So, my dear Disco Boy, to your contention that conservative parties that are centre-right contain liberal elements that make them partly socialist.
One of the major points I have been making repeatedly is that the term "Liberal" is ambiguous i.e. that one does not know whether the Conservative, centre right party referred to is socially liberal or economically liberal. This is a proposition that you seemed to be prepared to accept.
At the heart of this ambiguity is also the different usage of the word "liberal" in Europe and the United States.
Here is Ron Paul, for instance, using the word "liberal" to describe Rick Santorum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zz4Z93Zi1ANow, here he claims that Santorum is a liberal because he advocates state interventionist policies.
This is not the way Europeans use the word "liberal" at all. Either it is used to denote parties that support freedom of speech and opinion, civil rights etc. (social liberalism) - an example here would be the Liberal Democrats in the UK, who were elected on that basis.
Or it is used to refer to economic liberalism; free trade, laissez faire economic policies that are based on the ideas of Manchester Liberalism and the thoughts of those economists you admire the most, like Hayek and Friedman. An example here would be the FPÖ in Austria who are, as regards social questions, on the extreme right, but support laissez faire economic policies. Another example is the Conservative Party in the UK.
As the Encyclopedia Britannica points out:
"In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal program of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whereas in Europe it is more commonly associated with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economic policies."
(Taken from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)
Thus when these conservative, centre right parties in Europe are described, one can generally assume that the liberalism they propound is of an economic nature and thus closer to the economic weltanschauung of e.g. Ron Paul than anything else. Their concept of liberalism can be compared to the American concept of Fiscal Conservatism and thus I would argue that there is no socialism in their liberalism.
To sum up: we are talking about European Conservative Centre Right parties here; the definition of "liberal" here is in an economic sense and thus their liberalism tends to push them to the right, rather than to the left.
You say that you never referred to the UK Conservative Party as socialists. It was my understanding, not that you called them socialists, but that you were attempting to indicate that they were partly socialist by...
a) Using them in the list of Conservative, centre right parties you linked to from Wikipedia, who you claimed were a...
Disco Boy wrote:
mix-mash of socialist/liberal/conservative beliefs/policies...
b) Stating about the governments of Europe
Disco Boy wrote:
It would be more along the lines of 31 (centre-right = socialist or liberal / conservative) / 1 (far right conservative).
As to your point that my description of the German political scene is a red herring, I beg to differ. The point I am making here is that what is left, centre and right and thus communist, socialist, social liberal, conservative, economic liberal and fascist depends very much on the context i.e. the country and political system we are talking about. The CSU doesn't appeal to people who would vote socialist - there are are at least 5 parties who are to the left of them. So therefore there are few socialist elements in their manifesto, if not none at all. Therefore the number and strength of the various parties in each individual countries is also a determining factor of where the "centre" lies.
In the UK there are only three really major parties that do not represent solely regional interests. Here I would put the Labour party in the centre and slightly to the left and the Conservatives to the (centre) right. It is difficult to put the Liberal Democrats anywhere at the moment as they appear to be only serving the interests of the Conservative party. The political spectrum, as a whole in the UK has thus shifted to the right and the "centre" with it.
Lastly, the parties listed on the link you gave all refer to themselves as "Conservatives". What none of them do is refer to themselves as socialists.
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