How to Be a Conservative

Scruton's central claim is that conservatism is not primarily about economics, small government, or free-market ideology. It is instead rooted in oikophilia—the love of home—and in the recognition that it is always right to conserve things when worse things are proposed in their place. He rejects the view that conservatism is merely the defense of capitalism, arguing that while economic freedom matters, the conservative's deeper loyalty is to a particular way of life, a particular country, and the institutions that sustain them.

Scruton develops the concept of oikophilia, the love of home, which he identifies as the psychological foundation of conservative politics. He draws on his father's experience as a socialist who nonetheless fought to protect his town from destruction, arguing that the instinct to conserve is rooted in attachment to a shared place. Oikophilia becomes central to Scruton's environmental philosophy, particularly in his earlier work Green Philosophy, where he uses it to argue that environmental protection is a conservative concern rooted in settlement and stewardship rather than abstract globalism.

The Meaning of Conservatism, published in 1980, was a systematic and often confrontational philosophical treatise that explicitly attacked social justice and equality of station. How to Be a Conservative, written over three decades later, is more personal and accessible, drawing on Scruton's own biography and structured around the 'truths' he finds in rival positions—nationalism, socialism, capitalism, liberalism, multiculturalism, and environmentalism. While the earlier book defined conservatism against its opponents, this later work seeks to show what conservatism can learn from them while maintaining its distinctive oikophilic core.

The most common misconception Scruton challenges is that conservatism is essentially a defense of free markets and limited government. He argues that this view, common among American conservatives, mistakes a contingent economic policy for the essence of conservatism. Scruton insists that conservatism has only a tenuous relationship to capitalism and free enterprise, and that the conservative's primary loyalty is to a particular social order, its institutions, and the shared values that bind a community together—not to economic efficiency or individual liberty as ends in themselves.

The book has been praised by traditionalist and cultural conservatives who see it as articulating a conservatism rooted in belonging and inheritance rather than economics. However, it has been less warmly received by free-market conservatives who view the market as central to conservative politics. Scruton himself acknowledged that each time he thought he had defined conservatism, the definition slipped away—and he noted that figures like Donald Trump and the rise of populism raised questions his framework could not fully anticipate. The book remains a key statement of the paleo-conservative or traditionalist position.

The environmentalism chapter is where Scruton's concept of oikophilia receives its fullest practical application. He argues that environmental concern is properly a conservative instinct, rooted in love of one's home and the desire to pass it on intact to future generations. This challenges the assumption that environmentalism belongs to the left. Scruton contends that genuine environmental stewardship arises from attachment to particular places, not from abstract globalist ideology, and that conservative politics should therefore embrace environmental protection as an extension of its core commitment to conserving what is good.