Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute writes that the real culture war is over capitalism:
Free enterprise is culturally mainstream, for the moment. Asked in a Rasmussen poll conducted this month to choose the better system between capitalism and socialism, 13% of respondents over 40 chose socialism. For those under 30, this percentage rose to 33%. (Republicans were 11 times more likely to prefer capitalism than socialism; Democrats were almost evenly split between the two systems.)
The government has been abetting this trend for years by exempting an increasing number of Americans from federal taxation. My colleague Adam Lerrick showed in these pages last year that the percentage of American adults who have no federal income-tax liability will rise to 49% from 40% under Mr. Obama's tax plan. Another 11% will pay less than 5% of their income in federal income taxes and less than $1,000 in total.
To put a modern twist on the old axiom, a man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart; a man who is still a socialist at 40 either has no head, or pays no taxes. Social Democrats are working to create a society where the majority are net recipients of the "sharing economy." They are fighting a culture war of attrition with economic tools.
Those are great points. I do wish the real culture war were over capitalism. I think the right side would win such a war. The problem is that the dispute is muddied up by cultural conservatives who have so far been wildly successful at convincing people that along with freedom of economic choice comes laws barring people from getting married, or sleeping with those they choose, or whatever. Social conservatism has handicapped advocates for free markets for a long time, and it has become a particular charlie horse right now. Unless something is done about it, people will choose collectivist economics so long as they think it comes along with personal freedoms.
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