Tons of self-identified leftists support markets. I assume Bryan isn't 100% essentialist about anti-marketism or this would immediately falsify his claim. So what does anti-market mean? It must be a relative measure. Perhaps it means favoring markets less than rightists? If so, then you would have to say rightists are essentially pro-market, compared with leftists, and contra Bryan's theory that the only essence of the right is being against the left. But wait, you could say rightists are only pro-market in virtue of their being against the left. Alas, you're back to admitting the left's anti-marketism is pure socialization, circularly defined as favoring markets less than a purely socialized right that defines itself as favoring them more because it opposes the left. There's no absolute to anchor to.
This is an excellent point. I have two problems with Bryan's simplistic theory of right and left. First, he admits the right is tribal, which is totally consistent with the social theory of politics. Second, he claims the left is defined by being "anti-market" but never addresses the cause of this position. Do people start out anti-market and join the left because they hold this belief, or does opposition to markets come as a result of having already joined the "left-wing" political tribe due to socialization?
Bryan says not all anti-market people are on the left, so I presume he wouldn't deem that sufficient for causing one to join the left.
I'm not sure it's even conceivable what to "start out anti-market" could mean, but it does seem Bryan believes that something like this is possible. Should "disposition toward markets" be one of the traits in Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory? Seems subject to the same definitional problems Haidt's other traits have, some of which the Lewis brothers highlight.
The social world is highly indeterminate. Even to frame philosophy as somehow "essentialist" compared to socialization is misleading. Maybe "philosophy" affords more regularity in our ordinary understanding, but that's still quite dubious. I still appreciate the Lewis brothers' deconstruction of left and right nonetheless.
The last paragraph raises an interesting point, and it's a separate issue from the social and essential theories of the horizontal right/left political spectrum. If you could think of a philosophy which has always been fairly consistent in the principles, values, and beliefs it espouses would you consider it "essential"?
I'd say there's more regularity to the meaning of certain philosophies over others, but I don't know if I'd want to call any "essential" if that means "having an essence" apart from how people interpret them.
I've met some leftists that support markets provided that like 50% of GDP is government spending on the welfare state and there is lots of regulation. They aren't like...Stalanists or something. Some might even support mixed market reforms like Sweden did in the 90s or whatever.
What I can sure tell you is that they don't support anything like Galt's Gulch. Or even modern Singapore. On an average policy question that would come up in Congress they would almost always be on the anti-market side with the possible exception of tariffs (and I stress possible, I think foreign policy is the least salient issue in politics).
I'd phrase it on slightly different terms, but your opponents embrace of a maximum position is untenable. Sounds like the last debate you posted about.
Ultimately, what these people are really after is the ability to disengage from partisan politics (really, politics at all). To publish some articles on their blog and call it a life well lived.
But as noted with Chris Rufo and others, if you're not changing the world, you're not doing anything. And to change the world you've got to the politics, and to do politics you've got to approach the world as it is (worts and all).
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If I ranked the least "partisan" issue I would say foreign policy, unless foreign policy becomes very salient to domestic politics.
If I ranked the most "partisan" issue it would relate to the raising and lowering of status within the nation.
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This is an aside but I can't help myself:
“I favor free trade domestically but not internationally because a national government is only good at correcting market failures when all involved parties are under its jurisdiction.” Do I agree? No. But does Rodrik’s position at least “make sense”? Sure. Plenty of arguments about what’s “really” left or right are above the same low bar.
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There was literally this thing called NATIONAL SOCIALISM. Which was SOCIALISM but for the NATION instead of the INTERNATIONAL. Everyone agrees that it was different from INTERNATIONAL socialism, though we still debate the socialism part all the time.
I think the Left is for "Equality" on "The Most Salient Political Issue of the Current Context". The Right is against Equality on that same issue.
So in the case of the French Three Estates, the left was against Absolute Monarchs and Noble Privileges and the Right was for it. In the 19th century when the "political question" was solved and people had legal equality, the left moved onto the "social question" that is equality of outcome within capitalism.
When Class is the most Salient issue the left represents the equality of classes. When race is the most Salient issue it's about equality of the races. Equality before the law and Equality of outcome can be the most Salient issue depending on the context, but its a pattern that whenever the left achieve equality before the law it tends to move on to equality of outcome.
This answers questions like how the left supported capitalists versus the monarchs. Capitalism was "more equal" than "blue bloods and peasants".
It also answers the question of say Athens and Sparta. Everyone seems to agree that Athens was "left" and Sparta was "Right". That's because the most salient issue in Greece at the time was political equality amongst free males within the polis. Everywhere Athens took control they installed a democracy. Everywhere Sparta took over they installed an Oligarchy. Slavery, women's rights, etc weren't salient political issues in the conflict. Athen's was the merchant capitalist seapower and yet everyone still agrees they were the "leftist" power in the conflict.
You could say the same about Persia vs Greece. Persia was CLEARLY the more liberal and tolerant place to live, but they were an absolute monarchy and that made them "Right Wing" compared to even the Spartans if your metric is "political equality between free males.
The Fascists trick was "we will change the salient political conflict from class warfare to warfare between nations, and then the lower classes won't murder you." The Italians and Spanish mostly learned not to take the international warfare thing too serious (Mussolini bumbled into a war he thought was over already), but the Germans and Japs took it too serious.
The proposed essence of "equality vs hierarchy" is discussed on pages 50-52 of the Lewis brothers' book. There are some cases where conservatives support equality more than liberals, such as on affirmative action and free speech. In many cases liberals stand with powerful entities such as academia, hollywood, mainstream media, the United States government against their less powerful foes. Christianity is concerned with equality and in recent America it has been associated with the right. On the other hand, liberals tend to relish the cultural power they hold - they don't propose making more conservative tv shows or getting more conservative ideas into media or academia even though this would improve the "equality" of those spaces. Like every other essence, I don't believe equality vs hierarchy stands up to scrutiny.
I didn't propose that "equality vs hierarchy" would stand up to EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE AXIS OF DISAGREEMENT IN SOCIETY.
I said it was prominent in "The Most Salient Political Issue of the Current Context".
Liberals won't relinquish their cultural power because THEY ARE USING IT TO BRING ABOUT EQUALITY. Would you give cultural power to racist plutocrats so they could oppress the people? Of course not.
The communists literally killed priests because Christianity was associated with oppression. The French revolutionaries did the same.
Let's take the French Revolution. Napoleon declared himself emperor. Napoleon re-instituted slavery in Haiti. Napoleon took away women's rights.
I will admit that Napoleon is complicated issue, but the bottom line is that everyone understood that Napoleon was on the "Left" and the Coalition's were on the "Right". That's because on the "Most Salient Issue of the Day" Napoleon was a greater force for equality then Tsar Alexander or even the British (whose hard line stance the entire war was that the Bourbons be restored). The Napoleonic Code had a heck of a lot more equality in it than Feudalism. You could say the inability to live up to his ideology was a big part of Napoleons downfall.
Tons of self-identified leftists support markets. I assume Bryan isn't 100% essentialist about anti-marketism or this would immediately falsify his claim. So what does anti-market mean? It must be a relative measure. Perhaps it means favoring markets less than rightists? If so, then you would have to say rightists are essentially pro-market, compared with leftists, and contra Bryan's theory that the only essence of the right is being against the left. But wait, you could say rightists are only pro-market in virtue of their being against the left. Alas, you're back to admitting the left's anti-marketism is pure socialization, circularly defined as favoring markets less than a purely socialized right that defines itself as favoring them more because it opposes the left. There's no absolute to anchor to.
This is an excellent point. I have two problems with Bryan's simplistic theory of right and left. First, he admits the right is tribal, which is totally consistent with the social theory of politics. Second, he claims the left is defined by being "anti-market" but never addresses the cause of this position. Do people start out anti-market and join the left because they hold this belief, or does opposition to markets come as a result of having already joined the "left-wing" political tribe due to socialization?
Bryan says not all anti-market people are on the left, so I presume he wouldn't deem that sufficient for causing one to join the left.
I'm not sure it's even conceivable what to "start out anti-market" could mean, but it does seem Bryan believes that something like this is possible. Should "disposition toward markets" be one of the traits in Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory? Seems subject to the same definitional problems Haidt's other traits have, some of which the Lewis brothers highlight.
The social world is highly indeterminate. Even to frame philosophy as somehow "essentialist" compared to socialization is misleading. Maybe "philosophy" affords more regularity in our ordinary understanding, but that's still quite dubious. I still appreciate the Lewis brothers' deconstruction of left and right nonetheless.
The last paragraph raises an interesting point, and it's a separate issue from the social and essential theories of the horizontal right/left political spectrum. If you could think of a philosophy which has always been fairly consistent in the principles, values, and beliefs it espouses would you consider it "essential"?
I'd say there's more regularity to the meaning of certain philosophies over others, but I don't know if I'd want to call any "essential" if that means "having an essence" apart from how people interpret them.
I've met some leftists that support markets provided that like 50% of GDP is government spending on the welfare state and there is lots of regulation. They aren't like...Stalanists or something. Some might even support mixed market reforms like Sweden did in the 90s or whatever.
What I can sure tell you is that they don't support anything like Galt's Gulch. Or even modern Singapore. On an average policy question that would come up in Congress they would almost always be on the anti-market side with the possible exception of tariffs (and I stress possible, I think foreign policy is the least salient issue in politics).
What does a mixed theory of left/right explain that a 100% social theory doesn't?
This makes me really want you to have a similar conversation with Richard Hanania about The Origins of Woke!
I think you won this debate Bryan.
I'd phrase it on slightly different terms, but your opponents embrace of a maximum position is untenable. Sounds like the last debate you posted about.
Ultimately, what these people are really after is the ability to disengage from partisan politics (really, politics at all). To publish some articles on their blog and call it a life well lived.
But as noted with Chris Rufo and others, if you're not changing the world, you're not doing anything. And to change the world you've got to the politics, and to do politics you've got to approach the world as it is (worts and all).
---
If I ranked the least "partisan" issue I would say foreign policy, unless foreign policy becomes very salient to domestic politics.
If I ranked the most "partisan" issue it would relate to the raising and lowering of status within the nation.
---
This is an aside but I can't help myself:
“I favor free trade domestically but not internationally because a national government is only good at correcting market failures when all involved parties are under its jurisdiction.” Do I agree? No. But does Rodrik’s position at least “make sense”? Sure. Plenty of arguments about what’s “really” left or right are above the same low bar.
---
There was literally this thing called NATIONAL SOCIALISM. Which was SOCIALISM but for the NATION instead of the INTERNATIONAL. Everyone agrees that it was different from INTERNATIONAL socialism, though we still debate the socialism part all the time.
What do you feel are the enduring essences of left and right?
I think the Left is for "Equality" on "The Most Salient Political Issue of the Current Context". The Right is against Equality on that same issue.
So in the case of the French Three Estates, the left was against Absolute Monarchs and Noble Privileges and the Right was for it. In the 19th century when the "political question" was solved and people had legal equality, the left moved onto the "social question" that is equality of outcome within capitalism.
When Class is the most Salient issue the left represents the equality of classes. When race is the most Salient issue it's about equality of the races. Equality before the law and Equality of outcome can be the most Salient issue depending on the context, but its a pattern that whenever the left achieve equality before the law it tends to move on to equality of outcome.
This answers questions like how the left supported capitalists versus the monarchs. Capitalism was "more equal" than "blue bloods and peasants".
It also answers the question of say Athens and Sparta. Everyone seems to agree that Athens was "left" and Sparta was "Right". That's because the most salient issue in Greece at the time was political equality amongst free males within the polis. Everywhere Athens took control they installed a democracy. Everywhere Sparta took over they installed an Oligarchy. Slavery, women's rights, etc weren't salient political issues in the conflict. Athen's was the merchant capitalist seapower and yet everyone still agrees they were the "leftist" power in the conflict.
You could say the same about Persia vs Greece. Persia was CLEARLY the more liberal and tolerant place to live, but they were an absolute monarchy and that made them "Right Wing" compared to even the Spartans if your metric is "political equality between free males.
The Fascists trick was "we will change the salient political conflict from class warfare to warfare between nations, and then the lower classes won't murder you." The Italians and Spanish mostly learned not to take the international warfare thing too serious (Mussolini bumbled into a war he thought was over already), but the Germans and Japs took it too serious.
The proposed essence of "equality vs hierarchy" is discussed on pages 50-52 of the Lewis brothers' book. There are some cases where conservatives support equality more than liberals, such as on affirmative action and free speech. In many cases liberals stand with powerful entities such as academia, hollywood, mainstream media, the United States government against their less powerful foes. Christianity is concerned with equality and in recent America it has been associated with the right. On the other hand, liberals tend to relish the cultural power they hold - they don't propose making more conservative tv shows or getting more conservative ideas into media or academia even though this would improve the "equality" of those spaces. Like every other essence, I don't believe equality vs hierarchy stands up to scrutiny.
I didn't propose that "equality vs hierarchy" would stand up to EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE AXIS OF DISAGREEMENT IN SOCIETY.
I said it was prominent in "The Most Salient Political Issue of the Current Context".
Liberals won't relinquish their cultural power because THEY ARE USING IT TO BRING ABOUT EQUALITY. Would you give cultural power to racist plutocrats so they could oppress the people? Of course not.
The communists literally killed priests because Christianity was associated with oppression. The French revolutionaries did the same.
Let's take the French Revolution. Napoleon declared himself emperor. Napoleon re-instituted slavery in Haiti. Napoleon took away women's rights.
I will admit that Napoleon is complicated issue, but the bottom line is that everyone understood that Napoleon was on the "Left" and the Coalition's were on the "Right". That's because on the "Most Salient Issue of the Day" Napoleon was a greater force for equality then Tsar Alexander or even the British (whose hard line stance the entire war was that the Bourbons be restored). The Napoleonic Code had a heck of a lot more equality in it than Feudalism. You could say the inability to live up to his ideology was a big part of Napoleons downfall.
One could argue Hitler was so pro-equality that he eliminated all the inferior people, thereby making everyone left more equal.
I mean that is literally what Hitler said he was doing.
If the Communists made everyone equal by killing the best, the Nazis intended to make everyone equal by killing the worst.
Between the two, the communist sound "more equal" to me, but both involve an awful lot of killing don't they.
Left and right are mot meaningless, they're just confusing and unnecessary. It's statism vs limited government.