I have a piece by that name up at the Liberty Law Blog. The point of the piece is to state the differences among liberalism, libertarianism, and (social) conservatism, so that the last can be made a little more comprehensible to people interested in the law and sympathetic to libertarianism. It’s only 1500 words long, so I don’t present all considerations, but you have to start somewhere.
You make a very interesting point about the creation of an abstract social order ex nihilo. Nozick explains a similar argument in what I would call a libertarian text, in contrast to Rawls liberal and redistributive view. Basically, Nozick posits a state that is born of anarchy, and reaches to what I would call Pareto efficient state. To the extent the state changes anything beyond this Pareto efficient state, there are infringements in someone’s rights and, thus should not happen. Naturally, this primordial state of the world never existed, but it is a useful and powerful abstraction.
Now, with conservatism, the question is: what is freedom for? From a Christian point of view, this is clear: the Lord gave us free will such that we could freely choose him. Thus, freedom is a very important value, which is ranked for sure higher than equality. However, as freedom is abused and separates us from the Lord, the wages of sin, even at a societal level, kick in. Paraphrasing Cicero, we go into the corruption of government: democracy into demagogy, aristocracy into oligarchy, and monarchy into tyranny. As a side, it is this point that hasn’t moved me towards the monarchic position: without the existence of proper virtues, any system degenerates. Machiavelli documents this extensively on his Discourses on Livy.
What is not clear to me, in the conservative position, is the degree at which the state should intervene when such abuses are detected, and whether the remedy may bring undesired consequences. For example, when I think about abortion, my view is clear: the consequences be damned. On other things, it is not so clear.
without the existence of proper virtues, any system degenerates.
Yes. This is what separates me from the real reactionaries here.
The question is what causes people to lose those proper virtues. I have my own opinion on that, but have already stated it before.
But not from the Christian reactionaries.
Well, one does often get the impression here that all that is required is a Christian monarch combined with control of the media and educational system.
Well… that isn’t all that is required, but it’d be a great start. Actually, I am more of the Moldbuggian view that just about any sufficiently powerful executive will do, and just about any selection process would be better than the current one. Nature, herself, desires good government. If any people en masse refuse to fight with her on this issue are bound to get good government.
Interesting, I scanned the article and did not find the word virtue anywhere. A virtue polity seems to be the conservative position. Freedom should really be pretty low on the list.
It was good to point out libertarianism’s failure to convince the population to vote in its ideas (though I think libertarianism has way too much influence within the broad conservative movement). Far from being some kind of check on the power of “statism” libertarianism actually facilitates the welfare state. Perhaps this point could help disabuse those so-called “conservatives” who merely want to return to 19th century classical liberalism.
However, the welfare state was first implemented by Bismarck, hardly a liberal, who would refer mockingly to the classical liberal Gladstone as “professor”. That is an anecdotal counterexample that demonstrates that the welfare state can come from anywhere, including a reactionary monarchist.
Freedom is a means to an end, not an end in itself. However, because it achieves so many things, it is easily confused with an end and thus abused, but it still ranks very high. For example, I believe most conservatives would agree, a state of freedom does not necessarily include political rights, but it surely includes property rights and all others derived from natural law. Freedom, I believe, is also intimately linked to subsidiarity, as the most local and decentralized authority that could serve the function for the common good can be the individual.
Thus, while the moral arguments against some aspects of libertarianism are very sound, and if not tempered by a strong Christian culture would lead to self-destruction, I haven’t found a functional alternative that solves some of the abuses of liberty: at least none that those not include divine intervention.
Bismarck may have played monarchist, but he was a “social darwinist” and a nationalist in most of his beliefs and decisions. He resigned and critcized Emperor Wilhelm II when he took the throne.
You can’t say a lot that’ll get through with 1500 words and a libertarian audience. So what I said was that freedom matters, but it can’t be the highest political good. You need the Good as the highest political good, and you also need a particular political and moral tradition to realize it concretely.
Libertarianism is the creation of a strong central state. To create the Autonomous Man, it was necessary to destroy the ancient associations that had claim on his loyalty.
It might be worth reminding libertarians of their history.
“Starting from perfect liberty, I conclude in perfect despotism’
Dostoevsky-The Possessed.
I am with vishmehr24, a conservative is one who “Conserves” the Old Order. For Catholics this is Throne and Altar which are both products of the Natural Law.
It is the anti-Catholic so-called “Enlightenment” that created this “Freedom”. The so-called Enlightenment was a movement of Atheists that wanted to be Free from the Church, Free from their society, Free from the Logos. “Freedom” is NOT the goal of politics. You are being hood-winked here.
Vox Day over at Vox Populi has this post today, Game Over about how demographics are destroying this country. America is finished because the American political agenda has been about “Freedom”. Freedom has destroyed America. If you can’t control your culture, you are lost. Life is War, not about Freedom whatsoever. It is about survival, like it always has been.
If you are a true conservative you need to drop “Freedom” from your mind and vocabulary. A true Conservative is one who “conserves” his racial stock, conserves his culture and conserves his religion.
Freedom is a concept that precedes the “Enlightenment” by many years in Christendom. Until there was a need for manpower to work the Caribbean sugar plantations, there was almost no slavery in Europe, mainly because the Church considered it inmoral. I would say that slavery is the extreme denial of freedom. That this state was condemned was evidence that the quality which was denied, freedom, had some value linked to the nature of any person. Lastly, while the altar is a product of natural law, it is not clear to me that the throne it is as well. After all, the Lord’s kingdom is not of this world.
On a side, it is interesting that you mention the anti-Catholic “Enlightenment.” I wonder if this is an Anglo-Saxon invention. I am part of those peoples that will now outnumber you in the future, and in my childhood school, in Latin America, we didn’t recognize a great historical event called the “Enlightenment.” I find this interesting, because I find that I don’t see the level of anti-Catholic virulence like the one among English speaking peoples, which is absurd as they have not been governed by a Catholic king since James II. Thus, Enlightenment is associated to deposing Catholic kings, confiscating Church property and reducing the influence of a religion which Protestants used to hate. If you forgive my translation to English from what I remember, there was the modern era (starting with the fall of Constantinople), the formation of the nation state and absolute monarchy, a minuscule mention to the encyclopedists, the French Revolution, and the rest. The Parliamentary War and Glorious Revolution have no mention, although the American Revolution is mentioned as an important event for the Spanish colonies and nascent Latin American republics, but nothing more. We even splitted the encyclopedists from those who developed the scientific method, so while we had “Enlightened Despots” (Charles III), we didn’t have an “Enlightement,” just more influential philosophers.
Hmm… Ralph, Latin American peoples may have had little interest in the Enlightenment, but it surely has had a interest in them! Just look at Brazil in the last 20 years. That’s enlightenment, Baby!
One would think, in speaking of the Whig power grab, that once they’d deposed (or decapitated) enough kings, they would have been set. But they weren’t done. No sirreee. You’re thinking like a Latin. Coincidentally, Jim’s Blog has a brilliant post up just today which compares and contrasts Overt and Official Theocracy (which is what everyone thinks of when they hear “theocracy”) and Covert and Unofficial Theocracy, which is is what you get when you get rid of Overt and Unofficial Theocracy. Can’t say I agree with his conclusions. God is not dead (and not in fact killable). Therefore there is hope. But his epidemiological history is spot on.
The throne is every bit a part of natural law as the altar. Moreso, in all probability. The security of persons and property is the foundation for all human flourishing. Swift justice for those who trespass comes following along quite quickly. And for that you need protection, and for that you’ll gladly pay a fee. Once you’ve got that, freedom is a natural and desirable outgrowth. But without the basics, i.e., security and justice, freedom just means the liberty for most to die in poverty and misery.
oops, that should’ve been “Covert and Unofficial Theocracy, which is is what you get when you get rid of Overt and Official Theocracy.”
The first natural law that is part of the Old Order and that is the “combinatorial system”; i.e. the human being is a two part harmony of body and soul. Christendom was “Throne and Altar”, a two part harmony. Jesus Christ is a Two part harmony of “God and Man”. So Christendom followed the Natural Law.
The natural law that upholds “Throne” is the Homeric dictum, “The Rule of One is Best”. In all racial units of tribe, clan, nation, there is a King. The King, and that of the Royal Family, is the ruling part the racial group. Like a cell that has a nucleaus, the race has a nucleaus called the Royal Family, the Monarch.
The so-called “Enlightenment” should be called the “Darkening” for it was a movement of atheists, deists, Jews and Protestants to destroy Catholic Christendom. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Jews and Atheists made common cause to destroy Christendom. “Freedom” was the code word, the propaganda word, to destroy Christendom.
I am not denying that there was a set of philosophies that came out in the XVII-XVIII centuries that is called by modern historians as the “Enlightenment”. I also agree that is was anti-Catholic in nature. I was just pointing out how the emphasis varies geographically.
In Latin America, its effects were disastrous. But even within Latin America, there are big differences. Brazil and Hispanic America are very different. Brazil has always, due to its Portuguese heritage, been more liberal. While masonry and liberals have waged a constant war against the Church since these republics became independent, there has always been a sizeable core of devout Catholics. They have been able to stem the tide against the constant anti-clericalism from the left, but have had to endure and tolerate the disasters of the left.
Case in point, to me, is Colombia. While the have marxist guerrillas, they also have a very Catholic population. They are in their behavior very conservative, even if their governments are not. That is why in Latin America, leftists use ridiculous statements like “Christ was a revolutionary socialist”, rather than “God is dead”, as atheism seems entirely foreign over there.
Now, in terms of strong central governments, and “rule of one”, they have not been proven to be effective of stable down there. Iturbide’s Empire didn’t last long, nor Brazil’s Empire. God knows they had our share of strong men, and, although there was no clear process for succession, the rule of one did happen. The more stable government since Independence was that of Chile and Colombia, which had republics, until marxism entered, aided by those liberation theology Jesuits, whose evil they are still suffering. I just think that subsidiarity requires some delegation of authority down the hierarchy, in such a way that the system generates stabily, order and justice. I don’t think all monarchies achieve that, nor all republics. The problem with modern republics is not that they value freedom, but that they value equality.
Monarchies also exist in Mixed Governments. Originally, all the classical republics were started under kings and classical republics were mixed government. Tudor England that had a monarch, had mixed government, and was therefore a Republic. (q.v. The Classical definition of a republic.)
I would agree that there has to be delegation of authority under Monarchy and I am for Classical Republicanism. Modern Republicanism is just democracy and its anti-clericalism, anti-hierarchialism, and its hatred for the division of function betrays its true meaning. Modern Republicanism is the total opposite of Classical Republicansim!
I would not use the word ‘philosophy’ to describe the intellectual thought of the Darkening. Atheists can not be philosophers. Philosophy, True philosophy, is that which loves “Divine Wisdom”. No one in the Darkening loved Divine Wisdom for none had the true original natural law. How could they, they deconstructed Throne and Altar and so they couldn’t have known it! There is True Philosophy and then there is sophistry. What they practiced in the Renaissance and in the Darkening was Man’s sophistry, but NOT philosophy. In order to do True Philosophy one must have the True Original Natural Law and believe in a transcendent real metaphysical God.