Conservatives Against Capitalism: From the Industrial Revolution to Globalization

by Peter Kolozi

Few beliefs seem more fundamental to American conservatism than faith in the free market. Yet throughout American history, many of the major conservative intellectual and political figures have harbored deep misgivings about the unfettered market and its disruption of traditional values, hierarchies, and communities. In Conservatives Against Capitalism, Peter Kolozi traces the history of conservative skepticism about the influence of capitalism on politics, culture, and society.

Kolozi discusses conservative critiques of capitalism--from its threat to the Southern way of life to its emasculating effects on American society to the dangers of free trade--analyzing the positions of a wide-ranging set of individuals, including John Calhoun, Theodore Roosevelt, Russell Kirk, Irving Kristol, and Patrick J. Buchanan. He examines the ways in which conservative thought went from outright opposition to capitalism to more muted critiques, ultimately reconciling itself to the workings and ethos of the market. By analyzing the unaddressed historical and present-day tensions between capitalism and conservative values, Kolozi shows that figures regarded as iconoclasts belong to a coherent tradition, and he creates a vital new understanding of the American conservative pantheon.

Genres: Politics, History, Economics, Nonfiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very timely intellectual history of anti-capitalism in conservative American thought. The book starts with the most radical thinkers, proponents of slavery and the Southern Agrarians, who feared that the dynamic nature of the capitalist system would destroy their traditional ways of life. The Southern Agrarian manifesto was published in 1930 in a collection of essays entitled "I'll Take My Stand," which made a final case for maintaining the agrarian South as a distinct society separate from the perceived corporatism of the capitalist north. Interestingly these thinkers sought to defend what they described as a more "humanistic" form of living than that represented by modern industrial-capitalism, or what Rabindranath Tagore memorably called "machine society." These arguments were obviously motivated in large part by self-interest, but in both their radicalism and learnedness many of them actually bear resemblance to some Marxist critiques of modernity. In their opposition to capitalist society these men were motivated by a desire to maintain old racial and class hierarchies, which they claimed with varying degree of credulity were softened by aristocratic noblesse oblige and were thus supposedly kinder than the brutal wage slavery of capitalist society.

Following World War II, conservatives began to make their peace with capitalism. This was based on the perception that, faults aside, the capitalist system had "delivered the goods" of a prosperous society. But it was also because capitalism was seen as a far lesser evil than communism, which threatened to tear out traditional society by its roots and rebuild it with an inverted power structure.
Neoconservative criticisms of capitalism that arose in the postwar decades were very much like criticisms of modernity generally, warning that bourgeoisie values bred by capitalism would lead to a physical and moral degeneration of society. No one likes "Economic Man," whether he is capitalist or communist, and the monetization of every aspect of human relations has been widely hated across the ideological spectrum for breeding soulless and self-interested human beings. To ameliorate this, people as diverse as Theodore Roosevelt and David Brooks have proposed global imperialism as a way of toughening Americans up and giving them transcendent purpose, while also opening foreign markets to take some economic burden off the common citizen.

The conservative critique of capitalism moved on from its early radicalism to focus mainly on laissez faire capitalism after the war. Laissez faire is rightly blamed for creating mass insecurity among the "traditional" working class, as well as dramatically empowering a globalized corporate elite that has little loyalty to the United States or any other country. Conservatives have also criticized the welfare state, generally on the grounds that it was not providing benefits to whom they saw as the most deserving members of society. George W. Bush had an interesting idea of privatizing welfare by re-empowering intermediate institutions such as churches and community groups to provide it, rather than the distant state. As we can see in retrospect, for some reason, this idea didn't go far.

In his own muddled and volatile way Donald Trump is clearly a representative of the paleoconservative tradition, the last of which Kolozi discusses in the book. Its not that Trump is against capitalism, but he wants to manage and control it in such a way that it provides the maximum benefit for "his" people, loosely defined as white Americans. The paleoconservative tradition is most clearly exemplified by the writings of men like Pat Buchanan and Samuel Francis. They are against unmitigated free trade, global finance, immigration, and want a welfare state specifically tailored to benefit their own ethnic group. The paleoconservative tradition is finally getting a hearing through Trump's presidency, though in my opinion, despite his sincere beliefs, he has been profoundly ineffective at implementing this agenda or even coherently articulating it.

Reflecting on this overview of major thinkers, I don't think postwar conservatives can really be said to be "anti-capitalist" in any complete way. That said, they surely have had some reservations about the system as it has been functioning and can't all be dismissed as merely apologists for the accumulation of elite wealth. Among the surprises in this book were the excerpts of Irving Kristol sounding considerably more intelligent than his doofus son. I also appreciated the measured tone that the author maintained throughout, as well as the generosity he extended even to those thinkers whose work he radically opposed. I think this is a good practice worth emulating by other writers.

I recommend this as a useful intellectual history for examining the present moment and may write a more substantive review elsewhere later on.

[Damon Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a timely, well written and interesting book. It surveys several groupings of conservative, American intellectuals who have offered criticisms of capitalism: Southern pro-slavery conservatives, the imperialists Brook Adams and Theodore Roosevelt, the Southern Agrarians, Neo-conservatives and Paleo-conservatives.

The book plots an uneven decline in the radicality of the critique: while early pro-slavery critics like Calhoun (and to a much lesser extent the Agrarians) offer criticisms surprisingly similar to Marxist and socialist critiques, the other groupings offer more limited criticism frequently centering on alleged cultural and moral threats of laissez-faire capitalism (but with an acceptance of other forms of capitalism). This decline in the radicalness of the critiques marks a decline in the interest of the book, particularly as the last two groupings are partially contemporary and so much more familiar---nevertheless the first three chapters are particularly informative (to the uninformed like myself) and Kolozi's prose remains clear and fluid throughout.

The form of the book, an abbreviated, chronological survey of thinkers is both its greatest strength, it allows the book to be eminently accessible, and weakness, it prevents any deep analysis of these thinkers or their contexts. Nevertheless, because the book has clear aspirations to timeliness (it references President Trump several times), this is overall a virtue.

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kolozi put together a good, enjoyable book about critiques of capitalism from the right. He doesn't go too in-depth into his subjects, but he covers extensive historical ground. Over time, Kolozi tracks the decline in the robustness of this critique from a true anti-capitalist one to one concerned with maintaining capitalism. His main argument is that each critique of capitalism sought to uphold hierarchy in its own way. This contrasts with the more egalitarian critiques coming from the left; indeed, it mirrors George Hawley's definition of "right-wing" in Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism as more concerned with other factors than equality. For slave owners, it was the maintenance of the vile institution of chattel slavery. For Teddy Roosevelt, it was the expansion of American empire to maintain the virility of society. For the Southern Agrarians, a return to small-scale Southern farming (but not for all races equally). For the post-war conservatives, a bulwark against socialism and a foregrounding of the values and institutions that mediated capitalism. For the neocons, both a renewal of the bourgeois values underpinning capitalism and imperialism abroad to spread Americanization. For the Paleoconservatives, who Kolozi notes Trump mirrors, it was seeking a radical elevation of the interests of White Middle American Radicals. All interesting movements, some harmful to the country and prejudiced, some who the conservative movement would do well to highlight (Peter Viereck, Russell Kirk, David Brooks). Kolozi gives a little glimpse of major figures in various movements but could have used more details.

Kolozi's leftist background shines through in his writing. I think a few of these movements (the ones I listed above as decent examples) had a greater focus on diminishing inequality than he gives them credit for. Some of the groups examined in the book were actually *predicated* on hierarchy, worth noting, but he could have used more nuance on the others. It's hard to tell upfront whether this is supposed to be a historical chronicle or a critique of conservatism, but despite its editorial stance, it's an interesting argument.

[Mills College Library]

330.122 K816 2017