The Political Economy of Edmund Burke: The Role of Property in His Thought

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Fordham Univ Press, 1995 - 185 pages

In Edmund Burke: A Bibliography of Secondary Studies to 1982 Clara Gandy and Peter Stanlis write, "One of the large unanswered questions is how Burke's economic theory is related to his political theory, and whether they are complementary or contradictory." Canavan is the first to offer a book-length treatment of this question, and in so doing, he places the strength of his argument largely on primary sources rather than a patchwork of previous interpretations. Canavan aims to show that Burke's own emphasis was no on capitalistic laissez-fair economics, as has been assumen, but that his goals were primarily political and cultural. Namely, Burke sought the preservation and development of an aristocratic and Christian civilization supported economically by a leading class of landed property owners.

This study projects a new profile of Burke which challenges C.B. Macpherson's sketch of him as a bourgeois capitalist, or, as depicted by J.B. Plumb and Frank O'Gorman, as a hired philsopher of the Whig Oligarchy. Nor does Canavan's study present the philosopher as one who would "declare war on the poor," as Gertrude Himmelfarb charged in her The Idea of Poverty. Burke emerges from Canavan's treatment as a Whiug who admired paternalistic government by the rich and virtuous whom he felt would govern as trustees for the benefit of the whole people. Burke did not support the notion that property by monopolized by any one class in society, but wanted the wealthy to empower intermediary institutions which would hold in check the control of the expansive state, whether that meant the Crown in Britain or the revolutionary state in France.

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Contents

III
1
IV
24
V
47
VI
70
VII
97
VIII
116
IX
147
X
177
XI
181
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Page 143 - Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the...
Page 73 - If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an institution of beneficence ; and law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule.
Page 75 - What the state ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion.
Page 136 - Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favour. In this partnership all men have equal rights ; but not to equal things.
Page 48 - Far am I from denying in theory ; full as far is my heart from withholding in practice, (if I were of power to give or to withhold,) the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would totally destroy.
Page 136 - They have a right to the fruits of their industry, and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents ; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring ; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself ; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favour.
Page 73 - Men have a right to live by that rule ; they have a right to do justice ; as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in politick function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry ; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents ; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring ; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death.
Page 84 - The characteristic essence of property, formed out of the combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be unequal. The great masses therefore which excite envy, and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations.
Page 84 - Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state, that does not represent its ability, as well as its property. But as ability is a vigorous and active principle, and as property is sluggish, inert, and timid, it never can be safe from the invasion of ability, unless it be, out of all proportion, predominant in the representation.

About the author (1995)

Francis Canavan, S.J., is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Fordham University.

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