I was involved in some Twitter debate yesterday about attacks that have been made recently on what has been described as the liberal left, who have been described by some as ‘enemies of working class people'.
It so happens that I consider myself to be on the liberal, or more precisely, the libertarian left. I am strongly in favour of moves to reduce inequality, to support working people and their priorities, and to reduce the power of wealth, not least by redistributing it. That, very obviously, puts me on the left.
At the same time I also pretty profoundly anti-racist; pro-feminist; am deeply sympathetic to issues around LGBTQ issues, whilst acknowledging the stresses within those movements; and am welcoming of significant free movement of people. This makes me socially libertarian. Add the two together I could be described as liberal left. I am unashamed about it.
I have to also admit to being what I suspect most people would call an intellectual. It's hard to be a professor and deny that. I am, again, unashamed of it.
But does that mean I am an enemy of the working class? I really do not know why.
I get it that the neoliberal left might be described as such. I am inclined to make that point of some in the Labour Party right now.
But I should add that there are those think they are on the left of Labour who do also, for example, claim that the government is constrained in its ability to print money whilst suggesting that it has a credit card that can be maxed out. They are in my opinion in exactly the same place as that neoliberal left, because they too deny the capacity of the state to provide essential public services from money it can create to deliver services if it wishes to do so.
John McDonnell was one of those who said that. Under him the 'maxed out credit card' mantra was on official Labour position.
And his chief economics adviser rejected modern monetary theory not because it did not describe very accurately how the money economy works, but because he suggested that it did not include a specifically Marxist class based explanation of the process of money creation. As a result he preferred an obviously wrong neoclassical theory.
That's why I could not work with McDonnell.
It's also why I was expelled from the Progressive Economy Forum, which somewhat pretentiously thought itself to be advisers to McDonnell. My crime was always that of opposing the austerity that they would have enabled because I knew alternatives were available that could, intellectually, be explained but which the left did not want to hear.
Am I an enemy of the working class in that case? I challenge those from the far left to explain why, if that is what they think.
And if those making the criticism object to the liberal left, what do they want instead? Is it an authoritarian left? That possibility worries me.
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As somebody who believes that you seldom go wrong by under-estimating the mendacity of the propaganda pumped out by the Tories, their front organisations and the British media, I have suspected for years that a key purpose of blaming all their failures on the “Liberal left” is that it makes it almost impossible to explain to the majority in this country, that most of their problems stem from a very different bunch of people confusingly referred to by the very similar sounding title of Neo-liberals.
As result I doubt that less than 10% of the UK electorate has the faintest idea of the difference between the two terms, A confusion that works very effectively for the Far-right.
Anybody who doubts that this sort of thing works should consider how effectively George Osbourne destroyed the great utility of the concept of the Living wage by simply renaming the lower government minimum wage as the “Living wage”.
Not only did Osbourne get away without any criticism for what was one of the nastiest pieces of dishonesty I have ever heard from a UK chancellor, but also since then the UK media always repeat Osbourne’s lie.
@Paul Langston
You are undoubtedly correct that the distinction between “liberal” (in its varied American, English or Western European usages) and “neo-liberal”” is meaningless or at least not recognized by most in the UK – or anywhere else. But I think you mean that you doubt “that more than 10% of the electorate” has any idea of the distinction, not “less than 10%”
Rubbish!
All the far-right financial fascists are doing is trying to mingle their needs (absolute freedom to do what they want) with the hoi polloi so that THEIR objectives are preserved through collective action (people will vote for them). They are creating the ‘enemy within again’.
Too many Americans for example have been made terrified of the ‘socialist bogeyman’ and the same is being attempted successfully here.
I refuse to see myself as ‘Left’ anymore as it does not exist in my view. I prefer the term/label of ‘progressive’ if only because we seem to be going backwards. And traditional Left seems well placed in history anyway although it provides a certain amount of architecture for being ‘progressive’. And I don’t even like the label ‘progressive’ really.
There is something so fundamentally human and correct about the ideas behind the courageous state model that I would call it/me ‘pro-social’. Anything other is ‘anti-social’ to me – certainly fascism (that is so clever at using the pro-social to further its aims), Neo-liberalism, Thatcherism etc.
As for ‘liberal’ – well I don’t think that exists frankly. The problem with liberal thinking is its high-mindedness. It seems to require some form of rationality and reasonableness that no longer – thanks to fascism and free market dogmatism – exists. The standard it sets is too high but also it has become a label for weakness. Liberalism has been easy prey for fascism and market dogma – too easy to bring down.
Liberalism’s requirement of the ‘rational man’ ignores the reality of irrationality in the world and the workplace. A rational human race for example would not now be witnessing the heating up of its planet and a country the destruction of its economy (BREXIT). But those things have happened and also been enabled by liberalism, which expected higher morality than what was possible when society laid down the rules (no one would dare prorogue parliament just to stop a debate would they?!!).
Liberalism’s nomothetic approach, insisting that rationalism is some form of universal law instead of taking a more ideographic approach (taking into account dissent and unreason) means that it has been asleep at the wheel whilst the partiality and objectives of fascists and big money have crept in by the back door to undermine and usurp it.
Anyone identifying with the liberal label need not feel offended – this is not a personal attack, merely an opportunity by me to take a philosophical approach to why liberalism is so much under attack and failed.
And please don’t tell me to go away and read about it because I have. Real freedom needs more protection, and liberalism has not provided it. We need something stronger I’m afraid.
Interesting
Noted
The term ”progressive” is also another misused term that has no meaning. It is a label that has been used by political groups. From communists who complain about capitalist imperialism, to imperialists championing their colonies in the name of progress. The world in US politics has other meanings such as those that want to ban things in order to promote social progress; such as alcohol. The word was used by Tony Blair as a synonym for continuation of Thatcherite policies.
The problem with liberalism that you describe is precisely what liberal thinkers during enlightenment said. That there are many cultures which say they are enlightened and liberal who end up subjugating others because they believe their ideas are universal. In most cases the ‘liberal’ believe only exists inside the individual and is not universal believe system. Which is why that liberalism which strays from individualism tends towards authoritarianism.
Firmly agree with PSR on all of his points – and a superb evaluation of the current use of the term ‘liberal’ and more broadly, liberalism as an ideology.
I have always had some issue with the model and terminology of the political spectrum – I know that many others would disagree with me and have some good points to back their view. This idea of left/centre/right has been used in so very many bad faith arguments and logical fallacies that I dislike to apply what I regard as these rather arbitrary labels. Using specific terms that have more coherent and comprehensive definitions – such as ‘progressive’ or ‘socialist’ (still not perfect perhaps but definitely better), tends to avoid at least some of this over-simplification and potential for mendacity. For example, the terms ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ are often misused by a hefty number of highly immoderate individuals to describe themselves and their political positions. Such vague terms are intrinsically ambiguous and therefore permit those adopting them as their identifying labels to employ the tactic of triangulation which often helps to avoid much needed critical evaluation of a political view by being presented as ‘sensible’ because of its appearance of compromise which (at a shallow level) appeals to many people’s sense of fair play.
Your observation on the term ‘moderate’ is certainly correct. Back in the day I can remember people referring to Enoch Powell as a moderate, presumably because he was not in favour of lynchings.
I was making the point that those of us that enjoy this blog and its accompanying comments need to guard against falling into the trap of assuming that everybody understands the terms Neo-liberal or Liberal left and the frequently diametrically opposed ideas meant by them.
If we do not, we are just talking to ourselves.
As for your larger point I think that the enlightenment with its implied idea that there is such a thing as objective proof that can be discovered by the use of evidence and rational argument is still the best hope we have.
It has the same relationship to human conduct as Democracy has to Government, it has its faults but as ideas go, it is better than all the rest.
PSR, interesting….
We have a crisis not of Left and Right – themselves concepts of society emerging from the processes of industrialisation – but of linearity and complexity, the concepts emerging from the digital age. The intellectual – and social – fracturing you observe is not about what people think, but HOW they think. And what they see in the world as a result.
Well put
Some of you seem to be saying that you find the established labels and “isms” limiting, they seem to have become redundant quite suddenly – not expressing the meanings you want them to. Is this because we are facing unprecedented multiple threats and we need new ways of talking about power groupings/how to define our position/what we want to happen and what needs to change? The world feels very dangerous and a lot that we’ve relied on is failing and changing. Finding aspects of our language inadequate in these times is understandable.
PSR:
This perhaps has some relevance to your thoughts.
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-politics-of-effective-altruism?utm_source=email
NJD
Thanks.
‘Voters are left wing economically and right wing socially’?
Really? I think that it’s the other way around actually, just from observing other people’s behaviour. And that description might actually be misleading both ways around!!
My workplace is full of people getting out. I’ve lost two staff in my department and others have been leaving or on the way out too.
Why? Because of panic over the cost-of-living crisis. They’ve put aside loyalty and being part of an established team because of fear of falling behind in financial terms. They go after the money if they perceive that money will be a problem.
One member of my staff had just completed a post grad degree paid for by our employer. Very hard working, committed and effective, as she completed the course, she went into job finding mode. She did nothing to suggest improvements from her learning to the department that paid for her education and developed her, and instead marketed herself to better paying employers. The course was her free ticket out. Fair enough.
But my point is that whilst working people are exposed to pressures on income, things like altruism and thinking ahead (most things more ‘pro-social’ in fact) will go out of the window whilst personal survival through economic chaos becomes the main pursuit.
The Left and Right Neo-liberals have characterised our society as a race – a free for all – the aim being to grab as much as you can whilst you can. Totally short term in thinking. They like to keep society in a constant state of unsettlement, of disequilibrium so that those that rule can hoover up the benefits (usually financial).
It is very hard to think of the future in the short horizons that political and economic policy keep throwing up in front of longer horizons (democracy, the environment, equality, species survival, sustainability, national security etc.). There is plenty of evidence to suggest that although humans make war, kindness and altruism play a part in ‘social contracts’ between people – behavioral forms of exchange (rather than money) – the cancelling of debts for example or the controlling of certain prices in markets to avoid price shocks are such examples of such ‘kindnesses’.
That is that such kindnesses are not just simplistic actions – they are actually complex reciprocal arrangements that come with obligations and benefits for giver and recipient. Obligations and benefits seem to be more monetized these days.
So, the challenge is, how do you manufacture longer term thinking in societies? Well, a place to start is the opposite of the Neo-liberal chaos above.
Ardj
Thanks.
We agree to be honest.
When I named Locke, I did acknowledge that I was not totally happy with his liberal take on the sanctity of private property.
All this did was enable the extreme liberals – the neo-liberals and southern U.S. libertarians – to relegate the State as a protector of private property only and assert the primacy of private over public, as well as sanction the private acquisition of that which is public.
Daylight robbery of course. Private property is not as in-violate as asserted. If that which is private infringes the rights and welfare of others, then as far as I am concerned it invalidates itself. That is because rather than existing in some form of isolated splendour, private property exists in a society with other private properties and rights thereof.
Liberalism is surely the notion of being oneself without doing harm and if doing so, setting that right. I think that a worthy form of existence.
It requires however political order and checks and balances to walk the line 9sometimes crossing it in the name of fairness) in order to operate like that. The West’s political order has been infiltrated with thinking far different to that. What is presented as liberal is actually illiberal in the extreme.
And as long as we use the old language, my worry remains that change will take longer.
I am not a Twitter user so I am approaching this issue in a somewhat blinkered fashion – so I appreciate that I might well have misjudged at least some of the tone and intent here (perhaps even all), so apologies in advance for any misinterpretation on my behalf.
Beyond Twitter (outside of my experience) I’ve encountered the term “liberal left” most often being used to broadly describe those groups and individuals (identified and identifying as) just barely to the left of centre, in other words as a catch-all term and as a rough ‘measure’ of the magnitude of ‘leftness’. Not exactly an SI unit of measurement but a rather more organic and hazy quantification.
In an entirely subjective evaluation I would estimate that considerable overlap exists between those being described as “neoliberal left” and “liberal left” with these terms being used interchangeably (whether correctly or incorrectly) by some.
One for Richard: I know of individuals who would reject the label of “far left” being applied to them but still use the terms “liberal left” and potentially “neoliberal left” pretty much as outlined in your article and my post here to others. You might want to consider defining what you regard as “far left” (so accurately targeting individuals whose response you desire) and perhaps asking those that employ these terms what descriptor (far-left, centre-left etc.) they regard as being the label they’d select to describe their position on the political spectrum most accurately. I think that this would result in a real mish-mash of responses.
So much debate boils down to arguments over semantics (and commenting as an ardent left-winger) at times to a degree of near distraction among those politically left-of-centre. Yet clearly there is considerable personal interpretation and a distinct lack of consensus regarding definitions of terms that can impede discussion.
Commenting on this issue from my perspective as a physical scientist, the language used in the laboratory is highly formal utilising tightly controlled definitions of terms in an attempt to minimise (it would appear impossible to eradicate) ambiguity. I appreciate that this example is a setting entirely divorced from the majority of environments outside of the lab doors and from the experience of most people but I think it underlines what significant level of consensus needs to be achieved in order to avoid confusion and misunderstanding among what is likely to be a highly diverse sample of people.
As to the question you posed Richard, no – not only are you far removed from being “an enemy of the working class”, your articles squarely place you as an advocate of higly beneficial policies. Once again in my personal opinion, I think the biggest problem you might encounter is in communicating your ideas and knowledge. I have certainly experienced this when attempting to explain concepts and data from my own area to interested parties from non-science professions. You’re currently engaged with what is likely to be a number of individuals from a broad selection of backgrounds using terminology that is at best very nebulous in a fairly emotionally-charged atmosphere.
Thanks
You are an enemy because,………..you ask questions & offers points of view, which often undermine various shibboleths which many hold dear.
Enemy of the working class? I don’t think so.
On a related note: fairness & justice are not words……….they are perspectives. Much of your article indirectly addressed these two perspectives in different fields (social justice, fairness in how governments are financed and how such finance is used or can be used). I fail to see how such perspectives can have a label “left wing” attached to them – they are qualities which define us as humans & social beings.
For myself, I refuse labels and refuse to be placed into a category. My formative years professionally involved daily interactions with “the working class” – the good the bad & the funny. I still enjoy speaking to this group & indeed count friends amongst them.
You;’re rejected by the Marxists because you’re not Marxist enough, and you’re rejected by the Progrssives because you’re not Profgressive enough. You can’t win!
Re you being an “enemy of the working class” i offer this thought..
One of the liberal lefts defining features appears to be open borders and the denigration of the native population in favour of immigrants. The importation of millions of low skilled third worlders , and east europeans has a negative effect on the native population in terms of housing costs, access to health care and wages. The working class has borne the brunt of these depradations. The fact that you cannot see these facts even when they are staring you in the face provides an easy starter why you are so far removed from the interests of the working class. To add fuel, you call the working class fascist for holding such views.
Might you provide any evidence to support these wholly false claims?
No one has ever found any
As evidence, are wages rising now or rents falling when many have left? No. So I suggest you cut the falsehoods
And as for health care, the problems of access are entirely due to a lack of foreign workers
Can I ask, who exactly are you counting as “native” here?
I live in an interesting rural area, which still has its own argots, some laws, some privileges; as a result we frequently get into arguments about just who has the right to benefit from those.
It’s generally accepted now that anyone who went to junior school here is a “native”, irrespective of where they or their parents were born, with the result that there are now black & brown “natives”. This is an extension of certain other rights, which come, for example, with working in certain industries for a year and a day before your 21st birthday.
When some racists from another area tried attacking an Indian take-away, they were dealt with in short order (by “natives”) who pointed out that both sides were foreigners, but the staff of the take-away were at least honest about it, while their attackers were claiming “native” status quite unreasonably.
So, define your terms.
Do you mean people born in the UK? or people with white skin? Or people educated here? Or people with parents born here? How far back do you want to go with that, because the DNA of a bronze age skeleton found in the Mendips suggested that he had very dark skin and blue eyes…
What of those “immigrants” who earned their citizenship in service to the Empire? Have you, as a supposed champion of the working class, started defending inherited “native” privilege when it comes in a white skin? I would find that most unacceptable, myself.
As someone from a migrant family (as is my wife) who has British and Irish citizenship am I native?
Who knows, to a racist?
Andy
You’ve provided a fantastic example of what Joanna has just mentioned about how people think in a digital world.
What you seem to be saying is that working class people are entitled to be ignorant and dogmatic (actually some middle class folk think the same too).
That their bad information or their ‘street myths’ count as valid information. Everything you have just mentioned is contestable and not an absolute truth. It ignores the rampant underfunding by the Tory Government of the NHS, schools and housing, and it is opportunistic business that has used immigrant labour to arbitrage down wages, not the Government or the EU.
As Joanna alludes, these issues are complex.
What you have done is typical of what happens in a Neo-liberal society awash with Neo-liberal thinking – you are OVER SIMPLIFYING matters – it’s negative reductionism – finding the facts that suit your own partiality which could be that you are racist? Or angry? Whatever – the result is the same, you only have a bit of the story.
Yet that seems to be enough for you.
Well, I’m sorry but it isn’t enough.
Are we clear about that?
It also ignores the previous migrant status of many in the country; my family and that of wife included. Maybe that is why I am so angry about such claims.
My rent has gone down. I used to pay HK$64 per sqft, I now pay £1 per sqft!
I agree with ChrisW that my read of the way “liberal left” gets used is more towards the centre – Starmer rather than Corbyn. Although I don’t like the word itself, the portion of the left I identify more strongly with tend to call themselves “leftist” I think.
I’m very curious about your conflict with the progressive economic forum. I’d never heard of them before today – earlier this evening I found this podcast, Politics Theory Other, that has some recordings from the forum. The podcast mostly seems very good and very radical.
https://m.soundcloud.com/poltheoryother
They actually have a fairly recent episode about the flaws in left (neo)liberal philosophies when it comes to global inequality and racism which I found quite excellent.
I’m disappointed if the Forum isn’t on board with MMT. Is there anything else I could read to understand the rift there?
There is no logic to this
It is basic denial, based around a loathing of MMT by Ann Pettifor who has created her own straw mam version of what MMT says which bears no relationship to what it actually describes
Ann is much closer to MMT than she thinks when there is clarity in her work
Ok I think you’re talking specifically about the progressive economic forum, as a whole?
Yeah Ann seems to hedge on MMT. But if her ideas are actually quite close to MMT, and she’s just one voice in the Forum, I’m surprised it would create such a rift.
Was there any one particular point of tension or a way in which a foundational philosophy of the Forum is wrong headed?
Yes, they oppose describing the reality of how money is created and how, therefore, it does not constrain government policy
You can’t get much more fundamental than that
And Labour is with them
Ah right thanks for clarifying that. Yes, it that’s a hard-line position it sounds pretty irreconcilable. Thanks.
Thank you to those who seem to respond positively to my little treatise on liberalism.
I fully acknowledge BTW that liberals had a big part to play in the Labour movement and other social advances.
My concern remains however how liberalism has become inundated by other theories of society and individualism.
To try to conceptualise what is happening in politics I think of looking at a rugby or football pitch with a centre line as you would on the TV. To the Left of that line is the political Left; to the Right, the political Right. The political landscape is now a much narrow field in terms of being adversarial – our politicians are playing for percentages not big ideas anymore; passing passions, not long term benefits. And of course lies.
To me at the moment there is no Left side of the pitch; all the play is taking place in the Right side and the centre line now seems to divide the right side alone.
I think that one of the things at the heart of the matter lies in peoples reactions that I’ve been seeing since the early 2000s. Something significant has been happening in society.
Before 2015 and getting into housing development I worked a lot in housing on the introduction of universal credit. This brought me into contact with a burgeoning movements looking at poverty – poverty that had been growing during the New Labour era – believe it or not. I saw these as symptoms of Thatcherism’s continuity under New Labour.
Not only did I increasingly hear the refrain that all politicians were ‘the same’ but I met people in poverty who did like being portrayed as victims of poverty by the so-called Left. The Left did not understand the shame that went with not having enough money.
People also did not react well to the ‘them and us’ fascistic’ Leftist tropes about rich and poor. This just felt like politics to people and not policy. What people wanted was a focus on THEIR problems – not someone else’s wealth (it’s obvious that we compare ourselves to others – so why does the Left/Liberals have to point out to us what we already know!!). What people want also is more fairness – they want to work hard but are not as stupid to work for peanuts in an expensive society. They want a fairer distribution of wealth.
I saw people blaming teachers for everything (teachers got a pay rise under Labour), immigrants and the EU; I saw residents on a West London housing estate in the 1990’s (Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, BAME, white, whatever) being jealous of Kosovan refugees because they themselves were struggling and no one seemed to notice. People can be petty when they feel hard done by – when wealth is not being shared. And therefore become rich pickings for Fascists – particularly the Right wing type and people like Nigel Farage.
And of course, our digital world turbo charges good things and unfortunately our prejudices too.
Liberalism, the Left, pro-socialists need a new language to describe our objectives. The Right has re-invented itself time and time again only for the Left to allow itself to be towed in THEIR direction.
That’s got to stop and I think that Richard’s laying down of the ‘courageous state’ was a step in the right direction.
The battleground is how pro-socialists put that over to the public (when I say pro-social, I ‘m not saying ‘pro-socialism’, I’m describing a situation where everyone has enough so that the issue of what others have is not even an issue and acknowledges that there is a society unlike Thatcherism).
The only way we can do this is do what the Right wing does and steel some of the oppositions clothes – but the right ones.
If people see themselves as successful or not by how well they can stand on their own two feet (an abused Right wing trope), then we have to ask what the ‘Left’ can do about that – in fact we know what we can do about that: it’s about creating the conditions to stand on your own two feet ain’t it!:
Stop exporting jobs.
A decent living wage.
Excellent public services that do not add to the cost of living – including transport.
A chance to own a home or at least have lower accommodation costs.
Free education at anytime in your life so that you can re-train and respond to changing economic patterns.
Choose to employ people rather than job killing technology. It is only greed that is pushing technology at the moment.
Etc.
At the moment none of this happening. Who’s offering this? We seem to be amortising not just the planet but the post war life support systems the victors set up (I know ‘amortising’ is a word used to rundown a debt, but like all things to do with finance, the word seems more apt in describing the destruction of anything of real value which we’ve become so good as a species!!).
The new Left needs to focus on policies – not comparisons. It needs to make that courageous offer that has been so lacking up to now. And it needs a re-branding just like the Right does.
Anyway – just some more thoughts.
Thanks
P.S. – sorry typo – people do NOT like being portrayed as victims of poverty – sorry.
On John Locke and Liberalism I discovered this in Guy Standing’s “The Blue Commons”:
Locke gave three provisos to the idea of the sacrosanct nature of private property:
1. There has to be enough to go round to ensure subsistence for everyone.
2. Those with property have a moral duty to support those people without to avoid extreme want.
3. No one should ingross themselves and take more than is of practical use.
I suspect that a lot of people’s objections to liberalism are based on misunderstandings , not least amongst liberals themselves.
In that case Roger, liberalism has failed hasn’t it?
What Locke describes has not come to pass. There is nothing to misunderstand about that.
So, there has to be stock take, a review and a plan to renew. There is nothing wrong with Locke’s proviso’s.
But then again is it not typical that Locke’s proviso’s seem to say so little about private property and how it is acquired?
It is the acquisition side that is wrong. Being private it seems is all that matters – even if it were public to begin with.
Liberalism has been used to protect private property and also justify making public property private.
Liberalism – like Jesus and religion – has been co-opted into serving the interests of the very few at the expense of the many.
That’s why it needs a re-set. That is why it needs to be more cunning. That is why it may also have to fly closer to the wind – to touch lightly that which is illiberal in order to protect its manifestly valid objectives? A knowing liberalism perhaps grounded in street fighting as well intellectualism?
Anyhow……………… the bank holiday beckons and I now think I should leave our host in peace.
Put not your trust in Locke to guard humanity.
Rights in one’s person and one’s liberty are fair enough, and Locke indeed enjoined against unfair property acquisition. But he seems to suggest that one can only have property in what one has personally laboured on when he makes labour the source of real property rights. But even that is not clear cut: Locke clearly recognized that still in the state of nature, “the Turfs my Servant has cut” can become my property. (Locke was clearly confused about makers’ rights in what they make.)
And he clearly recognized that labour can be alienated from the labourer. His justification was that raw nature did not give us crops, which feed far more than just the farmer: “labour puts the difference of value on every thing … the improvement of labour makes a great part of the value”, and thus private property works to the advantage of society as a whole.
Even those without land can have life and liberty and can be members of the polity. – But that does not mean fairness. The arrival of money meant that property was not restricted to land: but there is no proposal to share it out fairly, rather first come first served or greediest first served. Notably Locke viewed Native Americans as having no rights in their land, only in the animals they hunted.
And the First Treatise specifically includes a duty of charity to those with no means of subsistence. Funny that.
Hume more rationally accepted private property on the grounds of scarcity, and so “a necessary evil”, and anyway it made people work to improve their condition. A failure to take the next step in asking how limited goods can be managed, though Hume is a far more attractive philosopher than Locke.
I suggest that you are certainly right to want to do away with the term “liberal”, at least in politics – I have nothing against liberal people or liberal arts or (with reservations) the liberal professions. But politically it has different meanings, sometimes multiple in the UK, in Europe and in the USA, and doubtless elsewhere. IN the US for instance a liberal can be extremely conservative (without necessarily being libertarian) or mildly leftish which will be considered as near Marxist: The UK’s Liberals (with or without a big, big D) have always embodied a kind of Whiggish reforming conservatism but again there are other liberal strains to be found to right and left, high-minded and otherwise. So not a useful description.
But whatever name one uses will attract opprobrium (cf. the entirely contrived dispute in the French Left at the moment between “The left of the workers” and “the Benefits class” (“Les allocs”). The important thing – again as you suggest – is not to let the illiberal forces traduce one to one’s own side or stop the necessary changes
This discussion has moved far from Professor Murphy’s initial distress at being traduced as an enemy of the people. I doubt anyone would really compare him to Nero (hostis publicus) or wish him a Revolutionary or Soviet death for spreading false news. Admittedly Ibsen suspected that Stockmann might have gone too far, but Professor Murphy is in good company in the UK, standing as he does with the Lord Chief Justice and his colleagues as targets of the malice of scribblers.
That was pretty interesting ardj. I totally agree with your overall assessment that the term “liberal” is so politically loaded from all sides as to be useless, and that there’s really no point trying to tie your flag to any particular mast, as people will only use that to attack you. We should just continue to call out injustice where we see it, which Richard does brilliantly.
Still, since you seem to know a fair bit about this area of philosophy, do you know if there are any more modern philosophers than Hume who might give a more rigorous accounting of the challenge of individual freedom Vs power accumulation in political theory? Cos I’m very interested. Many parts of the left are too quick to suggest what I consider to be authoritarian solutions to many of our challenges, although their motivations of reducing injustice may be pure.
Do you know of any modern philosophers you could recommend?
@RW Morris
Hope useful. Incidentally there is a strong argument that even “neoliberalism” is outworn, as Ordoliberals reject it, while in the US adherents generally “sail under the flags of libertarianism and neo-conservatism” – cf. “The road from Mont Pelerin”.(2nd ed.2015)
But “more modern philosophers than Hume” … I am not a philosopher, serious studies were years ago. One could begin by looking at the growth of utilitarianism, which has continued to take new forms to the present day, and here a start would be the distinguished historian Elie Lévy who developed his PhD thesis into the excellent “The growth of philosophic radicalism” (Faber & Faber 1928) The other main strand could probably start with G.E.Moore’s “Principia Ethica” : but that is an area of moral philosophy that I am uneasy with, and cannot suggest where to look for today’s workers in that vein. But really you should consult something like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has a wide range of classifications for discussing a variety of philosophical approaches to each subject –
https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
Another link in this blog post is also helpful: though I know nothing of the quality of thinking, you could look at the people discussed in NJD’s link:
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-politics-of-effective-altruism?utm_source=email
and further references there. In my limited experience, one very soon runs up against the name of John Rawls, who was hooked, as are so many Americans, on the notion of Justice (rather than the more European tendency towards fairness – tho’ Rawls was not thus blinkered) and who is said to argue that “a society in which the most fortunate help the least fortunate is not only a moral one but a logical one” (Weinstein cited in Wikipedia sub Rawls).But other names like Kant, Neuhauser, Jaspers, Marion Smiley or Mark Reiff and a whole slew of others will spring up as soon as you look at ideas like collective responsibility.
Either pick an idea that interests you or get a real philosopher to give you some guidelines. But I would also commend Jesse Norman’s “Adam Smith_ what he thought and why it matters” (Allen Lane 2018), which is revelatory about “the real” Adam Smith. One knows classic citations such as “People of the same trade …the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick” (WoN 1.x.ll)) or “Civil government … instituted for the security of property is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all” (V.i). But Wealth of Nations is a very long work (albeit beautifully written), and Norman brings to his discussion Smith’s further work on morality in a truly enlightening fashion.
Carry on Richard.
More people appreciate and value your contributions to debates than some of the moaners think. Anyone refusing to worship conventional social gods is always attacked, but critics rarely notice that their own beliefs and values are those of someone who was ostracized and silenced.
Michel As Foucault reminded us that: `There is a battle “for truth”, or at least “around truth” … It is necessary to think of the political problems of intellectuals not in terms of “science” and “ideology” but in terms of “truth” and “power”‘.
Intellectuals always have a choice. They can use their position to cement the current institutions and their influence, thereby enabling those privileged by history to remain in ascendancy. Or intellectuals can side with the devalued people and discourses, so that, in pursuit of justice and freedom, alternative voices are heard and opportunities are created for personal and social transformation.
I like this quote from James Joyce’s masterful 1916 novel “Portrait of the artist as a young man”: “I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church; and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely and as wholly as I can, using for defence the only arms I allow myself to use – silence, exile and cunning”.
So carry on, Richard.
Thanks Prem
Much appreciated
When the Financial Times are getting in on the act … https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945 i think we are right to be worried about much that is said in Richard’s Blog .
Article by John Burn Murdoch of the Financial Times .
It is brilliant
He has a Twitter thread to summarise it too
‘Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people’.
Wow! In the FT!!
So profound – and sums up the public squalor/private splendour enabled by Thatcherism/Reaganism.
Ah, labels and the evolution/corruption of language. I now describe myself as an Egalitarianist with a firm belief that the trajectory we are on will never produce an Egalitarian society. As such I will only vote/support policies that head in that direction via a green path.
What’s currently on offer from the big two seems to range from poor to insane.
You don’t have to pursue an impossible goal (egalitarianism) to be against gross inequality. Know who your enemy is.
I recommend reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
And this might add more confusion:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Stuart-Mill-Socialist-McCabe/
It turns out that the arch priest of libertarian liberalism was a socialist all along.
The essential challenge to liberalism – other than having a facelift and fighting back about its bad press perhaps – is to find better ways to update and improve/make robust our institutions and their workings. We need in this country a bill of rights, a better constitution around which parliament can function – in fact better of anything that has been undermined since 2019 if not before. And it all has to be based on fairness going forward (or equality as some of you like to call it, but publicly the objective should be called ‘fairness’).
And the biggest area of the economy of course that remains problematical is the financial sector which needs more over-sight – not less. After 2008 the bankers basically admitted to Dominic Strauss-Khan that they were too greedy.
Well, there you are.
Liberalism has to be for everyone – not just a few at the top. This is where it gets itself tied up in knots at the moment, misrepresented etc., because it has difficult moderating freedom for certain powerful groups.
Agreed