I have for some time now been dismayed as I watched a conservative movement I once respected, and considered myself a student and sometime sympathizer of, apparently become adrift in a haze of "free market" rhetoric that was more style than substance, more twitch than thought. I remember well one such "conservative" who went utterly ballistic on me not too long ago when I noted the rather unremarkable fact that in today's world, the fastest way into the economic elite is often through conniving, backstabbing, cheating, and even outright thievery. This was supposedly me "showing my hand" as a mediocre unsuccessful joe unhappy with his lot in life. The bumper-sticker-substitute-for-thought with this part of the conservative crowd seems always the same: if you're rich and you think the system is unjust and screwed up, it's because you "feel guilty for succeeding," whereas if you are not-rich and you think the system is unjust, it's because you suffer from "envy." Both of these cheap shots are substitutes for honest discussion, and alarmingly common. It had begun to appear as if you could not say the system was unjust and corrupt without being dismissed as either envious or a guilt-ridden elitist. Or at least stupid and uneducated. Anything other than you might have a valid point, anyway.

Having once been a longtime fan and subscriber to National Review (it was my favorite magazine for years, often educational even when I did not agree with it–I even once got a personal response from William F. Buckley Jr. to a letter, which I wish I hadn't lost) it was with some relief that I recently read this piece on National Review Online:

Repo Men by Kevin D. Williamson. While Williamson shoots copious pixels at the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress, if you read it all the way through you find that he is not particularly sparing of Republicans (although you really do have to read it all the way through to see that). And it's hard not to notice just what a bracing change from typical conservative "free market" boilerplate his opening paragraph is:

If you're making money on the Wall Street scale — which is nothing like your boring, middle-management in the Fortune 500, Hamptons-and-Mercedes, barely–a–1 percenter type money — then you can buy basically anything. When real-estate investor Robert Rosania put part of his storied champagne collection up for sale in 2008, the auction was predicted to fetch $5 million — couch-cushion change to Rosania, who had not yet reached his 40th birthday, making him a good deal younger than many of the vintages in his cellar. (Known in the wine world as Big Boy, he brandishes a special saber designed for decapitating head-clutchingly expensive bottles of champagne. Bespoke vintage-champagne cutlery: That's how you know you're rich.) Not far from Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street was fragrantly encamped, I noticed a young man wandering into a store to buy a pack of cigarettes on a bright Saturday morning, wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a $237,000 Vacheron-Constantin watch. In a world of $600,000 cars (consult your local Maybach dealer) and $4,300-a-night whores (consult Eliot Spitzer), it's no big deal to buy a president, which is precisely what Wall Street did in 2008 when, led by investment giant Goldman Sachs, it closed the deal on Barack Obama.

If you changed a few of the names and dates, you could have easily put some Republican names on all that just a few years ago and called it a "lefty screed" that was all about "attacking the successful" or somesuch.

Williamson's piece deserves to be read in its entirety. There is a lot there to digest and contemplate. The only fault I can find (other than its apparent obsession with attacking any wealthy person who thinks higher taxes on the wealthy just might be a good idea) is in this line:

Congress has effectively exempted itself from insider-trading rules, not that the SEC would have the guts to go after a Senator Schumer or a Speaker Pelosi for these exploits. And that — not campaign contributions, not lobbying — is the really stinky petri dish of festering corruption at the nexus of Washington and Wall Street. You want a case for limited government? That's it.

So without really saying so, Williamson acknowledges that there is good reason to protest Wall Street after all. But this is a case for "limited government?" In what way? Big corporate interests and real fat cats have always bought government officials, including judges, or just managed to find gullible fools who are blinded by ideology and/or charisma to support whatever they want to do. This to me looks like a case for a great deal more government in setting rules, most especially in the area of the exchange of publicly traded stocks and bonds and congressional interest in same. It is an argument for greater government scrutiny and regulation, stricter rules for transparency and accountability.

As James Madison famously wrote in Federalist #51, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Yet when we look at our government-created economic system, it seems obvious that the most distinctly un-angelic attitude found among modern-day conservatives is failure to acknowledge that money is indeed a form of power, and that such power is not generally given to angels–and as such it will inevitably be used against the common good, all the moreso if there is no policing. Governing is crucially necessary to the market–indeed, regulation of commerce is an explicitly-stated Constitutional duty and obligation of the Congress–and it appears that in all this corruption what we are seeing is not too much government, but altogether too little of it. Or in any case, a drastic need for more effective government, whether it be bigger or smaller, and the only debate we should be having is how it could better be governed. Congress is derelict in its duty.

For all of Williamson's shots at targets that Republicans like to see targeted, he deserves credit for noting just how corrupt the whole system is, and for not being afraid to acknowledge that Republicans are hardly better when it comes to these shenanigans. And it would seem to me that perhaps Williamson might want to acknowledge that the biggest favor of all you could do for these crooks is to simply strip government of any power to scrutinize or interfere with anything these elites want to do with their billions. It would seem to me that what is needed is stricter rules on IPOs and securities exchanges, and greater scrutiny of those engaged in this level of business, not some hazy idea of "smaller government." Corporate America and securities exchanges being ultimately a government-created marketplace, it necessarily falls to government to police that even more than other markets.

And alas, I think "throw all the bums out" is too easy an answer, and one we've heard before. Frankly, it doesn't work. "Scare the bums and make them shape up" is more like it. Otherwise you'll just exchange one set of bums for another set who tell you what you want to hear and then revert to form as soon as your back is turned.

In an equally-refreshing piece, the Weekly Standard (a Rupert Murdoch organ, no less!) has a remarkably astute, moderately-phrased call upon conservatives to stop with the auto-twitch of "capitalism is always good and criticizing it is always bad." In How Many Cheers for Bain?, Jonathan V. Last says, amongst other things Republicans and conservatives should hear:

There's a line of thinking you often hear from Republican-types about how markets are never wrong. You think a certain CEO's lavish compensation is ridiculous? Nonsense, those types tell you. You think that a CEO's VORP—that's a baseball stat that translates, in this case, to the CEO's marginal value versus the average replacement CEO—couldn't possibly be so high? They simply counter that he's worth the money because there's someone willing to pay it. The results in a market triumph considerations of value.

And there's some truth to that. Free markets are, in the long run, wonderfully efficient and wise. The problem is, they aren't, in the short or medium run, always wise (this is why we have bubbles); they aren't perfectly free (every market is distorted by rent seekers and other externalities); and the efficiencies they produce are not always beneficial to society writ large (see the effects of the pornography and gaming industries).

To understand these limitations is not to attack or disdain the free market. It is merely to give, as a very wise man once wrote, a clear-eyed "two-cheers" for capitalism.

My God, it had begun to seem as if all common sense had completely fled most of the Right and that "Market Uber Alles" and "corporations are God's gift to the world, alone bringing prosperity to a benighted world" were all you could expect anymore. (Yes I'm exaggerating a bit, and no that doesn't describe everyone, but my God it's seemed that way at times. Wal-Mart simply must be a great thing in all ways shapes and forms, didn't the Founders and/or the Bible say that somewhere?)

I have always believed that conservatism is a vital and necessary voice. Without conservatism, I genuinely believe the wheels would likely fall off of society sooner or later as every single change was made willy-nilly simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time. William F. Buckley once famously described a conservative as one who stands athwart history yelling "stop!" and while he is still sometimes derided for that sentiment the truth is that if there's never anyone filling that role then trains are going to collide sooner or later. There is huge need for the voice that looks at what we've done with our oversight of corporate America and the financial industry and yells "Stop! You're plunging us over a cliff!" Big monied interests really do hold enormous power, and castrating government power to do anything about it isn't wise; it is like saying that if you want less crime, have less police–it would certainly bring down the number of arrests and prosecutions, wouldn't it?

I think it is high time that we acknowledge that we do not just have "rights" in this country, we also have duties to it. Whatever you have, then either visibly or invisibly it is this society, which includes this government, which has made it possible for you to obtain it. As a citizen you have not just rights under our Constitution, but duties under it, as do our elected representatives. Once again such sentiments would not have been controversial in conservative circles a generation ago, though they are often seen as high heresy now. So perhaps some rethinking is in order, and I am relieved to see stalwart conservative organs like NR and TWS edging back toward that. It's needed.

Yes, yes, I have already said I'm not a conservative and I'm probably voting for Obama, so I suppose you could have two responses to what I say here if you're a conservative: one would be to say "why should I listen to you, you're not one of us!" But another might be, "The truth is the truth no matter whose mouth it comes out of, and perhaps some rethinking of priorities is in order here if we're to persuade voters that we have good and useful ideas."

It's a thought. Anyway, three cheers for Last and Williamson.

(This item cross-posted to The Moderate Voice.)