A Kirkian Critique of Libertarianism

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defence …[1]

These words, spoken by John Galt in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, encapsulate the essence of libertarianism: a utopian society founded on unbridled individualism. This utopian vision ought to perturb all thinking conservatives. Yet, in the current age of political disruption, libertarianism and conservatism are increasingly used interchangeably, or in conjunction, thus indicating a breakdown in the distinction between these once rivalrous traditions of the Right. The American conservative luminary Russell Kirk had a keen perception of the distinction: conservatism represented the very negation of ideology while libertarianism, which he characterised as “a genteel form of anarchism”, was to be counted among the “absurd ideologies” that risked diverting…