Conservatives and Philosophy

The recent mauling the Conservative Party candidates took in the local elections has been attributed by different commentators to different things. One of the chief ones was that the Conservative Party didn’t stand for anything. Since Theresa May introduced an energy price cap and a commitment to net zero, while Rishi Sunak proposed to make tobacco purchase illegal for anyone born after 2009, one can see their point. These policies may be many things, but they could not be described as Conservative.

There is a character trait we call conservatism, but we spell it with a small ‘c.’ It means liking familiar things and practices and wanting them to stay the same. In other words, it opposes change. Contrasted with that is a political tradition called Conservatism that is spelled with a capital ‘C.’ Some writers have suggested that there is no philosophy behind it, just a group of prejudices - things like support for our armed forces, for law and order, for the monarchy, and for traditional values and practices.

But there is an underlying outlook behind the political tradition, and a very rational philosophy that underlies it. Political ‘Conservativism, spelled with a capital ‘C,’ refers to a political tradition rather than to a temperament. It recognizes that change is a fact of life, and does not seek to stop it, but to make sure that it comes about spontaneously and organically. It wants change to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, to come about as people change their thinking and their practices. It wants change to be bottom-up rather than top-down.

Coupled with that is a recognition that change affects some people adversely, and Conservative leaders from Peel to Disraeli, from Churchill to Thatcher, have wanted to avoid imposed change, but have shown a willingness to help those adversely affected by it. The key Conservative principle is to allow change to happen, rather than trying to stop it, but to seek to soften the blow for those who lose from it.

Before the Industrial Revolution, people could expect to live as their grandparents did, and such changes as happened were modest and slow. The Industrial Revolution and its new technologies changed all that. Change became rapid, and Conservatism emerged as a way of dealing with it.

What Conservatives want is to conserve not any particular status quo, but the process by which change happens. They want it to be spontaneous rather than imposed, but to ameliorate some of its consequences. Changes sometime involve people losing out. Automobiles were bad news for stable boys and coach builders, even though they opened up great opportunities for others.

What Conservatives have sought to do is to make life easier, where they could, for people whose lives were adversely affected by change. They passed factory acts, mines acts and shops acts, among others. This was not to impose change from above, but to use what Karl Popper called ‘piecemeal social engineering’ to smooth the edges of change rather than to prevent or direct it.

Conservatism has sometimes been defined by what it has opposed: ideologies such as Utilitarianism, 19th Century Liberalism or Socialism. There is a grain of truth in this, but Conservative opponents of these ideologies were not resisting change, but were against imposed change. All of these ideologies were thought up in the mind, and their adherents sought to bring them about in reality.

Conservatives have wanted reality to emerge naturally from the choices people make about how they choose to live. They do not want people forced to live in particular ways. The attributes that some have derided as prejudices all emerge from that desire for change to be spontaneous. Obviously a strong defence will prevent foreign tyrannies from limiting those choices. Likewise will a respect for the rule of law, and similarly a respect for the constitution and private property rights.

So now, when perhaps the Conservative Party in the UK should examine what it believes in and what it should believe in, it is a good time for it to examine its fundamental philosophy. It has been arguably the most successful political party in history because people have valued the freedom to make their own choices and to let change result from them, and to support a party that will allow that natural change, but will soften it for those adversely affected.

Some hope that the party will continue to embrace changes that come from the people while resisting attempts to make them into pawns on the planners’ chessboard. If it takes that direction, it might survive yet again.

Madsen Pirie