Conservative wills aimed at preserving equilibria are equally acts of political will

Evidence

Is not reaction too perhaps a constructive act of will? And is not conservation a deliberate act? Why then should Machiavelli’s will be “Utopian”, and why revolutionary and not Utopian the will of someone who wants to conserve what exists, and to prevent the creation and organisation of new forces which would disturb and transform the traditional equilibrium? — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 734

Categorization

• XREF: Foreshadows the conservative-revolutionary distinction his hegemony theory later reframes; links to Burkean conservation as deliberate construction.