World War II, managerial forces werenresisted only by the remnants of thenbourgeois elite and by newly formednsocial strata that found managerial liberalismna profound source of resentmentnand frustration. Until the 1980’s, whatnwas known as “conservatism” generallynrepresented this bourgeois and postbourgeoisnpolitical and cultural resistancento the managerial apparatus ofnpower and its agenda — heavy regulationnof the economy by the state in theninterests of big corporations, unions,nand governmental bureaucracies but atnthe expense of small businessmen; socialnreconstruction in the interests of thenunderclass and the managerial theoreticiansnwho designed, planned, and implementednit, but against the interestsnand values of those who had to pay for itnand suffer its consequences; and anglobalist foreign policy that vaguely recognizedna communist threat to thencountry but was steadfast in its refusal tondeal with the menace effectively and itsnpreference for transnational diplomacynand global social engineering to anynsustained use of force.nThe high point of the bourgeoisnconservative resistance to the now dominantnmanagerial regime was the presidentialncampaign of Barry Goldwater inn1964, but under Richard Nixon andnRonald Reagan, “conservatism” begannto change its colors. While Nixon tendedntoward the abandonment of the purenmilk of bourgeois economic dogma —nas Mr. Phillips points out, as early as thenCheckers speech, “Nixon had no interestnin unbridled capitalism” — hensought to build what he called then”New American Majority” based preciselynon those social groups that resentednand feared liberal-managerial dominancenand found it a frustration of theirnown interests and aspirations. As Mr.nPhillips has also suggested elsewhere, itnmay be no accident that it was principallynthe managerial bureaucracy of thenexecutive branch in alliance with thenmanagerial intelligentsia that largely didnin Nixon through systematic leakages tonthe press during Watergate. But whilenNixon seems to have contemplated ansimple abandonment of bourgeois ideologynand institutions in favor of a morencentralized and authoritarian managerialnregime, Reagan cooked up somethingnmore complicated.nIt was Reagan’s achievement to formulatenan ideology and a political stylenthat could accommodate both postbourgeoisnresentments and frustrationsnthrough an appeal to “social issues,”npatriotism, and “traditional morality” —nwhat Phillips calls the symbols of “nationalnunity”—as well as managerialninterests in preserving the scale andnscope of the mass organizations the elitencontrolled — the corporations and thenfederal state. It was not, of course, Mr.nReagan himself who was the author ofnthis formula, though as a former liberalnDemocrat he was a perfect expressionnof the centrist imagery that the newnformula used. The formula itself wasnthe product of what came to be calledn”neoconservatism,” which distinguishednitself from “Old Right” bourgeoisnconservatism by its willingness tonaccept the New Deal and the progressivistntradition. The goal of neoconservativesnwas never to reverse or movenbeyond the New Deal legacy but simplynto make it work more efEciently than itnwas working in the 1960’s and 1970’s.nThat goal, though usually masked bynthe neoconservatives themselves, wasnobvious to many of the more percipientnexponents of Old Right ideology, butnonly after Reagan had departed thenpolitical scene was the mask thrown offnand “Big Government Conservatism”nunveiled in all its splendors.n”Reaganism,” then, was neither ancontinuation of the bourgeois conservatismnof the Old Right nor one moreninstallment of an eternally recurringnWilliam McKinley nor the culminationnof a cycle in American politics by whichnone elite ousted another and becamencorrupted. It was rather an effort to wednor fuse those destabilizing movements,nfed by resentment, fear, and frustration,nwhich gelled in the New Right and thencandidacy of George Wallace, with stilldominantnmanagerial elements in thenstate, economy, and cultural apparatus.nThose elements saw their institutionalnapparatus of power and the “consensus”nthat rationalized it jeopardized bynan insurgency from the right as well asnfrom the left in the 1960’s and 70’s andnby the whole unraveling of Americannsociety that their own efforts at socialnreconstruction had helped cause. So farnfrom challenging or displacing an oldnelite, Reaganism simply allowed thenleadership of the insurgent forces toncrawl into bed with the managerialnestablishment and sample its favors,nthereby effectively decapitating the in-nnnPOLITICAL ANDnECONOMIC PLURALISMnIN THE THIRD WORLDnHow can multinational corporationsnhelp roll back ThirdnWorld poverty? Why are blacknmarkets encouraged by manyngovernments? Thoughtful,nexpert answers to these questionsnand others are providednby: Kendall W. Brown,nRichard A. Derham, Lewis A.nEngman, MarkC. Frazier,nRaymond D. Gastil, IVIelvynnKrauss and Nancy SherwoodnTruitt.n€6Democratic capitalism is the .nThird World’s last hope and thisnbook does much to underlinenthe fact. 99nMANUEL AYAU, PRESIDENTnFrancisco Marroquin UniversitynGuatemalanFOR VISA ANDnMASTERCARD ORDERSnCALL 800-837-4247next. 601n$5.00 softboundn(Ml residents addn4% sales tax)nFree Shipping!nHILLSDALEnCOLLEGEnPRESSnHillsdale. Mln49242nNOVEMBER 1990/33n