Welcome friends!
Did you read about President Trump’s new national health care policy? The one he crowed about so frequently during the campaign? The terrific plan that does everything Obamacare does but much cheaper? No? Not surprising. No one else has either. Turns out President Trump never really had any such policy in mind and at least according to one of his aides as reported in the papers recently was never really very interested in health care policy anyway. Didn’t really need anyone to tell me that. You may recall a few weeks back the president delivered the memorable gag line, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” He apparently just assumed some Republican or other would have a workable plan. Alas, no. Paul Ryan and the leadership of the Republican Party, who have spent the better part of the last decade talking about it, couldn’t come up with a politically viable health care policy when the time came to present one. So what was the practical result of all the conservative grandstanding and speechifying on the unmitigated disaster Obamacare apparently represented and continues to represent to them? Nothing. Rather predictably an irate President Trump put down his golf clubs for a few moments to search for some suitable scapegoat and after first trying on the Democratic Party and finding that didn’t really pass the laugh test instead took aim at the stridently ideological and impractical far right of his own party. As far as the actual issue of health care he petulantly declared his intention to “let Obamacare explode,” which most knowledgeable people feel is unlikely to happen without active sapping. Hopefully the Democrats and the pitifully small number of moderate Republicans in Congress can fend them off and make any needed changes to the program to ensure it continues to help Americans get the health care they need. But none of that is really what I wanted to discuss today. Bam! That’s what they call a pivot in political circles! No, what I’ve been really been wanting to say a few syllables about is immigration and in particular illegal immigration in light of the new political landscape ushered in by Mr. Trump and his Trumpkins. Not only because it’s a big issue right now in both the USA and Europe but also but even more interestingly to me because there seems to be something a little bit odd about how we’ve been discussing it here in the USA anyway. Substance is always interesting to me but if you read this blog at all you’ll know what really sets me on edge is when people talk funny. So let’s take that up this week shall we?
Historically American conservatives of the economic variety have supported not just your garden variety controlled immigration that pretty much everyone supports but the much more radical notion of the free movement of labor. They’ve long been enemies of collectivist thinking in any form including that involving nations, societies, neighborhoods, unions, and so on because they feel the only proper unit of analysis for any reputable theory of social ethics is the individual. To economic conservatives who people are and where they come from is not meant to matter. What matters is their role in the economic system. Owners of capital. Workers. CEOs. Fending off thinking of groups is where all the conservative talk of creeping socialism and democracy run amok and the ostensibly dire need to restrict government and so on comes from. In this influential wing of American conservatism one’s fellow citizen should be of no more interest to one than any other random potential worker in any other country in the world. According to their social philosophy based on a sort of dumbed down version of neoclassical economic theory everything is best handled by the free market and the way to facilitate a free market is free trade as far as the outputs of production and the free movement of labor as far as the inputs of production. The issue they find compelling is not how well the peons of any particular nation are doing but total output. If the largely mythical perfectly competitive free markets can be achieved and maintained then we needn’t worry about how other people are doing. They will logically be doing just as well as they ought to be doing. I say this idea is based on a dumbed down version of neoclassical economic theory because as I’ve explained in many previous posts that theory doesn’t really say that at all. In its modern form it sidesteps distributional issues entirely and is thus not meant to provide a basis for a complete theory of social ethics and is indeed logically incapable of doing so. The all important missing bits of economic conservative ideology that explain why we needn’t be concerned with the welfare of other people do not come from economic theory but from some other unspecified source. If you find out where let me know. I’ve wondered about that for some time myself.
The other traditional wing of conservatism here in the USA is of course social conservatism, which is a different beast entirely. Social conservatives as one might suppose are much more attuned to societal issues but rather narrowly focused on social control in the sense of enforcing ethnic and cultural and in particular religious conformity. They have traditionally spent very little time thinking about economic issues other than to argue we should not rock the boat and should accept whatever distribution falls out of our current system, hence their ability to find common cause with economic conservatives on distributional matters or at least with those economic conservatives who are satisfied with the degree to which our system currently conforms to their free market ideology. Although economic conservatives tend to do the most talking social conservatives have always been a prominent force in this country. Despite the overall trajectory of the nation’s history toward increasing diversity we’ve always had a sizable group of people who have resented the arrival not only of new people but new ideas (again given their interests typically religious ideas but really any foreign political, social, and economic ideas). These people don’t have any particular objection to using government power to coerce other people into toeing the line on the issues they find important. However, they tend to share economic conservatives’ distrust and fear of democracy because of course democracy can at least potentially be used to express the interests of the very people they find undesirable and of course the constant discussions and negotiations raise the specter than people may adopt new ideas and want to try some things. They’re much happier talking about bibles and constitutions and unchanging natural laws and basically anything immune from the forces of what they view as misguided human meddling.
And now of course we have yet a third iteration of American conservatism on our hands, President Trump’s so-called “economic nationalism,” which is apparently meant to simultaneously address the distributional beliefs and concomitant adulation of “the free market” of traditional economic conservatives, the social control and ethnic and social homogeneity so beloved of social conservatives, and a new concern: the collective economic interests of the nation as opposed to the economic interests of foreigners. Yes, we’re basically talking about a version of what they call in Europe or did at one time anyway national socialism but you know American conservatives always have a hard time with the word socialism so of course they call it by a different name. This sort of thing has long been a mainstay of European conservative politics but is something of a newcomer on these shores. The social aspect is interesting because one would of course like to consider how it relates to the social aspect of traditional American liberalism and leftism.
In the USA liberalism and leftism has always been predicated on one having and expressing some interest and concern about what is happening to one’s fellow man. And woman. And child. And little furry things. And fish. And trees. And … whoa, let’s not get carried away. I’m just saying entities other than oneself. I suppose that must be the distinguishing feature of that end of the political spectrum in this country. The belief that although individual rights and so on are very important other people are also important. Society matters. One’s nation matters. One’s fellow workers matter. When one develops this sort of mindset one perceives a whole slew of problems that remain largely invisible to economic conservatives such as how we as a society should address issues involving other people in our society struggling along some dimension or other such as poverty, unemployment, underemployment, sickness, being treated unfairly in terms of economic outcomes, and so on and so forth.
The notion that one should be concerned about other people and society in general is course as the name suggests the basis of socialism broadly conceived. Theoretically the issue of being concerned about society is different from the issue of supporting or not supporting democracy. That is to say one can have democratic socialism or anti-democratic socialism, which we typically call communism in this country. American leftism has always been predominantly focused on the democratic sort because democracy is sort of a big deal in this country. It’s our thing. It’s what we do. If we’re going to do leftist style socialism it’s going to be democratic socialism. As I’ve pointed out before historically some leftists primarily abroad famously lost sight of the democratic part of the equation. In particular, the old time communists used to rail against what they called bourgeois political democracy because they felt it was or could be or would inevitably be captured and manipulated by the wealthy classes. Here in American even leftists who shared their assessment of the shortcomings and weaknesses of democracy in the face of concentrated economic power have opted to try to fix democracy and make it more robust rather than go the other direction and write it off as a hopeless red herring.
Conservative economic nationalism clearly has many similarities to the national socialism of the bad old days of early twentieth century Germany. However, one presumes or hopes anyway most American conservatives, like most American liberals, would draw the line at actually jettisoning democracy entirely. In our context what these conservatives tend to talk about is more like neutering democracy. Limiting it. Shrinking it. Yes, the very sort of thing traditional economic conservatives in this country have long recommended.
Having finally and rather laboriously set the stage let’s think a bit about immigration in the context of this new sort of conservative economic nationalism / national socialism and old time traditional liberal or leftist democratic socialism. The first point of interest here is that as I’ve just pointed out traditional economic conservatives have long been the proponents of open borders and the free movement of labor in contrast to liberals and leftists who wanted controlled immigration because they were concerned about the welfare of those already in their society or system. Given this background it’s ironic the new breed of economic nationalist conservatives have apparently been able to turn around and smear liberals and leftists with the claim they support uncontrolled immigration and have no concern for their economically struggling fellow citizens. What seems to have happened is the Democratic Party, the home of whatever liberal and leftist thought there is in the USA along with a great deal that isn’t particularly liberal or leftist, was pulled so far in the direction of economic conservatism under the banner of so-called “neoliberalism” they vacated an intellectual space that was then claimed by conservative economic nationalists. Awkward as they say.
The second point is there is quite a bit of variation in how conservatives view immigration and in particular illegal immigration. Economic conservatives are or should be according to their stated philosophy all in favor of immigration and honestly shouldn’t be excessively bothered by even the illegal variety. It should all help to make labor markets more “efficient” as economists use the word. Social conservatives on the other hand tend to be pretty suspicious of immigration of any sort including even the controlled legal variety and the issue of illegal immigration is no different in type but kicked up a notch in terms of the threat to social homogeneity and social control. Conservative economic nationalists are particularly exercised over illegal immigration as it involves foreigners infringing upon our territory so to speak. One suspects they are probably pretty suspicious of even the legal variety as well although unlike social conservatives they would presumably be sensitive to arguments establishing economic benefits or at least the absence of harm to current residents. Just to complete the list, most liberals and leftists are probably comfortable with controlled immigration because they recognize the potential benefits and are not particularly challenged by a certain degree of social and cultural diversity. By certain degree I am of course referring to the point I’ve made in many other posts that there is some minimum of values, meta-values if you will, that we all really need to support in order to live together peacefully. However, like the conservative economic nationalists liberals would be concerned that legal immigration not undermine the situation of current residents. We all belong to human society but it’s a lot easier to address issues if one shares a political and legal framework for doing so. Like all the other groups they oppose illegal immigration but their views are moderated by the understanding it’s a difficult and potentially very expensive nut to crack and there may be some humanitarian issues involved.
That takes us to our third and final point that although no one in the country aside from perhaps some very strident economic conservatives has ever really supported uncontrolled immigration we do clearly have some disagreement in this country about the significance of the problem and the feasibility and advisability of different approaches to dealing with it. Many social conservatives and now economic nationalist conservatives clearly consider it a very important issue perhaps even rising to the level of an existential crisis and are willing to pour money into such noteworthy projects as a wall across the southern border of the USA. Liberals and leftists see illegal immigration as a problem we need to address in some way but tend to not see the problem in quite as dire terms. As a typical liberal in many respects I can’t help but wonder about the likely efficacy of a wall and I have some concerns about the cost of constructing and maintaining such an object. Indeed, I wonder whether a problem of this sort can really be solved without dealing with the underlying economic and security issues that drive illegal movement across the border. And of course I see a humanitarian component to the problem as well at least in terms of those attempting to enter the country illegally due to extreme poverty or violence. Again, broadly speaking we all belong to the society of humans. Conservative economic nationalists of course appear to see no such difficulties. Indeed the tribalism and nationalism of this form of conservative socialism may be considered a hallmark of the type. In the same sense traditional economic conservatism in the US considers that one should treat the welfare of other citizens of the USA as irrelevant the new economic nationalist conservatism in the USA draws a firm distinction between those in the USA, whose welfare is granted significance under that variant of conservatism, and those outside the USA, whose welfare is treated as irrelevant. The willingness to turn one’s back on someone is a notable characteristic of all forms of American conservatism although the identity of the person or persons to be cut loose clearly varies between the different strands. Economic conservatives would prefer to cut loose everyone. Social conservatives would prefer to cut loose ethnic or cultural minorities. National socialist conservatives would prefer to cut loose foreigners and especially their shock troops illegal immigrants.
We should fight for the sensible and humane liberal and leftist notion of democratic socialism informed by respect for a proper sphere of personal liberty. We should look after our people but also give a thought to what helps others as well not only to discharge our duties to our fellow humans but because when other countries do well we’re more likely to do well ourselves. We should reject the dark tribalistic greed and power based winner take all zero sum game notion of a nation at virtual economic war with other nations and at economic, social, and cultural war with the imagined enemy within advocated by social conservatives and economic nationalists as well as the even more corrosive and dystopian every person for himself or herself philosophy of the economic conservatives. The three headed monster of conservatism is on the prowl and we’re all the prey. Let’s fight it with all our humanity and reason!
