Are declining economic growth rates likely to have undesirable impacts on social attitudes?

 

Research for an earlier essay on this blog led to the conclusion that declining economic growth rates in high income countries are likely to cause an increasing proportion of the population of those countries to feel that their standard of living is worse than that of their parents at a comparable age, and therefore to experience lower average life satisfaction. In this essay I extend that analysis to consider the social attitudes of people in the USA, Britain and Australia who feel worse off than their parents.

In the previous study I used data from the World ValuesSurvey to examine the relationship between the perceptions of respondents about their standard of living relative to their parents at a comparable age and economic growth in the countries in which they reside. That data was then linked to average life satisfaction.

The main findings were:

• Perceptions of standard of living relative to parents are positively related to past economic growth experience of the countries in which people live.
• In the high-income countries, low growth has a greater adverse impact on young peoples’ perceptions of their standard of living relative to parents than on the corresponding perceptions of old people.
• The perception of having a lower standard of living than parents at a comparable age has a substantial adverse impact on life satisfaction ratings.

These findings imply that lower economic growth rates would be likely to result in an increasing proportion of the population having lower living standards than their parents, and hence, lower average life satisfaction. The psychic costs of adjustment to lower economic growth would initially fall most heavily on young and middle-aged people.

Those findings raise questions about likely changes in social attitudes if economic growth prospects continue to decline in high-income countries, resulting in an increasing proportion of people who feel worse off than their parents were at a comparable age. This essay uses World Values Survey data to explore how some of the social attitudes of people who perceive themselves to have a lower standard of living that parents differ from those of the rest of the population.

I focus on three high-income countries – USA, Britain and Australia. The USA survey was undertaken in 2017, the British survey in 2022, and the Australian survey in 2018.

Figure 1 provides further evidence that people in the USA, Britain and Australia tend to have lower average life satisfaction if they perceive that their standard of living is lower than that of their parents.

 

Demographics

Figure 2 indicates that people who perceive themselves to be “worse off” than their parents tend to be concentrated in the 25-54 age groups.

 

Figure 3 suggests that the sex composition of those who feel “worse off” than their parents differs somewhat by age group in the countries considered, but I have no idea why. There appears to be a higher percentage of young women in that category in Australia, a higher percentage of women in the 30-49 age group in Britain and a higher percentage of older women in the United States.

 

Work and Success

Figure 4 indicates that those in the “worse off” category are less likely to agree that hard work brings a better life.

 

Attitude to Migrants and Migration

The only conclusion I can draw from Figures 5 and 6 is that Australians who feel “worse off” than their parents tend to have more negative attitudes toward migrants and immigration than those who feel better off or about the same.

 

Trust

Figure 7 suggests that a lower percentage in the "worse off" category say most people can be trusted.

Figure 8 suggests that a lower percentage of those in the "worse off" category have confidence in the justice system.

Priority given to Freedom

Figures 9 and 10 suggest that there is not much difference between the three groups in terms of priority given to freedom. Slightly fewer of those in the “worse off” category tend to give freedom higher priority than equality. Surprisingly, in Australia and Britain, slightly more of the people in that category tend to give freedom higher priority than security.

 

Government objectives

Figure 11 indicates that those in the “worse off” category are more inclined to want government to take more responsibility to ensure everyone is provided for. The percentages shown are for the top 3 ratings on a 10 point scale.

 

Figure 12 indicates that those in the “worse off” category are less inclined to give high priority to economic growth. Respondents were asked to select from a list which national aim should be given highest priority. Other items on the list include having strong defence forces and individuals having more say in decision making.

 

Politics

Figure 13 suggests that those in the “worse off” category are no more interested in politics than other people in the countries considered.

 

Figure 14 suggests that people in the “worse off” category are no more likely to consider that it is good to have a strong political leader.

 

Figure 15 suggests that people in the “worse off” category are no less likely to consider that democracy is important.

 

Figure 16 suggests that people in the “worse of” category are less likely to be satisfied with political system performance than are people in the other categories.

 

Figure 17 suggests that people in the “worse off” category are as strongly opposed to political violence as are people in the other categories.

 

Conclusions

The social attitudes of people who perceive their standard of living to be worse than that of their parents at a comparable age are similar in many respects to those of people who perceive their standard of living to be better or about the same as that of their parents.

However, there are some important differences. People who perceive their standard of living to be worse than that of their parents at a comparable age are more inclined to:

• Skepticism about hard work bringing a better life;
• Pessimism about trustworthiness of others and lack of confidence in the justice system;
• Collectivism in terms of responsibility for the wellbeing of citizens;
• Negativity about giving high priority to economic growth; and
• Dissatisfaction with political system performance.

That combination of attitudes seems likely to be self-perpetuating because it is likely to promote policy responses that will lead to lower economic growth and a further increase in the proportion of the population who perceive their standard of living to be worse than that of their parents. Adoption of more market-friendly economic policies to facilitate higher economic growth seems unlikely to occur before that course of action becomes more obviously necessary to avert major economic crises.   

How can dialectics help us to defend liberty?

 

This guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins is a review of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s book “Total Freedom”, which was published 25 years ago. The epigraph is from page 354 of that book.

Ed Younkins is Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. He is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. Ed has numerous other publications, including an essay reviewing books by David L. Norton, which was published here in January.    

 Ed Younkins’s review was previously published in 2001 in “Le Québécois Libre”. 

There are two reasons why it is appropriate for it to be re-published now.

First,“Total Freedom” deserves more attention, and the 25^th anniversary of its publication is a particularly appropriate time for that to occur.

Second, in the light of declining economic and personal freedom in many parts of the world, the defense of liberty has become more urgent than it was 25 years ago. Ian Vásquez and his colleagues responsible for measurement of human freedom for Cato and the Fraser Institute have noted that on a world-wide basis, and using a population weighted comparison, a high point for freedom occurred in 2005–2007, followed by a steady decline through 2019, and a precipitous descent in 2020 through 2021 associated with government responses to the Covid virus (“The Human Freedom Index 2024, pp. 21-25). The latest data suggest although some recovery has occurred since, human freedom remains lower than in the year 2000.

Younkins ended his review by noting that he was “looking forward to seeing what Sciabarra will offer us next that will contribute toward the development of a comprehensive defense of freedom.” Chris Sciabarra has continued to make important contributions in this field even though illness has somewhat constrained his efforts.

Here is Ed Younkins’s review of:

Sciabarra, Chris Matthew, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Pennsylvania State University Press: 2000).

In Total Freedom, Chris Matthew Sciabarra offers a provocative, scholarly, and original work in social theory for the analysis of society and human liberty. The author aims to reclaim the dialectical method, the art of context keeping, in the name of liberty and from the authoritarian left in order to make it the foundation for a radical (i.e., one that goes to the root) defense of libertarianism.

The necessity of context

Sciabarra is convinced that a successful libertarian project must stress the necessity of context – the totality of systemic and dynamic connections among social problems. More specifically, the libertarian ideal cannot be isolated from the context upon which it depends and freedom cannot be defended successfully when separated from its broader requisite conditions. The author proposes in Total Freedom a metatheoretical foundation upon which to construct a comprehensive libertarian social theory. Rather than making a convincing argument for liberty, he offers a means for structuring the methodology of social inquiry. The book is about how a context-sensitive methodology can be used to defend freedom. In order to think about freedom, people need to grasp the totality of its prerequisites and implications. Emphasizing the indivisible unity of theory and practice, Sciabarra says that any effort to understand or change society requires an analysis of its many related aspects.  

Sciabarra explains that dialectics emphasizes the centrality of context in the intertemporal analysis of systems. It is a thinking style that stresses the contextual analysis of systems across time. Dialectics may be viewed as a method of analysis, a mode of inquiry, or a type of meta-methodological orientation or set of assumptions about how we approach the object of our study. Dialectics is an approach to thinking that attempts to grasp the full context of a philosophy or social problem. Dialectical thinking endeavors to understand the whole through differential vantage points and levels of generality and by a systemic and dynamic extension of analytical units. 

The author emphasizes that dialectical thinking necessitates that we do not engage in context dropping, but instead make every possible effort to see interconnections between seemingly disparate branches of knowledge. Such an approach compels scholars to investigate empirically the potential connections between various spheres in an effort to attain integrated knowledge of the full context. Since people are not omniscient, understanding a complex world thoroughly requires an on-going investigation of its many interrelated facets from shifting vantage points. 

Down to earth dialectics

As a methodological orientation, dialectics has been employed in the analysis of systems of argumentation, philosophy, ethics, linguistics, history, culture, psychology, social theory, political economy, etc. One of Sciabarra's goals is to capture the essence of the many dialectical approaches that have appeared throughout intellectual history. He argues that in its origins dialectics is not an especially Hegelian or Marxian tradition, but rather in its inception it is firmly Aristotelian. 

Sciabarra explains that, although the pre-Socratics and Plato were the earliest practitioners of dialectics, it was Aristotle, the true father (or fountainhead) of dialectical inquiry, who first articulated its theoretical principles and techniques. Plato had connected dialectics to an idealist ontology that entailed the search for comprehensive transcendent truth. Plato's unrealistic epistemological standard was for human beings to somehow attain a synoptic perspective on the whole society. 

Aristotle brought the dialectic down to earth by severing its principles from their Platonic-idealist formulation. The Aristotelian idea of dialectics eliminates cosmology from philosophy and relies on a minimalist metaphysics that states that existence is what it is, that consciousness is our means for understanding it, and that everything that exists is part of one reality. The history of dialectics is filled with battles between the synoptic Platonic idealist conception and the contextual Aristotelian realist understanding. As a dialectical reality, Sciabarra tells us that we should rightfully criticize those who form dialectical abstractions with no regard for their relationship to the facts of reality. 

Sciabarra explains that Aristotle advocates shifting our viewpoints on any object of study in order to illuminate different aspects of it. In this way, Aristotle keeps the Platonic predilection for organic unity, but acknowledges the central importance of context. Aristotle's principles of inquiry call for us to constantly shift our perspective on any object of study. Each point of view provides a different context of meaning. It is by piecing together the various perspectives that a person can gain a comprehensive understanding of the full context of the object. 

Like Aristotle, the Medieval Scholastics applied dialectical principles to the argumentative arts. Sciabarra observes that they brought dialectics to the consideration of Biblical texts and thus began the centuries-long journey toward the secularization of the human mind because they were brave enough to subject the scriptures to analysis, something that was disapproved of for centuries before.  

Sciabarra argues that Hegel's conception of the dialectic harks back to the Ancient Greek ideal of organic unity and to the Platonic penchant for the divine. In turn, Marx anchored dialectics to investigations of the real world. However, Marx's vision presumed god-like planning and control of many nuances, tacit practices, and unintended consequences of social action. He also presumed a total grasp of history and often attempted to study the present as if from an imagined future. When Marxists suggest that history can lead to a victory over human ignorance, they are implying privileged access to total knowledge of future social conditions. This is inherently utopian and undialectical since it is unbounded by the context that exists and is based on a « synoptic delusion, » a belief that one can live in a world in which every action produces consistent and predictable outcomes.

The art of context keeping

 If dialectics is the art of context keeping, then historical materialism proposes a theory of history that places the theoretician outside the context of the human condition. The problem occurs when Marx steps into the future to evaluate the present. He assumes the information needed by future planners will be available despite the fact that these planners will have destroyed the context (i.e., the price system), which permits such information to be generated and socially traded. By holding this incorrect assumption, Marx is placing himself outside the historical process that he analyzes. Sciabarra observes that it is as though Marx is permitting himself privileged access to information about a future that is ontologically and epistemologically impossible. Such a Utopian way of viewing the world is essentially an a-contextual, a-historical search for human ideals with no understanding of the limits or nature of reason. It is as if people can step outside the bounds of culture and society to re-create the world. 

Sciabarra goes on to explore the manifestations of dialectics among those from the liberal tradition including Herbert Spencer, Carl Menger, Mises, Hayek, Rand, and especially Murray Rothbard. The author's goal here is to show how classical liberal and modern libertarian approaches embody conflicting orientations. He also describes how these thinkers have been richer, more complex, and more context-sensitive than their critics have been willing to acknowledge. Total Freedom documents how a contextual-dialectical approach informed many of the classical liberal, and libertarian thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

A large portion of the second half of Sciabarra's work involves a comprehensive case study of the writings of Murray Rothbard, one of the major libertarian thinkers of the 20th century. Sciabarra attempts to identify the dialectical and undialectical aspects of Rothbard's wide-ranging anarcho-capitalist analytical model. Rothbard's work is used to expose and analyze the dialectical strengths and nondialectical weaknesses that are typical in modern libertarian social theory. 

Sciabarra observes that Rothbard, for most of his life, believed that libertarianism did not require a theory of culture. Rothbard appeared to think that his axiom of non-aggression could resolve social and political problems by itself. Like many other libertarians, he simply dropped the larger context which freedom requires in order to flourish and stressed libertarian goals without considering the problem of meeting them. He insisted that libertarianism was a political philosophy that could accommodate any culture. For example, Rothbard believed that men could simply use their reason to develop a permanently fixed Libertarian Law Code in accordance with anarcho-capitalist principles.  

Sciabarra questions the efficacy of such an imposition because it does not take into account the philosophical, cultural, and historical context upon which libertarian principles depend. The acceptance of a Libertarian Law Code in the real world would require a deeper understanding of personal and cultural factors. Rothbard had abstracted a single principle of non-aggression and created a dualistic tension between theory and reality by declaring that state institutions are at odds with human nature. This led Rothbard to universalize the market as a means of destroying the state.  

Sciabarra points out that later Rothbard realized that proponents of a free society needed a fully articulated theory of culture, since some cultures foster, while others threaten, a free society. Rothbard's later greater dialectical sensibility is exhibited in his theory of structural crisis which was simultaneously historical, political, economic, and sociological and in the foundations of his non-Marxist theory of class struggle. 

In need of an effective strategy

Toward the end of his book, Sciabarra briefly surveys the growing dialectical trend among libertarians such as Peter Boettke, Douglas Den Uyl, Don Lavoie, Douglas Rasmussen, Mario Rizzo, and others. Sciabarra is convinced that libertarianism as a social theory is valuable and offers a valid perspective on the nature of the crisis in modern society and that voluntary social relations, with all their preconditions and effects, are morally and consequentially preferable to the status quo and to statism in all its varieties. However, he does not believe that libertarian theorists have presented the best formulations and arguments in the context of social conditions that exist. Freedom cannot be defended successfully when severed from its broader requisite conditions. Libertarians must pay greater attention to the broader context within which their goals and values can be realized.

Sciabarra's message is that libertarians need an effective strategy that recognizes the dynamic interrelationships between the personal, political, historical, psychological, ethical, cultural, economic, etc., if they are to be successful in their quest for a free society. He explains that attempts to define and defend a non-aggression axiom in the absence of a broader philosophical and cultural context are doomed to fail. Libertarians must pay greater attention to the broader context within which their goals and values can be realized. The battle against statism is simultaneously structural (political and economic), cultural (with implications for education, race, sex, language, and art) and personal (with connections to individuals' tacit moral beliefs, and psycho-epistemological processes).

The author wants people to understand both the necessity for objective conceptual foundations for a free society and the need for cultural pre-requisites in the battle for the free society. The fight for freedom is multidimensional and takes place on a variety of levels with each level influencing and having reciprocal effects on the other levels. Dialectics require that people take into account and pay attention to all the levels and structures that a politics of freedom depends upon. Sciabarra contends that it is possible to look at society from different angles and on different levels of analytical generality in order to obtain an enriched portrait of its total form. Change must occur on many different levels and cannot be dictated from the realm of politics – it must filter through all the various levels.

The goals of Total Freedom are to defend the need for a dialectical libertarianism that synthesizes multiple disciplines and to reclaim dialectics as a viable methodology for libertarian social theory. The author accomplishes this in his well-documented, innovative, and academic treatise. He offers libertarianism as a valid and valuable perspective that is preferable to the status quo and to statism in all its varieties. However, Sciabarra stops short of developing his own substantive dialectical libertarian social theory. 

His work is primarily methodological and only articulates the view that a dialectical libertarianism is essential to the future of both dialectics and libertarianism. He has taken the first step by offering a metatheoretical structure for social inquiry, rather than a comprehensive argument for liberty. Sciabarra cautions that much work needs to be done to test the validity of various libertarian theories. I am looking forward to seeing what Sciabarra will offer us next that will contribute toward the development of a comprehensive defense of freedom.

Addendum

Readers may also be interested in an essay that Chris M. Sciabarra recently published to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the first two books in his "Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy": "Marx, Hayek, and Utopia" and "Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical," and the twenty-fifth anniversary of "Total Freedom." This "Trilogy Anniversary" essay can be found on both Notablog and Medium:

https://notablog.net/2025/06/09/a-trilogy-anniversary/

https://medium.com/@cm.../a-trilogy-anniversary-6265b10c1258

Are integralists opposed to natural rights?

 

Who are integralists? And why should anyone be interested in their views about natural rights?

I knew next to nothing about integralists before reading Kevin Vallier’s book, All the Kingdoms of the World, published in 2023. I read the book because of my interest in political movements that may pose a threat to liberty. By examining integralism, the author aims to help liberals and post-liberals to understand religious anti-liberalisms.

Vallier writes:

“Catholic integralists say that governments must secure the earthly and heavenly common good. God authorizes two powers to do so, they assert. The state governs in matters temporal, and the church in matters spiritual. Since the church has a nobler purpose than the state (salvation), it may authorize and direct the state to support it with certain policies, such as enforcing church law. At times, the church may need assistance to advance its objectives.”

After reading that, my first thought was that it would be necessary for Catholics to make up a high proportion of the population of a country before integralism could possibly be a force to be reckoned with. The idea that governments should enforce Catholic church law in countries like the United States and Australia would seem almost as preposterous to most citizens as the idea that the governments of those countries should enforce Sharia law.

Yet, groups of people who have strong anti-liberal convictions (socialists and environmental activists as well as religious extremists) often find ways to exert political influence that is disproportionate to the numbers of their supporters.

Vallier suggests that the modern integralist movement was founded around 2012 as a movement for spiritual renewal based on views of Thomas Pink. However, integralism has been transformed by Adrian Vermeule and his allies to have a greater focus on politics. Vallier suggests:

“Vermeule is building a new anti-liberal elite designed to steer the New Right.”

Rather than attempt to provide a comprehensive review of Vallier’s book, I focus here on the views of Adrian Vermeule and their implications for natural rights.

The views of Adrian Vermeule

Vermeule is a Harvard law professor, and a leading scholar in administrative law. He became interested in integralism soon after his conversion to Catholicism in 2016.

Vermeule has little to say about integralism as an ideal. His focus is on “helping integralists to develop a serious theory of the state and a theory of state capture.”

Vallier notes that Vermeule builds on Patrick Deneen’s criticism of liberalism in his book, Why Liberalism Failed. In response to Deneen’s book, I wrote an essay entitled, “Is John Locke responsible for the failings of liberal democracy?” I suggested that Deneen’s argument that John Locke is responsible for the failings of liberal democracy stems from a mis-reading of a paragraph in the Second Treatise of Government. Nevertheless, I welcomed Deneen’s support for practices that sustain culture within communities and his recognition that it is important for members of self-governing communities to have exit rights.  

Vermeule rejects Deneen’s belief that “Politics and human community must percolate from the bottom up, from experience and practice.” Vermeule argues that in order to protect religious communities, Catholics must take over the state and destroy liberalism from the top down.

Vermeule brought to integralism a non-originalist, non-contextualist legal philosophy. Rather than adopting the usual approach of American conservatives who read the U.S. Constitution according to the framer’s intent or the text’s plain meaning, Vermeule argues that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with “the common good”.

The concept of “common good” is linked to natural law. Natural law is seen to direct humans to pursue goods that help them to flourish. Since humans flourish in groups, natural law determines the common good for each group as a whole. An effective criminal justice system is an example of a common good.

However, Vallier tells us that Vermeule seeks to advance the common good theologically as well as politically via a strong administrative state:

“The state can help citizens grasp and follow the natural law, promote the earthly common good, and even help them pursue the heavenly common good—corporate salvation in Christ. The administrative state serves as the church’s deputy for the salvation of souls.”

Vermeule’s vision of “integration from within” requires integralists to capture the state and turn it toward religious objectives. That will be possible, he asserts, because liberalism is doomed.  The tendency of liberals to push for new liberties will eventually exceed the populace’s appetite for freedom. As members of the public object to whatever appears on the progressive liberal agenda beyond legalisation of divorce, contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage and transgenderism, the persecution of non-liberals will become more aggressive. Non-liberals will crave the return of “strong gods”.  

Vermeule apparently believes that “a small, devoted cadre can instigate a Catholic-led American counterrevolution against liberalism.” Vallier suggests that in Vermeule’s view, Catholics have only two options: “become rulers or become subjects.” He states:

“Make no mistake: Vermeule means to install a ruler.”

Vallier discusses several reasons why a peaceful transition to integralist rule is unlikely to be possible. The most important point he makes is that even if Vermeule is correct about the collapse of liberalism, he has “no story” about why integralism must follow liberalism. Integralists would be competing with other groups. They would struggle to dominate Catholics with more moderate views and nonviolent unbaptized resistors, let alone “violent and enraged” progressives.

Vallier also argues that, once established, an integralist order would lack moral stability.  His line of argument is somewhat complicated, but his main point seems to be that “the integralist ideal depends on people acting from a firm grasp of the true good” rather than from fear.  He notes that Václav Havel’s observation that under communist rule in Eastern Europe everyone ended up complying with authoritarian social norms to avoid punishment, rather than from moral conviction.

The relevance of natural rights

The only reference I could find to natural rights in Vallier’s book is in a reference to John Finnis’s book, Natural law and Natural Rights. Vallier discusses human rights in the context of Catholic social thought. He notes:

“The Catholic Church embraces many such rights. These include the right to health care, the right to vote, and freedom of religion. Catholic social thought claims that governments exist to protect universal human rights. The church has not set natural law aside, though. When we talk about human rights, we thereby talk about natural law.”

At that point, the author provides a reference to Finnis’s book (pages 198-200) which contains a discussion of the grammar of rights. In his discussion of natural law and natural rights, Finnis notes that some values have been widely recognized in all human societies. All human societies show a concern for the value of human life, cooperation, property, and reciprocity. That provides the background against which Finnis develops his list of basic values, including life, sociability, and practical reasonableness. Practical reasonableness requires one “to bring one’s own intelligence to bear effectively … on choosing one’s actions and lifestyle, and shaping one’s own character”. Finnis argues that an important implication of practical reasonableness is that “it is always unreasonable to choose against any basic value, whether in oneself or in one’s fellow human beings.”

I can understand why Vallier views human rights in the context of Catholic social thought. Since one of his aims is to “reach out to those skeptical of liberal order”, none of his arguments “presupposes liberal commitments”. I hope he persuades many readers that integralism is inconsistent with the declaration of religious freedom adopted by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. However, from my perspective (as a non-Catholic) that doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.

In my view, the heart of the matter is whether integralism is consistent with recognition of natural rights. From my reading of Vallier’s book, it seems obvious that integralists are opposed to government recognition of the natural rights of individuals. For example, integralists want governments to help them to discourage heresy and apostasy.

As I see it, the best way to defend classical liberalism from the advocates of integralism, Sharia law, communism, illiberal progressivism, and every other brand of authoritarianism, is by promoting an understanding that government recognition of natural rights offers a solution to the social problem of enabling people to flourish in different ways without the flourishing of any person or group being given preference over that of others. Drawing extensively on the wisdom of other people, I sought to explain that approach in my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.   

Is cultural backlash a major determinant of political outcomes in the liberal democracies?

 

In recent years, a major transformation has occurred in the politics of many of the liberal democracies as major political parties have increasingly been challenged, or taken over, by populists. What has brought this about? Can it be attributed to some kind of cultural backlash?

My starting point in this essay is the analysis of Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart in their book, Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism (2019). I then consider some problems associated with this analysis, focusing particularly on the authors’ definition of authoritarian values and some critical comments by Armin Schäfer. In the following sections, I consider the relevance of Yasha Mounk’s explanation of Tne Identity Trap, the nature of the backlash to changing economic circumstances, and John Burn-Murdoch’s outline of differences between conservatives in the U.S. and Europe in values and attitudes regarding international cooperation.

The Norris-Inglehart analysis

The book by Norris and Inglehart seemed like a good place to begin considering cultural backlash theory because Ronald Inglehart deserves to be remembered with great respect for his efforts in creating a cultural model which explains a great deal about the reasons why people from different parts of the world often hold widely different views on social and political issues. Inglehart’s cultural model has two dimensions: secular rational values versus traditional values; and self-expression values versus survival values. He documented a shift from materialist values, which emphasize safety and security, to post-materialist values, involving increasing emphasis on individual freedom, occurring as a consequence of ongoing economic growth.

Norris and Inglehart argue that the spread of post-materialist values has induced a backlash among cultural conservatives. The authors do not dismiss explanations of growing support for authoritarian populism which emphasize economic grievances associated with economic globalization, immigration, stagnant real incomes, and perceptions of growing inequality. They find that populist attitudes are strongly influenced by personal experience of economic insecurity and perceptions of the national economy’s performance. However, according to their definition, “authoritarian values” are more common among old people than young people, and are more strongly linked with the respondent’s birth cohort than with economic indicators.

The authors found that anti-immigration attitudes were more strongly linked with authoritarian and populist values than with protecting economic interests. And, even after controlling for a range of attitudes toward immigrants and economic conditions, the respondent’s birth cohort remains the most important predictor of authoritarian values.

Norris and Inglehart believe that “the combination of authoritarian values disguised by populist rhetoric” is “potentially the most dangerous threat to liberal democracy.”

To assess the threat to liberal democracy that may be posed by those values and attitudes it is important to consider how the authors define authoritarian values.

Have authoritarian values been measured correctly?

 The authors conceptualize “authoritarian” values “as a cluster of three related components, emphasizing the importance of (i) conformity (strict adherence to group conventions and traditional customs); (ii) security (safety and protection of the group against risks, justifying strict enforcement and aggression toward outsiders who threaten the security or the accepted group norms); and (iii) loyalty (supporting the group and its leaders).” They view populism “as a style of rhetoric reflecting first-order principles about who should rule, claiming that legitimate power rests with ‘the people’ not the elites.”

The main problem I have with the Norris-Inglehart definition of authoritarian values is that many of the people I know who emphasize conformity to group conventions, group security, and loyalty to the group and its leaders, would be more appropriately labelled as conservatives than as authoritarians. The conventions they seek to uphold are concerned with civility rather than oppression. They emphasize national security because they see it as necessary to avoid becoming the victims of oppression. They display loyalty to the group and elected leaders because they identify as citizens of the nation in which they live.

It seems to me that a more appropriate measure of authoritarian values is implicit in Christian Welzel’s work on emancipative values. The people who hold authoritarian values are those whose values are on the lower end of the scale of emancipative values. Welzel developed the concept of emancipate values to measure the beliefs that people hold about such matters as the importance of personal autonomy, respect for the choices people make in their personal lives, having a say in community decisions, and equality of opportunity. More information about Welzel’s research on emancipative values can be found here.

My understanding is that people who have an authoritarian personality are attracted to the possibility of oppressing others. That is the view of Hans Eysenck, who undertook some pathbreaking work on the personality predictors of political extremism. An important implication of that view is that authoritarian values are not the preserve of either the conservative or progressive side of politics.

That line of reasoning might suggest that the Norris-Inglehart analysis is more relevant to understanding a conservative backlash than the emergence of authoritarian tendencies that might threaten democracies. Nevertheless, as discussed later, there is some evidence that people who identify with the right wing of U.S. politics now have values more akin to Russians and Turks than to the supporters of right wing parties in western Europe.

How much do cultural attitudes vary by age?

In an article entitled “Cultural Backlash? How (Not) to Explain the Rise of Authoritarian Populism”, published in 2021, Armin Schäfer found that, on most issues, people in different age groups have similar cultural attitudes. His analysis suggests that older cohorts are slightly more likely to vote for authoritarian (right wing) parties but less likely to vote for populist ones. His conclusion is that generational replacement is unlikely to attenuate the rise of authoritarian (right wing) populism.

Schäfer does not dismiss cultural explanations of populism. He agrees with Norris and Inglehart that opposition to immigration is linked systematically to authoritarian (conservative) values and a lack of trust in politics.

A backlash to the illiberalism of progressives

 It is common for the spread of post-materialist values to be accompanied by conservative resistance, but much of that resistance seems to dissipate over time. Many cultural conservatives now seem to have accepted, however reluctantly, some of the social changes that they strongly opposed a few decades ago e.g. divorce, pre-marital sex and legalization of homosexuality, and they now also seem to be going through the process of accepting other social changes, such as same sex marriage.

In my view, it is the authoritarian tendencies of many progressives that has promoted a voter backlash, rather than the spread of post-materialist values. The best discussion I have read about the authoritarian tendencies of progressives has been provided by Yascha Mounk in his book, The Identity Trap, published in 2023. Mounk does not refer explicitly to “authoritarian tendencies” but the illiberalism that he discusses amounts to the same thing in my view.

In writing about what he refers to the “identity synthesis”, Mounk recognizes that its advocates are seeking to remedy serious injustices affecting marginalized groups that have historically suffered “terrible forms of discrimination”.  The identity synthesis is concerned with many different kinds of groups including those related to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and disability.  The distinguishing feature of the identity thesis is that its advocates reject neutral rules like equal opportunity and free speech in favour of action to promote the interests of particular groups. According to this thesis, the way the state treats each citizen – and how citizens treat each other – should depend on the identity group to which they belong.

Mounk’s main point is that the identity synthesis will ultimately prove counterproductive: 

“Despite the good intentions of its proponents, it undermines progress toward genuine equality between members of different groups. In the process, it also subverts other goals we all have reasons to care about, like the stability of diverse democracies.”

The identity synthesis subverts the stability of democracies because it makes it harder for people to broaden their allegiances beyond a particular identity. It is a political trap because it makes it harder to sustain diverse societies whose citizens trust and respect each other. It “pits rigid identity groups against each other in a zero-sum battle for resources and recognition.”

Much of Mounk’s book is devoted to a philosophical discussion of how the identity synthesis evolved. The story he tells is of a short march through the institutions, associated with postmodernism, rather than the long march of cultural Marxism. He suggests that since the identity synthesis is inherently about ongoing tension between different identity groups it lacks Marxism’s utopian promise of eventually abolishing all class distinctions.

There has also been a backlash to the authoritarian tendencies within the environmental movement. Although environmental activism is not part of the identity synthesis discussed by Mounk, he makes the interesting observation that in embracing “intersectionality” many voluntary organisations have broadened their missions in line with the idea that all forms of oppression are connected. He gives the Sierra Club as an example.

What about the economy?

The analysis in the preceding essay on this blog leads me to suspect that the longer-term slowdown in economic growth in the liberal democracies might be more important in generating support for populist policies than are grievances that can be related directly to import competition or immigration. Import competition and immigration may just be convenient scapegoats.

The preceding essay shows:

• The perception of having a lower standard of living than parents at a comparable age has a substantial adverse impact on life satisfaction ratings.
• Perceptions of standard of living relative to parents are positively related to past economic growth experience of the countries in which people live.
• In the high-income countries, low growth has a greater adverse impact on young peoples’ perceptions of their standard of living relative to parents than on the corresponding perceptions of old people.

A backlash to internationalism?

John Burn-Murdoch, a researcher who works for the Financial Times, recently made an international comparison of the values of people associated with different political parties in article entitled ‘Why the Maga mindset is different’ (March 7, 2025). His analysis, using data from the World Values Survey, suggests that in many respects (including attitudes to international cooperation) the values of people who identify with the U.S. right wing are closer to the values of people in Turkey, Russia, and China than to those who identify with right wing parties in Europe, or with the U.S. left. His analysis also suggests, however, that “the US Republicans of 20 years ago were no keener on autocracy than the average Canadian or Western European – and just as supportive of international co-operation.”

Perhaps that change of attitudes reflects a cultural backlash that can be partly attributed to 9/11 and the outcomes of the Iraq and Afghan wars. It may also be partly attributable to increasing dissatisfaction with the performance of international organisations, and a perception that U.S. taxpayers have been making excessive contributions to those organisations.

It is important to note that even where a substantial proportion of the population of a country endorses authoritarian values, that does not necessarily result in authoritarian political institutions. That finding emerges from some analysis published on my blog in 2023 in an essay entitled:  “To what extent do international differences in personal freedom reflect people’s values?”  The analysis uses Christian Welzel’s emancipative values data from the World Values Survey and personal freedom data from Cato. It indicates that international differences in personal freedom do broadly reflect the prevalence of emancipative values (the opposite of authoritarian values). However, there are many outliers. For example, personal freedom in China and Iran is lower than might be predicted solely on the basis of the prevalence of emancipative values, whereas personal freedom in Armenia, Georgia, Cyprus and Taiwan is higher than might be predicted on that basis.

Personal freedom in the U.S. seems broadly consistent with the overall prevalence of emancipative values in that country (including both the left and right wings). The current U.S. government is clearly seeking to implement a major change in the direction of many government policies. I am not yet persuaded, however, that its actions will have a substantial adverse impact on the institutions of liberal democracy. 

Conclusions

Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart argue that the spread of post-materialist values has induced a cultural backlash among cultural conservatives. On that basis they suggest that the combination of authoritarianism and populist rhetoric is a threat to liberal democracy.

In my view, Norris and Inglehart were mistaken in attributing cultural backlash to the spread of post-materialist values. It would be more correct to attribute cultural backlash to the illiberalism of progressives who have been advocating what Yascha Mounk has described as the identity synthesis. The identity synthesis has provoked a backlash because it rejects neutral rules like equal opportunity and free speech in favour of action to promote the interests of particular groups that have suffered from discrimination in the past.

Economic grievances play an important role in encouraging people to support policy remedies proposed by populists. My previous research has highlighted the adverse impact that slower economic growth may have on life satisfaction. I suspect that the longer-term slowdown in economic growth in the liberal democracies might be more important in generating support for populist policies than are grievances that can be related directly to the impact of import competition or immigration.

Some recent research has suggested that over the last 20 years the values held by people who identify with the right wing of U.S. politics has moved closer to the values of people in Turkey, Russia and China than to people who identify with the right wing of politics in Europe. It remains to be seen what impact, if any, this apparent retreat from classical liberal values will have on the institutions of liberal democracy in the United States.

What is the problem with aggressive realism in international relations?

 

Before I outline John Mearsheimer’s theory of aggressive realism, I will present my version of the classical liberal view of international relations.

A classical liberal view

As the epigraph might suggest, I subscribe to a view of international relations that has been around, in one form or another, at least since the time of the Ancient Greeks. The poet Hesiod, one of the founders of Greek epic poetry, advised his brother, Perses, to avoid thinking of obtaining wealth by engaging in predatory violence, including war. He urged Perses to respect the rights of other people, and to seek prosperity by working and engaging in peaceful competition with economic rivals.

As I see it, it is natural for individuals to seek to flourish by engaging in peaceful pursuits in mutually beneficial collaboration with others. However, it is an unfortunate fact of life that some people - individuals, groups, and nations - seek to obtain wealth by predation. People can flourish by engaging in peaceful pursuits only if they are able to protect themselves from predation.

It is not difficult to identify predatory nations which have a recent track record of seeking to invade the territory of other jurisdictions or threatening acts of violence against them. 

People in neighboring jurisdictions have an obvious incentive to protect themselves, and each other, from such predatory behavior. Nations that do not have predatory intent toward other jurisdictions have an incentive to band together to form communities of peaceful nations. The purpose of these multinational communities is to establish and enforce international rules that outlaw invasion and other violent activities that predatory nations undertake.

The multilateral communities of peaceful nations (MCPN) that I have in mind would have more in common with some existing security treaties than with the United Nations. I envisage that the MCPN would exist solely for mutual protection and would avoid attempting to pursue other objectives such as protecting individual rights, promoting economic development, or pursuing environmental objectives.  Multilateral cooperation might be desirable to pursue some of those other objectives, but the MCPN are more likely to be effective in pursuing the objective of discouraging predation if they focus specifically on that objective.

The approach proposed above should enable liberal democracies to avoid becoming involved in pathetic attempts to impose the institutions of liberal democracy on people with different belief systems, values, and ideals. However, it would support provision of military aid to Ukraine - to support its defense against Russian aggression, to Israel - to support its defense against terrorism sponsored by Iran, and to Taiwan - to counter Chinese threats of invasion.

I have previously outlined some similar ideas in myreview of Christopher Coyne’s book, In Search of Monsters to Destroy.

The approach proposed here has much in common with the classical liberal approach to international relations theory described by Edwin van de Haar in a monograph entitled, Human Nature and World Affairs, published by the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs in 2023.

The theory of aggressive realism

When a friend suggested a few weeks ago that I should watch Lex Fridman’s interview of John Mearsheimer, my initial reaction was that I had already knew enough about Mearsheimer’s views because someone had referred them to me in 2022, soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I suggested that my friend should take a look at Niall Ferguson’s refutation of Mearsheimer. Surprisingly, he took up my suggestion, so I felt obliged to watch the Mearsheimer interview.

After watching the interview, my initial reaction was that I had heard enough from John Mearsheimer to last me for at least the rest of 2025. However, I had to acknowledge (to myself) that Mearsheimer’s approach to the issues was scholarly, So I decided that it might be worth trying to find out more about the basis for his views. That is how I came to read, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2014 edition).

Mearsheimer argues that the overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, the world is condemned to “perpetual great power competition”.

His theory of aggressive realism is based on 5 bedrock assumptions:

1. The international system is anarchic, in the sense that the system comprises independent states that have no central authority above them. 
2. Great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability. 
3. No state can ever be certain about another state’s intentions, regarding the use of offensive military capability.
4. Survival is the primary goal of great powers – they are unlikely to be able to pursue other goals if they are conquered.
5. Great powers are rational actors – they think strategically about how to survive in their external environment.

Mearsheimer argues that these assumptions are realistic and that, together, they “create powerful incentives for great powers to think and act offensively with regard to each other”.  He suggests that hegemony is the best way for any state to guarantee its own survival.

The author views aggressive realism as a prescriptive theory as well as a descriptive theory. If great powers want to survive, they should behave like aggressive realists.

The extent to which states fear each other determines the severity of their security competition as well as the probability that they will fight a war. An “unbalanced multipolarity” is the power configuration that generates the most fear because it contains a potential hegemon which stands a good chance of dominating the other great powers in its region and the world.

Much of Mearsheimer’s book is devoted to marshalling historical evidence in support of his theory, but the final chapter focuses on a specific application of his theory. In that chapter, he seeks to answer the question: Can China rise peacefully?

Mearsheimer does not believe China can rise peacefully. He argues that if China maintains rapid economic growth over the next few decades, it is likely to end up in an intense security competition with the United States and its neighbors. He views China as a potential hegemon and the current international power configuration as an unbalanced multipolarity.

According to Mearsheimer, the optimal policy for the United States to adopt toward China is “containment”, rather than other alternatives including preventive war, pursuing policies aimed at slowing China’s economic growth, or seeking to weaken China by fomenting trouble within its borders. Containment means “keeping Beijing from using its military forces to conquer territory and more generally expand its influence in Asia”. Mearsheimer suggests that the U.S. should form a balancing coalition with as many of China’s neighbors as possible.

Where is the problem?

As I see it, there are two main weaknesses in Mearsheimer’s analysis. The most fundamental problem stems from assumption 3. In order to argue that aggressive realism is the optimal strategy for a state to adopt, I think it would be necessary to argue that there is always a great deal of uncertainty about the intentions of neighboring states, rather than just lack of certainty. Perhaps it is true that no state can ever be certain about another state’s intentions, but I think states can usually make well-informed judgements about the intentions of their neighbors. Australia and New Zealand, for example, can be sufficiently certain about their intentions toward each other, to refrain from adopting offensive postures in that relationship. I think the same has generally been true of relations between Canada and the United States over the last century, but the recent rhetoric of the U.S. president might suggest that Canada would be wise to begin to re-assess the probability that the U.S. will continue to respect its territorial integrity.

Those examples illustrate the point I want to make. It is possible to make probabilistic assessments about the intentions of other states from past behavior and the rhetoric of their leaders. Some states obviously have peaceful intentions towards their neighbors whereas other states are currently engaged in predatory activities. In other instances, the probability of predatory behavior over the next decade might lie in the range from 0.1% to 1%; or from 90% to 100%; or in some other range.

The other weakness in Mearsheimer’s analysis seems to me to be an excessive focus on China as the potential hegemon. I agree with his analysis and policy prescription relating to China - as long as “containment” is pursued in a manner that can be presented to the Chinese government as a response to its aggressive policies toward its neighbors, rather than as an attempt to impede China's peaceful interactions with its neighbors.

 It seems to me, however, that communities of peaceful nations should be concerned to discourage all states from predation on their neighbors.  States that profit from predation have no incentive to stop until they assess that the costs of further predation are outweighed by the benefits. States in the neighborhood of Russia, Iran, and North Korea have good reasons to seek to contain the aggressive tendencies of those countries. Given that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea engage in military cooperation with each other, it would be particularly unwise for the U.S. and its allies to be unduly pre-occupied with responding to the rise of China.

Conclusions

John Mearsheimer’s theory of aggressive realism suggests that the over-riding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power. He argues that there are powerful incentives for all great powers to act offensively with regard to each other.

The crucial assumption that Mearsheimer makes is that no state can ever be certain about another state’s intentions, regarding use of offensive military capability. I argue that it is possible for states to make probabilistic assessments about the intentions of other states based on past behavior and the rhetoric of their leaders.

It is not difficult to identify nations that have a recent track record of predatory behavior. Peaceful nations have an obvious incentive to band together to enforce international rules that outlaw invasion and other violent predatory activity.

Mearsheimer’s concerns about challenges that could arise from emergence of a new hegemon have led him to focus on the risks posed by the rise of China. While I agree with much of his analysis regarding the threat posed by China in the years ahead, it would be unwise for peaceful nations to overlook the threats currently posed by others (including Russia, Iran and North Korea) who clearly have predatory intentions toward other jurisdictions in their neighborhoods and are currently engaging in military cooperation in pursuit of their several objectives.