A couple of hours on Twitter is more than enough to see the acolytes of political philosophy A assuring the world that everyone who believes in political philosophy B is stupid, immoral or more than likely both. The favour is typically returned in kind.
And yet anyone who’s acquainted with that slightly curious place known as the “real world” knows there are many highly intelligent, moral and clear-thinking people in pretty much every camp. Anyone who thinks Burke, Mill or even Marx had nothing worthwhile to say is a fool.
Who’s actually right? Are our political philosophies just religions in which we must simply have faith – you follow your creed and fight your holy wars in the ballot box?
Or maybe it’s all subjective – perhaps there’s no way to determine that, say, Social Democracy is right and Conservatism wrong and we just have to accept them as different viewpoints or moral codes.
Since these things make a big difference to our daily lives, that seems like a counsel of despair.
How might we test our own political beliefs and see if they hold up? There’s no point doing anything too large-scale – like following a whole country under one sort of government. There are too many variables. No-one says “Here’s an experiment to test the whole of modern physics” for the same reason. People devise smaller experiments where more variables can be controlled or accounted for.
There’s also little point in setting up a contest between dogmas. Let’s suppose I come up with a way to test some point of disagreement between liberals and conservatives – my grand experiment. Is it likely that my conservative opponents would agree with the way I’ve devised the test, or with my interpretation of the findings? Experience says not, and I don’t suppose I’d agree if they came up with something.
What we can do, though, is to devise tests for our own political beliefs. Suppose I want to test whether my views on sentencing policy are correct. How might I do it?
I need to come up with a hypothesis and a test or experiment first – there’s no point starting with the data as I know how good we all are at interpreting data to fit what we already believe. I need to find data I’m not familiar with – otherwise the test becomes circular – so I might devise a hypothesis about the relationship between sentencing and crime levels in some other western countries and then go and look at the data for those places.
I need to publish what I’ve done so others can see it, conduct their own research and together we can figure out where what our political philosophy predicts meets with reality and where it falls short.
Since most of these philosophies are based on outdated 19th century ideas about human nature and the way societies work, and our understanding of both of those has moved on massively in the last few decades, I’d be pretty staggered if any of them turned out to be completely correct.
We should step up to the mark and test our own political beliefs. It won’t be too hard – social scientists have been doing much the same thing for decades: they’re pretty good at it. Or do we have to accept that political creeds are more like conspiracy theories – inherently untestable? I hope not.
* Iain Roberts is the former leader of Stockport Liberal Democrats and Lib Dem Campaign Manager in Greater Manchester Mayoral election and for Cheadle constituency in the General Election
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Backlisted on The Compleet Molesworth
A46 Tormarton - comments by 2 Dec
Aid cut makes a mockery of 'Global Britain' promise
February 2009 books
I was born a European and I'll die a European
Monsoon ****
Questions over council contract
22 Comments
A good question! I think in some respects it is not really about proof. Some people will never change their views because they like the ideology they believe in. Many years ago Norman Tebbit used to describe Nelson Mandella a terrorist and a communist,Today he admits he had the wrong view on Mandella, yet fundamentally his ideology has not changed.
Ideologies ebb and flow thorough time. In the 1960s it looked as though Keynsian economics had replaced Hayak economics, until Thatcher became prime minister ( a time that coincided with cheap North Sea oil and low commodity prices in general). Then following the disaster of light touch regulation of the Financial institutions, Keynsian economics are being revived – albeit not yet in western governments.
Neo-conservatism is an obvious failure in recent times – given the decline of US power it is hard to imagine that will be coming back although the US Republican Party may still get elected next month. In the UK I see no prospect of any political revival of “family values” – a coded term that justifies the hatred of gays for religious reasons.
I think in the years ahead the impact of global warming – currently one of the main drivers behind food inflation – will have a huge impact on the politics of every nation. I fear this could lead to an increase in authoritarian governments – I hope I am wrong but I think there will be a lot of desperate people out there.
“Some people will never change their views because they like the ideology they believe in.”
In short, because they are doctrinaire, not because their is anything wrong with having a system of ideas and ideals which for the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
ideology (OED) – a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy
doctrinaire (OED) – seeking to impose a doctrine in all circumstances without regard to practical considerations
I don’t think you can even define a good outcome in a universal way. Conservatism and liberalism, e.g., seek to deliver fundamentally different ways of thinking about an individual’s relationship with others and the state. Whether you want to live in the kind of society they each seek to deliver is not really something you can reason about, IMO.
There’s a fundamental problem with Iain Roberts’s opinion piece, in that he confuses values with policy. The example he cites, of the relationship between sentencing and crime levels, is a matter of policy. Our policy prescriptions will vary over time but will be informed by our values.
Ideology, as Jedibeeftrix correctly points out, is a system of values. It cannot be ‘proved’ or ‘disproved’. The efficacy of policy, on the other hand, can. Even then, because of differences in values, our idea of a good outcome may not be the same as those of a Tory or Labour supporter. For example, I agree with Geoffrey Payne that “Neo-conservatism is an obvious failure in recent times”, but I can imagine that anyone who desires greater disparities in wealth and power, and the destruction of public services, would not agree.
If politics were ultimately a question of evidence, there would be no need for politics. We could simply appoint a set of technocrats to run the show. It is because we must resolve differences of values and interests that we need democratic politics.
Evidence. Hmm. Take the discussions about badger culling, drug policy, or going back a bit the transmission of cholera…
In these cases the desirable outcomes are probably widely agreed. Reduce TB in cattle; reduce the harm done by drugs; minimise the spread of cholera. But the evidence is heavily contested. So presumably there is something in the policies that is also a desired, but undeclared, outcome? Badgers are cuddly charismatic megafauna – we like to criminalise as many people as possible – disease is caused by unwashed poor people? Not trying to put these together in a consistent ideology, of course.
A welcome article. It is important to reflect on our own values. I don’t think it’s possible to disprove an ideology, but sometimes, over time, we’ll come to realise that our ideology was too narrow, and our rejection of another ideology was too absolute. That is a good thing.
As to Liberalism, before we can judge whether it is right or wrong, we have to define Liberalism. Internationally, Liberalism means very different, even opposite, things. This is true even within the UK. All too often, Liberalism is confused with Libertarianism.
It depends what you mean by liberalism and what you mean by conservatism. If you have a society that in political terms is defined as liberal and you want to preserve it the impetus to do so is fairly obviously a kind of conservatism. Similarly a lot of what is currently considered Conservative is actually the expression of a radical right wing economic ideology. I suppose it really depends on what you want to conserve and what you want to reform.
Simon Titley is basically right. Politics is about values. There is no way one can prove, scientifically, whether an equal or an unequal society is “better”. Each individual who votes can make a choice as to what values he or she would prefer.
However, “values” does also include the question of how highly one values the application of technocracy. The old SDP, it seemed to me, was a party which placed a high value on technocratic solutions. For example, while Right and Left slugged it out over income distribution and strikes, the SDP advocated an incomes policy. Rightly or wrongly, the SDP values were “Let’s get some independent experts in to take charge and produce a rational solution”.
The opposite extreme is, of course, that represented by the Tea Party and the climate change denialists, whose values are “Don’t inconvenience me with unpleasant facts, I know what I want, and that’s jam today and jam for Number One. Technocrats can go hang”.
It’s a valid question to what extent our values should encompass respect for technocrats. The SDP example shows that like anyone else, technocrats can simply get it wrong. However, the Tea Party type of approach is surely far worse.
I’d go for “cautiously in favour” of technocracy. Which means, employ lots of technocrats, listen to what they say, take the p*ss out of them as well from time to time, and make them listen to people. But above all, make sure they stop you from implementing crazy political ideas which aren’t going to work (are you listening, Messrs Lansley, Gove and Duncan-Smith)?
There are certainly some which are clearly testable and some which are clearly not. The ones which are not tend to be based on disagreement over which one of two scenarios is better, where no objective comparison exists. Obligatory thought experiment: choose between curing 100 people of a debilitating disease or preventing 100 people from being made homeless. You can mess around with the details and the parameters all day, but you’ll always be able to find cases where some people go one way and some people go the other, and there’s no way to say which one is right.
What are not testable are political creeds, or ideologies, which have not yet been tried.
The traditional Liberal Party Constitutional Preamble calls for “liberty, property and security” for all. This is in conflict with the well tried conservative ideology of unfettered dynastic capitalism with inequality of ownership cascading down the generations.
Property for all is a realistic aim only with a new liberal ideology of universal inheritance capitalism with the judicious redistribution of the receipt of gifted and inherited capital in each new generation.
It is not possible to test this empirically to see whether it improves welfare, because it has not yet been tried. But we should try it. It is liberalism.
Some interesting examples of where liberalism is apparently wrong by Jesse Norman (Tory MP for Hereford & South Herefordshire) in the Newstatesman 2 weeks ago, link below.
The examples highlight the confusion between Libertarianism / Liberalism. The first one’s explicit and in context the I the next two sounded like they were more swipes at “liberalism” than him trying to distance himself from the radical economic right wing of his own party.
1) ban on smoking in public places as an example of an illiberal measure that worked.
2) take a much tougher attitude towards the supermarkets. There is lots of evidence that they destroy social capital
3) tension between retailers, peddling popular junk, and a public interest in containing an obesity epidemic
. . . don’t think we’ve heard the last of those arguements, confused though they might be
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/10/jesse-norman-impeccably-conservative
The criticism that I’ve confused values with policy is an interesting one – and something I’ve given a good deal of thought to over the years.
In this particular case, I’m comfortable that I’ve got it covered: I’m explicitly not suggesting some sort of conservative vs liberal stand-off; but that we could test whether or own understanding of our own philosophy is correct .
On the wider point, a core set of values is an important part of a political philosophy; but it isn’t all of it. There’s a lot more to any mature political philosophy than a set of values: there has to be, for it to be in any way useful. For example, political philosophies include conceptions on how individuals function and how society works; which are among the things that allow values to be translated into policy.
I thought Simon Titley’s point was spot on and I’m a bit puzzled by what Iain means by testing our own understanding of our own political philosophy. Certainly his example doesn’t clarify it. My attitude to sentencing policy might be influenced by my value position that criminal justice should not be about punishment for punishment’s sake and I can’t see that any experiment could change that – or the attitude of others that revenge is a desirable element in criminal justice. I might find an experiment, or more likely, a close look at available research, showed me prison was more effective (or less effective) than I thought, but that is not a question of values at all. There is a grey area around statements like “all war is wrong” coupled with the statement that “war never solves anything”, but in fact the former is a value statement and disproving the latter (which I hope would not require an experiment) would not disprove the former, unless the pacifist’s position was actually based on disputable practical assumptions and was open to change if they were disproved.
It would be interesting to explore misunderstandings and differences in our political philosophy (for example, what exactly is taken as a given and what is unfair bias in the concept of equality of opportunity), but that is a matter for logical analysis rather than experiment.
As for rude exchanges about political philosophies, I do wish we could all accept that terms like liberalism and socialism should bear some relation to what the professed liberals and socialists believe. Liberalism in particular is given a meaning by academics and polemicists that is unrecognisable in terms of what most of us believe – and just listen to a right-wing American going on about Socialism! I was once unable to convince one such that the Irish economic crash was not caused by rampant socialism.
“The old SDP, it seemed to me, was a party which placed a high value on technocratic solutions. Rightly or wrongly, the SDP values were “Let’s get some independent experts in to take charge and produce a rational solution”
So did labour with the quangos, and when it went wrong (as they were often perceived to have done), they lacked a recognised mandate to justify their mistake on behalf of the people.
Simon – my political philosophy is about more than just a set of values. I agree that if someone sees their politics as no more than a set of values that then jumps straight onto actual policies with no other foundations, that’s pretty much impossible to test.
I don’t think that’s actually the case for most people, though. As I’ve mentioned before, when you study political philosophies, you can’t help but notice that they’re also based on conceptions of human nature and how societies work.
For me, saying that I can’t even test my political philosophy against *my own views of what it should achieve* is a crystal clear sign that it’s not very useful. It may be a nice to have, but it’s clearly not guiding my politics in any meaningful way, as I can come up with a wide range of contradictory policies which would all fit the values (yes, of course I can, because I’ve just said there’s no way to test them).
This is political philosophy as a religion or pseudoscience; and for me it simply isn’t good enough. We can do better.
Liberalism is a simple concept – it is one that allows you the freedom to change your mind, something that is unlikely to be tolerated in other political philosophies.
Simon Banks
You say “It would be interesting to explore misunderstandings and differences in our political philosophy (for example, what exactly is taken as a given and what is unfair bias in the concept of equality of opportunity), but that is a matter for logical analysis rather than experiment.”
I very much agree. I see genuine, rather than lip service to, equality of opportunity for all as a crucial part of liberalism in order to bring about the Liberal Party’s Constitutional Preamble’s aim of “liberty, property and security for all”. This clearly distinguishes us from both the conservative and socialist traditions.
The three areas to which this particularly applies are health, education and, ever more so in this age of the super rich, the redistribution of the inheritance of wealth as a means of bringing about the “democratisation of the private ownership of capital” in each succeeding generation.
So far as private health and education are concerned, I am due to propose a resolution at the 127th Liberal Party Assembly in Wolverhampton this Saturday calling for the exemptions from VAT for private health and education to be abolished in order to improve resources for the NHS and State schools and to encourage more of the wealthy, influential and articulate to opt in to state provision and so to support the taxation and other measures necessary to finance and improve it, in a virtous circle.
Very thoughtful post Iain, I like 🙂
An excellent post. I particularly like Iain’s emphasis (from his comment at 9:08 am) that “…when you study political philosophies, you can’t help but notice that they’re also based on conceptions of human nature and how societies work.
This is exactly right and ignoring it is a major reason why we are in such a mess. Mainstream economics describes a fantasy world largely disconnected from the real one. Instead of the complexity of human behaviour we are governed by conclusions drawn from the study of ‘representative agents’ (who presumably all have 2.4 children!) acting in perfect (read: idealised and caricatured to make the maths easier) markets. It is hardly surprising that this has led to an economic car-crash. However, the Great & Good in the land continue to prescribe remedies for the crisis according to these failed ideas because they are not just randomly wrong – they are crafted to sanction a partisan cause, that of the most powerful vested interests in the land. The French writer and economist Frederic Bastiat captured the dynamic perfectly when he wrote.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
And this goes to the heart of the difficulties of modern British liberalism; it lacks an economic theory of its own so has had to borrow – at times almost wholly, at times in a rather half-baked way – the neoliberal version crafted by others over the last 40 or so years. When we translate our values into policies we therefore do so through a lens crafted by others; as it’s a very distorting lens it is hardly surprising that the resulting policies often turn out badly deformed.
This in turn creates another problem for liberalism; it presents a face with with poor internal coherence and only limited appeal to it natural values-based constituency. Meanwhile, the risk is that some of its own supporters turn inwards, circling the wagons against a hostile world and seeking reassurance from each other to create their own bubble-universe with its own alternate reality further reducing its appeal to reality-based voters. It also means that Lib Demmery as practiced in this country is quite extraordinarily bad at learning, itself a classic sign of a dysfunctional organisation. Once a policy has been officially adopted, it is virtually set in concrete even when subsequent events show it to have been badly mistaken (much of EU-related policy comes to mind).
On the up side it means that if we accept the challenge to craft an economics firmly rooted in the best current understanding of how human nature and society work we will very quickly find that it leads to an immensely powerful analysis out of which effective (and politically appealing) policies will fall naturally and easily. The good news is that much of the heavy lifting has already been done (though too often outside of Lib Dem awareness – that inability to learn strikes again).
“Liberalism is a simple concept – it is one that allows you the freedom to change your mind, something that is unlikely to be tolerated in other political philosophies.”
This is true to a limited degree, in that that there is a trend of small “c” conservatism in both labour and the consersatives, but it is not in any way useful as a differentiator.
I frequently hear moaning here about radical tory neo-liberalism, and i moaned at some of the radical changes made by labour in the last fifteen years.
It’s a bit like describing labour as the party that supports the NHS…………….. because, well, i am pretty sure that both the other parties would make that claim too.
Has too strong a whiff of motherhood-and-applepie to be a core value that is communicable to the electorate as a defining part of your party’s identity.
thinkers have ideas; ideologues have ideologies; demagogues have galleries; diplomats have doctrines; politicians have constituencies; liberals discover methods.
It’s absolutely vital to be able to test out policy ideas – for instance Land Value Tax (LVT) is claimed to have benefits by some, and to create damage by others, so doing it might be a great leap forward or it might be a disaster. SImilarly for Citizen’s Income (CI) , and for the idea that QE will solve the financial crisis.I can imagine a couple of ways a political philosophy might be shown to be wrong
> by showing that it was inconsistent with itself
> by showing that it does not produce the outcomes it predicts when it is put into practice
But it’s certainly difficult – is it inconsistent for a freedom lover to believe in life imprisonment for murder? The second type of test might be done by trialling ideas in particular parts of the country and seeing what the outcomes are, before extending the policies more widely, But not for LVT or CI or QE! Maybe we just have to try it and see.
If laisssez-faire economics is expected to lead to boom but produces bust, then we should conclude that those economics don’t work, but there are so many variables it’s hard to know. There would be other complications, such as the machinations of people who want the philosphy to fail – and an example here would be the UK’s troubled relation with the EU and Eurozone. But in the end an inclusive philosophy should be able to take that sort of problem into account.
In the modern world we use computer to model economies, so it might also be possible to use computers to model the effect of political belief systems on the behaviours and welfare of populations. Perhaps the advertising industry may already be doing this, with a view to finding out how best to stimulate people to choose one set of product dependencies as opposed to another. Might not be too difficult to extend that to political choices too!