The recent discussion here at the Cafe about the necessity or sufficiency of the state prompted a long-time patron to ask me to re-run this post from December 2004.
December 07, 2004
More on Blue-State Creationism
Don Boudreaux
A few days ago I was inspired by Tom Palmer’s incisive review of Cass Sunstein’s latest book
to point out that many “blue-staters” – Americans who think of
themselves as “progressive,” rational, and “reality-based” – are also
creationists. Not biological creationists, but creationists
nevertheless – “social constructivists,” as Hayek called them.
At the blog The Panda’s Thumb
several commenters misunderstand my point. Whenever an author is
misunderstood, it’s the author’s fault. I try below to clarify.
…………..One
view of the origin of order is the design view – the creationist view.
For example, fundamentalist Christians believe that all life on Earth
is the result of conscious creation by a deity. Human beings’ opposing
thumbs resulted from a (higher) mind’s plan and action, and the absence
of hen’s teeth and horse’s toes likewise is the result of conscious
design. Without such design, chaos and disorder would reign.
The
non-creationist view – represented most compellingly by the theory of
natural selection – explains how wonderfully intricate, useful, and
orderly biological structures can and do emerge unplanned.
Creationist
views (there are several variations) differ from non-creationist views
by insisting that all order ultimately is the result of some design
acting upon the whole.
Just
as there is a compelling non-creationist view of biological beings,
there is a compelling non-creationist view of social order. And while
obviously different in detail, at a general level these two
non-creationist theories share much with each other, not least of which
is the scientific insistence that order is best explained, not by
positing a creator, but by understanding the logic of an order’s
emergence from small, individual acts, no one of which is “intended to”
(or “intends” itself) to become part of a larger order. (And remember,
Adam Smith offered his “invisible hand” theory a century before Darwin offered his.)
The
“social” creationists are well and ably represented by Cass Sunstein
who argues that peace and security and (hence) property rights and
market exchange are impossible without an effective system of law.
Because, in Sunstein’s view, the state is the producer of law, the
state is ultimately responsible for our property and prosperity.
I’m
prepared to argue that law can, and has been, ably produced and
enforced without the state. (See, for example, Bruce Benson’s superb
book The Enterprise of Law.)
But let’s put that issue aside and grant Sunstein his claim that only
the state can produce and enforce law. Because no reasonable person
doubts that law is indeed necessary for a prosperous society, Sunstein
concludes that each of us owes our prosperity to the state. It’s a fair interpretation of Sunstein’s argument that the state creates society.
People
such as Sunstein who believe that sovereign power is responsible for
everything remind me of other people who thank God for their good
fortune – for the roofs over their heads, for the food on their tables,
for the good grades they got on the exam…. as if the roof over
someone’s head had everything to do with the good graces of a deity and
nothing whatsoever to do with the actions of the owner of the house or
with the actions of thousands of other people, each of whom contributed
in some little way to making that roof a reality.
So the state
protects me from thieves and built the highway that I use to transport
my goods to market. I’m grateful. But what about the farmer who grew
the food to feed the trucker who drives the truck carrying my goods to
market – and grew the food to feed the politicians who keep the state
going? What about the oil-rig worker who helped to extract oil from
the ground to be turned into gasoline to power the truck – and to power
the limos in DC and the police cars in Denver?
What about the engineer who helped design the engine that powers the
truck and the limos and the police cars? What about the clerk at the
convenience store who sells the trucker the coffee that helps to keep
him awake on his drive?
In a market economy, even the most mundane good
or service requires for its production and distribution the efforts of
millions of people. Many of these individual tasks are utterly
necessary for that good’s existence, but none of these individual tasks – including that of the state – is sufficient. There’s nothing special about the state.Civility,
high wages, economic growth, ingenious engineers, clean neighborhoods,
excellent education, health care, baseball stadiums – you name it, it
probably can be (and probably has been) produced by private efforts.
Government can certainly affect the production and distribution of
things – and reasonable people can argue about whether that effect is
likely to be beneficial or not. But even if government’s services are necessary for our prosperity, it does not follow that government creates that prosperity.
….
Stated baldly, this proposition will attract few detractors – except the likes of Sunstein. But “blue-state creationism” is nevertheless rampant. Consider this letter to the editor in today’s NY Times:
Like Thomas L. Friedman, I was shocked to read that Congress cut financing for the National Science Foundation.
The United States is at a crucial
turning point now in regard to scientific leadership in the world. We
can either invest as much money as possible in supporting
groundbreaking research benefiting nearly every aspect of our lives -
training new scientists and engineers, improving science education and
ensuring that the United States remains the best place in the world to
pursue a career in science – or we can dedicate that money to frivolous
pork, losing our place as the world leader in science and engineering.
As
a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology,
I was instilled with the belief that science is vitally important to
our society.
It’s
unfortunate that Congress hasn’t learned the same lesson; the security
of our nation, as well as our economic health, depends on it.
In other words, without taxpayer-financed scientific research, we’ll enjoy neither national security nor economic well-being.
NSF funding might or might not be justified. (I personally don’t think it’s justified, but that’s not my point.) The
claim that this reader (and columnist Thomas Friedman) make is that
genuine scientific advance can be created only by government. It’s a
creationist myth.
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