Amitai Etzioni
THE NEOCONSERVATIVES
Among those anticipating, promoting, participating in and
benefiting from the past few years' shift
to
the right in the national
mood is a group of social observers and essayists who are coming to be
called " neoconservatives." For the past half decade and more they have
dedicated themselves-often with considerable sense of mission, one
might add-to elaborating the intellectual rationale behind public
policies that would turn away from social activism, government
intervention, and grand schemes to reform America-and rely instead
on the private sector, the market mechanisms, and traditional institu–
tions such as the family and local community. The group encompasses
many of America's best known and most often quoted members of the
intellectual elite including Irving Kristol , Daniel Bell , Nathan Glazer,
Robert Nisbet, Daniel P. Moynihan, and James
Q.
Wilson, as well as
less often cited Samuel P . Huntington, Edward C. Banfield, and Ernest
van den Haag.
Despite significant differences of tone, style, and temperament
neoconservatives qualify as a school because they all share the same
basic views of society and human nature. Because neoconservatives are
often in print and on the air, their basic position is well known :
freedom and equality, far from being compatible values, are seen as
frequently in conflict with each other. The main reason is that freedom
to neoconservatives means noninterference by government with exer–
cise of individual and group preferences and "natural" social patterns
and tendencies. Equality, however, inasmuch as it fails
to
evolve
naturally, tends to require a government to promote it; ergo, efforts to
promote equality threaten freedom. More generally, neoconservatives
are concerned about the oppressive encroachment of government
bureaucracies on the spontaneous capabilities of individuals, families,
communities, and voluntary associations-be it for purposes of con–
sumerism, environmental or worker protection, or whatnot.
Also, neoconservatives see inequality, at least certain forms of
inequality, as a positive social feature. They tend to see a society of
