Dan Hannan thinks so, because you meet both at Tory Party events. Well, don't you meet all sorts at Tory Party events...?
Do you believe in national self-government, the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts? In local variation, historical consciousness, family life (founded on the marital union of one man and one woman), and the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West? In agriculture, manufacturing, and small business?
In close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, and all forms of art? In mass political participation within a constitutional framework? In respect for the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death? And in the constitutional and other ties among the Realms and Territories having the British monarch as Head of State (or other such constitutional links), the status of the English language and the rights of its speakers both throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and the rights of British-descended communities throughout the world?
If the answer to any, never mind all, of those questions is Yes, then you cannot possibly believe in the "free" market, which corrodes to nought all those and so very many other good things. There cannot be a "free" market but not in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution or pornography; therefore, there must not be a "free" market. There cannot be unrestricted movement of goods, services or capital but not of labour, i.e., of migrants; therefore, there must not be unrestricted movement of goods, services or capital.
The reverse also holds, of course. You cannot have unrestricted movement of labour - few or no immigration controls - but not of goods, services and capital. You cannot have a "free" market in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution or pornography but not in everything else. You cannot wish the end - the destruction of everything that conservatives exist in order to conserve - but not the means - the "free" market.
And you cannot support the "free" market but not its wars, nor oppose those wars without opposing the reason for them.
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You are quite right in theory - no-one is free to do what they like in a conservative society, because in conservative society the whole (society) is greater than the sum of its parts (individuals and groups). And quite right too.
ReplyDeleteHannan's point, though, is that libertarianism in practice will look like conservatism in practice in the short term. I think he has a point, because libertarism in practice means "people being freed from what *this* government/governmental system is doing".
There aren't many ideological libertarians out there, and Hannan isn't one of them, though he likes to give the impression he is. But the libertarian question: "Why should I do what you say?" is a good starting point for a counter-attack against the powers and principalities of the age.