Back in March at the American Enterprise
Institute annual dinner, Charles
Murray gave a talk entitled “The
Happiness of the People.” The managing partner of a large
AmLaw firm recently brought it to my attention.
The AEI’s “abstract” would have you believe that the speech responds to the
premise that “America’s current leaders seem to be leading us down the path
to European-style social democracy,” but it’s actually nothing of the sort.
The
speech is remarkable, not just for its non-ideological, unorthodox, fascinating,
and deeply insightful perspective on human nature, but, so the managing partner
suggested and so I agree, because it’s pregnant with implications for the proper
molding of the culture of high-performing law firms.
The speech does proceed, however (as advertised), from the premise that a
critical question facing the nation given some of the predilections of the
Obama Administration is “Do we want the United States to be like Europe?” Whether
or not you ascribe those motives to or endorse that characterization of the
Obama Administration, I’d like to ask you to step back and put that aside in
order to be able to reflect without prejudice on Murray’s insights into the
elements necessary for the proper expression of human nature. (Nor, for
the record, is Murray a hard-bitten opponent of the European model. Indeed,
he writes that “Not only are social democrats intellectually respectable,
the European model has worked in many ways. I am delighted when I get a chance
to go to Stockholm or Amsterdam, not to mention Rome or Paris. When I get there,
the people don’t seem to be groaning under the yoke of an evil system. Quite
the contrary. There’s a lot to like–a lot to love–about day-to-day life in
Europe.”)
Nor s his critique focused on the economic consequences of the “European
model:” “[It] has indeed created sclerotic economies and it would
be a bad idea to imitate them. But I want to focus on another problem.”
He begins with Federalist 62, which, he scrupulously notes, was “probably”
written by Madison:
“A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object
of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge
of the means by which that object can be best attained.”
“Happiness,” rather than equality, security, or prosperity, is the key word,
and “happiness” in the Aristotelian sense of an enduring and well-justified
satisfaction with life as a whole. This is “happiness” in the sense of
“deep satisfaction,” or, viewed from the public as opposed to the private perspective,
reflecting the old-fashioned notion of “a life well-lived.” And
on this score the European model is profoundly flawed: Simply put, it
does not conduce to Aristotelian happiness.
How so?
“It drains too much of the life from life.”
This seems a large indictment, but here’s what Murray is driving at:
[When I talk about “deep satisfaction”] I’m talking about the kinds of things
that we look back upon when we reach old age and let us decide that we can
be proud of who we have been and what we have done. Or not.To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some
stringent requirements. It has to have been important (we don’t get deep
satisfaction from trivial things). You have to have put a lot of effort into
it (hence the cliché “nothing worth having comes easily”). And
you have to have been responsible for the consequences.There aren’t many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements.
Having been a good parent. That qualifies. A good marriage. That qualifies.
Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected
with yours. That qualifies. And having been really good at something–good
at something that drew the most from your abilities. That qualifies.
All these activities, Murray observes (uncontroversially, I think) occur within
four institutions: Family, community (which can be virtual),
vocation (or avocation, or cause), and faith (which can be a- or non-religious, in my opinion, although Murray presumably would beg to differ). If, then, the goal of social
policy should be to help make those institutions “robust and vital,” then “the
European model doesn’t do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.”
Again, a large charge. But we’ve reached the crux of his analysis:
Put aside all the sophisticated ways of conceptualizing governmental functions
and think of it in this simplistic way: Almost anything that government does
in social policy can be characterized as taking some of the trouble out of
things. […]The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble
out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith,
it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality–it drains some
of the life from them. It’s inevitable. Families are not vital because
the day-to-day tasks of raising children and being a good spouse are so much
fun, but because the family has responsibility for doing important things
that won’t get done unless the family does them.
If this sounds a bit too abstract and theoretical (certainly at first blush
it frankly does), Murray makes it concrete:
When the government takes the trouble out of being a spouse and parent,
it doesn’t affect the sources of deep satisfaction for the CEO. Rather, it
makes life difficult for the janitor. A man who is holding down a menial
job and thereby supporting a wife and children is doing something authentically
important with his life. He should take deep satisfaction from that, and
be praised by his community for doing so. Think of all the phrases we used
to have for it: “He
is a man who pulls his own weight.” “He’s a good provider.” If
that same man lives under a system that says that the children of the woman
he sleeps with will be taken care of whether or not he contributes, then
that status goes away.I am not describing some theoretical outcome. I am describing American
neighborhoods where, once, working at a menial job to provide for his family
made a man proud and gave him status in his community, and where now it doesn’t.
I could give a half dozen other examples. Taking the trouble out of the stuff
of life strips people–already has stripped people–of major ways in which
human beings look back on their lives and say, “I made a difference.”
The immense perversity of “taking the trouble out of” being a spouse or being
a worker is that, as soon as the trouble is taken out, human beings lose interest
in it. Witness Europe:
Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their “child-friendly” policies,
providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers, and long maternity
leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and
plunging marriage rates. Those same countries are ones in which jobs are
most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are
most lavish. And they, with only a few exceptions, are countries where work
is most often seen as a necessary evil, least often seen as a vocation, and
where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.
How can this be?, you’re asking yourself. And yet you immediately, gut-instinct
level, know the answer.
Murray elaborates on the human psycho-social-cultural dynamic at work here,
and particularly on the implications of what he calls the error of “the
equality premise.” As he would have it:
The equality premise says that, in a fair society, different groups of people–men
and women, blacks and whites, straights and gays, the children of poor people
and the children of rich people–will naturally have the same distributions
of outcomes in life–the same mean income, the same mean educational attainment,
the same proportions who become janitors and CEOs. When that doesn’t happen,
it is because of bad human behavior and an unfair society. […]Within a decade, no one will try to defend the equality premise. All sorts
of groups will be known to differ in qualities that affect what professions
they choose, how much money they make, and how they live their lives in all
sorts of ways. […]There is no reason to fear this new knowledge. Differences among
groups will cut in many different directions, and everybody will be able
to weight the differences so that their group’s advantages turn out to be
the most important to them.
If we “repeal” the equality premise, there’s just one problem. As
your life experiences accumulate–in the vital contexts of family, vocation,
community, and faith–you will slowly become more and more responsible
for the life you are living, and the ultimate question whether it all adds
up to “a life well lived,” and to “deep satisfaction” with what you’ve accomplished,
in the eyes of both yourself and those who populate those vital contexts. The
“European model,” or the indulgently paternalistic law firm, would steal that
responsibility away from you. This would be a Faustian bargain.
And
so there’s hope. Not
only the hope that I have always fervently embraced, which has its roots in
the truest and noblest strains of what it means to be American, such as our
uncanny predilection for optimism, even when there seems to be no explicable
reason for it, or our still amazing lack of class envy (we celebrate rather
than resent success), or our potent assumption that each of us is in charge
of our own destiny. More
than that, it’s the essential belief in the powerful respect due individuality:
Restoration of the premise that used to be part of the warp and woof of
American idealism: people must be treated as individuals. The success of social
policy is to be measured not by equality of outcomes for groups, but by open,
abundant opportunity for individuals. It is to be measured by the freedom of
individuals, acting upon their personal abilities, aspirations, and values,
to seek the kind of life that best suits them.
Combine this profoundly American value, now merely two centuries old and counting,
with the insights emerging from behavioral evolution (confirming what some
texts over two millennia old have taught) that the “life well-lived” requires
dynamic and energetic and fruitful engagement with those around us, and you
begin to have the ingredients for a “vibrant and robust” culture.
And as for your firm?
Well, haven’t we just laid it out?
Focus on individuals.
Eschew equality of outcome but insist on equality of opportunity.
Expect optimism in the face of deepest adversity.
Demand engagement with the community.
Celebrate the “life well lived” (the career well performed).
And most importantly: Beware “taking
the trouble out” of things. Because the deep secret of human nature
is that we don’t appreciate that. We not only don’t appreciate it,
we don’t respond well to it. We not only don’t respond well to it,
it’s toxic to our communities, and it devalues the very virtues you thought
you were trying to promote.
So in a word: In your firm, dare not try
to take the trouble out of things.
