A poli-sci digression

 I commend to your attentionHenry Farrell ' s review and his personal take on Hacker and Pierson ' sLet Them Eat Tweets. I actually don ' t have much to add to this, you should read it, but I ' ll pull quote the gist.Hacker and Pierson draw their description of the “Conservative Dilemma” from Daniel Ziblatt’swork on nineteenth century conservative parties, generalizing and extending his basic idea. The conservative dilemma is straightforward: conservatism is not likely to be a politically popular cause in a democracy. Conservatism is the political movement that represents the interests of those who have against those who have not. When a country democratizes, conservatism reflects the interests of the old propertied class – the landed gentry and its allies in the United Kingdom; the Junker aristocracy in Prussia. So why should a majority ever vote for a party that represents the interests of the propertied minority? . . . .Hacker and Pierson argue that modern US conservatives as represented by the Republican Party face their own version of this dilemma – how to attract mass support for an agenda of cutting taxes for rich people? Furthermore, the dilemma has gotten ever more vexing as US economic inequality has increased, so that the interests of the Republican party’s clients and ordinary voters clash ever more. This, then is the engine t hat they argue has driven US Republicans ever further to the extremes. If they want to get their agenda through, they need...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs