Summary
Summary A* Conservatism table of comparison [EDEXCEL] Alevel
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table comparing key Conservative ideas with examples of key thinkers
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Conservatism core ideasHuman Nature Society State Economy
- Deny possibility of a perfect - stability, order and hierarchy - Order and authority: without this - Favour Adam Smith’s laissez faire
utopian society - evolutionary rather than there is no liberty economy
- Descriptive not prescriptive revolutionary change State precedes society - Smith’s trickle down economics
- Rejects malleable view of human - Localism: collection of localised 1892: Peel established London - Conservatives favour stability and
nature communities ‘little platoons’ Met police force continuity but capitalism promotes
- Human imperfection: Old Provide individuals with - Organic origins: risk, innovation and iconoclasm
Testament doctrine of Original Sin security status and inspiration Hobbes govt by consent - Traditional: ‘reluctant supporters’
- Fixed and constant - Organicism: society emerges State created rationally - Neo-liberal: markets are most
- Hobbes: without restrains of formal gradually Social contract effective when left alone by govt
authority human nature marked by Society is less like a machine Sceptical about states that - Protectionism: free markets
‘envy, hatred and war’ which leads more like a plant that grows in arise momentously tempered by state intervention
to a ‘nasty, brutish and short’ life a way that can’t be predicted Normative not empirical
- Burke: rejected idea that human - Empiricism: preference for - Ruling class: traditional
nature was guided by reason. evidence over theory, emphasise conservatives (Burke-) keen on
Stressed idea of customs, habit and ‘what is’ over ‘what should be’ class born and trained to rule
experience as signposts for how to Oakeshott: society merely aims Noblesse oblige
behave to stay afloat in uncertain - Nation-state:
- Both Hobbes and Burke ridiculed waters Mega community
perfect society - Tradition: customs and habits British conservatives see any
- Burke believed humans were provide security with history and diminution of nation-state as
capable of kindness as long as experience diminution of state
deep-rooted in history, teachings Oakeshott: ‘plant’s roots and ‘Rolling back its frontiers’
and Catholic doctrine branches’ Nozick and Rand: if nation is
- Burke: ‘little platoons’ - Hierarchy: imperfect human nature burdened by nationalised
- Michael Oakeshott developed leads to unequal hierarchies industries it cannot focus on
Burkes ideas believing that Burke: ‘wiser, stronger and order and security
conservatism is more ‘psychology more opulent’ establish power
than ideology’ Top-down structure: minority
- New Right Nozick and Rand exercise some authority over
believed that human nature majority
yearned for individual freedom, Paternalism/noblesse oblige:
adapting Hobbes’ ideas ‘fatherly’ obligations that
- Nozick: ‘freedom loving pack- ruling class has on society
animals’ Hard paternalism: elites
decide what’s best irrespective
of what society wants
Soft paternalism: power rests
with elites but they listen to
non-elites
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