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August 31, 2005
In America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism, Anatol Lieven writes:
The clash between cultural and social loyalties and the imperatives of capitalist change is an old dilemma for those social and cultural conservatives who at the same time are dedicated to the preservation of free market economics. As the distinguished U.S. political and ethical thinker Garry Wills has noted, "There is nothing less conservative than capitalism, so itchy for the new."
What we have here is the negative effects that a (global) capitalism has on traditional (national) ways of life.
Conservatism is often see as traditionalist-- traditions are what they are supposed to be conserving, from a free-market capitalism that is anti-tradition. Capitalism does praise tradition when it serves to make a profit. Tradition is useful as a means to some other end and quickly dispensed with if it stands in the way.
The penetration of large discount stores into small towns around Australia does not conserving any local traditions. The market-driven push for discount stores drive locally owned stores out of business and disrupt traditional patterns of life in small towns. And agribusinesses when they push the smaall farmers out of business depopulate the country towns.
So the business interests of the Howard Government conflict directly and immediately with the conservative interests of conservatives--—in both the religious and non-religious sense. So conservatives should be opposed to the market and economic forces that have encouraged the drive toward prepackaged foods and away from traditional domestic life. But they don't.
As Leiven says:
The tragicomic aspect of the situation of politically conservative American religious believers is that the laissez-faire capitalism which they support is not only undermining their economic world, but through the mass media and entertainment industries is also playing a central role in biting away at their moral universe.
This account makes conservatism as traditionalist--as a defender of traditions. But cannot conservatism be more proactive than that? They can be renewed, reshaped and become something new.
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