Chris Abraham

Paleoconservatives are most easily distinguishable from other conservatives in their emphatic opposition to open immigration, their strong opposition to affirmative action, and their general disapproval of U.S. intervention overseas.

Most paleos are concerned with the “culture-eroding” effects of popular culture. Economic issues are not high on their agenda, and they are divided. Many reject the ideology of free trade and laissez-faire economics, arguing that it leads to the deterioration of America’s industrial base. Other paleos, however, support laissez-faire economic policies articulated by classical liberals such as Frédéric Bastiat in the nineteenth century.

In America, the Southern Agrarians, Charles Lindbergh, Albert Jay Nock, Garet Garrett, Robert R. McCormick, Felix Morley, and Russell Kirk, among others, articulated positions that have proved influential among contemporary paleoconservatives. Some paleos enthusiastically embrace the extreme decentralizing tenets of the Anti-Federalists, such as John Dickinson and George Mason. The southern conservative thread of paleoconservatism embodying the statesmanship of nineteenth-century figures such as John Randolph of Roanoke, John Taylor of Caroline and John C. Calhoun has proven influential as well, and has found a modern expositor in the late Mel Bradford. These American conservatives often embraced the Irish-born Edmund Burke. The German-born Johannes Althusius and his tract Politica with its core emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity has proven influential, as well.

Historians such as Paul V. Murphy and Isaiah Berlin have traced the paleoconservatives’ intellectual ancestry to anti-modern writers who defended the hierarchy, localism, ultramontanism, monarchy and aristocracy. European precursors to paleoconservatives include Joseph de Maistre, Donoso Cortes, Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and Pope Pius IX, though they tend to carry influence limited to the Roman Catholic traditionalist subsect of paleoconservatism.

Some modern European continental conservatives, such as Frenchmen Jacques Barzun, Alain de Benoist, and René Girard, have a mode of thought and cultural criticism esteemed by many paleoconservatives. The idea of the Nouvelle Droite have had an influence on some paleoconservatives.

Paleoconservatives consist of a disparate pool from all walks of life, including Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholic traditionalists, libertarian individualists, Midwestern agrarians, Reagan Democrats, and southern conservatives. The most prominent paleoconservative is Pat Buchanan. The two leading paleoconservative publications are Chronicles and The American Conservative, which Buchanan helped to create. Other contemporary luminaries include Donald Livingston, a Professor of Philosophy at Emory; Paul Craig Roberts, an attorney and former Reagan administration Treasury official; commentator Joseph Sobran; journalist Chilton Williamson; classicist Thomas Fleming (author), and historian Clyde N. Wilson. There are many followers of the late Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell who embrace paleolibertarianism, and being culturally conservative, espouse many of the same themes of paleoconservatives, but they are wholly committed to economic laissez-faire. While Congressmen Rep. Ron Paul (R -TX) and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R -CO) are not avowed paleoconservatives, their political positions are consistent with a great number of paleos.

Many American paleoconservatives see themselves as iconoclasts, breaking what they regard as liberal taboos. Particular targets of their ire include “Political correctness”, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement, the Frankfurt School, and Franklin Roosevelt. Some paleo figures, especially the late Samuel Francis, have been accused of having ties to allegedly racist groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, American Renaissance and the journal The Occidental Quarterly. Many of these views are also championed by the John Birch Society, which is considered a paleo group.

Paleoconservatism has recently become the principal operating philosophy of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). In its publications and conferences it often champions pre-WWII Old Right ideas, such as isolationism, limited government and cultural regionalism. While they favor free-market solutions they tend to recognize the limitations of the market, or as economist Wilhelm Roepke says, “…the market is not everything.” ISI promotes various agrarian and distributist works, and the idea of a humane economy.

The deaths in 1951 of publisher William Randolph Hearst and in 1955 of Chicago Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick cost the movement its most important newspapers.

Since the end of the Cold War, the rift within the conservative movement has deepened with the ascent of the neoconservatives and the fading from power of the paleos. There are no prominent paleos in the Bush administration. Harsh words have been exchanged between David Frum of National Review and Patrick Buchanan of The American Conservative. Frum charged that paleocons, in their sometimes harsh criticism of President George W. Bush and the war on terror, have become unpatriotic and, at times, anti-Semitic. Buchanan and others have retorted that neocons influence the U.S. government toward the pursuit of global empire and for the exclusive benefit of Israel and multi-national corporations with whom they have close ties.

The phraseology “paleoconservative” (”old conservative”) was a rejoinder issued in the 1980s to differentiate traditional conservatives from “neoconservatism”. The rift is often traced back to a dispute over the director of the National Endowment for the Humanities by the incoming Reagan Administration. Reagan nominated paleo leader Mel Bradford. He was dropped after neocons argued that his hatred of Abraham Lincoln ill suited a Republican nominee. The origins of the schism between paleo and neocon can be traced back decades. In the 1960s the new neoconservative movement articulated a vision much different from the Old Right. Neoconservatives were not opposed to the New Deal, but they thought LBJ’s Great Society went too far. Neoconservatives embrace an interventionist foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. They espoused especially strong support for Israel and believe the United States should ensure the security of the Jewish state. What made this movement so potent was the number of influential neoconservative intellectuals who attained positions of power in the federal government and in the mass-media, in sharp contrast to the marginal status of the paleos.

The paleoconservatives argued that neoconservatives were illegitimate interlopers in the conservative movement. The paleos feel they are purists who have been crowded into a corner by a corrupt element tied to special interest groups and to globalization.

Paleoconservatives esteem the principles of subsidiarity and localism in recognizing that one must surely be an Ohioan, Texan or Virginian as they are an American.

They usually embrace federalism within a broader framework of nationalism and are typically staunch supporters of states’ rights. They tend to be critical of overreaching federal power usurping state and local authority. For example, they did not support the Religious Right’s efforts to federalize the Terri Schiavo case in 2005. On the other hand, they joined with other conservatives in denouncing Kelo v. City of New London, even though the Supreme Court came down on the side of local decision-making.

Many paleoconservatives are sympathetic to the critiques of economist Wilhelm Roepke and sociologist Robert Nisbet. Roepke was critical of political and economic centralisation, and “the cult of the colossal.” Roepke recognized the interplay between the political and economic order, and held that a decentralized political federal polity was conducive to the ideal economic order most compatible with the human condition. Nisbet posited that the preoccupation with community was a result of the displacement of the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state whether the family, neighborhood, guild, church, or voluntary and civic associations. The corps intermédiaries—that is the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state—served as the only effective restraint against the centripetal forces of centralized political and economic power. The displacement of these institutions so vital to civil society and the accompanying obsession with community was precipitated by the activities and structure of the modern state. Nisbet held that the centralised state has dissolved the natural bonds and allegiances of civil society. And with totalitarian movements in Europe, there was actually a conscious effort by the state to dissolve those allegiances. Much of the later twentieth century social pathologies, dependency, poverty, and rampant crime perhaps owe to authentic community being grinded in the millstone of central state authority. As a result, paleoconservatives hope to restore authentic community by devolving power and authority back to the corp intermediaries while curtailing state power.

The ideas of Culture War and Political Correctness have played a large role in paleoconservatism. Culture War has been a major subject of the writings Robert H. Bork and Patrick J. Buchanan among others. In Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, Bork argues that the social movements of the 1960s, such as the sexual revolution, led to dangerous and moral decline and eliminated the morality necessary for civil society, and are inherently opposed to the ideals Western civilization. Buchanan delivered a controversial keynote address at the 1992 Republican National Convention which has since been dubbed the culture war speech, in which he declared a “Cultural War for the Soul of America??? was being fought in the U.S..[2]

Paleoconservatives often attack “political correctness,??? which they see as a form of censorship and social control. Many conservatives such as William S. Lind claim “political correctness??? is a form of “cultural Marxism??? and a product of the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory

Paleoconservatives have often urged people to push against what they call “the limits of permissible dissent,” on such topics as immigration and race relations. In some cases this has led to strife among the Paleoconservatives themselves.[4] For example some paleoconservatives have attacked the Civil Rights Movement and called for the repeal of all anti-discrimination laws.[5] Such statements have led many to accuses some paleoconservatives of promoting racism or White nationalism. The Charles Martel Society calls for a “third school” to emerge from paleoconservatism in the from of an ideology of European identity politics. Some paleoconservative, such as Samuel Francis and Virginia Abernethy and groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, American Renaissance and the journal The Occidental Quarterly, embrace this idea and others, such as Thomas Fleming, reject this idea.

No issue divides paleos more than trade policy. Many paleoconservatives hold protectionist conceptions of trade policy. Pat Buchanan, author of The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy, and William R. Hawkins, of U.S. Business and Industry Council Education Foundation, are the chief expositors of economic nationalism in our time. They warn of the peril posed by free trade and globalization. They see an erosion of America’s industrial base unfolding and they lament the exorbitant trade deficits between the United States and its trading partners, particularly China.

However, the southern conservatives and paleolibertarians are generally in favor of economic laissez-faire and free trade. They may even concede America has some economic ills, but they do not scapegoat foreign competition, as they recognize the value of free trade, economies of scale, comparative advantage, and specialization of labor. Many among them place culpability for America’s economic ills on bad fiscal, tax and monetary policy, as well as over-regulation by the government, and accept the Austrian Theory of Trade Cycle. Nonetheless, its adherents concurrently reject the edifices of globalization such as the WTO, GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA.

Thus, both paleo free traders and protectionists tend to recognize the sovereignty-eroding effects of globalization, and they are generally opposed to so called free trade treaties, and the machinery of international finance.

In relations with other nations, paleoconservatives are more willing to question the logic of globalization, they are more critical of immigration policy and the lack of enforcement against undocumented immigrants and they characteristically embrace an isolationist foreign policy.

A central pillar of paleoconservatism is a foreign policy based upon non-interventionism or isolationism. American isolationists have opposed political and military commitments, or alliances with, foreign powers (or for that matter international bodies,) particularly those in Europe. They find support in the wisdom of the founding fathers and a subsequent generation of antebellum statesmen. George Washington had declared, “It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” John Quincy Adams avowed, “America does not go abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

In the 1930s, paleo predecessors joined with the isolationist left, including Charles Beard, to oppose American entry into any European war. Similarly, they saw no interest worth protecting in Asia. In the eyes of isolationists of the 1930s, for the United States to commit itself to the Dutch East Indies and Singapore, it served as a back door to war, and it antagonized the Japanese. Paleoconservatives often esteem the America First principles of 1940 as being commensurate with those of the founding fathers as embodied in the Neutrality Act of 1794. During the Cold War a few paleoconservatives supported overseas commitments as necessary to the defense of the United States against communist aggression. Though Senator Taft and most paleos opposed NATO almost from the impetus, and this was a central issue in the contest between Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower for the 1952 Republican nomination. But Taft lost; his death early in 1953 deprived the Old Right of its most articulate leader.

In his 1995 book Isolationism Reconfigured, Eric Nordlinger, a Brown University scholar, observed, “[t]here is virtually no disagreement about isolationism having served the country exceptionally well throughout the nineteenth century” and he further surmises “the strategic vision of historical and contemporary isolationism is one of quiet strength and national autonomy.” In the eyes of paleos, foreign interventionism is demonstrably counter-productive, and “[t]he United States is strategically immune in being insulated, invulnerable, impermeable, and impervious and thus has few security reasons to become engaged politically and militarily.” Thus, while many paleos may echo old republican concerns about large standing armies, most conceptualize a foreign policy based on strategic independence, armed neutrality, and non-interventionism.

Where immigration allows foreigners into a nation, it then becomes a domestic policy concern. Cultural cohesiveness and some degree of cultural homogeneity are important factors for paleoconservatives. Though some celebrate differences and vibrant regional cultures in America, most are opposed to multiculturalism and runaway Third World immigration. They see non-European immigration as being averse to their interests because it threatens to displace the historic European cultural homogenity of the United States. Thus, many they tend to reject the aphorism E Pluribus Unum since it has been co-opted into a mantra for diversity and multiculturalism.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan’s recent book The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization, the late Samuel Francis’ anthology of essays entitled Revolution from the Middle and Chilton Williamson’s book The Immigration Mystique are contemporary expressions of similar views. Paleoconservatives perceive Balkanization, social and ethnic strife will be the end result of runaway immigration, and the attendant failure to cope with illegal immigrants, and the myth of America being the universal nation.

Prominent paleoconservatives

* Virginia Abernethy
* Mel Bradford
* Peter Brimelow
* Pat Buchanan
* James Burnham
* T. Kenneth Cribb Jr.
* Mark Dankof
* Lou Dobbs
* Rowland Evans
* Thomas Fleming (author)
* John T. Flynn
* Samuel Francis
* Paul Gottfried
* Kevin Michael Grace
* Michael Hill
* Russell Kirk
* William S. Lind
* Donald Livingston
* John Lukacs
* Scott McConnell
* Jason C. Miller
* Thomas Molnar
* Robert Novak
* Michael Peroutka
* Jerry Pournelle
* Charley Reese
* William Regnery II
* Paul Craig Roberts
* Claes Ryn
* Steve Sailer
* Joe Sobran
* Jared Taylor
* Srdja Trifkovic
* Benjamin Wetmore
* Chilton Williamson
* Clyde Wilson
* John Zmirak

Paleoconservative organizations