Regulation and the environment

A major aspect of nurturance is protection. Parents have to protect their children not just from the most obvious forms of crime and violence but from less obvious forms of danger: cigarette smoke, asbestos and other toxic chemicals, lead paints, dangerous toys, harmful foods, cars without seat belts, inflammable clothing, dangerous toys, unscrupulous businessmen, and on and on. A truly caring, nurturant parent is vigilant when it comes to such everyday dangers.

Government, seen as a nurturant parent, must similarly be vigilant about such everyday dangers to its citizens. Liberals conceptualize government regulation as the protection of those who cannot protect themselves – protection of citizens, workers, honest businessmen, and the environment against possible harm by unscrupulous or negligent businesses and individuals. Government regulation of business is there to be sure that businesses don't hurt or cheat anyone. Long experience tells us that citizens need such protection. Unscrupulous or careless businesses in America have a long history of putting their workers in danger, polluting the environment, producing dangerous products, and cheating their customers. The job of government regulation is to minimize this.

Conservatives, however, do not conceptualize government regulation as protection. Why? Given conservative moral priorities and moral categories, they could not possibly conceptualize government regulation as protection. Who could it be protection against? Certainly not model conservative citizens, successful businessmen, from whom we have nothing to fear. In the system of conservative moral categories, government regulation falls under interference with the pursuit of self-interest by people trying to make a living, people using their self-discipline to become self-reliant (and, if possible, rich). These are the good people in our society. We want to encourage people like them and it is wrong to put roadblocks in their way.

The argument against environmental, worker-safety, and product-safety regulations is that they are too cumbersome and get in the way of doing business. Regulators are seen as stupid and corrupt. But conservatives don't just want to reform regulatory agencies, to get rid of what is cumbersome, while still protecting those who need protection. They want to get rid of regulations completely. Liberals are incredulous. Don't people have a right to clean air and water, safe products, safe airlines, safe jobs? Shouldn't the environment be preserved for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? The liberal arguments never get heard by conservatives. They can't. The primary conservative moral categories filter out the liberal arguments. The primary conservative moral categorization, which is the political version of Strict Father morality, makes conservative businessmen into model citizens and regulation into interference with them.

The basis of the classification of successful businessmen as model citizens is very deep, as we have seen. It is the principle of the Morality of Reward and Punishment, which is at the very heart of Strict Father morality. To place restrictions on that principle is to strike at the very heart of conservative ethics and the conservative way of life. Placing restrictions on moral people who are engaged in moral activities is immoral. That's why conservatives see government regulation as immoral. Once successful businessmen are categorized as model citizens, there is no possibility of seeing regulation as protection.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14