(The latest version of this page is at Pattern Descriptions. An archived copy of this page is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition02/624.htm)
Conservatives see the status quo in historical terms, arguing that it has been arrived at through collective experience and that it provides the soundest foundation upon which to proceed. Some aspects of the British Conservative and Unionist Party are conservative in the sense used in this book, but that party contains a spectrum of opinion and its policies can change, as has already been noted; Thatcherism was a radical political change, for example. The key tenets of conservatism, as understood in this book, are:
In the current way of life there is something of value, which should be conserved and should be handed to the next generation in at least as good a condition as it is in now.
Experience is better than trying to implement a theory; idealists are to be distrusted.
Experience resides in existing institutions and in market forces, which should therefore be respected.
Legitimacy stems from competence.
Radical change is to be avoided.
Concentrated power is to be distrusted (partly because political power is temporary).
The last of these is in a different category from the first five, but there is a connection: politicians and governments come and go, and have less experience of any single subject than the collective knowledge within specialist permanent institutions. It is therefore argued, in this form of conservatism,[1] that it is safer to leave most of the power to institutions and markets allowing them to make most of the detailed administrative decisions. Conservatives of this type have something in common with individualists in their desire for a small role for central government, which is why the two groups are often to be found in the same political party as is the case with Republicans in America even though the underlying reasoning is different, as Hayek pointed out (6.2.1).
Edmund Burkes description of the British political system in the late 18th century amounted to a definition of conservatism, when he wrote:
By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new; in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete. [2]
This description emphasised gradual evolution within a framework of continuity, founded on accumulated wisdom mysterious because it is now partly unconscious or its origin is forgotten. Burkes vision of conservatism was described by Thomas Sowellas being consistent with a constrained vision of mankind that placed its trust in:
the social experience of the many, as embodied in behaviour, sentiments, and habits, rather than the specially articulated reason of the few, however talented or gifted those few might be. [3]
The advantages of conservatism come from stability and the consequent likelihood that it will provide competent management. It has to be considered as an approach to government, rather than an ideology, because its starting point is the status quo which varies according to time and place; on the issue of homosexuality, for example, the PVV party in the Netherlands takes an opposite view from Marine Le Pen's Front National which has the values of French Catholicism.[4]
Conservatism is based on experience, so it has the advantage of conforming to people's expectations and it is unlikely to lead to chaos pragmatism is less risky than pursuit of ideals such as justice or equality. But, although it allows for gradual evolution, it can fail to adapt sufficiently quickly to change. Traditional religion has usually adopted a conservative position and has lent legitimacy to monarchies and dictatorships in Europe as a reaction against Enlightenment thinking and progressivism. Burkes vision was utopian: maintaining the status quo, or only modifying it slightly, works well in a stable environment but todays world is changing very rapidly. With improved communications people quickly become aware of what is happening elsewhere and can mobilise support for change in their own countries. Conservatism depends on people being patient and obedient to their leaders, but this is an increasingly unrealistic assumption.
Conservatism can also be dystopian: it can be used to defend the interests of an elite political class and to ignore peoples wishes. It is then imposing governance without negotiation. In Burkes Britain of the late 18th century, conservatism was associated with defending the interests of the landed gentry, in a democracy which was very imperfect at that time.[5]
Extreme conservatism can be regressive: not just trying to stem the tide of change but to retreat to an idealised notion of the past. The Taliban has used religion to justify a very regressive position, which is often termed fundamentalist: meaning retreat to a form of Shariah lawwhich was considered appropriate to nomadic Islamic societies in the 9th century.[6]
PatternsofPower.org, 2014
[1] Michael Oakeshott described distributed power in the following terms:
In short, we consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited power no leader, faction, party or class, no majority, no government, church, corporation, trade or professional association or trade union. The secret of its freedom is that it is composed of a multitude of organizations in the constitution of the best of which is reproduced that diffusion of power which is characteristic of the whole.
This appeared in The Political Economy of Freedom, in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, p. 41. He was writing about Britain in 1949 but it is no longer a valid description of British society, which now has more power vested in central government.
Burkes famous quotation on distributed power, in Reflections on the French Revolution para. 75, argued that it also increases social cohesion:
To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.
This work was available in May 2014 at www.bartleby.com/24/3/.
[2] Edmund Burke, op. cit. para. 57.
[3] Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions, p. 37. Sowell refers to Burke as an example of having a constrained vision of mankind, mentioning him more than than 30 times in this book. The unconstrained vision, by contrast, would vest too much power in the hands of persuasive politicians or in the State.
[4] On 25 April 2014, The Economist published an article entitled Future of the right which described how conservative parties have different sets of values in France, the Netherlands and the US; it was available at http://www.economist.com/node/21601365.
[5] Edmund Burke, op. cit., para. 83, defended giving hereditary owners of property a role in government:
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends hereditary possession, (as most concerned in it) are the natural securities for this transmission. With us the House of Peers is formed upon this principle. It is wholly composed of hereditary property and hereditary distinction; and made therefore the third of the legislature; and, in the last event, the sole judge of all property in all its subdivisions. The House of Commons too, though not necessarily, yet in fact, is always so composed, in the far greater part.
Harold Laski criticised this aspect of Burkes thinking, in Political Thought from Locke to Bentham, particularly in pp. 204-6. In the electoral system in 1790, when Burke was writing, few men and no women were allowed to vote and the representation was very distorted.
[6] Reza Aslan, in his book No god but God, described the Sunna, which provide the source material for much of the Shariah, as "thousands upon thousands of stories, or hadith, that claim to recount Muhammad's words and deeds as well as those of the earliest Companions" (p.163). The Sunna were written in the ninth century (two centuries after the death of the prophet Muhammad), and Aslan characterised them in these terms:
"the Sunna is a far better reflection of the opinions of the ninth-century Ulama [religious scholars] than of the seventh-century Ummah [Muslim community]" (p. 164).
Irrespective of the accuracy of this historical account of the development of the Shariah, it is self-evident that rules designed for people living in the desert in the ninth century cannot be applied to people living in pluralist societies in the 21st century without a considerable and serious effort to interpret them particularly to distinguish between religious principles and a description of a culture prevalent at that time. The attempt to impose a ninth-century code of conduct in today's society is an extreme example of a political approach which is described in this book as 'regressive'.