This is another installment in my critique of “Ten Conservative Principles” by Russell Kirk, one of the most influential “conservative” writers.
(Earlier installments are at these links: Overview, Principle 1, Principle 2, Principle 3, Principle 4, Principle 5 and Principle 6.)
Now it’s time to tackle the seventh “principle.” (You can read all ten of them HERE.)
[C]onservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act. To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.
Detailed consideration of Principle 7
Let’s begin with the opening statement.
[C]onservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked.
This “principle” seems plausible, even to liberals. In fact, there is a link between freedom and private property. It’s just not the connection that most people imagine. And it’s that error that turns this otherwise innocuous statement into a dangerous falsehood.
“Conservatives” like to think that the link is simple. People ought to be free to use their labor and industry to increase their property. And they ought to be free from having others steal their labor or their property. They think that if you just leave people alone to do what they want, the industrious and the frugal will come out on top. And they think that’s the way God wants it.
Because of this simple and simple-minded view, “conservatives” are constantly at war with government, which they think prevents them from doing what they want. Like irate adolescents rebelling against their parents, “conservatives” think that they could soar if only they could get out from under the thumb of the government.
This is a dangerous delusion that threatens to destroy the very freedom and property that “conservatives” hold so dear. It comes from a superficiality and a selfishness that cannot understand the real roots of freedom and property, and thus cannot grasp the genuine connection between them.
The root of the connection between freedom and property is this: Both freedom and property are created and sustained by government.
Think about it. If there were no government to guarantee our freedom, if there were no power to stop others from enslaving or killing us, we could never be free. There is no freedom without government, only temporary absence of oppression.
Similarly, there is no private property without government. If there were no power to stop others from stealing our stuff, it would only be a matter of time before ruthless strongmen would rob us of everything.
So the “conservative” war against government is precisely analogous to the attitude of rebellious teens. They dream about the heights they could attain if only their parents didn’t restrict them. Their dreams intoxicate them. They do not see that their parents make their dreams possible by making their lives possible.
If their parents did not provide shelter, food, and financial support, teens would be thrown out into the harsh world, where their lives would be at substantial risk. They would have neither the safety nor the resources to dream. They do not see that throwing off their parents’ restrictions would destroy both their dreams and their lives.
Since parents provide all this care and since in fact they love their children more than the children can love themselves, parents have both a right and a duty to restrict their children’s actions and dreams until they are intelligent, insightful, and responsible enough to lead separate lives.
The analogy between teens and “conservatives” is almost perfect. In their dreams, “conservatives” could be masters of the world if only government did not limit them. They do not understand that government makes it possible for them to entertain these dreams or that government makes their very lives possible.
If government did not provide guarantees for freedom and private property, “conservatives” would have neither. They would be at the mercy (and there is little) of every ruthless predator. Without constitutional protections, without the rule of law, without regulatory authority, without policies for the protection and improvement of living standards, “conservatives” would stand no more chance than anyone else of surviving and thriving—let alone of fulfilling their delusional dreams.
Since government provides all these guarantees and since it in fact loves “conservatives” more than they can love themselves, government has both the right and the duty to restrict the dreams and the actions of “conservatives” until such time as they are intelligent, insightful, and responsible enough.
“Conservatives” have never been capable of responsible political self-governance. If you doubt this, just read some speeches and newspaper editorials of the anti-federalists who opposed ratifying the Constitution. (You can find some HERE.) Their arguments are similar or even identical to the arguments of today’s “conservatives” against governmental restrictions. One of the most important reasons that it was so difficult to pass the Constitution lay in the stiff-necked, adolescent selfishness that prevents some people from understanding that they would have nothing without government. And that spirit continues in today's “conservatives.” It is called libertarianism.
(There is also a liberal version of the adolescent, self-centered libertarianism. It has the same blindness as the “conservative” version, but it backs itself up with the ethical rule that people may do whatever doesn’t harm someone else. The “conservative” version sometimes claims to follow this ethical rule, but that is usually window dressing. “Conservatives” just want to do whatever they want to do and mostly don’t care about anyone else except close members of their own families and tribal groups—and often they do not even care about them. In both liberal and “conservative” versions, however, ignorance about the limits of the effects of one’s own actions on others vitiates this claim.)
Because “conservatives” do not recognize the bedrock necessity of government together with its rights and duties to protect all citizens both now and in the future, they get everything wrong about freedom and property.
As we go through the rest of this “seventh principle,” we will see just how bad their mistakes are. And we will also see that those mistakes do enormous harm to society.
Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.
“Leviathan” refers to the great corporate state of Thomas Hobbes’s book by the same name. In Hobbes’s conception, the state represented an amalgam of all the people and all the interests in a nation, taking direction from one source—a king or a body of people like a king.
The meaning of Kirk’s sentence is this: If you remove private possession from the notion of property, then individuals cannot hold on to anything they have and the state can compel them to hand everything over—because, by hypothesis after all, they have no private right to it. And this, in fact, was the principle of many monarchical societies in the past.
Kirk's fear of abolishing private property only makes sense in the context of mid-twentieth-century anti-communist rhetoric. Certainly, communism maintains that there is no private property, that the individual only has rights to what the state grants him. In the discussion about Principle 5, however, we saw that fears about communism taking over the world are long out of date. Except for dead-end, superannuated communist powers like Russia and China, no one seriously maintains anymore that any society can do away with private property. So this “principle” seems hysterical to us moderns.
Nevertheless, “conservatives” like to pretend that people—mainly liberals—are still trying to foist communism on them. When “conservatives” accuse someone of being a communist or socialist these days, they usually are just reinforcing their selfish dislike of taxes. The notion that liberals are communists or socialists belongs to the infinite capacity for “conservative” victimhood. Everyone is out to get them for every little thought that enters their little minds.
Since the abolition of private property is now a bogeyman, one might think we could just dispense with this “principle” right at the start.
But because, as I just said, “conservatives” still deploy the old tropes unceasingly, it is not pointless to examine Kirk’s supporting points. At one time, “conservatives” really feared the enemies of capitalism and democracy, and some embers of their arguments against those enemies still smolder in the mostly ashen remnants of their old fears.
So we continue.
Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth.
This is nonsense. Most of human history contradicts these statements.
Cultures built great civilizations long before private property was considered a right. The monumental civilizations of the ancient world were aristocratic or despotic. In such societies, those of higher social status owned the labor and the products of those beneath them.
As for the notion that widespread possession of private property brings about economic stability and productivity, the evidence is mixed. It shows that economic health does not necessarily coordinate with high levels of private property. The New Deal programs that limited private investment and increased public investment led to stability and security for those disadvantages by the preceding age of the robber barons. The Soviet Union attained extraordinary stability and growth during the 1960s and 1970s with almost no private property by pursuing heavy industry while strictly enforcing economic control and planning. Norway and Sweden fund welfare programs with public taxes and have attained great stability and growth while limiting private property.
Of course, societies with widespread private property may also be stable and productive. But the connection cannot be causal, or there would be no examples to the contrary. And there are.
Once again, Kirk’s assertions do not hold up to scrutiny.
Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress.
Again, no one is talking about levelling, nor does it require levelling to make economic inequalities less onerous for the disadvantaged. But it certainly takes people concerned about the common welfare who are generous enough to share some of their wealth with those who have little to nothing. “Conservatives” seem to be hell-bent to find reasons not to be public-spirited and generous.
Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
Yes. This makes sense. But that sound economic basis will never issue from Kirk’s advice because his “conservative principles” are rooted in the desire for power, and money is one form of power. This is a case where Kirk uses a general truth deceptively, because “conservatives” either do not accept it, or only give it lip service.
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.”
The reference to Sir Henry Maine is to his 1889 book Village Communities of the East and West, a collection of lectures he gave at Oxford. (Sir Henry Sumner Maine, Village Communities of the East and West [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1889], 230.)
This may be Maine’s opinion, but he is wrong. Private property is not a cause of civilization any more than it is a cause of economic stability and productivity.
Ancient Egypt, the Incan empire, the Aztec empire, the Shang dynasty, and the Iroquois confederacy are just five examples of advanced civilizations in which communal ownership, especially of land, benefitted everyone.
Maine was writing at a time when the British Empire was still the most powerful force on earth. His beliefs were certainly out of date by the time Kirk was writing. And they are even more out of date now.
For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act.
Kirk has now worked up to a staple “conservative” belief—the notion that private property is the moral training ground of humanity. According to this idea, working hard and getting to keep the fruits of one’s labors teaches us to be responsible, to be honest, to sustain the community, to be leisurely, thoughtful, and free.
No doubt the striving after private property can play a role in teaching these virtues and gaining these advantages. But there are at least two reasons why it is neither a cause of these virtues and advantages nor even sufficient to bring them about.
First, as we noted, there have been great civilizations without private property. It seems highly unlikely that the virtues and advantages listed did not exist in those societies.
And second, in societies with advanced systems of private property, many of the individuals with the greatest access to private property possess none of these virtues and advantages.
In America today, for instance, hardly a day goes by without a news story about some wealthy, irresponsible, dishonest, anti-social, impetuous, vapid, and compulsive cretin. Indeed, the last president was just such a person.
It seems that private property, especially in those with the most of it, teaches no moral lessons at all. Some other sources of moral training must be active in order for people to learn the right lessons from their experiences with private property.
To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny.
They are difficult to deny only for people of a particular type—people fearful enough to need the illusion of permanence—that is to say, “conservatives.”
There are other people, however, who do not need the so-called advantages mentioned here. Those drawn to a monastic life and those drawn to service do not need to pile up money or possessions. The illusion of permanence does not entice them, for they know nothing endures for long in this world of change. They know that bequeathing goods or wealth to descendants is no guarantee of persistence. They understand that there is only grinding poverty where there is an abuse of privilege. They grasp the truth that nothing is really one’s own; we only hold on to things temporarily, and death removes them all if nothing else does before.
These things seem like advantages to those who are desperate to convince themselves that there is some hedge against the inevitability of change and loss. Nothing is more important to “conservatives.”
But there is no hedge against change and loss. None of Kirk’s “advantages” will save “conservatives” from what they fear most. Death comes for each of us, parting us from everything we possess.
The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.
Every intelligent and decent person acknowledges the fact that duties accompany the rights of property. It is doubtful whether “conservatives” understand those duties rightly.
This doubt arises from the fact mentioned above that “conservatives” do not understand the role of government. They seem to regard government as the enemy of private property rather than its grantor and protector.
The duties attending private property start with allegiance to the government, which alone guarantees property. Owners of private property owe it to their government to work for the common welfare, to obey the laws of the state, and pay the taxes that support defense, policing, regulation, courts, and other governmental operations that protect citizens from external and internal depredation.
They also have the duty to use their property for the good of society besides advancing their own private gain. They should use some resources to support education, healthcare, and infrastructure, for instance—civilized institutions that benefit everyone, not just the fortunate few.
And they also have the duty to respect the rights of others. This includes the property rights of others, just as they expect others to respect their own property rights. They should work to protect the vulnerable from the exploitation, harassment, and harm that often attend the attempts of the wealthy to get their way.
These are the obligations that decent owners of private property should accept “cheerfully.”
“Conservatives,” on the other hand—increasingly since the time Kirk began his work in the 1950s—seem to reject these obligations as governmental burdens imposed to limit their “freedom.” As mentioned before, they do not grasp the concept that the government is the source and protector of their freedom. Failing to grasp this, they assume they would be freer without governmental “restrictions,” when in fact, it is only within the confines of good government that their freedom exists at all.
Hence, the continual cries from “conservatives” to drown government in a bathtub or to use courts captured by Federalist Society legal hacks to demand “freedom” ([its first “principle” is that “the state exists to preserve freedom,”](https://fedsoc.org/about-us) which gets the cart before the horse). This adolescent rebelliousness shows how wildly imprudent, self-destructive, and ignorant they are.
So Kirk’s last assertions about the duties devolving upon the owners of private property are generally true. He makes these assertions to cast an approving sheen on “conservative” attitudes toward private property. But it is untrue that “conservatives” embrace those duties. In fact, “conservatives” reject those duties and even try to exempt themselves, leaving it to others to sustain the government that ensures the advantages “conservatives” enjoy.
Here Kirk employs a general truth deceptively to lend a plausibility to “conservatism” that it does not deserve.
Conclusion: The “conservative principle” linking private property and freedom is false on many counts
In sum, all the foundations for Kirk’s approbation of private property and freedom are full of cracks.
Contrary to his assertions, property is not linked to freedom in the way “conservatives” think. Their genuine connection is that both are created and sustained by government, not because they are mutually conditioning goods in themselves.
Contrary to his warnings, the “conservative” fear that their enemies want to abolish private property is a bogeyman—a long out-of-date atavism of the Cold War. That it still terrifies “conservatives” shows just how ignorant and childish they are.
Contrary to his assertions, private property does not cause great civilizations or stabilize society.
Contrary to his assertions, private property does not teach virtue or morality, nor does it lighten the cares of man. Indeed, for the most enlightened people, it can be a greater burden than poverty.
Contrary to his assertions, “conservatives” neither know the duties of property owners nor do they accept them. They imagine that government is their oppressor instead of their protector, and they rebel against it unceasingly.
As we have found all along, this “principle” is completely and utterly wrong.
There is, therefore, no reason to listen to anything “conservatives” say about private property and freedom. They misunderstand the concepts too badly to speak truthfully about them.
Stay with me for the final three principles. It just keeps getting worse for “conservatives.”