We don’t expect the free market’s ad men to understand their movement’s deep integration with eugenicist ideas. It is worth knowing that fact, however much they will deny the relevance of their origin stories.
Peter Kurti, of the Atlas Network’s Centre for Independent Studies, wrote an opinion piece for The Australian recently called “Citizenship based on rights can’t replace the glue of civil society.” There he posits “social cohesion” as more important than rights. He blames “multiculturalism” for the reluctance of Australians to volunteer. These are baseless tropes common to the Atlas Network, and also to Viktor Orbán’s junktank space where Kurti is a feature.
British investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed has just published a book tracking the tight integration of the same American eugenics movement that fed the Nazi death camps into the “science” of free market economics. The integration of “former” Nazis and fellow travellers into the movement around libertarianism is made quite clear in his account. The same donors that fund the Atlas Network also funded the “science” of class and racial difference.
It is not surprising that a movement designed to serve the rich should emerge out of racist beliefs. The upper classes of the early 20th century tended to be eugenicist and many supported the Nazis. The 19th century Social Darwinist idea that success, in society or business, reflected genetic fitness never went away.
The Mont Pelerin Society (that later birthed the Atlas Network to act as the self-replicating advertising agency for its oligarch donors’ policy goals) was established in 1947 to fight the threat of communism. Property had to be protected from the masses. Keynesian government involvement in the market and society was just another form of theft for these economist-servants of the upper echelons.
At the same time, Ahmed explains, the proto-CIA was integrating former Nazi spies into the Western intelligence gathering circuit where they fostered anti-Soviet hysteria for their own purposes. William Casey was one of the key OSS figures in that era and later director of the CIA under Reagan.
Casey also worked with the creator of the Atlas Network Sir Antony Fisher, co-founding together Fisher’s first American junktank, the Manhattan Institute.(1)
Race, empire and capitalism have deeply intertwined roots. Part of the monumental global violence of the Cold War involved empires and capitalist forces rejecting the colonised people’s demand for freedom. One of the Atlas Network’s roles has been to deploy disgruntled local elites to foster a more convenient definition of “freedom” that protects the local (lighter skinned) aristocracy’s property, alongside the (foreign) corporations’ investments and profits.
The Cold War struggle against redistribution came to demarcate the “communist” enemy in any group that wanted equal rights. Old racisms were recast as factual detection of communist subversion. The Civil Rights movement was depicted by the propagandists entrenching privilege as a communist threat.
Many amongst the moneyed class in America belonged to the notorious John Birch Society through the 1950s into the 70s. Charles Koch, one of the key Atlas Network donors and strategists later in the century bought a lifetime membership. His father had been a founding member. Birch was an hysterical conspiracist organisation that fought communism but was also explicitly racist.
So the fact that key Atlas donors like the Mellon-Scaifes, Bradleys and Olins were also funding research to establish that “science” could shore up the Evolutionary Ladder is not surprising. They wanted the proof that Black people were genetically inferior.
It had the adjunct benefit of establishing that the White working class was inferior also.
Atlas junktanks and Rupert Murdoch, who was a junktank director at Atlas’s Cato Institute in the 90s, fostered the career and disseminated the writing of figures like Charles Murray who gave them the (discredited) science to fight “welfare.” There was no value in helping the poor, of any skin colour, if they were genetically trapped in their suffering.
Many of the same donors funded the transition of the race biology industry into the Islamophobia industry after 9/11. They needed a new enemy, now that Russia was White and Christian again. Creating a sense that there was an integral “clash of civilisations” with the Islamic “world” was as useful as the certainty that the Soviets were an existential threat and that Black people were genetically inferior.
Many of same figures and families continue to work now in this movement that gradually flipped Western society from a Keynesian understanding of political economy to a neoliberal one.
In the wake of the shooting of a CEO in New York, there have been many musings on the “ruthless arithmetic” of neoliberal capitalism, the implicit knowledge that some lives have no value for the shareholder.
The same old idea of the fungibility of the lower orders underpins the Atlas Network’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) hosting Jay Bhattacharya in Australia during the pandemic to promote his easily debunked research fighting public health measures. The massive death toll amongst (darker skinned) “essential workers” in the USA was a small price to pay for quarterly profit protection.
One of the reasons such tools argued that schools must remain open (despite the unwillingness to allow investment in the improvements that would make schools safer during a pandemic) is because the CEOs needed them as childminding.
Atlas Network junktanks fight any regulation that translates into making workplaces and products safer. Their workers, neighbours and customers can die if the shareholder is happy.
The demonisation of “welfare” by Atlas Network junktanks over the decades created the space for Alan Tudge’s threats towards the battlers in the rhetoric around Robodebt. It provides the context for the individual cases that Tudge had extracted and provided to “friendly” media to ruin the reputation of people complaining about the illegal program.
The rich are on tax strike, one of the Atlas Network’s key goals. Much of the common wealth that is collected is funnelled up to the investors in industries such as the weapons sector, or just gifted as Jobkeeper overpayments were. This limits the money available for social goods.
That means that Kurti’s emphasis on volunteering becomes even more important. If the oligarchs have ensured that there is very little money available for the community, we need volunteers to compensate. The neoliberal project also partly works to fan up “family values” because they need women to provide the care for the family unit that they have prevented society making available.
And the enemy must be depicted as the Other. Whether it is the Black rights activist who must be portrayed as “communist” or the multicultural society that Kurti singles out as undermining “social cohesion,” the enemy cannot be the oligarch whose propaganda has enabled making our lives more precarious. Viktor Orbán is the guiding light of those who want ethnostates, the only way they can imagine cohesion.
The alleged socialism of anyone who wants their rights protected continues in random allegations of “socialism” by Atlas Network operatives. They rant against the trope of “woke” which they claim is the product of “cultural marxism,” a fevered furphy that is both an allegation of socialism and an antisemitic slur.(2)
The roots of the racism and desired inequality that underpinned the creation of the Atlas Network continue in its talking points now. We need to help those around us see those ghostly echoes for the dangerous entrenchment of privilege that they are.
- Atlas’s Manhattan Institute now has Christopher Rufo as a Senior Fellow. This is the man who took the academic legal study of residual racist laws from past eras – Critical Race Theory – and turned it into a frenzied effort by the MAGA base to prevent the teaching of accurate history in schools. His work to return American education to a White mythologised version of the nation’s history has been very effective at mobilising – and distracting – the radicalised base. Rufo followed up that work with a second toxic campaign to erase the existence of LGBTQIA+ people from education. Rufo is one of the connections between the acknowledged Atlas junktanks and Viktor Orbán’s junktank sphere.
- Jack Posobiec was a 2019 Fellow at Atlas’s Claremont Institute. Claremont was a more reputable right-wing junktank but has become radicalised. It has many personnel connections with an “extremist fraternal order” with Christofascist goals. It hosted senior personnel connected to the plot behind Donald Trump’s insurrection attempt in 2021. It appeared to be promoting a new civil war. Jack Posobiec has written a book that labels anyone not belonging to the radicalised Right a “socialist” threat and an Unhuman. The violence likely to follow that label has clear historical precedents.
Also by Lucy Hamilton:
The Atlas Network and the threat of nuclear war
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The article contains much useful material, including this gem — “And the enemy must be depicted as the Other. Whether it is the Black rights activist who must be portrayed as “communist” or the multicultural society that Kurti singles out as undermining “social cohesion,” the enemy cannot be the oligarch whose propaganda has enabled making our lives more precarious.”
Yet still Lucy refuses to acknowledge the origins of the power that oligarchs wield.
Still she asserts that the philosophy behind the alliance between the wealthy and the far Right began with or about the establishment of the Mont Pelerin Society. Even though I alerted her to its far earlier origins at her Corporatocracy article.
The neo-liberal policy of granting more and more power to elites began with the Magna Carta. This was never challenged by the liberal movement when it developed to justify the inequities that were ever-present, but which accelerated with the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
It became central to liberal policy and has remained so with the progression to neo-liberalism.
The early liberal economists, Smith, Mill, Ricardo etc were aware of the danger, but their class loyalty prevented them from taking effective steps to eliminate the inequities. Class loyalty even influenced J M Keynes.
Because liberalism itself is built on class distinction.
Which brings us to the eugenics matter.
What is eugenics but the end-point, the final phase, of class discrimination?
This is because a eugenics philosophy requires of its adherents an innate sense of superiority that gives them knowledge of what constitutes the best interests of others and of society without the need for the consent of, or consultation with, its subjects/victims.
And the concept itself was present and active well before the rise of Mont Pelerin or Atlas as the article itself makes clear — “The upper classes of the early 20th century tended to be eugenicist and many supported the Nazis. The 19th century Social Darwinist idea that success, in society or business, reflected genetic fitness never went away.”
But the article does not explain why it never went away.
Did it just bubble away in some dark corner of society, to re-emerge with the rise of neo-liberalism?
Not at all.
It was misleading to say “The same donors that fund the Atlas Network also funded the “science” of class and racial difference.” It was ever-present and influential across society and had been since the time of Francis Galton. It influenced public policy, as in the sterilsation of Afro-Americans in the 1950s. Even well known figures of the Left such as G B Shaw were taken in by the false science behind it.
Interestingly, it persists today in the gene-centric view of evolution.
So eugenics did not die, and it is not just a feature of the far Right and their wealthy allies. It persisted across the liberal democracies because class distinction is the beating heart of liberalism.
If the far Right and its allies have embraced eugenics, we have liberals to thank for that.
We could wipe out the Atlas Network and every right-wing think tank tomorrow and we would still have class discrimination and eugenics.
Ahh Steve. The man whose single-minded mission is almost single-handedly sending me to a fraction of the readership on Substack.
You straw man me. You reduce and remove nuance. You want me to have your research project, not mine. If you don’t find me engaging with your points, that’s why.
Lucy, please explain your strawman comment.
When I make a comment about an article I give evidence for it.
Please do the same for me.
You said “You want me to have your research project, not mine.”
Or an alternative view could be that I’m adding to yours.
We could be collaborators! 🙂
Fucking. Hell. Steve.
It doesn’t matter. It really does not matter if, or how much, your interpretation of liberalism fed into the current state of the world. What matters is exactly what that state is and how we fix it.
Substack has to be better than constantly enduring this person’s obsession with semantics, Lucy.
“What matters is exactly what that state is and how we fix it.”
So how do we fix it leefe?
Lucy, on re-reading I did find something of a strawman in my comment, in that I focused on neo-liberalism while the heading related to Atlas. But in my defense a strawman is deliberate, while my focus was not a deliberate diversion, because further to my defense you did link Peter Kurti with “the neoliberal project”.
You said “It is not surprising that a movement designed to serve the rich should emerge out of racist beliefs.” If by that you meant neo-liberalism then that is not the case, as I explained earlier. If you meant Atlas then that is also not the case.
These projects that protect elite interests, no matter the name they go under, all developed from the liberalism historical thread that I have outlined. They might use racism as a tool, but that is not their reason for being.
They could even deride liberalism, but they all share crucial elements with liberalism because they exploit the groundwork that was established by liberalism.
Among other things, they exploit the undermining of working class consciousness and solidarity that has been part of the liberal project from the beginning, and has been so successful.
How do we fix it?
That has been the question for a long long time.
Always the ruling elite have demonstrated their belief that they are better, better bred, better blood lines, better what evers.
That they may have clawed to their position of privilege over the backs … or should that be dead bodies of those lesser beings they enslaved in one way or another. The fact is they think their shit does not stink and wander around with clothes pegs on their noses in order to not be ‘corrupted’ by the stench of the great unwashed.
How do we fix it?
In the current world of X and Trumpisms, ignore those bastards, ignore Elon Musk who if we let him will become the unelected leader of the world, destroying the gains we have made in being heard, where people earn a living wage for their endeavours, where women are respected as, dare I say it, people too. where poverty is not criminalised, where people are respected no mater their birth, the colour of their skin, their accents or the language they use or which ever way people can be discriminated against.
And that, unfortunately or fortunately, starts with the you and me’s of the world, demonstrating respect and empathy for those we meet.
It may mean that instead of looking down the nose at the young mum at the check out who has to put stuff back because she cannot afford to feed her family, that we swipe our card through the register, that when we see a homeless person, we can offer them a bed in the spare room and feed them, see them through another day.
That is how ‘we’ can fix it.
Become the humanitarians we want the world to be.
It really does come down to the ‘us’.
Exactly Bert, I could not have put it better.
And we can and do go further than that, by using a forum such as this to strengthen the solidarity of decent people that the system works relentlessly to undermine.
Some might say we’re just singing to the choir, or preaching to the converted, but even the converted need some assurance now and again.
Repost long comment…. one made on Lucy’s SubStack:
Good overview, much complexity to unpack and can add some tit bits, to this wicked web and as described by Nancy MacLean in ‘Democracy in Chains’ a long game…..
One wouldn’t ascribe that much influence to Orbán when he has had media and expertise in support of his electoral opportunism, ie. following existing culture and demographics in Hungary; many old people and Roma.
Exemplified by his Fidesz party’s ‘gypsy crime’ platform which then later via Netanyahu, segued into the imported ‘Soros conspiracy’; Orban’s own grandmother was gypsy Heritage and when asked he said ‘you need different coloured balls to play pool’, suggesting strength in diversity? (Things are not going well for Orbán, a chief aide in Rogán has just been sanctioned by the US for corruption, ouch)
Mont Pelerin includes the Koch’s muse ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan, a good old boy. For examples of John Birch tactics see Kochonomics Tea Party astroturf grass roots movement and the present targeting of school committees, curricula and syllabi; in Congress it’s the ‘Freedom Caucus’.
On Charles Murray and the ‘bell curve’, it crosses over to the white nationalist Tanton Network and the ‘intellectual dark web’ that denigrates woke, universities, women etc. to publicly attract younger males, but in fact eugenics or social-Darwinism for an audience of middle aged and older white males (like the ‘silent majority’).
Meanwhile, according to Media Matters US 2022, Fox News had employed friend of the late John Tanton (admired white Australia policy), ie. Brit born Peter Brimelow, friend and former colleague of Abbott’s Danube Inst. boss and Quadrant correspondent John O’Sullivan, and reported directly to Murdoch (but stood down same time as Tucker Carlson).
Koch anti-Covid measures Jay Bhattacharya, while RFK gets the attention, former has already been appointed director of NIH National Institutes of Health…….
On taxes, this is where the anti-immigrant Tanton Network come in sharing social-Darwinism with Koch Network, as one has been targeted by a local Australian Tanton outlet in a particular media comment section. On anything immigrant and population, or supposed linked negative issues, using techniques of climate science deniers (avoid future trends, focus on single factor etc.), aggro of FoxNews, Scientology special ops and Roy Cohn (assisted McCarthy, Trump & Murdoch).
They practise Orwellian denial vs fact that Australia is ageing and needs immigration, both modest permanent and especially high temporary churn over of international students etc. as ‘net financial contributors’ to keep budgets healthy with tax revenue to support more retirees.
In response there is open misrepresentation of data, dog whistling, trashing universities with science, woke etc. and using high profile economists to present tricky analysis, promoted further by data, science, research process, finance and economics illiterate media……
Opens the door for old eugenics tropes around fossil fueled ‘limits to growth’ eg. degrowth, carrying capacity, sustainability etc. and even the untested MMT Modern Monetary Theory.
A sophisticated long game to avoid taxes by <1% and eventually pare down the state and public services, even if it means potentially crashing an economy and/or government (See Liz Truss & Kochonomics).
I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m just being paranoid. BUT – I reckon that the Atlas Network is once again going to swing into action in Australia, as it did in 2023, molding public opinion against the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament . That was just a dress rehearsal for 2025. The public won’t know what’s hitting them, as the pro-Dutton tsunami swamps Australia. Lucy Hamilton is so right, that it is frightening. Gone will be factual information, as we’ll see and hear repeated memes tropes, whatever you call them – meaningless statements from “influencers” etc – ingeniously overtaking news and commentary. Dutton and his nuclear unicorn will be the media glory for Atlas in Australia in 2025, and a Dutton -plus-nuclear win here will reverberate around the world – to everybody’s detriment.
Headline today from Politico; “In Austria’s Kickl, the EU has its next Orbán — Vienna could be about to get its first far-right leader since World War II.”
This is the sort of outcome that should be expected when liberal democracies fail to live up to their promises.
Voters eventually wake up to the fact that liberalism’s much-vaunted equality has no connection to equity. That equality of opportunity is a cover for those born with a head-start in life to grab more than their fair share. That liberal values are an elite-class con because the focus of liberal governments is the welfare of the wealthy.
So what do voters do when they realise that reality is not in line with the promise? They turn to anyone who plays on their anger and frustration.
In the lengthy Politico article there was no mention of sinister far right organisations lurking in the background influencing events. Such players might well exist in Austria, but even where there are none, similar outcomes will eventuate. Right wing figures will emerge without corporate backing as we saw here with Hansonism.
The rise of the Right therefore, is a natural reaction to the failures of liberalism.
Lucy is rightly concerned by the Right singling out entire groups as “others” to be feared or exploited or eliminated, but where is her recognition that the liberal system itself regards all of us as others?
Regards us not as humans, but as resources.
The entire system of colonial exploitation that gave life and influence to liberalism was justified by, and built on the dehumanising of others.
Liberalism would be better referred to as de-humanism.
Eugenics, disrespect for other cultures, the protection of property from the masses that Lucy referred to, these did not suddenly appear with neo-liberalism or Mont Pelerin or Atlas. Protection of property from the masses featured strongly in the development of the US Constitution. It became the focus of liberal economic theory and philosophy. All the worst features we see in the controlling elite class today have their roots in liberalism.
This is why we see the rise of the Right.
And the answer to the problem?
Fix the failures of liberalism and the threat from the Right will disappear.
But this raises an interesting set of questions.
Why is liberal democracy in the dumps?
Why is the Right on the rise across Europe?
What happened to take the shine off the post-WW2 glory days of liberal democracy?
Please regard this comment as a like for Lucy’s observation
“*What matters is exactly what that state is and how we fix it.”
So how do we fix it leefe*?
I don’t know. I don’t pretend to have answers to these issues. I don’t pretend to know what is best for the rest of the world. Unlike some others …
All I can be sure of with regard to this issue is that continual carping over a matter of terminology has no practical use.
“What matters is exactly what that state is and how we fix it.”
That was your position/question leefe.
But now, when put on the spot, you don’t want to contribute to the discussion but you want to disparage the contributions of those who do.
That’s an unhealthy attitude.
And just by the way, terminology, definitions, are important.
That’s why we have dictionaries.
Any pretext for an attack, eh?
You did not offer, in your comment prior to mine, any solution; no possible solution was mentioned until I said that such were required, and it was Bert who came up with practical actions, not you. I have not disparaged him or his comment.
So exactly whose attitude is unhealthy?
Steve Davis wrong ‘Politico; “In Austria’s Kickl, the EU has its next Orbán — Vienna could be about to get its first far-right leader since World War II.”
This is the sort of outcome that should be expected when liberal democracies fail to live up to their promises.’
Kickl has to form a coalition govt., like Geert Wilders, who was unable to….
PM ‘mini Putin’ Orbán would at least lose the popular vote if held today, because his unpopularity is reaching middle aged and many conservatives too, and he doesn’t know what to do….and has a challenger, Peter Magyar*.
His right wing Kadar socialist like regime has overseen Hungary’s economic malaise with decline cf EU peers, high emigration of working age & youth, below replacment fertility, rigged legal system, managed media, health system in dire straits, high inflation,anti-EU (vs the will of the people) interfering in foreign Sstates, Orbán acting as Putin’s envoy etc., and the big one, corruption, allies in China, Iran etc. and obvious Russian influence.
On the latter his Anglo friends, including former MPs and spies working in Budapest at the Danube Institute**, don’t seem to care eg. Tony Abbott and his Russian speaking advisor, nor Downer and Sheridan?
** Partnered with fossil fuel Koch Network’s Heritage which developed Project 2025 with Tanton Network; social-Darwinism or eugenics?
Corruption…including scandal of pardoning pedophiles and throwing female President and then Justice Minister Judit Varga under the bus for ‘following orders’; the latter’s ex *Peter Magyar is making an effective challenge, without the managed media in support (Oz media is no better & ALP could learn how to bypass).
The latter has ridden on issues voters have with Orbán’s regime: anti-EU/anti-western, Putin/Russian influence, corruption, economic malaise, health system teetering on brink and meanwhile Orbán show boats around the world. The big one, key long term Orbán ally Antal Rogán has just been sanctioned for corruption by the US (barely a whisper in RW Anglo MSM, but greeted with delight by Hungarians)
https://www.politico.eu/article/antal-rogan-viktor-orban-hingary-us-treasury-sanctions-key-minister/
leefe, you demand a high standard of debate from others without being aware of the limits of your own contributions.
You began earlier with “It really does not matter if, or how much, your interpretation of liberalism fed into the current state of the world. What matters is exactly what that state is and how we fix it.”
Can you see the lack of logic there? My interpretation/explanation of liberalism WAS a description of the current state of the world. With historical background as evidence. It was a lengthy comment so I went no further, but I did offer a solution in a later comment. If you’re not happy with my view of liberalism, feel free to refute it.
I don’t know leefe, I try so hard to please you, but I fear I will never live up to your exacting standards! 🙂
Andrew Smith states “Steve Davis wrong…”
For reproducing a journal headline?
A journal that he later quoted from himself?
Wow.
Steve Davis you are gaslighting, misrepresenting my comment, meaning and Politico headline, to deflect from and run protection for..? Fossil fueled corrupt Anglo &/or Russian RWNJs & oligarchs?
You either don’t understand or you are misrepresenting the headline’s keyword, Kickl ‘could’ form a government, but like Wilders it’s not a given…. negotiations are needed.
Why do you never present a clear position vs playing the devil’s advocate, to try confuse people?
Our RW MSM is bad enough, but too many individuals and/or organised groups use indie media comment sections to promote disinfo &/or misinfo to influence ageing voters of the centre right through left…
I quoted a headline from a journal.
Now I’m accused of misrepresenting the headline’s key word, even though the headline was speculative and I made no attempt to claim that the speculation would come to pass.
There’s certainly some gaslighting going on, but it ain’t coming from me.
You will also note that Andrew’s final sentence can be boiled down to “too many use indie media comment sections to promote ideas I disagree with.”
Worth noting also, that Andrew made no attempt to refute my explanation as to why Austria has moved to the right. That’s all it was — an explanation that was up for discussion or demolition as the case may be.
Instead, he used it as a springboard to indulge his usual two minutes of hate for Orban.
Steve, I am well aware of the limits of my contributions here. Those limits are deliberate.
And no, you don’t try to please me; we both know that. If you truly were trying, you wouldn’t repeatedly insist on my adhering to whatever standards you have set for “approrpiate” commentary here. And that’s just for starters.
“And no, you don’t try to please me; we both know that.”
It was a joke leefe.
The clue was in the smiley face.
“Whatever standards you you have set for “appropriate” commentary here.”
I’m the one setting standards?
We all set standards, or have you forgotten your “Terms like “capital punishment” and even “death penalty” are weasel words which I won’t tolerate.”
Intolerance of neutral terms like capital punishment? That’s a standard so high that no-one could comply.
So why are we seeing the growing influence of right-wing organisations such as Atlas?
Let’s go back a little.
Lucy published “Conservative Parties have Become Post Democratic” back in Oct ‘23. The first sentence stated that this is a recent development. It has certainly accelerated and become more obvious in the 21st Century, but it has its origins from about 1973.
The article pointed out worrying developments in the leading liberal democracies; the US, the UK, including the fomenting of a growing distrust in the electoral system itself. In the UK, the Tories. In the US, the MAGA wing of the Republicans.
One particular paragraph summed the problem up nicely. “The UK Tories threw their country over a cliff with Brexit built on lies and bigotry. The economy is savaged. The living standard is declining. The attempt to implement ideological-extreme economic policy was a catastrophe. Like the Republicans, they are forced to foment deadly culture war hatreds to distract the public from their failures.”
All true, and all valid points.
The blame for this was put at the feet of the Right. But the economic failures were apparent well before the rise of neo-liberalism or Atlas.
Well before Reaganism in the US or Thatcherism in the UK. Those two geniuses merely accelerated a decline that was already evident across the liberal democracies.
Prior to Thatcher’s rise, The 1973–1975 recession was a period of economic stagnation in much of the Western world, putting an end to the overall post–World War II economic expansion. It differed from many previous recessions by involving stagflation, in which high unemployment and high inflation existed simultaneously.
Liberal chickens were coming home to roost.
The boom and bust cycle we see in liberal economies, the growth spurts followed by recessions, are not linked to the political leanings of particular governments. They are a feature of liberal economic policy. They are built into the structure and operation of the liberal economic system. They occur under labour governments because political labour is a willing captive of liberal economic theory. Remember what Keating said? The recession we had to have?
Recessions were few before the recession of 1857, but then became an almost regular cyclical feature. So what happened around 1857?
According to the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, it was only after the mid-nineteenth century that pre-industrial social-liberal ideas of order “gave way to industrial capitalistic ones. This shift saw political liberalism fuse with laissez-faire economics.”
So there we have it.
The rise of liberal economics to a position of dominance gave us the cycle of boom and bust in which, since 1857, it is always the welfare of the working class that is sacrificed to restore stability.
The cycle was briefly interrupted by the length of the post-WW2 boom, but is now back with a vengeance. 1973-75, 1980-81, 1990-91, 2008-2009, 2020, 2023.
But why is the current situation more chaotic than in the past? Why are ratbag groups like Atlas now such a problem?
The success of the Bolshevik Revolution had an impact on liberal democratic policy that is rarely acknowledged.
The liberal democracies were now faced with a rival economic system for the first time. They were forced to provide concessions to the demands of labour, to undermine the threat of domestic revolution. How real the threat was is debatable, but the fear was very real.
So we saw the development of the welfare state, just to be safe. The threat evaporated with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
But with the end of the post-war boom, the problems faced by the liberal project are becoming more acute, and so the hidden aspects of liberalism, the authoritarian tendencies that were there from the beginning, are coming to the fore and creating a disquiet among the masses that the Right feeds upon.
The steady nibbling away at the welfare state increases that disquiet.
Not only is the “rule of law” as a cornerstone of liberal policy being intensified and widened in its application, (see the UK’s totalitarian Anti-Terrorism Act) but as Clara Mattei points out, the liberal democracies are assuming fascist features with their relentless suppression of wages.
In such a situation, people will turn to anyone, no matter how devious or mendacious, who promises a relief to their suffering.
Steve Davis
It’s not about any of us, but your way of deflection and pivoting away from salient points offering neither a clear posiiton nor support, then demanding others address your strawman or imagined points.
Simply specious shooting of messengers that any old pub bore or conservative can do …. like Kremlin &/or conservative whataboutery, but simply fills space….
“your way of deflection and pivoting away from salient points …’
We all put our own perspective on issues.
As you did when you used my reference to the rise of the Right in Austria to go over, yet again, your favourite targets in Hungary.
That’s what happens in blogs.
Get used to it.
It seems timely to recall a few of Steve’s greatest hits (ie misses)-
1/. Economic statistics facts and data are meaningless in a discussion about economics
2/. False equivalence and misrepresentation about Merkel’s comments, while excusing/contextualising Putin who has this record –
* Said he had no plans to invade Ukraine, just 3 days before invading
* Justified Hitler’s rationale for starting WW2 (ie Poland was unreasonable and provoked Hitler)
* Said Ukraine joining NATO was a matter for Ukraine and NATO
3/. Yearns for cognitive reinforcement, and the approval of others – eg. said I was wrong, and his proof was that a couple of others had agreed with his comments!
4/. Said-let us remember that there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before 23-24 February 2022.
5/. Said – they aren’t separatists, they’re seeking autonomy
“It seems timely to recall a few of Steve’s greatest hits …”
Now this is interesting!
Why would it suddenly be “timely to recall a few of Steve’s greatest hits”?
Could we be seeing from AC a frustration that could not be suppressed any longer? Frustration from wanting to comment on the topic but finding nothing useful to say? Frustration from seeing those critical of my comments being unable to justify their criticism?
Frustration from discovering that his assumption that the blog is an arena in which opinions without substance can be aired without challenge was just a delusion?
Who can tell? The workings of AC’s mind are one of life’s great mysteries.
But there are clues as to those workings.
At Lucy’s article Calling on the Straights, AC made the pertinent observation that “I think we are observing the death throes of the traditional media, and that is a reason for some of the over excited commentary. It is a scream for relevance.”
Is that what we are seeing here? A scream for relevance?
The points raised by AC have been dealt with and dismissed. This is why they were presented as dot points — to avoid giving context.
Business as usual.
As I’ve said, you have made a range of exaggerated, incorrect and careless comments.
When challenged, you retract, qualify and moderate
Those comments were not originally qualified. You did they under pressure.
It’s timely to remind people of your approach and tactics
The points raised by AC have been dealt with and dismissed.
The best way for AC to attain some relevance would be to comment on the article.
So you’ve dismissed a few direct quotes from you?
That you didn’t qualify at the time of making them? You only moderated them when under pressure and when challenged.
I’m sure we agree on that.
All I’ve seen is someone seeking relevance.
Comment on the article, then we can have a mature discussion.
Steve,
Here’s an idea: Shut the fuck up for awhile and go do something else. Once again you’ve managed to hijack a thread and twist it to your purposes. I don’t know about anybody else, but personally, give us a break.
GL, here’s an idea.
Comment on the article and we can have a mature discussion.
You don’t like being reminded of your history of exaggeration and misrepresentation. Followed by qualification and retraction.
Get used to it.
Historical perspective is vital in assessing political developments such as those we see in this article.
Aneurin Bevan, (1897 – 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for spearheading the creation of the British National Health Service during his tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee’s government. He is also known for his wider contribution to the founding of the British welfare state.
With the end of the war in sight in 1944, and a general election due in 1945, Bevan wrote Why Not Trust the Tories for The Left Book Club, which includes a section relevant to this discussion. I’ve just stumbled upon this by chance, and it has forced me to reassess some of my assumptions.
Bevan — “The economic structure of Britain is the domain of private adventure. The prime motivator in industry and finance is the property owner… the masses of the people are the creatures of his private plans, they are never privy to them, but they are the victims of their consequences… Parliament therefore, legislates in a framework formed for it by the decisions of individuals who consult no one and nothing but their private interests. This divorcement of parliamentary action from discussion brings discussion itself into contempt. This is the psychological basis of Fascism. It is the fruit of an aborted democracy. By refusing the State effective intervention in the economic activities of society, the Tory is a potential Fascist element in the community. By denying parliament an economic life he condemns it to death… he prepares the way for the executioners who, at a certain stage, appear in the form of political assassins. These assassins, once in power, are forced by the laws of their being to keep power by feverishly stirring up the nationalist passions of their people… So far, it is true, the British Tory has not brought that fate in all its phases upon this country, but he did make a considerable contribution to it abroad, and helped to bring the war upon us. The important thing to bear in mind is that all the phases are implicit in the Tory conception of politics.”
As a result of coming across this, I’ve had to modify my view of conservatism.
I’ve always believed that conservatives had the saving grace of a concept of society as an organic whole, whereby some provision of working class rights, although limited, did occur. Further, I always believed that it was liberalism alone that had the potential to drift into authoritarianism and fascism. Yet Bevan had detected that potential in conservatism in 1944, and possibly earlier.
But it’s good to see that this short extract supports the position that I’ve been pushing here for some time — the danger that lurks in our financial system. The anti-community workings of our financial system. The isolating of the financial system away from parliamentary oversight and direction. And the effect these factors have on political developments such as we see in this article.
Because we must consider what it is that liberalism and conservatism, two political philosophies that on the surface are strongly at odds with each other, have in common.
The answer is obvious.
Conservative parties, liberal parties, labour parties, neo-liberals, libertarians, all accept the basic propositions, promises, and fairy tales of liberal economics.
The liberal economic system produces poverty and struggle.
Poverty and struggle produce fascists promising to be saviours.
It’s that simple.
Well, well, well.
Who woulda thought.
The Guardian agrees with me. Sort of.
“In the absence of an alternative political offer, the anger felt by globalisation’s losers has been hijacked and misdirected by the far right.”
When they refer instead to “liberalism’s losers,” they’ll have it right.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/13/the-guardian-view-on-globalisation-and-its-discontents-how-the-left-was-left-behind