Posted on 12/03/2003 9:44:42 AM PST by freedom44
To paraphrase:
"People elect Democrats to Congress so they can get as much money as possible from Washington. They elect Republicans to the White House so they can send as little money as possible to Washington."
Now it should just read, "People elect Democrats and Republicans to Congress and the White House so they can get as much money as possible from Washington. Conservatives are an almost extinct species in Washington."
If suggestions are open, then I nominate 'social status and sinecures'.
Now that the Cold War is over, the "capitalism is freedom" message is less likely to win people over. They'll support free markets against Communism or Islamic fundamentalism and where greater market freedom looks to be the clear path to progress they'll support it, but in the age of globalization, people are more apt to look for security from the consequences of the ever accelerating worldwide movement of people, goods and money. Ronald Reagan's clear connection between freer markets and a stronger America won over many people who aren't convinced that the same connection necessarily applies in the era of globalization. That doesn't mean that creating new government entitlement programs is the way to go, but conservatives might consider that there is also something "conservative" in the current suspicion of markets and commercialization.
President Bush and his administration are more then just a bunch of caretakers. Bush`s tax cuts are found in the basic conservative ideology called supply side economics. Being strong on national and homeland security issues is another bedrock part of the conservative agenda. However, the education bill, the FarmBill and the new Medicare prescription drug legislation, is not part of the conservative agenda. Those who believe Bush is doing a great job in co-opting Democratic issues, is either ignorant, naive or both! In the short term, it may be good politics, but the question is, who will pay the price when the final bill comes due.
Another Nobel Prize economist, James Buchanan, worries that by allowing government to grow so rapidly ahead of the pace of the private sector, we are "killing the goose of free enterprise that lays the golden eggs."
Please elaborate.
European conservatism has tended more to the "small-c" variety, while modern American Conservatism has been more of a continuation or renaissance of classical nineteenth century liberalism. It favors freer markets, lower taxes, less government. European Conservatives have made more of an accomodation with the state.
Even here in the US, there are a few things to consider:
1) One person might favor tradition, continuity, stability, and established moral values without being very enthusiastic about markets and capitalism. Another may celebrate the creative destruction, dynamism, protean freedom, and constant change of market-driven economies. Who's more conservative? Or more Conservative? It may not be so easy to answer, especially for those who are not politically active or involved in the corporate sector. True, the first person may be a Democrat, but the same may also true of the second person, and his support for capitalism may be hinged on its disruption of older social patterns and traditions.
2) You'll find people who went big for Reagan and voted for him to bring prosperity to America. But in Reagan's day, the American economy was thought of as the national economy: GM, US Steel, farmers, miners, and fisheries. Such people might not find that they really have a horse to ride in current American politics. It's certainly possible to argue that they'd better adapt to the changes in the economy, but I'd be hard pressed to deny that many of them were "conservative" -- indeed, more "conservative" than many who embraced globalization and the changes it's brought the country.
3) If you look at the founders of modern American "big C" Conservatism, most of them were born before the Second World War and the Great Depression. Some were born before the First World War, and a few even before the beginning of the Twentieth Century. They were trying to get back to a less statist, more decentralized, more laissez-faire world that they had known first hand, and that had seemed to work for them and their parents and the country as a whole.
Today, George Bush, born after WWII, has lived with the leviathan state all his life. It's not likely that he'll want to go back to something that he doesn't know first hand. Nor is it likely that today's Americans are the kind of people who would want or could get on in that older world. Could we restore what disappeared before we were born without going through wrenching dislocations? Might wholesale rollback, not cause great troubles without bringing the desired consequences. Even if one assumes that pre-New Deal America was better, the way to get there safely is by steady persuasion, gradual evolution, and piecemeal steps, not by any revolutionary attempts to restore what's long gone and can't stand on its own any longer.
That would be the "small-c" conservative way of achieving "Big-C" Conservative goals. President Bush's critics are right in pointing out that he's not following it and taking him to task. But it would be a mistake to overlook Bush's "small-c" conservative virtues, and their absence in some of his more militant critics.
For whatever it's worth, the critics also have a point about the failure or inherent contradiction of a "conservative welfare state." Look at Europe. A welfare state brings with it a class that has a stake in increasing the size and power of government and getting as much for government as it can out of the pockets of the people. Welfare economies also shift people's economic calculations: they come to rely more on what government can do for them and less on their own efforts. They marry less, save less, and have fewer children. Conservative protectionist systems have similar contradictions and failings. Such dreams haven't panned out in practice.
But it is still true that taking government entirely out of the economy and leaving no opportunity to deal with serious problems at the federal level would be a dangerous proceding. And a healthy "small-c" conservative dose of gradualism and satisfaction with half-measures would be better in disentangling government and the economy (to the degree that the two can be separated) than a more radical, imprudent, and heedless approach.
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