INVENIRE

Those who answer affirmatively to the question would reason that those who have become privileged and prosperous under a system have a greater incentive to conserve the rules that protect their position. This position stems from the wider idea that ideologies are born for specific groups; it would similarly say that socialism is for the working class, that corporatism is for businessmen, that feminism is for women and so forth. This diminishes the intellectual case for conservatism; if conservatism is merely a defence for the privileged and prosperous, there is no rational defence for it. In order to answer the question, I will first define conservatism, and then see whether this definition would have it to be a defence of the privileged and prosperous. Conservatism, in the words of Heywood, is “defined by the desire to conserve, reflected in a resistance to, or at least a suspicion of change.” [1] This would explain why conservatives are more likely to be religious than their lef...