Right-Wing Liberalism

Mark Richardson, at the Australian website, ‘Conservative Central’, points out that today’s ‘neo-conservatives’ are arguably more liberal than conservative and that it’s probably more accurate to label them ‘right-wing liberals’.

The liberal right promotes many ideas that are at odds with traditional conservatism including: large-scale immigration, public and individual debt, commercialised government over small government, and the continued expansion of the service sector.

In New Zealand, a large number of ‘neo-conservatives’ and libertarians, such as the National party leader Don Brash, are former Socialists and many still have an expansionist, Marxist attitude to immigration. Don Brash apparently supports high immigration provided immigrants adhere to ‘enlightenment values’, as he stated in a campaign speech before the 2005 election. Hence, ‘neo-conservatives’ and libertarians support high immigration provided immigrants assimilate into the local society.

Traditional conservatives however, have a cautious attitude to immigration because they are doubtful that large numbers of immigrants can be successfully assimilated. In contrast, right-wing liberals make a number of questionable assumptions about immigration from non-western cultures, including: that immigrants want to assimilate, that they can assimilate, that they can assimilate quickly and can assimilate in large numbers.

For right-wing liberals assimilation is about education and will power and that once exposed to western enlightenment values most people will want to conform to them. However, most of the world doesn’t conform to western values. There is also increasing evidence from Europe and the U.S that large numbers of non-western immigrants don’t want to conform to western values.

In France the birthplace of enlightenment liberalism, governing elites have assumed that once Muslim immigrants are exposed to French education, and the French language, they will absorb mainstream western values. As the number of non-western immigrants has risen though, fewer immigrants are integrating into French society. Subsequently, France is now starting to pursue a pragmatic, skilled-based immigration policy over an idealistic, liberal immigration policy.

The liberal right promotes small government in its rhetoric but in practice tends to support relatively large-scale, technocratic government. In terms of total spending as a proportion of Gross National Income, the state in New Zealand has not declined during the post-1984 era of neo-liberal reform. Spending on education per pupil for example, has continued to increase without any clear improvement in academic standards- a common pattern in many western countries. Similarly, spending on such things as management salaries, advertising, and corporate image building in the public sector, has continued to soar.

In 1992 the ‘neo-conservative’ National government repealed the 1983 Apprenticeship Training Act. This caused a rift between the state and the trades sector, in training manual workers, that has resulted in a significant shortage of tradesmen. The National Party believed that state run training courses could produce better tradesmen than public-private partnerships lead by the private sector. It practice, liberal elites of the right trust the practical common-sense of manual workers even less than their left liberal counterparts.

Libertarians and 'neo-conservatives' strongly support public and private indebtedness. In the U.S, Ayn Rand follower Alan Greenspan presided over the biggest budget blowout in U.S history while the Republican Party has done little to tackle the looming crisis in Medicare funding. Here in N.Z, the National Party continues to pour cold water over proposals for compulsory saving, and in the 1990s allowed student debt to get out of hand by allowing students to borrow lump sums for living costs while studying.

Unlike traditional conservatives, the modern right in N.Z isn’t very interested in production. The National Party, for example, hasn’t shown much interest in providing tax concessions for businesses wanting to increase r and d spending. Libertarians and ‘neo-conservatives’ are however, very interested in boosting consumption and expanding the service economy. In the era of neo-liberal reform there has been an explosion of shopping malls, longer retail hours, increased advertising aimed at children, and reduced restrictions on alcohol consumption and prostitution. Although the National Party was once considered to be a socially conservative party is has failed to take a strong contrary stand on any of these liberal reforms.

In ‘neo-conservative’ countries like New Zealand and the United States it is difficult to find policy areas where modern ‘neo conservative’ parties and their supporters have actually cut back bureaucracy, increased saving, decreased private debt, or restricted the expansion of the service economy. Similarly, neo-conservative governments have generally been supportive of large-scale immigration.

The populist backlash, in favour of limited immigration, that has occurred in France, Denmark and New Zealand has shown that neo-liberals will only give up expansionist liberal policies when forced to by a desperate and alienated electorate.