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The Old Right is an informal designation used for a branch of American conservatism that was most prominent from 1910 to the mid-1950s, but never became an organized movement. Most members were Republicans, although there was a conservative Democratic element based largely in the Southern United States. They are termed the "Old Right" to distinguish them from their New Right successors who came to prominence in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Most were unified by their defense of authority, tradition, morality, religion, limited government, rule of law, civic nationalism, capitalism, social conservatism, anti-Communism, anti-socialism, anti-Zionism, and anti-imperialism, as well as their skepticism of egalitarianism and democracy and the growing power of Washington.[1] The Old Right typically favored laissez-faire classical liberalism; some were free market conservatives; others were ex-radical leftists who moved sharply to the right, such as the novelist John Dos Passos. Still others, such as the Democrat Southern Agrarians, were traditionalists who dreamed of restoring a pre-modern communal society.[2] Above all, Murray Rothbard wrote, the Old Right were unified by opposition to what they saw as the danger of "domestic dictatorship" by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal program.[3]
The Old Right per se has faded as an organized movement, but many similar ideas are found among paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians.
- ^ Modugno, Roberta A. (2019). "The Libertarian Legacy of the Old Right: Democracy and Representative Government". Journal of Libertarian Studies. 23: 5–21.
- ^ Allitt, Patrick. The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (2009), chapter 6
- ^ Rothbard, Murray. The Betrayal of the American Right (2007)