Liberty and The New Trusts

How a vision of liberty as non-domination and a focus on concentrated economic power could set up a better Sixth Party System

This is a guest post by Piers Eaton. Piers is a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa specializing in political thought. He writes at the Substack Piercing.

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At the end of The Next Realignment, Frank DiStefano warns of the consequences of continuing our current trajectory into a dangerous realignment. Our Fifth Party System, that of the New Deal, was a clash between liberalism based on a populist/progressive coalition versus a conservatism based on a liberty/virtue coalition. As the parties realign, DiStefano argues that we are transitioning to a party system based on dueling coalitions of populist/virtue and liberty/progressivism. DiStefano contends that these are not parties we want. They would be based on interest, with the economic and cultural elites together in the liberty/progressive party and the victims of social disruption held together in the populist/virtue anti-elitist party. Parties based on interest are undesirable, creating corrupt and vindictive politics.

So the question is posed: is another party system possible?

I’m here to argue yes, a party organized around liberty and populism is possible, and the issue at its core is opposition to concentrated economic power.

The information economy put immense power into the hands of relatively few companies. Google, Facebook and Amazon all control vital flows of information, acting as choke points through which all ideas, facts, and opinions flow. At the same time, income growth continues to increase fastest among the highest earners while  people wonder whether the middle class will survive, if it’s not already dead. It’s only logical that people would begin to reexplore the policies used to combat the trusts of Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel. The economic situation reminds people of the Gilded Age.

With Biden’s appointment of Lina Khan as the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Jonathan Kanter as the head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division, antitrust has recently had a resurgence. After many decades of inaction in antitrust enforcement, Khan and Kanter have championed a more aggressive vision and, with their appointments, the gears of antitrust enforcement have once again begun to turn. Khan’s robust antitrust regime has many supporters ranging from left-wing Senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, to center-left politicians like Amy Klobuchar, to conservatives like Josh Hawley and JD Vance. Khan’s vision also has fierce opponents, and the divide she opened does not map easily onto ideology. Matt Gaetz has spoken positively of her, while his mentor Jim Jordan is among her most vocal critics. Most interesting, among conservatives she is most popular among young people dubbed ‘Khanservatives’. With its uncommon base of support, antitrust has the potential to shake things up.

Focusing on antitrust might allow a different coalition to take root combining liberty with populism. Instead of dividing haves and have-nots, this coalition could harness the anger of those left behind and put upon, but also appeal to entrepreneurs and small business owners. Entrepreneurs who want to innovate but find themselves locked out by existing players and small shopkeepers who feel they can’t compete against international online marketplaces would share a common foe with working-class laborers who see their wages fall when Amazon comes to town.

This new combination of liberty and populism requires our conception of liberty to evolve. To be more accurate, it asks us to revert to our founders’ conception of liberty. The Fifth Party System’s conception of liberty, based around thinkers like Hayek and Friedman, holds freedom is the absence of government coercion. It originates with the 17th-century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes and is usually referred to as ‘liberty as non-interference’.¹ You are free so long as you are allowed to do what you otherwise would be able to do, without impediment from others. However, there is another, older conception of liberty called ‘liberty as non-domination’.

This alternative conception of liberty goes back to the Roman Republic, which America’s founders looked to for inspiration when creating the American republic. In Rome, what made someone free was the absence of a relation of domination from someone else: a free man was someone not dependent on someone else for their freedom. Freedom as non-interference requires there to be minimal impeding actions. Freedom as non-domination requires there to be minimal concentration of power. This means the arbitrary power of the government and big business must both be kept in check.

Considering the Biden administration’s embrace of antitrust, it may seem the Democrats are the natural party to center antitrust and this new vision. The new Democratic party, however, is more comfortable at the center of power. According to Chief Executive Leadership Institute CEO Jeffrey Sonnenfeld as of June this year, there were no Fortune 500 CEOs who are supporting Trump (since then Elon Musk has come out in support of Trump, but 1 out of 500 is not much). People who manage huge corporations want predictable and stable leadership and are willing to live with regulations. Democratic voters, increasingly college-educated, are coming to see corporations not as opponents but useful vessels for their vision of the world, whether it be strong HR department crackdowns on sexual misconduct or DEI trainings. Republicans, on the other hand, find themselves increasingly outside large institutions, and therefore benefit more from an ideological reorientation which would cement their support amongst up-and-comers. While Republicans have typically been the party of corporate power, this new generation of Republicans increasingly sees them as the enemy. That’s why Matt Gaetz calls himself a Khanservative, why Josh Hawley tangled with Google as attorney general of Missouri, and why JD Vance called Lina Khan one of the “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.” There are no guarantees, but Republicans could find themselves as the “break ‘em up” party.

This is usually the point where critics howl that I’m a dupe for believing JD Vance, who worked for Peter Thiel could support vigorous antitrust.² Vance’s pro-antitrust thinking is actually quite consistent with work in venture capital, particularly regarding big tech. Venture capitalists see themselves as renegades fighting against entrenched forces. When Thiel invested in Facebook, the motto was move fast and break things; when he left its board the company was singing a different tune. Venture capitalists eventually run into the fact that the things they want to break— entrenched, powerful corporate entities—often use their power to crush competitors or block access, forcing them to sell to the giant rather than stick it out alone. Among those who value their independence, this can build resentment against the big guys and make you want a government that vigorously polices competition.

As the Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Vance is the most prominent member of the realigned new right. But Vance’s popularity is particularly low, and he’s wearing the brand of ‘weird’. Most of his ‘weirdness’ comes from his discussion of social issues, where he’s marinated too long in the online right’s discussions, which shows when he speaks. Deprioritizing social issues and elevating economic ones could help Vance rehab his wounded public image. The pages of the Wall Street Journal might continue to hate him, but the average voter won’t think it’s weird when he talks about going after price gouging or big tech. In fact, embracing populist economics will make him relatable to people and make him seem normal.

A realignment where Republicans center liberty around non-domination will allow them to meet their younger voters where they are, inject new winners into their coalition, and help us avoid a disastrous sixth party system based on interests over principles.

1. It’s also sometimes called ‘negative liberty’ by those like Isiah Berlin, however, this is usually to contrast it with ‘positive liberty’, which is not what I am comparing it with here.

2. Thiel’s 2014 book, Zero to One, was basically a treatise on monopolization.  

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