Charles Murray’s Coming Apart has reminded us yet again that fewer and fewer Americans are getting married, and that those who do marry are waiting longer than ever to approach the altar. (Though it should be pointed out that the average age of first domestic union has remained basically constant—-yesterdays newlyweds are today’s live-in girlfriends and boyfriends). Sociologists like W. Bradford Wilcox, David Popenoe, Mark Regnerus have highlighted ways in which this “retreat from marriage” creates a more unstable environment for childrearing and keeps middle-class life out of the reach for some.
In response to these worries, the liberal writer Matt Yglesias said, more or less, so what?
The obvious place to look for an explanation of the declining marriage rate is the vast increase in the economic opportunities available to women. Newly empowered and less dependent on male economic support, women have become somewhat choosier and are now less likely to be married than in the past. You can perhaps make the case that this is bad for kids, and that as a society we should return to total economic disempowerment of women in order to force people into two-parent households. But why not just look at progress and call it “progress”? There is evidence that family instability is hard on children, but as seen above, there’s no reason to think we’re witnessing systematic generational decline.
Basically, who cares if families are declining so long as broad outcomes are constant or improving? Ross Douthat tried to push back against this question—-which I think a very reasonable one—-by pointing out the narrowness of Yglesias’ view of happiness:
If our only goals are some form of continued growth and a relative social stability, then the new social order isn’t necessarily a threat to progress. But if our goals are human happiness and human flourishing and a life well lived, then the future Yglesias is welcoming seems considerably darker.
I think this disagreement can be highlighted by borrowing a term from Yglesias’ left-wing critics. Writers like Freddie deBoer , Mike Konczal , and Ned Resnikoff have faulted Yglesias for being an advocate of “pity-charity liberalism.” I don’t like the term (charity rightly undestood, caritas , is a very good thing in my book), but it does a nice job of summing up a significant political and economic view: one that favors unfettered markets with big winners and big losers that is balanced on the backend with generous redistribution. This viewpoint is indifferent or hostile to the associations that allow a market to be balanced and equal on the front end: the unions that provide for humane and dignified working conditions, or the stable families that provide for the domestic enlargement of personal interest. Mike Konczal makes the economic part of this argument:
Do we want unions and regulations to create workplaces designed for human dignity, or do we let the dice roll as they may and compensate people after the fact through transfers? And what kind of politics does each bring into existence?
The argument I see Douthat making is basically an echo of Konczal’s—-that a certain brand of economic thinking is blinkered to the types of things that allow humans to flourish and realize goods that won’t always be easily captured on surveys, things like dignified work and, yes, a stable family. Yglesias’ indifference to families is of a piece with his apathy for other forms of subsidiary organization, and in that there’s a lesson for his critics on both the left and right.
