A few days ago we talked a bit about William F. Buckley's conservatism. In an interview, his opinion was asked about whether Albert Jay Nock would approve of today's “conservatism” or not. The reason Nock was introduced into the conversation, is because he is considered among the founding fathers of the conservative movement.
You can find the whole series on conservatism here: What Is Conservatism?
Albert Jay Nock was a brilliant social critic. He never tried to pass his ideas off as “bold” and “new,” but in fact did the contrary. Nock stuck with well-established ideas that at many times were, quite frankly, ancient. His talent was to see things from a different angle, offering a fresh slant on what was happening during the times.
Nock, like Henry David Thoreau, was concerned about the quality of life lived, and believed that a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to do without. The emphasis was inner transformation rather than outward activity.
Regarding collectivism, Robert M. Thorton says of Nock:
Nock would have nothing to do with collectivism of his day. As was said of Kierkegaard, AJN “stationed himself to defend the individual against any philosophical, political, or religious teaching that tended to slack off this consciousness of the individual's essential responsibility and integrity.” Neither was Nock tempted by the activism of his fellow “intellectuals” who for more than 50 years have been guilty of treason because they have willingly deserted the cause of truth and, in Russell Kirk's words, gone “a-whoring after strange gods, whose blandishments both the traditions of their culture and the discipline of their profession should able them to resist.” The disinterested love of truth has been replaced by a lust for power and prestige …
The following is a collection of thoughts by Albert Jay Nock, on politics and politicians. These and much more, can be found in “Cogitations from Albert Jay Nock,” a collection of quotations compiled by Robert M. Thorton.
Politics and Politicians:
“How interesting it is, that in this most pretentious and swaggering country, a man can get himself elected to any kind of office on the strength of any kind of promises, then disregard them at his utter pleasure, with no action taken, or even any notice given.”
“Indeed, the very cartoons on the subject show how widely it has come to be accepted that party platforms, with their cant of 'issues,' are so much sheer quackery, and that campaign promises are merely another name for thimble-rigging. The workaday practice of politics has been invariably opportunist, or in other words, invariably comfortable to the primary function of the State; and it is largely for this reason that the State's service exerts its most powerful attraction upon an extremely low and sharp-set type of individual.”
“I once voted at a Presidential election. There being no real issue at stake, and neither candidate commanding any respect whatever, I cast my vote for Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. I knew Jeff was dead, but I voted on Artemus Ward's principle that if we can't have a live man who amounts to anything, by all means let's have a first-class corpse. I still think that vote was as effective as any of the millions that have been cast since then.”
“It occurred to me then, how little important it is to destroy a government, in comparison with destroying the prestige of government.”
“The old proverb about politics making strange bedfellows is quite wrong; it makes the most natural bedfellows in the world. Crook lies down with crook in any bed that interest offers; swine snoozes with swine on the litter of any pen that interest opens.”
“The simple truth is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government that they can use.”
“At any time after 1936 it was evident that a European war would not be unwelcome to the Administration at Washington; largely as a means of diverting public attention from its flock of uncouth economic chickens on their way home to roost, but chiefly as a means of strengthening its malign grasp upon the country's political and economic machinery.”
“I wonder sometimes – though knowing our public as I do, I should not – why so few people seem aware that the principle of absolutism was introduced into the Constitution by the income-tax amendment.”
