It is not the collectivist “we” conspicuously on display at the Democratic National Convention, but the many “we’s” of civil society, which are the true ground of a just, and good, society.

The Conservative’s Right Mind: A Reply to David Brooks

by Nathan Schlueter

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The leading intellectuals of classical liberalism include Edmund Burke (a Whig), Adam Smith (the founder of “classical economics”), Alexis de Tocqueville (the most prescient critic of American democracy), and F. A. Hayek, who brought all of the earlier thinkers to bear on the totalitarian threats of the twentieth century. The Romney campaign and Republican leaders would do well to articulate their objections to the Obama entitlement state in a more classically liberal way.

Classical liberals affirm nearly all of the principles that underlie Catholic social teaching: solidarity, subsidiarity, and duties of society to ensure that the poor are cared for. They were also the earliest defenders of the free market. But their case did not rest on hyperindividualism, social Darwinism, or meritocratic views of desert. To the contrary, it rested on the fact that human beings are by nature dependent social animals that require mutual assistance for their development and flourishing. Commercial exchanges are not fundamentally exploitative, classical liberals argued; they are cooperative ventures that ordinarily make all parties better off.

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