Progressive conservatism is a conservative ideology that incorporates progressive policies alongside conservative policies. It stresses the importance of a social safety net to deal with poverty, support of limited redistribution of wealth along with government regulation to regulate markets in the interests of both consumers and producers. Progressive conservatism first arose as a distinct ideology in the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's "One Nation" Toryism.
In the UK, the Prime Ministers Disraeli, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, and present Prime Minister David Cameron have been described as progressive conservatives. The Catholic Church's Rerum Novarum (1891) advocates a progressive conservative doctrine known as social Catholicism.
In the United States, Theodore Roosevelt has been the principal figure identified with progressive conservatism as a political tradition. Roosevelt stated that he had "always believed that wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand, and that the wise conservative must be a progressive because otherwise he works only for that species of reaction which inevitably in the end produces an explosion". The administration of President William Howard Taft was considered by some to be progressive conservative and Taft described himself as "a believer in progressive conservatism". However, Taft was challenged for the presidency from within the Republican Party by Theodore Roosevelt on the basis of his lack of support for presumed key progressive legislation, and his supporters formed the Progressive Party specifically to allow Roosevelt to run against Taft. President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared himself an advocate of "progressive conservatism".
In Germany, Chancellor Leo von Caprivi promoted a progressive conservative agenda called the "New Course".
In Canada, a variety of conservative governments have been progressive conservative, with Canada's major conservative movement being officially named the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1942 to 2003. In Canada, the Prime Ministers Arthur Meighen, R.B. Bennett, John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, and Kim Campbell led progressive conservative federal governments.
Famous quotes containing the words progressive and/or conservatism:
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution that would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curse of the world. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)