conservadorismo

To begin with, conservatism is protean. One kind was neatly summed up by that bluff old Victorian the Duke of Cambridge: "It is said I am against change. I am not against change. I am in favor of change in the right circumstances. And those circumstances are when it can no longer be resisted."
Then there are reactionaries. Margaret Thatcher is a good example. She did not agree with Winston Churchill's principle that Labour's nationalization program, introduced in the postwar period of 1945--51, could not be reversed. She simply reversed the program, privatizing British Airways, steel, water, electricity, gas and other industries.
There are also romantic conservatives. These are the intellectual descendants of Edmund Burke, who see their views as creative and imaginative. They are quite happy to embark on change if it has the positive purpose of underpinning the security and stability of society. The outstanding recent American example of this is William F. Buckley, who left behind a school of his own, as well as his magazine, National Review.
A fourth category is made up of economists, ranging from Milton Friedman to Friedrich Hayek, who identify conservatism with capitalism. They cannot be opposed to change as such, for the chief source of change is capitalism itself--and never more so than today. The birth of industrial capitalism in the late 18th century was the biggest single upheaval in history. Moreover, it was merely the first in a series of technological transformations that continue at an accelerating pace.
One has only to list these first four varieties of conservatism to realize that there is no possibility of its death. The instinct to resist change, to recover the past or to romanticize it are part of human nature and will always find political expression. Capitalism is merely a term for the investment of money in wealth creation.
Paul Johnson
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