Source: Cobden Centre
by Ryan McMaken
“The thing we now call ‘conservatism’ in the West largely comes out of a reaction against the French Revolution and other revolutionary movements inspired by it. The Continental conservatives—e.g., Joseph de Maistre, Friedrich von Gentz, Klemens von Metternich, and Juan Donoso Cortés—embraced monarchism, often including its more authoritarian and absolutist varieties, in an effort to avoid repeating the excesses of the French revolution. The conservatives also opposed economic liberalism in the form of free trade and ‘free markets’ because these were associated—wrongly in many cases—with the French revolutionaries.” (07/21/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/07/what-the-conservatives-get-wrong-about-the-french-revolution/