ONLY LIBERTARIANS ARE CONSISTENT, BUT THEY ARE ALL CRAZY

A bit of the old Adam (William Rees-Mogg, Timesonline, October 3rd, 2005)

There is, however, no doubt that Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment in general would have been regarded in the 18th century as a left-wing, or “Radical”, movement. It is true that their greatest philosopher, David Hume, like Samuel Johnson, had Tory sympathies in terms of history. Yet the Enlightenment was a characteristic radical movement of ideas. Indeed, its substation, the Birmingham Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley and the Lunar Club, came to be seen as subversive, and Priestley himself ended his life as an emigrant in the United States.

Samuel Johnson remains firmly established as a archetypal Tory figure of the Right. Yet Adam Smith, who would equally have been seen as left-wing, if the term had been in use in the 1770s, is now a more important influence on conservative thought than Samuel Johnson himself.

The Wealth of Nations is a subtle and well-considered book, nothing like the crude laissez-faire tract it is imagined to be by bishops and other people who have never read it. Yet it is not only the foundation of classical liberal economics, but of modern conservatism. So far as I know, Adam Smith has not yet been mentioned by name in the current Conservative leadership contest, but David Davis has introduced an argument that is clearly derived from Smith’s thought.

Mr Davis argues that free-market systems can deliver better social services than state bureaucracies. Free-market systems are more productive and respond better to the needs of customers. Whether one is dealing with hospitals or schools, an element of choice creates competitive pressures that can be expected to improve outcomes. Market systems do not provide less welfare than state socialist systems, but more and better welfare at lower cost, and therefore at lower taxes. I think this argument is correct, but in modern terms it is unquestionably regarded as right-wing. Why was it left-wing in the 18th century and why has it become right-wing now?

It is not just Adam Smith or economic theory that have moved from left to right. Apart from Gordon Brown, most of us who have been influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment are now perceived as holding right-of-centre views on liberty itself. Even the American Declaration of Independence is now quoted far more often by conservatives than by socialists.

Of course, 18th century radicals like Smith did not foresee how the triumph of individualism in political and economic thought would eventually spill over into social and cultural thinking and lead to the dawning of the therapeutic society and a consequent breakdown of family and community. By contrast, Tories like Johnson would presumably have been horrified at how notions of collective responsibilities and the organic society have been hijacked by modern statism. This leaves both many conservatives and liberals in the schizophrenic position of defending two different and competing traditions in different aspects of public life. Not to put too fine a point on it, modern conservatives tend to want to keep an eye on what goes on in the bedrooms of the nation, while liberals can’t keep their noses out of all the other rooms.