Getting back to first principles
December 13, 2007
I thought Vox Nova’s readers would be interested in reading my latest front-page post over at RedState.
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What might the limited gov’t you advocate mean for US foreign policy? For defense spending? Honestly asking; I’d like to hear more.
I think you need to go back and read what George noted about government’s core functions, defense and national security are certainly among its top priorities.
All this tells me is that Robert George is a classic “liberal” is that he embraces individualism above all, and its obvious implication in laissez-faire capitalism. Liberalism in this sense denies that the state bears a responsibility for the common good in the sense that the state is obliged to promote the common good (and by the common good, I do not mean the liberal utilitarian ideal).
The true teaching on subsidiarity is nothing to do with dumb platitudes like “he general welfare–the common good–requires that government be limited”. Instead. the key point is that the fundamental organizations that create society (culture, etc.) are prior in dignity to the state and in the long run more important than the state (I believe this came through in the latest encyclical). Liberalism tends to assume that the state grows out of a social contract made by autonomous individuals, and this seems to be the erroneous understanding of George. No person is an autonomous individual in this sense. The social contract is a myth that presumes a false understanding of the person. It is that myth that leads to the rhetoric on “economic freedom”, to the “right” to own whatever guns you choose, to the “right” to dispose of your unborn child, to the “right” to define marriage in line with your personal preferences. In each case, the individual is placed above the common good.
The Church has always recognized the limits of this idealized individualism. That is precisely why we have Catholic social teaching. Since law is an “ordinance of reason for the common good made by him who has care of the community”, it follows that the state may intervene in economic life to promote certain aspects of the common good– by defining marriage, by securing universal health care, by providing for the rights of unions, and by fostering policies that lead to a more just distribution of resources. It’s simply appalling that somebody like George would ignore all of this and focus only on prevention against attack, from malefactors both internal and external. This tells me quite clearly that George has a Hobbesian, as opposed to a Catholic, view of the world.
Morning’s Minion,
You seem to have seriously misread George. From what I can tell, he holds virtually none of the views you ascribe to him.
George may agree with classical liberals on certain things, but not on the points listed above.
Sorry guys, but I think MM’s on to something. George does not deny government’s responsibility for the common good, but he takes it for granted that government must delegate authority in all matters not pertaining to the maintenance of ‘public order’ to non-governmental entities. Who says? He also refers to ‘classic liberalism’ in a way that assumes we will all salute that particular flag. Finally, he creates a false dichotomy between the right-liberal idea of ‘economic freedom’ and the ‘concentration of economic power in the hands of the government’, and another one between the liberal notion of government as ‘protector’ and the totalitarian subordination of persons to the interests of the state. ‘Good stuff’? Hardly.
MM,
I am unclear as to why it always seems to underlie your thinking that simply because the individual has a duty to use his property for the common good, that therefore it is the duty of a government to make sure that he does.
I wish the state had an embodiment in flesh, MM, because there’s nothing that would make me laugh harder than to see you chained to her hideous, bloated, spoiled, arrogant, thieving, rotten carcass, your eyes beaming all nitwit-proud over your beautiful bride.
Before she eats you and picks her teeth with your bones, that is.
Chucknotsteve,
I’ll say this: you have a gift for metaphor.