Roger Scruton, Conservatives are Conservationists

Conservatives Are Conservationists
Roger Scruton (MA 49:4, Fall 2007) - 04/11/08

A good partner piece for his AmCon article.

An older article by PCR in the Intercollegiate Review has also been posted at First Principles:
The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Imperialism
P. Craig Roberts (from IR 12:1, Fall 1976) - 04/10/08

The Rise and Fall of the Private Individual

The Social Revolution through which private individuals were created hand-in-hand with the creation of private property began with the Inclosures in the twelth century and attained its greatest flowering in the nineteenth century. Prior to the appearance of private property, private individuals did not exist. There existed only the rulers and the ruled, lords and serfs.

A serf was a person who did not own his own labor. Although he was not himself owned by another, that is, he could not be bought and sold like a slave, the feudal nobility, the state of that time, had rights over the serf’s labor. When we say that a peasant was enserfed, we mean that he owed a certain amount of his working time to the state. Over time and regions this obligation seems to have averaged about one-third of a serf’s working life.

His historical understanding is perhaps a bit too libertarian... I'll have to read through the whole thing and compare it with James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution (B&N), Sam Francis's Revolution from the Middle, and Paul Gottfried's After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State. Of course, I'll have to read those as well in order to make the comparison. Ha!

Shots Fired is no longer available at Amazon, but it can still be purchased at the website for the book