Conquest's Second Law and Libertarianism

 

IN political science there is a concept known as “Conquest’s laws of politics.” It is named after Robert Conquest, a conservative British historian best known for his books on the Soviet Union. Similar to Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics,” Conquest’s laws define three principles of political action that can be considered reliably accurate. These three laws are:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

All these laws have interesting implications and can be looked at one by one. However, today the one law that I want us to focus on in particular is the second law, that, “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” It certainly sounds interesting and can have broad implications for political strategy. For libertarians in particular it is important to consider the law’s implications, for reasons the discussion of which is at the core of this article.

Before we get there, however, I want to make sure we can trust the validity of this law. It sounds nice, sure, but so does utopianism, but that does not mean it’s true. The mechanics of the second law are as follows: an institution that is not ideologically cemented nor exclusive will accept leftists into its ranks, and these leftists will seek to attract more leftists, and these even more, embedding their ideology and progressing from representation to administration. It is the cultural Marxist “long march through the institutions.” In practice, too, we can see the second law being verified. Conquest himself pointed to the Church of England, a politically “neutral” (as most Christian churches assert) but ethically conservative organization that has become overwhelmingly liberal in recent years, and Amnesty International, which, too, started politically neutral but has since drifted leftward.

Even the libertarian movement has experienced this subversion. Take the Cato Institute, Libertarian Party, and Reason magazine as examples. Cato and the Party were both cofounded by Murray Rothbard, who at first identified as “being ‘leftist’ on some issues and ‘rightist’ on others” before becoming totally right-wing, and these groups have longed use what I refer to as the “compromisarian” principle, i.e., libertarianism is a compromise between the Left and Right, but part of neither. What happened, then, is that Cato and the Libertarian Party both ousted Rothbard, adopted “regime libertarian” stances, and have drifted ever further from orthodoxy.

In contrast to these three groups, we have the Mises Institute, founded on a strictly right-wing libertarian basis. Its major founding figures are Rothbard and Lew Rockwell, the pioneers of “paleolibertarianism.” Its dedication to anti-Establishment, hardline, right-wing libertarianism is famous and infamous, earning it derision from regime libertarians and defamation from non-libertarians. In spite of this the Mises Institute is one of the most influential libertarian groups in the world, the intellectual home of the highly influential Ron Paul, and continuing to grow.

Now, having established the validity of Conquest’s second law, and how it has made itself known among libertarians, we must ask, “What is the significance?” What does it matter if certain libertarians group have drifted leftward, especially if, in Rothbard’s words, libertarianism is consistent with “being ‘leftist’ on some issues and ‘rightist’ on others.”

Well, first of all, as mentioned earlier, Rothbard later revised his views on this. He became more ardently right-wing in the 80s and 90s, after witnessing the decline of the two groups he had helped create, and – with Lew Rockwell – pioneered “paleolibertarianism.” Rothabrd elucidated heavily on the issues of a leftist-libertarian synthesis in books such as Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature, Betrayal of the American Right, and essays like “Why Paleo?”, “A Strategy for the Right,” and others. When one considers how central to libertarianism absolute private property, individualism, the primacy of the owner, the immorality of taxes, and other principles are, the leftist devotion to public/socialized property, collectivism, workerism/unionism, redistribution, plus egalitarianism among other things, it becomes blazingly obvious that the two belief systems are incompatible. When left-libertarians enter these neutral or inclusive libertarian groups they invoke the Second Law and thereby fill the movement with talks of democracy, reparations, age-of-consent cringe, “let-and-let-live” pusillanimity that leads to horrors like the acceptance of child genital mutilation, among other inanities. None of this is sociologically or morally beneficent, and it is a fully developed and mature libertarianism takes sociological and moral factors into consideration.

Essentially, the left-wing is toxic to and incompatible with libertarian principles, and, therefore, if libertarianism does not adopt a firmly right-wing position it will drift leftward, become subverted, and adopt principles that are – in the long-term – incompatible with libertarian theory. This is why the Mises Institute has survived 40 years without compromise, while other groups have spiraled downwards and are on the verge of crashing; this is why the Mises Institute is despised by the Establishment, with the recent victory of its faction in the Libertarian Party being bemoaned as “[swaying] the Libertarian Party to the Hard Right.”

What remains to be said, or, rather, asked, is “What must be done?” Yes, that is a purposeful reference to Hoppe’s talk “What Must Be Done,” a strategic manifesto for right-wing libertarianism (along with Getting Libertarianism Right). We must engage with conservatives, engage with and synthesize their values, adopt these right-wing labels, and make all necessary moves to denounce and separate ourselves from whatever fringes of left-libertarianism we still hold onto. It is worth asking, “Can such a synthesis happen?” Of course, because libertarianism is a “thin” ideology, it merely answers the question of, “Who may force be used against?” It is, as Rothbard put it, “logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture, society, and moral principles.” However, the answer to the above question is grounded in private property to the libertarian, and leftism seeks to rid the world of that, but traditional conservative thought is strictly grounded on the propertarian ethic. Conservatism and libertarianism provide the greatest synthesis of moral, sociological, political, and economic thought, far better than the morally, logically, and practically incoherence of leftist egalitarianism and collectivism. Social and cultural conservatism, strong family values, closed borders, and other traditional right-wing values might post some short-term difficulties, but will ultimately undergo a long-term synthesis with libertarian fundamentals. We must believe in and seek out the psychological and praxeological reconciliation of conservative and libertarian thought, using Hoppe’s words.