Page 13 - Cedarville Magazine Spring 2013 Volume 1 Issue 1

Cedarville Magazine | 13
I even had a killer statistic I knew would
end this argument once and for all: “Do
you know that America has the second-
highest corporate tax rate among the 34
countries in the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)?”
Silence.
Then my sister-in-law spoke up. “I
read an article in The Seattle Times about
a little girl who lives with her mother in a
car. What is your precious free enterprise
system going to do for her?”
I am the President of the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington,
D.C., think tank dedicated to public policy,
and I lost the argument .
Later that night I complained tomy wife,
“I just don’t understand my family. I’ve got
all the facts and figures, but they just don’t
want to listen.”
She wisely answered, “Think about it.
You’re talking about OECD tax rates, and
they’re talking about a girl who lives in a
car. What matters more, money or people?”
“I’m a Christian,” I said. “Of course
people matter more than money.”
“Thenmaybe,” she said, “you should start
talking about people instead of money .”
A light bulb went off. That’s what
we’re doing wrong. Liberals, moderates,
conservatives, socialists ... everyone agrees
that capitalism generates the most wealth,
but it doesn’t tell us what makes the best
life. Until we can make the moral case for
capitalism, we will continue to lose.
The Heart of the Matter
Conservatives believe that if we could just
present enough PowerPoint charts on fiscal
consolidation, unemployment rates, fiscal
cliffs, and the disaster that will befall us if we
become like Greece,
then the American
public will realize
that (ding!) free
enterprise is best,
and we’ll revert
back to the ideas of
our founders.
My computer’s
hard drive is full of this sort of data, but
data is not getting the job done. We’re not
nourished entirely by material facts. The
moral case beats thematerial case every time.
Jonathan Haidt, best-selling author of
The Righteous Mind, is the world’s leading
expert on moral judgment and how it is
processed by the human brain. He showed me an experiment he
does with human subjects. He tells them a little story that turns
into a moral dilemma:
There is a family with three young children who want a dog. Their
begging and pleading is ultimately successful when Mom and Dad
cave and buy the children a puppy. They name her Muffin, and she
turns out to be a great dog— fantastic with the children, never bites
the mailman, shows up in all the family Christmas photos.
One day, the youngest child accidentally leaves the front door
open. Muffin runs outside and chases a squirrel into the street.
Within seconds, she is hit by a car and killed in front of the whole
family. The children are screaming, Mom is in tears, and even Dad
is choked up. He goes out to the street and carries Muffin’s lifeless
body back to the house. Together as a family, they lovingly decide
to cook the dog and eat her.
Your brain is saying, “That story sure ended wrong.” In your
medial prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain right behind your
forehead, you are experiencing something calledmoral repugnance.
I could say, “But the dog was already dead. It’s a high-quality protein
source. Why not eat the dog?” You’d say, “It’s just ... wrong.”
You’ve made a moral judgment that needs no justification. I
could try to displace it with other material arguments, but it wouldn’t
work. Today, tomorrow, or next week, my rational arguments will
still be meaningless. It’s just wrong to eat your pet.
While I went on about OECD tax rates atThanksgiving, everyone
else around the table was concerned about the girl and her mother
living in a car. In any debate, you have 10 seconds to make your
case. You can waste your 10 seconds talking about money, or you
can talk about what’s written on your heart.
The Pursuit of Happiness
TheDeclarationof Independence contains a profoundmoral covenant
from our founders to you: we are “endowed by our Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.” You’re not promised property, wealth, ormaterial
prosperity, but what you are promised is even more remarkable.
I wanted to know what pursuing happiness means in our
lives today. I researched and wrote a book called Gross National
Happiness. I can tell you who are happier —men or women, atheists
or people of faith, Republicans or Democrats. I was fascinated to
learn the unhappiest average age in a man’s life is 45 years old. Is
45 when your wife finally realizes you’re boring? Is it the misery
induced by having a teenager in the house? Perhaps, but these
explanations are not complete.
About half of men get to 45 and realize they’ve missed what they
really wanted in life. When you’re in your 20s and 30s in America,
the strategy for life is easy. Life is a superhighway, and the signs
say “dollars.” You want to succeed and be prosperous? Hit the gas,
go harder. About half of men, according to the data, stop at 45 and
say, “I think I missed my exit. There’s something back there that I
wanted. I don’t know what it is, but I know it isn’t this.”
What is down that little road if you happen to find the exit? I
know the answer because I’ve got the data. It’s a phenomenon called
earned success, which comes from creating value with your life and
in the lives of other people.
“ THEN MAYBE YOU
SHOULD START TALKING
ABOUT PEOPLE INSTEAD
OF MONEY.”