Chris Patten describes himself as a British, European conservative who believes:
... in markets, individual enterprise, limiting government's role, participative pluralism, personal responsibility, the importance of the family and the rule of law.
But he's got difficulty with American conservativism, or perhaps neo-conservativism.
Capitalism does not for me supersede democracy, nor guarantee it. Nor is it synonymous with the very rich bosses of large corporations making evermore out of a system rigged to their benefit.
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Josef Joffe of the NYT Review doesn't much care for the book
Cousins and Strangers but what would one expect from a fellow of the Hoover Institute? Joffe claims to admire Patten's debating skill but dismisses the effite European with a few bon mots and an ad hominem argument.
Kossacks may be able to relate to Patten's belief that "Capitalism should operate within the law, not the law within capitalism". The community has great concern about corruption. It should cheer Patten as he criticizes Cheney's apparent belief that what's good for Halliburton and Cheney's personal wealth is good for America.
Indeed today's Republicans and their media shills are at the same time both the loudest opponents of government and the very ones who seek to subvert government for their own personal interests. Patten doesn't care for the CEO's, lobbyists and legislators who work in concert to destroy government and capitalism.
Failure to insist on high corporate standards, and on a sense of responsibility to something broader and more important than maximizing the reward to senior executives, strips away part of the essential protection of and justification for what remains the best system for maximizing the prosperity of a community.
To some it will be a surprise that his critique of Bush and the Republicans, coming from the intellectual right, has anything in common with the American Left. But Patten argues the war on terror makes the world a more dangerous place. He's opposed to the gross inequality of earnings. Patten finds American health care and education to be wanting. Along with the rest of the world he's baffled by the American right's belief in incarceration (87 prisoners per 100,000 in Europe versus 685 in the USA) and policing. Why tolerate lax gun laws that are complicit in the annual slaughter of citizens? Is this social improvement? He quotes Teddy Roosevelt that "... This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."
Why is the American right obsessed with justice forTerry Schiavo and blind to justice for those facing capital punishment? Why has America decided on an economic policy that discourages saving? Why is American now dependent on the savings of poor Chinese citizens to buy US dollars that finance the purchase of cheap goods to the disadvantage of every American working in manufacturing?
Indebtedness does not feature in my own list of family values, nor do I like the idea of the state abandoning families financially while condoning interference in their private lives.
Patten admires John Major, Kofi Annan and Colin Powell. He admires Prescott Bush for his conservatism but this seems to be at odds with his praise for Nelson Mandela. It is especially puzzling in light of the fact that Patten was associated with the Thatcher government. Thatcher along with Reagan stood together and virtually alone against the rest of the world supporting aparteid and in opposition of Mandela's agenda. They considered Mandela a terrorist.
Patten is an outsider to America who should not be dismissed out of hand. He is important to this community because his analysis may hold some clues on how the Democrats might woo enough "conservatives" to save democracy.