Last week, I mentioned the nexus of relatively democracy friendly traditional conservatism and anti-democracy variants like “libertarianism,” utopian anarchism, and fascism, involved “small,” “minimal,” “inactive” democratic government. Let’s discuss this week.
Recall the role of economic power in resolving interpersonal conflicts of preferences in markets, and the role of coercive government power, political power, in addressing the ethical issues relating to defining, distributing, using economic power in that context. Last week, I suggested conservatism involves one’s perspective on that state of affairs and went through various permutations of conservatism from democracy-friendly traditional conservatism to current anti-democracy versions like “libertarianism,” utopian anarchism, and fascism. An interesting transitional or intermediate position is the form of conservatism that supposes democratic government acceptable as long as it’s “small,” “minimal,” “inactive,” and so on. The idea raises some interesting ideas, so let’s just complete the thought this week.
A point I’ve made many times before is I suppose no one really supports gratuitously large government. Everyone supports government as “small” or “minimal” as possible for it to fulfill whatever they see as its proper functions, so the issue here is clearly about functions. Consider the democratic government coercion that underlies economic power and the use of economic power in markets to resolve interpersonal conflict. Are conservatives saying this is not a correct function for government to address? Are they suggesting utopian anarchism? Sometimes, but usually not. What conservatives usually have in mind is government should fulfill that function, but democracy must not be allowed to change some preferred ethical position on the definition, distribution, or use of economic power. That revision of laws surrounding the definition, distribution, or use of economic power, or that use of some mechanism other than economic power in markets to resolve interpersonal conflicts of preferences, is what conservatives mean by “active” or “large” government.
Government unresponsive to the ever changing ethical beliefs and views of the citizens on those significant economic issues is a form of authoritarian government, and depending on one’s position on any potential residual role for democracy, often equates simply to fascism. However, the fascism involved is not expansive like the old National Socialism, which ostensibly took as one of its goals the welfare of society including the poor. American conservatives are looking more for authoritarian government ready to tell poor people to drop dead. American fascists want a “small,” “limited,” “inactive” fascist government devoted solely to enforcing and defending economic power defined, distributed, used in markets in certain ways they prefer. It’s not “socialism” in the broadest sense, although nice for a certain part of society, certainly. On the other hand, some American fascists may be confused, or profess to be confused, on that point by the argument in anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style that their approach is socially optimal, best for everyone, which would suggest a form of “socialism.” Of course, one of the funny things about fascism is once it’s there, once one sets up government coercion and power in a way that doesn’t relate back to the ethics of the people via democracy, it famously becomes a bit hard to control and unreliable in that way.
The potential congruence of conservatives’ ethical positions about the proper definition, distribution, and use of economic power with some given expression of government coercion and power on those issues can lead to various distinctive mis-specifications of the issue. For example, one fellow told me not long ago a non-democratic government simply enforcing certain rules relating to the definition, distribution, use of economic power to resolve interpersonal conflicts is the “opposite” of authoritarian government. Along the same lines, I recently saw a presumably unintentionally humorous graphic on this platform that had “authoritarianism” at one pole and “libertarianism” at the other. Similarly, I recently read a thread suggesting if democratic government revises laws on defining, distributing, using economic power to resolve interpersonal conflict, then government is “choosing winners and losers” in a way it is not if it does not revise those laws. It should be clear what’s going on in these cases is not a generalized concern about government functions or coercive power, about the role of government in creating and maintaining a system for resolving interpersonal conflict, but about the ethical views it expresses. It’s the sort of confusion that leads to the curious and typically American phenomenon of people essentially supporting non-democratic, authoritarian, fascist government, while supposing they’re actually fighting against it, in the name of liberty or freedom. One very typical sort of fascist in the USA is a “libertarian” who has figured out it’s not a coherent theory and discovered utopian anarchism is not a real thing either, leading him or her to the last refuge of the over inflated ego unwilling to countenance democracy: fascism. They meet up with the more traditional, self-aware, violent, bullying, often theocratic social order enforcing sort of old school fascists to form the curious Frankenstein's monster that is the contemporary Republican Party of the USA. A Big Tent for anti-democracy egoists of all sorts.
Again, it’s perfectly fine to have any views on resolving interpersonal conflicts one likes. However, one must acknowledge other people have views as well, and that, plus an understanding of the fundamental nature of ethics, leads one inevitably back to the democratic ethos. The beautiful thing about democracy is that it directs the energy and enthusiasm that often attends ethical views relating to the proper resolution of interpersonal conflicts away from street thuggery, shoot outs, and so on, to more or less reasonable, peaceful debate. Democracy may not always deliver what one wants when one wants it, but such a contrast to the mute, sullen slavishness one associates with authoritarian systems, threatening any day to erupt into unfortunate violence, instability, destruction, and social upheaval.
It’s one thing to watch people knowingly, consciously embrace fascism under some dodgy notion it’s superior to democracy. It’s something else entirely to watch people unknowingly perform a backwards pratfall into it. We should fix anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style.
