Wow - I did not realize that I could create my own blog on TheNextRight. I was thinking of experimenting with my own.

I am interested in open-minded, informed intellectual discourse about right-leaning ideas. I'm not interested in knee-jerk, close-minded rhetoric. Personally, I am completely against any justification based on someone's idea of "faith," (it always begs the question of "whose faith"), but I would be open to listening to people who can make a case for bringing faith into the discussion. Just don't assume that your faith is my faith. Some of the things I would like to explore:

* How to address the economic crisis. Is there a case for regulation? If so, what kind of regulation? I think it's also important to understand the factors that created the financial mess. They are waaaaay more complicated than "loans to people who were poor credit risks," although that certainly played a part. I'm looking for more nuanced discussion. 

* What do "individualism" and "individual rights" mean in an increasingly interconnected world? People under the age of 30 are very connected to one another through technology. The idea of getting a group together for a purpose using the Web or cell phones is second nature. I think the traditional concepts of "individualism" may need to be tempered for a 21st Century audience.

* What role does culture play in a conservative movement, given that there are multiple cultures within the United States? How do we deal with immigration and the extent to which the US relies on illegal immigrant labor, even though it is illegal? (I'm talking about facts here, not making a value judgment.) 

I am currently living in London for work. It has been an eye-opening experience. The US has a much more homogeneous culture than the UK - or at least London. (Really, the Brits are reaping what they sowed with the empire they built - but that's another story.) They say that the most popular British dish is - Chicken Tikka Masala. It's delicious, by the way, nothing wrong with it. London has done an OK  job of integrating its former colonists into its culture, but to a great extent white London and South African London and Jamaican London and Bengali London all lead separate lives. It's worse in Paris, where the children of former colonies are not only separate from the "real" French but blocked out of the economic system. The issues raised by  multiculturalism and immigration are worldwide, and not easy to resolve.

A comparison between Sara Palin and Margaret Thatcher can be taken a bit too far. They are in many respects very different people. But the reaction to each by the intellectual "new class" in their societies is remarkably similar. I've been reading Hugo Young's 1989 biography of Thatcher and came across this:

"One of the most readily discernible issues between these two worlds was a matter of social snobbery, laced, on the part of the dissenting intellectuals, with a special tang of indignation deriving from the fact that their antagonist was a woman...

."...the baroness had once seen Mrs Thatcher on television choosing clothes at Marks & Spencer, and there was, she found, something quite 'obscene' about it. The clothes showed a woman 'packaged together in a way that's not exactly vulgar, just low.' Lady Warnock confessed to 'a kind of rage' whenever she thought about her.

"Scarcely less remarkable than such sentiments, which sounded as though they sprang from something deeper than the well of pure reason, was the willingness of these intellectuals to express them. It was as though the passions of the age had lifted all restraint from the canons of public conversation. Nothing, it appeared, was unmentionable, no depth of condescension need be left unplumbed..."

The Young biography is a bit old, and I've been thinking about picking up the Claire Berliniski biography. Is anyone familiar with it?

Tim Wright