Edmund Burke: The First Conservative

These notes are old and were written while reading — they don’t necessarily reflect my current views.

Its a biography divided in the life and thought of Edmund Burke. Burke grew up in a time where the British Empire approached its peak. There was fast social change with sexuality becoming more free and financial markets more dominant investing in the rapid expansion of the empire.

He became an early member of the British parliament and was very active; he had the 3rd most speeches at the time. As a member of the House of Commons, he advocated to make concessions to the American colonies in order to avoid revolution. His proposals were rejected.

Burke - now considered a founder of conservatism - critiqued the enlightenment heavily. He called into questions its epistemological conception that every thing can be known and human reason is the tool to do it. He emphasizes the importance of context and the complexity that made total knowledge practically impossible. He argued further that this thought is actively dangerous, as it gives justification for atrocities.

Burke writes that we can’t derive knowledge of what to to from arguing from a “state of nature” like Hobbes or Rousseau did. This is not the actual situation in which a society with many complex ties and power structures exists. We should not rebuild society as if starting from scratch but carefully look at which modification to society might be sensible from where we stand now.

Adam Smith said Burke though in economic matters exactly as he did, even though they never communicated before.

Burke was a strong advocate for representative democracy and the party system.

He is critical of separating all non-material aspects of decision making from economics.

Monetary priming