Recently, a pair of excellent articles by Professor Drulák have resonated in the Czech environment, arguing that the most natural ally of the conservatives is popular socialism, which emerges from the workers’ and peasants’ movement – and aims to reduce economic inequality and implement a democracy that is not only formal but also economic and social (through the recognition of trade unions, land reform, cooperativism, public ownership, progressive taxation of income, property and inheritance). It’s a great point and those articles contain a number of other analytical insights.
Any true conservative is a reasonable democratic socialist on economic matters.
But I fear it goes further than that. Any true conservative is a reasonable democratic socialist (by which term I mean what prevailed in Western Europe in the few decades after WWII) on economic matters.
The problem is that the word “conservatism” has been stolen by arrogant upper-class snobs who have dreamed up a utopian ideal, placed it in the Middle Ages, invented their own version of “human nature”, blatantly disdain the popular classes, and try to re-educate the majority society. In their class instinct they are too close to the liberal ones with whom they are fighting, but with whom they have more and more in common – including the rampage of war.
