We Need to Drive a Stake into the Heart of Conservatism
Tom has written a great book that should help drive more nails into the coffin of the conservative movement. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that he doesn't quite put the stake through the heart, which is really what we have to do with this monster.
The problem is that Tom still accepts too much conservative rhetoric at face value. Conservatives do not dislike government or want small government. They just dislike government policies that are designed to help the bulk of the population. They want the government to redistribute income upward and they are happy to have a government that is as big as necessary to accomplish this task. The stuff about small government and leaving things to the market is just pretty rhetoric they use to fool the kids (i.e. us).
It sounds much better to say, "I want to get the government off people's backs" than "I want the government to make the rich even richer." But the latter is the real story of conservatism.
I'll give a few quick examples. Pfizer, Merck and the other major drug companies are extremely profitable because the government will arrest people who sell drugs for which the government has awarded these companies patent monopolies. This requires really big powerful government. The government threatens people with jail for selling a product (drugs) in a competitive market.
Of course, patents serve a purpose. They provide an incentive to innovate. But we can find much more efficient mechanisms to support innovation that won't make these companies rich and require as much government intervention. But the conservatives aren't interested in small government and market efficiency, they want to keep Pfizer, Merck and the rest of Big Pharma profitable.
The same story applies to copyrights in software and recorded music and movies. Isn't it big government when people are tracked in their homes and dorm rooms and face legal action for downloading material off the web? Again, we can find less intrusive ways to support software development and the production of creative work, but the conservatives are interested in making Microsoft and Time-Warner rich, not small government.
The recent reform of the bankruptcy law provides another example of conservatives supporting big government. Part of being a good businessperson is knowing how to assess credit risk. If banks lent money to people who turned out to be bad credit risks, then they are supposed to suffer the consequences. Banks that are bad judges of credit risks go out of business.
But, conservatives did not want to leave the big banks to the mercy of the market. (I'm not talking about last week's $700 billion bailout here.) The conservatives said that if the banks made mistakes and lent money to people who couldn't pay it back, then the big government would step in and help beat it out of them. The new bankruptcy law gives the government a far more active role as a bill collector than the old law, but the "small government" conservatives had no problem with this expansion of government power.
We will be at a serious disadvantage in confronting conservatives until we stop accepting their rhetoric at face value. They are not about small government; they are not about the market. They are perfectly fine with a big powerful government that intervenes in the market all the time. They just don't want a government (big or small) that intervenes on behalf of the middle class and poor.
We have to fight this battle on turf of our choosing, if we let the right pick the terms of the debate, we lose.
Outstanding post! I agree wholeheartedly with this. Conservatism is about nothing more than shifting more of the national wealth into the bank accounts of the top 0.1% of the wealthy. Conservatives are entirely willing to take the nation to war, killing thousands of our citizens, if they can profit off of it, and they do that very well. Conservatives see their mortal enemy, the very essence of evil being socialism, where government tries to serve someone other than that top 0.1%. Second only to socialism is the labor movement, where workers gain the power to shift a tiny bit of the national wealth towards those who earn it.
The average American fears socialism, and would willingly sacrifice their children to destroy it. The day needs to come when it is Conservatism that the average family fears.
October 6, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice, Hoppy! Best zinger I've read in a while.
October 7, 2008 5:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Socialism is simply government control of the means of production, and can be just as corrupt as conservative capitalism. Neither accounts for base human behavior and both concentrate power (be it political or economic) in the hands of a few.
Progressive capitalism should have as its goal the balancing of power among participants in the economy. Neither employer nor worker should be able to crush the other at will; power should be balanced so that parties can negotiate fairly. Fair balance should be maintained as well between consumers and suppliers, shareholders and companies, banks and borrowers, etc.
October 7, 2008 8:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The average American fears socialism, and would willingly sacrifice their children to destroy it.
Hoppy, you're right on. How did this fear of socialism come about? It certainly preceeded the Communist movement (that was when the enemy was the dreaded 'immigrant anarchist'), and it needed the be re-animated after this country used socialism to pull out of the Depression, so Stalin and Castro were 'useful idiots' in the domestic fight to win control of the American engine. As we know from Rove and his ilk, they all secretly approve and admire the methods used by tyrants and dictators throughout history, and ideology is just a means to an end for them.
Speaking of the Depression, it seems to me that was the only era of true conservatism, when people scrimped and saved to weather the bad times, and had to be careful not to squander their resources. Otherwise, earlier generations of 'conservatives' were either royals or slave owners, fighting to hold onto their 'rights' to lord over others, such as the 'right' to own slaves.
I say it's time to call a Plutocrat a Plutocrat.
October 6, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
How indeed did this fear of socialism come about. Europeans don't fear it, they even have political parties identifying themselves as socialists. America's fear is abnormal, even bordering on a psychosis - Rev. Hagee (the McCain guy) said that the head of the European Union is the Anti-Christ, for gad's sake.
October 6, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Socialism" in the US is anything that is coveted by the many at the expense of the few. Political science doesn't apply any longer. It's Pavlovian, it's utterance causes us to slather and drool.
Bad dog! Bad dog! Back in the doghouse for you! The patriotic thing to do is to write our congresspeople and beg them to lower the minimum wage!
October 6, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You haven't heard Sarkozy speak.
October 6, 2008 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: . How did this fear of socialism come about?
One problem I have with this is that socialism is a dead letter, and even those parties abroad that call themselves "socialist" are anything but. Even using the term (except in a purely historic context) validates the Right's manichean worldview about a conflict between the virtuous Free Market and the devil of Socialism. But today's Right is no more about Free Markets than the Renaissance popes were about poverty and chastity. Nor will you find any real honest-to-Marx socialism left in today's Left.
"Socialism" is outdated, whether pro or con. It's too 20th century. The 21st century is going to be defined by conflicts and crises that involve other matters than the old capital vs labor struggle. (Note: I am NOT saying that social justice is not an issue. I am saying that we need to find new ways to see these issues. Marx's analysis is simply not viable and hasn't been for quite some time).
October 6, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We Need to Drive a Stake into the Heart of Conservatism!!"
Yes!! Reaganism is in its last throes! Let's set like 5 slogans and hammer, hammer, hammer them!
October 6, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems like Michael Isikoff is all over the airwaves waving a red bloody shirt accusing (by innuendo) the Obama Campaign of accepting illegal contributions from foreigners. At the peak of his rant he claims that "some Palestinians" bought $30,000 worth of Obama t-shirts that were to be shipped somewhere to "GA" where "GA" was taken to mean Georgia when in fact it was Gaza Strip.
Way to go Isikoff, that's the way to gain credibility with the reality based community!
Nobody is picking it up and it is really a snoozer but you would not know it from Isikoff's "hair on Fire the terrorist have infiltrated" alarmist rant
October 6, 2008 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry wrong place to post this. I apologize
October 6, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are spot on. I made my early blogging fame explaining why many of the conservative slogans are not conservative, and that what we see now, in the Bush administration, is the purest form of conservatism in a century or so. And this certainly includes the very non-conservative notion of dislike of Big Government.
October 6, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
C'mon guys!
Dean's riding his usual anti-competitive hobbyhorses -- trademarks, copyrights, and professional licensing -- but the tirade doesn't rise to the level of a coherent argument against conservatism or, for that matter, in favor of 20th century liberalism.
Conservatism versus liberalism is so yesterday!
The question, today, is do you or don't you support the Washington Consensus? That tells us more about what you'll do where the rubber meets the road than any alleged loyalty you have to some tired old ideology.
October 6, 2008 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Washington Consensus". Is that the same as Democracy?
October 6, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Egress your rabbit hole, bunny, and look it up!
October 6, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You think you can escape old meanings? I don't. Models for the way the world works can be adjusted but the underlying archetypes never die. There's a reason. I thinks it's biological.
October 6, 2008 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
But if you want to convert your opponents -- as the Republicans converted the DLC (and others) -- you may need a new meme (old wine in new bottles?).
And "Washington Consensus" seems to have been up to the job.
October 7, 2008 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's absolutely nothing wrong with conservatism, and what you're talking about isn't conservatism.
October 6, 2008 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
catrabbit, I do admire hrebendorf's comments, and would like to know if it's pronounced Hree or Hreh, because (1) as a relatively provincial soul, I haven't encountered the name heretofore, and (2) should I be engaged in a conversation where I find myself wishing to recommend your comments, it would be very nice to be able to pronounce your name correctly, other than to call you "the person whose avatar is a cat with bunny ears affixed thereon"... you see my quandary, and I beg for your admission of the long or short "e" sound. Without taking up even more bandwidth (yikes) than The Hewson.
October 6, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heh. When I originally tried to get an ID on this site, the first few I went for were taken (I tried "Billy Glad", then "Jacob Freeze", but damn, no dice on either one). So I picked one that I figured was sort of unpronounceable, thinking it probably wouldn't already be in use. Which it wasn't. Except that even I don't know how to pronounce it. *:o) So whatever you come up with is fine with me.
October 6, 2008 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
catrabbit, I do admire hrebendorf's comments, and would like to know if it's pronounced Hree or Hreh, because (1) as a relatively provincial soul, I haven't encountered the name heretofore, and (2) should I be engaged in a conversation where I find myself wishing to recommend your comments, it would be very nice to be able to pronounce your name correctly, other than to call you "the person whose avatar is a cat with bunny ears affixed thereon"... you see my quandary, and I beg for your admission of the long or short "e" sound. Without taking up even more bandwidth (yikes) than The Hewson.
October 6, 2008 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is NO reason why my comment should have been repeated. Thank you for eliminating double-posting.
October 6, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is conservatism but the desire to preserve the status quo?
And what is preserving the status quo but the desire to make sure that the rich stay rich, and the powerful stay powerful?
Every decision of the "conservative" majority in the Supreme Court is nothing but the triumph of the powerful over the powerless.
And that is what Bush-Palin thinks will attract Joe Sixpack.
We need to expose conservatism for what it is, which is the degradation (and not just exploitation) of the middle class (and "hockey moms") of America.
October 6, 2008 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Conservatives are in it for the money" fits what I see from the outside too. But catch Namoi Klein speaking against creating the Milton Friedman institute at the U. of Chicago, shown on Democracy now this morning.
Klein gave me insight into why these guys see themselves as champions of freedom. She points out that people like McCain and Scharazenhager(SP??) who aren't that confident at thinking are especially vulnerable because all they have to remember is that freedom means getting government out of the way. In their grand vision everybody begins to think like an owner, and class divisions fall away.
October 6, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
And who is gonna do the driving? Centrist Democrats? I doubt it...Centrist Democrats have partially embraced Conservatism. The D's had 3 candidates 1980, 1984 and 1988 that were either severely wounded politically or just truly horrible candidates and embraced the pro-corporate ideology of the Conservative movement. Liberalism only failed in the sense that it was abandoned for a fistful of dollars...which the Democrats will be reaping for the next four years if they sweep into power in the Legislative and Executive branches. Again I ask...who is doing the driving of said stake?
October 7, 2008 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I wanted to add...
Even if the ideological vampire is successfully impaled on the stake what is gonna replace it? A Centrist ideology? An ideology which enabled the conservative goals of NAFTA/free trade as we know it and were fully supportive repealing acts like Glass-Steagall. I think it is high time true Liberalism was given another look...
October 7, 2008 1:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
One final thing. I wrote this very sloppily...the point I was clumsily trying to make was that those 3 bad candidates caused the D's to abandon Liberalism and I wasn't saying in 1980, 1984 and 1988 the candidates did that themselves.
October 7, 2008 1:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
A test for el Libertino --
When Carter left office 85% of all S&Ls were losing money. In 1980 Congress raised the amount of interest S&Ls could pay on deposits and increased the FSLIC guarantee from $40,000 to $100,000. In 1982 Congress deregulated the industry. And the rest is history.
Liberal response to a (government created?) problem? Conservative response?
What should liberals have done about failing S&Ls -- assuming they wished to stay true to their liberal principles?
October 7, 2008 3:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
First off Ellen, not being familiar with the intimate details, I would want to know the reasons that the S&L's were losing money in the first place before I could make a recommendation about what should have been done initimate details. I do like the idea of allowing the raising interest rates on savings. To me, that is a win-win, it benefits the banks and the consumers. I think increasing the consumer protection of savings is a good solid liberal position to take.
I would have probably been opposed to the subsequent deregulation which occurred in 1982. Again I admit I am not familiar with the details of the examples you cite but if it was New Deal regulations put in place after the '29 crash to ensure there would be no repeat of the crash I would have been opposed to removing them.
October 7, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with you even though I'm the one who asked the question.
I don't know what I would have felt the "liberal" solution would have been to what was a combination of 1) a housing finance problem and 2) a FSLIC (that's the S&Ls' FDIC equivalent) funding problem -- 3300 thrifts going out of business would have required the Treasury to step in and increased the deficit.
The Congress chose a pragmatic solution probably because it appeared to be the cheapest solution. It proved, in the end, to be expensive ($135 billion) but who knows whether another would have been better.
My point -- to the extent I have one -- is to question whether the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have much in the way of content when it comes down to solving problems.
You can drive a "stake" through the "heart of conservatism" but people will still want access to easy credit and their local bankers, real estate agents, and builders will be calling Congress to get it.
People want cheaper health care and insured health care but the drug companies and the health insurers will be there to make sure their business interests aren't harmed.
The "stake" must be driven through the "corrupting" political process and not through the chimera of "conservative" ideology. Challenging ideologies is the equivalent of tilting at windmills.
October 7, 2008 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you made a very good point Ellen. Sometimes I am a little leary of getting into detailed discussions about economics with you. It isn't that I don't like to hear your POV it is because your knowledge far supasses mine. But I always enjoy reading your posts even when the detailed discourse is way over my head.
People who take positions based strictly on an ideology tend to be too inflexible to solve problems. In any society if all the laws were removed and the people were allowed to 'police' themselves that society would eventually breakdown and chaos would ensue. And in an economic system the same thing happens when all the rules are removed. But most R's and many D's seem to believe the opposite will happen and the less rules there are for the economy the more efficiently it will run. It can no better police itself than citizens of a society can police themselves. Sometimes the situation will dictate that less regulation/control is called for to make the economy run more efficiently and sometimes more regulation/control is needed. Bottom line though is there needs to be rules and regulations for the financial markets of they will eventually breakdown into chaos. And when problems do arise flexibility and pragamitism are the best way to solve them. And when it comes to the many issues, not just the economy, conservatives tend to be too inflexible to deal with problems.
October 7, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem isn't "conservatism" or "liberalism", the problem is people. If people are greedy and have unchecked power, some are going to enrich themselves at other people's expense, regardless of what ideology they may spout. In many "socialist" countries the leaders of the country and those who were at the top of the socialist pyramid robbed their countrymen blind.
Look at the Communist bloc, they said, "get rid of the capitalists, have the workers run the country and economy". What happened there?
It is vital there be accountability and an alert citizenry in order for the rights of the people to be ensured.
What would MJ Rosenberg and other "progressives" say say if someone wrote a column entitled "WE NEED TO DRIVE A STAKE THROUGH THE HEART OF LIBERALISM"? They would scream about incitement to violence.
I think we all need a little more tolerance and willingness to listen to others. This demonization of the opposition is not the way democratically-minded people behave (and that applies to everyone).
October 7, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Conservatives have been inciting citizens to hate liberals for many years, if not decades. Some TV conservative commentators have even declared that the only good liberals are the dead ones. I'm through showing tolerance for Conservatives. There is no limit to the slime and hatred that conservatives such as the Repub presidential and vp candidates toss around today, so we can either stand up to them or lose another election, and probably our form of government.
October 7, 2008 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a friend who always said
"get the government out of the boardroom and into the bedroom." Seems to be the current conservative mantra.
October 7, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
If only the problem with modern conservatism were limited to their anti-big government hypocrisy. The complete picture revels a much uglier and more dangerous truth. Post Reagan revolution Republicans are zealots.
Whether on foreign policy (the neocons), or economic policy (the supply-siders), or social policy (the evangelical Christians), or governing philosophy (Reagan-ist), conservatism is characterized by zealotry mixed with hypocrisy. They hold beliefs not opinions.
Evidence contrary to their beliefs is rejected - the familiar MSM filter in action. Logic holds no sway in altering their beliefs for the simple reason that logic was never used to formulate them. Which, by the way, marks them as irrational, not necessarily stupid.
So, we see the neocons pushing for a war with Iran, seemingly having learned nothing from the Iraq debacle. We see supply-siders, such as Larry Kudlow and Neil Cavuto blaming the financial crisis on poor people. Do any those GOP factions actually have anything in common, aside from their zealotry? I don't think they do.
The GOP that Reagan built has reached ultimate realization. It's inevitable fulfillment. It has become a roach-motel for zealots, baiting them in with the promise of political power sufficient to force their beliefs on the rest of us.
October 7, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
BTW:
An important implication of their zealotry is that they don't and won't ever blame conservatism for the failures of conservative political leaders. They can't, else the whole house-of-cards upon which their ideology is built collapses.
So, then, what becomes their answer to the economic crises - it's to deregulate further! What more proof of their zealotry. Better to lose America than to lose their belief system. That is why attempts to harm McCain by tying him to Bush through their common conservative ideology has met with limited success. For Republican zealots, only individual personalities can be at fault, not their conservative beliefs - such must be made so.
October 7, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow… So many points to touch base on.
Statement: “[conservatives]…want to keep Pfizer, Merck and the rest of Big Pharma profitable“.
Comment: Keeping big Pharma profitable and protecting the profits using patients on the drugs they make and sell is done so big Phrama will continue to invest the profits they earn in research and development for the drugs that you, I and everyone in this country use every day. If you strip the profits from big pharma you will not get the same level of research we have today.
Statement: “If banks lent money to people who turned out to be bad credit risks, then they are supposed to suffer the consequences. “
Comment: Currently banks are have lowered their risk tolerance to very low levels placing the large majority of the poor and middle class in the high risk pool. Now that they are considered high risk they can no longer buy homes or cars because they can’t get financing from the banks. If the government doesn't provide some protection for banks they will never again lend to the poor or middle classes. So does this mean that the author would rather the poor and middle class give money to the rich via rent payments, rather than building equity in a home. Or did he not think through what he was saying? Does this also mean that this liberal author was not on the same side as his other liberal buddies when President Clinton signed into law the 1992 GSE Act, which mandated a percentage of the loans purchased by Fannie and Freddie be from poor and low income families (something I actually support).
It is hard for me to believe that this author actually believes these ideas will work or has thought them through 100% using real life examples. Remember socialism looks great on paper, but has NEVER worked in real life. Ans clearly this author is a proponent of socialism, not capitalism. I do think capitalism needs bounds and regulation in limited forms to set rules and standards and hold accountability, however socialism this is not the answer. America was founded on a set of core values and we have gotten away from those values and will need to return to those values to help correct the issues we face today. Let the socialists move to France and let the capitalist and traditionalists stay in America so they can work hard to prosper like our forefathers did.
October 30, 2008 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink