87. Uncertainty About the Word "Moral"

"Quietly but decisively Americans are trying to restore the moral norms that undergird our economic system," said David Brooks yesterday on the Op-Ed page (NYT, 10-18-11). "Quietly" meant "not like the Wall Street occupiers" but what did "moral" mean?

I think I know what it means. All good people think they do. But then some good people, like Brooks, give you an example that makes you wonder. His first "moral norm" states that "you shouldn't spend more than you take in." I thought moral advice had to do with right and wrong. You got it from your preacher. Where does this come from? In my experience it could have come from old Moneybags down the street, tipping us delivery boys: "Watch your nickels, sonny, they add up to dollars." He was the town materialist.

So what are we talking about, goodness or prudence? If you think it's good to be prudent then there's no difference and you and Moneybags can go to Heaven together. If you think there is a difference then Heaven is a place for idealists. — not pure, of course, but having something of the ideal, of the spiritual, in them. Moneybags is held up at the door.

Brooks's second moral norm states that "there should be a link between effort and reward." Moneybags is with him on that one, too. "Rise early, sonny. Get ahead of the next fellow." Yet I know what Brooks means here, and I can't help thinking his way. I see Greeks taking it easy, then being rewarded by the hardworking Germans, and I say "wrong." I see banks freely risking other people's money, then being rewarded with a bailout, and I say "bad." Prudence is, and yet is not, a moral virtue.

My instinct puts me firmly on the side of Brooks and his quiet majority, "focused on fundamentals," and my analysis tells me I don't know where I am. "Repairing the economic moral fabric is the essential national task right now," says (through Brooks) the majority. What would they and I lose if that task were restated with the word "moral" removed, and then accomplished? We've got a healthy economic fabric, a nation high in material well-being. What exactly do we expect to add? What's the difference between our nation and the one over there that has a moral economic fabric? I mean, if the GDP is the same.