Private Good, Public Bad
Getting back to basics: we live in a community, a holistic community. We are not mere individuals. We come together in society to undertake collective actions that further the common good. Most of the time, this coordination comes in the private or subsidiary domain, but in the many instances where the market is not synonymous with justice, the state also has a role to play. Either way, the aims are the same, and both are subject to the moral law. But in America today we see signs of radical dichotomy between morality in the private and public sector. I’ve seen the argument numerous times – private companies are in business to make profits and reward shareholders, so they can do as they like, but anything that uses taxpayer money must conform to exacting moral standards (this is a slight exaggeration, but only slight).
Except that this is nonsense. Consider the arguments during the health care debate. If a country decided to collectively provide health care through a single payer system, where every person pays a dedicated social security tax into a health fund, it would be seen as a huge problem if this health care funded abortion. But if society decided to achieve this aim differently, where a private premium replaces a dedicated tax, the moral restrictions are suddenly loosened. Sure, nobody will support abortion in private health care, but they don’t make a fuss. When was the last time the NRLC committee launched a campaign on this issue? It’s not even on the radar – remember the furore over the RNC funding abortion in their insurance for almost two decades? And even though the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act went to great lengths to restrict the relationship between funding mechanisms and abortion, opening up an ever-wider chasm with the more liberal private sector, all attention focused on the (real or perceived) flaws with the former, and ignored the latter. We even saw some ludicrous arguments. For example, reform opponents acknowledged that everybody on the individual market will have a pro-life option, but they insisted that this was insufficient, as families might be better suited by other choices. These opponents remained strangely blind to the problems with the private employer-based insurance market where the stark choice is between taking whatever is on offer and forsaking insurance.
While the healthcare debate shone a light on this area, it is far from the only example of this double standard. Think about embryonic stem cell research. While Bush was banning federal funding for ESCR, he was simultaneously supporting private funding. And while the Church quite rightly takes a strong stand against IVF clinics, where is the outrage against the embryos created and destroyed to aid pregnancy? There is none. I used to think this was largely narcissism, where having a child is seen as such an absolute right that nothing can stand in its way. But now I think it’s something else – it’s safely located in the private sector, beyond the watchful eye of our moral guardians.
Of course, there are many more examples. Just consider the appalling spread of pornography that accompanied the internet. This is now all-pervasive and has fundamentally altered the way younger generations think about sex. But of course, this is the private sector, and a very profitable part of the private sector. Nobody supports pornography, but there is very little initiative in terms of hurting its economic bottom line either. Fr. Sirico of the Acton Institute was at least honest when he came out against government regulation over pornography.
We need to come back to a more holistic or integral view of the morality of our public choices.
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Minion,
You must support this statement:
“While Bush was banning federal funding for ESCR, he was simultaneously supporting private funding.”
The Supreme Court has held that abortion is a right under the Constitution and that pornography is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Interfering with these “rights” has poor legal prospects. It is a far easier tactic to convince the government to adopt funding stances for itself than to create a Constitutionally acceptable ban on pornography. While many on the right share you goals, regulation of the insurance companies and pornography face difficult legal realities in this country, though some Republicans are trying.
Of course, the make-up of the Court might have been changed-except that by all accounts, your candidate’s nominees will only further entrench the constitutional barriers to the reforms you suggested.
Michael;
Why approach the issue through legislation? Use the market. Use free speech rights. Refuse to deal with insurance companies that fund abortion with any of their plans (since this seems to be the default position against government providing health care). Openly campaign against such companies. Just because a company is private doesn’t mean it can’t be boycotted or actively opposed. This is one way to show that the market doesn’t have to be morally neutral but can be just as effective (if not more effective) than government furthering public morality.
Ryan:
I agree with you, but since Minion was talking about politics I thought it was important to show that arena’s difficulties in addressing the problem. However, I would also say that conservatives have not been as adamant about applying private natural forces as they ought to be.
Even Adam Smith argued that a “private” company whose business failed to serve the common good loses its legitimacy, though he also thought the “invisible hand” would solve the problem. Alas, this does not seem to be the case, or at least not often enough.
If conservatives were really serious about allowing market solutions to do the job, they would seek to eliminate artificial props for certain businesses, such as forms of corporate welfare and Pentagon contracts.
Fair enough Michael. I have found the same resistance to applying any morality on the market other than the morality of the market itself. Yet don’t conservatives often oppose the government using its financial clout to influence private business as well in areas of morality?
Part of the issue here may be not a belief that things are necessarily good if done by the private market, but a belief that it is easier to say “I, myself, won’t do this immoral action” than it is to come up with a successfully enforceable rule which prevents others from doing it.
People tend to think of government action in the first person. Thus, if the government funds abortion, people think, “I am funding abortion.” However, when some private third party funds abortion, people tend to think of this in the third person, “They are funding abortion.”
After this we get some divergence. Some people are more hesitant than others about the ability to craft restrictions on the actions of others that do more good than harm. I was going to phrase this in left/right terms, but then I realized it doesn’t really fall out that way. For instance, those on the left usually feel that restrictions on moral issues such as abortion, pornography, euthenasia, definition of marriage, narcotics, etc. are more likely to cause harm than good. However, they’re usually pretty sanguine about the ability of the government to regulate Wall Street, labor laws, environmental laws, equal opportunity laws, etc. Those on the right often express fears that regulation of wages, prices, labor, equal opportunity, environment, etc. will cause more harm than good. But (aside from libertarians) they tend to believe that the government can successfully regulate immigration, pornography, the definition of marriage, abortion, etc.
Actually, the Supreme Court has determined that obscenity is illegal and can be prosecuted. Almost all of the porn one sees in hotels or over the internet is illegal. The problem is with the unwillingness of the justice department to prosecute. Even under Bush, prosecutions hardly existed at all. Yes, shame on Bush for that….
I got a chuckle out of that Austin. Thanks. Trying to rehab your image here? Or just more evidence of your slide into liberal wussiness they are worried about at The Catholic Fascist?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but determining whether something is obscene (and therefore illegal) is based to some degree on community standards. This introduces the market in determining morality. Enforcing the law, as you point out, is another matter entirely and would involve a cost-benefit analysis on the likelihood of conviction. Given that, I’m not sure enforcement is the best answer either.
I think one of the dangers of the church identifying too strongly with the society of the country in which she lives is that she forgets that she is another polis within the state, a polis that can influence society as a living witness to a higher morality, as well as through legislation.
The moral standards are the same for both private and public entities.
What changes is our implication in the activity. When something is done by the government we elected with taxes we paid, we are implicated in a way we are not when a private person or entity commits the same act.
The involvement of the government also represents tacit societal approval for the act in question.
Efforts to abolish the death penalty enjoy much more Catholic support than efforts to lower the murder rate.
If you want to confront sinful activities by private entities, that’s fine, and something I think we’re all called to. But what I see happening is you pointing to private sin to pooh-pooh concerns about public sin. That won’t do.
Ryan,
The charge of conservatives refusing to criticize bush is nonsense. Hebshould have prosecuted more cases asbshould Obama itsbthe law
About community standards. Even a new york audience would convict on obscenity based on what is shown on most hotel tv’s.
Lastly, The fight against porn is a great left-right crusade.
Long live Catholic Fascist.
Sorry for typos. Getting used to the iPad.
Still waiting for Minion to substatiate charge that bush promoted embryo destructive research.