Conservatives

 Conservatives

Thomas Allen

Conservatives divide into two groups: Rationalists, who are faux conservatives, and Traditionalists, who are real conservatives. Rationalists include neoconservatives and establishment conservatives, which include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, and the typical Republican politicians. Traditionalists include principled conservatives (Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, fusionists, and the Old Right) and Enlightened conservatives (the New Conservatives of the 1950s as represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorn reason and principle, reduce virtue to prudence, and depend heavily on Providence).

While Rationalists claim that America is a proportional or creedal country dedicated to the ideas of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights, i.e., American Exceptionalism, Traditionalists reject this notion. Instead of advocating loyalty to abstract ideas as do the Rationalists, Traditionalists adhere to loyalties to one’s own race (or at least they used to, but now most are racial nihilists), ethnicity, culture, and traditions, that is loyalty to one’s nation. (A nation or nationality is a people who have a common genetic ancestry, culture, language, and history; who have common traditions and customs; and who are capable of forming or constituting an independent country.) Being universalists, cosmopolitans, globalists, imperialists, multiculturalists, and multiracialists, Rationalists believe in loyalty to humanity and abstract concepts.

Another important difference between Rationalists and Traditionalists is their view of capitalism. Rationalists promote managerial capitalism (as Sam Francis terms it). Managerial capitalism is a market system where managers of capital are not the owners of capital. Under managerial capitalism, the managers prefer a protected market instead of a free market for themselves. However, managers prefer a free market for their suppliers, workers, and independent contractors. This is the economic system of the United States, Western Europe, and much of the rest of the world — but usually without a free market for suppliers, workers, and contractors. Instead of relying on a free-market economy, this system relies on government-business partnerships, i.e., a coalition of managerial capitalism and the managerial state (a social justice-welfare state with a market economy) — thus, a form of democratic fascism. (This is what Rationalists commonly call democratic capitalism.) Perhaps, the most appropriate name for this system is “welfare capitalism.”

Traditionalists promote a decentralized free-market, free-enterprise system where the owners of capital manage their capital. Under this system, most people own their own businesses, farms, etc. and are self-employed. Factory workers are often the owners of the factories where they work. Large corporations are rare. The welfare state is nonexistent since aid provided by the welfare state is provided by private charities and local governments. Unlike Rationalists, Traditionalists do not believe in corporate welfare.

Another major disagreement between Rationalists and Traditionalists is their view of the founding of the United States. While Rationalists claim that the United States were founded as a propositional or creedal country, Traditionalists claim that they were founded as an ethnic (genetic) country.

The Rationalist view of the founding of the United States tends to fall into two groups. One group argues that America was founded on the principle of individualism and rational self-interest. It was founded with the modern commercial economy, managerial or democratic capitalism, in mind. Consequently, a homogenous citizenry is unnecessary because America is a creedal country. A person only needs to accept the creed. Thus, citizens are abstract, universal individuals instead of concrete people defined by race, class, religion, culture, language, etc.

Another group argues that America was founded on the concept of natural law and Judeo-Christian values (despite Judeo-Christian being an oxymoron). America was created on the proposition “that all men are created equal.” Thus, America was established for religious and virtuous people who sought justice, liberty, equality, and moderation. Consequently, adherence to this creed makes one an American and not race, ethnicity, class, religion, etc. Accordingly, both groups assert that the United States are a creedal country.

Traditionalists argue that the United States were founded on the principles of race and ethnicity, that is, America is a genetic nation. It was not founded as a creedal country. America was founded as a racially and culturally homogeneous country. The historical record supports this conclusion. Consequently, a multicultural and multiracial citizenry is anti-American.

Philosophically, Rationalists are in the same camp as liberals, progressives, socialists, and other left-wingers and libertarians. All are globalists and promote multiculturalism and multiracialism. All adhere to the notion that the United States are a creedal country although they disagree about what this creed is. None appreciate traditions. Therefore, Rationalists are not true conservatives.

Appendix. Traditional Southern Conservatives

A traditional Southern conservative adheres to kinship and ancestry and has an attachment to his ancestral land and community. He advocates States’ rights and stresses the importance of the Christian religion. Like John Calhoun, he believes that the US Constitution is a negative document; it greatly restricts the powers of the federal government. Further, he is a proponent of a community-oriented individualism that offers its members liberty and independent self-sufficiency within a hierarchical society regulated by tradition. Of great importance to a traditional Southern conservative are localism and coexisting with other communities and with other States in a federation.

Moreover, a traditional Southern conservative reveres the Confederacy and its symbols because it fought for the underlying principles of the US Constitution, which died with the defeat of the Confederacy. With the defeat of the Confederacy, the United States became an exceptional nation and a creedal country, whose creed is equality, democracy, and universal natural rights. The United States became a managerial state with managerial capitalism.

(On the other hand, neoconservatives and most establishment conservatives hold that America’s founding principles began with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But it will not be completed until the genocide of the last Southerner, whom they blame for nearly all of America’s problems.)

Reference

Gottfried, Paul, editor. The Vanishing Tradition: Perspectives on American Conservatism. Ithaca, New York: Northern Illinois University Press, 2020.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen

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