Where Does Conservatism Go from Here?

Gordon L. Anderson

Gordon L. Anderson, is the author of Integral Society: Social Institutions and Individual Sovereignty, published in 2023. Gordon L. Anderson earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University. He is President of Paragon House, adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and editor-in-chief of International Journal on World Peace. He is author of many articles and books, including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Version 4.0 (2009).

What is Conservativism?

Conservatism is conserving the knowledge, principles, values, laws, and consciousness related to what Western Civilization has learned that works as it has developed 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 that is a repository of our individual consciousness, culture is a repository of our social consciousness. And, like individuals who learn first from following rules, from mimicking the habits of family members, and later from learning to reason and developing skills, civilization also develops as the 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 Paragon House 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 ensure proper (and competitive) development. All three create necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for society members to keep going (and succeed)” (p. 30).

Note that Gindler did not associate either the left-wing or right-wing 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 right-wing 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 input 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 then 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, to refuse to acknowledge the need for change, and to 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 to 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 left wing. 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, economy, and governance. These spheres, and the social institutions related to them, operate on different principles. However, 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 think for the brain, or the brain to pump blood; and, you should not expect the government to create the knowledge or wealth. The role of the government is to act as a referee. Its underlying principle is the force of law. The underlying principle of the economy is to be a voluntary exchange, and this is the foundation 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 Western social experience. Inherited texts and traditions convey the behavior and virtues needed for people to govern themselves and to 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 taught that individuals were meant to be self-governing and ultimately to be 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 to 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 new discoveries in a way that further develops civilization.

In the political sphere, Ancient Rome established checks and balances between the landowners 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, beginning with the realism in Machiavelli’s Prince and Hobbes’ Leviathan, and with the formal separation of powers in Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws. The sanctity of the right of life, liberty, and property was declared in John Locke’s Two Treatises of Civil Government. These developments 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. In Amsterdam, the Dutch florin, a ledger currency, developed, becoming the reserve currency for nearly 300 years. The principle of fractional reserve banking developed in Sweden in the 17th century, enabling rapid economic expansion with a ledger-based money supply that facilitated the production of new 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 to be a referee. It should prevent fraud, and the counterfeiting of money, and break up economic monopolies and cartels.

Social dysfunction and evil occur when 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 to censor critics, which leads to stagnation and tyranny. Communism in the Soviet Union is the most glaring example of this.

Social dysfunction also occurs when corporations and moneyed interests use economic power to control the government and destroy its role as an impartial referee. This leads to monopoly, feudalism, and to 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’ founding reflects the evolution of modernity in all three social spheres. This was the best application of conservatism at the time. Today, we need to talk about developments in society and technology since then. This requires adding recent lessons learned to the inherited body of conservative thought. In doing this, I want to call attention to two 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.¹

In early America, everyone knew what others in their community were doing. They could not escape the judgement 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 or captured 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 would 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 impersonal 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 still needs to develop adequate principles to keep social institutions on their mission and to serve everyone by the same impersonal principles. Conservatives intuitively 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 right wing has failed to properly understand and regulate social institutions or to 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 common to see people on the right entrench themselves in the letter of the U.S. Constitution, while ignoring the spirit applied to new institutions. The constitution was drafted without adequately addressing the issues of corporations, banks, and political parties because they did not exist, or were in their infancy. 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 escaped its constraints. 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.” It retains the original elements of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, but adds articles related to constraints on political parties, corporations, banks, and other impersonal social institutions.

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

When a problem arises in society, as did the Great Depression after the economic collapse in 1929, a crisis creates social cognitive dissonance, because the existing social consciousness is confronted by an unexpected disaster. In 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act became an example of a new check against improper use of a social institution, banks. Bankers had abandoned the traditional practices of protecting depositors’ money, and began speculating with it on the stock market, treating it as their own money. The Glass-Steagall Act limited banks to their mission of banking, forbidding speculation, and, additionally, the act guaranteed deposits through the FDIC in the case of bank failure. 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 resulted, to be followed by the financial collapse of 2008, and the unrestrained laundering of money under legislation written by bank lobbyists from then on.

The Glass-Steagall Act, like the original checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution, is an example of something Conservativism should have added to its civilizational knowledge enabling the government to impersonally referee banking and prevent speculation bubbles. The Act’s repeal is an example civilizational decline. Instead of being properly constrained to function integrally in society, and to serve their depositors and borrowers, banks were allowed to exploit their depositor’s money, using it as their own.

Another example of a captured social institution we could mention is FEMA. After Hurricane Helene battered the South, people learned that FEMA had expended its funds on the unconstitutional settlement of immigrants and had listed as its primary purpose on its website: to “Instill equity as a foundation for emergency management,” rather than to “Make every effort to rescue and serve people injured in a disaster.” The captured agency had been used for a mission it was not directed to serve.

The “military industrial complex,” the “pharmaceutical industrial complex,” other “industrial complexes,” and many corporations and NGOs have also been captured, or escaped the laws necessary for them to function constructively in society. The proper refereeing of social institutions is one of the greatest challenges we face. As the Founding Fathers applied the checks and balances of Montesquieu to prevent tyrannical monarchy, today’s conservatives need to apply the spirit of these laws to other government agencies and social institutions.

Other Items for Conservatism to Adopt:

1. 1.Elections: The current election system appears designed for cheating. Whether cheating takes place or not, the system should be developed to prevent it, and to foster voter confidence. Voting machines, unmonitored Post Office activity, drop boxes, partisan secretaries of state, and counting delays after election day all look suspicious. These things have frequently been used to rig elections. Many other countries have safer and more expedient elections with paper ballots on one election day, with voter identification, and with hand-counting the precinct level. This is something conservatism has learned but our government has failed to referee.
2. 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 to use their size as social institutions to wrest political power from individuals, to destroy the concept of a government of the people. Some have recently commented that “Our Democracy,” as Nancy Pelosi has used the term, refers to “a consensus of major social institutions,” and not to the consent of the governed. Simple things like removing party names from ballots, prohibiting party caucuses on government grounds, eliminating party affiliation from votes on bills, and not formalizing partisan house majorities and minorities could release representatives from capture by their party, and could return them to representing their voters. The First Amendment could be expanded to separate all private social institutions and identity groups from the state.
3. 3.End the Fed: The current banking system is a cabal designed for money laundering, for government counterfeiting, and for irresponsible spending at the expense of the governed. The government needs to be a referee, not a player. The government institution that prints money should only provide that money to state or local banks that lend it out with collateral or loan insurance. The central currency agency should only supply money to banks and should keep an accounting ledger. It should hold no reserves, lend no money, buy no securities, and not fiddle with interest rates. It should transfer no money directly to the government but should remain an economic institution only. This would end the current practices of unnecessary borrowing, bureaucratic bloat, and endless wars and money laundering by forcing the Federal government to get its money from taxes or sound asset-backed loans from private banks.
4. 4.Return of the Glass-Steagall Act: Keep banks to banking. Additionally, money stored in bank accounts should be the depositor’s money, not the banks’. Interest earned on loans through fractional reserve lending should go to depositors, not banks. Banks should be paid a fee for their service to clients, but they should not use the power of their institution to enrich themselves by hijacking depositor’s money. Through fractional reserve lending, banks can provide depositors 10 percent or more on savings, while still earning profitable fees.
5. 5.A Similar Act for Stockbrokers like Vanguard and Blackrock: Brokerage houses need to serve as brokers for investors, not as a stock owner themselves. This is a fundamental conflict of interest. Today big firms like Blackrock own stock or treat their investor’s stock as their own. They can manipulate mergers, acquisitions, and business failures that cause damage to innocent investors and smaller companies whose assets they sell, even as they attempt to dominate markets with monopolistic practices. A broker needs to be restricted to brokering, like the banks need to be restricted to banking. Such reforms would stop the transfer of wealth to the one percent, and lead to a natural widespread distribution of economic wealth to the middle classes.
6. 6.Patent Reform: The patent system can be revised to bring competition and to lower prices while still giving a windfall to the patent holder. A simple reform would be to allow anyone to produce goods under the patent, but to require non-patent holders to provide a 10 percent royalty to the patent holder. Patented goods would thus only be sold at about 10 percent above the market value, avoiding price gouging, while still giving a silent windfall to the patent holder.
7. 7.Limitations on Land Ownership: Widespread land ownership can also take on the economic attributes of a monopoly. The goal of governance should be to referee a game for the largest number of players, enabling everyone equal opportunity to own land. The goal is a bit like trust-busting. Limits on the amount of landownership, and restrictions on land ownership by foreign governments and social institutions should be considered to enable maximum economic competition while protecting the ability of all citizens to own land and houses.

These items are some of the major areas that require new constitutional checks and balances. Constant vigilance is required to address other abuses of money or power as they arise. Attention to keeping all institutions from exploiting those that they were designed to serve needs to enter conservative consciousness if 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 our families and schools, as they are the primary institutions that embody and conserve the lessons of the past, is essential to the development of our society.

This evolutionary view of an integral society is what I think the best conservatism entails. It is both the embodiment of what individuals need for self-governance and good personal relationships, as well as the embodiment of the understanding of the mechanisms needed for social institutions to keep their focus on their particular mission of serving 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.

[1] 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).   *