Risk-Prone Reactionaries and the Precarious Life

A debate about how economic conditions cause right-wing “populism"

Among heterodox thinkers, it’s safe to say there’s something like a conventional wisdom that growing economic inequality is a cause of right-wing preferences—specifically right-wing populism.

Thomas Piketty has made this argument directly and indirectly. Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol have made a version of this argument. So have many others, from Joseph Stiglitz to Robert Reich—something I tried to chart in my last book.

It’s uncontroversial to say that economic inequality is a blight on human progress. The idea that inequality is connected to right-wing populism is also uncontroversial. But establishing the precise causal relationship between inequality and fascistic politics is not so obvious.

Recently, there’s been a set of arguments that sort of challenges the prevailing heterodox view (is that an oxymoron?), by focusing not on inequality but rather on economic precarity. Inequality, the avant-guard say, is not the problem; precarity is the problem.

There are two things worth clarifying about all this.

One, to say that precarity is the thing to focus on is not to dismiss inequality; precarity is a specific effect that follows high levels of inequality.

Two, “right-wing populism” is simply reactionary anti-liberal politics. It’s at least fascistic, and that’s not the same thing as conservatism.

Let me explain.