"Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment" by Francis Fukuyama (2018)

There is a succinct essay somewhere in there, fighting to escape.

Each individual is endowed with a vector of characteristics. Markets convert this vector into a scalar—wealth—and rank everyone according to this scalar. Marxists defend the interests of, and aim to redistribute resources toward, those with low values of the scalar. Marxism is a priory “anonymous” (in the sense that it uses a rather coarse aggregate of individual characteristics) and, therefore, relatively inclusive. There is a limit to Marxism’s drive to redistribute, for a capitalist sufficiently impoverished becomes a proletarian and, so, a Marxist’s constituent. There is no such safety valve built into identity politics.

Identity politics emerged when Marxism ran out of steam as the working class began to prosper and identify with the middle class. So, the fight for the equality of the scalar has been replaced by the fight for the equality of dignity derived from identity.

An identity politician refuses to aggregate individual characteristics. He denies the existence of any objective way to do so. Any aggregator would presume that at least some vectors have a higher worth than others. An identity politician fails to compare not just individuals but also societies. This failure hampers the competition of ideas and ideologies. An identity politician circumvents competition and chooses to act directly on the school syllabi. The lack of competition, besides the obvious misguided focus on identities to begin with, is liable to neglect those identities advocating which would deliver the highest social return.

Identity politics focuses on the recognition of priors, not on cultivating belief-updating rules. Identity politics exalts immutable characteristics, not ideas that can be moulded, improved upon, and shared extensively; it is reactionary. The incomparability of identities hinders social mobility and, so, dampens competition.

Nationalism was adequate when it united parochial interests. Today, we can do better than that by promoting an ever-expanding identity, not a collection of narrow ones. This new identity ought to be rooted in ideas, not biological characteristics.

While Fukuyama correctly identifies the decease, his solutions are dubitable, twentieth century–ish.

Fukuyama claims that, in modern liberal democracies, citizens give too little to their country. He forgets about the taxes that support the welfare states. Fukuyama imagines a universal civil service as a bonding, nation-building experience. Why not a military one? Don’t the joys of the Greek army compensate for the humiliation of the 40 percent youth unemployment? A universal participation in markets—and in labour markets in particular—would be a better bonding experience than the army or civil service, for it would reflect the ideology that makes modern societies succeed.

Fukuyama opposes multilingual education at schools, as if America needed less diversity of perspectives, not more. If taking classes in French or Chinese radicalises, don’t mathematics and computer science, the gateway drugs into the supranational?  Do not rally around the English language alone, which is by no means unique to successful liberal democracies; today, every half-educated punk is fluent in English. Instead, rally around a great product: a Tesla, a Big Mac, an iPhone, the philosophy of the exchange-instigated betterment and of liberty and equality for all. Should Canada, Argentina, or South Africa come up with a better product, we should all move there, instead of sticking to a failing ideology or language. Fukuyama decries the tyranny of contemporary identity politics and political correctness, and yet he maintains that patriotic brainwashing—not critical thinking—would somehow turn out to be more noble. The international fame of Taylor Swift and Elon Musk are likely to do more for American self-esteem than any number of recitations of the American anthem.

The problem with identity politics is the same as with protectionism. Maybe, one could cleverly fine-tune tariffs and make a country a little better off. It is more likely, however, that one would get the tariffs badly wrong, to the detriment of all, start a trade war, and witness the entire tariff-setting apparatus succumb to special interests. Don’t try it at home.