Skip to main content

More on the Principles of Conservatism: Principles 4 and 5

Submitted by Ken Watts on Wed, 08/15/2007 - 17:49

I've been working my way through Kirk's ten principles of conservatism, posted at the Daily Dish by Stephen Bainbridge, commenting on the first principle here, and principles two and three here. One ongoing theme of this commentary has been that it's easy to see the roots of neo-conservatism in this formulation.

Conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. ... Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. ...

The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.

Let's take them one at a time:

  1. "Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences."

    I'll skip over this one quickly, because it's obviously true, and obviously has nothing to do with the difference between liberals and conservatives. Both groups have often rushed in where they should have stopped to think. Conservatives thought nothing, for example, of the long-term consequences of impeaching a president for matters that had nothing to do with his public policy.

    It was conservatives who never considered the long-term consequences of dismantling welfare, giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy, or dismantling protections against spying on U.S. citizens—though not without help from some relative liberals.

    The second point, however, does involve a real distinction.
  2. "The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law."

    The thing to notice about this declaration is what it leaves out. It leaves out equal representation in government, equal police protection, equal educational opportunities, equal access to medical care—the list could go on and on. And that's no accident. The conservative movement in this country has always been primarily a movement in the interests of the wealthy. It sees public education as an unnecessary drain upon resources, which would be better used in the bank accounts of the rich. It sees police protection as something the wealthy deserve, because of their wealth, and as something the poor don't need. And it sees representation in government as a matter of influence—the influence of wealth.

    How would equal educational opportunity lead to social stagnation? How would equal representation in government, equal police protection, or equal access to medical care lead to social stagnation?

    They wouldn't. The idea that the children of the wealthy are more deserving of the basic human dignities than the children of the poor is repugnant—except, of course,  to wealthy conservatives.

Once again, it's easy to see how the neoconservative movement came from this background. It is, ultimately, a movement based on class. It owes its allegiance, not to the people, or even to the nation, but to the wealthy and the powerful.

Equality is the last thing on its mind.