Tag Archives: liberal economics

In his recent article, Buddy Anderson argues that the Liberal Democrats are not going to replace the Conservatives if our party moves further to the economic left. Of course, it is worth questioning the premise. Do we really want to replace the Conservatives? Nevertheless, if we take up the notion for the sake of argument, what would it actually mean? Buddy is of course right that just because an Orange Book Liberalism didn’t thrill electors after 2010 doesn’t mean it could never work. Quite so. However, the theory of Tory displacement Buddy favours, assumes a straightforward link between Conservative voters and market-led liberalism. The latter position has a number of strands, but they might be neatly divided into the following policy preferences:

• Keep state spending at or below 35% of GDP
• Keep taxes as low as possible
• Reduce the liabilities on the public balance sheet by contracting-out public services
• Remove regulatory barriers to economic growth

It is often supposed that Conservative voters display a close identification with all these positions. They point to Thatcher’s three election wins, as undeniable proof of the proposition. However, in reality, the traditional Conservative base (from say 1979 to 2019) was a complex coalition of overlapping interests, which coalesced around the notion of ‘popular Capitalism’. Inside the Thatcher tent financers jostled with small business owners, farmers jockeyed with moral conservatives, ruthless ad men jostled with blue-rinse WI fundraisers. Thatcher’s genius was her ability to neutralise dissent in her coalition by conceding limited collectivism (in the case of institutions like the NHS and the Royal Mail), offering something to cultural Conservatives e.g. Victorian values, while enthusing the economic Right by privatising public assets.