MYOB or Why I'm a Conservative not a Libertarian

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There’s a great deal to be said about libertarianism – although it would help if those advocating it would make up their minds as to what it all means. And, as I’ve described myself as an occasionally intolerant libertarian, I guess there comes a point at which to explain why – despite the appeal of that creed – I remain a conservative.

I am – as all good conservatives should be – a sceptic. After all it was a Conservative prime minister who wrote “A defence of Philosophic Doubt” and we are led to the view that (as H. L. Mencken put it): “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong”. Libertarianism – like Marxism, socialism and assorted other –isms is one of such solutions.

The second reason is that people – how to we put it – need a modicum of moral encouragement. Since libertarians accept a role for government – again a role not necessarily specified or agreed on – it falls on us to ask about that role and how it might work. Simply stopping at enforcing property rights (however defined) seems unnecessarily limiting.

The non-aggression concept at the heart of libertarianism is fine – until we stop to think about what it means, where its limits are and how to enforce its strictures. The resulting arguments are more akin to discussion of angels dancing on pinheads that to a discourse about the reality of politics.

My worry – and the point at which I am wont to part company with my party – is that the Conservative Party accedes too easily and contains too many who believe in controlling the behaviors of others simply because we have arrived at a judgment on that behaviour. English conservatives need to ask what it is they are conserving – is it some defined set of behaviours handed down to us by some benign leadership steeped in the traditions of England (let’s call this the Scruton-Heffer position) or is the target of conservation the liberties, freedom and independence of English men and women (the Hume-Carswell position)?

For me we seek to defend the things that define what we are – some are cultural like pubs, folk music and pies while others are more fundamental such as equality under the law, property rights, free expression and free association. However, the fundamental principle of English conservatism is for me MYOB. Our inalienable right to tell whoever we want, whenever we want to “mind your own business”.

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