In Political Science, the formal technical term for Neoliberalism or Liberal Capitalism is “Economic Liberalism.” As I had pointed out in my Treatises, the Economic Liberalism goes together with Social Liberalism and the Political Liberalism. All of this implies a shared Weltanschauung (Worldview) that enables a Liberal Capitalist to switch between, say, a Libertarian and a Progressive. Michael Lind, in an article he wrote back in February, believed that the absence of true “Economic Conservatism” or Conservative Socialism in America is because what passes as “Conservatism” for decades is not a true Conservatism at all. Instead, what we have a Jeffersonian conception that exists as an antiquated dinosaur from the Cold War.
In most western democracies since 1945, conservatives like British One Nation Tories and French Gaullists have rejected free-market libertarianism in favor of a limited, but powerful non-leftist national government. In Germany, the conservative Christian Democrats and the libertarian Free Democrats have been separate parties. But in the United States, even as they have disagreed with libertarians on abortion, drugs, and foreign policy, conservative Republicans have adopted more or less the entire economic platform of the Libertarian Party.
The Libertarian Party is extremely unpopular with American voters, winning at best a few percentage points of votes cast in some elections. Why have the establishment conservative movement and the Republican Party embraced the platform of an unpopular fringe party as its own? Why do conservatives seek guidance in economic policy from thinkers like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek, all of whom contemptuously rejected the label “conservative” for themselves and insisted they were “liberals” or “classical liberals”?
Lind argued that, since the Cold War, there has been this longstanding grand narrative that America was always a Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy and will always be a Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy. Anyone who thinks that America also has another Political Tradition that implores it to become a “Conservative Socialist Council Democracy” is relying on an ahistorical, anachronistic view of US History. Of course, this idea that America has always been a Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy is simply propaganda peddled by our Jeffersonian Conservatives, who have more common with Liberal Capitalism than Conservative Socialism.
There really is no such think as an “American Left” or an “American Right” if both sides are guided by the same Jeffersonian Weltanschauung. A Jeffersonian Left and Jeffersonian Right are just two halves of one Jeffersonian Center that emanates from the Democratic-Republican Party. Neoliberalism in America flows from that Democratic-Republican Party and it has been that way for a long time.
That is why it is important to realize the significance of a Hamiltonian Left and a Hamiltonian Right for a Hamiltonian Center. Our “Greater American Federalist Party” promotes tight-knit communities of working class American families within a “Federalist American Union” led by the Federal government and the States.
Since the 1950s and 1960s, when the libertarians of the Mont Pelerin Society succeeded in ostracizing other economic schools on the right, rich libertarians have discovered that instead of wasting money on Libertarian Party campaigns, they can pursue their goals by funding conservative think tanks and magazines and media, in addition to funding Republican candidates for office. As a result, there is no economic conservatism in the U.S., only two versions of libertarianism—the honest libertarianism of the Libertarian Party and the Cato Institute and Reason magazine, and the stealth libertarianism of the GOP and most so-called conservative think tanks and magazines. The great Peter Viereck was purged by the libertarian gatekeepers from the conservative movement for his conservative defense of trade unions and social insurance, and in the 1980s, Kevin Phillips was driven out of the mainstream right by pseudo-conservative libertarians for advocating a national industrial policy in response to East Asian mercantilism. In contrast, former Cato Institute fellows and program officers are always welcome in “conservative” think tanks and magazines.
There is a 2020 poll that Lind cited from the Kaiser Family Foundation regarding the Affordable Care Act. The poll in question pertained to Republican perspectives on ACA and healthcare in America. Contrary to Jeffersonian propaganda, 33% of young Republicans and 25% of older Republicans want a “single-payer, government-run healthcare system.” This in contrast to the 19% that are opposed to the idea and the 12% that are interested in eliminating Federal-State healthcare programs in America through Privatization.
How many American Labor Unions vote Democrat and Republican? According to another 2020 poll, 43% of them are Republicans compared to the 49% that are Democrats. A slight 31% of Labor Union members identify themselves as Republicans in contrast to the 29% who identify as Democrat.
How many Republican voters are in favor of increasing the minimum wages for working class Americans? A 2021 poll ran by Newsweek reported that 56% of Republican responded are willing to prefer the Federal hourly wage to be raised cautiously to $11 in order to test the waters for a later raise to $15. But even a Federal minimum wage of $11 is already a radical proposal among the Republicans, especially for those Jeffersonian Conservatives who run their party.
Despite their negligible numbers and their stupidity, libertarian zealots, bankrolled by rich donors and right-wing foundations, have spent the seven decades since [the 1950s] trying to abolish Social Security and replace it with tax-favored private savings accounts. Since the 1970s, right-wing donors have showered money on think-tank programs with advocates of total or partial Social Security privatization like Peter Ferrara, Stuart Butler, and Andrew Biggs.
The campaign against Social Security reflects libertarian ideology, not merely the selfish interest of Wall Street mutual funds in skimming fees from hundreds of millions of possible new mutual-fund accounts. Only sincere libertarian dogmatism can explain why George W. Bush made partial privatization of Social Security part of his second-term agenda, triggering a backlash from Republican voters themselves. Only authentic free-market radicalism can explain Senator Rick Scott’s recent proposal to terminate Social Security and Medicaid every year and force Congress to renew them annually.
As someone who could be described as being on the “Hamiltonian Left,” I am more likely to get along with people on the “Hamiltonian Right” than on the “Jeffersonian Right.” It works the same way with the “Jeffersonian Left” as well. On economic grounds, the Hamiltonian Right favors Corporatism, whereas the Hamiltonian Left are in favor of Socialism. Think of this as being no different than the debate between State Corporatism and State Socialism within the German-speaking world on ARPLAN. The question that Hamiltonians on both the Left and Right should be asking whether Corporatism or Socialism will allow us to realize a truly Conservative Democracy guided by the Council System, the kind of political system that Non-Jeffersonian Federalists and Anti-Federalists would have wanted.
In the last few years, institutions like American Compass and American Affairs have provided voice to conservatives and Republicans who reject the death-grip of libertarian economics on the conservative movement and the Republican Party. But it seems likely that those dissident voices will continue to be drowned out by the well-funded zombie libertarianism of the economic programs at legacy conservative think tanks and media like The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute and National Review. Unfortunately, there appear to be no genuine conservative philanthropists with vast personal fortunes, only rich devotees of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. And at this point, there appear to be no major conservative foundations willing to fund challenges to the free-market right.
For the Hamiltonian Left and the Hamiltonian Right, nothing good is ever going to come from us accepting donations of Kapital from the Jeffersonians. The Jeffersonians, be they Right or Left, would want us to shut up in exchange for Kapital. The most sensible choice, as Lind rightfully concluded, is to reject the influences of Kapital from the Jeffersonians.
Perhaps someday, wealthy communitarian conservative philanthropists who do not seek to repeal the New Deal, crush organized labor, eliminate the minimum wage and Social Security and Medicare, and create a free-market, open-borders global economy may appear. Until then, genuine conservatives in the U.S. should minimize their reliance on conservative, or rather libertarian, philanthropy. The Republican Party should create its own in-house legislative and executive policy shops, paid for as part of government, that formulate policies reflecting the interests and values of Republican voters instead of Republican donors. Meanwhile, genuine conservative think tanks and journals should reject libertarian money and find other methods like small donations and subscriptions to fund their operations. Otherwise, Americans who vote for conservatism will continue to be served warmed-over libertarianism instead.
Categories: Politics
The Fourth Estate 
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