The Conscience of a Conservative

The Conscience of a Conservative
First edition
Author	Barry Goldwater
Subject(s)	Politics, American conservatism
Publisher	Victor Publishing Co.
Publication date	1960
Media type	print
Pages	123
OCLC	1002492

The Conscience of a Conservative is a book published under the name of Arizona Senator and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1960. The book reignited the American conservative movement and made Barry Goldwater a political star. The book has influenced countless conservatives in the United States, helping to lay the foundation for the Reagan Revolution in 1980.^[1]

The book was ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., brother-in-law of William F. Buckley.^[1] Bozell and Buckley had been members of Yale's debate team. They had co-authored the controversial book, McCarthy and His Enemies, in 1955. Bozell had been Goldwater's speechwriter in the 1950s, and was familiar with many of his ideals. The first edition, 1960, is 123 pages in length and was published in the United States. The book covers such topics as education, labor unions and policies, civil rights, agricultural policy and farm subsidies, social welfare programs, and income taxation. The book is considered to be a significant statement of politically and economically American conservative ideas which were to gain influence during the following decades.^[1]

The book continues to inspire contemporary political commentary. John Dean's 2006 book Conservatives without Conscience, for example, draws both its title and some of its principles from Goldwater's book. Senator Zell Miller's 2003 critique of the Democratic Party, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat also draws the inspiration for its title from Goldwater's work. In 2007, Paul Krugman entitled his own book The Conscience of a Liberal, saying in the introduction that he wanted his work to stand as a counterpoint to Goldwater's. Former conservative journalist David Brock also alluded to Goldwater's book in his memoir Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.

Quotes

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand, - in the name of “concern for “human beings” — regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.^[2]

References

Sources

• Sample chapter of an updated version of The Conscience of a Conservative
• Essay on the book - The Heritage Foundation essay

This article related to the politics of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This article about a political book is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.