In Rush’s imagination ‘conservatism’ often seems to equate to support for the interests of the corporate suite.
This is a far cry from the traditional conservatism of Russell Kirk and the Southern Agrarians, who possessed a healthy skepticism for the world of big business. Not that they were hostile to it, but they certainly didn’t put the mercantile interests of business on their list of first principles.
Try this quote from Kirk’s ‘The Conservative Mind’:
“The United States had come a long way from the piety of Adams and the simplicity of Jefferson. The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of ‘private enterprise,’ economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests—such a nation was inviting the catastrophes which compel society to re-examine first principles.”
Placemarker
The traditional conservatism of Southern Agrarians, are you kidding. They were lock step in line with the New Deal as long as Roosevelt looked the other way on Jim Crow. Who was to benefit from the giant boondogle called the TVA. Hell, guys like Huey Long were even further to the left than FDR. The so-called traditional Southern Agrarian was conservative on Social Issues, but economics, he was a major partner in creating the New Deal. The South was no bastion of Conservatism until recently. Do not buy in to the Liberal story that the old Southern racist pols were Conservative. They were as Left as their Northern compatriots on any issue dealing with Economics.