“WHEN FOX television host Tucker Carlson recently attacked conservative faith in free market economics, he probably surprised a number of his viewers. For too long, Carlson charged, libertarians and social conservatives have ignored the fundamental part economic structures play in undermining communities. Families are crushed beneath market forces. Disposable goods—fueled by consumer culture—provide little salve for drug addiction and suicide. Markets are a “tool,” Carlson said, not a “religion.” “You’d have to be a fool to worship” them. …
Raymond English, a professor at Kenyon College, claimed that the basic assumption of “economic conservatism” was fundamentally the same as Marxism: that humans are economic beings, motivated by selfish materialism in a lifelong struggle. In English’s view, Marxists and libertarians both wrongly believed that political interference in economics could never “be for the general welfare,” only privileged classes. “Social reform is not the same as egalitarianism,” Viereck complained. “And why is any merely material and economic system more sacred than the moral duty of compassion for want? …
He told an associate he was “very glad” someone had “unambiguously stated what needs to be stated”: that “the conservative position is rooted in certain inflexible principles,” not “prescription.”
Kirk was furious. He complained that “two radical Jewish atheists,” one an anarchist and the other a former Marxist, presented themselves as “infallible authorities on One Hundred Percent Americanism. …”
Very good article.
I think lots of young people are just dismissing “conservatism” outright today because of all the people and policies it has become associated with whether it was George W. Bush and Iraq or now people like Glenn Beck, Charlie Kirk and David French who are the public face of the movement.
I’m also a conservative but the term is now so poisoned in the public mind that I prefer to use populist and nationalist. I like Southern conservatism, High Toryism and German conservatism which are all authoritarian, collectivist, organic and paternalistic versions of conservatism.
The conservative synthesis we need today would blend the German Historical School of Economics with a social conservatism drawn from Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Alasdair MacIntyre, George Fitzhugh, Hegel, Nietzsche and Foucault. We would jettison liberalism root and branch and replace it with something new built on historicism. Alasdair MacIntyre was working toward this in his book Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition. MacIntyre was trying to create a new synthesis of these three schools of thought in the same way Aquinas did in the Middle Ages with Aristotelianism and Augustinianism.
Note: This was a great video. Tucker asks the million dollar question at the end: if the Chamber of Commerce and Conservatism, Inc. oppose it, what then? What do you do when Sheldon Adelson or the Koch Brothers come at you with their bags of cash? Do you sell out?
The Republicans lecture us constantly about how capitalism is supposed to work, not how it does actually work for many people. This is good description of a lot of political arguments, they’re just junk science mixed with cheery picking of data to prove some point or other.
“The National Interest: Will Conservatives Abandon the Free Market?”
No more so, than they’ll abandon the Cold War and late 20th Century politics.
90 % of sheeple are shot. Overwhelmed into inaction by a continuous barrage of news … mostly not important. If you’re against free market capitalism … what are you FOR … in miniscule detail ? Laid out 1 a. b. c. 2. a, b. c.
We’re not going to suddenly jump ship on a “concept.”
2 + 2 has to = 4 and be spelled out and laid out in a simple easy to understand way, keeping in mind of course, that most other ways have been tried and failed ie., Venezuela et al.
Sheeple might listen if your idea had to do with regulations preventing “predatory capitalism.”
More info about the $$ system : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k470yIEVG6I
Conservartives have nothing to abandon because they have absolutely zero principles.
Conservatives are only interested in conserving their money. And as liberals know all too well, a conservative is a spineless reactionary who will cede anything in dignity and reputation to conserve their beloved money.
I do actually respect liberals far more than conervatives. Liberals are even far better than conservatives at making, and keeping money, yet that is not even their primary objective. Conservatives are such losers who fail at everything. If the Bolsheviks win, then I at least hope I survive long enough to watch them butcher these old chickens. I would actually enjoy seeing those cowards get the coward’s death they deserve.
And someone really must do it, because if you keep these whiney anachronistic losers around they WILL betray you. Hitler should have purged the conservatives, Stalin style, because those traitors actively sabotaged the Third Reich from within on many occasions during WW2.
Conservatives are not fit for a Liberal Bolshevik world of chaos and moral anarchy. And they are not fit for a Revolutionary National Socialist world of ideals and virtue. They have to go. Every single one of them.
Troll. Doin it for the money, or misguided emotions ?
HW, If you’re quoting catholic authors, why not look seriously at Distributivism?
I will at some point.
I read books like a Vandal. I’m always looking to scoop up a good idea
Part of the DUTY of a government that is loyal, downward from above, is to police the marketplace against unlawful and unethical conduct. Yes, this implies economic dirigent powers.
Laws with SERIOUS TEETH to prevent predatory capitalism is what’s needed. Also, on another post you implied a possibility exists for some kind of modern “plantation paradigm?” Can’t happen because darkie now has a vote yet is as dumb as back in the 19th century … so they vote for whosever black or at least demoncrat. Satan would get their vote if he showed up in black skin ! Understand what this means when trying to run a balanced society. PLANET OF THE APES is reality now. That’s why the only solution is balkanization. You know …
A VERY ENLARGED CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA FOR WHITE CHRISTIANS ONLY.