Well many of the more serious thinkers on the right will concede that the free market is destructive of tradition and traditional values. Yes, many of them look to religion to religion to provide a check on the destructive effects of the market. The problem is that capitalism does seem to promote tendencies towards secularism: religion being one of the traditions that capitalism undermines. That's one example of what Daniel Bell, many years ago, called the "cultural contradictions of capitalism." Capitalism, in his view, depended on the cultural inheritance of religion and other cultural traditions in order to maintain the values and attitudes (like the work ethic) that are necessary to capitalism to thrive. But in his view, capitalism over time promoted a hedonistic ethic that undermined those very traditions that had sustained capitalism.
Bell's argument was not too different from the ones that Joseph Schumpeter gave in his writings like *Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy*. Both men, were of course, not unfamiliar with Marx's analysis of this situation too.
Of course there are many conservatives who will deny that there is a problem here, but as I said before, contemporary conservatism is pretty much brain dead, so no surprises there.
Jim Farmelant
---------- Original Message ---------- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Conservatism Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:44:19 -0400
On Sep 14, 2009, at 2:30 PM, farmelantj at juno.com wrote:
> There was among other things the
> obvious thing that a full throated defense
> of free market capitalism is incompatible
> with the defense of traditionalism, since
> capitalism itself is the greatest force
> for undermining and destroying time hallowed
> traditions as Marx noted long ago.
Of course you could deny that the market destroyed tradition and say instead that you need the moral inheritance of religion to act as a check on market passions. Or you could argue, as do many of our fundies, that the market is a wonderful mechanism of reward and punishment to keep us fallen humans in line, with worldly success as a kind of visible measure of virtue.
____________________________________________________________ Click now for great quotes on affordable mortgage insurance policies! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFLo1FAtM4KJMEMZdTtECcdlS93lZKdDs0Jii3upzvgHwervgmCNi/