Almost by mistake, this bloc of typical citizens—overstressed, under-informed, concerned more with pragmatic quality of life issues than idealistic social goals—has become a powerful political movement. And we didn’t see them coming. Conventional political leaders seem to completely misunderstand them, and even their own champions often appear to disrespect them. They do so at their peril.
Towhey sees these voters as concerned with practical solutions, not ideology. I hope that does not mean that they just want the trains to run on time.
The word “just ” is pulling a lot of weight there.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with wanting the trains to run on time, who doesn’t want that? It would be a very unhealthy sign indeed if everyone had just given up on any possibility of the trains ever running on time, having resigned themselves to the sad realization that their society was so hopelessly broken and dysfunctional that it was simply impossible for anyone to improve the situation. “Oh well, that’s just the way things are here in this crummy place, nothing anyone can do about it.”
But of course there is plenty that can be done about it as a purely practical matter – a problem that was solved a long time ago – and so the real question is “Why are these things so irreperably broken here? Why can’t we have the nice things that the nice places have?”
What I think that use of “just” is meant to do here is answer the question of “This is why we can’t have nice things sometimes,” with an even nicer ideal, with the implication that we’d have to sacrifice that nice ideal to get the nice, pragmatic thing.
But that argument relies on some fundamental incompatibility that must be perceived, salient, and understood. And if no one can explain this incompatibility, then the formula for legitimacy and indispensibility of the ideals fails and support collapses.
So, the best way to prevent people from electing something who will make the trains run on time – and who cares what he needs to do to get it done – is to, you know, maybe make their trains run on time. If there’s no good reason why the trains shouldn’t be able to run on time, then there are only bad reasons, and why put up with those?
What Handle said above. A stronger version making the rounds these days is “If you don’t want the Nazi regime, don’t become the Weimar Republic.”
Here here. If one considers oneself an enlightened technocrat that is very concerned about what will happen when people “just” want the trains to run on time, it seems like there’s a solution. Make the trains run on time!!!
If you are a LEO and concerned with public respect for the badge – step 1 is act respectable. If you are in the media and concerned with lack of respect for the media – act respectable. If you are a professor worried that people see academia as a hive of scum and partisanship – don’t act like a partisan.
Matthew Opitz says “Most of the problems of the Weimar Republic were not faults of its own”
True! But that’s not the case here in the US in 2017. All of our problems are self made.
Well, we are approaching seventy years of, well let von Mises explain
“For more than seventy years the German professors of political science, history, law, geography and philosophy eagerly imbued their disciples with a hysterical hatred of capitalism, and preached the war of “liberation” against the capitalistic West. … At the turn of the century the immense majority of the Germans were already radical supporters of socialism and aggressive nationalism. They were then already firmly committed to the principles of Nazism. What was lacking and was added later was only a new term to signify their doctrine. ”
–von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos
The inculcation was missing in America of the 1930s so we avoided letting the New Deal and the demagoguery of FDR turn into full fascism. Although the Nazis got their economic philosophy from the New Deal and the Soviets. But it looks a lot different with sociopaths in charge.
“The slogan into which the Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, viz., Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit), is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal and the Soviet management of economic affairs. It implies that profit-seeking business harms the vital interests of the immense majority, and that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.”
–von Mises, Ludwig. (1947) Planned Chaos
Good point, Bruce! But then the question is: how do we make sure our society isn’t the Weimar Republic?
Most of the problems of the Weimar Republic were not faults of its own. There was nothing inherently wrong, for example, with the Weimar constitution. Even the infamous “Article 48” that enabled the President (von Hindenburg) to temporarily ignore the Reichstag and empower the Chancellor (first Brüning, then Hitler) to use emergency powers has its parallels with similar provisions in other constitutions for dealing with “states of emergency.”
The fundamental problem with the Weimar Republic is that found itself, after 1930, quasi-permanently in a state of emergency that stemmed from deep economic and cultural divides. Politics is downstream of culture (Andrew Breitbart) and economics (Karl Marx). Even the best-designed government would fall apart with 25% unemployment, festering resentment against neighboring countries, and half of voters voting for Nazis or communists.
You might say, “That explains Weimar, but we’re at 4.3% unemployment now, so why all the populism?” Because people feel it in their bones, or know anecdotally, that the 4.3% figure doesn’t tell the whole story. That there is under-employment and under-payment going on (not necessarily from the standpoint of economic efficiency, which is how economists think, but from the standpoint of folk morality and folk science).
Sure, we don’t have too many egregious examples of starving, unemployed migrant workers sitting next to idle, privately-owned fields like in “The Grapes of Wrath,” but there is a similar feeling of “Poverty in the Midst of Plenty,” of wasted potential. And who is to say that they are wrong? I’d bet that, if we found ourselves in another World War, we’d discover how to tap into all sorts of unused potential pretty quickly—for the purposes of killing other people. The Volk remember these stories from World War II. The Volk know this. You can show them all of the graphs of “Potential GDP” that you like, and to them it’ll sound like, “Suck it up, peasant! You have it good!”
So, how do you fix/prevent that under-employment/under-payment? Unlike economists, most ordinary people see this as a straightforward, practical issue—hardly more complex than making trains run on time. If the government can’t or WON’T make the trains run on time—or rapidly reduce/prevent chronic under-employment and under-payment, then most ordinary people take this as a sign that the government is either hopelessly inept, or for some reason doesn’t WANT people to be fully employed and well-paid and happy.
And after government after government fails to address the issue, including alternating establishment Democrat and Republican administrations, the hypothesis that ALL OF THEM just happen to be inept starts to wear thin, and the mind is driven to outlandish alternatives as the next-best explanation: maybe they don’t WANT us to succeed. Why? Maybe the “globalist conspiracy” or the “Bilderbergers” want to reduce us all to serfdom again. Maybe the latte-sipping liberal intelligentsia wants to put us all into gulags. Etc.
There is, of course, another alternative. The principled, non-populist, Marxist alternative: capitalism is inherently dysfunctional at a certain point. Capitalism did great things in its own time, but Death (a.k.a The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall) has an appointment with capitalism in Samarra, and no amount of policy gymnastics will allow capitalism to weasel out of this appointment forever. (See Andrew Kliman’s “The Failure of Capitalist Production” or Michael Roberts’ “The Long Depression” if you are not convinced).
In other words, it’s not because of anybody’s ineptitude. It’s not due to anybody’s ill-will. It’s not due to “greed.” Establishment politicians mean well. But getting capitalism back to full-throttle is not just a straightforward matter like making the trains run on time (here mainstream economists and Marxists would agree). In fact, it’s no longer even possible at all. Establishment politicians are trying to untie a Gordian Knot, when the only possible solution is just to cut it apart and tie it all together again in a completely different way.
And what are non-establishment politicians like Trump doing? Selling snake-oil, and pretending that “the snake oil will dissolve the knot so fast, you’re gonna be amazed at how tremendous the knot will come apart. Nobody knows knots better than me, believe me.”
Economically, things are nowhere near dire enough (for most people, material standard of living is still better than ever in human history) to justify the Marxism view.
I’d say the Marxist view, like the fascist one, doesn’t explain political developments but is explained by them. Essentially ecially because it isn’t capitalism that’s under-employing people and enabling monopolists to dominate so many important markets.
There are many theories in the vein of “the current system is fundamentally doomed, and only by tossing it away and adopting a radically new system will we fix these problems”. Marxism is not unique in this regard.
If we are going to try something radically different (not a prospect I enjoy) let us at least try something that has not already had so many failed attempts*.
*Note that I say failed “attempts”. It’s certainly possible that Marxism is a great idea and we just didn’t do it right the first (few) times. I don’t care. We tried it, we failed. Let’s try something else.
Why are we expecting people to vote if we recognize that they are incompetent to excercise it responsibly?
If I have to choose between Nazis and and non-universal sufferage I choose the latter. That is how a republic ought to be.
I am depressed enough these days, that I think our choice is between an autocracy which gets problems solved (e.g., Franco in Spain) and an autocracy which is inept (Maduro in Venezuela).
If the rest of the American voters become as depressed as me, we will end up with Franco. The Sanders wing of the Democrats wants a Maduro.
Part of the problem with the Left is that they like to call all of their opposition “fascist,” which means there is no real defense when actual fascism shows up.
I would like to believe it was about change but the lack of change anywhere else belies that. A gamble out of desperation perhaps, but gambles that don’t pay off aren’t repeated when there is no expectation they ever will. Delusions have costs that eventually must be met.
this bloc of typical citizens—overstressed, under-informed, concerned more with pragmatic quality of life issues than idealistic social goals—has become a powerful political movement.
1) The surprise was the good Bush 2004 voter went to Trump.
2) We don’t know if Trump can hold all 2016 voters as approvals are 35% during the first year of a strong economy. Not strong approvals. (Although we are underestimating reelection here.)
3) If Trump wants the trains to run on time, he sure is a lazy one. (For a President he is lazy.) In fact I don’t think he cares that much of power more than the average President, he just wants credit for everything good.
4) And who knows the Trump backlash (all political movements have backlash.) Remember California Prop 187 and Pete Wilson won in 1994.
Mr. Kling is well known for his three-axes model. Lately, I’ve been wondering whether he might be tempted to add populism as a fourth axis. Is it worth a blog post?