Traditional Conservatism:
There are two distinct ideologies within the spectrum of tradtional American conservatism, generally labeled social traditionalism and fiscal conservatism, that play significant roles in the political thinking of contemporary American conservatism.
Social Traditionalism:
Fiscal Conservatism:
Social Traditionalism:
- Social traditionalists, on one hand, are concerned with maintaining more discipline in peoples' social and personal lives, especially within the family (e.g., by tightening controls over abortion, homosexual behavior, and pornography; by making divorce more difficult). Another characteristic is the desire to bring back more religious authority in people's lives (e.g., by restoring prayer to public schools).
- Social traditionalism and its underlying social values are the political life's blood of religious conservatives (i.e. Protestants) and of their advocate in the political arena, the Christian Coalition.
Fiscal Conservatism:
- Fiscal conservatives, on the other hand, are concerned with basic economic issues (e.g., curtailing government regulation of business, instituting policies that reduce "government handouts," and increasing work requirements for poor people).
- Fiscal conservatism and its underlying values provide people of higher incomes (i.e. businessmen) with a justification for their economic advantages and with an orientation that assists them in keeping those advantages. An economic conservative ideology, then, has an important utilitarian function for high-income people. Believing, for example, that government should not take money away from people with higher incomes and give it to people with lower incomes has obvious advantages for those who have some wealth.
Johnson, S. D., & Tamney, J. B. (2001). Social Traditionalism and Economic Conservatism: Two Conservative Political Ideologies in the United States. Journal Of Social Psychology, 141(2), 233-243.