The very phrase “culture wars” brings us back to the 1990s, and seems as dated as the big hair and shoulder pads we smile at in reruns of Seinfeld. But disputes over what marriage means, when life begins, and which moral vision ought to guide government policy are not a distracting sideshow from the “real” business of drawing up federal budgets or determining marginal tax rates. In fact, the “social issues” have deep implications for the future of capitalism, if it will have one -- and not merely for the cynical reason that pro-business candidates need blue-collar Christian votes.
The architect of the post-war German economic “miracle,” Wilhelm Röpke, used to warn his old friends Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek that a free economy and society could only survive the convulsive changes wrought by the market’s creative destruction if the non-state sector -- families, churches, and the rest of what Tocqueville called “civil society” -- was strong and solid. The “spontaneous order” that makes freedom possible can break down, and as social chaos worsens, the populace will look to big government for shelter and protection. Hence fragmented families and their dysfunctions fuel the demand for social programs, and the fading of faith drives people to seek the civil religion of socialism, as Catholic historian Michael Burleigh documents in Earthly Powers.
Read Full Article »