David Brooks is a conservative pundit liberals like. His writing displays an urbane wit and an almost-academic collegiality. He is also, as his latest column on “the culture of debt” demonstrates, a sort of neoconservative postmodernist.
Says Brooks: Some people, presumably dogmatic liberals and leftists, blame our growing debt crisis on the fact that “predatory lenders” seduce us with “too-good-to-be-true credit lines and incomprehensible mortgage offers.” Others, old-school conservatives, fans of “individual choice and responsibility,” blame the debtor for his or her debt problem. But Brooks, in predictable fashion, discovers an enlightened third way and makes the following miraculous discovery:
Decision-making–whether it’s taking out a loan or deciding whom to marry–isn’t a coldly rational, self-conscious act. Instead, decision-making is a long chain of processes, most of which happen beneath the level of awareness. We absorb a way of perceiving the world from parents and neighbors. We mimic the behavior around us. Only at the end of the process is there self-conscious oversight.
The answer is “culture,” you see. Why we commit sin is complicated. We are not perfect totally-in-control moral-economic agents but rather are even sometimes shaped by our environment! Our problem is that we have turned away from our Puritan roots toward an ethic of hedonistic “retail therapy,” though this debased cultural environment presumably categorically omits government regulation of the credit card industry and corporate practices from that “long chain of processes” that affects borrowing behavior. The idea that corporations might be held responsible for our cultural environment is unthinkable to Brooks. No, it’s all the fault of our changing norms.
Brooks doesn’t take the next obvious step in this type of conservative culturalist argument–to claim that our problems can be laid at the feet of feminism, affirmative action, hedonistic anti-war activism, and the like–but you can rest assured that our long slow cultural decline began in the ’60s. Fear not, though. This latest market correction will punish “many of those seduced by financial temptations” by helping them to “feel the heat.” As Brooks tells us:
[S]ocial institutions are trying to re-right the norms. The government is sending some messages. The Treasury and the Fed are trying to stabilize the system while still ensuring that those who made mistakes feel the pain.
In other words, the government is bailing out those institutions that were predatory lenders, but offering tough love to those culturally corrupted borrowers who gave in to temptation because of their debased “norms.” The former are by definition not part of the “long chain of processes” that led to our problems, the latter are.
I assume then Brooks must agree with the following proposition: if the police allowed an arms maker to put a loaded machine gun in a public square, then some psycho gives in to “temptation” and uses that gun to kill people, we ought to blame the “culture of murder” whose corrupted norms were part of the “long chain of processes” that caused the shooting spree to happen. To blame the gun-maker or the police would be crazy-talk!
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In related news, Stephen J. Dubner tells us on the Feakonomics blog: “Don’t Throw Away Your Capitalism Just Yet.” Some people, apparently, are getting a wee bit mad with the market following the subprime crisis–one wonders why!–but we should not be such sissy whiners because “capitalism is inherently turbulent” and “[n]ot only must eggs be broken to make an omelet, but sometimes people may decide they want their omelets made with no eggs at all.” Creative destruction, all that. So clever! By way of evidence of the virtues of capitalism, Dubner compares our current system, which is melting down before our eyes, to centrally-planned Soviet Communism.
I wish I were making this up, but no, I’m not.
Dubner apparently cannot imagine any economic system that might lie between totalitarian central planning and unregulated financial markets of the sort that led so many eggs (read: the lives of people) to be broken (read: totally devastatingly destroyed). No sir, we just don’t have any choice. We either embrace (totally preventable) human-created financial disasters that swallow whole the lives of the poor, or we have to march everyone off to the gulag. Do we hold to account those regulators and institutions that helped cause the crisis? What unthinkable communist nonsense! Should we “bail out” poorer sectors of our population the way we bail out gigantic financial institutions? Why, that would lead to what economists call “moral hazard”!
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This is then what passes for economic wisdom in the New York Times: capitalism for the poor dolts, socialism for the rich. Brilliant. Is there any wonder that when “conservatives” call our “newspaper of record” elitist and out of touch, these accusations resonate at a gut level with many Americans?
Reading Brooks’ column, you can’t help but wonder if he takes a certain pleasure in the suffering of people who are losing their homes and spiraling into bankruptcy and destitution.
“And now the reckoning has come. The turn in the market punishes many of those seduced by financial temptations. (Sometimes capitalism undermines the Puritan virtues, but sometimes it reinforces them.)”
Get it? According to Brooks, this economic downturn isn’t an unfortunate set of circumstances that must be understood and then corrected for the benefit of all. It’s God’s Judgment Upon The Wicked!
Brooks’ “enlightened third way,” as you put it, is that he sees the poor economy as God’s way of judging not just the individual sinner, but a larger American culture of sin. Among other things, for example, this bad economy is God’s way of punishing America for leaving it to parents, instead of schools, to provide a moral education for their children.
He writes, “Schools and other institutions used to talk the language of sin and temptation to alert people to the seductions that could ruin their lives. They no longer do.”
Brooks thinks America is suffering from a bad economy because we are an immoral nation — populated by grown-up children raised by immoral schools and “institutions” — and we must be punished or we’ll never learn.
“People don’t change when they see the light.” he writes. “They change when they feel the heat.”
For my part, I love this country and its people, many of whom are really very nice and don’t deserve to “feel the heat” because they went shopping to ease their feelings of depression. I believe evil people will suffer the negative consequences of their own behavior without any help from the markets. I agree with our nation’s founders that we have a right to pursue our own happiness.
Maybe that’s the difference between conservatives and liberals: liberals work for the public good, and conservatives work to make sure the wrath of God (in other words, the wrath of conservatives) is wrought upon the wicked, who often, coincidentally, are the weak and the poor.
Of course, this sort of thinking is typical of self-identified conservatives, some of whom famously blamed sinful homosexuals for Hurricane Katrina.
I’m sure Brooks is doing fine, though. He hasn’t lost his house. He hasn’t lost his job, or his retirement. From his perch of wealth and safety, he may look down upon the suffering masses and smile with religious fervor: “Finally,” he may think to himself, “there’s some justice in the world.”
Comment by Ian — July 24, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
[...] of the “free-market,” and haters of all government regulation, will tell you–my previous post on David Brooks and Stephen J. Dubner comes to mind–that this outbreak of salmonella is [...]
Pingback by Salmonella as Market Signal — July 25, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
I’m curious to know your thoughts on his column from today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/opinion/29brooks.html
where he uses a similar ‘human capital’ argument around education in the U.S.
I believe the crux of the argument is that, children, in families which encourage and support their education, do significantly better in school.
Additionally, Brooks writes, “…it’s worth noting that both sides of this debate exist within the Democratic Party. The G.O.P. is largely irrelevant. If you look at Barack Obama’s education proposals — especially his emphasis on early childhood — you see that they flow naturally and persuasively from this research.”
Comment by aaron — July 29, 2008 @ 5:26 pm
I think Dubner’s post is being miscast. He quotes Heller about the USSR and Heller is absolutely right about the lack of rationing and the absurd resource allocation there. I think the better comparison might be to exurban McMansions in the US giving way to urban high rises in the 21st Century.
Comment by John — July 30, 2008 @ 6:08 am
I think Dubner, quoting Heller, is correct enough about misallocation in the Soviet Union, as far as the quote goes. You see the same phenomenon coming out of the Pentagon system, though sometimes, as with DARPA, “wasteful” spending can have publicly beneficial effects, sometimes in the short term (like food subsidies), sometimes only in the long run (like high tech R&D).
But the context of Dubner’s post is our present-day dissatisfaction with the market after the recent subprime and lending meltdowns. I would like to meet the person who is advocating, in response to these recent financial disasters, a turn to Soviet-style central planning of the American economy.
In fact, the (liberal) response is more often this: let’s regulate financial markets, which have evolved enormously since the Depression, and have exceeded our regulatory frameworks. I am arguing that Dubner, perhaps unintentionally, but nonetheless, implicitly aligns such calls for regulation with total central planning of the economy.
That, it strikes me, misrepresents our situation badly.
Comment by Lee — July 30, 2008 @ 11:53 am
I read the Brooks column Aaron refers to above and I thought it was great. I suppose Brooks should be credited with bucking his side of the ideological spectrum to say something intelligent and constructive about Obama’s view of education policy. His column is completely consistent with the view I’ve heard frequently that the United States must invest heavily in human capital in order to compensate for the loss of manufacturing jobs and other jobs that are moving overseas to China, India and elsewhere.
Comment by Ian — July 30, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
I have to disagree with Ian.
Brooks is up to more or less the same thing he was up to in the debt column, albeit in a more subtle way. But not much more subtle.
First, Brooks asks the question, “Why did the United States become the leading economic power of the 20th century?” and stipulates the answer: that “[t]he best short answer is that a ferocious belief that people have the power to transform their own lives gave Americans an unparalleled commitment to education, hard work and economic freedom.”
This is a complete misreading of economic history. The US became a great world power because of private-state coordination of the economy during and following World War 2. Remember, it wasn’t the New Deal that brought the Depression to an end but the (something like) quadrupling of industrial production of the wartime economy plus the utter destruction of Europe. We’re still on the same war footing we were in after World War 2.
Did education matter? Absolutely, but only in the context of broader state planning of the economy. Brooks would have us believe that the economy did well because of our pluck and gumption–implicitly, that government got out of our way and we made it happen–rather than the truth: that the actions of government–yes, big government–were what resulted in our high-tech, high-productivity economy.
The Goldin and Katz research has gotten a lot of press. They are arguing that we overestimate the effect of technological development as an explanation of inequality but that education is a more important factor. Many see this study as evidence that we have woefully underinvested in education in this country, that we need so-called “big government” to step in and improve our educational system. I agree completely, but Brooks tries to link this initial study to a completely different study by Heckman.
“It’s not falling school quality, [Heckman] argues. Nor is it primarily a shortage of funding or rising college tuition costs. Instead, Heckman directs attention at family environments, which have deteriorated over the past 40 years.”
Notice what Brooks has done here: He has accurately described a problem, one that is too obvious to ignore, but has now stipulated, using Heckman as an authority, that (i) spending more on education won’t help us and (ii) lowering tuition won’t help us. The blame again is laid at the feet of “family environment” which has “deteriorated over the past 40 years.”
In other words: culture. Those who are poor are poor *because* they are from families with deteriorated educational values, not because they live in economically depressed parts of the country, which have historically not received the same subsidies other regions of our economy have, or because we don’t invest as a society in the future of our poor children. For Brooks, solving this problem is an either/or question: either “populist” investment in schools or “pragmatic” investment in “human capital.”
On one side: “Some populists emphasize the destructive forces of globalization, outsourcing and predatory capitalism. These people say we need radical labor market reforms to give the working class a chance. But the populists are going to have to grapple with the Goldin, Katz and Heckman research, which powerfully buttresses the arguments of those who emphasize human capital policies.”
On the other side are people who say: “It’s not globalization or immigration or computers per se that widen inequality. It’s the skills gap. Boosting educational attainment at the bottom is more promising than trying to reorganize the global economy.”
In other words, some people (”populists”) want people to take control of the economy and want us to use our tax dollars to improve educational facilities–and our schools are hugely under-resourced, especially poor schools–while other people don’t go in for all that “big government” stuff and are moved by the research to invest in “human capital.”
The false choice that Brooks is posing is between government action and “human capital policies,” which sounds nice but has very little content in this column beyond not spending more tax money on schools.
I don’t know what Obama’s education proposals are–the media seems more interested in talking about whether Obama is arrogant or not–so I can’t say how accurately Brooks is characterizing them.
But Brooks’ assertion that “populists are going to have to grapple with the Goldin, Katz and Heckman research” is unpersuasive.
And Brooks’ assertion that “America rose because it got more out of its own people than other nations” is also pretty much wrong. Education had an impact on rates of equality, perhaps, but not on economic development. Education follows development, not the other way around, as far as I can tell. And investing in human capital, as good an idea as that is (depending on what it means), is not a silver bullet to our woes.
Comment by Lee — July 31, 2008 @ 11:34 am
I have a few things to say in defense of Brooks’s column, and in defense of my decision to call it “great.”
First, the column says there’s a strong relationship between our country’s commitment to education and our economy. This is something I agree with. Brooks explains Goldin & Katz’ ideas about technology and education, saying the economy grows when more of our people are skilled enough to compete in high-tech industry – another strong point. He talks about unskilled workers having “little bargaining power,” which reflects a left-wing attitude toward the relationship between workers and employers.
Furthermore, I think it’s true that inequality among the nation’s 5 year-olds in preparation for school is a major factor in determining the quality of American education. In saying that Obama’s policy proposals flow directly from this research, Brooks is throwing his weight behind Obama’s proposals to invest heavily in early childhood education. In that way, Brooks is actually endorsing a plan to invest in the future of poor children. In saying Republicans are inept at talking about human capital policies, he is rejecting the Republican talking point of just not spending money on schools. To say “human capital policies” doesn’t mean anything isn’t fair to Brooks.
Lee’s idea that “education follows development” doesn’t seem right to me. Does that mean we should stop funding schools and just invest in business instead, with the idea that development money will trickle down to the schools? To say education had no impact on economic development is just unfathomable: does that mean we should abandon the concept of public education altogether?
Comment by Ian — August 1, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
I agree that you need to massively invest in education, especially among the poor. I agree that this is how you develop the economy.
What I was complaining about is Brooks’ effort to draw an either/or distinction between “populist” ideas and “human capital” ideas.
Again, Brooks writes: “Some populists emphasize the destructive forces of globalization, outsourcing and predatory capitalism. These people say we need radical labor market reforms to give the working class a chance.”
Brooks seems to assume that “radical labor market reform” and “human capital” policies are mutually incompatible. I do not.
Comment by Lee — August 1, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
No, Brooks does not seem to assume that “radical labor market reform” and “human capital” policies are mutually incompatible.
In fact, Brooks is saying this: We can reduce inequality in this country without “radical labor market reform” by focusing instead on “human capital.”
My question is, what do you mean by “radical labor market reform”?
Comment by Ian — August 1, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
Brooks does make a distinction. That’s the very point of his article.
Brooks claims that there is a “debate” inside the Democratic party and says one side of this debate advocates “radical labor market reform.” That is *his* term.
I don’t know exactly what he’s thinking when he uses this term, but I assume that by this Brooks is referring to the usual bogeymen of the right: pro-union laws, a social safety net that helps people who fall off the wagon, regulating international capital flows.
Brooks’s argument about this so-called “debate” is coherent only if those who advocate “populist” positions are against “human capital” arguments. But that’s an absurd position for him to take, in my view. Regulating capital and investing in education are very compatible positions to take. Investing in human capital does not preclude labor market reform, radical or otherwise.
But I think it’s a mistake to think that Brooks advocates investing in education. Brooks emphasizes–again revealing his culturalist bias–that it’s not a lack of money that is at the root of our educational crisis but a “devaluation” of education in the family environment.
What else does Brooks mean when he writes this?:
“It’s not falling school quality, [Heckman] argues. Nor is it primarily a shortage of funding or rising college tuition costs. Instead, Heckman directs attention at family environments, which have deteriorated over the past 40 years.”
Comment by Lee — August 2, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
There’s no doubt that Brooks makes a distinction between populist ideas of “radical labor market reform” and “human capital” policies. But he doesn’t imply they are mutually exclusive. As I read it, Brooks is merely saying that emphasizing human capital policies would be more advantageous, making more “radical” reforms unnecessary.
I don’t believe Brooks is suggesting that people who favor “radical labor market reform” are against “human capital” policies. That would mean that people who favor rolling back NAFTA are against spending more on education. Does that sound like something Brooks would think, when the evidence — left-wingers clearly want both — runs to the contrary?
The debate, in Brooks’ column, refers to a difference in emphasis between Democrats who favor worker re-training to help workers who lose their jobs to overseas competitors, and Democrats who favor erecting trade barriers to keep those workers employed in their old jobs.
I agree that Brooks isn’t directly advocating investment in education, but I think he is suggesting that Obama’s proposals to invest in early childhood education grow out of research that Brooks himself endorses. The op-ed effectively supports Obama’s proposal to invest in early childhood education.
Perhaps my support for Brooks’ column derives from my ideas about how Democrats should fight for improvements in education. Spending more money on education in a general way may be a good idea, but politically it’s a loser. In order to convince the American voter to support increased spending on education, a politician needs one or more clear ideas about what’s not working in education, and what will fix it. Obama’s emphasis on early childhood education has the potential to be politically successful in a way that general efforts to increase school funding could never be successful, in my opinion.
Brooks is a conservative, and there’s no doubt that he and I would disagree strongly about many things. But I think he did the country a real service by putting Obama’s proposal in a context that makes it digestible for conservative-minded people who may be suspicious of more spending on schools. Obama isn’t just throwing money at schools to satisfy teachers’ unions in an election year; he is trying to apply the results of research to public policy.
Comment by Ian — August 3, 2008 @ 4:30 pm