Well yes, except when it isn’t. Sometimes it means a cautious demeanor with an sustained effort towards developing the Aristotelian virtues. Everyone seems to mean something different by the term, which makes me prefer not to use it at all.
I think it’s rather the other way round. There was less government, when people were more culturally conservative. And as cultural conservativism declined in America, government expanded. The reasons for this are quite simple. More “progressives” entered the political arena. More voters and acitivists from non-WASP backgrounds started to dominate politics, media and civil society. What you got is the altered America of today.
Aristotelian virtues? Such as moderation?
I don’t think he used the word “cultural” as in “cultural conservatism”. Here’s how Hoppe defines conservatism:
“What it means, and possibly only can mean, is this: Conversative refers to someone who believes in the existence of a natural order, a natural state of affairs which corresponds to the nature of things: of nature and man. This natural order is and can be disturbed by accidents and anomalies: by earthquakes and hurricanes, diseases, pests, monsters and beats, by two-headed horses or four-legged humans, cripples and idiots, and by war, conquest and tyranny. But it is not difficult to distinguish the normal from the anomaly, the essential from the accidental. A little bit of abstraction removes all the clutter and enables nearly everyone to ‘see’ what is and what is not natural and in accordance with the nature of things. Moreover, the natural is at the same time the most enduring state of affairs. The natural order is ancient and forever the same (only anomalies and accidents undergo change), hence, it can be recognized by us everywhere and at all times. Conservative refers to someone who recognizes… families and households based on private property and in cooperation with a community of other housholds as the most fundamental, natural essential, ancient, and indispensable social units.”
etc, etc… a whole chapter goes on and on about him explaining his point of view on this.
As a matter of fact ‘anarcho’ conservatives may favor some, or all of those things, and dislike the state because they think the state prevents them from ‘creating’ say, a fully theocratic ‘natural order’.
Government started its expansion the day it was birthed.
All the virtues are a mean between excess and deficiency. For instance, courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness, while generosity is the mean between miserliness and extravagance.
Isn’t that a non-individualistic / collectivist way of arguing?
It’s about the rate. How does the rate of growth/ during the 19th century compare with the one found in the 20th century? And perhaps expansion was reversed at certain stages as well. The question is why?