The Conservative Movement in Perspective: Part I
For some time I have been denigrating the conservative movement on the grounds that it is anti-democratic, culturally regressive, generally intolerant and conducive to right-wing authoritarianism. I have not provided much direct evidence to support these claims, in favor of citing historical examples and the actions and words of current ideologues. Today I wish to make a more comprehensive case against the conservative movement, broadly contextualized in the western tradition of politics, economics and philosophy. Such a lengthy topic could fill a book but I think that the movement can be understood in terms of a few key motivations and assumptions about human civilization that have been passed down through time to the point where they can be considered central to the development of western society. In fact, though it might seem strange coming from me, the movement is a legitimate force in western history, has always been present and might never leave us. But when I say legitimate, I only mean to acknowledge it's existence, not to make any claims to it's validity. In other words, I recognize it as an omnipresent force in history but think that it's value as an organizing principle of soceity has eroded steadily as humanity marches towards modernity, and now stands starkly as an anachronism impeding the very progress of humanity.
Our journey begins, conceptually, at the dawn of human civilization but we will look at that event through the eyes of the most significant early political philosopher of conservatism, Hobbes.
HOBBES, THE STATE OF NATURE AND SECURITY
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) lived through one of the most tumultuous periods of English history, the civil war of 1642-1651. His most famous work, The Leviathan, is directly the result of that experience. The chaos that often follows civil wars (and always follows political revolutions) made Hobbes consider the fragility of civil society and he began to meditate on how order could be maintained permanently. As was the style of the time, Hobbes began Leviathan with a lengthy philosophical discussion of the moral behavior of man prior to civilization. The State of Nature imagines human beings living in conditions of anarchy; this is the first assumption of conservatism. Within this anarchy humans exist as rational, self-interested beings, whose own survival--and perhaps to a lesser, but not insignificant degree, immediate relatives--is paramount. Humans will not necessarily resort to fisticuffs to resolve issues, but devolution into such conflict is assumed by Hobbes to be inevitable. These people are, however, rational and they will look for a rational solution to this dilemma. The Leviathan is the solution to this social problem whereas the people in the State of Nature voluntarily enter into a covenant to create something artificial, the state.
Recall that Hobbes considers the state necessary for security. The Leviathan is not predicated on natural rights or freedoms: it exists solely to prevent people from destroying each other. Thus, the state must be powerful; furthermore it must be infallible and impervious to change. At the top of the state sits the sovereign, an individual designated by the people entering the covenenant to wield absolute power over everyone else. The sovereign, in short, guarantees security through the power of contract. This power arrangement is designed, rationally it must be reminded, to prevent conflict forever.
Leaving aside questions of whether this system would work, let us examine some implications of this system within the confines of it's logic. First, it assumes all beings are rational. Second, it does not change--it is static. Third, as Hobbes famously dictated in The Leviathan, the state would have total control over ideas, including the suppression of university teachings that could be considered subversive to the state. Progress as we know it could never flourish in Hobbes' system because change would be restricted by the will of the sovereign. A political revolution would need to occur before a new covenant could be convened amongst the people.
The implications of this system for our discussion of conservatism should be obvious. But before we look at the specifics we need to look at some other canonized minds from the rich intellectual history of the west.
rational economics and the death of the aristocracy
Hobbes, I would argue, was a modern man whose ideas shocked his medieval peers. The actual political result of his philosophy was the institution of absolutism which enshrined the monarchs of Europe (particularly in France) as just short of divine. In fact, absolutism was a successful system for many years until the excesses of the aristocrats who surrounded the king began to starkly contrast with the poverty of peasants. But peasant uprisings are not enough to create a political revolution. There was another, far more important constituency that was absolutely vital crucial towards the French Revolution--the bourgeoisie.
It is important to realize that the bourgeoisie possessed increasing wealth from commerce but not corresponding political power. The aristocracy of late 18th century Europe possessed wealth derived from the labor of peasant workers and political power from their heritage. This tension between divine right (the "natural" order of things) and the interests of self-made men found it's outlet in the French Revolution and the peasants sided with the bourgeoisie because they shared a common grievance with the aristocracty. This shift in power is one of the most significant in western history, for it ushered in the beginning of the modern world we know today. The immediate reasons for the bourgeoisie supplanting the aristocracy are clear. What is relevant for our discussion is the evolving justification for this new ruling class. The "natural" place to start is with the founding economic philosophy of Adam Smith.
Smith (1723-1790) sought to understand how the market mechansims of the new entrenpreneurial class operated. Like Hobbes, Smith's actors in the market were rational, self-interested beings. Unlike Hobbes, however, Smith suggested that this need not be a state of anarchy but rather an orderly system based on the exchange of goods and services. Balance between supply and demand of products kept the system stable, and in way, moral (one could not overcharge without facing pressure from cheaper competitors). Market forces were the great equalizer of commerce, and consequently, humanity. It is no coincidence that this theory was developed at the same time democratic theories of politics came to be. This period was known as the Enlightenment, and indeed John Locke--ostensibly the philosophical founder of American democracy--was a contemporary of Smith. There is no reason to criticize Smith's system within it's own logical restraints; in fact it shares many of the conditions generated by Hobbes' system: rational, self-interested beings acting within a static system. The only difference is the lack of formal orthodoxy suppressing change--this was to come later when the capitalist system described by Smith evolved from relatively small, nationally oriented, trade-based systems of economic development to transnational corporate abstractions generating unprecedented amounts of wealth and industry in a diversity of markets.
Our discussion must now leap forward to the 20th century when this new mode of capitalism--the one we're familiar with today--came into being. Because it was at this point that the vast wealth generated by the system created the incentive to protect it with a thorough philosophical and economic justification.
NEXT: Politics and Economics Merge: The Rise of the Libertarian Ideal