Dan notes that a piece by Dylan Matthews at Vox illustrates Robert Conquest’s First Law of Politics: “Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.” Matthews volunteered to help people file tax returns, and concluded that the tax code is in need of simplification, coming around to something that conservatives have been saying forever.
I’d just add that this is yet another example where the conservative position is the one in favor of major reforms. In that respect, it joins entitlements, education, and public-sector unions, all issues where the “progressive” position is to keep the status quo and the “conservative” position is to shake things up.
I think the idea behind Conquest’s First Law in most situations is that people are generally skeptical of major changes to what they know best. That’s a sort of apolitical definition of conservatism as opposition to radical change.
What Dan is alluding to is a political American conservatism, which includes the belief that the tax system is in great need of radical change. How that change should be manifested is up for debate, with some arguing for major changes within the income-tax system and others arguing for replacing income taxes with consumption taxes. But more conservatives than progressives in the U.S. would likely be willing to nuke the whole tax code and start from scratch.
A sort of corollary to Conquest’s First Law is that every businessman is a conservative about his own business. It’s only what he thinks the government should do to other people’s businesses that makes him a progressive.