Since conservatism became a movement in the 1950s, the American right has understood itself to be defending not just the written American Constitution but an unwritten one as well — a kind of cultural or social constitution, deeply rooted in our national history, that the checks and balances of our official political system help sustain.
Under this constitution America has three branches of government but a great diversity of power centers — religious and corporate, familial and philanthropic. Under this constitution the most important institutions in our national life aren't political ones; they're the institutions of civil society, which have flourished — or so the conservative argument goes — precisely because government has been kept within limits, and the state hasn't co-opted or crushed all its rivals for influence and power.
Thus when conservatives preach about the virtues of “limited government,” it isn't just Herbert Hoover's rugged individual that they imagine themselves defending. They envision a larger communitarian panoply — civic associations, religious denominations, charities and universities and private schools — which needs protection against the jealousy of a centralizing state. And they tend to assume that keeping the American corporation embedded in this communitarian system is a better way to balance productivity and innovation and public-spiritedness than just trying to regulate and micromanage businesses into good behavior.
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