The Song of the Aged Mother which shook the heavens with Wrath
Hearing the march of long resounding strong heroic verse
Marshalld in order for the day of intellectual battle
-William Blake, The Four Zoas

How often have we heard political commentators, usually, those of the "moderate" or "independent" variety, decrying the excessive partisanship present in the crafting of public policy? After all, it is exclaimed, why can't these legislators just do what is right for the country, rather than getting mired in politics? The problem that the moderate, or independent, fails to see is that the answer to the question of "what is right for the country," as well as the differences between the major political parties, is rooted deep in ideology-ones fundamental beliefs about human nature, knowledge and the proper role of government in society. It may in fact be possible for the "moderate" to remain neutral with regard to party affiliation, but much harder, I think, to maintain that same level of neutrality when it comes to ideology. For the most part, political parties are merely an expression of ideology, whereby individuals who generally share a common ideology, attempt to gain control of the political process. Since, however, political parties are engaged in more pragmatic affairs winning over an electorate, they may remain more or less true, at any particular time, to the ideological beliefs by which they are inspired.

In his book, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, Thomas Sowell utilizes the terminology of the "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions, to explain the differences between contemporary conservatives and liberals. The constrained vision, which Sowell sees as characterized by Adam Smith, sees human nature as fundamentally selfish, and morally imperfect. This is not to say that people cannot ever act for the benefit of others, this is certainly possible, but is usually due to an "intervening factor," such as a concerted commitment to some moral duty to help the poor, for example, rather than truly caring for another as much as one's self. So the question arises as to how we go about crafting public policy, or doing what is best for society, based on the constraint of an inherently flawed human nature? Essentially we establish processes which provide incentives for people to do the right thing. Sowell is careful to note that, the system will never be perfect, we will have to operate in the arena of trade-offs-we can have so much of one thing at the cost not having another. Nowhere is this system of trade-offs more apparent than in the area of equality and the debate over affirmative action. For those that operate under the constrained vision, the best we can hope for is a system that ensures fairness-equality of opportunity-as the phrase goes, to do otherwise, to grant specific benefits to people of one race over another, entails social costs which are too high.

Sowell characterizes the unconstrained vision by reference to Williams Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. Whereas the constrained vision is satisfied to function within a system of trade-offs and incentives, a system where the best thing we can do for society is preserve the integrity of a fair process, where we may get the desired social benefits accidentally, the unconstrained vision believes that it is possible to perfect human nature, in effect, to achieve social benefits intentionally. In this vision, government plays a much more significant role, as a fundamental transformation must take place in order for people to not act according to their selfish nature.The problem here, as those with the constrained vision see it, is that fundamental transformations often entail fundamental costs. The French Revolution would be on example. I suspect very few would defend the pre-revolutionary regime in France of aristocratic rule and oppression. However, the path towards transformation led through neighbor informing on neighbor and countless executions at the foot of the guillotine before the end came in the form of Napoleon. However, according to the unconstrained vision, costs, as long as they are born on the way to a sufficiently desired ideal are justified. What really matter are results. If the process is not providing us with the required results, it can simply be discarded. Thus, the ultimate goal is not to function within a system of trade-offs, but to arrive at the final solution. As Sowell writes:

A solution is achieved when it is no longer necessary to make a trade-off, even if the development of that solution entailed costs now past. The goal of achieving [my emphasis] a solution is in fact what justifies the initial sacrifices or transitional conditions which might otherwise be considered unacceptable.

For the unconstrained vision, merely the goal itself of achieving a solution justifies the “transitional conditions” on the way to that goal. Returning to the example of the debate over affirmative action policies, the social costs, which have been more than adequately spelled out by opponents of these policies-one can look at the case of the firefighters in Connecticut-are simply “transitional conditions” on the way to the solution of racial equality, or at least one definition of racial equality.

So with two completely different visions of human nature and the proper direction for public policy, how do we engage in the enterprise of actually convincing the opposition to come around to our point of view? It would seem that any empirical observation or data I might provide to support the view that human nature is fundamentally selfish and flawed, could be equally rebutted by similar evidence on the other side. At the most, it would seem, political debate can take place only at the periphery. We can debate things like whether Cadillac insurance plans should be those valued at $24,000.00 or $28,000.00, which is certainly important, but hardly satisfying.