Edmund Burke: A Young Anarcho-Capitalist?
“We were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect, of anarchy [in Massachusetts] would instantly enforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without judges, without executive magistrates. . . ”
--- Edmund Burke, 1775 Conciliation With the Colonies speech
A young 27 year old Edmund Burke anonymously authored a book called A Vindication of Natural Society in 1756. Since then it has become a topic of dispute as to its original purpose.
As Burke was about to enter political life, and it was found out by the public that he was the author of this book, he claimed that it was nothing more than a work of satire. Most mainstream scholars have agreed. But Murray Rothbard thought otherwise. To him, it looked like a "very sober" and an "earnest treatise."
Why not, if it was indeed a satire, announce it in its original publication? And if it was not originally a satire, it would seem only appropriate that he would say that it was one because he was about to enter political life.
Why is that? The book argues for nothing more than private property anarchism: Society by itself is natural and good, but not "political society." Political society imposes, to young Burke, positive law, which is unnatural and hurts man, versus natural law, which is to be discovered by reason and not by law that has just been past down by tradition. Young Burke saw that the history of the relationship between States was a history of war and violence, and that violence was the foundation of all States, whether aristocratic, democratic or despotic. Conquest and coercion on a mass scale is what States are about.
As Rothbard describes the book, Burke goes through the bloody history of statism and reasons that over 36 million people have been killed by States from ancient times to his own. "For reasons of State" is enough justification for political rulers, but no private individuals could ever do what these rulers do and call it ethical or moral. Burke, who uncharacteristic of a older aged Burke used reason to build a defense of his words in Vindication, however, attacked those rationalists who thought that they could plan, run, and manage society from the top as a neutral scientist.
Was it really satire when first written, Rothbard asks?
Historians have stressed that the Vindication was written in imitation of the style of the recently dead Bolingbroke, and have taken this as proof of its satire bent. Yet these same biographers of Burke admit that, in his later writings, he continued to write in a similar style! . . .
Where, Rothbard also wondered, was the reduction ad absurdums of Bolingbroke in the book, if that was the point of the work?
Because I am not qualified to make an honest judgment one way or another, I have linked to some articles (yes, they may have some bias), including Rothbard's, below. One includes an article by Dr. Stromberg who, in his article, expands on the controversy and adds more reason to suspect that young Burke's work was more than mere satire. In Dr. Long's blog entry he says that young Burke was conflicted. He was "both resentful of and awed by the English establishment." And Mr. Sobran gives his own view.
But is it not interesting that there appears to be reason to suspect that, for a time, a young Edmund Burke flirted with the notion of a stateless society? That the grandfather of conservatism, a hero of Russell Kirk (who was typically a nemesis of ideology, rationalism, classical liberalism, and libertarianism), probably had these sentiments, to one degree or another?
It is my personal view that the best of traditional conservatism is a frame of mind and personal temperament. (This makes this kind of conservatism not a requirement or necessity to be "anti-anti-statist" in outlook.) That conservatism is a view of an ordered and structured setting of things, and a belief in a natural order. That there is a social order in society made up of various societal institutions, most fundamentally the family unit.* And that life is more than purely political, "ideological," or based on mere utility or utilitarianism. That there is a "spiritual struggle" for man and mankind, displayed, in part, in what Burke called the "moral imagination." A continuity is found in history. As the great Richard Weaver said, conservatism and libertarianism is based on realism. This is an understanding that "there is a structure of reality independent" of one's "own will and desire." One cornerstone to this, said Weaver, is praxeology [pdf].
Beyond this, and of which I would consider myself generally a traditional conservative in social and cultural topics (outside of politics), it is my more "radical" view that good conservatism, properly understood, should have nothing to do with the State. It is then that good conservatism (the very little that exists) falters and transforms into something ugly.
Articles to Read:
- “Edmund Burke, Anarchist” by Murray Rothbard
- “Rothbard and Burke vs. the Cold War Burkeans” by Joseph R. Stromberg
- “Burke’s Semi-serious Anarchism” by Roderick T. Long
- “Burke's Transformation” by Joseph Sobran
- “Anarchism, Reason, and History” by Joseph Sobran
- “Burke on Liberty” by Gary Galles (Quotes)
- “The Place of Laissez-Faire Economics in Edmund Burke’s Politics of Order” by Joseph Pappin III
*[Lurking around the net' I have found a few left-libertarians attack "paleo" leaning libertarians, like me, for "worshiping," whatever that means in this context (I am not sure), the family. I quote "worship" the family place as a social institution in society no more or less than the market place. Private property, free markets, and capitalism are the foundation to society; to existence, actually. Without being able to own some property mankind would be long dead. (Not even States could exist without some environment of capitalism because all States live parasitical on it.) Are certain left-libertarians saying that this is not the case for family? Dissolve the family, then say goodbye to civilization. It is only foolishness that ignores the importance of the institution of family (or other intermediate institutions, for that matter) in society, including what its relationship would be to a free society. The breakdown of the family, much----probably the majority----of it due to various interventionisms, has lead to a host of unintended consequences. Children in fatherless homes, for example, increase the likelihood of drug use, crime, poverty, juvenility, etc. I hardly call that good for the future, or even for the market place. But, I guess, this is an area libertarians should not think about, or comment about. Nonetheless, instead of constraining myself to the problems of today's socialist economic market place, I will look at the other tangent problems too for a relatively more complete picture and awareness of a world that is greater than the economic dollar-sign-man who is lost in a fantasy of no relationships but that. Thankfully, great libertarians, like Murray Rothbard, fully understood that.]
