There’s a sense that the current wave of populism sweeping the globe is a sort of backlash against . . . something. But it is surprisingly difficult to pin down exactly what the backlash is against. What do Trump supporters oppose?
One theme emphasizes issues such as the disastrous war in Iraq, or the policy of expanding trade with China, or the sort of entitlement reforms recommended by Simpson and Bowles. These are basically conservative policies, advocated by people like George W. Bush.
Another theme emphasizes cultural liberalism, open borders, radical feminism, political correctness, Black Lives Matter, and other ideas associated with the left.
The Trump phenomenon can be seen as a backlash against recent trends on both the left and the right, which is probably why the term ‘alt-right’ gained traction.
In politics, binaries such as left/right are always a bit misleading. The fight occurs in both the arena of values and the arena of implementation. I see more than two groups. On the values front, you have the utilitarians and the traditionalists (who support natural rights and/or traditional cultural values.) On the implementation front you have the interventionists and the libertarians.
Here’s my (presumably oversimplified) theory of history. Over time, the arrow of history moves in a utilitarian direction. Culture gradually changes in the direction of giving more and more people rights, and redistributing money from the rich to the poor. Conservatives initially resist these changes, but eventually accept them.
This “progressive” agenda is led by the left, which always seems to win the long run. Occasionally they move to fast, get overextended, and a reactionary backlash slows or briefly reverses the changes. Then reform starts up again.
So far I’m describing things as viewed by intellectuals on the left. And for many issues this sunny view is essentially correct. On the other hand, any ideology will tend to be blind to weaknesses within their group, and the left is no different. Progressives have a sort of convenient amnesia about how they used to support eugenics, or how they used to say good things about Stalin and Mao.
From my libertarian utilitarian vantage point, history seems a bit different from the comforting left/liberal perspective. The left is too optimistic about the ability of government initiatives to achieve utilitarian goals. Ironically, an economic regime constructed by natural rights conservatives is often better able to achieve utilitarian objectives than a regime constructed by well-meaning left-wing utilitarians.
This means that occasional periods of “reaction” actually reflect multiple issues. Reactionary periods may occur when traditional conservatives are made uncomfortable by the speed of cultural change. In general, conservatives do not end up reversing these cultural changes, merely slowing them down. Think about when the voters in California rejected gay marriage. For how long was that reaction successful?
Reactionary periods may also occur when liberals have been overly optimistic about the ability of government economic intervention to make things better. Now the reaction is led by libertarians, not traditional conservatives. But in a country with a two party system and three ideologies (progressivism, libertarianism and traditional values), you need to accept the fact that each party will contain “strange bedfellows”. In America, the Democrats contain both progressives and minorities, whereas the Republicans contain both traditionalists and libertarians. White traditionalists see minorities as a strange and alien culture, which pushes them into the Democratic Party. Libertarians think progressive interventionists don’t understand economics, so they join the opposition party (the GOP.)
Yes, I know that it’s far more complicated. Thus military intervention can reflect a wide range of conservative or liberal values. But overall, this view of politics allows me to make better sense of what’s going. For instance, here’s Ross Douthat:
Not so Trump: All instinct and solipsism, he simply doesn’t care enough about Trumpism to find people who might carry his impulses forward once he’s gone. And so he’s bidding to do for monetary policy what he’s done in domestic policy and foreign policy already: Pursue a somewhat heterodox and populist agenda, but leave its implementation — and therefore to some extent its future — in the hands of men like Moore or John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney who represent the consensus that he once campaigned against.
Trump ran on a sort of Steve Bannon alt-right ideology, but when faced with the task of filling hundreds of positions in his administration, with little knowledge of inside Washington politics, he relied on the advice of people like Mike Pence. His hard-core supporters might have preferred that he pick Steve Bannon as his VP, but that’s not how politics work. You can’t win a presidential election appealing to just a narrow segment of the population. Pence reassured moderate suburban GOP voters. They are not Trump’s “core”, but he needs them to get to 270 electoral votes.
Trump’s most notable policy achievement was the tax cut, with deregulation and Supreme Court picks also cited by his supporters. What do all three of those achievements have in common? They are all supported by libertarians, the sort of people that Steve Bannon dislikes.
On rhetoric, the alt-right won. Trump’s twitter feed often appeals to alt-right people. But on policy the alt-right lost and the libertarians won.
At a superficial level, it might seem that politics is a fight between three groups, the progressives, the libertarians and the traditionalists. This is misleading, as only two groups actually matter in the long run, progressives and libertarians. Ross Douthat accepts many aspects of the modern world that would have horrified Catholic conservatives from earlier centuries. Traditionalists slow the rate of change, but don’t really alter the course of history. Technology, trade, education, and migration will make the world increasingly cosmopolitan. The real battle is between left wing interventionist utilitarians and right wing libertarian utilitarians.
But then I would say that, wouldn’t I? After all, I’m a utilitarian. Feel free to disagree in the comment section.
PS. I hope this post doesn’t come off as condescending toward cultural conservatives like Douthat (who is much wiser than I am.) Just as natural rights libertarians are often right about economic policy for the wrong reason, there’s a decent chance that traditional religious conservatives are right for the wrong reason. Tyler Cowen often cites the success of the Mormons in Utah, for instance. That success doesn’t necessarily imply that specific Mormon religious teachings are “true” in some deep metaphysical sense.
PPS. Eight years ago, “W.W.” (Will Wilkinson?) commented on one of my earlier attempts at sorting out politics. Today, my earlier attempt seems to be missing some important perspectives:
READER COMMENTS
E. Harding
Apr 30 2019 at 6:09pm
Weak post, Sumner. Your categories are incoherent and are contrary to reality. The fact is, in the House, the Democratic Party is composed of two groups: moderates (constituting about a fifth of the party) and non-moderates. The Republican Party is composed of three groups: moderates, standard Republicans, and contrarians. The moderates are not especially fiscally conservative, only the contrarians are. The moderates are, as a rule, more hawkish on foreign policy, more liberal on social (i.e., abortion & transsexuality) issues, more liberal on immigration issues, and more liberal and protectionist on fiscal issues than the rest of the GOP. In fact, the moderate Republicans are more likely to support domestic sourcing than any other segment of the GOP, while the moderate Democrats are less likely to support domestic sourcing than non-moderate Dems. “Libertarians” do not exist; the closest thing that comes to them in congress are the contrarians, who are by far the most fiscally conservative, and are not especially socially liberal (except maybe on marijuana?), but are the most dovish on foreign policy. Trump’s campaign promises are not easily aligned with any of these wings of the GOP. He had the moderates’ economic policies, did not have the moderates’ immigration policy, and had the contrarians’ foreign policy. He was ambiguous on social issues throughout the campaign. He was perceived by the public in 2016 as more moderate than Romney.
Scott Sumner
Apr 30 2019 at 7:54pm
Lots of libertarians favor tax cuts, deregulation and conservatives on the Supreme Court. So I disagree.
E. Harding
Apr 30 2019 at 8:33pm
“Lots of libertarians favor tax cuts, deregulation and conservatives on the Supreme Court. ”
I never said anything to the contrary, Sumner. Read what I write.
Scott Sumner
May 1 2019 at 11:50am
Obviously Republicans are not literally Libertarians, or they would not be Republicans. My point, with which you seem to agree, is that one branch of Republicans favors libertarian policies like tax cuts, deregulation and conservatives on the Supreme Court. Other Republicans are traditionalists, or nationalists.
Mark Z
Apr 30 2019 at 6:46pm
I think most leftists would disagree with your assessment of them as utilitarians, and I’d agree that most leftists aren’t utilitarians.
You may view their position as concordant with your utilitarianism, but that’s orthogonal to their own values. Most on the left are essentially proponents of natural rights, just different rights from those advocated by conservatives. How do they justify universal healthcare? By asserting a right to healthcare. Like conservative nationalists, far leftists construct collective moral entities as part of an Us vs. Them adversarian narrative. I personally think the progressivity or traditionalism of one view or another is essentially illusory, and a product of a particular time and place. In another time and place, ideas today considered conservative would be considered progressive (e.g., monarchy vs. republicanism in 1st century BC Rome).
My alternative theory of history: history only progresses in a technological/economic sense, not really morally/politically. To the extent that morals change, it’s as a consequence of technological and economic changes. As we’ve become better off, two notable things happen: 1) old social norms and strictures that were useful in their time gradually become more redundant; and 2) as we become better off, people can afford to assert rights to things more generally (e.g., a right to free healthcare, free education). These material changes I think define the conservative vs. progressive conflict. From your own hedonic treadmill standpoint, this is especially relevant: if people never feel better off than their ancestors, then whatever the latest right to be ‘discovered’ is, not matter how luxurious it is by historical standards (free college, for example), it will always seem as important as more basic rights (like freedom from lords and masters) did to the generations that sought those putative rights.
Scott Sumner
Apr 30 2019 at 7:53pm
Mark, You said:
“My alternative theory of history: history only progresses in a technological/economic sense, not really morally/politically. To the extent that morals change, it’s as a consequence of technological and economic changes.”
Didn’t you just contradicted yourself?
I disagree with your view that the left has policy preferences that are based on natural rights. I believe they advocate their policies because they believe the policies will make people better off.
Mark Z
May 1 2019 at 12:37am
I’m making a distinction between social/moral progress as a force in its own right, and people behaving better because they’re better off and therefore have less of a reason to behave poorly. In the latter case ‘progress’ is reversible if material conditions deteriorate. Changes in norms are not moral discoveries. In fact, I’m sort of arguing social norms tend to be utilitarian (or at least consequentialist) due to selective pressure. Some of the norms defended as tradition, for example, are useful (even if they are defended for other reasons) – that’s a big reason they managed to become traditions.
And I don’t think progressives pick their views because they think they’ll make people better off any more than conservatives do. I think progressives, say, support higher minimum wages or outlawing payday lending because paying people less than a certain amount or charging an interest rate above some point is just wrong. It’s just intrinsically unfair. Most progressives aren’t sensitive to arguments about the disemployment effects of minimum wage. I don’t think Many people support a higher minimum wage because Card and Krueger convinced them it could be beneficial. As with most positions of any ideology, most discussion of what makes people better off is post hoc. Or have you ever listened to conservatives defending things like traditional gender norms? They argue people are happier who adhere to these norms. Both sides, imo, believe what they believe for reasons that are largely received, and defend them often in utilitarian terms.
Scott Sumner
May 1 2019 at 11:55am
Mark, You said:
“Changes in norms are not moral discoveries.”
That’s clearly wrong. Society discovered that women deserve the right to vote and that dueling is immoral. Their previous views were not due to poverty, even the wealthy did not understand the need to end dueling or give women the vote. The book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped many people discover that slavery was evil.
I also disagree on progressives. Many have not read Card and Krueger, as you say, but they favor a minimum wage because they believe it will help low income people.
Mark Z
May 1 2019 at 7:06pm
“That’s clearly wrong. Society discovered that women deserve the right to vote and that dueling is immoral. Their previous views were not due to poverty, even the wealthy did not understand the need to end dueling or give women the vote. The book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped many people discover that slavery was evil.”
First of all, it was indeed due to poverty. If you went back to the middle ages and tried to convince people to embrace feminism, it wouldn’t have found purchase, and if it did, it would have had a deleterious effect on whatever society adopted it. Back then, the average woman needed to birth about 5 live children to sustain the population; needed to spend up to 2 years nursing for each one; virtually all economic work was physically demanding, agricultural labor at which nearly all men had a competitive advantage relative to nearly all women. This was true of military service as well, and civilian politics did not enjoy the kind of firm distinction from the military we see today in most countries until modernity. Only when economic and technological (and medical) improvements made strict traditional gender norms obsolete, led to women doing more economic work, and therefore became more and more independent units from their households. Modern gender norms, including voting rights, are modern moral luxuries.
I’d say something similar is true of slavery: why is it that people only ‘discovered’ that slavery was wrong around the time the industrial revolution was making it possible for societies to provide all their agricultural needs via a system that wasn’t feudal, semi-feudal, or something pretty much equivalent. Why is it that the idea that slavery is bad (which existed as far back as ancient times, by the way) never gained traction before? To the extent that alternative arrangements were possible centuries ago, they simply weren’t much better. Free peasants had a standard of living roughly comparable to serfs, but often a less stable one. Robert Fogel’s work on slavery in the US suggested that even in the 19th century American slaves had a material standard of living comparable to that of urban industrial workers. The abolitionist movements only came to prominence as an alternative that actually looked markedly better from the standpoint of agriculture slaves and serfs emerged.
And your remark on the wealthy in these times: 1) can you actually show this? How do you know that people who favored abolition or suffrage weren’t disproportionately the wealthy. And 2) the variation in wealth between generations is far greater than the variation in wealth within them. The difference between my standard of living and an average person in 1900 is much higher than the difference between rich and poor in 1900. So of course the kind of norms a society can ‘afford’ will vary over time (especially across several generations) more than within a given era.
Something people seem to forget: before the industrial revolution, in most times and most places, almost everyone lived pretty close to subsistence, and populations grew very little compared to modern times. Social norms that seriously damaged productivity or fertility could damn a community to extinction or takeover by a neighbor. Especially with things like traditional gender norms, there’s just no way a society 500 years ago could’ve ‘modernized’ without imposing on itself a huge disadvantage relative to those that didn’t. Much as we moderns like to pat ourselves on the back for our moral aptitude, most of our innovations only come about when the material conditions permit them to.
Mark Z
May 1 2019 at 7:23pm
And I don’t think there’s any evidence that utilitarian calculation goes into progressive policy opinions any more than, say, conservative policy positions. Notions of fair wages, fair prices, rights to certain entitlements, these are what dominate thinking; in fact, on price and wage controls, conservatives are more likely to take the utilitarian position that the negative (e.g., disemployment or shortages) effects outweigh the positive. I think which side is absolutist and which is utilitarian depends on the context, but I don’t think either is significantly more disposed to utilitarianism than the other.
Maybe you’re thinking or progressive intellectuals rather than people on the street, but in that case I suspect you’re comparing progressive intellectuals with conservative men on the street. Maybe you sympathize more with progressive social views and views and as such think of them as more utilitarian, but I just don’t see a big thematic difference in thetwo main sects’ proclivity for utilitarianism. Even on very cultural issues like gender norms, conservatives like Suzanne Venker, for example, largely defend ‘traditionalism’ on the grounds that it makes people – especially women – better off, as opposed to simply because it’s tradition.
I think you persist in making the mistake of equating things like rejection of nationalism or tradition with utilitarianism, because you think such positions are utility-increasing. But that’s faulty reasoning. Many a deontologist reaches similar positions despite being the philosophical opposite of a utilitarian. I think you’re incorrect about why people come to reject nationalism or tradition. I’d say you’re like a Catholic missionary who, upon discovering that people in the village in which he lives have taken up reading the Bible, exclaims, “isn’t it nice these people have all discovered Catholicism…” ignoring that they might just as easily have discovered Episcopalianism, Calvinism, or Lutheranism (especially when you know there are other missionaries from each of those sects also around giving out bibles).
Miguel Madeira
May 8 2019 at 6:05am
No, we don’t disagree much; the truth is that even the whole distinction between “natural rights versus utilitarian” is more an internal libertarian fight, and in the left we don’t think much about that (for example, the Rawls goal of maximazing the well-being of the worst individual is utilitarian or natural rights?), but I think we don’t have a particular opposition of being considered “utilitarians”.
kevin
Apr 30 2019 at 6:59pm
The left and right swaps positions every 50 years or so. The typical liberal responds “yes conservatives are being pulled towards progressiveness by inevitable cultural change.” But this can’t be true, because sometimes liberals take the exact same positions as the previous generation’s conservatives. Take campus free speech for example: complete reversal of positions between the left and right in the last 50 years. Or race blindness/quotas, the concept of meritocracy. Russophobia is yet another example (although one rooted mostly in political opportunism). If your current positions are the exact opposite of the ones you held even 10 years ago, you are/were wrong by definition.
Here’s my model: if progressive ideas are proven right, they are counted towards the universe’s “inevitable arc towards moral progress.” If they don’t work, everyone forgets the ideas were ever tried. Due to humanity’s short term memory and hindsight bias, the current status quo either goes down as the villain or is taken for granted. No one remembers that the overwhelming majority of ideas humanity has ever come up with are wrong.
Michael Sandifer
May 1 2019 at 12:01am
This post strikes me as largely correct, except there’s no mention of the ignorant independents who don’t fit neatly into any of these catagories. They don’t vote ideologically, for the most part, and some of them couldn’t even define “ideology”. They are the crowd swayed by bread and circuses.
Mark Z
May 3 2019 at 10:35pm
There aren’t that many actual independents. The vast majority of people, if they were to vote, are pretty much set on which side they’re going to vote for. I think politics is more about getting people who would vote for you to bother to vote than about getting people in the middle – not a large fraction of the electorate – to vote for you instead of the other guy. I also disagree that such independents are more ignorant than committed partisans. Perhaps ignorant in the sense that an agnostic is more ignorant of Christian theology than a Catholic or a protestant, but he might fairly say that that there’s nothing wrong with being ignorant about things one thinks aren’t real. (And I am indeed condescendingly suggesting the major political ideologies are epistemological not too different from religious mythologies)
Nick
May 1 2019 at 1:35am
Dr Sumner,
I agree with your assessment that the real battle is between progressive utilitarians and libertarian utilitarians. That is because only libertarians offer any principled objections to the expansion and sometimes (like I do) the existence of a state. The characteristic feature of the “left” is to define themselves based on how their perceived opponents define themselves not by any honest inquiry into the nature of reality and state of nature.
I do, however, disagree with the diagram of political spectrum (I presume) you presented. The real political spectrum goes from (market) anarchism to a Nozickian “ultraminimal” state to a Friedmanite liberal state to a progressive regulatory state to a centrally planned socialist state to a totalitarian state.
I also disagree with your assessment of utilitarianism as a useful tool to endorse, none barring a deontological natural rights libertarian theory seem to be especially “correct” in the classification of the acceptability of an action, but that’s probably besides the point of the post.
Phil H
May 3 2019 at 11:17am
I think this post is almost all correct! I’m a bit of a leftie, and your description of my position is very accurate.
The only area in which I disagree with this post is that there is such a thing at the Trump phenomenon. He got about 50% of the popular vote, which is the same amount that Republican candidates have got in every American presidential election that I can remember. I just don’t think he’s a major popular event.
The same goes for so-called European populism – it’s just the media’s new spin on something which has been going on for decades.
Mark Z
May 3 2019 at 10:46pm
For once, I agree with you. I think people make too much of the significance of Trump. His victory is consistent with the simple model that, almost regardless of who the candidates are, Democratic-leaning voters vote for the Democratic candidate and Republican-leaning voters vote for the Republican candidate. And after a two term Democratic president, I think whoever the Republican was was more likely to win anyway. And sure there have been right wing electoral successes in Austria and Hungary, but also left wing electoral successes in Greece and Spain. I’m not sure even there it amounts to a ‘global phenomenon’ and not just cyclical politics as usual.
I think the enduring significance of Trump will be somewhat elucidated when we see who succeeds him as the Republican standard-bearer (presumably in 2024). Will it be a ‘Trumpist’, or a more typical Republican. I think the latter is more likely.
Craig
May 6 2019 at 4:38pm
You might like these two posts by John Nerst. He proposes a new political compass.
https://everythingstudies.com/2019/03/01/the-tilted-political-compass-part-1-left-and-right/
https://everythingstudies.com/2019/03/25/the-tilted-political-compass-part-2-up-and-down/
Comments are closed.