Intruderism

The propensity of political and commercial forces to trample upon the territory of families and civil society.

Liam Fox MP (as Tory Chairman) has lectured on the “intruder state” - a state that by high taxation and heavy regulation crowds out the ability of adult citizens to lead independent and responsible lives.

But conservatives should also seek to defend free people from “intruder capitalism”. While the market economy certainly provides the best foundation for prosperity, Conservatives also know that the market is a better servant than it is a master. Its excesses need to be tamed...

Big businesses harm well-being when it forces parents to work unsociable hours...

…promotes dangerous levels of indebtedness...

...or pollutes the natural environment because businesses fail to price the external costs of their activities.

Conservatives are not laissez-faire capitalists and must defend the ‘moral-cultural’ sphere - families, places of worship, charities and many other Burkean small platoons - from any excessive market or state power.

Professor Michael Novak, a Catholic theologian, believes that power should be distributed across the political, economic and ‘moral-cultural’ spheres. He has said that a society functions best when the three independent spheres each perform their roles without intruding upon each other.