I have absolutely no problem with the assertion that liberalism — in the classical or libertarian sense — can be corrosive to many important things. This is a point I've made in my own writing countless times (I can dig up the citations if necessary). But as Ross notes in his excellent post on conservative stasis below, that same liberalism often results in the important things being strengthened rather than weakened. In a chaotic world families become more important, not less. Some people realize this, and benefit from the realization. Others don't and suffer for it. And most of us come up with their own happy balance between the demands of modern society and the demands of permanent things.

Indeed, this truism is proved by the fact that Rod felt the need to write this book in the first place. Is it crazy to imagine that in a more European culture with all of the flab that comes with French-style bourgeois entitlements, that Rod might not have hunkered down with his family and come to appreciate community more?

Now, since everyone in here keeps feeling the need to say "I'm not a socialist" I understand that not all of the crunchies want to abandon the free market. But at some point what does all of this "capitalism sucks" talk matter if it doesn't translate itself into an agenda. And, when it comes to public policy proposals crunchy conservatism may prove to have something of a glass jaw.

Mankind will learn at the school of example and none other, says Edmund Burke. Well, where is the example of a crunchy system worth emulating?

Also, Rod's hard dichtomy between "materialist" libertarianism and earthy and soulful conservatism muddies the waters because as Angelo notes, even many of the champions of liberal economics do not ground their arguments in materialism. Even Charles Murray's What It Means To Be A Libertarian, an outstanding book, by the way, works on the assumption that it is not capitalism but anti-capitalist schemes which erode families and communities. It is simply taken as a given in here that libertarianism is not only soulless but soul-killing. It is that unproven assertion which muddies the waters most. After all, this country was created in the forge of classical liberalism and all of the nostalgia in here is aimed at a past when America still held to liberal values.