This Week's Winner: David Brooks

Would someone please explain to me what the position of business and political conservatives (as opposed to social conservatives) is on evolution? On anarchy? Mr. Brooks seems to adopt a Darwinian model for the markets (Darwin called in "natural selection," Brooks calls it "creative destruction") as well subscribing to the notion of economic anarchism (AKA laissez faire).

Regardless of the logical flaws in being both a conservative and a Darwinist, Brooks told Detroit it could collectively fuck itself, positing that the $50 billion dollars needed to bailout Ford, Chrysler and GM would "grant immortality" to the Big Three. He asserted that, "This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends."

Apart from being a weak, transparent argument, his Op Ed piece lacks a substantial element: integrity. Why has he not decried how the $700 billion bailout has prevented the "creative destruction" of AIG, much less how Paulson's (possibly illegal) changes to Section 382 of the Tax code have turned BofA, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan&Chase monopolistic behemoths, even bigger than the banks that were, supposedly, "too big to fail."

The failure of GM isn't creative destruction any more than the failure of JPMorgan&Chase would be right now. The failure of either would make space for new industries, but, according to economist and Nobel Lauriat Paul Krugman, it would also prolong the recession, and possibly even sink us deeper into depression. What many social Darwinists, like Brooks, fail to understand about the economy is that it is no more of an example of natural selection than domestic livestock; rather, it is the opposite: artificial selection. The economy is a product of culture, and as with domesticated plants and animals, there are consequences for poor stewardship.