Starve the state; support traditional families (only)
by Linda Beale
The right-wing’s “breadwinner conservatism”–starve the state; support traditional families (only)
Many of us who think about tax and economic policy have been confounded by the tendency of lower-middle-class families to vote Republican, which means they are ultimately voting against their own economic interests for a party that wants all the benefits of the federal government to accrue to the already wealthy, and sets policies to ensure that is true, from tax cuts to capital gains, estate taxes and progressive rates (all favoring the wealthy) to the kinds of subsidies represented by the “active business exception” that allows tax free reorganizations to move business assets and jobs out of the country without any tax “toll” on the departure.
Michelle Goldberg , a Newsweek and Daily Beast writer, provides some answers to this mystery in her review of Robert Self, “All in the family: The realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s” Hill & Wang (2012) in The Nation (Oct. 22, 2012), at 32. While she finds the Self book lacking in the in-depth analysis that would make it not only a great read but also a revealing informational source on the changes in the American polity, she does note the label he attaches to the right-wing resurgence (“breadwinner conservatism”) as an apt descriptor of the way social traditionalism–opposition to gay rights; eagerness to encourage governmental support of fundamentalist Christian dogmas and impose them on others; belief that the only kind of family that should receive government subsidies and support are those with a mother (ideally non-working), breadwinner father and children–intersects with radical market fundamentalism and its “starve the beast” approach to government. Instead of the paradox that liberals sense between”values” voting and market fundamentalist economic theory that supports an oligarchy at odds with most of the “values” voters’ economic self-interest, Self describes the way “social and economic conservatism buttress each other”. Id.
“[T]he defense of the autonomous, idealized nuclear family ‘was intimately linked to the way [conservative activists] also sought to limit government interference in the private market,” Self writes. Id. at 33.
Thus, when two women with children are paid about the same at their job in a daycare center but one is firmly in the middle class because she is married with a husband in a good job and the other is struggling on food stamps because she is not married, the attitudes of progressives and conservatives differ starkly on the remedies. Progressives see this is a failure of the system to support all kinds of families and consider the right’s denigration of the hardworking single mother as hypocrisy.
The right, however, believes that “encouraging traditional faimilies is of paramount social importance” so it is okay with a system that makes the lives of single mothers more difficult while rewarding more traditional mothers. Because the right also dislikes any form of government intervention in the markets or government intervention that might upset the applecart regarding the dominance of traditional families (and traditional religious institutions), it wants to keep government small and ineffective, assuring that it does not provide public support such as “food stamps, subsidized daycare, and after-school programs” that would make life easier for single mothers. As Paul ryan made clear in his “path to prosperity” budget plan, the right-wing prefers to undermine government because it wants nongovernmental institutions to determine who gets aid, and how. When fundamentalist churches are the arbiters of aid, single women experience the shame and public ignominy that the right believes they deserve.
Goldberg adds substance beyond what she finds in Self. She notes that ‘[a]s long as big-government liberalism worked to uphold the nuclear family, it was supported by a fairly broad social consensus.” When traditional ideas about gender and about the innate heroism of the military started to fray in the 1960s and 1970s with feminism, gay rights, and sexual liberation, and calls for the end of patriarchy, the right responded. Radical anti-feminists like Phyllis Schlafly, notes Goldberg, saw feminists as “radicals who are waging a total assault on the family, on marriage, and on children.” George Gilder, radical anti-feminist and hardcore supply-sider who wrote many speeches for Reagan, “was upfront about opposing reproductive rights because he believed they undermined male power and about how his economic theories depended on women’s submission. Goldberg quotes the following passage from Gilder:
When the women demanded’ control over our own bodies,’ they believed they were couching the issue in the least objectionable way. … But as Norman Mailer pointed out at the time, they were in fact invoking one of the most extreme claims of the movement and striking at one of the most profound male vulnerabilities. For, in fact, few males have come to psychological terms with the existing birth-control technology; few recognize the extent to which it shifts the balance of sexual power in favor of women. A man quite simply cannot now father a baby unless his wife is fully and deliberately agreeable. … Male procreativity is now dependent, to a degree unprecedented in history, on the active pleasure of women.” Id. at 34 (quoting Reagan speechwriter George Gilder).
Goldberg concludes that “[t]he contemporary conservative movement has succeeded in part by painting the government as the ultimate cause of emasculation.” Id. at 34. She suggests that Ryan’s speech at the convention personified this view, arguing essentially that men who want more authority and control of their families and their destinies should battle the “suffocating power of the state” and beware of the problems when “government accords [privileges] to women or minorities or the poor”. Id. at 34.
Interesting premise. I have always viewed the GOP as exploiting racism among white males, but that does not explain the gender gap while this premise does. Of course, you also have to factor in that the groups you are talking about are easily influenced and can be convinced to believe almost anything by the right wing propaganda machine. I am sure they believe that Dumbya had their interests at heart, but was thwarted by those nasty liberals and progressives.
Male procreativity is now dependent, to a degree unprecedented in history, on the active pleasure of women.”
Stupid man, he thinks that he was in control back in the days of Father Knows Best?
Idiot, it was just a different dance between the husband/wife, mom/dad, lover and …
Worst off is that few understand the only real power they have is over themself and freedom only comes when you don not expect anything in return from the other and certainly do not expect more than that person is capable of giving.
I can see how this thinking of Robert Self has captured a means of understanding the relationship of those in the right.
Becker
i think you may have a more profound understanding of this than i have, but i am not sure i understand yet what you are saying.
in the meanwhile, my standard rant:
the unmarried lady (mother?) has made, or failed to make, some choices that leave her in a disadvantaged position relative to the lady who understood, or at least profited from, the traditional advantages of being married… for both women and men as it turns out.
i have seen evidence from some “progressives” that they feel the answer to this is to tax the rich to provide subsidies for the unmarried mother.
in fact, this is what “welfare” has done since at least the sixties… probably before, but that’s as far back as my memory goes.
up to a point you can understand this… it is properly compassionate, and probably better for the country, given the “fact on the ground” of “single motherhood.”
but if you can’t understand why “traditional” people are deeply uncomfortable about this, you are probably less intelligent than you think you are. (“you” here is generic/abstract, not any particular person now present.)
as for the sixties. i was there and i approved…. at the beginning, and of some of the results. but at the end of the day it was very easy to see why ordinary people could fear the destruction of civilization as they knew it.
i don’t imagine that the politicians gave or give a damn about traditional families, or the welfare of the people, but they certainly knew how to divide up the electorate to take advantage of those fears on the one hand, and the fear of those fears on the other.
it’s too bad you (generic) regard conservatives as evil and stupid (the people, not the politicians), because you do a pretty good job of alienating those people who should be your allies in any rational attempt to create a government “for the people.”
and the politicians… of both parties… count on that.
@coberly – this is what your post communicates in a crystal clear manner: “it should be self-evident to all – i am straight and married, therefore the government of which i am a citizen should act to encourage the proliferation of people who are straight and married by legislating only in ways that benefit this particular group.” very clear, very to the point, and that’s ok. no beating around the bush, so to speak.
just as clearly, though, your government is not for “THE people.” it is for “MY people”.
there is no one that i know of who is arguing that a single mother or father (yes, single fathers DO exist!) doing the same job as a married mother or father should have their wages increased simply because they are single parents. there are, however, “progressives” who argue that a woman should be paid an equal amount as a MAN doing the same job (as she is oftentimes NOT). the point of this article is many things, including the idea that there is a fear among MEN that if women control their own reproduction as well as make the same amount of money for the same job, then MEN could lose their places of power in business AND government. why not address these points in the article, instead of mischaracterizing what “welfare” is? or, showing that you compartmentalize the government benefits that you yourself receive from other taxpayers because our country has determined that raising children is important and that we do give tax breaks to parents, whether they are single or married, as a collective acknowledgement that raising children is an expensive, yet important part of our society? as a “traditionally married” person, you certainly are subsidized greatly by everyone else’s tax dollars, to encourage you to have and raise children. i guess what is good for the gander is not good for the other gander? oh, you already answered this, when you state that if it supports YOUR kind of people, then it is good. but if not, then it is not.
you obviously include yourself in some elite group in your mind, as you patronizingly allow that “it is properly compassionate, and probably better for the country, given the ‘fact on the ground’ of ‘single motherhood'”.
if you have boiled down the current political climate such that you believe a certain group’s legislative goal is that the rich should subsidize single mothers (as opposed to the rich paying their share of taxes for the government programs and benefits that they have themselves voted for according to our system of government), than your feeling of being insulted as a “conservative” is understandable, i suppose.
dear anonymous
what is crystal clear to you is your own imagination.
what you failed to realize was that i was objecting to the people like you who alienate the people who should be our (my) political allies.
what you don’t realize is that you are a hate-filled person. you can’t understand that because you think it is the other side that is hate-filled.
you can be as unmarried and unstraight as you like. it will not offend me. you can even advocate that unmarried and unstraight need welfare to make up for the disadvantages they suffer as a result of being unstraight and unmarried. i will not hold it against you.
but when you indulge in hate-talk… just like the other side, only the opposite direction… i will try to point out that this plays into the hands of the politicians who manipulate both sides for their… not your… advantage.
btw
i did not address the thesis that “men” hate equality for women because they will lose their power if women control their own reproduction…
because i regard it as silly.
Coberly, Do you think that certain white people hate civil rights legislation because it reduced their power over people of color? Do you think that certain fundamentalist religious groups hate science because it reduces their power over their followers? I think annonymous went too far, but I sure do not agree that the major premise of the article is silly even if it is not right.
@coberly – i know it’s difficult to imagine that your way of looking at the world is just biased in favor of yourself, but it really jumps off the page when you write, “you can even advocate that unmarried and unstraight need welfare to make up for the disadvantages they suffer as a result of being unstraight and unmarried.”
i am one of many people who are very, very tired of reading opinions like yours, written in a self-satisfactory manner, so obviously self-serving – and you completely fail to recognize or acknowledge it.
why would an unmarried or unstraight person be at any disadvantage if everyone was treated equally? if there was equality and freedom for all, why would unmarried or unstraight people suffer, to use your words?
you take for granted the comfort of being in the majority and being in power and you have grown so accustomed to these things that you feel it is your duty to explain how great it would be if everyone was as good as you. getting people like you to have the a-HA moment, where you finally see your own deeply embedded prejudices is very difficult.
you imply that you are a moderate person who wants to do the right thing, and yet the words you write are biased, prejudiced, and demeaning, not to mention patronizing and self-absorbed.
if you feel alienated simply because others ask for equal rights, that is your problem, not the problem of those who are doing the asking. for you to condemn people for pointing out the inconsistencies in your writing and thinking is being blind.
you feel strongly that you have figured out what is important and vital and essential in your own life. bravo. however, you then assume that therefore these things apply universally, or, that they should be applied universally in the manner of your choosing and you vote accordingly.
the politicians are not counting on people like me to be “hateful” so they can use me to set us against each other. they are counting on the deeply held prejudices of people like you to be awakened (as they clearly have been) when someone suggests that your way of living should not be the only incentives made into law for everyone else. people like you pretend to be conservative or moderate, as long as you’re still the ones holding the keys to the castle at the end of the day. you have the right to defend and protect your way of life. but so do i. and they need not be mutually exclusive, which is what the article was pointing out.
if you think that it is silly that certain powerful men in this country are concerned that women gaining true equality is threatening to many of them, you’re not reading or paying attention to what they are saying themselves. these things are all tied together, don’t you see?
you dismissed what the blog writer said, and you dismissed what i said, because you clearly have no skin in the game. what do you stand to lose if non-traditional families and women have no equality or support for the same tax dollars they pay as you? my guess is, you have nothing to lose. so you can sit here and demean and preach, etc., and it costs you nothing but your time.
the problem that people like me have is that we can tell you feel your own way of life is superior, hence you write the things you do. you have stated a few times that if people choose to pursue “non-traditional” ways of life, then they can suffer the consequences and you imply that tax dollars should remain mostly to benefit people like yourself. and then you are indignant and shocked when someone might point out the hypocrisy. typical. annoying. frustrating. it’s enough already.
Anon
you continue to read into me and my motives the projections of your own fantasies. why not try to read just what i said?
Terry
the key to your argument (with me) is the word “certain white people.”
i have no doubt that you are correct about “certain” white people.
But I was talking about the general run of “workers” who have no power to lose. many of them were and some of them are still “racists”, but that is a deep (very deep) psychological issue and has nothing to do with power for most of them.
moreover, i am fairly convinced that “most” of them accepted civil rights. then felt they got burned by “bussing.”
it is all too complicated to say anything meaningful about in less than a book… if at all.
but i was not arguing about racism, or sexism — which i see very little of– i was arguing that using the kind of language and assumptions that Linda does, and the “men fear losing power if women are allowed control over their own bodies,” and “evil white men’… is counterproductive, and is in fact an example of the same kind of thinking that we call racism… etc etc.
as for “certain fundamentalist religious groups”.. i think you have it exactly backwards. they do not hate science because it reduces their power. they use a distorted view of science to prey on the fears of simple people in order to enhance their power over them. and “you” help them out by running around calling religious people stupid and generally doing everything “you” can to make them dislike you… and the policies you need to protect both of you from the predators in high places.
sorry this is not better written.. there is no way i can convince you. you might convince yourself if you think about it long enough.
Linda:
It appears what you and the author have been able to put meaning to Romney’s words awarding “single female heads of family on some means of welfare the dignity of work.” Women heads of families make up a large portion (if not the largest of family heads) of those living in poverty. And yes to a lesser degree, single male heads of families live in poverty also.
run
just to confuse anonymous above, i regard the “dignity of work” comment to be self serving cynical crap. it’s all part of the general idea that Republicans have of increasing the labor supply… to hold down the price of labor.
If not simply a program to increase human misery that has its origins in deeper realms.
on the other hand i don’t think we can encourage life styles that lead to an endlessly growing number of persons who expect welfare as a right.
oops, there i have put my foot in it again. now we can have an enlightening conversation about castration anxiety and penis envy.