The Pragmatism of Conservatism

Nailing down a definition for a political ideology to accurately reflect a large number of people’s opinions is nothing less than a harrowing task. Conservatism, Libertarianism, Liberalism, Communism, Socialism, and Anarchism are but a few ideologies in the plethora of political thoughts possessed by members of society.  These ideologies all have popular and sometimes clear cut definitions. However, get any two libertarians in a room and it is good money to predict you would hear a wide ranging debate over what Libertarianism is, should be, has been, and is not.  As with other ideologies, you will hear Libertarianism broken apart into many subgroups, such as Anarcho-Capitalism, Geolibertarianism, Minarchism, and many others as individuals attempt to accurately define their own views vis-à-vis other opinions. Conservatism is no different.

The most popular definition of Conservatism links the ideology to the past and to tradition. This definition appears fairly common in political discourse as well as various dictionaries, such as Webster’s, which defines Conservatism as “a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change.” Under this definition, Conservatism would seem to have our future largely resemble our past. Established institutions and practices benefit under this type of traditionalism. 

While this definition is common, it is still rejected by many individuals who call themselves Conservative.  If you were to take a straw poll of a handful of Conservatives and ask “Do you think we need to change the way we do things in America?”, it is very likely you would receive a resounding “YES.” So if tradition is not the basis of many Conservatives’ political ideologies, what is? Instead of a single idea or concept, you will likely get a handful of phrases from any decently sized group of Conservatives. Among these concepts, you will likely hear about free markets, limited government, individual freedom, individual responsibility, and equality of opportunity instead of equality of outcome. Cramming these ideas into a single package is a vexing task, much less predicting how individuals will apply them.  

A less common definition of Conservatism would state that it is an antithesis of an ideology altogether, instead defining Conservative principles as those ideas and practices which demonstrably work in the real world. From this point of view, Conservatism is not an ideology consisting of a core intellectual framework which dictates its application, but a pragmatic set of solutions which have been shown to work in the past and which are valuable in guiding our future. This form of Conservatism is neither dogmatic nor rigid. It does not cling blindly to the past, nor does it allow irrational exuberance to drive society into blind change. It seeks solutions however they are structured, as long as they can be shown to have desired outcomes. 

Agreeing on what those desired outcomes are is a mildly easier task than agreeing on how to get there. It is fairly universal that people would agree that prosperity, freedom, opportunity, security, and general happiness are desirable goals both for individuals and for a society at large. Developing the policies necessary to deal with the ever changing obstacles to these goals must include a healthy dose of pragmatic conservatism which values experimentation and evidence over abstract ideology. 

Current conservative responses to these problems build solutions based on experience. A long standing goal of Liberals in America has been to ensure equality in our healthcare system. In order to accomplish this, they have often proposed to transfer much of the decision making away from private players to government bureaucrats. This fairly common proposal to “ensure” a specific outcome by simply legislating that it shall be ignores the complexity of economics. Taking costs away from patients (giving the appearance of “free lunch” government policies) removes any incentive to save money, or choose less expensive drugs. This has the result of inflating prices and the percent of our economy dedicated to healthcare.  Here in Indiana, health savings accounts incentivize frugal spending by placing cost decisions with patients and doctors.  Public employees in Indiana using health savings accounts, which give ownership of the accounts to patients, incurred costs which were 35% lower than public employees on the traditional plan. 

Our country faces major problems today in fiscal policy at the national level. Our national deficit (resulting from discretionary spending) has grown radically since the current economic downturn began. In addition to the deficit, we know our entitlement programs are structured in a manner which will result in massive amounts of debt being added to our already bloated national debt. Despite the situation, there remains much impetus to increase the amount of federal spending in order to stimulate productivity during the current economic downturn. The unwieldy impracticality of our current fiscal situation is often drowned out by those trying to follow a political ideology which demands fairness without regard to real world outcomes.   

In order to solve our fiscal problems, we must focus on solutions which will have the outcome of stimulating economic growth, while ensuring that incoming revenue matches expenditures.  Neither increased spending nor  blind tax cuts will result in fiscal balance. 

Far too often, intelligent, well intentioned ideologues fall into the very old trap of believing they can accurately predict the outcomes of their ideas without the need for empirical evidence. This is a failure that dates back centuries (if not millennia) to early philosophers who believed that from simple precepts, they could reason out all scientific knowledge without the need for experiment and empiricism. However, as scientists in every field from physics to genetics have discovered, theories are only as good as how well they predict actual results. Responsible policymaking requires us to continually verify our political theories and ideology with evidence. This is the basis of Conservatism in today’s America.