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A Lib Dem narrative
If Liberalism is about anything it is about the idea that ordinary men and women can improve their own lives and those of others.
If Liberalism is about anything it is about the idea that ordinary men and women can improve their own lives and those of others. OK there is a lot more to it (although we often burden teh liberal message with low/value baggage). But this idea really is at the heart of Liberalism.
Are we doing enough with it? In my view, probably not. Lsitening to some of the debates in Brighton I was struck by the moralising, fun-free nature of some of it. There is a big constituency within the lib dems for a platform based upon moral exhortation. Personally I don't find the prospect of lecturing the electorate to be better to be very attractive*.
So I was interested in Andrew Rawnsley's account of Cameron's speech to the tories.
It is not true to say that David Cameron has no beliefs. The Tory leader outlined one to his party conference that can be summed up in a word. Optimism is his policy. Cheerfulness is his creed. Being happy is his ideology. He cried to them: 'Let sunshine win the day!'
I wouldn't want us to copy Cameron's vacuity (although I would caution those who confuse moral posturing with "having something to say"). Still we can't allow him to have a monopoly on optimism.
Just think back to some of the great US presidential campaigns (Reagan v Mondale perhaps) to remind yourself how powerful a force it can be.
Indeed our message should be built around it. Britain is held back by two forces: Labour who want a regulation and a central control for every human activity, and the Conservatives who want to turn the class system back to full blast.
Only Lib Dems will release the energy of the British people.
*Incidentally one of the standard features of Lib Dem (and Liberal) conferences is (was) the fringe meeting at which someone stands up and berates the parliamentary party for not doing enough to promote some unpopular cause.
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Peter, I think you're right about this, but I also think its only part of the story. The difficulty it so tell the whole story in a way that is succinct, positive and jargon-free. Part of the problem is that your statement "If Liberalism is about anything it is about the idea that ordinary men and women can improve their own lives and those of others." sounds very similar to the sort of arguments that Chimeron was using at the Tory conference last week. We have to find a way to articulate this message which is at the core of Liberalism, but in away that differentiates ourselves from the Tories.
There's no point in saying "but they don't mean it!" because (i) no-one wil be listening and (ii) they're now being given more of the benefit of the doubt. By all means lets play the "well, we welcome your recent conversion" argument, but we have to go a step further.
What is it about Liberalism that is different to Conservatism? Personally I think its about power and vested interest. Liberalism actively seeks to challenge both in the interests of the citizen helping themselves.
Suitbale slogans on a postcard please!
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"Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures."
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Very true - when Dave talks of conservatism / Conservatism he talks of the limits of the state, as if this is the sole ethos of conservatism. In a couple of interviews last week he was asked "Are you really a Conservative?" (in so many words) and both times he replied (again, paraphrased) "Yes, I believe the state is limited and society needs to find other ways to tackle problems rather than more regulation". He is thus turning the meaning of "Conservatism" into "not Labour", in exactly the same way that when Mr Blair came along the term "Labour" suddenly changed from meaning, or at least having connotations of, "TUs / taxes / nationalisation" to being "not the Tories". It just happens that Dave's "not Labour" re-branding steals liberal clothes. Contrary to what most LDs appear to feel, I think Dave does believe in what he says. His party, however, do not. I should know. As for Tabman's pertinent question, the LDs need to find liberal ground upon which Dave simply cannot go - ie. where his party will refuse point blank to follow him. The problem is this is often bad ground for electoral capital too (drug legalisation et cetera).
I agree that a platform based on exhortation of the electorate by politicians is unattractive. It should be the other way round, if anything.
Environmentalism, unfortunately seems wedded to this approach; sincere environmentalists working towards an expanded notion of morality, and freeloaders happy to go along with policies which won't affect them and they can ignore.
Personally, the idea of green taxes correcting the externalities so well, that there is no longer any need to worry about environmental impacts, is very appealing. Do what you like as long as you can afford it. No more moralising. Unfortunately I don't think enough people are ready for it.
One of the fascinating things about a discussion like this is the number of people that come forward as keepers of the true cross. I suspect though that with any concept as wide ranging as ‘liberalism’ such as ‘conservatism’ or ‘socialism’ it is extremely hard to pin down. I would suggest that one way of examining the topic is to look at these various interpretations, and see where the principle points of contradiction occur.
From my point of view, there is serious contradiction between what we have come to mean by ‘social liberalism’ and ‘economic liberalism’. From my perspective, social liberalism has come be associated in the public mind with the permissive society embodied by the late 1960s and 1970s. To me, it is an idea associated with the concept of the ‘enabling state’ whereby the state is perceived as a benevolent force that empowers the disadvantaged in society by intervening to break down social and economic barriers. The social liberal believes that the individual must be a socially free agent, and in order to achieve that the state must intervene to break down social and legal barriers to an individual’s conduct, while simultaneously economically redistributing wealth. What would be the point of legal freedoms for society if the poor and disadvantaged lacked the means to take advantage of them economically? Could a worker in an economically unequal society ever be truly free? It seems to me that social liberalism has come to imply state intervention, even if purists insist (correctly) that this is not the place where it originated.
Economic liberalism on the other hand has come to mean something more suspicious of the state. People are free agents – free even to economically and thereby legally exploit disadvantaged members of society, which I am sure a social liberal would baulk at. But as wealth accrues to certain individuals through free markets it becomes socially reinforcing, thereby undermining the idea of a truly liberal society.
There seem to be two central narratives in the development of liberalism. One wedded to the idea of economic freedom, the other to addressing the injustices of the illiberal society that unconstrained economic liberalism produces. In that sense, there has been no such thing as a ‘conservative’ party at all since before Mrs Thatcher. Instead, within all three Parties rival wings of the ‘liberal’ movement are doing battle to see who will come out on top. So far, it’s the economic liberals who appear to have got the better of the fight.
James,
I think contradiction is a strong word. Neither economic liberalism nor social liberalism, as you define them, need to be followed exclusively in order to work, to deliver the goods.
And of course nobody but rabid extremists supports either to the exclusion of the other. The debate is how much of each to have, and that is hard to solve by appeal to any grand principle.
But I think it may be possible to go some way towards reconciling the two. Both recognise the value of freedom, but focus on different things that affect freedom. Freedom is constrained largely by absolute rather than relative poverty, by taxes, by government intervention, by dependence, by ignorance, by monopolistic forces. It is enhanced by additional wealth, however much or little you have to start with, but by more if you have less. The challenge is aggregating these different effects of policy on freedom, and weighing your freedom against mine. It is hard to do well, it is messy, it is politics.
Contradiction is a strong word perhaps, but it's the right one. I'm not trying to get at liberalism; all the 'isms' have serious inconsistancies, logical incongruities and sometimes perverse outcomes which negate other aspects of their own aspirations.
Naturally, my thoughts are just one of many interpretations of what social and economic liberalism have come to stand for. I'm sure that there are many who would disagree, but it does seem that policies of social and economic liberalism take society to different destinations depending on which you choose to pursue more rigorously.
A central narrative for liberalism could well be described as 'freedom'; however the preaching tendency and moral exhortation alluded to in Peter's post, which I see as being a product of the 'social liberal' wing of the Party, undoes much of that perception in the public eye. Rightly or wrongly, the public seems to associate freedom with the sort of economic liberty present in economic liberalism.
I too think James is wrong here.
Liberalism is about freedom and dispersal of power. The state can give freedom, but it can also remove it.
The constraints upon the state's power which economic liberalism gives are good for freedom, but the state still has power to act to prevent abuse of freedom and impinging on the freedom of others.
There is only a contradiction if you think the state cannot do harm and should be allowed to do what those in power think is best - but then you have the illiberal creeds of statism and authoritarianism.
Liberals want a minimal state, but they want the state that is there to increase freedom and do those things that individuals or voluntary groupings cannot do.
The 60s and 70s were dominated by 70 years of socialist and collectivist thinking. It was seen as the norm that the state should provide for the individual. In some cases that is true, in others it is not.
No liberal can be 100% devil take the hindmost laissez-faire and a liberal can never be a statist as the state can do great harm. The line the liberal has to walk is that between the two to disperse power amongst people and give everyone maximum freedom.
It is where this line is drawn which becomes the debate, not should you be social or economic liberal as they are two sides of the coin.
Unfortunately 'social liberalism' has been taken up by socialists and the social democrats, they advance statist solutions (especially in the US where 'liberalism' means socailist and they tend to be very paternalistic in the name of 'freedom').
Economic liberalism is tainted by Thatcher, who was an economic liberal at times, but did not take on the political or social liberalism (and then started believing in her own infallibility which was what ultimately led to her downfall).
Life would be simple if we could draw a line between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Social liberalism could be on one side and socialism or social democracy on the other. Unfortunately opportunity is a kind of outcome, and some sort of messy compromise is necessary.
I would call our emphasis on equality of outcomes social democratic, not liberal, but not necessarily wrong - I am not a puritannical liberal - as long as it is in moderation.
I pretty much agree with everything in Tristan's post, except the rather odd assertion at the beginning that I am wrong. I've re read the post several times, but I've yet to find anything that really contradicts my original points.
'Liberals want a minimal state, but they want the state that is there to increase freedom and do those things that individuals or voluntary groupings cannot do.'
This is a perfect summary of the dilemma. At what point does state intervention increase or decrease freedom?
Of course everyone accepts the need for some laws, or there would be anarchy. I believe the tension occurs because economic liberals see a much reduced role for the state, based principally on enforcibility of contract, in comparison with social liberals who see the state as a mechanism to create a more liberal society. Implicit in that idea are the concepts of justice, equality and plurality. These require a much more interventionist stance from the state in order to be fully realised.
I think there's a risk with that line of thought, analagous to the false conflict between liberty and security. If we start from the position that economic liberty can only be had at the expense of social liberty (or vice versa) then I think we are tying our hands unnecessarily.
In my opinion, the objective of a Lib Dem economic policy should be to ensure that the required level of social liberty - the basic needs of life (health, education, housing) - are guaranteed, but to do so by whichever mechanism requires the least coercion. This does not necessarily require a tradeoff between different kinds of liberty, relative to the status quo. In other words, we can advance in both social and economic liberty at the same time. We can do more to ensure that poverty is eliminated, that standards in health and education genuinely rise and that access to quality services is open to all, whilst simplifying taxes and reducing unnecessary interference in people's lives, including economic matters.
The twin objectives should be self-reinforcing; economic liberty leads to increasing productivity which increases our ability to expand social liberty; a proper liberal implementation of social policy should make public services more responsive and efficient.