Top and bottom against the middle is the oldest coalition in politics. Throughout history, the aristocracy has always hated the middle class. Solid burghers are prickly, jealous of their rights, too self-sufficient to be threatened, and too proud to be bought off. Elites far prefer the lower class, which can be more easily manipulated. 

The top and bottom coalition usually aligns with the left, with its rich potential for cronyism and clientelism. Only the squeezed middle actually believes in economic conservatism, with its free markets and sound budgets.

This dynamic is not just economic. Social conservatives are also a squeezed middle. 

Aristocracies famously tolerate dissolution among themselves, and among the lower classes they positively prefer it. There is no need to fear any rebellion from a populace that is distracted and rendered impotent by degrading pleasures. There is a reason the word addiction derives etymologically from the concept of slavery.

It is only the solid middle class that takes the threat of vice seriously. The health of the whole society rests on the ability of ordinary parents to instill in their children the self-control necessary to resist modern life’s little temptations. Otherwise, free citizens will degenerate into subjects and clients. Vices and republican virtue cannot both thrive.

Because aristocracies set the fashions for everyone else, fighting against vice has always been horribly gauche. Anthony Comstock was blackballed by every elite club in Manhattan because the wealthy did not want to associate with an anti-pornography crusader, however successful he might have been. They would not want anyone to think they personally lacked the sophistication to enjoy a tasteful etching. 

Today, Comstock has been dead for a century, and politicians no longer do anything to suppress vice. Quite the opposite, they go out of their way to actively encourage it, as long as the vice in question creates economic activity. In May 2022, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the approval of plans for Chicago’s first casino. She boasted that Bally’s Chicago would create over 3,000 jobs and would “expand on our values of equity and inclusion.”

By the standards of economic growth, or even DEI, a casino in the middle of Chicago might be wise. By the standard of what is good for the moral health of Chicagoans, Mayor Lightfoot should have made a different decision.

Taking people’s moral health into account is just what modern politicians refuse on principle to do. People are free to make their own choices, even if those choices make them less competent to make good choices in the future.

The features in this issue of TAC reveal the shallowness of that libertarian approach when it comes to vices. Devoting an issue to vice is not sensationalism on our part. In the case of marijuana, gambling, pornography, and social media, vice is a political issue. Glib invocations of freedom of choice should not be the last word in these political debates.

Democracies not only can target vice for suppression, they must. Otherwise they will face the impossible task of operating a republican form of government without citizens equipped for the task.