Conservatism
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on the supply side of the economy was reflected in the belief that governments should foster growth by providing conditions that encourage producers to produce, rather than consumers to consume. The main block to the creation of an entrepreneurial, supply- side culture is high taxes. Taxes, in this view, discourage enterprise and infringe property rights, a stance sometimes called ‘fiscal conservatism’ . Neoliberalismisnotonlyanti-statistonthegroundsofeconomicefficiencyandresponsiveness, but also because of its political principles, notably its commitment to individual liberty. Neoliberals claim to be defending freedom against ‘creeping collectivism’. At the extreme, these ideas lead in the direction of anarcho-capitalism (discussed in Chapter 5) and the belief that all goods and services, including the courts and public order, should be delivered by the market. The freedom defended by neoliberals is negative freedom: the removal of external restrictions on the individual. As the collective power of government is seen as the principal threat to the individual, freedom can only be ensured by ‘rolling back’ the state. This, in particular, means rolling back social welfare. In addition to economic arguments against welfare – for example, that increased social expenditure pushes up taxes, and that public services are inherently inefficient – neoliberals object to welfare on moral grounds. In the first place, the welfare state is criticized for having created a ‘culture of dependency’: it saps initiative and enterprise, and robs people of dignity and self-respect. Welfare is thus the cause of disadvantage, not its cure. Such a theory resurrects the notion of the ‘undeserving poor’. Charles Murray (1984) also argued that, as welfare relieves women of dependency on ‘breadwinning’ men, it is a major cause of family breakdown, creating an underclass largely composed of single mothers and fatherless children. A further neoliberal argument against welfare is based on a commitment to individual rights. Robert Nozick (1974) advanced this most forcefully in condemning all policies of welfare and redistribution as a violation of
property rights. In this view, so long as property has been acquired justly, to transfer it, without consent, from one person to another amounts to ‘legalized theft’. Underpinning this view is egoistical individualism, the idea that people owe nothing to society and are, in turn, owed nothing by society, a stance that calls the very notion of society into question.
Fiscal conservatism: A political-economic stance that prioritizes the lowering of taxes, cuts in public spending and reduced government debt.
KEY FIGURE
ROBERT NOZICK (1938–2002) A US political philosopher, Nozick developed a form of rights-based libertarianism in response to the ideas of John Rawls (see p. 39). Drawing on Locke (see p. 29) and nineteenth-century US individualists, he argued that property rights should be strictly upheld, provided that property was justly purchased or justly transferred from one person to another. His major work, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), rejects welfare and redistribution, and advances the case for minimal government and minimal taxation. In later life, Nozick modified his extreme libertarianism.
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Authoritarian conservatism Whereas all conservatives would claim to respect the concept of authority, few modern conservatives would accept that their views are authoritarian. Nevertheless, while
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