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{{BSZ}} In Kansas and [[other ]] states in the American heartland, [[economic ]] [[class ]] [[conflict ]] (poor farmers and blue-collar [[workers ]] versus lawyers, bankers, large companies) has been transposed into an opposition between honest, hard-[[working]], [[Christian ]] Americans on the one hand, and decadent latte-drinking [[liberals ]] who [[drive ]] foreign cars, mock patriotism and advocate abortion and [[homosexuality ]] on the other: so Thomas Frank argues in What's the Matter with America? The main economic interest of populist conservatism is to get rid of the strong [[state]], which taxes the population in [[order ]] to finance regulatory interventions, and to introduce an economic programme whose slogan might be "less tax, fewer regulations." From the standard perspective which holds that economic [[agency ]] is based on the [[rational ]] pursuit of [[self]]-interest, the [[inconsistency ]] of this stance is obvious: populist conservatives are literally voting themselves into economic ruin. Less taxation and increased deregulation means more [[freedom ]] for the corporations that are driving impoverished farmers out of business; less state [[intervention ]] means less federal [[help ]] for small farmers, and so on. In the eyes of the evangelical populists, however, the state is an [[alien ]] [[power ]] and, together with the UN, an [[agent ]] of the Antichrist: it relieves the Christian believer of the [[responsibility ]] of stewardship, and thus undermines the [[need ]] for [[individual ]] [[morality ]] that makes each of us the architect of our own salvation. ==Source==* [[Over the Rainbow]]. ''[[Lacan]].com''. November 4, 2004. <http://www.lacan.com/zizek-rainbow.htm>. [[Category:Articles by Slavoj Žižek]][[Category:Works]][[Category:Articles]]