The Null Device

What is neoconservatism?

An interesting look at the ideology of neoconservatism, by a former neoconservative. One thesis he posits is that neoconservatism is an American equivalent of Marxism/Trotskyism, with "capitalist democracy" replacing communism as the goal of the ideological crusade.
Nevertheless, the origins of their ideology on the left are still apparent. The fact that most of the younger neocons were never on the left is irrelevant; they are the intellectual (and, in the case of William Kristol and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs of older ex-leftists. The idea that the United States and similar societies are dominated by a decadent, postbourgeois "new class" was developed by thinkers in the Trotskyist tradition like James Burnham and Max Schachtman, who influenced an older generation of neocons. The concept of the "global democratic revolution" has its origins in the Trotskyist Fourth International's vision of permanent revolution. The economic determinist idea that liberal democracy is an epiphenomenon of capitalism, promoted by neocons like Michael Novak, is simply Marxism with entrepreneurs substituted for proletarians as the heroic subjects of history.

(via Stumblings)

There are 2 comments on "What is neoconservatism?":

Posted by: mitch http:// Tue Feb 17 10:36:53 2004

I find it curious that last decade's Evil Ideology of the West was a "neo" too: neoliberalism.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Tue Feb 17 11:37:27 2004

Neoliberalism is still around; the free-trade agreement Australia signed (the one which will, among other things, introduce US-style software patents and criminalise non-"trusted" computers here once the US does so) stands as testament to that.