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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

Australian Conservatism? « Previous | |Next »
February 10, 2003

I came across this article on Australian conservatism. Its called, 'Conservatism is not evil, stupid nor ignorant - it's just misunderstood', by Stephen Barton who has taught politics at several universities and is currently a staffer for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the Hon Jackie Kelly MP.

Good oh, I thought. It looks promising. I concurred with his main thesis that conservatism is misunderstood in Australia. And Stephen has good creditionals to help us in figure out what Australian conservatism is about. How is Australian conservatism different from Anerican conservatism, which is primarily a Locken liberalism; or an English Burkean-Humean conservatism?

Well, Stephen doesn't really say. He mentions the poor quality of the public debate in Australia (we all do); fires some arrows at the left for their moral high ground stance (fair enough); and describes the uncomfortable experience of being a conservative in a left-liberal world. When he does turn to that conservative tradition that we misunderstand in Australia, he is a bit light on the content about what it is.

Stephen does say that conservatism's philosophical roots extensive, subtle and nuanced (agreed) and that it can vary so much between nations and cultures (agreed). So British conservatism is different to American conservatism, whilst English Speaking conservatism, with its bedrock of liberalism, is different to European conservatism. And Australian conservatism? Stephen says:

"Given the shallowness of Australia's intellectual pool, Australian conservatives draw heavily on either British or American conservatism or a combination of both."

That's reasonable enough. If the bedrock of conservatism in Australia is liberalism. then what sort of liberalism would that be? A rights-based liberalism?; utilitarian liberalism?; or a social liberalism? Stephen doesn't say.Is it important? Yes, because they have different views about the state and freedom and, since nearly all debates in Australia take place within liberalism, its sort of like a family quarrel. Stephen needs to tell us very much here.

What interests Stephen is the conservative mindset (mentality? form of consciousness, political unconscious? discourse?) He says that perhaps the best description of the conservative mindset comes from Michael Oakeshott. He then quotes the English political philosopher:

"... men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting point nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to be kept afloat on an even keel; the sea is both enemy and friend; and seamanship consists in using the resources of a traditional manner of behaviour in order to make a friend of every hostile occasion."

I love the quote. I always have. Now I'm on the left side of politics yet I can accept the quote with ease. Maybe 'traditional' would need to be teased out a bit, but I accept a lot of the tacit, practical knowledge embodied in everyday life in contrast to big modern scientific theory. That knowledge is embodied in various historical traditions. And as a good citizens who loves his country I am quite willing and happy to defend Australian customs and institutions without embarrasment. I am also conscious of the value of historical memory and the bringing to consciousness of long forgotten things.

This indicates that conservatism is more than a habit of mind. It is a political tradition that has historically engaged with the competing traditions of liberalism and socialism. So what would be a conservative gloss on this Oakshott passage? Stephen gives one when he says;

'Conservatism is keeping "your head when all about you are losing theirs", especially when half the crew thinks they have spotted Shangri-La to port. The conservative knows there is no Utopia or temporal heaven, and wishing for it won't make it so. The only solution for a quiet life is to rely on the tried and tested, to promote evolution not revolution. This is not to say conservatives can't be radical or reforming; when the safety of the ship is at risk conservatives can and do implement drastic changes and reforms. Above all, keeping the ship afloat involves sober reflection and a continued rearguard action against some of the crew's more crazy ideas, which left unchecked would sink the ship in shark-infested waters."

Again, as a lefty I have no problem with this. I reckon those who continued to defend social democracy kept their head whilst the politicians and economists lost theirs as they rushed to embrace the free market. I would identify the crazy ideas as neo-liberalism whilst the Shangri-La to port some of the crew thinks they have spotted is the temporal heaven of the competitive free market.

We really do need a bit more content at this point than a rejection of utopian politics or what Oakeshott called rationalism in politics. Maybe it is the lack of content in Australian conservatisms that causes so much misunderstanding? I will be provocative here and introduce some strands from British conservatism, which has dropped out of Stephen's picture.

This has more of the content missing from Stephen's article. (Thanks to Scott Wickstein for the link). An American equivalent would be Russell Kirk.

Scruton's reading of Burke takes us beyond the anti-utopian politics that Stephen uses to characterise conservatism. Scruton finds four characteristics in his reading of Burke that forms the basis for his understanding of conservatism:

1. the defense of authority and obedience;

2. the subtle defense of tradition, prejudice and custom, against the enlightened plans of the reformers;

3.the reworking of theory of the social contract. Though society can be seen as a contract, we must recognize that most parties to the contract are either dead or not yet born. Rightly understood society is a partnership among the dead, the living, and the unborn. Without what Burke, called the “hereditary principle,” according to which rights could be inherited as well as acquired, both the dead and the unborn would be disenfranchized.

Scruton also mentions Burke's deep negative thesis, the glimpse into Hell contained in his vision of the French Revolution.That glimpse had shaken Burke to the depths of his being. I have introduced this theme under the absolute freedom and terror posting.

Scruton says that the positive aspect of Burke’s philosophy (1-3) can be seen as a response to that vision of hell. It overs us something that human beings can hope for, and as the sole and sufficient vindication of our life on earth.

How about that for a bit of content? It gives conservatism a bit of ooomph at a time when there is notable lack of academic discussion of contemporary conservative philosophy. That ooomph is better than moaning about how how liberals have all the power, that people think conservatism sucks, and that a small left-wing professoriat leads to a narrower scope of debate on politics. Why don't the Australian conservatives get on with and start elaborating some content.


| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:52 PM | | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (2)
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Comments

Comments

I do wonder if it is really possible for a left-leaning individual to really understand conservatism. I must admit, I just can't get my head around the left way of looking at things- clearly there's just some barrier in the way that prevents me from understanding what the leftist view is like.

For me, being conservative isn't a matter of faith or reason- you just are. There is no 'why'.

Scott,
I guess it all depends on what is meant by 'you just are'. I thought that Burke unpacks some of that 'you just are' and shows it to be a part of what is called the common life. But which bits of our common life should be conserved and which bits let go? What do we use to make our judgements about this. And we have to make judgments given the recoil from the terror of the French Revolution for Burke and the Russian Revolution for those in the 20th century.

Simple, kneejerk anti-communism no longer works in the 20th century as a ground of ethical and political judgement---or do you just slot in Islamo-fascism and carry on as before?

It is not just a matter of lefties understanding righties --enough to engage in the process of interpretation and dialogue. Both conservatives and socialists have been stripped a bare by the collapse of Russian socialism and are in desperate need of some historical clothing to protect them from the chilling winds of history blowing across the global landscape.

Both seem to have instinctively responded by falling back into liberalism and relabelling it to suit themselves.

I did not read Barton's article very closely once I saw the "Liberalism is Conservatism" assumptions, it just seemed totally confused, so I have to agree with your blog pretty much.

I prefer something else at this point. I find the legacy of French history in the left/right default in politics pretty damn thin when confronted with the big wide world we have now. I think its called cultural studies. I think I prefer Mary Douglas' thought styles. That we have afferent biases which allow us to move through the world by rejecting this, prefering that. Capture and straught-jacketing of these processes, by Conservative/Revolutionary dual even if it is just (locally) bickering within Liberalism a god damn useless pain. I can only hope the bickering is not completely necessary to the funcioning of society.

I accept conservatives 'just are'. So are gays. I think we better start looking for the conservative gene, and then weed it out globally with a tailored virus, I am sure Monsanto could to the work if we offered them a patent on it all.

Oh, there speaks the 'oh so tolerant' and 'inclusive' progressive.

:)

I am just trying to show that deep down we are all conservatives really

if it aint broke dont fix it!

:)

we are all going to have to get above polemic if the anything is to be progressed and we do not slide back into vicious swings of various fundamentalisms

see
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~selfsame/essays/markormeasure.html

for my own small attempt

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm

The link mentioned above seems to indicate that if you're an introvert put off by wailing extraverts then you're a conservative, I think I could cobble something together to indicate I am not a conservative because I was harassed by wailing expansive extraverts who where part of the oligarchic high school cool kids whose parents voted liberal, and there fore its only natural i am a _not_ a conservative like those wailing extraverts who smash windows and squirt water pistols at my peace loving heart!!!!

shhhheeesh!

I have to agree with Gary Sauer-Thompson that I left the complexities of conservatism unexplored. It is a fair point and one I'm more than happy to concede.
However, in my defence, the article was tongue in cheek; it was meant to amuse as much as provoke, rather than provide a scholarly literature review.
There is much to be written about modern conservatism, but I fear, with a mere 1500 words, I wasn't up to the task.

Everything comes down to Values and Beliefs, where Values are such items as "fairness is good", and Beliefs are such items as "fairness means that every person should have an equal chance for success".

Values and Beliefs are initially socially determined, and may be modified by reflection. By "socially determined" we don't mean "identical in some way to that of members of the child's social group", but rather "created by the child out of his direct and vicarious experiences, which are usually dominated by his social group".

Ratiocination then dominates the adult's grapplings with philosophy.

For each idio-philosophy there are a set of values and beliefs that are considered "Universal", "self-evident", "a priori", etc., such as the famous "right to life, liberty, and happiness", which was "self-evident" to the authors of the US Declaration of Independence. To reject Universal "Truths" is to be insane or inhuman.

There are values and beliefs handed down from the Gods or the God: to reject such "truths" is to be evil. Go ahead and lump these into the following category if it makes you feel better.

There are values and beliefs which genetically reflect the values and beliefs of others: generally unexamined ones or those of a culture you wish to ingratiate yourself with, such as that of attractive sexual objects.

And finally those that one forms on one's own (though this is how you will try to describe most of your beliefs that truly belong to the above categories).

Thus: Universal, Godly, Cultural, and Idiosyncratic values and beliefs.

It is pointless to discuss "liberals" and "conservatives" since the words mean completely unrelated things in various arenas, such as socially conservative Priests promoting liberal economics. I'll use 'X', 'Y', etc. at strategic junctures.

Thinkers are X when they think differing cultural values and beliefs should be tolerated. They promote certain of their values to be Universal Truths (so that they can dehumanize dissent), and all other values and beliefs they consider cultural and thus unworthy of intolerance, except for not tolerating those cultural values which (somehow!) contradict "universal" values: predatory cannibalism, ritual pedarasty, and the like.

Thinkers are Y when they acknowledge that their values and beliefs are cultural but go on to give them primacy over the values and beliefs of other cultures. They tend to declare that their "truths" are bestowed "by God" so as to demonize dissent.

Despite the similarity of form, these two schools of thought are quite distinct. X thinkers tend to have shorter lists of values about which they are intolerant and in fact their "Universal values" are very often nearly universal, so they are generally perceived as "tolerant". A predominance of Y thinkers promoting the same cultural rule-set can produce a very stable and decisive society.

X thinkers, due to the cognitive dissonance of "dehumanizing" human beings (who reject universal truths: criminals), devote energy to understanding them, and believe that they can be reformed by education and re-socialization. Y thinkers experience no such dissonances (criminals behave badly because they are bad people, duh) and think the process of reformation is spiritual and incomprehensible; thus they accept reformation when it appears, but focus their efforts on containment and operant conditioning.

Economics

Before you can meaningfully discuss economics you have to face a distinction any anthropologist can help you with:

Humans, when faced with a shortage of necessary resources, share.

Endowed with luxury items or with a surplus of necessities, humans hoard them until they can trade them for some kind of economic or social advantage.

What is intriguing about this dualism is that someone in want of a necessity is more likely (on the average, excluding other factors) to get a grant of it from another person in want of it than they are from a person who has excess. This seems to be because people who have excess think of the resource as "abundant" and therefore inappropriate for sharing.

The wealthy person reasons "I work hard and I have money; you do not have money and so you must not be (willing to) work hard: get lost, you freeloader." The poor person reasons "I work hard (or as hard as they'll let me) and I am poor; you probably work hard too (or they won't give you a job) and you are even poorer than I: here, have some bread."

This tendency is mitigated both by the larger grants available from the fewer wealthy persons who give, and by the various social advantages wealthy people can get by targetted giving: church recruitment is the major source of charity worldwide.

The facts of the matter suggest that to any social group crushed by grinding poverty can be sold a social contract that mandates sharing; we'll call that "Marxism". Anyone leading such a society would do well to perpetuate grinding poverty.

In the usual world of prosperous capitalism the debates are over non-economic issues, though they are colored by first-order-solution fallacy, as follows;

First order solutions are linear, or nearly so: spending more money increases the efficacy of the solution by some reasonable amount. Suppose you spend no money on law enforcement and have corruption, anarchy, and crime. For a modest investment in enforcement you can get a great reduction in crime, and you can increase that amount and get palpable returns. But at some point the returns begin to diminish: you could spend an infinite amount and you would still have some corruption and crime.

The question you have to ask yourself is "After spending more money stopped making sense, were we left with more crime than we can accept?" because if the answer is "Yes" then you have to find some way to change the parameters of the situation; to spend the additional money anyways is to fall prey to the fallacy of first order solutions (more pain, more gain).

The questions you have to ask yourself about economic issues are along the lines of: how much corporate corruption can we tolerate? How do we balance corruption against the expense of enforcement? Since our economic model requires some unemployment, should we compensate the heroic unemployed (who suffer to stave off inflation for us)? Should goverment regulation of business be used to reward successful political maneuvers, or should it be blind to persons? Is the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few to the benefit of society, and should regulation be used to encourage it? How should the few be chosen: by merit, pre-existing wealth, etc.? Is it a detriment that should be discouraged?

All of these are value questions and are not really economic in nature. Nail them down and characterize them as "conservative" or "liberal" as you wish.

Once you have settled on a value system, the particular economic system required is mere implementation; the system itself is not liberal or conservative, it is simply suitable.

For instance, the classic example of "Conservative Economics" is "laissez-faire, trickle-down economics" as per Ronald Reagan's reign in the USA.

The overt value behind trickle down economics is "spreading the wealth to everyone in a manner that rewards merit and industry", and the belief is that "this can be accomplished by funneling money to the wealthiest individuals and corporations who will then disburse it to smaller ones in the normal course of their business, recursively down to the least wealthy individuals".

Honest analysis of this idea need not be lengthy. In the mythical free capitalism, wealth naturally concentrates in the hands of a few individuals, due to economies of scale, vertical integration, etc. Since the USA is a regulated capitalism, it is necessary to ask if the regulation has been such as to diminish, eliminate, or reverse this tendency. While a thousand economists could give you a thousand theoretical answers, this is actually a measurable fact, and the measurable fact say "almost certainly diminished, but wealth continues to concentrate in the hands of a few."

Since wealth continues to concentrate we quickly reach two conclusions: wealth is not trickling down as fast as it is coming in, and funneling additional money to the wealthy is unnecessary, and is not fulfilling the stated value. Please note that the wealthiest are not merely becoming more wealthy, but they are becoming more wealthy faster than they are letting the less wealthy grow.

A quick examination of mechanisms exhibits the failure mode: rather than using excess monies to purchase goods, which would cause wealth to trickle down to supplier companies, they are using excess monies to purchase companies (no net transfer of wealth), then using "synergies" and "eliminating redundancies" to increase profits (more money to the wealthy) while the layoffs implied by the eliminated redundancies decrease the total wealth of the less well off in a manner unrelated to merit (the company and employees are not less meritorious because they were purchased by a multinational).

Thus "Trickle Down Economics" cannot be supported by anyone on the basis of "Wealth trickling down", and must therefore be motivated by one of the competing values, such as "Goverment regulation of business should be used to reward successful political maneuvers," or "the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is to the benefit of society, and regulation should be used to encourage it."

Perhaps all that stuff abut wealth trickling down was invented because they were embarassed to put their actual agenda on their platform.

In any case I don't think there is any fair way you can refer to Trickle Down or even Laissez-faire economics as "conservative": they have no conservative basis, serve only corrupt opportunism, and are supported only by the thinnest ratiocination that only the willing believe.

I can't tell whether my previous post attempt was rejected for length or is merely being moderated, but my backup is here: http://www.ceejbot.com/blog/space/Liberal+versus+Conservative+Philosophy

To simplify the issue, we could say that conservatives are those who are content with their current status (socio-econ, health, cultural) in life and fear change could alter their current positioning. Conservatives fear equality (health, education, legal) because this change in Australian society's status quo would force them to share, play, learn and live on an equal level !!!!!! Others who argue against conservative positions, may be labelled liberal, socialist or even anarchist but really all they are asking is for a system that makes life (micro and macro) even and fair.

Even simplier

Unfair Competition vs Co-operation