The website for Disraeli-Macdonald Institute will be going off-line—temporarily.
Since January 2008, DMI has been hosted, gratis, by the fine folks at Yahoo! GeoCities. This spring, however, Yahoo announced that, as part of its restructuring programme, it would be phasing out its free server sites. All such sites, including DMI, will no longer be available as of 26 October.
I have been mulling over a number of alternatives to keep DMI as an internet presence, and it is hoped that the Institute will be back on-line by the end of this week—depending on how quickly I can remaster basic web technology. (Yahoo’s simplicity was one of its many charms!) And, if fortune shines upon me, this transition will allow for a slightly improved design.
So, in the interim, don’t forget DMI’s Twitter feed at OrganicTory, plus surf over to Facebook where a number of aficionados have set up a page for the ‘Friends of the Disraeli-Macdonald Institute for Organic Toryism’.
My thanks to Yahoo! GeoCities for 22 months of reliable web hosting, and watch this space for further DMI updates.
S.M. MacLean
Disraeli-Macdonald Institute
26 October 2009
06 October 2009
Does Red Toryism Have an American Future?
Several weeks ago in a posting for Front Porch Republic, Mark Mitchell introduced the work of Phillip Blond and asked, ‘Do his ideas translate to the US?’
Blond, director of the nascent ResPublica think tank, is a British theologian and political philosopher who became popularly known in mid-2008 for his advocacy of Red Toryism—which shares a common provenance with its Canadian cousin, though their trajectories have diverged—that he summarised this year in two well-received essays, ‘The Civic State’ and ‘The Rise of the Red Tories’. (More of Blond’s writings can be found on this PDF list of readings in Progressive Conservatism.)
He describes Red Toryism as a ‘conservatism with deeper roots than 1979 [thus, anti-Thatcherite], and whose branches extend into the tradition of communitarian civic conservatism [RT]’. Blond expanded on this theme—and hints at the connotations of ‘red’—in a chapter he wrote for Is the Future Conservative?:
To return to Mitchell’s question of U.S. suitability, one possible answer begins with (1) an hypothesis from George Grant—that British Toryism has its roots in a feudal consciousness, whereas American conservatism is born of the individualism of the Enlightenment—and (2) a quote from Benjamin Disraeli’s Vindication of the English Constitution: ‘Nations have characters as well as individuals, and national character is precisely the quality which the new sect of statesmen in their schemes and speculations either deny or overlook.’ But first an overview of what it means to be a Red Tory.
Blond’s primary antagonist is monopoly capitalism, in which the few (with the compliance of the State) own the means of production and the many are wage earners; his prescription is to ‘recapitalise the poor’ and share the capitalist means of wealth production following the distributive guidelines as sketched in Hilaire Belloc’s The Servile State, which took as its own model the independent farms and artisan co-operatives of the late Middle Ages: ‘Above all, most jealously did the Guild safeguard the division of property, so that there should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the one side, and no monopolising capitalist upon the other.’
Blond argues that monopoly capitalism has been allowed to thrive because of an ideological liberalism that favours the logic of the market over the demands of the community—a situation aided by State welfarism that has used redistribution schemes to keep the working poor content and subservient: this forms the basis of Belloc’s ‘servile State’. Blond’s answer is to break up these monopolies that have grown up under State sponsorship and to return to the ideal of self-reliant, property-owning communities:
In these respects, Blond’s ideas translate easily into an American culture built upon the mythology of individual initiative and small-town independence. But, for Belloc at least (Blond is more circumspect in his accounts), the State was not principally a malign force, and was rather one factor among many in realising the common good—an ideal shared by organic Toryism.
In The Servile State, for instance, he wrote of the mediaeval Crown as a protector of the interests of the poor and of central government as a regulator of stability by ensuring that no one class in society became so large as to unbalance the harmony of the whole (though it is doubtful that this is a subtle endorsement of redistribution as contemporarily conceived):
It is here that Blond’s developing thesis (if he keeps true to a foundation laid by Belloc) may part company with American political practice, if we are to accept Grant’s thesis that the United States by-and-large subscribes to this Enlightenment axiom, ‘that government is best which governs least’, and Disraeli’s belief that ‘nations have characters’ which should not be dismissed as irrelevant.
While libertarians will fully support the end of monopoly capitalism as the removal of unfair government intervention giving free play to competition, subtleties in the Blond-Belloc approach to the State—that revolve around contradictory British Tory and American conservative sensibilities—are open to discussion by the left and the right: Can the State be a legitimate means of last resort, where and when civil society is found wanting? Such is ‘subsidiarity’ as defined by Catholic Social Teaching.
More controversially, can civil/voluntary associations and the State take upon themselves certain quotidian functions (perhaps once exclusively the domain of the private sphere) that contribute to the public good? Health care reform is the battleground for this debate, as Democrats, Republicans, and ordinary citizens argue the merits of co-operative and government-sponsored health insurance—the so-called ‘public option’—and whether or not this aid for the middle class is the slippery slope (and Trojan Horse) toward single-payer, ‘socialised’ medical services. As Blond warns, ‘British conservatism must not, however, repeat the American error of preaching “morals plus the market” while ignoring the fact that economic liberalism has often been a cover for monopoly capitalism and is therefore just as socially damaging as left-wing statism [RT].’
In answer, then, to Mark Mitchell’s initial query, it seems likely that America will eagerly follow Phillip Blond’s path along civic empowerment, if its full benefits are spelled out, but that any Red Tory lessons leading to State activism may be a road too far.
Blond, director of the nascent ResPublica think tank, is a British theologian and political philosopher who became popularly known in mid-2008 for his advocacy of Red Toryism—which shares a common provenance with its Canadian cousin, though their trajectories have diverged—that he summarised this year in two well-received essays, ‘The Civic State’ and ‘The Rise of the Red Tories’. (More of Blond’s writings can be found on this PDF list of readings in Progressive Conservatism.)
He describes Red Toryism as a ‘conservatism with deeper roots than 1979 [thus, anti-Thatcherite], and whose branches extend into the tradition of communitarian civic conservatism [RT]’. Blond expanded on this theme—and hints at the connotations of ‘red’—in a chapter he wrote for Is the Future Conservative?:
It is the Conservatives who now wish to resurrect the communal and restore the social. The tory logic of family, locality and civil and voluntary society is a truly radical agenda. Moreover, the attempted restoration of society is founded upon a successful critique of the centralised state and to a lesser extent the libertarian individual.
To return to Mitchell’s question of U.S. suitability, one possible answer begins with (1) an hypothesis from George Grant—that British Toryism has its roots in a feudal consciousness, whereas American conservatism is born of the individualism of the Enlightenment—and (2) a quote from Benjamin Disraeli’s Vindication of the English Constitution: ‘Nations have characters as well as individuals, and national character is precisely the quality which the new sect of statesmen in their schemes and speculations either deny or overlook.’ But first an overview of what it means to be a Red Tory.
Blond’s primary antagonist is monopoly capitalism, in which the few (with the compliance of the State) own the means of production and the many are wage earners; his prescription is to ‘recapitalise the poor’ and share the capitalist means of wealth production following the distributive guidelines as sketched in Hilaire Belloc’s The Servile State, which took as its own model the independent farms and artisan co-operatives of the late Middle Ages: ‘Above all, most jealously did the Guild safeguard the division of property, so that there should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the one side, and no monopolising capitalist upon the other.’
Blond argues that monopoly capitalism has been allowed to thrive because of an ideological liberalism that favours the logic of the market over the demands of the community—a situation aided by State welfarism that has used redistribution schemes to keep the working poor content and subservient: this forms the basis of Belloc’s ‘servile State’. Blond’s answer is to break up these monopolies that have grown up under State sponsorship and to return to the ideal of self-reliant, property-owning communities:
The civic state aims to blend the benefits of welfare and the market mechanism not by favouring one or the other but by exceeding both. The Conservative’s new civic settlement privileges the associative above the alienated, the responsible over the self-serving and (yes I know this is shocking) the communal over the individual [CS].
In these respects, Blond’s ideas translate easily into an American culture built upon the mythology of individual initiative and small-town independence. But, for Belloc at least (Blond is more circumspect in his accounts), the State was not principally a malign force, and was rather one factor among many in realising the common good—an ideal shared by organic Toryism.
In The Servile State, for instance, he wrote of the mediaeval Crown as a protector of the interests of the poor and of central government as a regulator of stability by ensuring that no one class in society became so large as to unbalance the harmony of the whole (though it is doubtful that this is a subtle endorsement of redistribution as contemporarily conceived):
The King of England would have had in his own hands an instrument of control of the most absolute sort. He would presumably have used it, as a strong central government always does, for the weakening of the wealthier classes, and to the indirect advantage of the mass of the people.
It is here that Blond’s developing thesis (if he keeps true to a foundation laid by Belloc) may part company with American political practice, if we are to accept Grant’s thesis that the United States by-and-large subscribes to this Enlightenment axiom, ‘that government is best which governs least’, and Disraeli’s belief that ‘nations have characters’ which should not be dismissed as irrelevant.
While libertarians will fully support the end of monopoly capitalism as the removal of unfair government intervention giving free play to competition, subtleties in the Blond-Belloc approach to the State—that revolve around contradictory British Tory and American conservative sensibilities—are open to discussion by the left and the right: Can the State be a legitimate means of last resort, where and when civil society is found wanting? Such is ‘subsidiarity’ as defined by Catholic Social Teaching.
More controversially, can civil/voluntary associations and the State take upon themselves certain quotidian functions (perhaps once exclusively the domain of the private sphere) that contribute to the public good? Health care reform is the battleground for this debate, as Democrats, Republicans, and ordinary citizens argue the merits of co-operative and government-sponsored health insurance—the so-called ‘public option’—and whether or not this aid for the middle class is the slippery slope (and Trojan Horse) toward single-payer, ‘socialised’ medical services. As Blond warns, ‘British conservatism must not, however, repeat the American error of preaching “morals plus the market” while ignoring the fact that economic liberalism has often been a cover for monopoly capitalism and is therefore just as socially damaging as left-wing statism [RT].’
In answer, then, to Mark Mitchell’s initial query, it seems likely that America will eagerly follow Phillip Blond’s path along civic empowerment, if its full benefits are spelled out, but that any Red Tory lessons leading to State activism may be a road too far.
27 September 2009
Is Organic Toryism the ‘Bat’ of Politics?
It is difficult for an organic Tory not to become glum and despondent while reading newspaper accounts of political events, and assessing partisan commentators who dissect national and international politics. His allegiances are torn, his judgements conflicted. He must feel like the bat in Aesop’s fable of the ‘Battle between the Birds and the Beasts’.
From the media the organic Tory learns that the ‘left’ calls for continued and more generous government spending in areas of social policy, while the ‘right’ condemns most all State activity that touches upon the personal and the private, concluding with the refrain that ‘government is best which governs least.’ Similarly, in Aesop’s tale, Birds and Beasts come to blows, each warring faction entreating our friend the bat to join its side. But the bat, as a winged mammal, was at a loss: With which armed force was it to enlist? The indecision accounted for, in part, because the bat considered itself above the fray and aloof from the travails of the combatants, telling the Birds that he was instead a ‘beast’ and, to the Beasts, a ‘bird’. The bat, as it were, had ‘no dog (or crow, apparently) in this fight’.
(For even more anthropomorphic atmosphere, one can imagine that Birds—due to their vegetarian habits and mild disposition, perch upon the left in the wild kingdom, while Beasts—‘red in tooth and claw’—form upon the right. While not a perfect analogy, the bat is the misplaced omnivore in this slipshod analogy.)
The organic Tory, however, far from seeing himself untouched by the debates between left and right, is able to agree and disagree with the tenor of their arguments, assessed upon their strengths and not their ideological origins. Though by temperament he favours conservative attitudes, by being ‘organic’ he is amenable to the claims for evolution (though not revolution), improvements (less so innovations); ‘Tory’ serving as a shorthand for a traditionalist’s scepticism toward contemporary conservatism’s affinity for libertarianism. He listens to all the points made, for and against, and weighs them on their merits. He appreciates the benefits of State action and the virtues of individual liberty. His stance, rather, is one of moderation and compromise—the classic via media—adapting the better elements of each position and melding them into a complementary whole.
Well, not exactly—at least not if an organic Tory is to have a practical, principled programme to call his own, and not a pastiche of ideas cobbled together for the sake of ending antagonistic squabbles and not for a larger, more ennobling outcome. Policy wonks will often exclaim, usually proudly and by way of explication, that if liberals and conservatives equally excoriate their plans, then they must be doing something right ... err, correct. But for Aristotle, the aim of moderation was ‘the right course’, not the least common denominator nor a compromise that ‘all could live with’.
In the Nicomachean Ethics (London: Kegan Paul, 1893), Aristotle asserted that ‘the middle character is in all cases to be praised, but that we ought to incline sometimes toward excess, sometimes towards deficiency; for in this way we shall most easily hit the mean and attain to right doing (ii, 9).’
The objective was never the popular or the politically expedient, but always ‘right doing’.
And such should be the programme of an organic Tory, taking circumstances as he finds them, and calibrating between excess or deficiency as necessary; in this case, between liberalism and conservatism, respectively, in order to achieve the best humanly possible action available—with principle his North Star.
There may be times when the State should use its legislative and executive powers to set in motion events to help people achieve the common good, and others when individuals and civil society, more intimately connected with the issue at hand, can themselves solve their problems without the intervention of an external authority ‘removed’ by time and place.
Of course, Aristotle argued that ‘it is not all actions nor all passions that admit of moderation (ii, 6)’: Can a ‘little bit’ of murder be the right thing to do? What of theft? Of adultery? Politically speaking, there may be areas of private action where any role for the State is unwarranted and obtrusive; similarly, the State has its own legitimate sphere of activity where private involvement is wrong, such as in the establishment and execution of law and order.
All of Aesop’s fables end with a moral: For the bat, ostracised by both Birds and Beasts when peace was won, its lesson was that ‘He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.’ Is the organic Tory likewise so isolated? Unlike the bat, he feels himself very much invested in the outcome of events, seeking to contribute and to steer them toward a just and equitable politics. Aristotle well knew that the pursuit of the right course was never easy, since ‘on this account it is a hard thing to be good; for finding the middle or the mean in each case is a hard thing (ii, 9)’. Nevertheless, it was worth the effort.
Unlike the bat, the organic Tory must take sides and defend his understanding of the via media that will lead to the right course. Unlike the bat, the organic Tory must join in the fray and contribute to the harmony that is the aim of any politics of the common good.
From the media the organic Tory learns that the ‘left’ calls for continued and more generous government spending in areas of social policy, while the ‘right’ condemns most all State activity that touches upon the personal and the private, concluding with the refrain that ‘government is best which governs least.’ Similarly, in Aesop’s tale, Birds and Beasts come to blows, each warring faction entreating our friend the bat to join its side. But the bat, as a winged mammal, was at a loss: With which armed force was it to enlist? The indecision accounted for, in part, because the bat considered itself above the fray and aloof from the travails of the combatants, telling the Birds that he was instead a ‘beast’ and, to the Beasts, a ‘bird’. The bat, as it were, had ‘no dog (or crow, apparently) in this fight’.
(For even more anthropomorphic atmosphere, one can imagine that Birds—due to their vegetarian habits and mild disposition, perch upon the left in the wild kingdom, while Beasts—‘red in tooth and claw’—form upon the right. While not a perfect analogy, the bat is the misplaced omnivore in this slipshod analogy.)
The organic Tory, however, far from seeing himself untouched by the debates between left and right, is able to agree and disagree with the tenor of their arguments, assessed upon their strengths and not their ideological origins. Though by temperament he favours conservative attitudes, by being ‘organic’ he is amenable to the claims for evolution (though not revolution), improvements (less so innovations); ‘Tory’ serving as a shorthand for a traditionalist’s scepticism toward contemporary conservatism’s affinity for libertarianism. He listens to all the points made, for and against, and weighs them on their merits. He appreciates the benefits of State action and the virtues of individual liberty. His stance, rather, is one of moderation and compromise—the classic via media—adapting the better elements of each position and melding them into a complementary whole.
Well, not exactly—at least not if an organic Tory is to have a practical, principled programme to call his own, and not a pastiche of ideas cobbled together for the sake of ending antagonistic squabbles and not for a larger, more ennobling outcome. Policy wonks will often exclaim, usually proudly and by way of explication, that if liberals and conservatives equally excoriate their plans, then they must be doing something right ... err, correct. But for Aristotle, the aim of moderation was ‘the right course’, not the least common denominator nor a compromise that ‘all could live with’.
In the Nicomachean Ethics (London: Kegan Paul, 1893), Aristotle asserted that ‘the middle character is in all cases to be praised, but that we ought to incline sometimes toward excess, sometimes towards deficiency; for in this way we shall most easily hit the mean and attain to right doing (ii, 9).’
The objective was never the popular or the politically expedient, but always ‘right doing’.
And such should be the programme of an organic Tory, taking circumstances as he finds them, and calibrating between excess or deficiency as necessary; in this case, between liberalism and conservatism, respectively, in order to achieve the best humanly possible action available—with principle his North Star.
There may be times when the State should use its legislative and executive powers to set in motion events to help people achieve the common good, and others when individuals and civil society, more intimately connected with the issue at hand, can themselves solve their problems without the intervention of an external authority ‘removed’ by time and place.
Of course, Aristotle argued that ‘it is not all actions nor all passions that admit of moderation (ii, 6)’: Can a ‘little bit’ of murder be the right thing to do? What of theft? Of adultery? Politically speaking, there may be areas of private action where any role for the State is unwarranted and obtrusive; similarly, the State has its own legitimate sphere of activity where private involvement is wrong, such as in the establishment and execution of law and order.
All of Aesop’s fables end with a moral: For the bat, ostracised by both Birds and Beasts when peace was won, its lesson was that ‘He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.’ Is the organic Tory likewise so isolated? Unlike the bat, he feels himself very much invested in the outcome of events, seeking to contribute and to steer them toward a just and equitable politics. Aristotle well knew that the pursuit of the right course was never easy, since ‘on this account it is a hard thing to be good; for finding the middle or the mean in each case is a hard thing (ii, 9)’. Nevertheless, it was worth the effort.
Unlike the bat, the organic Tory must take sides and defend his understanding of the via media that will lead to the right course. Unlike the bat, the organic Tory must join in the fray and contribute to the harmony that is the aim of any politics of the common good.
18 May 2009
Feudal Influences of the Canadian Crown
Along comes another Victoria Day, with the requisite toasts from supporters of monarchy and calls from its detractors to establish a republic.
Yet there is one feature of the Crown-in-Canada so subtle as to go unnoticed by friend and foe alike.
In Lament for a Nation, George Grant distinguished between the rise of the Canadian and American nations: Canada, either as a collection of French or British colonies, enjoyed a governing tradition with roots stretching back to mediaeval times; whereas the United States was born in revolution to many of these same traditions.
Feudalism was the prevailing political system in the Middle Ages, and for all of its pejorative connotations and real failings, noblemen were expected to provide the lower orders with the necessities of life. Motivations weren’t entirely altruistic, since it was the peasants and labourers who worked the land and maintained the feudal lord’s vast property-holdings. Still, over generations, a theory of noblesse oblige evolved that informed habits and customs.
At the apex was the prince, and by the eighteenth century the prerogatives of the monarchy included such activities as granting monopoly charters and overseeing a mercantilist system of international trade.
The thirteen American colonies were at the receiving end of this British imperial policy and, having imbibed the Enlightenment zeitgeist of individual initiative and free-market economics more so than their northern neighbours, they rebelled and achieved sovereignty. British North America, meanwhile, remained loyal and slowly over time achieved responsible government and independent status.
Even to-day, however, elements of our respective pasts are evident: there is an ease among Canadians with government economic intervention and provision of welfare programmes that are still largely considered anathema in the United States, where civil society trumps the State. Part of our comfort level, I suggest, is an unconscious holdover attributable to our constitutional monarchy, born of feudal sensibilities.
If Canada were to become a republic, severing its ties to the British Royal Family, would these welfare provisions end? Would we suddenly become less amenable to government assistance for those in need and adopt a harsh social darwinism?
Hardly, but a not insignificant pillar in the social structure would have been pulled away, since the Crown — either in the person of the reigning monarch or the serving governor-general — personifies as ‘Head of State’ in a duo-manner unmatched by an interchangeable holder of a constitutional office. This is also why monarchists highlight royal patronage of charitable foundations, since it emphasises our reciprocal responsibilities apart from the beneficial ministrations of the State.
So, establishing a Canadian republic may not be such a benign constitutional reform, as cutting our links to the Crown may bring with it the loss of social influences integral (no matter how unsuspected) to our national character.
Thoughts to ponder this Victoria Day.
Yet there is one feature of the Crown-in-Canada so subtle as to go unnoticed by friend and foe alike.
In Lament for a Nation, George Grant distinguished between the rise of the Canadian and American nations: Canada, either as a collection of French or British colonies, enjoyed a governing tradition with roots stretching back to mediaeval times; whereas the United States was born in revolution to many of these same traditions.
Feudalism was the prevailing political system in the Middle Ages, and for all of its pejorative connotations and real failings, noblemen were expected to provide the lower orders with the necessities of life. Motivations weren’t entirely altruistic, since it was the peasants and labourers who worked the land and maintained the feudal lord’s vast property-holdings. Still, over generations, a theory of noblesse oblige evolved that informed habits and customs.
At the apex was the prince, and by the eighteenth century the prerogatives of the monarchy included such activities as granting monopoly charters and overseeing a mercantilist system of international trade.
The thirteen American colonies were at the receiving end of this British imperial policy and, having imbibed the Enlightenment zeitgeist of individual initiative and free-market economics more so than their northern neighbours, they rebelled and achieved sovereignty. British North America, meanwhile, remained loyal and slowly over time achieved responsible government and independent status.
Even to-day, however, elements of our respective pasts are evident: there is an ease among Canadians with government economic intervention and provision of welfare programmes that are still largely considered anathema in the United States, where civil society trumps the State. Part of our comfort level, I suggest, is an unconscious holdover attributable to our constitutional monarchy, born of feudal sensibilities.
If Canada were to become a republic, severing its ties to the British Royal Family, would these welfare provisions end? Would we suddenly become less amenable to government assistance for those in need and adopt a harsh social darwinism?
Hardly, but a not insignificant pillar in the social structure would have been pulled away, since the Crown — either in the person of the reigning monarch or the serving governor-general — personifies as ‘Head of State’ in a duo-manner unmatched by an interchangeable holder of a constitutional office. This is also why monarchists highlight royal patronage of charitable foundations, since it emphasises our reciprocal responsibilities apart from the beneficial ministrations of the State.
So, establishing a Canadian republic may not be such a benign constitutional reform, as cutting our links to the Crown may bring with it the loss of social influences integral (no matter how unsuspected) to our national character.
Thoughts to ponder this Victoria Day.
08 May 2009
A Defence of Free Markets and the Rule of Law
A Reply to Chris Bowen’s ‘Neo-liberalism is dead as people realise markets need regulation (The Sunday Morning Herald, 6 May 2009)’:
Chris Bowen’s article on Phillip Blond’s progressive conservative philosophy highlights a welcome opportunity to set the market system within the aims of the common good.
An implication raised, however — ‘that markets work better with a degree of regulation’ — is that it is necessary to augment the conventional respect for rule of law: that all forms of regulation are treated either indifferently or with aversion by the market.
To the contrary, a case can be made that markets are only efficient when they abide by internal moral obligations. Abuses of capitalism are assaults upon its very own economic prescriptions.
A fractional banking system of catastrophic over-extension is a violation of the trust between depositor and lender, and whether a more sound basis of reserve ratios is maintained speaks more to the wisdom of regulators than with market prerequisites.
Likewise, monopolisation (animating Blond’s arguments for the wide distribution of property and capital) lies principally at the feet of regulatory intent, since a tenet of the open market is expansive consumer choice made possible by diverse entrepreneurial innovation.
We may be witnessing less the death of neo-liberalism than a renewed appreciation of the moral implications inherent in the free economy, and a determination that its imperatives are neither ignored nor manipulated for immoral gain.
[See DMI’s ‘Free Economy Plus’]
Chris Bowen’s article on Phillip Blond’s progressive conservative philosophy highlights a welcome opportunity to set the market system within the aims of the common good.
An implication raised, however — ‘that markets work better with a degree of regulation’ — is that it is necessary to augment the conventional respect for rule of law: that all forms of regulation are treated either indifferently or with aversion by the market.
To the contrary, a case can be made that markets are only efficient when they abide by internal moral obligations. Abuses of capitalism are assaults upon its very own economic prescriptions.
A fractional banking system of catastrophic over-extension is a violation of the trust between depositor and lender, and whether a more sound basis of reserve ratios is maintained speaks more to the wisdom of regulators than with market prerequisites.
Likewise, monopolisation (animating Blond’s arguments for the wide distribution of property and capital) lies principally at the feet of regulatory intent, since a tenet of the open market is expansive consumer choice made possible by diverse entrepreneurial innovation.
We may be witnessing less the death of neo-liberalism than a renewed appreciation of the moral implications inherent in the free economy, and a determination that its imperatives are neither ignored nor manipulated for immoral gain.
[See DMI’s ‘Free Economy Plus’]
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