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What's liberal left?
Denying that the left-right political spectrum exists is not working, so let's change it
A few weeks ago, the Liberal Conspiracy website launched, with a bold claim of representing the 'liberal left'. This provoked a less-than-enthusiastic response from those who felt that 'liberal' was not the right word. I meant to write this post while the question was a bit more topical, but now is as good a time as any: just what is the liberal left?
Any analysis of this problem tends to suffer from semantic confusion: there's little agreement over what 'left' really means in a political context, or even what 'liberal' means. So, if this question is to be answered meaningfully, we'll have to define the terms.
Liberalism is a broad concern with human liberty. It is a belief that individual decision-making is important and that, insofar as it is possible, people should be free to control their own lives. Liberals tend to believe that the only good reason for coercing a person - preventing them from taking a course of action - is to protect the rights of others. Liberalism rejects the notion that we need to be commanded from above by wiser, cleverer, richer, more powerful, more articulate or more organised groups; instead, liberalism favours free association and voluntary arrangements wherever possible.
'Left' is a broad political term which has changed in meaning over the period of its use. I think it's fair to characterise 'left-wing' as 'concerned about improving the conditions of those who are suffering most from the present arrangement of society'. Yes, that's a long-winded way of saying it, but it's better to be long-winded than to leave anything open to interpretation. So, a left-wing perspective on economic issues might involve concern about poverty, or the status of mistreated workers, or the effects of imbalances of power on those with the least power to control their own lives. Left-wingers are primarily concerned with promoting the interests of the weak.
So, what does 'liberal left' mean? They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll try to illustrate by use of a diagram:
Put simply, 'liberal left' is that area in which 'liberal' and 'left' overlap. (I apologise if this is a bit obvious; As I said earlier, there's so much confusion about this issue that it pays to be clear).
So, there are some policies and beliefs which are both liberal and left-wing, some which are liberal but not especially left-wing and some which are left-wing but not liberal. For example, a left-winger could advocate state control of the major national industries on the basis that this would (in theory) enable them to be run in the interests of all. A liberal would reject this idea on the basis that it would create monopolies, thus denying people choice and control, or that it would simply create a new concentration of power in the hands of politicians and lobbyists. Alternatively, a liberal might suggest drastic tax cuts in order to give people more control over how their money is spent, whilst a left-winger might reject this because it would, in the extreme, lead to greater inequalities; the poorest might not be able to afford healthcare if it was not tax-funded.
So, to call oneself 'liberal left' or 'left liberal' requires that you be willing to rule out ideas which fall outside of either liberalism or left-wing sympathies. It means that you can't support paternalist policies which take control away from people even if your intention is to help them, and it means that you can't advocate greater liberty if it only means greater liberty for the few. Jock Coats has an insightful post today about how liberal economic ideas must benefit everyone if they are to be popular; to me, this illustrates the issue perfectly. It is possible to achieve left-wing aims - a better deal for the poor and the powerless - without resorting to illiberalism and paternalism. The challenge for the liberal left is to demonstrate that there is a complete programme for government within the sphere of liberal left ideas.
So, this might be 'left-wing' politics, but not as we know it. The insistence on liberty as a guiding principle should win the support of those who want to see a more equitable society without wanting to surrender control over their own lives, and the insistence on a care for the interests of the weak - already an idea most liberals will instinctively subscribe to - will ensure that liberty is not just the freedom of the strong to exploit the weak.
Forging this kind of movement will not be easy. It's tempting to subscribe to the 'bloggertarian' viewpoint, and damn all government action as unjustified meddling. It's also tempting to propose that this particular government intervention is justified, even if it results in a loss of liberty. Both views are in tension with each other, and have to be balanced. Many of the discussions on Liberal Conspiracy so far have demonstrated that tension. But I don't think that liberalism and leftism are irreconcilable; now, more than ever, with both New Labour and the Conservatives occupying the centre-right, a progressive centre-left has a great opportunity. We need to promote liberty as a virtue and not a weakness, and explain how liberty can bring society together, not drive it apart.
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Alternatively, a liberal might suggest drastic tax cuts in order to give people more control over how their money is spent, whilst a left-winger might reject this because it would, in the extreme, lead to greater inequalities; the poorest might not be able to afford healthcare if it was not tax-funded.
See, I'm just not sure that this would be liberal! A liberal economic policy, as I said in that article, would be one which would cut taxes precisely because that cut would benefit the poor. It would be better described as removing a tariff rather than cutting a tax - a tariff that causes more poverty than it is supposed to alleviate.
I'd be happier saying that all liberalism, including "economic liberalism" is a subset of "left", even though people often think of some liberals as "of the right". I'd say that John Howard was not a "liberal" for example.
cool blog
"I think it's fair to characterise 'left-wing' as 'concerned about improving the conditions of those who are suffering most from the present arrangement of society'"
It's an unsatifactory definition in many respects, not least of which is who would disagree with it or claim to support the opposite view of being unconcerned by the suffering of others? It would broadly make everyone left-wing, short of sociopaths and war-criminals.
Left-right traditionally is more of an economic pose about where you sit on the redistribution question, libertarian/authoritarian about how you do it. You can over complicate these things...
Concern about the condition of others implies that you want to do something about it, something which is not being done already. You either believe that enough is being done, or you don't. Labour and the Conservatives seem to think that the current situation is, broadly, acceptable, and disagree only on minor details. Neither would rebalance the tax system to any significant degree and neither are particularly interested in decentralising power or pursuing other means to empower individuals. I suppose that the word 'suffering' is too emotive, as it suggests that people are in some kind of acute pain (about which you're right, only a sociopath could be unconcerned about this), but I'm talking more about conditions of poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of democratic empowerment. 'Suffering' may be too strong a term for this, in which case I apologise for using the wrong word.
I'm not sure that I'm overcomplicating things here. Most people do think in terms of left and right, and the two-dimensional system you refer to is probably too complicated for most people who aren't politically aware. I fully admit that it's more logical, but if being logical were enough to get us elected then we'd have a majority of about 200 by now.
If I go along with the view of 'left/right' being about redistribution, then I think I'm left-wing. I just don't think that it's all about redistribution of incomes. Redistribution of power is important too, and our decentralising agenda would redistribute power. In fact, our current tax proposals are redistributive insofar as we want to cut taxes on the poorest. I'm also liberal, which means that I don't believe in achieving our goals by ordering people around, but by setting them free. Yeah, I know, it's a vague formulation, but it's about having a sort of political moral compass, so that we (and others thinking about voting for us) can tell what general direction we're going in.
"Concern about the condition of others implies that you want to do something about it, something which is not being done already."
Again though, of whom is that not true other than a sort of strawman definition of an ultra-conservative who wants nothing to change. I know of no one like that outside the Long Room of Lords Cricket Club, and even they voted to allow women in on the assumption it would happen after most of them were dead.
Further, both Labour and Conservatives could cite parts of the their policy agenda from child poverty goals to enabling a micro-generation revolution that fit the criteria. On the other hand it would define our public sector policies of no change in regard to the BBC, Post Office network, and NHS as right-wing, which is quite a stretch.
About 80% of people can self-define on the left-right axis according to the last YouGov survey in July. Perhaps in their next one they should ask people what they mean by that...
I'm at the stage of giving up on left/right as meaning anything useful.
Authoritarian/Libertarian is still useful though. You'd probably need to add a view of humanity and progress to that - conservatives are pessimistic about human nature and progress, progressives (the real ones, not the conservative nannies which go by this name) tend to be more optimistic about human nature and the possibilities of progress.
For economics - well, there's various forms of state direction (state socialism, corporatism etc) and the free market, but they conform to the libertarian/authoritarian axis. To add confusion state socialism is notionally left wing, corporatism is notionally right wing, both are illiberal and authoritarian.
The other thing to consider in politics is the collectivist/individualist axis. Liberalism is on the individualist end, various collective ideologies (socialism, Marxism) are on the collectivist end. Some collectivist ideologies are libertarian (collectivist anarchism, some interpretations of Marxism) some are authoritarian. Individualism can also be authoritarian if it takes a very 'might is right' view.
What people call left and right varies all over the place with these.
I'm largely in agreement with Tristan Mills.
Notions of 'left' and 'right' have lost much of their utility but NOT because, in some Giddens/Blair sense, a 'third way' exists or that an accommodation has been reached. It is simply the case that the older, nineteenth century landscape of many competing ideologies has returned and the twentieth century's simplistic ideological landscape (left vs right; collectivist vs individualist; socialist vs capitalist) has disappeared. While nineteenth century radicalism might include nihilist 'right wingers' and socialist utopians equally, twentieth century politics would have regarded them purely from the point of view of their stance vis-a-vis property, or poverty, or state power and labelled the first as 'proto-fascists' and the second as 'Fabian socialists'.
Today there are a host of competing ideologies that frame our perceptions of both 'left' and 'liberal' domains - environmentalism and feminism are just two of the most powerful - but the important thing about them is that they are not, inevitably, either 'left' or 'liberal' in themselves. I think the point I am making is that it is not impossible to imagine a 'right wing' environmentalist agenda; it may not LOOK the same as yours and mine but that is not the point. Equally, were I a feminist I should feel it very keenly if it were assumed that by virtue of my feminism I simply HAD to be of the left.
These competing ideologies are, however, radical - a term I want us to reclaim from the far left - inasmuch as they propose, often, very different configurations of human society and economy, usually (but not invariably) from a left or liberal perspective. I'd prefer us to debate the overlap between 'radical' and 'liberal' since this now has much more meaning.
Andy, Tristan, Mark - all of you are correct. But this does not erase the fact that 'left' does have some meaning for many people. It's a vague term, but it's what they use to describe themselves. 'Liberal left' is about making sure that those who consider themselves to be on the 'left' understand that they can be properly liberal too.