The Countercyclical Constitutionalist
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I’ve been a student of Austrian economics for about eight years. But now, with the financial meltdown vindicating everything the Austrians have said about the Fed, fractional-reserve banking, and the business cycle, I find myself little motivated to write about such things. Obviously I’m not an economist, and excellent popularizing work on these topics is being done by others. Instead, I find myself impelled toward a still neglected field: conservative constitutional philosophy. This past weekend I’ve been immersed in the works of Irving Babbitt. (Which aren’t strictly speaking about constitutional philosophy, but actually have great bearing upon it. What I particularly like about Babbitt is his constant emphasis on the danger of overreaction — arid neoclassicism or pseudo-classicism prompts wild romanticism, for exmaple; the true humanist or classicist seeks a via media.) The works of Willmoore Kendall, George Carey, Jeffrey Hart, and Claes Ryn are of keen interest to me at the moment, as is the “high church conservatism” of Burke, Coleridge, and Arnold.
This probably isn’t the most lucrative direction in which to point my efforts, but it’s my trajectory nonetheless.
Filed under: Conservatism
You might find the work of Eric Voegelin beneficial in your study. Once you get past his unique verbiage, and it doesn’t take long, he’s the most important teacher I’ve ever had.
Have you given much attention to the works of William Cobbett and John Ruskin?
Hi Araglin: I’ve dabbled in Ruskin, but haven’t read any Cobbett. Ruskin’s reading of the parable of the vineyard struck me as perverse — on the face of it, the parable is about the sanctity of contract (if you say you’ll work for a certain wage, you have no grounds to complain if someone else is paid more for less — a deal is a deal) and would seem to cut against Ruskin’s arguments.
Bob: I’ve long been meaning to rectify my ignorance of Voegelin. I’ll see if I can devote some serious time to his work this summer. Thanks for urging me to do so.
That’s a great line of inquiry and takes us “behind,” as it were, the ecnomics of the current debacle. And don’t forget my old friend and teacher Russell Kirk, such as in “The Conservative Constitution.”