#Conservatism, as a #political_philosophy (to the extraordinarily limited extent one can dignify it with that description) is comprehensively explained by #Wilhoit's Law (i.e., a throw-away comment to a blog post, which is as much explanation as conservatism needs or merits) -- see links in comments below.

But it's @rickperlstein's 2012 article in The Baffler that explains conservatism as a business model.

www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/08/the-apotheosis-of-the-long-con