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In American politics, fusionism is the philosophical and political combination or "fusion" of traditionalist and social conservatism with political and economic right-libertarianism. [1] Fusionism combines "free markets, social conservatism, and a hawkish foreign policy". [2] The philosophy is most closely associated with Frank Meyer. [3] [4]
The philosophy of "fusionism" was developed at National Review magazine during the 1950s under the editorship of William F. Buckley, Jr. and is most identified with his associate editor Frank Meyer. [3] [4] As Buckley recounted the founding, he "brokered" between "an extraordinary mix" of libertarians, traditional conservatives and anti-communists to produce the ideas and writings that composed modern conservatism. [5] He identified Meyer's synthesis as the most likely best solution of defining conservatism. [6]
In his most influential book, In Defense of Freedom, Meyer defined freedom in what Isaiah Berlin would label "negative" terms as the minimization of the use of coercion by the state in its essential role of preventing one person's freedom from intruding upon another's. The state should protect freedom but otherwise leave virtue to individuals. The state has only three legitimate functions – police, military and operating a legal system, all necessary to control coercion, which is immoral if not restricted. Virtue is critical for society and freedom must be balanced by responsibility but both are inherently individual in form. Coerced values cannot be virtuous. Freedom by itself has no goal, no intrinsic end. Freedom is not abstract or utopian as with the utilitarians, who also make freedom an end rather than a means. In a real society traditional order and freedom can only exist together. The solution is a philosophical synthesis of both freedom and tradition, the solution to the dilemma is "grasping it by both horns" and accepting the tension between the two. [7]
Fusionism's most famous advocate was Ronald Reagan as an early admirer of National Review and associate of both editors.[ citation needed ] On assuming the presidency in 1981, he met with conservative leaders around the country in Washington and reminded them of their intellectual roots. After listing "intellectual leaders like Russell Kirk, Friedrich Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, James Burnham, [and] Ludwig von Mises" as the ones who "shaped so much of our thoughts," he discussed only one of these influences at length:
It's especially hard to believe that it was only a decade ago, on a cold April day on a small hill in upstate New York, that another of these great thinkers, Frank Meyer, was buried. He'd made the awful journey that so many others had: he pulled himself from the clutches of 'The [communist] God That Failed,' and then in his writing fashioned a vigorous new synthesis of traditional and libertarian thought – a synthesis that is today recognized by many as modern conservatism.
As he recalled him, the new president outlined the ideas Meyer synthesized as the principles for this new conservative movement.
It was Frank Meyer who reminded us that the robust individualism of the American experience was part of the deeper current of Western learning and culture. He pointed out that a respect for law, an appreciation for tradition, and regard for the social consensus that gives stability to our public and private institutions, these civilized ideas must still motivate us even as we seek a new economic prosperity based on reducing government interference in the marketplace. Our goals complement each other. We're not cutting the budget simply for the sake of sounder financial management. This is only a first step toward returning power to the states and communities, only a first step toward reordering the relationship between citizen and government. We can make government again responsive to the people by cutting its size and scope and thereby ensuring that its legitimate functions are performed efficiently and justly. Because ours is a consistent philosophy of government, we can be very clear: We do not have a separate social agenda, separate economic agenda, and a separate foreign agenda. We have one agenda. Just as surely as we seek to put our financial house in order and rebuild our nation's defenses, so too we seek to protect the unborn, to end the manipulation of schoolchildren by utopian planners, and permit the acknowledgement of a Supreme Being in our classrooms just as we allow such acknowledgements in other public institutions. [8]
Fusionism saw its height during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who had brought together the divided factions after Gerald Ford's loss in the 1976 election.[ citation needed ] In the immediate aftermath of the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, fusionism was also at its height.[ citation needed ] The social conservative element of the Republican Party was seen on the ascent (at least with respect to domestic politics) during the presidency of George W. Bush. Increased spending angered traditional conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and libertarians. [9] In addition, the long-standing tensions between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives bubbled over in the wake of the Iraq War. [9]
While both these principles are traditionally conservative, the equal emphasis of traditional morality and free markets is a characteristic of fusionism.
Following the Republican Party's defeat in the 2006 midterm elections, some were calling for a new "fusionism" between libertarians and liberals in the Democratic Party to address what is seen as increasing governmental interference in private activity. [10] The results of the 2008 elections and the financial crisis of 2007–2008 have brought renewed tension between the libertarians and the social conservatives with centrist economic views. [9]
Fusionists tend to see the unpopularity of George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism," such as in his new entitlement prescription drug program, and his party's following defeat by President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, as reasons requiring a fusionist renewal if conservatism was ever to regain the presidency. [11]
Long-term shifts in American conservative thinking following the election of Trump have been described as a "new fusionism" of traditional conservative ideology and right-wing populist themes. [12] These have resulted in shifts towards greater support of national conservatism, [13] protectionism, [14] cultural conservatism, a more realist foreign policy, a conspiracist sub-culture, a repudiation of neoconservatism, reduced efforts to roll back entitlement programs, and a disdain for traditional checks and balances. [12]
In a polemic, the traditional conservative philosopher Russell Kirk, quoting T. S. Eliot's expression, called libertarians "chirping sectaries". He added that although conservatives and libertarians share opposition to collectivism, the totalist state and bureaucracy, they have otherwise nothing in common. [15] He called the libertarian movement "an ideological clique forever splitting into sects still smaller and odder, but rarely conjugating". Asserting a division between believers in "some sort of transcendent moral order" and "utilitarians admitting no transcendent sanctions for conduct", he included libertarians in the latter category. [16] Kirk had questioned fusionism between libertarians and traditional conservatives that marked much of post-World War II conservatism in the United States. [17]
Kirk also berated libertarians for holding up capitalism as an absolute good, arguing that economic self-interest was inadequate to hold an economic system together, and even less adequate to preserve order. [18] He stated that by glorifying the individual, the free market, and the dog-eat-dog struggle for material success, libertarianism weakened community, promoted materialism, and undermined appreciation of tradition, love, learning, and aesthetics, all of which he believed were essential components of true community. [18]
Libertarian activist Jerome Tuccille wrote: "Libertarianism is basically Aristotelian (reason, objectivity, individual self-sufficiency) while conservatism is just fundamentally Platonic (privileged elitism, mysticism, collective order)." [19]
Author Carl Bogus stated that there were fundamental differences between libertarians and traditional conservatives: Libertarians wanted the market to be unregulated as possible while traditional conservatives believed that big business, if unconstrained, could impoverish national life and threaten freedom. [20] Libertarians also believed that a strong state would threaten freedom, while traditional conservatives believed that a strong state, properly constructed to ensure that not too much power accumulated in any one branch, was necessary to ensure freedom. [20]
Fusionism has come under significant attack since 2014, especially by Catholic integralists [21] and postliberals. [22] In 2018, these critiques have also been taken up by mainstream conservative commentators. [23] [24]
National Review is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief is Rich Lowry, and its editor is Ramesh Ponnuru.
William Frank Buckley Jr. was an American conservative writer, public intellectual, and political commentator.
Paleolibertarianism is a right-libertarian political activism strategy aimed at uniting libertarians and paleoconservatives. It was developed by American anarcho-capitalist theorists Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell in the American political context after the end of the Cold War. From 1989 to 1995, they sought to communicate libertarian notions of opposition to government intervention by using messages accessible to the working class and middle class people of the time. They combined libertarian free market views with the cultural conservatism of paleoconservatism, while also opposing protectionism. The strategy also embraced the paleoconservative reverence for tradition and religion. This approach, usually identified as right-wing populism, was intended to radicalize citizens against the state. The name they chose for this style of activism evoked the roots of modern libertarianism, hence the prefix paleo. That founding movement was American classical liberalism, which shared the anti-war and anti-New Deal sentiments of the Old Right in the first half of the 20th century. Paleolibertarianism is generally seen as a right-wing ideology.
Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is a conservative youth activism organization that was founded in 1960 as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians on American college campuses. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the chapter affiliate of Young America's Foundation. The purposes of YAF are to advocate public policies consistent with the Sharon Statement, which was adopted by young conservatives at a meeting at the home of William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut, on September 11, 1960.
Russell Amos Kirk was an American political philosopher, moralist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and author, known for his influence on 20th-century American conservatism. His 1953 book The Conservative Mind gave shape to the postwar conservative movement in the U.S. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism. He was also an accomplished author of Gothic and ghost story fiction. He is often considered one of the most significant conservative men of letters of the twentieth century.
Harry Victor Jaffa was an American political philosopher, historian, columnist, and professor. He was a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University, and was a distinguished fellow of the Claremont Institute. Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application of Leo Strauss's revival of natural-right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times".
Frank Straus Meyer was an American philosopher and political activist best known for his theory of "fusionism" – a political philosophy that unites elements of libertarianism and traditionalism into a philosophical synthesis which is posited as the definition of modern American conservatism. Meyer's philosophy was presented in two books, primarily In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo (1962) and also in a collection of his essays, The Conservative Mainstream (1969). Fusionism has been summed up by E. J. Dionne, Jr. as "utilizing libertarian means in a conservative society for traditionalist ends".
The Sharon Statement is the founding statement of principles for Young Americans for Freedom. The views expressed in the statement, while not considered "traditional conservative principles" at the time, played a significant role in influencing Republican leaders in the 1980s. Written by M. Stanton Evans and adopted on September 11, 1960, the statement is named for the location of the inaugural meeting of Young Americans for Freedom, held at William F. Buckley, Jr.'s childhood home in Sharon, Connecticut.
Conservatism in the United States is based on a belief in individualism, traditionalism, republicanism, and limited federal governmental power in relation to U.S. states. Conservatism is one of two major political ideologies of the United States with the other being liberalism. Conservative and Christian media organizations and American conservative figures are influential, and American conservatism is a large and mainstream ideology in the Republican Party and nation. As of 2021, 36 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, according to polling by Gallup, Inc.
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In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. According to common meanings of conservatism and liberalism in the United States, libertarianism has been described as conservative on economic issues and liberal on personal freedom, often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism. Broadly, there are four principal traditions within libertarianism, namely the libertarianism that developed in the mid-20th century out of the revival tradition of classical liberalism in the United States after liberalism associated with the New Deal; the libertarianism developed in the 1950s by anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard, who based it on the anti-New Deal Old Right and 19th-century libertarianism and American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner while rejecting the labor theory of value in favor of Austrian School economics and the subjective theory of value; the libertarianism developed in the 1970s by Robert Nozick and founded in American and European classical liberal traditions; and the libertarianism associated with the Libertarian Party, which was founded in 1971, including politicians such as David Nolan and Ron Paul.
The term right-wing alternative media in the United States usually refers to internet, talk radio, print, and television journalism. They are defined by their presentation of opinions from a conservative or right wing point of view and politicized reporting as a counter to what they describe as a liberal bias of mainstream media.
Libertarian conservatism, also referred to as conservative libertarianism and, more rarely, conservatarianism, is a political and social philosophy that combines conservatism and libertarianism, representing the libertarian wing of conservatism and vice versa.
This timeline of modern American conservatism lists important events, developments and occurrences that have affected conservatism in the United States. With the decline of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party after 1960, the movement is most closely associated with the Republican Party (GOP). Economic conservatives favor less government regulation, lower taxes and weaker labor unions while social conservatives focus on moral issues and neoconservatives focus on democracy worldwide. Conservatives generally distrust the United Nations and Europe and apart from the libertarian wing favor a strong military and give enthusiastic support to Israel.
This is a selective bibliography of conservatism in the United States covering the key political, intellectual and organizational themes that are dealt with in Conservatism in the United States. Google Scholar produces a listing of 93,000 scholarly books and articles on "American Conservatism" published since 2000. The titles below are found in the recommended further reading sections of the books and articles cited under "Surveys" and "Historiography." The "Historiography" and "Critical views" section mostly comprise items critical or hostile of American conservatism.
George H. Nash is an American historian and interpreter of American conservatism. He is a biographer of Herbert Hoover. He is best known for The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, which first appeared in 1976 and has been twice revised and expanded.
Donald J. Devine is an American political scientist, author, former government official and politician who has studied, written and promoted the philosophy of conservative fusionism as taught to him by the U.S. philosopher Frank Meyer.
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Alliance of Libertarian Activists (ALA) was a libertarian student organization primarily located in the San Francisco Bay area, mostly active at University of California, Berkeley, established in 1965–1966, and considered the first campus group to adopt the term “libertarian.” ALA gained members from both the purged Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) Moïse Tshombe chapter and the Cal Conservatives for Political Action (CCPA) at UC Berkeley, which was a continuation of the 1964 Cal Students for Goldwater, both founded and first chaired by Dan Rosenthal.
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