Communitarianism: True and False
Posted on June 23rd, 2009
by Lewis McCrary |
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Amitai Etzioni, a leader of the so-called communitarian movement, has a thoughtful essay over at The New Republic on connections between consumerism and the economic crisis.
A culture in which the urge to consume dominates the psychology of citizens is a culture in which people will do most anything to acquire the means to consume—working slavish hours, behaving rapaciously in their business pursuits, and even bending the rules in order to maximize their earnings. They will also buy homes beyond their means and think nothing of running up credit-card debt. It therefore seems safe to say that consumerism is, as much as anything else, responsible for the current economic mess. But it is not enough to establish that which people ought not to do, to end the obsession with making and consuming evermore than the next person. Consumerism will not just magically disappear from its central place in our culture. It needs to be supplanted by something.
Etzioni diagnoses the problem correctly — a rampant consumerism, untempered by virtues such as thrift, should be a cause for concern. He even gets at the right path for solutions, admitting at first that “regulation” alone will not change culture. But ultimately Etzioni’s cures may only serve to perpetuate the disease. He concludes, seemingly having rejected any qualms about “regulation,” that we need more restrictions on working hours, caps on executive pay, and taxation of luxury items. These solutions will presumably be implemented through national legislation, a path that stifles the creativity of local initiatives and fails to acknowledge that the good is manifested differently in America’s endless variations in local circumstances.
Self-proclaimed communitarians like Etzioni don’t recognize that widespread civic engagement will not be the result of the abstract notion of a mass civic dialogue—what he calls “moral megalogues”—but instead will emerge through grassroots efforts. Citizens must indeed “reconsider what a good life entails,” but these conversations should begin in families, churches, and other local institutions. At this level, words are likely to turn quickly from abstract speculations to concrete actions: literal barn-raisings, as Tocqueville would have it. These bottom-up initiatives are what a true communitarian would advocate as “something” to supplant consumerism. More legislation from Washington will only perpetuate the notion that we are all atomized individuals who should look primarily to the national “community” in considering what constitutes a good life. A true spirit of community, the sort that can overcome consumerism, will only come about though a recognition of that old adage: charity begins at home.
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What if the disease we have come to know as “consumerism” has a very simple and obvious source? Consumerism is one of those bogeys in which pundit after pundit assumes has arisen from the nether to take hold of our culture, turning it into mush. What if, though, consumerism is a direct product of the government’s tampering with one of the most important prices in the market–the interest rate?
If the government makes it easier for businesses and consumers to buy, buy, buy through the manipulation of the interest rate, then it is not much of a surprise that a culture will develop around the want of the purchase.
Once the federal government whittled away at the gold standard and established the Federal Reserve, thriftiness, frugality, and savings were thrown out the window.
Well said, Cody. I’ve been thinking along the same lines.
Cody, Your absolutely correct….The only question is: how do we solve it?
In India they use the word communitarian to refer to politics based on religious or tribal communities
Cody’s point about manipulation of interest rates is a good one, but I suspect that there is more than simply an economic problem here. Even if something like the gold standard were reestablished, one can’t imagine that individuals would easily return to a sense of grounding in a place and individual restraint that was already lost before the gold standard was abandoned.
Additionally, our welfare state abolishes any incentives to be thrifty.
Cody is spot on and frankly I cringe at the term Consumerism. The creation of a commerce of cheap goods is indeed a cultural artifact.
I can’t help feeling that part of the problem is that as a culture we went down this road in the fifties when our productive capacity allowed working people of limited means to move to the suburbs and purchase shoddy imitations of what they imagined the rich owned. If the USA had a ruling class worthy of the name, a culture of tasteful, limited, acquisition of goods, along with financial probity might have been transmitted. But the hucksters of New York and their vulgar anti-elitist mentality caught on generally. And so here we are.
I try to resist the urge to plumb to the depths as those who believe all the ills of the world stem from central banking. Despite my vanity, when I look outside my window, as I drive down the highway, I can’t help but imagine all those row houses and strip malls are a result of the years and years of central bank meddling. Boom and bust, boom and bust–like a factory churning out shit.
Roger Garrison wrote a primer several years back on the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle (ATBC) which gave me an A-HA! moment when I read the piece. instead of summarizing the the a-ha section, I’ll just quote it.
A savings-induced decrease in the rate of interest favors investment over current consumption, as shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b). Further—and more significant in Austrian theorizing—it favors investment in more durable over less durable capital and in capital suited for temporally more remote rather than less remote stages of production. These are the kinds of changes within the capital structure that are necessary to shift output from the near future to the more remote future in conformity with changing intertemporal consumption preferences.
I am not 100% certain about this, but doesn’t that remind you of McMansions?
Don’t get me wrong–other aspects of government have contributed to the uprootedness of our society. President Eisenhower’s interstate highway system has allowed populations to migrate from points across the country with relative ease. As Angela noted above, the welfare state creates its own unintended consequences.
Before any resolidization of community and before roots could be firmly established once again, something has to be done about that institution which provides entrepreneurs and consumers with the disincentive to save. After that, communitarians must set their eyes on the government itself, which interferes in all elements in society, setting off unseen dominoes which result in the dissolution of community. Beyond that, it’s all a guess.
The Federal Reserve is merely managing the bankruptcy. Our government does its best to pretend that a tweak here and a tweak there will extirpate the insolvency. Shuffling the cards cannot conceal your fate at the poker table.
Cody wrote:
“What if, though, consumerism is a direct product of the government’s tampering with one of the most important prices in the market–the interest rate?”
I have no doubt this is a contributing factor, and even a large one, but let’s face it, *most* people came over to this country not because of political repression, but instead more out of … economic repression of one sort or another.
In short they wanted things. And it’s hardly an illogical jump to suspect that they transmitted all the value of consumerism to their kids, and then on down the offspring line.
It’s hardly a new thing either; was reading some stuff about our early days including in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s and man the greed for land was just unbelievable. As were the things done to displace our native population from it.
I hate to say it, but there is a kind of manic, materialistic shallowness to what national culture we have that I don’t know you can see elsewhere to its same depth, persistence, fierceness, all-inclusiveness and etc.
Cheers,