WHY I ABANDONED CONSERVATISM
How I abandoned my rebellion and said “up with the system, man!”
When I was 15, Ayn Rand was my hero. When I was 21, I was identifying as a libertarian. I advocated that businesses be allowed to discriminate. I argued that free markets create prosperity. I thought capitalism was the fertilizer in which freedom grew. Emotionally, I still understand these positions, but I have completely abandoned them intellectually. I’m a liberal in my head, but a conservative in my heart; a man who loves the hero, but sympathizes with the villain—no, empathizes with the villain.
I had an epiphany (rare for me, I’m ashamed to say) today concerning the nature of true conservatism. True conservatism is a form of rebellion. Let me explain. See, power is inherent to lifeforms existing together and competing for resources. Some will be better at gathering resources. Some will gather so much that they can “employ” others. They can demand servitude, and back it up with resource capital and the purchased obedience of violent thugs. Thus, governments are born.
What conservatism is saying is, “The government is too big and has too much control over us! We have to shrink it down!” Unfortunately, they can’t live up to their own creed. When they actually attain power, they begin ruthlessly expanding their wealth, might and influence. They start stifling all those who speak out against them. The conservatives are split between social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives, two different beasts who have formed a shaky and ultimately not very sensible alliance. At the end of the day, the true fiscal conservatives want small governments that do little more than enforce contracts and provide a very basic infrastructure. The social conservatives are America’s dunce cap. Their positions are untenably stupid and won’t be discussed here today.
I sympathize with the conservative creed of small government, because I am pathologically averse to authority and to being dictated to. Intellectually, however, I recognize that ultimately greater freedom results from a powerful but benign government. Fiscal conservatives counter that the government is untamable and will always curtail our liberties further in the pursuit of furthering its own power and agenda. Their proof of this is that the government took away business owners rights to treat their employees (including child laborers) like shit and pay them little more than nothing. The argument of a liberal, in response, would be that by outlawing such business practices, the government may have restricted the rights of owners, but they expanded the rights of workers. And I don’t think conservatives have ever successfully refuted that from a practical perspective. They make shoddy moral arguments against it—but I am rightly skeptical of anyone whose morality sides with oppressive bosses over their oppressed workers.
So, I do emotionally identify with the idea of freedom from authority that conservatives espouse, but I ultimately recognize that the authority of businessmen is not preferable to authority of government.
Many conservatives today, it should be noted here, have decided that they actually like big government, but want it to side with corporations and businessmen, leaving nothing for the people—for the employed and the unemployed. We talk a lot about those two classes of people: the employed and the unemployed. We often forget that there is a third class: the employers.
Conservatives, at their best, want to let the employers have free reign. At their worst, they want the government to serve the employer class. We cannot let that happen. Just read one chapter or one book about how early industrial businesses were run, and you will have the most compelling argument you will ever need against the notion that the employers need more freedom than everyone else.
