Reply to Critics

Abstract

In his characteristically insightful comments, Ulas Ince questions why I bypass what he sees as the manifestly liberal features of Burke’s political economy. For Ince, my book misses the opportunity to discuss the ways in which Burke’s economic liberalism is imbricated within his simultaneous commitment to political illiberalism, or what I have called Burke’s conservatism. There is a good deal to be said for Ince’s view—not least that it gestures at more contemporary admixtures of liberalism and conservatism—but I wonder if he is perhaps too quick to overlook significant differences between Burke and liberal political economists like his friend Adam Smith. Here, I mention three such differences briefly.