Since I write about conservatism, I thought I would clarify what I mean by the word “conservative.” There are probably as many ways to define conservatism as there are people, so I am not making a claim to be the final authority on the subject. In this blog I’m going to stick with a simple and straightforward understanding. Conservatism is about preserving and protecting freedom. Conservatives are conservationists of freedom.
In contrast, the opposite of conservatism is statism. Statists want to destroy freedom, replacing it with control of individuals and society in general by the state. Statists believe that people need to be managed into “correct” behavior. The statist believes their ideal is the right one to create a better human environment. Statism takes two forms, secular statism and religious statism.
Secular statism, or leftism, or left-wing extremism, is about intellectual ideas. Leftism comes from the ivory towers of academia. Marxism, Maoism, Communism, Fascism and Socialism are all examples of secular statism.
Religious statism, or rightism, or right-wing extremism, is about radical religious faith. Imperialist Islam is one example of religious statism. In a healthy religion God wants volunteers, not conscripts; salvation is personal; church and state do not mix; God guides society and individuals with an invisible hand. In religious statism, the state corrupts the principles of the church, and the church corrupts the state. But religious statism says that all people must be conscripted to serve a god who in their faith is really the church which is really the leadership of the church. In religious statism, the church usually becomes an instrument for propping up some kind of statist government, often in the form of a monarchy.
Conservatism requires that we understand the principles of what works and what doesn’t. It requires that we work towards conserving the things that work, and try to stop the things that don’t.
America was founded on natural principles. The Founders learned those principles from the examples of history, and applied them to the new form of Republican government they created.
A central natural principle is that societies are self organizing, and self organizing societies are generally optimal. Systems that do not work die. Systems that work thrive. Some of those systems are financial. Some are systems of freedom and justice. Without freedom, societies will not self organize and become optimal. Statist interventions sustain systems that do not work and kill systems that do work. Statism is always less than optimal. The more severe the statism, the more screwed up the society.
Some government intervention is necessary because people will abuse freedom to take advantage of others. For example, monopolies will form in a completely open financial system, and monopolies are known to be destructive to freedom. Governments must intervene to prevent monopolies. The limitations imposed by government in a free society evolve naturally out of a desire to prevent systems that are contrary to freedom. In a free society these kinds of limitations are imposed by the people, not by a controlling government. This kind of governmental control is not the product of an intellectual elitist government, rather, it is an outgrowth of the wisdom of the people. We call that justice.
In a free nation, statists cannot fail to overthrow the government. They are always working on more than one plan. They always have tomorrow to try again. If one approach to an overthrow doesn’t work, they just try a different approach. In ten or twenty years they can go back and try the original approach again. Statists lose nothing when they lose an attempt to overthrow the government. In the struggle to conserve freedom, only conservatives can lose anything. Conservatives can lose freedom. Conservatives are constrained by what we can do to preserve freedom. Statists can do anything; break any law or norm; commit any immorality. If they behave in such as way that preserves freedom they have lost no ground. If they behave in such as way that destroys freedom they gain ground. They never lose, except on the rare occasions when they make gains and conservatives take that ground back.
The political left and right are different from a pure ideological left and right. Political left and right have to do with political parties, and political parties are aggregations of people with similar interests. Political parties in America tend toward pure ideological left and right, but there are statists and conservatives in both parties.
Pure ideological leftism and rightism are about secular and religious statism. Pure conservatism is neither left nor right. But very importantly, pure conservatism is not centerist either. Pure conservatism is completely outside the system of leftist and rightist statism.
Leftists try to color everyone who is not a leftist as a rightist. Likewise, rightists try to paint everyone who is not a rightist as a leftist. Neither is correct. Leftism is secular statism. Rightism is religious statism. But conservatism is about avoiding statism altogether. If you value freedom, do not let the leftists or rightist paint you as something you are not. You are a conservative, and they are statists of the left or right.
And that is what I mean when I refer to “conservative” in this blog.
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3 users commented in " What conservatism is "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback[...] of the commenters offered this quote that supports an entry I just wrote in Amorian.org about the meaning of conservatism. This sums up my article nicely: [...]
Another good article. All in all, I like your definition.
There is one part you may want to reconsider, however.
"Some government intervention is necessary because people will abuse freedom to take advantage of others… monopolies will form in a completely open financial system, and monopolies are known to be destructive to freedom".
I challenge that assertion. Prior to the statist policies implemented during the railroad era (and after), I am not aware of large monopolies in America — likewise, I am not aware of anti-monopoly laws being instituted prior to that time either.
In America we have been taught heavily that corporations tend to create monopolies and that monopolies are bad. But I wonder if that isn't a hold-over doctrine passed down from mixed-statist governments who have run our country to varying degrees for over 100 years.
I observe that there are 2 types of monopolies: non-consentual monopolies and consentual monopolies.
By non-consentual monopolies I mean where a company or group of companies collaborate on a valuable product and successfully shut-out all competition — phone companies are a good example of this where, in earlier eras, only one phone company was allowed by law to establish and own phone poles and lines and no competitors were allowed into the market.
But take note, that sort of monopoly was only created by artifice of government edict. Without governmental law mandating that only one company could build and own and access the phone lines, no such monopoly would have been possible.
By consentual monopoly I mean where one or more companies collaborate on a product in an attempt to make it the most popular and widely-used product of it's kind. There is nothing preventing smaller companies from attempting to introduce their product into the market, even if the business practices of the larger company dominate so strongly that they own the lion's share of the market. A good example of this would be Microsoft's Windows O/S where even though they heavily influence and dominate the market, smaller O/S's do in fact exist and customers do in fact have a choice — in fact, Linux is a good example of a competitor still managing to succeed in spite of the larger force.
The reason I say that it is a 'consentual' monopoly is because such monopoly really does only exist due to the consent of the consumer. If 50% of Windows users utterly refused to use Windows and switched to Linux, the software market would be flipped on it's head overnight and Linux would become the big boy.
The difference between the two types of monopolies is whether or not the statist government is allowed to intervene. If allowed to intervene, we always tend to get the non-consentual form of monopoly — one where our power to choose is completely taken away from us and we are forced to choose the only choice that is provided to us by the politicians voted in by the majority. On the other hand, if we refuse the statist government from intervening, the consentual form of monopoly will occur — one where, individually, we all retain the power to choose and can change our minds at any minute and choose the other product. I'm not saying it might not be inconvenient, but an inconvenient choice is far better than no choice at all.
Ayn Rand, my favorite philosopher, carefully elaborates on this very subject in her writings. It is her account of how the big railroads created the first major monopoly in America, and how they were allowed to do so by statist-government policy, that opened my eyes to the matter.
When the gov't attempts to create anti-monopoly regulation, they are in fact growing statism.
As conservatives of freedom, I don't think we should look kindly on gov't trying to regulate monopolistic business practices — the government are themselves responsible for the worst and most corrupt form of monopoly.
That I were to choose between Ma Bell or Microsoft, give me Microsoft any day of the week! At least then I could still vote with my dollar.
Conservatism, liberalism…they may as well be the same thing.
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