Requiem for the Old Right by Murray N. = Rothbard

Requiem for the = Old=20 Right

by Murray=20 N. Rothbard
by Murray = N.=20 Rothbard

Originally published = in=20 Inquiry, October = 27,=20 1980.

By now it is no news to anyone that public = opinion in=20 America has shifted sharply to the right and that an = authentic=20 leader of American conservatism may well assume the = presidency in=20 1981. And yet, despite this surge, there is still no = adequate=20 treatment of the American Right or of the permutations and=20 transformations it has undergone in the past half-century or = so.=20 George Nash=92s The=20 Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 = (1976) was a careful and encyclopedic compendium of the = various=20 ideological tributaries and branches of conservatism, but no = book=20 has yet come along to describe and analyze the right-wing = movement=20 as such and to place it in its historical = context.

Michael Miles=92s=20 uninspired account [The=20 Odyssey of the American Right] tries to fill the = gap, but=20 unfortunately, it is a notable failure. For one thing, Miles = suffers=20 from a basic absence of insight; he simply doesn=92t = understand the=20 conservatives, their various "wings" and incarnations, or = what they=20 were and are trying to do. His failure in the foreign policy = area is=20 egregious; whenever he gets himself into a hole, he just = makes new=20 categories =96 "isolationist," "internationalist," "old = nationalist,"=20 and "new nationalist," none of them carefully defined or=20 distinguished from one another. What are we to make of = Miles=92s=20 assertion, for example, early in the book, that Senator = Joseph=20 McCarthy "denounced the New Deal and internationalist = foreign policy=20 as equivalents of treason," which is followed approximately = a=20 hundred pages later by the author=92s admission that = McCarthy was an=20 "internationalist" or (whatever this may mean) a "new=20 nationalist"?

Miles=92s=20 conceptual confusion =96 fatal in this kind of enterprise = =96 is just as=20 painfully evident in his discussion of classical or "true"=20 liberalism. In the United States, he asserts, "true = liberalism meant=20 true Republicanism," from which it follows that although in = England=20 classical liberalism called for free trade, in the United = States=20 "true liberalism was compatible with protective tariffs=85 = [and]=20 countenanced not only the tariff but huge land grants, tax = benefits,=20 and other subsidies to business, which ate its fill at what = Vernon=20 Louis Parrington called the =91Great Barbecue.=92" = Elsewhere, Miles=20 talks senselessly of the "old laissez-faire = capitalist order=20 and its foreign policies of protectionism and Pacific=20 First."

In = tying=20 classical liberalism to the Republican party, Miles could = scarcely=20 be more ignorant of nineteenth-century American history. The = classical liberal party throughout the nineteenth century = was not=20 the Republican, but the Democratic party, which fought for = minimal=20 government, free trade, and no special privileges for = business.=20 Moreover, laissez faire is nothing if not determined=20 opposition to protectionism in any of its guises. As for = Pacific=20 First, it was the last of the New England laissez-faire=20 individualists who formed the Anti-Imperialist League at = the=20 turn of the twentieth century and battled hard against = America=92s=20 imperial conquest of the Philippines and the brutal = suppression of=20 the Philippine national independence movement.

Miles also=20 tries to link classical liberalism in America with = xenophobia,=20 ultranationalism, "Americanism," and the Know-Nothing party = of the=20 1850s, and he sees modern classical liberalism as a blend of = libertarian economics and repression of immigrants. Since = this=20 bizarre conjunction depends entirely on Miles=92s positing = of the=20 Republicans as the avatars of classical liberalism, the less = said=20 about it the better.

Generally,=20 Miles tries to offer documentation, however feeble, for his = rather=20 wild generalizations. But when he refers to the libertarian = strand=20 in pre- and post-World War II conservatism he enters a world = totally=20 of his own creation. Libertarians, he believes, were opposed = to=20 civil liberties; in America, he writes, "the = =91libertarians=92 had a=20 consistent record since the 1930s of defending the free = market while=20 attacking the Bill of Rights." Miles also opines that the=20 "=91libertarians=92 derived from the old Protestant = right."

Well, who=20 exactly were these libertarians? Miles doesn=92t = bother to say.=20 There were only a handful. The outstanding libertarian, H. = L.=20 Mencken, mentioned only in passing by Miles =96 and as a=20 "conservative" =96 is justly famous for having fought hard = for the=20 Bill of Rights all of his life. So, too did the essayist = Albert Jay=20 Nock, who doesn=92t even rate a mention in Miles; and then = there was=20 Nock=92s leading disciple Frank Chodorov, who gets passing = notice=20 (with only marginal distortion) as a "right-wing anarchist." = So did=20 all the libertarians. The only person named as a libertarian = by=20 Miles is National Review editor Frank Meyer. Although = Meyer=20 was significantly more libertarian than the other NR = editors=20 (not a difficult feat), he did go along with Buckley=92s = expulsion of=20 the libertarians from the conservative movement in the late = 1950s,=20 part of the purge of embarrassing "extremists" of all sorts = that was=20 to clear the movement=92s path to future power. And while it = is true=20 that Meyer, at least, attacked the Bill of Rights during the = 1930s,=20 he could hardly have been termed a libertarian at the time, = since he=20 happened to be one of the leading members of the U.S. = Communist=20 Party.

Neither were=20 many of these libertarians "Protestants." Meyer and Chodorov = were=20 Jewish, Mencken was an atheist, and Nock, although a lapsed = Anglican=20 minister, could hardly have belonged to any of the sects = that Miles,=20 in his obsolescent way, identifies with the Calvinist = Protestants=20 who were supposed to have ushered in the spirit and = institutions of=20 Western capitalism.

Miles is=20 correct that the modern conservative movement was born as a = reaction=20 against Roosevelt=92s New Deal. Yet although he notes that = the Liberty=20 League, the major organization opposing the New Deal in its = first=20 term, was formed by conservative Democrats, he soon falls = into his=20 usual cadence and portrays the league as a Republican = institution.=20 In fact, given the origins of modern conservatism, its = nucleus was a=20 necessarily disparate coalition of anti-New Deal forces. The = philosophical thrust was provided by libertarians like = Mencken and=20 Nock, and the political base was formed by the waning group = of=20 classical liberal Democrats like the Liberty Leaguers Albert = Ritchie=20 of Maryland and Senator James A. Reed of = Missouri.

Most of the=20 opponents, of course, were Republicans, who had never been = classical=20 liberals or libertarians. They were led by Herbert Hoover, = whose=20 whole political career had been dedicated to foisting the=20 "government-business alliance" on America. In opposing the = New=20 Deal=92s leap into a more advanced form of statism, these = Republican=20 politicians were forced to use the unfamiliar rhetoric of = classical=20 liberalism, in which they had little genuine belief. After = all, what=20 other rhetoric was there? So began that grievous disjunction = between=20 high-sounding free market and libertarian discourses and = actual=20 statist practice that has marked conservatism ever = since.

World War II=20 confused matters further. Many conservative = internationalists =96=20 like Dean Acheson and Lewis W. Douglas, who had left the = early New=20 Deal in disgust with its heterodox economic creeds =96 were = happy to=20 rejoin the Roosevelt team as part of the World War II = crusade, and=20 many Progressive isolationists joined the anti-New Deal = coalition.=20 In the turbulence of the great leap further to statism = during the=20 war, the latter found themselves becoming sympathetic to = free-market=20 economics as well. Senators Borah, Nye, and Wheeler are = examples in=20 politics; Harry Elmer Barnes, Frank Hanighen, and John T. = Flynn=20 among intellectuals.

The = right-wing=20 movement thus emerged after World War II very = different from=20 what it had been before. Once opposed to domestic statism, = in the=20 name of the free market and personal liberty, it came to = encompass=20 not only hostility to war and foreign intervention but also = to=20 American statism in the international arena. When he = introduces such=20 labels as "new nationalist" and "Pacific First," Miles gets = the=20 whole exceedingly important story muddled.

In = all of=20 Miles=92s book, there is no hint that the hard core of the = political=20 Right was solidly anti-interventionist throughout the = postwar years.=20 Senator Wherry of Nebraska, and in the House such ultras as = the=20 libertarian Howard Buffett of Nebraska (Robert Taft=92s = Midwest=20 campaign manager in 1952), and George Bender of Ohio were = opposed to=20 all intervention.

Bender was=20 Taft=92s right-hand man in the House, and for those who = totally=20 identify the American Right with advocacy of militarism, = hysterical=20 anti-Sovietism, and global adventuring, this characteristic=20 statement of his from a speech of March 28, 1947, might = prove=20 illuminating:

I = believe=20 that the White House program [for aid to Greece and Turkey = =96 the=20 "Truman Doctrine"] is a reaffirmation of the nineteenth = century=20 belief in power politics. It is a refinement of the policy = first=20 adopted after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 designed to = encircle Russia and establish a "Cordon Sanitaire" around = the=20 Soviet Union. It is a program which points to a new policy = of=20 interventionism as a corollary to our Monroe Doctrine in = South=20 America.

Bender, who=20 collaborated with pacifist scholars and intellectuals, was = also fond=20 of referring to Chiang Kai-shek=92s regime as "fascist," and = he=20 considered the Voice of America to be nothing more than "a = vast=20 foreign propaganda machine."

Indeed, the=20 opposition to Truman=92s entry into the Korean War consisted = almost=20 solely of the Communist party on the left and the = ultraconservative=20 Republicans in the House on the right, which led some = liberal=20 publications at the time to refer to the Kremlin-Chicago = Tribune=20 isolationist axis. It is easy to forget that the = right-wingers,=20 in those years, were not the only red-baiters.

One = obstacle to=20 analyzing the conservative movement of the early postwar = years is=20 exclusive concentration on its undoubted political leader, = Robert A.=20 Taft. Although both a free-market man and a = noninterventionist,=20 Taft, partly due to his addiction to compromise as a way of = life,=20 faltered on both counts throughout his career. = Second-echelon=20 militants like Wherry and Buffett are far more revealing of = the=20 right-wing ideology of the period than is Taft = himself.

But = why the=20 ferocious red-baiting? If the conservative movement of the = 1930s and=20 1940s was basically classical liberal and libertarian, as I = would=20 contend, how come the witch-hunts against Communists and = fellow=20 travelers? How come McCarthyism?

In = the first=20 place, we must realize, as even Miles does fleetingly, that = Joe=20 McCarthy was not himself a right-winger, but came in fact = from the=20 moderate, internationalist wing of the Republican party. = Even in his=20 book seeking to indict General George Marshall for = continuing=20 "treason," the charges begin no earlier than the middle of = World War=20 II. The senator did not use the familiar indictment = of=20 Marshall by the right: that he had collaborated in = Roosevelt=92s=20 alleged plot to provoke the Japanese into attacking Pearl = Harbor.=20 McCarthy did not use this charge against Marshall because he = had no=20 quarrel with our entry into that war =96 only with the = alleged=20 "appeasement" of Russia toward the end.

But = McCarthy=20 himself is not the major problem. Why did the right wing, = even if=20 isolationist on the Cold War, countenance or even cheer = McCarthy on?=20 The answer is rooted in what had happened to the = conservative=20 movement during the war. Even though it had shut up shop as = an=20 organized movement after Pearl Harbor, it had been antiwar, = and as=20 such was subjected to repression once the war had started. = Antiwar=20 writers like Flynn, Barnes, Mencken, Nock, and Oswald = Garrison=20 Villard were driven from their customary outlets by the=20 interventionists. Flynn and Barnes were forced to publish = their=20 pioneering Pearl Harbor revisionist pamphlets privately, = since no=20 firm would publish them. Various isolationists were jailed = as=20 alleged agents for the Germans or Japanese, and, in the most = disgraceful act of repression =96 an attempt to prove = seditious=20 conspiracy via content analysis of numerous tracts opposing = the war=20 =96 the U.S. government put dozens of isolationists and = others through=20 a lengthy mass sedition trial.

The = conservatives were understandably embittered at such = treatment, and=20 in assessing blame they pardonably hit upon the Communists = as at=20 least partly responsible for their plight. Again, it is all = too easy=20 to forget that from the onset of the Popular Front, and = especially=20 after the German attack on Russia made them ardent prowar = converts,=20 the Communists were in many ways the left wing and the point = men of=20 the Roosevelt New Deal. They applauded and led the way in = repressing=20 isolationists and hailed the Smith Act when it was = originally used=20 to arrest Trotskyist opponents of the war effort. When we = add the=20 observations that Communism is, to say the least, an = aggravated form=20 of statism, and that World War II as the right wing = had=20 predicted, produced a far more powerful Soviet Union, the=20 red-baiting of the right falls into perspective.

The = right wing=20 at first did not apply this fierce anti-Communism to foreign = policy.=20 But in a sense, McCarthy was a transitional figure in the = radical=20 and fateful shift from Old Right to New Right in the = mid-1950s. The=20 last gasp of the old, classical liberal Right was its = militant=20 opposition to the Korean War =96 as well as the = Andrews-Werdel third=20 party presidential ticket in 1956 (scarcely noted by Miles), = which=20 had as its foreign policy plank strict nonintervention in = the=20 affairs of other nations. In focusing on such marginalia as = the=20 infusion of Catholics into the Right =96 unbeknownst to = Miles, they=20 had been leaders of the isolationist movement in World War = II =96 and=20 in manipulating his old-nationalism/new-nationalism = categories,=20 Miles misses the whole point of the shift from Old to New = Right. In=20 fact, in all but the most trivial sense, he seems barely = aware that=20 such a shift took place at all.

What happened=20 was this. The political leaders of the Old Right began to = die or=20 retire. Taft=92s death in 1953 was an irreparable blow, and = one by one=20 the other Taft Republicans disappeared from the scene. In = fact,=20 Taft=92s defeat in the bitterly fought 1952 convention was = to signal=20 the end of the Old Right as a political force. It is typical = of=20 Michael Miles=92s myopia that the only difference he sees = between=20 Barry Goldwater, the star of the New Right, and the Taftites = is that=20 Goldwater was more "optimistic" than they. In fact, = Goldwater was =96=20 and is =96 an all-out interventionist in foreign affairs; it = is both=20 symbolic and significant that Goldwater was an Eisenhower, = not a=20 Taft delegate to the 1952 Republican convention.

Meanwhile, the=20 intellectual leaders of the Old Right too were fast = disappearing.=20 Nock and Mencken were dead or inactive, and Colonel Robert=20 McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, died in = 1955.=20 The Freeman, although the leading right-wing journal = in the=20 late forties and early fifties, had never been a powerful = force; by=20 the mid-fifties it was weaker than ever. Since the thirties, = the=20 Right had suffered from a dearth of intellectuals; it had = seemed=20 that all intellectuals were on the left. A disjunction = therefore=20 existed between a tiny cadre of intellectuals and writers, = and a=20 large, relatively unenlightened mass base. In the mid-1950s, = with a=20 power vacuum in both the political and the intellectual = areas, the=20 Right had become ripe for a swift takeover. A well-edited,=20 well-financed magazine could hope to capture the dazed right = wing=20 and totally transform its character. This is exactly what = happened=20 with the formation of National Review in = 1955.

In = a sense, Joe=20 McCarthy heralded the shift when, after his censure by the = Senate,=20 he feebly changed his focus in early 1955 from domestic = Communism to=20 the championing of Chiang Kai-shek. For National Review, = led=20 by Bill Buckley and William Rusher, was a coalition of young = Catholics =96 McCarthyite and eager to lead an = anti-Communist crusade=20 in foreign affairs =96 and ex-Communists like Frank Meyer = and William=20 S. Schlamm dedicating their energies to extirpating the god = that had=20 failed them. NR filled the power vacuum, and with = Rusher as=20 point man in the political arena, it managed, in a scant few = years,=20 to transform the American right wing beyond recognition. By = the=20 early 1960s, the Rusher forces had captured the Young = Republicans=20 and College Young Republicans, established Young Americans = for=20 Freedom as their campus arm, and had taken over the = Intercollegiate=20 Society of Individualists as a more theoretical = organ.

By the 1960 GOP convention, Barry = Goldwater had=20 become the political leader of the transformed New Right. By = 1960,=20 too, the embarrassing extremists like the John Birch Society = had=20 been purged from the ranks, and the modern conservative = movement was=20 in place. It combined a traditionalist and theocratic = approach to=20 "moral values," occasional lip service to free-market = economics, and=20 an imperialist and global interventionist foreign policy = dedicated=20 to the glorification of the American state and the = extirpation of=20 world Communism. Classical liberalism remained only as = rhetoric,=20 useful in attracting business support, and most of all as a = fig leaf=20 for the grotesque realities of the New Right. (This entity = is not to=20 be confused with the fundamentalist factions now on the = warpath=20 against abortion and ERA.)

In a few brief years the character of the = right wing=20 had been totally transformed: Once basically classical = liberal, it=20 had become a global theocratic crusade. Such is the lack of = acumen=20 and memory among the right-wing masses that few even noted = that any=20 shift had occurred =96 but why does Michael Miles fall into = the same=20 trap?

Murray N.=20 Rothbard (1926=961995) was the author of Man,=20 Economy, and State, C= onceived=20 in Liberty, What=20 Has Government Done to Our Money, For a = New=20 Liberty, The=20 Case Against the Fed, and many other books = and=20 articles. He was also = the editor=20 =96 with Lew Rockwell =96 of The=20 Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

Murray=20 Rothbard Archives=20 =