Conservatism

Origins

  • Late 18th

  • Response to French Revolution: replacement of monarchy and artistocracy with constitution and representative government

  • Focus on: custom, tradition and continuity

  • Pragmatic: abstract principles (e.g. liberty) could not found society and would result in suffering and failure

    → Anti-revolutionary

  • Change to conserve

    • Opposition of radical change

    • Change should be incremental, building upon what already works

      → Conserve already valuable instiutions

  • Burke: ‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation’ (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

  • Philosophy of imperfection

    • Human nature is fundamentally flawed and limited

      → e.g. Work of Thomas Hobbes

  • Organic society over individualism

    • Dependent on trust and work between ‘little platoons’ (Burke)

  • State must provide order, peace and stability to achieve freedom

  • Power rooted in hierachy and authority

Ideology

  • Tensions between one-nationism and NR

    → Some: politically inchoherent

  • Oakshott: ‘more psychology than ideology’

  • Critics: merely a defence of property, privilege and inequality

    → e.g. gradual change

  • Attacked FR for its attempts to ‘change and pervert the natural order of things’

  • Lacks an end goal: no concrete view of a goal society to progress towards

Traditional Conservatism (FR → L C19th)

  • Hierarchy

    • Human nature and society naturally divided by wealth, status and power

  • Paternalism:

    • Ruling elite have sense of obligation and duty to the many

    • Government should reflect this and govern in their best interests

    • Government has clearer view of these best interests

  • Order:

    • Government provides clear rules, discipline and guidance to ensure stable society

    • Ensures freedom benefits everyone and is not abused

  • Freedom:

    • Attitudes and limits to freedom allow everyone to enjoy responsibly

    • Provided by insitutitions

    • Good behaviour will be reciprocated by others

  • Social attitudes:

    • There are proven moral values that have provided stability

      • e.g. traditional marriage, gender roles

    • Individual freedoms should be limited to protect these

      → Ensure cohesion and stability for all

  • Society is a collection of ‘little platoons’:

    • Provides security, order and stability (desired by an individual)

    • A highly centralised state would be damaging

  • Change to conserve

  • Empiricism:

    • Ideas should be based off of what works most effectively rather than theories or abstract ideas

      → Pragmatic and flexible approach to tackling problems

One-Nation Conservatism (L C19th → L C20th)

  • Threat of disorder:

    • Emerged from socialist threats to the order of state and society

      → Updates ideas to deal with this

  • One nation:

    • Conservatism should emphasise the trust and relationships that hold society together as part of a nation

    • Society is organic: all classes and groups are part of one nation

      → Damage to one will damage the whole

    • Disraeli: ‘the palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy’

  • Change to conserve:

    • Disraeli concerned with impacts of an unchecked free market on society

    • Accepted rise of big cities and commercialism as inevitable

      → Did not want reactionary policies to force a move back to previous times

    • Wanted to tackle worst consequences to conserve, reform

  • Paternalism

    • Wealthy have a responsibility to the less fortunate

    • State intervene in free-market economy and society to ensure social stability

  • e.g. Disraeli: Public Health Act 1875

  • e.g. Johnson: levelling up

New Right (M20th → Now)

  • Origins:

    • Reaction to rise of authoritarian regimes in C20th (e.g. Nazi Germany, Soviet Union)

    • Response to growth in state in Western Democracies after WW2: welfare state and increased taxation

  • Small state:

    • Inspired by Rand idea of ‘morality of rational self-interest’

    • State should be rolled back to facilitate this

      → e.g. limited to providing armed forces, police force and a court system

    • Oppose public spending on welfare as unjust, creating a dependency culture

      → Why should individuals bother to work if the state will provide for them anyway?

  • Free-market capitalism:

    • Market forces are best method for distribution and management of resources

    • Deep cuts in taxation

    • Privatisation

    • Deregulation

    • Tight restrictions on government spending

    • Trickle-down economics

  • Society:

    • Neo-conservatives:

      • Anti-permissive

      • Would extend role of state to promote traditional family values

        → Restriction of liberty

      • Increase spending in defence and foreign affairs

      • e.g. fear impact of immigration on social cohesion and national identity

    • Neo-liberals:

      • Advocate society based on individual choice

      • State should not intervene in areas of private morality

        → Advancement of individual liberty through reduction of tax and welfare state

      • Roll back frontiers of the state, minimise spending

      • e.g. relaxed about immigration as free movement of people is inevitable in a free market

    • Agreement:

      • Strong but limited state to counteract inequality created by free-market economics

      • Smaller state means those in need require support from their ‘little platoons’

      • Reduce funding in areas like welfare to concentrate on law and order and nationalism

Government

  • Necessary to provide order, security and stability

  • Should be limited in size

  • Should be committed to preserving and protecting the nation-state

  • Disagreement as to how far this role should extend into economy and individual choices

Free-market capitalism

  • Right to private property

  • Will provide wealth for all

  • One-nationists: paternalistic approach

    • Inequality, immigrant labour threaten stability → intervention

  • Neo-liberals: minimise to reward individual hard work

The Individual

  • Freedom and choice are important

  • BUT state needs to provide stability and order for this to exist

    → Strong law and order measures

  • Traditional: interventionist state to protect organic society

  • Neo-liberal: society is atomistic

Human Nature

  • Pessimistic

  • Humans are falliable and weak

  • Perfect society is therefore unrealistic and dangerous

    → Liberal idea of society built by rational individuals is not based in true human nature

  • Hobbes:

    • Cynical: humans are selfish, fearful and diven by a desire for power

    • BUT human nature is rational

      → Closer to liberalism

  • Burke:

    • Scepitcal: humans are not flawless and cannot be perfected

    • BUT not individualistic or selfish

    • Flawed but capable of goodness to others if their actions are based on custom and tradition

    • Humans naturally seek bonds with others in little platoons

  • Oakeshott:

    • ‘fragile and falliable’

    • Instinctive preference for known over unknown

    • Security, lives shaped by custom and traditional morality

      → ‘benign and benevolent’

    • Focus on imperfection

      → Highlights human falliability over potential

      → Opposition to utopian ideals of radical movements

    • Politics of scepticism

  • Rand and Nozick:

    • More positive: humans are rational individuals who are dignified in pursuit of their own goals

    • New Right leaves individuals to make their own choices

The State

  • Cental purpose is to provide national security and law and order

  • Hobbes:

    • Social contract to create a sovereign

    • Sovereign has absolute power to ensure order and stability

  • Burke:

    • No social contract, only a contract between the living, dead and those yet to be born

    • State is natural and organic

    • Emergece gradually in response to human needs

    • Hierarchy is natural and should be used in best interests of the less fortunate

    • Opposed to centralised and remote state structures

  • Traditional:

    • Active role in protecting and promoting interests of citizens

    • Paternalist

    • Moderate social reform and intervention can be justified to benefit the less fortunate

  • Oakshott:

    • Should be guided by pragmatism

  • New Right:

    • Should be small

    • Exists for national security, enforcing contracts and maintaining order

  • Nozick:

    • Distributive justice (taxation and welfare state) was unjust, legalised theft of wealth

    • Compared taxation to ‘forced labour’

Society

  • Traditional:

    • Paternalistic

    • Natural, organic

    • Individual bound together by common ties, obligations and responsibilities

    • Prioritise traditional, custom and continuity

      → Attempt to overhaul risk damage

    • Shared views, Judeo-Christian moral values

  • Hobbes:

    • Society could only exist when stability, authority and order were present

    • Requires obedience and loyalty to the sovereign

  • Burke:

    • ‘little platoons’

    • Organic, natural hierarchy

  • Oakeshott:

    • Importance of the known, tried and tested

    • Change should be rooted in the past and realistic

  • New Right:

    • Rand and Nozick challenged organic view

      • Atomistic

      • Individuals rationally pursue their own ends

    • Society has no right to restrict the individual, should be free to make own choices

      → e.g. Rand admitted finding homosexuality ‘disgusting’ but did not believe it should be banned or restricted