Raymond Plant - Conservative Capitalism in Britain and the United States (RLE Social Theory)

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ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: SOCIAL THEORY

Volume 15

CONSERVATIVE CAPITALISM IN BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES

CONSERVATIVE CAPITALISM IN BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES

A Critical Appraisal

KENNETH HOOVER AND RAYMOND PLANT

First published in 1989

This edition first published in 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1989 Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-415-72731-0 (Set)

eISBN: 978-1-315-76997-4 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-138-78304-1 (Volume 15)

eISBN: 978-1-315-76367-5 (Volume 15)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

CONSERVATIVE CAPITALISM IN BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES

A Critical Appraisal

KENNETH HOOVER

and

RAYMOND PLANT

First published in 1989 by

Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001

1989 Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant

Set in Baskerville by Input Typesetting Ltd, London

Printed in Great Britain by the Guernsey Press, Guernsey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Hoover, Kenneth

Conservative capitalism in Britain and the United States: a critical appraisal.

1. Political ideologies: Conservatism

I. Title II. Plant, Raymond

320.52

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hoover, Kenneth R., 1940

Conservative capitalism in Britain and the United States: a critical appraisal/Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0415015839. ISBN 0415015847 (pbk.)

1. ConservatismGreat Britain. 2. ConservatismUnited States. 3. Great BritainEconomic policy1945. 4. United StatesEconomic policy1981. 5. CapitalismGreat Britain. 6. CapitalismUnited States. I. Plant, Raymond. II. Title.

JA84.G7H66 1988

320.520941dc19

8812200

CIP

To
our students

CONTENTS

Both in Britain and the United States the explosion of a more aggressive, forceful, and successful conservative politics during the last decade was largely unpredicted: the rhetoric of free enterprise, individualism, and antipathy to Big Government had been an ideological staple of politics in both countries for generations, but the startling success of such themes came as a surprise even to the followers of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

How are we to understand this success?

And in what appear to be the waning days of the strong form of such themes in the Reagan administration how are we to consider political options for the future?

Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant are first and foremost interested in the problem of ideology; they leave to other authors and other occasions the detailed exploration of economics, political organization, elections, etc. This focus is significant: an important lesson of the decade is that ideology on its own plays a powerful role in politics an idea which had far less currency only a few years ago, especially in the United States. Just how powerful a role it will continue to play may well be the most significant question even, in the nuclear age, a life and death question of the remainder of the twentieth century. A dissection of ideology also opens the way for a discussion of opportunities and challenges facing those who do not share the premises of conservative capitalism.

Hoover and Plant avowedly seek to provide political guidance to the left, but their book is a well-informed essay which will also stimulate thought among a wide range of others who do not so identify themselves. They begin by making a sharp distinction between individualist and traditional strains in conservative thought. The cleavage, broadly speaking, is between those who urge unadulterated laissez-faire policies and those who believe the state must play a role in helping the poor, in maintaining social cohesion, and in guiding moral and even personal behaviour. They continue the analysis by detailing the attack on liberal-capitalist institutions and policies that form the intellectual basis for the Reagan and Thatcher governments. The authors make clear precisely where the new departures originated.

The ideological basis for this cleavage (as distinct from its practical and political implications) is much better understood in Britain than in the United States. American conservatives also come in different varieties, but the rhetoric of most is strongly libertarian in tone. True enough, a few intellectuals and journalists Russell Kirk and George Will, for instance stress the role of tradition and of community; and the Moral Majority emphasizes an activist government to preserve moral values in connection with drugs, sex, abortion, school prayer, etc. But in the United States, the conservative

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