Left, Right, and Elon Musk's Grandfather

 On a recent episode of The Farm Mach II podcast, Steven Snider discusses the Technocracy movement of the 1930s and its impact on current U.S. policy. Elon Musk's maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman (1902-1974), had been a prominent leader of Technocracy Incorporated in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. While Haldeman's influence on his grandson makes for interesting speculation (though he died when Musk was just a toddler), my thoughts went elsewhere. This episode, along with other recent developments, helped me clarify the distinction between the Left and Right. Economics has little or nothing to do with it.

First, some background. I had associated the word "technocrat" with a public office holder or senior-level administrator who possessed knowledge of specific fields related to public policy and would ideally make decisions based on expertise, rather than politics or popularity. In recent years, previously non-partisan senior banking officials have become prime ministers of major countries, including Mario Draghi (Italy, 2021-2022) and Mark Carney (Canada, took office in 2025), due to their technocratic orientation.

The Technocracy movement of 90 years ago, however, would have no room for such economists. Or the price system. Or money at all. Production and distribution would be coordinated by scientists and engineers who would determine the amount of energy consumed per capita and issue "energy certificates" in place of money for people to use.

As Ira Basen describes it,

"This meant there would be no room and no need for democracy. All the normal functions of government ― education, health, sanitation, public safety ― would be run by experts chosen by their peers. Doctors would vote for the person in charge of the health-care system, teachers for the person who’d run the schools and so on. There would be a cabinet made up of about a hundred of these experts, and they would select a “continental director” to oversee the whole thing."

If that sounds radical, it is. The movement's founder, Howard Scott, said, “As far as Technocracy’s ideas are concerned, we’re so far left that we make communism look bourgeois.” 

But was it truly "far left"?

Until very recently, the primary Left-Right debate has typically centered on economics, with the Left advocating for state control or regulation of resources, production, and markets with the goal of equitable distribution, and the Right emphasizing the preservation of the status quo, including private property rights.

The Technocracy movement, with its proposed 4-hour work days, 4-hour work weeks, and retirement age of 45, certainly sounds far Left indeed, if Left-Right is really about economics. But I don't think it ever was. Ronald Reagan, considered further to the Right than the Republican Establishment of his time, advocated open immigration and free trade. Donald Trump opposes free trade and immigration, but is considered even further to the Right. 

Free trade and open immigration are free-market ideas, which have been confused with Right-wing ideas. The Right, however, cares more about culture than economic policy and always has. So does the Left.

The goal of the Left is universal "brotherhood" expressed as equal rights and equal access to social benefits. The Left's enemies are those who cling to special privileges at the expense of others. The goal of the Right is the preservation and advancement of the nation, often in the form of ethnonationalism. The Right's enemies are advocates of cultural and lifestyle diversity and critics of the nation's traditional religion.

In Episode 499 of Conspirinormal, historian Richard Spence discusses how Benito Mussolini was a leading Figure in the Italian Communist movement. (Communism is Leftist, if you haven't heard.) Mussolini left the party when he realized Italy meant more to him than the worldwide class struggle. This is where he made the move from the far Left to the far Right. In previous episodes, I've listened to Conspirinormal hosts Serfiel Stevenson and Adam Sayne refer to fascism, founded by Mussolini, as a form of pragmatic or undogmatic socialism.

Fascism can promote very Leftist-looking economic policies, but that doesn't make fascists "Leftists." Whereas the Communist wants to empower the State to achieve equality, the Fascist seeks to empower the State to preserve and strengthen the national culture. 

We might discover whether the Technocracy was truly "Leftist" in the life of the aforementioned Haldeman, Musk's grandfather. According to a CBC profile, before Haldeman's involvement with Technocracy, "he joined a couple of left-leaning farmers' organizations." In the early to mid-1930s, he assumed leadership roles in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which advocated for the "eradication of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist state."

Later in the 1930s, Haldeman joined Technocracy Inc., which called for the abolition of North America's borders to create a "Technate of America." Technocracy Inc. believed the continent as a whole could be self-sufficient, with no need for external trade. The vision resembled a "leftist" utopia of economic equality and minimal work.

Technocracy Inc.'s vision for North America (Snipped from Wikimedia Commons)

After leaving Technocracy, Haldeman quickly became a national leader of the Social Credit Party, an expression of the social credit movement that advocated a form of national dividend similar to a universal basic income (UBI), a proposal that, on paper, is quite leftist.

In 1950, Haldeman and his family moved to South Africa, which had just recently instituted Apartheid. He didn't move there because of business or family reasons, but because he thought the recently established Apartheid system was an excellent idea. This was the kind of society he wanted to be a part of.

In current conceptions of "Left" and "Right," one might think that Haldeman continually changed his mind and ideology, as he moved from the CCF (forerunner to today's New Democratic Party in Canada) to the extreme right Christian nationalism of Apartheid South Africa.

Haldeman may have changed his mind on many things, but there is nothing in this brief outline of his political involvement that suggests he ever underwent a fundamental shift in his worldview.

In the 1920s-40s, an age before civil rights for people of color, women's rights, and gay rights gained momentum, a white man could be on the "left" because he was thinking of himself and people like him; he wanted the government to give the white male citizen a fair shake. The rights of other kinds of people were outside his consciousness; he took the existing social arrangement for granted.

Long after Haldeman had left the party, the CCF took power in Saskatchewan in the late 1940s and passed a Bill of Rights. However, a brief review of CCF history did not mention civil rights or other social issues in Canada, such as the Protestant-Catholic and English-French divisions, or immigration from Eastern Europe, during the time Haldeman was involved. 

In the 1920s, these issues contributed to the Ku Klux Klan gaining 25,000 members in Saskatchewan, a province with a population of under one million. To clarify, I do not know whether Haldeman was a member of the Klan during that time. But later in his political career, he expressed beliefs that were in alignment, and there didn't seem to be an inherent conflict between the CCF and Klan values in the 1930s, any more than there was a conflict between the Democratic Party and the Klan in the United States.

What about Technocracy? Leader Howard Scott was hostile to "aliens and Asiatics" and would ban foreign languages. He was anti-Catholic because he thought Catholicism was anti-science;  I also read (source lost) that, essentially, the Technate would eliminate Mexican and Quebecois cultures (both of which were Catholic and non-English speaking). I have not encountered Scott's thoughts on race and civil rights, or his views on eugenics and the Technate's role in family planning.

As far as the Social Credit Party goes, it was famously anti-Semitic, and Haldeman tolerated and defended the anti-Semitism within the ranks. He also published anti-Semitic sentiments after he moved to South Africa.

Haldeman consistently believed in social engineering. He believed in a heavy governmental role in the economy and society. None of that ever made him a Leftist. Maybe he was a Leftist when he was younger, but his involvement with the CCF and Technocracy isn't necessarily evidence of it. On the Left/Right spectrum, only the culture matters: anyone who favors the Right on cultural issues is on the Right, regardless of the economic system they favor. 

This explains the changes in the Republican Party. While supporting more economic intervention than in the past might seem like a sign of veering Left, it's moving even further Right. 

Many people once took the Republican Party of "freedom, limited government, and traditional family values" as preferable to what the Democrats were offering. However, the Republicans have now sacrificed freedom and limited government messaging for the sake of the "values."

And if there were enthusiastic Reagan voters who are now enthusiastic Trump voters, we now know that, for them, it never was about the economics. It was the values they cared about, and it was the values that put them on the Right.

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James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You can contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.