Conservatism and Reactionism

In the political sense, conservatism means a belief in the importance of maintaining established values and institutions. Conservatives feel that rapid change is likely to bring more ills than benefits, especially when it attacks ways of life that have developed over a long period of time. They tend to be pessimistic about the chances of improving people's behavior through social change and are often skeptical of popular democracy and what they may see as an excess of personal freedom. Conservatism is distinct from reaction, however. Whereas conservatives seek to prevent the erosion of important values and institutions, they do not, like reactionaries, want to turn society back to a supposed golden age of the past.

Conservatives usually favor traditional religion, even though they themselves may be nonbelievers, and in capitalist countries they tend to be probusiness and antigovernment. In Communist societies, however, they are likely to be opposed to those who desire change in party and state institutions. In nonindustrial societies conservatives are likely to favor agrarian policies and to oppose industrialization.

Modern conservatism traces its roots to the French Revolution (1789) and the reaction against the excesses that occurred among many who had sympathized with its aims. The English statesman Edmund Burke made an eloquent statement of the conservative view in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke strongly rejected what he considered the inevitable violence, arbitrariness, and radical destructiveness of the Revolution. Unable to accept the suggestion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that government is merely an arrangement among people living in a certain society at a certain time, Burke saw government as a contract between generations past, present, and future; the political inheritance, in his view, was not to be squandered with experimentation.

The conservatism of the nineteenth century was also a reaction against the Industrial Revolution (the time of rapid change between the mid-eighteenth century and early twentieth century when the modes of production in Western societies shifted from a primarily agrarian and rural system to a very mechanized and urban system in the wake of rapid technological change) and the often-associated assumption that reason could improve, if not perfect, all social interactions and institutions. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge opposed extending suffrage to businesspeople because of their pocketbook politics. Figures such as the philosopher Joseph de Maistre in France, Prince Metternich in Austria, and the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky in Russia deplored the passing of traditional monarchies, the irrationalities of the mob, and the shallow rationalism of the modernizers. A more pragmatic conservative was the British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, who sought to broaden the appeal of conservatism by extending the electorate.

Conservatism in the United States was initially represented by the Federalist framers of the U.S. Constitution, who sought to avoid direct popular election of the president; they distrusted democracy with its factions and sentiments. To the aristocracies of Europe, however, they appeared quite radical because they proposed to do away with the monarchy and inherited privileges. Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists favored a strong central government and a strong president, interpreted the Constitution very freely, and wanted the government to play a decisive role in the economy.

Under the impact of the Industrial Revolution, in the nineteenth century American conservatism became more identified with agrarian, populist views and a distrust of the central government. By the twentieth century, however, the mainstream of conservatism was represented by business interests who had generally secured their political and economic position and were concerned about maintaining the rights of property and the prevailing free-enterprise system both out of self-interest and out of a belief that the system that had allowed them to advance would allow others to do the same. They therefore opposed the extension of governmental authority in regulating the economy and providing social services. Modern conservatism has thus adopted many of the laissez-faire views of ninteenth-century liberalism.


Special thanks to T. Devos of the New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia for his prevalent contribution to this section