How much of a conservative force is the market? I have blogged on this for Conservative
Home here: http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2013/11/matthew-groves-is-globalisation-the-new-socialism.html
There is more to say on this though, because the market is
undoubtedly an organic institution that has arisen naturally. Its virtue is that it has not been
centrally planned according to abstract theory. It is rather the cumulative effect of individuals trading
together, leading to a consequential price from demand and supply that
regulates scarcity very efficiently.
The market then must be defended and recognised as a part of
the tried and tested human interactions that have created society. It achieves what no central planner can
in that it overcomes the partial and limited viewpoint of individuals. Just as much as bureaucrats with
fallible and limited knowledge cannot plan for a whole economy without
disastrous results, so the market unconsciously regulates scarcity through
prices set by no planner but through a natural process of reaching equilibrium.
Friedrich Hayek, that most liberal of philosophers, made the
very Burkean point that in our historical origins civilization occurred when
society began to rely on accumulated wisdom and knowledge that no individual
comprehends or possesses. So it
is, he rightly argues, with the market.
The consequent result of lots of individuals transacting with each other
is an unintentional regulation of scarcity. This is why markets work and why, although Socialist
governments in this country nationalised many industries, they would never have
risked nationalising the provision of food.
The market is a valid and valuable institution that came
about through historic evolution rather than the illegitimate process of
political revolution. The problem
with politics today is not so much that it is pro or anti-market as that it
regards the market as explaining everything about human interactions.
Rather like the more extreme enlightenment philosophers,
particularly French empiricists, who regarded science as explaining everything
about our race, this is a myopic outlook.
It ignores so many other important aspects of being human – religious
faith, family love, romantic love, patriotism, appreciation of art and beauty,
love of our countryside. It is
acceptance of that false Whig cliché that “every man has his price” first coined
by our first prime minister, the corrupt Sir Robert Walpole.
The market is an inadequate explanation for all aspects of
human life. To paraphrase G K
Chesterton once you introduce to conversation with a Tory the Armed Forces and
what motivates them, the Tory no longer talks of self interest and profit, but
patriotism.
That is exactly the point. Surely conservatism is a rejection of the idea that human
life can be explained in its entirety
from one scientific or even one economic perspective. It is my concern that the modern Conservative Party is in
danger of acting as though the market explains all behaviour and is the most
efficient way to get the best out of people in other aspects of life apart from
trade and industry. That is an
ideological rather than a Tory perspective in the view of this blogger.
In effect it is no different in its approach from the social
Darwinist, the Socialist or any other ideologue who attempts to reduce the
complicated nature of humanity to a materialist or pseudo-scientific
theory.
It is the argument here that just as patriotism drives the
soldier, sailor or airman, so a notion of public service rather than self
interest can drive the civil servant and indeed the politician. The vicar is moved to his vocation by
his faith not profit. Royalty serve us through the values of tradition and
duty. We must recognise that the
market has its place, but to try and treat profit as the only motivator for
human action will have a corrosive effect on society and if we succeed in
reducing our world to one where it is the only motivation, we will be living in
a degraded and cynical place.
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