Donald J. Devine

WHY WE ARE CONSERVATIVES
January 20, 2000

Once upon a time, not very long ago, there was no conservative movement. Then, for a half-century, it rose and grew ever stronger, finally, to contest for control of the major American political institutions. At the height of this climb, under President Ronald Reagan, powerful liberal establishment observers could no longer ignore the movement that had developed so quietly over the years, essentially without media notice. Once Bill Clinton won the Presidency and control returned to the Democrats, they wondered whether it all had been a mirage. They even questioned whether conservatism ever had existed at all as a coherent doctrine. Soon conservatives themselves, not unaffected by this media buzz, doubted it all too. What had happened?

Before the 1950s, there were no conservatives. There were traditionalists and libertarians who opposed the dominant welfare state-liberal ideology, and there were Republicans who were "do it slower"-than-the Democrats, moderates. But there were no conservatives in the modern sense. Modern conservatism was invented at National Review magazine in the mid-fifties, primarily by editor William F. Buckley, Jr. and philosopher Frank Meyer. As befitting conservatism's positive view of common sense and tradition, a doctrine was not planned but grew from the interactions of its creative but divided staff, which needed some common ground from which to publish a coherent enterprise. Meyer dubbed it "fusionist" conservatism. Its highest value was liberty, but it was freedom to be used responsibly as a means to pursue traditionally-accepted, virtuous ends. The formula was: conservatism equals relying upon libertarian means to pursue traditional ends.

From this formula flowed conservatism's opposition both to domestic statism and international communism as enemies of liberty, as well as its support for means such as individual freedom, free markets, voluntary associations, unfettered businesses--especially small businesses--and capitalism generally. From it also flowed its support for traditional ends: Judeo-Christian morality, the family, religion, local communities and national patriotism, what Meyer called Western values. This formula inspired additional conservative journals, the think tanks, the political action organizations, the Goldwater take-over of the Republican party, the Reagan successes in limiting the welfare state, the Fall of the Berlin Wall and communism, and--after a forty year hiatus--the 1994 majority in the House of Representatives.

In spite of all this success--or, perhaps, because of it--conservatives have begun to separate again into traditionalist and libertarian factions. The term "conservative'' survives primarily to hyphenate and divide social and economic types. Any residual unity further recedes at each instance of one branch or the other pursuing its individual agenda at the expense of what had been for a half-century, a common cause. Each social conservative attempt to write traditional values into national law violated its implicit agreement to use market or at least local government or community means to implement them rather than the libertarian nemesis of the national welfare state. Abortion was an exception libertarians had to accept for the coalition to be created--it was coercion, after all--but libertarians revolted at the specter of national regulation of welfare eligibility rules, education requirements, alcohol consumption levels, and national anti-gambling laws. Why are these issues that state or local or private sources could not handle, they not unreasonably demanded?

Yet, libertarians also developed amnesia for the implicit consensus. Safely in power, it was no longer necessary even to discuss social ends, they said. Rather, "we should talk about those issues on which we all agree: limited government, low taxes and cutting spending." But these were positions the traditionalists accepted in return for libertarians agreeing that traditional ends were the goal. If there was not even to be discussion of social issues like abortion, education and the culture, how could virtue be recognized as the goal? If the libertarians would not openly acknowledge the legitimacy of the ends, no wonder support for national legislation became the traditionalist payback.

Each side claimed the "mandate" of the 1994 election victory as justification to pursue its own separate agenda, even if it was at odds with the central principles of the other. In fact, the 1994 election was a mandate for neither alone nor, perhaps, even both together. It might plausibly be a mandate for some agenda of unified conservatism, but it more likely was simply a rejection of Bill Clinton's first-term social and economic liberalism. Moreover, it was a limited mandate at best. Turnout was low and the total Republican vote was no more than one-third of potential voters.

The more fundamental truth is that it is very unusual for any single ideology to gain a majority mandate. Today, in such a diverse America, it is virtually impossible. Various voter groupings have been identified by experts, but no one of them total to a majority, including "conservatives" or moderates. The old, very useful Time-Warner typology identified a dozen groups, none of which represented more than an eighth of the population. The consistent "libertarians" (Time called them enterprisers) and traditionalists (called moralists) are the two largest groupings, but they only represent 12 percent of the population each. Even among the Republican primary electorate, enterprisers represent only 34 percent and moralists only 33 percent. Neither can win by itself, although together they could dominate the GOP nomination process, which is presumably why they came together in the first place.

Even the broadest classifications of voter-types do not find a majority supporting any single one. Political scientist par excellence, Aaron Wildavsky, identified four very broad political types: so-called individualists, deferentials, egalitarians and fatalists. Based upon the Time-Warner data, the first (which corresponds to economic conservatives) represents 34 percent of the population, the second (social conservatives) equals 22 percent, egalitarians (liberals) are 27 percent and fatalists 17 percent. On the basis of this division, Wildavsky holds that all politics must be coalition politics, with no single one able to mold a reliable majority.

Interestingly, Wildavsky claims that the normal ruling coalition is the economic-social conservative one. They can cohere because they both basically hold a positive enough view of human nature to not require a strong central government. The former view nature as actually benign, encouraging individualism, experimentation, and entrepreneurship, believing that a "hidden hand" will make it all turn out right. The latter are not so optimistic, but they do think nature can be at least tolerant for human social life if institutions like the family, church and community are vibrant. Both limit government in favor of private institutions and differ from the egalitarians who view nature as ephemeral and fatalists who view it as capricious--both of which views require the strong hand of government to control that type of harmful nature.

Like it or not economic and social conservatives are stuck with each other, if they want to be in the majority---or at least if they do not want a coalition of egalitarians and fatalists in control. To even protect themselves from the governmental intrusions of the egalitarian-liberals and the fatalist-Perotists, traditionalists and libertarians must respect each others' bottom line values. Economic conservatives must be explicit that the traditional values are the goal, even if they stress more that the means should be voluntary ones. Social conservatives must recognize a difference between recognizing moral ills and the temptation of translating their solution into national laws, even if they must insist upon public discussion of the ultimate value-goals. If both conservative factions do not accommodate their natural allies, the other guys will determine what are the goals and use national government means to enforce them.

It would be better to understand conservatism as more than a political bargain--as a consistent fusionist philosophy. As non-theistic, economic conservative F.A. Hayek taught both are necessary. Freedom and markets cannot exist without a traditional, even religious, social order to sustain them. As social conservative Russell Kirk believed, the state is often the greatest threat to traditional values and institutions. So there was a valid reason to "create" modern conservatism. Libertarian means and traditional ends have been the preferred historic formula for the great majority of both economic and social conservatives. A serious review of the major philosophers of tradition and liberty will find that the best in each school believed both were necessary, even if they lacked belief in the traditional values themselves. Indeed, Western civilization itself was and is a harmony of both. Not a simple uniform tune but a harmonic masterpiece, not simple libertarianism nor univocal traditionalism but both. That was the mix that created Europe and its offsprings and imitators around the world, very much including the United States.

Even for traditionalists and libertarians who insist upon their own single tune--and who cannot accept a conservative philosophical harmony--if they want to be part of a governing majority, it is still rational to accept some coalition. The one that can protect both’s interests is the tested, Reagan one of libertarian means and traditional ends. And the price of any future coalition must be a gracious acceptance of that same live-and-let-live formula. If the modern scourges of brutal egalitarianism and debilitating fatalism are to be transcended, traditionalist and libertarian conservatives must learn again to work together in harmony. If they will not hang together, they surely will hang separately.