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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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by George J. Irbe
It has been bothering me for some time now that I did not really have a clear grasp of the degree of separation between the "conservative" and the "classical liberal." I suspected that it was not nearly as large as what some people made it out to be, and that both creeds dipped into the same pool of beliefs. Upon closer examination it becomes clear that -- to continue with the analogy -- they are dipping with differently-shaped ladles, made from different materials, and in opposite ends of the pool. Being a "self-proclaimed" classical liberal, I had read with much attention George Watson's The Idea of Liberalism (1985); references in that book prompted me to look into the writings of two well-known, staunch British conservatives, Roger Scruton and Michael Oakeshott. Both men are quite forward and unambiguous in stating their beliefs and prejudices and they do not hesitate to criticize liberalism. For the expounder of the classical liberal view I turned to my favorite, Friedrich A. Hayek; I had his trilogy Law, Legislation and Liberty at hand from whence to draw quotations on the subject. I was surprised to discover that Hayek seldom even uses the term "conservative," and rarely, if ever, engages in knocking it. I was also fortunate to have on my shelf a book of selected essays from the first twenty-five years of the quarterly Modern Age. In there I found a very useful piece by Frank S. Meyer. While Scruton and Oakeshott represent British conservatism, Meyer, a native of New Jersey, provides the American flavor. Furthermore, Frank Meyer was for over a decade before and during WW II a member of the Communist Party. After experiencing his intellectual and political epiphany, he became a devoted and respected member of the American conservative movement. Perhaps it is precisely because he came to conservatism in mid-life and as a convert from the zealous ideology of communism that Meyer discerns conservatism and classical liberalism without entrenched prejudice for or against either one. That makes his analysis of the two philosophically related creeds the more honest and therefore very worthwhile. To set the stage, then, I have drawn quotations from the following works, referred to in the text by numbers as shown below:
I have also used a quote by W.E. Gladstone, from George Watson's The Idea of Liberalism, and a rare (for him) statement on conservatism by Friedrich A. Hayek, in the foreword to the 1976 edition of The Road to Serfdom. Thousands of opinions, complimentary and inimical, have been expressed in thousands of different ways on what is conservatism and what is classical liberalism. Both sets of beliefs and attitudes are rather amorphous and lack easily definable dogmas. One can, as I am about to, start the discussion as one pleases. Hayek characterizes classical liberalism as a doctrine that endeavors to guarantee individual liberty in a society governed by laws of just conduct.
The classical liberal values equal treatment under law as much as liberty. He is also keenly aware of one of the main vulnerabilities of democratic government which is to fall under the sway of influential special interests who hold some form of power in society and who therefore expect special privileges, including that of the "right" to rule. Hayek writes:
In the democratic political arena of the real world, there always are present special interest groups which compete for influence in, and control of, the legislative body. A politician of the classical liberal kind must therefore exercise vigilance in the interests of equal treatment under law for all citizens; this must inescapably color his politics with a shade of what is known as "populism". George Watson explains in The Idea of Liberalism how W.E. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister, saw the situation:
The conservatives have also tried to define themselves. They too proclaim the same adherence to the rule of law, like the liberals, but their fealty stresses submission to its authority rather than its role as guardian of liberty .
However, the conservative has always preferred enforcing the prevailing "rules of conduct" to amending them, if such amendments would threaten the entrenched power structure. They do not like, as characterized by Scruton, the "chronic reform" that a liberal supposedly engages in.
And, although conservatives may regard themselves, with some pride, as being without a definable dogma, they do hold a set of intrinsic values that actually echo with the traditions of a social hierarchy descending from ancient tribalism. They defer to the patricians -- "that great and intelligent class of society". Theirs are very Platonic sentiments, disdainful of change.
Today's conservative expresses a strong antipathy toward everything liberal, with justification, insofar as it is directed at the perverted modern-day pseudo-liberalism. However, much of the criticism directed at classical liberalism is unwarranted. Scruton actually damns the liberal influence which he sees as having also polluted the aims of the Conservative Party, as is evident in the next quote. He also belittles the idea of freedom, calling it the "great social artifact", and identifies liberalism (not socialism, for good reasons) as the "principal enemy".
The American conservative, Meyer, is more moderate in his criticism, but nevertheless, the criticism is unfounded as far as classical liberalism is concerned. Meyer too bears animosity for the philosophy and "Utopian constructions" of classical liberalism. (3) Closely related to the false antithesis between reason and tradition that distorts the dialogue between the libertarian emphasis and the traditional emphasis among conservatives is our historical inheritance of the nineteenth-century European struggle between classical liberalism and a conservatism that was too often rigidly authoritarian. Granted there is much in classical liberalism that conservatives must reject -- its philosophical foundations, its tendency towards Utopian constructions, its disregard (explicitly, though by no means implicitly) of tradition; granted that it is the source of much that is responsible for the plight of the twentieth century: but its championship of freedom and its development of political and economic theories directed towards the assurance of freedom have contributed to our heritage concepts which we need to conserve and develop as surely as we need to reject the utilitarian ethics and the secular progressivism that classical liberalism has also passed on to us. Meyer, however, acknowledges that conservatism carries some unpleasant baggage, the same that Hayek describes in the foreword to The Road to Serfdom (1976).
A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on the power of government for the protection of privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some which are not available on equal terms to others. |
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