Tyler Cowen on the New Right
contrasted with classical liberalism
If you have not seen it yet, read Tyler Cowen’s essay on the New Right. Hard to excerpt—almost every sentence is a gem. But I think this captures the essence of his argument:
In the classical liberal view, elites usually fall short of what we would like. They end up captured by some mix of special interest groups and poorly informed voters. There is thus a certain disillusionment with democratic government, while recognizing it is the best of available alternatives and far superior to autocracy for basic civil liberties.
That said, classical liberals do not consider the elites to be totally hopeless. After all, someone has to steer the ship and to this day we do indeed have a ship to steer. Most elites are intelligent and also they are as well-meaning as the rest of us, even if the bureaucratic nature of politics hinders their performance. We can entrust them with supplying basic public goods, and indeed we have little choice.
…The New Right thinkers are far more skeptical of elites. They are more likely to see elites as evil and pernicious, and sometimes they (implicitly) see these evil elites as competent enough to actually wreck society. The classical liberals see checks and balances as strong enough to limit the worst outcomes, whereas the New Right sees ideological conformity and indeed collusion within the Establishment. Checks and balances are a paper tiger.
…The policy emphasis then becomes learning how to use the government to constrain the Left and its cultural agenda, rather than ensuring basic liberties for everyone. The New Right view is that this obsession with basic liberties leads, in reality, to the hegemony of a statist Left, and a Left that will use its power centers of government, media and academia to crush and cancel the New Right.
Both Tyler and I would put ourselves on the classical liberal side of this divide. To me, the New Right stance does not lead anywhere. It just amounts to “We are screwed.” Back when I reviewed Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed, I called the book, which articulates a New Right view, “deeply pessimistic.”
Tyler and I probably share a faith in the ability of a liberal society to self-correct. I would not go as far as Tyler, who claims that “Wokism likely has peaked.” Instead, I fear that tomorrow belongs to the woke. But there is still a day after tomorrow.
"the New Right stance does not lead anywhere"
The New Right leads to Florida and Texas. The standard bearer of the New Right literally being Florida's governor.
The New Right leads to:
1) Low Taxes, Low Regulation, Low Cost, and Growth
2) Real and meaningful pushback against Woke
3) Sensible policies on crime and immigration
4) A general pro-common sense and pro-freedom attitude, most exemplified by COVID policy differences these last two years
I don't want to be told there is no difference hear. Adding in the tax, cost of living, and perhaps soon in the future K-12 funding differences, and moving from CA to FL is practically the equivalent of winning the lottery if you've got a family. That's before talking about the culture differences.
Optimism? Nothing could be more optimistic than the people I've seen move to these states. I've had watched multiple families move to the Sunbelt these last two years and I would describe all as radical optimists (the proof in the pudding is everywhere, but the most obvious is how many children they have).
Classical Liberalism by contrast is exemplified by California. The birthplace of Reagen becoming the most dysfunctional progressive hellhole in the country due to Classical Liberal policy and culture. People on the New Right vote with their feet to leave such places. Tyler wallows and tells everyone to "Read the Room".
This is all a big Cope for the fact that the Classical Liberalism completely failed in the real world but doesn't want to fess up to it and really fight to make things better. That's not optimism, its defeatism.
At the risk of quibbling over definitions, I would say that what Arnold and Tyler call "the New Right" is today's *populism*.
"Left" and "Right" are arbitrary abstractions.
Populists mistrust the competence and motivations of elites. They believe that a wide spectrum of incestuous elites (academic, technocratic, deep State, media, corporate, globalist) constitute an Establishment. They believe that the system is rigged. They believe that elites look down on them. Occasionally, they hear top elites denigrate them ("deplorables," "semi-fascists"). They resent elites' high-handedness. They believe that elites impose speech inhibition. They are loyal to populists leaders who defy elite speech inhibition.
Arnold has faith in a classical-liberal day-after-tomorrow. Populists want to check the elites and achieve status-relief today.