Burkean Touchstones
Burke’s voluminous writings and positions cover a wide gamut of political philosophy.
However, four topics stand out as touchstones for our Burkean Nation.
Property Rights • Order & Stability • Social Structures • Liberal Conservatism
Property Rights
Property Rights ensure a healthy society because they provide a rooted self-interest, require the rule of law and foster interconnected citizenship.
Property Rights are therefore to be spread, not just respected and preserved. Indeed, much of the economic dynamism of the United States is due to our well developed and well defended set of property rights. In contrast, poorly developed and poorly performing countries have poor property rights, a concept best articulated by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto.
Burkeans must therefore be on the hunt for how to spread property rights and on the defense against their abrogation.
Order & Stability
Society can’t advance in any sort of healthy form without Order & Stability. Indeed, government’s primary role is to ensure the safety of its citizens, which is to say ensuring the order and stability of society.
Stability doesn’t preclude societal change. Rather, it provides a stable platform for societal change, consistent with respect for the Collective Intellect.
Societies that lack Order & Stability devolve into clannish, vengeful and overall dysfunctional organisms in which the weak often fall prey to the strong.
Social Structures
Human beings need proven social structures. We need them because we are physically fallible and emotionally vulnerable, and therefore need structure in our lives. Indeed, people often fall into ruin outside strong social structures.
Kids really need structure, as parents know. Adults need structure also, especially for our most important purpose, to raise a family. That’s why Burkeans honor the social structures that have developed over time, e.g., family, religion, civic organizations and representative government. While these institutions aren’t perfect or immune from change, they are nonetheless proven over many generations. Thus, they are carriers of accumulated knowledge and practice.
Social structures evolve more slowly than social engineers desire. That’s because they stem from a Wisdom of the Crowds effect over extended periods of time.
Disregarding social structures leads to unintended consequences. Indeed, social engineering always involves a leap into the unknown. That's because the manifold dependancies on social structures go largely unrecognized, even to exceptionally smart people with the best of intentions for “progressive” social change.
Sir Edmund Burke wasn’t unalterably opposed to social change. He championed the American Revolution, perhaps history’s most consequential social change. He came to that conclusion due to his deep respect for proven social structures.
Politically astute citizens of the 21st century should have similar respect.
Liberal Conservatism
Liberal Conservatism sounds like a contradiction in terms nowadays.
It's a political philosophy that values liberty in economic affairs, balanced with respect for Social Structures, Property Rights and Order & Stability.
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In short, Liberal Conservatism is a synthesis of the principles that made America the world’s seminal Burkean Nation.