Posted by Aaron Pickus

While persuasive conservative thought in America has begun to fade, due to a lack of leadership and ideas in the GOP, conservatism in the United Kingdom has a new "philosopher-king," Phillip Blond.

The February 2009 edition of Prospect features an article he wrote, "Rise of the Red Tories":

The financial crisis is just the latest example of the collapse of markets into what I call "modal monopoly." By this I mean a model of monopoly that extends beyond whether an individual company has undue market influence to whether a certain mode or way of doing business constitutes a cartel. For example, the great housing crash is primarily the result of the absorption of all local, regional and national systems of credit into one form of global credit.

and...

British conservatism must not, however, repeat the American error of preaching "morals plus the market" while ignoring the fact that economic liberalism has often been a cover for monopoly capitalism and is therefore just as socially damaging as left-wing statism. Equally, if Conservatives are to take power from the market state and give it to the people, they must develop a full-blooded "new localism" which works to empower communities and builds new, vibrant local economies that can uphold the party's civic vision.

William Kristol, Fred Barnes, Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal and especially Eric Cantor could do far worse than follow Blond's argument.