Anti-capitalism is where the radical right and the radical left meet

American conservatives in search of novelty and excitement almost always begin by turning their backs on our ancient liberties, especially our economic liberties, and generally end up under the sway of some foreign caudillo (Franco! Pinochet! Putin! Orbán!) or some exotic fanaticism (Neo-Nationalism! Integralism! Habsburg legitimism!), or else veer off predictably into race obsession and other distasteful enthusiasms of that nature. Because the hatred of adjacent heretics is more intimate and more intense than the hatred of distant infidels, these rightists end up doing things that would be otherwise inexplicable, e.g., making common cause with the Marxists so long as doing so gets up the noses of one or two of the three remaining active neoconservatives and the president of the Libertarian Club of Knockemstiff, Ohio.

(There are ordinary career-building and financial incentives in play, too, but let’s set those aside for the moment.)

The old “fusionist” approach to conservatism was based on the various right-wing factions’ having policy preferences and priorities that were in the best-case scenario complementary but in any case at least not mutually exclusive: Smith, who desired a more assertive U.S. foreign policy, found a reliable partner in Jones, whose main interest was minimizing economic regulation. Those who prized economic liberty could work with Irving Kristol’s “two cheers for capitalism,” but “Smash Capitalism!” is a very different kind of proposition. I don’t object to Le Pen’s offering to elevate the socialists or to Ahmari’s joint effort with the Marxists — these are their natural allies in the project of subjecting economic life to political regimentation. That project may be understood as conservatism in Aix-en-Provence or Castilla y León, but — call me parochial — I don’t think it can be understood that way in Houston or Jacksonville. With all due respect to this magazine’s beloved founder, I am not sure that there is any such thing as a “radical conservative,” and bitter experience suggests that radical rightism very often ends up running into the same ditch as radical leftism.