More on Bush on Conservatism

The other day I defended W for saying that he needed to destroy the free market in order to save it (link). I suggested that it sounded vaguely Rooseveltian. Maybe, but in any event sinnce then, I've stumbled on a couple more references int he same vein. One is the excellent Saving Capitalism from Capitlists by Raghuram G. Rajan and Luigi Zingales.

The other is more portentous. It is from Chapter One of Il Gattopardo, The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa's great Italian novel about his grandfather, the old Prince di Lampedusa. We pass the mike to Nigel Rees, who develops the point in the current issue of The "Quote...Unquote" Newsletter:

Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi [If we want everything to remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change.] In the first chapter, this ‘ambiguous’ observation is said to be well-understood by Prince Fabrizio but to have originated with his nephew and heir, Tancredi. In an introductory title to some versions of Luchino Visconti’s film (Italy/US 1963), it is indeed given as the Prince’s own credo, but translated into English as ‘Things will have to change in order that they can remain the same.’ In the course of the film, the Prince (played by Burt Lancaster) also gets to ‘speak’ the words (in dubbed Italian) when referring to Garibaldi’s victory. The subtitles relay these as: Something had to change so that everything might remain as it was before.’

--The "Quote...Unquote" Newsletter 7, Vol. 18, No. 1, January 2009

Or as they say in the Oval Office, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.