After socialism, what? Socialism dominated Europe for half a century, defining its opponents as well as its adherents. Now it is dead, and in its place may come a resurgent Right, with a surprising power base

National Review, May 27, 1991 by Anthony de Jasay

SOME ideologies are bad, but not all ideologies are all bad. The "end of ideology" (supposing it had really ended) would be nothing to cheer about, any more than the "end of history." Every ideology is a guidebook of sorts, a map a partisan man thinks he--and preferably all the rest of us--should follow in getting from where we are to where we ought to be, without having to puzzle out every step and agonize at every fork in the road. Such maps afford an enormous economy of scouting, fact-finding, and consideration. Instead of working out the right choice each time public options present themselves, it suffices to choose an ideology and let it whisper us our choices until, if ever, we lose confidence in it and are ready to take up a new one, or to throw away all maps and guidebooks.

Clearly, there is something of the "opium of the people" in all this, but there is more to it than just brain-washing and mind-programming. There is also an element of genuine information and doctrinal substance that helps each believer to find coherences, logical patterns in the seemingly disparate moving parts of the social machinery. As Joseph Schumpeter, one of this century's great illusion-wreckers, put it: ". . . ideologies are not simply lies: they are truthful statements about what a man thinks he sees."

If parties had no ideology, only hard-boiled cynics would know how to vote.

In the U.S., of course, genuine non-cynics are sparsely assisted in this respect, and the American political system has earned many a pat on the back for its lack of doctrinal content. Except on the fringes, neither Republican ("conservative"?) nor Democratic ("liberal") ideological guidance leads any place in particular. This suits a country that has elevated consensus to the rank of an ideal, adopted the opinion poll not merely as the compass all politicians must steer by, but also as the prime source of moral principles and rules of just conduct--and is doing quite nicely, thank you, for all that.

For better or for worse, Europe is naturally different. At least since the age of chivalry, Europe has always been good at producing strong, not to say pungent, ideologies. In fact, it is probably fair to say that no other civilization has produced any. Europenas never failed to fill their great revolutions with ideological content: 1640, 1789, 1917, and, albeit with a minus sign, 1989--each of these tried to bridge a gap between what society was and what the dominant ideology postulated that it ought to be.

The rout of socialist practice in 1989, and the immense intellectual damage socialism's already tired doctrine suffered as a result, left a void that is , pace the heralds of the End of This and That, going to be filled somehow. It probably matters a good deal how.

Socialist Supremacy

SOCIALISM was Europe's supreme ideology, not because it had the most adherents (we shall never know how many, or how few, it had), but because it was the most difficult to ignore or be indifferent about. Classical liberals (not to be confused with the modern Americans who go by the name "liberal") dreaded and execrated it for what they saw as its corruption of the social ethic of duty and effort, man's sense of being responsible for himself. Conservatives and pragmatists feared that as society got impregnated with the socialist world view, it would progressively cease to deliver the goods--safe, cities, clean streets, public services that work, schools where children learn the three Rs and the fourth, rectitude--that citizens feel entitled to expect of it. People of all persuasions in Russian-occupied Eastern and Central Europe were dragged down to Third World status by socialism, and fiercely hated it. In the Soviet Union it was the ideology of socialism, more than anything else, that legitimized the nation's division into the rulers, who bore themselves as its priests, and the ruled, who bore it as a cross. Throughout Europe, every ideological position defined itself as much by how it stood vis-a-vis socialism as by its own substantive creed. Pro- or anti-business, pro- or anti-America, pro- or anti-immigrant, free trader or champion of "industrial policy" were the defining marks of where one stood, often to the neglect of such more fundamental traits as nationalist, liberal, or Christian.

Speaking in Many Tounges

THERE IS now no supreme ideology in this sense, no common reference point. There is instead a rich web of distinct ideologies, none of which is locked in bloody combat with its competitors. Pluralism and tolerance are in fashion. The post-1989 experience of the Socialist's retreat into penitence imposes, by its awful example, a superficial ideological uniformity in which Thatcherite radical conservatism, the Austrian and Italian belief in pluralist spoils-sharing, Scandinavian paternalism, and German "Christian" democracy all loook, at least from a distance, much of a muchness. All are committed to electoral democracy, to respect for the buzzwords of human rights and the rule of law in international affairs. All profess their fatih in the "market" (though they do not all mean the same thing by the word), and keep spreading an ever-wider social safety net under us. Unanimity about these uncontroversial values, however, masks incipient competition turning into open battle for leadership.