Some thoughts on conservatism, part one
The first is something which has been sticking in my craw for some time. It seems that especially in the United States, conservatives don't have a very clear understanding of what the word "conservative" itself means.
Today's categories of "left" and "right" originated in France. During the French Revolution, those who favored the monarchy or at least a moderate policy sat to the presiding officer's right and those who wanted to abolish the monarchy and held the most radical positions- the Jacobins, for example- sat to his left. Due to the peculiarities of English and even more American history, the term "conservative" and the concept of the political "right" have developed some unique and idiosyncratic philosophical meanings which are not true of "conservative" political movements elsewhere, either today or in the past. More on that in a moment.
First of all, let's understand what, in general, the terms "conservative" and "the right" really mean. They do not have absolute philosophical connotations. Rather they are relative terms which can apply to a variety of political philosophies depending on the cultural and political context in which they arise. Historically and in terms of non-Anglo Saxon history, "conservative" has always meant simply what the word itself implies: support of the status quo. "The right" is that party which favors traditionalism, caution, and is reluctant to embrace change; "the left" is the party which favors a departure from the status quo and places less value on tradition than on what it sees as "progress." One may debate whether what American "progressives" stand for necessarily represents "progress," but the Left's theoretical embrace of change is the reason why today's favored term for the American left tends to be embraced by the Left all over the world.
So if one were to come up with a baseline definition of "the right" and "conservatism," it would be simply "the party of the status quo."
It doesn't fundamentally matter what the status quo might be.
"The left," on the other hand, is by general definition the party of change.
Again, it doesn't matter what kind of change is being advocated.
In England, the nature of the government and of the society have changed over time. Once, King John was the definition of "conservative," and the barons were the "progressives." Modern British or American "progressives' would have been as reluctant to identify with the "progressive" party at Runnymede as modern British or American "conservatives" would be to claim an absolutist monarch!
Over time, the terms evolved along with British politics and society. It was Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative governments which extended the franchise to the point at which Britain became, really for the first time in its history, a true democracy; previously, the aristocracy ran even Parliament through a system of "rotten boroughs" and gerrymandered ridings which constituted more of a parliamentary oligarchy.
But then, conservatism has never been necessarily opposed to all change. It merely regards it with suspicion and even when it is clearly necessary wants to be slow and careful in its implementation. Disraeli's Conservatives and Gladstone's Liberals both favored reform at a time when British politics and society were badly in need of it; it's a testimony to the health of Britain's body politic even then that both tendencies and both parties based on those tendencies saw the need, and disagreed chiefly about the pace at which it ought to take place.
Our American system was founded on the notion of individual liberty. Here- and uniquely here- "conservatism" has therefore meant small, non-intrusive government, decentralized government (we have a federal system, after all), and all the values American conservatives associate with the terms "conservative" and "the right." But very few of them seem to realize that this definition doesn't apply generally. "Conservatism" worldwide has more often meant authoritarianism than libertarianism, and a centralized, strong government rather than a decentralized, weak one. The word does not have a consistent philosophical meaning from country to country, culture to culture, or age to age. It only deals with a position's posture as regards the status quo. Thus, even in America, we had antebellum conservatives favoring chattel slavery, and the left (i.e., the Abolitionists, who favored a break with custom and tradition as regards American slavery) opposing it.
This is a difficult point for American conservatives to get their heads around. I've heard intelligent people like Dinesh D'Souza and Gene Edward Veith argue that National Socialism was a movement of the left. Those on the left, of course, argue that it was a movement of the right. Which side is correct?
Both are- depending on the aspect of National Socialism one is examining. The word "socialist" in the party's name was to some extent a bid for the votes of the working class, but there is no question but that the Nazis maintained a centralized economy in which the government had the final say. Yet it was not, strictly speaking, a socialist economy; the leading industrialists like the Krupp family and I.G. Farben and Messerschmidt retained control of their companies and except insofar as their decisions interfered with state economic policy they continued to run them. The state simply guaranteed them a monopoly- hardly a "leftist" phenomenon as regards private industrialists!
American conservatives tend to miss the point that whatever their political implications, socialism, and capitalism are economic philosophies, not political ones. Was the Nazi economic system- which in fact might best be described as "state capitalism-" a philosophy of the right, or of the left? It was both and neither. But what about its political system?
There, American conservatives tend to trip over their own idiosyncratic definitions. As American conservatives (but no one else) define "left" and "right," it was clearly- as D'Souza and Veith and others argue- a movement of the left; it favored a restriction of individual rights and a strong, centralized government. Yet clearly the pre-revolutionary monarchy in France and the Tsarist regime in Russia- which also maintained strong centralized governments and severely restricted individual rights- were hardly institutions of the left!
And the same is true of the overwhelming majority of the most coercive, rights-restricting, centralized governments in history. Based as they have been on long-standing authoritarian traditions in which kings ruled by divine right at the head of virtually omnipotent central governments and individuals has only those rights which their "betters" saw fit to allow them, it's simply impossible to avoid the point that from the standpoint of world history it has been "the right," rather than "the left-" the partisans of the status quo rather than the partisans of change- who for the most part have been history's authoritarians and totalitarians. The definition of "right" and "left" used by American conservatives simply doesn't apply outside our borders- or necessarily even within them!
As eager as American conservatives are to claim the founder of the Democratic party, Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson, as their spiritual forebear, Jefferson- sympathizer with the French Revolution and spokesman for the party favoring a clear break with the aristocratic and monarchial traditions of a Great Britain which in the age of Lord North and George III was hardly the same nation that at long last became a true democracy during the reigns of Victoria and Edward- was unquestionably the leader of the American left, while Federalist John Adams, who sympathized with the English monarchy in foreign policy and place in history is marred by his support of the authoritarian and obviously unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts, was clearly, in the context of the America of his day, the leader of the conservative faction!
Were National Socialism- or, for that matter, Soviet and Chinese Communism- movements of the right or of the left? American conservatives do not hesitate to insist that they all were or are movements of the left, and the Marxist rhetoric and theoretical justification of the Soviet and Chinese Communist regimes support that viewpoint. Certainly, all had centralized, managed economies, and despite the odd combination of capitalistic and socialistic elements in the Nazis system might well be described as economically leftist. By the definition used by American conservatives, they all would be politically leftist as well, being authoritarian, centralized governments which restricted individual rights and concentrated power in a strong central government.
But none of them are movements of the left by any other definition, and certainly not within the context of their own national histories. The United States is unique in being built on a tradition which actually favors individual liberties and a decentralized government, and thus in which support for these things is conservative. But Germany, Russia, and China are all nations with a long - and with the exception of post-World War II Germany- unbroken history of authoritarianism and what by American or contemporary British standards would be tyrannical governments. Germany is somewhat unique in having become a true nation relatively late. But the fact remains that central core of the unified German nation and the force which eventually brought that unification about was the authoritarian state of Prussia.
There is no escaping the point that whatever might be said of the economics of their regimes, the authoritarian and even totalitarian governments of Nazi Germany, Russia, and China were all, within the context of the histories, cultures, and traditions of the nations involved, governments of the right. They were authoritarian or even totalitarian governments ruling nations whose traditions were profoundly authoritarian, and to the degree that all of them were even more authoritarian than the governments of the right which they replaced, they were reactionary rather than progressive. They were not movements of the left, marking a change in direction, but movements even further to the right than were the governments they replaced, representing (in practice, if not necessarily in theory) intensifications of the statist, authoritarian traditions of the nations which they ruled rather than their abandonment.
The point is not to commit the same mistake so many American conservatives make and try to superimpose American history (and thus American political categories) on the governments of other nations with other political traditions. While throughout history it has been authoritarianism and statism rather than liberty and decentralized government which has characterized movements of the right and the values espoused by American conservatives which have most commonly been those of the left in other nations, the whole point is that "right" and "left" have no universal political meaning. Rather the terms only have meaning within a specific culture and political tradition, and each might stand for the very opposite of what they stand for in one country or era than in another.
In my next post, I'll develop this theme further, and examine how I believe these categories apply to the Trump administration. But having said that much, I think it only fair to say that I do not agree with those who equate the present administration with Nazism or even Fascism (though I must admit to having gone a little bit overboard in my criticism of Mr. Trump in having identified him more closely with the latter in the past than I should have). I continue to have grave concerns about the authoritarian basis of the Trump administration and the degree to which it is the very essence of the Trump movement.
But it is also my deep conviction that Donald Trump and his administration are not, in any sense (and certainly in the context of the American political experience), conservative at all.
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