5. Modern Conservatism

Today's conservatism is widely and profoundly misunderstood. The reason for this confusion is that modern conservatism is not a single, coherent political position, but rather a mix of two discrete positions that were artificially combined to undergird capitalist power. As noted in section one, traditional conservatism reflected the ideas and interests of the feudal landowners. Thus it was fiercely opposed to capitalism, and it was genuinely concerned about the fate of the populace under the brutal discipline of the industrial machine. What needs to be explained is how this early, anti-capitalist conservatism was transformed into today's fiercely pro-capitalist version.

In seeking an explanation it is useful to envisage the challenges faced by the early capitalists as they attempted to wrest political power from the landowning class and then to maintain their dominance. Their first challenge was to imbue society with the economic ideas that distinguish capitalism from feudalism: labor freed from medieval restrictions, unfettered trade and enterprise, rapid economic expansion, ruthless increases in productivity and efficiencies, etc. Their second challenge was to gain the support of the populace in order to avoid an intolerable level of social instability. Briefly stated, the early capitalists faced the conundrum of implanting capitalist logic in the economic sphere while achieving legitimacy in the social sphere.

This was not an easy problem to solve. Most people at the time were strongly committed to the security, stability, and communal orientation of feudal life. They could to some degree be lured with the increased consumption that capitalism made possible, but this was largely a future prospect, and it did not fully compensate them for the social and personal losses they endured.

To see how this problem was tackled, recall first that the political position which represented capitalist logic during this period was called liberalism (from the Latin "liber", meaning "free"). To avoid confusion with today's usage, this is now called classical liberalism. Thus, without developing a new political ideology, the early capitalists could choose between two existing positions: traditional conservatism and classical liberalism. Could either of these serve their purposes?

Traditional conservatism was the ideology of the landowning class that the capitalists were trying to supplant, and its economic principles contradicted those of the new system. On the other hand it embodied social principles that resonated deeply with the populace. It was therefore bad for economics, but good for legitimacy. Classical liberalism, on the other hand, embraced capitalism's economic principles but rejected the social ideas that would keep the populace in check. It was therefore good for economics, but bad for legitimacy.

Clearly, neither traditional conservatism nor classical liberalism fully met capitalist needs. However, traditional conservatism came closer because it satisfied that most fundamental of all political requirements - popular support. Given this support, the capitalist class could assume power and gradually instill the economic ideas in the populace. Without it, power was impossible and the ideas would founder, no matter how fervently they were championed by the classical liberals.

This thought process was the basis for modern conservatism. The key idea was to use the term "conservatism" and its social ideas to placate the masses, but to incorporate the ideas of classical liberalism to serve the new economic system. The fact that the resulting combination was conceptually incoherent was only a minor impediment. Once power was attained, intellectuals were hired to weave the mix into a presentable whole. Then propaganda - especially education - was used to ensure that even sophisticated members of society embraced the manufactured story. Today, few people have any idea that the conservatism they know is an artificial construct based not on a distinct political posture, but on the two basic requirements of capitalist power.