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Book Review: The conservative heart: How to build a fairer, happier, and more prosperous America

Social work, long identified with American liberalism, has, to its peril, paid insufficient attention to developments on the Right. Historically, conservatives have been antagonistic toward government social programs, which were the basis for the expansion of social work during the 20th century, so there has been ample reason to be wary of the Right’s designs on social policy. Yet, conservatives have made important inroads with respect to the welfare state, which are too significant to ignore. Nationally, the 1996 welfare reform replaced a social entitlement with a workmandated, time-limited discretionary program devolved to the states. At the state level, it’s noteworthy that all of the industrial states of the nation’s heartland—Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin—bastions of liberalism for decades, have elected Republican governors who have reduced social program expenditures. Moreover, dark clouds loom on the horizon. Social entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—may be too entrenched to be repealed by the Right. However, conservatives have employed a ‘‘starve the beast’’ strategy, restricting tax revenues essential for government social programs, in the process strangling funding for discretionary programs, including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education, among others, eventually culminating in the shutdown of the federal government. Such tactics have made it easy for social work to regard the Right as antediluvian and retrograde, hopelessly out of synch with the needs of Americans. But, that would be a mistake. Conservatives have actually become savvy with respect to social welfare. After the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, for example, Congressional Republicans founded the Young Guns Network (YGN) in 2007, began drafting position papers on domestic policy, endorsing candidates for office, and in 2011 establishing a 501(c)(4) super-PAC, Young Guns Action, to support conservatives in Congressional races. Predictably, YGN was promarket, antiunion, and skeptical of federal involvement in social affairs. Yet, YGN has not been antiwelfare but hewed to a residualist position, preferring that Americans rely on the labor market, family and friends, community associations, and government as a last resort, in that order. Social workers may disagree with this orientation to social policy, but it resonates with a large number of Americans. Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, adds to the conservative literature on social welfare arguing that the Right has a compelling case for replacing liberalism with conservatism and assuming hegemony in social policy. Rejecting liberals’ emphasis on income redistribution as a result of rising economic inequality, Brooks argues for a postmaterialist agenda for social justice. It is conservatives who stand for true hope, a hope that returns power and agency back into the hands of ordinary people. We extol free enterprise, self-reliance, and ethical living—the foundations of a good life, no matter how much money someone makes. (p. 19)