In a short piece for Politico.eu (pages 24-25, printed version), I try to ask a question that has been with me since reading Steve Davies’s articulate Facebook posts on political realignment. Steve has been writing for quite a while that economic issues have lost centrality in politics, and there is a looming new alignment on identity and nationalism versus cosmopolitanism. He sees the last European elections, with traditional parties (center-right Christian-democrat conservatives, center-left socialists) losing ground and both cosmopolitan liberals and nationalists growing bigger, as a proof of that.
In this perspective, identity politics is becoming more and more important, both on the right and on the left. This is not good news for free marketers, who are losing their traditional allies, i.e., right-wing conservatives, to some sort of national corporatism. But it hardly means they are gaining friends on the cosmopolitan left, that is impermeable to *our* economic thinking:
Moderate conservative parties, members of the European People’s Party, once called for “rolling back the state.” These days, they’re unlikely to rally around the flag of free enterprise. Politically, they are moving further to the right, investing in identity issues to try to contain their nationalist competitors. The left meanwhile is socially libertarian, but its concern with inequality means it is still keen on government interventionism.
In the piece, I try to frame this evolution in the context of the old opposition of country and city. Contrary to what many think, I think that the first has been better allies of limited government than the second: perhaps not because of ideology, but of prudence. Now the situation has changed and free marketers risk ending up being politically homeless, even more than in the past.
READER COMMENTS
Mark
Jun 16 2019 at 10:57pm
It seems that the Green and Liberal parties that are gaining in Europe are more pro-free market than the traditional Social Democratic parties though, even if they are far from libertarian.
Mark Z
Jun 16 2019 at 11:46pm
Certainly true of the Liberal parties (the FDP in Germany more so than the LibDems in the UK imo) but is this really so for the Greens? In Germany, the Greens seem even more anti-market than the SPD, from what I’ve read at least.
Mark
Jun 17 2019 at 8:07am
What have you read? I’m asking out of curiosity as I don’t claim to be an expert, and would be interested to see alternative views. The limited stuff I’ve read all puts the Greens to the right of the SPD economically. For example, here is 538 citing some research that puts the Greens slightly to the right of the SPD (considering that the Greens are to the left on social and environmental issues, this means they are probably noticeably to the right on non-environmental economic issues): https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/six-charts-to-help-americans-understand-the-upcoming-german-election/. And here’s the Economist: https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/09/27/germanys-greens-are-older-wiser-and-doing-well
Mark Z
Jun 19 2019 at 4:47pm
The Greens seem to be more in favor of deficit spending than the SPD, and have favored stringent “equal pay” legislation, as well as quotas (I think as high as 40%) for female representation on boards of directors (though the SPD may support that as well; I think even Merkel has passed a measure imposing some quotas). The Greens definitely support aggressive “affirmative action” and have more of a radical feminist/anti-male streak though. They’re also stridently anti-GMO (to the extent of wanting to ban GMO crops).
They seem to favor extensive increase in regulation of: finance, consumer goods, and pretty much everything else; they want a much more generous entitlements in every realm. I’m not sure how much of this mirrors the SPD, but in terms of general policy goals, I can’t imagine the SPD could be much more radical than this.
https://www.gruene-bundestag.de/service-navigation/english.html
Thaomas
Jun 17 2019 at 6:20pm
I think the most defensible ground for Libertarians is drop their opposition to redistribution, seeking to replace distorting regulations whose aim is to redistribute income downward with more explicit redistribution. For example, a higher EITC for minimum wages. In addition more focus on replacing less efficient regulation of externalities with more efficient regulation. For example a carbon tax rather than subsidies to renewable energy.
SaveyourSelf
Jun 19 2019 at 11:59am
Except then they wouldn’t be libertarian at all.
Mark Z
Jun 19 2019 at 4:53pm
Yeah, I’m certainly not swayed to accept either the practical or moral case for extensive redistribution. Deregulation + a generous welfare state (which we already have, though perhaps generous to the wrong people, government employees rather than recipients) may be a plausible compromise between libertarians and progressives. But only until the day when classical liberalism makes a huge come-back and “we” have the political clout to roll back the welfare state (a day that might come in a thousand years or so). But in politics today’s allies are often tomorrows enemies.
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