Good Day everyone. I am going to start to break down Barry Goldwater’s ‘Conscience of a Conservative’ , written in 1960, by chapter. There is no doubt that this book should be read by everyone who calls themselves a ‘Conservative’. Will Goldwater’s definition of conservative match up with today’s conservatives? Where would Goldwater fit in today’s political continuum?
This is the 3d or 4th time that I have read his book. First time was 30 years a go or so. His views and ideas struck me as something obvious. They still do, they make perfect sense, yet somehow he (as well as William F Buckley) have fallen out of the ‘conservative’ pantheon for many on this side of the aisle. Please purchase the book and read it. You can find a digital copy at Amazon for cheap.
The book was ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., brother-in-law of William F. Buckley.[1] Bozell and Buckley had been members of Yale’s debate team. They had co-authored the controversial book, McCarthy and His Enemies, in 1955. Bozell had been Goldwater’s speechwriter in the 1950s, and was familiar with many of his ideals. The first edition, 1960, is 123 pages in length and was published in the United States. The book covers such topics as education, labor unions and policies, civil rights, agricultural policy and farm subsidies, social welfare programs, and income taxation. The book is considered to be a significant statement of politically and economically American conservative ideas which were to gain influence during the following decades.[1]
Goldwater begins by arguing that conservatism is not a mechanistic economic only philosophy but one that is in fact comprehensive in scope and application and should never be apologized for nor modified with labels as ‘progressive conservative’ or ‘conservative with a heart’. ‘Compassionate Conservative’ certainly falls in the no-no with the rest of modifiers that are aimed to distance one from actual conservatism yet let that candidate somehow still claim to in fact be a conservative. And sadly, many on our side willing take the bait.
First, He goes on to explain that conservatism is not an economic theory but has economic implications. Socialism/liberalism ‘subordinates all other considerations to man’s material well being. It is conservatism that puts material things in their proper place’ within a proper human society where the economics is in a subordinate role. He argues though that man is in fact an economic animal with spiritual needs and desires, needs and desires to be free. Liberals fight against Nature by attempting to harness society’s economic and political forces in a collective effort ; to control them in the name of ‘progress’. This fails because, as he argues, the nature of man is not in a controlled collective but one who is free of the yoke of tyranny.
Second, that each man is unique argues the conservative. All men are the same argues the liberal. ‘Only a philosophy that takes into account the essential differences between men, and , accordingly , makes provisions for developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to be in accord with nature’. Man assigned and consigned to an ‘undifferentiated mass’ is doomed to slavery. Personal Liberty, the government off of your back without the ever smaller box of compliance in which we live is the only way to prevent the slavery that comes with too large a government; slavery of the spirit comes when your personal liberties and freedoms are taken away or even eroded over time, economic slavery comes with debt and taxes from too large a government.
The conservative will know that the economic and the spiritual are permanently intertwined. If you are enslaved politically, you are not economically free. If you are dependent on the state, your freedom is an illusion.
Third, an outside force cannot direct man’s development in the spiritual and economic realm. Every man is responsible for his own development. He must make the choices that define his life; a free man is free to live without interference from government or liberals for that matter. Goldwater was prescient here. Look at the size and scope of American government since the first printing of his book!
Conservatives never regard man as a pawn of another man nor part of a collective. The conservative throughout history has been at odds with both the autocrat and the mob rule so called ‘democratic’ Jacobins. ‘The conscience of a conservative is pricked by anyone who would debase the dignity of the individual human being’. This means big government/big spenders on the left and right as well as anyone who would attempt to control man either by collective action or by making him an economic slave through taxes and debt.
He finished the chapter by explaining that the goal of a conservative is to achieve the maximum amount of freedom for the individual that is consistent with the maintenance of the social order. This is the classic Hobbes v Locke discussion and is one that will never end and sways back and forth as the political pendulum moves. The way to achieve the goal is to preserve and extend freedoms, always ask ‘are we maximizing freedoms?’
*up next, Chapter 2 ‘The Perils of Power’
