Chesterton´s revenge

Why does conservatism fail every-single-time? Many baffled conservatives ask themselves this question. The answer is simple, but by its very nature, modern conservatism can´t and won´t see it. Which is why modern conservatism will be defeated, again and again, by the "woke liberals". 

It´s capitalism, stupid.

The present-day capitalist system is economically global, politically globalized, dominated by trans-national corporations, and dependent on its survival on open borders and mass migration. Meanwhile, the polity has become more "democratic" (after a fashion). At the very least, we now have a "mass society" or "society of the Spectacle" based on mass consumption and a so-called service economy. The most natural ideological superstructure of such a society isn´t traditional conservatism. It´s either a form of left-liberalism or a form of libertine libertarianism. (In practice, these seem to co-exist in various insidious ways.) 

The only way for conservatism to "win" would be to expropriate the trans-nationals. That is, the globalist big bourgeoisie. But of course, that will never happen, since the conservative elites are themselves part of this very bourgeoisie. Compare how the nobility was once integrated into the ascending capitalist system, and soon lost all interest in opposing it through Jacobitism, "feudal socialism" or whatever. In the United States, plebeian conservative movements, who like to imagine America as somehow still Jeffersonian, are invariably coopted by the GOP, the party of the patrician bourgeoisie (and cheap Mexican labor).

This reminds me of another failed conservative movement, known as Distributism, which envisions a society of small-scale producers and (presumably) consumers, and a weak state. A very self-consciously petit bourgeois vision! But the only way to create such a society would, once again, be to expropriate the big bourgeoisie, which requires a *strong* state. (It´s interesting to note that Belloc actually supported the Francoist fascists.) But why would a strong (fascist) state in a modern world promote an economy dominated by vaguely cooperative subsistence farmers who spend their surprisingly extensive leisure time reading G.K. Chesterton´s Christian apologetics at the local beer pub? 

So conservatism will continue losing the culture wars. The real cultural movers and shakers will be the "woke" trans-people and pseudo-feminists (in public) and the hedonistic Weinsteins and Epsteins (behind close doors). The latter will try to replace the former with paedophile normalization. 

Until this system, too, collapses.

And it´s only in the event of such a collapse that petit bourgeois conservatism can become a political force to be reckoned with. If the big bourgeoisie and capitalism won´t be expropriated by a strong state, only the collapse of the entire system can make them obsolete. Of course, the forms of conservatism that believe in "Making America Great Again", "Proposition Nation", "Wise Use", climate change denial, fossil fuel optimism, and similar things, will become just as obsolete as the liberals and libertines. 

Who knows, maybe that fat and frivolous phoney Chesterton will have the last laugh, after all. 

I admit that I don´t really like it. I´m more into classical Social Democracy and such things. 

But that is the situation. Make of it what you will.