Andrew Rawnsley wrote a piece in the Observer this morning that answered no questions but ended with the comment:
The centre is not dead. It is dazed and confused. It needs fresh ideas and more engaging ways of expressing itself. It will get its voice back one day.
I have never seen much merit in the centre, per se: being neutral has no inherent merits when there are clearly issues on which stands have to be taken. But, if he is portraying the centre as anything between Corbyn and Farage (and he is, describing it as the liberal centre in other parts of the piece) then it is obvious where it things have gone wrong. It's misunderstanding of the word liberal that has waylaid the centre.
Don't get me wrong: I am a social liberal and always have been. Nothing I say here changes that. The difficulty is that the centre forgot the difference between being a liberal and being libertarian. Without disappearing deep into theory it's my contention that these two are nothing like the same thing. Liberalism, broadly speaking, is about respect for the ideas of others, equality and the freedom to live as one wishes so long as others are not harmed. On the other hand libertarianism, as I see it, is about the primacy of the individual and their right to action.
Both these philosophies are superficially about freedoms but they are, in my opinion, very different things because of their emphasis of focus. Libertarianism is about the right of the individual. Liberalism as most would have seen it for the last seventy years, and as Rawnsley is using the term, is about the right of the individual in the community of which they are a part. I am ignoring the left in this analysis for now excepting the fact that it has been, and many in Labour would still see it as, a liberal party in these terms.
So why has liberalism - the philosophy that broadly held the centre, and if it was opposed was done so from an authoritarian, conservative perspective - been eclipsed for now? I would suggest that this is because far too many liberals have been seduced by libertarianism. The conflict between the two is at the heart of disputes in the Conservative Party. Orange Book libertarians divided the Lib Dems. And Blair flirted far too dangerously with the libertarian rights of the privileged in society for the comfort of his own party. The right that libertarian wealth proclaimed, that they could do what they want, go where they wanted, only pay tax if they so pleased, hide their trades from view wherever they wanted, and still have all the benefits of the state, which were theirs of right whether or not they wished to pay for them, seduced the liberal political classes, whichever party they were in.
It is easy to explain why. Money is the one word explanation. They offered it to the parties. They wooed with it at a personal level. The liberals succumbed: this was freedom they thought.
But it wasn't. Liberalism is about freedom. Libertarianism has no time for it unless you are one of the privileged few. And when the liberal centre succumbed to libertarianism they let the privileged few off the hook of the rules by which everyone else was meant to live. The result has been a disaster. A world increasingly divided, and now resentful and angry. Worse, one that has rejected liberalism and is looking for the structure it abandoned when it adopted libertarian ideals in wholly inappropriate places, including from the libertarians themselves.
The answer us not hard to see in that case, but us much harder to create. The liberals need to understand that people want freedom but realise that true freedom requires commitment. The two are intimately related. Only by recreating that link is the possibility of a liberal agenda viable once more. And what that means is laws have to be both created and be seen to be enforced, not least on the wealthy who have opted out of them.
The message has to be that the price of true social freedom is grounded in compliance with the rules of society from tax onwards and to the rules of the market which are now so routinely ignored by large companies intent only on creating monopolies. But who is going to say that because it means taking on the libertarian elite?
I agree about the pernicious effects of libertarianism, but I think that I would go further: Alan Greenspan’s obsession with Ayn Rand had a very direct result in his willingness to believe in the superior few who could achieve anything. As head of the Federal Reserve he had been told that the markets had created instruments which abolished risk, and, such was his infatuation with the ideology, he didn’t even ask how this miraculous state of affairs had come about.
Watching his evidence at the Senate Hearings following the 2008 crash it was obvious that he had made no effort to understand the financial instruments which were being created and sold; his absolute faith that the free operation of markets, driven by the superior few, must result in the best possible outcome precluded him from even asking questions, much less noticing that the instruments hadn’t abolished risk but had, instead, cranked up risk to hitherto inconceivable heights.
It is for those reasons that libertarians today are keen that we should forget all about their role in the 2008 crash, which is all the more reason for us to remember it…
Greenspan deluded himself
In the process he abused others, massively
I entirely agree with you on this one. But I’d put it another way.
The centre is meant to be the mid point between left and right is it not?
I feel that as soon the Wall came down in Berlin the centre began to unravel more quickly (and it had been under pressure since the oil crisis and the promotion of the Chicago school snake oil since the mid/late 70’s).
Whatever checks and balances there was on greed in capitalism in the West existed when we had communist states because they posed the threat of a possible consequence if matters went too far. That era is long gone. The gravitational pull of greed destroyed the political centre.
In terms of libertarianism, as you rightly point out it is too selective about who should be truly free – the rich because of their ‘hard work’ seem to be the only ones to merit it and this too is used as a carrot in the Pan-American dream of ‘if you work hard enough, anyone can make it’.
But the other major failure of libertarianism (as well as actually pandering to power) is to make no moral judgement in order to set out some form of limit or borderline on that idea of freedom – in other words, ‘How far can you go to be free without destroying someone else’s freedom?’
Libertarianism as we have come to know set no such limit in my view. In fact it was never interested and has been pointed out by you and others on this blog rather well ,all libertarianism really is, is a justification for nothing but pure greed.
So, in the Libertarian world, zero hours contracts, low pay, no conditions, no unions, arbitraging wages globally is the capitalist expressing their freedom with no consideration whatsoever as to the consequences for anyone else.
Libertarianism is therefore on that basis amoral as an idea and immoral in practice.
Agreed
And the 1989 watermark is a key one: more than 1980 and Reagan / Thatcher
Alan Gewirth, former Professor of Philosophy at Chicago University, nailed the response to the “greed philosophy” of right-wing Libertarianism very firmly on the head in his “Principle of Generic Consistency” argument in his book “Reason and Morality” published in 1978. It has not as yet been convincingly refuted despite many attempts since publication.
He argued it was insufficient for an individual to rely solely upon the negative right of freedom from coercion as many right-wing Libertarians do because the purpose of freedom is to have “agency” to be able to act for the purposes of survival and well-being for which resources are required. Since Libertarians regard freedom as a social good that should be available to anyone it would be hypo-critical to deny resources to individuals to exercise agency. Accordingly society should be organised to provide resources for all. Since it is difficult to quantify the level of resources that need to be provided for certain resources like healthcare democratic decision making processes must be deployed. Raymond Plant expands Alan Gewirth’s argument:-
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5235/204033211796290290
Here is the technical argument by Deryck Beyleveld, Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, concerning the hypocrisy in denying that a positive right to resources should be available for all:-
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12142-011-0210-2
For m,y reading list, I think, but thank you
John Rawles Theory of Justice is also a work which has stood the test of time. Says, as I recall, much the same thing
Excellent book
To my mind:
– liberalism – enshrines individual freedoms against oppression
-libertarianism – enshrines the right of the individual to screw over others
That’s about it
The centre is just a relative term and has no real meaning. The authoritarian/liberal divide is just as important as the traditional left/right notions. The analysis of the difference between liberals & libertarians is correct but the political analysis is not. The LibDems are not a divided party these days now that the strains of coalition with the Tories are over and are the natural home for social liberals who are interested in freedom in a fair society. Think about it
I cannot see a logic to your argument
The Orange Book is still there for a start
Given that the Lib Dems have not ruled out going into coalition with the Tories again should the opportunity arise, the central contradiction of the Lib Dems remains: they want to have their cake and eat it. They want to be seen as a radical progressive voice while simultaneously retaining the freedom to prop up reactionary Tory govts when the opportunity arises. Well, the public’s seen through that one, and that’s why they’re on 8% in the polls. I think most people predicting a revival are exaggerating.
Labour’s problem for far too long has been allowing fear of the centre ground to dictate political restrictions on what is possible and desirable to achieve.
The more they give in to that, the more the centre gets pulled and warped to the right, which further restricts what is possible or desirable to implement.
Labour for too long have been looking at policy through a crooked prism of what they think they can achieve, and the results have been clear to see.
They have to start from scratch and build a new vision for reviving the UK’s economy, modernising the education system, and repairing our broken society. The centre ground says this is impossible
Actually Doing it will redefine the centre ground.
Maybe the problem is the notion of left & right, or the idea that the Labour party of 2016 needs to respect and maintain the goals of the Labour party of 1908. There’s no reason why the Labour party can’t be pro-Enterprise, encourage self-achievement, celebrate success and push self-sustainence whilst at the same time ensuring that everyone is provided with the safety net of dignity, support and help if they need it whether that is healthcare, accommodation or education. You can have both and people don’t need to identify as left or right to respect those values, nor does either of the main parties need to claim those goals as their own.
Once you start trying to differentiate between liberalism and libertarianism, talking about left, right, and centre is beyond redundant.
And liberalism and libertarianism, in my view, represent the logical extensions of Berlin’s two kinds of liberty: positive and negative. Once that difference is uncovered, the rest just follows.
In the current situation it seems like an obvious divide
But as Howard Reed has said this morning, we do not have a genuine liberal party in the UK anymore
Indeed. And it’s a great shame, IMO.
Labour is, of course, one with a more communitarian ethos. It was unashamedly illiberal, both economically and socially, until the 60’s, when it made the somewhat uncomfortable ideological straddling of social liberalism and economic illiberalism.
The Lib Dems seem to be more occupied with their wretched discos than serious policy, not that it really matters.
And the Tories, while being the most liberal major party under Cameron has now taken a far more illiberal turn with Mrs. May. And not (primarily) to social illiberalism combined with laissez-faire economics – she seems to have started to take the Tories to a far more ‘conservative’ economic agenda we might have seen under Heath or others before him.
“we do not have a genuine liberal party in the UK any more”
Ahem. liberal.org.uk
Does it have any councillors even?
(I note it has a handful, but I am not sure this proves your point)
The Liberal Party have councillors in Liverpool, Devon, Peterborough and North Yorkshire, and recently in Tyneside, Hull, Sheffield, Southampton, Cornwall and London. In Ryedale they have more councillors than the LibDems. They may be small, but they’re bigger than any breakaway Labour-type party.
Agreed
Why Ryedale (an are I know)?
With respect, a party with a few councillors isn’t one which we need to pay much attention to.
My point was clear – no major party (or even one in parliament) is liberal right now.
Engaging and faultless arguments for the benefits of liberalism. Casting around the UK political arena at present, who the hell do we vote for? How do we translate these arguments into political actions that will make a real difference in our communities?
One ingredient of the glue that holds neoliberalism firmly in place is fear? Fear of loss of ill gotten gains. I remember talking with mega-rich individuals in Texas shortly before the close of 1999. They were convinced that computers worldwide would collapse when asked to cope with 2000 (00) rather than 1999 (99). Such was their paranoia, they were buying up gold ingots and burying them in plastic pipes in their gardens…
When so few control so much it will be interesting to see how quickly the rule of law can transform to enrole these fearful hoarders to release their grip on material wealth.
I am willing to see this happen, but I can’t sense the groundswell of opinion that will effect this change (in the monied minority), let alone a political voice that will carry the flag.
Change comes from unexpected quarters
But I do not think Corbyn is it
Labour looks like it’s doomed to become a movement for protest and principle instead of a political party. A generation in the wilderness is what they’ll bring the party and everyone loses. Talk about taking their ball away. I’ve heard lots of ridiculous people from the pro-Corbyn camp, but Corbyn himself isn’t an idiot, so I don’t know why he’s persisting. Does he really think he can win marginal seats and swing voters, because that’s the only way to win an election.
In the meantime, who’s going to hold the Tories to account? Tim Farron? Nicola Sturgeon? Me?
The moral authority for Libertarian ideology is drawn from the work of John Locke who some have termed liberal. In particular he defines the original acquisition of property.
‘God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience.’
He underpins this with reference to Psalm 115
‘God has given the earth to the children of men; Given it to mankind in common.’
Leaving aside the presumption that a deity exists, Locke makes it clear that he regards ‘the gift’ of property as being made to white Christian males of a certain class. This, no doubt, allows him to absolve his conscience for his massive involvement in slavery and his distasteful rendering of rights in his compositions for the Constitution of Carolina. By defining the personal acquisition of property as erecting fences around common land to ‘improve it’, often with the threat of violence against commoners, he sets the model used by Libertarians ever since.
The American model of Libertarianism is built on massive lies (the theft of native American lands and ‘negotiating’ whilst surrounded by Jackson’s army). It is offensive to just about every religion except a corrupt rendition of Christian theology. That is then portrayed as Liberal, offering choice, freedom, promoting social harmony, all lies. And deeply worrying lies.
“Any attempt to impose one’s will or values on others or to unify the world under a certain model of ‘civilisation’ will definitely fail… No one economic system is good for all countries. Each must follow its own path, as China has.” Qiao Shi, (Chinese Politburo), New Perspectives Quarterly, Vol 14 No 3, 1997
That does seem to present some friction that in an unsettled world offers a potential flashpoint.
In a perfect world with perfect people perfect Libertarianism could work but then so could perfect Marxism. I’ll sign up for either when I’m shown one example of a perfect person.
Hence the need for compromises
And the need to have a society with rules that people comply with
Indeed.
And achieving that is called statesmanship.
Is the position of the social liberal something like?
The social contract is that we will give you as much freedom we can, but when your freedoms impedes those of others it is only fair to regulate.
Regulation is about law and tax. For example, the privilege of owning land denies other the possibility to derive income from that land which is why the state should compensate them by taxing the income and providing public goods.
Oddly, this is an issue I touch on heavily in the new book – and am copy editing that bit right now
You do a neat summary
I couldn’t (and have indeed often failed to) put it better myself Mr Adams!
A well-reasoned argument. I’ve watched as the Orange Libertarians have dragged the LibDems away from Yellow Liberalism. As the party was culled locally across the country, and then in Parliament, it tended to be the Yellow Flaggers who were in more left-of-centre seats who lost, leaving the rump of the party dominated by the remaining Orange Bookers who natually tended to represent more right-of-centre seats.
Just as the influx of new members into Labour means we don’t know sort of party Labour is yet, I don’t yet know where the influx of new members will take the LibDems. Will the new membership push the party ever deeper orange, or have they joined to drag it back to the yellow uplands?
I can’t imagine they want orange
But then I may just be an optimist
This blog started with Andrew Rawnsley’s question on the role or existence of the ‘centre’ in today’s politics, and Richard suggesting that he sees ‘no merit’ in the centre. I’d like to pose a challenge to both of them, and suggest that this illustrates how we are stuck in a profoundly out of date way of thinking about politics. That way of thinking is also perhaps, a factor in why it is so difficult to get collaboration across parties and groups in the so called centre ground.
Why on earth do we insist on thinking about something as complex as politics, with so many different issues and beliefs, in only one dimension. Left or right. So for example, why should the environment be the preserve of the left? After all, the Marxist-Leninist government’s of Eastern Europe had appalling environmental records. Why should positive views on the role of business and markets (appropriately regulated) be the exclusive preserve of the ‘right’? Granted the division of the political world into goodies and baddies keeps it simple but surely it is deeply simplistic.
What if we started thinking of politics in say 3 dimensions, as a sphere rather than a narrow, limiting left to right line? Then as I see it, the edges of the sphere, are populated by the ideologues, be they they traditional far left or far right, religious fundamentalists, military governments, Peronists or anarchists perhaps. Ideologues are not very interested in whether their ideologies when implemented as policies, work for people as a whole, only whether they fit the ideology and keep the elite that owns the ideology in power. They tend to share a dislike of data, science and academia (those pesky experts who point out the flaws and failings) and tend to want to ban, subvert or co-opt them.
The centre ground of my sphere is much more about informed pragmatism, wanting to understand what works for most people, in a changing world that rapidly makes traditional ideologies well past their sell-by dates and dysfunctional. It allows for single issue parties on topics such as health, environment or gender without have to force them to declare whether they or Left or Right and join one or the other club.
I’m happy to be accused of being half baked – or even simplistic! But if we think that current politics is broken, and that in th absence of a convincing centre, people and politicians are retreating to the fringes, then I would argue that the narrow left-right way of thinking about politics is a big part of the problem
I agree: the Courageous State reflects that fact
That’s why I was looking for something beyond ‘centre’