Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Introduction: The Existence of Party Ideology
- Part II The Whig-Republican Party
- 3 The National Epoch (1828–1924)
- 4 The Neoliberal Epoch (1928–1992)
- Part III The Democratic Party
- Part IV Conclusions: Sources of Party Ideology
- Epilogue: 1996
- Appendix The Search for a Method
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Neoliberal Epoch (1928–1992)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Introduction: The Existence of Party Ideology
- Part II The Whig-Republican Party
- 3 The National Epoch (1828–1924)
- 4 The Neoliberal Epoch (1928–1992)
- Part III The Democratic Party
- Part IV Conclusions: Sources of Party Ideology
- Epilogue: 1996
- Appendix The Search for a Method
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The previous chapter focused on the remarkable continuities in Whig- Republican doctrine from the 1830s to the 1920s, a period that I have referred to as the National epoch. This chapter focuses on the second epoch in Whig-Republican history, stretching from the 1920s to the 1990s and denominated Neoliberal.
Freedom, for the older generation of American conservatives, meant freedom from foreigners' intrusion – their arms, their goods, their peoples, and their ways – and from civil disorder. It meant a state that was strong enough, and insulated enough from public pressures, to protect private property, nourish American industry, and preserve the American way. Beginning in the 1920s, the threat to liberty was reconceptualized; the danger was no longer anarchy, but rather the state. The federal government, for a century the party's ally, was now identified as a public enemy. The party's social policy shifted rhetorical ground as well. Where previously Whig-Republicans represented themselves as a party of laborers, modern Republicans championed the undifferentiated unity of society and the equal opportunity of all individuals.
To be sure, Republicans of the Neoliberal epoch had their differences. However, such differences are better viewed as matters of emphasis rather than of principle. “Radicals” like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan adhered to the same general precepts as their more moderate colleagues – Herbert Hoover, Alfred Landon, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George Bush. Consider, for example, General Eisenhower, the icon of the party's liberal wing in the postwar era.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Party Ideologies in America, 1828–1996 , pp. 125 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998