It was, wrote Friedrich von Hayek in the epilogue to his book “The Constitution of Freedom”, “always the fate of conservatism to be dragged along on a path that was not chosen by itself”.
The conservatives have always made concessions to socialism or have anticipated it.
Nor would they object to coercion or arbitrariness as long as they were used for purposes that seemed right. Their penchant for nationalism often creates a bridge from conservatism to collectivism. This assessment of conservatism, originally made in 1960, appears particularly clairvoyant if you look at the development of the CDU and AfD in the Merkel era.