Oct 19, 2005
"The Conservative Sixties"
Below is a review of yet another work on conservatism since World War II. Ever since Alan Brinkley kicked off an American Historical Review on the need to study conservatism (and classical liberalism), there has been a steady stream of works. My post includes a list of suggested readings and a call for readers' suggestions.
David Farber and Jeff Roche, eds. The Conservative Sixties. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. vi + 211 pp. ISBN 0-8204-5548-2. Notes, list of contributors, index. $29.95 (paper)
Reviewed by Jason M. Stahl, Department of History, University of Minnesota.
http://tinyurl.com/77e5w
My response:
I agree with the reviewer that intellectual and social histories of conservatism ignore the business stream of conservatism. I confronted this first hand in my research on small business lobbying, which joined hands with corporate elites from the 1970s onward, because they were "mad as hell" about government regulation and taxes. Although a bit
dated, Vogel's assessment that business has remained economically conserative for 125 years remains true (Vogel, "Why Businessmen Distrust Their State: The Political Consciousness of American Corporate
Executives." _British Journal of Political Science_ (January 1978): 45-78) and backed up by more recent polls (Kirkland, "Today's GOP: The Party's Over for Big Business." _Fortune_, 6 February 1995, 50-62.
Kirkland found that 69% of CEOs were Republicans and 98% favored reductions in government spending, 82% for deregulation).
Of course, liberal human resources professionals continue to promote "social responsibility" and racial preferences (see Lynch, _The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change the White Male Workplace_), yet we cannot ignore this core identity among businesspeople, large and small. Some of these entrepreneurs and cashed-out CEOs funded think
tanks, which are also treated separately from "studies of conservatism." This is odd, because think tanks were necessary "idea brokers" given the near total exclusion of conservatives from campus
faculty (amply documented by David Horowitz, NAS, and others).
Lastly, I agree with David Horowitz that this is the first social movement that does NOT include movement activists as a wave of scholars poring over its past. Movement conservatives may be biased, but they
are well-versed in what movement cons were actually reading and doing -- and not given over to the presumed triumphalism of liberal historians who see Republican victories as the Rise of the Right, while
movement activists saw defeat in the Reagan Revolution and the "Republican Revolution" of 1994. Read Frum, Niskanen, Stockman, Rector.
Brinkley, Ribuffo, Thomas Frank are certainly not conservatives. I don't believe Andrews was a conservative. Flamm begins his dissertation by describing how he is (or was?) a liberal. I don't know McGirr, Roche or the others but can only identify two historians of conservatism who
are actually conservative. This situation leads to a lot of nonsense about "backlash" and "triumph," ignoring the fatalistic streak in the conservative movement. These themes are the ones trumpeted in college history textbooks, where most "educated" Americans get their recent history. As a movement con myself (yes, I'm outed), I joke that the best I can hope for in my lifetime is repeal of the low flush, low-flow water law. Give me pounding showers, or give me death! That's the level of success libertarian-conservatives have achieved, rendering us "dead"
and the Beltway in the hands of "Big Government conservatives" (Fred Barnes' apt term).
SUGGESTED READINGS (for more see my syllabus of recommended readings at http://tinyurl.com/3xp72). NOTE: Focus on the 1960s and early 1970s.
Anderson, Martin. The Federal Bulldozer (1964)
Cornuelle, Reclaiming the American Dream: The Role of Private Individuals and Voluntary Associations (1965)
Banfield, The Unheavenly City Revisited (1974)
Bean, "'Burn, Baby, Burn': Small Business in the Urban Riots of the 1960s," The Independent Review (Fall 2000)
Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and the Rise of Grassroots Conservatism (2005)
Decter, Midge. Liberal Parents, Radical Children (1975)
Edwards, Goldwater: The Man Who Made A Revolution (1995)
Edwards. The Conservative Revolution (1999)
Evans, M. Stanton. Revolt on the Campus (1961)
Farber and Roche, ed. The Conservative Sixties (2003)
Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision: From the
Cold War to the Culture Wars (1996)
Glazer, “The Campus Crucible: Students Politics and the University,” Essential Neoconservative Reader, 41-63.
Goldwater, Barry M. The Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
Horowitz, David. Radical Son (1998)
Judis, John. William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1988)
Kelley, Bringing the Market Back In (1990?)
Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945 rev. ed. (1996)
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)
O’Rourke, “Second Thoughts about the Sixties,” Give War a Chance (1992), 90-97
Rand, Ayn. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1967)
Rothbard, Murray. Egalitarianism as a Revolt against Nature and Other Essays (1974)
Rothbard. For a New Liberty: A Libertarian Manifesto (1973)
Schneider, Gregory. Conservatism in America since 1930 : A Reader
David Farber and Jeff Roche, eds. The Conservative Sixties. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. vi + 211 pp. ISBN 0-8204-5548-2. Notes, list of contributors, index. $29.95 (paper)
Reviewed by Jason M. Stahl, Department of History, University of Minnesota.
http://tinyurl.com/77e5w
My response:
I agree with the reviewer that intellectual and social histories of conservatism ignore the business stream of conservatism. I confronted this first hand in my research on small business lobbying, which joined hands with corporate elites from the 1970s onward, because they were "mad as hell" about government regulation and taxes. Although a bit
dated, Vogel's assessment that business has remained economically conserative for 125 years remains true (Vogel, "Why Businessmen Distrust Their State: The Political Consciousness of American Corporate
Executives." _British Journal of Political Science_ (January 1978): 45-78) and backed up by more recent polls (Kirkland, "Today's GOP: The Party's Over for Big Business." _Fortune_, 6 February 1995, 50-62.
Kirkland found that 69% of CEOs were Republicans and 98% favored reductions in government spending, 82% for deregulation).
Of course, liberal human resources professionals continue to promote "social responsibility" and racial preferences (see Lynch, _The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change the White Male Workplace_), yet we cannot ignore this core identity among businesspeople, large and small. Some of these entrepreneurs and cashed-out CEOs funded think
tanks, which are also treated separately from "studies of conservatism." This is odd, because think tanks were necessary "idea brokers" given the near total exclusion of conservatives from campus
faculty (amply documented by David Horowitz, NAS, and others).
Lastly, I agree with David Horowitz that this is the first social movement that does NOT include movement activists as a wave of scholars poring over its past. Movement conservatives may be biased, but they
are well-versed in what movement cons were actually reading and doing -- and not given over to the presumed triumphalism of liberal historians who see Republican victories as the Rise of the Right, while
movement activists saw defeat in the Reagan Revolution and the "Republican Revolution" of 1994. Read Frum, Niskanen, Stockman, Rector.
Brinkley, Ribuffo, Thomas Frank are certainly not conservatives. I don't believe Andrews was a conservative. Flamm begins his dissertation by describing how he is (or was?) a liberal. I don't know McGirr, Roche or the others but can only identify two historians of conservatism who
are actually conservative. This situation leads to a lot of nonsense about "backlash" and "triumph," ignoring the fatalistic streak in the conservative movement. These themes are the ones trumpeted in college history textbooks, where most "educated" Americans get their recent history. As a movement con myself (yes, I'm outed), I joke that the best I can hope for in my lifetime is repeal of the low flush, low-flow water law. Give me pounding showers, or give me death! That's the level of success libertarian-conservatives have achieved, rendering us "dead"
and the Beltway in the hands of "Big Government conservatives" (Fred Barnes' apt term).
SUGGESTED READINGS (for more see my syllabus of recommended readings at http://tinyurl.com/3xp72). NOTE: Focus on the 1960s and early 1970s.
Anderson, Martin. The Federal Bulldozer (1964)
Cornuelle, Reclaiming the American Dream: The Role of Private Individuals and Voluntary Associations (1965)
Banfield, The Unheavenly City Revisited (1974)
Bean, "'Burn, Baby, Burn': Small Business in the Urban Riots of the 1960s," The Independent Review (Fall 2000)
Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and the Rise of Grassroots Conservatism (2005)
Decter, Midge. Liberal Parents, Radical Children (1975)
Edwards, Goldwater: The Man Who Made A Revolution (1995)
Edwards. The Conservative Revolution (1999)
Evans, M. Stanton. Revolt on the Campus (1961)
Farber and Roche, ed. The Conservative Sixties (2003)
Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision: From the
Cold War to the Culture Wars (1996)
Glazer, “The Campus Crucible: Students Politics and the University,” Essential Neoconservative Reader, 41-63.
Goldwater, Barry M. The Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
Horowitz, David. Radical Son (1998)
Judis, John. William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1988)
Kelley, Bringing the Market Back In (1990?)
Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945 rev. ed. (1996)
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)
O’Rourke, “Second Thoughts about the Sixties,” Give War a Chance (1992), 90-97
Rand, Ayn. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1967)
Rothbard, Murray. Egalitarianism as a Revolt against Nature and Other Essays (1974)
Rothbard. For a New Liberty: A Libertarian Manifesto (1973)
Schneider, Gregory. Conservatism in America since 1930 : A Reader