but liberal in everything else. And both components arendangerous.nThe American coalition between conservatives and classicalnliberals has never been more comfortable than thencoalition between the West and the USSR during WorldnWar II. The battles between “traditionalists” and “libertarians”nhave been long, loud, and well-documented. Nownthat victory over the American left seems within reach, thendiverse and incompatible “war aims” of the coalitionnmembers will force a parting of the ways. The libertariansnhave already “turned their guns around” to blast thenconservatives. The split has widened on a number of issues,nfrom military strategy to the war against drugs; fromnimmigration control to education policy; from abortion tonthe trade deficit. The many people who have a foot in bothncamps on some issues will have to rethink their basicnassumptions.nIf conservatism is to establish itself as the dominantnphilosophy of government and society, it must jettisonnclassical liberalism. This means rediscovering a conservativenview of economics, for it is only the prevalence of “freenmarket” economic theory that permits libertarians to exerciseninfluence on the right. But conservatives do not neednthe libertarian corps and its intellectual baggage train innorder to defend private property and capitalism.nThe real defense of capitalism is prescriptive, not theoretical.nPrivate ownership of the means of production and thenuse of such assets for the generation of profit is as old asnrecorded civilization. While history provides examples ofnmany different ways of organizing economic activity, thosenBanking on BassinetsnThomas Malthus had it wrong.nMore people means not starvation,nas the famous British curate argued,nbut prosperity. Julian L. Simon, anneconomist at the University ofnMaryland, makes the case thatnmore people means better living fornall in his Theory of Population andnEconomic Growth (New York: BasilnBlackwell). The average reader maynbe daunted by all the econometricnformulae, but almost anyone canngrasp the major theme of the book:n”More people imply a higher standardnof living.”nIn a struggle against the enemiesnof life, it is good to have this hearteningnanalysis. Even so, Simon’snequations all rest on a number ofnnonmathematical premises whichnremain open to debate. When devisingnformulae for predicting ratesnof technological progress, Simonnassumes that, within the industrial-nwhich have rewarded individual effort and initiative havenfared better than those which have attempted to stifle thesennatural ambitions. In the West, private property has beennthe normal arrangement since ancient times. Of course,nrights of property have been regulated in a variety of ways innthe past as they are today. The libertarian ideology acceptsnno modification of its pure laissez-faire doctrine. In additionnto its other unattractive aspects, this inflexibility makesnlibertarianism largely irrelevant to dealing with the problemsnof the real world.nThe abstract theories of the classical economists actuallynweaken the defense of capitalism by transforming natural,ndynamic activity into just one of several competing intellectualncreations as artificial as the ivory-tower creeds ofnsocialism. These theories also tend to isolate capitalismnfrom the mainstream of history. The line taken by manyn”anticapitalists” is that capitalism started only with ThenWealth of Nations or the industrial revolution. Capitalismnwas not even named until 1867 when Marx’s Das Kapitalnwas published. The conditions of capitalism were unique,nthe idea was new and untried, it was all a fluke, a mere stagenin history through which we will soon pass. Denied itsnhistorical roots, capitalism can easily be discarded.nYet, property and profit were important to businessmennin ancient Athens, in the medieval Hanseatic towns, andnthroughout Renaissance Italy. Property was given extensivenprotection by Roman law, preserved in the legal traditionsnof all Europe. When Columbus discovered America, henwas looking for a new trade route to China and the PacificnSpice Islands in order to circumvent the route controlled bynREVISIONSnized world, most technology is “notntied to particular geographic or culturalnconditions” and that 10 millionnAmericans will prove neithernmore nor less inventive than 10nmillion Japanese, Germans, ornSwedes. Even in the short run,ncultural differences will probablynexert a more decisive influencenthan Simon concedes. Worse, it isnhard to take seriously any model ofneconomic prediction that entirelyn”excludes art and mystic knowledge.”nSimon’s blindness to noneconomicnissues especially mars hisndiscussion of the effects of immigrationnon native citizens. The numbersnlead to the conclusion thatn”immigrants have a positive discountedneffect on citizens’ incomes,nstarting almost immediately andngetting large quite rapidly.” Why,n”immigrants are an excellent 10npercent-return-per-annum investment.”n(Ask your stockbroker for annnprospectus.) Simon leaves out of hisnassessment any of the profound linguistic,nsocial, and cultural gapsnbetween Americans (or Europeans)nand Third World immigrants. Taxpayersnin San Diego and San Antonionmay not be so enthusiastic:nThey have to foot the welfare andneducation bill for hordes of illegalnaliens.nSimon deserves praise for rejectingnthe antinatalism prevalent innacademia. Yet he shares with mostnother economists an inability tonunderstand how powerfully our fortunesnare shaped by ethical traditionsnwhich will not fit neatly tonformulae. Western economiesnprobably would be better off, asnSimon believes, if our birthratesnclimbed. But the widespread repudiationnof childbearing symptomizesna malaise deeper than economics.nMore babies will comenonly when we recover a culturalnidentity worth reproducing. (BC)nJANUARY 1987 /13n