Evan Baehr A Place for Scattered Ideation. Step 1: Marinate: Step 2: Evangelize.

Compassionate Conservatism: Its Brief History, Demise, and Future Prospects

Many allege—or, arguably, observe—that conservatives are without message.  “Conservatives are not for anything—only against things,” they suggest.  It is a good question to ponder: what are conservatives for?  What is our agenda or platform?  About a decade ago American conservatives developed and rolled out an agenda they called “compassionate conservatism,” spearheaded by several brilliant minds deeply schooled in the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and Edmund Burke.  The agenda was rooted in civil society, public/private partnerships, and an empiricism that examined what social policies actually delivered results.  Despite the policy’s roots insound political theory and sociology and its exemplary advocates, the effort failed so miserably that even the phrase “compassionate conservatism” is unusable.  In this reflection I detail what Bush’s compassionate conservatism was, why it failed, and how we might revive its sound foundations for future use.  Especially given our nation’s current state—with the federal government growing in unprecedented ways (e.g. bailouts, healthcare, and energy), conservatives still having no credibility in fighting for limited government, and conservatives/Republicans struggling to find their message—the time is ripe for thoughtful conservatives to recall the best of Tocqueville to develop a uniquely American picture of human flourishing where families, neighborhoods, and communities thrive.

The Early Days

Marvin Olasky, John DiIulio, and Don Eberly were at the center of the brain trust of the “compassionate conservative” agenda introduced by President George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign.  It provided conservatives with a way to respond to accusations that they had a cold heart and were indifferent to suffering.  The concept—part political theory rooted in Tocqueville and Burke, part public branding effort—was promising.  After all, conservatives had been a party of “no” since the ’94 Gingrich revolution (cf. their intense and successful effort in the ‘96 welfare reform act).  Compassionate conservatism attempted to (rightly) make the case that conservatism is compassionate in that the domestic public policies it advocates result in Americans faring better—be better cared for, educated, and even paid.

The liberal argument has always been this (cf. Jim Wallis):

1. There are lots of poor people.
2. We are compassionate and ought to care for those less fortunate.
3. Therefore we should support massive federal government programs to care for these people.
4. Now even though there are still lots of poor people even with our massive federal programs, just imagine if we did not have them!  There would be even more!

Too often the conservative argument had been:

1. There are lots of poor people.  But they refused to work and probably deserve to be poor.
2. Big government programs cause waste and encourage welfare moms to have more babies, so we should not support such programs.

In response to this, the compassionate conservative agenda made this argument:

1. There are lots of poor people.
2. We are compassionate and ought to care for those less fortunate.
3. In order to care for poor people, we ought to pursue public policies that actually improve the lives of the poor.  Empirically, we know that policies that enable civil society to flourish actually promote human flourishing.  Moreover, the New Deal and Great Society are textbook cases that demonstrate that massive federal programs actually make the poor worse off.  Therefore, to actually “care for”—meaning, to improve the lives of—the poor, we ought to pull back the suffocating federal programs to allow civil society to (re)build.

The argument was based on a sound political theory, history of social policy, and American urban sociology.  The architects of these policies got it right.

The Three Strikes Against Compassionate Conservatism

Despite the soundness of the arguments, the message and agenda failed for three main reasons.

1. No support: It was never given adequate support from the White House. Although the “compassionate conservative” agenda made its way into many of Bush’s speeches (care of Mark Gerson), policy-wise it seems to have been located in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI).  From the beginning, the decision to locate a major new domestic policy strategy in a new, small office not even in the White House or EEOB seems to signal it was a lower priority.  What’s worse, the administration expended essentially zero political capital to get congressional appropriations funding for OFBCI, further neutering that office.  Had this been a flagship agenda, it should have been housed in the Domestic Policy Council.

2. Flawed approach: The Faith Based Office employed a flawed approach (or, to be fair, perhaps never got to unveil its full approach). The OFBCI has(d) had a good premise: many faith-based organizations were effectively discriminated against in the federal grant making process (which awards billions of dollars annually) not explicitly because they were religious, but implicitly because these organizations were often too small and disorganized to compete in the onerous grant application process.  Through training and simplifying the grant application process, more faith-based organizations would receive federal funding to deliver social services such as tutoring, counseling, and shelter.  The premise was this: because local, faith-based organizations empirically provide much better services, the more the government delivers services through these organizations, the better services needy Americans actually receive.  This logic makes sense.

However, the original centerpiece to compassionate conservatism was civil society—not local organizations propped up by federal funding.  The most important distinction between the two is that the latter destroys the gift economy.  Tax dollars taken from income earners and given to a church to provide soup destroys the social capital that otherwise would accrue to both the philanthropist (the regular tither) and the recipient (who might greet volunteers or servers with a warm smile of appreciation).

3. No credibility or consistency: Two of Bush’s actions significantly undermined the agenda.  First, Bush undermined the “limited government” plank of compassionate conservatism by aggressive spending both domestically and internationally. Consider the $400 million prescription drug plan or the $1.5 billion for the Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids (which, as an aside, liberals will never give him credit for).  From ’01-07, the total increase in real, per capita human resource outlays of the federal government increased 17.58% (see source). Second, Bush undermined the compassionate element with inaction on Katrina: post-Katrina many Americans just couldn’t believe Bush cared about suffering. Setting aside the merits of Bush’s policies or (in)decisions on Katrina, these actions undermined the compassionate conservative agenda by inviting charges of hypocrisy.

The Future of Tocquevillian Public Policy

Given that the observations of Tocqueville and Burke (and their modern sociological defenders like Robert Bellah or Don Eberly) are correct about society and its members, we must find a way to revive and repackage this concept in a credible, compelling form.   How can we do this?

First: we have to recognize the difficulty in messaging: in effect, we are trying to come up with a persuasive way to communicate to voters that they ought to want “fewer free things.”  Obama says "I’ll give you free healthcare."  The Republicans say “you can’t have free healthcare because (droning on and on about taxes, waste, choice, etc.)”  So the compromise is half free healthcare.  The average voter sees the Democrats as the party that gives them things and the Republicans who do not. As long as income taxes are roughly stable and psychologically disconnected from government services, the burden on conservatives is to convince voters why free things are not free.  This is not easy.  And the difficulty is only compounded by the fact that conservatives have essentially zero talent or support from Madison Avenue or Hollywood, the global centers of messaging and advertising.

Second: we have to know our public policy, sociology, and history.  We need more books like Olasky’s the Tragedy of American Compassion that actually examine the usually-unasked question: are poor people better off when the government spends billions of dollars on programs to help them?  This question sounds rhetorical, but it’s not.   We also must study our sociology and civil society; we should read and reread Tocqueville’s observations about the uniqueness of the entrepreneurial, civic spirit he saw in America.  We should read Robert Putnam to learn about the fragmentation of American families and neighborhoods.  We need to ask counterfactual, historical questions around the New Deal and Great Society.  Had the government not stepped in, how would civil society have stepped up?   And we need to do more than pine for the lost era of the 1950s and think strategically about how to rebuild civil society.  We must examine: given that these massive expansions of government dealt a serious blow to civil society, would a similar contraction of the federal government cause a similar growth in civil society?

Third: we need to learn from and uphold private sector models.  Social entrepreneurs should not be liberal democrats.  Consider their modus operandi: they observe a condition in society not solved (or even exacerbated by) government.  They employ private sector capital, innovation, and management skills to build an organization or company to meet this need.  They deliver these goods and services at a lower cost, of higher quality, and with greater results than the government.  These people are classical liberals who recognize the power of the free market and strength of civil society; in effect, they are conservatives.  Conservatives ought to encourage and highlight this incredible social entrepreneurship and even innovative CSR models that effectively use private models to solve public problems.

So where can we turn? Consider this list of a few helpful people and resources.

• Don Eberly (See his Building a Healthy Culture or The Essential Civil Society Reader)
• Mark Rodgers / Jeff Hunt (The Clapham Group)
• Will Inboden / Ryan Streeter (The Legatum Institute)
• Marvin Olasky
• Jay Hein / Sagamore Institute
• Jim Skillen / Center for Public Justice
• Mike Gerson
• David Cameron / Speechwriter Johnny Kruger
• Janan Ganesh @ The Economist / Policy Exchange
• Robert Bellah
• John DiIulio

As you may notice, outside of the academic world, few have developed a cogent platform around or explanation of compassionate conservatism.  Conservatives ought to revisit these Tocquevillian truths, adapt them to modern public policies, and develop a powerful brand around them.  While the platform probably cannot be called "compassionate conservatism," it ought to be based on this set of truths, which are key to sustaining human flourishing.