Episode 28: The 28 Types of Progressives
A conservative reaction to a progressive’s taxonomy of progressives
Over at New York Magazine, Socialist writer Ed Kilgore outlines, in a mere 3500+ words, a taxonomy of progressives- 28 types in all. Now, a lot of you reading this are conservatives, and you’re going to want to roll your eyes at the idea of 28 flavors of progressives, but before you do, I want to say 2 things: (1) there will definitely be some eyerolling, and we’ll get to that in a minute in part 1 of this piece, but (2) embedded in Kilgore’s treatise is a point that is actually quite relevant and important for conservatives, and we’ll get to that in part 2.
Part 1: The eyerolling
Kilgore organizes his taxonomy by posing 4 different questions, and then considering how different answers to those questions form the categories he’ll slot progressives into. 600 words into the piece, we get question #1:
Question 1: Should we design our economic institutions to maximize the welfare of the collective or to safeguard the prerogatives of property owners?
Commence eyerolling! The way this question is framed precludes the possibility that an important part of “maximizing the welfare of the collective” is to “safeguard the prerogatives of property owners”. We’re running a natural experiment in what happens when you stop safeguarding the prerogatives of property owners right up the road in San Francisco, and it sure doesn’t look to me like the welfare of the collective is being maximized. For instance, San Francisco right now is dead last among major North American metropolitan areas in post-covid economic recovery.
Question 2: What does it mean to maximize the welfare of the collective?
It amuses me that this question comes *after* question 1. That is, only after asserting that progressives most definitely want to maximize the welfare of the collective rather than safeguard the prerogatives of property owners is Kilgore pausing to try to define what that even means.
Question 3: Which economic institutions best advance the collective good in practice?
Here’s a snippet from this piece of Kilgore’s discussion: “Under contemporary capitalism, America’s poor are often confined to overcrowded, low-quality housing, or else to the streets, since it is not profitable to build nice, comfortable homes for people of their station. Under socialism, by contrast, the demos could choose to make housing drastically more abundant than it is under capitalism.”
It fascinates me to read this. Here’s a list of the ten worst states for housing affordability. Actually, I’ll just paste the list in here so you don’t have to click the link:
Hawaii (average house price: $636,400)
District of Columbia (average house price: $618,100)
California (average house price: $538,500)
Massachusetts (average house price: $398,800)
Colorado (average house price: $369,900)
Washington (average house price: $366,800)
New Jersey (average house price: $343,500)
Oregon (average house price: $336,700)
Maryland (average house price: $325,400)
New York (average house price: $325,000)
Can you guess what these ten places have in common? Total Democratic party control! If housing affordability is what you care about, I’m unclear what the attraction of the political left is.
Question 4: What is the most effective way to make progress toward economic justice?
Again, here’s a snippet from Kilgore’s discussion in this section: “So within every ideological faction listed above, there are “Electoral Optimists” and “Electoral Pessimists.” The former believe there is either (1) already a latent democratic majority for their cause or (2) a way to create such a majority through advocacy in the very near term. The latter group, by contrast, believes most Americans reject their vision and can’t be persuaded to adopt it in the near term.”
Sweet baby Jesus! A sentence I can really get behind: “most Americans reject their vision and can’t be persuaded to adopt it in the near term.” Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with progressive electoral pessimists (PEPs?) that it’s going to be hard to sell anywhere close to a majority of people on “get rid of capitalism and property rights”.
Part 2: A nugget of real wisdom
OK, the eyerolling phase of this piece is over. Let’s zoom out and consider the question: why did Kilgore write this piece? It’s not targeted to conservatives, and it’s not even really targeted to center left folks. It’s targeted to other progressives: he wrote the piece to try and explain and then de-escalate divisions within the far left movement. Writing about the difficulty of placing yourself on a single left-right political spectrum, he says this:
“it leads many to equate empirical questions with moral ones. You cannot determine precisely how much progressive change a majority of voters in a given election will be willing to abide by reflecting on your own ideological convictions. Yet many people allow such convictions to dictate their judgment on questions of fact, while others interpret pessimistic assessments of political possibility as betrayals of egalitarian (or, on the right, conservative) principles.”
I panned a river of over 3500 words of progressive navel-gazing to find you that one nugget of gold. Kilgore accurately and perceptively identifies that the same issue he’s trying to manage on the political left exists on the political right. In fact, let’s restate his point for a conservative audience:
“You cannot determine precisely how much conservative change a majority of voters in a given election will be willing to abide by reflecting on your own ideological convictions. Yet many people allow such convictions to dictate their judgment on questions of fact, while others interpret pessimistic assessments of political possibility as betrayals of conservative principles.”
Just this weekend I had a lovely conversation with a thoughtful conservative who has come to the conclusion that the only way to start winning elections here in California is to put social issues front and center. I really enjoyed meeting him, enjoyed our conversation, and appreciated his perspective, and the frustration it springs from. But.. it’s the wrong conclusion. Having knocked hundreds of Democratic doors, I can say with confidence that all too often, social issues are in fact the ONLY thing stopping people from casting votes for our party.
But neither his belief that social issues should be front and center nor my belief that they should remain issues of personal reflection and personal advocacy represents a betrayal of conservative principles. The difference between me and some others on the conservative side that I otherwise largely agree with is that I’m not willing to fight this fellow over his perspective, nor am I willing to try to sideline him over it. I invited him to run for office if he thinks his strategy will work. But I think it’s fallow ground he’s trying to sow his strategy on.
Meanwhile, I will focus on reminding people here that 8 years of a Democratic supermajority have led to a housing situation that’s worse, a homelessness situation that’s worse, a public safety situation that’s worse, and the continuation of a two-tiered school system that disadvantages the very people the Democratic party claims to be so much better for. We’ll see which strategy turns out to be more effective.
I come from the Missouri, the Show Me State. I’d much rather show you than fight about it. I think the conservative movement could use a little more Missouri in it. 😀