This column by Pat Buchanan is remarkable in its near-repudiation of his
old boss, Ronald Reagan, arguing that economic conservatism is ultimately
the enemy of the social conservatism that is Buchanan's true loyalty. (In
this, he echoes scholar Daniel Bell's thesis on the cultural
contradictions of capitalism.) With the rumblings on the religious right
of impending divorce from the economic Right, notably in Gary Bauer's
attack on free trade with China and a proposed Presidential bid by him,
this could be a benchmark column by Buchanan.
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Free-trade extremists undermine Reagan's legacy
-- from weekly column by Pat Buchanan
23 MAR 98 - Under Jimmy Carter, unemployment hit 7 percent, inflation 13
percent and interest rates 21 percent, setting the stage for the Reagan
Revolution. And when Reagan's tax cuts took hold, the Eagle soared as it
had not done in peacetime since the Roaring '20s.
Europe had laughed at "the cowboy" the Americans had elected. But now,
Europe sat bolt upright. The cowboy had begun creating jobs at a rate of
250,000 a month, for seven long years, while Europe was not creating a
single new job.
With the collapse of communism, the future seemed set. It was the End of
History. Most nations had embraced Reaganism, and all seemed ready to do
so, even, mirabile dictu, Russia!
But was Reagan's victory forever? Or did our revolution, too, carry with
it the seeds of its own destruction? John Gray, an ex-Thatcherite in
London, believes it does. He argues his case in False Dawn: The Delusions
of Global Capitalism.
Reaganism and Thatcherism, says Gray, have in common deep tax cuts, the
slashing of safety nets and welfare benefits, and global free trade. These
unleash the powerful engines of capitalism that go on a tear. Factories
and businesses open and close with startling speed, in that "creative
destruction" so beloved of think-tank scholars. As companies merge,
downsize and disappear, the labor force must always be ready to pick up
and move on.
The benefits come in huge returns on capital, reflected in the stock
market. The cost is paid in social upheaval and family breakdown, as even
women with toddlers enter the labor force to keep up the family's standard
of living. Deserted factories mean gutted neighborhoods, ghost towns,
ravaged communities and regions that go from boom to bust to boom again,
like the Rust Belt.
Reaganism and its twin sister, Thatcherism, create fortunes among the
highly educated, but in the middle and working classes, they generate
anxiety, insecurity and disparities in income. Since these classes seek
stability, security and order from their political systems, above all
else, Thatcherism and Reaganism thus undermine the very social structure
on which they were built.
What is the evidence of Gray's thesis? Unfortunately, it is mounting. In
England, Thatcher's party appears done. The attempt to impose Reaganomics
in Europe has also brought backlash, as the jobless rate has risen above
12 percent. Conservative parties have been ousted in Canada, Britain,
France and the United States, and the German conservatives are now running
behind the socialists.
In Asia, Reaganism was paid lip service as the giants, China and Japan,
embraced nationalism. Asia's tigers grew fat by feeding on the U.S.
market, while protecting their own. Their reward: a U.S. merchandise trade
deficit running in January at $225 billion a year. U.S. capital is pouring
out. Yet, even in the Asian crisis, with the IMF offering $40 billion and
$50 billion bribes, Malaysia and Indonesia are balking at U.S. dictates.
This weekend, Japan's prime minister told the U.S. Treasury to stuff its
demand that Japan cut taxes by 2 percent of gross domestic product. With
Tokyo running a deficit near 6 percent of GDP, what the United States is
asking Ryutaro Hashimoto to do is comparable to Hashimoto coming to a
United States that was running a deficit of $480 billion to demand that we
run it up to $640 billion to soak up Asian imports. Hashimoto responded as
any red-blooded American would.
Even in Congress, the Vatican of the Reagan Revolution, heresy is rampant.
Since 1995, Congress had gone along with new social spending, and federal
taxes are over 20 percent of GDP, a record. A party that boasted it would
shut down the departments of Education, Energy and Commerce cannot even
close the National Endowment for the Arts. If revolution is moribund on
the hill, where is it alive?
What Gray describes, what is happening in America, is that conservatism is
being confronted with its own contradictions.
Unbridled capitalism is an awesome force that creates new factories,
wealth and opportunities that go first to society's risk takers and
holders of capital. But unbridled capitalism is also an awesome
destructive force. It makes men and women obsolete as rapidly as it does
the products they produce and the plants that employ them. And the people
made obsolete and insecure are workers, employees, "Reagan Democrats,"
rooted people, conservative people who want to live their lives and raise
their families in the same neighborhoods they grew up in.
Unbridled capitalism tells them they cannot. Conservatism is thus at a
crossroads. And if social conservatism is at war with unfettered
capitalism, whose side are we on? A reluctance to choose lies behind the
conservative crackup.
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PAT BUCHANAN
Copyright 1998, Creators Syndicate
