There are rumors of economic and political heresy at First Things. My reassessment of Michael Novak’s Spirit of Democratic Capitalism earlier this year raised suspicions that I’m guiding the journal in an “anti-capitalist” direction. Some say the magazine flirts with “socialism.” Patrick Deneen and Michael Hanby publish regularly in our pages, and they have been criticized for misrepresenting the founders and undermining our loyalty to the American creed. Are we becoming a mirror image of the anti-American, anti-capitalist left?

All of this strikes me as overdone, though I suppose this alarm about the range of questions being raised in First Things is to be expected. The post–World War II consensus assumed that the way forward always means opening things up, whether in the form of relaxing the cultural consensus to make room for diversity and pluralism or opening up limits on markets so that creative energies can run free. This consensus, derided by some as neoliberal, became dominant after 1989. It has become decadent, though we’re only noticing it now as election after election loosens its grip. The advocates of this consensus have to work hard to restore its magisterial authority. It’s ironic that the heresy-hunting comes under the banner of liberal ideals. But that’s what happens when liberalism becomes a thin, rigid creed rather than a rich, flexible tradition.

You've reached the end of your free articles for the month.
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article.
Purchase this article for
only $1.99
Purchase
Already a subscriber?
Click here to log in.