Tyler Cowen was recently interviewed by Brian Chau. Tyler was somewhat critical of woke excesses in the US, particularly in universities. Chau was much more critical of wokism.
The most interesting part of the interview came during a period (of roughly 20 minutes) after the 44-minute mark in the podcast. Tyler suggested that many developing countries could use more wokeness, and cited India as an example. Chau seemed somewhat confused by this claim, and pushed back a bit.
My own views are closer to Tyler’s, but I’d like to frame this question in a way that tries to make sense of Chau’s view as well. I’ll use a simple two-dimensional model of politics. You can say it’s wildly simplistic, but in my defense I see lots of people using one-dimensional models (e.g., wokism is good, non-wokism is bad, or vice versa.)
Think about a model where the extreme right represents political regimes where the powerful oppress the disadvantaged and/or minority groups. On the extreme left, the powerful oppress the advantaged. Of course that raises an interesting question—if they are advantaged, how can they be oppressed? One example might be the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where people that came from upper class families were persecuted. (Again, I understand that this model only addresses a few aspects of politics, and leaves much out.)
From this perspective, the “moderate” position between the extreme left and the extreme right is not really moderate at all; it represents a sort of extreme liberation. People are not oppressed by anyone. The following pyramid might make it easier to see my point:
Let’s say we start from a position on the extreme right, where the powerful people repress weaker groups like women, racial minorities, religious minorities, gays, etc. Over time, weaker groups are gradually liberated. At some point this movement gains so much power and prestige that society begins discriminating in favor of the traditionally weaker groups, and begins oppressing the strong (say Protestant, white, heterosexual men.) Now instead of moving up and to the left from Nazism to liberation, society begins moving down and to the left, toward Maoism. (BTW, I’m certainly not suggesting that white males in America are strongly oppressed, but this is the sort of issue that right-wingers worry about.)
Tyler uses India as an example of a place where more wokism is needed. Indeed by 21st century American standards, much of the world is still on the right side of the pyramid. (Africa, South Asia, Russia, the Middle East, etc.) But note that when making this claim, Tyler is implicitly defining wokism along a sort of left-right access. The woke are the people pushing us to the left, toward (what they perceive as) greater help for the disadvantaged. In many countries, that means pushing toward greater liberation.
In the interview, it’s pretty clear that Chau hadn’t given much thought to woke issues in developing countries. He clearly saw the phenomenon from a “freedom-oppression” perspective. He’s implicitly assuming that we are on the left side of the pyramid. Because the most controversial aspects of wokism in America lead to a reduction in freedom, he found it hard to understand how India could possibly benefit from more wokism. On the other hand, even many American conservatives would probably agree that India could benefit from a bit more enlightened attitudes on issues like gender, caste and religion. But perhaps they don’t see that as wokism.
To leftists in the US, more wokism means better treatment of the disadvantaged. To rightists in the US, more wokism means more oppression of non-favored groups. Cowen and Chau both agreed that recent trends in wokism in US universities are doing more harm than good. But when you remove wokism from that specific context, and look at it from a global perspective, one’s perspective depends on whether you see wokism as a left-right issue, or along the freedom-oppression axis.
Tyler’s point is that in India there’s a lot of oppression of women, Muslims, Christians and lower caste people in general, and in that sense India needs more leftism. Here I mean leftism in a social sense, not in terms of economic policy. India’s current (populist right wing) government is making things worse. And (in my favorite part of the interview), Tyler points out that this is a blind spot for American right-wingers when they look around the world:
Maybe completely is too strong a word but look in India there’s plenty of groups I spoke to some people who were involved with them to give women who are raped the chance to bring actual suits against their violators in a way that doesn’t take 20 years or involve extreme humiliation. Make them unacceptable on the marriage market and so on and I don’t doubt the motives of those people are mixed. There’s a lot of hypocrisy and (???) reasoning might apply. It just seems to me those are largely highly beneficial movements and I’m rooting for them to succeed and I view that as a pretty big and essential part of the emancipatory perspective of libertarianism and classical liberalism and I don’t quite get why what you might call the North American right isn’t just fully on board with that as part of a belief in human liberty.
Chau responded “I don’t think they aren’t.” And yet I see the same thing as Tyler when I read many right wing pundits.
All of this has echoes of a period that I recall from my youth. Broadly speaking, socialism was the major global political movement of the mid-20th century, just as right wing authoritarian nationalism is the major political movement of the 21st century. In the post-war decades, most American progressives thought the communists went too far, just as today most American conservatives presumably think that people like Putin, Xi, Orban, Modi, Bolsonaro and Erdogan are too authoritarian. At the same time, while America progressives were not communist, they were not sufficiently anti-communist. Similarly, I now see American conservatives intrigued by extreme right wing foreign leaders who parrot “anti-woke” rhetoric. Believe me, the major problem on this planet is not that “me too” has gone too far. It’s not that gay rights have gone too far.
Right wingers used to call progressives “communist.” A more accurate charge was “soft on communism.” That was a real thing when I was young. Today I see right-wingers who are soft on misogynist authoritarian nationalism.
PS. I’m aware that India has lots of affirmative action. As I said, politics is complicated. It’s quite possible for some aspects of a society to be on the right side of the pyramid while other aspects of the same society are on the left side. Nonetheless, India is mostly on the right side.
PPS. Oddly, the American right is much tougher on Xi Jinping than it is on other right-wing authoritarian leaders, even though Xi is most definitely a right-wing authoritarian. Today’s China is clearly fascist, and the continued use of the term “Chinese Communist Party” is just a fig leaf to cover up that embarrassing fact.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew_FL
Sep 6 2022 at 3:36pm
One could say your simple model of politics is not disimilar to Ronald Reagan’s
Regarding Xi, although I think it is meaningless hairsplitting to argue whether he is “really” communist or “really” left wing, if you’re going to cherry pick the pro Putin right, you might as well cherry pick the pro China right, as well. The major Integralist thought leaders are all pro China, and even Trump, though he positions them as an adversary of the US, always speaks the CCP regime as “smart” and implicitly, good leaders for Chinese interests.
Scott Sumner
Sep 7 2022 at 3:42pm
Good comment. Here’s what I’d say about communism. There are differing definitions, but in all that I am aware of there is little of no private enterprise. The private sector in China is huge and there are hundreds of billionaires. There’s no plausible definition of communism that matches China.
Christophe Biocca
Sep 6 2022 at 3:51pm
If you want a concrete example of “Wokism” in action outside high income countries, you can look at the new 400-page Chilean constitution that just got rejected by voters. Unfortunately I cannot find an English translation (you can find the spanish original here) but it has had a lot of news coverage in the lead up to the vote.
A few features include:
A mandate of >=50% women in the legislature (and a similar proportional-reserved amount for indigenous groups).
A requirement for the government to run public education (including digital education), healthcare, welfare, a “National Bioethics Council”, and a “Defender of Nature” (and institution not a person).
A requirement that the state provide an “environmental education”, which among other things should allow the student to “form an ecological conscience”.
A duty of the state to promote the production of food that is healthy, fair trade, and ecologically responsible.
“Everyone has the right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate in private and public places without prior permission.”
Bill
Sep 9 2022 at 12:04pm
Do you think it is good or bad? To me the last seems good, the rest bad.
Bill
Sep 9 2022 at 12:05pm
Or does “private places” mean you could assemble and demonstrate on other people’s property without permission?
Mark Z
Sep 6 2022 at 4:05pm
A critic of ‘wokeness’ would reject the framework you lay out. Stated can either A) aspire toward neutral, abstract principles like freedom and equality of individuals before the law irrespective of various traits, or B) take upon themselves the role of allocating resources and retribution to various groups in a collectivist fashion. The latter is the ‘woke’ route. While it may circumstantially resemble the individualist route in some cases, it sets society on a suboptimal course toward collectivist identity politics that makes liberal individualism impossible.
So an anti-woke person would likely see it as rather odd to say, “India could use more wokeness” like saying elite American universities could use more white supremacy to combat affirmative action. While it’s true at the margin that white supremacists would fight affirmative action alongside liberal individualists, typically one considers the ultimate goals of an ideology when deciding whether to endorse it rather than merely its effects at the margin.
Mark Z
Sep 6 2022 at 4:07pm
*’States can either…’ not ‘stated.’
Scott Sumner
Sep 6 2022 at 5:29pm
“A critic of ‘wokeness’ would reject the framework you lay out.”
Not necessarily. I’m a critic of wokeness and I embrace my framework. Tyler Cowen is another example. I could probably find many others.
JFA
Sep 6 2022 at 5:11pm
yeah… I think Mark Z is closer to correct than Scott or Tyler. Wokism, as I understand it, is solely focused on power differentials between groups within society with no overarching ethic other than to get as much power for whichever group is “marginalized”, not on increasing people’s freedom. Supporting this point of view might move the needle on a couple of things that you might see as beneficial, but it seems like a terrible recipe for sustaining progress. Given the carve outs for various quotas for different castes in India, it seems they already have some aspects of wokism, anyway. I doubt that the literal privileges (rather than the made up ones people seem obligated to acknowledge these days) given to groups (based on the woke worldview) endears a positive sum outlook that is conducive to cooperation.
Instead of saying India would benefit from more wokism, why not just say they would benefit from more liberalism? Saying the former when you really want the latter seems… odd… and seems geared towards being provocative above anything else.
David Henderson
Sep 6 2022 at 5:21pm
Well said, JFA.
Scott Sumner
Sep 6 2022 at 5:57pm
JFA, You’ve missed the point. You can define wokeness as “all the bad things that woke people believe”, but woke people don’t see themselves that way. Sure, the woke also believe lots of counterproductive things, and in the US they may well have become a net negative. I’m a big critic of the woke in the US. But you haven’t addressed Tyler’s point about India. In India, the woke left is advocating that women, Muslims and lower caste people get treated better. The anti-woke right is often opposed to those changes.
Was the US civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s anti-liberty? They did reduce the ability of merchants to discriminate. But how about the net overall effect of the civil rights movement?
Is advocacy of gay marriage woke? Is the “me too” movement woke? Or is woke nothing more than cancel culture and reverse discrimination?
Here’s what I like best about Tyler’s comment. In the US context, I’m just as anti-woke as the next guy. But I also see lots of people on the right praising foreign leaders who use anti-woke rhetoric to implement despicable public policies. That makes me want to disassociate myself from both the left and the right.
Even the Libertarian Party has become a lost cause.
Mark Z
Sep 6 2022 at 6:23pm
Tyler Cowen likes to say, ‘solve for the equilibrium.’ Movements or ideologies aren’t just pushing a meter up or down along a one-dimensional axis; they’re belief systems with specific tenets that lead them inexorably toward specific endpoints when they finally win. That oversimplification is fatal to your model. In the early 20th century, in your model, the status quo in Russia was decidedly to the right. The Bolsheviks were advocating for the workers, the peasants, and the minorities. By your logic, it could as easily be said that Russia needed more Bolshevism. But you don’t have to be a Bolshevik to oppose aristocratic privileges and Tsarist repression. Whether you oppose the Tsarist regime as a liberal or oppose him as Bolshevik may not seem to make much difference in 1900 when you have a common enemy and you’re opposing the same repressions, but it makes a lot of difference what happens after 1917.
A
Sep 6 2022 at 8:08pm
Movements are rarely simple enough to be defined by leaders (in real time at least; post-victory hagiographies aside). BLM was founded by Marxist extremists, yet the ground level movement represented a gestalt.
Tyler
Sep 6 2022 at 8:09pm
Excellent points from you and from JFA. Viewpoints, and policies, need to be judged by what they actually do, not what they state that they are for. It is pricesely because I am concerned for my son’s friends who attend the inner-city schools and come from less advanted backgrounds that I oppose wokeness.
Scott Sumner
Sep 6 2022 at 10:51pm
Not a good analogy. In 1917, Russia needed more capitalism. Communism did not push them in that direction.
JFA
Sep 7 2022 at 9:05am
Scott, I think you are getting a bit lost. Marc Z’s analogy to Russia is apt. At the time, it seemed to the Russian people that what was needed was less Tsarism (yes I know that’s not a term). The Bolsheviks were offering this. Now let’s extend the analogy just a little. Maybe there were some Western academic writers with some public reach who generally supported capitalism but didn’t know there were internal supporters of capitalism and saw that while Bolshevism would be bad in the American context, maybe what Russia needed was more Bolshevism because on net Bolshevism might be better than Tsarism because the Bolsheviks seem to have a couple of good policies (like getting rid of the Tsar), so those Western academics go around saying how wonderful Bolshevism would be for Russia, when they could have just said that Russia needs less Tsarism and the way to do that is with more capitalism.
Mark Z
Sep 7 2022 at 3:47pm
Um, you are aware what the ‘woke’ take on capitalism is, right?
Scott Sumner
Sep 7 2022 at 3:49pm
JFA, Tyler is saying that some of the things being advocated by the global woke are good things. Gay marriage is an obvious case. The Lenin made Russia worse off in terms of both economic policy AND human rights.
The fact that in 1917 there might have been some people that were completely deluded about Russia proves precisely nothing about Tyler’s argument.
If you are saying that maybe the woke will eventually go too far in developing countries, I’d agree. Indeed in a few areas they’ve already gone too far.
JFA
Sep 7 2022 at 5:46pm
“Lenin made Russia worse off in terms of both economic policy AND human rights.”
But you are analyzing Russia from an ex post position while you are commenting on India and wokism from an ex ante perspective. Instead, view Bolshevism from an ex ante perspective and it sounds awfully similar to your support of woke in India.
Also, as Tyler noted in the interview, developing countries often try to imitate successful western countries. They did it with lockdowns. Do we really want to have them imitate woke ideology? I think not.
Scott Sumner
Sep 8 2022 at 1:12pm
“Also, as Tyler noted in the interview, developing countries often try to imitate successful western countries. They did it with lockdowns. Do we really want to have them imitate woke ideology?”
Heck yes! Do you have any idea how much an improvement places like San Francisco would be over most of the developing world (in attitudes to the disadvantaged?) Do we want more rights for women? Yes. Do we want gay rights? Yes. Do we want less oppression of minorities? Yes.
As for your other point, you seem to be saying that since ex ante I might have been wrong about case A, then ex ante I might be wrong about case B. How can I argue with that logic?
JFA
Sep 6 2022 at 8:51pm
“You can define wokeness as “all the bad things that woke people believe”, but woke people don’t see themselves that way.”
1) I could define wokeness that way, but that would be inaccurate, which is why I didn’t define it that way. I have provided a definition of wokeness that fits and that many woke activists would claim (more or less) as their overriding philosophy. If you have another definition that distinguishes “wokeness”, by all means, please share (perhaps with a little less condescension).
2) Even if they don’t see themselves that way (or can’t articulate it), seeing the world purely through the lens of power differentials between groups is the animating philosophy (a la critical theory). The woke will also typically engage in what Glenn Loury has called a disparity mindset (in which any disparity in outcome is de facto evidence of discrimination) rather than a development mindset, which I interpret as more pro-liberty, though I don’t know if Loury would parse it that way.
Your point about India is odd. Wokeness is inherently anti-liberal (per my definition… again please provide one that distinguishes wokeness from other frameworks if you disagree with my definition). If the woke Left in India has a good policy prescription, you can praise the policy without praising the animating philosophy. I think the thing you and Tyler focus on are the policies rather than the animating philosophy. When you have a philosophy that splits people into groups so that privileges can be doled out to those groups, a bad equilibrium is more likely.
On to your other points:
– “Was the US civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s anti-liberty?” In some sense yes. I think a lot of progress could have been made had the *government* been less discriminatory. This was noted by civil rights leaders. Forcing businesses to hire people they don’t want to is anti-liberty, no? It’s not the worst thing the government did, but it was anti-liberty nonetheless. The net overall effect seems to have been positive, but I wonder if it had been more focused on non-discrimination from the government side what the consequences would have been. I have read many essays bemoaning the demise of black-owned businesses after forced integration allowed more black consumers to patronize white businesses. That’s good for consumers, but bad for businesses (and maybe wealth accumulation). So it’s complicated. I think a clearer example of “woke” civil rights has been South Africa. That hasn’t been a rousing success.
– “Is advocacy of gay marriage woke? Is the “me too” movement woke?” I don’t see anything inherently woke about those as far as they go. The government shouldn’t be in the business of saying who can be married to whom. Regarding “me too”, it’s good that the cases relating to actual assault and harassment and other bad behavior have been called out and brought to the public’s attention. But there is a strain of wokeness in “me too” that seeks to bring the mob for any slight or regret a woman might have in an interaction with a man. This, again, is animated by perceived (actual or not) power differentials.
– “Or is woke nothing more than cancel culture and reverse discrimination?” No, I wouldn’t describe it that way (though that is something the woke engage in) since the right also engages in plenty of cancel culture stuff.
– “But I also see lots of people on the right praising foreign leaders who use anti-woke rhetoric to implement despicable public policies.” Seems a strange reason to encourage wokeness in foreign countries.
Again, I’ll reiterate that you and Tyler are focusing too much on the specific policies. You don’t have to be pro-woke in order to disagree with the anti-liberal right. You can praise a particular policy while also reiterating that you agree with it because of the pro-liberty aspects, not because it’s woke.
One thing I want to ask is what about the American context makes you anti-woke? And why would it be good to have that in other countries?
Scott Sumner
Sep 6 2022 at 10:59pm
“The net overall effect seems to have been positive, but I wonder . . . ”
That’s exactly my point about India.
“Is advocacy of gay marriage woke? Is the “me too” movement woke?” I don’t see anything inherently woke about those as far as they go.”
This seems very ahistorical. Yes, these ideas are even accepted by many conservatives today. But that wasn’t true when the woke people first start pushing these ideas. And that’s still not true in most of the world, where the woke favor these ideas and the conservatives oppose them.
JFA
Sep 7 2022 at 8:16am
I understand your point about India. I guess I’m not sure why you don’t understand my point. You are saying the net benefit would be positive if India were more woke, so you support woke in India. I’m saying that you don’t have to support “woke” in order to agree with certain policies. I’m saying that India would be better off with more liberalism and respect for individual freedoms relative to woke. (Though, since I don’t know much about what’s going on in India, I wonder if you and Tyler are actually describing things accurately as “woke” since you haven’t provided a working definition).
Regarding gay marriage: you are again conflating policy with animating philosophy. Being in favor of gay marriage doesn’t make you woke, just like being against the slave trade didn’t make Wilberforce woke or supporting women’s rights didn’t make JS Mill woke. (Also, “woke” didn’t really come into current parlance until recently and was addressed at identifying racism)
Here’s a question: let’s say you have 2 people who want to improve the plight of black people in America (note: a woke person would be upset that I didn’t capitalize “black”) by focusing on education. Person 1 thinks there should be quotas at selective high schools, that all test score disparity is due to teacher racism so they propose struggle sessions in order for teachers to confront their own white supremacy and racist views, that gifted programs should be closed because of disparities in enrollment, and that black children have different ways of knowing so they should not be evaluated through tests.
Person 2 supports more resources being put into the school system to be used to expand the number of selective schools and the number of teachers in low performing schools, giving parenting classes to families, and allowing school choice through charter schools.
Now these two people both recognize that there are issues with education among black Americans, but I (and just about everyone familiar with the term) would only consider one of these people woke.
To get clarity can you provide similar examples for India or a working definition of wine?
JFA
Sep 7 2022 at 9:54am
“woke” not “wine”… dang autocorrect.
Mark Z
Sep 7 2022 at 3:44pm
I would say your view is a bit ahistorical: ‘wokeness’ is a fairly recent thing; the term itself wasn’t widely used until what, 10 years ago at most? Gay rights like marriage were achieved by the time any of us had ever heard of that word. Many people even on the left who supported e.g. gay marriage in the 2000s are today anti-woke because they see it as a deviation from their ideology. Giving this ideology credit for such things is like giving the black panthers credit for the Civil Rights Act.
Scott Sumner
Sep 7 2022 at 3:59pm
JFA, You said:
“You are saying the net benefit would be positive if India were more woke, so you support woke in India.”
India would be better off if it were more woke. It would be even more better off if it were more classically liberal. Hence I support classical liberalism in India, not wokism.
But when judging the lesser of evils between the woke and the Hindu nationalists, it’s not even close.
bb
Sep 8 2022 at 10:48am
JFA,
That’s a straw man. Woke is not a new term. It’s been around for decades. In the last ten years its gained greater use and been expanded to include other marginalized groups. And the definition of woke is simply being aware of and taking an active interest in the injustices impacting marginalized groups. It’s not a tactic. There is a significant contingent on the left that has adopted tactics that are illiberal and deserve criticism. However, there is nothing inherently illiberal about being woke. India is rampant with social and civil injustices and would absolutely benefit from more wokeness.
Bill
Sep 9 2022 at 12:24pm
Can you provide some evidence? I was not aware of the word until maybe the last 5 years. Now it’s everywhere. Certainly you can’t say it was in common use decades ago.
“While there is no single agreed-upon definition of woke, it came to be largely associated with ideas that involve identity and race and which are promoted by progressives, such as the notion of white privilege or slavery reparations for African Americans.[27] Vox‘s Aja Romano writes that woke evolved into a “single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and critical race theory“.”
Whitehall
Sep 7 2022 at 5:10am
What a parochial view!
Having lived in three different countries (not USA) over the last 8 years, what I see is so often is some of the local elites adopting or promoting Western Woke-ism in their own countries.
We’re exporting our worst, most inappropriate fads. Bring back the cultural hegemony of Hula Hoops!
These silly policies are often so tone deaf and out of sync with the facts of their local society. For example, why should the major oil exporter the UAE publicly support “Net Zero?” It would be taking a vow of poverty for the society. The South Koreans embrace free abortion and birth control and women in the work place when their population is crashing. One hears similar silliness from the elites in Manila although it seldom trickles down to the provincials.
The key feature of Woke-ism is a denial, even refutation, of reality. It is suicidal to every human endeavor other than extinction.
Michael Rulle
Sep 7 2022 at 7:21am
In America at least, I am not entirely sure what “woke” or wokeism” is. I perceive the term began as a satirical critique of certain beliefs of the left by the right.
Then again, lots of terms are used that are not truly clear—-as most sit within a continuum of extreme to less extreme.
If I understand Scott correctly, I agree that Freedom combined with Rights is what we should strive toward. But, freedom and Rights can have “internal contradictions”. We should not be to Free to murder for example. We should not have the Right to manufacture false claims against another.
Simple example. Should one be free to oppose homosexuality? Yes. Should one be free to not hire homosexuals? No. Why? I cannot right a a cannon on this in a blog. I think the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution contains a lot of the reasons. A nation or a people have to agree on basic principles. The two documents above state those principles. We even can change those principles.
Let’s say I think Biden is obviously completely unqualified to be President. So what? He was elected (I will not discuss the voting process that got him elected—frankly, at this point it does not matter—-although we definitely do not agree as a nation on the proper voting process).
If we cannot agree on basic principles, we inevitably risk moving toward anarchy. To repeat, we have basic principles that can incorporate virtually all opinions and beliefs—-but not all. We should care much more about basic principles that underlay our rights to have certain opinions and beliefs without punishment.
My perception is we are moving away from that—-although we are surprisingly better off than the “Twitter world” thinks.
David Henderson
Sep 7 2022 at 4:06pm
You write:
My answer is yes.
Michael Rulle
Sep 8 2022 at 8:10am
Might you put conditions on your yes? For example, a person should not proselytize. How about height when it is unrelated to job performance? Or 10000 other examples. I am sure your answer is always yes. I admit my own view is not obvious even to me. Perhaps I believe such a choice on “yes” has unintended consequences that creates worse outcomes.
bb
Sep 8 2022 at 10:51am
Please expand on this view. Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
TMC
Sep 8 2022 at 2:51pm
I’d guess freedom of association, not that he’d personally feel that way.
Kevin Erdmann
Sep 9 2022 at 6:47pm
One way to think about this is to start with the observation that these sorts of laws aren’t enacted based on what is fair or unfair as much as they are enacted based on who we feel justified in coercing versus who we don’t. In most facets of your life, you are free to discriminate in even unfair ways. Who you work for. Who you purchase goods and services from. Who you associate with or have romantic or familial relationships with. Which children you favor with your estate. The list goes on and on and on.
So, I think it is a helpful question to start with to ask yourself, “Why do I accept legal forms of discrimination in all of those areas?” Then, when thinking about David’s position, it will be clear that “Is it fair or reasonable?” doesn’t get you very far toward an answer, and the answer will necessarily be more subtle than what we might first imagine.
Spencer Bradley Hall
Sep 7 2022 at 10:33am
Wokism is just another name for the GINI coefficient.
Monte
Sep 7 2022 at 2:00pm
The GINI coefficient is simply a metric. Wokeism is an ideology that is based on communism.
Thomas Strenge
Sep 7 2022 at 2:28pm
Wokism is Marxism and should be rejected wherever and whenever it is found. Instead, focus on classical liberal concepts like negative rights and individuals.
Scott Sumner
Sep 7 2022 at 5:18pm
Everyone, A few observations:
While the term “woke” is new, people have been advocating for the rights of the disadvantaged for a long period of time. The concept is not new. On the other hand, some of the specific excesses of the woke are relatively new. But don’t conflate “excesses of woke” with “woke”. It’s like when leftists use “neoliberalism” as a pejorative, because they don’t like a few specific aspects of economic policies in capitalist countries.
I wonder how many people are aware that politicians in many countries are now using anti-woke rhetoric to advocate truly repressive policies. And I wonder how many people are aware of how often conservative US leaders defend those despicable authoritarian leaders.
The Libertarian Party has been taken over by anti-woke trolls that are moving the party in a dangerous direction.
If you say “we all agree that X is bad, but this has nothing to do with being woke”, you need to consider that the claim “X is bad” was once highly controversial, and pushed by the people now regarded as woke. And in much of the world “X is bad” is still highly controversial.
It’s too simple to say that woke is bad and anti-woke is good, even though I agree with many of the specific criticisms that conservatives have made of the woke movement in America.
JFA
Sep 7 2022 at 5:41pm
I think you are working from a strange definition of woke (“advocating for the rights of the disadvantaged”). This is why you are getting so much push back in the comments. No one is conflating the excesses of woke with woke, as they are two sides of the same coin. As I said above, I would not consider JS Mill woke because he advocated for women’s rights. I would consider him a classical liberal. I also wouldn’t consider Frederick Douglas woke because in many things, he was classically liberal. Woke is not just advocating for the rights of the disadvantaged. It is a view of society that is built primarily on viewing social relations from the perspective of power differentials. As I wrote above in the hypothetical about 2 people concerned about the plight of education of black Americans, you can advocate for the rights of the disadvantaged in a woke way or in a non-woke way. Your definition does not distinguish the two.
From one of your comments above: “India would be better off if it were more woke. It would be even more better off if it were more classically liberal. Hence I support classical liberalism in India, not wokism.But when judging the lesser of evils between the woke and the Hindu nationalists, it’s not even close.”
The why not just say that while the policies being advocated by the left might bring about better results than Hindu nationalist policies, it would be better if Indian policy makers took a more classically liberal approach. Instead, you agreed with Tyler’s take that India needs more wokism. It doesn’t need to be more woke. It needs to be more liberal. It’s not that hard of a distinction to make.
Scott Sumner
Sep 8 2022 at 1:23pm
“I think you are working from a strange definition of woke (“advocating for the rights of the disadvantaged”).”
Strange? That’s pretty much how they define themselves. It’s also the definition Tyler used.
“Woke is not just advocating for the rights of the disadvantaged. It is a view of society that is built primarily on viewing social relations from the perspective of power differentials.”
“Not just”? So it is in part? Do they advocate for the rights of the disadvantaged, or not? To say they do, but that they also go too far in their approach, is to agree with Tyler and me.
“The why not just say that while the policies being advocated by the left might bring about better results than Hindu nationalist policies, it would be better if Indian policy makers took a more classically liberal approach. Instead, you agreed with Tyler’s take that India needs more wokism. It doesn’t need to be more woke. It needs to be more liberal. It’s not that hard of a distinction to make.”
Now you are just playing word games. You know full well that both Tyler and I prefer classical liberalism over left wing woke.
To turn it in the opposite direction, imagine a right winger being accused of being an “authoritarian” because they argued that San Francisco could use a bit more aggressive policing. Saying a bit more of X would help at the margin doesn’t mean you adopt the extreme X position.
JFA
Sep 8 2022 at 3:08pm
Scott, I am really having trouble believing that you are arguing in good faith, but I’ll keep going.
“That’s pretty much how they define themselves.” I don’t think that’s how they define themselves. That may be a part of how they see themselves (which I have not denied). But that does not seem to be a distinguishing characteristic. I would not lump BLM leaders in with JS Mill as having the same worldview, though they all seem to see themselves as advocating for the rights of the disadvantaged or marginalized. There are plenty of conservative Christian groups who see themselves as helping the disadvantaged, but I would not consider them woke. No doubt Mao saw himself as helping the disadvantaged.
This is why I asked for a definition that actually distinguishes woke and wokism. If you want say that politicians in India should care more about the marginalized and not be racist or misogynistic and not stir crowds to attack minorities… well… I think most people would agree with you, but I really don’t think that most people would consider that woke (as the term is used today). So (given that most people in the comments seem to not share your definition of woke) it might be you that is “just playing word games.”
“To turn it in the opposite direction, imagine a right winger being accused of being an “authoritarian” because they argued that San Francisco could use a bit more aggressive policing. Saying a bit more of X would help at the margin doesn’t mean you adopt the extreme X position.”
Well… I wouldn’t consider someone as authoritarian just for calling for more policing… I would take all the other things they do and support to determine whether it was in fact a policy they favored due to their support for authoritarianism… and I would certainly NOT trust anyone who said “maybe we just need a little more authoritarianism to solve this problem”… I hope to God no one else would either because it shows the person either doesn’t understand what authoritarianism is or that they support authoritarianism.
“You know full well that both Tyler and I prefer classical liberalism over left wing woke.”
Most of your writings would suggest that you prefer classical liberalism over left wing woke… but when someone promotes left wing woke (without mentioning classical liberalism) as a preferred policy alternative for a foreign country… well, it took you quite a few comments to clarify the issue… at the very least (as evidenced by the comments), your view wasn’t all that clear.
Alex S.
Sep 7 2022 at 6:28pm
If wonder if this post had been written in the 1960s would MLK be categorized as “woke”? By today’s standards probably not. But I ponder how often I see positions on wokeness vary by generation as I believe you’ve written about in similar contexts. Millennials and younger tend toward wokeness whereas Baby Boomers tend to be unwokeness. Yet Baby Boomers we’re considered a pretty left wing by their parents generation. Is this really just about intergenerational conflict? I wonder about those divides in developing countries as well. I surmise the younger generations are relatively more woke.
Scott Sumner
Sep 8 2022 at 1:26pm
On many social issues, society moves to the left over time. Thus each generation is woke relative to the previous one. (Not always, but that’s been the recent trend in rights for minorities.)
Mark Z
Sep 8 2022 at 8:11pm
I’m don’t think I’ve ever come cross an anti-woke person who opposes rights for minorities, in which case by your rather broad definition of the word everyone in America today is woke, including self-identified anti-woke people, and this whole conversation becomes meaningless.
TGGP
Sep 8 2022 at 7:46pm
Matthew Yglesias repeatedly cites MLK on why it’s better to focus on class interests in order to argue against the woke today (MLK was of course associated with some communists and expressed sympathy for that view of economics).
bb
Sep 8 2022 at 10:29am
Scott,
This is very smart. The idea that Mao and Hitler were at opposite end of a spectrum on which we sit somewhere in between is absurd. I think an interesting question is what is the shape of the curve. I’m skeptical that it would be an inverted V. I suspect it would be inverted U shaped. And there may be a few troughs along the non-authoritarian section of the curve.
I does make sense in that the middle of the curve represents compromises in most cases, and the tails of the curve inherently can’t be achieved without a minority imposing preferences on the majority.
TMC
Sep 8 2022 at 2:57pm
“The idea that Mao and Hitler were at opposite end of a spectrum on which we sit somewhere in between is absurd. ”
Agreed. The leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party is not going to be right winged. This even fits with Scott’s definition where they targeted the ‘elite’ Jews for making too much money being shop keepers and bankers.
Also, the same with the leader of a communist party. It’s acts more like a dictatorship now, but that doesn’t make it any more left winged.
TGGP
Sep 8 2022 at 8:06pm
I expressed something a little like your view of India over a decade ago, but your POV still seems alien. Because that was about pre-colonial India, and after independence India was led by the Soviet-aligned secular left INC who imposed a “license Raj”, and the country improved when their politics shifted to the right. I read Alice Evans on how female laborforce participation hasn’t increased as much as China for various cultural reasons, but overall what happened still seems to be a clear improvement. And speaking of China, it’s not “clearly fascist”, it’s run by the Communist Party and Xi is reversing post-Mao changes on the basis of his communist ideology. Xi has not exalted violence as a positive good (what wars is China starting?), nor has the government adopted an ethno-nationalism fit for a smaller European nation-state rather than for the heir to a multi-ethnic empire. I would say it’s clearly not fascist, but since both of us completely disagree how clear can such categorization be!?
I was also surprised you included Africa in the “right side of the pyramid”, perhaps related to the fact that I had recently read this on South Africa, run by another post-colonial leftist party (one with more explicitly Marxist roots). Perhaps if Africa was still being run by Europeans & indigenous monarchs you might complain it was right-wing, but it’s explicit leftists that took power in most places (and generally governed badly). Citing Alice Evans again, female labor force participation has long been high there relative to their economic development. Africa isn’t India.
Floccina
Sep 9 2022 at 4:31pm
I think movements like Woke often overshoot there target. They start in the right direction but when the goal is achieved they keep going until they are doing more harm than good.
andy
Sep 12 2022 at 9:22am
I don’t know. The socialists/communists in 19th/20th century were in general pushing equality of women. Did the world need more socialism?The apartheid in South Africa was anti-black racism. From some occasional news I understand they decided they needed some anti-white racism instead…. did they really need that?
Comments are closed.