I’ve been reading a history of American conservatism by Patrick Allitt. In the chapter on the American Whigs, Allitt speaks of the enduring Whig affinity for the Burkean values of “self-restraint, balance, prudence and the respect for the law and tradition.”
Raised among a small-town merchant family, I lived those values. I still remember so vividly that palpable sawdust smell that filled my nostrils whenever I walked into my uncles’ or grandfather’s stores on a Saturday morning and the contemplative chatter of customers trying, in the case of my uncles’ business, to settle on the appropriate furniture item or accessory or, in my grandfather‘s, the right appliance.
Their entire lives — and livelihoods — were closely bound up in the nexus of relationships forged over decades among their customers.
This nexus was built on reciprocity: For their willingness to extend grace periods to those who fallen on hard times, to make new deliveries during the most inopportune of times — Thanksgiving and Christmas, for example — and to replace machines that malfunctioned only a few days out of warranty, my relatives were richly rewarded with the enduring loyalty and respect of those they so diligently served.
Self-restraint, balance, prudence — high moral virtue — were closely bound up in these relationships.
More than a decade after his passing, friends and acquaintances will occasionally share memories of my grandfather’s willingness to go the extra mile with customers or to indulge someone — a friend or family member — who had fallen on hard times and wasn’t able to pay off a bill as readily.
The tradition of small business ownership that once commanded a respectable share of economic activity and that underpinned so much of the culture in my hometown is little more than a fading memory, swept away by the tides of global capitalism — a reality reflected in the large, heavily trafficked Super Wal-Mart sitting atop the hill overlooking the valley in which so many of these small businessmen once thrived.
British academic and public policy intellectual Dr. Phillip Blond has described the working-class Liverpool in which he grew up as a genuinely indigenous culture — a description that could just as aptly be applied to my small-town in the 1970s — an indigenous culture that has been almost entirely washed away by these tides.
This is why I was so gratified to read David Brooks’s respectful column about Blond’s efforts to recreate a conservatism committed to the communitarian ethos and entrepreneurialism that once underscored the economic life of town and city alike.
As Blond, a self-described red tory, contends, the strong communitarian spirit that once imbued neighborhood, towns and communities has been buffeted by several revolutionary upheavals that originated at different ends of the political spectrum. As Brooks explains,
First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.
Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners. Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away. Unions withered.
What is to be done? Three words summarize the Blond credo: remoralize, relocalize and recapitalize — simply put, restore the communitarian bonds and infrastructure throughout town and city.
This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.
Granted the communitarian values of Blond and red toryism will have a considerably harder time taking root on the less hospitable soil of American individualist liberalism. But I truly believe that this school of thought has been presented with the best opportunity in years to make a fresh start in America.
I’ve used my professional blog to underscore why I believe that a whole new mindset has taken root in this country — one reflected in an uncharacteristically but growing Americans sense of malaise, coupled with a profound skepticism of the status quo.
Yet, some good may come of it. Perhaps in this comparatively more fertile soil, a more realistic conservatism can take root.
Musings of an American Red Tory 