Burke versus Gramsci – the Great British Institution and the Conservative Dilemma

 Conservatives look to Edmund Burke as their great founding father.  Central to Burkean thought is the institution with its historical memory as a repository of the wisdom of the ancestors.  In terms of modern philosophy and the Burkean tradition one might also look to Alasdair MacIntyre in his account of institutions and nations acquiring a tradition of virtue and as a Burkean opponent of Burke’s dreaded sophists, economists and calculators .

If conservatism depends for its philosophy upon manmade institutions there is always the risk such institutions will prove fatally fallible and corruptible.  Such could well be the problem in today’s United Kingdom.  Unlike the United States with its revolutionary origins, there has not been such a strong suspicion of Government and institutions within the British Right, sometimes quite the opposite.  The Crown and the Church as Margaret Thatcher once outlined are of far greater import to a Tory than the economy.  This perspective, it should be remembered, was held by the Conservative Prime Minister now looked to as an exemplar by today’s sophists, calculators and economists – the libertarian and neoliberal Right.

Margaret Thatcher though experienced the problem of the dilemma I intend to outline at first-hand.  All the British institutions, the Church of England, the BBC and even the hierarchy of the Conservative Party were opposed to her.  This tension has only grown more stretched and extreme.  While the Conservative Party has moved culturally to the Left, it is still faced by a hostile hard Left in control of the institutions that it should naturally be at home with.

The Church of England is no longer the Conservative Party at prayer, as the saying had it.  The BBC is faced with calls to be defenestrated by conservatives not radicals, because of its cultural Marxism.  Even the Conservative Party itself, at least its high command, is now a proponent of the hard-left cultural agenda in terms of same-sex marriage, “diversity” and equality of outcome.

It seems as though the Gramsci agenda of the “long march through the institutions” as extreme Leftist German-activist Rudi Dutschke put it, has been emphatically achieved in Great Britain.  The universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, the BBC, the Church are all advocates of a hard-line cultural Marxist agenda dressed up in palatable phrases such as “diversity”, “equality”, “openness”.

So what does a Burkean conservative do when the institutions its whole philosophy seeks to conserve and be guided by have fallen into the hands of the Marxists?  One answer is the populist response, looking to the American Right as an example.  Here characters like Nigel Farage and Aaron Banks are notable champions for such an agenda.  Indeed, despite being placed upon the Right, their populist agenda sometimes puts them on the Left.  For example, whereas an earlier Eurosceptic like Enoch Powell was a keen defender of the House of Lords, as well as the Crown and the established Church, Farage and Banks are radical constitutional-reformers.

The other response is the classically liberal agenda, advocated by the sophists, calculators and economists that conservatives should instinctively distrust.  From this free-marketeer liberal perspective privatisation rather than conservation is the answer to the BBC’s political subversion.  The free market is not really a conservative response to dealing with preservation of the institution.  We are not talking about a nationalised industry, but a British institution which is a custodian of many great British traditions.  Would commercialisation and advertising culture really be a conservative answer?

One might contrast arch-liberal free-marketeer George Osborne with populist Nigel Farage as two contrasting answers to the Gramscian victory within British institutions from Oxbridge to the BBC.  To abolish our institutions though is surely not a conservative solution, whether it be BBC privatisation or Church disestablishment. 

The populism of Brexit might have unleashed patriotic forces against the Gramsci institutions, but populist nationalism is not inherently conservative, as any cursory knowledge of Nineteenth Century nationalism will tell us.

It is undoubtedly the case that while the Right and conservatism look to be in the ascendancy, the whole movement is riven by internal contradictions.  This new populism rightly unleashed against the EU has now turned on British institutions like the House of Lords (admittedly corrupted into a culturally Marxist institution by the likes of Blair, Cameron and Clegg).  It could just as easily turn upon the Monarchy and nationalism again would have reverted to its radical-Leftist Nineteenth-Century roots.

It has to be admitted that when the Marxists own and control what you are trying to defend it is difficult to know how to proceed.  The only answer I believe is not one for people looking for instant solutions.  Only a gradual return to the values of Tradition will rescue our institutions and our culture.  And this might have to be carried out in a radical and unconventional way, outside of the apparatus of British institutions.  It might mean home schooling of our children, to teach them traditional values outside of the Marxist-run education system.  It might mean leaving the Church of England as a Church of Laodicea for a more traditionalist denomination that might feel foreign at first, such as Eastern Orthodoxy.  It might mean stepping back from the rat-race of the neoliberal economy with more self-sufficiency and less consumption.  In short it might mean letting the light of conservative tradition shine before men as an example, rather than trying to fight for it and impose it through democratic elections and the party system.  From the small acorn and with Providential nurture we might see a large oak of conservative counter-culture grow that provides a genuine alternative to the anomie of cultural Marxism and its insipid shadow, neoliberalism.  Only with a cultural change, rather than election victories will conservatives see their institutions restored and again linked back to the Burkean wisdom of ancestors. 

The Marketplace and High Toryism

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. 

The Forces of Conservatism versus Relativism

Conservative is a misnomer for extremists

There is nothing more annoying than when commentators refer to radicals and militants as “conservative”.  By definition radicals are not conservative.  They throw away the lessons built up over centuries and go back to the root.  So the Islamic radical rejects the wisdom of ages in Muslim thinking, that has taken on board Aristotle, living amongst Christians and Jews and accommodated real human-nature.  In the same way the political radical, whether Bolshevist or Jacobin, rejects the institutions that have evolved over the centuries, in the hope of reverting to some ideal original state of nature.

Islamic extremism has been in the public eye recently with the trial of the two murderers of Drummer Rigby, in a brutal and barbarous attack.  It is the argument of this blog that what leads to extremist evil is a subjective approach to life that rejects the shared lessons of history.  In effect the radical attempts to shake off shared values accumulated over time and assert their own opinion in the place of common values.

Thus the young Islamist extremist living in Britain attempts to define himself against the more moderate and conservative Islam of his parents.  For the extremist the wisdom of the ancestors, the building up of knowledge and tradition, should be rejected in favour of the original, pure “truth”, which happens to be his own subjective view of the truth.  In Mali the Islamist extremists set about destroying traditional Islamic art and historical artefacts. 

Just because it's your opinion doesn’t mean you are right

The real danger to Western society is not dogmatism, but the rejection of shared dogma in favour of “my opinion”.  People talk about their opinions as though because they own them they somehow possess a special validity.  Actually it is only that person’s opinion and it cannot contain the experience of generations that exists in our traditions and inherited values.  It is inevitably a partial and limited view.

It also commands no intrinsic legitimacy.  For example, one of the late Drummer Rigby’s murderers claimed to be a soldier and justified his atrocious crime in this way. He did not really belong to an existing army it was just his own opinion that he was a soldier.  There is no existing army that I know of, with commissions, paid salaries and a duty to serve a head of state that gave him such an order.  I have not heard of such a State that would give this order, outside of the conventions of war, in violation of the Geneva Convention.  There was no call from the established institutions of the Islamic faith for a crusade; only some madman in a cave in Afghanistan had unilaterally created his own violent creed.  This so-called army has been set up without legitimacy and without authority.  The murderer’s view that he belonged to an army was nothing more than his subjective viewpoint – it was only his opinion, with no authority.  He is in fact a subject of Her Majesty protected by Her Majesty’s forces that he attacked and will now be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure.  Whatever he thinks, that is what the case is in the real world.

Contrast this pretend “Islamist” soldier with Drummer Lee Rigby.  He belonged to a real army that serves an actual head of state and works to defend a physical nation state, with real boundaries and a rule of law and a Parliament.  This State is a signatory to international conventions on what its army will do and not do in war.  When individuals violate these rules, they are prosecuted by the State they serve.  Drummer Rigby’s real army is a vivid contrast to the imaginary army serving an imaginary nation that his murderer claimed to belong to.

The other extremists are just as subjective

This subjectivity and idolatry of one’s own opinion manifests itself in many other ways.  We see it in the animal-rights extremists, who have set up their own warped, subjective moral code and demand that others adhere to it – a code that justifies abuse of their fellow human beings in the name of their own idea of what rights animals possess.  We see it when traitors such as Edward Snowdon, who took the view that his own nation fell short in his own opinion and therefore acted in breach of the laws of his land to reveal secrets he was under a duty to keep.  A particularly dreadful example of this subjectivity and vainglorious philosophy is of course Julian Assange, who would rather see the West’s enemies benefit and her allies suffer than put aside his own ego.

Well, the common trap that ensnares all these people together is the sanctity to which they grant their own opinions, regardless of common values and shared traditions.  Whether in the name of religion, as with Drummer Rigby’s murderers or in pursuit of some skewed political ideology as with Juian Assange, these people share the same idolatry of their own opinions.

The danger of Liberalism leading to relativism

The danger is that the West, in attempting to remain true to its values of freedom and liberty is falling into the very same trap of accepting someone’s opinion is true simply because it is held – the danger of relativism and multiculturalism.  Tolerance is the sacred value of the West, which stems from its Christian heritage.  Tolerance means not persecuting that with which you disagree, it does not mean the values of society and our culture are neutral.  Replace tolerance with relativism and the moral authority is lost.

For example, how can you argue with the Islamic extremists without any grounding in faith yourself?  It is impossible to reject beliefs as false if you yourself do not believe in truth!  The greatest disrespect to all religions is to say that they are all equally valid, which means in effect they are all nonsense and invalid; rather the truly tolerant outlook is to remain true to our Christian values and to tolerate and speak to other faiths on that basis.  Not all beliefs are equally valid, many beliefs are wrong (as manifested on the Woolwich street)– but that cannot be said without we ourselves holding to a belief in something that is true.

Conservatism is the way to counter extremism

Conservatism is about accepting that our values are handed down to us and that we are shaped by that heritage.  We are not able to reinvent a whole set of universal values ourselves as we can only have a partial view.  Reject what is handed down to us and we lose the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors.

Now that does not mean accepting longstanding injustices, but continually comparing what is with what should be according to those inherited values.  Thus William Wilberforce in light of his Christian faith opposed slavery and Emily Hobhouse fought against Lord Kitchener’s camps for the Boers.  On the other hand, the Islamist extremist, the animal-rights extremist, the followers of Assange have all lost touch with their inherited values and turned their own, partial opinions into idols.  Only conservatism, by recognising civilization is based on shared, tried and tested values, can resist this subjective relativism and act as a force for moderation and piecemeal reform.     

Why Socialists don’t understand Conservatives

The Socialist sees politics as being about systems, economic systems to be more specific.  He regards anyone who does not support his agenda for systemic change as a partisan for all that is wrong with this imperfect world. 

The true conservative is not an advocate for usury or capitalism.  He is rather distrustful of systemic and revolutionary change as advocated as an alternative to capitalism.  He does not see life as being all about economic systems.  For him life is about values and he is sceptical of radical change, because in the attempt to create the perfect society much that holds society together is swept away.

Conservatives are at risk of falling into the elephant trap the Left set, once they see themselves as being ideological advocates for an economic system such as capitalism.  Rather the best rebuttal to the Left is to make clear that living morally is not to rant about changing economics, but to do your best in your own society – join the little platoons to make life better for your neighbourhood.

Of course there is greed in our present society, of course there is ambition.  There would be just as much greed and ambition in a society dominated by the state.  The ambitious individual would simply be sycophantic towards the chief bureaucrat in a socialist system instead of the corporate boss. 

Conservatives are strongest when defending a free society based on private property.  This is different from advocating capitalism red in tooth and claw.  When people can own their own property, separate from the state, they gain independence.  They could even pool their property and set up their own communes, opting out of capitalism if they so choose.  It is the tradition of freedom under the rule of law, not so much the market that conservatives should be defending.  Capitalism is a consequence of  a free society, not the be all and end all!

For too long conservatives have allowed the Left to define the parameters of debate.  It is time to start arguing that the solution to many of society’s ills lies at the local and neighbourhood level.  It is about individuals themselves, not political or economic systems being changed.

This is not a philosophy that is about resigning and abdicating one’s responsibility to others, rather it is the very opposite.  It is about taking responsibility as an individual for one’s neighbour.  The true abdication of responsibility is to claim the solution to the problems around me is political and that it is all the system’s fault. 

It is no accident that the famous quotation “For evil to triumph it is necessary only for good men to do nothing” was first uttered by that conservative thinker, Edmund Burke.  It goes to the heart of conservative values.

The Left seems to distrust anything that puts responsibility back onto the individual.  An example of this is the Left’s distrust of religion.  Religious belief identifies the real need for change as lying within the soul of the individual, not within political systems.

It is completely possible to be conservative and dislike the consumerist society, casino banking, the soul-less shopping malls and the greed around us.  Indeed it is consistent with conservative thinking, if by conservative we mean placing emphasis on time-honoured customs and values, such as patriotism and faith, rather than materialism.

As individuals move away from such values towards materialism, the solution is not political, but social and spiritual.  The onus lies on us not the state, to ensure we uphold our Christian values and sustain a more meaningful way of life.

The New Cabinet: Coalition Constraints and Compromises (originally published on Respublica's Disraeli Room on 7 September 2012)

Reshuffles may be about the Prime Minister setting the direction, but when policy has to be agreed by two parties the aims of government become all the more opaque. A natural consequence of coalition is that while a prime minister may wish to set the direction of government through his appointments, he will always be constrained by the wishes of the minority partner. The Liberal Democrats have 50% representation in the so-called “Quad” (where Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Alexander agree a common direction for the Government to take). It is therefore unclear to commentator and voter what direction the government will take.

Macmillan commented that the British do not like coalition government. That is because our adversarial politics is based upon giving the voters a clear choice and being able to assess a party on its record in government. Unless a voter pays inordinate attention to the machinations of coalition politics he will either simply judge both parties according to the compromised policies they agree on or will be unclear as to what the two parties stand for. It is no accident that political parties that prefer coalition government also favour other constitutional arrangements such as proportional voting that make government opaque and strengthen the political class.

Without the compromises of coalition, the Prime Minister could fully exercise the Royal Prerogative to set the direction of the Government.  It is unfashionable to defend the use of the Prerogative, but it does mean the Prime Minister sets the agenda by his appointments and therefore voters know what they are getting and can vote accordingly. It gives a clear choice to voters and that must be democratic.

Coalition government reduces the clarity of the choice voters can make and increases suspicion of the political class as they are perceived to compromise on manifesto commitments and reach deals to keep them both in government.  This coalition came together because of the lack of a clear election result and the dire state of the economy. People did not vote for a coalition of course, they rather voted for different parties. The economy was a strong reason to enter coalition and it is by its record on the economy the coalition will be judged.

The apparent lack of growth is perhaps a reason for retaining Ken Clarke in the Cabinet, without portfolio.  Clarke of course oversaw a period of economic growth while addressing the government deficit. This was following a period of supply-side reforms that freed up the private sector, allowing it to grow.

The criticism of the Chancellor is unfair. His policy on the deficit has ensured that Britain has retained its Triple A status; this when other major Western nations are losing theirs. The deficit-reduction plan is vital for setting the foundations for growth. It ensures a low interest rate because the bond markets retain their confidence in Britain’s ability to pay its debts and it means that private sector investment is not crowded out by public debt.

Rightly though, there is concern that growth is not faster. Conservatives generally believe that rather than the Keynesian approach of stimulating demand and relying on major government projects to achieve the multiplier effect, supply-side reforms are what enable the private sector to grow. This is why the Beecroft Report was commissioned, which came forward with radical proposals to foster private-sector growth.

Ironically it was the Secretary of State with responsibility for business, Vince Cable, who prevented these reforms being delivered. As much as Mr Cameron wants to refocus his Government on economic growth, because of the politics of coalition he cannot move Mr Cable, who is ideologically opposed to many of the supply-side measures needed for business.    

The power to reshuffle has allowed Mr Cameron to move two economically savvy Conservatives, Matthew Hancock and Michael Fallon (who has experience of business in the real world), to the Business Department.  Because of coalition constraints however, he can only manoeuvre and not set a new direction to the Business Department.

This is not just a problem with one individual minister. It is a problem with coalition government and its limits on the Prime Minister’s power to appoint his own ministers thereby setting the direction. The Conservatives at the next election will be judged on their economic record. MPs such as David Davis have been calling for supply-side reforms, but the Conservatives will be judged on the record of coalition, not their own beliefs. The danger is that because the Liberal Democrats hold a veto over economic policy, growth will be restricted. Meanwhile, because of this policy logjam, the Conservatives are looking for other options, such as relaxing planning laws.  This could well risk alienating their voters in the Shires. 

Unless someone is especially politically interested and follows the manoeuvres of coalition government, the average voter will simply judge both parties on their record. This means that the choice is not as clear as it should be. It would be far more democratic to allow a party to deliver on its programme and then to be held to account for it, rather than to be hemmed in by a party with far less democratic support and then be punished at the polls for not delivering on the growth that many Conservatives believe could be achieved were the junior coalition partners to allow them more of a free-hand on this key area of policy.

Of course the Conservatives did not achieve an outright majority, but this coalition came together to solve the economic difficulties of the country. The Prime Minister is unable to demote Liberal Democrat Ministers and unless they prove less obstructive on supply-side reform, delivery of economic growth will be very difficult and coalition government as an approach will be perceived by the public as not having worked. If coalition does not allow the Prime Minister a freer hand on reshuffles, then the onus is on those ministers he cannot reshuffle to be more on board with achieving economic growth.  

• See Also:

- See more at: http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-New-Cabinet-Constraints-of-the-Coalition-