In “The Conservative Heart” Arthur C. Brooks makes the case for a using free-market limited-government policies to create a prosperous America, as well as a plan to utilize more moralistic and empathetic arguments to persuade the vote. He claims that conservatives have the correct economic prescriptions but fail to make their case, often coming across as unfeeling or uncaring towards the poor and destitute as a result.

Before continuing, it is important to point out that Brooks’ definition of “conservatism” is primarily economic, focused on free-market enterprise and a government that does not intervene too heavily with burdensome regulations or a bloated welfare system that perpetuates poverty and dependency. This narrow definition of “conservatism” would likely find many dissidents on the right, from populists like Tucker Carlson to more religiously-influenced sects like distributism or Catholic Integralism, but it does appear to have dominated Republican messaging for at least the majority of my lifetime, so we must work with it as we can. Also, this book was published in 2015, during the pre-Trump economic dichotomy of Obama’s progressivism on the left and a heavily libertarian Tea-Party dominating the right.

Brooks claims that “The conservative heart rebels against the modern world’s siren song that instructs us to love things and use people.” The goal of the free-market enterprise system is to increase the pursuit of happiness, and studies have shown that true happiness comes from a combination of faith, family, community, and meaningful work. This is where the “socio-” of “socioeconomics” comes in: areas that are perpetually impoverished often have a lack of strong religious institutions, few (if any) intact family structures, broken communities, and scarce opportunities to find meaningful work. That last point is why so many conservatives are skeptical of providing too many “free handouts” and want to create work requirements for those on welfare: joblessness can actually increase rates of divorce and suicide, regardless of if the economic windfall is taken care of by a government. (This is why, IMO, conservatives should pay more attention to the accelerated growth of automation that could take away thousands, if not millions, of blue-collar jobs.) So, if the goal of a conservative heart is to increase the pursuit of true happiness, how should we accomplish this?

The answer doesn’t lie in solely objecting to the failed solutions of the Left, although Brooks spends an entire chapter doing just that as well. While pointing to the fact that the poverty level has remained stagnant under Lyndon B. Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ and that similar policy proposals under Barack Obama had decreased work opportunities while incomes for the bottom 20% decreased by 7% (inflation adjusted) over the first 4 years of his term. But just opposing the Left when they offer (broken, terrible) solutions is not the correct way for conservatives to make their case. And neither is dismantling the welfare system outright, as Brooks cites conservative icons like Ronald Reagan and Friedrich Hayek in support for a social safety net, albeit one that is reformed differently from what we have currently.

Brooks takes inspiration from the Doe Fund, a homeless shelter and job training program that focuses on lifting others out of destitution in NYC through “pushing the bucket.” Teaching and reinforcing moral values, emphasizing the importance of meaningful work, and treating each person with dignity as someone who can attain self-reliance is vital to breaking the cycle of perpetual poverty. A study at the Brookings Institute finds that adults who finished high school, got a job, and waited to have children until they were married had a 98% chance of staying out of poverty, and a 70% chance of reaching the middle class, regardless of their economic circumstances growing up. Consequently, as marriage rates decline and out-of-wedlock births have increased for decades, poverty persists and happiness declines across America.

Brooks’ “conservative social justice” focuses on a safety net that helps lift people out of poverty, an education system that creates more opportunity for less cost (i.e. alternative colleges and K-12 school choice vouchers), and a government bureaucracy that does not interfere with American’s honest entrepreneurial attempts to make a living (the case of Jestina Clayton illustrates where government regulations prevented a modest hair-braiding business). Above all, however, Brooks emphasizes a new form of messaging, focusing more on the morals and values conservatives ought to be fighting for instead of muddled economic figures that only show what they are against. This is especially true in an America where our political options are often the Left’s “radical change to multiple aspects of American Society which have failed previously” and the Right’s “not that.” In order to create a truly prosperous nation founded on conservative ideals, we need to provide the American public with solutions, not just alternatives.