Gordon L. Anderson, Ph.D., The St. Croix Review Annual Meeting, the Lowell Inn, October 25, 2024

What is Conservativism?

Conservatism conserves the knowledge, principles, values, laws, and consciousness related to what Western Civilization learned that works over 5,000 years.

Like the human brain, civilization is neither right nor left but contains both sides. Just as the brain contains neuronal plasticity and develops from experience and education, using both the right and left halves, civilization develops and advances with the assistance of leftwing and rightwing components.  

Like the brain is a repository of our individual consciousness, culture is the repository of our social consciousness. And, as individuals learn first from following rules, mimicking the habits of family members, and later learning to reason and develop skills, civilization also develops as social rules, practices, teachings, and experiences are added to the repository of what should be conserved or changed. Thus “conservatism” is never fixed but evolves as civilization develops. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, “When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.” (Book Four, Chapter VIII, 1840.)

The Right, the Left, and Conservatism

I’d like to read a passage from Gary Gindler’s Left Imperialism that I published earlier this year.  

Heredity could be associated with the endurance of an ideology that governs society based on its successful transfer from generation to generation. The variation could be linked with changes in an ideology induced by never-ending challenges. Selection could be connected with the mechanism society chooses to answer those challenges. Traditionally, the dominant sentiment is that people assign the role of the variation mechanism primarily to the left-wingers, the selection mechanism predominantly to the right-wingers, and the role of the heredity (retention) mechanism overwhelmingly to the apolitical population. All three must be present in society to assure proper (and competitive) development. All three create necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for society members to keep going (and succeed). (p. 30)

Notice that Gindler did not associate either the leftwing or rightwing with the masses, “the apolitical population.” It is the left that traditionally senses if something is unjust or needs repair, but the left is generally incapable of finding a solution that does not disrupt or harm things that need to be conserved. It is the rightwing that can select a solution that advances civilization without losing that which needs to be conserved. The apolitical masses are the embodied consciousness of society, like the brain without inputs from the external world.

An evolutionary view of Conservativism can be compared to the organic evolution of individuals who inherit genes and culture from parents and must adjust to changes in the world by adaptation. In daily life, people confront new obstacles that inherited tradition cannot answer. This causes cognitive dissonance. There are three ways people respond to cognitive dissonance: reactionary, revolutionary, and integral.

The reactionary approach is to deny the problem, refuse to acknowledge the need for change and seek refuge in the doctrines of the past. This is the knee-jerk reaction of the right wing. People will increasingly suffer if the problem is not addressed. The revolutionary approach is to see the need for change, but reject tradition entirely and attempt to start society all over, causing social destruction and the deaths of many people. This is the knee-jerk response of the leftwing. In an integral approach, those who see the problem need to humbly seek solutions from people who can create solutions without disrupting the advance of civilization. It is this integral transformation that should be conserved and passed to the succeeding generation.

Conservatism Evolves in Three Social Spheres

There are three spheres in society, culture, the economy, and governance. These spheres, and the social institutions related to them, operate on different principles. Today these principles are frequently confused or ignored. Social institutions in these three spheres serve different social purposes, just like organs of the human body have different but interrelated functions. You should not expect the liver to do the thinking for the brain, or the brain to pump the blood; and, you should expect the government to create knowledge or wealth. The role of the government is a referee, and its underlying principle is the force of law. The underlying principle of the economy is voluntary exchange, and this is the basis of economic development. The underlying principle of culture is communication, and it is the basis of love, truth, and justice.

In the cultural sphere, we have inherited the Ten Commandments and Greek and Roman Classics. This is the result of 4,000 years of experience in Western Civilization. These texts and traditions convey the behavior and virtues needed for people to govern themselves and live harmoniously with others. Being able to govern oneself is a necessary but insufficient prerequisite for governing a social institution. When members of a society are socialized with these inherited norms, they can interact freely, nonviolently, and constructively, with little need to impose force. The Protestant Reformation declared that individuals were to be self-governing and ultimately responsible to God, not to any other individual or social institution. The printing press enabled knowledge to spread to all individuals through books, leading to widespread experimentation and the rise of science. The reactionary attempt of the Roman Church to censor new ideas ultimately failed, On the other hand, science has frequently spawned a revolutionary attack on inherited tradition by creating reductionistic or scientistic worldviews based on new discoveries. An integral approach to culture is to adopt discoveries in a way that further develops the civilization.

In the political sphere, Ancient Rome established checks and balances between the land owners and the military with a Republic of Senate and Consuls. Then, after a widespread strike, the working classes received representation through Tribunes. This advanced the rights of all citizens and led to great economic flourishing.

In the modern period, governance systems developed systematically and more scientifically through the realism in Machiavelli’s Prince and Hobbes’ Leviathan, and the formal separation of powers in Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws. The sanctity of the right to life, liberty, and property was declared by John Locke in Two Treatises of Civil Government. These advances in political theory were enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

In the economic sphere, regulatory principles on banking emerged in the Middle Ages, leading to the development of the Dutch Florin a ledger currency, that served as the reserve currency for nearly 300 years. The principle of fractional reserve banking, developed in Sweden in the 17^th century, enabled rapid economic expansion by enabling the expansion of the money supply based on the new production of economic goods and services. Adam Smith began the development of economic science in his Wealth of Nations. Conservatives have learned that the proper role of government in the economic sphere is as a referee. It should prevent fraud, the counterfeiting of money, and break up economic monopolies and cartels.

Social dysfunction and evil occur when the government abandons its role as an economic or cultural referee and becomes a player. In the economic sphere, government economic activities are monopolistic, uncompetitive, and unresponsive to human needs. In the cultural sphere, government attempts to control truth and censor critics lead to stagnation and tyranny. Communism in the Soviet Union is the most glaring example of this.

Similarly, social dysfunction occurs when corporations and moneyed interests use economic power to control the government. This leads to monopoly, feudalism, and the exploitation of the masses. Fascism is the collusion of economic and political institutions that serves elites and deprives opportunity for the masses.

The United States’ creation reflects modernity’s evolution in all three social spheres. This was the state of conservatism over 200 years ago. We need to talk about developments in society and technology since then that require new additions to the body of conservative thought. I want to call attention to two particularly important challenges: the “levels of analysis” problem, and the rise of social institutions.

Conservatism, Levels of Society, and Social Institutions

When the U.S. was founded, nearly all relationships were personal. The township was the primary level of governance. This was based on the relationship of local individuals and families who determined their own safety, welfare, schools, roads, and commerce. Relations were face-to-face, and nearly everyone knew about everyone else in the local community. The U.S. Constitution was drafted for such people.[i]

In early America, everyone knew what everyone in their neighborhood was doing. They could not escape the judgment of their neighbors if they mistreated others or acted selfishly, People would also naturally pitch in and help one another if their neighbors faced sickness or adversity. Personal relationships have such natural checks and balances. Conservatives understand the value of faith, freedom, and family that applies to individuals.

But cities, corporations, government bureaucracies, and other large social institutions are impersonal. They follow impersonal principles and are easily corrupted without structured checks and balances. For example, in a local community, there will be pressure to provide support for widows and orphans. The local bank might contribute to their support. However, an international credit card company only has an impersonal relationship with people based on their credit score. Widows and orphans would likely have a low credit score, and get charged the highest interest rate. The CEO of the lender, in another state, would not treat them personally as the impersonal credit score is the only measure of their relationship. Leaders of social institutions are constantly tempted to use their institutional power to provide advantages to their own family members and cronies because of their personal relationships.

Today, two hundred years after the rise of social institutions in modern liberal democracies, Western Civilization has not yet developed adequate principles to keep social institutions on their mission and to serve everyone by the same impersonal principles. Conservatives know that leaders of impersonal institutions should not treat family members or cronies differently and that conflicts of interest need to be avoided or publicly declared. Yet, conflicts of interest exist everywhere, from nearly every bill passed by governments to banks treating depositor’s money as their own.

The rightwing has failed to properly understand and regulate social institutions or prevent their hijacking for corrupt purposes. This is why last year I wrote the book Integral Society: Social Institutions and Individual Sovereignty. It has been all too common to see people on the right entrench themselves in the letter of the U.S. Constitution while ignoring the spirit. The Constitution was drafted without adequately addressing the issues of corporations, banks, and political parties because they did not exist. And these impersonal institutions, initially created to serve individuals, families, and local communities are often hijacked within a generation.

The U.S. Constitution was exceptional in its time, but today social institutions have nearly supplanted it. This is why the second chapter of my book is “A Declaration of an Integral Society” and the third chapter is “A Constitution for an Integral Society.” I retain the elements of the U.S. Constitution, but expand on transforming governance of political parties, corporations, and banking.

The Evolution of Conservativism: The Glass-Steagall Act as an Example

When a problem arises in society, like the Great Depression after the economic collapse in 1929, the crisis creates social cognitive dissonance because the existing social consciousness is confronted by an unexpected disaster. In this case, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 is an excellent example of a new check against the improper use of a social institution, banks. Banks had abandoned the traditional practices of protecting depositor’s money and began speculating with it on the stock market as if it was their own. The Glass-Steagall Act limited banks to their mission of banking, forbidding speculation, and additionally guaranteed deposits through the FDIC. The banking problem was “solved” until the Act was repealed in 1999 by a Uniparty that did not represent a consensus of the governed.

Under lobbying pressure from Citibank, which wanted to merge with Travelers Insurance, both the Republican House chaired by Newt Gingrich and the Democratic President Bill Clinton passed a bill repealing the Act. The Enron and WorldCom scandals quickly followed, and then the financial collapse of 2008 and the unrestrained money laundering since then.

The Glass-Steagall Act, like the original checks and balances in the Constitution, is an example of something Conservativism should have added to its Civilizational knowledge as a component of a healthy and prosperous society. The Act’s repeal is an example of civilizational decline. Instead of the social institution being properly constrained to function integrally in society, the institution used its power to exploit, rather than serve society.

We could also mention the example of FEMA that arose after Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. People learned that FEMA had been hijacked, expending its funds on the unconstitutional settlement of immigrants, and listing its primary purpose on its website as “Instill equity as a foundation for emergency management,” rather than to “Make every effort to rescue and serve people injured in a disaster.” The capture of the CDC by big pharma during the COVID-19 pandemic is another example.

Other Items for Conservatism to Adopt

1. Elections: The current election system is designed for cheating. We don’t need machines, the Post Office, drop boxes, lack of voter I.D., or counting delays after election day. All of these things have been used to rig elections. Many other countries have good and expedient elections with paper ballots on one election day and counted by hand at the precinct level. This is something conservatism has learned but the U.S. government ignores.
2. Disestablish Political Parties and Special Interest Groups: At the U.S. Founding there was the disestablishment of religion. Political parties, corporations, ideological, and other interest groups sprang up to fill the vacuum and use the size of social institutions to wrest political power from individuals, destroying the concept of a government of the people. Some have recently commented that “Our Democracy” as Nancy Pelosi uses the term, refers to “a consensus of major social institutions,” and not the consent of the governed. Simple things like removing party names from ballots, prohibiting party caucuses on government grounds, and eliminating party affiliation from votes on bills, could return representatives to their constituents rather than being captured by parties. The First Amendment could be expanded to separate all private social institutions and identity groups from the state.
3. End the Fed: The current corrupt banking system is designed for money laundering, government counterfeiting, and irresponsible spending at the expense of the governed. The government institution that prints money should only be allowed to provide that money to banks that lend it out with collateral or loan insurance. It would be better if the central bank only supplies money and keeps an accounting ledger. This agency should only be a referee and not a player: it should hold no reserves, lend no money, buy no securities, and not fiddle with interest rates. This would end the current practices of unnecessary borrowing, bureaucratic bloat, and endless wars, by forcing the Federal government to get money from taxes or get sound asset-backed loans from private banks. The current corrupt money system props up many of the groups that have hijacked the government.
4. Return of the Glass- Steagall Act: Keep banks to banking. Money stored in bank accounts should be the depositor’s money, not the banks’. Further, interest earned through fractional reserve lending should go to depositors, not banks. Banks should be paid a fee for their service to clients, and not use the power of their institution to serve themselves.
5. A Similar Act for Stock Brokers like Vanguard and Blackrock:  Brokerage houses need to serve as brokers for investors, not as stock owners themselves. This is a fundamental conflict of interest. Today big firms like Blackrock, own stock themselves, or treat their investors’ stock as their own. They can manipulate mergers, acquisitions, and business failures causing damage to innocent investors and smaller companies whose they sell, even as they attempt to dominate markets with monopolistic practices.
6. Patent Reform: The patent system can be revised to bring competition and lower prices while still giving a windfall to the patent holder.
7.  Limitations on Land Ownership: Particularly to foreign governments and social institutions, but also size limits that enable more widespread land ownership and distribution.

These are just some of the major areas that require new constitutional checks and balances. A consciousness of keeping all institutions from exploiting those they were designed to serve needs to enter conservative consciousness for the future of our civilization is to develop.

Again, when I refer to the term “conservative,” I am not referring to right-wing, but to the evolution of the body of knowledge, values, economic, and governance practices that become ingrained in our collective consciousness and instilled in people as they are socialized by families and schools. So, the improvement of families and schools as the primary institutions that embody and conserve the lessons of the past that serve the development of society.

This evolutionary view of an integral society is what I think conservatism is all about. It is both the embodiment in individuals of what is needed for self-governance and good personal relationships, and the cultural embodiment in social institutions of social purpose and mechanisms that well-serve individuals through impersonal relations.

Conservatism in the past and at the U.S. founding focused primarily on individual freedom and personal relationships. The conservatism of the future needs to continue this, but adopt a parallel consciousness related to impersonal social institutions so that individuals can regain individual sovereignty and pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

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[i] In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison saying,

“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” (Paris, Dec. 20, 1987,)