Rupert Read argues that being concerned about the environment is consistent with both socialism and conservatism. True conservatism is not adherent to capitalism and associated with the wealthy elite, despite what it may seem today. It might therefore have something to offer in stopping neoliberalism’s destruction of all that we hold dear

Read, Rupert

LSE Research Online

7/22/2013How ecologism is the true heir of both socialism andconservatismblogs.lse.ac.uk /politicsandpolicy/how-ecologism-is-the-true-heir-of-both-socialism-and-conservatism/Rupert Read argues that being concerned about the environment is consistent with both socialism andconservatism. True conservatism is not adherent to capitalism and associated with the wealthy elite,despite what it may seem today. It might therefore have something to offer in stoppingneoliberalism’s destruction of all that we hold dear.I recently debated with Roger Scruton at the LSE on this question (you can listen to the podcasthere). This short article examines a couple of my main conclusions and from my own ongoing workin this area. My aim is to show how ecologism is the true heir of both socialism and conservatism,properly understood. A ‘socialism’ based in local and historical traditions; in the land, in resistance –a genuinely egalitarian socialism learning from Karl Polanyi and Andre Gorz more in the final analysis than from KarlMarx (let alone from John Rawls), and owing much in the present day in this country to Simon Fairlie and MauriceGlasman. And a ‘conservatism’ that is actually serious about conserving our ecosystems – a conservatism owingmuch in the present day to John Gray and Roger Scruton, as well as to ‘radical conservative’ thinkers such asGandhi and Ivan Illich.During the debate I specifically tried to show how ecologism stands radically opposed to what is in fact the dominantideology of our time, neoliberalism (an ideology held to by the vast majority of MPs in Parliament, for instance).Neoliberalism, as ground-broken for by Hayek, is a profoundly anti-conservative doctrine. It has a grand plan; it is‘laisser-faire’ as planned, as the Polanyi brothers famously argued.What Gray in particular has convinced me (and also Burke has convinced me) of is the strength of the conservativeresistance to the project of ‘theory’ in political philosophy. (As a Wittgensteinian, it wasn’t that hard to convince me ofthis…) I think it is a real strength of Gray, and to some extent of Scruton, and certainly of Oakeshott and Burke, thatthey do not, unlike neoliberals / libertarians / Hayekians, and unlike most socialists, have an overarching theory ofjustice, an ideology in the strong sense of that word, guiding them.  In other words, what I am more and moreimpressed by in conservatism as a philosophy/ideology is its scepticism as to ‘theory’, its emphasis on what canactually be done without relying on fantasies of perfect institutions.In this way, I think that g/Greens should be thinking more about getting, in this sense, genuine inspiration from the‘Right’. It is not just a matter of seeking to communicate better that we are about conserving things etc. It is not justa matter in other words of framing an appeal to values and policies that are essentially Left in a manner that cannevertheless appeal to right-leaning voters. I now see that the point cuts deeper. We (greens) are about conservingthings, because, like conservatives, we don’t think that things should be just torn up on the whim of some probably –mostly-pretty-horrific idea about ‘progress’. Thus I think we can and should actually now take seriously the idea ofbeing not Left not Right but out in front. Forward to local and international ecologism…Conservatism at its best is about civic – private and public – virtue. And so are we. The problem is that the goodintentions of the Scrutons and John Grays of this world are vitiated by their reliance on capitalism. And this point Ithink emerged clearly on the night of my debate with Roger Scruton. Real conservatism would be in many ways awonderful thing. To actually seek to conserve things! To have some sense of the sacredness of life, of us, of theworld (some openness to religion and spirituality, and not just a tepid secularism or a militant scientistic atheism). Toabandon utopian dreams of hubristically reshaping the world, dreams such as are present in liberalism,libertarianism, techno-utopian and capitalist apologetics. The lacuna at the heart of most actually-existingconservatism is its veneration of capitalism, which is utterly incompatible with genuine conservatism. This is why Iam keen on Glasman: his genius is to see the need for a conservative, engaged strand in socialism, that resists1/3commodification strenuously and profoundly. This is why he leans so heavily, rightly, on Karl Polanyi (and onAlasdair MacIntyre).So g/Greens should be ecosocialists or ecoanarchists but we also conservatives of a kind, too! True conservatism isrigorously opposed to Rawlsianism, libertarianism, Hayekianism, neoliberalism, which are all fantasies of perfectionand involve a kind of dubious anti-planning plan, as laid bare by Polanyi in The Great Transformation. By contrast,the best of socialism and a big strand in g/Green thought then look conservative, and all the better for it. Thechallenge, as I said at the end of the LSE debate, is to separate the conservatism of the 99% from the conservatismof the 1%. What is needed is a conservatism that is no longer a foil for protecting powerful interests (tax havens, lowtaxation on wealth etc.); a conservatism that is open to the socialist imperative of believing that we are equal (andthus that is in favour of debt-jubilees, in favour of moving in the direction of a far closer tie for most people to theland, in favour of mutuality, commons and localised genuinely democratic decision-making).Such an utterly-transformed conservatism that is socialistic, egalitarian (which unfortunately Scruton is utterlyopposed to), an ecologism, may be the ideology desperately needed for and by our time. I am not just ‘reaching outto’ the likes of Roger Scruton for the sake of it. I have come to be impressed by conservatism’s resistance to utopian(= world-destroying) plans. Such resistance is one of the main things that is needed at this time, I think, as Polanyiargued. But obviously I am seeking to be creative here. I think that Illich and Gandhi are radical conservatives (and Ithink Wittgenstein was, too). I am seeking to combine egalitarianism, socialism, conservatism, ecologism. Thisattempt is probably completely crazy! but, if it can be done, it could be just what is needed at this time. And we needsomething radical at this time if we are to have any chance.A great deal of what we need now is an absolute determination to conserve what we have.  (A problem with‘sustainability’ is that it is in principle compatible with replacing what we have with something else that is supposedlyjust as good, like oilseed rape, biofuels plantations, etc.) The mission to stop ‘development’ (i.e. growth for thebenefit of capitalist elites) – a mission I endorse – is profoundly conservative. The mission to bring back commons isprofoundly conservative. The bid to stop the global power elites is profoundly conservative. Neoliberal globalisationis the opposite of conservatism.Now, the key thing that has been wrong with conservatism, is its attempt to maintain the power and wealth of therich. It seems outrageous then to defend conservatism in the slightest, given the deep wrongs that have beencommitted in its name and that continue to be (though we should recall the appalling wrongs done in socialism’sname, too, if we are playing that game). But this is because conservatism is figural for us; whereas liberalism is theground. If we managed only to see liberalism as figural, if we managed to see it clearly, rather than swimming in it,breathing it, eatsleepdrinking it, we would see how it is way past its sellby date. We would no longer see it as anideology or philosophy that has anything distinctive to offer us. It is destroying us and yet it is so hard to stop itbecause liberalism still feels like common sense.The thought that conservatism might have something to offer in stopping liberalism’s destruction of all that we holddear seems counter-intuitive. But this is only because (1) conservatism has been so tarnished by its associationwith privilege, with dreadful completely un-conservative organisations such as the contemporary Conservative Party,and latterly with neoliberalism, and (2) liberals by contrast come over as nice people (that nice Mr. Rawls forexample) when actually they are just dishonest conservatives (they wish to preserve their own class privilege), and(3) we have yet to outgrow liberalism; it is hegemonic, and so is so much harder to overthrow or to think beyond; weare about 200-300 years out of date (a common fate for humankind, but, sadly, not one that is compatible withhuman survival, let alone flourishing, at this point in history…).So, there are profound differences between ecologism, the ideology of g/Greens, and conservatism, differences –superiorities of ecologism over conservatism – that I have gestured at above, and that I pushed home in the courseof my debate with Scruton. But there are also real points of meeting between the two. We need to learn from thosetoo, before it is too late.2/3Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of theLondon School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.About the AuthorDr Rupert Read is Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and was until recently a Green PartyCouncillor in Norwich. His books include Kuhn (Polity, 2002), Philosophy for Life (Continuum, 2007), There is nosuch thing as a social science (Ashgate, 2008) and Wittgenstein among the sciences (Ashgate, 2012). He is nowworking on a book critiquing the political philosophy of liberalism. He blogs athttp://liberalconspiracy.org/author/rupertr/ , www.rupertsread.blogspot.com , and athttp://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?author=26 . Or go to www.rupertread.net. Read is also Chair ofwww.greenhousethinktank.org3/3

How ecologism is the true heir of both socialism and conservatism

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