People die, ideas don’t

Irving Kristol, one of the main founders of neoconservatism (and father of current neocon leader Bill Kristol), died yesterday. Unfortunately, his ideology didn’t die with him

Like many of the neoconservative elite, Kristol was a former Democrat who had moved in his life from radicalism through liberalism and on to the aggressive conservatism known as “neoconservatism”. In America, that philosophy is belligerent in world affairs (for example, neocons wanted to invade Iraq but couldn’t find an excuse until after September 11, 2001). They believe in unrestrained use of American military might to achieve government goals, especially protecting corporate interests.

On economic matters, they promote what one could call a muscular laissez-faire economics. Like all conservatives, they don’t believe in government interference in or regulation of business, but they go a bit farther, with the equivalent of a big bouncer at the door forcefully blocking any government involvement. This led them to oppose both the recent bailout and the economic stimulus packages, but it can also include opposing consumer protection laws, privacy laws, financial regulations—in short anything that gets in the way of corporate elites maximising their profit. They are the epitome of the current business paradigm in which nothing else matters except for returning maximum profits to shareholders—not employees, not customers, not suppliers, not the environment, nothing but their unrestrained ability to maximise profits.

Where they stand even farther apart from traditional conservatives is their hatred for anything non-traditional in society and culture. Many of them don’t make this a priority, and come across as sort of grumpy curmudgeons, but many others serve as the glue between the true believers of the religious right, and the more libertarian traditional conservatives who believe that social and cultural issues are none of the government’s business.

Irving himself was part of the arrogant neoconservative elite, convinced he was better than and superior to his fellow Americans. While in the US army in World War 2, he came to think of his fellow soldiers as "thugs or near-thugs." He wrote, "My army experience permitted me to make an important political discovery. The idea of building socialism with the common man who actually existed—as distinct from his idealized version—was sheer fantasy, and therefore the prospects for ‘democratic socialism’ were nil."

He spent his career in the paternalistc world of neoconservatism where they always know what’s best, and common people can never be trusted with making important decisions. Common citizens, after all, might want fairness and equality among all citizens, they might want limits on corporate power and they might want a more rational and restrained foreign policy, all things neocons like Irving could never tolerate.

Neoconservatism is less a political philosophy than an aggressive anti-democratic force. They suffered major setbacks in the 2008 elections, but they haven’t gone away (indeed, many of them are behind the astroturfing attacks on President Obama and the Democrats as part of their rear guard action to regain Congress in 2010 and the presidency in 2012).

So Irving Kristol is dead. I can’t say I’m sorry about that, but I am sorry his reprehensible, disgusting ideology didn’t die with him.