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6 Things That
British Thinker Roger Scruton Has to Say About Conservatives and Freedom
Troy Worden
October 22, 2018
Sir Roger Scruton has described himself as a “reluctant capitalist,”
but when asked why in a recent appearance at The Heritage
Foundation, he jokingly answered: “Because I’ve never had the chance to
make money for myself.”
Scruton spoke as part of a Heritage lecture series called “Free
Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice.”
David Burton, a senior research fellow in economic policy at Heritage,
interviewed the prominent British conservative philosopher Oct. 11 on a
wide variety of subjects, from capitalism and the definition of
conservatism to environmentalism and architecture.
Here’s what Scruton, 74, had to say on six main topics:
1. Capitalism and Economic Freedom
Scruton–a native of Brinkworth in Wiltshire, England–said that America,
while a great country in many ways, shows “the bad side of a community
entirely based on the pursuit of profit and entrepreneurship.”
America too often ignores other important aspects of community living,
he said, among them the “duties of care” that individuals owe to one
another and charity.
Scruton said that human beings generally don’t expose all aspects of
life to exchange on the market, especially personal relationships and
the buildings that they cherish. He said the community should have a
say in what to do with such things, rather than attempting to turn them
into “an instrument of exchange on the property market.”
Scruton noted that the term “capitalism” comes from the German
philosopher Karl Marx, who saw it as a conspiracy and power grab by the
bourgeoisie rather than a spontaneously occurring system.
“Every word that has an ‘-ism’ should be distrusted,” Scruton
said to chuckles. Comparing his opinion to that of the 20th-century
Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, Scruton said that a better name for
capitalism would be “economic freedom.”
2. Defining Conservatism
Scruton, knighted in 2016, said he defines conservatism in the way that
British philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke did: adapting the
fragile things we love to change.
“I think that conservatism is what its name declares it to be: the
desire and policy that comes from conserving things,” he said.
Scruton said that conservatism also is the love of the things in life
that are easier to destroy than rebuild. Because we keep what we love,
he said, conservatism is uniquely rational.
Asked whether conservatism is morally superior to liberalism, Scruton
responded: “I suppose if I were to say it was morally superior, it is
so only because love is superior to hatred.”
On the left, he said, he sees only “policy suggestions and attitudes
which derive from, if not hatred, at least the desire to pull down
things and destroy them.”
Addressing the origins of conservatism, Scruton said conservatism
emerged as a moderating influence on 18th-century liberalism, which
long has been in danger of leading to anarchy when it seeks to destroy
the social fabric of a nation.
Scruton said the British philosopher John Locke would never have called
himself a “liberal” in the American sense. Although many in the past
have understood liberalism to be the respecting of individual freedom
and reconciling it with orderly government, Scruton said, it now means
the surrendering of one’s freedom to the state.
3. How American and British Conservatism Differ
Scruton said American and British conservatives are aware that Western
civilization prizes individual liberty, and believe that we should
defend this civilization.
Scruton said the U.S. Constitution “begins with the desire to limit
what the government does, rather than to impose government,” unlike the
British constitution.
“The American settlement is a process of intellectual thought and the
creation of a constitution designed precisely to last forever,” he said.
Scruton said that while “there is no individual liberty without private
property,” and that this is “fundamental to all our other values
perpetuated by our civilization,” in Britain there is no absolute right
to hold property or land.
He also said that in America there are many self-governing
associations–such as homeowners associations–that are completely
lacking in Europe, where people conceive of individual property as held
in trust with the wider community.
4. Preserving Civil Society
Scruton, referencing Burke and the French political scientist
Alexis de Tocqueville, said that meaning in life comes from involvement
in associations. He made the distinction between civil society, which
he defined as “a system of associations,” with the state, “a system of
offices.”
In answering the question of the role of government in supporting civil
society, Scruton said this is “open to capture from the left,” who use
the pretext of government support to impose government programs on
communities that would not have spontaneously formed such programs
otherwise.
Scruton also addressed the perceived decline of civil society in
American life, referencing the work of American political scientist
Robert Putnam in his 1995 book “Bowling Alone.”
Americans seek “shortcuts to gratification taken in solitude and not in
communion with others,” Scruton said, and this is “one of the great
blows” to American culture.
5. Free Markets and Environmentalism
Scruton also addressed his support for environmental causes during the
course of the interview, saying: “Conservation and conservatism are two
aspects of the same thing.”
We must work toward “a recognition of a relationship of stewardship to
the natural world,” he said.
Scruton said he does not see an unresolvable conflict between free
markets and a healthy environment.
“Properly understood, a free economy is more environmentally friendly
than any economy so far given to us organized by the state,” he told
the Heritage audience.
However, Scruton emphasized that we must protect what he called the
“human habitat” from destruction by the “capitalist machine.”
6. Young People and Literature
Scruton attributed the perceived disrespect shown by young people to
their elders to the fact that young people have not had to face the
hardship their parents and teachers did.
He said “universities offer them unreal forms of glory” and “antisocial
ideologies.”
“Young people should read,” he said, to laughs from the audience.
Scruton recommended that young people read Burke’s “Reflections on the
Revolution in France” as well as “The Federalist Papers,” but also
other classics not directly political in nature.
“In order to understand conservatism, it’s not necessary to read the
political philosophy of it,” he said. “If you read just Homer and
Shakespeare, you’d know what conservatives are trying to say.”
The conservative seeks to conserve what is permanent in human nature,
he said, and we can find these permanent things in the classics of
Western literature.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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