Abstract: Benjamin Disraeli, a nineteenth century British Conservative prime minister, believed that the British tradition of civil rights was founded upon an elevating form equality which raises individuals higher, in contrast to ideals of equality which sought only to level the field of talent and privilege. The latter conception of equality remains common today, whether among progressives or right-leaning populists. Disraeli’s account of civil rights in connection to the notion of elevating equality is relevant to contemporary debates on the nature of Canadian conservatism, as it creates an intellectual space for a political vision which is neither classical liberalism nor post-liberalism.
Canadian conservatives have recently been debating whether conservatism should be strictly identified as classical liberalism or can be expanded into alternative political philosophies distinct from classical liberalism. The former frequently claim, in defence of the identification of conservatism with a form of liberalism, that they are conserving the classical liberal values upon which Canada was founded. In contrast, conservatives on the so-called new right have tended to identify themselves as post-liberal conservatives. I suggest that this latter identification is an error in at least two ways: it is an inaccurate way to characterize the philosophical debate, and it is politically unwise given that international post-liberalism is led by political figures such as J. D. Vance and Viktor Orban, whose governing impulses are contrary to the rule of law and incrementally disposed towards authoritarianism instead of freedom and fairness, backed up by a slew of academics creating intellectual excuses for those impulses. I will briefly return to the philosophical point at the end of this piece. Against the backdrop temptations of defining conservatism either as classical liberalism or post-liberalism, I will offer no definitions of conservatism. Instead, I suggest that contemporary conservatives in general (and red tories in particular) can gain valuable philosophical insights from Benjamin Disraeli.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881) was a Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom in the late nineteenth century, and an active partisan for several decades prior to his premiership. His first premiership began and ended in 1868, and his second premiership lasted from 1874 to 1880. His writings are a window into anglophone political thought near the period of Canadian Confederation, and his earlier writings in particular are a fascinating example of British political thinking in the early nineteenth century.
Of particular interest to me and my purposes is his 1835 text Vindication of the English Constitution in a Letter to a Noble and Learned Lord (hereafter Vindication). It is readily available as a reprint, though I have been unable to find a critical edition – or any edition meeting contemporary academic standards for a primary source. This is unfortunate, as Disraeli’s insights are surprisingly relevant to contemporary political debates, in addition to reflecting the intellectual and political climate of the time. I will not suggest that Canada’s founders and the British North America Act were directly influenced by Disraeli’s thought, but rather that Disraeli’s thoughts on constitutional principles and political values are indicative of the breadth of mainstream political thought in the early nineteenth century. And as I will show, it is extremely anachronistic to describe Disraeli as either a classical liberal or a post-liberal.
Disraeli’s primary focus in Vindication is constitutional principles, but his analysis and reflections also extend to partisan political ideals. The first portion of the text is devoted to a historical analysis of the development of the English Constitution. Setting aside the historical accuracy or inaccuracy of his narrative history, two key points quickly become clear: first, Disraeli thought of the English parliamentary tradition as a tradition pre-existing the socio-political movements we collectively label as the Enlightenment, rather than as a product of the Englightenment; and second, he understood liberty (which he describes as the “equality of civil rights”) to be the indispensable element of English law, and ultimately the element which enabled British stability and prosperity.
These two key points are inseparable in Disraeli’s analysis. Interestingly, Disraeli does not view the “glorious” legal framework structured around the “equality of civil rights” as a bounty provided by John Locke. Instead, he viewed this legal and cultural premium on freedom as the legacy of the fourteenth and fifteenth century Lancastrians. “Liberty flourished under the Plantagenets,” Disraeli argues, because this period’s governance was structured by the accountability of government to the House of Commons and the existence of a legitimate opposition. Again, ignore questions of historical accuracy: the important point is that Disraeli clearly understood civil liberties and the bicameral Parliament to be the enabling context within which liberal political philosophies emerged, and not the reverse. Nor is Disraeli unusual in this view. As Janet Ajzenstat has argued, Canada’s founders likewise viewed the institution of Parliament as the institution which enables civil liberties. It was common at the time to understand civil liberties and Parliamentary government as a broader political tradition than liberalism as a political philosophy.
Disraeli’s target in the Vindication is the Utilitarians of his day – at least those Utilitarian thinkers interested in constitutional reform. Their goal, in his view, was “to submit the institutions of the country to the test of utility, and to form a new constitution on the abstract principles of theoretic science,” so as better to represent the entirety of the English people. In this regard, the Utilitarians of the time shared a common principle with contemporary progressives and populists alike: the legitimacy of a system of government increases proportionally to the level of democratic representation it embodies. Much contemporary criticism of the Canadian Senate or the first-past-the-post voting system stems from such attitudes.
Against this, Disraeli notes that such an approach tended to create an elected body which claimed to speak on behalf of ‘the People’. He then argues that the natural tendency of such elected bodies is to treat opposition to the government as an illegitimate attack upon ‘the People’. In the name of ‘the People’ opposition is crushed, legitimizing a tyranny of the majority to the detriment of the previously legitimate minority. Appeal to ‘the People’ excludes minority dissent. And again, this is not an idea unique to Disraeli; a few decades later, none other than Sir John A. Macdonald rejected calls for referenda on Confederation on the grounds that referenda are an instance of oppressive majoritarianism, which he terms “an unbridled democracy” (Macdonald, Canadian Legislative Assembly, February 6 1865). This idea was clearly part of the political culture of the time.
Against such unbridled democracy, Disraeli reflects at length on the importance of non-elective representation in the English Constitution, primarily focusing upon the House of Lords. However, especially conjoined to the dangers presented to minority opposition by a government claiming to represent ‘the People’ in total, it is worth considering the unelected elements of the Canadian Constitution also. The Senate is the most obvious example, but I think we often overlook about the most fundamental unelective element of our nation: the Constitution itself. Insofar as the Constitution is a constraint on the will of the majority (something Macdonald very clearly intended it to be) it is an obstacle to pure democracy and a check against ‘the People’ themselves. If contemporary conservatives are to preserve the central principle of the Parliamentary tradition, they would do well to consider the risks created by claiming to represent ‘the people of Canada’ and populist politics in general.
Whereas the Utilitarians advocated for “an equality that levels,” such that “no one should be privileged,” Disraeli instead advocates for “an equality that elevates,” such that “every one should be privileged.” By this, he means what we might today describe as equality of opportunity. More broadly, this is enabled by the “equality of civil rights,” including especially “the right of expressing my free thoughts to a free people.” In each of these ideas, Disraeli expresses ideas surprisingly salient even to contemporary political debates. In spite of this, however, Disraeli should not be considered a classical liberal.
Despite endorsing “equality that elevates,” Disraeli also endorsed the class distinctions of the time. For him, the “equality that elevates” meant that an individual was not forcibly retained in one class nor prevented from rising to higher offices (a possibility well reflected in Disraeli’s own remarkable life).
As Equality is the basis, so Gradation is the superstructure… Our equality is the safety valve of tumultuous spirits; our gradation the security of the humble and meek. The latter take refuge in their order; the former seek relief in emancipating themselves from its rank.
A crucial part of this societal gradient is the constitutional role filled by the hereditary Lords. And admittedly, this aspect of Disraeli’s thought should rightly raise doubts about his relevance today. Even in the nineteenth century the idea of a Canadian hereditary peerage seemed absurd. And after all, the notion that some types of inequality are both inescapable and essential to a functional society is one already articulated by contemporary authors such as Roger Scruton. Disraeli might seem superfluous at best, antiquated at worst.
However, when establishing the Senate, the Canadian founders did so in the belief that a non-elective chamber was important to good government, and that this role would be fulfilled by individuals demonstrating the necessary merit – or at least talented ambition. And here lies a kernel of truth to Disraeli’s praise for gradation: talents and privileges are unevenly distributed, and this unevenness makes possible the elevation of the under-privileged by the privileged. Too often, progressive ideals aspire to a society which compensates for such uneven distribution; Rawls’ famed “veil of ignorance” was proposed as one such compensating conceptual mechanism.
Instead of seeking to eliminate uneven distribution of talents and privileges, Disraeli sees this unevenness as a mechanism for building and uplifting a nation. He does not merely note that some inequalities are inescapable, or even that they can enable beneficial outcomes; his unique contribution is the idea that elevating equality is inherently linked to the existence of other inequalities. One might characterize this as a conceptual analysis of the concept of equality itself, in which Disraeli identifies an internal conceptual tension. His political vision is intended to resolve that tension.
If one takes seriously Disraeli’s idea that gradation in society enables aspirational opportunities, that without a graded plane of merited and unmerited achievements there would be nothing ‘higher’ to which to aspire, then individual differences become more important to policy than class differences. For instance, the red tory ideal of an active government implementing policies which support and raise up the vulnerable is an example of the more secure elements of society (namely, the state itself) ensuring that those further down the gradient are not abandoned. But this political approach is not purely financial; it extends more broadly across human life, as apparent in Disraeli’s defence of the House of Lords.
Disraeli thought of the Lords as an essential element of the parliamentary body – not just when engaged in public deliberation, but also in cultivating education, culture, and other social goods for the benefit of the nation as a whole. The entire life of the Lords was a contribution to the state, despite the Lords’ frequent failings. (The novel Brideshead Revisited presents with profound vividness an interpretation of that value’s endurance through imperfect vessels.) The importance is not really the Lords themselves, but rather the comprehensiveness of their potential contributions. Thus, the generalizable principle from Disraeli’s particular focus on the Lords is that the state ought to contribute actively towards building the economic and cultural institutions on which a nation’s life depends, and not merely on wealth redistribution.
While Disraeli’s ideal of class harmony seems far too rosy compared to the actual past, he nonetheless leaves us with a valuable conceptual framework: a society that values the “equality that elevates” must also be a society with inequalities through which the state can elevate the under-privileged. And if the pairing of elevating equality with unequal privilege is ever going to supply “the security of the humble and the meek,” then the state must take a lead in supplying such security on behalf of its privileged members. When stripped of its classist original meaning, Disraeli’s conceptual pairing of equality and gradation carries striking philosophical implications for policy ideals.
Returning to my philosophical concern with the implied meaning of ‘post-liberalism’ as a political label, Disraeli’s reflections on both constitutional thought and partisan political principles are valuable to today’s intra-conservative debates. Too many conservatives identify not only their conservatism but also parliamentary democracy itself with classical liberalism, such that those who reject classical liberalism are automatically presumed to oppose free and fair democratic society altogether. Yet the parliamentary tradition has historically been understood as pre-existing liberalism, as encompassing political ideologies other than liberalism, and as in fact supplying the laws and traditions which inspired and enabled liberalism in the first place.
When conservatives who reject classical liberalism label themselves as post-liberals, they implicitly concede the classical liberals’ claims to exclusive ownership of parliamentary democracy. They inadvertently imply that their approach to conservatism is one which comes only after the prior stages of the parliamentary tradition, when in fact many of the concerns they rightly raise against liberalism were freely debated by the historic parliamentarians themselves – and debated in defence of freedom.
Critiques of liberalism first appeared in the context of a free and fair deliberative society with a proud tradition of civil rights. We would do well to revisit that tradition in its authentically expansive form, and to resist the temptation to identify its freedoms and equalities with only one political philosophy. Disraeli shows quite well that the aspirational ideals of freedom and elevating equality can be articulated, defended, and implemented from within a traditional tory framework, and his reflections remain highly relevant today.