Jonathan Chait

Of the many taboos that prevail among conservatives, the one forbidding any serious discussion of inequality is perhaps the strictest. Any forthright examination of this topic will lead one quickly to the realization that American society has been spreading apart rapidly for three decades and that Republican economic policies have without a doubt contributed mightily to this gulf. So conservatives usually ignore the subject of inequality, except perhaps to minimize its scale or importance.
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The current predicament is not altogether unfamiliar to America. A century ago, there were vast disparities in wealth and income, and the political system was dominated by a self-serving elite. What finally turned the tide was a wave of labor violence and radical activism, first around the turn of the century and again during the Great Depression. The business and political elite feared that capitalism itself was under siege and might not survive, and in time it embraced the palliative of modern liberal reform in order to safeguard the free enterprise system.
The elite of that generation, like the elite of today, was conservative by temperament. But their conservatism meant something else -- a sense of social responsibility, a commitment to preserving peace between economic classes. The conservatives of today, on the other hand, have redefined conservatism as an expression of their material self-interest, defined in the narrowest and most short-sighted terms. They have forgotten the lessons of their forebears, and if sanity is to be restored to our political order, they must relearn them.