Nick, I suppose you would have to ask Lukacs as to his precise meaning. I take him to be saying that one cannot be a conservative and be, in any fundamental sense, on the side of the cult of progress — those who preach it, profit from it, and drive its engines. Concrete pourers are, in Lukacs formula, emblamatic of the cult of progress. As C.S. Lewis remarked through one of his characters, "I've seen progress in an egg. I call it going bad."
