tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976093824276931409.post806762208284969378..comments2023-10-18T17:03:47.698+01:00Comments on Surely some mistake?: Accounting for the EustoniansTim Wilkinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15237522140184882034noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976093824276931409.post-48484791413427284112010-09-06T13:12:44.139+01:002010-09-06T13:12:44.139+01:00More from Wessexman (posted at PH blog today). Any...More from Wessexman (posted at PH blog today). Any thoughts?<br /> think this point is worth stressing even more forcefully. <br />We will not have a traditionalist revival unless we revive the English yeoman class, unless we revive small businesses and small businesses that are not would-be yuppies struggling to get on in a corporate dominated jungle but stable, strong and often family run. We will not have a traditionalist revival unless we have a larger role for agriculture, particularly small, family, farms and rural Britain, unless we get a better balance between town and country and between city and town and unless we restore the cities to the model of the civitas instead of the soulless megatropolis, which isn't a real city at all. Likewise we will not have a conservative revival when plasma screens mean more to people than social bonds or landed property and upstanding employment.<br />There are many areas through which a traditionalist revival must come, spiritual revival(probably the most important area of all.), political revival, social revival and cultural revival but we must not neglect the economic and we certainly must not naively accept an economic system as traditional or conservative that is not distinctly predicated on traditional principles of man and society. Economic liberalism is not predicated on such principles and neither, necessarily, is the sort of nationalised, centralised protectionised system the likes of BNP support.<br />I've already mentioned several key modern thinkers in these areas to which traditionalists and conservatives should look to. G.K Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Catholic social teaching such as Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and Pius XI's Auadragesimo Anno(not to mention Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors.) which is in fact in line with most traditional Christian thought on such matters. There is also the work of Ruskin, Cobbett, Thomas Paine Agrarian justice and Louis De Bonald's writings on political economy all previously mentioned. However there are many more authorities such as E.F Schumacher's Small is beautiful and his other works, the works of Leopold Kohr, Lord Northbourne's works, the ideas of the Arts and Craft's movement, the ideas of Joseph De Maistre, the writings of Traditionalists like Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy on art and vocation, the Southern Agrarians, Allen Carlson and the list goes on. There is certainly more in say E.F Schumacher's essay on Buddhist economics(which he alternatively considered calling Catholic economics and would have if not for prevalent anti-Catholicism at the time.) for a traditionalist than in all Neoliberalism and its authorities like Friedman, Von Mises, Rand and even Hayek.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976093824276931409.post-61075209067174844072010-09-06T13:11:50.608+01:002010-09-06T13:11:50.608+01:00This interesting comment (+ one to follow) from Pe...This interesting comment (+ one to follow) from Peter Hitchens's blog by someone called Wessexman:<br />William Henderson [who mentioned Tim Wilkinson's piece above] that is an interesting essay and it makes some good points. Personally I couldn't tell you exactly what Peter's economic opinions are myself as I have mostly only read his blogs at the moment. He doesn't seem like a Thatcherite though but more like an old-fashioned protectionist.<br />Anyway the essay though ironically makes a similar mistake to that which is accuses Peter of. It makes mistakes about economic and social positions. In fact they are not inseparable. The problem is that both the neoliberalism and corporate-capitalism of a Thatcher or Milton Friedman and traditional social democracy(not to mention socialism.) are both anti-traditional. They both have little respect for traditional values, beliefs and social associations and in fact break them down. They are what G.K Chesterton long ago called Hudge and Gudge, slightly nuanced versions of the same thing. A really rightwing or at least traditional and conservative economic system must be something like that aimed at by Chesterton and Belloc "Distributism", implied in Catholic teaching and drawn up by Ruskin, by Cobbett, by Tom Paine in his Agrarian justice(despite the sophistry of most of his other political, religious and social views.) and by De Bonald. Only such a system based on property owning families, on small businesses and small farms and guilds, or at least something more like it, could properly compliment a traditional spiritual, social and cultural structure. Even nationalist protectionism is of little value if it doesn't feed into such a system, if it only protects a centralised, nationalised and collectivised economy which would be as barren as Thatcherism or Social democracy for traditional conservatism(it would indeed be a nationalised hybrid of said systems.)<br />I can think of nothing that would so improve Peter's already illuminating social commentary than a more overt, ChesterBelloc vein. It would make it even more holistically a traditional critique of the current political and social situation. WessexmanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976093824276931409.post-12932993294295542792009-11-26T10:00:40.586+00:002009-11-26T10:00:40.586+00:00Interesting article. I find Peter Hitchens very fr...Interesting article. I find Peter Hitchens very frustrating because he is divided between a thoughtful writer who has been Trotskyist-Old Labour-Thatcherist-Daily Mail journalist.<br /><br />And then there's Peter Hitchens, the perpetual Daily Mail journalist who attacks New Labour as 'leftists' and 'socialists' whilst ironically defending economic positions they have been cowardly over (train nationalisation).Gregorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14729641571904025752noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7976093824276931409.post-54939625713051340682009-09-30T16:29:28.854+01:002009-09-30T16:29:28.854+01:00This is the most serious treatment of The Broken C...This is the most serious treatment of The Broken Compass I've yet seen. Partly because Peter Hitchens is not categorisable in our Orwellian English political terms, his more thoughtful work tends to be ignored.<br />If by capitalism we mean something like operations of a 'pure' free market system and a minimal state, then PH is correct in seeing the Conservative Party as not truly capitalist because under it the government has expanded. However, if by capitalism we mean something like the increasing concertration of power into the hand of fewer and fewer non-state commercial then I agencies/persons (backed up by the government) then it seems he is mistaken (the convergence is there but is surely not a traditional 'leftist' one - in terms of economics). Where he is acute is on convergences re. social revolution etc. which has seen the near total marginalisation of traditional Christian conservatism (note also how paleoconservates barely exist in public life).<br />I think that ultimately, the fundamental difference between Peter Hitchens and the Eustonites, is religious. For PH believes in Original Sin and is suspicious of the utopian dreamers he attacks, not least because they show a willingness to ditch things like just war theory and basic liberties at the drop of hat - provided it can aid the spread of 'secular democracy' - i.e. their own brand of messianic ideology which aims to deracinate religious or nationalistic cultures at the cost of countless numbers of lives.<br />Life not being fair his ridiculous brother's (Christopher) books, which get worse by the year, will sell like hotcakes. This one - beautifully written - is, as far as I can tell, all but ignored. It shouldn't be - not least by the decent left. It has interesting things to say about communism, grammar school, privatisation etcJeremy W.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06988889186530282830noreply@blogger.com