Robert Stacy McCain's review

The Washington Times's Robert Stacy McCain has written a puckish review of "Crunchy Cons" at Reason.com. I appreciate the attention he's given the book there, and on the pages of TWT. RSM's not a fan of the book, to put it mildly, but his review is written with a generous spirit, and I'm grateful for that.

But he doesn't really confront the main thrust of CC's argument. He seems to believe that I think anyone who seeks to make a profit is motivated by greed. That's not true. I made it quite clear in my book that I am a capitalist, and that no system of economic organization has served man's authentic needs better than capitalism. But how is one to live morally in a system that depends on acquisitiveness as the engine of its growth? I believe it can be done, but unless you believe that all material desires are self-justifying, which McCain, a Christian fundamentalist, surely does not, then you are going to have to confront the ethical problems raised by capitalist societies. How much is too much? What does one owe one's neighbor? And so forth.

It's easier to say that "Crunchy Cons" tars all capitalists as greedheads, and/or is about nothing more than the moralization of taste, because it's easy to dismiss that sort of thing. But it's not what my book is about.


RSM writes:

I’ve got no problem with much of Dreher’s crunchy agenda. If he wants to eat free-range chicken and organic vegetables, more power to him. Scorn exurban “McMansions” and buy a century-old Craftsman house in a hip in-town neighborhood? No problem. (I can’t afford any of that stuff myself, despite my greed.)

Ah, how cheap and easy is this populism. It would amuse RSM, I think, to see the kind of house I live in, as well as the neighborhood, which is far from hip. By labeling the conservative moral case I make for, say, non-factory-farmed meat as mere elitism, he avoids having to confront the argument. But the argument remains unanswered, and even unengaged.

RSM:

Heck, I’m a fundamentalist father of six homeschooled children—the very epitome of crunchiness, according to Dreher. Yet because I believe in economic freedom, he says I don’t even exist. Crunchies “orient their lives” toward “serving God, not self,” Dreher writes. “By way of contrast, a libertarian conservative sees the point of life as exercising freedom of choice to serve his self-chosen ends.”

Huh? Doesn't exist? I don't for a second doubt the integrity of RSM's Christian faith, but I don't understand why that is an unfair description of libertarianism. Most libertarians want to be left alone by the state, and uphold free choice as their political and social telos. I don't understand how a Christian can be a libertarian, though I can see how he might call himself an economic libertarian. Anyway, is there anyone who doesn't believe in "economic freedom"? But what does that mean? What's the difference between economic liberty, and economic license? Does RSM believe that people should have the right to buy and sell drugs? Their own bodies? If not, why not -- and on what basis does he impose those restrictions on others?

RSM:

Look, Rod: My kids have to eat, our minivan needs a new transmission, and my daughter wants to go to college in the fall. Unfortunately, the grocer, the auto mechanic, and the university registrar seem to be libertarians who expect payment in something more substantial than spiritual bliss. So I write for money, not because these are my “self-chosen ends,” but because God cursed our mutual ancestor Adam: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19).

Okayyy...but what does this have to do with the actual book I wrote? Where do I advocate paying people in spiritual bliss? I work because I have to, of course, but also because I take satisfaction in it. I think work is not merely something we do between weekends, but that labor has moral and spiritual meaning.

The only solid point I could find in the review was RSM's charge that my book is ignorant of the finer points of economics. I plead guilty to that, and regret my ignorance. Because my knowledge of economics is so poor, I tried to avoid prescriptions. Still, I don't think you have to be well-versed in economics to have an idea of what makes a good society, and to see that certain economic practices we accept in our society work to the overall moral and civic harm of families and communities. RSM is a Protestant who appears to believe that the Church has nothing wise or important or binding on our consciences to say about the economic practices of society. I agree with him that clerics and divines ought to be careful about making prescriptions about things they don't fully understand, but RSM would appear to place the economy beyond Judgment (in the theological sense). If that's not making an idol of the free market, I don't know what is.