“When the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, wrote Two Cheers for Capitalism, he intentionally held back from giving it a resounding three cheers. He knew there were downsides, and that conservatives had to be honest about these in order to address them adequately. But the conservative message about capitalism today glosses over these facts, proposes no principles of justice, and fails to engage—let alone persuade—our fellow citizens who worry about our economic order. Conservatives writing in defense of democratic capitalism need to spend less energy fighting off communism, and more energy developing a conservative vision of social justice, painting a picture of what a better capitalism could look like. If conservatives don’t, the only alternatives will be coming from the Left. And that would be an injustice,” – Ryan T. Anderson, The Witherspoon Institute, in a highly critical review of Pete Wehner’s and Arthur Brooks’ Democratic Capitalism.
Reading the original, I am struck again in particular by Arthur Brooks’ insulation from the actual dilemmas we are now facing: the question of whether one sector, the financial one, has become essentially part of a rentier class with a recklessness problem; the reality of such accelerating economic inequality that the political system itself, rested on a strong middle class and representative (not bought and paid-for) democracy, is at risk; the impact of globalization on the Western countries, and how it too has both relatively impoverished the working classes while heaping massive rewards on the few. I’m not saying the left has the answer on these questions. I am saying these questions are what we need to be grappling with. And the conservative movement has close to nothing to say on them.
In many ways, I regard this contemptible circus of a GOP primary campaign as a reflection of this deeper intellectual collapse. When you are reduced to writing entire books on why capitalism is better than communism – in 2011, for Pete’s sake – and believe you are somehow contributing to a debate, rather than reinforcing an irrelevant orthodoxy, you are so deeply part of the problem, you have no way to fix it. Same, I believe, with a GOP front-runner dedicated to increasing “defense” spending regardless of the external threats.
Someone needs to tell these people that it is no longer 1983.
The Dish 