There has been a lot of speculation about the neoliberal/libertarian to hard right pipeline. In principle, it would seem neoliberals and libertarians should want nothing to do with MAGA, the German AfD, Nigel Farage, or whoever else Elon Musk is retweeting these days. And yet from Rand Paul to the oligarch class many vigorous proponents of personal liberty, judging based on character rather than skin color, and small government, etc. seem very happy to simp for the hard right. The very same hard right includes movements that support massively increased state coercion through immigration crackdowns, demagogic rule unconstrained by the law, and the propagation of borderline or overtly white nationalist conspiracy theories about racial replacement and genetic decline which abet authoritarian moves.
Why and how this development occurred is the subject of Quinn Slobodian’s fascinating new book Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right. Slobodian is a Canadian historian who works at Boston University. He has written about neoliberalism/libertarianism extensively in his books Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism and Crack Up Capitalism. In these earlier works Slobodian stresses that from its beginnings in Austrian economics the neoliberal project was considerably less anti-statist and economistic than has typically been understood. Early neoliberals shared Hayek’s view that “laissez-faire” was not a pro-capitalist but an anarchist viewpoint. Without a sympathetic state to encase capitalism from democratic political pressures and coercively instantiate institutions like property rights, the “free” market could not survive for long.
Accompanying this, the neoliberals were very willing to frame their project as being about far more than just another set of economic policies. À la Margaret Thatcher, they sought to change the souls of entire nations—economics was just one of the means. In this third book of his trilogy, Slobodian highlights how from the beginning this soul craft was very often directed towards hard right ideological projects which were seen as vital to reinforcing capitalism. It is the combination of support for illiberal policies and capitalism that Slobodian thinks is distinctive of many neoliberals and right-libertarian thinkers. Invoking the critical theorist Max Horkheimer, who claimed that whoever did not want to talk about capitalism should not talk about fascism, Slobodian insists that future studies of the far right should not just focus on their moral and cultural fascinations; indeed, they cannot “remain quiet about capitalism.”
It is the combination of support for illiberal policies and capitalism that Slobodian thinks is distinctive of many neoliberals and right-libertarian thinkers.
Race, Racism, and Cognitive Caste
Early neoliberals were very willing to invoke stalwartly collectivist categories such as race, nation, civilization, and culture where needed.
Slobodian divides his book into three large sections: race, IQ, and gold. In rich analysis, he showcases how many of the (proto)-neoliberals were far from being pure individualists. They were very willing to invoke stalwartly collectivist categories such as race, nation, civilization, and culture where needed.
The race sections are, as one might expect, amongst the most sinister. Slobodian provides many examples to support his thesis that a deep interest in race and racial inequality was present from the get-go. Ludwig von Mises had ambivalent views about race and racism. On the one hand, he admirably inveighed about Nazi race pseudo-science and insisted that all human beings possessed the same rational economic drives. On the other hand, in Human Action, Mises also admitted there might be strategic reasons to limit immigration from non-white countries, musing that “there are few white men who would not shudder at the picture of millions of black or yellow people living in their own country.” In Liberalism, he insisted that even if the “negro” should have the same rights as whites, it was “beyond human power to make the negro white” and consequently a social equal.
Later thinkers were even less ambivalent. Anarcholibertarians like Murray Rothbard were willing to work with the KKK. Hermann Hoppe declared segregation of all sorts was in no way contrary to liberty since communities were entitled to choose their members through racial and sexual discrimination. Lew Rockwell railed against the “morally reprehensible” egalitarian ethic and argued that, while state-enforced segregation was wrong, so was state-enforced integration. If whites predominately wanted to interact with members of their own race, that was “a natural and normal human interest.”
Beyond these “moral” claims were rationales for economic efficiency. Slobodian reads many neoliberals and libertarians as projecting a similar kind of competitive ethos to racial and national divisions as they did to market man. Writers like Peter Brimelow were fanatical defenders of capitalism and closed borders because they were concerned that migration from non-white countries would sap the West’s economic vitality. By importing millions of “less” capable non-whites who would likely come to depend on welfare sooner rather than later, mass immigration would result in losing a competitive edge in the global economy. Consequently, Brimelow thinks freedom of movement should be limited for the sake of the racial homogeneity needed to induce order and to prevent a deterioration in the quality of the workforce by increasing the number of people who (hypothetically) would come to depend on state welfare.
Slobodian reads many neoliberals and libertarians as projecting a similar kind of competitive ethos to racial and national divisions as they did to market man.
Much of the material on IQ overlaps with the fixation on race. Slobodian takes special aim at Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve and a self-described “libertarian.” Murray and Herrnstein famously argued that outcomes in life were largely determined by IQ, with higher-IQ individuals by and large performing and living better than their counterparts. Their book infamously extended this analysis to racial inequalities, where they argued that many of the inequities liberals and progressives chalk up to racism can be accounted for by racially differentiated IQs. Nominally the book is ambivalent about whether it was a good thing for an educated cognitive elite to haemorrhage privilege and power to itself; Murray himself would later go on to rebrand himself as something of a populist for white America avant Trump. However, The Bell Curve insisted there was little that could be done to offset stratification, and efforts to try would only create bigger problems through expending money to help people who are not smart enough to be helped. In closing, Murray and Hernstein insisted it was time “for America once again to try living with inequality.”
The Bell Curve and similar works were often criticized for their sloppy methodologies, reliance on overtly racist sources, and pseudo-scientific tone thinly masking clear ideological intentions. Notably, many pointed out that even if something like IQ was determinative of life outcomes it was hardly immutable or immune to social factors like access to education, household poverty, etc. Nevertheless, these efforts provided the veneer of scientific prestige to cognitive elitism and various forms of racism and sexism. By seemingly “proving” that inequalities of talent and ability were grounded in biological facts of human life, the liberal and left thesis that egalitarian intervention could raise all boats was taken to be severely undercut. White supremacist Sam Francis, himself a former adjunct at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, chimed that unless “the dogma that human beings and their environment are almost completely the products of their social environment is accepted without question, then the central faith of the managerial state—the feasibility of ameliorative planning, reconstruction, engineering, and management of social and economic institutions by centralized government—is in vain.”
Collectivism Without Solidarity
What is most theoretically interesting about these sections is the extent to which they problematize the view of neoliberals and right-libertarians as hardcore individualists for whom there can never be such a thing as a society. Slobodian notes even Hayek, the paradigmatic anti-collectivist thinker par excellence, began to “move beyond methodological individualism” to “understand collectives and institutions.” From the beginning, the Mont Pelerin society associated with Hayek declared that the eminently collectivist “central values of civilization” were in danger from socialism and communism. Race, nation, cognitive caste, civilization, and culture were all central points of reference for neoliberals. However, they operationalized these eminently collectivist categories while denying them any solidaristic implications. A shared commitment to preserving Western civilization or ensuring the competitiveness of the British nation did not extend to redistributing wealth to secure the flourishing of its poorest members. Competitive solipsism applied across all modes of ethical reasoning; powerful and wealthy individuals owed nothing to those at the bottom any more than powerful and wealthy states had obligations to help a third world that was regarded as utterly incapable of helping itself.
Race, nation, cognitive caste, civilization, and culture were all central points of reference for neoliberals. However, they operationalized these eminently collectivist categories while denying them any solidaristic implications.
One criticism that can be made of Slobodian’s book is his tendency to evade complicating examples. For instance, Slobodian is very critical of meritocratic mythologies while not dedicating significant attention to the fact that Hayek himself was a subtle critic of meritocracy. In The Constitution of Liberty, the latter made clear that the market tends to reward individuals for producing something of subjective value to others, not for their intrinsic merits let alone innate goodness. Indeed, the mirror image of social justice was the conservative view that so-called “recognizably superior people” ought to be rewarded and commended. Both were dangerous to a free society. Partly for this reason, Hayek was not averse to some efforts to ameliorate the lot of the least well-off. For instance, by providing unemployment insurance and perhaps even public healthcare. These facets of neoliberal and libertarian thinking persist today in “bleeding heart” libertarian circles, whose members have been notably infuriated by the anti-egalitarian MAGAism of their counterparts.
Liberalism vs Capitalism
For many of the powdery elitists discussed in Hayek’s Bastards, it was not only democracy but liberalism itself that was a serious threat to capitalism and an orderly society.
Nevertheless, Slobodian’s book draws our attention to what might appear an astonishing fact (though not to Horkheimer, etc): that it has proven very easy to support capitalism while being hostile to other fundamental liberal liberties. Indeed, for many of the powdery elitists discussed in Hayek’s Bastards, it was not only democracy but liberalism itself that was a serious threat to capitalism and an orderly society. Many paleolibertarians felt that “freedom of expression were debilitating in practice and were also based on false premises.” In Globalists, Slobodian recounts how Mises was willing to call upon the Austrian state to crush striking workers, in clear violation of their rights to free expression and assembly. Mises was also notably willing to praise Italian Fascism for having “saved European civilization” by crushing communism and workers movements, even if he held that its emergency measures must not become permanent and were potentially dangerous. And of course, authors like Hoppe and the late Rothbard took a dim to negative view of rights claims advanced by minorities, with the former even expressing overt hostility to democracy. Given this, Slobodian thinks we should not be surprised that many contemporary reactionaries inspired by this anti-egalitarian neoliberal or right-libertarian stew, like Curtis Yarvin or Peter Thiel, came around to supporting the idea of authoritarian rule by CEOs-in-Chief who would firmly put the masses in their place. It was the only way to make the world truly safe for billionaires—the most endangered of all minorities.
Here I am going to adapt some of the arguments of my friend and notable left-libertarian Aaron Ross Powell. It is increasingly clear that some people come to liberalism because they are egalitarians at heart and think hierarchy and power have to be well justified to be legitimate. Left-libertarians think the state is potentially the biggest threat to the equal liberty of all while left-liberals worry about the state but also what Elizabeth Anderson calls “private government.”
By contrast, in Slobodian’s book the motley characters identified with liberalism’s emphasis on property rights and economic freedoms and valued them precisely because they felt this would induce competition through which a more worthy and able hierarchy would appear. In this, they followed in the tradition of luminaries like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams who felt that the American Revolution was to be commended for replacing an unworthy “artificial aristocracy” of birth with a “natural aristocracy” of talent. The problem wasn’t aristocratic rule as it turned out; it was just that the wrong aristocrats were in charge. The elitists of Slobodian’s book had little interest in the egalitarian thrust of liberalism at its best. Their fascination was with capitalist markets as one, but by no means the only, sorting mechanism through which the worthy and meritorious could be sorted from the unworthy. On this basis, the state was seen as a threat primarily because it might artificially prop up those who could not compete on their own merits. But it was not only the state that might be a problem. Excessive rights for minorities, immigrants, the low IQ’d and anyone else might also prove to inhibit a socially Darwinian process of ensuring the strong have the freedom to do as they will by protecting the weak against suffering what they must.
In the end, what Slobodian makes clear is that liberalism is not safe with those for whom freedom simply means supporting capitalism.
In the end, what Slobodian makes clear is that liberalism is not safe with those for whom freedom simply means supporting capitalism. We need a much more inspiring conception of what it means to be liberal than Mises’ crude insistence in Liberalism that private property is the fundamental basis from which all other liberal demands flow. This leaves liberalism far too vulnerable to being compromised by those who decide that property and order are better served by downplaying or ignoring the rights of the vulnerable. Neoliberalism is as uninspiring as it was uninspired. Ordinary people deserve better.
Matt McManus is a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Political Right and Equality and the recent The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism amongst other books.
Image made by Aaron Irion using “Elon Musk,” by Gage Skidmore licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic; “Donald Trump,” by Gage Skidmore licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.
