Read on Twitter
A thread covering one reason why economic conservatism is nonsense for Christians.
I specifically say "economic conservatism" because "cultural" things (abortion and sex mostly) are used as a shield for less-examined economic conservatism.
I specifically say "economic conservatism" because "cultural" things (abortion and sex mostly) are used as a shield for less-examined economic conservatism.
The primary problem with economic conservatism is poverty. You'll find a lot of economic conservatives who talk big about caring about poverty, and mainly they talk about two things: "job creation" and churches/charities. This is incredibly deceptive in both cases.
First, poverty does not come from a lack of jobs for working age adults. The labor market can only go so far in reducing poverty. In 2017, US poverty (OECD) was around 18% with unemployment of only 4%. Would that additional 4% really do *18 points* of poverty reduction?
Second, charity will never be remotely enough to eliminate poverty on its own. The 2018 pre-welfare poverty gap was around $512b, and *all* charitable giving (to any organization) was only $428b.
That means that even if every charitable dollar that goes to universities, hospitals, foundations, and art galleries was perfectly allocated straight into the pockets of the poor, we would still have nearly $90b of poverty.
In essence, both of the poverty reduction ideas economic conservatives have disappear like a puff of smoke if you breathe on them. At this point, usually Christian conservatives fall back onto a sort of fatalism: "the poor you will always have with you."
But this fatalism is an excuse to shirk responsibility. The Old Testament prophets blame a society if it has poverty; they don't go "oh well, there will always be winners and losers." This is because the Bible (correctly) assumes economies are things made by human beings.
Distributive institutions are completely human-made. Standard industrial economies only distribute income to workers and owners, and nothing to everyone else (about half the population). The way to fix poverty is to institutionally distribute incomes to everyone else.
That's the entire logic of the welfare state. The argument about taxes and coercion usually used as a defense here is incredibly weak because some coercion is inherent to taxes, which Christians are very clearly required to pay by the Bible.
The onus is on those opposing welfare to make a coherent argument for why taxes for welfare are somehow theologically different from taxes for literally anything else. I have yet to hear a single worthwhile argument why this might be.
There are a lot of other bits of economic conservatism that don't make sense for Christians: the problem of workplace domination, the necessity of accumulation into few hands, the opposition to any just-wage mechanism. But I'll have to address those another time.
