The thing that’s killing us is the idea that people’s politics just mechanically reflect their material conditions, rather than their social environment and information diet, which leads to liberals desperately searching for some economic lever they can use to switch off the far right.
It’s darkly ironic because for all their talk about a marketplace of ideas liberals, in practice, act like this marketplace doesn’t actually matter, leading to them getting absolutely stomped by people who actually put effort into spreading their ideas and bullying others into adopting them.
We are the richest large society in human history but we’re going to go full authoritarian because some subcategory of costs is up relative to other costs? Does this actually make sense? It does not
The world makes far more sense if you reject the nonsensical idea that people’s specific politics are primarily a reflection of their material circumstances (I mean, how does this even work?) but we’ve trained ourselves to analyze any political trend by looking for the economic trend that caused it
Not to pick on this guy but this is what I’m talking about. Any theory that relies on some kind of economic commonality between Bolsheviks, Catholics in Northern Ireland, and Trump voters collapses instantly. There just is no economic comparison here and attempts to make one are absurd and strained
These theories have absolutely zero predictive power because literally any set of economic conditions can give rise to radicalism or fascism, but most do not. The only explanatory variable is the presence of the social and informational element, the economic component is useless and vestigial
it is not a guarantee, but every historian of fascism I've read argues the Depression and incapacity of the Weimar government to deal with it was necessary to give Hitler his opening. here's Robert Paxton for instance
As with most of history there are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for anything. But there are conditions that make it more or less likely. Nazism exploited dire economic conditions but clearly also activated a deep racism and anti Semitism that went along w those conditions.
Our current autocrat-friendly moment is also about a decade downstream from a very large global economic crisis, also not a coincidence. Political science has documented a very strong correlation between autocratic regression and economic instability. Milan Svolik in 2008 is a good start.
This is not me saying that it is wrong to focus on information channels as a primary driver, but those channels are drastically weirder and more opaque than was true even 20 years ago. Historically, econ real conditions and info stream accounting of them probably tracked fairly well
I think where this founders is you can ask the same rhetorical question about FDR... Of course Germans went to the polls with the terrible economy front and center—but Hitler didn't win the election, a back room deal replaced the Weimar Republic.
I mean he got the most votes in July 1932, 37 percent as against 2.6 percent in 1928 before the economic collapse. without that absolutely no chance he is appointed
Certainly, but nothing close to a majority. Compare with other '32 elections—aren't they really examples of "throw the bums out" in times of obvious governmental failure than "Hitler's rise was caused by the Great Depression"? It was an opportunity for every party not in power to change the info env
The Depression did usher in huge political change in the US though, and there was major upheaval and unrest. The difference with Germany is due to a different political structure (Parliamentary system with negotiated coalitions) and a very different experience of WWI.
amusing to imagine how this "economics has no effect whatsoever" arg might explain a 40-point swing towards a guy that the media of the day, by and large, fucking despised
Yes. It created the opportunity for challengers to the system and permission try new things—but it didn't prescribe anything about the outcomes. Which is to say, it offered political challengers a fecund environment for selling their narrative. Will's thesis.
the economic factor that lead to the rise of nazism was the fact that the middle class in germany was comprised of small capitalists, and as such they were more interested in aligning with capitalist interests than opposing it, ie "i want my status back at any cost" vs "this system has got to go"
absolutely. the way i see it is that the economic insecurity is the catalyst, the social structure (like social classes) are the foundation, and the ideology is the guiding force. like if you could go back in time and vaporize every nazi propagandist, you'd stop the movement in its tracks.
One, yes, because von Papen made him chancellor well beyond the mandates the Nazis won in the coalition government and two they blamed unemployment on the "judeified Versailles acknowledging bureaucrats who sold Germany out to American Jews"
material conditions determine the social education and consequently the economy
you'll not do yourself any favors with an "either/or" here
not even talking shit, just something to consider if you're gonna throw the words around
that IS what makes one highly predictable, however you feel about it
there's knowledge and those who acknowledge
people who stonewall the truth can afford to
that is very much a liberal privilege
how one treats the facts determines patrician from plebeian easy enough
2024 anni of hints it's always been simple class warfare
I'm in the combination-of-factors camp, but the dominance of corporate + right wing media often leads to a lot of avoidance and blind spots around discussing why progressive views are relatively shut out of the media and Democratic-aligned donors' reticence to fund their own media ecosystem.
If you're going to be successful in electoral politics, you're going to have to make an affirmative vision of community prosperity. You need to give people something to believe in and once you've done that it's much easier to backfill the brass tacks of the business arithmetic.
I think it's the same as any other kind of radicalization or change movement, including terrorism.
When you study Northern Ireland, the middle east, Russian revolution etc, what you settle on pretty quickly is;
the socio-economic conditions create the OPPORTUNITY for a movement feeding off people's resentments, anger etc.
But who actually gets to BE that movement is not predetermined at all; and it's all about mobilization, messaging and all the things you talk about.
The Russian revolution was created by underlying conditions; but there was nothing inevitable about the Bolsheviks being the emergent winners.
They were just far more compact, aggressive, ruthless and strategic than the Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, Liberal Constitutionalists etc.
The same is true now. Underlying conditions may make lots of Americans angry.
But Ultra Right Republicans are dominant because they've been acting and thinking like a block for ages; working to build up partisan media, think tanks etc; to influence and direct that anger coherently for decades.
Isn’t it the RELATIONSHIP to the means of production that defines political consciousness, rather than “can I make rent this month?” That’s why small business owners think/vote differently from union workers, e.g.
