Institutions aren’t perfect. They’re worth defending anyway

After the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington relocated his headquarters to Newburgh, New York, a sleepy Hudson Valley river town about 60 miles north of New York City and near West Point. The city came alive with the bustle of an army now waiting to see if delegates in Paris could solidify the uneasy peace. However, tempers began to boil as the Continental Congress could not raise funds to pay soldiers and veterans.

Quietly, lower ranking officers designed a plan to march on Congress, overthrow it and make Washington an American Caesar. When Washington heard of this plan, he unexpectedly walked in on a meeting of the conspirators . After an impassioned speech that seemed to change no hearts, Washington reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a pair of eyeglasses. “Gentlemen”, Washington apologized, “you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”

Historians record that many men wept openly seeing their beloved commander begin to show his age. His many years of service reminded them of their commitment to the American cause. Washington greatly appreciated the ancient Roman stoics’ idea of virtue. To them, virtue was doing the right thing at the right time in the right manner even at great personal sacrifice. And Washington understood that the people held power through their representatives, even if Congress was incredibly frustrating.

Washington may not have been aware then, but he and the other founders were creating institutions in their infancy. Institutions are a key part of our democratic-republican form of government and a secret sauce for economic growth. Economists see institutions as the societal, political or cultural norms that shape human behavior. These institutions collect and preserve the aggregated wisdom of how one is to act in a free society and teach citizens to freely choose to follow rules that are unenforceable.

While government can provide many of these institutions, religion, community service groups, youth sports and neighborhoods are vital to raise the next generation of citizens and imbue in them the values and practices that are key to economic flourishing. In their book “ Why Nations Fail ,” MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson categorize institutions as extractive (allocating resources to a select ruling class at the expense of others) or inclusive (sharing resources and creating opportunities for all to succeed). Institutions, like the rule of law, allow for the respect of property rights, fair play, self-governance via elections, and the accumulation of social capital.

Institutions are not perfect. In our competing political thought, we need well-intentioned progressives to help increase the circle of inclusivity and to point out where institutions are unjust and not serving those most in need. However, we also need caring conservatives who recognize the inherent wisdom in these institutions and who put a high priority on social order. Conservatives argue that we shouldn’t be too quick to throw out thousands of years of social knowledge for a passing trend. Progressives would do well to take this stance as well.

Institutions are quite fragile. They take centuries to develop at a glacial pace but can be destroyed in a “ space of not many years .” Generations of trial and error go into understanding the dynamicism of markets, the rule of law, civilian control of the military, honesty, respect, integrity, and fidelity to family and marriage. These behaviors cut against our natural instincts and, like the laws of thermodynamics, require work and energy to lift society out of a brutish state. Like a beautiful building, it takes extreme effort to build institutions, but no effort at all to knock them down.

Recently, some conservatives have yielded their responsibility to protect these institutions in exchange for short-term political power. This dereliction of duty has put our system of out balance. Rejection of empirical evidence, embracing candidates of poor moral character (but willing to fight imaginary enemies), election denial, refusal to submit to the rule of law, politicizing the pulpit or injecting partisan follies into our Sunday School classes are all behaviors that have broken social trust and torn the fabric of our institutions.

If we truly want limited government, economic growth, free markets and the self-determination that comes with civil liberties, then we must reject political nihilism. Institutions are the cords that tie our republic like Odysseus to the mast of his ship so that we can avoid the siren call of demagoguery and not crash into the cliffs of populism. We cannot hire enough police to enforce good behavior when we allow our institutions to fail.

Michael S. Kofoed, @mikekofoed on X, is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics. A Utah native, he holds degrees in economics from Weber State University and the University of Georgia.