Assuming the conventional wisdom that Trump and the Republican Party represent an ageing minority party, David Brooks tries to imagine what the next emerging Democratic majority would be like.
It couldn't be a Clintonian or Obami moderation: the only game in town on the left is "Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren-style progressivism." So what would that look like? Well, it wouldn't be Marxist, because
But then there is tribalism, and on the left that means "the economic authoritarianism of a North American version of Hugo Chávez," and even for the left that means more nationalism, such as Bernie Sanders's opposition to open immigration and the ever-present identity politics. So the left's governance is bound to circle back into us-against-them economic war of the oppressed against the oppressors with progressives calling the shots, only this time not on a class base but a race/gender basis.
Yeah. I'll agree that the next progressive government won't be nakedly economic Marxist. But it will still believe that politicians and experts can manipulate the levers of the economy to benefit the good guys and make the bad guys pay. And that was the whole point of Marx's ideas, that it was possible for politicians and experts to create a just and prosperous society. The difference today is that the smarter minds on the left understand that manipulating capitalism is much more effective than abolishing it. But they still think they are smarter than the average business owner.
The trouble is that while manipulating capitalism is not nearly as bad as abolishing it, the Law of Unintended Consequences still applies. Manipulating the economy, whether by interest rates to "stimulate" it or by price controls like minimum wages to help the low-wage worker, always ends up with negative results such as housing bubbles and immense difficulty for low-skilled people to get their first job.
We libertarians and conservatives like to rail at the folly of the left, but if you think about it, why the surprise? We humans are programmed to be tribesmen, alert to the possibility of the young men of the neighboring tribe plotting a dawn raid on us. The only thing to do is to strike first and kill their men and rape their women before they get to come over here and kill our men and rape our women.
But over the last 200 years in the Great Enrichment (or Miracle if you prefer) an utterly radical notion has started to take hold. The chaps in the next town are not an existential threat, but potential suppliers and customers. The only thing to determine is whether they can be trusted and the best way to find out is by trusting them, for one transaction only, and see what happens. The people that have taken up this challenge have wived and thrived; the people that do not get it and maintain their ancient suspicions have struggled.
And this is to be expected. Since time immemorial humans have survived by living in tribes of the kindred, trusting only their kin, and being on guard constantly. The idea that we should throw all that away, the cultural agenda that kept us alive for ages, and trust people from across the world, is very hard for people to understand and to surrender to. Every person migrating from the countryside to the city is a person of the old culture, and it takes a while, a generation at least, before the migrant to the city is ready to trust the trust culture.
That is why the new tribalisms, of nation, of class, of race, even of gender, have rushed in to fill the tribalism gap. When your average rich-kid activist tells the newly-arrived migrant not to trust anyone not of his ethnic origin, and to take up arms against the oppressor, he is mining an ancient vein.
But did you know that there were other tribalisms, of a noble and beneficial kind, that were coming along nicely in the 19th century before the left and the welfare state came along and strangled them in their cradles? I am talking about the fraternal associations, the fanciful brotherhoods of Elks and Eagles, of Masons that never chipped a rock and Oddfellows that weren't odd at all, that were mutual-aid organizations devoted to helping brothers and widows in their need? Sounds like a really cool idea. So cool that the racists got in on the action and formed the KKK after the Civil War to beat up on whites that might be a little soft on the freedmen.
Yeah, really. Why not emulate the KKK and create racist associations like Black Lives Matter and La Raza, and sexist associations like the NOW and Human Rights Campaign to beat up on the Other? Of course, like the KKK these neo-KKKs are not self-help mutual-aid organizations that ordinary people formed in the 19th century but simple political shells for rich kids to practice left-wing activism and tribalism.
Yeah, the left is a curious phenomenon, but hardly surprising. It cannot be true that the lion will lie down with the lamb, because capitalism rewards anyone that is eager to serve their fellow human with useful work. The world must be like the olden times, where every tribe must be on its toes, ready to repel the enemy next door. And people must be organized into neo-tribes to fight against the modern perils of the One Percent, the patriachy, the greedy bankers, the racist sexist homophobes, and worst of all, the xenophobes and Islamophobes.
So the challenge for you and me is that, given that we humans are still tribal people that instinctively band together against an existential peril, what should that peril be? We have tried the Nazis, the Russkies, the ozone layer, the climate threat, the polar bear extinction, and the ever-present racist sexist homophobes. But we really need an existential threat around which to rally.
No doubt, pace David Brooks, the next lefty administration in the US will launch itself on new follies, replacements for the follies of affirmative action, sub-prime lending, lifetime employment for union workers, bike lanes, wind farms, and all the other failed follies of the last century. What else is new?
But we free spirits need to think about how to invent a neo-tribalism that would unite all humans against some common peril that doesn't require some human Other to defeat. It can't be that hard.
It couldn't be a Clintonian or Obami moderation: the only game in town on the left is "Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren-style progressivism." So what would that look like? Well, it wouldn't be Marxist, because
My sense is these ideas have been rejected by most on the left. It’s become clear, to those on the fair-minded left, that global capitalism has produced the greatest reduction in poverty in human history.No, Brooks is confident that on the economy the left would be working on the margins, rewriting "rules to redistribute wealth... [and] raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour."
But then there is tribalism, and on the left that means "the economic authoritarianism of a North American version of Hugo Chávez," and even for the left that means more nationalism, such as Bernie Sanders's opposition to open immigration and the ever-present identity politics. So the left's governance is bound to circle back into us-against-them economic war of the oppressed against the oppressors with progressives calling the shots, only this time not on a class base but a race/gender basis.
Yeah. I'll agree that the next progressive government won't be nakedly economic Marxist. But it will still believe that politicians and experts can manipulate the levers of the economy to benefit the good guys and make the bad guys pay. And that was the whole point of Marx's ideas, that it was possible for politicians and experts to create a just and prosperous society. The difference today is that the smarter minds on the left understand that manipulating capitalism is much more effective than abolishing it. But they still think they are smarter than the average business owner.
The trouble is that while manipulating capitalism is not nearly as bad as abolishing it, the Law of Unintended Consequences still applies. Manipulating the economy, whether by interest rates to "stimulate" it or by price controls like minimum wages to help the low-wage worker, always ends up with negative results such as housing bubbles and immense difficulty for low-skilled people to get their first job.
We libertarians and conservatives like to rail at the folly of the left, but if you think about it, why the surprise? We humans are programmed to be tribesmen, alert to the possibility of the young men of the neighboring tribe plotting a dawn raid on us. The only thing to do is to strike first and kill their men and rape their women before they get to come over here and kill our men and rape our women.
But over the last 200 years in the Great Enrichment (or Miracle if you prefer) an utterly radical notion has started to take hold. The chaps in the next town are not an existential threat, but potential suppliers and customers. The only thing to determine is whether they can be trusted and the best way to find out is by trusting them, for one transaction only, and see what happens. The people that have taken up this challenge have wived and thrived; the people that do not get it and maintain their ancient suspicions have struggled.
And this is to be expected. Since time immemorial humans have survived by living in tribes of the kindred, trusting only their kin, and being on guard constantly. The idea that we should throw all that away, the cultural agenda that kept us alive for ages, and trust people from across the world, is very hard for people to understand and to surrender to. Every person migrating from the countryside to the city is a person of the old culture, and it takes a while, a generation at least, before the migrant to the city is ready to trust the trust culture.
That is why the new tribalisms, of nation, of class, of race, even of gender, have rushed in to fill the tribalism gap. When your average rich-kid activist tells the newly-arrived migrant not to trust anyone not of his ethnic origin, and to take up arms against the oppressor, he is mining an ancient vein.
But did you know that there were other tribalisms, of a noble and beneficial kind, that were coming along nicely in the 19th century before the left and the welfare state came along and strangled them in their cradles? I am talking about the fraternal associations, the fanciful brotherhoods of Elks and Eagles, of Masons that never chipped a rock and Oddfellows that weren't odd at all, that were mutual-aid organizations devoted to helping brothers and widows in their need? Sounds like a really cool idea. So cool that the racists got in on the action and formed the KKK after the Civil War to beat up on whites that might be a little soft on the freedmen.
Yeah, really. Why not emulate the KKK and create racist associations like Black Lives Matter and La Raza, and sexist associations like the NOW and Human Rights Campaign to beat up on the Other? Of course, like the KKK these neo-KKKs are not self-help mutual-aid organizations that ordinary people formed in the 19th century but simple political shells for rich kids to practice left-wing activism and tribalism.
Yeah, the left is a curious phenomenon, but hardly surprising. It cannot be true that the lion will lie down with the lamb, because capitalism rewards anyone that is eager to serve their fellow human with useful work. The world must be like the olden times, where every tribe must be on its toes, ready to repel the enemy next door. And people must be organized into neo-tribes to fight against the modern perils of the One Percent, the patriachy, the greedy bankers, the racist sexist homophobes, and worst of all, the xenophobes and Islamophobes.
So the challenge for you and me is that, given that we humans are still tribal people that instinctively band together against an existential peril, what should that peril be? We have tried the Nazis, the Russkies, the ozone layer, the climate threat, the polar bear extinction, and the ever-present racist sexist homophobes. But we really need an existential threat around which to rally.
No doubt, pace David Brooks, the next lefty administration in the US will launch itself on new follies, replacements for the follies of affirmative action, sub-prime lending, lifetime employment for union workers, bike lanes, wind farms, and all the other failed follies of the last century. What else is new?
But we free spirits need to think about how to invent a neo-tribalism that would unite all humans against some common peril that doesn't require some human Other to defeat. It can't be that hard.
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