(2005-07-30) Piereson Conservative Philanthropy History

James Piereson on the history of Conservative/Libertarian philanthropy.

• The first phase, which began in the mid-1940s and ran well into the '70s, was guided more by an interest in classical liberalism and libertarianism than in conservatism as it has been understood more recently... Another enduring contribution of "The Road To Serfdom," perhaps more influential in the long run than F A Hayek's critique of socialism, was its emphasis on the importance of ideas in the growth of political movements. Challenging the assumptions of the historical school of thought, Hayek insisted that Socialism and Statism were products not of economic forces beyond anyone's control but of erroneous and destructive ideas... Hayek's platform--theoretical, abstract and utopian--might seem an odd basis on which to build a philanthropic program. There was no pretense here of promoting piecemeal reforms, of helping a party or a candidate, of passing a piece of legislation, or, indeed, of producing immediate consequences of any kind.
• the leading liberal philanthropies were, by contrast, advancing their own agenda with vigor and to general applause. These foundations--Ford and Rockefeller, along with the Carnegie Corp.--were guided by the view (Framing?) that social progress was to be achieved through expert knowledge and scientific research, by the expansion of government's role into new areas, and by the use of international organizations to promote cooperation among the major powers... As liberalism gradually absorbed the adversarial assumptions of the age, group-based claims became ever more strident and accusations of discrimination and injustice multiplied. In time, the new order would erase those large-hearted features of liberal philosophy that had made it appealing to middle-class Americans from the 1930s through the 1960s... They also defied Hayek's assessment that far-reaching changes take a generation or more to be put into place. Here, an established doctrine and a political party with a proud tradition were turned upside down within just a few years.
• This brings us to the second phase of conservative philanthropy... While sympathetic to the writings of Hayek and the ideals of classical liberalism, they adopted a broader intellectual framework encompassing fields beyond economics: preeminently religion, foreign policy and the traditional humanities. In contrast to Hayek and his followers, they were also prepared to engage the world of politics and policy and to wage the war of ideas in a direct and aggressive style... The contemporary problem was thus not so much collectivism or socialism as the loss of morale and self-confidence that was in some ways characteristic of all affluent societies--a problem to which classical liberalism did not promise any obvious solution.... The neoconservatives had an added advantage: Having come from the left, they understood the thought processes of contemporary liberals and leftists. They also understood that the war of ideas had to be fought by engaging in real-world controversies, with stakes wagered on the outcome... Documenting the disturbing consequences of initiatives that had promised to end poverty or to transform the cities, analysts like James Q Wilson and Charles Murray demonstrated that ideas adopted with the best of intentions were making matters worse... What attracted liberal intellectuals to Socialism was something else: mainly, the idea of Community, which they contrasted invidiously to the Individualism and competition of a market society. Thus, as Mr. Kristol and others argued, an effective defense of capitalism required a defense of the cultural assumptions on which a commercial civilization is based. It had to be shown that free societies encouraged values far superior to anything that socialism could deliver.
• That next phase will necessarily be different from those that have gone before... The reason for this shift has to do with the fact that conservatism has become a governing philosophy, and governance leans toward the practical.

Hmm, I wonder whether the lesson is that a group uses a coherent philosophy to attack a messy power-structure, eventually wins, then has to deal with actually governing, doesn't do much better than the previous crowd, so...