13 Facts About Neoconservatism

Neoconservatism is a political movement that was born in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s, particularly the Vietnam protests.

Neoconservatism's ideas have been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited the magazine Encounter.

Neoconservatism was initiated by the repudiation of the Cold War and the "New Politics" of the American New Left, which Norman Podhoretz said was too sympathetic to the counterculture and too alienated from the majority of the population; and "anti-anticommunism", which included substantial endorsement of Marxist–Leninist politics during the late 1960s.

Neoconservatism's solution was a restoration of the vital ideas and faith that in the past had sustained the moral purpose of the West.

Neoconservatism later served the Reagan Administration as Ambassador to the United Nations.

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Neoconservatism suggested that in some countries democracy was not tenable and the United States had a choice between endorsing authoritarian governments, which might evolve into democracies, or Marxist–Leninist regimes, which she argued had never been ended once they achieved totalitarian control.

Neoconservatism further accused the Carter administration of a "double standard" and of never having applied its rhetoric on the necessity of liberalization to communist governments.

Neoconservatism first developed during the late 1960s as an effort to oppose the radical cultural changes occurring within the United States.

Neoconservatism questioned the sincerity of neoconservative interest in exporting democracy and freedom, saying: "Neoconservatism in foreign policy is best described as unilateral bellicosity cloaked in the utopian rhetoric of freedom and democracy" as well as social welfare policy.

Neoconservatism generally endorses free markets and capitalism, favoring supply-side economics, but it has several disagreements with classical liberalism and fiscal conservatism.

Political scientist Zeev Sternhell states: "Neoconservatism has succeeded in convincing the great majority of Americans that the main questions that concern a society are not economic, and that social questions are really moral questions".

Neoconservatism has argued that domestic equality and the exportability of democracy are points of contention between them.

Neoconservatism argued that both believe in the "existence of a long-term process of social evolution", though neoconservatives seek to establish liberal democracy instead of communism.