WABI-SABIThe Rural Libertarian as a Historical AnomalyFEBRUARY 15, 2013 by SANDY IKEDA
People in the American Midwest are said to be on average more
conservative and more libertarian than people who live on the East
and West Coasts. And that in turn is because people in rural areas
are said to be more strongly tied to the traditions of individualism
and self-reliance than those in big cities such as New York, Los
Angeles, Chicago—who politically are more statist and tend to see
government as a first-responder to perceived economic and social
problems.
We could go back and forth arguing with conflicting evidence on
urbanity and ideology that depend on, for example, whether you use
“Republican” and “Democrat” as proxies for “right-wing” and
“left-wing,” whether you’re comparing states or counties, and so on.
So for the sake of argument I will concede that in today’s United
States “urban” means statist and “rural” means conservative and
libertarian. Does it follow then that people who live in dense
cities are necessarily more statist than people who live in
lower-density rural areas, exurbs, and suburbs? I think not.
I believe the positive correlation between political conservatism
and libertarianism and rural or “agricultural” living is an
historical anomaly; that historically the countryside has been a
great obstacle to liberty while cities have been the places where
liberty and the fruits of liberty have flourished.
(I place “agricultural” in quotation marks because
only about 2 percent of Americans actually live on farms.)
American Conservatism and the Libertarian Movement
There are at least two meanings attached to the word “conservative.”
The more general meaning refers to someone who has an above-average
attachment to certain ideas and ways of living that are considered
traditional. Now, few people like change as such and everyone has an
attachment to at least some ideas of the past, whether conservative
or liberal, libertarian or statist. But on the whole, a conservative
in this sense is more resistant to and less willing to tolerate
political, economic, and cultural change.
The other meaning of conservative, and it’s perhaps a uniquely
American meaning, is someone who has an above-average attachment to
the traditional (purportedly American) values of limited
constitutional government, the free market, and voluntary (often
community-based) approaches to solving social and economic problems.
This is the “libertarian” aspect of American conservatism. But
American conservatives also tend to cherish a Judeo-Christian-based
society in which citizens practice patriotism and traditional family
values (though of course this is not true of all American
conservatism).
A significant number of American conservatives—again, not all—also
believe that while government should be limited in its powers,
public authorities can legitimately expand political power to
protect and defend those traditional values domestically and abroad.
There are other characteristics of American conservatism, but I’ll
stop here.
My thesis then is that American conservativism, insofar as it values
the free market and suspects authority, is a historical anomaly
because the free market and anti-authoritarianism just happened to
be the prevailing tradition in the United States at the time rural
communities of the Midwest and the Southwest were being established.
Thus, those areas of the country, being agrarian the longest and
relatively recently urbanized, have preserved the principles and
norms of the free society of 19th century America better than the
more urban areas of the United States because, well, that’s what
conservatism does: it preserves traditional principles and norms
almost no matter what they are.
Agrarian Societies Are Inherently Hostile to Liberty and Personal Autonomy
The historical track record of agrarian, land-based societies is not
so good when it comes to personal liberty, trade, and individual
independence. Compare, for instance, dynastic Egypt with the nearly
contemporaneous dynastic Mesopotamia. The kingdom of dynastic Egypt
was thinly populated with few large cities, an agrarian land-based
economy with little trade, especially outside the kingdom. Dynastic
Mesopotamia consisted of a network of city-states dominated at
various times by the ruler of one city-state or another, with
extensive trade both within and without the kingdom. (See the work
of the
noted anthropologist Guillermo Algaze. Moreover, dynastic Egypt,
which managed to preserve itself across an astonishing 30 dynasties
over more than two millennia, was characterized for the most part by
a highly authoritarian central government, massive state projects,
and pharaoh worship. Dynastic Mesopotamia, no libertarian utopia by
any means, was nevertheless less authoritarian, and more culturally
diverse and economically dynamic.
Historically, that is the rule, not the exception. The Belgian
historian Henri Pirenne, whom I’ve mentioned in this column before
when I wrote about the urban origins of liberty, has explained
how
the re-emergence of cities in Europe toward the end of the Middle
Ages and the revival of trade and individual autonomy is not
accidental, as suggested in the age-old phrase, “Stadtluft macht
Frei” (City air sets you free).
And So It Remains Today
Modern cities continue to be the drivers of social and economic
development, although their outward appearance constantly changes,
e.g., from traditional downtowns to “edge cities.” And it’s the
libertarian, not the conservative (in the general sense), element
that is responsible for that development. Yes, cities may have been
the birthplace of socialism. But the freedom of thought and
association that enabled socialist movements to emerge and
spread—which of course also enabled classical-liberal ideas to
emerge and spread—were themselves founded on the classical liberal
principles of privacy, free association and expression, and
individual autonomy. Those principles necessarily evolved in cities,
not the countryside.
Indeed, the practice, if not the doctrines, of authoritarianism and
collectivism are ancient and predate the oldest cities, which have
been around for fewer than 10,000 years.
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