It looks like conservatism has died as a mainstream governing philosophy. I’m talking about William F. Buckley’s and Goldwater’ s conservatism, not the “conservatism” of the vacant shells you see on TV today.
After Regan gave the movement everything it wanted except limited government, including lowering taxes, increasing defense spending, and defeating the Soviet Union; the movement was left with radical factions and no mainstream uniting principles. Our current President’s governing philosophy catered to his religious base and neoconservatism.
As for limited government, Newt Gingrich proved that the country was in no mood for it.
What William F. Buckley has started has clearly lost flavor, whether you like his ideas or not. The country is going to take a turn, whether McCain is elected or not. If McCain is elected, his presidency will end up like Carter’s, an administration deadlocked by the political climate of its time.
So the pressing question is where are we turning? The Democrats have been so scattered these past few years that I’m not sure there is a clear opposing philosophy other than the fact that no one wants radical conservatism.
I can see that limiting the influence of money on politics starting to go mainstream. It even seems possible that we can achieve that goal if Obama gets elected.
So where is this country going with its governing philosophy?
You’re looking at the world through some very biased lenses. Conservatism, as long as government exists, will no more die than type-A (or type-B) personalities will. There always has been and always will be people who lean towards the end of the scale we call the right. There always has been and always will be people who lean towards the end of the scale we call the left. To think the opinions and values and lifelong beliefs of roughly half our country are dead because a few guys at the top screwed up badly enough to swing the pendulum a few milimeters in the other direction is incredibly nearsighted.
If you want to say that the fervor it enjoyed from roughly 2001 until roughly 2006 is in a trough and will remain there for the next couple of years at least, then we might have a topic.
I’m talking about a specific type of conservatism that was the mainstream governing philosophy of this country while Regan was in office. A philosophy that since Nixon, elected most of our conservative politicians into office, that now doesn’t work anymore.
The conservatism from 2001-2006 is just a radical faction of the movement that brought Regan into power. Bush squeezed the last bit of political energy from the movement and 2006 showed that it is no long what most Americans want.
Something has to take over now. I’m wondering what that could be.
If you are referring to this, yes, it is discredited, but that doesn’t mean it’s going away. It remains backed by a vast infrastructure of very well-funded think-tanks (the “well-funded” part cannot be stressed enough – the corporations have a vested interest in funding them, not the other side) and grassroots organizations and wholly-owned media outlets, everything “movement conservatives” spent the time between Goldwater and Reagan building up. We haven’t heard the last of them.
The conservative movement has long been split between two incompatible philosophies of government. Conservative factions like the libertarians and free marketeers want a small and weak government. But other factions like national security conservatives and family values conservatives want a strong government that can enforce their agendas.
The conservative movement as a whole has been able to keep these various factions within the tent by working on the things that these groups had in common and by giving each group some of its individual goals. But this program has pretty much reached its end. There are no more common goals to be achieved and any individual goals given to one faction at this point must be mde at the expense of another faction. So conservatism has been reduced to trying to maintain the status quo and hold its factions together in defense against the liberals who would try to take things back.
This “hold the line” strategy is now starting to get strained. Its hard to muster support for a philosphy that’s essentially given up on further progress and fallen back on a reactive strategy. People can be motivated for a while in a defensive battle but at some point they want to feel like they’re winning not just voiding defeat.
It’s at least a possibility worth considering that the predominant political ideology in the coming decade will be neither the old Reagan-Bush-Cheney conservatism nor the old Ted Kennedy liberalism, but the rather technocratic “radical centrism” represented by the New America Foundation.
Well, the US has been moving away from small government since FDR took office, it seems. (And possibly earlier.)
Just 'cause the current administration’s foul ups has swung the pendulum against the Republican party doesn’t mean that the idea of a minimum government (minimum, but big enough to accomplish the other desired governmental funtcions) is a dead philosophy.
No – it’s a dead philosophy for other, more practical reasons. (Look around the world, especially the industrialized democracies – all the places where things in general go as well as or better than in the U.S. One thing you won’t find in any of them is “minimum government.”)
There will always be people for it. I’m not saying that everyone stopped believing in it. Just most people, which in our country is enough to keep it from affecting government policy.
I’m also not saying permanently dead. It can maybe one day gather enough support.
The idea that united all conservatives to give them a ruling majority have mostly been accomplished under Regan, and now, like Little Nemo mentioned, we are left with factions. None of which can be used to support a ruling majority.
Conservatism is certainly alive as a philosophy, but it won’t govern our country for at least a decade or so.
Well, to be fair, that’s because few programs get cut, and because the citizens are changing in attitude vis-a-vis the basic assumptions of what the government should provide, like public education or health care.
But there is a “minimum” size (and I am not educated enough to know what that magic number is) of government employees necessary that can provide those services. Is it arguable that the size of the current government in all these nations you mentioned is larger than necessary? I think the argument can be made.
For example, the amusing anecdotes abound about (state) highway maintenance crews. You drive by a site where they are working. One or two guys are working, two or three others are standing around watching. An argument could be made to cut some of that deadweight out (along the lines of determining whether it is actually deadweight).
Yes, but that’s not what the small government people are talking about. They don’t think that the government should be doing many of the things it does at all, not just that it should have fewer people doing them.
But the “small government” position would be that they shouldn’t be there at all; that it should be the free market or nothing.
I heard a guy described as Obama’s chief economic advisor on NPR, talking about the idea that Obama’s campaign will focus on bringing relief to the middle class people who are getting squeezed by the new economy rather than things like tax breaks for the rich, which he has identified as Bush’s policy.
This strikes me as excellent politics but not really where I would like to see the economic theory going. I would like to see economics working on the idea that the rich are basically irrelevant to economic growth, that economic growth is attained by providing economic conditions that allow members of the middle class to start businesses and build them, and to live lives that have enough leisure to invent new services, new products and new … inventions.
This is still a radical idea, but really, it’s pretty much in keeping with history – most of the inventions and so forth that lead to real economic growth comes from members of the middle class. The wealthy mostly just invest and promote and consolidate businesses … fine activities, but they’re not what brings new life to an economy, like computers, plastics, and the automobile have for America.
If we want our economy to thrive, we should encourage it by putting the fertilizer where things grow the best. It ain’t in the wealthy classes.
The poor and the middle class have the motive - they want to become join the wealthy class. The people who are wealthy have no incentive for change - if anything, their best interest is in keeping things the way they are.
I figure that from FDR to Carter there was a liberal arc. Starting high from FDR and ending with Regan being elected. I would define this as the fifth party system
Meanwhile, from Goldwater to Bush 43 there was a conservative arc. Low with Goldwater, picking up steam with Nixon, high with Regan, lowering with bush 41, going even lower with Bush 43. I would define this as the sixth party system.
It’s a little hazy as to where one starts and the other begins, but at some point in the 70’s FDR’s coalition loses steam to Nixon’s average religious and patriotic conservatives (the silent majority.)
Maybe next we will just take over from where we left off in the 60’s and push for even more equality. I would really like to move away from corporate control though. With Obama changing the way politics are funded, we might just see that happen.