Can Capitalism Survive?

Chapter 2

Capital_301-336.indd 301 1/3/12 8:00 PM Chapter 2 Reflections on the Election of 1964 By the time this is in print, the election will be over and conservatism as a potent political force will be dead. A fine man will have suffered a humiliating defeat, and the liberals in his party will be planning a ruthless purge of all those who were closely associated with his candidacy. The stage will have been set for the specter of the "Goldwater debacle" to haunt the candidacy of every conservative for years to come. In the meantime, his most passionate supporters will be using their special journals of opinion to vent their disappointment and bitterness in angry explanations of why it happened. Some will say that the campaign was badly conducted (which it was) ; some, that Goldwater was sabotaged by the liberals of the press, radio, and television (which he was) ; some, that he was defeated by one of the most effective, ruthless, and corrupt politicians of the modern era (which may or may not Capital_301-336.indd 302 1/3/12 8:00 PM 302. Can Capitalism Survive? be true). The Minutemen will be laying in more rifles and the president of the John Birch Society will be proving to his own satisfaction that Goldwater's defeat was engineered by members of his own party, acting as conscious agents of the Communist conspiracy. The truth, I suspect, lies quite elsewhere, and it is that possibility I wish to explore. My own interpretation of the election can be simply stated: In a democratic society, under normal circumstances, no radical reorientation of social policy can be achieved by simple political organization and political action. Or to put it another way: As a general rule, for groups concerned with ultimate principles, elections just don't matter! Let me put it still another way: Given the absence of any feeling of crisis in the American society and given the general acceptance of modern liberalism by most Americans who count, Goldwater was foredoomed to crushing defeat. All of this was perfectly evident long before Goldwater was nominated. The great mistake was made, not during the campaign, but precisely when those conservatives who pride themselves on being activists and on "knowing how to get things done" decided that conservatism could be brought to America by what would amount to a political coup. Goldwater's own clear, good sense in thinking that the time was not ripe and that he could serve the cause better by continuing as senator from Arizona was overpowered by the passion of the leaders Capital_301-336.indd 303 1/3/12 8:00 PM Reflections on the Election of 1964 • 303 of the Draft Goldwater group and by their assurance that they had the know-how to get the job done.1 This assurance was bolstered by the ease with which the organization swept through the San Francisco convention . But of course it is no great task for a wellorganized minority to take over a committee (and that is what a political convention most resembles); in fact, it is done every day. It is a much more difficult task to get a man elected, particularly one for whose ideas the time is far from ripe. Goldwater might have won, had the country been plunged in a deep crisis of some kind at the time of the campaign. The victories of the Erhard "social market economy" in Germany in the late forties and more recently of the conservatives in Brazil were both made possible by the widespread sense of impending disaster in the societies involved. As John Maynard Keynes wrote, with such excellent foresight, in 1936, "At the present moment people are unusually expectant of a more fundamental diagnosis; more particularly ready to receive it; eager to try it out, if it should be even plausible."2 Certainly the philosophical and political success of the ideas he presented in the book in which 1 See William A. Rusher, "Suite 3505: The Inside Story of How, When and Where the Goldwater Candidacy Was Conceived and Launched," National Review, August 11, 1964, pp. 683-86. 2 J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), p. 383. Capital_301-336.indd 304 1/3/12 8:00 PM 304. Can Capitalism Survive? these words appear would attest to the significance of timing in attempts at...