In these confused days when everyone who calls themselves a conservative is labeled as siding with George W. Bush and his cronies, when all conservatives are accused of wanting to convert America into a nation under one very specific God, and when all conservatives are said to act, think, and vote the exact same way, we sometimes forget there are many different sects dividing (and uniting) conservatives in our nation. These different factions – paleo-conservatives, neoconservatives, classical liberals, compassionate conservatives, theo-conservatives, traditional conservatives – have all but been forgotten and their meanings blurred beyond recognition. In a time when S. H. Webb, Royce Gregerson, and Brent Kent might all call themselves paleo-conservatives, we all need to take a step back and look at the proper definitions and ideology of the different wings of modern conservatives. For sake of space we will start with two. The first, neoconservative, is one of the most commonly used political terms in America today and is perhaps the one most relevant to presidential elections.
Neoconservative is what the second Bush administration considers itself to be. This particular faction of American conservatism believes in many traditionally conservative principles – a free-market economy (despite the recent economic bailouts), a limited welfare system, and a return to traditional values. Ironically, neo-conservatism began as a movement in the 1970s as former liberals began to see the results of liberalism’s policies that were implemented in the ‘60s. Until the end of the Cold War, neoconservatives supported of welfare and social democracy. During the presidency of Bill Clinton, however, neoconservatives moved increasingly to the right in social areas. Nowadays, the neocons’ biggest difference from other conservatives, and the focal point of neoconservative policy, is that they believe in an interventionist foreign policy. This means they want the United States to be proactive in relations with other parts of the world, such that we should preemptively attack those countries considered to be hostile to the United States and its allies and interests. Neoconservatives also believe in Democratic-Peace – the theory that democracies seldom go to war with each other. This explains the Bush administration’s attempts at democracy-building in Iraq. Most conservatives these days believe in a fairly limited foreign policy approach, like the classical liberals. Classical liberalism (or neoclassicism) is a venerable wing of the conservative movement, descended from the likes of Adam Smith and John Locke. Classical liberals believe in laissez-faire market policies, limited government, social freedom, and equality before the law. Over time, most classical liberals went from believing in absolute laissez-faire policies to a more relaxed approach, wherein the government takes some part in regulating the market, but as minimal a part as possible. Classical liberals believe in social freedom and economic freedom to such a degree that many disapprove entirely of the welfare system. They believe that if there were no such thing as welfare, the free market would see to it that all people are taken care of – not to the same degree, but classical liberals believe more in equality before the law than material equality. Unlik neoconservatives, classical liberals aren’t really aligned in any kind of party or organization, but are merely a movement within other factions of American conservatism today. As such, portions of classical liberalism are embraced by many different factions within the conservative movement, but few embrace the whole classically liberal ideology. |
