Conservatives must build an alternative to capitalism | David Sergeant
“The Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favour of Free Trade.”
Karl Marx, 1848.
For too long, substantive contribution to economic thought has been abandoned by orthodox conservatives. Who could blame them? Inspired by perennial beauty and metaphysical intuition, Traditionalists will always reach for a beautifully illustrated book of poetry or gripping novel before a dusty manual on fiscal procedure.
But in doing so, we have failed in our duty to articulate a holistic vision for societal organisation.
Such is the present ideological confusion; the vast majority of Conservative MPs have no idea what conservative economic thinking looks like. When asked, they point lethargically to rootless, liberal, dogma: ‘Free trade’; ‘comparative advantage’; ‘the invisible hand’.
All the while, capitalism distorts our perceptions and disorders our priorities.
As ‘growth’, output and consumption are entrenched as the primary measures of societal success, wealth and status become the prism through which we judge the worth of self and others.
Capitalism’s ‘rational choice model’ renders deeper distinctions between moral and immoral ostensibly self-regarding or consentual actions impossible, whilst the erroneous belief that private vice metamorphosises into public virtue reinforces the notion that individuals are in constant competition– decimating the communal bonds upon which harmonious coexistence depends.
Put simply, anyone who tells you it’s conservative to enable a handful of individuals to hoard millions of pounds, whilst ordinary families struggle to provide for those they love, are ignorant, dishonest or both.
Those who run hegemonic global corporations use capitalism as a tool to entrench their elite status. By fanning the flames of identity politics, corporate executives divide ordinary people into a multitude of exclusionary social tribes, distracting us from their obscene, unjustifiable wealth, whilst undermining the multiracial working-class solidarity required to challenge the status-quo.
Simultaneously, big businesses pump billions into ‘woke’ campaigns and radical individualism, designed to split family units into lucrative individual consumers.
All this is made possible by the exploitation of our new servant class, summoned with a tap on the latest iPhone; tasked with driving their masters around, or delivering meals at any given moment, night or day.
Dissenters are quickly excluded from the public square and mainstream economy. Diversity and inclusion teams– whose highly paid careers depend on the perpetual discovery of discrimination– police access to the white-collar economy, as internet giants ‘cancel’ those outside the shrinking Overton window.
A quick glance across the pond should trouble those genuinely committed to competition. Facebook and Google now account for 98% of growth in digital advertising, Amazon collect one in every two dollars spent and Walmart supplies half of all products.
However, should anyone try to point out that capitalism, without considerable state intervention, is unable to prevent private monopolies, a cacophony of neo-liberal lobbyists and think-tankers emerge to reassure us that at least televisions are still getting cheaper.
Thankfully, there is a clear, human-centric alternative to the status quo, articulated clearly by Hillaire Belloc and G.K Chesterton– two thoughtful conservative thinkers.
It’s called distributism.
In theory, distributism represents the widest possible distribution of private property, with the unification of capital and labour enabling every family/individual to own their means of production.
In practice, it can be embodied in three general policy principles:
Localism: Shortening supply chains and shifting control of economies to the communities they’re intended to serve.
Cooperative ownership: Cooperatives, guilds, and mutuals can shatter the toxic boss-worker dynamic, restoring right relationships as the cornerstone of economic output.
An engaged state: Rather than vacating the non-existent ‘economic sphere’ to an imaginary ‘invisible hand’, the state must reclaim economics as a subsection of political ethics. By smashing private vested interests, we can redefine productivity; no longer measured using cold calculations, but as a means to deliver optimal outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.
Western politics will soon be divided into those who value the spiritual and communal, and those who worship at the altar of the material individual.
For as long as our economic system consists in the unavoidable state-corporate capitalist concentration of power in the hands of the few, millions will drift through life devoted to and defined by the means of production. Until we build an alternative to capitalism, orthodox conservatives are destined to lose every battle.
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