The Intellectual Edifice Of Right Wing Reaction To Government Activism And Democracy

Martin Feldstein was the Chair of the Harvard Economics Department and an economic adviser to Ronald Reagan.  He also was the head of National Bureau of Economic Research.  He left his mark on Harvard and helped to shape conservative economic ideology.  Brad DeLong lists many citations from Feldstein during his tenure as an economic spokesperson for the right.  They are still with us today.  Feldstein has been arguing that inflation is just around the corner for the last five years.  He opposes the activism of the Federal Reserve, progressive taxation, government regulation etc. etc.

Government activism is particularly distrustful when it reflects the wishes of ordinary people.  Sometimes democracy does what it supposed to do and government responds to its citizens.  Samuel Huntington played an important role as a critic of "too much democracy".  He lays bare one of the fundamental pillars of conservative political ideology.  That is, respect for hierarchy and disrespect for social activism that threatens the authority of the hierarchy.  The activism of the 1960's inspired the conservative reactions that became visible under Reagan and Thatcher.  Too much democracy undermines the aristocracy that is at the heart of conservative ideology.  DeLong provides us with a list of Huntington's political ideology which blends nicely with Feldstein's worship of an economic system that is not distorted by government efforts to redistribute the output in a more democratic fashion.