Why does economic liberalism correlate so often with social conservatism?

[garik]

In other words, why are the conservative parties so often in favour of free markets (at least superficially), but also highly protectionist about things like "family values"?

And vice versa, of course.

Is this just a historical accident affecting Western countries (I'm aware that the Russian communist party is pretty socially conservative) or does it reflect something deeper?

[Amustapha]

Both are to do with keeping the rich rich and the poor poor.

[wethefolks14]

Why do Americans use so many labels? The only thing that matters in the end is whether or not a president can get us out of this shizzle. These labels only serve to divide us like gangs to fight against each other while the rich get richer and everybody else gets the shaft. DOWN WITH LABELS AND PARTISANISM!

[ibuiltthishouse]

Economiic liberlism does not promote a free market. It takes government money and sets up excess government programs so that the people depend on the government. Economic conservatsim does promote a free market because more companies means John Q Taxpayer always wins.

But moral values come from a way of life, I know a lot of folks with good morals but bad business sense. These two do not correlate.

And nobody is trying to keep the rich rich and the poor poor in a conservatie society. That is called communism!

For those of you who think conservative free markets are a bad idea, the biggest growth in our nation came from free markets. Now with high minimum wages and unions, why do you think compaines are taking their processes overseas? You would think a country who's monetary system is based on how the economy does would want to have a free market system to raise exports and decrease imports. Thank liberal thinking for 4.00 for a gallon of milk and 3.20 for a gallon of gas. Stupid mimunm wage hikes make the cost of goods hire and allows less money for research for an inferior product which in the long run promotes inflation and less jobs because business can't afford any more workers. High gas cost raise everything else because we have to transport evrything, which cuts the bottom line from businesses.

But in a free market, you can offer more comeptition to drive the price down, which forces compaines to have a better product and relieves tthem more money for research. If you pay workers what they are really worth, really hard working people would get there due and slack-offs would find themselves forced to work harder or be homeless. This would cause an explosion in new jobs and employment would be at an all time low.

Lower the minimum wage, give companies more tax breaks, keep the products local,
Forest D. Bynum

[Woot]

Well you see you need to understand that politics has two scales.

First the Left/Right scale. Far Left is totally Government controlled economy, i.e. Communism, and right is laissez-faire, or a free economy.

The Authoritarian/Libertarian scale deals with rules, like you say "family values".

The reason why the right-wing parties seem to be Authoritarian is because they descend mainly from strongly religious leaders, who were rich, and the strongly religious, be it Christian or Muslim, always have strong rules. Even if its not following their holy book correctly...

Hope it helps.