Atlas NZ Inc: we are (the) good guys

A prominent supporter of the Atlas Agenda in NZ has penned a passive-aggressive defence of his ideology masquerading as book review about populism. The book, apparently, paints populism as a grave danger. To what exactly, you might ask, and this is where the book review(ed) is vague and ambiguous using various terms/concepts such as ‘the state of the world’, ‘open society, democracy and the rule of law’, ‘free society’, ‘liberal society’, ‘civil society’, ‘liberal democracy’, ‘liberty’, and other more distantly related terms. In any case, I think it’s a red herring.

To give the book reviewer due respect and credit, I assume that he’s simply pining for a lost dream and ideals in the nostalgia of reading during a “summer break at the beach” and that he means well. However, good intentions don’t always lead to good outcomes. Nor does having no intentions. Without deep critical thinking and moral reflection, and even with good (the best) intentions, we can fall in [the trap of] thoughtlessness, intellectual obedience, and ideological compliance that, as Hannah Arendt argued, can lead to evil and malicious outcomes. A summer break is an ideal opportunity to review one’s dreams and ideals.

Anyway, getting back to the quasi-ideological renunciation of the executive director of the business-funded New Zealand Initiative think-tank, I see populism more as an outcome, or symptom, of neo-liberalism rather than a direct threat. In my view, populism can be seen as a political extension of marketing merit and meritocracy that are held high in the Atlas banner as well as by many strongman populists and elitists. Encouraging merit has merit, of course, but taken too far, without ethical reasoning and moral constraint, it comes at the expense of the weak, the vulnerable, and the less popular & desirable (and less valuable and admirable?) members of our society and even results in the exploitation of their weakness (and of the defenceless environment and the commons).

Many ideologies look good and even appealing, on paper. Where they all show their less attractive sides is up-close and in practice and when applied in and to real life. This is neither the fault of the people, of the people who’re trying to implement such ideologies, nor of states or (democratically elected) governments sitting in the way, but because of a somewhat perverted combination of ideological shortcomings and reality’s constraints. Extrapolating my understanding of Popper’s ideas on science and the scientific method to political and socio-economic contexts is that such ideologies should be rejected and replaced with others rather than be tweaked ad nauseam akin trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.

In that light, the Atlas-affiliated intellectual might do better if he were to redirect his intellectual and political efforts (aka propagating propaganda and lobbying) to finding (and funding) novel ways to approach the many wicked problems of modern times, some of which have been around for longer than the Mont Pelerin Society, and are, arguably, well overdue for some grunt and firepower. In a democracy that enjoys many hard-fought freedoms one would hope to have genuine robust public debate in good faith about fresh new approaches without baggage filled with ideological hangups and foolheartedly clinging on to and defending quasi-sacred concepts without (over-)due re-examination.

The latter refers to the call of the book reviewer (and presumable also of the book’s author) to include, defend, and strengthen/improve ‘liberal institutions’ by which he means, presumably, his own think-tank, the book’s author’s think-tank, the Mont Pelerin Society, and the very many other right-wing think-tanks that form an integral part of the global Atlas Network that has now firmly rooted itself in NZ politics and the coalition government. My dream is if the election campaign this year were to be a part of such honest public debate and I’ll watch with interest what part the NZ Atlas associates choose to play.