The Conservative, the Progressive, and the Masonomist

Econolog: The Conservative, the Progressive, and the Masonomist

Tyler Cowen Writes,

Insofar as I am conservative (debatable) I would rewrite the definition:

A realization that we will do best by building on the strengths of the particular habits, mores and institutions of the United States (and other successful nations) rather than trying to reshape the nation radically in the pursuit of particular ideological goals.

I know conservatives, I have attended symposia with conservatives, and Tyler Cowen is no conservative. The differences among conservatives, progressives, and Masonomists can be summarized concisely as follows:

Label	Change	Decentralized, Unplanned Human Activity
Conservative	Bad	Bad
Progressive	Good	Bad
Masonomist	Good	Good

The core belief of conservatives is that we are going to hell in a handbasket. Depending on who you talk to, this has been happening since the 1960's, or since the French Revolution, or since the fall of the Roman Empire, or since ___. Depending on who you talk to, our problem is that we have forgotten the teachings of Ronald Reagan, or those of the Founding Fathers, or those of Jesus, or those of Plato, or those of ___.

Tyler's phrase "build on strengths" is anti-conservative. It implies that it is possible to move forward, when conservatives believe that all movement is backward.

The core belief of progressives is that ordinary people need to be told what to do for their own good. Progressives embrace change that is conceived and managed by experts, especially if it is grounded in science. In the 20th century, the relevant scientific apparatus included eugenics, Keynesianism, and Bergson-Samuelson social welfare calculus. Today, the relevant scientific apparatus includes climate science and behavioral economics, the latter embraced with enthusiasm by CBO Director Peter Orszag and by key economic advisers to Senator Obama.

The core belief of Masonomists is in spontaneous order. We embrace change that emerges from an evolutionary, trial-and-error process. We trust the process of entrepreneurial creative destruction, market solutions to market failure, and technological progress. What we distrust is central planning by experts. And I am sure that Pete Boettke would want to remind me of our intellectual debts to Austrian economists.

I'm not sure either conservatives or progressives would be entirely comfortable with Kling's characterization here but we'll go with it. My life experience has seemed to be an endless twin struggle. One struggle is with those who are shackled with the mantra "But we've always done it this way" and seemingly resist change on principle. The other struggle is with (usually idealist and intellectuals) who believe their "superior" wisdom and insight entitles them to manage societies and economies for the "common good" of the rest of the simpletons in society. (I refer to this as rule by the expertocracy.) So I have considerable affinity with what he calls the Masonomist position. But... :-)

As a Christian I offer some important caveats. First, sin is pervasiveness in institutions and in individuals operating in decentralized capacities. Therefore, a healthy set of semi-autonomous institutions like family, government, education, and business are needed to act as check on each other. They also act as a check on both over-centralization and over-individualization. Issues of subsidiarity are critical as well.

Secondly, there is an evolutionary process. But unlike what I suspect most Masonomist might think, I don’t believe it is evolution that is entirely driven by events in the past propelling us forward into the future. There is also the element of God standing in the future, evolving all things toward him. The mission is to discern as best we can what that future is to be and to model it in the present. This both points the way (be it ever so imperfectly) toward the end of the evolutionary process and it does transformative work in the present that evolves us toward the future reality.

Comments

[Steve Allison]

"There is also the element of God standing in the future, evolving all things toward him. The mission..." Thanks for informing me with this post. Your last few sentences beginning with the above especially resonated with me.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Steve, I'm glad you found this helpful.