Texas vs. California: A Conflict of Visions
Does a Conservative or a Progressive Model Best Foster Achievement?
The environment often plays a role in how many achievements can be reached, how easily, and how quickly. One premise at Achievement, TX, is that the Lone Star State offers a culture and history that create an environment conducive to pursuing and reaching achievements.
This post is the last in the January(-ish) series focused on policy/policymaking relevant to the start of the 89th Texas Legislature. This is still not about politics but rather about policies and policymaking that can create an environment that will foster value creation, flourishing, and pursuing one’s dreams.
The time has come to talk about Texas vs. California.
About 6 months before I moved to Texas from New York (after coming from France two years before), I had an interview for a job in California. I was very excited about the opportunity, especially the organization I would have worked for, but less so for the state.
Don’t get me wrong—California is a beautiful state with some awesome resources and entrepreneurs—in many ways, it reminds me of France. The job would have been in Orange County, but the state already overtaxed its residents and over-regulated their lives then. Yes indeed, in many ways, it reminded me of France and the exact reasons why I had left my native country.
Texas, on the other hand, was very different from France, and it held the promise that attracted me to America: an environment full of opportunities to seize if you would only work hard for them, with a government that intervened less in your life. Achievement was up to you to pursue, work hard for, seize, and concretize—it was in your hands.
I did not get the job in California, and I’ve been thankful for that ever since—especially since I moved to Texas.
The rivalry between the states of Texas and California is well-known. There is the friendly, funny rivalry that has us Texans tease Californians ALL.THE.TIME.

But this rivalry is real in a very fundamental way, which Kenneth P. Miller thoroughly covers in his book “Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America” (all page numbers refer to the ebook version).
Miller did a remarkable job comparing both states—perhaps being himself a Californian married to a Texan helped! He discusses the history, geography, demographics, and culture of both states, as well as their political influences and evolution and where they stand today—looking at both the pros and cons. Only in the last chapter does Miller, with much caution, make small prognostications about the future.
I will not discuss the political aspect of the book—although it is certainly helpful to understand where both states come from and where they stand today—but I encourage you to read the book instead. Many of the other aspects are very informative to our study of achievement and how the Texas environment helps.
A Conflict of Visions Between Siblings
“Texas has cultivated a comprehensive conservative model and California has advanced an ambitious progressive program. These governing strategies are near-perfect antitheses.” (p. 145)
Miller starts by comparing the two states, which he describes as “close siblings that became rivals” (p. 3) or, as he later in the book quotes Lawrence Wright, “mirror image twins” (quoted on p. 245).
Understanding the historical context is crucial to fully grasp the comparison between Texas and California. Some fundamental similarities do exist (p. 5). For example, both states used to be provinces of Spain and Mexico. The lands of both states were settled by American immigrants looking West for opportunity during the period of Manifest Destiny. Both were Republics before joining the Union (although, admittedly, it is a bit of a stretch for California). California joined the Union just 5 years after Texas. Finally, both states have similar demographics, especially having become, as Miller puts it, “co-capitals of Hispanic America” (p. 41) but also having attracted diverse populations overall throughout their history.
The resemblances are striking, but the two states started diverging subtly and ever so quickly. As Miller points out, these lands were underpopulated when Mexico possessed the lands that now make Texas and California. Few Mexicans wanted to live there to develop them, notably because they would have been vulnerable to attacks from Indians (p. 13). Mexico hence agreed to American immigration as a solution.
Miller explains that the American immigrants who went to Texas “were mostly coming from the South and brought their southern culture” (p. 12). On the other hand, “a more diverse mix of people migrated to faraway California and established a cosmopolitan society on the Pacific Coast. Although its settlers included southerners, California was more aligned with New England and the rest of the North in matters of culture, economics, and politics” (p. 12).
With its southern and western culture, Texas became more traditionalistic and conservative, while California became more moralistic and progressive. [Miller uses political scientist Daniel Elazar’s terminology with moralistic here meaning a “political culture believe[ing] that government should identify and promote a concept of the common good, and that citizens should actively engage in political life” (p. 72).]
Texas’ Culture Fosters Self-Reliance
As we’ve seen before, the Texas Model is based on generally low taxes, fewer regulations, a business-friendly environment, the right to work (as not forcing unions on employees), a generally free-market approach to the economy, all of which tend to lead to more opportunities and a more affordable way of life for everyone. It’s also an environment that allows more people from all walks of life to start a business—not just the very wealthy who have the financial means to jump through the hoops of burdensome and expensive regulations. As Miller insists, many relocated to Texas, from California or elsewhere, because they could afford to live in the Lone Star State.
Although California remains a wealthy state as it retains many successful businesses, increasingly, only the richest can live in many parts of California—only the wealthiest can afford to pay heavy taxes and costly regulations imposed on Californians in the name of the common good. Regulating almost every aspect of nearly 40 million imposes an enormous cost on them, first in taxes needed for such a government and then in compliance costs. Whether one prefers that model to a light, more libertarian-type one does not change the fact that each leads to different consequences. In a situation such as California’s, it becomes increasingly more difficult and expensive for the middle class to live; the number of poor people tends to increase, and they need to survive on government help.
“Texas has maintained the view that citizens should be self-sufficient and not rely on government to provide for their needs.” (p. 139)
The values we see today in Texas culture can be traced back to her history. Miller notes, for example, that “the Lone Star Constitution places many shackles on state government” (p. 135).
California, in comparison, has become the leading progressive state in the Union, convinced that the role of government is to promote the common good, notably by redistributing wealth (or having the richest “pay their fair share”). Where Texas refused to make policymaking a full-time pursuit (you may remember this from the article on the Texas Capitol and Texas Legislature), California went the opposite way and generously pays its lawmakers (“fifteen times more than lawmakers in Texas” (p. 140)).
Where California grows government to intervene further in Californians’ lives, Texas has tried (although it doesn’t mean that the state has always succeeded) to empower Texans by mostly staying out of their way.
Miller explains that Texas, with its mix of Southern and Western cultures, supports values such as marriage, family, religion, individual freedom, self-responsibility, self-sufficiency, and private charity. Texans also demonstrate a strong loyalty to their state and an “aversion to interference from outsiders—especially from the federal government and coastal elites” (p. 81).
Miller summarizes the situation as follows:
“The substructure of the Texas Model is thoroughly conservative, moored to the values of individualism, personal responsibility, free market capitalism, limited government, and a resistance to outside meddling. Conversely, the California Model is anchored in contemporary progressivism, with its belief that government should use all the power at its disposal to overturn oppressive structures, redress inequality, combat discrimination in its many forms, confront the global environmental crisis, ensure public health, and more.”
(p. 248)
What appears clear to me is that Texas places much more trust into each individual’s capacity to succeed, while California assumes that you can’t live your life without government help. Nuff said.
The Road to Achievement Starts Here
In Texas, that is.
Both states have known success. California has remained the 5th economy in the world (if it were a country), while Texas is making its way to the top, now # 8 (right behind France)—from # 9 when Miller wrote the book.
People constantly choose between the two models, too.
Miller reports that “between 2007 and 2016, approximately 6 million California residents moved out of the state, with a net out-migration of about 1 million” (p. 31). A 2019 survey revealed that half of those surveyed had considered doing the same because of “high housing costs, taxes, and the state’s political culture” (p. 31). In the 1990s already, Miller reports, Black Californians were leaving California because they couldn’t afford to leave there (p. 39).
Texas continues to be the preferred destination for Americans looking for a better life and the first contributor state is California. Between 2020 and 2021, more than 105,000 Californians moved to Texas, almost 3 times more than the second state bringing in migrants, Florida. California was also the top destination for people moving out of Texas, but only for 36,092 people. In comparison, nearly 38,000 Texans moved to Florida, admittedly a state with values more similar to those found in Texas than in California. Texas natives are also most likely to remain in Texas, with 82% of native Texans still living in the Lone Star State in 2021.
Thinking for a minute outside of the context of Texas and California, or any other state for that matter, achievements are best pursued and reached in the absence of artificial shackles and burdens imposed by policymaking. As we’ve seen with Texas achievements already, we all face enough hardships or difficulties, often through no fault of our own (fires, financial crisis, wars for Neiman Marcus, or hot-only-as-hell-can-be fires to extinguish for Red Adair), without government adding to these.
The Texas state of mind, which favors independence, hard work, self-responsibility, and grit, along with friendliness and traditional values such as private charity and family, all coupled with limited government intervention, has proven not only to provide a fertile environment for achievements throughout Texas history but also to retain achievers and attract new ones constantly.
In his review of Miller’s book for the Claremont Review of Books, Michael Anton concluded that,
“If the Lone Star way of life is to survive, Texans must fight for it.”
I agree.
May the Texas spirit continue to prevail in the Lone Star State.