On the Political “Centre”

What constitutes the political “centre” is political and always has been.

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” 

These words are from W. B. Yeats’s poem The Second Coming. They have been used by authors, commentators and scholars many times in narratives of political disintegration—when the centre cannot hold, extreme parties and leaders gain appeal, sometimes power, to the detriment of society at large.

In the carousel that is Western electoral politics, it seems like, for the time being, the forces of extremism and reaction have been thwarted. The British Labour Party gained government and a considerable parliamentary majority in the UK general election, ending 14 years of Tory mismanagement. Across the Channel, in France, the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NPF) and Macron’s Ensemble both beat the Neo-fascist National Rally at the ballot box, NPF becoming the largest bloc in the National Assembly.

This should be celebrated. The people of France and the United Kingdom have made it clear they don’t want to be represented by politicians who are in the business of spreading hate. Regardless of one’s quarrels with financial capitalism, all contemporary political parties are not the same; there are at least nine circles of Hell. 

The question of what people want is more difficult, especially since their choice is restricted. For what is the political “centre”, really? It is relative. It’s defined by the median opinion at a specific time, which is subject to influence. 

A concept illustrating this fluidity is the Overton window. The model argues that there’s a set range of policies the public will accept, given the political climate. If a policy lies outside the window, politicians will not support it. Protest movements, the media, think tanks and other social institutions are what move or expand the Overton window. To change things, these organisations should, according to the theory, convince voters that policies currently outside the window should be in it.

Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay The End of History? in which he declared the triumph of liberal democracy over all other ideologies, is today often looked upon as naive. But he was right in one respect: the economic doctrine championed by the West during the Cold War did take over the world. North Korea is the only country still operating under a somewhat traditional communist-style economy. Every post-Soviet state has a market economy. China, Cuba, Vietnam and Laos have all implemented market reforms, such as allowing foreign direct investment and privatised parts of the economy. 

Since around 1980, deregulation and profit-maximising at all costs have been the pillars of growth. There has indeed been high GDP growth in the West and globally, but it has been unevenly distributed within countries. If a society is unequal, it is more violent, less socially cohesive and more likely to favour the rich—as they have disproportionate resources to proliferate ideas. More data can be made available upon request.

In this environment, it is easy to discern in which direction the Overton window for economic policy is likely to move. The Atlas Network, for instance, a conglomerate of hard-right think tanks and organisations, had 589 partners in 103 countries and a budget of $28 million in 2023. These include the US Heritage Foundation, authors of the infamous Project 2025, and the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE)—a think tank bankrolled by multinational corporations to advance trade agreements favouring them. To be sure, the Atlas Network’s stated mission is: “to drive change in ideas, culture, and policy, remove barriers to opportunities; and empower individuals to live a life of choice.” For whose benefit is left unspecified, but it’s fair to say the Network has been quite successful. 

Other examples include the Swedish think tank Timbro, which, according to Le Monde, has pushed deregulation and tax cuts onto the national political agenda.

So far entrenched is the view advanced by these neoliberal organisations and their patrons that an email from Morningstar containing the following quote entered my inbox the day after the first round of the French elections, in which Marine Le Pen’s National Front won the most votes:

“The increased volatility in European capital markets due to the French elections may actually turn out to be a positive for BNP’s investment banking franchise as its clients will look to hedge risks on rates and currency, supporting volume, and wider spreads will support trading margins.”

A fascist party entering pole position to take power in France is described simply as “increased volatility in European capital markets,” something that can be exploited for profit. 

How much is money worth? How many transgressions in other areas can be excused in the pursuit of it? I first thought of these questions in an air-conditioned São Paulo skyscraper when a man in a white shirt with small initials embroidered over the chest praised Jair Bolosnaro’s government because business was booming. I want to ask the gentleman who wrote the email—or maybe his editor—to opine on this moral dilemma.

Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav has his mind made up. When recently asked about the upcoming US election, he said it didn’t really matter to him which party won. “We just need an opportunity for deregulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to to be even better,” Zaslav noted.

The result after decades of such rhetoric and advocacy work is clear. There has been a pronounced shift in economic policy across the West from state-driven approaches towards deregulation of the market with no thought of the consequences, as shown in the graph below (data from the Manifesto Project Database). Worth noting is that the United States is the most statist, as if Europe and Canada, eager to impress, have gone above and beyond. Recent converts are, after all, the most zealous. 

Even the UK Labour Party, a bastion of the modern “centre-left”, looks awfully right-leaning in economic terms. It has been courting business for years, and before the election, Starmer said anyone expecting a Labour government “to quickly turn on the spending taps” would be disappointed. The party has also been accused of purging its left-wing candidates.

Parties who do not conform are punished by the market. The NPF in France, more radical than Labour but by no means a communist force, was greeted on the morning after its victory by an increase in the risk premium for holding French government bonds—important because it increases borrowing costs for the state.

What constitutes the political “centre” is political and always has been. Currently, it has a lot in common with the ultra-right economically, with some preferring an authoritarian take-over and business as usual to the more structural reforms necessary to stifle wealth inequality and other crucial problems. Naturally, cultural issues take precedence in political debate, as many economic matters are off the agenda entirely.  

The final lines of The Second Coming are: 

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

This beast, whatever is coming for the world, will soon be here, Yeats thought in 1920—two years before Mussolini took power in Rome. And when it arrives, there will be chaos. Let’s hope the recent events in France and the UK are a turning point, not a slight detour in what sometimes feels like our own death march toward the brink.

// Adrian