Is Jordan Peterson Right About Activism?

 

Jordan Peterson is not a fan of most contemporary activism – he thinks it’s "appalling" and "almost the lowest calling." He certainly has a point. This is because, as many have rightly pointed out (including yours truly 7 years ago - see my placard theory blog post), it often serves as a form of prideful narcissism and performative social virtue for individuals who should instead be spending most of their time getting their own house in order first.

Of course, for balance, some historical activism has been worthwhile. The Civil Rights Movement, women's suffrage, and labour laws are three prime examples, where people fought to challenge systemic injustice and helped make society a better place. But just because an activity has a few successes, it does not mean the whole thing or even the majority of it is successful. Because the massive increase of narcissism in our society has meant that most activism now functions, less as a pursuit of justice, and more as a stage for personal attention-seeking, tribal signalling and finding a sense of belonging within the in-group.

And the easiest thing about these curated, self-flattering public personas is that the incentives reward virtue-signalling, but require no real intellectual effort, discipline or institutional work behind the stage door. You just turn up, make your symbolic gestures, while privately remaining unable to understand complex scenarios and be the force for good you pretend to be. In fact, I see it as one of the great ironies in modern society that those shouting the loudest about their own virtue are frequently the ones least able to do much social good, and most in need of taking more personal responsibility for their own lives. From getting to know some of these young activists myself, there is an outside chance that they attach themselves to grand political crusades to avoid fixing their own immediate, personal shortcomings.😉

And don’t forget the other psychological trick that goes alongside it; if you make the enemy something abstract enough to defy proper examination (capitalism, the patriarchy, fossil fuels, Israel, immigrants, etc) you further distance yourself from personal accountability, because you fix yourself on the side of a fabricated black vs. white war that has never been adequately defined or understood by pretty much anyone on your side. To that end, most modern day activism comprises some of the most squalid social conduct out there.

Why So Many Services Are Expensive Even When Britain Has So Many Low‑Paid Workers

The left remains constantly confused about why everyday services cost so much, yet so many of the people providing them earn relatively little in comparison. To the left, this is an epidemic of ‘injustice’ in our society - but this misunderstands the economics of labour markets where, over sustained periods, average wages in an economy tend to rise with average productivity, but individual wages are determined by sector‑specific productivity, bargaining power, labour supply, and institutional factors.

It’s certainly true that, from observing many sectors - social care, transport, hospitality, cleaning, etc - while prices continue to rise, the workers delivering those services often earn wages that barely cover the basics. But it’s not injustice - it’s the predictable outcome of how a modern, unequal, service‑heavy economy like ours works.

Here’s how it works. You need to think of economic sectors as having different levels of productivity. Finance, technology, and engineering typically generate high output per worker, and therefore they pay accordingly. In fact, their wages pull up the national average, just like how two giants in a group of seven would significantly pull up the average height of the group.

But there are also low‑productivity, low‑bargaining‑power sectors - like hospitality, retail, cleaning, care work, etc - which rely heavily on human labour, but through no fault of anyone, have limited ability to raise productivity, and face intense cost pressure. Again, through no fault of anyone, wages in these sectors remain low because employers simply don’t have much room to raise them - and workers often lack the bargaining power to demand more (see my past blog posts on the economics of labour markets).

This is the reality of the “expensive services, low‑paid workers” problem. The left demands higher wages by asking “If workers in many service sectors are poorly paid, why do the services themselves cost so much?” But it’s the wrong question in terms of setting wages, because the price of a service isn’t determined by the wage of the typical worker - it’s determined by the wage of the next best alternative. The carers looking after my father in his care home had viable alternative labour options in supermarkets, delivery firms or hospitality roles with similar pay but better working conditions, which is why the care home struggled to retain enough staff.

Even if a service industry job is underpaid, it still has to compete with the rest of the labour market. If it doesn’t, workers leave - and shortages follow. Service prices reflect the cost pressures of a wealthy, high‑wage economy, and service workers’ pay reflects the realities of low‑power, low‑productivity sectors. Consequently, expensive services and low‑paid workers are not in contradiction, and there is no wholesale injustice in this tension - they are two sides of the same economic coin.

Price theory predicts uneven wage growth, weak bargaining power in many service sectors, rising labour competition, and a deep divide between high‑productivity and low‑productivity work – all of which explain the pattern sufficiently – it’s Econ 101, yet a perpetual mystery to the left. 

The Four Types of Electorate

 

When it comes to the electorate, there are four types of people.

First, there are those who submit themselves to authority with an almost childlike trust. They imagine - often quite sincerely - that those who govern them must also have their best interests at heart, and that wisdom and benevolence naturally accompany power.

Second, there are those who obey not from trust or confidence but from fear or apprehension. They are riddled with internal doubt, yet they consent in order to avoid the repercussions.

These two kinds of people - though they seldom intend it - have, at best, furnished every government with top-down inefficiencies, and, at worst, furnished every tyranny in history with its power and control. That is, no political party has ever ruled by its own competence or strength alone; it is encouraged and carried along by the sub-critical persuasions of group one and the compliance of group two.

But third and fourth consist of two very different groups. Those who will look authority in the face, reject it, and challenge it. Those who say “I see what you're doing, but I'm not having it,” are either a force for good or for bad, depending on the individuals in question. Some reactionary groups - who we’ll call category three - are rather toxic and unwholesome, and in many cases comprise individuals as bad as, or worse than, groups one and two.

But some - who we’ll call group four - have the hearts, minds and wisdom to resist, hold politicians to account, and be a force for good and positive change. 

Try to be in group four, dear reader, because it’s only group four types who give this nation genuine hope - the ones who, when they reach critical mass, see to it that authoritarian systems lose the compliance necessary to sustain themselves, and become disempowered.