Since 1973 the world capitalist economy has been undergoing a crisis unprecedented in half a century—”the second slump,” as Ernest Mandel rightly calls it. To be sure, each advanced industrial country has its own history, balance of political forces, and modes of response to this crisis. These singularities should never be dismissed—among other things, they strongly condition the timing and character of the political response. They are also of the utmost importance in shaping the kinds of political elites that come to power in an era of dislocation. Yet a common pattern seems to be emerging. This pattern (and we must oversimplify it here) is one of ascendant conservatism in the core of the...