Big Business Conservatives

In the last post I addressed a typical critique of libertarianism from a more traditionally conservative point of view.  Today I will be looking at big-business conservatives (BBC).  The BBC sees economic expansion and increased wealth as goals worth pursuing above all others.  Like freedom, the highest value for the libertarian, monetary/economic gain is not a bad thing, it is just not a goal to be sought after for its own sake.
The BBC is typically a materialist.  By this I do not mean that BBCs hold the philosophical view called materialism, which states that matter is the only thing that exists.  BBCs are materialists in the sense that they seek after material goods and pleasures.  In particular, money is very good at securing power, which most people use to then secure material comforts for themselves (house, cars, sex, etc...)

One of the best and oldest arguments against this sort of view comes from Socrates in Plato's dialogue the Euthydemus.  In that dialogue, Socrates argues that the only truly valuable thing is wisdom (to be broader, we can say wisdom or knowledge).  According to Socrates other things typically taken to be good, are only good if we know how to use them properly.  On a common sense level, this argument is implicitly accepted by almost everyone.  For example, having a cook-book is only good if we can utilize it to make meals.  So if it is written in latin, the cookbook is worthless because we do not have the appropriate knowledge to make use of it.  Again, consider a gun as a home-defense tool.  If one knows how to properly use a gun, it is helpful.  If one does not have the appropriate knowledge or wisdom, the gun becomes downright dangerous, which is the opposite quality one wants in a home-defense tool.

Let's look at this same argument on a more philosophical level.  Are money and freedom valuable things in themselves, as libertarians and BBCs tend to assert?  Only if we know how to use them, says Socrates and the traditional conservative.  Consider the freedom to get completely drunk everyday.  In this case, freedom leads to something bad, because freedom is only a tool or a means to achieve one's real goal.  In the absence of knowledge, freedom is at best neutral.  The same can be said of money or economic expansion.  Is economic growth a worthy goal in itself?  Only if we think that material possessions and the comforts provided by material possessions are the proper goal of a human life.  Without knowledge and wisdom regarding how to use money, it, like freedom, is at best neutral.

Typically the libertarian and the BBC offer a counter-argument.  What is ultimately good is getting what you want.  Freedom and money allow us to get what we as individuals want.  But this argument still misses the point.  Some of the things we want are bad.  A thing is not good just because we want it. Anyone familiar with a drug addict realizes this.  Socrates would again insist that in order for you to want the right things, you must have knowledge or wisdom concerning what is good and what is bad.  This position is a preview of one of the main tenets of the traditional conservative, namely, that what is good is having certain kinds of knowledge or wisdom.

As we have seen, the criticism against libertarians and BBCs is centered around the idea that at their core positions like these assert the wrong values.  The criticism we will see in the next post, leveled against the religious fundamentalist, is of a different nature.  Hopefully, within the next few days, we will finish with this preliminary critique of contemporary conservative values, and look more at developing what the traditional conservative actually believes.

-Cato the Youngest