Abstract

The thrust of Berger's defense of capitalism and rejection of socialism appears in two 1981 articles in the Harvard Business Review by Podhoretz and Berger. The latter is the basis of chapter 9 in The Capitalist Revolution. Both pieces look like classified advertisements, offering the services of neoconservative intellectuals as the “new defenders of capitalism.” The 1980 election returns, Berger wrote, have shown that “the recent political isolation of business might be at an end, and with its passing American society might come again to understand the value of its capitalist heritage.” Yet, Berger warned, the complete restoration of the legitimacy of the business community “will depend as much on successful competition over ideas as on successful performance in the market.”