Richard Posner Throwing In the Towel on the Conservative Movement
I actually don’t know that much about Richard Posner’s political views, being primarily familiar with his (quite good, in my opinion) more abstract and philosophical work. But he’s definitely a political conservative, a Reagan appointee, and an important product of the conservative legal movement. He also seems about done with the whole thing:
My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.
By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.
And then came the financial crash last September and the ensuing depression. These unanticipated and shocking events have exposed significant analytical weaknesses in core beliefs of conservative economists concerning the business cycle and the macroeconomy generally. Friedmanite monetarism and the efficient-market theory of finance have taken some sharp hits, and there is renewed respect for the macroeconomic thought of John Maynard Kenyes, a conservatives’ bête noire.
I don’t agree with this in every detail. I don’t see a lot of evidence, for example, that the GOP’s opposition to abortion rights suddenly became a huge political loser starting in 2006. But Posner is unusual, even among the dissident camp in the conservative movement, in his willingness to acknowledge that (a) conservatism is as conservatism does and you can’t just wash your hands of George W. Bush, and (b) that the failures of conservatism-in-practice were really comprehensive across a whole swathe of different policy domains.
74 Responses to “Richard Posner Throwing In the Towel on the Conservative Movement”
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May 12th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
How has “Friedmanite monetarism” taken a hit in all this? I”m not a devotee or even an expert by any means, but I fail to see how that sort of thing matters in our current situation (partially because it’s a situation in which monetary policy is relatively (or completely) impotent). Unless I’m misunderstanding something severely, it seems like Posner’s just dropping names (as Robert Solow’s review of Posner’s economics book implies he might )
May 12th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
it’s a situation in which monetary policy is relatively (or completely) impotent
I think the underlying claim is that the Friedmanites thought monetarism was, by itself, sufficient to solve all problems. As I think some continue to argue. (And not, it seems to me, entirely insensibly.)
May 12th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I don’t see a lot of evidence, for example, that the GOP’s opposition to abortion rights suddenly became a huge political loser starting in 2006.
Posner’s point was a little more subtle, namely that “a continued preoccupation with abortion” is a political loser. Which seems defensible to me: there is a pretty solid and largely unwavering majority in favor of the rough compromise on abortion that we have reached, so a party which keeps focusing on that particular issue is just going to gradually seem more and more out of touch with what people are actually debating these days.
conservatism is as conservatism does and you can’t just wash your hands of George W. Bush
I don’t think that is a fair read of what Posner argued. He was talking about “the conservative movement”, which is not necessarily the same thing as “conservatism” in general. Indeed, he distinguished “the triumph of conservatism as I understood it” from “the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004″, and I don’t think he intended to suggest that the “new” conservatism somehow wipes away the existence of the older conservatism.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Posner was a Reagan appointee, but he is not and has never been a “conservative” in any political sense. He’s a conventional academic liberal when it comes to matters of morals and culture. He uses economic analysis and is in many matters willing to think when liberalism orders thinking to stop, so he is often thought of as conservative.
Finally, as much as I like and admire Posner, I find it a bit amusing for him to diagnose analytical weaknesses in the beliefs of conservative economists. His expertise is, in a sense, derivative of economists, and his most persuasive work is an extrapolation and application of classical microeconomic models. He seems uniquely poorly position to be critical of other extrapolations of the same, particularly from those more expert than he.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
SomeCallMeTim, I think Friedman (at least) was intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that in a situation in which monetary policies have lost their spurs, they might not be effective. His heyday was in a relatively inflationary/expansionary economic environment (with some stagflation stuff tossed in toward the end). I don’t see how anyone could deny that in a zero rate environment monetary policy is pushing a dead worm to entice dead birds.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
which of his “more abstract” work do you think is good? On philosophy he’s hopeless- deeply confused and full of implausible claims. On economics he presents a deeply simplified version of the Chicago school account, one that mostly consists of finding his favored outcome and then reasoning backwards to it with simplistic analysis. (His training, other than law, was in English. His level of economic training and understanding is fairly elementary.) He’s not a very serious thinker in either economics or philosophy. He’s had a big but largely negative impact in the law, mostly by cloaking right-wing outcomes in a thing covering of simple-minded versions of economics. All in all, pretty bad.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Posner was a Reagan appointee, but he is not and has never been a “conservative” in any political sense. He’s a conventional academic liberal when it comes to matters of morals and culture.
So apparently there is no such thing as an economic conservative, and there are only social conservatives. In other words, Thomas just kicked the libertarian-minded out of the “conservative movement”.
Which, of course, helps support Posner’s point about emotion and religion taking over the “conservative movement”.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Anti-abortion agitation works great for campaigning. But once you start trying to legislate it, it loses support. What’s the penalty for a pregnant woman who aborts? What about hydrocephalic or anencephalic fetuses? At what age does a young woman stop needing parental consent? Can a man force some random woman to carry his unwanted fetus to term? It’s a sticky business, which is why abortion was only illegal in the US from 1967 to 1969 but has been a hot-button issue for conservatives since Roe v. Wade.
Anti-abortion activists are really very silly people. If they really did think abortion was murder, they’d be clawing at the clinics night and day. To stand outside and agitate just shows that they don’t even subscribe to their own alleged beliefs.
This is why the anti-abortion position is a compelling abstract AND a policy disaster.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Your post made it seem as if Posner is leaving conservatism. Having read the full article, I think he was trying to something quite different:
According to Posner, the conservative movement that brought Reagan into power largely succeeded and achieved all of its goals; the intellectuals behind the movement then drifted away (or died) and the movement deteriorated into some pointless wedge issues; now the movement is at its lowest point since Goldwater, but that’s to be expected, as it largely succeeded in achieving its goals; and after Obama messes up a new intellectual conservative movement will rise again to fix the mess.
I don’t exactly agree with him, but I think that’s a better summary of what he said.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
How has “Friedmanite monetarism” taken a hit in all this?
The Great Moderation …John Quiggin’s “Refuted Economic Doctrines” #3, 1/05/09
JQ quotes Gerald Baker:
“Economists are debating the causes of the Great Moderation enthusiastically and, unusually, they are in broad agreement. Good policy has played a part: central banks have got much better at timing interest rate moves to smoothe out the curves of economic progress. But the really important reason tells us much more about the best way to manage economies.
It is the liberation of markets and the opening-up of choice that lie at the root of the transformation. The deregulation of financial markets over the Anglo-Saxon world in the 1980s had a damping effect on the fluctuations of the business cycle. These changes gave consumers a vast range of financial instruments (credit cards, home equity loans) that enabled them to match their spending with changes in their incomes over long periods. ”
This was New Keynesian Orthodoxy as recently as one year. Quiggin has recently pronounced Bew Keynesianism dead.
This hasn’t much to do with conservatism or Republicans, tho.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Re: Which seems defensible to me: there is a pretty solid and largely unwavering majority in favor of the rough compromise on abortion that we have reached,
Given that we have some of the most liberal abortion laws anywhere outside People’s China, if that’s what you call compromise I would hate to see what you call extremism. Just what do the pro-choice yahoos want that they don’t already have?
May 12th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Conservative economics has taken a huge hit.
1) faith in the free-market and an abhorrence of governmental regulation led to overleveraged firms making bad bets on “innovative” financial instruments. Bear Stearns and Meryll Lynch would have failed but larger firms were forced to buy them to prevent systemic risk. (was this because interest rates were too low and the Fed was too easy?)
2) Lehmann Brothers was allowed to fail and everyone freaked and the credit markets froze. Only massive governmental intervention and outright socialism has prevented the global economy from slipping into another depression.
Conservatives who don’t see this are deluding themselves. But Atrios wants to complain about “Timmeh,” well, whatever.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Conservative Intellectuals (no scare quotes) are honestly the most frustrating individuals in the history of the world. They make one basically/moderately true point, and then extrapolate it to all hell, and won’t accept any reasonable debate because it interferes with their “one true point.”
It would be like a person in 1900 arguing that airplanes travel is impossible, based upon the Theory of Gravity. Any point you make about aerodynamics would be met with, “What, so you’re saying that Gravity isn’t in effect any more? I’ve got dozens of experiments to show you that gravity is true!” Sure, the Theory of Gravity is true, and you don’t want to deny it, but it won’t stop your airplanes from getting off the ground.
Conservative intellectuals, though, never get past the first theory.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Rational laws.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Ah, but Posner is a Hyde Parker, so he’s probably been in the same room as William Ayers and got infected by liberal terrorist cooties.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation . . . and a continuing inability to count to 4.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
bob mcmanus, I don’t see that Quiggin’s piece is directed at “Friedmanite monetarism” good try though
May 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Ah, but Posner is a Hyde Parker
What–did he order Nelson to discontinue the action at Copenhagen?
May 12th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
It’s a blog post, and Posner just says Friedmanite monetarism has taken some “hits”. I think he mans precisely that monetary policy doesn’t seem adequate to the counter-cyclical job here. Uncle Milt might counsel dumping money out of a helicopter, but then that sounds a lot like fiscal policy.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
. I don’t see how anyone could deny that in a zero rate environment monetary policy is pushing a dead worm to entice dead birds.
He wrote a book that pushed exactly this idea.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I don’t see how anyone could deny that in a zero rate environment monetary policy is pushing a dead worm to entice dead birds.
My understanding is that quantitative easing remains available.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
It’s wrong to call Posner a “product of the conservative legal movement.” Progenitor, maybe. Associated figure, certainly. But he certainly predates the movement (and, as discussed some in these comments, he also fits into it less well than many of its members).
As discussed here (and in the book there being discussed), that movement basically started 30 years ago. Indeed, while there were a fair number of roughly contemporaneous precursor events, if you had to pick a single watershed moment, you could do no better than the founding of the Federalist Society in 1982.
Posner, meanwhile, graduated law school in 1962. He clerked for William Brennan on the Supreme Court. He was one of Thurgood Marshall’s underlings in the Solicitor General’s office. At this point he is certainly no 60s liberal (and probably never was), but he is, and has always been, a pretty far cry from Ed Meese or Steve Calabresi or Jay Sekulow.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
“Given that we have some of the most liberal abortion laws anywhere outside People’s China, if that’s what you call compromise I would hate to see what you call extremism. Just what do the pro-choice yahoos want that they don’t already have?”
I hear this trope about the US having the most liberal abortion laws repeated all over the place from conservatives, and it’s bizarre. Do they honestly believe it’s easier to get an abortion here than in the UK, where you can just get it done in any public hospital under NHS’s expense?
If you have money and you can travel, abortion is mostly unrestricted. Otherwise, there are all sorts of restrictions make it difficult to get an abortion, from clinic closings, parental notification, waiting periods, Medicaid funding bans, etc.
That’s the sort of compromise that Americans seem to like. Middle and upper class women can get their abortions without much fuss. Poor women often have to jump through hoops for it. That’s the way most things go, I suppose.
Polling shows that a large plurality of the public supports the abortion status quo, and more people want FEWER abortion restrictions than want more abortion restrictions.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Link in #22 isn’t working, sorry.
“Here” = http://volokh.com/posts/1202975308.shtml
The book in question = http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Conservative-Legal-Movement-Princeton/dp/0691122083/
May 12th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
It’s always struck me as amusing when intellectual dandelion fluff like Jonah Goldberg make the case that conservatives have a canon, while liberal ideology is somehow made up on the spot. Perhaps Posner is making the same point, but thinks new conservatives fail the survey course.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
The overarcing theme of the George W. Bush Administion.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Once again, we are left with the “are they stupid, or just dishonest?” question when trying to explain the right-wing position.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Given that we have some of the most liberal abortion laws anywhere outside People’s China, if that’s what you call compromise I would hate to see what you call extremism. Just what do the pro-choice yahoos want that they don’t already have?
I would think it would be fairly obvious that having no abortion restrictions, or even having partial-birth abortions fully legal, would be extremist. This “yahoo”, however, is pretty fine with the laws as they are now.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I agree with Posner.
Ah, but Posner doesn’t say that opposition to abortion rights, in and of itself, was a cause of decline. Rather, he says that “a continual preoccupation with abortion” caused that decline.
It isn’t that the “Life” stuff the Republicans believe in is particularly toxic, but that they adhere to and publicize and foreground it so obnoxiously, and to the detriment of other issues. Reagan was pro-life, but he also didn’t walk around with a dead-fetus sign, or mug for the cameras over Terry Schiavo episodes.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
or even having partial-birth abortions fully legal
Careful. “Partial birth abortion” is a term of abuse, cooked up by the anti-abortion movement. It has no medical origin.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Seriously, have these people never read anything about Eastern Europe? Russia, Yugoslavia, Greece, the former Soviet republics?
Why do you think Borat had a “village mechanic and abortionist?”
May 12th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Given that we have some of the most liberal abortion laws anywhere outside People’s China . . .
Of course abortion laws vary considerably state by state, so this claim really doesn’t make much sense. Also, a better (and closer) example of a country with no restrictions on abortion (aside from generally applicable medical regulations) would be Canada.
Just what do the pro-choice yahoos want that they don’t already have?
First, I will again note that most people more or less favor the current status quo, so it is true most “pro-choice” people are not agitating for big changes in the status quo.
But if you are asking what the minority of “pro-choice” people who are strongly dissatisfied with the status quo would want, I would again cite Canada as an example. So, that would include no special prohibitions on abortion, no special parental notification or consent laws, public funding for abortions at least on a par with basic health care, and so on.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
The man is a prodigious intellectual. How did he miss that “conservative economists” were talking their book? To the extent there is such a thing as conservative economists, a lot,is the extent to which their work should have been considered a load of self serving crap. Listen, liberal economists are little better buy why on earth should a wise man think that economics is based upon some universal truth that is liberal or conservative? It’s all so stupid.
The age of perpetual growth is done. It’s over. I know it unimaginable. Doubly so when told so by some crackpot on the internet.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
None of you seem to understand that abortion is a fundamental evil.
It can never be condoned and it can never be ignored.
In this country, an utterly defenseless, living human being is killed moments before its birth, and you all speak of this as it it were nothing.
Posner can say what he wants about abortion being a negative political position today. I suppose it is. But why should that matter if it is an inherently evil act?
Let me also mention that because of contraception, abortion and now homosexuality, native Americans have a fertility rate far below replacement and are marching to extinction.
In this sense, it doesn’t matter what Posner and the other pro-abortion advocates say. History will be written by those that give life, not by those that snuff it out.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
bdbd:
As Paul Krugman points out, Friedman played different roles:
Milton Friedman played three roles in the intellectual life of the twentieth century. There was Friedman the economist’s economist, who wrote technical, more or less apolitical analyses of consumer behavior and inflation. There was Friedman the policy entrepreneur, who spent decades campaigning on behalf of the policy known as monetarism—finally seeing the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England adopt his doctrine at the end of the 1970s, only to abandon it as unworkable a few years later. Finally, there was Friedman the ideologue, the great popularizer of free-market doctrine.
In this less technical Randian sense, Friedman monetarism has indeed taken an immense blow, seared most clearly in my memory by Greenspan’s “there’s a flaw in my view of the world” speech to Congress.
As someone familiar with Posner’s legal scholarship, I can assure you, he’s no name-dropping lightweight. He would perhaps rate in the top ten conservative intellectuals of the last century — falling somewhere not too far behind Friedman himself.
What I believe Posner is acknowledging — in addition to a) and b) set forth by Matt above — is that the Conservative Movement no longer has a coherent intellectual foundation. They are no longer able to debate matters on the merits, but rather, are reduced to incoherent slogans akin to MacIntyrian “taboos.” Seen in this light, the fact that the Republicans seriously suggest a capital gains tax cut in response to, well, anything is a symptom of the incoherence.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Intellectual decline of conservatism? He didn’t notice Fred Barnes or Larry Kudlow 25 years ago? Newt for Gods sake? An entire legal tradition forged right at his school which rejected law if it was inconvenient or hindered profits, which called itself conservative? And he bought into it?
Posner is an important public intellectual. Most such intellectuals are branded liberal only because they are not considered by themselves or others to be conservative. This whole liberal conservative continuum is often phony. Let’s hope Posner can break away from it. Not that it will make any difference. It’s too late.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Let me clarify that for you — there’s no misunderstanding or lack thereof. Rather, there’s a vehement fundamental denial of this ridiculous claim. People who think it’s a fundamental issue of morality weighing upon the human condition are utter shit-heads. Just so there’s no misunderstanding.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Conservative Intellectual? There ain’t no such beast.
It’s kind of like a skinny, non-drug addicted Limbaugh. They can dream about it, but that’s as far as it goes.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
In this country, an utterly defenseless, living human being is killed moments before its birth, and you all speak of this as it it were nothing.
I think most of us would be pretty upset about a fetus being killed “moments before its birth”. However, we’re not upset, because this isn’t the kind of abortion that is legal or being done.
Personally, my view is that a fetus is “living” once it’s physically capable of surviving outside the mother’s body. If you really think it begins at conception, and that first-trimester abortions are the exact equivalent of killing a three-month-old baby, then I wonder why you’re posting here instead of marching with a gun to the nearest place where this mass murder is going on. That’s certainly what I would do if I believed that.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Friedman was a sissy monetarist because he refused to brand asset inflation as inflation. His fetish about government spending served political interests and he cashed in on that. Which relates to point one. As asset inflation took root as the be all of the elites and as more complex definitions of money exploded even as the simpler ones like M1 remained tame he quietly abandoned his life’s work so as not to offend his patrons.
His theory about the monetary basis of the Great Depression is accepted as gospel by most whereas it’s arguable since it ignores the run up to the crash and posits the depth of the depression was due to the monetary policy response. Milts analysis is revisionist history that is now being tested and it will fail. Tens and perhaps hundreds of trillions are going to be printed to try and re inflate what was inflated beyond all simple common sense and then crashed. It’s stupid and it sure as hell isn’t conservative.
Why did we have a depression? Because we had a deflationary debt collapse and we had that because we had too much debt. Far more than could be paid by the profits generated by the investment made by that borrowing. Printing does not solve that. It only distorts markets and besides the printing is likely to go not where it is intended. As everyone will soon see here.
Milt is a fine man but for rhetorical purpose I have to defame him.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
The replies to Posner’s post are near perfect. Everything he disparages is all on one simple to read page. It’s like a case study in what’s gone wrong.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Here is Rick Moran’s take on Posner’s critique:
I’m reacting to Moran’s notion of success like former Colts coach Jim Mora’s reaction to a reporter’s question about the playoffs. Funny stuff.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
It seems that no one on this board understands the policies of Milton Friedman who was gung ho on deregulation, privatization(thank God Bush didn’t succeed in giving SS over to the Wall Street boys like he wanted to), Trickle down bull shit and of course, endless tax breaks. Friedman was for all of those things. Don’t know why the writer specified monitism. Pretty much Friedman’s whole ideology has been smashed to smitherins by the most corrupt administration on the face of the earth. Conservatism failed because there is no humanity in any of these people. They gut everyone but the super rich and finally, even stupid Americans caught on.
What we have been calling conservatives are just truly evil,
hateful, unreasonable people who actually seem to get great joy out of hurting others.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Why did we have a depression? Because we had a deflationary debt collapse and we had that because we had too much debt.
How the hell do you figure? The Great Depression was global and I’ve never even heard anyone say the epicenter was the United States. You’ve got some new species of history I need to hear more about.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
[...] Richard Posner (via): [...]
May 12th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I think Posner is scrambling too much to attribute the failure of the contemporary GOP entirely to the failure of bad policies grounded in weak “intellectual foundations”. That’s only part of it.
To take one example, the GOP has been on the pro-life side for years. Sometimes they win with it and sometimes they lose with it. There are sophisticated pro-choice thinkers and sophisticated pro-life thinkers. And if anti-abortion policies are defended by sharp, polished and well-educated ladies and gentlemen, the policies come off as reasonable and respectable. But if they are defended by uneducated slack-jawed, knuckle-dragging, barking buffoons, well then the policies will look buffoonish as well.
Since the GOP is so officially opposed to class warfare, they are loath to recognize it when it is happening in their own party. But that’s clearly what’s happening. People like Posner can no longer sit back and watch the vulgar, ill-bred boobocracy run their party. They just don’t want to be associated with that repulsiveness anymore. Especially if the boobs can’t even win elections for them. They are trying to find a polite way of sending the embarrassing Sarah Palins of the world into the back ranks, where they can be loyal foot soldiers and local activists, but are not lined up as the very face of the party.
This is more about people and personalities than Posner realizes. Obama is a mirror or reason that the country can now hold up to the Republican party after years of GOP dumbing down. The contrast is so striking, that 80% of the country has taken a collective gasp and said, “My, these Republican characters are really, really dumb, aren’t they?”
May 12th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Joe from Lowell,
You seem to be unaware that Russia passed restrictions on second term abortions a few years ago. Thankfully, Russia isn’t a ‘democracy’, so Putin didn’t have to make the protection of life appealing to every Tom, Dick and Harry in order to pass it. No, he saved Russian babies with the stroke of a pen, and to hell with those who disagree.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
abortion probably still helps conservatives, but it seems to me that Posner’s point isn’t really about popularity, but good government. Whether an anti-abortion stance wins you elections or not, conservatives have been willing to make huge sacrifices for this one, relatively minor issue. Not to belittle abortion, but when SCOTUS membership is decided by how one feels about a single issue, or when health crises around the world are allowed to turn into conflagrations that kill millions to avoid funding groups that have at best tangential relation, it shows a certain lack of proportion that must ultimately end up damaging the conservative movement. I think it is this sort of distorting effect that Posner is imagining when he cites abortion as an issue which is weakening.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
You seem to be unaware that Russia passed restrictions on second term abortions a few years ago.
And yet Russia continues to have one of highest abortion rates in the world, far higher than in the United States, or for that matter Canada, which again has no special abortion laws at all.
So what do you actually care about, Hector? Abortion laws, or preventing abortions?
May 12th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
taryn
I have linked to Krugman’s profile of Friedman many times. Trying to finesse Friedman into some kind of Randian/Greenspanian mumbo jumbo of convenience to whatever argument it is you are making is an example (and not even a good one) of teleological thinking.
I know who Posner is. I didn’t say he was a lightweight; if I had meant to say that I would have said it. I said he was doing some name dropping in a glib sloppy way (and Robert Solow makes similar observations about Posner’s “here’s what I think” stab at the current economic situation, in the review I linked to). Conservativism may not have enough of an intellectual buttressing to keep Posner happy and on board, but I don’t think that has much to do with “Friedmanite monetarism”
May 12th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I hear this trope about the US having the most liberal abortion laws repeated all over the place from conservatives, and it’s bizarre.
It’s true to a point, as Cynthia Gorney pointed out in her Harper’s piece some years ago. (As DTM said, Canada has no restrictions whatsoever.) But the discussion misses the point, as Gorney herself noted. The real issue is one of access: countries which restrict abortions after a particular number of weeks usually provide timely access.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Ah Richard Posner, a crank whose defense of Bush v. Gore was the height of “conservative thinking.” It’s been a while, but that was a spectactularly pathetic bit of “the end justifies the means” sophistry.
Sorry, being a “conservative intellectual” has always been something of a mug’s game. Read Buckley defending segregation if you think otherwise.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
I’m sure I’ll get chewed out for this, but I’ve always admired Posner’s intellectual honesty. Pundits rarely acknowledge mistakes, but I can think of several occasions where Posner has publicly taken criticism to heart (e.g., when Paul Bator accused him of having “a thin and unsatisfactory epistemology”).
May 13th, 2009 at 1:53 am
It’s a sticky business, which is why abortion was only illegal in the US from 1967 to 1969 but has been a hot-button issue for conservatives since Roe v. Wade.
What on earth are you talking about? This seems to be untrue. Wikipedia, for example, states that abortion was more or less illegal in every state by 1900, with exceptions for rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother in some states. As far as I can see, the only significance of 1967 is that in that year Colorado liberalized its abortion laws, and I can’t see any evidence of 1969 being a significant year.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:04 am
[...] Matthew Yglesias comments: [...]
May 13th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Raghav, I’m not trying to be confrontational here, but where is the “intellectual honesty” in his defense of Bush v. Gore? Here Posner suddenly discovers that the ends really do justify the means and allows that sloppy legal reasoning is fine so long as it generates an orderly transfer of power – even when the decision is made contrary to precedent, the will of the people, and the law as written.
There are some things that mark you a hack. Support for Bush v. Gore is one of those markers. It says right in the decision – “we don’t think this is the right thing to do and you can’t use this as justification for any further rulings.” (maybe I’ve emphasized the implications rather than rendering a literal quote)
May 13th, 2009 at 4:01 am
[...] / Matthew Yglesias: Richard Posner Throwing In the Towel on the Conservative Movement — I actually don’t know that much about Richard Posner’s political [...]
May 13th, 2009 at 7:01 am
“Thankfully, Russia isn’t a ‘democracy’ . . . ”
Which tells you everything you need to know about Hector.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Which tells you everything you need to know about Hector.
Yep, Hector is Christianist version of Pol Pot.
And the thing is, the Christianism is really just a rationalization: Hector is a person full of wrath, and he gets off on fantasies about telling people what to do and enforcing his dictates with violence. If he had grown up in Cambodia in the 50s and 60s, he would be fine with Communism as his rationalization.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Bill Hicks had a nice description of what some now call Christianism – someone whose version of following Christ includes Jesus throwing the moneychangers and crooked merchants out of the Temple to the exclusion of everything else He did or said. Except that the contemporary counterparts of the moneychangers and crooked merchants are the very last targets the Christianists ever choose.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Well that’s nice and vague. An article at answers.com said that there was no total ban on abortion in every state until 1967, and than in 1969 Ohio, New York, California, and I think North Carolina changed their laws. I don’t know about Colorado.
There was also no anti-abortion movement in the US until the mid 19th century.
It’s important to remember that abortion on demand didn’t begin with Roe v. Wade, something that the anti-abortion movement has managed to make into a conventional wisdom.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Nope, looks like those changes began in 1967. Chalk that up to faulty memory.
Some will cite the Comstock Laws to claim that abortion was illegal in the US, but that’s not actually what the law did, which is why two dozen states had to pass laws further restricting abortion.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:05 am
The fact that he’s more concerned with abortion laws than with actual abortions tells you everything you need to know about Hector.
He holds out a country with a higher abortion rate as a superior model to one with a lower abortion rate, merely because the former codifies his religious beliefs into the law – and it doesn’t matter to him how widely violated that law is.
This isn’t about stopping abortions, but about using the law books as a way of designating countries to be the turf of Hector’s gang.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:07 am
JM’s original statement: abortion was only illegal in the US from 1967 to 1969
JM’s modified statement: An article at answers.com said that there was no total ban on abortion in every state until 1967
If you don’t count the places and situations when it was illegal, it was legal.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:18 am
If you don’t count the places and situations when it was illegal, it was legal.
As I have already pointed out, the statement you are parsing was incorrect.
He seems to be referring to this line in wikipedia:
1820–1900 – Through the efforts primarily of physicians in the American Medical Association and legislators, most abortions in the U.S. were outlawed.
Emphasis mine.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:21 am
That’s the way that “moral” laws always work. It’s a way of performing one’s own piety, in a perhaps compensatory way, by attacking the rights of others.
Saudi Arabia comes to mind.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Ah, it was an article at about.com. Here’s the bit I was mis-remembering:
May 13th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Pick up your gun and get moving, then, because there are a fair number of such post-viability abortions performed all the time. The truly evil abortion is the post-amniocentesis one that doesn’t reject having a child in general, but rejects having that specific child. Fewer and fewer children with Down’s despite women giving birth later and later in life…it doesn’t happen by accident.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“some of the most liberal abortion laws anywhere outside People’s China”
As people have pointed out, other countries have much less restrictive abortion laws; but also, how are China’s laws liberal? It’s rules are highly conservative, forcing women to have abortions instead of allowing them to control their own bodies. Their policy is morally equivalent to that of forced birth you advocate, and just as indefensible, for the exact same reasons.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
let’s not get caught up in the details of late 1960s abortion law. They point is that the anti-abortion movement did not really get started until the mid-19th century. At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, abortion before “quickening” was legal and socially acceptable.
May 13th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
[...] important product of the conservative legal movement,” agrees that Posner’s post “is unusual, even among the dissident camp in the conservative movement.” Why? Because Posner is willing [...]
May 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
JMP,
Big deal. I don’t see much of a moral difference between allowing people to have abortions, and requiring them. In both cases, the fundamental humanity of the unborn child is denied, and it is a matter of indifference whether it shall live or die. The issue of so-called ‘freedom’ is a side issue, and when it comes down to it I don’t even think you people really believe in it. “Democracy” and “freedom” are a means, not an end in themselves. In truth, of course, liberal capitalism and Chinese secular tyranny are both obverse and reverse of the same coin, both founded in the denial of the law of nature. I see little difference between the two.
A just society would prohibit all abortions except in extreme circumstances (the life of the mother and nonviable fetuses being two exceptions) and it would thoroughly suppress any arguments to the contrary by pro-choice yahoos. In an ideal society the collected works of Judith Jarvis Thomsen would be burned by the public hangman.
JM,
I’m not sure when I ever pretended to be a big fan of liberal democracy. The fundamental errors of liberal democracy are that it treats every person- no matter how morally deficient- as having equal political rights, that it encourages people to pursue their own self-interest in the political arena as opposed to the common good, that it focuses on rights instead of obligations, that it emphasizes individual self-ownership instead of obedience and submission, and many such errors. These are all deeply pernicious and un-Christian falsehoods, and people of conscience must fight against them wherever they find them. I applaud Putin, as much as I applaud leaders of the more orthodox Left like Chavez and Morales, for scorning these dangerous and malicious errors.
I certainly do applaud the Lord’s unleashing his fury against the moneychangers, and given that I’m pretty anti-capitalist, I suspect I would applaud it quite a lot if He were to come again in glory and give a repeat performance.
May 13th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
[...] basic functions of thought, which is why the article goes on: In a totally unrelated development, Richard Posner has written that “conservative intellectuals now have no party.” Certainly, the chances that [...]
May 13th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Sorry, JM, I got tangled up there.