I thought this week I might delve a bit into the anti-democracy movement in the context of conservatives with and without economic power and their attitudes toward the economic status quo, issues I think create much confusion among liberals and “leftists.”
When thinking of the relationship between anti-democracy conservatives and the economic status quo, the economic establishment, it seems advantageous to distinguish initially between economically weak and economically powerful conservatives, as their views are quite different. Of the two groups, I suppose the easiest to understand is that composed of economically powerful conservatives, who seem clearly to oppose democracy because they suppose their own economic power may be negatively affected by voters enacting unwelcome economic policies. One important way voters may do that is by using the authority of democratic government to tax the economically powerful and use that money for programs, policies that help the economically weak. So this group is typically all about opposing taxation and government spending. Although they may prefer democratic government not exist, at least if they feel they can reliably dominate whatever authoritarian government does exist, as a fall back positions they may support small, inactive, inert democratic government or one dominated by economic power. As for views on the ethics of economic power, they support their own economic power, often relying on bad economics in the conservative style or its sequelae, proposing it the result of ethically dispositive markets, their own merit, and so on. So are these economically powerful anti-democracy conservative pro or anti status quo, pro or anti establishment? Well, that seems a judgment call. They support it well enough, to a certain degree, but they suppose they might do rather better still if we eliminated democracy. Differences between this group and liberals are the usual suspects: the ethics of economic power, the nature of ethics in general, and the role of voters, democracy, the US Constitution in addressing those ethics, generating laws, and factual issues relating to real markets.
The more interesting case, to me at least, is the group composed of anti-democracy economically weak conservatives. They often hold similar views on economics as their economically powerful comrades but their relationship can be complex and fraught. Economically weak conservatives tend to see markets as ethically dispositive, join the economically powerful in opposing other economically weak people trying to use democratic government to improve their situation, feel it unethically diverts economic power away from themselves. However, things get more interesting in the context of attitudes toward the currently economically powerful, where attitudes may become complex, divisive, one factor surely encouraging these conservatives to focus more on the easy case of attacking the (other) economically weak.
One faction opposes the economically powerful, sees their economic power as also generated by their influence over democratic government and thus also unethically diverting money away from themselves. They propose fighting democracy is also fighting the economically powerful. One disagreement this group has with liberals is liberals support democracy and see the answer to the influence of economic power over democratic government as reducing that influence, making democracy better, while these conservatives see that as impossible or ill-advised. When they see it as ill advised, it again likely has to do with that fact that even if the role of economic power in our democracy were reduced, the demands of the economically weak delivered via voting would remain for them a significant problem. Another disagreement involves the nature of the proposed alternative form of government this group of conservatives proposes superior to even improved democracy, its resistance to economic power, and the ethics and facts of the markets it is meant to create and enforce.
The other faction supports the currently economically powerful and may be further divided into corporatist and pro-“free market” factions. The corporatist faction supports the influence of economic power in government, likes monopoly, Citizens United, that sort. While these conservatives may not be pro-“free market” in one sense, they may be at least pro-market in another sense, seeing real, existing economic results, markets in ethical terms. They’re often business and technocratic types who worship economically powerful businesspeople. Disagreements with liberals for this group includes not just the role of democracy, but even conventional economic thinking about the potential benefits of competition and so on, with ethics focusing more on Social Darwinism, natural selection, etc.
The faction that supports the economically powerful on a pro-“free market” basis is also divided. One group ignores the role of economic power in our current economic system and supports those with economic power because they propose we have ethically special markets now. Disagreements between this group and liberals involves the ethics of economic power, the role of democracy, but also factual matters relating to real markets, the extent to which they currently reflect theoretical “perfectly competitive” markets. Then we have a final group of pro-“free market” conservatives who support those currently having economic power not because we already have an ethically special market now, but because they suppose the economically powerful are trying to create one against their own interests. This group envisions a conservative authoritarian government, small fascism, they suppose may enforce ethically special “free markets” against both the demands of economically weak voters and the machinations of the economically powerful operating through democratic government. Disagreements between this group and liberals includes the ethics of economic power, the role of democracy, and again the nature of the proposed conservative authoritarian government meant to be immune from economic power that oversees ethically special “free markets.” All the various factions of anti-democracy conservatives who promote ostensibly ethically special “free markets” may be incorrectly referencing arguments relating to theoretical “perfectly competitive markets” in the ethical half-theory of neoclassical welfare economics.
Why am I saying all this? I’m just trying to establish the anti-democracy conservative movement even only as it applies to economic matters, setting aside bad religion and racism, is a complex, multi-faceted affair. A Hydra with many heads. It must be addressed accordingly.
