Letters: Stories from Political Nomads II

When we change the way we communicate, we change society. -Clay Shirky

Joseph Parrish and Jennifer Richmond continue their correspondence...

Joe,

Although I appear to have a more conservative background, your letter and your move to the middle resonates with me. Is there such a thing as a conservative-progressive-centrist? I hate the labels as they clearly don’t allow for nuance. The best I’ve come up for myself, outside of Independent is Classical Liberal, which is somewhat erroneously considered the equivalent of a Libertarian. No matter the label, I don’t think we are alone here in the messy middle.

Touching on this, you brought up evangelicals and their disdain for homosexuals as one of the reasons you moved more firmly to the left in your youth. I get this. While I do consider myself a Christian and place great emphasis on the family, I don’t believe the family unit must reflect a Norman Rockwell painting. I feel confident that Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves didn’t mean only your white heterosexual neighbors. As I interpret the Classical Liberal ideology, freedom — of religion, sexual preference and so on — is the cornerstone. Like you, I’m frustrated that this message, and Christianity, has been massaged and manipulated to political ends; it’s not about freedom any longer, but wielding power.

As for the government, where I believe my conservatism is most evident is in the desire for a smaller government. Perhaps that comes from my rural family background, I mentioned in another post — I think there is less need for regulation in rural areas and government policies that may be needed to dictate human interaction in urban areas is seen as an intrusion in rural areas. Partly it also comes from my belief as I mentioned in my introductory letter, that politicians don’t always seem to have the interests of their voters in mind. But I don’t hate the government, I just want the citizens to have more genuine participation in our democracy.

You mention that you supported Bernie Sanders and his platform of actual ethics and stable economics. I absolutely agree with you on your first point. He seems like a wonderful man. But, I’d like to hear more on what stable economics looks like to you. Is there such a thing? I have a more Adam Smith economic outlook, but here is where I undermine my conservative roots — I am a capitalist, but I do believe that capitalism needs some guidance. There is room for the government to direct big corporations to better contribute to American society.

I love the American Dream — work hard, reap the rewards. But, I see the dream evaporating, a lot of it as a result of globalization and corporate greed. You mentioned this in your letter when you wrote that the Democrat elite “do not seem to care that favoring their wealthy donors often puts minorities in peril.”

The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision. -Azar Nafisi

Historically, the Republicans were considered the champions of free-trade and globalization, but there has been a change within the Democratic Party. They hide behind “multiculturalism” as justification for globalization. The rise of Trump (and Sanders) was in part a backlash of the American worker. How do you think Sanders would’ve eased the burden of the American worker? While I think there is some room for a more equitable redistribution of corporate wealth, there must be a balance that also rewards corporate/company and individual ingenuity. I fear that a more socialist system would stymie these growth drivers. Yes, it works well in smaller more homogeneous countries, but the American blueprint is unique. I don’t have answers, just a lot of questions.

I’ve been listening to a great interview on the Rubin Report with Jeffrey Tucker discussing his book Right Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty. In it they note that the left and the right are actually not as distinguishable as they used to be and use the example of trade. Both Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump have surprisingly similar views on trade. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both appealed to the working class. According to Tucker, Sanders has even complained that free immigration is a capitalist plot to bring in cheap labor. While the left and the right have different “cultural pitches” as Tucker says, they are surprisingly similar and ultimately regardless of the tone of the “pitch” it all boils down to down to the use of power.

Tucker goes on to say that (Classical) Liberalism has always been about giving people the freedom to live their lives, free speech and universal rights. There is a growing resentment from both the left and the right against this ideal. The right resents too much change. The left resents too much wealth (at least in speech, if not in reality!). And so on. But at the end of the day, it is about power — they are trying to capture the state to be able to control the lives of others. A theme you touched on in your letter.

The primary contribution of government to this world is to elicit, entrench, enable and finally codify the most destructive aspects of the human personality. -Jeffrey Tucker

Like you, I feel that identarian politics (in many ways another power-play) has done more to divide than unite us. There are issues of racism and inequality that need to be addressed. I hear the arguments that racism has become institutionalized and many of us are ignorant to the impact, especially those whose race is the reigning power-broker. But, I can’t help to feel that this serious issue has been hijacked as a political tool, and the means will not lead to the appropriate ends.

What is the difference between leftists and cannibals? Cannibals don’t eat their friends.

I read a powerful article the other day: Suspicion and the Corruption of the Liberal Mind. It started with a quote attributed to Lyndon Johnson which read — What is the difference between leftists and cannibals? Cannibals don’t eat their friends. The article went on to explore the new “mood” of suspicion in America. The author notes,

To regard the majority of Western peoples as possessing malign motives; to base a life upon such a point of view; to approach all books, plays, art, and human interactions with this kind of suspicion is not…a sign of clear-eyed perception but rather, as one of my psychology professors once put it, a diseased mind. Like its more extreme cousin, paranoia, it becomes self-perpetuating: the more suspicious one is, the more vigilant one becomes; the more vigilant one is, the more evidence one finds in even the most innocent of behaviors; and the more evidence one finds, the more suspicious one becomes.

The suspicion has so permeated our society that the LBJ quote at the beginning is really not even a stretch. We are literally (both the left and right) eating our own and it is evidenced not only in how we relate (or fail to relate) to each other, but also visible in rising violent crime.

So, while we may not agree on everything, you say in the closing of your letter that we need a rational center and you ask if there is anyone willing to fill it with you. You can count me in.

Jennifer

Jennifer,

Thank you for joining me in the rational center! I think it is fair that I address some of your questions and observations. First of all, what do I mean when I call myself a progressive centrist? For one, I am not calling myself left-of-center politically. I actually think I am in the dead center. Progressivism, for me, is not something that maps well onto left-wing or right-wing thinking. I see it more as being a form of populism along a spectrum of populist and establishmentarian thinking. It explains why both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump appealed to similar crowds, as you pointed out. It had nothing to do with how left or right they were but with their populist edge.

Progressivism is a form of populism that focuses on ethics and innovation, primarily in the context of economics and governance. This can allow for it to express itself in a variety of ways politically, but the salient sort is what we might call social democracy, which is the general system that the Nordic countries employ. It is based on a free market system, with a proactivegovernment that satisfies collective demand and keeps negative externalities of private enterprise in check.

So you and I are both from rural backgrounds. I think it is therefore interesting that we both see the impact of government differently in such an environment. I am certainly aware of the perspective that government can come off as intrusive in a local community, callously disregarding their ways and traditions. I think this is more obviously the case on social issues, such as when cake shops want to be able to refuse service to homosexual couples. In other cases, however, I see a lot of neglect for rural areas. I remember the lack of infrastructure, the poor quality of our schools, and quasi-absence of medical facilities. I think few country folk would complain if the government cared to step in and provide these things.

This sort of leads me to a statement of yours that has always struck me as strange, namely in how you explain the success of the Nordic systems: their being smaller and more homogenous. The homogeneity might offer certain cultural advantages (i.e. not feuding over racial or ethnic differences), but in truth, being smaller offers no advantage in the mechanisms of budgeting appropriately for the kinds of social programs that these Nordic countries have. If rural life has taught me anything, it is that being small almost certainly guarantees the lack of appropriate revenue for basic needs in a community. In reality, America should be better-able to tackle what is a collective effort (of something like health care) because it has the advantage of volume for the pooling of requisite funds.

I think the advantage these programs provide is seen in the solidarity of the consumer base. You pointed to a need not to depress the potential of high earners and achievers too much, but that needs to be balanced with the ability of consumers to hold together during hard times. The Great Recession is largely a testament to this. Incomes had remained stagnant for the middle and lower classes, while costs had risen. When a shock to the economy (in the form of the housing crisis) hit, consumers were not able to whether the storm, which deprived businesses of clients, leading to a death spiral. The only thing that ended the free fall was the intervention of the state.

This sort of gets me to my point about stability about which you inquired. I share Smith’s view (or at least that of classicalists) of economics too on many things, such as the existence of the business cycle, with its peaks and valleys, and I worry that excessively hasty and inefficient growth can come apart quite easily, with the smaller, rural communities often the places hit the hardest. Thus, I am interested in modest growth that sustains better over long periods, as opposed to explosive quarters that sabotage the future. By ensuring the consumer base is strong, we make that more likely. Given the increasingly rapid development of technology and automation, the need to stabilize is only growing greater and greater, and the market alone does not seem well equipped to contend with that.

Sadly, this version of economics has fallen into partial disuse with the Democrats. I agree that they try to hide behind this failure with their multiculturalism. If they get another black CEO, they call that a win, but if that CEO destroys the jobs of a thousand black employees, you will not hear a peep from the left.

The damage of their multiculturalism does not end there. What is additionally sad is, as you pointed out, the tendency of Democrats today to disregard the progress of the West (much of which was accomplished by Democrats themselves). They see the West as inherently wicked and romanticize more repressive cultures that still treat women, homosexuals, and racial minorities terribly. This is where American liberals really begin to betray the standards of classical liberalism and where conservatives balance out as “more liberal,” in that sense. That said, plenty of American conservatives have disgusting views of women, homosexuals, and minorities too, so how many classical liberals do we even have anymore?

I think Eric Weinstein has correctly assessed that those of us in the center need to work together to rein in our crazies. I need to do that with fringe Democrats, and you might need to do that with Republicans/the right. As I stated before, technology is hastening the speed at which we can reach failure, so I think the deadlock that emerges from this current situation is not sustainable over time. It is going to prevent us from leaping over the gorge as we approach it. I wonder if you also perceive the same impending problem.

Respectfully,

Joe