How To Argue Like A Reactionary

Suppose you want to argue knowledgeably about economics and political philosophy. Then the literature you should read seems unbounded. Here are three books I read years ago and still like:

• Hirschman, Albert O. (1991). The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy
• Myrdal, Gunnar (1953). The Political Element in the Development of Economic Thought (Translated by Paul Streeten), Routledge and Kegan Paul
• Popper, Karl R. (1945). The Open Society and Its Enemies (Two volumes), George Routledge & Sons

Popper is relevant to the use of "utopian" as a pejorative. Utopias are "recipes for the cook-shops of the future", as Karl Marx put in his preface to the second edition of Capital. Marx and Engels famously opposed their "scientific socialism" to a prior utopian socialism. (See the first and second chapter of the third section of Anti-Dühring, also issued as a pamplet.) Popper, although opposed to so much of what he took Marx's approach to be, agreed with Marx in this. It is not the role of intellectuals to draw up blueprints for some ideal society and then to convince some actual country to adopt them. Plato, in his Republic, was misdirected. Popper thinks we should be trying to ameliorate existing evils, not globally remaking society or mandating happiness.

Myrdal writes a history of economics. He thinks one cannot correctly derive concrete policy proposals from abstract norms, such as "the greatest good for the greatest number". Nevertheless, political economists have often claimed to do exactly that. Myrdal critiques their argument.

Hirschman also writes a history. He explores how those on the right have argued against progressive policies. He identifies three main arguments rightists tend to pull out always:

• Perversity: attempts to improve matters will frustate themselves and only make matters worse. (Think of the incorrect neoclassical economics textbook argument about minimum wages.)
• Futility: the matters that we want to change are so deep seated that they cannot be reached, despite all our efforts.
• Jeopardy: We may be able to effect positive change, but we nevertheless put at risk other desirable features of society.

A slippery slope argument is a kind of jeopardy argument, I think. To express any skepticism about laissez-faire is not to advocate communism. But we are not presented with a choice between only government "non-intervention" and central planning as in no-longer-actually existing socialism.