Patrick Deneen calls for an economic re-thinking on the Right.

It remains to be seen, I think, whether the Right or the Left will be the first to seriously re-examine the assumptions underlying an unlimited growth/unlimited consumption economy.

The Left has a long history of attending to social justice issues and questions of equality, but, at least in the US, this has usually gone hand-in-hand with a commitment to an ever-expanding economy (partly to underwrite its social welfare programs, partly to expand the benefits of economic growth to those left out).

Personally, I think we’re going to need the Right’s sense of limits and trade-offs and the Left’s passion for social justice and equality in order to craft a social and economic order that is capable of weathering the end of the cheap energy era.

Unfortunately, the Right is currently in a state of disarray with most of its hardcore supporters looking to double down on the true Reaganite faith, with an extra dose of culture war vehemence (Palin 2012!).

Meanwhile, there are signs that the Obama administration is going to end up being staffed by many of the old Clintonite, “third way,” neo-liberal hands who, to put it mildly, don’t seem like the best candidates for re-evaluating the fundamental basis of our economy.