Barry Goldwater: insurgent conservatism as constitutive rhetoric

Conservatives are generally held to be biased towards the present state of affairs, but some conservatives see the present state of affairs as so great a threat, they advocate its overthrow. They are insurgent conservatives. Scholars portray a Republican Party in the 1950s and 1960s dominated by a north-east liberal establishment confronting an emerging opposition based on anti-communism, economic liberalism and limited government. Barry Goldwater, deploying ideas developed as a long-standing opponent of the New Deal, from his experiences as a businessman, and his philosophic commitment to individualism, engaged extensively with conservatives from the mid- to late 1950s, becoming the spokesman for the developing conservative movement. Goldwater articulated an alternative, radical interpretation of conservatism. Using constitutive rhetoric, an under-used tool in the study of conservatism, this paper explores the content and message of Goldwater’s insurgent conservatism. Rather than focussing on persuasion, constitutive rhetoric focuses on the relationship between the speaker and the audience in the forging of an identity. Goldwater’s audience was already persuaded; what was needed was a common conservative identity to inspire a political movement. Goldwater did not ‘call conservatism into being,’ but his rhetoric fuelled an insurgency and constituted conservatism in a new configuration.     

Culture,equality and polemic

Abstract

The Black-Scholes-Merton formula has been put to widespread use by options traders because it provides a means of calculating the theoretically ‘correct’ price of stock options. Traders can therefore see whether the market price of stock options undervalues or overvalues them compared with their hypothetical Black-Scholes-Merton price, before choosing to buy or sell options accordingly. As a consequence of this close relationship between options pricing theory and options pricing practice, a strong performativity loop was activated, whereby market prices quickly converged on the hypothetical Black-Scholes-Merton prices following the dissemination of the formula. The theory has therefore had significant real-world effects, but how should we characterize the initial instinct to derive the theory from a philosophy of science perspective? The two books under review suggest that a Kuhnian reading of the advancement of scientific knowledge might well be the most appropriate. But, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that the publication of the Black-Scholes-Merton formula should not be seen as a Kuhnian moment with paradigm-shaping attributes. It is shown that, at most, the formula acts as an important exemplar which, via its use in the training of options pricing theorists and options pricing practitioners, reinforces the entrenchment of finance theory within the orthodox economics worldview.     

Culture,institutions and democratization*

Public Choice - We construct a model of revolution and transition to democracy under individualistic and collectivist cultures. The main result is that, despite facing potentially more challenging...