The Northern Agrarian

The monarchic, and aristocratical, and popular partisans have been jointly laying their axes to the root of all government, and have in their turns proved each other absurd and inconvenient. In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse! ~ Edmund Burke, 1756

Edmund Burke as a political theorist has been discovered, adopted, stolen, distorted, readopted, exiled, recovered, and rediscovered time and again by men of all political stripes. But a universally ignored piece authored by Burke suggests that Burke was at heart a radical anti-statist.

Having read and discarded many of these interpretations over time, I scoffed when a friend sent me the great anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard’s interpretation of the young Edmund Burke’s political theory. Suffice it to say (I am indeed writing about it, aren’t I?), I found it significantly more fascinating and convincing than those other half-baked interpretations of the brilliant Irishman’s philosophy. Rothbard sets his sights on Burke’s oft-ignored debut, Vindication of Natural Society:

Curiously enough it has been almost completely ignored in the current Burke revival. This work contrasts sharply with Burke’s other writings, for it is hardly in keeping with the current image of the Father of the New Conservatism. A less conservative work could hardly be imagined; in fact, Burke’s Vindication was perhaps the first modern expression of rationalistic and individualistic anarchism.

The hyphenated text that began this post is taken directly from Vindication, and the text speaks for itself:

All Empires have been cemented in Blood; and in those early Periods when the Race of Mankind began first to form themselves into Parties and Combinations, the first Effect of the Combination, and indeed the End for which it seems purposely formed, and best calculated, is their mutual Destruction. All ancient History is dark and uncertain. One thing however is clear. There were Conquerors, and Conquests, in those Days; and consequently, all that Devastation, by which they are formed, and all that Oppression by which they are maintained.

Here is Burke, a man decried by libertarians as a statist, declaring that the history of all States and their relationship with one another is a history of horrible war and oppression. He says that, although there are historical examples of benevolent relations between nation-states, it “does not afford Matter enough to fill ten Pages.” Instead, we are left with the declaration that “[w]ar is the Matter which fills all History, and consequently the only, or almost the only View in which we can see the External of political Society, is in a hostile Shape; and the only Actions, to which we have always seen, and still see all of them intent, are such, as tend to the Destruction of one another.” These are radical words for a man always cited for his prudence.

The common explanation for Burke’s uncharacteristic radicalism is that he wrote it as political satire. He said so himself when it became clear that he was the author (he published it anonymously). But Rothbard questions Burke’s explanation due to its suspicious circumstances and its all too convenient timing:

His own belated explanation was that the Vindication was a satire on the views of rationalist Deists like Lord Bolingbroke, demonstrating that a devotion to reason and an attack on revealed religion can logically eventuate in a subversive attack on the principle of government itself. Burke’s host of biographers and followers have tended to adopt his explanation uncritically. Yet they hurry on and rarely mention his Vindication in their discussions of Burke, and with good reason. For the work is a most embarrassing one. Careful reading reveals hardly a trace of irony or satire. In fact, it is a very sober and earnest treatise, written in his characteristic style. Indeed, Burke’s biographers have commented on the failure of the work as irony, without raising the fundamental question whether it was really meant to be irony at all.

Burke’s own explanation, in fact, is not a very plausible one. He was not given to satire, and rarely attempted such writing in later years. The Vindication was published anonymously when Burke was 27 years old. Nine years later, after his authorship had been discovered, Burke found himself about to embark on his famous Parliamentary career. To admit that he had seriously held such views in earlier years would have been politically disastrous.

Rothbard is spot on. A careful reading of Vindication reveals little use of irony, or the intent to use it. Burke is renowned as a brilliant writer and thinker, yet we are to believe that he wrote a piece of satire where almost no satire is found in the text? Isn’t it possible that he did indeed intend this to be a radical look at the state, and later found it a significant obstacle to holding office in said state? It is possible, but I can only buy this argument on one condition. I, unlike Rothbard, have an appreciation for Burke’s later works. I refuse to believe that Burke could so passionately and convincingly attack the state and later rid himself of those inclinations completely. So it becomes a question of whether Burke the anarchist can be found inside his later, anti-revolutionary writings.

An analysis of Burke’s writings and speeches show that he had an affinity for liberty his entire life and almost always saw the State as the enemy of freedom and of traditional order. In 1775, for instance, Burke appears surprised (some would say he feigns surprise) when studying the existence of a peaceful and orderly anarchy in Massachusetts in his Conciliation with the Colonies speech:

“We were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect, of anarchy [in Massachusetts] would instantly enforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without judges, without executive magistrates. . . “

Indeed Burke admired the Massachusetts colony. Although it was devoid of government interference, morality was governed by custom and tradition. The citizens took care of one another through apparatuses such as volunteer fire department and a local militia, yet there was very little crime. For someone like Burke, citing his love of order and tradition does not act as a counterargument to his apparent disdain for government. On the contrary, he saw it as destructive to custom and culture. Morality is a high priority for any society, but it cannot be pushed by government. “It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, leaving much to free will…” said Burke, “than to attempt to make men machines and instruments of political benevolence.”

Burke was no populist, but throughout his life he extolled the virtues of liberty and free enterprise. “Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing on others, he has a right to do,” said Burke. And he asserted that “true danger” comes when “liberty is nibbled away” by government. These are not the words of a right-wing statist. They are the words of what could not be considered a libertarian traditionalist, a man who saw the state as almost always evil yet would never accept libertinism in society or culture. Political society is always a battle between the individual and the state, said Burke, and he made his opinions known in the following manner:

“I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favor of the people.”

I previously mentioned Burke’s appreciation for the free market. Burke felt that “The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted,” and “to provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government.” “Property was not made by government, but government by and for it,” said Burke, and “one is primary and self-existent; the other is secondary and derivative.” This is not simply a discriminant selection of Burke quotes. Throughout his writing on order and tradition there is a deep vein of appreciation for ordered liberty and freedom. Remember, anarchy does not mean the absence of order, but the absence of governors. Very rarely do you find Burke extolling virtue in government action.

This is not just another rethinking of Burke’s thought. He was very clearly a libertarian traditionalist; an Anarcho-Conservative.