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PARTISAN REVIEW
Thus viewing the world as a whole, the Conservative Man was
the exception rather than the rule. He certainly gave to Western
Europe the appearance of solidity and prosperity. But he did not
exist-except as a pale shadow of the Western man-in countries
which were parts of the world economy without an independent
industrial life, and which had never reached the status of
"creditor" nation.
Before the Western powers began to destroy each other
in
totalitarian wars, the growth of rentier incomes and of vested
interests often was misinterpreted and regarded as a phenomenon
which could he reproduced all over the world. It seemed to be the
mission of Western Europe to reproduce its own social system
everywhere so that Conservative Man would become an inter·
national figure. This prospect was an expression of the spirit of
the rentier or conservative man. It was, however, in conflict with
the peculiar position the Western powers had achieved under cer·
tain historical conditions which will never he reproduced.
The End of Conservative Man
The special conditions under which Western capitalism
developed and which created the Conservative Man no longer exist.
The social and economic foundations of Western European society
were based upon international privileges which were undermined
before the World War, and which will have become of minor
importance as the final result of the second war between Europe's
big powers. This makes revolutionary changes of world-historic
significance inevitable in Western society.
After the first World War, in victorious France and Great
Britain, and in little countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland,
and Sweden, the Conservative Man remained the predominant
social influence. In the "neutral" ·countries, independent middle
classes which enjoyed a relatively prosperous existence were little
touched by the changes in world economy which had resulted from
the first World War.
These domains of the Conservative Man have been swept away
by the tides of the second World War, which, like a tempest, is
destroying the foundations of the old Europe and changing the
economic structure of the entire world.
The collapse of the foundations of Western Society is little
