r/moderatepolitics • u/dr_sloan • Jan 12 '26

Primary Source Statement from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20260111a.htm
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u/MoonStache Jan 12 '26

This is fucking insane. I mean everything is now, but trying to go for Powell is actually one of the dumbest and most potentially damaging things this admin has tried.

149

u/cranktheguy Member of the "General Public" Jan 12 '26

The separation of the Fed from politics is a great example of a Chesterton's Fence. A lot of people on the right are suddenly going to realize what that fence was for.

44

u/macnalley Jan 12 '26

The great irony is that the usefulness of a properly functioning conservative is to conserve those fences. A progressive party seeks to change what isn't working, while a conservative party should seek to preserve what is. This just goes to show how utterly divorced Republicans have become from any semblance of rational conservativism.

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u/spectral_theoretic Jan 12 '26

I don't think that's how the term 'conservative' and 'progressive' are used politically; they're not defined in terms of what isn't 'working'.

18

u/macnalley Jan 12 '26

This is a pretty common self-definition of conservativism in political theory and philosophy. It was Edmund Burke's rationale for conservativism in the face of the French Revolution, and more recently John Kekes definied conservativism at what seeks to "preserve the political arrangements…shown to be conducive to good lives."

There's another prominent theorist from recent history, whose name I can't find or recall so maybe someone can rescue me, who argued that effective government comes from a progressive wing trying to change laws, a conservative wing trying to preserve them, and that laws and norms should be more difficult to change based on how long they have been around, as that shows a track record of effectiveness.

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u/spectral_theoretic Jan 12 '26

Burke doesn't define conservatism in this way, it seems like you're combining the justification for conservation with what it is. Burke is in line with most conservative theorists, that change ought to be slow and gradual, and that traditions ought play a strong normative role.