Fusionism and the Problem of Order (Kevin Vallier, February 5, 2025, Religion & Liberty)
free-market capitalism, in tandem with other free institutions, help build community. They do this by creating the material abundance required for communities to flourish. But free-markets do not promote community merely by creating wealth. They also allow for the formation of virtue, given that virtue can only arise under conditions of freedom.
Fusionists see the local and the national as separate but complementary social domains. The civic domain contains local institutions like churches and families, which provide the social capital required for a free-market order. The national economic domain creates prosperity and, rightly ordered, does not undermine valuable local customs.
The New Right disagrees. Market forces are a solvent of tradition. If we allow unconstrained markets, communal bonds and traditional ways of life will wither, and our culture will become crude and commercialized.
As the old Mencken definition has it: “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” MAGA is a function of the fear that someone, somewhere makes different choices than you do. And republican liberty requires that choices can only be banned via particapatory processes and then must apply universally. MAGA can’t achieve its goals by way of the former and thinks its members should be absolved from the latter.