Responding to the Question of how and when the US Republican Party Embraced Fascism.

Republicans consciously drove the process. This was not an accident, it was a plan. And not a secret plan. It was all done out in the open.

Some key dates are

1971: Nixon solves his Vietnam problem by crashing out of the gold standard and ending the post-war economic consensus. This creates a vacuum that is filled by far-right intellections, notably Hayek and Friedman.

Robert Powell issues his now famous memo—outlining his plan for a neoliberal revolution in the USA which puts business men firmly in control of everything. Something like this plan is eventually implemented by the Republicans and their cronies.

For example, they end up totally controlling how economics is taught at all levels: now all economics students only ever learn Hayek and Friedman and other far-right economists.

1973: The first oil shock caused by oil producing countries in Arabia taking back control of their oil from the US and the UK.

When Iran tries to follow suit it was sentenced to 25 years of rule by US-backed dictator. When Venezuela tries it, they are virtually wiped off the map. The House of Saud prevails, and begins enthusiastically exporting what we now call Islamism to the world in the hope of converting the world to Islam and destroying the unbelievers in the USA.

The first post-war recessions hit and change the economic landscape of the world. And this creates a crisis of confidence in the post-Keynesian consensus. Enter the neoliberals. When economists, journalists, and politicians have all been indoctrinated in the same monoculture, there is no meaningful discussion about alternatives. They all believe that neoliberal economics is the only viable alternative.

This situation never gets better. Wages stagnate, US jobs are exported to Mexico and China (the USA’s bitter enemy), and yet the people who own things for a living become incalculably better off at the expense of literally everyone else.

1979: Reagan, fearing that he will lose to incumbent Jimmy Carter, has his henchmen make a deal with Gerry Falwell and other Televangelists, to radicalise and mobilise their previously apolitical cult members to support the Republicans in return for the Republicans pushing a fundamentalist Christian political agenda. They believe they have been promised a theocracy in the USA and begin agitating to bring about the Apocalypse. (And of course, Trump hands these people their greatest victory in the SCOTUS striking down Roe v Wade).

On taking office, Reagan appoints disciple of the Ayn Rand cult, Alan Greenspan, as Sect of the Treasury. Greenspan is one of the most extreme anarcho-capitalists on the planet. He tears down all impediments to exploiting the shit out of citizens. Later, Greenspan convinces Bill Clinton not to fulfill any of this campaign promises because “there is no money [in the richest country in the world]”.

Throughout this period the USA is constantly at war, but most especially in Central and Southern America. The USA has toppled more democratically elected foreign governments that it has elected presidents.

At this point the writing was already on the wall. And one can find, for example, Frank Zappa already loudly complaining in TV interviews about the USA becoming “a fascist theocracy”.

2001: having fought all their wars in other people’s back yards, the Americans are shocked when a group of Saudi nationals (trained by former US ally Osama bin Laden) carry out a daring plan to fly planes into iconic buildings. Two out of three succeed. About 3000 US citizens are killed. Which is less that domestic terrorism

The USA attacks Afghanistan, kills in the order of 200,000 innocent civilians, summarily executes Bin in Pakistan (where he has lived for many years), then withdraws leaving the Taliban in charge. The total cost of this pointless exercise to the USA was in excess of $2 trillion.

For good measure they utterly destroy the civil infrastructure of Iraq and leave it a smoking ruin. At a cost of $3 trillion.

Government debt goes up, so they “have no choice” but to slash budgets and taxes for people who own things for a living. Cutting taxes for the rich is a central policy platform of neoliberalism (especially in the USA).

Since 2000 the US median wage has risen by 25%. But the median cost of healthcare, medicine, and education has all risen by 250–300%. The median cost of a new car has risen by 177%. Middle income earners can no longer afford a middle class lifestyle

Domestically, 9/11 flips a switch in the hearts of many Americans. They start thinking “We are under attack!” “We are not safe.”

At this point, fascism and the collapse of democracy in the US are more or less certain (though few of us could see it at the time). The paranoia does not subside because far-right agitators are the most paranoid of all. Suddenly xenophobia is the rule in formerly tolerant and welcoming Americans. Now all foreigners are viewed with suspicion.

The police become increasingly militarised. School shootings become an epidemic that the USA seems unable to do anything about. “At the same time, as of 2020, right-wing extremist terrorism accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the US and has killed more people in the continental United States since the September 11 attacks than Islamic terrorism” — Wikipedia.

The switch never got flipped back to its peacetime setting. The USA now sees itself as being at war with the rest of the world. And they have elected a leader who wants to lead this war, against worthy Democratic opponents who refuse to acknowledge the problems that obsess Middle America. At around the same time as the US succumbs to the paranoia of 9/11, middle income earners are realising that they cannot afford a middle class lifestyle any more.

The average American can objectively say that their way of life is under attack. What no one ever seems to get is that the problem is imperialism and neoliberalism. By treating everyone with contempt, the Americans have sowed the seeds of their own destruction. But most especially, if you shank the middle classes, they will organise against you.

It was foolish and reprehensible for the Democrats to run a business-as-usual campaign when middle America is both paranoid and broke; while the 1% are becoming ever more ostentatious in their conspicuous consumption and ever less philanthropic.

But you have to remember that Democrats could have defeated fascism at any point along the way, if they had taken it seriously. They did not. They thought Trump running was funny. Then he won, and they were like “how could this happen?”. Even now, after Trump has won a second term, they are like, “this could never happen, so it didn’t happen”. Fool me once…

Meanwhile confirmed drug addled, serial rapist, and fascist bully-boy, Matt Gaetz is set to be AG and thus the principal weapon in Trump’s revenge against the Democrats: key figures and institutions are going to be targeted by the AG and the DOJ. It would not surprise me if, four years from now the Democratic Party is officially denounced as a terrorist organisation and their assets seized by the state. They won’t wait 4 years like the hapless Democrats. 

Authoritarian Leaders and Authoritarian Followers

Fascist Leaders

Jason Stanley, in his work on fascism, particularly in his book How Fascism Works, focuses on the mechanics of fascist propaganda and the social dynamics that enable fascism to take root in societies. His approach is less about defining fascism as a rigid ideology and more about examining the strategies and tactics that fascist movements use to gain and consolidate power. Stanley identifies a range of rhetorical and psychological techniques that foster division, undermine truth, and exploit fears, laying the groundwork for fascist politics. Here are key aspects of his approach:

Us vs. Them Mentality: Stanley argues that fascism creates sharp divisions within society, often based on race, nationality, or religion, fostering a sense of in-group superiority and portraying out-groups as threats to purity or security.

Glorification of a Mythic Past: Fascism, according to Stanley, typically invokes an idealized past—a time of perceived national or racial purity—which is presented as something to be "restored," often through authoritarian means. This also involves a sense of victimhood in which "them" are the cause of the decline and attacking "them" is a way to restore former glory.

Anti-Intellectualism and Attacks on Truth: Fascist movements work to discredit objective facts, scientific knowledge, and intellectuals, creating an atmosphere where truth becomes a matter of opinion, and propaganda can easily fill the void.

Law and Order as a Cover for Oppression: Fascists often invoke "law and order" as a pretext for expanding authoritarian control, portraying themselves as protectors of stability while framing marginalized groups or political opponents as dangerous or criminal.

Populist Appeal and Conspiracy Theories: Stanley highlights that fascism often presents itself as a grassroots movement against corrupt elites, even when supported by powerful figures. Conspiracy theories, particularly ones about “enemies within,” are frequently used to build this narrative.

Stanley's approach is distinctive for its focus on fascism as a set of political tools and strategies rather than as a traditional ideology. This allows him to show how elements of fascist politics can appear in various contexts without requiring a complete alignment with historical fascist regimes.

Followers

Karen Stenner's approach to authoritarianism, particularly in her book The Authoritarian Dynamic, focuses on psychological predispositions rather than ideological commitments. Stenner argues that authoritarianism is not necessarily tied to specific political ideologies but is, instead, a psychological response to perceived threats to social order and cohesion. Her main contributions include:

Authoritarian Personality and Psychological Predisposition: Stenner proposes that some individuals have a latent authoritarian predisposition that surfaces in response to certain triggers, especially situations of perceived instability, diversity, or moral decline.

Preference for Order and Conformity: According to Stenner, authoritarians have a high need for order, predictability, and social uniformity. This makes them more likely to support authoritarian policies or leaders that promise to enforce conformity and maintain cohesion in the face of perceived disorder.

Response to Threat: Rather than being inherently active, this authoritarian tendency is typically dormant and only activated in response to perceived threats to social cohesion, such as rapid social changes, increased diversity, or moral conflict.

Distinction Between Authoritarianism and Conservatism: Stenner draws a distinction between conservatism and authoritarianism, noting that conservatism seeks to maintain traditional institutions, while authoritarianism seeks to enforce uniformity and obedience, even if it means changing traditional structures.

Normative Threat and Activation: Stenner emphasizes the role of “normative threat,” which includes anything that challenges traditional norms, values, or group homogeneity. When these threats are perceived, individuals with an authoritarian predisposition become more supportive of authoritarian policies to restore social unity and moral order.

Stenner’s approach underscores that authoritarianism is less about fixed ideological positions and more about a psychological inclination towards order and uniformity that activates under perceived societal threats.

Capitalism is Consuming the Planet.

Capital is an accumulation and hoarding of wealth over and above what is required for a comfortable life. Wealth includes money, of course, but it often takes the form of assets, especially land, gold, and precious objects. Anything that a bank would count as collateral for a loan. Saving for a rainy day doesn't count, as one always knows that one will spend savings eventually.

Capital is wealth that one doesn't need.

A Capitalist is someone who earns the bulk of their income from lending their capital to others in return for interest. The majority of capitalists inherit their capital from their parents.

Capitalism is the ideology which says that society should be run by and for capitalists.

Under capitalism, workers are an expense not an asset. Wages are subtracted from profits. Under capitalism, every workplace is a run like a feudal fief. And if you still earn a wage or salary, but you don't have surplus wealth, you are not a capitalist. You are merely a capitalist flunky (at best).

The aim of the ideology of capitalism is to generate more capital for fewer people. And it doesn't matter how many workers are killed, maimed or enslaved in the process. Wealth is the measure of all things.

Most countries have extensive laws to protect people from capitalists because capitalists has proven that they don't care about people. So we need labour laws preventing, mitigating, or requiring extra wages for overworking, dangerous work; equality laws so that men and women are paid the same for the same work; anti-discrimination laws to eliminate systemic prejudice, anti-pollution laws because capitalism has toxic waste products; antitrust laws to prevent monopolies, etc.

Capitalism is an acknowledged danger to society.

Free Market Capitalism adds a twist. Rather than laws to protect people from capitalism, neoliberals in the mid 20th century proposed that "markets" would solve all problems. People would no longer need laws to protect them from capitalists because if a capitalist was unethical, the market would reflect that by raising prices or reducing demand. No judgement was involved, it was the apotheosis of social Darwinism: survival of the richest.

Free Market Capitalism swept the world in a revolution beginning ca 1971, that eventually controlled all the major world governments (with a huge impact even in China), all of associated central banks, as well as global institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. Revolutionary measures to ensure the health of capitalism were instituted around the world: labour unions were disbanded and/or defanged; laws protecting us from capitalists were repealed; third world economies were forced to adopt free market policies. At the same time democratic reforms were entirely neglected. Dozens of small nations were forced deeper into poverty; large nations like Brazil, India, and Russia voted for fascism (the spectre of fascism is once again haunting us).

The only laws that were never addressed were taxations laws: the burden of taxation continues to fall on workers while capitalists exploit legal loopholes to avoid paying their share.

We are now much worse off than my parents generation economically, but at the same time we have now created some three thousand billionaires. This is not simply more wealth than one could spend in a lifetime, it's more than one could spend in a hundred lifetimes. If you earned the average wage for 1000 years and didn't spend any of it, you would still not be a billionaire.

Capitalism is killing the planet.

Meanwhile the waste products of capitalism are accumulating. Capitalism is driving systemic problems with potentially civilisation-ending consequences: global warming, rising levels of pollution, the mass destruction of ecosystems. It only takes disruption of the global food supply to cause widespread chaos, and it has already become significantly more challenging to grow food.

Poverty

Poverty is largely a consequence of European modes of living, especially their approach to private property. Perhaps the best account of this now is the new book The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Certainly it is the best account I have ever come across and the best history/philosophy book I’ve ever read without exception.

As the Europeans spread out and exported their worldview, they spread poverty around the world by expropriating all the land and resources that once made every human rich and they concentrated them in the hands of a few sociopaths with delusions of grandeur. Any resistance was met with brutal violence, resulting in numerous genocides and the enslavement of millions of people.

Another useful resource is David Spencer’s book on work. There is a fantastic little summary of the main point re poverty in this short article:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170108123038/http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/mercantilism_six_centuries_of_vilifying_the_poor

How do the rich keep being rich and the poor keep being poor?

Well, thanks for asking this, it turns out to be a fascinating story. It seems that the rich own and regulate the means of becoming rich. And they have done so for about 10,000 - 12,000 years or so.

About 600 years or so ago, the rich decided that it was important for the poor to have to work very hard indeed for a subsistence living and that they have little if any leisure time.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170108123038/http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/mercantilism_six_centuries_of_vilifying_the_poor

Because the rich own the means of getting rich, very few new people can break into richness without the prior approval of the rich and they tend to reserve richness for family and friends.

For example, during a short period in the late 20th Century, software development emerged as a path to new richness, but now the rich buy out newcomers well before they get rich. The path that made Elon Musk rich is now more or less closed now. The rich are busy closing loopholes that allow non-rich to become rich and opening loopholes to allow the rich to stay rich.

The poor can work as hard as they like, or as hard as the rich force them to work, and they will never be rich. Because not only do the rich own the means of getting rich, it turns out that they also own the products of the labour of the poor. The poor never get to keep the products of their labour. They have to give all of it to the rich, who then return as little as they can get away with, often considerably less than it takes to stay alive.

Even a small business person is extremely unlikely to become rich—most self-employed people are either already bankrupt or well on their way to becoming bankrupt. They are crushed by the rich.

In the middle, but much closer to the poor than the rich, we have the people who oversee the day to day business of ensuring that the poor remain poor. The poor can aspire to be overseers, but competition is fierce to be an overseer, and mostly the poor don’t get access to the education needed for that, and the educational requirements only go up over time.

The coup de grace is that, nowadays, the rich have convinced the poor that this is the best of all possible worlds. The poor are convinced that if they were in charge it would be chaos, mayhem, disaster, catastrophe, madness. So they conscientiously vote for the rich to be in control. 

The Problem With Politics

I just had to post this tweet storm by Charlotte Alter @CharlotteAlter because it is about the most astute political commentary I've seen lately.

I have spent the last three days speaking to almost every person I've seen on the streets in Kenosha and Racine and folks... I hate to break it to you... but nobody gives a shit about any of the scandals you're tweeting about
It is IMPOSSIBLE for me to describe how much they don't give a shit. It's like they give NEGATIVE shits.

There's this mentality on Twitter that's like "THIS one huge scandal will sink Trump with THIS group of voters" and I can conclusively report that this is bullshit

Here's why:

Many of the people who ~tweet about politics~ assume that voters behave according to a particular logic 

Like: Trump insults women, therefore women will dislike Trump
or
Trump breaks the law, therefore "law and order" R[epublican]s will break from him

YOU THINK voter logic is like: 

A > B > C >D 

IN ACTUALITY, voter logic is more like:

A > Purple > Banana > 18

(this is true on both sides by the way, not just MAGA folks)

Also: the most pervasive bias in political coverage is not left vs. right it's "follows politics" vs. "doesn't follow politics"

By default, nearly everyone who covers politics falls into the "follows politics" category, which makes it really hard to understand people who don't

Also: the most pervasive bias in political coverage is not left vs. right it's "follows politics" vs. "doesn't follow politics"

By default, nearly everyone who covers politics falls into the "follows politics" category, which makes it really hard to understand people who don't

Or politics people will be like "according to polls and modeling, if X% swing in Y direction then Z will happen" and normal people are like... whut

It's worth noting that man-on-the-street reporting is highly anecdotal! This is by no means a comprehensive analysis because it totally depends on who decides to talk to me.

But taken alongside polls and other data, it can be a helpful way to learn what's landing and what's not

One more point, re: EQ

A side effect of the data-fication of political expertise is that the people who can read polls are perceived to be smarter than the people who can read people.

So you have all these guys crunching numbers who aren't actually LISTENING to normal ppl

LISTENING means hearing what people are not saying as well as what they're saying.

LISTENING also means not ambushing voters like "but aren't you upset about X or Y?" or bullying them

LISTENING means making sure they feel like they're being heard and not judged

just saying there are a lot of politics dudes who love to talk and hate to listen

Post-Capitalism

Stock markets are going up in the UK and US. But we are in a recession. Yanis Varoufakis says that this means that the value of companies is no longer correlated with profits and that this is unprecedented.

The price of shares is now being driven by speculators more than by results. We used to think of stocks as an investment. You put your money into a company to help capitalise it and that company pays you an annual dividend based on profits. This is how capitalism works (in this view labour is simply an overhead and does not have anything to do with making a profit).

Speculators are not investors. They are gamblers. They think in the short term. Aided by computers, the short-term can mean milliseconds as algorithms buy and sell shares 1000 times a second accumulating thousands of tiny short term gains to make huge profits over the long term.

This is not investment because the profit is not in the dividends, it is in the second to second fluctuations in price. Speculators can bet that the price with go up, which is a straight profit, but they can also bet that the price will go down (called "shorting") and still make a profit when the price of shares falls.

This speculation is now the dominant force in our stock markets and most of the money involved is, in fact, not doing any work at all in our economy. Rather it sits outside the economy not contributing anything except when the super-rich buy yachts and such.

And the speculators are mainly banks. Banks using the money that governments have been giving them ostensibly to invest in commerce. Here's how it works:

Every time the Fed or the European Central Bank or the Bank of England pumped more money into the commercial banks, in the hope that these monies would be lent to companies which would in turn create new jobs and product lines, the birth of the strange world we now live in came a little closer. How? As an example, consider the following chain reaction: The European Central Bank extended new liquidity to Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank could only profit from it if it found someone to borrow this money. Dedicated to the banker’s mantra “never lend to someone who needs the money”, Deutsche Bank would never lend it to the “little people”, whose circumstances were increasingly diminished (along with their ability to repay any substantial loans), it preferred to lend it to, say, Volkswagen. But, in turn, Volkswagen executives looked at the “little people” out there and thought to themselves: “Their circumstances are diminishing, they won’t be able to afford new, high quality electric cars.” And so Volkswagen postponed crucial investments in new technologies and in new high quality jobs. But, Volkswagen executives would have been remiss not to take the dirt-cheap loans offered by Deutsche Bank. So, they took it. And what did they do with the freshly minted ECB-monies? They used it to buy Volkswagen shares in the stock exchange. The more of those shares they bought the higher Volkswagen’s share value. And since the Volkswagen executives’ salary bonuses were linked to the company’s share value, they profited personally – while, at once, the ECB’s firepower was well and truly wasted from society’s, and indeed from industrial capitalism’s, point of view.

Thus post-capitalism is not a good thing.

"My difference with fellow lefties is that I do not believe there is any guarantee that what follows capitalism – let’s call it, for want of a better term, postcapitalism – will be better. It may well be utterly dystopic, judging by present phenomena." Yanis Varoufakis

Conservatives, Neoliberals, Liberals, and Trump.

This question appeared on Quora

Why don't conservatives do more to reach out and support the cities like zoning reform (housing), transit projects (transportation), economic revitalization (jobs) like urban conservatism? Why serve suburbs and rural areas but leave cities behind?

Here is my response.

It’s not so much to do with conservatism as with liberalism. Liberalism proper is the philosophy of the liberty of the individuals. Liberalism argues that individuals are radically free and thus the circumstances of their lives are the result of their own choices, regardless of the start they got.
We are currently on liberalism 3.0.

Liberalism 1.0 was classical or economic liberalism which emphasised individualism and the private sector. Liberalism 2.0 arose as a response to the failures of 1.0. The distinction is nicely summed up in Isaiah Berlin’s ideas of negative liberty and positive liberty. Liberalism 1.0 emphasised what Berlin called negative liberty, that is the removal of constraints on liberty. In particular the first liberals (an offshoot of Whiggism) argued the government should not interfere in commerce.

This led to poverty, corruption, and instability (aka The Great Depression) so social liberals (2.0) began to argue that positive liberty was also required. They wanted to removed barriers to economic participation such as lack of access to education, health care, or job opportunities. They argued that if the private sector was unable to or unwilling to undertake the kinds of activities you highlight, then government should step in.

Liberalism 3.0 or Neo-liberalism arose as a reaction against Liberalism 2.0. Neoliberalism argues that all commercial activities—such as house building, infrastructure, and investment—must be carried out by the private sector in response to demand. Their ideology is that only the pure logic of supply and demand will ensure a fair distribution of wealth in society.

Unfortunately Liberalism 3.0 still has Liberalism 1.0 as part of it’s kernel and so we are once again seeing poverty, corruption, and economic instability (e.g. the global financial crisis). Worse, Neoliberals openly attack and smear Liberalism 2.0 as the source of all our problems, conflating it with “communism” and extremism. In this view there is no role for positive liberty or for government in society.

The reason we associate these ideas with conservatism is an historical accident. Because these economic ideas are quite unpopular with the majority, the right-wing parties that first adopted them and opted for the more ideologically pure implementation struggled to win power. They were mainly socially conservative but had not connected with other conservative groups. In order to get Reagan elected in the US, Republicans made common cause with the previously politically inactive conservative Christians. They began to emphasise social conservative ideas like “family values” and frame their extreme right-wing economics in terms of “tax relief”.

On the other side Liberalism 2.0 became conflated with socially progressive approaches. Liberalism 1.0 had also been progressive in its time. Then it became mainstream and the norm. Liberalism 2.0 adopted a progressive attitude because their goal of equal economic participation lay in the future. But 2.0 liberals are not left-wing. Especially in the US they are centre-right, i.e. liberals interested in positive liberty.

Weirdly the most extreme right-wing economic policies come from the Republicans nowadays (and their counterparts abroad).

But here’s the thing. Most people vote on social issues rather than economic issues. So they vote conservative even though they don’t like neoliberal economic policies. And neoliberalism, liberalism 3.0, has become entrenched. At the same time a deliberate coup d’etat in universities in the 1970s ensured that only right-wing economics are taught to most students. Left-wing economists were elbowed out and struggled to get published or promoted. So now two generations of economists, think tanks and lobbyists, politicians and journalists have all been indoctrinate with the view that the only valid economics are right-wing. Even Democrat Presidents pursue right-wing economics while trying to implement socially responsible (and extremely popular) policies like universal healthcare.

And here’s the other weird thing. The neoliberals have developed an economic narrative that has social overtones, which is that the 2.0 Liberals cannot be trusted with the nations finances; they don’t understand economic realities (that is to say the ideology of neoliberalism); and any deviation from neoliberal orthodoxy is communism (re-activating the long held fear of the left). This makes economics a social issue.

And so even though neoliberalism the world over is bad for workers, bad for all but the growing number of billionaires, people keep voting for conservatives with a neoliberal agenda that they disagree with.

And the fact that a progressive black man got elected was too much for conservatives and neoliberals. Their fears all seemed to come true at once and created the backlash that Trump rode to power. The Trump-led republican party has zero interest in public works. And we see this in their response to the coronavirus. Govt’s role in their view is to facilitate businessmen making money. Mitch McConnell has become a multimillion since entering the Senate. Trump sees the Presidency as a personal business opportunity and is too busy trying to enrich himself to do anything for Americans. And the extreme conservatives and the extreme neoliberals are only too happy to go along with Trump.

Why Do a Left Leaning Populace Vote Right?

My original title for this was Why Americans Don't Understand Politics. It covers both areas and I wanted to include some ideas about UK. I will be using the Political Compass two-dimensional analysis in this post: economic left = socialism and economic right = liberalism. This is contrasted with authoritarian (maximal) governance and libertarian (minimal) governance. But I will add to this a third dimension of social conservatism and social progressivism. Hence we have three pairs of terms representing extremes of a spectrum.

left ↔ right

authoritarian ↔ libertarian      

conservative ↔ progressive    

In my view it is possible to select a position on the spectrum independently from economic, governance, and social attitudes. And it is a mistake to conflate terms such as left and progressive. Or right and authoritarian. Fascists have little in common with laissez faire libertarians but both are referred to "right wing". If we could sought out these distinctions we might have a more intelligent political discourse. Most importantly the philosophy of liberalism was coincident with the formation of right wing economic policies. The socially progressive New Liberals grew out of the devastation— inequality, corruption, and instability—that classical liberal caused. So we now often take "liberal" to mean left wing because socially progressive right wing people have a social conscience that is mistaken for socialism.

I suspect that the confusion is deliberate and aimed that making public discourse on politics ineffective, but I don't want to give in to conspiracy theories. 

That America politics are almost entirely fought on the right of centre is amply depicted by the Political Compass analysis of the candidates in the US 2020 election.

Note that Biden is well over the centre lined of the right side. 

That something entirely different is going on in the UK is reflected in this graph from Flip Chart Fairy Tales. Though note here that this graph mistakes authoritarian and liberal as social values. Authoritarian is paired with libertarianism (or anarchism) as a mode of governance. They are trying to conflate conservatives and authoritarians, and  progressives and libertarians. Thus the confusion of terminology is perpetuated. In any case we can get some kind of insight from this. In fact this next graph exists at right angles to the Political Compass models.

In Britain, and I think in American too, the voters are in favour of more left wing economic policies, though by "left wing" in America they really mean centrist. Liberals are concerned with helping people to help themselves and thus welfare in a liberal regime like the US is aimed at helping each individual to be an economically productive member of society. These days this primarily means being a consumer rather than a worker. In fact the laissez faire economics of Neoconservative and Neoliberal elected officials are unpopular amongst voters even those who vote for the Tories and the Republicans.

And in Britain and America voters are in favour of conservative social values. And in this case the attitudes are reversed. Voters are far more conservative than politicians of either the left or the right.

 One of the reasons we're seeing a culture war at the moment is because those on the right (Republicans and Tories) know that their economic policies are relatively unpopular with voters compared with the opposition (Democrats and Labour). But their social policies are more popular. Hence by using the culture war to draw attention to social policies they win votes. Of course the right also keep up a barrage of lies about the catastrophic impact of left policies in order to try to capitalise.

So the success of the culture war strategy combined with the economic propaganda sees voters leaning right.

At the moment many young Americans seem to believe that there is an imminent communist revolution in the USA. They believe the media, the multi-billion dollar enterprise run by only about six companies—including Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox (previously News Corp)—has been taken over by "the Left". They believe that Black Lives Matters was organised by Marxists. They believe that Academic is overrun with Marxists. Resentment against so-called "liberals" (i.e. people who are socially progressive is at an all time high.

Part of the problem is that America had a progressive black president for eight years at the same time as a Republican Senate that could block almost all of his initiatives. Obama achieved a fraction of what he might have. But in a nation mainly white, mainly socially conservative people this was too much to bear. And a campaign began that did not end with the election of Trump though it seems to have peaked for now. Key republicans who were vehemently against Trump have now switched their allegiance. There is an ongoing a wave of grievance and resentment amongst socially conservative people.

Fortunately the staggering incompetence of Trump in dealing with Covid19 will probably be the end of him. But expect him to stoke up the culture war, stoke up fear and hatred of people of colour, of experts and scientists, and of progressives. And expect this strategy to be ongoing amongst Republicans because it works. The next republican president will have even more extreme views than Trump, but he'll probably be competent.

Fortunately for America Biden is a right wing, conservative, authoritarian - a good choice for republicans who want to flip. We had the opposite here with Johnson vs Corbyn. No one who thought about flipping from Tory to Labour was ever going to vote for Corbyn, the relentless campaign of lies and slurs notwithstanding. I suspect many Labour voters voted against Corbyn.

Unfortunately for the world, the case for tackling the environment is being made as a socially progressive message, not an economic message, so most people are opposed to the scale of change required. To many even something like the Green New Deal looks too authoritarian, it hands governments sweeping powers to change course in pursuit of a progressive and even radical social agenda.

The Problem with the Right-Wing

If you want to identify some classic right-wing policies, then look no further than the EU's triad of the free movement of capital, goods, and people. Removing barriers to economic activity was the fundamental idea behind Adam Smith's economic philosophy and is the one idea that drives many right-wing politicians. This is liberalism applied to economics - one should be free to pursue business opportunities with minimal interference from government. Let markets set prices and act like karma in linking consequences to actions.

Of the three, the free movement of capital has been the most damaging - causing a number of continent spanning economic crises in Africa, South America, South East Asia, and lastly a global crisis in 2008. It's why billionaires pay no tax and why young people cannot afford to buy houses any more.

Economic liberalism is a disaster because markets never operate in the abstract/free way that karma is supposed to. People and governments always interfere. Always. The wealthy always tip the scales in their favour, it's how they get and sustain wealth.

Removing barriers to monopoly power has led to a sharp uptick in wealth inequality. Someone once asked me what I thought a socialist version of the board game Monopoly would would like. I said, "Dude, Monopoly is essentially a socialist game." It is set up to mimic the unlimited power that accrues to the wealthy under classical liberalism. At the end of the game one player owns all the property and has all the wealth and the other players have nothing. That is precisely the socialist view of what unfettered capitalism does to a society.

And notably this is the situation we increasingly see in the world. A few billionaires who own everything and the rest of us who have next to nothing. Bernie Sanders make this point repeatedly.

The top 1% own more than twice as much wealth as the rest of humanity combined.

We live in a world where a handful of billionaires have extraordinary control over the economic and political life of the global community.

I don't think that's the world we should be living in.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 21, 2020

Ironically, Adam Smith's argument against protectionism and nationalism was that it turned trade into a zero sum game. In the early modern world, the era of massive European Empires spanning the globe, commerce was carried out on a winner take all basis. Colonised countries were mercilessly asset stripped. Piracy was not only rife, but state sanctioned. Smith argued that by dropping barriers to trade, commerce would become a win-win situation - the exchange of goods and services between countries benefits both sides. And to some extent he was right. Trade does tend to raise the standard of living for everyone.

People often cite Singapore as a shining example of unfettered capitalism. But 85% of housing is owned by the government - which is the only reason most Singaporeans are not all homeless right now. Also 22% of GDP comes from state-owned enterprises. Yes, Singapore dropped most barriers to commerce, but they did not throw the baby out with the bath water the way many Western countries did. They carried out the principle role of government in liberal political theory and protected their people from exploitation - ensuring that the cost of housing remains in a sane relation to wages.

Government's role, in liberal political philosophy is to protect citizens from exploitation. This does mean fewer millionaires and no billionaires in order to both ensure competition and to ensure that wealth is distributed fairly amongst citizens. And it does involve some government interventions. Providing free education is universally acknowledged as a public good although this does not stop governments skimping on it and exacerbating inequality. Healthcare is widely acknowledged to be a societal benefit as well (except in the USA).

Capitalism is really the only viable way to run a national economy. But laissez faire capitalism doesn't create a fair or equitable division of wealth. It concentrates wealth, it transfers wealth to the wealthy. It creates a torrent of wealth upwards, not a trickle down effect. Govt has to prevent monopolies. And having just four companies dominating the globe in any given sector is effectively a monopoly. Allowing the largest companies to merge and swallow up competitors reduces competition and removes the incentives that make capitalism work.

The trillion dollar companies used their monopoly positions to squash competitors and prevent new players from entering the market. Having companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook dominate the world is killing innovation and siphoning wealth out of the real economy.

I don't see any future for communism or socialism as systems. However, more worker ownership of businesses would be a good thing. And some state-owned enterprises clearly provide benefits: housing, healthcare, infrastructure such as roads, bridges.

The other clear role for government is in dealing with systemic problems. Acute problems like the coronavirus outbreak in China can only be dealt with by national and international agencies with real power to enforce measures. And chronic problems like climate change require governments to nudge and shove business to change their behaviour. Government is the only check on industries that appear to behave as a psychotic person with no concern for consequences, no empathy for victims, and a single-minded exploitation and manipulation of everyone and everything for their own benefit.

I think the anti-capitalist movement is silly. And I've had to cut my ties with organisations like Extinction Rebellion because it is largely populated with people who have utopian ideas replacing capitalism. I agree that we have to pressure governments to address climate change, but government led capitalism is the only chance we have of bringing about the necessary change at the necessary speed. Socialist utopias are a fantasy and we need to abandon the fantasy that humanity is all going to get along and have their needs provided for free.