Left, Right, and Inequality

It is remarkable how much grass-roots debate about politics revolves around labels. “What is a conservative?,” “What is a liberal?” The questions, damaged as they are by the warped political tides of the last century, can often makes some sense if asked in the proper context. To ask, “what is a liberal?,” for example, might be a question about what organizing principles ought to guide those who have come together based on favorable sentiments toward some subset of the ideas termed “liberal” in ordinary usage. The group being asked this question might be interested in government-imposed economic equality, toleration of non-traditional lifestyles, and host of more particularist interests. To ask “What is a liberal?” here, would be to ask what intellectual stance is to be taken as the model for the group that has come together. This is obviously not a purely descriptive question. Debate on such matters will always be contentious, as there is an attempt being made to define an “in-group” and “out-group,” along with the spectrum in-between. Further attitude formation in the group is going to be affected by a sense that one ought to be a “liberal,” and that being a liberal has some given content. It matters to those thinking of themselves as “liberals” if they understand a liberal to be someone defined by “championing the interests of marginalized groups,” as opposed to someone who is defined by “working to ensure that all citizens have equal access to the societal goods necessary for self-development.”

In the short term, many of the same policies may be supported, but at least in the long term, the self-understanding that won the day will change the policy emphasis. To continue the example above: if being a liberal came more and more to be understood as concerning interest in marginalized groups, those with a more individualistic interest might eventually feel that their policy goals were being slighted. They can either seek to re-open debate about what it is to be a “liberal” within the coalition they were a part of, or they can try to form a new group, perhaps reaching out to previously un-involved individuals. In the first case, they will likely face the scorn of their compatriots, even though they agree with them on a wide variety of interests. People, after all, seem to love labels as much as they hate them. There is just something magical about having a named “position” to rally-round, and partisans of the name are often just as zealous concerning maintenance of the label-status-quo as they are concerning spreading their ideas. In the second case, the schismatics will be forced to go to all the trouble of forming new social bonds, and developing new, enunciated identities.

Either way, those who drifted from the label-understanding that won the day face a heap of trouble. Thus it does rather matter how one understands labels.

There are four political labels that are most commonly used today: “Left,” “Right,” “liberal,” & “conservative.” In most common usage, “Left” is equivalent to “liberal,” and “Right” is equivalent to “conservative.” However, it is allowed that “Left” and “Right” name wider domains: thus liberals and communists are on “the Left,” and conservatives and Nazis are on “the Right.” Fair enough, it seems to me. Neither liberals nor conservatives are guilty by association.

Of course, conservatives have been keen to place liberals, communists, and Nazis all on the Left, on the grounds that none of these groups respect “tradition,” by which they mean, in particular, traditions that do not involve the massive edifice of the Modern State.

This is a completely valid act of labeling, given the evaluative content of all such acts, and their particular features as modes of political strategizing. However, I will argue that this is not helpful way to label things. I have two motives here. First, I am interested in advancing the cause of those who believe in taming or even dissolving the Modern State, but who find the banner of “tradition” rather problematic. This is a fine banner for a Westerner if one is an Anglo-Catholic, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox Christian interested in limited government. There is a large body of historical thought associated with these religious groups that credibly pins down which traditions are being pointed to. But when it comes to non-Christians and Protestant Westerners, “the tradition” must remain highly fractured.

It is one thing to want to refer to the great streams of culture coming together out of Greek, Roman, Jewish, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic sources. It is another to base one’s political stance in whatever theoretical coherence these overlapping fonts of culture possess. One may speak of desire to preserve more ancient modes of living. But of course, many open to neo-Marxist ideas do speak of such desires. We have to ask which modes, preserved through which means? One might claim that to bring limited government or non-coercive government into the picture requires rejection of the socialist tradition, long entrenched in the West. More to the point, embrace of the free market does not require further embrace of “the tradition” of which, say, the conservative Catholic speaks – nor even embrace of this tradition as preserved in some hybrid, Protestant-Catholic form. Neither does it involve equal embrace of all of the features of the ancient traditions of the West; as this is impossible. No, the atheist or Protestant requires ranking and ordering of tradition either through inspiration or reason, and not simply through further reliance upon the tradition. Now one can always cast one's inspired or reasoned choices as acts of “conservation” and “preservation of tradition.” This can often be laudable, but it should not hide that fact that one’s individual choices in interpretation of the holy and the reasoned are being emphasized. Here the contrast is with those who made the more limited set of choices required to settle their adherence to traditions having a manner of application that is more clearly defined by historical practice: conservative Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, etc.

This poses a problem for the non-Christian or Protestant Westerner who sees herself as a “conservative.” What does being a “conservative” means, apart from conserving “the tradition”? If many conservatives of different traditions are coming together, what is “the tradition”? Worse yet, we find many happy with the label “conservative” who are totally at odds concerning which features of even their shared tradition to conserve. But perhaps this is the wrong way to understand “conservative.” Perhaps being a conservative is, I have elsewhere argued, about “conserving” a priori principles. Well, there could be something to this label. But no matter how you look at it, “conservative” becomes a muddle in America when located outside of conservation of Anglo-Catholic or Roman Catholic traditions that favor limited government.

Thus we either have to place limited-government proponents of other types of “conservation” on the Left, or fracture the identification of “Right” and “conservative.” Yes, “Catholic conservatives” are best classified as “of the Right,” but so too many Protestant or atheistic libertarian-minded folk. We need some kind of classification that embraces the lot. We can either define the Right in terms of favoring limited government, or we can define in terms of favoring social and economic inequality. The first usage simply has little to do with what “the Right” has traditionally been about: maintenance of the aristocratic order, for example. Yes, such an order involves a more limited government than does the Modern State, but it is hardly on par with the vision of limited government enunciated by the American Founders. And it would be curious to claim that the Founders were somehow “more Right-wing” than the party of the European aristocrats. Furthermore, once we reject the notion that the Right is about conservation of tradition, we have little reason to object to the common characterization of the Nazi’s as “right-wing.” Fidelity to common-usage is crucial for developing labels that stick. Right-wing conservatives can differentiate themselves easily from the Nazis by adding in the “conservative” label. Moderates and libertarians can act similarly. Thus, either the American Right-wing and the American conservative movement are completely co-extensive, and are composed of those who conserves the broadly “Catholic” tradition (rejecting latter-day attempts to radicalize this tradition to favor the Modern State), or it's composed of such individuals, along with a whole host of others, including un-desirables such as fascists and Lyndon LaRouche followers. The first option is simply too limiting, as is casting debate along the “liberal vs. conservative” axis, at least on the interpretation of “conservative” that I argue avoids confusion and muddled ideas.

Hence, I am arguing, we ought to reject an identification of “conservative” and “right-wing,” and ought to see “Right-wing” as referring to a belief about inequality: that it is good. Libertarians, conservatives, and advocates of aristocracy all agree here. The libertarian and conservative support an order in which the talented and lucky will possess much more wealth than the untalented and unlucky. The conservative further favors an inequality between church leaders, ordinary priests, and laypeople. And proponents of aristocracy favor an inequality between noble and commoner, often combined with respect for church hierarchy.

More to the point, “Right-wing” is a useful label today because it would be offensive to assume it meant someone was a fascist, just as it would be offensive to assume that a someone who is “Left-wing” is a communist. It is always a case of being left and right of some center, but not always of occupying the most morally obnoxious position that is distant from that center.

I mentioned a second motive for not wishing to identify “Right-wing” with “conservative.” This is a less particularist motive: given that “traditionalist” and “non-traditionalists” must come together to achieve goals of limiting government, it is not only disturbing for those unhappy with the banner of “tradition” to have to grapple with Catholic conservatives concerning who is the more “Right-wing” or the more “conservative” (read: who least shares in the damaging traits of proponents of the Modern State), it is further injurious to the “Catholic conservatives.” They waste time and energy combating those opposed or lukewarm to their favored traditions, and get caught defending as absolute schemes of labeling that are always merely strategic. The inevitable result is loosening of labels and an obscurement of guiding principles among those who favor limiting or dissolving the Modern State. In its place, we get a confused “overlapping consensus” focused on policy, not ideas, and thus are left with few means to articulate a vision to the broader public, or resolve disagreements about which policy goals are too emphasized.

We need to focus on the shared agenda of non-Christian, Protestant, Anglo-Catholic, and Roman-Catholic libertarians, together with the overlapping agenda of proponents of Anglo-Catholic and Roman-Catholic style conservatism. As I have suggested, one overarching principle is valuation of inequality. The other will be a belief in the dignity of all human beings, where this belief is often expressed in rights-talk; and where this belief shuts out those on the Right who are not desirable as allies.

The real fight is of course about inequality. It is this issue which defines the Western Left-Right spectrum, and does so today in a way that is cleared of non-essential factors. Arguing for the value of inequality is a hard sell, which is part of why the Left performed so effectively in the post-WWII period. But making the case for inequality is absolutely necessary to stop the party of the State, which fulminates endlessly to level human differences globally, all the while preserving effective means to ignore and hide its leaders own coveting of absolute superiority.

February 24, 2004

Marcus Verhaegh [send him mail] is an instructor in philosophy at Kent State University. Here is his philosophy website.

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