Arguments Summed Up: The Conscience of a Conservative

Title & Author: The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

Genre: Nonfiction--Political Philosophy

My Rating: 9.5

Summed Up:

Concerned that many felt the need to apologize for conservative principles, Barry Goldwater presents his defense of the philosophy. He states that conservatism takes into account more than just the economic well-being of the individual, which is all that socialism addresses, but also understands that men have a spiritual side as well. This spiritual side is the more important part of man’s nature and therefore should take precedence over his material desires. To Goldwater, the conservative’s first concern should always be, “Are we maximizing freedom?”

Each person is a unique creature with individualized needs and wants, therefore, “to regard man as a part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.” Conservatism thus looks at politics as “the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.” Without such order, freedom is impossible. Only if one’s freedoms are defended from interference by others, can freedom truly exist.

Goldwater warns about the federal government’s departure from its proper role and scope as defined by the Constitution. Too many feel that the State can be whatever it “needs” to be, regardless of the bounds placed upon it by the Constitution. However, the Founding Fathers had a reason for endorsing limited government, rather than a government big enough to attempt to handle every problem. This reason? Government has, throughout history, proved to be the main agent thwarting and reducing man’s liberty. In short, “Government represents power in the hands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men.”

If government, however, stays within its bounds, it is actually conducive to freedom by maintaining order, protecting the citizenry from foreign enemies, and allowing a free exchange of goods. But, freedom depends on effective restraints on the government since it is the natural tendency of men to take more and more power. A look at the growth of the size of the federal government proves this point. In 1960, the federal government was the “biggest land owner, property manager, renter, mover and hauler, medical clinician, lender, insurer, mortgage broker, employer, debtor, taxer, and spender in all history.”

In regard to streamlining the federal behemoth, Goldwater said, “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones.”

An important part of limiting federal power is a hearty defense of the rights of the states. This is the cornerstone of the maintenance of the Republic. “States rights means that the states have a right to act or not act, as they see fit.” If a state fails to perform its duties, “recourse lies not with the federal government, which is not sovereign, but with the people who are” and to whom the duties are owed. For many of the current issues the federal government is addressing, it had no business or right to enter those fields in the first place since the Constitution states that anything not explicitly delegated to the federal government remained under control of the states.

In regard to civil rights, Goldwater sees no conflict between protecting states’ rights and true civil rights, i.e. rights that are protected by valid federal laws. If a state’s law violates such a civil right, then the state law is null. However, if a right is not explicitly stated in the Consitution, states are free to rule as they deem appropriate. Even if we deem something wrong, we cannot force another state and its citizens to adopt our values if it violates their rights as a state. Rather, “Social and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected by the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and education, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us, in doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course enthrones tyrants and dooms freedom.”

Goldwater then applies the principles of freedom, both free markets and free individuals, to agriculture, labor, taxation, welfare, and education. In short, the federal government has no power to interfere in agriculture and should do away with all farm subsidies. Additionally, no man should be forced to join a union or be punished by choosing not to, and unions should only be allowed to address the company for which it’s members work, rather than be political lobbyists for an entire trade. In regard to taxation, the government does NOT have an unlimited claim on the earnings of individuals because such a claim violates mans right to use his prosperity as he sees fit, and Goldwater advocates a flat tax that claims an equal percentage of each man’s wealth. For welfare, conservatives must demonstrate that there is a difference between being concerned with those problems and believing that the federal government is the solution to them. Private charity is the best solution to the material needs of our neighbors because “both the giver and the receiver understand that charity is the product of the humanitarian impulses of the giver, not the due of the receiver,” thus avoiding resentment on those who are taxed and entitlement among those who receive. Finally, education is not a problem with quantity, but with quality and the federal government has absolutely no right to be involved in education at all.

The final chapter in the book is the longest, and addresses “the Soviet Menace.” While the Cold War is thankfully over, and the enslaved peoples under the Iron Curtain are free, many of the principles presented in this chapter apply perfectly to our current battle with Islamic terrorism and the political movement of Islamism. First, our goal should not be peace, but victory, and every aspect of our foreign policy should address and further that goal. We must take the offensive, and not sit passively by; we must make America economically strong; we must behave like a great power in all our dealings with foreign countries; we should adopt a discriminating foreign aid policy with aid given only to friendly countries that are actively fighting, in our case, Islamsim (i.e. not Pakistan or Saudi Arabia). As Goldwater says, this may be hard counsel, but that is “because it frankly acknowledges that war may be the price of freedom, and thus intrudes on our national complacency.”

You can read my review of The Conscience of a Conservative here.