On liberalism & conservatism. Thread.

The original conservatism was Toryism and was anti-liberal and statist. Toryist conservatives favored protectionism, aristocracy and agriculture and opposed capitalism.

I was inspired to talk about this from this: https://twitter.com/Manleyan_Lulist/status/1279119656788213761

2. In the 1800s, liberalism began grew. Liberals favored representative government & laissez-faire.

Liberals supported repealing the Corn Laws to create laissez-faire & capitalism.

Liberal economic policies gradually replaced the lords with the bourgeoisie capitalists.

3. The capitalists or bourgeoisie were usually liberal constituencies and had a significantly more liberal outlook than the previous aristocrats and lords.

The repeal of the Corn Laws ushered in laissez-faire and replaced the old system with industrial capitalism.

4. The second half of the 1800s was generally considered to be the golden age of laissez-faire capitalism and many countries adopted the gold standard in the 1870s to limit state monetary policies.

5. Just as liberalism had triumphed, in the late 1800s socialism and the workers' movement developed and rose up to challenge capitalism and laissez-faire.

6. Whereas criticism of capitalism and laissez-faire was the conservative position at the beginning of the 19th century, those same ideas had become the progressive position by the end of the 19th century.

7. Conservatives responded to the rise of socialism and the workers' movement by becoming liberal on economics (free markets, private property, low taxes etc.) and allying themselves with the liberal capitalist bourgeoisie which they had previously opposed.

8. Many liberals responded to these changes by becoming left-liberals, meaning they favored a less liberal economy. Left-liberals saw the need to balance laissez-faire and capitalism with tackling social problems.

Liberals that clung to laissez-faire became conservatives.

9. The new version of conservatism was called liberal conservatism.

Liberal conservatives generally were the main rivals of socialism and the labor movement during the 20th century.

10. The triumph of liberal conservatism came in the 1980s with politicians like Margret Thatcher.

Thatcher was a liberal conservative because she drastically shrunk the role of the state in the economy and opposed socialism and labor unions and supported laissez-faire economics.

11. Liberal conservatism has been the dominant strain of conservatism since the 20th century, but at different times in the century depending on the nation.

12. To sum up, Toryist conservatism was statist and anti-liberal and sought to defend the aristocracy and agriculture from liberal capitalism.

Modern conservatism is liberal on economics and seeks to defend the capitalist bourgeoisie from socialism and state intervention.