Ask Antonio (Almost) Anything

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, with Jante's Law being dead and buried, I guess it's time for me give up the pretense of not enjoying talking about myself. So I'm gonna give it a stab and have my own AMA.

I'm putting in the IP board because I'd like to follow Nathan's lead and make it mostly about my academic interests. For those who don't know, I'm a second-year Poli Sci PhD student. My subfield is Comparative Politics, and my main interest is in the electoral politics of developed democracies. The research subject I'm (supposedly) working on in the short run is about the realignment of the party systems of Western European countries. I have also done some work on American politics (my Master's Thesis was on turnout inequality in the US). Since this year, I'm also a Teaching Assistant (which implies teaching three 1-hour discussion sections as well as grading the student's work). Finally, I have an amateurish interest in political and moral philosophy, so I'm happy to talk about that as well. Feel free to ask about other stuff if you really want to.

(And no, this is not an April Fool. I'll point out it was still March 31 when I made the thread.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Do you plan on finding employment in the US after the completion of your PhD?

I think I'd like to, if I can. It would make more sense to me than going back to France (especially since my impression is that there are very few job openings in French academia these days). It would definitely depend where in the US, though.

What region or subject within comppol do you specialize in?

Western Europe + North America in terms of region, elections (especially electoral sociology/geography) in terms of subjects. I will have to narrow it down a bit for my dissertation, but I'm not quite there yet.

Well, this is my area too. Through what "lens" do you view realignment in Western Europe? Which academics in political science and which theories have had the most profound influence on your thinking?

The thesis that I've found most convincing is Hanspeter Kriesi's idea that globalization has led to a polarization of European societies between those who benefit from it and those who stand to lose. I like the fact that it keeps voting patterns grounded in a sociological analysis (rather than going full end-of-ideology, voter-as-consumer postmodern) while at the same time acknowledging that different groups can be political allies or enemies under different conditions. The "winners vs losers" (his term) divide is not just the class divide of old flipped around since, for example, farmers and people in former working-class areas now stand on the same side.

I also think there is a lot to make out of the more culture-based theories revolving around the notion of "postmaterialism". Inglehart's original theory was seriously flawed (and even he eventually agreed to revise it), but other scholars, such as Flanagan and your country's own Middendorp, had been pointing out for a while that the emergence of the "New Left" can only be understood along with the concurrent rise of the "New Right", and that, together, those define a new axis of political conflict around cultural issues not related to voters' pocketbooks. The objections I'd make is that a lot of the issues the "New Right" talks about have a lot (or at least are framed as having a lot) to do with voter's pocketbooks. Still, I believe that the globalization thesis and the postmaterialism thesis both have solid arguments on their side, and I'd like to find a way to reconcile the two if that's possible.

[Antonio the Sixth]

How has studying pol. science changed your political beliefs/priorities/worldview?

I'm honestly not sure. I certainly wouldn't say it's made me more left-wing or more right-wing per se. That said, some classes I took in the past (on social democracy and the welfare state, especially) have definitely helped me a great deal in defining what kind of a leftist I am. I like to think that I've learned which redistributive strategies simply don't work (or worked in the past but won't work anymore because circumstances have changed), and which ones actually might work. Some of the latter being, of course, strategies that VSPs and the mass media think are "pipe dreams", but would in fact be perfectly doable. The work of Gøsta Esping-Andersen, in particular, is what led me to think so highly of social democracy. I've also learned a bit not only about what works in terms of policy, but also about what's possible to sell to the public and how we can ensure that the progress we achieve will last. Finally, I think I have a much firmer grasp now on what neoliberalism actually is, which is something that even many leftists get wrong and leads to many serious mistakes.

I'm far from an expert on any of these accounts, but learning about them even as an amateur has been very helpful to my political development.

Would you rather make out with the Flame Princess, Princess Bubblegum or the Slime Princess?

Does any of them speak in Valley Girl dialect? Otherwise, not interested.

MFK: Fillon, Macron, Le Pen?

Oh Christ, you must really hate me...

I guess marry FBM (he doesn't seem to be the nagging husband type, plus that'd make me financially secure), f**k Panzergirl (straight, could then have another reason to say "I f**k the FN"), kill Fillon (mercy kill at this point tbh).

Will Alternate US States be returning?

I plan to update it with detailed 2016 results eventually, yes! Probably not before this summer, though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is something I totally agree with, which doesn't surprise me too much, both because this has obviously become a very common approach in our area and because we seem to think in relatively similar ways even if we have very different worldviews and arrive at different conclusions. I think Kriesi's work has been highly valuable and find it to be a shame that some are inclined to dismiss the importance of class as a factor in voting behavior on the basis of his thesis while I think it simply proves we should find a way to reconceptualize what class nowadays means.

At the same time I think that when looking at voting behavior (as opposed to party systems) it is important to look at multiculturalism in Europe not only from a winners vs. losers perspective (which, to put it crudely, is basically the "economic anxiety" approach when it comes to voting behavior for RRWPs) but rather dig into the way various groups in society (not only the white working class) deal with it -- so I agree with you that there is more to this than just a pocketbook approach. Much research on the new right has focused on supply side factors and the functioning of radical right-wing parties within party systems, but in understanding voting behavior for RRWPs more sociological research related to the demand side would be more than welcome.

Yeah, I really think that's where the challenge is now. I would hope that it's possible to conceptualize "winners" and "losers" from globalization in a way that doesn't reduce it to a matter of narrow material self-interest. For example, a small-town resident might feel like they're losing out when the old grocery store closes, even if two fast-foods and one supermarket open in its place. There is more to one's comfort than how much you can afford. And of course you can extend this argument to things like hearing a foreign language while walking in the streets, as depressing as this reaction is to me. There's quite simply a large share of the population that isn't interested in what globalization is selling, including the aspects that I would say are morally good.

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Al made a very similar point to me a while ago, and yeah, it's a pretty important one. My plan is to start out with monographs of single countries and generalize from there. I'm hoping that's a possible way to avoid this pitfall.

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I haven't read that particular book, but I've read a few of the articles he coauthored with Katz developing their theory of the "party cartel", which seems closely related to the points he's making here. That's an incredibly depressing thesis, and at the time I first came across it I didn't want to entirely agree with it because it struck me as too sinister. Unfortunately, the events of the past 2-3 years have convinced me that they were absolutely correct.

Could you elaborate? Both on what it actually is, and how leftists incorrect definitions lead them astray?

I very often see leftists conflate neoliberalism with various things: at best, they reduce it to neoclassical economics (with which it's closely connected, but not quite the same), at worst it's used as a shorthand for the modern globalized form of service-based capitalism, or it's just assumed to mean a return to a 19th century conception of the role of the State in economic life. I find these definitions dangerous because they all miss the core foundation of neoliberalism and what makes it such a powerful, seemingly unstoppable force in our modern society.

One of the aptest definitions of neoliberalism that I've come across was from, of all people, Michel Foucault (which as you know isn't exactly my type of leftist!) in a 1979 lecture. Neoliberalism, he argued, is at its core an effort to extend the domain of economic analysis to question and areas that have never been thought of as having anything to do with economics. Neoliberals use economic notions - the market, with its supply and demand, the idea of investment, capital, entrepreneurship, income, etc. - to study things like education, crime policy, marriage arrangements, and even parenting choices. The scary thing is that this frame of analysis works: it has actually produced important findings when used in research. Those economic notions truly are that malleable: an income really can be anything that a given person may want to receive (even if it's only in the form of emotional satisfaction). A capital, then, becomes anything that allows a person to generate an income (including one's education, skills, physical prowess, etc.). And an investment is any cost one incurs (of whatever nature) to increase their capital. Every human being does that, in some form or another, and therefore everyone is an entrepreneur. Thus, the neoliberal framework is both seductive for its simplicity (the same 2 or 3 concepts rehashed over and over) and unfalsifiable by virtue of relying on very generic concepts.

Now, up to this point, it doesn't necessarily seem problematic. As long as the neoliberal framework is merely used by economists to produce findings on non-economic topics, there's little harm being done. The real problem, in my opinion (and this isn't something Foucault talks about, because he doesn't seem to have much to say about ethics in general) is that thinking in neoliberal terms isn't just a descriptive exercise: it has normative implications. When you start seeing markets everywhere, it's easy to start seeing the Market as some quasi-metaphysical archetype, rather than a socially constructed, historically bounded human artifact. And thus, we get to the natural conclusion of this line of thought: that the value of anything can be determined through a market process. Anything, including human beings. The ultimate implication of neoliberalism is that your worth as a person is a function of how much whoever you're trying to "sell" yourself to is willing to pay for you when you are competing with a myriad of other people. The Market for a neoliberal is like God for a Christian: the source of all meaning, all value in the universe.

If you think this is a caricature, try examining some of the assumptions that lead the latest neoliberal reform here or there. Every time I've done that, I've discovered that it's somehow predicated on the notion that, through pure and perfect competition, we can discover the true value of something. Why is it that people think they deserve being paid millions of dollars while half of humanity lives in misery? Well, because they auctioned themselves off on the market, and someone was willing to pay as much. But again, it's not even just about money. I've been told (can't really speak from experience, but I have it on good authority) that dating culture these days increasingly works like a competitive market too. The way many parents raise their kids, grooming them from birth to compete in everything, is another byproduct of that. That's why I think many leftists miss the point when they attack "corporate greed" as the root of all evils: greed is simply the byproduct of a prevailing normative framework. Until the left isn't able to argue against this entire framework, to explain why the market model misses something fundamental about the nature of morality, it will be powerless to stop neoliberalism. This is one of the reasons why I have grown increasingly interested in metaethical questions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Any more questions?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Does any of them speak in Valley Girl dialect? Otherwise, not interested.

I swear your California conversion becomes as terrifying as Torie's Hudson thing.

Oh come on, that's offensive. Reported.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If it was possible, would you prefer a GL-D66 Dutch coalition or a D66-PvdA Dutch coalition and why?

Well, I'd definitely love to see the election results that would need to happen in order to make either coalition workable.

To be honest, I have a rather poor opinion of all three parties. I'm guessing GL is at least somewhat to the left of PvdA even on redistributive issues (David please tell me if I'm wrong), so a GL-D66 government would be preferable on that front. However, the idea of a government made up of entirely "urban postmodern cosmopolitan liberal" parties kind of terrifies me. D66-PvdA with the prospect of GL in the future forming an alliance with PvdA might be better in the long run.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Legitimately and truly fascinating reading; this isn't a definition of neoliberalism that I've seen in the past, and it's one that seems to make a very great deal of sense

I'm glad it speaks to you. Being able to reach a common understanding of what it is exactly that we disagree on is a very important and often neglected aspect of political debate, IMO.

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That is the hard part, yes. I'm planning to finally get around to reading Gramsci next summer, so I hope to find some of the answers there. I think his fundamental insight about the power of culture and the ways in which political forces can achieve (or at least resist against) cultural hegemony could go a long way toward offering a way out for the left.

What I think this implies, in very generic terms, is first of all that left-wing figures (politicians, intellectuals, pundits, surrogates, etc.) need to be very cautious about the language they use. The past 30 years have seen the increasing spread of words, concepts, and turns of phrase that only make sense if one accepts neoliberal assumptions. Because this vocabulary often sounds cool and convenient to use (and due to the proximity between the left-wing establishment and some of the segments of society that are most thoroughly imbued by neoliberalism), even principled leftists have tended to adopt it (and I'm occasionally guilty of it too).  By doing that, however, they are implicitly legitimizing neoliberal assumptions, and thereby undermining their own critique of neoliberal thought. They are, instead, reduced to advocating essentially for "neoliberalism done right", i.e. a framework where the market is still the fundamental mechanism for the assignation of value, but where the government plays a slightly more active role in maintaining pure and perfect competition (whereas the right has even stopped pretending that it cares about ensuring that the market works as it's "supposed" to). This is, in my opinion and in light of electoral trends I've seen in the past 20 years, a recipe for disaster for the left. Clarifying our thought and our speech is a necessary first step toward presenting an alternative to neoliberalism.

To go back to one of your earlier points, what social-democratic type policies do you think do work, and could be sold to the public? and why  do you think that left wing parties haven't so far been able to adopt and sell these?

One of the strongest findings of research in social policy is that broad-based, universalistic welfare systems tend to be considerably more generous (and thereby effective at reducing inequality) than those that purport to target those most in need. When a welfare program is restricted to the poor, it tends to be very unpopular, and therefore is likely to offer very low benefits and be frequently stigmatized. Programs that are accessible to a broad majority of the citizenry enjoy much broader support and therefore tend to be much more generous to everyone. It's easy to see that in America when you compare stuff like food stamps and AFDC, near-universal punching bags, with Medicare and Social Security, which even conservatives barely dare messing which. In order to "sell" a welfare program, you must design it in a way that a broad majority can derive tangible benefit from it, including relatively affluent segments of the middle class (those, of course, will have to pay for the program with their taxes, but they still tend to find the bargain advantageous).

This also means that citizens must actually be able see that they are getting these benefits from the State. It's been noted that one of the major reasons why Americans tend to be distrustful of government redistribution in the US is that they can see their money taken away through taxes, but they rarely see where this money is going for, because much of US welfare spending is "submerged". Rather than providing direct benefits to citizens, the US government instead tends to use corporations as a "middle man", giving them incentives and/or regulations to perform welfare functions (while still making a profit out of it). This helps explain why Obamacare remains so unpopular, and suggests that a single-payer system would have been much more difficult to undo once put into place (of course, putting it into place will be hard).

On the other hand, some kinds of policies, while well-intentioned and morally justified, tend to be more trouble than they are worth for left-wing parties. The most glaring historical example to me is nationalization of sectors of the economy that don't constitute public utilities (for example, having government-owned banks, factories, coalmines, etc.). While it's clear that workers in those industries are better off under public management than in the clutches of a private company, direct public management often proves unsustainable and results in serious headaches for left-wing governments (the quintessential examples being the Labour governments of the 1970s, of course). Overall, I would say that the left is better off leaving these companies under private control while empowering labor unions to fight for better working conditions and extract major concessions from companies. Another well-meaning policy which strikes me as problematic are stringent regulations against layoffs. Here, I can see the right-wing argument that they will only discourage businesses from hiring new workers, and thereby worsening long-term unemployment. I think it makes sense to trade more flexibility in hiring in exchange for generous, long-lasting and universal unemployment benefits.

[Antonio the Sixth]

1) What do you think are the Western centre left's best and worst decisions are in the past couple decades in terms of what issues to pursue, what demographics to target etc?

One very good idea that the French left, for once, has come up with in the 90s (but that has since become a rhetorical punching-bag and that even Hamon is struggling to bring back) is the reduction of the workweek (or, to be more precise, the lowering of the time limit after with it counts as overtime). This is a crucial, I would say almost a civilizational, issue at the point we are in, since automation has increased and will increase productivity so dramatically. We can either choose to incorporate these productivity gains into the current economic framework of hypercompetitive, large-scale capitalism (ie, keep producing more and more while keeping wages under check in order to increase profits), or use them to build a society where material comfort can be attained without the need of working tirelessly in a harrowing, mentally stunting job. Reducing working times, coupled with the redistribution of profits through new measures such as the UBI, are steps toward the latter solution, which subordinates economic production to human needs rather than the other way around.

It would take me a decade to write about all the mistakes that the Western left has made over the past two decades. It would be a long and surprisingly eclectic list. Suffice to say that I'm not exactly a fan of the third-way turn (even if, in fairness, it wasn't all bad, at least not in every country). More than the specific policies that they pursued, I think what bothers me most is the attempt by some party to wash away any distinguishable working-class identity in the pursuit of catch-all politics. This is, in essence, the political equivalent of channel drift: a party with a clear presence in society and a defined constituency abandons it in an effort to expand its support. The strategy might succeed in the short run, but whatever the party has gained in breadth, it has lost it in depth. And so, at the first turn of electoral fortune, it can be decimated. In a way, I guess I'm defending the idea of "identity politics", although what I mean by it is a bit different.

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That's a very tough one. Obviously it would be suicidal to kick bobos out of the party in order to preserve a chimerical "working class purity". Many bobos are genuinely supportive of left-wing projects (like me lol ), and those are an important asset for left-wing parties. Hell, European socialism has always prided itself of the support of an upper-class "vanguard", and some of the most glorious pages in its history have been written with its help. The problem comes up when the middle-class becomes the party's core, the segment that drives its priorities and attitudes. Middle-class concerns are respectable and important, but they can't become a priority of the left, especially when the working class' position is coming under vicious and relentless attacks from neoliberal forces. So it must be made clear that bobos are welcome if and only if they share the broader goals of social democracy, not if they are trying to impose it their own agendas.

How you make that happen is a big question mark for me. I'm guessing a lot of it might have to do with rhetoric: if party leaders want to send a signal to their middle-class constituents that they won't dictate the agenda, they might try to adopt the cultural codes of the working class: speak in their language, talk about things they would relate to, refrain from any hint of snobbery. This is a good way to sort out bobos who are truly committed to a left-wing project from those who are just in it for themselves. Some left-wing politicians are pretty good at this (this is a big reason, IMO, why Bernie Sanders' GE potential was underrated). This has its own risks, of course, especially since VSPs in the media detest this attitude. But then again, right-wingers have often won despite the unanimous opposition of VSP, so who's to say a left-winger couldn't?

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I honestly don't know. I actually really wish they had, in part because religion provides one thing that's sorely missing on the left these days: a coherent ethical framework to pose as an alternative to neoliberalism. However, secularization is marching on, and especially so among the electorates of left-wing parties. What's worse, I fear that it creates a "besieged citadel" attitude among many religious people that pushes them to the right, leading to the sorry sight of the American Religious Right selling its soul to a presidential candidate as repugnant to all their professed values as conceivably imaginable, just for the vague promise of maybe some day rolling back parts of the changes of the past decades (a promise that, even if kept in policy, will have little to no effect on cultural attitudes because a person like T***p will never be credible to instill conservative values in the cultural sphere). For an alliance between left-wing forces and religious movements to happen, both will have to give up a lot. While I personally think that these sacrifices are worth it to combat neoliberalism, it seems that most leftists and most religious people disagree.

I hope cooperation could at least occur occasionally on specific issues.

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It really depends what you mean by "conservative". If I had to choose between a right-wing candidate critical of neoliberalism and supportive of measures for social inclusion and an ostensibly "left-wing" candidate who actually embraces neoliberal hegemony, I would most certainly choose the former (unless they're also a xenophobe or a sexist). To take a forum example, I'd definitely vote for you over Scarlet or NSV. However, it's very hard to see this kind of candidate emerging on the right in the near future.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Antonio your thoughts on a minimum income policy?

I'm a big fan, although I'm aware than many on the right are pushing it as a Trojan horse to undermine and eventually destroy the rest of the welfare state. My answer to that is:



Of course we on the left must steadfastly defend universal healthcare, public housing, retirement pensions, unemployment benefits etc. But at the same time, we must acknowledge that these conditional, situation-specific benefits are not properly equipped to deal with the forms of endemic misery generated by modern capitalism, that they leave millions of people falling through the cracks, with no means to make ends meet. This will only get worse as time goes by. So far, UBI is the only proposed policy that addresses this structural problem. I'm aware that it's a massive financial challenge (which makes a sound fiscal policy all the more important), but it's one we can meet if we actually want to give it some thought and effort.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Do you feel the West has become flabby and bloated?

If by "flabby and bloated" you're implying what I think you are implying, my answer is: yes, it has, and that's a Very Good Thing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

How do you think a policy under these lines ought to paid for?

Generally speaking, through a steeply progressive income tax with top marginal rates around 90%, an absolute cap on exemptions, and draconian measures against tax evaders and all those who facilitate them. A wealth tax might be added for good measure. If this proves insufficient in the short run, I'm open to supplementing it with more regressive measures like a VAT hikes.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Any specific examples of this, or broad descriptions of the sort of speech you're describing? I'm at a bit of a loss as to what you might mean here.

I don't have a specific example in mind right now, I think I could look at the latest speeches by current left-wing leaders for about a week and come up with dozens. I'm thinking of things like referring to the beneficiaries of public utilities as "customers", thinking of a country's economic standing in terms of "competitiveness", the (sometimes unspoken, but always present) assumption that the main purpose of public education is to prepare people for a job, or the constant conflation of wealth with "success".

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It's certainly also a difference in culture, yes. And I think that's a pretty big deal. My whole point here is that what culture is prevalent in society makes a big difference in social outcomes. At the very least, I would argue that, had the left not surrendered to neoliberalism in the ideological struggle, it would have been much better equipped to criticize its policies. Once you accept the basic neoliberal premise, you're on much shakier grounds to criticize deregulation and cuts to the welfare state, even if there might be a neoliberal rationale against them in a given context.

But I'd argue that the difference between a genuinely alternative left-wing ideological framework and "neoliberalism done right" also has major implications in terms of concrete policy. The "neoliberalism done right" argument concedes that market competition is indeed the correct way to assign values to objects and people, and that as such it must be encouraged and extended to more and more sphere of society. Where it disagrees with the more rabid, Thatcherite form of neoliberalism, is that it adds that, in order for the market to correctly perform this function, the State ought to act in order to "level the playing field", making sure that everyone enters the competition on a (somewhat) equal footing. Under this setup, there will still ultimately be "winners" and "losers", and the "winners" will be even more justified in claiming their prize since the competition was "fair". In short, "neoliberalism done right" justifies redistribution if and only if it is absolutely necessary to promote "equal opportunity", not as an end in itself.

This is very different from the type of social goals that the Socialist and Social Democratic left has traditionally sought to achieve. The left is not supposed to be all about "making the market work fairly", because the left does not see the market as an end in itself. To the extent that the left values the market at all, it's as a mere tool that might help generate wealth (which can then be redistributed to achieve desired social goals). Note that this means it is possible to reject the neoliberal framework and still be ardently pro-capitalist: all that this requires is that you see the market as a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. This has been the default position of most right-wing thinkers from the 19th century to the 1960s-70s or so, before Hayek and Friedman's ideas really caught on.

Conversely, the traditional characteristic of the left used to be that it saw equality as an end in itself (even if this end had to be balanced out with other ends). Seeing equality as an end doesn't require rejecting capitalism outright, but it necessarily entails taking a critical attitude towards it. Personally, I have recently come to the conclusion that capitalism has fundamental flaws that cannot be corrected through mere redistribution, and that the ultimate goal should still be to replace it with a better economic system. However, I recognize that this is not feasible at the moment, and so, to the extent that we're stuck with capitalism, we need to intervene heavily to mitigate its most deleterious effect and promote better social outcomes. This is, again, not what the "neoliberalism done right" crowd is saying: to the contrary, they are quite enthusiastic about capitalism.

[Antonio the Sixth]

How much responsibility do nations that are militarily capable of stopping atrocities carry for those atrocities?

Generally speaking, a great deal. The same moral principle that makes it immoral for a very strong person walking down the street who sees an other person being beaten up to not intervene also applies in international politics. Of course, there are many more factors that become relevant in diplomatic settings, which entails that intervening to stop atrocities might sometimes wind up doing more harm than good. However, when it is reasonably likely that we can stop atrocities without commensurate negative repercussions, intervening is an absolute moral duty.

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That post was obviously tongue-in-cheek, but I mean, technically, generation is irrelevant to whether one is a descendant of colonists or not. My point was just that the experience of colonization tends to breed certain attitudes toward the place you live in that get passed down (in obviously attenuated forms) from generation to generation. It wasn't to imply that descendants of colonists are not "indigenous" to where they live. The notion of being "indigenous" holds no value or interest to me whatsoever.

I do not believe that nations have a right to stop anyone from living within their borders if they wish to (barring very exceptional cases involving a clear and present danger to the inhabitants' well-being). Therefore, no the expulsion of pieds-noirs is not justifiable. That said, given the circumstances, I understand why the Algerian government took that decision, and I find the idea of litigating this pretty cringeworthy considering what France had been doing in the decade before.

Which 'developed' countries are you most interested in working with, wrt comparative electoral politics?

Right now I'm actually working on France, but I think I'll always be going back to the United States. There is something about this country (despite the reductive simplicity of its party system, its low voter turnout, or the despairing shallowness of its debate) that keeps drawing me to it. The sharp turn it has taken over the past year has only made me more eager to understand what's happening to its voting patterns. I think I'm likely to come back to it for my dissertation.

Other than that, I'm fascinated by Italy's political divides, especially now that M5S has emerged, because it's such a strange beast politically. I'm very curious to understand how similar or different its electorate is compared to that of other populist parties.

Countries whose voting patterns I'd like to learn more about include the Scandinavian countries, the UK, and the Netherlands.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This has been the default position of most right-wing thinkers from the 19th century to the 1960s-70s or so, before Hayek and Friedman's ideas really caught on.

Can you give some examples of these "old-line" right-wing thinkers? What would an "intellectual", not rabidly bigoted conservative critique of political economy (as opposed to of social relationships, with which I'm much more familiar) in, say, the first half of the twentieth century have looked like in specific ideological terms in the Anglosphere? How about in Continental Europe?

I fear that I'm not qualified to answer this question in as much detail as you would like. As much as I sometimes wish I'd taken this route instead, I am not a scholar of political thought, and so my knowledge soon fades when we stray away from issues of personal interest to me. The best I can do is to summarize the main pre- or otherwise non-neoliberal defenses and positive accounts of capitalism that I've come across. I realize this is quite a rough picture (and, if another poster could provide additional detail, I would be grateful), but anyway, here are those I can think of:

The most famous, perhaps the most intellectually fruitful, is the Adam Smith argument. Smith did not defend capitalism solely on practical grounds of economic efficiency: if he saw capitalism as more economically efficient, that's because he believed that it provided the fullest expression for human beings' natural "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another" (if my memory is correct, he even went so far as to argue that it was the defining feature of human beings). This is a naturalistic premise that thankfully even most neoliberals these days would recuse. Once this propensity is given free rein, people will specialize in producing the one single thing that they are very good at producing (the division of labor that bothered Marx so much), and trade their surplus production to obtain other goods that they need, produced by those who are best at producing them. This arrangement, born out of self-interest, will ultimately benefit all (hence the "invisible hand" metaphor). This argument is perhaps the closest to modern neoliberal logic, in that it ascribes quasi-metaphysical properties to the market, but it still differs from it in two crucial respects. First, Smith still had a classically circumscribed view of the economic sphere, so, while he was happy to see people "truck, barter and exchange" produced goods, he never intended to extend this logic to marriage or education. Second, while he ascribes metaphysical powers to the market, he doesn't go as far as to treat it as the source of all value. Whatever its powers, the market to him remains a tool at people's disposal, not a fundamental truth that people must conform to.

While that argument is the most thorough that I'm aware of (and in good parts set the terms for the debate among political and economic thinkers), it's probably not what the majority of the political elite (let alone the mass public) had in mind when they defended capitalism. For most, the belief in the economic efficiency of capitalism was based on more mundane and considerations (when it wasn't based on bare assertion). Empirically, the advent of industrialization did seem to make Britain, and later France, Germany and the US, prosper. Economists, including those who didn't share Smith's presuppositions, also did come up with valid theoretical reasons why a free market would be beneficial to all. They also spotted real issues about the proposed socialistic alternatives: questions about the costs of centralized management, the difficulty of maintaining a coherent economic organization and enforcing its rules, etc.

This ties into another strand of pro-capitalist sentiment, which might actually have been the most powerful driver, if not of its emergence, certainly of its endurance. That is, the "Burkean" attachment to status quo in and of itself, as something inherently valuable that a sound political leadership seeks to preserve within the realm of practicability. You probably know Burke far better than I do, so I won't expand too much on that. The greatest strength of this argument, I would say, is that it recognizes the reality that upsetting the status quo will always come at a cost, that the transition is likely to create distress both material and emotional. Capitalism, therefore, might not be optimal, but it is nonetheless preferable to stick with what we have than to effect dramatic change for an uncertain payoff. This is actually an argument that finds its way into descriptive theories of public policy, most notably through the concept of path dependence: while a country that has Policy A would be better off ceteris paribus if it had Policy B instead, the cost of transitioning from A to B might be high enough to make it necessary to stick with A. Of course, this argument only works if we accept that capitalism still fulfill its purpose adequately, even if not optimally.

An even more quintessentially conservative defense of capitalism (which I haven't encountered much, but do believe exists) would be the idea that society needs hierarchy, and that capitalism provides a reliable system through which such hierarchy might emerge and consolidate. I see this argument being popular among thinkers nostalgic of feudal society, but mindful of the fact that feudalism is gone for good. Such thinkers might espouse capitalism as a "second-best" principle of social organization that still preserves the elite in a leading role and keeps a check on the material power and cultural influence of the "masses". I think we'll both agree to find this particular line of thought odious beyond redemption.

Finally, and this might be especially relevant to the American context, there is also a distinct tradition of "virtue-ethical" defenses of capitalism. I can't cite a specific thinker, but I have come across many arguments to the effect that a capitalist economic system produces a certain type of character in individuals that is held to be intrinsically valuable. Qualities such as self-reliance, resourcefulness, creativity, determination, or competitive spirit, the argument goes, are most likely to be found in individuals living under capitalism than under alternative system. Therefore, if one holds these attributes as paramount, capitalism might be preferable even if (perhaps even because) it leaves some behind. The element of risk is what motivates all to strive for success. Of course, this argument only works if one shares this particular conception of what the "ideal" character is like.

That's about all I have, unfortunately. I realize this is all pretty vague, and that I may well be missing other important aspects, but I hope this isn't a too disappointing answer.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hey Tony, so good to see that you're firmly ensconced in the cushions of academia. Glad you're doing well.

Hey Barnes, glad to see you too! It's been a while. You make it sound a lot more comfortable than it feels for me right now, but I guess you're not wrong.

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I've never had a chance to read anything from Fanon. In general, my level of familiarity with theories of colonization, race-based domination, and global politics is very superficial, so I can't elaborate much here. From my understanding of the history of decolonization, it's certainly true that the elite that came to power in its wake (which had almost always been educated in the universities of the metropole) ended up largely replicating the political structures of Western nations (beginning with the very for of the nation-state as the relevant political entity, but also down to much more specific institutional arrangements). To what extent this was a political necessity, a self-serving choices from those elites, or a proof of their cultural subalternity, is a hard question that I'm not really qualified to answer. But it's definitely true that anti-colonial movements were themselves deeply shaped by colonization. Every "anti-" is necessarily defined by reference to a "pro-", after all.

Reading Tony's long screed reminds me of what the President of the University of Chicago, Edward Levi said while I was there, that there is a danger that the discipline of economics with such facially powerful tools, will swallow up all the other social sciences, and beyond, and drive policy in a way that is far too unipolar.

This is a very good point. It's very true in the field of political science. A good majority of the work that's being done today uses not only methods, but conceptual tools borrowed from economics. Most often it comes in the form of a "rational choice" framework, where political actors (not only elected officials, but voters, activists, etc) are reduced to utility-maximizing machines akin to homo oeconomicus. I am trying to be one of the holdouts who tries to examine things from a different perspective, but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Countries whose voting patterns I'd like to learn more about include the Scandinavian countries, the UK, and the Netherlands.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to AMA -- here, in the Dutch thread or by PM.

Thanks! I haven't yet had the occasion to familiarize myself with it much, and it's not in the works for very soon (it might not even be in my dissertation, although I hope it is), but what I find so interesting about it is that it's probably the country where a left-right axis and a "cultural" axis both get fully represented in the party system. I'm very curious what the implications of this are in terms of voting patterns.

[Antonio the Sixth]

1) Which political thinkers or politicians have in your mind been most important or influential in shaping Social Democracy as a whole and/or your own personal ideology and why?

In terms of who had the most influence on the development of Social Democracy, I think there is probably no answer other than Bernstein. His contribution was fundamental, and certainly paved the way for the ideological developments that I personally value most. Breaking from the Marxist orthodoxy was fundamental for the SPD (and thereby, for most European Socialist parties, which largely looked up to it) to really become fertile ground intellectually. Jaurès made a good attempt at that in France, but his thought was probably too typically French, and not systematic enough, to have that much influence. Bernstein had the simple yet powerful intuition that "the movement is everything" and that socialist forces should stop sitting out and waiting for the Great Proletarian Revolution to happen and start actually figuring out how to improve the conditions of the working class.

However, I think that this intuition was also Bernstein's limit, and that his rejection of the rigid marxism of the SPD led him to avoid formulating an coherent alternative theoretical framework. Improving the conditions of the working class is all well and good, but how do you do that? Is it only a matter of higher wages and a 8-hour workday? Or don't we need a broader blueprint for what kind of change we want to enact in society? The movement might be everything, but, if we want it to be more than random spurts, we also need a sense of what the "right direction" is. Now, one important thing to remember is that any framework that sets a direction for social progress is only valid within a given historical context - thus, there is no grand theory of socialism that's absolute and universally true, like Marxism claimed to be. All will ultimately be obsolete.

That being said, the social democratic vision of society that I personally have found most appealing, and that I think could still do the most good within the present context, is that articulated by Swedish Social Democrats in the early 20th century. Of course, not everything in this current of thought is adapted to the modern reality (these thinkers were writing at a time when the household was organized under a "male breadwinner" model and when national economies were largely close). Still, I would maintain that their basic intuitions are still true to this day - perhaps even more than when they first came out. The key idea is that socialists can harness the power of the State through the means of democratic competition, then use it to gradually bend the capitalist society until it functions exactly like a socialist society would. This goes beyond Bernstein's project, in that the goal isn't merely to make workers' lot better, but rather to ultimately abolish the class structure altogether (or at least make it lose any meaning beyond occupations).

The two Swedish figures who have particularly shaped my own understanding are Per Albin Hansson and Ernst Wigforss. From Hansson I've taken the key idea of the "Folkhemmet" ("People's Home"), which saw Social Democracy's goal as that to create a nation that looked after each of its citizen with the same devotion as a nuclear family would its children (you can see from there why I don't resent being labeled a "nanny Statist"!). Hansson's main goal was to position the SAP as the true patriotic party and redefine patriotism in a sense favorable to its goals, but what I personally find most appealing with this is this emphasis on the idea of caring, this empathetic vision of socialism (in contrast to the cold, rationalist logic of Marxism). Wigforss was the great theorist of the Swedish social democratic project, which he argued was the only one that could reconcile equality, freedom, democracy, economic efficiency, security and solidarity.

I also think very highly of some of Enrico Berlinguer's insights, along with those of the aforementioned Jaurès. I think social democratic thought could benefit a lot from integrating these perspectives. I'd also like to learn more about Austrian social democratic thoughts, as well as about the earlier utopian socialists.

[Antonio the Sixth]

2) Over our years on this forum you and I have occasionally clashed over our view on the European Union. If I have understood your opinion correctly, you recognize that there are several institutional problems with the EU but you think that these can be fixed to turn the union into a force of good. What would you say are the biggest institutional problems with the way the union functions today and how do you propose to solve those problems?

Sorry it's taken me a while to answer. Classes are really intense this quarter.

My views on the EU have shifted a bit in the past couple of years, but that's still a reasonably accurate description, yeah. Basically, I believe that a country outside of the EU is 100% assured to fall into the fiscal death spiral and eventually turn into a neoliberal dystopia (unless they can keep relying on resource exports like Norway currently does), while, within the EU, that probability is maybe around 80% right now. We're probably screwed either way, but whatever hope we can cling to will require some kind of economic and political union.

As to what the most serious problems with the EU are, I'll be boring and say that the first and foremost is a lack of democratic legitimacy. The EU will remain a dysfunctional mess as long as the power within it is concentrated into obscure, unelected institutions that work on the basis of bargains between countries, rather than genuinely political bodies. This has several implications. The first and most obvious one is that the EP must become the main locus of decision, while the Commission is relegated to a mere executive role, and the two Councils with almost identical names must be abolished. But obviously that's not enough, because the EP as it exists makes very little sense. People vote (to the extent that they even vote) on European elections for their national parties, based on national issues. Changing this will be hard, but it's not impossible. I think forcing parties to use their European labels when running for election, and forbidding major national players from campaigning, would go a long way in that direction. Ideally, the candidate for the European Commission should be widely publicized and become the main face of the party.

There are a lot of things I'd like to see happen in terms of substantive policy at the EU level (fiscal harmonization, federal welfare standards, mutualization of the debt, etc.), but the fundamental precondition for all these things is that the EU become a legitimate political actor which citizens believe that they have an influence on.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Any more questions? It might take me a couple days, but I'll make sure to answer everything.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Do you think there's any hope for PS to continue to exist if FBM wins? How about if Panzergirl wins? JLM? Fillon?

Before I answer this, I should warn you that my track record for predicting things is terrible. Here is, word for word, what I told a friend who asked me about FBM last November:

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(Thank God I included that last sentence!)

Having said that, even as things stand right now, I still have trouble seeing the PS dying outright. It will, in all likelihood, take a major blow after the next legislative elections, but that wouldn't be the first time. At the end of the day, it is still one of only two parties with a major network of elected officials (especially at the local levels - regions, departments, communes) and an infrastructure capable of fielding candidates everywhere. In a country where most elections take place in single-member (or otherwise small) districts, those are major advantages. The FN is only just starting to get there yet (and even then, its candidates have serious name recognition issues), and En Marche and La France Insoumise definitely aren't. So, it's in a position to endure a few bad years and come back eventually. If it dies, it will be a slow death, requiring not only a PS electoral collapse but the long-term consolidation of another political force as the main non-LR party. This is a process that is bound to take at least a couple years (and up to a decade, as was the case of the moribund SFIO from 1958 to 1969).

Another possibility, of course, is that of a mass defection of PS elected officials to another party. It's clear that many people within the PS are already thinking about that, as their endorsement of FBM suggests. That probably means that FBM winning is the most dangerous outcome for the PS' future. That being said, this probably won't happen either, because it doesn't seem like FBM is interested in welcoming old PS dinosaurs into En Marche! (which would undermine its credibility as a new, hip and cool political movement). Besides, even if Valls&co do end up leaving, it's not clear whether the aforementioned local officeholder would follow suit. I'd like to hope that enough of them hold on to old-school left-wing values at least a little (that might be wishful thinking, though).

[Antonio the Sixth]

What do you think my politics are?

Is that a trick question? From what I've seen of you, I'll go with "postmodern technocratic liberalism", but there might be other labels that fit better.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What do you think my politics are?

Is that a trick question? From what I've seen of you, I'll go with "postmodern technocratic liberalism", but there might be other labels that fit better.

I was wondering if your answer would be really distorted.

Distorted from what, exactly?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Do you still feel positively about Matteo Renzi?

Not really, no. I still think he's probably the least dire realistic option available in Italy right now, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Can you vote in Italy if you wanted?

I can and I have. I've never missed an election there (to my own shame, I did miss a few in France).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Bump now that I'm done with classes and have more time to answer questions.