Conservatism quotes

Question 1

Burke key quotes and ideas.

Answer 1

-Society is a partnership between those living, dead, and those yet to be born.
-The concept of natural aristocracy
-Change in order to conserve.
-…love the little platoons to which we belong.
-Love of lucre is the grand cause of prosperity.
- little platoons (hierarchical units lead by aristocracy)
Key ideas:
Tradition rooted in empiricism
Organic/hierarchical society
Measured societal change (anti revolution)

Question 2

Oakeshott Key quotes and ideas

Answer 2

-We sail in a boundless sea, with no appointed destination. Government is to keep he ship afloat at all costs…
-Men and women are fallible but not terrible and imperfect but not immoral.
-To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery…
-In a kitchen, cookbooks are only useful after experience of preparing a meal.
- ‘non-perposive government’ where the state acts as an umpire
- ‘arrogance’ of potlicans that aim for a ‘Utopian bliss’

Key ideas:
Pragmatism (anti-utopian)
Empiricism
Human imperfection

Question 3

Hobbes key quotes and ideas

Answer 3

-Life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short”
-Man seeks “power after power”
-Social contract theory- people sacrifice freedom for law and order
Key ideas:
Authority through a
sovereign
Social contract theory

Question 4

Rand Key ideas and quotes

Answer 4

-Man has no automatic code of survival.
-America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests.
-I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason.
- Virtue of selfishness
- A heroic being … with reason as his only absolute’
- ‘the small state is a strong state’
Key ideas:
Objectivism- objective knowledge can be attained through reason
Rational egoism- Self interest as the moral standard

Question 5

Nozick key ideas and quotes

Answer 5

-Welfare is‘on a par with forced labor.’
-Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them.
-Our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality.
-The state should function as a nightwatchman,against theft, fraud and violence.
Key ideas:
Minarchism- minimal state
Individual as an end in themselves
Opposed to state imposed egalitarianism (anti Rawls)

Question 6

Ian Gilmour quote

Answer 6

The wise Conservative travels light.

Question 7

GK Chesterton quote

Answer 7

Tradition is the democracy of the dead

Question 8

Benjamin Disraeli key quotes and ideas

Answer 8

-In Sybil- Britain was in danger of splitting into two nations- rich and poor.
- The state has a responsibility to ‘elevate the conditions of the poor’
-Benjamin Disraeli- The “noblesse oblige”
- ‘the palace is not safe if the cottage is not happy’

Question 9

Harold Macmillan key idea

Answer 9

The Middle Way- A mixed economy of publically and privately owned enterprise.

Question 10

Von Hayek quote

Answer 10

The dead hand- The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Question 11

Friedman quote

Answer 11

Monetarism- there is a “natural rate of unemployment”

Question 12

Thatcher quote + ideas

Answer 12

There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.
Victorian values (hard work, self reliance, living within your means)

Question 13

R.A. Butler

Answer 13

Minster in macmillans gove:
Keynesianism is ‘little more than updated expressions of our belife in … paternalism’

Question 14

Irving Kristol quote

Answer 14

A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.

This concept is often debated among conservatives, as it raises questions about the balance between individual responsibility and state support. Additionally, it can influence discussions on the role of government in providing social services.

Question 15

Scruton quote

Answer 15

‘at the core of every society is a union of man, his wife and community’ -leads to the opposition of same sex marriage and adoptions