What do free market thinkers think of the radical right today? Shortly after Donald Trump’s rise to presidency in 2017, the president of the libertarian Mises Institute gave a passionate speech urging a fundamental rethinking of American conservatism in the direction of the nation, religion and patriarchal family. Soon enough more such thought leaders followed suit, some of them arguing for an outright rejection of “tyrannical liberalism” in favour of Trump-styled “new nationalism.”
This position is now mainstream on the US right. Looking at the advisory board of Project 2025, the much talked-about – and much hyped-up – “presidential transition plan” the conservative Heritage Foundation put forth to “institutionalize Trumpism,” we see over 100 organizations representing various interests and points of view, a number of them with the word “liberty” in the names.
Principled liberals – those in think tanks included – abhor such false advertising. A second US presidency for Trump, a.k.a. Trump 2.0, they argue, would be a political and economic nightmare, “far, far worse” than Trump 1.0. They are right. The former president has vowed vengeance on ”vermin”-like political opponents, while continuing to falsely claim he won the last election. More flashing red signs about the nation’s liberal democratic future came with the horrifying attempt on his life in July — and the Republican reactions to it.
Are the rifts between “liberals” and liberals specific to the US context? One way to answer this question was to look at Atlas, a global network comprising around 500 free market think tanks and campaign groups, and analyze the documents these organizations publish on their websites. The main finding is twofold. First, explicit evidence of ideological tension is scarce, as only a few think tanks openly signal alignment with illiberal and authoritarian positions. Second, Atlas partners are consistently apathetic towards the radical right, yet at the same time vigilant and vigorous in confronting left-of-center ideas, parties, and governments. This trend is also global rather than geographically confined to particular countries or regions.
This selective ignorance is prima facie puzzling. Striving for “a free, prosperous, and peaceful world where the principles of individual liberty, property rights, limited government, and free markets are secured by the rule of law” – this is the network’s vision statement – implies public opposition to those who explicitly attack these principles. Certainly, many attacks are coming from “the left.” But far more serious attacks are coming from radical-right parties, movements, and leaders.
One interpretation is that the modal free-market response to the rise of the radical right is not willful ignorance so much as accommodation. This pattern is consistent with the history of “neoliberalism.” The concept is known to be woolly and mercurial, but in this case we refer to a doctrine that views the free market as the optimal method of assessing information. The founding neoliberal institution in this sense is the Mont Pèlerin Society, an invitation-only group founded in 1947 for and by the philosophically minded intellectual and political entrepreneurs in Europe and the US. These têtes pensantes disagreed a lot, starting with how to best protect capitalist market relations from “collectivism,” by which they meant everything from Stalinism to New Deal planning.
Crucially, the majority of early neoliberals did not believe in the synergy of political liberalism and economic freedoms, both in theory and in practice. Some rejected fascism but not necessarily right-wing authoritarianism, while others argued for a kind of national and civilizational liberalism.
Historical reflection is instructive. On one level, neoliberalism has often been everything to everyone, mobilizing individual and institutional actors who in principle have little or nothing in common with each other. One can even argue such ideological capaciousness is consistent with liberalism more broadly. Thus viewed, implicit or explicit accommodation of the radical right is to be expected, business as usual even, particularly now that crises of capitalism are being recast as “catastrophe” and “collapse.”
One interpretation is that the modal free-market response to the rise of the radical right is not willful ignorance so much as accommodation.
The dark side of accommodationism is well known. The implementation of first major neoliberal policy package occurred in the 1970s in Chile, under General Augusto Pinochet, whose tyrannical dictatorship in fact received support from the neoliberals. This was a mistake and, as such, should be a warning to Atlas think tank intellectuals who claim “the left” is always more threatening than even the most radical right.
At issue, then as now, were the political and moral consequences of thought leadership and advocacy. The basic challenge for neoliberal thinkers committed to liberal democratic ideals is to heed and address these consequences, as they look for ways to distinguish themselves from the radicals within their ranks.
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This post and the article mentioned therein are part of the CIPS-supported “World of the Right” project and they build on a CIPS talk the author gave last year.
