Birkenstock conservatives.(Crunchy Cons )(Book review)

Crunchy Cons By Rod Dreher Crown Forum, 272 pages, $24

A "Crunchy Con" I'm not. Rod Dreher's book of the same title is a passionate lament against much of what passes for contemporary conservatism. His book title, and attempt to promote a corresponding political movement, is a reference to conservatives who eat (and breathe) granola. Dreher argues that conservatives have strayed from the one true faith, and thinks only a revival of traditional values can save us. I sympathize with his argument: I live and work three miles from where I was raised, and almost every day do things the way my grandfather taught me. I even believe some things are worth doing that way for no other reason than to honor our family's long attachment to our northwest Missouri land. But in the process of promoting such things Dreher ignores other conservative notions, like pragmatism, freedom, and avoidance of ideology.

The thesis of the book is that conservatives, or more properly Republicans, elevate the market to a place once held by family, home, and spiritual things, making them little better than Democrats in their prescriptions for society. Dreher argues passionately for organic food, environmentalist politics, home-based education. He views free trade and free markets with skepticism. He writes movingly about his religious conversion, and makes clear that all of his other prescriptions flow from his faith.

Consumerism, Hollywood, television, and the modern Republican Party are all easy targets. But Dreher's prescriptions have little to offer even those of us who have sympathy for his diagnosis.

Much of his emphasis and discussion is on the production and consumption of food. To quote Dreher: "Nearly all American agriculture today is carried out by agribusiness and its efficient factory-farming methods. Rural America is depopulating, and dying with it is an entire way of life and a traditional set of values derived from living close to the land. This is the cost of saving money on meat and vegetables at the supermarket. But few conservatives stop to think about that."

Which is just as well, because when Crunchy Cons think about farming and food, confusion is the result. Rural areas in much of the Midwest, like where I live, are indeed losing population, and I agree with Dreher that this brings losses to our culture. Most of my neighbors make this argument when they lobby, usually successfully, for increases in farm subsidies.

But if your thesis is that economic freedom is running amok (Dreher's position), then agriculture shouldn't be your main example. It is subsidies and anti-market intrusions that increase fertilizer and chemical use on farms today. And government protection not only does little to protect the family farm, the rural population decline Dreher laments correlates almost perfectly with the amount of subsidies an area receives. Different crops and different farming regions are subsidized differently, and it's a useful rule of thumb that the more "protected" the farming, the worse the depopulation.