I blogged here about the arguments put forth by Gladden Pappin on the New Right and here about Roberto Mangebeira Unger's case for a Progressive Agenda (or let me call it New Left).
Pappin's argument is that the Conservatives have allowed their economic ideology to be captured by the libertarians and corporate/financial market interests, thereby alienating them from both the vast majority who have not enjoyed the fruits of economic growth in recent years. This alignment has also given the impression of them not being interested in broad public and national interest. Unger's argument is that the liberals have been entrapped in "pietistic measures" that tinker at the margins and focus on efficiency and private participation, when the real need is for deep structural and institutional changes that reshapes the fundamental distribution of opportunity and advantage, especially in areas like taxation and education, and he calls for mobilisation of all those discontented at the prevailing order.
Pappin's argument is that the Conservatives have allowed their economic ideology to be captured by the libertarians and corporate/financial market interests, thereby alienating them from both the vast majority who have not enjoyed the fruits of economic growth in recent years. This alignment has also given the impression of them not being interested in broad public and national interest. Unger's argument is that the liberals have been entrapped in "pietistic measures" that tinker at the margins and focus on efficiency and private participation, when the real need is for deep structural and institutional changes that reshapes the fundamental distribution of opportunity and advantage, especially in areas like taxation and education, and he calls for mobilisation of all those discontented at the prevailing order.
These trends cannot be explained by the traditional categorisation of conservatives as those who are right-wing and socially conservative, and liberals as those who are economically left or centre and socially more individual-centric.
I have made this table to capture the overlap of the different social/communal and economic views (please open in a separate window).
Complicating matters, there are a couple of important additional features that conflate the social and communal positions. They include the views on globalisation, immigration, and nation-state. Fortunately, they largely overlap with the individual-centric and cultural progressive, centrist, and conservative positions. Accordingly, the conservatives are likely to be least in favour of immigration and globalisation, and most in favour of the nation-state. And the individualists and cultural progressives are likely to most favour immigration and globalisation, and have the stronger preference for global citizenhood.
I'll use the New Right and New Left labels for convenience. There are both some overlaps as well as some differences between this New Right and New Left.
In terms of ideological positioning, the New Right recalibrates (from the present right-wing position among Conservatives) towards the state and the new Left recalibrates (from the present left-wing position) towards conservatism (on family, society, and nation state).
The New Right coalition will have to be built on the conservatives and free-marketeers. But they will seek to attract the free-marketers with both centrist and individualist social views. The New Left coalition will have to be built on the statists and conservatives. But they will seek to attract the economic centrists on both the social centrist and individualist/cultural progressivist sides. Such coalition formation looks more realistic given the original positions of all sides.
The centrist position, highlighted in red, is important. It is arguable that this could be the synthesis, the final destination. But given that the pendulum has swung to the extremes on both cultural progressivism and global citizenhood, and free markets and anti-state, I think it may be required to tactically align with the positions of both the New Right on the former and New Left on the latter respectively. Perhaps there is a synthesis of the two possible.
If we use this framework for analysis, it becomes clear that there will have to be ideological shifts away from the excessive trust on markets and the excessive focus on individualism and cultural progressivism for both sides.
The former involves fighting the entrenched and powerful forces of financial markets and the elite economic establishment, whose control over the rules-setting process is now complete. This will be the biggest battle for both the New Left, and, especially, the New Right since these interests form the most powerful part of their social base. The latter involves fighting the deeply internalised beliefs of the millennials and the Gen Z (and maybe even the Gen X) and reversing a powerful trend that underpins their core beliefs. This will be a bigger challenge for the New Left since the two groups they seek to attract belong predominantly to this category.
Neither of this is easy. The first battle will be with the powerful elites and the second will be with the entrenched norms. The internal contradictions and conflicts will have to be overcome, and not merely patched up.
On a related note, Michael Lind has some suggestions on the problems posed by managerial elites to democratic institutions and norms.
On a related note, Michael Lind has some suggestions on the problems posed by managerial elites to democratic institutions and norms.
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