In Defence of Custom (II)

An essay on the importance of pre-legal practice.

This is the second excerpt from a research chapter. The first argued that, in political theory, there are two prevalent approaches to the study of the identity of a people in time: a trans-temporal approach, emphasising continuity over change (what we might call ‘custom’); and a timeless approach, which emphasis the sovereignty of the political community as it is currently constituted. This section argues that the triumph of the latter over the former has led to a situation in which immediate concerns are privileged over the true interest of a political community, and closes by arguing for a return to a trans-temporal approach to structuring a political community.

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Section One

Section Two – The Consequences of this Disappearance

Without a powerful sense of community, even the best laws and institutions were a dead letter.

Jonathan Sumption, Trials of the State

This section will focus on the far-reaching consequences of the disappearance of the trans-temporal vision, and the reason the timeless vision shall eat itself. To my mind, there are two categories in which the disappearance of the trans-temporal vision can be felt: the first, two obvious practical examples are economics and governance – each of which I shall explain below, but the consequences go far beyond merely this selection; and the second is in two theoretical developments in the realm of both political philosophy, and the relationship between law and politics. Furthermore, the timeless vision of community must be understood for what it truly is, and why it will inevitably undermine its own capacity for existence.

The Crystal Palace at Sydenham

It is in the world of economics that we see the disappearance of the trans-temporal vision so powerfully, usually as a product of that most disruptive form of economic order we call capitalism. Capitalism is, as Roger Scruton rightly explained, a form of spontaneous social order that conservatives defend, dependent very much on the situated and enduring knowledge that naturally arises from custom, but it can also subject realms of value to exploitation and debasement (most especially the sexual act) that ought not to be so (Scruton, 2014: 56-57). It might seem strange for a conservative to criticise capitalism, but it is not inconsistent. Indeed, capitalism is still a form of ideology. But it is when capitalism is unmoored from the trans-temporal vision that I believe it becomes parasitic, and there are two key areas in which it has done so: the first is the destruction of the natural world in which we live; and the second is the tendency to borrow enormous amounts of money.

In environmentalism, the capitalist often sees only what he can exploit. The modern habit of burning fossil fuels in such a consumptive way risks the safety and stability of the planet in such a way that there might not even be one for the capitalist’s children; but this is the very issue at stake. The assumption that there will always be more resources to extract, more oil to burn, more acres to plough has proven itself to be a myth, and has left us in such a precarious position that we may as well have built our whole cities on sand dunes. Almost all modern capitalists forgot John Locke’s constraining principle of leaving as much for others to use as you have benefited from (Locke, 2003: 273-286), but this is because they do not even consider others – neither in the present, nor in the future. Thus, each subsequent generation must burden the costs of those that came before, whilst consuming as much if not more in order to make up this difference.

Similar to environmentalism, modern economics is driven by the habit of ‘taking the benefits of our activities, while passing on the costs’ (Scruton, 2014: 94). We constantly mortgage our future, borrowing exorbitant amounts of money in an attempt to satisfy the immediate demands of the present, or sell off what is left of the ‘family silver’, as Harold Macmillan put it, in the fatal belief that the immediate value of a thing is the only value it will ever have. Take for instance, Gordon Brown’s decision in 1999 to begin selling 401 tonnes of this country’s 715-tonne gold reserves, at a point when an ounce of gold was worth roughly 288 United States’ dollars (roughly £175); by 2012, this had soared to roughly $1,800 (£1,168). The habit of short-term decisions is the habit of a panicky, restless culture that has forgotten the value of patience, refusing to learn from the vast bank of experience that has accumulated through the ages.

This is the true conservative attitude to capitalism: economic capitalism is merely one form, with social capitalism, political capitalism, and cultural capitalism being the other major forms, each with its own form of knowledge, experience and habits that have grown together into vast and venerable institutions.