Abstract
AbstractAmerican pro-market conservatives often oppose use of federal authority to rein in anti-competitive behavior by market actors. Competitive barriers, whether created by local jurisdictions or the absence of national competitive rules, go unaddressed. In international comparison, especially considering the European Union's use of central authority for market openness, this is quite puzzling. Based on interviews and archival research, I trace inattention to market barriers to contradictions within Hayek's neoliberalism and an enthusiastic reception within the American academy of one possible interpretation of those writings. This conception of markets—competitive federalism—diffused into the conservative law and economics movements, think tanks, and eventually mainstream conservative politics. It permitted conservatism to align a strong pro-market rhetoric with demands for states’ rights and federal retrenchment, albeit side-stepping many significant issues in economic theory and policy. Thus, conservatives pursue spending and tax cuts, deregulation and decentralization, often to the detriment of market openness.
Highlights
The United States was founded at least in part to curb interstate protectionism and establish a single market with competitive rules
Tracing the intellectual line of competitive federalism from Hayek through American academic scholarship to their eventual absorption into powerful conservative think tanks (CTTs) significantly contributes to our understanding of conservatism
“Many of the most visible expert voices today emanate from public policy think tanks..., [whose] work often represents pre-formed points of view rather than even attempts at neutral, rational analysis.”48 Starting with Reagan, Republican policymakers heavily relied on these new conservative scholarly networks, often giving them prominent positions or advisory roles in federal government
Summary
The United States was founded at least in part to curb interstate protectionism and establish a single market with competitive rules. While pro-market politicians are dominant in federal politics, they almost never suggest that new central rules could generate dynamism by reducing state protectionism or fragmentation. The tenets of competitive federalism became not researchable propositions but rather unshakable axioms of political economic thought As a result, they inspired a conservative “return to markets” that became a fiscally focused attack on the federal government and central regulation. States’ rights and federalism were one of the ways in which conservatives equivocated between rational policies for economic growth and playing on racial fears, especially of white Southerners.10 Another important historical thread is the unequal influence of well-endowed, organized business interests under conditions of rising economic inequality in politics and policy, enabled by specific characteristics of the American politico-institutional eco-system, such as strong opportunities for obstruction and politics as a spectacle.. One could have reasonably expected a different “transformation of racial orders,” leading to different alignments around federal market authority. But as it is, a consideration of carefully crafted federal rules for more market openness is virtually absent from conservative political discourse. tracing the intellectual line of competitive federalism from Hayek through American academic scholarship to their eventual absorption into powerful CTTs significantly contributes to our understanding of conservatism
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