Principles are the Antidote to Politics

“The use of political channels, while inevitable, tends to strain the social cohesion essential for a stable society.”

The fall colors are starting to pop in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and my wife and I went out on Sunday to hike a trail.

At the summit, a man approached us and asked if we could help him name the peaks in the spectacular view we were seeing. I did. We chatted a bit, and then he apparently couldn’t help himself. He said, “I hope the 45th president won’t buy one of these peaks and name it after himself.”

It turned out the man is an academic, and I assume his affectation—saying the 45th president instead of Trump—goes over well in the faculty lounge. I couldn’t help but wonder why he needed to talk politics while enjoying a stunning day outdoors. And why, in a purple state, he assumed others would find his views amusing.

My latest essay for the American Institute for Economic Education helps us understand the disturbing mindset he and many of us (myself included) sometimes share.

Only four percent  “of US adults say the political system is working extremely or very well.” Sixty-five percent say we “always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics.” Yet, we keep doubling down, thinking that more attention on politics will somehow fix what ails society. 

In 2020, candidates spent over $14 billion seeking the presidency. This was double the amount spent in 2016. The 2024 presidential campaign is far from over. How much will candidates spend this time to fix our attention on politics? 

If you are one of those who find politics dispiriting, C. S. Lewis would understand. In his essay “Membership,” contained in his collection The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis wrote, “A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion: to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other.” Politics, Lewis explained, is not “the natural food of the mind” but a “necessary evil.” However, too much emphasis on politics has become “a new and deadly disease.” 

Lewis compared fresh fruit to canned fruit. The latter can be necessary for storage, but Lewis observed he had met people who learned to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. 

Similarly, among us are those who prefer to weigh the promises of candidates as a pathway to societal advancement rather than shore up the foundations of a free society. 

If candidates still fix your mind on their empty promises, Ralph Waldo Emerson has an instant mindset cure. In his essay “Experience,” he wrote, “A political orator wittily compared our party promises to western roads, which opened stately enough, with planted trees on either side, to tempt the traveler, but soon became narrow and narrower, and ended in a squirrel-track, and ran up a tree.”

Running ourselves up trees has consequences. Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom warned, “The use of political channels, while inevitable, tends to strain the social cohesion essential for a stable society.”

Friedman continued, “Every extension of the range of issues for which explicit agreement is sought strains further the delicate threads that hold society together.”

And then, as if Friedman could see ahead to 2024, he added, “Fundamental differences in basic values can seldom if ever be resolved at the ballot box; ultimately they can only be decided, though not resolved, by conflict. The religious and civil wars of history are a bloody testament to this judgment.”

Friedman clearly articulates the antidote to politics:  

The widespread use of the market reduces the strain on the social fabric by rendering conformity unnecessary with respect to any activities it encompasses. The wider the range of activities covered by the market, the fewer are the issues on which explicitly political decisions are required and hence on which it is necessary to achieve agreement. In turn, the fewer the issues on which agreement is necessary, the greater is the likelihood of getting agreement while maintaining a free society.

When someone says I have unyielding loyalty to Tide detergent or Coca-Cola, their decision only affects them and their family; the rest of us go about our business.

Yet, there are many who say with great conviction: I am a lifelong, loyal Democrat or I am a lifelong, loyal Republican.

In the wake of fraudulent elections in Venezuela, some are saying they are unconditionally loyal to the corrupt President Maduro.

In Stalin’s Soviet Union, some falsely accused of political crimes went willingly to their death as their last service to the Party.

Such loyalties are best reserved for totalitarian societies.  

This is not the loyalty that built America.

What built and sustains America is loyalty to principles. 

There are few more precise statements of loyalty to principles than Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address of 1801. At the start of his address, Jefferson reflected on the duty before him. Instead of boorishly setting out his vision, Jefferson spoke of the greatness in the country’s founding principles. Great principles, not great individuals, were required. 

Jefferson said, “I approach [my duty] with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire.” An “awful presentiment” is a foreboding of disaster. Jefferson humbly recognized the limits of his personal power and did not bemoan the constitutional limits on the power of government.

Jefferson was clear that only his reliance on principles overcame his despair over the daunting responsibilities of the presidency. In the Constitution, he would “find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties.” 

Among the American principles, he stated, were “equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights.” Then Jefferson added,

Principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which we try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

A claimed mandate at the ballot box must not be used to justify coercing others. On the contrary, Jefferson asked his audience to” bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

Jefferson understood that those who cannot even control themselves should hardly seek to control others: “Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?”

If people must not control others, what should a “good government” do? Jefferson delivered a clear answer: “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” 

Jefferson advocated shared values to help maintain a good government, including “honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man.” 

Some people believe the government is the source of a caring society, Jefferson found the roots of a caring society in each of our everyday encounters: “Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.”

In his most famous essay, “Self-Reliance,” Emerson issued a caution for his generation and ours: “A political victory… or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it.”

Keeping in the spirit of Jefferson, Emerson ended “Self-Reliance” with his immortal line: “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

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Our Mindset Shifts U study of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom is just underway, and there is still time to join.

The Road to Serfdom, Session 1: The Last Stand on Earth

A member of our group, Jim Vinoski, recently shared this gem of a passage from Milton Friedman's introduction to The Road to Serfdom. It is in the appendix of the current edition of the book.

It is tempting to believe that social evils arise from the activities of evil men and that if only good men (like ourselves, naturally) wielded power, all would be well. That view requires only emotion and self-praise–easy to come by and satisfying as well. To understand why it is that 'good' men in positions of power will produce evil, while the ordinary man without power but able to engage in voluntary cooperation with his neighbors will produce good, requires analysis and thought, subordinating the emotions to the rational faculty. Surely that is one answer to the perennial mystery of why collectivism, with its demonstrated record of producing tyranny and misery, is so widely regarded as superior to individualism, with its demonstrated record of producing freedom and plenty.

I added the emphasis, but every sentence in this passage deserves highlighting because it points to why we take the time to study Hayek. I hope you can join us.