moral panics, liberals and power

Do modern liberals really want to create a better world? They would like us to think that that is their objective. And even their conservative opponents generally believe that that is the objective of liberals. Conservatives argue that liberal schemes for creating a better world are misguided and will cause more harm than good but most conservatives do not challenge the assumption that the objective of liberals is to create a better world.

Is that assumption true? Today liberalism is the ideology of the ruling class. Ruling class ideologies always have one real objective – to ensure that wealth and power remain the hands of the ruling class. Ruling class ideologies are always either fundamentally conservative – aimed at maintaining the ruling class’s privileged position – or to the extent that they are radical they are aimed at increasing the ruling class’s privileged position.

The time-honoured way to maintain the power of the ruling class is to find something to distract the attention of ordinary people away from the wealth and power of the ruling class. The most effective way to do this is to create a moral panic.

The late 19th century provides a fine example. People were starting to notice just how wretched the lives of the working class were, and they were starting to notice that the middle and upper classes were immensely wealthy while the working class lived in grinding poverty. The danger was that people might start questioning an economic system which mercilessly exploited the working class in order to make the middle class fabulously rich (the mercantile, financial and industrialist classes had now replaced the old landed aristocracy as the ruling class).

It was essential that such questions not get asked. Fortunately an answer was at hand. Moral busybodies were already deeply concerned that when working class people were not working they often managed to have fun, and 19th century moral reformers (who were all middle class) did not approve of working class people having fun. So it was an opportune time to encourage moral panics. The moral panics at that time centred largely on prostitution, white slavery (which mostly only existed in the fevered imaginations of the moral busybodies) and drinking. And “lewd” entertainments such as music halls, which working class people enjoyed.

In the 1960s drugs provided another splendid moral panic.

Today the ruling class is once again encouraging moral panics, but this time the moral panics are about racism and transphobia. Once again these moral panics have provided an effective distraction from the wealth and power of the ruling class.

Moral panics have other advantages. They’re a great opportunity to increase the level of social control, and to give the police and courts ever-greater powers.

Even better, these moral panics can be targeted directly against the lower classes. The late 19th century moral panics were aimed entirely at working class pleasures. There was no question of infringing on the pleasures of the ruling class – they could continue to drink as much as they liked and to enjoy the services of high-class prostitutes.

The current moral panics offer the same advantages – they can be specifically targeted at working class culture and non-elite culture generally.

I honestly do not think that modern liberals have any interest whatsoever in creating a better society. Modern liberalism is just another example of a ruling class ideology being used very effectively to maintain the privileges of the ruling class.