“Conservative parties” (like the UK one of that name, or the Republicans in the other place) are a broad and strange church of contradictions. They are patriotic to the point of (and sometimes beyond) xenophobia, and yet bow at the alter of global free trade. They cast dubious moral judgements on how people should act, think and feel (I’m looking at you and your cricket cheering, Tebbit, your ‘youth activists should be seen and not heard’ Nazi slurs, Monckton) and yet preach personal economic freedom and low tax.
Essentially, conservatives come in two types; Moral Conservatives and Libertarians. This is where the contradiction arises; the moral conservatives would happily ban money if they heard the bible called it sinful, and the libertarians would happily legalise polygamy if they thought the religious lobby wouldn’t make too much of a fuss. They coexist as a result of their agreement in the great economic dichotomy; they both want a small state.
They want this for different reasons; libertarians don’t think anyone (especially them) should pay tax, whereas moral conservatives think that moral fibre can feed people. Either way, they can spin the yarn together and build a stable coalition with policies and everything (just like the Lib Dems, with its Socialists and old school Liberals,) and we have to listen to them make no bloody sense on the radio all the time (the conservatives, that is, Lib Dems obviously always make sense… *cough*)
Why do I think that Anarchism is their opiate?
Well, let me explain. Firstly, most conservatives aren’t one or the other; after decades of merger between two completely different political philosophies we just refer to them collectively as “conservative.” As such, most of them don’t know which they are, and can jump from one set of contradictory justifications to the other. My hunch, though, is that they are all (deep down) Moral Conservatives. They have the symptoms, they nearly all go to church/other established place of worship, they nearly all get cross about the Broken Britain narrative, they generally don’t mind banning stuff that doesn’t affect their own wealth, etc. You have the occasional freelancer, like Boris the populist, but ultimately they need to be “reined in” every now and again, and basically this is libertarian butter spread over moral conservative toast, more or less thickly depending on the constituency.
Why do I equate libertarianism and anarchism? Because they are basically the same. Yea OK so libertarians sort of accept that there needs to be some sort of state to chase anyone who tried to steal their piles of gold, but not really; they would be happier just hiring mercenaries and not having to submit to any laws at all. Same goes for the fire brigade, apparently.
And this moral conservative “Big Society” idea of Cameron’s (where community and charity pick up the slack of the withered state, following his spade to the tap root) is nothing more than the libertarians dream come true; you don’t even have to pay for the services; the poor have to just give them to you! :D
This disingenuous anarchistic collusion is morally bankrupt, just like the rest of the conservative rationale for inflicting unnecessary pain.
The necessary pain, that is a different matter. I do not support the coalitions tax policy in full but the structural deficit needs to be reduced, whether by higher tax or lower spending. The way I see it, the Conservatives are the party of no state, the Labour party is that of the monstrous state. I think of the Lib Dems as the big-enough state; we will not stifle personal freedom with ID cards and CCTV and punitively punish a group of earners for not being our core vote, but equally we won’t allow the country to fail its real moral obligations to those who deserve support, the unemployed, the disabled, the towns employed in major part by the state.
The Lib Dems, the coalition of Socialists and old-school Liberals, (although again, no-one uses those labels alone any more) is based on the two empathetic political philosophies. We disagree about what everyone needs to be happy (money/freedom) but we agree that everyone should have it. We thus come from a common place, unlike the conservatives disparate contradictions, arguing about which selfish desire to placate.
I was always suspicious of Clegg, former member of CUCA and so on, and I’m still not sure which philosophy he comes from. Regardless, I hope this coalition turns out to be an old-school Liberal coalition, rather than a libertarian one, as Anarchy in the UK is not what we need right now (or ever.)