Defending Individual Liberty

Defending Individual Liberty - LewRockwell

The ideal of individual liberty is perennially under attack not only from socialists, as one…

LewRockwell

By Wanjiru Njoya

The ideal of individual liberty is perennially under attack not only from socialists, as one might logically expect, but also from conservatives who regard individualism as a form of selfishness. The ordinary meaning of selfishness is “caring only about what you want or need without any thought for the needs or wishes of other people,” and many conservatives see this as a major contributing factor in social decline. The conservative British journalist Nick Timothy attributes many social ills to selfishness, arguing that “our society has become more about ‘me’ than ‘we’,” leading to higher rates of crime, antisocial behavior, and a ballooning welfare state as selfish people try to take as much as possible from the public purse while contributing little or nothing to it.

This school of conservative thought regards “excessive individualism” or “hyperindividualism” as a cause of social decay. Its proponents fear that the me-me-me society is partly to blame for the decline of Western civilization and therefore argue that defending individual liberty will only fuel further societal breakdown. As the family continues to be undermined by public policy, books like #MeFirst! A Manifesto for Female Selfishness, which promote “self-worship” and advise women not to have children, are seen as the logical result of individualism. Individualism is often referred to in this context as “rampant individualism” or “atomistic individualism,” which is associated with unhappy outcomes such as increasing loneliness and depression.

Attributing social dysfunction to individualism explains much of the hostility with which many conservatives regard Ayn Rand’s attempt to extol the virtues of what she called selfishness. A review of Nick Timothy’s Rebuilding One Nation offers an example: “Eighties libertarianism has been left sulking on the margins of conservative policymaking for important reasons, and Timothy is ruthless in pointing out its deficiencies: its reputation for selfish individualism (reading Ayn Rand, Timothy tells us, left him ‘cold’) . . . Timothy ventures that individualism has shallow historical roots.”

Being thus opposed to individualism, these conservatives promote communitarian values or various forms of social democracy. They seek to inculcate in citizens a sense of social responsibility by arguing that society matters more than the individual. This form of conservatism ultimately subordinates the individual to the state. This is clear from Timothy’s suggestion that “we are becoming a selfish society. It is the government’s job to tackle that,” which gives a primary role to government interventions designed to counter selfishness. Timothy suggests that “the family should be put at the heart of both welfare and tax policy,” “tax evasion should be countered, and tax havens closed down,” and “workplace rights and consumer protections [should be] enforced.” He argues that “the call of community is part of the conservative philosophy of paradoxes.”

There’s No Such Thing as Society

Margaret Thatcher is often wrongly depicted by communitarian conservatives, including the so-called libertarian conservative prime minister Boris Johnson when he locked down the United Kingdom in 2020, as a “market fundamentalist” who believed that there’s no such thing as society. As Victoria Hewson observes, “Mrs. Thatcher was not arguing that society does not exist,” a point often overlooked even by conservatives:

One might expect the quote to be taken out of context and used as a political weapon by opponents of the Conservative Party. But it is surprising that it has been mischaracterized by our Prime Minister [Boris Johnson], who would be well versed on the statement in full. “There is no such thing as society,” Mrs. Thatcher said. “There is [a] living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.”

In his book In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo, Frank S. Meyer acknowledges that many such conservatives, whom he refers to as “New Conservatives,” appeal to communitarian values because they see individualism as a threat to social cohesion, but he insists that it is only through defending individual liberty that free societies can prosper…