would abolish and to “insulate the wages of U.S. workers fromrnforeign laborers who must work for Si an hour or less,” followsrnfrom his economie nationalism, reflecting the economic interestsrnand identity of the nation, just as a defense and foreign polie-rnfollows from his political nationalism, reflecting the politicalrninterests and identit- of the nation. So, for that matter, does hisrnsupport for curtailing, through a five-year moratorium, all immigration,rnlegal as well as illegal.rnBuchanan’s nationalism appears to break yith the specter ofrnindi’idualism that has haunted American conservatiye ideologrnsince the 1930’s. It is based on tlic premise that the individualrnoutside social and cultural institutions is an abstraction, andrnit probabh shows Buchanan’s debt to Catholic social theoryrnrather than the atomistic and aequisiti’e egoism that descendsrnto the libertarian right from John Locke. In one columir,rnBuchanan supported the “humane eeononrv” espoused b’ thernCatholic Austrian School economist Wilhelm Ropke in contrastrn(not quite accuratcK, as I am told) to the acquisitive economicrnindiyidualism of Ludwig von Miscs. More receutly, therni’eu’ York Times quotes him as remarking,rnWe have to ask ourselves as conservatives what it is wernwant to conserve in America. I believe in the market system,rnbut I don’t worshi]5 the market system. I don’t wor-rn.sliip at the altar of economic cfficiencv as I believe somernso-called conservatives do. To prefer a 100,0()0-hog confinementrnto hundreds of family farms, it seems to me, isrnnot conservatism. I mean, that’s to worship as a supermarketrnciilization.rnYet, while Buchanan’s nationalism ma’ tweak the noses ofrnright-wing individualists, it also breaks significantly with thernlarge-state nationalist tradition of Europe and AmericanrnI lamiltonians, for whom the centralized state defines and evenrncreates the nation. Unlike liberal protectionists like RichardrnGephardt, Buehanair seeks to use tariffs as substitutes for federalrntaxes, not as additional taxes. His statement of principles endorsesrn”restoration of the lOth Amendment,” holding thatrn”man functions of the federal government arc, de facto, unconstitutional”rn(he might hac added dc jure as well) and encompassingrnabolition of major cabinet-level departments. Hernalso calls for stripping federal judges of power through judicialrnterm limits, “voter recall of renegade federal jurists,” and eight-rnear reconfirmations of Supreme Court justices. ForrnBuclianan, in contrast to large-state nationalists, the nation isrnfundamentally a social and cultural unit, not the creation of thernstate and its policies, but a continuing, organic body that transcendsrnindividuals and gives identity to itself through a commonrnwa- of life and a conrmon people. It is the national culture,rnembodied in the way of life and the people themseU’cs,rnrather than the national state, that defines the nation, andrnhence cultural traditionalism is as central to Buchanan’s nationalismrnas swollen statism is to European and Hamiltonianrnnationalists. The “cultural war” for Buchanan is not Republicanrnswaggering about family values and dirty movies but a battlernover whether the nation itself can continue to exist underrnthe onslaught of the militant secularism, acquisitive egoism,rneconomic and political globalism, demographic inundation,rnand unchecked state centralism supported by the Ruling Class.rnAlso unlike the conventional right, Buchanan dees not confinernhis criticism of the Ruling Class to federal bureaucrats.rnThough he denies that he considers “big business an cneniw”rnhe told Tom Carson of the Village Voice, in a line he has repeatedrnelsewhere, “I just think a lot of modern corporate capitalistsrn—the managerial class basically—has no loyalty to anyrncountry anymore, or any particular values other than the bottomrnline.” The remark points to a conception of the RulingrnClass as fundamentalh’ disengaged from the nation and culturernit dominates, and resembles similar views of 20th-century rulingrnelites ‘oiced by Joseph Schumpeter, the late ChristopherrnLaseh, and James Burnham, among others.rnBuchanan’s loyalty to thernGOP is touching, especiallyrnsince almost no Republicanrnleader or conservative pundit hasrnmuch good to say about him, andrnthe loudest mouths for the ‘BigrnTent’ are always the first to try tornpush him out of it.rnBuchanan thus seems to share the perception that the fundamentalrnpolarity in American politics and culture today is betweenrna deracinated and self-serving Ruling Class centered onrnbut not confined to the central state, on the one hand, andrnMiddle American groups, on the other, with the latter constitutingrnboth the economic core of the nation through their laborrnand productive skills as well as the culturally defining core thatrnsustains the identity of the nation itself. The economic interestsrnas well as the cultural habits and ideologies of the RulingrnClass drive it toward globalization—the managed destructionrnof the nation, its so’ereignty, its culture, and its people—whilernthose of Middle Americans drive them toward support for andrnreenforeement of the nation and its organic way of life. Thernimplicit recognition of this polarit by the Buchanan campaignrnplaces him firmly on the side of Middle Americans more clearlyrnthan any other political figure in the countr’ today.rnThe only figure who could rival him for that role is Ross Perot,rnbut Perot’s ideas, despite their focus on Middle Americans,rnare far less sophisticated, far less visionary, and far less radicalrnthan those of the former columnist and presidential speechwriter.rnPerot appears to have little grasp of the nature of thernRuling Class as a systemic entity, and his tirades against therncentral state neer seem to rise above the level of grousingrnabout corruption, incompetence, waste, and fraud. Perotrnseems to lack any perception of the structure of the state asrnproblematic and confines his criticism merely to the abuse ofrnthe state structure. Buchanan’s critique of the central state, atrnleast implicitly, is shaped by his comprehension that the flawsrnMARCH 1996/15rnrnrn