Argumentum ad un-Americanum?

August 30, 2010 by Don Watkins

In posts criticizing my recent Forbes.com column (written with Yaron Brook), Ezra Klein and Will Wilkinson challenge my claim that government housing policy is un-American. As Wilkinson puts it in the comments section of his post:

The argument [that government housing policy is un-American] as stated is obviously (1) untrue: subsidizing specific patterns of settlement, land, houses, etc. is a longstanding American tradition; and (2) fallacious: implying that an idea has merit because it is distinctive of one’s own tradition is a subtle form of appeal to authority.

I can sympathize with people who bristle at claims that this or the other thing is “un-American.” Usually that tactic is used as an undefined smear or an appeal to the authority of tradition. But that’s not what Yaron and I were doing.

Yaron and I have a certain view of what the essence of America is. Our view is that certain basic ideas shaped the founding of this country: namely, the sovereignty of the individual, and government as the protector of the individual’s rights.

Whether or not government housing policy is un-American, therefore, has nothing to do with whether most Americans (now or in 1776) think the government should promote housing. It has nothing to do with what housing policies the Founders themselves might have advocated. The Founders were great men but they were not infallible oracles–they made mistakes and were not always fully consistent. The issue is: something is un-American if it is inconsistent with the principle of individual rights. That’s not a matter of tradition, but of logic.

Klein and Wilkinson suggest that all of this is irrelevant. It shouldn’t matter if a given policy is consistent with America’s founding principles–what matters is the policy’s merits. In Klein’s words, “we should stick to policy argument rather than philosophical projection.”

But Yaron and I share a radically different view of what constitutes the merits or demerits of a policy. We reject the widespread idea that to debate a policy on its merits means to engage in some sort of utilitarian calculus. Our view is that the standard for whether a policy is desirable is precisely its relationship to America’s founding principles–not out of blind obedience to tradition, but because those principles are true. To examine a policy on its merits is to ask: is it consistent with individual rights or not?

Our Forbes.com piece was not an appeal to authority or tradition. In fact, we went out of our way to declare our opposition to government’s traditional promotion of homeownership. Our point was that if you agree with us and the Founding Fathers, that government should protect your right to pursue happiness, then you have to reject the idea that the government should have a position on the wisdom of homeownership.