[lbo-talk] re: neocon economists

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sat Apr 19 23:35:07 PDT 2003


So we've covered the neocon politicos and philosophers, who are the economists in tow? marta

--

It's probably risky or foolish to say this as a non-economist in front of maybe a hundred or more economists, but I suspect most US economists would probably qualify.

Here's the justification. From reading about Strauss, it seems according to Strauss moral and political order derives from a natural order, contra the modernist view that both are socially and politically contrived---and contra the Marxist view both are epiphenomenon arising from the structure of the political economy.

Since a classical economist maintains that there is such a natural order to economic activity and economic life, ie. free market forces, it follows that they would have no problem at all living with the likes of Strauss's natural ordering to moral and political life.

In other words neocons like Strauss are tailor made as the political trappings for neoliberal US economist. They are made for each other. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because it is natural that they do so. Such an outcome has nothing to do with the mountains of detailed rules, regulations, laws, and formal institutional systems that have been especially constructed by government to make it turn out that way.

Chuck Grimes



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list