neoconservatism

Daniel Bell, the original co-editor of The Public Interest with Irving Kristol, died yesterday at his home in Cambridge.

A polymath and autodidact, Bell was famous for his description of "the cultural contradictions of capitalism." While associated with Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and the other anti-Stalinist Trotskyites of City College's famous Alcove One, Bell denied being a "neoconservative" and remained a democratic socialist (and aesthetic/cultural conservative) throughout his life.

You can read Bell's essays for the Public Interest at the archive maintained by National Affairs.

Must viewing this weekend: On C-Span's "After Words" series, Bill Kristol, who wrote the foreword to The Neoconservative Persuasion, the new collection of his late father's essays, discusses those essays and Irving Kristol's thought in general with David Brooks.

In yesterday's Financial Times, Gideon Rachman writes that Ronald Reagan "debased" traditional conservatism because

Traditional conservatives disdain populism and respect knowledge. They believe in balancing the government’s books. And they are pragmatists who are suspicious of ideology.

Reagan, in Rachman's view, propagated the "cult of the idiot savant (the wise fool)," took the GOP away from "fiscal responsibility" by embracing tax cuts, and encouraged the idea that "a successful foreign policy is a rigid distinction between good and evil, and a strong military." Reagan may have been "a successful president," Rachman admits, but he "left behind a poisonous legacy for the conservative movement." Liberal bugbear Sarah Palin is the consequence.