Further Thoughts on the Social Cooperative: Budarin

I argued in an earlier post that people form social cooperatives to produce certain benefits for their members, and it is up to the members to define what the expected benefits will be. I also suggested that, if the Social Cooperative can not produce those expected benefits, it will be dissolved, one way or another. One problem of this nature is the fact that members of a social cooperative may join together for one set of expected benefits but have or develop another set of expected benefits about which they disagree. The expected benefits about which they disagree will create a tension among and within the members of the social cooperative. The members will have to calculate, on these terms as well, the costs of having some expected benefits unmet versus the benefits obtained from remaining in the social cooperative. This can be one reason for the fracture and dissolution of the social cooperative.

The history of the United States of America provides an example of this. The various States joined together initially for expected political and economic benefits they would gain from membership in that social cooperative. Over time the Northern states developed a separate set of expected benefits as a result of their increased population and industrial sector, developments which were less pronounced in the Southern states. Greater population gave the Northern states greater power to pass laws calculated to produce the benefits they expected. But the Southern states perceived some of the laws, such as the laws pertaining to tariffs and slavery, as depriving them of benefits they had expected from this union, and even harming their interests. The differences between the benefits expected by the Northern and Southern States created a tension within the Federal social cooperative, and eventually lead the Southern states to separate from that union.

A similar story played out in one of the two major U.S. political parties of that era, the Whigs. Members of the Whig Party apparently united around 1834 to oppose the policies of President Andrew Jackson and to secure benefits for the elites. According to Wikipedia,

“Whigs sought to promote manufacturing through protective tariffs, a growth-oriented monetary policy with a new Bank of the United States, and a vigorous program of ‘internal improvements’—especially to roads, canal systems, and railroads….Protestant religious revivals also injected a moralistic element into the Whig ranks. Many called for public schools to teach moral values; others proposed prohibition to end the liquor problem….The Compromise of 1850 fractured the Whigs along pro- and anti-slavery lines….In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act exploded on the scene. Southern Whigs generally supported the Act while Northern Whigs strongly opposed it. Most remaining Northern Whigs, like Lincoln, joined the new Republican Party and strongly attacked the Act, appealing to widespread northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Other Whigs in 1854 joined the Know-Nothing Party, attracted by its nativist crusades against ‘corrupt’ Irish and German immigrants. In the South, the Whig party vanished….”

That “new” Republican Party, in turn, has divided into “private wealth conservatives” and “culture conservatives”. President W is having a hard time pleasing both. The “culture conservatives” have been ascendant for 6 years, but now they are threatening to leave the GOP because their expectations have not been met. Could another fracture be in the works?