For generations, the Right has been understood as being first and foremost the side of capitalism. Embodied in the figures of Thatcher and Reagan, capitalism is championed by many in the mainstream who trade under the name “conservative” as the only alternative to the evils of socialism. The notion of a Right divorced from or — heaven forbid — opposed to capitalism is, for many, all but unimaginable. 

Yet, it has not been socialism that has eradicated any degree of uniqueness or character that the high streets of the towns and cities of Britain once possessed. It has not been socialism that has instead populated them with the same corporate banks and brands, the same five or six fast food chains, and the legions of vape-peddling, nail-painting, hair-cutting, phone-fixing, Chinese-tat-slinging enterprises (which are always above-board and certainly never aid criminal activity). It has not been socialism that has invited in millions of foreigners, transforming swathes of the country beyond recognition with no regard for the communities that may once have existed there. It has not been socialism that has paved over the rolling hills and forests of the shires with acres upon acres of identikit, IKEA-esque housing developments. It has not been socialism that has left the bulk of my generation deracinated, atomised, and without any sense of pride or belonging in their ancestral homeland. It has not been socialism that has taught that same generation that satisfaction is to be found in the endless accumulation of wealth, in hedonistic pursuits of the flesh, and in vague commitments to vapid, state- and corporate-sponsored “causes”.

These are the consequences of a very particular form of capitalism. Do not misunderstand me — this is not the entrepreneurial capitalism of the 18th and 19th centuries that our self-proclaimed “capitalists” tend to idealise. This is a form of capitalism characterised by a pitiless drive to abolish the very concept of sentimental attachment; by a view of man not as a fundamentally unique and irreplaceable member of his community, but as a fungible good, a mere cog in the machine whose sole function is production and consumption; by the sheering away of all that it views as superfluous — like, for instance, the merely aesthetic — in the name of pure efficiency; by deference to and worship of the almighty line, which must always be on an upward trajectory. In other words, this economic order is comprehensively opposed to those things that the man of conservative temperament holds dear. This is managerial capitalism.

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