A brief history of conservative political thought

Hobbes 

The desire for self-preservation drives rational human selfishness: freedom leads to unending war. Social survival requires popular disarmament: authority should be contracted out to a ruler able to impose law & order.

Burke 

Government arbitrates between competing wants to prevent social chaos. Evolutionary governmental norms are embodied in culture & tradition, which can't be grasped by reason. Aristocrats' property offers them power & incentive to check the monarchy, + they are imbued with the habits of rule.

Schmitt

The rule of law depends on application of precedents, but to uphold constitutional continuity in a state crisis, a political guarantor of the legal system, who is himself above the law, is required. See Hobbes.

Rand

Selfishness is rational & right. State regulation restrains the self-interested creativity of the businessmen on whom production & civilisation depend. 

Hayek I

Individual economic choice is political freedom. Free markets best allow expression of this as they hoover up local information on individual wants in a continuous, decentralised way, repackaging it as price movements, which indicate where to cut or expand production.

Hayek II

Governments’ role is to enable markets, eg through enforcing property rights. Wealth redistribution threatens individual freedom of choice; recessions are a necessary part of the business cycle & state intervention in such circumstances is likely to boost inflation. 

Oakshott

Abstract rationalist ideologies are a poor guide to practical parliamentary politics, which are best based on long-evolved experience of dealing with everyday problems (see Burke). Ideology leads to oversimplification & overconfidence in a complex, uncertain world. 

Nozick

The state is not justified in extending power beyond property protection, including of bodily property, as it infringes on individual rights: in particular, redistributive taxation is theft, & akin to slavery, as it implies forced command over the fruits of another’s labour.



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