The political merry-go-round is pulling us apart. Too many of us now face outward, towards our individualized groups, and with each step away from the political center, the pull of tribalism becomes more and more powerful. We need a new narrative to hold the political center together, something to counteract the tribalism pulling us apart.
The voices crafting a new narrative are faint, but the message is becoming clearer. Reasonable people are being pragmatists rather than fundamentalists, setting aside ideologies, admitting real challenges exist, and looking for solutions that work rather than defending differences.
Intriguingly, for me, as a left-leaning, center-craving moderate, the voices I am recommending to you (in the links immediately below) are from an ideologically libertarian think-tank and thus evidence that movement from all directions is possible and necessary. The authors advocate what they call a “free market welfare state.”
- The center can hold: public policy for an age of extremes: https://niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Niskanen-vision-paper-final-PDF.pdf
- The authors’ journey from ideological libertarianism to pragmatic moderation: https://niskanencenter.org/blog/the-alternative-to-ideology/
Regardless of who authors it, the center’s narrative must do a lot. It must bridge the destabilizing polarization of right versus left, liberal versus conservative, republican versus democrat, and, most importantly, identity politics versus market fundamentalism. It must overcome uncompromising ideologs currently dominating political debate. And it must overcome two hard-wired attributes of human cognition that hinder constructive dialog and enable tribalism: confirmation bias and identity protective reasoning.
The free-market-welfare-state narrative has potential to do these things. It has roles for both free markets and good governance while recognizing the limitation of both.
Without a new narrative to bind the center, populism and fundamentalism on the right and left will produce more tribalism and more failures of markets and governance. These failures will further alienate the losers of globalism and creative destruction, further paralyze politics, further divide families and communities, and further destabilize and degrade market and government functions–a positive feedback loop that promotes more populism and tribalism that further destabilizes and degrades market and government functions and ruins our chance to end poverty, achieve liberal ideals, and manage the commons.
I recommend these essays to you and look forward to the dialog they generate.