Zizek, and the danger of Obama for the American church

by David Fitch

One piece of Slavoj Zizek’s political theory in his foundational book The Sublime Object is his notion of “ideological cynicism.” Subjects of the first world, Zizek says, are too smart to become duped by the political ideologies of Western states. We know it’s all just more political spin. Instead, ideology for Zizek, takes on a different form in the so-called “first world.” Here, we are offered ideologies to appease us, to make us feel better about ourselves, so that those in privilege can keep on conserving what it is they really desire. So now, we look at the political ideologies spinning across the political process, and instead of politically observing “they do not know it, but they are doing it,” we observe “they know it, but they are doing it anyway.” In essence, we listen to all the new political speeches and new political options given the electorate and we know nothing will really change. Yet we participate in it anyway, because in essence subconsciously this is what we really want: we wish to protect our own specific pieces of the economic social pie yet feel good about doing it (there’s the classic Freudian split in the subjective consciousness). Zizek suggests that political ideology serves a cynical function now, giving us a Big Other to believe in, making us feel better about ourselves (morally), all the while we hope for keeping the status quo in place protecting our own personal pieces of the pie.

When it comes to Christians of my evangelical tradition, I would suggest Zizek’s “ideological cynicism” could work another way. We participate in National politics, its political ideologies of a more just/moral society, even though we deeply suspect the corporate national machine insures nothing will change. We do this because it is much harder to think of the church itself as a legitimate social political force for God’s justice in the world. Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority did this for the evangelicals in the 80’s. He allowed us to think we were working for a better society thereby granting us a reprieve from examining our own churches’ life for moral vigor. Today, perhaps it is the same, as many of us jump onto the Obama bandwagon. It is simply a lot less work to support Barak Obama for president than it is to lead our churches into being living communities of righteousness, justice and God’s Mission in the world. 

I know Zizek might appear too skeptical for most of us. And there is always the cry “why can we not do both - vote for Obama and be missional communities for justice in our neighborhoods.” Yet I think the question is worth considering: “Are we supporting Obama because it’s easier than being God’s justice in the world ourselves?”

Senator Obama is putting out a pleasing message of “Change.” “I’m asking you to believe in Change,” “the Audacity of Hope,” and “A Unified America.”  Yet Zizek would call these ideas  “signifiers without the signified.” Words that in the end no one knows what they mean or refer to. Zizek would say it is these “words” which allow us to consent to what we know is a lie so that we can avoid the Real: that true justice of God demands fundamentally the way we live in relation to each other and the world. I fear these “words” take the place of pres. Bush’s words “Freedom” and “No child left behind,” words that few knew what they actually meant but morphed into a politics of multinational corporate politics the horror of which is hard to believe 8 years later. In a Zizekian way, I have often asked, did we consent to all this (vote for George Bush) as evangelical Christians 8 years ago (who by and large elected him) in order to assuage ourselves that we (through our country’s national politics) are contributing to a better world all the while staying comfortable within our protected enclaves.

Obama has shown signs of not caving in to the ideological production machine. He has dared come close to making particularist commitments. He did not shrink back from his infamous “they cling to guns or religion” guffaw.  He did not pander to the production of ideology (concerning gas prices) by proposing an end to the gas tax as Hillary did. Yet when it came time most recently to defend his pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright, Obama backed off (after defending him other times). Wright’s particularist ethnic claims evidently came too close to puncturing the dominant ideology of race relations that allows us all to keep things going as they already are. Let me explain. In Detroit, on Apr 27, Wright made statements about differences among ethnic groupings in America. He detailed how the black culture is “different” but not “deficient.” He was continuing along his previous line of thought describing how American culture, politics and justice is really a white man’s system. It is was the kind of accusation which exposed the power structures of the existing system of which Barak seeks to become president of.  In so doing, Wright came too close to upsetting the ideology which enables us all to be comfortable with the status quo concerning race relations in America. I know Wright has been extreme. I know he has been incendiary. He has been inopportune and self aggrandizing. Nonetheless, isn’t his line of reasoning the very stuff of which the ideology of American democracy cannot handle for the reasons Zizek cites above? So Obama has to publicly disavow Wright. It is an irruption of the Real for those of us who think justice can somehow emerge from the current structures and signification systems of the American State. It’s a wake up call to the fact that Obama must cover over the realities of exclusion that occur within America’s system towards black culture in order to persist in the illusion of  “Change” and “Belief” that Obama is selling. Wright is too dangerous because he reveals that anyone who wishes to be insistent on his or her particular commitments culturally and religiously (after all Wright says he is “running for Jesus”) cannot fit in to the American system of justice.

I must confess my own proclivity is to vote for Obama this fall. Yet Zizek helps us see that if we seek a revolution of justice, we need counter movements that can reveal the lack in the System. To me this points to the church. And so I continue to want to press for the church to be the primary instrument of true justice in the world. The church must be FIRST as the initiator for social justice, from which we can then push for governmental cooperation. I am concerned that the new energy for justice on the local level by emerging and missional church movements might be dissipated by the Obama hope. I have always been concerned about the marginal status given the church as the foundational center for justice in society by my various spokesmen/women/friends of the Emerging Church. I know many fear fundamentalist sectarianism. I fear the democratic capitalist Symbolic Order shall subsume us all..  More and more however, people like Jim Wallis are seeing the insights of a tempered vision of what is possible in national politics (see The Great Awakening). More and more, people understand a new possibility for a Hauerwasian radical politics (see Shane Claiborne and his Jesus For President campaign). SO GO AHEAD AND BY ALL MEANS VOTE FOR OBAMA, but do not allow false ideology to sap our energy or distract us from the task of being God’s people, his embodied Kingdom in submission to His Lordship, birthing forth His justice made possible in His death and resurrection until He comes.    

What do you think? Is there a work of “ideological cynicism” at work in Christians supporting Obama? Is the Obama bandwagon a positive or a negative (or neutral) for the church’s role in bringing justice to the nations? Is energy by Christians spent on Obama politics misguided, too hopeful, and misdirected? Is it too easy to just say “you should be doing both, voting for Obama and working for social justice in your local church”?

Comments

[Michael Cline]

This is a beautiful piece, and thanks for the insights into the somewhat hard to read (for many of us) Zizek. I agree nearly 100% with this post and I even wrote something similar to this, analyzing Ellul's thoughts on Marxism and the new found trust in Obama by Christians. Apparently, all I needed to do was replace my language of "drinking the kool aid" with a few of Zizek's thoughts, and I would have had an easier time with crowd control. :)

I'm wondering if a vote for Obama (or any other socially active democrat) is more a vote of repentance after years of the same people listening to Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson, than it is a vote for someone new.

[Jonathan Brink]

I would offer that the movement that supports Obama is predominantly young, Google educated, and no longer willing to put up with the BS of traditional politics. They (we) are looking for someone who can run the gauntlet of politics and come out the other end still in tact with a sense of ideology that calls people to work together and sacrifice. This one word, sacrifice, is what has drawn me to Obama. He's not positioning himself as a savior (a la professionals McCain and Clinton). He has from the beginning said, "It must be we." His role is then to clarify that and hold the vision.

With that said, isn't it easier to simply say it's a bunch of people drinking the kool-aid, so we won't be disappointed in the end if it doesn't happen. This isn't the first time a large grass-roots constituency has rallied around a iconic candidate. The last one got killed.

[Daniel Anderson]

This is an off-the cuff response, so forgive me if I happen to misinterpret a few things you're saying.

I vote because I'm American, and if I choose to vote for Obama, it's because I think Obama would make a good president—as an American.

I would never vote for Obama because I'm a Christian—that just doesn't make sense. Sure, if my christian ideals inform my choice for a president, that should be a valid source of my decision-making process… but under no circumstances do I, nor should I, assume that the president I vote for will act "christian-like" or be everything I hoped for in a "christian" president—whatever their terminology or catchphrases may be. This is the mistake Evangelicals made when they voted en-masse for George W. Bush because he was "one of them." In truth, he is just another politician, and will employ all the tools and strategies of politicians to do what he needs or is wisest (as a politician) for him to do. I should not be faltered by the fact that Obama will do the same—either as a Christian or American.

I agree in the grand danger of jumping on bandwagons. I'm not sure if I entirely understand the explanation of "ideological cynicism" as you explain it, but if anything, I think we need a certain degree of ideological cynicism—or maybe ideological shrewdness—in that we know whatever system we put our hope in will constantly fall short of our highest expectations. It is best, rather, to put our interests in the right places—I will vote for Obama because I believe he will put the economy back on track, conclude a resource-sapping war, and improve the American international reputation—not because I believe his vision is the most Kingdom-of-God-like, and I would not recommend anyone else to vote for him (or any candidate for that matter) on such grounds. It is the Church's place to bring about the Kingdom of God, and no politician can do that. So let the Church be what it needs to be, and let the American government be what we as Americans decide it to be. But the Church is a foreign instigator and interrogator, and should never confuse itself with the larger political systems that surroung it, because in the end, they will never share the same interests.

A secondary problem in this dialogue, however, is the fact that the Church (capital C—you mention church with a little c, which I often conceive as a different church altogether, and in which case this comment doesn't apply) is its own system, with all the trips and fallacies of the American government. We need as much ideological shrewdness (or cynicism) there as we do with the Obama campaign. At least, for me, the Church will never live up to my own expectations as a Christian (or, in my opinion, its own goals), just as the American government will never live up to my expectations as a Christian.

[Jason Hesiak]

Anyone here seen "Blazing Saddles"??
:))

[Sue]

I quite like these very wise assessments of what the various candidates represent.

www.williamirwinthompson.org/blog.html

[Erdman]

I agree with Daniel. I will vote for Obama because he is the best choice. And that's about it.

Politically, I agree with Kierkegaard's logic: the crowd is untruth and so by definition a politician is also untruth because s/he must appeal to the crowd in order to be elected.

Remember that G.W. said the same thing in 2000 that Obama is saying now: we need to change the culture in Washington D.C. and work together. Do you remember that G.W. made that exact same rhetoric a major theme in his 2000 campaign? Signifiers without the signified.

So, I'm cynical. I've no delusions that the next President is going to change things. "Change" is just a word to use for political purposes. If he really does change the world for the better, that's great. But I'm not holding my breath.

We live in a world where everything is spin. Even "no spin zone" is a spin and "fair and balanced" is a manipulation tool of News agency seeking to grab market share.

[B.A. Powell]

Why not back a libertarian philosophy of government, which would open up more space for the church to be (as you stated) FIRST as the initiator for social justice? The political-socialist tendancies of Obama, and any other such candidate, will only continue to redirect the people's attention toward the state, not the church, in their cry for justice. If you are truly concerned that "the new energy for justice on the local level by emerging and missional church movements might be dissipated by the Obama hope," then be courageous enough to back a platform that repeals federal powers to a more manageable level? Right now, our hands are tied.

[Scott]

Geoff,
I think you are asking some good questions. This is a very helpful and timely post. Here are some of my thoughts that I am working through.

I often wonder whether the Church (which we might consider to be those who are being called out, that is, those being called into question by the rule and reign of God in order to pattern their lives according to God's rule and reign) should participate in the systems in order to call them into question. This is of course in an effort to guard against any sort of sectarian withdrawal.

I do think it is an important question to ask when the Church should and should not “participate” in the systems of the world, although I am not convinced that we can be totally free from their influence this side of the eschaton.

The reality of Sin will linger until Christ comes again. Also, I don’t think the Churches responsibility is to bring about the Kingdom, or build the Kingdom, or advance the Kingdom. I question some of that language. If we are people being called into question by the Kingdom (God’s rule and reign/pattern of living revealed in Jesus Christ), then we can only live into that order. This is probably just a difference nuance in language so please don’t flog me if I have misinterpreted anyone.

I have also been thinking lately about what Paul means in Colossians where he seems to imply that somehow the powers will be redeemed.

Peace and thanks,
Scott

[Adam Kotsko]

You consistently misspell Obama's first name: Barack.

Your reading of Zizek is also questionable on many fronts. For instance, he developed his theory of ideology initially by looking at the "second world," his native Yugoslavia. And ideology in its cynical mode doesn't offer us "something to believe in" -- just the opposite. It continues to function despite the fact that no one believes in it.

Even granting the correctness of your reading of Zizek, it's difficult for me to see how it connects to the rest of your post.

[Donald Johnson]

I voted for Obama in the primary and will do so in November, but I dislike the Obama hype and don't see any basis for it so far. If anything, Obama has shown himself to be quite capable of cynical political calculation on the Israeli/Palestinian issue and in his mock outrage over Wright's claim that the US has committed terrorist acts.
I say mock outrage, because Obama claimed that any American would have felt outrage, yet two days earlier on Fox News Obama compared Wright's stance on this subject to that of Martin Luther King in the late 60's (though without agreeing with either of them). That's correct--if anything King was harder on US foreign policy than Jeremiah Wright, yet when it became politically expedient, Obama suddenly forgot the Wright/King comparison, tossed aside any nuance, and was shocked, just shocked, that someone could say such things about America.

[Wess]

David - Thanks for your post. I always appreciate your reading of Zizek, it's insightful and helps me understand some of his work in context a little better. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. I completely agree with your assessment of US politics as the Big Other, especially when it comes to the church. Well said.

2. I also want to agree with your point about Obama's signifiers, especially the latter two - which certainly are more slippery than the first, so I don't think he's immune from this charge at all. I think it's much easier to see how Obama actually does represent some kind of change (albeit not the 'Real' you're discussing). I think Obama would have to work fairly hard to not be a change from what we have now. If he succeeds in getting troops out of Iraq that will certainly be a change, especially if we consider McCain as the other option. His politics are far more liberal than Bush's in many ways, and I would hope that having an African-American as president would bring change to this country, and not just one that's dressed up to make us all feel better while still allowing to be racist.

3. With that said, I'm not suggesting that change will actually happen, but that I can imagine what it might look like on a small scale. Actually, just yesterday Zizek said in an interview that he does think Obama would be good for the small symbolic gestures he will more than likely attempt to do over against the other candidates (mainly in foreign policy). Secondly, hasn't Obama running opened up at least the possibility for some change? His candidacy has confronted us with the fact that America is still as racist as ever (How many Obama is a Muslim emails have you received? An email that is racist on a number of levels.) His running for president has helped to deconstruct the racist smoke screen we've been hiding behind for some time. Now, I don't know if this means we'll actually be less racist (I'm inclined to think we won't be), but the act of opening up the possibility is a good one.

4. I'm not convinced that your reading of Obama and Wright is fair enough. I do like what you're getting at, and I think this ideology is still there at some level, but a fairer reading of Obama won't negate this: whether or not Obama disavows Wright, America will still be operating under this assumption. When I listened to that speech I was surprised how careful he was not to fall on either side of the debate: for or against Wright. That's why, in my mind, there was such surprise when Wright started bashing Obama: Obama hadn't in the public's eye disavowed him enough. He said a number of things in that speech that pointed towards a desire to maintain the tension between a) America dealing with its racism and b) realizing Wright's comments were too extreme. Now maybe, the reality is that Obama really is fully implicated in a white person's system, and he's swallowed that ideology, but I didn't think that speech conceded that fact (and haven't the commentators all said Clinton is far more 'Populist' than Obama?). I think he took more risks in that speech than you're giving him credit for. I also think there's something to be said for the fact that Wright isn't running for president nor would he have a flying chance at being elected as president. If we really do want a black president, won't he or she, at some level have to at least understand this white-ideology and navigate (carefully) it (without succumbing to it)? And hasn't, at least at some level, Obama tried to do this without giving in to this ideology (I think your other examples above point to a yes)?

5. Finally, my reading of Zizek is that there also needs to be these small gestures, and small acts that we take that throw wrenches, if you will, into the system. Zizek's system calls for concrete political actions. Of course, Zizek's philosophy doesn't have much room for the life of a community which responds to these types of things you're calling for, which I am sure has to do with his materialism. And I can see why you've brought Hauerwas in at this point to aid in this deficiency within Zizek's thought. But my move is to go from Zizek to Yoder, who I find to be a more fitting match for Zizek's Marxist philosophy. Yoder was no marxist, but his thought not only includes a rich ecclesiology for understanding the church as a political community, but it continues to press the need to not draw deep binaries between the church and the world. In other words, for Yoder political action takes place both as the church community, as well as within the systems of the world. As you know, "For the Nations" is Yoder's response to Hauerwas' "Against the Nations," and I see Yoder's ethical theology falling more in line with a kind of movement that, like Zizek says, is willing to take the risk, pick a side, and come down on the issues. As a Quaker, I've picked up on both Zizek and Yoder to show how the Quaker tradition has parsed this binary in a way that is helpful for our 'postmodern' reading of politics and the kingdom.

I've very recently published an essay for Barclay Press (a Friends publisher) that deals with this more here: http://www.barclaypress.com/wdaniels.php/2008/05/01/the-temptation-to-surrender

It's nothing you haven't seen before I am sure, but extends the conversation a bit further. Thanks for the great post!

[David Fitch]

Wess,
Outstanding comments. I admit I'm looking to provoke on the Obama reaction to Wright. I find it all very revealing and your comments certainly help. Also, I'm very attracted to your proposal concerning Yoder, it's close to my own. Thanks for the tip on your article. I'll be at Fuller in Feb 09. Perhaps we can meet.

Adam,
I suck at spelling. Sorry about that. The way I am reading your comment, you and I are close on Zizek's notion of "ideological cynicism." I'd be interested in learning more from you on this. Could you call me? 630-620-2124?

[Adam Kotsko]

That's nice that you're so eager to talk to me about this, but I'm not really a phone person.

As I think about it more, I suppose the only major correction is that I would separate cynicism (not believing in ideology but following it anyway) and perversion (wilfully believing in something because it makes us feel good). There is a definite shift in Zizek's work from cynicism to perversion -- perversion being a major category in his work on Christianity. He views Pauline Christianity as a cure for perversion, but -- something that might make it difficult for you -- he thinks actual existing Christianity is perversion par excellence. So you're going to at least do more work if you are going to connect Zizek to the church in the way you do -- though "vote for Obama but don't be led astray" is a fine Zizekian strategy.

[Nate Wood]

B.A. Powell,

I'm with you in thinking that small-government, libertarian-leaning politicians should be the best allies of Christians who want the Church, not the State, to be the focal point of Christian political imagination. It's not necessarily about supporting the underlying philosophies of any particular libertarian candidate, but it's about preserving the freedom of the Church to be politically relevant without having to sell out to State politics. The more a centralized, bureaucratized federal government takes charge of taking care of all our earthly needs, the less opportunity there will be for the Church to become a caretaker, and the less reason there will be for people to look to the Church as a bearer of a particularly Christian moral and spiritual truth.

I am always genuinely baffled by friends of mine who lament the Church's lack of a unique theo-political identity on the one hand, and then get excited about politicians like Obama on the other hand. I fail to see the consistency in that.

[David Fitch]

B.A. Powell, Nate Wood,
My fears with libertarian politics and Ron Paul is that the market (the invisible hand) remains another false god. I might agree with Paul on the Iraq war. Overall howverm I don't see the freedom of the autonomous property owning less-tax paying individual he envisions as being free ... It is another enhanced form of the same violence which sets one against another in America (Hauerwas, Milbank etc.), but that's a subject for another rday.

[Wess]

David - Thanks for the comment. I'd love meeting up when you're at Fuller next. Keep me informed on when that will be.

[B.A. Powell]

Mr. Fitch,
You may be at issue with Libertarian politics in terms of real, actual economic freedom. However, my point is that Libertarianism, by definition, won't allow for the establishment of centralized, State powered Social welfare/justice systems. Care of the poor, abused, etc. will be left to the means of independent organizations (e.g the church) and their ability to get other people and other organizations to cooperate. If one truly believes the church to be empowered by God to address the status quo and bring healing where necessary, then one truly believes that the church will (or at least can) fill the vacuum left by the abolishment of state welfare programs (and the like). Your concern, as stated above, was that the church was being marginalized in the socialization of the U.S. I'm not addressing economics, per say. I'm addressing your stated concern. Will Libertarianism work economically? Personally, I believe so, but do not know. That's not the issue. Will it free up the church to reclaim those values such as caring for the poor, sick, elderly, etc---those Godly values which are clearly being borrowed and abused by the state? Surely it will!

I want to make it clear that this isn't about Ron Paul, or the Republican party, or the Libertarian party. I'm simply advocating libertarianism in principle as a means of providing a society where the church can show great ability and power to address social problems. Can the church continue to address these problems in a society where it keeps turning over its powers and its mission over to state control---in an Obama kind of society? That, I don't know...

[Adam Kotsko]

So the goal is to create a more unjust society, so that the Church can pick up the slack and be all righteous? "Let us do evil that good may result!"

[B.A. Powell]

That is exactly what I am trying to say. I'm glad you picked up on that!

[Jacob Thielman]

This is an outstanding article and an interesting analysis. It doesn't take Zizek's mind to see that nearly all the political language being used since the primaries began has been an endless wave of empty signifiers. Why they bother debating who is more negative is beyond me, as very little positive assertion has yet happened. I don't think that Christians using politics to feel that they have contributed to the world is either a new thing or a candidate-specific thing. I think it's clear that the temptation to use political power for the purposes of the God who decried Earthly power is as old as Constantine - or even as the apostle Peter's sword. None of the current candidates offer much in the realm of Justice, and that, in my very humble opinion, is really the only issue at hand when it comes to governance. The Church has its own means of taking care of practically every other realm of life.

Side note: I wonder if any of the candidates will scale back Bush's rampant expansion of the executive branch, or if they all will simply assume the throne at its current size and use it for their own partisan version of good. This has not, to my knowledge, been debated even one time over this tedious primary season

[Adam Kotsko]

You seriously think the church can do a better job through ad hoc charity work than a modern welfare state can do? That's ridiculous to me.

The US doesn't even have very extensive welfare protections, compared with almost every other developed state -- and churches do plenty of charity work with the homeless, etc. Would you prefer for the church to administer Social Security, for example? Should the church provide universal health coverage for retirees? What exact "job" of the church has the state somehow taken over?

[Nate Wood]

David,

As relevant as your worries about libertarianism and capitalism may be, it seems to me that the market forces in today's world are in many ways far easier to resist than the forces of government bureacracy and law. Through education, we can teach people to imagine themselves and their world in non-market-dominated way. I'm under no obligation to envision myself as an "autonomous property owning less-tax paying individual," and I do not have to understand my freedom in such terms. The good thing about libertarianism is that, whatever legal fictions its based on, it would reserve for me the legal freedom to envision my own identity and my own freedom in whatever terms I see fit; I, and my church with me, are free to act in the most anti-capitalist, anti-individualist of ways, even if capitalism and individualism are the legal fictions that guarantee that opportunity for us.

I can't see how increased bureaucracy, which almost always entails increased regulations, gives us anything like the same power. Ron Paul himself has made the point many times: as a young doctor, he provided many free services to needy patients, services that only become harder for him and other doctors to provide the more a centralized power gets involved in healthcare. As a doctor performing services for free, one may have to resist the culture of capitalism. To perform the same services in a bureaucracy, you're likely to have to resist cultural foces AND the law. I don't know about you, but I think I know which option I'd choose.

[David Fitch]

Adam, as a closing comment to this post ...
In response to your saying ...
"You seriously think the church can do a better job through ad hoc charity work than a modern welfare state can do? That's ridiculous to me."

Do you seriously believe Barack can do anything different than what has gone on for the last 30 years? play to multi national corporate capitalist interests? We can only hope, which I'm willing to do.

In regards however to what you are unwilling to consider,if you look at what M.L. King accomplished in the early civil rights movement, if you look at what the base communities accomplished over against the Pinochet regime (Chile), you have examples of what churches can do with 1 100,000th of the resources of the State. Might then a door open for a wider imagination as to what the church could be - if called to faithfulness? We all get the church has been a failure. Yet so has the Western liberal State. There is however(for some of us)something inherent in the church's constitution to call her back to that is lacking in the US State. It seems to me your cynicism only goes one way.

[Jeremy Dowsett]

David-

I have just come from a Barack Obama rally in Grand Rapids, MI, the heart of evangelical Christianity, and I have to agree that I came away with mixed feelings.

There was certainly a good deal of signifying without signifiers, fluffy rhetoric of hope, unity, and change. However, I do believe that Obama has done more thinking than other candidates (certainly more than Hillary or McCain) about what it means for his faith to impact his politics). I believe his compassion, his optimism, and his hope are genuine. None of this, of course, negates your comments about ideology and the maintanance/disruption of the System. I would, however, disagree with your assessment of Obama's disavowal of Wright. I think that he defended his pastor and owned him for as long as he could, and only when Wright's comments became ridiculous (and attacking Obama directly) did Obama draw the line and disown him.

To address your actual question: I definitely think that the danger of ideological cynicism operating the way you describe here is a REAL danger, and we need people to keep writing pieces like this so we can check ourselves from time. But I also think its possible--and important--to be thoughtfully and energetically engaged in electoral politics and still keep the church the first instrument of God's justice. In my own community, Blacksoil, most folks are Barack supporters or at least excited about him, yet we are all still focused on our home groups as missional units called to do and say the good news to our neighbors.

[Ryan Bell]

But wasn't part of MLK's concern and demand that the state act to rectify its injustices? I just don't get the logic that says, on the one hand we have to turn the state over to free-market forces so the church can be the church, OR on the other hand, we need to think of Obama (or whomever) as the Messiah. The church can be the conscience of the state, calling it to act in the best interest of the people, as a witness to God's kingdom reign. Maybe I'm just being too simple.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

I for one, and I think Dave Fitch would agree, that we definitely should not turn the State over to free-market forces so that the church can be the church. In fact, the church has already adopted too many free-market thought itself. The church is neither Statist nor Libertarian (pro-state or pro-market). that is the whole point.

[Nate Wood]

The point of "turning the State over to free-market forces" really isn't what Christian support of libertarian politics needs to be about. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think that libertarian politics necessarily involves (and even has as its goal) the domination of market forces over all of life, but that's a ridiculous assertion. Keep in mind that the rise of America's consumer-oriented culture has absolutely no connection to the rise of libertarianism, because, you know, libertarianism hasn't exactly become all that popular even as Americans in general and the churches in particular have slavishly bound themselves to consumerism. Wherever the supposedly necessary connection between minimal federal regulation and worship of capitalist culture is, I'm not seeing it. Anyone care to point it out to me?

I know a lot of libertarians who really have little interest in the market for the market's sake. Their concern, and my concern, is for a politics that maximizes the freedom of individuals and groups to act locally, both through local politics and through private projects. The church doesn't have to sell its soul to the market in order to cherish the freedom to serve without a secular government claiming it knows better what people need and how to provide it.

Perhaps I'm just dense, but I really struggle to see how people are failing to make the distinction between wanting the freedom to do good without interference, and wanting the freedom for the sake of worshiping market capitalism.

[B.A. Powell]

As a continuation of Nate Wood's last post and as a response to Adam Kotsko's statement/question, "Would you prefer for the church to administer Social Security, for example? Should the church provide universal health coverage for retirees?"

People are so thoroughly infused with the terminology and thinking of centralized state power that they cannot think past 'Social Security' or 'Universal Health Care', as if these things are and always have been essential to the operation of this country. As N. Wood stated above, libertarianism is more about 'localization' than it is about rampant, economic free-market-monopalizing anarchy. Instead of funneling our money through this inefficient state that has developed, let the people hold on to their money. But not just their money, let them hold on to their hard-work and their responsibility as human beings to care for one another. Stop funneling $100 a week into the system to 'help' pay for the elderly neighbor's $60 dollar a month utility bill. Allow the people the chance to show their humanity--to show that when it is left to them and their responsibility they will still act in selflessness.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

Nate and B.A.,
When you put things like that then I'm in much more agreement with you all. Perhaps I'm working with a knee-jerk reaction to libertarianism supposing it form of neo-conservatism.

But concerning Libertarianism, is there danger of it becoming too parochial, or even nationalistic and protective ("Say no to jobs oversees!")? And in this sense, might a firm libertarian position need to be coupled with a strong ecclesiology of the transnational Church (which at the moment seems one of the very few entities able to rival transnational corporations)?

[Nate W]

Geoff,

"Libertarian" is admittedly a very broad label that can apply to people of very different kinds; some may look like neo-cons on steroids, while others are about as far way from neo-conservatives as you can get. I certainly don't want anyone to get the impression that I think the former type would be of any great help to the church.

But your concern with becoming too nationalistic can often be a problem, certainly, and the church has to resist that temptation by affirming its transnational character. Libertarianism, as a theory of national politics, doesn't itself encourage the church to look beyond the nation's borders, but that's why it's important that the church, under any government, take a distance from national politics and develop its own moral imagination.

To sum up what I've been meaning to say all along, libertarianism might have practical value in that it returns responsibility to private citizens and local communities, but in no sense should the church simply try to align itself wholesale with libertarian political philosophy.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

No. A thousand times no.

Even on a pragmatic level - no. If you are an American living in the country in 2008 you are witnessing what happens when you shrink government to drown it in the bathtub. Ad hoc services, for one, cannot deal with the destruction caused by large scale natural disasters and sending in a force that a libertarian government doesn't mind spending massive amounts of money on (the military) is ridiculously inefficient. The military is trained to kill people, not police (a small group of them are trained to police). As for health care, if you really think that helping out your neighbor is preferable to socialized health care... well, I don't know what to do to convince you. I could try to explain that merely hoping that people will do that is completely insane or that this would likely mean lots of people would slip through the cracks and would look essentially like the current system (lots of middle class people paying for old retired middle class people to get health care while in the very poor areas no one could afford to pay for anyone and so they lack health care). I'm shocked and disappointed that Geoff has so easily conceded the point about "returning responsibility to private citizens" with its connection to the state "trusting" people to use their private property humanely. Capital, and the depraved philosophy of private property it is based on, is in itself inhumane! The fact that you're having such trouble seeing how zero government interference = neo-liberal economics suggests you don't understand the degree to which economics structures our everyday life more than state politics. If you remove the state controls on the economy (except to protect it via the military) you end up with the economic ideology of unlimited growth deciding everything. It is just naive to think that somehow "the Church" (what is this mysterious entity you're talking about? you have to know that there is no "the" Church that can be located in this world) will come in and make sure everyone acts nicely and pays for people's health costs. Libertarianism is a very weak political philosophy that lacks a coherent (or even empirically accurate) metaphysics of the self and is largely dependent on the ideology of so-called common self.

I suppose the question comes down to do you want moral superiority or justice?

[Nate Wood]

Wow, Anthony, that's a quite pessimistic outlook on the world you've got there, and paragraph filled with misinformation to boot! What country are you living in, if you think that government has been shrunk down so much? In most areas (including things like healthcare), government regulation has increased exponentially in the last several years, and that's helped contribute to a great number of the problems the country is facing these days (higher healthcare costs correlate to increased government interference in the industry). Yes, I do think that local action, coupled with more freedom, can go a long way in taking of those with healthcare needs. That would require a lot more sharing and a lot more frugal living and anti-consumerism in general, but it's not impossible if we work in our churches and in our families to create the right cultural and economic conditions that foster those virtues.

Your rant about the military and emergency services is out of place; there's no single approach that a government valuing personal freedom would have to take on those issues (and libertarians are often far from being proponents of a big military, you know). There's a lot of space between big government and anarchic chaos, and there's nothing about a general focus on individual freedom that demands we get rid of all emergency services besides the military.

Economics doesn't have to structure our everyday lives to the extent that some people insist it does. What structures our everyday lives are the narratives we tell about ourselves, our communities, and our place in the wider world, and those narratives don't have to be exhausted by the market. Thoughtful, morally reflective people simply are not obligated to act in the way that good market logic would suggest they act. I was raised in a family of staunch free market defenders (who owned their own business, even) who nevertheless never came anywhere close to letting the logic of capitalism and consumerism dictate the way they lived their lives. They weren't dominated by a libertarian "metaphysics of the self" (most people have no coherent metaphysics of anything) but by the virtues of hard work, frugality, and charity. In short, they were responsible citizens, and they valued individual freedom precisely because it allowed them to live take responsibility for their own lives, their own family, and their own community. They recognized the simple fact that society and the market is made up of agents, and agents have the freedom to resist any totalitarian claims that the market might make on their lives.

I also have to question the choice you leave us between "moral superiority" and "justice." You speak as if real justice can ever be achieved by state politics, but I can't see that ever being a possibility. Real justice can only exist where good acts are performed out of the freedom of love, not out of a desire to conform to legal regulation and the implicit threat of violence. All good that is accomplished through state regulation and law is always a good that is realized through violence, through the state's claimed right to redistribute the fruits of labor and to control our bodies to serve the particular end in question. All such control depends on the power to imprison, exile, or kill those who disagree with the proposed good or who prefer a different means of realizing it. There's no simplistic choice between "moral superiority" and "justice," because real justice can only ever be a justice freely embraced by moral agents. Christ did not come marching with an army from heaven to bring justice to the world; he came as an example of the humility and other-centered love that real justice demands.

If you think that passing a law in favor of universal healthcare or anything else is going to suddenly rip people out of the bonds of their self-centered egoism and create a world of real (and really Christian) justice, you're living in a fantasy world. The ONLY thing that will do that is local education in virtue, coupled with the gradual loosening of top-down regulation as communities grow in virtue, so that justice and freedom can meet and realize each other in each other.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Your response is cute, but has little basis in reality. I do not have a pessimistic view of reality, quite the contrary, but I don't take this pathetically naive, ideological view of liberty that you do. Justice isn't some pie in the sky phenomenon, it is something that becomes real. For instance, universal healthcare is just, but it is a messy reality that has little to do with the atomized "moral agents" of your fantasy. Why can't justice, like the economic reality that does structure your life (just try to see if you can get away with being outside the market for the next 12 months of your life... even in some pathetic wild man fantasy you'd still have to use market resources to get to the so-called wilderness), be an unconscious act rather than this pressing moral problem you insist it must be? As to the necessity of things - of course they aren't necessary! Nothing has a necessity to it in the way you're suggesting it does and least of all the situation we find ourselves in. Nevertheless, it is the situation we find ourselves in and as such has to be dealt with realistically rather than through pure fantasy. I would invite you to exit your fantasy and realize that large scale action is just that - large scale. It has very little to do with little anecdotes about what certain individuals have done.

Re: the military thing - nearly every mainstream libertarian politician supports the existence of a strong, well-funded military. Re: the notion that this is a big government - it is only big in the sense that is has spent a lot of money. Government regulation into things that matter, which you should be thankful for if you fly, or drink water, or any other number of things you do in the social world, has shrunk over the past eight years, while government intrusion into personal matters has grown.

I'm just shocked when I find people who are so ideological that they really, honestly think that universal healthcare is some act of government intrusion. Or that the State is necessarily an evil entity that can only destroy personal freedom. None of these things should be celebrated in and of themselves, but neither should we be so infantile to think they serve no purpose, or worse, to think that the magical "the Church" would do a better job of organizing such large-scale projects.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

Anthony,
thanks for chiming in. I really like a passionate discussion. it at least means we care.

as for me so easily conceding some much to libertarianism, the only thing I intended to concede (and, oh, 'intentions' are so slippery aren't they?) is that perhaps I had conflated 'libertarianism' and 'neo-conservatism' and I needed to be more precise in my thought about both. For my part, I don't really think 'libertarianism' has much to offer because I'm not as yet convinced it can move us beyond Locke and his like, from whom it came.

With that said, I do tend to side with you (Anthony) that economics is the fabric of our lives and not easily separated out...as in I'm for a free-market, but I'm against being dominated by Capitalism. However, it seems that I see a (not THE) solution not in better regulation by the State (or better distribution of income through the State), but in a different economy, and perhaps different type of money. On these lines I'm thinking along the lines of Kojin Karatani and his critique of the "Capitalist Nation-State."

It seems that many times this kind of conversation ends up with each pointing toward an idealized 'X', be it an ideal State that would justly manage all affairs, or an ideal Church that would incarnate God's justice. Jeffrey Stout's 'democracy' lives in the same place as Stanley Hauerwas' 'church'...NO WHERE! But with that said, the question then becomes which has the inner resources to actually arrive in the world (at some level), a pragmatist political philosophy or ecclesial Christian Orthodoxy? Radical Democracy or Radical Ecclesiology? Radical Philosophy or Radical Orthodoxy?

Let's be honest, doesn't this come down to matter's of belief, "I believe in the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church"?

[Nate Wood]

Anthony,

I have a few comments in response your post, which seems to be rife with misunderstanding of what I'm actually trying to advocate here.

First, to respond to your last comment, I don't think the church would do a great job of organizing "large-scale projects," but then again, part of my point is that I prefer projects to be local rather than large-scale. I'm asking for the church to organize a nationwide alternative to something like universal healthcare; I'm asking for local churches and local communities to work together to the best of their ability to solve problems locally. Perhaps we can have national supplements to help local communities when that help is absolutely needed, but when a distant bureaucracy becomes the default, you're just asking for inefficiency, corruption and, yes, a lack of freedom for individuals and communities to respond to the problems they perceive in the way they want prefer them to be solved.

As for my "pathetically naive, ideological view of liberty," I'm not sure what you think that is. I'm concerned with the liberty to do good, to be charitable and virtuous. I don't see how being moral can ever be an "unconscious act" in the way you seem to want it to be. I don't see how going to work and grudgingly having taxes taken out of your paycheck somehow constitutes acting morally, and I can't for the life of me imagine that people who aren't freely helping others now are suddengly going to change their tone just because the government forces them to give. Being moral doesn't have to be some kind of "pressing" problem, but the government can't be moral for us. Is the realization of justice the only thing that matters to you, even apart from the willing and deliberate participation of the citizenry?

Concerning the extent to which the market shapes our lives, it seems like you're confusing two things. No, I can't escape the market as long as I live in human society; I never suggested that anyone could. What I did suggest (and this is another issue altogether) is that it is human persons who give form to the market just as much as the market gives form to human persons. Freedom doesn't demand that we tell an economic narrative of endless accumulation and self-interest, and maintaining relatively free markets doesn't demand that our economic life become dog-eat-dog. Free markets become oppressive markets because we tell the wrong stories about what the market is for and about what our freedom is for; we tell stories that foster egoistic individualism that ingores the plight of the poor (unless we ourselves our poor) and disregards the bondage of the oppressed (unless we ourselves perceive our own freedoms threatened). But no one has to tell those stories. We are free to tell others, to teach our children and our neighbours and our brothers and sisters in the church that our economic and political freedom becomes what it was mean to be only if it is a freedom for others rather than a freedom from them or a freedom over them. In short, it isn't a free market that perverts our culture, it's a free market grounded in false narratives.

When I look at the proponents of big-government solutions to our social and economic problems (at least here in the US), I'm not seeing anyone who is calling us to radically re-narrate the meaning of our freedom in a genuinely Christian way. The American Left wants us to all join together and help the poor, but to what end? So that they can better express themselves through consumerism like everyone else? So that they too can have the luxury of the unchecked sexual freedom that everyone else enjoys, and so that they can afford their abortions to go along with it? Sure, the Left may want us all to come together for a common good (just as the Right, with its War on Terror, wants to do the same in its own way), but in the end, I'm not convinced that the common good isn't just some perversion of the Golden Rule: "Help others puruse their egosim as you would want others to help you pursue yours." Because I don't see the solutions offered by the Left solving the real moral problems in this country, I'm not going to jump on their bandwagon. I'm no fan of the Right, either, but pragmatically, the Right is willing to concede to me a greater degree of freedom navigate the market in my own way and to resist its logic when I feel it must be resisted.

(And as a final note, your claim that regultion of "things that matter" has shrunk in the past eight years isn't a straightforward and simple matter. Education bureaucracy has become more bloated, and healthcare bureacracies have been growing for a long time--and government regulation has done a great deal to get healthcare in the mess its currently in. In today's world, big corporations and big government very often work together, and regulation often in the end helps serve the corruptive powers of capitalism more than it challenges them. In many industries, like healthcare and education, there simply isn't a truly free market, which many people in those industries and in economics think is part of the problem. A lot people are too quick to equate a free market and the worst of what they see corporations doing today; that's simply an erroneous identification to make.)

[The Finally Simulated]

Ahh the pathetic whimpering of the post-evangelical re-narrating reality to suit the ends. Is this not ideology at its finest? Flowers on the chains of oppression? Instead of confronting the empircal reality of what the market is as does, we simply "re-narrate" it within a fuzzy Christian outlook and it will work out. This is entirely incorrect since the very ontology that defines market relations, and the economics that tells us that they are the most efficient is based entirely upon methodological individualism functioning for pure utilitarian selfish ends. This is the embedded logic of the market, regardless of its 'narration', the outcomes will remain much the same, the brutalisation and instrumentalisation of entire peoples and cultures. Re-narration seems to be a project to tell us lies about the only way in which the free market exists.

While you exist in the magical fairy land of re-narration, some of us exist in the real world - the world where the precise kind of libertarian freedom you are advocating of low state interference and strong negative freedom and self-suficency for all has been the default political telos of the world system for 30 years, a systemically and surgically implemented utopian project based around specific libertarian texts that has caused nothing but damage to any form of human flourishing and the environmental systems that sustain this. Read the history books: it is a litany of condemnation of the type of libertarian freedom you advocate.

[The Finally Simulated]

Ahh the pathetic whimpering of the post-evangelical re-narrating reality to suit the ends. Is this not ideology at its finest? Flowers on the chains of oppression? Instead of confronting the empircal reality of what the market is as does, we simply "re-narrate" it within a fuzzy Christian outlook and it will work out. This is entirely incorrect since the very ontology that defines market relations, and the economics that tells us that they are the most efficient is based entirely upon methodological individualism functioning for pure utilitarian selfish ends. This is the embedded logic of the market, regardless of its 'narration', the outcomes will remain much the same, the brutalisation and instrumentalisation of entire peoples and cultures.

While you exist in the magical fairy land of re-narration, some of us exist in the real world - the world where the precise kind of libertarian freedom you are advocating of low state interference and strong negative freedom and self-suficency for all has been the default political telos of the world system for 30 years, a systemically and surgically implemented utopian project based around specific libertarian texts that has caused nothing but damage to any form of human flourishing and the environmental systems that sustain this.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Nate,

You're so right. Europe and the rest of the first world is full of nothing but unfree individuals who suffer under the weight of unfree moral decisions. That's not at all a cheap right-wing talking point. Your "facts" about education bureaucracy need to be checked as well as contextualized. If you honestly think a program like "No Child Left Behind" is socialist, well, there's nothing I can do to help you. If you're truly libertarian I do hope you don't support student loans, the GI Bill, or State schools. That is, I hope you refuse to support the right of the poor to education. Now, please, don't come back to me with the sad little "But those things aren't perfect!" Of course they aren't perfect. They need to be improved upon, made to work more equitably, and to be freed from the party politics and class antagonism that defines their inefficiency.

It is also very cute that you think the poor, or anyone else, wait for permission to practice sexual freedom. I don't recognize this as a real moral problem since you seem to think that moral problems relate necessarily to believing right things. You seem to be a strange mix of puritan and libertarian. So you would, what, hope that communities would come together in little mobs to shame those who partake in pre-martial sex?

Geoff,

I'm not too interested in self-styled "radical" academics. Most evangelical uses of the word "revolution" or "radical" tend to be little more than slogans to cover over their deeply reactionary character. These words are essentially contentless and stand to distract us from the relative dearth of theoretical and empirical work. Even as descriptions of political projects they have little worth. After all, many right-wing groups are "radical" but I would hardly want to be associated with them.

Of course there is a tendency to idealize some term in these debates and I have never advocated for State solutions to every problem. The State is but a form of human organization and it will pass away, but libertarian philosophy is but a reactionary nostalgia against the State and for a fantasy. One has to accept the reality of the State, which always means a State determined by political economy, but it also is more a site of potential justice than the mythical "the Church" and should be used to the extent one can while still working for a better form of organization and good governance. Of course, I would never fault anyone for working outside the bounds of the State in order to do things the State refuses to do. By all means, in these United States where health care is refused to the poor, use church funds to set up a free clinic. It just seems that, realistically, very few churches would be able to run, both logistically and economically, such a clinic.

[B.A. Powell]

Some thoughts...

The term 'libertarian' apparently does a sorry job signifying the sense of the political theory proposed by Nate (and myself). It has been associated with such things as Big Policing Military, some kind of necessary rampant economic free for all (economic Darwinism in fact), and ?Neo Conservatism? (I'm glad that was cleared up, and if questions still linger about some sort of Libertarian - Neo-conservative association, read Ron Paul's 'A Foreign Policy of Freedom' where he names Neo-cons and their tactics in disgust).

I am surprised at the volume of modernist political vision and economic theory being rehearsed on a professedly post-modern site, not only directed against libertarianism in the criticisms against it, but also applied to libertarianism in accusation as though it is itself a purely modernist vision. I doubt Obama (at the center of this discussion since the beginning) is any kind of post-modern political visionary (esp. considering his evident Marxist-utopian-progress leanings). And I doubt that his theories are any less dependant upon Locke's natural rights than Nozick's libertarianism.

However, curiosity has gotten the best of me. Wouldn't a scale back of the centralized powers advocated by libertarianism actually allow alternative political visions and philosophies to finally have a voice and a chance at implementation? The church has been trying to exorcise itself of Platonic/Greco-Roman philosophy for some time now. However, that is difficult in light of the fact that everything around us is based on these ancient theories---indeed, making it, as Jer. Wright said, a white man's system.

Call it hopeful ideology, but what system or philosophy of government didn't begin that way? Seriously? The push for libertarianism, for me, is about bringing social justice and social aid out of the mailbox, back into the open. This is about finally bringing social justice and aid out of the morass of capital means, which in many ways, was rightly described above as inhumane. Notice, please, that as the nature of American politics has become increasingly socialist and centralized, everything is, and can only be about capital. Libertarianism, in terms of localization, government scale-back, etc. frees the people from dependancy on the counterfeit currency that floats around under the nomenclature 'money' 'legal tender' 'federal reserve note' 'dollar' and 'cents'. And it has been my observation that Obama's policy has been to throw more money at a failing system?

I want to note that these are observations and questions more than statements. And what I have observed, thus far, is an agressive attack on libertarian principles, because they fall under the title 'libertarian'. The original concern in this post was that in the wake of an increasingly socialistic society the church could be pushed aside. STILL, NO ONE coming from a non-libertarian perspective has addressed this concern. If they have, my apologies for missing it.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

B.A.,

How do you expect me to seriously have a conversation with a person who honestly thinks America is becoming more socialist? Is there another America I don't know about? I also can't take someone seriously who honestly thinks Obama is in any sense a Marxist. The man is quite obviously a (barely) center-left Democrat. Libertarians like Ron Paul are the epitome of the kind of libertarians I'm attacking. Anti-immigrant, idiots when it comes to understanding how economics works, pro-big military/policing (while, to its credit, it is non-"interventionist"), and completely and utterly modernist in the way you suggest is some major sin. I'm sorry, I just can't believe you are serious.

[michael o'neill burns]

B.A. Powell said:
"...Notice, please, that as the nature of American politics has become increasingly socialist..."

This is the second time in a week I've heard an American 'liberatarian' Christian say something to this effect. Now in all fairness, I haven't lived in the states for about 8 months, but are you seriouslys saying that American politics has become socailist??? Seriously??? This is just a ridiculous thing to say, and I would love to see any sort of empirical evidence to back such a ridiculous claim up.

And are you honestly recommending that people spend time reading Ron Paul?

Also, your whole 'modernist'-'postmodern' distinction is silly and tired, and of no political use.

[B.A. Powell]

Fair enough...

But let me restate:

"I want to note that these are observations and questions more than statements. And what I have observed, thus far, is an agressive attack on libertarian principles, because they fall under the title 'libertarian'. The original concern in this post was that in the wake of an increasingly socialistic society the church could be pushed aside. STILL, NO ONE coming from a non-libertarian perspective has addressed this concern. If they have, my apologies for missing it."

[B.A. Powell]

Let me also state that I didn't recommend Paul, I just used him as a source to show the distance between Neo-cons and libertarians. Furthermore, is it really true that the U.S. is not becoming more socialist? Maybe it hasn't reached a certain extreme that other countries have, but that doesn't invalidate the point.

[michael o'neill burns]

Okay, fair enough that there has been no response to that question, and maybe I'm just not being realistic enough...

but isn't it ultimatley up to the Church to let itself be pushed aside? I don't really think the political climate should pose that much of a threat to a community that emerged under direct political opression and has historically flourished under such circumstances. I'd be more nervous if the Church was gaining state power/influence.

But maybe I'm missing the point?

[The Finally Simulated]

"Furthermore, is it really true that the U.S. is not becoming more socialist? Maybe it hasn't reached a certain extreme that other countries have, but that doesn't invalidate the point."

More fantasy. Look at the history of the previous 30 years of neo-liberalism, from the re-structuring of the economy of Chile and then New York onwards and tell me that the States is becoming more socialist. This is absolute babble, inaccurate at every level.

[B.A. Powell]

I do feel that the point is still being missed, as if I am, or someone else here is suggesting that Big Church should replace Big Government.

One last word from me, the replies are proving to be a little more personal now. I do not doubt that there are inaccuracies in my thinking, I am, after all, not much more than a small-town car salesman. I admit having a limited scope into this world. However, I hope those inaccuracies aren't found at "every level" in what I've said. Excuse me if they are. Let me make it clear that I am not some sort of libertarian radical. In fact, I've only been acquainted with the theory, as such, for a limited amount of time. I have only been suggesting it as a means of reclaiming human responsibility, responsibility that I believe the church and all my fellow country men and women have relinquished---responsibilities which I believe will be relinquished even further in the event of a Obama or McCain presidency. Is my concern not serious, or inaccurate, or absolute babble? You may be right.

[The Finally Simulated]

It's not personal, it's an empirical question to which an answer must be marshalled for your argument to stand: has the US become more socialist in the last 30 years or so and can you provide examples of this? Until then your rhetoric remains hollow. I can provide screeds of data as to the neoliberalisation of the states, running for pages and pages, yet can you find an example of the opposite tendancy?

[B.A. Powell]

What is it called when the government continues to gain control of the private sphere (income, property, social responsibilities, private business practices, and many other freedoms in general, etc.), if not socialization? Furthermore, please define your use of neo-liberalism. My understanding of the term is very vague.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Socialism is predicated on the redistribution of resources and wealth, not the centralization of those resources. What is happening in the United States, in terms of more government controls and big businessmen being in charge of oversight of big business, is not nearly the same thing. I'm not sure what to call it, perhaps it is akin to a form of oligarchy. However, I don't think government is gaining control over parts of the "private" sphere (none of these things can really be said to be private) you suggest they are. Part of the problem the US is facing right now is that it is spending more than it taxes and it refuses to raise taxes. I'm not saying taxes should be raised as most of the programs spending is going towards has to do with military expansion and the "war on terror".

As to neo-liberalism, I think perusing the Wikipedia entry for it would probably be a fine introduction, but you could also take a look at David Harvey's A Short History of Neoliberalism.

[The Finally Simulated]

It's a complex phenomena, though certainly a utopian project allbeit one , but I think a few bullet points define it.

1) Laissez faire markets are the best way (most efficent) means of distribution, as opposed to state planning of the economy or interference with its working of any kind other than to ensure a safe enviroment for markets (as in something like the embedded liberalism - the Keynesianism - that defined economic orthodoxy before the 1970s. Hence, everything is best organised in a market model, from healthcare to education, new markets must be constantly created. A commitment most generally to neoclassical economics as a paradigm and monterarism in terms of policy and an advoidance of inflation at all costs. This is Adam Smith's invisible hand writ large.
2) Economic growth is a centrally valid development target. Globalisation is the international policy, the selling off of state services and the opening of markets the aim. Trickle down economics, a tide floats all ships being the guiding metaphors - what is good for the rich is good for everyone.
3) Laissez faire markets are the best means of achieving human freedom. Freedom for businesses is the best way to achieve human freedom. Freedom, particularly negative freedom (freedom from anyone preventing you doing something), is a central good.

Is your Google broken? It seems your fears of the government gaining control of the private sphere are a list of the things neo-liberalism, at least in theory, attempts to resist.