Equality and Ease of Life? Give Us Some of That!

[I'm Change.org's Managing Editor, and I'll be working with a bunch of wonderful guest bloggers to fill in for Leigh while she's away.]

A big thanks to Ross Douthat, writer for the Atlantic, conservative wunderkind, and newly-minted New York Times opinionator, for articulating the reason for America's greatness (irony intended):

How much do you prize equality and ease of life? The more you do, the more you'll favor a European approach to the relationship between state and society. How much do you prize voluntarism, entrepreneurship, and the value of lives oriented around service to one's family, and to God? The more you do, the more you'll find to like in the American arrangement.

If only. Though it would be great if political and social systems were arranged like pie at the local cafeteria. Not in the mood for a European welfare state today? Then choose American entrepreneurship!

One of the many problems with this piece is that Douthat is setting up up a false dichotomy, making the assumption that those of us who prize "equality and ease of life" must give up the harder choices of "voluntarism, entrepreneurship," etc. To me, this translates as a soft hit against those lazy, state-supported Europeans, who don't have the chutzpah to do the real work of freedom, i.e., live without health care and work twice as hard for the abstract ideal of self-sustenance.

Douthat is making a valueless comparison between these two value systems. He implies that it's OK that the U.S. has experienced devastating rates of poverty while a small portion of our population has become rich beyond words. That it's fine that A.I.G. execs will be graciously given $165 million in bonuses (generously funded by U.S. taxpayers!) while American unemployment continues to rise. That the lack of affordable healthcare for 47 million Americans is a fair trade-off when considering "America's lead in health-care innovation."

The fact that the European system guarantees health care, supports the underemployed, and limits the bounty available to possibly criminal executives is simply a function of valuing "equality and ease of life" over "lives oriented around services to one's family, and to God." Didn't you know that "equality and ease of life" hates family and religion?

Matt Yglesias isn't impressed either:

In the US and in Europe, income level is fairly predictive of voting behavior and this is neither a coincidence nor the reflection of an abstract disagreement about the value of “voluntarism.” It reflects the fact that politics is, among other things, a concrete contest over concrete economic interests.

Folks like Douthat too often see politics as an abstract sport. But millions of Americans who were previously told that politics was about abortion or gay people or war are now experiencing the political system in its rawest form: economics. And when folks lose their jobs and their health care, they won't be rejecting government support out of some proud nod to American "voluntarism." They'll be looking to get food on the table, in any way possible.