Conservatism in the United States

For related and other uses, see Conservatism (disambiguation)

American conservatism is a heterogenous political movement that incorporates many different ideologies under the blanket heading of conservative. Included are social conservatives, economic conservatives, and religious conservatives. Modern American conservatism coalesced in the latter half of the 20th Century, initially in response to the years of political and social change associated with the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the women's liberation movement.

Groups who identify themselves as conservative tend to vote Republican or Libertarian, and include

Some libertarians or classical liberals who favor a laissez-faire economic system and limited government. They oppose the expanded role of government in America that came about during the New Deal and the Great Society.

Religious and social conservatives, especially evangelical Protestants, observant Roman Catholics, and Orthodox Jews, who typically favor more government support for their form of "traditional" "family values".

Fiscal conservatives and businessmen who support lower taxes, reduced government intervention in the marketplace, and reduced regulation of business activities.

Supporters of a strong American military, such as neoconservatives who support the use of American military power to defend American interests throughout the world, but also isolationists who believe in American military strength but not in foreign intervention,

Supporters of Federalism, state's rights, and limitations on the scope of federal spending.

In the United States, many people who call themselves conservatives believe strongly in the Judeo-Christian social tradition and strict construction of the U.S. Constitution. The recent ascendancy of conservatism in the U.S. is attributable to several factors. Arguably, one of the most prominent of these factors has been the emergence of influential economists, politicians, writers, and media personalities whose work has helped shape public opinion.

A brief history of American conservatism

Early 20th Century American Conservative thought

In the United States, the Old Right, also called the Old Guard, was a group of libertarian, free-market anti-interventionists, originally associated with the Republicans of the interwar years led by Robert Taft. They managed to split the Republican party in two during the 1912 presidential election, with the progressives following Theodore Roosevelt and forming the United States Progressive Party, and causing Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Candidate, to win. They successfully fought to cut down immigration in the 1920s. They also opposed United States membership of the League of Nations and the New Deal, and later opposed US military intervention in Korea. According to historian and political theorist Murray Rothbard, "the libertarian intellectuals were in the minority...[and] theirs was the only thought-out contrasting ideology to the New Deal."

They were called the "Old Right" to distinguish them from their anti-communist New Right successors, who were more friendly to big government, foreign military intervention, and domestic economic intervention. Their successors and torchbearers in the late 20th century and present century are paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians. Both of these groups often rally behind Old Right slogans like "America First" while sharing similar views to the Old Right opposition to the New Deal.

Later 20th Century: Goldwater, Buckley, the Dixiecrats

In 1950, the American liberal ideology was so intellectually dominant in the U.S. that Lionel Trilling would famously state, "In the United States at this time, liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition... there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in circulation, [merely] irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." [Lapham 2004] Trilling's observation, however, heralded the explosive growth in American conservative organizations and ideas that accompanied the tumult of the Civil Rights Era and the Presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater.

One particularly notable conservative element were the southern Democrats, some of whom bolted the party as the third-party Dixiecrats, backing Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential candidacy. Conservatism is a large political philosophy, and its central tenets may be used as justification for or opposition to civil rights legislation. U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, sometimes known as "Mr. Conservative," argues in his 1960 Conscience of a Conservative, that conservatives split on the issue of civil rights due to some conservatives advocating ends (integration, even in the face of what they saw as unconstitutional Federal involvement) and some advocating means (constitutionality above all else, even in the face of segregation).

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William F. Buckley

William F. Buckley Jr. founded the conservative political magazine National Review in 1955, and the award-winning television show Firing Line in 1966. He often is credited as the godfather of modern American conservatism.

Ironically, as the Democratic Party became identified with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s through 1970s, many former southern Democrats joined the Republican Party, even in the face of greater proportional support for civil rights legislation among Republicans, thereby increasingly cementing the Republicans' alignment as a conservative party. The resounding electoral defeat of Goldwater as the conservative Republican Presidential candidate by incument President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 was a seminal moment in the fortunes of American conservatives.

The Goldwater campaign, though failing to unseat incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, galvanized the formation of a new political movement. Out of this defeat emerged the New Right, a political movement that coalesced through grassroots organizing in the years preceding the 1964 presidential campaign of conservative icon Barry Goldwater. The American New Right is distinct from and opposed to the more moderate/liberal tradition of the so-called Rockefeller Republicans, and succeeded in building a policy approach and electoral apparatus that propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House in the 1980 presidential election.

Nixon, Reagan, and Bush

The Republican administrations of President Richard Nixon in the 1970s were characterized more by their emphasis on realpolitik, détente, and economic policies such as wage and price controls, than by their adherence to conservative views in foreign and economic policy.

Thus, it was not until the election of 1980 and the subsequent eight years of Ronald Reagan's Presidency that the American conservative movement truly achieved ascendancy. In that election, Republicans took control of the US Senate for the first time in decades, and Conservative principles dominated Reagan's economic and foreign policies, with supply side economics and strict opposition to Communism defining the Administration's philosophy.

An icon of the American conservative movement, Reagan is credited by his supporters with transforming the politics of 1980s America, galvanizing the success of the United States Republican Party, uniting a coalition of economic conservatives who supported his economic policies later known as "Reaganomics," foreign policy conservatives who favored his staunch opposition to Communism and the Soviet Union over the détente of his predecessors, and social conservatives who identified with Reagan's conservative religious and social ideals.

It is hotly debated whether the successive Republican Administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are truly conservative. The younger Bush campaigned in 2000 as a "compassionate conservative," but in his second term, conservative critics have negatively cited his expansion of the Medicare program and his tolerance for increased Federal spending; in contrast, he is often lauded by some conservatives for his committment to conservative social and religious values.

Types of conservatism

Defining "American conservatism" requires a definition of conservatism in general, and the term is applied to a number of ideas and ideologies, some more closely related to core conservative beliefs than others.

1. Classical or institutional conservatism - Opposition to rapid change in governmental and societal institutions. This kind of conservatism is anti-ideological insofar as it emphasizes process (slow change) over product (any particular form of government). To the classical conservative, whether one arrives at a right- or left-leaning government is less important than whether change is effected through rule of law rather than through revolution and sudden innovation.

2. Ideological conservatism or right-wing conservatism -- In contrast to the anti-ideological classical conservatism, right-wing conservatism is, as its name implies, ideological. It is typified by three distinct subideologies: social conservatism, fiscal conservatism, and economic liberalism. Together, these subideologies comprise the conservative ideology of people in some English-speaking countries: separately, these subideologies are incorporated into other political positions.

3. Neoconservatism, in its United States usage, has come to refer to the views of a subclass of conservatives who support a more assertive foreign policy coupled with one or more other facets of social conservatism, in contrast to the typically isolationist views of early- and mid-20th Century conservatives. Neoconservatism was first described by a group of disaffected liberals, and thus Irving Kristol, usually credited as its intellectual progenitor, defined a "neoconservative" as "a liberal who was mugged by reality." Although originally regarded as an approach to domestic policy (the founding instrument of the movement, Kristol's The Public Interest periodical, did not even cover foreign affairs), through the influence of figures like Dick Cheney, Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, Ken Adelman and (Irving's son) Bill Kristol, it has become more famous for its association with the foreign policy of the George W. Bush Administration.

4. Small government conservatism -- In contrast to cultural conservatism, which in recent years has greatly increased the power of the federal government over the states, and more than doubled federal spending, small government conservatives look for a decreased role of the federal government, a return to the states of the power to set educational standards, to legalize or prohibit drugs, abortion, welfare, gun ownership, pornography, marriage, and religion. Small government conservatives agree with cultural conservatives on the strict interpretation of the constitution, but rather than focusing of the strict interpretation of the bill of rights, they focus on the strict interpretation of the clause that reserves to the states all powers not specifically granted to the federal government. The framers of the constitution were suspicious of a centralized, unitary state like the United Kingdom, from which they had just won their freedom.

Conservatism as "Ideology," or political philosophy

In contrast to classical conservatism, social conservatism and economic conservatism are inherently concerned with consequences as well as means (with the modest program of fiscal conservatism lying somewhere between classical conservatism and these more consequentialist political philosophies). Classical conservatives are inherently anti-ideological (some would even say anti-philosophical [1]), promoting rather, as Russell Kirk explains, a steady flow of "prescription and prejudice". Kirk's use of the word "prejudice" here is not intended to carry its contemporary pejorative connotation: a conservative himself, he believes that the inherited wisdom of the ages may be a better guide than apparently rational individual judgment.

Social conservatives, like classical conservatives, are generally skeptical of rapid social change. More so than classical conservatives, they are liable to seek rather strong government intervention to prevent social change. A good example from (as of 2004) contemporary U.S. politics is the issue of same-sex marriage: many social conservatives have supported the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Many people who are more inclined to classical conservatism than social conservatism oppose such an amendment on the grounds that the Constitution ought not be tampered with unnecessarily. The tension in policy is the choice between social goal (defining marriage) and the political means (amending the Constitution). While the goal is arguably conservative, amending the constitution is arguably not conservative. Thus, one will find conservatives on both sides of the issue.

As a contemporary example, the governments of many countries recognize marriage, and even provide legal benefits to married couples. Only a handful of countries, however, recognize marriages of homosexual couples. Those arguing against legal recognition of same-sex marriages often do so because they find the sudden change contrary to the foundation of the existing social norms. The classical American conservative position has been to limit the expansion of the powers of the federal government at the expense of those of the states.

Generally, economic conservatism opposes graduated taxes as counterproductive and inequitable, and instead proposes flat taxes (or, in the case of radical libertarians, proposes to abolish taxes in favor of "user fees"). Further, economic conservatism opposes rampant welfare as unnecessary and even (in the view of Ayn Rand) counterproductive, opposes what it calls "double-taxation" (taxing both companies and individuals along the path of a transaction), and calls for broad deregulation of industry and a substantially decreased government bureaucracy. For some this is a matter of principle, as it is for the libertarians and others influenced by thinkers such as Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises, who believe that government intervention in the economy is inevitably wasteful and inherently immoral. For classical conservatives, "free market economics" simply represents the most efficient way to promote economic growth: they support it not based on some moral principle, but because, pragmatically, it simply "works."

Throughout much of the 20th century, one of the primary forces uniting the occasionally disparate strands of conservatism, and uniting conservatives with their liberal and socialist opponents, was an opposition to communism, which was seen not only as an enemy of the traditional order, but also of western freedom and democracy in general.

Social conservatism and tradition

Main article: Social conservatism

Social conservatism or "Cultural Conservatism" is generally dominated by defense of traditional social norms and values, of local customs and of societal evolution, rather than social upheaval, though the distinction is not absolute. Often based upon religion, modern cultural conservatives, in contrast to "small-government" conservatives and "states-rights" advocates, increasingly turn to the federal government to overrule the states in order to preserve educational and moral standards.

Social conservatives emphasize traditional views of social units such as the family, church, or locale. Social conservatives would typically define family in terms of local histories and tastes. To the Muslim or fundamentalist Mormon, social conservatism may entail support for polygamy. To the Protestant or Catholic, social conservatism may entail support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

From this same respect for local traditions comes the correlation between conservatism and patriotism. Conservatives, out of their respect for traditional, established institutions, tend to strongly identify with nationalist movements, existing governments, and its defenders: police, the military, and national poets, authors, and artists. Conservatives hold that military institutions embody admirable values like honor, duty, courage, and loyalty. Military institutions are independent sources of tradition and ritual pageantry that conservatives tend to admire. In its degenerative form, such respect may become typified by jingoism, populism, and perhaps even bigotry or isolationism.

Support for socially conservative policies may not indicate political conservatism. For example, many Communist parties and most Communist regimes have been very puritanical with respect to sexuality, arguing, for instance, that homosexuality was a bourgeois vice. Examples include the "No Child Left Behind" program, support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting homosexual marriage, support for federal laws overruling states that attempt to legalize marijuana or assisted suicide, and increased power for the federal government to search and detain citizens.

Conversely, while classical conservatives may embrace traditional values in their personal lives, they are generally wary of government intervention into the private lives of citizens, even when that intervention is in support of traditional values.

Fiscal conservatism

Although often conjoined to social or classical conservatism, fiscal conservatism is less of a broad political philosophy and is simply is the stance that the government must "live within its means". Above all, fiscal conservatives oppose excessive government debt; this belief in balanced budgets tends to be coupled with a belief that government welfare programs should be narrowly tailored and that tax rates should be low, which implies relatively small government institutions.

This belief in small government combines with fiscal conservatism to produce a broader economic liberalism, which wishes to minimize government intervention in the economy. This amounts to support for laissez-faire economics. This economic liberalism borrows from two schools of thought: the classical liberals' pragmatism and the libertarian's notion of "rights." The classical liberal maintains that free markets work best, while the libertarian contends that free markets are the only ethical markets.

Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, articulated the principles of fiscal conservatism:

...[I]t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.

In other words, a government doesn't have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer; the taxpayers' right not to be taxed oppressively takes precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken.

Fiscal conservatives tend to be conservative in their entire outlook as are most otherwise defined conservatives, but necessarily, conservative goals at times prohibit certain fiscal conservative goals, vide the Reagan administration due to Cold War expenses. Correspondingly, a nonconservative entity, which holds the notion of fiscal conservatism in low, or, rather, in lower regard than most other considerations may achieve said goals, vide the Clinton administration, though arguably and most probably due to the fiscally conservative Republican majority in the Congress. Regardless, having a balanced budget or, more generally, reducing nondefense discretionary spending is a "conservative" principle, but, as discussed below, there is much more to a broader economic conservatism.

Economic liberalism

The economic philosophy of conservatives in America tends to be liberalism. Economic liberalism can go well beyond fiscal conservatism's concern for fiscal prudence, to a belief or principle that it is not prudent for governments to intervene in markets. It is also, sometimes, extended to a broader "small government" philosophy. Economic liberalism is associated with free-market, or laissez-faire economics.

Economic liberalism, insofar as it is ideological, owes its creation to the "classical liberal" tradition, in the vein of Adam Smith, Friedrich A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig von Mises.

Classical liberals and libertarians support free markets on moral, ideological grounds: principles of individual liberty morally dictate support for free markets. Supporters of the moral grounds for free markets include Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises. The liberal tradition is suspicious of government authority, and prefers individual choice, and hence tends to see capitalist economics as the preferable means of achieving economic ends.

Modern conservatives, on the other hand, derive support for free markets from practical grounds. Free markets, they argue, are the most productive markets. Thus the modern conservative supports free markets not out of necessity, but out of expedience. The support is not moral or ideological, but driven on the Burkean notion of prescription: what works best is what is right.

Another reason why conservatives support a smaller role for the government in the economy is the belief in the importance of the civil society. As noted by Alexis de Tocqueville, a bigger role of the government in the economy will make people feel less responsible for the society. The responsibilities must then be taken over by the government, requiring higher taxes. In his book Democracy in America, De Tocqueville describes this as "soft oppression".

It must be noted that while classical liberals and modern conservatives reached free markets through different means historically, to-date the lines have blurred. Rarely will a politician claim that free markets are "simply more productive" or "simply the right thing to do" but a combination of both. This blurring is very much a product of the merging of the classical liberal and modern conservative positions under the "umbrella" of the conservative movement.

The archetypal free-market conservative administrations of the late 20th century -- the Margaret Thatcher government in the UK and the Ronald Reagan government in the U.S. -- both held the unfettered operation of the market to be the cornerstone of contemporary modern conservatism (this philosophy is sometimes called neoliberalism). To that end, Thatcher privatized British Airways, with remarkable success, and British Rail, with rather more mixed results; both Reagan and Thatcher cut taxes (especially on the upper income brackets) and slowed governmental growth. Proponents of economic liberalism conservatism attribute the unparalleled economic boom of the early 1980s to the late 1990s to these policies.

The interests of capitalism, fiscal and economic liberalism, and free-market economy do not necessarily coincide with those of social conservatism. At times, aspects of capitalism and free markets have been profoundly subversive of the existing social order, as in the inclosure movement and other changes that have replaced a traditional agrarian society with agribusiness, or of traditional attitudes toward the proper position of sex in society, as in the now near-universal availability of pornography. To that end, on issues at the intersection of economic and social policy, conservatives of one school or another are often at odds.

Conservatism in the United States electoral politics

In the United States, the Republican Party is generally considered to be the party of conservatism. This has been the case since the 1960s, when the conservative wing of that party consolidated its hold, causing it to shift permanently to the right of the Democratic Party; also, in varying degrees at various times over the second half of the twentieth century, numerous conservative white southerners left the Democratic Party and (in most cases) became Republicans.

In addition, many United States libertarians, in the Libertarian Party and even some in the Republican Party, see themselves as conservative, even though they advocate significant economic and social changes – for instance, further dismantling the welfare system or liberalizing drug policy. They see these as conservative policies because they conform to the spirit of individual liberty that they consider to be a traditional American value. It should be noted that although libertarians have had closer ties with conservatives, they do not typically believe themselves to be conservative.

On the other end of the scale, some Americans see themselves as conservative while not being supporters of free market policies. These people generally favor protectionist trade policies and government intervention in the market to preserve American jobs. Many of these conservatives were originally supporters of neoliberalism who changed their stance after perceiving that countries such as China were benefiting from that system at the expense of American production.

Finally, some see the entire American political mainstream as having reached a conservative consensus, with the federal government being run by successive "Republicrat" and right-wing Republican administrations. In support of this theory, they point out that the only recent Democratic President (Bill Clinton) was from the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. They also suggest that many progressives are switching to the Green Party and thus largely leaving the electable mainstream. In a February 2005 speech, Republican political consultant Karl Rove declared, "Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America."

Americans are often stereotyped by western Europeans as conservative due to the religious and right-wing tendencies as well as what the Europeans consider to be puritan attitudes towards sex and drugs (particularly alcohol).

Conservative geography, "Red States"

Today in the U.S., geographically the South, the less industrial parts of the Midwest, and the non-coastal West are conservative strongholds. However, the division of the United States into conservative red states and liberal blue states is artificial and does not reflect the actual distribution of voters of either stripe. People who live in homogeneous communities, such as small towns, tend to vote Republican. People who live in heterogeneous communities, such as big cities and college campuses, tend to vote Democrat. Thus, within each state, there is a division between city and country, between town and gown.

Conservative political movements

Contemporary political conservatism — the actual politics of people and parties professing to be conservative — in most western democratic countries is an amalgam of social and institutional conservatism, generally combined with fiscal conservatism, and usually containing elements of broader economic conservatism as well. As with liberalism, it is a pragmatic and protean politics, opportunistic at times, rooted more in a tradition than in any formal set of principles.

It is certainly possible for one to be a fiscal and economic conservative but not a social conservative; in the United States at present, this is the stance of libertarianism. It is also possible to be a social conservative but not an economic conservative — at present, this is a common political stance in, for example, Ireland — or to be a fiscal conservative without being either a social conservative or a broader economic conservative, such as the "deficit hawks" of the Democratic Party (United States). In general use, the unqualified term "conservative" is often applied to social conservatives who are not fiscal or economic conservatives. It is rarely applied in the opposite case, except in specific contrast to those who are neither.

It can be argued that classical conservatism tends to represent the establishment. Yet, this is not always the case. Considering the conservative's opposition to political abstractions, the true conservative will never support a contrived social state, be that on the left (Communism) or on the right (Fascism). There is an independent justification of the attitude of conservatism, which tends to favour what is organic and has been shaped by history, against the planned and artificial.

Criticisms

Criticism of American conservatism on ideological or philosophical grounds is different from personal criticism of politicians or thinkers who have conservative views. Opponents of conservatism accuse conservatives of

Putting individual gain above the good of the community or nation, as in the case of businessmen seeking weakened anti-trust laws, weakened environmental laws, and abolishment of or no increase in the minimum wage.

Indifference or hostility toward the freedom to choose religious and sexual views and behaviors that differ from a "traditional" social model, as in the case of conservatives supporting laws or constitutional amendments against induced abortion, gay marriage, and pornography.

Opposition to a governmental remedy for decades of the racial and social inequities derived from the first centuries of the history of the United States, as in the case of opposition to welfare and affirmative action.

Insensitivity to the victims of unrestricted governmental power, as in the case of limitations on the rights of those accused of crimes, and support for broader powers for law enforcement agencies.

External links

California Patriot – "Berkeley's conservative voice"
Conservative Party of Canada
Council of Conservative Citizens
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Conservatism
Conservative debate
The American Conservative – Paleoconservative Magazine
Chronicles Magazine
Pro-Life Campaign Committee
National Review – Foremost conservative political magazine in the United States
SavetheGOP.com – Support for the U.S. Republican Party
Far Right Wing – Discussion of conservative ideas and politics
FirstThings.com
Townhall.com – Conservative news, information, and commentary
Project for a New American Century – Neoconservative think tank
Politics from the Far Right

References

Lewis H. Lapham, "Tentacles of Rage" in Harper's, September 2004, p. 31-41.

Conservatism in the United States

A brief history of American conservatism

Early 20th Century American Conservative thought

Later 20th Century: Goldwater, Buckley, the Dixiecrats

Nixon, Reagan, and Bush

Types of conservatism

Conservatism as "Ideology," or political philosophy

Social conservatism and tradition

Fiscal conservatism

Economic liberalism

Conservatism in the United States electoral politics

Conservative geography, "Red States"

Other topics

Conservatism and change

Conservatism and conservation

Contemporary conservative platform

Conservatism and Originalism

Conservative political movements

Criticisms

See also

Further reading

External links

References