What's happened to liberalism -- such that populism has emerged as an appealing option?
In one sense, the problem is simple: CARE DOESN'T SCALE. But then again, as my mother told me long ago, the world is only getting more crowded: we might as well get used to it.
Pluralism? In the (quintessentially liberal) American Experiment, "self-determination" is construed as inherently an individual right. Within the resulting polity there's room for sub-national group interests (including ethnicity, as well as the panopoly of voluntary associations observed by Tocqueville) -- but these exist as social phenomena in the private sphere.
Instead, we're expected to sign "DEI" oaths.
Long ago, Schumpeter observed that capitalism would devolve into managerialism -- and we're seeing a parallel process as government-by-the-people devolves into the Administrative or Therapeutic State.
In an essay on "Moral Clarity," Masha Gessen derides those who believe that "The story of the United States [can best be] told primarily as one of a nation of immigrants, the story of a society that, over time, enfranchised an ever great number of its members, and where the arc of history has bent toward justice" -- proclaiming that "Donald Trump has dislodged the story of this country as a nation of immigrants on an inexorable path toward justice and equality, guaranteed by a commitment to individual liberties."
Gessen is dreadfully off-base! This model hasn't been permanently dislodged; in fact, it applies to Latino and Asian immigrants (as, not that long ago, it applied [respectively] to Italians and Jews). (So much for the "People of Color" trope! So much for "whiteness"!)
As for (legal vs illegal) immigration itself?
I'm disappointed that -- after delivering a strong State of the Union speech -- Joe Biden felt obliged to backpedal on his use of the word "illegal." Laken Riley's killer was in this country illegally. "Undocumented"? It wasn't as if he'd merely forgotten to fill out some paperwork! This could have been Biden's "Sister Souljah" moment, and in the end, he blew it -- demonstrating, yet again, how readily he gets pushed around by the wokesters.
While some obsess on "the deadly January 6 insurrection," I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown from my very own window, at my very doorstep, during the Summer of Floyd -- leaving many mom-and-pop storefronts permanently boarded up. In contrast, January 6, as seen on TV, ultimately proved to be the end of American democracy no more than the Yippies' antics at the Stock Exchange were the death knell of capitalism. So much for "the Rule of Law."
It's really about agency. I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never felt prompted to mug a Chinese grandma (nor to live in an encampment). (There's always someplace else to go, another way to approach life: so much for "root causes"!) The streets are strewn with garbage, broken glass and potholes, but we're told that the true enemy is "traffic violence" (i.e., people with cars)...
And when an intruder (cast as a "migrant") dies while trying to scale a fence, we're supposed to blame the fence?
So don't go into the barrio touting the pseudo-word "Latinx." And -- as one who's fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing “Queer" about same-sex attraction -- don't come around calling me "Queer" (amid endless tirades on the need for "gender affirming" [i.e., sex-denying] "care"). I'm attracted to other guys; I've never hidden that fact, and as a unique individual, I'm proud (as my parents raised me) simply to be myself. I never signed on to "smash cisheteropatriarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.
Much of the problem arises with the contempt for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie that the oligarchs share with the left. "Our most vulnerable" are used as a scourge on the aspirations of an ever-shrinking, beleaguered middle class. We're held to be in "complicity," beholden to the would-be arbiters of the Oppression Olympics.
And so -- as we're encouraged to pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege" -- the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank.
If that's what's become of liberalism, we're in deeper trouble than the author of this article seems to realize. Instead, we get his own conspiracy theories. In lieu of inspiration, we get fear.
Mistaking their subjective opinions about reality for objective facts about reality.
This is by far the simplest one, and "doesn't count" of course (because it is a cultural norm, one that is quite strongly enforced), but it is still true.
I mean come on, look at all the hyperbole, rhetoric, half true memes, etc in this article. It's a fantastic persuasion piece don't get me wrong, but it does not reveal that that is the goal....which seems "inappropriate" to me (a subjective opinion, to be clear).
Of course, this exceeds the Overton Window level of acceptable rationality, so it "doesn't count"....so, feel free to declare victory, I will not even oppose you!
See my point #6. It poses challenges to Nils, who writes, "Populism is the opposite of classical liberalism."
Are Milei and Rand Paul classical liberal? If not, why not? Are they populist? If Milei is a populist classical liberal, then is Nils statement quoted above shattered?
Is Biden classical liberal? If the answer is no, does that make him a populist, based on Nils's statement quoted above?
On Milei the jury is out. Being a believer in Austrian economics doesn't make one immediately a classical liberal. It also requires believing in liberal institutions to constraint the state (proceduralism, checks and balances, separation of powers) and liberal values (pluralism, toleration, diversity). He is pushing a truly draconian anti-abortion bill that will criminalize abortion and require a massive expansion of the police state. Rand Paul, in my book, ceased being any kind of classical liberal when he signed up for the libertarian version of Trump's MAGAism. (Neither is his dad, btw). Separately, we've been discussing the meaning of populism a lot on this site. You can listen to my podcast with ARP exploring the term and its meaning and some of my pieces.
“Instead, cultural factors relating to identity need to be considered. Humans may also have a latent authoritarian predisposition: our minds are psychologically designed for populist tribalism “
I once read a theory that hints at this
You know how people say things like ‘all Chinese/Indians/Africans look the same to me “ well people of other races also say the same thing about white people and there is an evolutionary theory about why this is
Back when we were in our tribal groups, to navigate the complex social dynamics of our tribe we needed to specifically know who each person in the tribe was, so had to be able to see the differences, but when another tribe was encountered we didn’t need to know who the individuals were, they were just the ‘other’ tribe, so in evolutionary terms we didn’t need to see the individual differences they were just ‘not us’ and the individual differences didn’t matter, so in some real way people of other races do in a sense really do ‘look all the same to us’
Thankfully though it’s the 21st century and we don’t need to be governed by these millennia old instincts and migration and demographic change these people are now in ‘our tribe’ so we can grow beyond our early ape tribe brains
Some pretty impressive false balance here. You illustrate the story with pictures of three right wingers, for the obvious reason that using the pictures of leftwing opponents of privatisation and deregulation (Bernie Sanders?, Jagmeet Singh?) would be laughable. The claim that public ownership and regulation would lead to dictatorship was made by Hayek in Road to Serfdom and proved comprehensively wrong by history.
The elephant in the room here is the fact that "classical liberals" have repeatedly allied themselves with both traditional authoritarians (Pinochet) and populist demagogues (Trump). That's the problem that needs analysis.
The problem starts with Hayek who gave priority to "freedom of action" (that is, free markets) over freedom of thought and speech.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “false balance” here, but one mistake is in assuming that if there are both left- and right-wing versions of a particular posture—as with populism—it follows that they are equally problematic or worrisome. The author’s view, and my own, is that while left-wing populism exists and is bad and is worth calling out, right-wing populism is by far the greater threat to the ongoing viability of liberal democracy around the world.
I agree with you, but I don't get this message at all from the article. As I read it, every mention of rightwing populism was matched by a symmetrical (but necessarily vague) mention of the left.
The claim "Left-wing and right-wing populists may even form a symbiotic relationship in this process, each promoting the polarization of society in a self-enforcing process" echoes the "look what you made me do" rhetoric of formerly mainstream rightists who've capitulated to Trumpism, or, more plausibly, now feel free to reveal themselves as the racists they always were.
Purported leftists have made their own deals with the devil -- as noted by (among others) Adolph Reed -- and there too, one of the casualties is freedom of thought and speech.
Marxists have, obviously. But I’d be interested in examples of social democratic opponents of privatisation etc as described in the OP. Don’t know anything about Reed
Reed is a Black Marxist who takes umbrage at the "woke" brand of identity politics, recognizing it as a deflection from the predations of corporate oligarchy. For that, he's been cancelled by the wokesters! (See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/adolph-reed-controversy.html )
FWIW, I consider myself a social democrat on economics (albeit with much residual affection for the petit-bourgeoisie), and somewhere between a libertarian and a classical liberal (i.e., an individualist) on everything else.
The problem is concentration of power and the development of self-serving, entrenched bureaucracies, whether public or (nominally) private. Thus, the tricky part is the implementation.
IMO, the threat is more symmetrical than you seem willing to acknowledge. Please see my long posting elsewhere in this discussion, where I elaborate on this: "As we pick each other to pieces over 'pronouns' and 'privilege,' the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank."
What's happened to liberalism -- such that populism has emerged as an appealing option?
In one sense, the problem is simple: CARE DOESN'T SCALE. But then again, as my mother told me long ago, the world is only getting more crowded: we might as well get used to it.
Pluralism? In the (quintessentially liberal) American Experiment, "self-determination" is construed as inherently an individual right. Within the resulting polity there's room for sub-national group interests (including ethnicity, as well as the panopoly of voluntary associations observed by Tocqueville) -- but these exist as social phenomena in the private sphere.
Instead, we're expected to sign "DEI" oaths.
Long ago, Schumpeter observed that capitalism would devolve into managerialism -- and we're seeing a parallel process as government-by-the-people devolves into the Administrative or Therapeutic State.
In an essay on "Moral Clarity," Masha Gessen derides those who believe that "The story of the United States [can best be] told primarily as one of a nation of immigrants, the story of a society that, over time, enfranchised an ever great number of its members, and where the arc of history has bent toward justice" -- proclaiming that "Donald Trump has dislodged the story of this country as a nation of immigrants on an inexorable path toward justice and equality, guaranteed by a commitment to individual liberties."
Gessen is dreadfully off-base! This model hasn't been permanently dislodged; in fact, it applies to Latino and Asian immigrants (as, not that long ago, it applied [respectively] to Italians and Jews). (So much for the "People of Color" trope! So much for "whiteness"!)
As for (legal vs illegal) immigration itself?
I'm disappointed that -- after delivering a strong State of the Union speech -- Joe Biden felt obliged to backpedal on his use of the word "illegal." Laken Riley's killer was in this country illegally. "Undocumented"? It wasn't as if he'd merely forgotten to fill out some paperwork! This could have been Biden's "Sister Souljah" moment, and in the end, he blew it -- demonstrating, yet again, how readily he gets pushed around by the wokesters.
While some obsess on "the deadly January 6 insurrection," I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown from my very own window, at my very doorstep, during the Summer of Floyd -- leaving many mom-and-pop storefronts permanently boarded up. In contrast, January 6, as seen on TV, ultimately proved to be the end of American democracy no more than the Yippies' antics at the Stock Exchange were the death knell of capitalism. So much for "the Rule of Law."
It's really about agency. I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never felt prompted to mug a Chinese grandma (nor to live in an encampment). (There's always someplace else to go, another way to approach life: so much for "root causes"!) The streets are strewn with garbage, broken glass and potholes, but we're told that the true enemy is "traffic violence" (i.e., people with cars)...
And when an intruder (cast as a "migrant") dies while trying to scale a fence, we're supposed to blame the fence?
So don't go into the barrio touting the pseudo-word "Latinx." And -- as one who's fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing “Queer" about same-sex attraction -- don't come around calling me "Queer" (amid endless tirades on the need for "gender affirming" [i.e., sex-denying] "care"). I'm attracted to other guys; I've never hidden that fact, and as a unique individual, I'm proud (as my parents raised me) simply to be myself. I never signed on to "smash cisheteropatriarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.
Much of the problem arises with the contempt for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie that the oligarchs share with the left. "Our most vulnerable" are used as a scourge on the aspirations of an ever-shrinking, beleaguered middle class. We're held to be in "complicity," beholden to the would-be arbiters of the Oppression Olympics.
And so -- as we're encouraged to pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege" -- the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank.
If that's what's become of liberalism, we're in deeper trouble than the author of this article seems to realize. Instead, we get his own conspiracy theories. In lieu of inspiration, we get fear.
Sorry, you have it so backward!! I know that is intentional, I hope the world catches on before it is too late!!
Thanks for reading!
What, specifically, is “backward” about the author’s argument though?
The opponents of "populists" are guilty of most of the same crimes would be one counter-argument.
Like what?
Mistaking their subjective opinions about reality for objective facts about reality.
This is by far the simplest one, and "doesn't count" of course (because it is a cultural norm, one that is quite strongly enforced), but it is still true.
I mean come on, look at all the hyperbole, rhetoric, half true memes, etc in this article. It's a fantastic persuasion piece don't get me wrong, but it does not reveal that that is the goal....which seems "inappropriate" to me (a subjective opinion, to be clear).
What’s an example of a “half-truth” from this article?
1. In recent decades, a populist, authoritarian pandemic has been spreading across the world.
2. Liberal institutions, fundamental to markets, democracy, and civil society have been weakened or started to crumble.
I'm coming at it in part from a Wittgenstein ("all philosophical problems are language problems") perspective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
Of course, this exceeds the Overton Window level of acceptable rationality, so it "doesn't count"....so, feel free to declare victory, I will not even oppose you!
Liberal today means "do what UMC people embedded in the correct institutions want."
Sometimes what those people want is good. Sometimes it's bad.
Populism is everything outside that nexus of power. It can be good or bad.
Having defined populism only as "bad things" its a tautology.
My friend Nils and I disagree about what the greatest threats to liberty and liberalism are today. We argue regularly over that.
Here is something I wrote on the word 'populism':
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-is-populism/
See my point #6. It poses challenges to Nils, who writes, "Populism is the opposite of classical liberalism."
Are Milei and Rand Paul classical liberal? If not, why not? Are they populist? If Milei is a populist classical liberal, then is Nils statement quoted above shattered?
Is Biden classical liberal? If the answer is no, does that make him a populist, based on Nils's statement quoted above?
On Milei the jury is out. Being a believer in Austrian economics doesn't make one immediately a classical liberal. It also requires believing in liberal institutions to constraint the state (proceduralism, checks and balances, separation of powers) and liberal values (pluralism, toleration, diversity). He is pushing a truly draconian anti-abortion bill that will criminalize abortion and require a massive expansion of the police state. Rand Paul, in my book, ceased being any kind of classical liberal when he signed up for the libertarian version of Trump's MAGAism. (Neither is his dad, btw). Separately, we've been discussing the meaning of populism a lot on this site. You can listen to my podcast with ARP exploring the term and its meaning and some of my pieces.
Abortion is liberal?
I think one can support abortion, but I can't see how its a litmus test for liberalism.
“Instead, cultural factors relating to identity need to be considered. Humans may also have a latent authoritarian predisposition: our minds are psychologically designed for populist tribalism “
I once read a theory that hints at this
You know how people say things like ‘all Chinese/Indians/Africans look the same to me “ well people of other races also say the same thing about white people and there is an evolutionary theory about why this is
Back when we were in our tribal groups, to navigate the complex social dynamics of our tribe we needed to specifically know who each person in the tribe was, so had to be able to see the differences, but when another tribe was encountered we didn’t need to know who the individuals were, they were just the ‘other’ tribe, so in evolutionary terms we didn’t need to see the individual differences they were just ‘not us’ and the individual differences didn’t matter, so in some real way people of other races do in a sense really do ‘look all the same to us’
Thankfully though it’s the 21st century and we don’t need to be governed by these millennia old instincts and migration and demographic change these people are now in ‘our tribe’ so we can grow beyond our early ape tribe brains
Some pretty impressive false balance here. You illustrate the story with pictures of three right wingers, for the obvious reason that using the pictures of leftwing opponents of privatisation and deregulation (Bernie Sanders?, Jagmeet Singh?) would be laughable. The claim that public ownership and regulation would lead to dictatorship was made by Hayek in Road to Serfdom and proved comprehensively wrong by history.
The elephant in the room here is the fact that "classical liberals" have repeatedly allied themselves with both traditional authoritarians (Pinochet) and populist demagogues (Trump). That's the problem that needs analysis.
The problem starts with Hayek who gave priority to "freedom of action" (that is, free markets) over freedom of thought and speech.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “false balance” here, but one mistake is in assuming that if there are both left- and right-wing versions of a particular posture—as with populism—it follows that they are equally problematic or worrisome. The author’s view, and my own, is that while left-wing populism exists and is bad and is worth calling out, right-wing populism is by far the greater threat to the ongoing viability of liberal democracy around the world.
I agree with you, but I don't get this message at all from the article. As I read it, every mention of rightwing populism was matched by a symmetrical (but necessarily vague) mention of the left.
The claim "Left-wing and right-wing populists may even form a symbiotic relationship in this process, each promoting the polarization of society in a self-enforcing process" echoes the "look what you made me do" rhetoric of formerly mainstream rightists who've capitulated to Trumpism, or, more plausibly, now feel free to reveal themselves as the racists they always were.
Ah, I understand you better now. I think we’re probably in full agreement on the asymmetrical nature of the threat.
Purported leftists have made their own deals with the devil -- as noted by (among others) Adolph Reed -- and there too, one of the casualties is freedom of thought and speech.
Marxists have, obviously. But I’d be interested in examples of social democratic opponents of privatisation etc as described in the OP. Don’t know anything about Reed
Reed is a Black Marxist who takes umbrage at the "woke" brand of identity politics, recognizing it as a deflection from the predations of corporate oligarchy. For that, he's been cancelled by the wokesters! (See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/adolph-reed-controversy.html )
FWIW, I consider myself a social democrat on economics (albeit with much residual affection for the petit-bourgeoisie), and somewhere between a libertarian and a classical liberal (i.e., an individualist) on everything else.
The problem is concentration of power and the development of self-serving, entrenched bureaucracies, whether public or (nominally) private. Thus, the tricky part is the implementation.
IMO, the threat is more symmetrical than you seem willing to acknowledge. Please see my long posting elsewhere in this discussion, where I elaborate on this: "As we pick each other to pieces over 'pronouns' and 'privilege,' the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank."
Talk about simplistic...a lot of fancy words with no real meaning. Typical of the left.