Edmund Burke

EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797) Edmund Burke is considered as the most important conservative political thinker and though there were conservatives before him conservatism as a school of political theory, began with him. Though there is near unanimity about his brilliance there is no consensus about him in terms of political categorisation. Berlin described him as an ultra conservative while O’ Brien viewed him as a liberal and pluralist opponent of the French Revolution. Harold Laski called him a liberal because of his sympathetic attitude to the USA, Irish and Indian causes. Some saw him as a progressive conservative, for he supported political and economic progress within the framework of England’s established institutions. There are liberal as well as conservative elements as evident by his support to the American revolution and his opposition to the French Revoltion.

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in 1729, the son of a successful British protestant attorney. His mother was a Catholic who did not change her faith and Burkes Catholic connection provided him with an early education in practical politics. Although Catholics formed the vast majority of the Irish population, they were cruelly oppressed by the ruling Protestant English aristocracy. Though Burke came to identify himself ultimately with England, his Irish background and experience always remained a powerful element in his outlook and sympathies.

In 1750 Burke went to London to prepare himself for the legal profession. But his heart was in literature and politics rather than in law. Burke never composed a systematic treatise of politics like Hobbes’ Leviathan or Locke’s Two treatises of Government, partly because he was a busy parliamentarian and partly because he needed a concrete issue around which he could develop his general principles. His political ideas cannot be found in one place but have to be gathered from his books, speeches, essays and letters, although the Reflections will always occupy first place.

In 1756 Burke published his first work A Vindication of Natural Society. A short essay, the Vindication contains nevertheless most of the key ideas of Burke, developed more exhaustively in his later and more elaborate, writings. His next work, A Philosophical Sublime and Beautiful (1757) was the only theoretical work that he attempted, inspired by the writings of Locke and Montesquieu. Burke joined politics and got elected to parliament in December 1765. His greatest success lay in oratory and he was regarded as one of the greatest orators of his time.

CONSERVATIVE REFORMISM

Conservatism, as philosophy dedicated to the defence of an established order or an attitude with a defensive strategy to maintain the present statusquo Conservatism, as a mood, prefers liberty over equality; tradition over changes, history over politics, past over present and ordered society over society demanding changes. Conservatism is a negative philosophy which preaches resistance to or at least wary suspicion of change. It is more than an attitude of mind or an approach to life or a natural disposition of the human mind.

Burke’s political ideas were spread over his speeches and pamphlets, which originated in response to specific events. He had no philosophy beyond them and had little knowledge of the history of philosophy.

Burke, as a conservative reformer was equally opposed to Jacobitism and Jacobinism. He was for a cautious improvement in the working of the old established institutions like church, property etc. He was always a reformer and never a revisionary, always a conservative and never a Tory. He sums up his own view of reform in the statement ‘ the disposition to preserve and the ability to improve taken together would be my standard of a statesman’. He sharply distinguishes reform from innovation, which generally derives from a selfish temper and confined views. Whatever innovation or ‘ hot reformation’ can accomplish is bound to be cured, harsh indigested, mixed with imprudence and injustice, and contrary to human nature and human institutions. True reform which can be brought about only by disinterested statesman, must be early in the interest of government, and temperate in the interest of the people, because only temperate reforms are permanent and allow room for growth.

As a true conservative reformer, Burke was highly critical of all revolutions. Every revolution contains some evil, Burke says, as it inevitably destroys part of the moral capital, the good will of the community and the moral capital of future generations should be considered as a trust that must not be treated highly. The English Revolution of 1688 (The Glorious Revolution) was a revolution not made but prevented’ because the nation was on the defensive seeking to preserve its institutions rather than to subvert or destroy them. The monarchy was continued, and the nation kept” the same ranks, the same order, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations”, and, above all, the Revolution was followed by happy settlement.

Burke thought that the British constitution was as good as it could possibly be and, therefore, conservative by nature as he was; he opposed all attempts to lower the suffrage or to make any changes in the structure of the parliament. In his political reform, he would neither initiate foreign political institutions, nor follow abstract reason but would accept the guidance of the ‘rules of equity and utility, founded on and preserving the rights and liabilities which exist’. Burke believes that right to property is a fundamental right of all human beings in the world. In fact, property was, to him, the right index to power and therefore, property rights must be protected and safeguarded. Any reforms or changes must not harm any individuals and the method of change must be regulated by past experience. Burke laid more emphasis or preservation than on reform, for, he believed that a state given to radical changes was courting disaster”. As a political reformer, Burke combined in himself devotion to liberty with respect for authority: hope for the future with reverence for the past ---sane conservatism with cautious reform.’

As a true conservative thinker Burke argues that rights are inherently social rather than individual because human beings are by nature social creatures. They are not individualists who leave the state of nutre and enter society simply for purposes of securing their natural rights. He insists the state of civil society------ is a state of nature. Society is peoples natural state and any doctrine of rights, says Burke, must be premised upon this fact. Such socially recognised rights and institutions Burke calls prescriptive because they are given or prescribed by society. Thus speaking of his own political system, Burke states that ”Our constitution is a prescriptive constitution; it is a constitution whose sole authority is that it has existed time out of mind”.

Repudiation of Fundamental Revolutionary Principles

Burke contested the fundamental principles of the French Revolution such as the doctrines of natural equality, popular sovereignty, right of revolution, majority government and written constitutions. He was a firm upholder of the inequality of man and therefore of the divisions of society into the ruler and the ruled. Burke did not believe in popular sovereignty and would not allow the common people to participate in politics actively. In His Reflections on the French Revolution he vigorously denounced the character and content of philosophy of Revolution. According to him, the Revolution was undermining the existence of the state and the society and imperilling the very life of the French nation. Burke predicated the course of the revolution with remarkable foresight as leading to a republic, anarchy, war and military dictatorship.

CRITIQUE OF NATURAL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL CONTRACT

Burke was highly critical of Lockean doctrine of natural law, the rights of the individual and the separation of church and the state. The only laws that he recognised were the laws of God and the laws of a civilised society. For Burke, any parallel between the English Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789 was totally misleading. The former was an acceptable and desirable change within a constitutional framework, whereas the latter was based on a rationalist and untested theory of the Rights of Man. It was an attempt to create a new order by making a total break with past practices.

Burke did not reject the argument of human rights except that he sought to rescue the real right from the imagined ones. He charged the doctrine of natural rights with metaphysical abstraction. Though Burke’s criticism of Natural Rights seemed similar to that of Bentham, there were significant differences. Burke’s conception of human well being was not hedonistic as in the case of Bentham Further, the philosophy of natural rights based on the new principles of liberty and equality was not conducive to the establishment of order.

Burke’s views on religion and state exhibited both liberal and conservative perceptions. He defended traditional practices of the established church, unless there was an intolerable abuse’ He equated attack on the established church of England as tantamount to an attack on England’s constitutional order. He was convinced that the established church would foster peace and dissuaded civil discord.

According to Burke, state “is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born. Each contract of a particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of external natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and moral natures each in their appointed place”.

Supporter of Reforms

Burke was known as a great reformer. Perhaps his most notable effort in this regard was his attempt to reform British rule in India. It must be kept in mind that Great Britain was at this time a major imperial power and did not always treat it colonies benevolently. In India, British rule was particularly harsh and no more so than under the governorship of Warren Hastings because of Hasting’s violation of human rights, he attempted to have the man impeached. What particularly furiated Burke was Hasting’s assertion that the Indians were salves, subhumans, and that he could therefore do as he pleased with them. In his impeachment speech to parliament. Burke asserted against Hasting’s a principle that any Lockean or modern day liberal would commend. Burke says the laws of morality are the same everywhere……… and there is no action . of oppression in England that is not an act…… of oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa, and all over the world”.

This same attitude about the universality of moral law led Burke to defend the Irish Catholics from unjust British laws directed against them. Again, Burke is best known for his defense of the American colonies. Taking an apparently Lockean position he agreed with the colonists that parliament had no right to tax them without their consent’

Critique of French Revolution

Burke’s Reflections on the revolution in France (1790) was the outstanding event in his literary as well, as political career. What had started out as a discussion of the French Revolution became a searching enquiry into the nature of reform and revolution in general, and out of this inquiry emerged the bible of modern communism. According to Burke, the French Revolution was not the result of deep seated historical conflicts and forces, but of wrong doctrines of philosophers who were animated by fanatical atheism, and of vile ambitions of politicians who were driven by opportunist lust for power. Burke is particularly vehement in his denunciation of French philosophers and men of letters.

Burke was quick enough to realise that the French Revolution was more than an internal French affair, that it was a “revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma’ and he attacked the state that emerged from it as a college of armed fanatics, for the propagation of the principles of assassination, robbery, fraud faction, oppression and impiety”. Every revolution contains some evil, Burk says, as it inevitably destroys part of the moral capital, the good will of the community, and the moral capital of future generations should be considered as a trust that must not be treated lightly. The English Revolution of 1988 was ”a revolution , not made, but prevented” because the nation was on the defensive, seeking to reserve its institutions rather than to subvert or destroy them. The monarchy was continued, and the nation kept’ the same ranks, the same orders, the same privileges the same franchises the same rules for property the same subordinates’ and above all the revolution was followed by a happy settlement. Burke contrasts the English revolution of 1688 with the French Revolution of 1789 in which he sees but destruction , anarchy and terror.

In reflections, Burke made a detailed criticism of both the theoretical and practical aspects of the revolution. He pointed out the dangers of abstract theorising, but was realistic enough to provide an alternative mode of social progression. Reflections was written during the revolutionary. Unlike Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) and Louis Gabriel de Bonald (1754-1840), who out rightly defended orthodoxy and absolutism. Burke provided a framework for change with continuity, for a “state without the means of same change is without the mans of its conservation---- without such means it might even risk the taste of that part of the constitution which it wishes to most religious preserve. As Burke pointed out, these two principles of conservation and correction operated in England during the critical periods of the restoration and the revolution when England did not have a king. But in both these critical times the entire edifice of old order was not replaced by a totally new one.

Burke criticised Jacobnism for his whole sale attack on established religion, traditional constitutional arrangements and the institution of property which he saw as the source of political wisdom in a country. He did not support every things that was ancient, only those that held society together by providing order and stability. Burke’s main audience in the Reflections was the aristocracy and the upper middle class of English society, which he perceived to be the upholders of stability and order. He challenged the English ruling class to respond appropriately to the plight of the French queen, otherwise it would reflect lack of chivalry and demonstrate that the British political order was not itself superior to that of the continent.

Burke further argued that the period of the Magna carta to the Bill of Rights was one of slow but steady consolidation reflecting continuity and change. This enabled British constitution to preserve and provide unity with the contest of diversity. Inheritance was cherished as a political necessity for without it both conservation and transmission were not possible. Pointing out the enormous difference between the patterns of change in Britiain and France, Burke said that in sharp contrast to the process of gradual change in British constitutional evolution, the French attempt had been to achieve a complete break with the past with a new emphasis on equality and participation. With this inherent belief in natural aristocracy, he debunked the very attempt to crate a society of equals. Burke emphasised the necessity of well ordered state to be ruled by a combination of ability and property. Such an order would be inherently based on inequality. He linked the perpetuation of family property with that of societies. There was no place for either proportionate equality or democratic equality in his preference for aristocratic rule. Like Adam Smith (1723-1790), he stressed the importance of preserving and protecting property. He favoured accumulation of wealth, rights of inheritance and the need to enfranchise property owners. While Burke was socially conservative, he was a liberal in economics, the two being fused together uneasily.

Burke analysed the French revolution when the revolutionaries seized control of the capital and stormed the Bastille in July 1789. By 1790, the situation in France stabilised when the assembly of deputies declared martial law to prevent disorder. The French Revolution generated a great deal of debate in England . (Burke’s Reflection itself began as a letter to Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man)

Assessment

Burke’s importance as a political thinker lies in his insistence on the importance of the actually existing institutions and on the evolutionary nature of any reforms to be made in them. These reforms must be based on the realisation of the complexities of human and political life for which pure philosophy would not do. He was pragmatic and utilitarian in his views and historical in his method.

Burke used the historical perspective to understand politics. He considered state as a product of historical growth, and compared it to a living organism. In his well known work, ‘Reflections on French Revolutions’ he attacked the theory of natural rights, absolute liberty, equality, democracy, popular sovereignty, general will and abstract principles of change an revolution based on reason. He is known as a “philosophic conservative, opposed equally to undercharging reaction and to revolutionary change. Revolution , according to Burke, was undesirable because it would sweep away the sound principles of political action and discard the guidance of nature. ; Thus Reflections became the bible of conservatism to this day. Unlike his predecessors, Burke argued the French revolutionaries were attempting to impose strict rational a priori standards of natural right without any consideration for the real nature of society and the real needs of human beings.