The Left’s Rejection of “Mediating Institutions”

I’m not sure I concur that all of this is a symptom of radical individualism insofar as if the driving philosophy of the government were a deep respect for the individual, it would honor individuals’ desire to associate themselves with whatever relgious, civic, philanthropic, commercial, etc. group they desired.  That is clearly not happening now.

I do agree that the Left is fundamentally hostile to many of our mediating institutions, particularly those that are commercially- or religiously-focused.  Those that are commercial in nature have had their autonomy almost totally subverted, to the point that ownership is losing its meaning, and religious institutions have seen the scope of their “free exercise” pushed into smaller and smaller boxes.

I’m not sure what the solution is here, given the trajectory of the size and scope of the State.  As Mark Steyn noted, when government gets bigger, everything else gets smaller.  We are seeing the phenomenon right before our eyes.  Either we push it back into its constitutional box, or we suffer the consequences.

I don’t think I have heard any of the talking heads on TV mention this, but when I took Business Law, I learned that corporations are given the status of persons before the law.  I am pretty sure this is what Mitt Romney means.  Among other things, this means that corporations can enter into contracts, just like individuals do, and, under the law, do many other things in the same manner as people.  I am also pretty sure that the Democrats know this too, but it’s another one of the inconvenient truths that get in the way of lying to the electorate.

BTW, I wish they would start playing this Loretta Lynn song whenever Elizabeth Warren is around - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duKfcdBDOUA

I think you are exactly right, Daniel. The problem for the left is that, if businesses are legal persons, they have the right to speak in the public square, something the left cannot abide.

Stellar Mr. Fischler, absolutely stellar!  I found the “we belong to the government” line to be stunningly wrong (a 5th grader could have gotten that correct!) and clearly exposes how wrong Democrat policies are.  In a similar vein, the “you didn’t build that” (which I believe also began with Ms. Warren) warps the role of the entreprenuer and the history of commerce - but not as specifically.  Take roads for example, no we don’t build those…anymore...the government has taken that over, except that they hire <u>private</u> enterprises to get that done.  Around my community there are “private” subdivisions and neighborhoods build entirely by developers where street maintenence remains the responsibility of the homeowners and they are never as well maintained as public streets.  But long, long before government got involved people found ways to travel that were not created by the government.  Indeed may of todays highways follow the trails travelled by so many of our pioneer ancestors.

I work for one of the largest banks in the country and have worked in banking for a very long time.  Okay…“boo, hiss, Bankers are bad, Bankers are evil!”  Shut up!  I am supposed to be a lender, yet the vast majority of my work is not related to lending but to regulatory requirements.  The amount of compliance work I must do has magnified immeasurably over the last few years through Basel and Dodd-Frank.  I honestly cannot keep up with it all.  If I were older or wealthier I’d quit, I don’t need this crap. 

There war a time when the government enhanced the stability of the economy in general and banking more specifically.  But those days are long gone.  “Too Big To Fail” was brought to us by our politicians.  There is nothing so destabilizing in a capitalist system as protection from failure.  Most CEO’s and senior managers know that they will be personally protected from the effects of risky activies with the brunt of the fallout borne by lower level staff.  They know that the institution will survive as will they.  I am convinced decision-making would be far sharper if these men and women knew that their necks were on the block along with the existence of the enterprise.

Now since I’m sitting at my desk, swamped with regulatory compliance, guess what?  I’m not lending money!  It’s not that my bank doesn’t have the capital, I DON’T HAVE THE TIME!  Even if I were to have the time, we are so petrified of the government regulators that we set our requirements at impossible levels.  But here is what is really bizarre:  I have little fear of losing my job because I got a poor loan approved.  Management makes no attempt to track this so if I was doig a poor job it would take a very long time to catch up to me if ever.  What management pays close attention to and tracks is regulatory compliance.  For example, the fact that my work space is not open to the public and it sufficently secure, I stand a greater chance of getting in trouble for not locking my desk.  If I don’t take the regulatory-required training on elder-abuse and lending to active duty military, I will hear from management immediately.  BTW, both topics are as far removed from my job as I am from the Big Dipper!     

So I’ll shut off my rant now.  Sorry to bother you all but I feel slightly better after venting! 

Mediating institutions are the bane of the left because they get in the way of the left’s chief desire—power, absolute power.  Absolute power cannot be achieved with mediating institutions and a constitution which sets limits on what the Federal Government can do. 

The upshot of this is an incovenient truth that bothers some mild-conservatives and more than a few Christians: you can’t reach across the aisle and negotiate with hard-core leftists, you have to defeat them.  Inevitably negotiating with a hard-corre leftist means you accept their position—and if you are going to do that, then why begin the charade in the first place?

Amen, Capt. Fr. Warren!

Our great national leaders of history have mostly belonged to mediating institutions and participated in them strongly. 

Do leaders of the left belong to anything other than to their party?
Follow the money: do they make charitable contributions at any significant level?  One of the great thing that comes when a candidate releases their tax return is to disclose just how generous they are ... or are not. 

And in this religious forum, we might ask whether they tithe at the biblical level ... or not.

And good Tavern patrons, we can also ask this of ourselves, too.
Yes, leading by example here.  And the charitable and community contributions we might make to and through our mediating organizations also count for much.

BravoZulu you make a great point.  But I remember a lecture in college in which the prof argued that the presence of national leaders in non-government entities proved “elitism,” that a bunch of rich white guys were having all these private club meetings and shafting the rest of us.

So of course the remedy was to trust only those “devoted to public service,” e.g. the political apparatchiks.

Daniel writes: “I learned that corporations are given the status of persons before the law. I am pretty sure this is what Mitt Romney means.”

You could not be more wrong. Romney’s statement, “Corporations are people,” was not related in any way to the legal doctrine, “A corporation is a legal person.” They sound similar, but the intent was completely different. Your confusion of the two concepts plays right into the obfuscation that Warren was engaging in.

Romney’s point was that a corporation consists of people - shareholders, managers, and employees, for example. (If you want to extend it to include all stakeholders, it could also include suppliers and customers.) When the government taxes corporations, the incidence of those taxes ultimately falls on actual flesh-and-blood people. When government places arbitrary and unequal burdens on some corporations, the resulting impact affects real people. Leftists want us to forget this, so that they can defame all corporations without our remembering that the beneficiaries of corporations are people - and not just the alleged 1%.

Excellent discussion of mediating institutions, what Roman Catholics have called subsidiarity.  Mediating institutions preserve our freedom, and our ability to prosper.

The folks on the Left with whom it is most difficult to reach common ground are the ones who consider themselves the intellectual elite (college professors, career government officials, MSM journalists, liberal theologians, etc.).  They come to think of themselves as smarter than everyone else, and more “disinterested” and more moral.  Thus, when they reach consensus on anything, they believe the debate should be over and everyone should do what they, the elite, know to be the right thing. 

Because they want to use the coercive power of government to make sure people do the right thing they gravitate to those institutions as careers rather than entering the productive professions, industry or commerce, and come to believe that government coercion is the answer to every problem.  They can decide, based on statistics, whether men should get a PSA test (and even if you and your doctor want you to have one, and you are willing to pay for it, they don’t want you to get it because it “mis-allocates” society’s resources).  They can decide they know better than the market where investment dollars should flow, and we get Solyndras.  They can decide what kind of art or music we should be exposed to and we get government support for the most offensive stuff. (Hey, if people want to pay for that stuff themselves, great.  Just don’t make me chip in.)

A similar thing happened in the PCUSA.  The Left was interested in the levers of power of the church institutions while the evangelicals wanted to preach the Gospel, do mission and pastor the flock.  Over time the Left took over the church institutions (and they are better at playing the political games) and the result is gay ordination, gay “marriage”, a waste of Church resources and credibility on Left Wing political and social hobbyhorses, and all the rest.

I don’t mind discussing these issues with even hard-Left folks.  But in those discussions, and in discussions in the broader society, we must NEVER cede the moral argument.  And in negotiations with the Left, we must always insist that while we will compromise, any compromise must move the ball toward subsidiarity, even if it does not move the ball as far as we would like.