Social liberalism and neo-economic liberalism are largely incompatible. The former is under threat in the current wave of right-wing populism.
In the wake of Brexit and Trump, it is fashionable for political commentators to say that liberalism is in retreat. Yet what they fail to mention is that that there are two, and two largely incompatible, political traditions of liberalism. So talking about them as if they were one makes no sense.
The first, social liberalism, is the "good" liberalism, namely. In outline, this is a movement that gives rights to individuals to do their own thing, and argues for people not to be coerced by governments unless they are doing something which materially harms others. For social liberals the state exists to uphold personal and civic rights and to regulate the free market, and redistribute money, so that the operation of the capitalist economy doesn’t negate those rights in practice.
The second is the "bad" tradition of liberalism, which is called neo-economic liberalism - or otherwise known as market fundamentalism. The modern founders of this school were economists like Hayek and Friedman who argued for the untrammelled free market enforced by a nightwatchman state. The inequalities and injustices thrown up wherever this ideology has been allowed free rein are so large that it can only be imposed in illiberal regimes, such as Pinochet’s Chile after 1973, or in today’s Singapore with its hangman’s rope and rattan canes.
Quite clearly the Brexiters and Trumpists want to trash social liberalism, but the jury is still out on whether their intentions, rather than some of their rhetoric, will result in a full reversal of the neo-economic liberalism which has been the dominant world ideology and practice since the end of the 1970s.
Showing posts with label liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberalism. Show all posts
4 December 2016
15 January 2012
Danish Cartoons: No to religious censorship
Multiculturalism has confused the left on matters of censorship
In 2006 the New Labour government in London promoted a bill in Parliament to outlaw the publication of material that religious people might find offensive. The main backers of the bill were fundamentalist Muslims.
Some on the "left" felt that this bill would play a positive role in reducing anti-Muslim feeling in Britain and help integrate society. I did not agree; hence the letter below.
6 February 2006
Hi Ian,
I never thought, when we left university in 1983, that twenty-six years later we would be debating the possibility of fining and even jailing people who mocked religion, nor putting the Enlightenment on par with Islam. Times change.
Islam, like all religion which purports to command behaviour beyond that of the individual choice, makes a totalitarian claim on society. Liberalism, by contrast, aims to maximise the individual’s freedom of action, consistent with everybody else having the same freedom. The trade-off between the two is not one of reconciling two positions which are different but of the same kind (e.g. should the outside of the building be painted yellow or green), but of compromising one position which purports to give maximum choice to all with another that seeks to impose a ‘patterned’ life on everybody.
Let me take three consequences of attempting to appease fundamentalist Islam, which has become so enraged in Britain and elsewhere this week as a consequence of cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. (It is perhaps worth pointing out that no Muslim in Britain need see these pictures, and whatever is decided in Britain is hardly likely to cause Denmark to rescind its long tradition of freedom of speech).
First, if Islam were to be protected against ridicule, then of course other religions would enjoy the same protection. ‘The Life of Brian’ and anything like it would be seen no more in the New Britain.
Second, if a cartoon published in a newspaper causes outrage, then so much greater is the outrage, for example, of women walking uncovered through Muslim areas. Once you have abandoned the individual rights as a basis of law making, where does one stop in ensuring social peace through appeasement?
Third, most people who want to attack Islam (as opposed to Muslims) are from the Muslim community itself. The veil of censorship would fall on the likes of Salmon Rushdie, and we would have the absurd position of the British State attempting to stop the secularisation of Islamic communities, and prosecuting dissidents within its ranks.
The whole debate in Britain is absurd. Last week we had the Blair government seeking to impose censorship on publications which ‘insulted’ Islam (and for form’s sake other religions too). What effrontery from these New Labour scumbags! What kind of insult is a cartoon compared with the massacre of hundreds of thousands in Iraq? Why does the government concern itself with insults against Muslims caused by scribblers, but see none in 90-day detentions without charge? The truth is that the Blair government seeks censorship for the same reason that seeks 90-day detentions and war – it wishes to expand power of the state.
I know you decided in the end to oppose the Religious Hatred Bill, so what I’m trying to do is to pull you back even more firmly into a defence of liberal positions, positions which form the bedrock, in my view, of any worthwhile socialism.
.
In 2006 the New Labour government in London promoted a bill in Parliament to outlaw the publication of material that religious people might find offensive. The main backers of the bill were fundamentalist Muslims.
Some on the "left" felt that this bill would play a positive role in reducing anti-Muslim feeling in Britain and help integrate society. I did not agree; hence the letter below.
6 February 2006
Hi Ian,
I never thought, when we left university in 1983, that twenty-six years later we would be debating the possibility of fining and even jailing people who mocked religion, nor putting the Enlightenment on par with Islam. Times change.
Islam, like all religion which purports to command behaviour beyond that of the individual choice, makes a totalitarian claim on society. Liberalism, by contrast, aims to maximise the individual’s freedom of action, consistent with everybody else having the same freedom. The trade-off between the two is not one of reconciling two positions which are different but of the same kind (e.g. should the outside of the building be painted yellow or green), but of compromising one position which purports to give maximum choice to all with another that seeks to impose a ‘patterned’ life on everybody.
Let me take three consequences of attempting to appease fundamentalist Islam, which has become so enraged in Britain and elsewhere this week as a consequence of cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. (It is perhaps worth pointing out that no Muslim in Britain need see these pictures, and whatever is decided in Britain is hardly likely to cause Denmark to rescind its long tradition of freedom of speech).
First, if Islam were to be protected against ridicule, then of course other religions would enjoy the same protection. ‘The Life of Brian’ and anything like it would be seen no more in the New Britain.
Second, if a cartoon published in a newspaper causes outrage, then so much greater is the outrage, for example, of women walking uncovered through Muslim areas. Once you have abandoned the individual rights as a basis of law making, where does one stop in ensuring social peace through appeasement?
Third, most people who want to attack Islam (as opposed to Muslims) are from the Muslim community itself. The veil of censorship would fall on the likes of Salmon Rushdie, and we would have the absurd position of the British State attempting to stop the secularisation of Islamic communities, and prosecuting dissidents within its ranks.
The whole debate in Britain is absurd. Last week we had the Blair government seeking to impose censorship on publications which ‘insulted’ Islam (and for form’s sake other religions too). What effrontery from these New Labour scumbags! What kind of insult is a cartoon compared with the massacre of hundreds of thousands in Iraq? Why does the government concern itself with insults against Muslims caused by scribblers, but see none in 90-day detentions without charge? The truth is that the Blair government seeks censorship for the same reason that seeks 90-day detentions and war – it wishes to expand power of the state.
I know you decided in the end to oppose the Religious Hatred Bill, so what I’m trying to do is to pull you back even more firmly into a defence of liberal positions, positions which form the bedrock, in my view, of any worthwhile socialism.
.
17 June 2010
Liberalism & Work
A few remarks in defence of liberalism
Bourgeois liberalism does indeed stop at the factory gate or office door, but that is no reason to reject liberalism. On the contrary that is a reason to take the language of individual choice into corporations; i.e. for the rights of individual workers to trump obligations imposed by de facto imposed employment contracts.
Let me give one small example: give individual workers the right not to wear a tie, or to appeal against uniforms which are unnecessary or demeaning.
Socialism is more likely to be popular by taking the freedoms outside work into the workplace than by extending the discipline of work (even after the revolution!) into other areas of life. I don’t oppose collective action; but I support the collective action of free individuals.
Bourgeois liberalism does indeed stop at the factory gate or office door, but that is no reason to reject liberalism. On the contrary that is a reason to take the language of individual choice into corporations; i.e. for the rights of individual workers to trump obligations imposed by de facto imposed employment contracts.
Let me give one small example: give individual workers the right not to wear a tie, or to appeal against uniforms which are unnecessary or demeaning.
Socialism is more likely to be popular by taking the freedoms outside work into the workplace than by extending the discipline of work (even after the revolution!) into other areas of life. I don’t oppose collective action; but I support the collective action of free individuals.
16 June 2010
The aim of socialism
The downside of capitalism, it seems to me, is that it denies to many sufficient resources and/or financial security as well as providing a horrible time at work. This is true even though the resources of the economy are sufficient to abolish these evils.
A socialised economy is not an end in itself, but merely the economic base on which liberal freedoms can become available and meaningful for all. It is not the job of socialists to tell people how and for what purposes they should live, or to try and mould human personality, but to provide the means by which they can be free.
A socialised economy is not an end in itself, but merely the economic base on which liberal freedoms can become available and meaningful for all. It is not the job of socialists to tell people how and for what purposes they should live, or to try and mould human personality, but to provide the means by which they can be free.
Confronting New Labour's authoritarianism
In the Labour Party, now in opposition, there is talk about moving on but one aspect of their term in office needs careful examination. It is easy to explain how New Labour presided over the highest levels of social inequality in Britain since 1945: Labour sought political power, but in reality existing capitalist power found Labour. Blair et al were the ideal instruments.
Harder to explain, though, was New Labour’s assault on civic and personal freedoms. People incarcerated without trial or public evidence. Wide scale intimidatory use of stop and search powers against people on the street, especially photographers. People threatened with prosecution for criticising religion. Mass registration of people on the pretext of combating paedophilia… and so on. By 2009 it was possible to talk about the lights going out on liberal democracy in Britain.
Many of these measures were due to a cynical populism (detention of supposed would-be terrorists) or a desire to outflank the Tories and the Daily Mail. The security industry is a strong lobby (ID cards and E-Borders); yet there is something else, something more fundamentally rotten.
When the Tories managed Thatcherism 1979-97, they defeated the trade unions and local councils and imposed market fundamentalism. What happened to the victims did not worry them too much; they had scraps of welfare thrown at them and lived in junk estates. New Labour, using the language of ‘responsibility’ and for Blair ‘communitarianism’ attempted to weld everyone into their place in Britain's class-divided capitalist society. This, I believe is the true origin of New Labour’s would-be totalitarianism, and is a foul ideology which needs to be exposed and trashed.
My point is this: the left has the task not just of confronting capitalist power in the economic domain to secure a greater share of the social product for ordinary working people, but it needs to assert universalism (as opposed to cultural relativism) and political liberalism, both of which have been so stained by New Labour.
Harder to explain, though, was New Labour’s assault on civic and personal freedoms. People incarcerated without trial or public evidence. Wide scale intimidatory use of stop and search powers against people on the street, especially photographers. People threatened with prosecution for criticising religion. Mass registration of people on the pretext of combating paedophilia… and so on. By 2009 it was possible to talk about the lights going out on liberal democracy in Britain.
Many of these measures were due to a cynical populism (detention of supposed would-be terrorists) or a desire to outflank the Tories and the Daily Mail. The security industry is a strong lobby (ID cards and E-Borders); yet there is something else, something more fundamentally rotten.
When the Tories managed Thatcherism 1979-97, they defeated the trade unions and local councils and imposed market fundamentalism. What happened to the victims did not worry them too much; they had scraps of welfare thrown at them and lived in junk estates. New Labour, using the language of ‘responsibility’ and for Blair ‘communitarianism’ attempted to weld everyone into their place in Britain's class-divided capitalist society. This, I believe is the true origin of New Labour’s would-be totalitarianism, and is a foul ideology which needs to be exposed and trashed.
My point is this: the left has the task not just of confronting capitalist power in the economic domain to secure a greater share of the social product for ordinary working people, but it needs to assert universalism (as opposed to cultural relativism) and political liberalism, both of which have been so stained by New Labour.
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