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Sometimes
it seems like just about everybody thinks change is a bad thing.
Not only conservatives, but modern liberals and
environmentalists also want to slow, stop, and reverse many of
the technological and cultural changes sweeping our lives.
Dealing with these reactionary forces is an ongoing challenge
for friends of liberty.
Of course, we expect
conservatives to, in the words of the recently departed William
F. Buckley, “stand athwart history yelling Stop.” At its most
basic level, being "conservative" means being resistant to
change. But at their best, what conservatives resist is the
encroachment of the State into our economic lives, fighting the
over-regulation of the market and the nationalization of
industries. In one sense, this is not really "conservative" at
all, since free markets are rife with change. At their worst,
though, conservatives only pay lip service to free market
capitalism, instead doling out special favours and bailing out
companies that should be allowed to fail. In this way, they
tarnish the image of those of us who honestly believe in the
enormous benefits of free markets.
Conservatives also often
resist and attempt to stop cultural changes. As the Cato
Institute’s Brink Lindsey points out in his recent book, The
Age of Abundance (see
my
review in QL), the cultural changes of the past
several decades are the result of capitalism’s unprecedented
success in creating material wealth, and thus liberating us to
pursue a wider variety of experiences. Conservatives, though,
tend to see these kinds of changes (evolving gender roles,
sexual freedom, the normalization of homosexuality, drug
experimentation, etc.) as threatening the stability of family,
community, and even the capitalist system itself. Now, over-indulging
in sex and drugs might make one less productive—even less
satisfied with life overall—but as long as people bear the
brunt of their own experiments in living, it is wrong to remove
their freedom to choose. Concerned about wider cultural changes,
conservatives tend to oppose such things as “day after”
contraceptives, stem cell research, gay marriage, and ending the
Drug War—opposition that causes far more harm than it prevents.
Modern liberals do not
necessarily fare any better—they just have a different focus.
Whereas conservatives fear cultural change, modern liberals fear
economic change. Like ersatz conservatives, they fear the
upheaval entailed by layoffs, bankruptcies, and economic
downturns. They short-sightedly attempt to prevent unemployment
through business subsidies, when lowering the taxes that paid
for those subsidies would be a more efficient solution. In
bailing out poorly-managed businesses instead of allowing the
better-managed to win in an open marketplace, they hamper the
spread of innovation in products, services, and management
techniques. In manipulating the money supply to ease economic
downturns, they only forestall the inevitable correction and
make it far more damaging than it would otherwise have been.
There are some issues,
like immigration, that confuse conservatives and modern liberals
equally, with some people in both camps in favour of more open
borders and some against. The only real difference is that once
again, liberals are more likely to fear the economic impact of
new arrivals, while conservatives are more likely to fear their
impact on culture.
But radical
environmentalists are really the most "conservative" people of
all. They resist development; they resist the use of natural
resources; they oppose technologies like GMOs and DDT, which are
enormously beneficial to humanity; and they fear manmade changes
to the climate. They do not want us to adapt to climate change;
they want to stop and reverse it. Radical greens are far more
ambitious than conservatives. The latter hark back to a time a
mere hundred years ago, when markets were freer and families
were more stable. Enviros, on the other hand, look back
longingly to a time many thousands of years ago. In their
mythical version of the past, we lived in harmony with nature
and all its creatures—and in their equally mythical vision of
the future, we are on our way to destroying it all.
In fact, human nature has
always been about change, and about changing our environment. We
harnessed fire, invented the wheel, tilled the land, discovered
the benefits of trade and money, founded cities, invented the
printing press, discovered how to harness the power of fossil
fuels and electricity, learned how to fly, created computers and
the Internet—all along improving our lot. Sure, we also fought
wars and polluted the environment; but then we also made peace
and fixed environmental problems, and we will continue to do so.
In the real past, as opposed to the mythical one, human life was
“nasty, brutish, and short,” to quote Thomas Hobbes. We have
accomplished much in 10,000 years. In wanting to wish it all
away, the misanthropes who have hijacked much of the
environmentalist movement dishonour our heritage and discredit
our ingenuity.
In working for positive
change, we need to reaffirm that human beings are not evil for
wanting to create wealth, or for wanting to decide how to enjoy
that wealth. And we need to reaffirm that using the resources we
find in nature is not synonymous with despoiling nature. Nature
is not some delicate, unchanging, perfectly balanced, pristine
bauble. It is wild and robust and constantly changing—and it
is in our nature to shape it as best we can.
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