First published in 1980, The Meaning of Conservatism is now recognized as a major contribution to political thought, and the liveliest and most provocative modern statement of the traditional “paleo-conservative” position. Roger Scruton challenges those who would regard themselves as conservatives, and also their opponents. Conservatism, he argues, has little in common with liberalism, and is only tenuously related to the market economy, to monetarism, to free enterprise, or to capitalism. It involves neither hostility toward the state, not the desire to limit the state’s obligation toward the citizen. Its conceptions of society, law, and citizenship regard the individual not as the premise but as the conclusion of politics. At the same time it is fundamentally opposed to the ethic of social justice, to equality of station, opportunity, income, and achievement, and to the attempt to bring major institutions of society – such as schools and universities – under government control.

     Its root conceptions are those of loyalty, allegiance, community, and tradition. The conservative vision of society is one in which autonomous institutions and private initiative predominate, and in which the law protects the shared values that bind the community together, rather than the rights of those who would blow the community apart.</P>

羅傑・斯剋拉頓

是當代的一位最具代錶性、也是最具爭議的保守主義理論傢。1975年，斯剋拉頓加入保守主義哲學小組，1976年又成為索爾茲伯裏小組(Salisbury Group)的重要成員。1982年，斯剋拉頓開始主編《索爾茲伯裏評論》(Salisbury Review)，該刊很快就成為英國乃至西歐最有影響的保守主義刊物。斯剋拉頓全麵闡述瞭保守主義的基本原則，強調傳統的作用，主張加強法治，維護社會秩序，強化國傢的權威。