Why is the US to the right of the political spectrum compared to other Western Democracies?

by Niwun

I'm aware this question simplifies somewhat, and is broad in nature however bear with me. It seems like issues that are contentious in the United States politically, such as universal healthcare, welfare payments, access to subsidised higher education and other causes usually that have been or are associated with the political left are more or less accepted as the status quo in other countries. Take the example of universal healthcare, most other pluralist western democracies have some form of healthcare. Even Margaret Thatcher was reported to have said the NHS in Great Britain would be safe under her government. Why is something like this, or subsidised higher education such a contentious political issue in the United States whereas even staunch conservative governments in other countries would have no problems with it? Why does the US appear to be to the right of the political spectrum when compared to European countries, Great Britiain, New Zealand and Australia? What has caused this historically speaking? Or am I making an incorrect assumption in saying that the US is more to the right politically, and if so why?

[deleted]
  1. It would be more appropriate to say something like "more libertarian" or "more classical liberal" or " more neoliberal" or "more individualist" given that "more right" in the European mindset tends to mean "more nationalist/authoritarian/fascist/ethnicist/racist", which is not only a different thing but also those guys are actually not particularly individualist and usually do accept these kinds of social policies.

This is important. When you say "staunch conservitve" and essentiallly you mean individualist liberalism with it, this is NOT the kind of "throne and altar authoritarianism" or "peasant romanticism imbued with natioanlsim" that was traditionally understood as conservatism in Europe (see Bonald, De Maistre) etc. but actually the Gladstonian type of free-market liberalism that got rebranded as conservatism. (So in this sense "more right" is inaccurate because this is something Europe never really ever considered "right". Europe "moved left" not from individualism to collectivism but more like from an authoritarian collective to a liberal collective.)

America doesn't really even have conservatism in that sense (of the authoritarian collective), just bits and pieces, an article by Russel Kirk here, another one by Wendell Berry there, but not in the mainstream.

So, let's just stick to "more individualist".

  1. If you ask the question this way, i.e. the historical roots of individualism, a few things become rather obvious. The first is the British society has been traditionally of the more individualistic ones. Actually it would a question just as good and difficult, of the opposite kind, that how comes Britain has a less individualistic healthcare than say Austria, when the culture is not so. This was not really something to be expected. The second is Calvinism, which was invented in Switzerland, spread to other countries (such as Debrecen in Hungary being a historical Calvinist center and college) most importantly Scotland, and from there to America where arguably it made the biggest impact. The third would be what Edmund Burke pointed out, specifically about the Deep South, that people who own slaves guard their liberty more jealously because for them it is a central thing of pride. The fourth would be the nature and the tradition of the Revolution and the Constitutional restrictions on the government that flowed from it, the fifth the "rugged individualism" associated with the settling of the West, the sixth would be being the geopolitical opposite and biggest opponent of the Soviet Union naturally means an Anti-Socialist rhetoric...

This is a huge topic, and it is hard to find books or other sources that would not be in themselves so imbued with partisanism i.e. either strongly supporting or strongly opposing this individualism... I think can approach the topic objectively because I am not American and I have no strong feelings either way, from my angle e.g. universal healthcare is neither an abomination nor a huge civilizational achievement, I am rather indifferent to it, so I am detached from the debate, but it is really hard to find a book that would trea the issue with detachment.

Anyway, on to the sources and further readings:

  1. British individualism: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Origins-English-Individualism-Transition/dp/0631127615

  2. Calvinism and individualism: obviously Max Weber

  3. Burke's observation about slave-owners being the staunchest individualists: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch1s2.html

  4. Needs no specific source as it has a gigantic amount of material, basically, school textbooks or anything.

  5. Theodore Roosevelt: The Winning Of The West http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11941

  6. I cannot recommend any specific sources, just look into simply the online or Wiki articles about how dangerous an accusation of being a Communist would be in the McCarthy era, giving a useful political weapon to the opponents of these social policies.

Volsunga

The US isn't right of Europe in general. If we take the whole of Europe on average, they are about in the same place on the spectrum. There are countries like Sweden that do swing left of the US, but countries like the UK, France, and Germany are about in the same place as the US. There's also countries like Poland and Hungary that are considerably right of the US. For more information, see the Manifesto project database, one of the top resources in Comparative political science.

Sorry if this breaks the 20 year rule, but the premise of OP's question makes assumptions about the present that are generally considered false in my field.