Many of the people on the rather vindicative Left claimed that the recent financial crisis is “going to be for capitalist neoliberals what Chernobyl was for the nuclear lobby.”
Except the centre-right has been a winner of elections across the world. A difference may be United States of America, where the supposedly right-wing party is in a minority and represents only 11% of the population. This did not stop the American grassroots movement from becoming so popular. Meanwhile, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Merkel, Erdogan, Hatayama, are popular leaders; even Cameron looks like he will win the next election.
As an honest free marketer among fellow free marketers, this should be a global tragedy, no?
There is no such thing as a “small government conservative”. Actually, all supposedly right-wing agendas are completely contrary what they actually do.
Across all former right-wing military dictatorships in South America, the civil service grew, and sometimes doubled, because the right-wing dictators opened the way for friends to get cushy civil service jobs with huge pensions. This situation bled the deficits of these “fiscal conservatives”.
The same fiscal conservatives have also increased war spending at an alarming rate, especially in the United States of America.
Historically, many leaders on the right have been populists who enacted interventionist actions that were contrary to the pro-market principles they claimed to espouse. Nixon enacted price controls, Reagan pushed up deficit to the then-record $200 billion, and notoriously, Herbert Hoover started all the Depression era interventionist tactics, which have been misattributed to FDR instead.
Even leaders on the right who were a little stronger in conviction failed to have the guts to pull the trigger when they needed to do so the most. The British government during 1931 claimed it would cut spending and stop programmes immediately to tackle the deficit. Like the people on the boat in The Dark Knight, who had the detonators in their hands, they simply did not press it, and eventually they moved off the gold standard.
Arguably, such two-faced traits are not exclusive to the Right, but here is what I was hoping.
I was hoping that much of the world would have seen through the deceptions and failings of both the Right and the Left and thus withdraw from the political process altogether. And the path toward liberty could have been easily accelerated.
It just seems that talks of “morally declining and broken society” and all the distractions of political correctness, gay marriage, abortion, divorce,.etc seem to have far more sway with voters.
I think of the right as the continuation of Hoppean monarchy: people never tire of ‘papa’ figures. Indeed I find it hard to believe that he left could ever muster a majority if the right had a decent leader.
Of course there is. They usually show their “colors” when they are out of power and expand government to new levels.
Anyways, nice post.
I would like to answer you on numerous fronts, but I am not sure it worth it because you could probably better answer some of your question than I could.
Just keep on asking great questions and follow your lead.
We just elected a right wing candidate here in Chile on the promise that his government will support the middle class.
Maybe a free marketer classic liberal with some regulations and some taxes is better than a socialist than doesn’t even hide his desire for a state as big as possible.
Because democracy doesn’t work, and voters are the biggest sheep on the planet. Real and intelligent ideas stopped mattering a long time ago and it’s simply a case of each candidate telling the mob what he wants to happen, if the mob agrees then this person gets in.
Not exactly charisma, but rather a strong willpower.
It has always been this impression of mine that “back thoughts”, i.e. semi-conscious feelings, play quite an important part in setting elections once both major parties come up with roughly the same platforms. In this case the typical rightist promises of “morality first” (whatever that might mean) and security for the nation, happily at the expense of freedom, is quite fitting to the archetypal father figure, and hence one tends to associate it with a painful yet necessary (and wise) course of action.
On the other hand the typical leftist emphasis on “peace”, “sharing” and a higher sensibility to civil liberties sits well with the archetypal mother figure.
Hence, a strong leader is very likely to appear all the stronger if he’s running on a rightwing platform. Faced with the choice between two roughly strong leaders of left and right, I’d say that most would feel more “reassured” by the rightist platform emphasizing the “father-figure, instead of a strong mother-figure, which would appear somewhat less reassuring. Hence they’ll go for the right. That’s why I believe that every time the left is in power, it’s basically a gift form the right.
I find it highly disturbing that I’m seeing this kind of talk from a libertarian forum like www.mises.org. The right wins because of its lies, misinformation, and slander because of where they really stand on the issues. They like saying they’re for free-markets and personal responsibilities yet they hide with the cloak of big government and they like to use the state as a bludgeon to achieve their true goals. It’s all about perception. They want to appear strong and make the leftists appear weak. It’s not a gift per se. It’s just more that they fake toughness so they gain more appreciation from the voters.
I don’t think this is true. Most left-wing people I have met are better educated and more intelligent than most ‘right’ wing people I have met. The problem is that most people conform their minds and their lives to fit into the structure they were born into - the ones they depend upon for acceptance and success. In our case, this is democratic-centralism and a scientistic bent. I consider myself to be a far-leftist, but I am not a fan of democratic-centralism or scientism but I have just as little love for monarchy and military dictators. Having been on the receiving end of a military dictatorship myself, I can say that it is no fun at all.