The Fusionist. - 'Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement' - book review

National Review, June 17, 2002 by Ramesh Ponnuru

The influence of fusionism has not been wholly positive. Meyer contributed to an unfortunate tendency among conservatives toward theoretical maximalism, as in his casual reference to "the totalitarian implications of the federal school lunch program." Another instance of that maximalism was his assertion that "society does not exist" (a phrase Margaret Thatcher later used). Did libertarianism really have to be founded on such extreme individualism, rather than, say, skepticism about or fear of the state?

In Meyer's thought, virtue is aligned rather too neatly with religion and tradition, and reason with libertarianism. Many "traditionalists" defend tradition precisely insofar as it embodies, and helps guide people toward, sound moral principles that are rationally defensible.

The largest problem with Meyer's synthesis is that he leans too heavily on the proposition that virtue must be freely chosen. It is true that the law cannot compel the internal assent of the will. But that truth does not by itself yield the Millian libertarian conclusions that Meyer draws from it. It does not mean, that is, that virtue is impossible under compulsion. Whether to obey the law is always a moral choice, for one thing; and one can do the right thing for the right reason even if the law provides an additional reason for doing it.

It would be pointless, in just the way Meyer supposes, for the law to attempt to compel religious belief. But there is a point to using the law to protect a moral ecology that supports people in the exercise of virtue. Laws help form character. They teach. Many times, they do so in ways compatible with strict libertarianism -- by punishing some classes of unjust action, or allowing industry to be rewarded. But Meyer provides no good reason for abjuring non-libertarian morals laws in all cases.

Another reason that Meyer's fusionism is not wholly adequate as a guide to conservatives is that it was the product of his times. The notion that libertarian policies would yield a society that moral conservatives would approve was most plausible when applied to a largely traditionalist society. Ours is manifestly no longer one. The threat of "regimentation" and "planning," which Meyer understandably feared, is not what it used to be either.

Meyer also wrote at a time when America had a stronger sense of itself as a unified culture than at most points in its history, including our own. The conservative triad that he helped to develop -- anti-totalitarianism, free markets, moral orthodoxy -- has nothing to say about cultural cohesion, and not enough to say about patriotism. Meyer helped to produce a real novelty: a conservatism relatively indifferent to the transmission of culture down the generations.

What he did, however, was enough. Those of us who generally believe in both free markets and conservative morals have a lot to thank Meyer (and his like-minded colleagues) for. There was nothing inevitable about the way conservatism developed. It could very well have moved in a more statist direction, in which case America would probably now be weaker and poorer.