One of the interesting features of the debates provoked by last week’s analysis of Liberator’s latest assault on ‘the right’ of the party, and the Social Liberal Forum’s related critique, was the refrain in the comments of an old theme about how unhelpful the labels left and right can be in understanding the viewpoint of the person thus labelled. Indeed it’s a point of view that in part has defined Nick Clegg’s approach to answering questions on which way he is taking the party:
It’s not a matter of left versus right, but what is fair. – Independent, June 2008
There is some truth in this. In this party ‘right’ is often used as a catch-all pejorative meaning ‘they like liberal market economics, I don’t’, whereas ‘left’ occasionally gets the prefix ‘loony’ or ‘extreme’ to mean ‘they think they’re a liberal, I think they’re a socialist’. Externally any media analysis couched in the language of left and right is rarely intended to be helpful to the party, more a dog-whistle to put off supporters of the opposite point of view. The Tories call us ‘lefties’, the Labour party ‘right-wing Orange Tories’.
However in respect of giving some sense of where a Liberal Democrat commentator is coming from, whether their priorities lie more towards redistribution and social justice or towards aspiration and prosperity, these ‘inadequate’ labels are far more descriptive than most of the alternatives.
Take for example David Howarth’s thoughtful attempt to redefine social liberalism in Reinventing the State:
Sometime in the late nineteenth century, liberalism began to divide into two different streams. One stream, which came to be called ‘classical liberalism’… The other stream, which has come to be called ‘social liberalism’.
There are three major problems with his case. The first is that his definition of what social liberalism is, is so broad, that I can see no meaningful difference between it and plain liberalism, it doesn’t need the social tag. Indeed he is forced to develop ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ tags to show differences of emphasis between social social liberals and economic social liberals.
These all being hopelessly unhelpful and non-descript labels, what is wrong with simply using left and right to show emphasis and liberal to mean… liberal?
Second there is already a perfectly good term, ‘socially liberal’ that people generally understand to mean tolerant, open-minded, concerned for the vulnerable etc. that causes confusion with the social label. David recognises this problem and states his position should more accurately be called ‘social justice’ liberalism, but is there any meaningful difference between that and left-liberalism other than the latter better conveys his emphasis more distinctly?
Third if the opposite of social liberalism is classical liberalism, which he defines as largely concerned with protection from the state and unconcerned with distribution, it is such a narrow point of view that it applies to practically no one alive today. You would be hard pressed to find many pro-free markets liberals who did not believe in a minimal state, and that part of the role of that state should be tackling poverty, ignorance and ill-health through some redistributive mechanism, either directly or by providing the finance to third parties.
Conrad Russell eloquently noted that liberalism adapts as the world changes; electoral reform, welfarism, green liberalism etc. are evolutions of a core concern with the primacy of liberty not a new species of political philosophy that cannot co-mingle with their antecedents. Classical and social liberalism are manifestations of the same theme, not opposites
Another criticism of left and right is that they are relative terms. Views on the right of the Liberal Democrats tend to be in the centre-ground or marginal centre-right of public opinion in the UK, and those on the left tend to be centre-left compared to the comrades, anarchists, and national socialists that comprise Respect, the Greens, and BNP. To be labelled right or left-wing though automatically associates you in many minds with the extremes.
This is not a an easy problem to address as we cannot control how people choose to interpret meaning in language, and it takes us back to the use of the terms as pejoratives. It is best perhaps not to use left and right as isolated definitive descriptors (e.g. ‘she is left’), unless extremism is the meaning you intend to convey.
In respect of relativism alone though this is not a problem, it is an asset. That David Laws is on the right of the party and Paul Holmes on the left tells you far more, more quickly, about the positions they are likely to hold, than that the former is a personal, political, social and economic liberal and the latter is surely proof that Tony Benn successfully developed a secret cloning project in Chesterfield when Minister for Technology.
Another good criticism of relativism though is that interpretations of it are not consistent. The Labour Trojan-horse that is the Liberal Conspiracy blog (amongst others) for example uses left to mean ‘anything we like’ and right to mean ‘anything we don’t’ . Consequently the collectivist BNP a working-class party who believe in state ownership of land and British industry are ‘right-wing’ rather than simply ‘authoritarian’ or ‘facists’, whilst those who champion individual rights are ‘left-wing’ rather than simply ‘liberal’.
Left and right, today, are clearly most meaningful when applied to the general maxi-mini approach David Howarth identified in dealing with social problems, and your willingness to use state or market mechanisms to deliver them; whereas I think the Political Compass has it right to highlight ‘libertarian’ and ‘authoritarian’ as alternative axis for other issues, whilst nationalist/internationalist, localist/centralist, democratic/autocratic etc. also have their uses
Someone will no doubt wish point out the origin of the left/right labels in respect of the 1791 French Assembly, and their disconnect from modern meanings, but happily, I have saved you the bother…
So in conclusion, where I agree with Nick Clegg is that the modern Liberal Democrat party is liberal, not right or left. But those labels still matter, sometimes helpfully to show relative emphasis within the liberal spectrum, sometimes not when used as definitive insults to align you to the agendas of our opponents.
What we are not though is ‘beyond left and right’, nor are we some weird social or economic liberal entity disconnected from our own history and uniquely obsessed with either distribution or markets.
It is instead perfectly possible to be a liberal party with a centre of gravity and leadership that swings between the centre-left, centre, and centre-right dependent on the mood of the age; but always mindful of and respectful towards our coalition and wider traditions, and then comfortable with whatever labels our opponents throw at us, within and without.
That party can win power. A neurotic splinter more obsessed with exclusion, being anti-right or anti-left, and uncomfortable with the breadth of the philosophy that guides us, cannot do that.
* ‘Colin Lloyd’ is the pseudonym of a Liberal Democrat member. For LDV policy on pseudonymous articles, pleases click here.
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45 Comments
The first three tags listed are – “Conrad Russell, David Howarth, David Laws”
My brain hurts already !!!
And I’m just a socially liberal, fiscally conservative Liberal.
er, sorry – that was me!
Trouble is though “they” have got the “liberal right” all wrong if they persist in calling it “right”.
It is in fact the most radical “left” grouping you could find. I’m pig sick of being termed “right” by these Political COmpass type things, when what we believe is that the state itself does more to entrench dependency, both directly by welfare programs and indirectly through its protection of vested interests that deny the worker their real value in the market.
What we want, as classical liberals, libertarians, individualist anarchists, mutualists or whatever label we go by is a massive re-levelling of the playing field by removing these state protections and *then* seeing wether we still need the sort of intrusive, necessarily lowest common denominator style welfare system we currently have.
I don’t think people, perhaps until now when they are being forced into thinking about some of this stuff by the events in the economy, really grasp the scale of the state and stop to think about whether it is an efficient way of delivering its albeit laudable aims.
Tax land values (fully, and nothing else), give a citizens dividend from them, privatize currency, remove limited liability and intellectual property rights and you will have a world the classical liberals could only dream of as their prescriptions were usurped by the urgency of poverty reduction at the beginning of the last century before we could implement them.
Well said Jock – with the exception of your call to “privatize currency”.
As you know, that’s 97% of what we have now – with what amounts to economic rent (the interest charged on debt-based money created from nowt) being pocketed by private banks extracting unearned value from society’s willingness to use a particular specie for trade.
Otherwise, right-on! You progressive pinko libertarian leftie!
Why remove intellectual property rights?
Before drifting off topic, however, I should say – good post, Colin. Hopefully we can start moving towards a more progressive debate in the party, and get away from these left-right fallacies.
Andrew: “As you know, that’s 97% of what we have now”
I don’t belileve it is. What we have now is a counterfeiting operation. It is the state’s currency and we are called on to back it up in extremis as we are doing now when the counterfeiters have done their worst.
Truly private currencies would be Honkers, or Barcs, or, a nice new one, Hobblers (HBOS). Their backing would be the sound business and balance sheets of the issuers. Many would probably turn to backing their currencies with gold reserves to continue a reputation for sound money which would bring them custom and profit. The state cannot fulfill this function. It has no “sound business” but that of taking off everyone else by force. It can inflate and deflate and we end up paying for it.
Julian: “Why remove intellectual property rights?”
Specifically patents which are monopolies and tend to stifle innovation rather than nurture it. Co-operation is the name of the game, especially in the massively globalized world we are in or entering where half the planet doesn’t recognize them properly and the half that does has its innovation curtailed by comparison. But IP is also illogical and confused and if one tries to make it logical everything will grind to a complete halt (why is not a piece of writing a derivative work of the medium on which it is published for example, or a tune a derivative work of the guitar on which it is played?).
I grant that there *may* be some issues in some industries, such as pharma, but there are all sorts of other issues with big pharma in particular (like treat not cure policies) that are equally as damaging and if anything are encouraged by patents.
But the point is that all these things are “of the left” – detroying privilege and vested interests, not pandering to them which is the welfare way.
Liberalism is easy:
1. do you like people?
2. do you HATE the Tories?
Answer Yes to both of the above and…
Congratulations, you’re a Liberal.
Getting rid of welfare and hoping the market will work. Sounds like a big experiment.
Will you pick up the pieces when Casino Welfare fails just like Casino Capitalism?
Martin, I think your tests would qualify a communist cannibal as a liberal, I’m fairly sure then that they need some refinement…
Voter: “Will you pick up the pieces when Casino Welfare fails just like Casino Capitalism?”
If you think what’s unfolding before us has anything to do with the free markets advocated by the likes of Henry George, then you are in the wrong ballpark. See what I wrote above – the money system is simply corrupt at the moment. The potential for moral hazard in the “central bank” system is just too much and leads to people making these excessive, as you put it, casino, plays. Not forgetting my assertion of course that public policy caused this by encouraging economic profligacy in order to stave off an earlier, shallower recession for political ends.
Also, notice too that I stipulated a citizzen’s dividend from the proceeds of collecting the full land rent. This would end a huge chunk of current welfare dependency and leave us, if anything, only to find mechanisms for those completely unable to support themselves in any way, shape or form. For most of such people, I remain absolutely convinced that welfare is better dealt with by those who know them, know their circumstances, abilities and connections and can make proper individualized arrangements rather than sweeping generic decisions about whole groups of people.
Neil: How about simply “You like people [but not enough to eat]”
The only way a communist likes people is to eat, after all. Resistance is futile and all that.
Martin, last time I looked, Tories are people to. And I like quite a few of them, on a personal level, even if their politics frequently are misguided.
I basically agree with post, we’re a broad church coalition. I really dislike it when economic illiterates equate a support of markets for being “right wing”, especially when they then go and accuse the anti-market BNP of also being extremely right wing.
Liberalism is about personal freedom. The different strands of liberalism have different routes to get to the same objective.
Jock is apparently on the “right” of the party, but when I call myself a socialist I’m automatically a dodgy lefty (which bothers me not), despite me mostly agreeing with Jock over many others.
Until we’ve got electoral reform, we need broad church political parties. Let’s just get on with being one, shall we?
MatGB: “Jock is apparently on the “right” of the party”
Of course that’s what “they” would like to believe, but nobody who has known the history of my political journey I think would say that. The strap line of the modern day Mutualist advocate Kevin Carson is “Free-market Anti-Capitalism” which sums my position up quite well.
Hopelessly idealist, perhaps, so far out of the box that I was left behind by the delivery truck, maybe, but “right” – only in others’ imaginations. And the more I learn about other schools of libertarian thought (perhaps especially pre-New Deal) the more they appear, as Carson said to me, “pretty porous” (ie in terms of the aims of each sub-sect, regardless of what moniker they go by).
Jock, can you tell me which economist you favour who explains quite how to avoid the casino bank scenario? The human factor is critical in this, given that the bankers thought what they were doing was okay. Any system which does not allow for such human error must presumably be rejected
Voter, yes, Hayek on private currencies. There’s a readable little essay embedded in my blog post:
A new Financial Operating System – an Open Source alternative.
I agree that it is unlikely that any system is going to be absolutely perfect, but I can think of few things “less perfect” than the current system.
Money itself is a very flexible thing – yet we have raised its status to something of a mystery of banking. Open competition in currencies would improve on this. If I thought the big bankers were being a bit too adventurous for me, I could use, perhaps, a more local currency – perhaps a mutual one. If I didn’t need to trade much internaitonally, or even outside by local area, I could choose to keep my purchasing power in something I know wil be of more benefit to the people and businesses around me that I value. And so on.
But read the Hayek essay if you haven’t already, it helps to explain why governments (ie central bankers) should be the very last people to manage a money supply. I have long been very much in favour of reform of the monetary system – but rather agnostic about whether it should be done the way Andrew prefers – James Robertson et al’s “Seignorage Reform” – or competing private currencies, but this current situaiton and the bail out in particular has persuaded me to go for the latter.
But not only because I don’t believe government are the right body to do this sort of thing, but because I believe the fundamental notion of the nation state with a government that ought to be doing that sort of thing has changed. We are in potentially very dangerous times and I think only radical liberalism now can save us.
It’s a nice line, but Paul Holmes is no Bennite. Whenever I’ve heard Paul speak, it’s always clear that he’s coming from within the liberal tradition. I don’t think you help your argument with such cheap shots.
I think this post of Colin Lloyd’s is largely addressed to me. I am honoured.
On a previous thread I said:
“I just about understand the left:right dimension in the British Political Compass (though it seems to have nothing to do with the left versus right in the French National Assembly of 1790 where two hands fighting one another language started). However, I get really puzzled about the idea of right versus left in the LibDems. If anybody can give me a coherent description of two such wings of the party; I am pretty sure I will resent not being counted in both of them.”
I am one of the people who have trouble with words they do not understand. Colin tells us:
“Left and right, today, are clearly most meaningful when applied to the general maxi-mini approach David Howarth identified in dealing with social problems, and your willingness to use state or market mechanisms to deliver them;”
That reminded me of the Caterpillar saying to Alice that words mean whatever he says they mean; but then I realised I was being unfair to the Caterpillar. Colin mixes two meanings which are logically independent: mini or maxi on social problems and (relative?) willingness to use state or market mechanisms.
I still have little idea of what is meant by “left” or “right” in current British politics, and no idea at all of what the terms mean among LibDems. However, I have a strong sense that many people find these are comforting terms, especially when applying them to things they do or don’t like. That emotional use is common , for example, on Liberal Conspiracy (a lively blog which I regard as a place to find people disappointed with New Labour who actually want much the same things that we do: people who will reliably vote LibDem in a LibDem:Tory marginal, and who may yet see the light.)
But all that is about the margin at which our ways of thinking diverge. Leaving out the few words I do not understand “between the centre-left, centre, and centre-right”, I second with enthusiasm Colin’s concluding paragraphs.
Hayek believes that markets and the price mechanism will save us but we are in the middle of a crisis in which prices were very much involved. House prices rose and rose and the bankers speculated on them.
I do not see why Hayek is certain that prices will save us.
It is very easy to put forward all sorts of schemes for the ecomony.
Surely the common sense approach would be to evaluate them in terms of whether they will work given our knowledge of history
*Land* prices rose, inflated by easily inflatable money (M4 lending has been growing at three to four times the headline inflation rate over the past decade spurred on by the central bank “guarantee”). See my first comment to which you replied:
“Tax land values (fully, and nothing else), give a citizens dividend from them, privatize currency, remove limited liability and intellectual property rights.”
With these in place the position of land as a “sump” for excess debt-money would be removed. Bankers would have to be more careful with *their* money than they are with *ours*.
I’m not sure what history can tell us about systems and ideas that were proposed over a century ago and defeated at every turn by the vested interests, other than that the vested interests are still too powerful.
I suspect that those cities in the US where they have had land taxes in preference to property and income taxes for a reasonable time will show that they have suffered less and will recover more quickly but I can’t cite anything on that yet!
Of course the chain of events you describe about the banks doing the speculating and so on is the orthodox view of the current situation. I have taken an heterodox view in this post, which runs that public policy decided that interest rates should stay artificially low in order to keep people spending so we didn’t go into a politically unfelicitous mini-recession at the turn of the century. This signalled (prices do that!) to the banks that public policy was to lend, and in particular on housing. Having got most people who could afford it onto the ladder already, they had to find ways to allow those who perhaps could less afford to (“sub-prime” and others) to get on the boondoggle. This presented odd problems of risk and so the rocket scientists developed instruments to try to mitigate the risks. And the rest is history, but it all stemmed from public policy meddling in the market to try to achieve a political aim.
This tells us little about the price mechanism except that where it is manipulated for political ends it would tend to end in tears!
Then the price mechanism is hardly robust
Why? How can it be expected to be robust operating in *the* two biggest monopoly markets – land and money? Unless those monopolies are eradicated we’ll continue to have these problems.
There’s a very simple reason why Colin Lloyd is correct on this.
“Right” and “Left” are words that the average voter uses, and thinks he/she understands, when talking about politics.
Words like “classical liberal” and “social liberal” go straight over the heads of the voters.
David Owen coined the immortal phrase “Not Right, Not Left, But Forward”. The voters, who are not stupid, worked out that he had something to hide.
I suppose that it can sometimes be necessary to use the hi-falutin terminology when we talk purely amongst ourselves. Though even then, it can often be used more to conceal than to reveal. Getting down to the nitty-gritty of actual policy is generally more honest and open.
But if we’re talking to the voters, we have to talk their language. To do otherwise is rude.
To say “We’re not simply left or right” comes over as “We are a bunch of stuck-up snobs. We think we are better than you oiks out there. We’re not going to explain ourselves to you guys in Sunspeak, that would be beneath us. Don’t you dare tell us you don’t know what the Lib Dems stand for! If you can’t understand how wonderful we are, why don’t you faff off and vote for someone else?
David, did you mean to type “incorrect”?
David Allen – if we are to use the “language of the voter” (and I would argue that its somewhat patronising of you to assume that voters can’t understand complex ideas – after all, they can appreciate the difference between Blair and Skinner, or Clarke and Rosindell) then why not simply say “Centre” when asked that question?
David Allen
David Owen coined the immortal phrase “Not Right, Not Left, But Forward”.
No, I remember it being the slogan of Imperial College Liberal Club when I joined it in 1978, we even called our magazine “Forward!” in its honour.
Julian, no I didn’t make a typo. Just because Colin Lloyd and I are on opposite sides of the party doesn’t mean I’m honour bound to disagree with everything he says. (Hope you might act likewise some day?)
Tabman, yes, Centre is basically a useful simple word. It is a little less useful than it was thirty years ago, when we were indubitably in the centre between the monetarists and the Marxists. Now we have political cross-dressing, “liberal” Tories, and Labour the banker’s friends. Being at the centre of that lot seems a bit less appealing!
Jock, it seems to me that economics is a complicated business. Would you be prepared to discuss your proposals for reform in detail in IRC?
Hi Voter – happy to take a discussion “offline” but probably best not during the working day – at least by a “synchronous” mechanism where you need me online!
At my blog you can find a contact form if you like where you can get to my email, or a Facebook link. Not sure about IRC – it’s about a decade since I last used it and would need to start with some software!
There are free IRC clients available for download. Perhaps you can investigate what your options are for your chosen OS
You may want to try the website mibbit.com which should give you access to IRC (possibly depending on your browser) without software installation.
You can drop me an email if you get things set up.
My email address is:
gideon425.gb5 at mailnull.com
I notice that people I consider to be on the right of the party do not like being identified as such.
I think the division between left and right within the Liberal Democrats is mostly on economics, to some extent on whether the UK should be allowed to possess Weapons of Mass Destruction or not, and also whether “Life should mean life”, the law and order position championed by Ming Campbell when he was leader.
From reading the opinions of Jock, it is hard to imagine what kind of society will come about if we sign up to the policies he advocates. No government that I am aware of has privatised their national currency – although there have been alternative currencies championed by NEF. According to Jock the recent turmoil in the financial markets has nothing to do with free markets because a truly free market would operate within a system of LVT, privatised currencies and the removal of laws such as limited liability and interlectaul property.
No doubt I have missed out a lot, but that is my understanding.
No country has enacted these principles that I am aware of. I agree with Schumaker that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory, so I am inclined to think that the belief that these policies would add up to a good society is an article of faith, rather than a sound judgement.
That said I am minded to support LVT. I think it is a good policy but I do not anticipate that it would be a panacea.
Most Lib Dems I would consider to be on the right of the party are those who do not have a critique of capitalism. I was amazed at a recent Centre Forum event on the subject of Equality that they were still handing out pamphletts on Freedom, in which Jeremy Browne MP celebrates in gushing terms capitalism and free markets. It seemed so dated after recent events, it even extolled the virtues of “light touch regulation”, a trait Nick Clegg now accuses the other parties of possessing, as part of his new narrative that the other parties led us into this mess (which they did of course).
Historically it was Keynes that saved capitalism in much of the world by formulating economic principles that benefitted the working classes. Under laissez faire capitalism of the Victorian period, much of the working class lived in abject poverty.
To me the main divide is between those who are inspired by Keynes and Beveridge, and those inspired by Hayak and Friedman.
My memories of the 1980s, the height of free market ideology, was that economic freedom did not lead to political freedom. Mrs Thatcher, George W Bush, General Pinochet combined economic freedom with political authoritarianism. I was interested to hear Nick Clegg speak on human rights recently where he admitted that he once believed that economic freedom would bring political freedom to China, but that he now believes that is wrong.
So I think there is a left-right divide in the party, and despite the election of Nick Clegg as leader of the party, I think it is now sensible for the party to shift to the left. We no longer believe in light touch regulation of that markets are self correcting. We would be mad if we did.
Tell you what Geoff, let’s abandon this superficial left-right dichotomy and just agree that the social-liberal outcomes which we all want to see are indivisible from, and interdependent on, economic-liberal inputs.
It’s a chicken and egg thing – and the economic egg comes first, as any fule kno.
Andrew Duffield:
“… let’s abandon this superficial left-right dichotomy and just agree that the social-liberal outcomes which we all want to see are indivisible from, and interdependent on, economic-liberal inputs.
It’s a chicken and egg thing – and the economic egg comes first …”
I assume that trying to settle a “chicken and egg argument” by means of a flat assertion that “the egg comes first” is an example of irony.
Somehow I don’t think this argument is going to be settled unless people start arguing policies on their merits rather than simply insisting “this policy is liberal – if you don’t support it you should be in a different party”.
Geoffrey Payne wrote on 28th February 2009 at 6:24 pm:
GP: I notice that people I consider to be on the right of the party do not like being identified as such.
Maybe because people like you continue to peddle that view of some of us despite obviously failing to understand (or perhaps listen to) our explanation why I think you are wrong.
GP: I think the division between left and right within the Liberal Democrats is mostly on economics, to some extent on whether the UK should be allowed to possess Weapons of Mass Destruction or not
What? You think that possession of WMDs is a libertarian issue? Possibly the key core belief of libertarians is of non-aggression. I suppose some might construct an argument that WMDs are defensive. Given that in any “political quiz” aimed at libertarians you get more “libertarian points” for wanting to disband armed forces I think such arguments are few and far between. If you are referring to neo-cons (who are not libertarians), then I think you need to justify the inference that there are such people in our party with some evidence.
GP: and also whether “Life should mean life”
Oh – I see what you are doing now – you are describing the difference between neo-cons (who are indeed of the right) and libertarians such as myself (who are not of the right). Hard-core libertarians/minarchists/anarchists would argue I think that if we are allowed to *defend* ourselves and our property properly (ie not initiate aggression) we would have less crime, that in a private law society even such things as murder ought to be “civil” issues focussed on proper compensation of victims and loved ones and that even dangerous people can be dealt with by means other than enforced incarceration. So yes, “life should mean life” may be a position of the conservative and authoritarian right, but it’s certainly not especially a position of libertarians.
Geoffrey Payne wrote on 28th February 2009 at 6:24 pm:
GP: From reading the opinions of Jock, it is hard to imagine what kind of society will come about if we sign up to the policies he advocates. No government that I am aware of has privatised their national currency
I suggest some light reading on the history of money and currency then. J K Galbraith’s (I assume you would approve of his political alignment) “Money: Whence it came, where it went” is a good start. You’ll find money and currency is a much more flexible thing historically than the system we have today that was designed by wealthy bankers (principally J P Morgan Jnr and John D Rockerfeller Jnr who lobbied for the creation of the Federal Reserve System in the US) to benefit their privileged cartels. Privileges granted by the state to the wealthy since when “our” money has been continuously debased and which the current reaction to the present crisis promises to debase even further to the benefit of the privileged banking cartel.
Even in the UK the monopoly of the Bank of England for producing our currency is only a hundred a fifty years old. And at about the same time the mutualists, individual anarchists and so on were developing their counter-arguments about socializing the medium of exchange not centralizing it. Silvio Gesell’s work – there’s some information here – is also worth looking into to get some idea of the sort of monetary innovations of the twentieth century, especially as regards how to get out of the kind of hole we are currently in in financial markets. Gesell was cited as an influence by JMK.
GP: – although there have been alternative currencies championed by NEF. According to Jock the recent turmoil in the financial markets has nothing to do with free markets because a truly free market would operate within a system of LVT, privatised currencies and the removal of laws such as limited liability and interlectaul property.
No doubt I have missed out a lot, but that is my understanding.
No country has enacted these principles that I am aware of.
Yet these were the foundations of the work of people like Henry George whose ideas formed the basis of Liberal party economic policy under Lloyd-George. Have you ever read “Progress and Poverty” or “Protection or Free Trade” which were such big influences on our party (and Labour in the early days)?
Geoffrey Payne wrote on 28th February 2009 at 6:24 pm:
GP: I agree with Schumaker that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory, so I am inclined to think that the belief that these policies would add up to a good society is an article of faith, rather than a sound judgement.
Then have a look at some of the videos in the YouTube link given above – Worgl, WIR and similar are more than an ounce of practice. Just because your narrow view seems not to have come across them does not mean they do not exist. If you’re going to be driving policy making in these areas you really ought to have a broader view of the possibilities. Schumacher, if that’s who you are referring to, and the society named after him, are supporters of George’s and Gesell’s work and particularly of Land Tax and other land reform (such as Community Land Trusts – a mutualist libertarian concept if anything).
GP: That said I am minded to support LVT. I think it is a good policy but I do not anticipate that it would be a panacea.
Then with respect I don’t think you understand it. Or the whole idea of rent. Has it not struck you to investigate why our Liberal forebears put such great store by LVT and the theories behind it? Rent and interest continue to impoverish the many to the benefit of the few. When you understand this you will understand why truly free trade and truly liberal economics is of the left not the right – if, by “left”, you mean progressive, concerned for the weakest not the strongest and so on.
Geoffrey Payne wrote on 28th February 2009 at 6:24 pm:
GP: Most Lib Dems I would consider to be on the right of the party are those who do not have a critique of capitalism.
Maybe so, I don’t know who you are talking about here. But it’s not necessarily the same thing as “libertarian”. Have a look at the work of people like Kevin Carson as I mentioned above – strapline “Free-market anti-capitalism” Roderick Long’s recent essay at the Cato Institute or a more recent essay by a young Austrian libertarian writer I linked to here – “Bush, Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke: Anything but capitalists”
GP: Under laissez faire capitalism of the Victorian period, much of the working class lived in abject poverty.
Yeah – this is the kind of uber-sloppy thinking that creates these divides though. What you do not seem to appreciate is that throughout this period, libertarians and anarchists were railing against the entrenched monopolies of the period. What you seem to be calling “laissez-faire capitalism” was what Spooner, George, Tucker, Nock and company were actually fighting against and their followers continue to do so. Without this basic understanding your next sentence…
GP: To me the main divide is between those who are inspired by Keynes and Beveridge, and those inspired by Hayak and Friedman.
…makes no sense. Keynes was inspired by Gesell. The party was inspired by the likes of Henry George – and so was Friedman. George was inspired by Spencer, Smith and Ricardo. You cannot separate these threads so casually.
Geoffrey Payne wrote on 28th February 2009 at 6:24 pm:
GP: My memories of the 1980s, the height of free market ideology
And yet none of the great monopolies identified over a hundred years ago as the biggest barriers to free trade and a level playing field and which the Liberal party embraced then were touched in this period. Indeed they were entrenched by things like the Community Charge, privatizing monopolies, and making the fiat money system and the privileged bankers more important. Go figure!
GP: So I think there is a left-right divide in the party, and despite the election of Nick Clegg as leader of the party, I think it is now sensible for the party to shift to the left.
But by calling me “right wing” as you have done in the past you fail to identify that divide properly. I do believe we should move “to the left” – the left of liberty from the state whenever possible, the left of the level playing field created by abolishing these great barriers to equitable economic participation, the left of “free-market anti-capitalism”. But if those leading party policy making do not grasp these, or apparently even make an honest attempt to, I hold out little hope.
(Apologies for splitting this up – the liberal auto-censor thought it was spam when I posted it as one response).
Just a very quick response before I dash off to work – I did not have libertarians in mind when I referred to WMD. I do not know the philosophical basis of libertarian foreign policy, but I often find I agree with it, for example in supporting the withdrawl of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as opposing WMD.
Time for Tom’s pop quiz:
What are the “Right wing” and “Left wing” responses to the following
1) Immigration (opposed by Labour Unions and the BNP)
2) ID cards (compulsory in Social Democratic Sweden as well as most fascist and communist states)
3) Localism (undermined by Socialists and Nationalists in equal measure)
4) Foreign military ventures
5) Big Government (Gordon Brown has tried very hard to get back to Margaret Thatcher’s spending levels)
I could go on.
Jock,
Part of the issue is that lines very similar to yours and those of others in the party associated with the idea that “free markets” are the key freedom have been used by those who it turns out were making themselves very prosperous at the expense of others. Of course people who are fleecing us are not going to say “we are fleecing you”, they are going to say “what we are doing is for your own good”.
Now, I know you say that your form of extreme free market policy isn’t like the form we have had since it was championed by Thatcher and Reagan, but I think you ought to acknowledge there’s a good reason why others might be sceptical. If we’ve been sold a nightmare by people who superficially sound like you, you are going to have to do a really convincing job to persuade us of why you aren’t just another snake-oil salesman.
We can see if we look at history that new challenges to our freedom arise over time, and those who have comfortably got into power by fighting the old ones ignore the new ones, perhaps brought on by themselves. They may claim still to be fighting for freedom while doing the opposite by pretending the old battles which they or their forefathers fought are still the main battles for freedom when they no longer are.
This is one reason why “left” and “right” are such slippery terms. If we suppose “left” means those who are challenging current power structures, then “left” if successful becomes “right”. When “free trade” meant countering the power of the landed aristocracy, it certainly was of the “left”. When it means big companies dominating our lives and turning us into dependent wage slaves, it is of the “right”.
Mark,
Part of the issue is that when people say “government works” we think of egregious examples where it clearly does not enhance liberty that have blighted millions, billions of lives especially over the last century when they were all supposed to be pretty democratic, at least to start with.
Perhaps you have got to show how “big government” solutions are not all the same as what Stalin or Mugabe have perpetrated.
You see the equivalence? Of course I do not expect you to have to justify that your prescriptions for, say, a state owned and delivered education system are the same as Pol Pot’s re-education programs.
Yet I have to waste an awful lot of time explaining to people why three hundred years of liberal thought is so utterly tainted by “Maggie and Ronnie” whose policies, on even a cursory examination, can be seen not to be terribly “free market” at all.
The “free market” was never about “countering the power of the landed aristocracy” – it was about eradicating monopolies, tariffs, protectionism of all kinds. Yes, that included land, and, because our forebears in 1909 were unable to implement their policies then, still does.
At the very least I make a call to things that our party forbears actually belileved – Asquith, L-G, Churchill and so on were committed to this line of attack on privilege. When those who cite St William of Beveridge in the defense of social welfare they all seem to conveniently forget that he did not envisage it being a replacement for private provision, for example, but a safety net againsst the worst depredations life could throw at people.
I have repeatedly given examples of why “Maggie and Ronnie” were not really the “free market radicals” that people like Geoffrey Payne frequently throw back at us, but they go unheeded. It is intellectually lazy and politically tribal.
Sorry – “Mark” was intellectually lazy! I should have written “Matthew” of course.
Jock,
I spent large parts of the 1980s arguing with people who came along clutching Marx and saying they believed in the idea of the workers vanguard party seizing power, and when I said that sounded very much like what led to Soviet Communism having to listen to their pathetic excuses as to why it wouldn’t be. Usually it was along the lines of “oh that big bad boy Stalin came along and …” or “the nasty capitalists stepped in …” and lah-de-dah, it was crap because if their ideology was so fragile as not to be able to stand up to such things it was worthless.
Margaret Thatcher came to power clutching Hayek and saying that was her ideology. She is that practical example of what that ideology meant, and if she did it wrongly, well I don’t remember too many of her ardent supporters who claimed what she was doing was true liberalism at the time and that the liberalism of the Liberal Party was not making the “oh, it wasn’t really true liberalism” noises you now make retrospectively.
I do not know what you mean by William Beveridge since neither I nor anyone I know advocates banning any sort of welfare provision except that provided by the state. Neither do I advocate the banning of private education which your remarks on state education would suggest I do. I have indeed argued the case for faith schools, against many in the Liberal Democrats, on the grounds their banning would be a small step to what you fear.
You say “The ‘free market’ was never about ‘countering the power of the landed aristocracy'”. I, in looking at the speeches and writings of many of those you claim as your forebears, note a great deal of aristocracy-bashing amongst them. The fact that you are unwilling to acknowledge it, and unwilling either to engage in much bashing of the present day aristocracy such as hugely over-paid bankers, is itself enough to raise suspicions.
Have you read “Why I am not a Conservative” lately? Anyone can pick up a book and say “we believe this” and then, effectively, pursue what is effectively an opposite ideology.
The fact that you are unwilling to acknowledge it, and unwilling either to engage in much bashing of the present day aristocracy such as hugely over-paid bankers
Which is a gross oversimplification of what I wrote either in my previous post or in anything about the current situation. You are right to say, as I onstantly point out, that the landed aristocracy and modern overpaid bankers are examples of the same problem that libertarians historically have railed against – the monopolies of money creation and landlordism.
As Churchill put it though, it is not them as individuals so much as the system that creates the economic environment they can exploit that matters, and that is almost everywhere created by the state through its protection and still utter refusal to do anything about those monopolies.
itself enough to raise suspicions
Suspicions of what? I’m kind of tired of these sort of back-handed attempts to paint me as something I am not. Tired and pissed off. What a fucking party this is sometimes!
Incidentally, given that “what Maggie and Ronnie did” was supposed to be following the beliefs of the two most prominent monetarists, I found this chart quite interesting.
Even if they did try to implement the prescriptions of Hayek and Friedman as one might imagine (which they did, albeit half-heartedly – I remember the main economic indicator everyone watched in the eighties seemed to be the M0,2 and 3 monetary aggregates), they failed utterly.
Perhaps it might be something to do with being governments, which Hayek had predicted would be utterly incapable of providing the required sound money he advocated. They in fact presided over the biggest infaltion of the money supply since the start of the Fed system until the past few months.