Around the world, the illiberal left battles the illiberal right. Liberals are caught in the middle, fighting a war few seem to care about.
The populist left and the populist right have a great deal in common. They might focus on different issues, but they share an appreciation of dogma, be it traditionalist or progressive, Marxist or Christian.
They share a belief in identity politics, be it through critical race theory, nationalism, or nativism. Both sides are substantially prejudiced towards groups that are claimed by the opposing side. They differ about which group should be in power, but not about collectivism, identity, and group conflict as such.
They share a craving to surrender their lives to either a powerful government or a powerful individual; they view the business of government as that of saving the people from their problems, their poverty, their failures, and their jealousies.
Both sides fear the responsibility, the insecurity, the anxieties of living without the moral guidance and economic aid of a paternalistic government.
The left and the right both welcome the revolutionary who promises to clean house and remake society, if only they are given enough power without too many checks and balances.
Indistinguishable
This is why the World Health Organisation’s obsession with lifestyle diseases and preventative healthcare, derived from the left-wing conception of a paternalistic government, is virtually indistinguishable from the focus on wellness and preventative medicine of the right-wing nexus of Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The left’s allergy to Big Pharma is identical to the right’s aversion to the same.
The left and right both play at class war. Both claim to speak for, and cater to, the working stiff. Both are engaged in a struggle against powerful, wealthy elites, which is the essence of populism. Both think that the other side’s powerful, wealthy elites are evil, and a threat to children. (And neither side is entirely wrong about this.)
Both sides are anti-market. One side for protectionist reasons, and the other for ideological reasons.
Neither side is particularly comfortable with democracy, and both sides will accuse the other of malfeasance when they lose elections.
If you challenge one side, they will denounce you using the pejoratives they apply to the other side. The left will call you racist, or privileged. The right will call you woke, or socialist. Both will call you a shill for vaguely described vested interests.
Neither can conceive of a world in which production is truly free, and individuals entrusted with the agency to make decisions for themselves.
Worldview
The difficulty that liberals (and I use the term in its classical sense) have in selling their worldview to the masses is that it isn’t really a worldview. Liberals do not offer much by way of a positive set of rules or guidelines or restrictions. They do not make promises of what the government will do for you, the ordinary voter.
They’ll talk about the rule of law, but not about what the laws ought to be.
Liberalism is, in an important sense, a negative ideology. It holds that politicians shouldn’t make promises, and shouldn’t wield too much power, and shouldn’t get involved in either the economic affairs of the country, or the moral affairs of its people.
If you want to ban products, or impose rules, or act against this group or that group, or kick out immigrants, or suppress people’s gender expression, or limit certain types of medical care, or ban certain research, or enforce (or prohibit) the teaching of religion, or restrict foreign trade, or restrain corporations, then you cannot appeal to the freedom of the individual or of the market. You are not a liberal.
If you dislike a particular individual or group of people, the liberal’s answer is not to act against them, but to tolerate them and to grant them the same freedom and courtesy that you would expect to receive yourself.
When faced with a social or economic problem, both the left and the right are quick to prescribe policy solutions. When liberals are asked what they would do, their answer is often “nothing”, other than enforcing laws that protect life, liberty, and property.
Nothing
This shop is refusing to sell wedding cakes to gay couples. What would you do about that? Well, nothing. Let them discriminate. As long as the government doesn’t discriminate, the market will sort itself out.
Women’s sport is under threat from the participation of transsexuals. What would you do about that? Well, nothing. Let the sporting bodies decide. If one sporting association makes one decision, and it doesn’t work out, a rival sporting association will make another decision, and all will be well.
Christians march down the main road. White nationalists march down the main road. Gay people march down the main road. Anarchists march down the main road. What would you do? Nothing.
Liberals believe reasonable people are capable of reaching reasonable compromises to resolve social conflict, and are reluctant to have governments intervene using coercive measures.
Doing nothing is not a very appealing or convincing political message, however. This is why truly liberal or libertarian parties, around the world, are so rarely successful.
To oversimplify just a little, consider this.
What should the government do about cheap imports? Nothing.
What should the government do about prostitution? Nothing.
What should the government do about offensive speech? Nothing.
What should the government do about misinformation? Nothing.
What should the government do about immigrants? Nothing.
What should the government do to support domestic industries? Nothing.
What should the government do about religious fundamentalists? Nothing.
What should the government do about people’s unhealthy lifestyles? Nothing.
What should the government do to defend one group’s interests against another? Nothing.
What should the government do about language policy in education? Nothing.
What should the government do about high prices? Nothing.
What should the government do about atheists? Nothing.
What should the government do about decaying moral values? Nothing.
What should the government do about high indebtedness? Nothing.
What should the government do about skills shortages? Nothing.
What should the government do about inequality? Nothing.
What should the government do about government? Minimise it.
Intervention
These don’t make for compelling political slogans, which is why liberals, who have fiercely held views that government ought not to do things, lose against populists on both sides of the spectrum who have fiercely held views about what the government should do in each case.
(I know there are issues such as technical public goods like water and sanitation, externalities such as pollution, and social welfare programs, where it isn’t unreasonable to expect government to do things. My point is that government should do as little as is reasonably possible and should always err on the side of non-intervention.)
The main reason government and the institutions of a liberal democracy should intervene in the affairs of the people is to protect the equal rights and liberties of individual people. Only when rights and freedoms are infringed does the individual have grounds to call upon the monopoly of power wielded by the government to set matters right. (And commercial competition from foreigners, or newcomers to your leafy suburb, are not an infringement of anyone’s rights.)
The rest is up to us. It is up to individuals. How individuals organise, into communities, or faiths, or companies, or societies, is entirely up to them, and is none of the government’s business.
Progress and prosperity
It is easy to see why liberalism is a hard sell in societies where people want the government to solve their real or perceived problems, or act against their real or perceived social enemies.
The main political disagreements are usually about how the government should solve perceived problems; not about whether the government should solve them.
The irony is that classical liberal values, of free markets, free expression, and the freedom to be who we are and make the choices we think are best for ourselves, our families, and our communities, are the very values that have produced so much progress and prosperity in the world.
How liberal a country is, both socially and economically, is strongly correlated with how prosperous it is.
Despite this, countries that are not (yet) prosperous inclined to favour authoritarian models of government and state-led models of development.
Even people in the rich world are turning to populist, authoritarian remedies to what they perceive as their economic and social challenges.
Younger people with predictable socialist leanings increasingly retain those views into middle age. A lot of people find anti-immigrant policies, protectionist economic populism, or a return to traditional moral values, appealing.
The resurgence of populism in Europe and America sets a poor example. These countries got rich and comfortable as liberal democracies. By turning away from classical liberal values, they are signalling to developing countries that liberalism has had its day, and ought to be replaced by something illiberal, but more full-throated and robust.
If rich Western countries are rejecting liberalism, and replacing it with illiberal, populist, authoritarian politics, is it any surprise that countries like South Africa look to experienced authoritarian countries such as China and Russia for inspiration and economic alternatives?
Defending liberalism remains a perpetual “battle of ideas”, as the Institute of Race Relations would say.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend
Image: Classical liberalism. Image based on “Liberal” by Nick Youngson, licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0.