Politics: Conservatism - The Economy

-Her 'objectivist' philosophy became strongly linked to the New Right's support for a more laissez-faire brand of capitalism and its renewal of negative liberty, thus providing a philosophical justification for 'rolling back the frontiers of the state' and projects such as tax cuts and privatisation.

-She argued that 'capitalism is a necessary good' because it leads to a social system where human beings can survive, prosper and enjoy their lives - the accent here is on 'individual responsibility', linking to her work 'The Virtue of Selfishness' (1964).

-But she firmly rejected any suggestion of anarchism, claiming that both free markets and cultural laissez-faire needed the parameters of a small state.

-He developed many of the themes first raised by neo-liberal philosopher Friedrich von Hayek in 'The Road to Serfdom' (1944).

-Like Hayek, he argued that the growth of government was the gravest contemporary threat to individual freedom.

-More specifically, he thought the growth of welfare states in Western Europe fostered a dependency culture.

-Despite the title of his most famous work, 'Anarchy, State and Utopia' (1974), he was not a 'true' anarchist in that he believed in a minarchist state - one that mainly involved outsourcing public services to private companies.

-He claimed that, 'tax, for the most part, is theft'.

-In his view, 'rugged individualism' requires man to be free to accumulate wealth in which way he sees fit.

-In the minarchist state, which only takes responsibility for national 'defence and security', this means that man is at liberty to acquire as much wealth as he can.

-His 'state of nature' was a place of scarce resources where individuals would be governed by ruthless self-interest.

-Human nature was thus shaped by a restless desire for the acquisition of goods (one would be competitive and calculating), an immovable distrust of others and a constant fear of violent death.

because he did not consider human nature wholly irrational (cold rationality), he believed that mankind would eventually realise that the state of nature was inimical to self-interest and thus agree to a 'contract'.

-Under this contract, individuals would render to a 'sovereign' (that is, a state) the right to make laws which by all were restrained and thus allow the sort of order and security absent in the state of nature.

-He believed that inequality is the 'natural and normal' condition of society whereby all power, and therefore wealth, is located at the 'top', preferably in a monarch.

-This exemplifies a 'top down' system whereby wealth goes hand-in-hand with authority.

-He understood that the accumulation of wealth was the necessary but insufficient condition for the development of a modern economy; it is also necessary for wealth to be converted into capital, a process that requires the inclusion of human work.

-As an early Enlightenment thinker, he was thus heavily committed to 'government by consent' and the notion of a state being 'rationally' created by a 'contract' between the government and the governed.

-This would eventually lead to a 'society', where individuals could enjoy some security and progress.

-He was a fervent advocate of liberal economist Adam Smith's call for free trade - who also was the father of laissez-faire economic theory.

-His stress on the indispensability of an infrastructure of government-provided public goods (state service sector), in which individual agency and associative freedom can flourish.

-For example, capitalism enables the state to provide essential services for citizens such as health and the old age pension systems funded by taxation - but he did not support groups such as Trade Unions who work to gain higher wages for their particular industry.

-It could be argued that this is in line with paternalism.