A Republican Strategy For Victory?

Until the last four years since 2006, the conservatism of Reagan had built a majority Republican party. Somethings have changed in the world, such as the defeat of the Soviet Empire, that make some specific pillars of Reagan's platform irrelevant today. Other, more general principles, are still quite applicable to our current policy world.

What the Republican party needs, argues this article in Investors Business Daily, is a way to make those principles even more relevant to our present day's difficulties.

How to do that? The author argues:

"The Republican Party has to move from a pro-business strategy that defends the interests of existing companies to a pro-market strategy that fosters open competition and freedom of entry.

"A pro-market strategy rejects subsidies because they're a waste of taxpayers' money and because they prop up inefficient firms, delaying the entry of new and more efficient competitors.

"And a pro-market approach holds companies financially accountable for their mistakes — an essential policy if free markets are to produce sound decisions.

"A pro-market party will fight tirelessly against letting firms become so big that they cannot be allowed to fail, since such firms may take risks that ordinary companies would never dream of."

This advice echoes the words of older elements of a certain strand of conservatism, such as Wilhelm Roepke's strand of classical liberalism that calls for a "humane economy," who argued that mass and "largeness" is ultimately incompatible with free markets because of intrinsic attributes of human nature. It also sounds a lot like the No. 2 man in the 2008 GOP primaries by delegate count, Mike Huckabee, who attracted more support from young voters than any other Republican candidate in the primary race.

Undoubtably, free markets and economic freedom must be part of a real strategy to renew America. Should this freedom concentrate on reduce "largeness" and economic collectivism?