A New Fusionism

We need a new fusion of federalism and capitalism to correct for the failure of conservatism.

In the 20th century conservatism had little, if any, success in maintaining American tradition.

For the distinctly American traditions of doing business and protecting state sovereignty were hampered by socialism, communism, and the administrative state.

And conservatism’s primary interest in Christianity and Christianity alone wasn’t enough to prevent the onslaught of collectivist ideology.

Nor could Austrian economics -- or capitalist theorizing-- alone buck this trend. Because of its incompleteness as a world view, since it is only about economics and not individual human life in general, it failed to catch on as a viable alternative to progressivism.

The philosophical narrowness of these world-views made them less appealing to more comprehensive world-views.

Meanwhile America's philosophical tradition -- federalism -- was overshadowed by the German philosophies of Marx and Hegel that stormed American shores and embedded themselves in the university.

But together these ideologies -- federalism and capitalism -- could be used to shut the door on the collectivist views of socialism, communism, and the administrative state once and for all through their emphasis on decentralization.

Federalism, for example, would help make the moral argument for decentralization in the legal system.  And it would suggest that local politics, because of its better mechanisms for holding politicians accountable, would create a more fair and transparent world than the backroom politics that exist today.

Likewise capitalism would help make the economic argument for decentralization.  It would suggest that when economic power is centralized either in the marketplace -- which is always usually done through the force of government or in government itself that people are much worse off financially.

When the fusion of these ideologies takes place then we live in the United States of America — instead of the United Soviet States of America.

Zigmund Reichenbach holds a M.A. in Philosophy from West Chester University.  You can find him commenting on news stories of national and state interest at his Facebook page Zigmund Reichenbach -- Commentator or you can follow him on Twitter @zreichenbach1.  Additionally you can find episodes of the weekly Sunday podcast (4PM) that airs via Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter at this link here. 

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