George W. Bush and the End of Conservatism

Niman, Michael I., The Humanist

I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed. The American media went into a celebratory frenzy. With the intellectual depth of a squid, pundit after pundit lined up to pen "socialism's" eulogy. The "evil empire" was disemboweled. The former Soviet satellites were sinking into chaotic fratricide as the triumph of free-market capitalism loomed just over the horizon.

But I didn't see it that way. I wrote at the time that the collapse of the Soviet Union would ultimately lead to the death, not of socialism, but of capitalism. My argument was simple. The "New Right" crowd in Washington was now able to pursue a radical flee market agenda in the former Soviet satellites--an agenda that liberal Americans would never allow back home. And that agenda of disassembling generations worth of public health, education, retirement, housing, and cultural programs, I argued, would prove so disastrous as to expose the free market for the barbarous medieval throwback that it is.

I'm the first to admit that my theory was "out there." But time seems to be proving it correct. Former Soviet satellites have either rebounded back from the market, reinstituting socialist reforms and reconstructing a social safety net …

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Publication information: Article title: George W. Bush and the End of Conservatism. Contributors: Niman, Michael I. - Author. Magazine title: The Humanist. Volume: 65. Issue: 1 Publication date: January-February 2005. Page number: 19+. © 1999 American Humanist Association. COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group.

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