“Economic conservatism” has been based on the premise that people have a right to be selfish since Herbert Hoover. What else do you think “rugged individualism” means?
Economic conservatism is about taking people's self-interest and redirecting it in such a way that it benefits others via market exchange. Ironically, modern leftists are the ones who complain the most about this ("I can't believe that I don't get to just write poetry under a fig tree all day and live an upper-middle-class lifestyle despite contributing nothing to the market that other people want").
