Social Mobility

Conservative columnist David Brooks stays on the Bush-following-Lincoln theme (NYT reg. req.) and suggests persuasively that Bush make his State of the Union Address an equally grand vision-casting for what ought to be the great conservative domestic goal: maintaining social mobility.

This is (one area where) Republicans differ from socialist Democrats. Whereas socialists take a paternal view of the state and try to marginally raise the standard of living for everyone below a certain level (often at the expense of those above), conservatives see economic freedom as the freedom to determine one's own destiny. That means that conservatives should and do push for lower taxes on productivity, lower barriers to creating a new business, and lower barriers to moving to a different part of society (e.g. school choice, indiscrimination). When it comes to race/ethnicity, the socialist ideal is a mosaic; the conservative ideal a melting pot. Where socialist push protectionist "fair trade" measures, conservatives should push for making American workers more productive and less costly.

I agree with Brooks that Bush can go a long way toward winning both his party and American voters over by holding up an ideal as striking and as intrinsically American as his foreign policy speech. Philosophically, it would lay a foundation for conservative political thought in the next days and help shape the emerging 'philosophy of conservatism'. Governmentally, it would help focus energies around a clarified goal. Politically, it would help save Bush from becoming a foreign-policy-only president and would set the table for his successor to pursue a strong domestic agenda.