Wendell Berry's communitarian conservatism.

Poet and environmental activist Wendell Berry urges people to start thinking about "local solutions" to "global problems". His critique of "sentimental communism" and "sentimental capitalism", as described below, is essentially a moral critique-- and one that should give conservatives pause, since Berry is relying on a strong notion of personal responsibility for his argument.

We live, as we must sooner or later recognize, in an era of sentimental economics and, consequently, of sentimental politics. Sentimental communism holds in effect that everybody and everything should suffer for the good of "the many" who, though miserable in the present, will be happy in the future for exactly the same reasons that they are miserable in the present.
Sentimental capitalism is not so different from sentimental communism as the corporate and political powers claim. Sentimental capitalism holds in effect that everything small, local, private, personal, natural, good and beautiful must be sacrificed in the interest of the "free market" and the great corporations, which will bring unprecedented security and happiness to "the many" — in, of course, the future.

These forms of political economy may be described as sentimental because they depend absolutely upon a political faith for which there is no justification, and because they issue a cold check on the virtue of political and/or economic rulers. They seek, that is, to preserve the gullibility of the people by appealing to a fund of political virtue that does not exist.

Communism and "free-market" capitalism both are modern versions of oligarchy. In their propaganda, both justify violent means by good ends, which always are put beyond reach by the violence of the means. The trick is to define the end vaguely "the greatest good of the greatest number" or "the benefit of the many" — and keep it at a distance.

The fraudulence of these oligarchic forms of economy is in their principle of displacing whatever good they recognize (as well as their debts) from the present to the future. Their success depends upon persuading people, first, that whatever they have now is no good, and, second, that the promised good is certain to be achieved in the future. This obviously contradicts the principle — common, I believe, to all the religious traditions — that if ever we are going to do good to one another, then the time to do it is now; we are to receive no reward for promising to do it in the future. And both communism and capitalism have found such principles to be a great embarrassment. If you are presently occupied in destroying every good thing in sight in order to do good in the future, it is inconvenient to have people saying things like "Love thy neighbour as thyself" or "Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them." Communists and capitalists alike, "liberal" capitalists and "conservative" capitalists alike, have needed to replace religion with some form of determinism, so that they can say to their victims, "I’m doing this because I can’t do otherwise. It is not my fault. It is inevitable."

Berry's poetry often reveals his communitarian hand, as, for example, in The Hidden Singer and The Real Work. For those interested in Berry's approach to political problems, Home Economics is the primer. Notable essays include "The Failure of War" and "Conserving Communities". Jordan Fisher-Smith also has a good interview with Berry available on the web. For something slightly less elegaic, take a look at Berry's poem for Monica Lewinsky, Do Not Be Ashamed.