American conservatives blamed poverty on personal failings while favoring free competition

Evidence

Adorno insisted that there should be a distinction between conservative' and pseudo-conservative’, as against the Berkeley people, who, according to him, tended simply to identify anti-Semites with conservativesespecially Levinson, who has the black and white ideas of a progressive'. But he was certainly pushing against an open door with the Berkeley staff here. By conservative’ they did not mean people of the sort defended by Adorno, such as members of the ruling class in England, but conservatives in the American sense: those who supported unrestricted free competition even in monopoly-capitalist conditions, who ascribed the existence of poverty and failure to personal shortcomings, and who wanted a state which would only intervene to help those who were successful. The significance of Adorno’s distinction between conservatism and pseudo-conservatism lay in the fact that he was attempting to give the political and economic concept of conservatism some psychological depth. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1587

Categorization

• XREF: The American-conservative profile here (meritocratic blame of the poor, intervener-only state) resonates with the class/political framing of the reader’s existing work on moral panics and immodesty panics. — connects to: Elite economists blamed poverty on the supposed deficiencies of the poor themselves — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 226; Development economics RCTs blame individuals while ignoring poverty’s structural causes — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 289; Neoliberals favored deterrent poor-relief because generous dole undermined market discipline — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 218 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1587

Broader Connections

• Reagan’s ‘vote with your feet’ rhetoric was the lie blaming poverty on laziness #exemplifies (0.95) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 497
• Elite economists blamed poverty on the supposed deficiencies of the poor themselves #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 226
• Black poverty was blamed on Black behavior rather than housing discrimination #exemplifies (0.90) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 451
• Neoliberals favored deterrent poor-relief because generous dole undermined market discipline #exemplifies (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 218
• Development economics RCTs blame individuals while ignoring poverty’s structural causes #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 289