The Return of the Market?: Reflections on the Real “Conservative Tradition” in U.S. Policy Discourse

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Abstract
This article examines the ideological continuity underlying recent changes in U.S. policy, arguing that both the “liberal” policies of the 1960s and the “free market” conservatism of the 1980s were based upon the presuppositions of neoclassical economic theory. I first consider the intellectual assumptions of postwar liberalism, emphasizing the degree to which the dominant paradigm of the period accepted the neoclassical framework. Next I examine the conservative neoclassical critique of liberal ideas that developed in the 1970s. The economic upheavals of that decade demonstrated the limits of a postwar liberalism that was only ambiguously committed to state intervention. The result was the reassertion of a more consistent market model in economic policy discourse. I conclude by considering the ideological effects of the dominant neoclassical paradigm today in directing attention away from crucial social problems, particularly those that result from market forces themselves in a rapidly changing global economy.

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