In recent decades, conflict within the broader conservative universe has witnessed the increasing marginalization of traditionalists, who consistently refuse to accommodate their detractors’ leftist ideological worldview.  The camp that has been triumphant—so far—has generally been the one most willing to betray principle for temporary electoral convenience, as well as to sacrifice the loyalty of its core constituents for the sponsorship of a faceless plutocracy.  The most obvious consequence is that mainstream conservatism today has become defined by the sloganeering and hucksterism of opportunists more properly described as the fundraising arm of social liberalism than as a sincere oppositional force to leftist advance.

Warnings about the danger of liberal mimicry within the “right” are predictably greeted with scorn.  But while alternatives to popular neoconservatism are denounced as anachronistic, the marginalization of traditionalists is never quite complete.  This is particularly true if the resistance to the progressive project is stubborn and sincere, instead of compromising and pragmatic.  It’s especially true when traditionalists are less interested in political prestige, but instead seek to correct the mind-numbing homogeneity of the ruling political elite.  As a consequence, only in debates that embarrass both wings of the mainstream political spectrum can one spot the sharpest distinction between the opportunist and the sincere advocate of cultural restoration.

Given the inherent contradictions of modern liberalism—at once permissive and relativist as well as fanatically absolutist in the enforcements of its dogmas—the difficult questions almost always revolve around the rising specter of “anarcho-tyranny” within Western societies.  The term was popularized in the United States by the late political editor for Chronicles, Sam Francis, but the processes it represents are by no means limited to the decay of American society.  The fact that the term is gaining recognition abroad vindicates Francis’s warnings about the suicidal trends of the modern managerial state.

Australian Sen. Cory Bernardi published his first major work of political theory, The Conservative Revolution (Connor Court), in late 2013.  To my knowledge, he is the first major figure to have introduced Francis’s theory into Australian political discourse.  In his first chapter, Bernardi identifies two models of illegitimate governance that the conservative politician must avoid: the tyranny of a centralized and intrusive executive, and the social chaos resulting from a permissive hyperindividualism:

United States paleoconservative theorist Sam Francis has even suggested that the two trends can exist in parallel.  He refers to this phenomenon as “anarcho-tyranny.”  According to Francis, in a state of anarcho-tyranny, authorities crack down on the law abiding citizen with ever intrusive laws and regulations while they become impotent to deal with social dissolution and the very real and much more threatening problems it poses.  Perhaps this is because a political elite that has become morally bankrupt and unable to deal with real problems will try to overcompensate by focusing on secondary, perhaps even trivial issues, or invent controversies so as to be seen to “do something.”

Bernardi then relates this interpretation of Francis to Robert Nisbet’s 1953 work The Quest for Community, claiming that institutionalized anarcho-tyranny is the logical consequence of a vicious cycle in which the dissolution of local authority is caused by the growth of the state, while the growth of the state itself encourages local dissolution.  Bernardi writes that “individualism would naturally lead towards centralisation,” and that “the two parallel trends, statist centralisation and individualist moral anarchy can actually feed off each other, amplifying their worst effects.”  Over time reductionist libertarianism paves the way toward the collectivist statism and intrusive governance it abhors.

What does this mean in practical terms, particularly in relation to the rapid demographic changes in the nation and the ability of governments to maintain social cohesion and stability?  Essentially, libertine attitudes can be found in both individual behavior and government policy.  The catalysts of anarcho-tyranny can therefore come at the micro as well as the macro level.

Understanding that there is a connection between the virtue of the people and the character of their government is not new.  Jesse Helms made similar comments about their “inverse reflection” in The Ramparts We Watched (1984).  Helms echoed Edmund Burke’s warnings about a “controlling power,” concerning which “the less of it there is within, the more there must be without” (1791); likewise, Juan Donoso Cortés’s fear that the collapse of moral order would lead to “the greatest and most devastating despotism in the memory of man” (1894).  Sadly, in recent years this lesson seems to have been forgotten by politicians who are allegedly opposed to the leftist leviathan.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s paid parental-leave scheme is perhaps emblematic of the topsy-turvy attitude of today’s mainstream conservative leaders, who appear to have accepted their opponents’ modus operandi and its accompanying ideology and worldview.

Under Abbott’s scheme, women are effectively paid by the state, through a levy on business, for discharging what would otherwise be considered a selfless duty arising under natural law.  True, today’s economic climate makes it difficult to raise a child on one income alone; and true, the abysmal demographic trends plaguing the West need to be addressed in some way.  Understandably, elected representatives will feel a political need to “do something” as the consequence of decline is, with each passing decade, felt with greater force.

But is it not the case that the ideology of feminist careerism is exacerbating these trends by depressing male wages, putting pressure on women to defer motherhood into their less-fertile years, and increasing the demand to offset demographic decline through immigration?  Is it not also true that this ideology is now championed by both sides of the political spectrum under the aegis of an “expanded labor market” and “personal independence”?  How does deferring more responsibility to the state, while ignoring—if not perpetuating—the problem, solve it?

Like the medieval doctor who applies ever more leeches to his hapless patient, it often seems our political betters are similarly committed to prescribing solutions to problems caused by the theories underpinning those very solutions themselves.

This causal chain of policy blunders is not emphasized often enough (if at all) by analysts who have the government’s ear.  Perhaps things have progressed so far that it is no longer politically feasible to speak about this honestly in the context of a mass social-democratic welfare state.  However, while the risks of open discussion may be too great from an electoral point of view, the dangers of silence may be fatal in the long term.  In War and Democracy (2012) Paul Gottfried highlighted that

there are limits to how far democratic welfare states will go to sustain capitalism.  Democracy’s support for feminism, for example, creates short-term benefits but also long term headaches for the economy. . . .  Among the results of women’s emancipation from the family, particularly in Europe, has been a greying of the native population and the need to import a foreign, largely Third World, labor force.

American and indeed Australian leaders would do well to learn from the seemingly irreversible consequences of Europe’s recklessness.  Tony Abbott should be particularly attentive: Recent controversies his government has had to contend with have concerned the growth of domestic Islamic fundamentalism, and have led to debates about freedom of speech and even the reversal of the onus of proof in some cases.

A paid parental-leave scheme in which government plays the role of family provider will demoralize the individual and reinforce the trends that led to the need for government intervention in the first place.  Effectively supplanting the “local authority” of the family, it is certainly not a “prudent restraint of power.”  Such solutions will therefore do nothing to slow or reverse demographic decline.  Here, the underlying condition is a mind-set that applies liberal solutions to liberal-caused problems, reinforcing what Bernardi refers to as the “social chaos resulting from a permissive hyper-individualism.”

If conservative leaders wish to pursue genuine solutions, they will need to start thinking outside the progressive box.

A return to social and family structures that have proved capable of fostering replacement-level birthrates and stable economic growth should be the foundation of conservative policy.  This will necessarily involve the principled repudiation of feminist ideology and multiculturalism.  Unfortunately, such a repudiation is highly unlikely as it now amounts to electoral suicide.  The major parties of the West’s political mainstream are therefore hurtling towards a disaster of their own making.

Changing course will require establishment conservatism’s acknowledgment that those on the traditionalist right have been correct all along.  Being proved right when matters have degenerated this far is cold comfort.  But it is heartening that there are some politicians, such as Bernardi, who have the will and capacity to argue what is right, not just what may be popular.