NEOCONSERVATISM
505
those of th e American public. Most faculty liberals are far from
supporting dem ands for bas ic changes in the society, and most of
them , like their fellow citizens , support the prevailing economic and
po liti cal order. "
If
problems are not arising from this adversarial "new class,"
where are the probl ems in our society arising from? By and large,
neocon serva tives do not examine this question . Yet a number of
theories can be proposed to answer it. They are expressed in terms such
as the "era o f limits," and the titl e of Les ter Thurow 's book,
Th e Zero–
Sum Society.
My own term h as been " the veto society." In any case, all
these theories recogni zed that the magi c of economic growth no longer
works. We' ve reached th e point where it h as become obvious tha t any
social or economic po licy will have clear winners and losers. Pick any
energy po licy, whether it's nucl ear , coal, or oil , and you 'll quickl y be
abl e to see who w ill ga in from it and who will lose from it in
disp roportion a te ways. Inves tment policy, too , will require winners
and losers, and so w ill ecologi cal concerns. In any case the sticking
po int is tha t today the losers, or ra ther potenti al losers, are able to veto
the initia tives tha t would make them losers, even if they cannot impose
their own alternati ve po licies. The result: we' re paralyzed in many
areas of na ti onal po li cy.
T his has implication s for ques tions of equality and of democracy.
In terms o f equality, what has kept the distribution of income equal,
and furthermore h as improved the lot of most households during
recent years, are three things . The first is government transfer of
income. In tha t sense, our government social policies h ave been very
successful. It's a lso true that neocon servatives who advised us to follow
wha t they called an in come stra tegy ra ther than a service strategy were
giving good advi ce, because the transfer programs have made the
di fference between wh at would o therwise be a slightly increasing
inequali ty and the actual maintenance of equality. The second thing
th a t h as maintained the level of equality or even improved it is the
emergence o f second wage earners within the famil y. The third thing,
of course, is government empl oyment, whi ch h as played a particular
ro le among the middl e class, especiall y among women and minoriti es.
Today a ll of these factors, it seems, are threatened with limits if not
actuall y w ith decrease. Income transfer programs are being tightened ,
squeezed , taxed . T here is no longer a reservoir of spouses, or second
income earners, who can go to work to main tain househo ld income
leve ls. In fact from here on , those spouses who go to work are largely
from mo re hi ghl y educa ted groups, and the effect o f the second income
