Too Much Plato in Our Politics
This is the second in a series of blog posts attempting to expand the one dimensional left-right political paradigm onto a two dimensional plane. You can find the first, third, and fourth posts here.
In his book The Cave and the Light, Arthur Herman traces the history of an ancient struggle between the idealism of Plato and the realism of Aristotle. Herman’s thesis is that societies become dysfunctional when they are either too idealistic (too much Plato) or too realistic (too much Aristotle). The tension between idealism and materialism reflects a fundamental duality in human nature. On the one hand, we are practical animals, looking out for own interests and the interests of our family (homo economicus as some economists call us.) But we can also be idealists who make decisions based on a deep moral sense of right and wrong. These charts attempt to demonstrate that our political conversation has shifted into the “too much Plato” and “not enough Aristotle.”
Culture Wars vs Labor Wars
In the history of American politics, the material concerns of Labor vs. Business have always dominated the national conversation. This focus has kept politics grounded in practicalities addressing the needs of either the working class or business interests. Over the last few decades however, the national conversation has shifted from labor issues to social ones: culture wars. As a result, voters in the lower two quadrants have been increasingly ignored. This includes the working class, many of whose communities have been decimated by the death of manufacturing, as well as small business owners who are increasingly burdened by taxes and regulations designed with global corporate entities in mind.
The failure of our politics to address the material concerns of the voting public is beginning to have massive repercussions which I’ll get into. But before we get there, we need to talk about neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a word used to describe what liberal democracy has become in our modern, globally interconnected world. For its defenders, it is the peaceful, global cooperation that facilitates free trade and that has led to dramatic reductions in poverty, crime, and war. For its detractors, it is crony capitalism, an unholy alliance between beaurocratic and corporate interests that are “too big to fail.” To the conspiratorially minded, it is a “deep state” run by globalist puppet masters, and to the alienated and powerless, it is the death of the American Dream.
Every US president since Nixon has governed as a centrist neoliberal (with the exception of Donald Trump.) This is true even when they campaigned at the extremes. Reaganomics set the stage for a new era of global free trade, with Clinton’s Third Way, GWB’s neocons, and Obama’s centrist progressivism each contributing in its own way. Throughout this whole period, neoliberalism was the only game in town, with all the presidential alternatives being neoliberal as well, particularly Mitt Romney with his “corporations are people” philosophy. While neoliberalism has led to unprecedented levels of material prosperity, that progress has not been evenly shared. In his book Alienated America, Timothy Carney documents the phenomenon of “alienation,” a growing sense among many Americans that the American Dream is dead or dying, and that there is something fundamentally corrupt in the system.
Donald Trump’s New Coalition
Enter Donald Trump, who capitalized on the sense of alienation Americans felt by excoriating the neoliberal establishment and promising to “drain the swamp.” His messaging resonated with Americans in three of the four political quadrants: the working class (feeling abandoned by the neoliberal Left), small business owners (feeling abandoned by the neoliberal Right), and the cultural Right, (embroiled in a vicious culture war with the cultural Left). With three out of four quadrants secularly in his camp, he could afford to attack the neoliberal center, which only energized the growing hostility to the establishment.
Trump’s extremism fueled counter-extremism on the Left. As Republicans purged their RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), the Left followed with its own purge of center-leftists, leaving congress largely controlled by extremists from both parties. Hillary Clinton killed off whatever remained of the Left’s traditional alliance with the Working Class by calling them a “basket of deplorables.” This left Democrats with only the Cultural Left, along with neoliberal moderates who were voting, not necessarily for the the Democrats, but against Trump.
Restoring Balance
The real political struggle of the future will not be between the Left and the Right, but within the parties themselves. The Left will need to find a way to reengage with the working class and stop alienating the center. And the Right will need to reengage with the center or risk becoming an embattled party of extremists. The central question for both parties is what to do about neoliberalism. We can’t keep ignoring neoliberalism’s downsides. There is something “crony” about global capitalism, and the sense of alienation Americans feel from the establishment is real and serious. Nevertheless, the answer is not to continually “throw the bums out.” Once inside, Washington outsiders become Washington insiders. There will need to be institutional changes, but changes that still recognize the importance of the institutions.
Recently there has been a renewed focus on economic issues due to rising inflation, and the new focus does seem to have taken the edge off of the culture wars. It’s possible that the steady run of economic growth we’ve had since 2008 created a void in the political arena which was filled by the culture wars. Those who were still floundering during this period were ignored, because the rest of us were making progress and could focus our political obsessions on cultural issues. Now is an excellent time for both parties to re-establish a balance between their ideals and their material concerns.