Class and Social Causes

Conservatives tend not to use explanations based on the concepts of class and social causes, nor do they recommend policy based on those notions. Why? Liberals use these concepts all the time, in providing explanations and in formulating and justifying policy. Again, why? What is it about the difference between liberals and conservatives that makes these concepts sensible to one, but not to the other?

Think for a moment about how the notions of class and social forces are used. Class structure comes with the notion of an upper class with wealth and power that wants to maintain its privileges; a lower class – the cheap labor of the upper class – held down and kept subservient to the upper class; and a middle class caught in between – aspiring to the upper class and afraid of falling into the lower class, but also depending on the cheap labor of the lower class. Social forces are usually postulated to account for the failure of certain lower-class groups to succeed, to gain access to wealth and power. People in the lower class can get caught in the system and be unable to rise. Such a social arrangement is seen by liberals as unfair. It is a social injustice.

According to this picture, the upper and middle classes could not maintain their current lifestyles without the cheap – and often difficult and demeaning – labor of the lower class: picking vegetables, working in fast-food places, cleaning houses, collecting garbage. In this picture, the upper classes owe a lot to the lower class – much more than they are paying. Social justice demands that the lower class be paid more, live under better conditions, and be given maximal opportunities to work their way out of poverty, opportunities for education and job training, for example.

This picture is usually supplied as a justification for government to do something to help out the people at the bottom, at least to provide for their basic needs and to give them enough education and job training to allow them to do a bit better. It is also used to explain the rage and violence of lower-class people against the system that "imprisons" them socially and economically. It is the class structure and the social forces holding it in place that does the "imprisoning."

Concepts like "class" and "social and economic forces" and "social and economic imprisonment" fit naturally into a liberal worldview. For liberals, the essence of America is nurturance, part of which is helping those who need help. People who are "trapped" by social and economic forces need help to "escape." The metaphorical Nurturant Parent – the government – has a duty to help change the social and economic system that traps people. By this logic, the problem is in the society, not in the people innocently "trapped." If social and economic forces are responsible, then other social and economic forces must be brought to bear to break the "trap."

This whole picture is simply inconsistent with Strict Father morality and the conservative worldview it defines. In that worldview, the class hierarchy is simply a ladder, there to be climbed by anybody with the talent and self-discipline to climb it. Whether or not you climb the ladder of wealth and privilege is only a matter of whether you have the moral strength, character, and inherent talent to do so. Because explanations for success or failure give priority to Moral Strength and Moral Essence, explanations in terms of social forces and class make no sense. They are only seen as excuses for lack of talent, laziness, or some other form of moral weakness. In such a worldview, the concept of social justice does not make sense. If the poor are selling their labor to the rich, then it is the labor market and the labor market alone that determines what that labor is worth. Labor, in this metaphor, is a commodity like any other commodity, and its value is not inherent but determined by what people are willing to pay in exchange for it. The Morality of Reward and Punishment, which requires that all markets be free markets, demands this. Any other arrangement would be immoral and threaten the very moral foundations of society. It is for this reason that conservatives are against the minimum wage, while liberals, in the name of a bare minimum of social justice, support it.

To conservatives, the existence of a wealthy class simply makes real the Morality of Reward and Punishment, the basis of all morality. It is not wrong, not something to be corrected, for the wealthy to seek further privilege. It is natural and moral, a guarantee that the Morality of Reward and Punishment continues to work. Crucial to this is what conservatives see as the essence of America – the Ladder of Success myth. As long as free enterprise flourishes and anyone with enough self-discipline and imagination can become an entrepreneur, the Morality of Reward and Punishment will hold and all will be well.

The logic of conservatism locates so-called "social" problems within people, not within society. For this reason, it would make no sense to conservatives to use class and social forces as forms of explanation and justification for social policy.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14