Future directions

Neo-liberalism was undoubtedly a significant ideology in the twentieth century, and had a central role to play in intellectual and policy discourses in Germany in the 1950s and in Britain and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Its place today as an economic ideology of the Right is, however, less clear. It can be argued that today the ideological context has moved away from neo-liberalism and from questions concerning free enterprise, the rule of law and limited government, towards a neo-conservative agenda. Nowhere is this movement more apparent than in the United States. In contemporary American politics, neo-conservatism has surfaced as an intellectual current that aims to transform the Republican Party, and American conservatism in general, into a new type of conservative politics. At the most basic level, neo-conservatism stands for moral values and religion, the authority of the state, and national security – all tenets that neo-liberals would find it hard to identify with. Irving Kristol points out that neo-conservatism is ‘impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on a “road to serfdom”. Neo-cons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed

inevitable.’ 4 Certainly neo-conservatives draw on many thinkers and politicians such as Herbert Hoover, Russell Kirk and Barry Goldwater, whom, as this book has demonstrated, neo-liberals themselves took inspi- ration from. The book has pointed out that neo-liberalism and various inevitable.’ 4 Certainly neo-conservatives draw on many thinkers and politicians such as Herbert Hoover, Russell Kirk and Barry Goldwater, whom, as this book has demonstrated, neo-liberals themselves took inspi- ration from. The book has pointed out that neo-liberalism and various

forms of neo-conservatism existed amicably side-by-side in American society in the twentieth century. It has contended that neo-conservatives and neo-liberals do have much common ground, such as a desire to promote free markets and an opposition to government regulation and social spending. Unlike the conservatism of the past, however, the neo- conservatism of the twenty-first century is guided by a new radicalism and sense of urgency following threats to national and international security.

Neo-conservatism has rose to prominence in the United States following the terrorist attacks of September 11 and has since eclipsed neo-liberalism as the overriding discourse in American politics. Indeed, President George W. Bush’s new security agenda aims to replace neo-liberalism with neo-

conservatism using American military power. Neo-conservatives reject the neo-liberal policy of minimal government, and instead adopt an ‘aggressive’ foreign policy stance against ‘rogue states’. In response to international ter- rorism, they have embraced an ‘imperial role’ of pre-emptive war and regime

change. 5 It would, therefore, appear as though neo-liberals have more in common with the paleo-conservatives who stood in opposition to the New Deal than with the neo-conservatives that are in power today. The rise of neo-conservatism does not, however, signal the end of neo-liberalism. Neo- liberalism is alive and well, embedded in the discipline of economics, and continues to dominate discussions about the future course of the global economy. Yet, whilst there is still a very clear neo-liberal agenda, it is one that has become increasingly defused. In the twenty-first century, neo-

liberalism no longer has an overriding influence on policy agendas in Germany, Britain and the United States, as it did in second part of the twentieth century, and the prominence of an intellectual community of neo-

liberals based around the Mont Pelerin Society and free-market think-tanks has faded. The question, however, should not be ‘What comes after neo- liberalism?’, but, rather, ‘What do neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism have in common?’. Neo-liberalism remains one of the most influential streams of thought on the Right, informing both republican policy and conservative ideology in general. Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism share much common ground. One of the great ideological projects of the twenty- first century, therefore, will be to find a way of reconciling the two.

Future directions