On Sep 14, 2009, at 9:24 AM, farmelantj at juno.com wrote:
> Bill Buckley, while not himself a particularly original thinker
Buckley, though, like Reagan, was able to bridge the gap between the traditionalist and libertarian sides of the conservative movement - between the cultural and economic camps.
> Now the mainstream of the US and UK ruling classes began to openly
> embrace the ideas that people like Hayek, Buckley, Milton Friedman,
> Kirk and their friends had been advancing for years.
One of the interesting points in Sidney Blumenthal's book on the rise of the conservative counter-establishment is that the embrace of those ideas didn't originate in the business class. Intellectuals and policy entrepreneurs in think tanks had to sell the CEOs on the agenda. Blumenthal quotes Walter Wriston saying that at first he and his comrades were skeptical of Reagan, and it took some time for him to win them over.
Aside from being an interesting historical point, it's an interesting theoretical one as well. The ruling ideas of a time may be the ideas of the ruling class, but the capitalists often can't think for themselves, and have to be led by their intellectuals. And in the 1950s, there was very little interest in funding National Review - WFB had a hard time raising $300,000 to start the magazine.
> But now we are here thirty years later many of the old problems
> still unresolved along with new problems that seem beyond the ken of
> the best brains of the right.
It's a different set of problems now. In the 1970s, stagflation was a symptom of a working class that had gotten too strong, thanks to low unemployment and a generous welfare state. "Neoliberalism" was the response, and from the bourgeoisie's point of view, a very successful one. Now the contradictions of sustaining a mass consumption economy on stagnant or declining wages supplemented with heavy borrowing are bearing fruit. It's a different set of problems now, and the right doesn't know what to do with it except try more of the same.
Doug