# Anarchism and Justice (Part III) **URL:** **By** Roy A. Childs, Jr. **Published:** July 1, 1971 --- “Thus one might almost say that if traditionalism is true, then it is false, for its being true would undercut a fundamental tradition which its alleged purpose is to uphold.” ## VIII Conservatism, Tradition and Justice Conservatism is a general name for a wide variety of positions in social and political philosophy, embracing everything from monarchism to fascism, from traditionalism to _laissez-faire_ capitalism. In this section, we shall be concerned mainly with the traditionalist approach, since other variants of conservatism will be treated elsewhere under different headings. Traditionalism is a doctrine espoused by such thinkers as Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk, and does not attempt an abstract justification for the State _per se_; in fact, it emphatically denies the necessity or possibility of such abstract justification. In his introduction to the Gateway edition of John Locke's _Second Treatise of Civil Government_, for example, Russell Kirk refers to the natural rights of Locke's philosophy as “bloodless abstractions”, and in many works denigrates what he calls man's “puny private stock of reason” which claims to be able to discover what sort of society and government are right for man and what are not. Thus traditionalism is primarily an _epistemological_ position, a position denying the efficacy of man's reason in discovering certain things about reality. Why should man hold to traditions? Basically, the answer is that the individual's reason is “puny” and therefore he should rely on truths and rules of behaviour adopted by the race, by mankind in general, across a period of centuries — the “common wisdom of mankind”, as it is often referred to. Conservatism, however, despite the denials of explicit justifications, _functions_ as a justification of the State, and it is the grounds of this function that we shall consider here. What this doctrine maintains is that man's reason is not competent to discover or construct principles of ethics, and that _therefore_ man should follow certain traditions, established methods of procedure, of dealing with certain problems, of ordering social life. In essence, these conventions are held to be valid _because_ they are established, because they are a part of a grand and integrated system of social traditions which together constitute “Western Civilization”. In the conservative literature, those who presume to judge and evaluate such conventions are often sneered at as “rationalists” or “extreme _a priorists_”. This sort of approach is the heart and soul of Burke's _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, to which Thomas Paine responded by publishing _The Rights of Man_. This is the type of social theory whose heart and soul are expressed in the maxim of Burke's that society and the State are “a bond between God and man, and between the dead, the living, and those yet unborn. . . .” This general position is an important one to consider because a great many conservatives and libertarians hold to it, and thus hold that abstract justifications of the State and other institutions are really neither necessary nor desirable. And, in mixture with other conservative tenents, it is perhaps the single most important doctrine preventing conservatives from becoming true libertarians, _radicals_ in defense of liberty and in opposition to the _status quo_. And, for reasons which we shall consider, it is utterly deadly to any attempted defense of liberty. In this section we will consider the questions of how traditionalism is a variant of legal positivism, already discussed, the nature of tradition itself as a guide to actions, and why conservatism _cannot_ advocate a truly free market consistently. Why is traditionalism a variant of legal positivism? Focusing not on accidentals, but on the essential ethical structure which they have in common, the answer is simple. Legal positivism postulates a basic norm, a constitution, legal code, or the State itself, which is assumed to be valid. This is not itself justified by means of anything else, such as rights. Rather further norms and legal rules are justified in terms of this basic legal system. The basic legal system is postulated as valid, and then the entire State system of legal norms is “validated” by reference to and deduction from this basis. Note that the entire _system_ of law is assumed to be valid. The position of traditionalism is almost exactly the same, except that instead of postulating the validity of the basic _legal_ norms, it postulates the validity of the basic _social_ norms, or traditions and conventions. Actions other than the traditional norms are then justified or criticized by reference to basic traditions. Conventions or traditions then become the means by which one validates rules of action, and they themselves become immune to and exempt from criticism. If a rule or action coheres with the traditions of the society, of “Western Civilization”, then it is valid, or binding. The conservative-traditionalist does not uphold the supremacy of the _State per se_, but only of a system of traditions, of which the State is an integral and indispensible part. If traditionalism is thus a variant of legal positivism, then the problems which proved insuperable in positivism will also apply to it. But there is a great deal more that can be said. The contention of most traditionalist conservatives is that the State is a part of Western Civilization, a fundamental tradition which cannot be done away with. There are of course _innumerable_ patterns of human values, actions and institutions throughout the history of Western Civilization. Was a man being burned at the stake in the 15th century establishing a sacred tradition, or was it an aberration of tradition? Was the wreckage of the Crusades a consequence of tradition, or an aberration? Likewise with all the wars, incarcerations, and so forth, throughout the history of the western world. Are all of these to be considered a part of Western Civilization, and hence of tradition? Now there are several interrelated questions to be asked. First and foremost, we have seen that the traditionalist assaults reason as being impotent. He also urges us to put our faith in tradition because it is an expression of the wit and wisdom of all mankind. If this is true, then _by what means_ are we to identify traditions themselves, if not by using our reason? Secondly, if the reason of the individual is impotent how does it somehow become _potent_ by being merged into the “general wisdom (reason) of mankind”? Thirdly, there are innumerable traditions throughout the history of Western Civilization, even contradictory traditions. How then are we to choose between divergent traditions, if not by reason? (28) Strangely enough, these questions, in one form or another, have been put to traditionalism by dominant figures in what is perhaps _the_ central philosophical school of Western Civilization: the Aristotelian-Thomistic school (and, in fact, even by the Platonists.) Thus note the following from two respected Thomistic philosophers: Cardinal Desire Mercier, in many ways _the_ crucial figure in the Thomistic revival in philosophy in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and by Peter Coffey. (29) Mercier, in correctly identifying the fact that traditionalism is ultimately an _epistemological_ position concerning the nature and scope of human reason, says: “How could a man find out practically what is the general belief of mankind unless he first trusted his own senses and his own individual reason? If the reason of the individual is open to mistrust, surely the general reason, the collection of all individual reasons, is no more trustworthy.” Coffey, in turn, writes that “the attainment of truth and certitude is the work of individual human minds; knowledge is an attribute only of individual minds. If, therefore, there is not in human minds taken individually any native power or capacity to attain to a certain knowledge of truth, neither can such power or capacity be forthcoming in the collectivity: if each of them is essentially unreliable, no conceivable collection of them can be reliable, much less infallible. . . . By proclaiming, therefore, the powerlessness of the individual reason, they strike equally at the universal or collective reason. . . . _In ultimate analysis it is really an abdication of reason on the part of the individual to assent to any judgement merely because he finds everyone else assenting to it._” (my emphasis) Coffey goes on to show that if people assent to something, that assent is either justified, or it is not, i.e. it is either based on evidence, or it is not. If it _is_, then one should assent to it because of the evidence, and not because of the mob assent; it it is not based on evidence, then it is irrational to assent to it. It is interesting to note here that both the the tradition of Platonism and the gigantic Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in philosophical thought, which in many ways form the core of Western culture, are both unalterably opposed to traditionalism in principle as an approach to knowledge and ethics and that, therefore, _the doctrine of traditionalism is in violation of fundamental traditions at the core of Western Civilization_. Thus one might almost say that if traditionalism is true, then it is false, for its being true would undercut a fundamental tradition which its alleged purpose is to uphold. Our question, then, boils down to this: granted that the State is a part of Western Civilization, why does that somehow _justify_ it? Either these traditionalists must claim that “whatever is, is right”, or they must have some rational standard _outside_ of that tradition with which to judge traditions, to evaluate them, a standard which alone makes it possible to distinguish “good” traditions from “bad”. If they adopt the first alternative, then all they can do is to sit back and justify everything which happens after the fact. This would be equally true if anarchists succeeded in supplanting the State with a free and just social order (assuming, for the moment, that this is possible). This sort of _ex post_ ratification and justification of whatever happens in human history places these traditionalists in a totally _amoral_ position _before_ any specific event happens, for without an outside standard, and without smuggling one in unawares, any time they choose A over B _before_ one has happened, they are simply _guessing_ or _predicting_ which one will happen. For without an outside ethical standard, how do they know that action B, which they oppose, might not itself be a part of a _new_ tradition, destined to sweep the the historical scene, so to speak? How can they ever claim that one tradition or set of traditions is _better_ than any other? And once they have accepted the necessity of that outside standard, tradition itself becomes irrelevant because by applying such a rational standard to reality one can create _new_ traditions in place of older and corrupted ones, i.e. one can use _reason_ to guide men's choices and actions, which is precisely the position taken here. If the traditionalists were to freeze the existing _status quo_ of conventions, and proceed to end the process of historical and cultural change, then stagnation would be the result. But if he were to take this path, culturally “outlawing” change and and innovation, so to speak, then the initial traditions with which we began have still not been justified themselves. And more: since change is a part of the traditions of the West, one would be contradicting tradition by freezing any specific set of traditions. Since we have identified what that outside standard which we have mentioned above must be viz. (in the social realm) justice, natural law, or man's rights, then we are no longer tied to _any_ specific tradition just because it is a tradition. This is the case with the State. And when we look at the tradition established by _that_ institution, the tradition stained by aggressive violence, war, exploitation, robbery, murder, arbitrary commands and the like, when we not only look at its nature but _judge_ it with the standard and principle of _justice_, then we clearly can see that it has always existed in virtue of its sought-after monopoly on violence and the initiation of force. We see further that this is the single characteristic which historically explains the greatest number of others, and makes the greatest number of others possible. This means that the essence of the _historically-based State_ is institutionalized _injustice_, that throughout history the State has been nothing but the most successful criminal gang in a given geographical area, seeking, claiming and often exercising a monopoly on crime, on the coercive, political (as opposed to economic) means of gaining wealth in society. Not only, then, is the historically-based State _not_ justified, it is quite the opposite of being a need of man in a social context. If someone were to claim that a State could exist without being this _kind_ of institution, then our response would be twofold: (a) if it is truly different _in kind_, then why do you, in violation of Occam's and Rand's Razors, integrate it with another, almost contradictory, concept, in utter disregard of cognitive necessity? and (b) in any case, if you advocate such a thing, the burden of proof is on you to make out your case, which must be done by means of more than mere assertions that such an institution is possible in reality. But, of course, if we do propose this last, namely a State different from historical States, then we are again stepping outside of tradition, and thus tradition itself has ceased to be our ultimate justification for our institution. There are two further points to bring up. The first concerns the nature and necessity of conventions or traditions, and the attempt by conservatives to build their case for traditionalism out of this objective need for conventions. A _convention_, properly speaking, is a rule or policy of action which is arbitrarily adopted initially, within limits, but which thereafter becomes accepted and treated as an objective norm of human action or behaviour. A convention which has been widely adopted throughout a given culture we call a _social convention_. A social convention which prevails for a number of generations we call a _tradition_ in society. Now it is the claim of the conservative that traditions, or conventions, are necessary for man to live and prosper in society, and that without them, social life would be impossible for man. Conservatives point to such wide-ranging traditions as language, a legal system, and a commonly accepted moral code. The conservative points out that it would be literally impossible for men to function if they were to constantly reexamine all the principles and rules that they live by, or for each and every generation to take the liberty of throwing off old traditions in favour of new rules of action. Furthermore, they maintain that it is impossible for the vast bulk of the human race to think out rules of conduct on their own, and that hence it is best for them simply to accept traditions adopted over centuries. Those who, like classical “rationalists”, traditional “ideologists”, and modern libertarians, hold up an abstract standard to judge existing institutions will, they claim, in the long run do more harm than good. The question which brings the conservative dilemma into clear focus at this point is simply: _by what standard?_ For it is true that most men have neither the ability nor interest to rigorously establish moral principles on their own, or to examine the basis of existing institutions. It is also true that, within limits, men need certain conventions, such as language, in order to attain to a civilized social order. But observe one thing: the conservative is in effect arguing that these are objective needs of man. The answer to the conservative dilemma lies in the fact that once he has attempted to argue, or suggest, or imply, that conventions or traditions are a need of man, _he has set the standard by means of which traditions and conventions can be evaluated and even constructed by man_. Conventions are arbitrarily adopted _within limits_. This means that within those limits, _it does not make any difference_ which of several alternatives are chosen. Take the case of language, which is built up over a long period of many centuries. The basic context of a language, the basic rules defining its structure and content, are derived from a consideration of its purposes: cognition and communication. The means that man uses to concretize concepts is is linked to his sense organs, e.g., a _word_ is generally an auditory-visual symbol, thus linked to sight and sound. As languages are built up, the word-symbol options for a new word symbolizing a new concept are progressively narrowed, e.g., the rules of grammar come into play. At no step in the development of a language-system _completely_ arbitrary, for this would mean that it has no purpose or context, no facts of reality which it must take into account. What is true of language is also true of a legal system and a moral code. The conservative thus cannot consistently claim, simultaneously, that conventions or traditions are an objective need of man, and yet claim that there are no objective rules which one must observe in constructing conventions, or following old conventions. If they are an objective need of man, then that sets the standard for judging and criticizing them. This gives us the means of determining within what context, what limits, a convention is _in fact_ properly arbitrary, and in what contexts or limits it is _not_ arbitrary. It also gives the means by which to judge between conflicting or alternative traditions and conventions, and provides us with the base for rationally rejecting conventions or traditions which are in conflict with their supposed ground: man's nature, and his needs as a certain kind of living organism. Once we accept this, which we must unless we are either to claim that conventions are _not_ an objective need of man, we have once again placed ourselves outside the realm of traditions and conventions _as standards_, as ultimate ethical criteria, as a fundamental and unquestionable basis of further discussion. _In short, if it is man's nature as a rational being, and the requirements of his proper survival, which make conventions necessary for man, then that is the standard and means by which to criticize, evaluate and construct conventions._ The conservative cannot have it both ways: either conventions and traditions are needs of man, in which case they must be judged by reason, or they _are not_ needs of man, in which case there is no argument for respecting them. In either case, traditions become subordinated to a rational ethic, the social aspects of which we have considered earlier. One further point remains to be made, not against traditions _per se_, but rather against the conservative approach to social philosophy in general. In many ways, of course, once we accept the traditionalist approach to social philosophy, we are trapped in a web which allows for no fundamental or radical change, for unless we are Hegelians, _radical_ change would necessarily contradict the framework within which we are choosing and acting. But there is one aspect of conservatism which has not been generally subjected to scrutiny or criticism, and that is the American conservative's general adherence to a free-market economy. Indeed, many otherwise radical libertarians have a deep-seated affinity and affection for conservatism because of the conservative pro-free market and pro-private property rhetoric. But here we shall question that rhetoric, and thus the basis for that affinity. We have seen earlier, in our discussion of Ludwig von Mises, that from a moral framework, the conventional distinction between _private_ and _public property_ rests on considerations and definitions in terms of non-essentials. The real moral distinction, and the only important one, is between _just_ and _unjust_ titles to property, which is what is involved in exchanges. It is indeed true that the the conservative pays lipservice to the free market and private property, but what does such adherence _mean_, i.e. what is the actual concrete referent of such a concept, what is its ideological cash value when we get down to the concrete reality which alone exists — that reality of which human concepts are man's unique means of being aware? This is not an easy question. But we mentioned earlier that there were three approaches possible in our approach to property and ownership: we could uphold a praxeological theory of property titles, a juristic theory, or a moral theory. The conservative theorist, almost invariably, upholds a blending of the first two, of property titles which have “traditionally” (praxeologically) been held by a given individual or family, and of property titles which have been granted to a given individual or group by the State, both without reference to the justice of the traditional or State-granted property titles. This means that when the conservative talks about the free market, he may or may not be talking about the process of people exchanging their legitimate or just titles to property. In our discussion of Ludwig von Mises, we considered the fact that positive acts of government intervention cannot be defined or analyzed without reference to a theory of justice in property titles. Now I want to make a corollary point: _given_ such a theory, any government which acts to maintain an existing unjust distribution of property by means of force, and which protects the “freedom” of exchange of juristically-defined property titles by force is in fact, in that very act, acting to intervene in the economy, i.e. is interfering with the _free_ market. This is crucially important in analyzing the difference between libertarianism and conservatism, for both of these in fact and in reality uphold different theories of property, i.e. when they talk about “private property” or “the free market”, _they are not talking about the same thing._ People have been aware for a long time of a basic fact of human communication: when two people use the same word in talking to each other, they may not be talking about the same thing. In short, the word-symbol may refer to different concepts in the minds of each. This means that conflicts or arguments over certain issues in such contexts are not arguments over the same thing at all — in fact, they are not, strictly speaking, _arguments_, for the opponents are talking about different things. Now we are making the point that conservatives and libertarians, when defending the free market and private property, may in fact be talking about different things. The words of the conservatives and libertarians are the same, but the concepts differ. They are not the same in the least. Let us take the case of _feudalism_, to see what the positions of each might be, and to clarify how they might differ. Feudalism, for the purposes of this essay, can be defined (following Murray Rothbard) as “the seizure of land by conquest and the continuing assertion and enforcement of ownership over that land and the extraction of rent from the peasants continuing to till the soil.” (_The Ethics of Liberty_) Now how shall we view feudalism? Shall we abolish it or not? Why or why not? How? The conservative, in this case, generally regards the land owned by the landlord in such cases (which cases still exist in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, incidentally) as a _legitimate possession_, i.e. as a rightful title which should be protected by the State. The conservative might also uphold the “right” of the landlord to control the land in accordance with his own desires, including the selling of the land (though often here the conservative may come out in favour of _entail_, i.e. of forcibly preventing the landlord from selling any of his land). The libertarian, on the contrary, would view the case of feudalism as a case of _continuing aggression_, as Rothbard has called it, and would advocate returning the land to its original peasant owners or their heirs. The important thing is that because they have different theories of property titles, conservatives and libertarians will differ about what constitutes legitimate private property and what does not; they will also differ about what actions protect the free market and free trade and what do not. In the above case, the conservative would hold that the State's protecting of the property titles of the landlords constitutes protecting “private” property, while the libertarian would, properly, hold that such enforcement constitutes a continuing aggression against the legitimate owner, the possessor of the just title to the property. Likewise, should the State or any other agency defend the landlord in his exchange of the property, the conservative would call _this_ a unit of the free market, while the libertarian would call it a unit of protecting theft. Thus we can see that mere agreement in rhetoric is not enough, and that libertarians who have felt comfortable with conservatives for decades because of their mutual use of the terms “private property” and “the free market” might best reexamine their premises. It is my own suggestion at this point that this be carefully considered, and that in fact the libertarian might do well to completely drop the reference to “private” and “public” property, rather confining himself to the much more fundamental, and much more difficult, task of analyzing justice in property titles. So far, libertarians have been largely content to have considered the _grounds_ for ownership _per se_, i.e. as a system, without examining the equally important and corollary of the nature of just _titles_ to property. But _both_ are necessary. For once we realize that the public/private-property distinction rests on non-essential distinctions, we must also come to realize that all actual (as opposed to potential) property is owned by someone, i.e. someone makes decisions over it, concerning its use, control and disposal. (30) This means that the only important question left is: _who_ shall be that decision-maker over a specific property? And _this_ is a question which must properly be answered by a theory of ownership. Two people differing radically in their answers to this question, as the conservatives and libertarians differ, will in fact completely disagree about what constitutes aggression and what constitutes defense, about what constitutes “free trade” and what not, about a whole host of fundamental questions in social philosophy. To blithely pretend, at this point, that merely because conservatives and libertarians have the same words in their vocabulary when it comes to advocating something, that therefore they fundamentally agree, with just a few minor differences, is a particularly dangerous and superficial attitude to take. To advocate an alliance between conservatives and libertarians because of rhetorically “similar” goals is also extremely dangerous before the concretes of their differing concepts of justice are discussed. To sum this approach up, one might rhetorically ask those libertarians who do feel an affinity between themselves and conservatives because of a common rhetoric: do you also feel an affinity between yourself and cannibals who hold that they have a right to eat you simply because both you and they believe in _rights_? If you say: “No, because we mean drastically different things by ‘rights’,” then my point has been made: conservatives and libertarians have drastically different theories of justice in property titles. This means that the supposed similarity between conservatism and libertarianism should be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny. Cut off from a conservative view of property titles, libertarians may at long last feel a much-needed independence from conservatism, and may at long last feel that their world view is _theirs_ to construct, and stop living as parasites off an ideology that was fundamentally, and validly, found wanting in the 17th century. Conservatism, in summary, is also a dead end for man. From beginning to end there is no justification for anything in conservatism. Insofar as traditions should be followed, it is because they are consistent with a rational ethic. Insofar as traditions conflict with a rational ethic, they should not be followed. Conservatism can provide for neither a justification of the State, nor of traditions, nor of liberty and the free market. Thus, we must look elsewhere in our examination of attempts to justify the State, and elsewhere in our attempts to establish justice. (31) ## Footnotes 1. This last point is made by Murray Rothbard in “Conservatism and Freedom: A Libertarian Comment”, _Modern Age_, Spring 1961. 2. See Cardinal Desire Mercier, _et. al._, _Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy_, and Peter Coffey, _The Science of Logic_, both two volumes in many different editions. 3. See Murray N. Rothbard, _Man, Economy and State_, pp. 828-29, and _Power and Market_, pp. 138-40. 4. For a somewhat different approach to and critique of conservatism, see Ayn Rand's essay “Conservatism: An Obituary” in _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_. _R. A. Childs, Jr., is an Associate Editor of the INDIVIDUALIST and Editor of the SIL SERVICES BULLETIN. His articles have also appeared in Reason and the Rampart Journal._