capitalism

96 Conservative Critique of Libertarianism
libertarian view that “what holds civil society together ...
is self-interest, closely joined to cash payment.” For Kirk,
the market mechanisms appealed to by libertarians necessarily
presuppose a moral framework within which the
members of society view each other as more than merely
potential trading partners with whom they might contract
for mutual benefit. Society, he says—and in this comment
he echoes Burke—“is a community of souls, joining the
dead, the living, and those yet unborn.” This line of thought
has been pursued most systematically in recent years by
Roger Scruton, who argues that the economic, political, and
legal institutions of a free society can function only against
a background of mutual trust between citizens, which
requires a shared sense of membership in a community
defined by social ties and loyalties—religious, ethnic, and
cultural—that run far deeper than considerations of abstract
right and rational self-interest.
Kirk’s fourth objection alleges that libertarians “generally
believe that human nature is good and beneficent,
though damaged by certain social institutions,” contrary to
the conservative view that human nature is imperfect and
imperfectible, at least in this life. Presumably, what Kirk
had in mind here was the kind of celebration of man and of
the power of human reason that one finds in writers like
Ayn Rand, although not all libertarians have put the same
emphasis on this theme that she did. Still there is a tendency
in libertarian thinking to attribute the shortcomings of existing
societies less to individuals than to institutions, especially
governments. Kirk’s fifth line of criticism takes more
direct aim at this attitude, contrasting the libertarian view
that “the state is the great oppressor” with the conservative
view that “the state is natural and necessary for the fulfillment
of human nature and the growth of human civilization.”
This idea is again inherited from the Thomistic
natural law tradition, which regarded the state, no less than
the family and the Church, as a social institution having an
objective nature that does not arise from human convention
or contract.
In the course of making this argument, Kirk also complains
that “libertarians confound the state with government;
in truth, government is the temporary instrument of
the state.” The state, he maintains, is the organic social
whole of which government is but the executive organ,
whose primary function is the restraint of those individual
passions and interests that might threaten the common
good. Some libertarians (such as adherents of the public
choice analysis of governmental action) would object that
government officials are motivated by selfish passions and
interests no less than are private individuals. However, conservatives
tend to argue that in the modern world this fact
holds true largely because of the predominant individualist
ethos, which models all human relations on market transactions
and government on the private firm so that even the
occupants of governmental offices inevitably regard them
as a means of personal advancement. The older ideals of
noblesse oblige and of government as a sacred trust vouchsafed
to men by God for the public interest rather than private
gain were destroyed when the traditional view of the
state as a divinely ordained natural institution gave way to
the classical liberal view of the state as merely a human
artifact created by a social contract entirely for the furtherance
of private interests. From the conservative point of
view, the libertarian critique of the pathologies of the modern
state is analogous to a doctor’s diagnosis of a disease
that he has inflicted on his patient.
Kirk’s final objection to libertarianism is that it “fancies
that this world is a stage for the ego, with its appetites and
self-assertive passions” and eschews the “duty, discipline,
and sacrifice” on which the preservation of society depends.
This view is “impious, in the sense of the old Roman pietas;
that is, the libertarian does not respect ancient beliefs and
customs, or the natural world, or love of country.” These
charges might seem unfair especially because many libertarians
are religious and patriotic. Kirk’s criticism, however, is
presumably directed not at the personal motives of libertarians,
but rather at the implications of their philosophy. What
conservatives tend to object to in libertarianism is its insistence
that we can have no enforceable positive obligations
to others to which we do not explicitly consent. Most conservatives
argue that we actually have many such obligations:
to our parents, children, and other kin; to our country;
and, at least in some circumstances, to those members of
society who are in extreme need. These obligations are not
based on an egalitarian conception of justice, to which conservatives
would object no less vehemently than libertarians
do, but rather on an organic and frankly inegalitarian view
of society in which, to quote a line from Marcus Aurelius
cited by Kirk, “we are made for cooperation, like the hands,
like the feet.” Not all of us have equal honor or equal duties,
but each of us nevertheless plays an irreplaceable role in the
overall social body with the strongest members having, if
not a duty to renounce their strength, at least a duty to use
that strength to help the weakest. Conservatives hold that
this help should come primarily from families, churches,
and other private agencies closest to those in need, but a role
for government, especially at the local level, cannot be dogmatically
ruled out.
Thus, Scruton objects to Nozick’s claim that taxation
amounts to forced labor, holding that “if we are to concede
such an argument, then we abolish the conservative enterprise,
and cease to acknowledge the web of obligations by
which citizens are bound to each other and to the state.” If,
as many conservatives hold, the state is a natural institution
that exists to provide for the common good, then it has a
right to a portion of our income so that it will have the
wherewithal to perform its proper functions. Although conservatives
tend to favor strong private property rights,
many of them regard property as having a social function