Life’s Changes

Nancy and I are living in a retirement center these days. We see around us trembling hands, stumbling feet, and confused minds. We can see what we will look like in the future. It doesn’t look good, I must admit. Changes come upon us all.
 

But physical changes in our bodies are not all the changes that come upon us. Our society and the social contract we have lived by for decades are changing, too.

 Our American constitutional framework has endured, but our national life has seen regular “surrogates for revolution.” The conflict over slavery shattered the political consensus of the early republic. The Republican Party was established in 1854 by abolitionists bent on changing America from its slave-holding propensities. The Republicans remained firmly in control of our nation politically for 60 years. That form of polity reflected a confident, moralistic Protestantism that saw the emerging American industrial power as a sure sign of divine providence.

But…that form of leadership could not deal with the social challenges of industrial society—labor unrest, mass immigration, and the dislocating effects of urbanization. The crisis of the Great Depression swept it away. By the 1950’s the Republican majorities had evaporated to be replaced by one that had decidedly leaned to the left, and the Democrat Party held the day—manifested in the New Deal of the Franklin Roosevelt administration. A new governing consensus had come into being, which believed that an activist government should lead the way in providing solutions to the economic and social problems facing the nation.

Now, in its turn, we see that the New Deal/Great Society consensus is under a great deal of stress. The global economy has brought changes that have dislocated workers from their jobs. Many middle-class Americans, especially white, high-school educated males, have suffered a significant decline in opportunity and income. Concerns about health, safety, the environment, non-discrimination, and so forth have created a vast regulatory network of government bureaucracy that adds friction to the economic machine. There are fewer young workers to sustain entitlement programs for retirees, making it unlikely that Social Security and Medicare can be sustained without significant changes. The system created by the New Deal consensus seems old, immobile, and unsustainable.

 What’s to become of the United States? I surely don’t know; but one thing is sure—change will occur. TEA Party populism on the right tells us that we cannot continue buying things we cannot pay for, redistributing money we don’t have, and bailing out businesses that fail. Occupy Wall Street populism on the left tells us that we must regain a lot of low-level laboring jobs for our displaced workers. Doubling down on the old New Deal consensus and putting our faith in 2008-style “hope and change” will not work.

 I am also sure that whatever happens to our political society, capitalism will not go away; and neither will the welfare state. Our country needs a unifying social consensus; and, unlikely as it may seem, history is replete with examples in which religion became the common denominator of lasting societies. Will that happen in the United States? Hmmm…we’ll see.

 Some of this post was taken from First Things, October 2012, page 3.