Michael22
1st January 2014, 13:07
The "New Right" is an ideological tradition within conservatism that advances a blend of market individualism and social or state authoritarianism. This is reflected in a preference for privatization, economic deregulation, low taxes and anti-welfarism.
If you follow classical liberalism/neo liberalism to its logical conclusion it can be described as creating an elite "ubermensch" class because the market is a social institution and if you do not tame or abolish it you encourage animal spirits and there is no protection for the most vulnerable. It promotes hierarchy, elitism and is undemocratic. Neo conservatives belief in tradition, family values and the nation is inherently contradictory with the free market, yet because it is perhaps a very simplistic ideology, Margaret Thatcher for example was not intelligent enough to realise this.
This partly explains why neo-liberalism has been much more successful than neo-conservatism. The New Rights rugged individualism followed to its logical conclusion results in the market replacing morality, which conflicts with neo-conservatism but not with neo-liberalism. Neo-liberals have been able to appear "progressive" by not being bogged down with family values and nationalism like the neo-conservatives and therefore support things like gay rights. What this does is it makes it appear as if "the left" is in power, and therefore weakens opposition to neo-liberalism. Neo-liberals have been able to capitalise on the change in social attitudes brought about by victories from the left in the 1960's. In an ironic twist of history, those neo-liberals who in supporting things like equal marriage claim to wage war on "reactionaries" and "right wingers" are in doing so appropriating the right wings most loathesome product: Social Darwinism. The way the 60's cultural war has been won means that the undemocratic, elitist libertarian right has been able to come out unchallenged. Hiding behind the politics of gesture and hollow claims to be "progressive" is a thoroughly undemocratic, elitist, darwinistic ideological tradition that ironically has more in common with fascism than paternalistic conservatism or Christian democracy yet in response to the shifting cultural tectonic plates and warped political climate over the last few decades it has fraudulently got away with dismissing the traditional right as "backward" whilst portraying itself as "progressive" when in fact the conservative right (Winston Churchill for example) did not seek to abolish the welfare state or the NHS and its the New Right who are the source of most problems today.
If you follow classical liberalism/neo liberalism to its logical conclusion it can be described as creating an elite "ubermensch" class because the market is a social institution and if you do not tame or abolish it you encourage animal spirits and there is no protection for the most vulnerable. It promotes hierarchy, elitism and is undemocratic. Neo conservatives belief in tradition, family values and the nation is inherently contradictory with the free market, yet because it is perhaps a very simplistic ideology, Margaret Thatcher for example was not intelligent enough to realise this.
This partly explains why neo-liberalism has been much more successful than neo-conservatism. The New Rights rugged individualism followed to its logical conclusion results in the market replacing morality, which conflicts with neo-conservatism but not with neo-liberalism. Neo-liberals have been able to appear "progressive" by not being bogged down with family values and nationalism like the neo-conservatives and therefore support things like gay rights. What this does is it makes it appear as if "the left" is in power, and therefore weakens opposition to neo-liberalism. Neo-liberals have been able to capitalise on the change in social attitudes brought about by victories from the left in the 1960's. In an ironic twist of history, those neo-liberals who in supporting things like equal marriage claim to wage war on "reactionaries" and "right wingers" are in doing so appropriating the right wings most loathesome product: Social Darwinism. The way the 60's cultural war has been won means that the undemocratic, elitist libertarian right has been able to come out unchallenged. Hiding behind the politics of gesture and hollow claims to be "progressive" is a thoroughly undemocratic, elitist, darwinistic ideological tradition that ironically has more in common with fascism than paternalistic conservatism or Christian democracy yet in response to the shifting cultural tectonic plates and warped political climate over the last few decades it has fraudulently got away with dismissing the traditional right as "backward" whilst portraying itself as "progressive" when in fact the conservative right (Winston Churchill for example) did not seek to abolish the welfare state or the NHS and its the New Right who are the source of most problems today.