The Economist, Hardware Stores, Free-range Chickens and Immanuel Kant

The Economist, like so many other mainstream publications, has become little more than a hardware store of received opinion. That fact is a great comfort, though, to many on the Left; one can shop with confidence, knowing exactly what products will be available and what prices are to be expected. They need not concern themselves with the true cost of shoddy merchandise.

Think of modern liberal orthodoxy as the Great Supply-house that efficiently and widely distributes items of dogma to uncritical retailers – universities(1), media and political elites (rather, elitists). While the products are substandard, (using a fitness-for-use criterion) they do have the virtue of immanent durability.

Since the orthodoxy of the Left (almost by definition) controls the market, it perceives no need for product innovation. Ironically, it is captive to its own creation, and absent significant competition, it is supremely self-confident, often to the point of arrogance.

Which leads me to a recent article in The Economist ‘Newspaper”, How to Fix the Republican Party. For those who find my hardware store metaphor congenial there will be little need for me to parse the article, which in essence argues, “lay down your principles at the water’s edge – join us and you will find success”. I only add that what it represents is a weary and all-too-common(2) recycling of received dogma.

It seems to me that the difference between liberals and the Republican “center” resembles the distinction between caged and free-range chickens; the latter may enjoy a more varied diet, but both remain chickens fed on dogma of one sort or the other.

“If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay – others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.”(3)


(1) Here, I think, lies a weakness in the metaphor. Universities might better thought of as manufacturers rather than retailers. In truth, they are both.

(2) Sadly, the notion that exchanging principle for political success is the certain route to Republican revival is shared by many within the party. What the “pragmatic” Conservative perceives as the “center” in actually the Liberal center.

(3) Immanuel Kant from 1794 essay. Here, he later advocates “…throwing off the yoke of tutelage…”.

Note: this submission is a proprietary cross-post.