Liberalism Chapter 2 PDF

CHAPTER 2 LIBERALISM Preview 19 PREVIEW Historical overview 20 The term ‘liberal’ has been in use since the Core themes 22 fourteenth century but has had a wide variety of meanings. The Latin libe...

CHAPTER 2 LIBERALISM Preview 19 PREVIEW Historical overview 20 The term ‘liberal’ has been in use since the Core themes 22 fourteenth century but has had a wide variety of meanings. The Latin liber referred to a class Types of liberalism 31 of free men; in other words, men who were The future of liberalism 46 neither serfs nor slaves. It has meant generous, as in ‘liberal’ helpings of food and drink; or, in Questions for discussion 47 reference to social attitudes, it has implied Further reading 48 openness or open-mindedness. It also came to be associated increasingly with the ideas of freedom and choice. The term ‘liberalism’, to denote a political allegiance, made its appearance much later: it was not used until the early part of the nineteenth century, being first employed in Spain in 1812. By the 1840s, the term was widely recognized throughout Europe as a reference to a distinctive set of political ideas. However, it was taken up more slowly in the UK. Although the Whigs, a long-established parliamentary faction, started to call themselves Liberals during the 1830s, the first distinctly Liberal government was not formed in the UK until W. E. Gladstone was appointed premier and established his first ministry. The central theme of liberal ideology is a commitment to the individual and the desire to construct a society in which people can satisfy their interests and achieve fulfilment. Liberals believe that human beings are, first and foremost, individuals, endowed with reason. This implies that each individual should enjoy the maximum possible freedom consistent with a like freedom for all. However, although individuals are entitled to equal legal and political rights, they should be rewarded in line with their talents and their willingness to work. Liberal societies are organized politically around the twin principles of constitutionalism and consent, designed to protect citizens from the danger of government tyranny. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between classical liberalism and modern liberalism. Classical liberalism is characterized by a belief in a ‘minimal’ state, whose function is limited to the maintenance of domestic order and personal security. Modern liberalism, in contrast, accepts that the state should help people to help themselves. 19 20 Chapter 2 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Liberalism was a product of the breakdown of feudalism in Europe, and the growth, in its place, of a market or capitalist society. In many respects, liberalism reflected the aspirations of the rising middle classes, whose interests conflicted with the established power of absolute monarchs and the landed aristocracy. Liberal ideas were radical: they sought fundamental reform and even, at times, revolutionary change. The English Revolution of the seventeenth century, and the American Revolution of 1776 and French Revolution of 1789 each embodied elements that were distinctively liberal, even though the word ‘liberal’ was not at the time used in a political sense. Liberals challenged the absolute power of the monarchy, supposedly based on the doctrine of the ‘divine right of kings’. In place of absolutism, they advocated constitutional and, later, representative government (discussed later in the chapter, in relation to liberal democracy). Liberals criticized the political and economic privileges of the landed aristocracy and the unfairness of a feudal system in which social position was determined by the ‘accident of birth’. They also supported the movement towards freedom of conscience in religion and Feudalism: A system of questioned the authority of the established church. agrarian-based production that is characterized by fixed The nineteenth century was in many ways the liberal century. As social hierarchies and a rigid industrialization spread throughout Western countries, liberal ideas pattern of obligations. triumphed. Liberals advocated an industrialized and market economic Divine right: The doctrine order ‘free’ from government interference, in which businesses would that earthly rulers are chosen be allowed to pursue profit and states encouraged to trade freely with by God and thus wield unchallengeable authority; one another. Such a system of market-based industrial capitalism divine right is a defence for developed first in the UK, from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, and monarchical absolutism. subsequently spread to North America and throughout Europe, initially Absolutism: A form of into Western Europe and then, more gradually, into Eastern Europe. From government in which political the twentieth century onwards industrial capitalism exerted a powerful power is concentrated in the appeal for developing states in Africa, Asia and Latin America, especially hands of a single individual or small group, in particular, an when social and political development was defined in essentially Western absolute monarchy. terms. However, developing-world states have sometimes been resistant Government: The machinery to the attractions of liberal capitalism because their political cultures have through which collective emphasized community rather than the individual. In such cases, they have decisions are made on provided more fertile ground for the growth of ideologies such as socialism, behalf of the state, usually comprising a legislature, nationalism or religious fundamentalism, rather than Western liberalism. executive and judiciay. Liberalism has undoubtedly been the most powerful ideological force shaping Classical liberalism: A the Western political tradition. Nevertheless, historical developments since tradition within liberalism the nineteenth century have clearly influenced the nature and substance of that seeks to maximize the realm of unconstrained liberal ideology. The character of liberalism changed as the rising middle individual action, typically by classes succeeded in establishing their economic and political dominance. establishing a minimal state The radical, even revolutionary, edge of liberalism faded with each liberal and a reliance on market economics. success. Liberalism thus became increasingly conservative, standing less for change and reform, and more for the maintenance of existing – largely Modern liberalism: A tradition within liberalism liberal – institutions. Liberal ideas, too, could not stand still. From the late that provides (in contrast to nineteenth century onwards, the progress of industrialization led liberals classical liberalism) a qualified to question, and in some ways to revise, the ideas of early liberalism. endorsement for social and economic intervention as a Whereas early or classical liberalism (sometimes called ‘nineteenth- means of promoting personal century liberalism’) had been defined by the desire to minimize government development. interference in the lives of its citizens, modern liberalism (sometimes called  Liberalism 21 ‘twentieth-century liberalism’) came to be associated with welfare provision and economic management. As a result, some commentators argued that liberalism was an incoherent ideology, embracing contradictory beliefs, notably about the desirable role of the state. The Cold War period (1945–90) witnessed the consolidation of liberalism within the US-led capitalist West, even though its global ambitions were firmly resisted within the Soviet-led communist East and across much of what became known as the Third World. This consolidation was evident in two ways. The first was the spread of Western liberal democracy (see p. 44). A wave of democratization (see p. 18) occurred between 1943 and 1962, and involved countries such as West Germany, Italy, Japan and India; with a further wave of democratization starting in 1974, and affecting Greece, Portugal, Spain and much of Latin America. The second way in which liberalism was consolidated was through the ‘silent revolution’, which, beginning in the 1960s and affecting advanced industrialized countries in particular, saw the seemingly irresistible spread of liberal values in areas ranging from gender relations, homosexuality and religious observance to capital punishment and cultural diversity. The end of the Cold War had yet more significant implications for liberalism, encouraging some to declare that it amounted to the ‘liberal moment’ in world affairs. The overthrow of communist regimes across Eastern Europe sparked a new and more dramatic process of democratization, with the formation of governments through multiparty elections and the adoption of market-based economic reforms becoming substantially more common. This created a situation in which, whereas in 1973 only 45 out of the 151 states then comprising the world community exhibited some of the key features of liberal-democratic governance, by 2003, 63 per cent of states, accounting for more than 70 per cent of the world’s population, displayed these characteristics. In this context, ‘end of history’ theorists, such as Francis Fukuyama (see p. 17), proclaimed that liberal democracy had established itself as the final form of human government. Such a view, in effect, implies that liberal democracy is the ‘default position’ for human societies. The end of the Cold War also injected significantly greater State: A political association impetus into the process of economic globalization. This made it possible, that establishes sovereign jurisdiction over a defined for the first time, to conceive of the world economy as a single, interlocking territorial area, usually entity, built on liberal – or, more accurately, neoliberal – lines (economic possessing a monopoly of liberalism is discussed at greater length later in the chapter). coercive power. KEY CONCEPT globalization is the process through which national economies have, to a greater or lesser extent, been GLOBALIZATION absorbed into a single global economy. Cultural Globalization is the emergence of a web of globalization is the process whereby information, interconnectedness which means that our lives commodities and images produced in one part of the are shaped increasingly by events that occur, and world have entered into a global flow that tends to decisions that are made, at a great distance from ‘flatten out’ cultural differences worldwide. Political us, thus giving rise to ‘supraterritorial’ connections globalization is the process through which policy- between people. However, globalization is a complex making responsibilities have been passed from process that has a range of manifestations. Economic national governments to international organizations. However, the early decades of the twenty-first century have brought with them evidence of the retreat of liberalism. This has been particularly apparent in the fact that, since reaching its high-water mark in 2006–08, the spread of Western liberal democracy has been reversed, with 22 Chapter 2 authoritarian ideas and practices advancing across much of the world. For example, despite early expectations that the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 would develop into the ‘Arab world’s 1989’, bringing democracy to North Africa and parts of the Middle East, dictatorship was restored in most of the countries affected within months. A further challenge to liberalism has come in the form of a backlash against the advance of liberal values, especially affecting those sections of advanced industrial societies that have been ‘left behind’ due to the pace and direction of cultural change from the 1960s onwards. This ‘silent counter-revolution’ has seen a resurgence of conservative values, particularly in areas related to national identity – such as immigration and multiculturalism – and it has been expressed largely through the rise of right-wing populism. Finally, liberalism was damaged by the 2007–10 global financial crisis, which saw a series of major bank bailouts take place just as the world was falling into what was then the most serious recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This gave the impression that liberal political forces were more closely aligned to the interests of financial and corporate elites than they were to the interests of people. (See Chapter 8 for a fuller account of the relationship between populism and liberalism.) CORE THEMES Liberalism is the ideology of the industrialized West. So deeply have liberal ideas permeated political, economic and cultural life that their influence can become hard to discern, liberalism appearing to be indistinguishable from ‘Western civilization’ in general. Liberal thinkers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, influenced by an Enlightenment belief in universal reason, tended to subscribe to an explicitly foundational form of liberalism, which sought to establish fundamental values and championed a particular vision of human flourishing or excellence, usually linked to personal autonomy. This form of liberalism was boldly universalist in that it implied that human history would be marked by the gradual but inevitable triumph of liberal principles and institutions. Progress, in short, was understood in strictly liberal terms. During the twentieth century, however, it became fashionable to portray liberalism as morally neutral. This was reflected in the belief that liberalism gives priority to ‘the right’ over ‘the good’. In other words, liberalism strives to establish the conditions in which people and groups can pursue the good life as each defines it, but it does not prescribe or try to promote any particular notion of what is good. From this perspective, liberalism is not simply an ideology but a ‘meta-ideology’; that is, a body of rules that lays down the grounds on which political and ideological debate can take place. However, this does not mean that liberalism is simply a philosophy of ‘do your own thing’. While liberalism undoubtedly favours openness, debate and self-determination, it is also characterized by a powerful moral thrust. The moral and ideological stance of liberalism is embodied in a commitment to a distinctive set of values and beliefs. The most important of these are: zz individualism zz freedom Democracy: Rule by the people; democracy implies zz reason both popular participation in government and the public zz justice interest, and can take a wide variety of forms. zz toleration.  Liberalism 23 Individualism In the modern world, the concept of the individual is so familiar that its political significance is often overlooked. In the feudal period, there was little idea of individuals having their own interests or possessing personal and unique identities. Rather, people were seen as members of the social groups to which they belonged: their family, village, local community or social class. Their lives and identities were largely determined by the character of these groups in a process that changed little from one generation to the next. However, as feudalism was displaced by increasingly market-orientated societies, individuals were confronted by a broader range of choices and social possibilities. They were encouraged, perhaps for the first time, to think for themselves, and to think of themselves in personal terms. A serf, for example, whose family might always have lived and worked on the same piece of land, became a ‘free man’ and acquired some ability to choose for whom to work, or perhaps the opportunity to leave the land altogether and look for work in the growing towns or cities. As the certainties of feudal life broke down, a new intellectual climate emerged. Rational and scientific explanations gradually displaced traditional religious theories, and society was increasingly understood from the viewpoint of the human individual. Individuals were thought to possess personal and distinctive qualities: each was of special value. This was evident in the growth, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of natural rights theories, which are discussed later, in relation to classical liberalism. Immanuel Kant expressed a similar belief in the dignity and equal worth of human beings in his conception of individuals as ‘ends in themselves’ and not merely as means for the achievement of the ends of others. However, emphasizing the importance of the individual has two contrasting implications. First, it draws attention to the uniqueness of each human being: individuals are defined primarily by inner qualities and attributes specific to themselves. Second, they nevertheless each share the same status in that they are all, first and foremost, individuals, and so are equal. Many of the tensions within liberal ideology can, indeed, be traced back to these rival ideas of uniqueness and equality. KEY FIGURE IMMANUEL KANT (1724–1804) A German philosopher, Kant’s ‘critical’ philosophy holds that knowledge is not merely an aggregate of sense impressions; it depends on the conceptual apparatus of human understanding. Kant’s political thought was shaped by the central importance of morality. He believed that the law of reason dictates categorical imperatives, the most important of which is the obligation to treat others as ‘ends’, and never only as ‘means’. Kant’s most important works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Superstock A belief in the primacy of the individual is the characteristic theme of liberal ideology, but it has influenced liberal thought in different ways. It has led some liberals to view society as simply a collection of individuals, each seeking to satisfy his Atomism: A belief that society is made up of a or her own needs and interests. Such a view has been equated with atomism; collection of self-interested indeed, it can lead to the belief that ‘society’ itself does not exist, but is and largely self-sufficient merely a collection of self-sufficient individuals. Such extreme individualism individuals, or atoms, rather is based on the assumption that the individual is egoistical, essentially self- than social groups. 24 Chapter 2 KEY CONCEPT individualism, on the other hand, implies that society should be constructed so as to benefit INDIVIDUALISM the individual, giving moral priority to individual Individualism is the belief in the supreme rights, needs or interests. Classical liberals and the importance of the individual over any social group New Right subscribe to egoistical individualism, or collective body. In the form of methodological which places emphasis on self-interestedness and individualism, this suggests that the individual is self-reliance. Modern liberals, in contrast, have central to any political theory or social explanation advanced a developmental form of individualism – all statements about society should be made in that prioritizes human flourishing over the quest for terms of the individuals who compose it. Ethical interest satisfaction. seeking, and largely self-reliant. C. B. Macpherson (1973) characterized early liberalism as ‘possessive individualism’, in that it regarded the individual as ‘the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them’. In contrast, later liberals have held a more optimistic view of human nature, and have been more prepared to believe that egoism is tempered by a sense of social responsibility, especially a responsibility for those who are unable to look after themselves. Whether egoism is unrestrained or is qualified by a sense of social responsibility, liberals are united in their desire to create a society in which each person is capable of developing and flourishing to the fullness of his or her potential. Freedom A belief in the supreme importance of the individual leads naturally to a commitment to individual freedom. Individual liberty (liberty and freedom being interchangeable) is for liberals the supreme political value and, in many ways, the unifying principle within liberal ideology. For early liberals, liberty was a natural right, an essential requirement for leading a truly human existence. It also gave individuals the opportunity to pursue their own interests by exercising choice: the choice of where to live, for whom to work, what to buy and so on. Later liberals have seen liberty as the only condition in which people are able to develop their skills and talents and fulfil their potential. Nevertheless, liberals do not accept that individuals have an absolute entitlement to freedom. If liberty is unlimited it can become ‘licence’, the right to abuse others. In On Liberty ( 1972) John Stuart Mill argued that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is Human nature: The essential to prevent harm to others’. Mill’s position is libertarian (see p. 61) in that it and innate character of all accepts only the most minimal restrictions on individual freedom, and then human beings: what they only in order to prevent ‘harm to others’. He distinguished clearly between owe to nature rather than to society. actions that are ‘self-regarding’, over which individuals should exercise absolute freedom, and those that are ‘other-regarding’, which can restrict the Egoism: A concern for one’s own welfare or interests, or freedom of others or do them damage. Mill did not accept any restrictions on the theory that the pursuit the individual that are designed to prevent a person from damaging himself of self-interest is an ethical or herself, either physically or morally. Such a view suggests, for example, priority. that laws forcing car drivers to put on seat belts or motorcyclists to wear Freedom (or liberty): The crash helmets are as unacceptable as any form of censorship that limits what ability to think or act as one wishes, a capacity that can be an individual may read or listen to. Radical libertarians may defend the right associated with the individual, of people to use addictive drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, on the same a social group or a nation. grounds. Although the individual may be sovereign over his or her body  Liberalism 25 PERSPECTIVES ON... FREEDOM LIBERALS give priority to freedom as the supreme individualist value. While classical liberals support negative freedom, understood as the absence of constraints – or freedom of choice – modern liberals advocate positive freedom in the sense of personal development and human flourishing. CONSERVATIVES have traditionally endorsed a weak view of freedom as the willing recognition of duties and responsibilities, negative freedom posing a threat to the fabric of society. The New Right, however, endorses negative freedom in the economic sphere, freedom of choice in the marketplace. SOCIALISTS have generally understood freedom in positive terms to refer to self-fulfilment achieved through either free creative labour or cooperative social interaction. Social democrats have drawn close to modern liberalism in treating freedom as the realization of individual potential. ANARCHISTS regard freedom as an absolute value, believing it to be irreconcilable with any form of political authority. Freedom is understood to mean the achievement of personal autonomy, not merely being ‘left alone’ but being rationally self-willed and self-directed. FASCISTS reject any form of individual liberty as a nonsense. ‘True’ freedom, in contrast, means unquestioning submission to the will of the leader and the absorption of the individual into the national community. GREENS, particularly deep ecologists, treat freedom as the achievement of oneness, self- realization through the absorption of the personal ego into the ecosphere or universe. In contrast with political freedom, this is sometimes seen as ‘inner’ freedom, freedom as self-actualization. FUNDAMENTALISTS see freedom as essentially an inner or spiritual quality. Freedom means conformity to the revealed will of God, spiritual fulfilment being associated with submission to religious authority. and mind, each must respect the fact that every other individual enjoys an equal right to liberty. This has been expressed by John Rawls (see p. 39) in the principle that everyone is entitled to the widest possible liberty consistent with a like liberty for all. KEY FIGURE JOHN STUART MILL (1806–73) A British philosopher, economist and politician, Mill’s varied and complex work straddles the divide between classical and modern forms of liberalism. His opposition to collectivist tendencies and traditions was firmly rooted in nineteenth-century principles, but his emphasis on the quality of individual life, reflected in a commitment to individuality, as well as his sympathy for causes such as female suffrage and workers’ cooperatives, looked forward to later developments. Mill’s major writings include On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1861) and Considerations on Representative Government (1861). Historical/Corbis Historical/ Getty Images While liberals agree about the value of liberty, they have not always agreed about what it means for an individual to be ‘free’. In his ‘Two Concepts of Negative freedom: The absence of external Liberty’ ( 1969), Isaiah Berlin (see p. 240) distinguished between a restrictions or constraints ‘negative’ theory of liberty and a ‘positive’ one. Early or classical liberals have on the individual, allowing believed in negative freedom, in that freedom consists in each person being freedom of choice. 26 Chapter 2 left alone, free from interference and able to act in whatever way he or she may choose. This conception of freedom is ‘negative’ in that it is based on the absence of external restrictions or constraints on the individual. Modern liberals, on the other hand, have been attracted to a more ‘positive’ conception of liberty – positive freedom – defined by Berlin as the ability to be one’s own master; to be autonomous. Self-mastery requires that the individual is able to develop skills and talents, broaden his or her understanding, and gain fulfilment. This led to an emphasis on the capacity of human beings to develop and ultimately achieve self- realization. These rival conceptions of liberty have not merely stimulated academic debate within liberalism, but have also encouraged liberals to hold very different views about the desirable relationship between the individual and the state. Reason The liberal case for freedom is closely linked to a faith in reason. Liberalism is, and remains, very much part of the Enlightenment project. The central theme of the Enlightenment was the desire to release humankind from its bondage to superstition and ignorance, and unleash an ‘age of reason’ (although early liberals were often willing to associate rationality only with men, and, not uncommonly, only with white men). Key Enlightenment thinkers included Jean-Jacques Rousseau (see p. 133), Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith (see p. 34) and Jeremy Bentham (see p. 33). Enlightenment rationalism influenced Positive freedom: Self- liberalism in a number of ways. In the first place, it strengthened its faith mastery or self-realization; the achievement of autonomy in both the individual and freedom. To the extent that human beings are or the development of human rational, thinking creatures, they are capable of defining and pursuing their capacities. own best interests. By no means do liberals believe that individuals are Paternalism: Authority infallible in this respect, but the belief in reason builds into liberalism a strong exercised from above for bias against paternalism. Not only does paternalism prevent individuals the guidance and support of those below, modelled on the from making their own moral choices and, if necessary, from learning from relationship between fathers their own mistakes, but it also creates the prospect that those invested with and children (see p. 70). responsibility for others will abuse their position for their own ends. KEY CONCEPT principle, however, rationalism places a heavy emphasis on the capacity of human beings to understand and RATIONALISM explain their world, and to find solutions to problems. Rationalism is the belief that the world has a rational While rationalism does not dictate the ends of human structure, and that this can be disclosed through the conduct, it certainly suggests how these ends should exercise of human reason and critical enquiry. As a be pursued. It is associated with an emphasis on philosophical theory, rationalism is the belief that principle and reason-governed behaviour, as opposed knowledge flows from reason rather than experience, to a reliance on custom or tradition, or on non- and thus contrasts with empiricism. As a general rational drives and impulses. A further legacy of rationalism is that liberals are inclined to view human history in terms of progress. Progress literally means advance, a movement forward. In the liberal view, the expansion of knowledge, particularly through the scientific revolution, enabled people not only to understand and explain their world but also to help shape it for the better. In short, the power of reason gives human beings the capacity to take charge of their own lives and fashion their own destinies. Reason emancipates humankind from the grip of the past and from the weight of custom and tradition. Each generation is thus able to advance beyond the last as the stock of human knowledge and understanding  Liberalism 27 increases progressively. This also explains the characteristic liberal emphasis on education. People can better or improve themselves through the acquisition of knowledge and the abandonment of prejudice and superstition. Education, particularly in the modern liberal view, is therefore a good in itself. It is a vital means of promoting personal self- development and, if extended widely, of bringing about social advancement. Reason, moreover, is significant in highlighting the importance of discussion, debate and argument. While liberals are generally optimistic about human nature, seeing people as reason-guided creatures, they have seldom subscribed to the utopian creed of human perfectibility because they recognize the power of self-interest and egoism. The inevitable result of this is rivalry and conflict. Individuals battle for scarce resources, businesses compete to increase profits, states struggle for security or strategic advantage, and so on. The liberal preference is clearly that such conflicts be settled through debate and negotiation. The great advantage of reason is that it provides a basis on which rival claims and demands can be evaluated – do they ‘stand up’ to analysis; are they ‘reasonable’? Furthermore, it highlights the cost of not resolving disputes peacefully: namely, violence, bloodshed and death. Liberals therefore typically deplore the use of force and aggression; for example, war is invariably seen as an option of the very last resort. From the liberal perspective, the use of force is justified either on the grounds of self-defence or as a means of countering oppression, but always and only after reason and argument have been exhausted. Justice Justice denotes a particular kind of moral judgement, notably one about the distribution of rewards and punishment. In short, justice is about giving each person what he or she is ‘due’. The narrower idea of social justice refers to the distribution of material rewards and benefits in society, such as wages, profits, housing, medical care, welfare benefits and so on. The liberal theory of justice is based on a belief in equality of various kinds. In the first place, individualism implies a commitment to foundational equality. Human beings are seen to be ‘born’ equal in the sense that each individual is of equal moral worth, an idea embodied in the notion of natural rights or human rights. As the norm of human rights transcends the norm of state sovereignty, liberals are inclined to believe in ideas such as global justice and decolonization. Second, foundational equality implies a belief in formal equality or equal Justice: A moral standard citizenship, the idea that individuals should enjoy the same formal status within of fairness and impartiality; society, particularly in terms of the distribution of rights and entitlements. social justice is the notion of Consequently, liberals fiercely disapprove of any social privileges or advantages a fair or justifiable distribution of wealth and rewards in that are enjoyed by some but denied to others on the basis of ‘irrational’ factors society. such as gender, race, colour, creed, religion or social background. Rights Equality: The principle that should not be reserved for any particular class of person, such as men, whites, human beings are of identical Christians or the wealthy. This is the sense in which liberalism is ‘difference worth or are entitled to be blind’. The most important forms of formal equality are legal equality and treated in the same way; political equality. The former emphasizes ‘equality before the law’ and insists equality can have widely differing applications. that all non-legal factors be strictly irrelevant to the process of legal decision- Human rights: Rights to making. The latter is embodied in the idea of ‘one person, one vote; one vote, which people are entitled one value’, and underpins the liberal commitment to democracy. Such thinking by virtue of being human; has provided fertile ground for the growth of feminist beliefs. Liberal feminism human rights are universal, (discussed more fully in Chapter 9) has been articulated by thinkers ranging fundamental and absolute. from Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan. 28 Chapter 2 KEY FIGURE MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759–97) A British social theorist, Wollstonecraft was a pioneer feminist thinker, drawn into radical politics by the French Revolution. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) stressed the equal rights of women, especially in education, on the basis of the notion of ‘personhood’. Wollstonecraft’s work drew on an Enlightenment liberal belief in reason, but developed a more complex analysis of women as the objects and subjects of desire; it also presented the domestic sphere as a model of community and social order. Photo 12/Universal Images Group/ Getty Images Third, liberals subscribe to a belief in equality of opportunity. Each and every individual should have the same chance to rise or fall in society. The game of life, in that sense, must be played on a level playing field. This is not to say that there should be equality of outcome or reward, or that living conditions and social circumstances should be the same for all. Liberals believe social equality to be undesirable because people are not born the same. They possess different talents and skills, and some are prepared to work much harder than others. Liberals believe that it is right to reward merit (ability and the willingness to work); indeed, they think it is essential to do so if people are to have an incentive to realize their potential and develop the talents with which they were born. Equality, for a liberal, means that individuals should have an equal opportunity to develop their unequal skills and abilities. KEY FIGURE BETTY FRIEDAN (1921–2006) A US political activist, Friedan is sometimes seen as the ‘mother’ of women’s liberation. In The Feminine Mystique (1963) (often credited with having stimulated the emergence of second-wave feminism), Friedan attacked the cultural myths that sustained domesticity, highlighting the sense of frustration and despair that afflicted suburban American women confined to the roles of housewife and mother. In The Second Stage (1983), she nevertheless warned that the quest for ‘personhood’ should not encourage women to deny the importance of children, the home and the family. Underwood Archives/Archive Photos/Getty Images This leads to a belief in ‘meritocracy’. A meritocratic society is one in which, in principle, inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of talent and application among human beings, or are based on factors beyond human control; for example, luck or chance (though some liberals believe that all aspects of luck, including natural ability, should be irrelevant to distributive justice, a position called ‘luck Meritocracy: Literally, rule by egalitarianism’ (Dworkin, 2000)). Such a society is supposedly just because those with merit, merit being individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their intelligence plus effort; a religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or what US society in which social position is determined exclusively by Christian minister and activist Martin Luther King Jr called ‘the content of ability and hard work. their character’. By extension, social equality is thought to be unjust because  Liberalism 29 it treats individuals alike despite their different qualities and capabilities. However, liberal thinkers have disagreed about how these broad principles of justice should be applied in practice. While classical liberals endorse strict meritocracy, both on the grounds that, being based on incentives, it promotes prosperity, and reflects individuals’ just deserts, modern liberals have reservations about meritocracy on a number of grounds. First, it endorses levels of material inequality which are difficult, and may be impossible, to defend. For example, in A Theory of Justice (1970), John Rawls argued that economic inequality is only justifiable if it works to the benefit of the poorest in society (an idea that is discussed in greater detail later in the chapter, in connection with social liberalism). Second, meritocracy is narrowly interested only in markets, economic efficiency and gross domestic product, and takes insufficient account of people’s wider contribution to the public good. Third, the clearly implied link within meritocracy between poverty and a combination of laziness and a lack of talent damages the less well-off ’s sense of social esteem, breeding resentment and hostility towards the wealthy elite. This is what Michael Sandel (2020) dubbed the ‘tyranny of merit’. Toleration The liberal social ethic is characterized very much by a willingness to accept and, in some cases, celebrate moral, cultural and political diversity. Indeed, an acceptance of pluralism can be said to be rooted in the principle of individualism, and the assumption that human beings are separate and unique creatures. However, the liberal preference for diversity has been associated more commonly with toleration. This commitment to toleration, attributed to the French writer Voltaire (1694–1778), is Pluralism: A belief in memorably expressed in the declaration that, ‘I detest what you say but will diversity or choice, or the defend to the death your right to say it.’ Toleration and free speech are both theory that political power is or should be widely and evenly an ethical ideal and a social principle. On the one hand, they represent the dispersed (see p. 240). goal of personal autonomy; on the other, they establish a set of rules about Toleration: Forbearance; a how human beings should behave towards one another. The liberal case willingness to accept views or for toleration first emerged in the seventeenth century in the attempt by actions with which one is in writers such as John Milton (1608–74) and John Locke to defend religious disagreement. freedom. Locke argued that, since the proper function of government is Autonomy: Literally, self- to protect life, liberty and property, it has no right to meddle in ‘the care government; the ability to control one’s own destiny of men’s souls’. Toleration should be extended to all matters regarded as by virtue of enjoying ‘private’, on the grounds that, like religion, they concern moral questions independence from external that should be left to the individual. influences. KEY FIGURE JOHN LOCKE (1632–1704) Locke was a consistent opponent of absolutism and is often portrayed as the philosopher of the 1688 ‘Glorious Revolution’ (which established a constitutional monarchy in England). Using social contract theory and accepting that, by nature, humans are free and equal, Locke upheld constitutionalism, limited government and the right of revolution, but the stress he placed on property rights prevented him from endorsing political equality or democracy in the modern sense. Locke’s foremost political work is Two Treatises of Government (1690). Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo 30 Chapter 2 In On Liberty ( 1972), J. S. Mill developed a wider justification for the toleration of other people’s speech and actions that highlighted its importance to society as well as the individual. From the individual’s point of view, toleration is primarily a guarantee of personal autonomy and is thus a condition for moral self-development. Nevertheless, toleration is also necessary to ensure the vigour and health of society as a whole. Only within a free market of ideas will ‘truth’ emerge, as good ideas displace bad ones and ignorance is progressively banished. Contest, debate and argument, the fruit of diversity or multiplicity, are therefore the motor of social progress. (For a discussion of liberal thinking regarding the limits of free speech in a plural society.) For Mill, this was particularly threatened by democracy and the spread of ‘dull conformism’, linked to the belief that the majority must always be right. Mill ( 1972) was thus able to argue as follows: If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES IN ACTION... FREE SPEECH IN A PLURAL SOCIETY EVENTS: In June 2020, J. K. Rowling, the author beliefs, a process that of the Harry Potter fantasy novels, published a blog is more rigorous the post arguing that gender was determined by biology. wider the range of views It came after a tweet in which she took issue with considered. Even ‘bad’ an article referring to ‘people who menstruate’, or ‘evil’ ideas thus have Samir Hussein/WireImage rather than to women. She was swiftly condemned a purpose, and so should by transgender activists who claimed that her focus not be silenced, either on biological sex was ‘transphobic’, a stance that legally or through social was backed up by the beginning of a campaign to pressure. ‘cancel’, or boycott, her cultural output, with a view However, the emer­ to subjecting her to financial pressure. In July 2020, gence of plural some 152 academics and writers signed a letter on societies, shaped by increased diversity in areas justice and open debate to the US magazine Harper’s ranging from ethnicity and culture to gender and which defended the ‘free exchange of information sexuality, has brought with it growing pressure to and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society’. narrow the parameters of free speech. This trend SIGNIFICANCE: A commitment to free speech reflects not so much a retreat from liberalism, is one of the core principles of liberal ideology. This as the sharpening of a philosophical divide within does not, however, imply that liberals believe in liberal culture. At the heart of the call for greater unchecked free speech but, rather, that free speech restraint over free speech is the argument that if should be constrained only when there is a strong different people are to occupy the same political likelihood that it will result in physical harm (for space without conflict, they mutually have to limit example, by threatening national security or, possibly, the extent to which they subject each others’ in the case of ‘hate speech’). The liberal justification fundamental beliefs (beliefs that relate to their core for free speech lies in scepticism, the doctrine that identity) to criticism. In the case of marginalized or certain knowledge is impossible to achieve, in which weak groups, this may extend to the creation of case all truth-claims must be subject to doubt. In ‘safe spaces’, spaces where the discussion of topics this view, the only way of advancing knowledge which could cause offence is banned. According to and ensuring social progress is by testing ideas and such thinking, speech is only free when everyone is beliefs in open competition against rival ideas and capable of enjoying its benefits equally.  Liberalism 31 TYPES OF LIBERALISM Liberalism comes in a variety of forms. These include the following: zz classical liberalism zz modern liberalism zz liberal democracy. Classical liberalism Classical liberalism was the earliest liberal tradition. Classical liberal ideas developed during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and reached their high point during the early industrialization of the nineteenth century. As a result, classical liberalism has sometimes been called ‘nineteenth-century liberalism’. The cradle of classical liberalism was the UK, where the capitalist and industrial revolutions were the most advanced. Its ideas have always been more deeply rooted in Anglo-Saxon countries, particularly the UK and the USA, than in other parts of the world. However, classical liberalism is not merely a nineteenth-century form of liberalism, whose ideas are now only of historical interest. Its principles and theories, in fact, have had growing appeal from the second half of the twentieth century onwards. Though what is called neoclassical liberalism, or neoliberalism (see p. 63), initially had the greatest impact in the UK and the USA, its influence has spread much more broadly, in large part fuelled by the advance of globalization (see p. 21). Classical liberalism draws on a variety of doctrines and theories. The most important of these are: zz natural rights zz utilitarianism zz economic liberalism zz social Darwinism. Natural rights The natural rights theorists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as John Locke and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), the US political philosopher and statesman, had a considerable influence on the development of liberal ideology. Modern political debate is littered with references to ‘rights’ and claims to possess ‘rights’. A right, most simply, is an entitlement to act or be treated in a particular way. Such entitlements may be either moral or legal in character. For Locke and Jefferson, rights are ‘natural’ in that they are invested in human beings by nature or God. Natural rights are now more commonly called human rights. They are, in Jefferson’s words, ‘inalienable’ because human beings are entitled to them by virtue of being human: they cannot, in that sense, be taken away. Natural rights are thus thought to establish the essential Natural rights: God-given rights that are fundamental conditions for leading a truly human existence. For Locke, there were three to human beings and are such rights: ‘life, liberty and property’. Jefferson did not accept that property therefore inalienable (they was a natural or God-given right, but rather one that had developed for cannot be taken away). 32 Chapter 2 human convenience. In the American Declaration of Independence he therefore described inalienable rights as those of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. The idea of natural or human rights has affected liberal thought in a number of ways. For example, the weight given to such rights distinguishes authoritarian thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes from early liberals such as John Locke. As explained earlier, both Hobbes and Locke believed that government was formed through a ‘social contract’. However, Hobbes ( 1968) argued that only a strong government, preferably a monarchy, would be able to establish order and security in society. He was prepared to invest the king with sovereign or absolute power, rather than risk a descent into a ‘state of nature’. The citizen should therefore accept any form of government because even repressive government is better than no government at all. Locke, on the other hand, argued against arbitrary or unlimited government. Government is established in order to protect natural rights. When these are protected by the state, citizens should respect government and obey the law. However, if government violates the rights of its citizens, they in turn have the right of rebellion. Locke thus approved of the English Revolution of the seventeenth century, and applauded the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in 1688. For Locke, moreover, the contract between state and citizen is a specific and limited one: its purpose is to protect a set of defined natural rights. As a result, Locke believed in limited government. The legitimate role of government is limited to the protection of ‘life, liberty and property’. Therefore, the realm of government should not extend beyond its three ‘minimal’ functions: zz maintaining public order and protecting property zz providing defence against external attack zz ensuring that contracts are enforced. Other issues and responsibilities are properly the concern of private individuals. Jefferson expressed a similar sentiment a century later when he declared: ‘That government is best which governs least.’ Utilitarianism Natural rights theories were not the only basis of early liberalism. An Social contract: A alternative and highly influential theory of human nature was put (hypothetical) agreement among individuals through forward in the early nineteenth century by utilitarian thinkers, notably which they form a state in Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. Bentham regarded the idea of rights as order to escape from the ‘nonsense’ and called natural rights ‘nonsense on stilts’. In their place, he disorder and chaos of the ‘state of nature’. proposed what he believed to be the more scientific and objective idea that individuals are motivated by self-interest, and that these interests State of nature: A pre- political society characterized can be defined as the desire for pleasure, or happiness, and the wish to by unrestrained freedom and avoid pain, both calculated in terms of utility. The principle of utility is, the absence of established furthermore, a moral principle in that it suggests that the ‘rightness’ of an authority. action, policy or institution can be established by its tendency to promote Utility: Use-value; in happiness. Just as each individual can calculate what is morally good by economics, utility describes the satisfaction that is gained the quantity of pleasure an action will produce, so the principle of ‘the from the consumption of greatest happiness for the greatest number’ can be used to establish which material goods and services. policies or institutions will benefit society at large.  Liberalism 33 KEY FIGURE JEREMY BENTHAM (1748–1832) A British philosopher, legal reformer and founder of utilitarianism, Bentham developed a moral and philosophical system based on the belief that human beings are rationally self- interested creatures, or utility maximizers. Using the principle of general utility – ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’ – he advanced a justification for laissez-faire economics, constitutional reform and, in later life, political democracy. Bentham’s key works include A Fragment on Government (1776) and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). API/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images Utilitarian ideas have had a considerable impact on classical liberalism. In particular, they have provided a moral philosophy that explains how and why individuals act as they do. The utilitarian conception of human beings as rationally self-interested creatures was adopted by later generations of liberal thinkers. Moreover, each individual is thought to be able to perceive his or her own best interests. This cannot be done on their behalf by some paternal authority, such as the state. Bentham argued that individuals act so as to gain pleasure or happiness in whatever way they choose. No one else can judge the quality or degree of their happiness. If each individual is the sole judge of what will give him or her pleasure, then the individual alone can determine what is morally right. On the other hand, utilitarian ideas can also have illiberal implications. Bentham held that the principle of utility could be applied to society at large and not merely to individual human behaviour. Institutions and legislation can be judged by the yardstick of ‘the greatest happiness’. However, this formula has majoritarian implications, because it uses the happiness of ‘the greatest number’ as a standard of what is morally correct, and therefore allows that the interests of the majority outweigh those of the minority or the rights of the individual. KEY CONCEPT utility or use-value, usually seen as satisfaction derived from material consumption. The ‘greatest UTILITARIANISM happiness’ principle can be used to evaluate Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy that was laws, institutions and even political systems. Act developed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. It utilitarianism judges an act to be right if it produces equates ‘good’ with pleasure or happiness, and ‘evil’ at least as much pleasure-over-pain as any other with pain or unhappiness. Individuals are therefore act. Rule utilitarianism judges an act to be right if assumed to act so as to maximize pleasure and it conforms to a rule which, if generally followed, minimize pain, these being calculated in terms of produces good consequences. Economic liberalism The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the development of classical economic theory in the work of political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo (1770–1823). Smith’s The Wealth of Nations ( 1976) was in many respects the first economics textbook. His ideas drew heavily on liberal and rationalist assumptions about human nature and made a powerful contribution to the Mercantilism: A school of economic thought that debate about the desirable role of government within civil society. Smith emphasizes the state’s role in wrote at a time of wide-ranging government restrictions on economic managing international trade activity. Mercantilism, the dominant economic idea of the sixteenth and and delivering prosperity. 34 Chapter 2 seventeenth centuries, had encouraged governments to intervene in economic life in an attempt to encourage the export of goods and restrict imports. Smith’s economic writings were designed to attack mercantilism, arguing instead for the principle that the economy works best when it is left alone by government. KEY FIGURE ADAM SMITH (1723–90) A Scottish economist and philosopher, Smith is usually seen as the founder of the ‘dismal science’. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), he developed a theory of motivation that tried to reconcile human self-interestedness with unregulated social order. Smith’s most famous work, The Wealth of Nations (1776), was the first systematic attempt to explain the workings of the economy in market terms. Although he is sometimes portrayed as a free-market theorist, Smith was nevertheless aware of the limitations of laissez-faire. Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive/ Getty Images Smith thought of the economy as a market, indeed as a series of interrelated markets. He believed that the market operates according to the wishes and decisions of free individuals. Freedom within the market means freedom of choice: the ability of the businesses to choose what goods to make, the ability of workers to choose an employer, and the ability of consumers to choose what goods or services to buy. Relationships within such a market – between employers and employees, and between buyers and sellers – are therefore voluntary and contractual, made by self-interested individuals for whom pleasure is equated with the acquisition and consumption of wealth. Economic theory therefore drew on utilitarianism, in constructing the idea of ‘economic man’, the notion that human beings are essentially egoistical and bent on material acquisition. The attraction of classical economics was that, while each individual is Mercantilism: A school materially self-interested, the economy itself is thought to operate according to of economic thought that emphasizes the state’s role in a set of impersonal pressures – market forces – that tend naturally to promote managing international trade economic prosperity and well-being. For instance, no single producer can set and delivering prosperity. the price of a commodity – prices are set by the market, by the number of Market: A system of goods offered for sale and the number of consumers who are willing to buy. commercial exchange These are the forces of supply and demand. The market is a self-regulating between buyers and sellers, mechanism; it needs no guidance from outside. The market should be ‘free’ controlled by impersonal economic forces: ‘market from government interference because it is managed by what Smith referred forces’. to as an ‘invisible hand’. This idea of a self-regulating market reflects the liberal Commercial liberalism: belief in a naturally existing harmony among the conflicting interests within A form of liberalism that society. Smith ( 1976) expressed the economic version of this idea as: emphasizes the economic and international benefits of free trade, leading to It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that mutual benefit and general we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interests. prosperity, as well as peace among states. Such thinking was further developed by David Ricardo and the so-called Free trade: A system of trade between states not ‘Manchester liberals’, Richard Cobden (1804–65) and John Bright (1811– restricted by tariffs or other 89). Their ideas are often referred to as commercial liberalism. The key forms of protectionism. theme within commercial liberalism is a belief in the virtues of free trade.  Liberalism 35 Free trade has economic benefits, as it allows each country to specialize in the production of goods and services that it is best suited to produce, the ones in which they have ‘comparative advantage’. However, free trade is no less important in drawing states into a web of interdependence which means that the material costs of international conflict are so great that warfare becomes virtually unthinkable. Cobden and Bright argued that free trade would draw people of different races, creeds and languages together into what Cobden described as ‘the bonds of eternal peace’. Free market and free trade ideas became economic orthodoxy in the UK and the USA during the nineteenth century. The high point of free-market beliefs was reached with the doctrine of laissez-faire. This suggests that the state should have no economic role, but should simply leave the economy alone and allow businesspeople to act however they please. Laissez-faire ideas opposed all forms of factory legislation, including restrictions on the employment of children, limits to the number of hours worked, and any regulation of working conditions. Such economic individualism is usually based on a belief that the unrestrained pursuit of profit will ultimately lead to general benefit. Laissez-faire theories remained strong in the UK throughout much of the nineteenth century, and in the USA they were not seriously challenged until the 1930s. However, since the late twentieth century, faith in the free market has been revived through the rise of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism was counter-revolutionary: it aimed to halt, and if possible reverse, the trend towards ‘big’ government that had dominated most Western countries, especially since 1945. Although it had its greatest initial impact in the two countries in which free-market economic principles had been most firmly established in the nineteenth century, the USA and the UK, from the 1980s onwards neoliberalism exerted a wider influence. At the heart of neoliberalism’s assault on the ‘dead hand’ of government lies a belief in market fundamentalism. In that light, neoliberalism can be seen to go beyond classical economic theory. The matter is further complicated by the fact that in the case of both ‘Reaganism’ in the USA and ‘Thatcherism’ in the UK, neoliberalism formed part of a larger, New Right ideological project that sought to foster laissez-faire economics with an essentially conservative social philosophy. This project is examined in more detail in Chapter 3. Social Darwinism One of the distinctive features of classical liberalism is its attitude to poverty and social equality. An individualistic political creed will tend to explain social circumstances in terms of the talents and hard work of each individual Free market: The principle or policy of unfettered market human being. Individuals make what they want, and what they can, of their competition, free from own lives. Those with ability and a willingness to work will prosper, while the government interference. incompetent or the lazy will not. This idea was memorably expressed in the title Laissez-faire: Literally, of Samuel Smiles’ book Self-Help ( 1986) which begins by reiterating the ‘leave to do’; the doctrine well-tried maxim that ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves’. Such ideas that economic activity should be entirely free from of individual responsibility were widely employed by supporters of laissez- government interference. faire in the nineteenth century. For instance, Richard Cobden advocated Market fundamentalism: an improvement of the conditions of the working classes, but argued that it An absolute faith in the should come about through ‘their own efforts and self-reliance, rather than market, reflecting the from law’. He advised them to ‘look not to Parliament, look only to yourselves’. belief that the market mechanism offers solutions Ideas of individual self-reliance reached their boldest expression in Herbert to all economic and social Spencer’s The Man versus the State ( 1940). Spencer (1820–1904), the problems. 36 Chapter 2 UK philosopher and social theorist, developed a vigorous defence of the doctrine of laissez- faire, drawing on ideas that the UK scientist Charles Darwin (1809–82) had developed in The Origin of Species ( 1972). Darwin developed a theory of evolution that set out to explain the diversity of species found on Earth. He proposed that each species undergoes a series of random physical and mental changes, or mutations. Some of these changes enable a species to survive and prosper: they are pro-survival. Other mutations are less favourable and make survival more difficult or even impossible. A process of ‘natural selection’ therefore decides which species are fitted by nature to survive, and which are not. By the end of the nineteenth century, these ideas had extended beyond biology and were increasingly affecting social and political theory. Spencer, for example, used the theory of natural selection to develop the social principle of ‘the survival of the fittest’. People who are best suited by nature to survive rise to the top, while the less fit fall to the bottom. Inequalities of wealth, social position and political power are therefore natural and inevitable, and no attempt should be made by government to interfere with them. Spencer’s US disciple, William Sumner (1840–1910), stated this principle boldly in 1884, when he asserted that ‘the drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be’. Modern liberalism Modern liberalism is sometimes described as ‘twentieth-century liberalism’. Just as the development of classical liberalism was closely linked to the emergence of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century, so modern liberal ideas were related to the further development of industrialization. Industrialization had brought about a massive expansion of wealth for some, but was also accompanied by the spread of slums, poverty, ignorance and disease. Moreover, social inequality became more difficult to ignore as a growing industrial working class was seen to be disadvantaged by low pay, unemployment and degrading living and working conditions. These developments had an impact on UK liberalism from the late nineteenth century onwards, but in other countries they did not take effect until much later; for example, US liberalism was not affected until the depression of the 1930s. In these changing historical circumstances, liberals found it progressively more difficult to maintain the belief that the arrival of industrial capitalism had brought with it general prosperity and liberty for all. Consequently, many came to revise the early liberal expectation that the unrestrained pursuit of self-interest produced a socially just society. As the idea of economic individualism came increasingly under attack, liberals rethought their attitude towards the state. The minimal state of classical theory was quite incapable of rectifying the injustices and inequalities of civil society. Modern liberals were therefore prepared to advocate the development of an interventionist or enabling state. The distinctive ideas of modern liberalism include: zz individuality zz positive freedom zz social liberalism zz economic management.  Liberalism 37 Individuality John Stuart Mill’s ideas have been described as the ‘heart of liberalism’. This is because he provided a ‘bridge’ between classical and modern liberalism: his ideas look both back to the early nineteenth century and forward to the twentieth century and beyond. Mill’s interests ranged from political economy to the campaign for female suffrage, but it was the ideas developed in On Liberty ( 1972) that show Mill most clearly as a contributor to modern liberal thought. This work contains some of the boldest liberal statements in favour of individual freedom. Mill suggested that, ‘Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign’, a conception of liberty that is essentially negative as it portrays freedom in terms of the absence of restrictions on an individual’s ‘self-regarding’ actions. Mill believed this to be a necessary condition for liberty, but not in itself a sufficient one. He thought that liberty was a positive and constructive force. It gave individuals the ability to take control of their own lives, to gain autonomy or achieve self-realization. Mill was influenced strongly by European romanticism and found the notion of human beings as utility maximizers both shallow and unconvincing. He believed passionately in individuality. The value of liberty is that it enables individuals to develop, to gain talents, skills and knowledge and to refine their sensibilities. Mill disagreed with Bentham’s utilitarianism insofar as Bentham believed that actions could only be distinguished by the quantity of pleasure or pain they generated. For Mill, there were ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasures. Mill was concerned to promote those pleasures that develop an individual’s intellectual, moral or aesthetic sensibilities. He was clearly not concerned with simple pleasure-seeking, but with personal self-development, declaring that he would rather be ‘Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied’. As such, he laid the foundations for a developmental model of individualism that placed emphasis on human flourishing rather than the crude satisfaction of interests. Positive freedom The clearest break with early liberal thought came in the late nineteenth century with the work of the UK philosopher and social theorist T. H. Green (1836–82), whose writing influenced a generation of so-called ‘new liberals’ such as L. T. Hobhouse (1864–1929) and J. A. Hobson (1854–1940). Green believed that the unrestrained pursuit of profit, as advocated by classical liberalism, had given rise to new forms of poverty and injustice. The economic liberty of the few had blighted the life chances of the many. Following J. S. Mill, he rejected the early liberal conception of human beings as essentially self- seeking utility maximizers, and suggested a more optimistic view of human nature. Individuals, according to Green, have sympathy for one another; their Individuality: Self-fulfilment egoism is therefore constrained by some degree of altruism. The individual achieved through the possesses social responsibilities and not merely individual responsibilities, realization of an individual’s and is therefore linked to other individuals by ties of caring and empathy. distinctive or unique identity or qualities; what Such a conception of human nature was clearly influenced by socialist ideas distinguishes one person from that emphasized the sociable and cooperative nature of humankind. As a all others. result, Green’s ideas have been described as ‘socialist liberalism’. Altruism: Concern for the interests and welfare Green also challenged the classical liberal notion of freedom. Negative of others, based either on freedom merely removes external constraints on the individual, giving enlightened self-interest or a the individual freedom of choice. In the case of the businesses that wish belief in a common humanity. 38 Chapter 2 to maximize profits, negative freedom justifies their ability to hire the cheapest labour possible; for example, to employ children rather than adults, or women rather than men. Economic freedom can therefore lead to exploitation, even becoming the ‘freedom to starve’. Freedom of choice in the marketplace is therefore an inadequate conception of individual freedom. In the place of a simple belief in negative freedom, Green proposed that freedom should also be understood in positive terms. In this light, freedom is the ability of the individual to develop and attain individuality; it involves people’s ability to realize their individual potential, attain skills and knowledge, and achieve fulfilment. Thus, whereas negative freedom acknowledges only legal and physical constraints on liberty, positive freedom recognizes that liberty may also be threatened by social disadvantage and inequality. This, in turn, implied a revised view of the state. By protecting individuals from the social evils that cripple their lives, the state can expand freedom, and not merely diminish it. In place of the minimal state of old, modern liberals therefore endorsed an enabling state, exercising an increasingly wide range of social and economic responsibilities. While such ideas undoubtedly involved a revision of classical liberal theories, they did not amount to the abandonment of core liberal beliefs. Modern liberalism drew closer to socialism, but it did not place society before the individual. For Green, for example, freedom ultimately consisted in individuals acting morally. The state could not force people to be good; it could only provide the conditions in which they were able to make more responsible moral decisions. The central thrust of modern liberalism is therefore the desire to help individuals to help themselves. Social liberalism The twentieth century witnessed the growth of state intervention in most Western states and in many developing ones. Much of this intervention took the form of social welfare: attempts by government to provide welfare support for its citizens by overcoming poverty, disease and ignorance. If the minimal state was typical of the nineteenth century, during the twentieth century modern states became welfare states. This occurred as a consequence of a variety of historical and ideological factors. Governments, for example, sought to achieve national efficiency, healthier workforces and stronger armies. They also came under electoral pressure for social reform from newly enfranchised industrial workers and, in some cases, the peasantry. However, the political argument for welfarism has never been the prerogative of any single ideology. It has been put, in different ways, by socialists, liberals, conservatives, feminists and even at times by fascists. Within liberalism, the case for social welfare has been made by modern liberals, in marked contrast to classical liberals, who extol the virtues of self-help and individual responsibility. Modern liberals defend welfarism on the basis of equality of opportunity. If particular individuals or groups are disadvantaged by their social circumstances, then the state possesses a social responsibility to reduce or remove these disadvantages to create equal, or at least more equal, life chances. Citizens have thus acquired a range of Welfare state: A state that takes primary responsibility welfare or social rights, such as the right to work, the right to education and for the social welfare of its the right to decent housing. Welfare rights are positive rights because they citizens, discharged through can only be satisfied by the positive actions of government, through the a range of social-security, provision of state pensions, benefits and, perhaps, publicly funded health health, education and other services. and education services. During the twentieth century, liberal parties and  Liberalism 39 liberal governments were therefore converted to the cause of social welfare. For example, the expanded welfare state in the UK was based on the Beveridge Report (1942), which set out to attack the so-called ‘five giants’ – want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. It memorably promised to protect citizens ‘from the cradle to the grave’. In the USA, liberal welfarism developed in the 1930s during the administration of F. D. Roosevelt, but reached its height in the 1960s with the ‘New Frontier’ policies of John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ programme. Social liberalism was further developed in the second half of the twentieth century, especially in the writings of John Rawls. In A Theory of Justice (1970), Rawls developed a defence of redistribution and welfare based on the idea of ‘equality as fairness’. He argued that if people were unaware of their social position and circumstances (what Rawls called the ‘original position’), they would view an egalitarian society as ‘fairer’ than an inegalitarian one, on the grounds that the desire to avoid poverty is greater than the attraction of riches. He therefore proposed the ‘difference principle’: that social and economic inequalities should be arranged so as to benefit the least well-off, accepting the need for some measure of inequality to provide an incentive to work. Nevertheless, in Political Liberalism (1993) Rawls advanced a somewhat modified version of ’ ‘justice as fairness’, in which egalitarianism is pushed into the background. This occurred through Rawls’ recognition that principles of justice must enjoy not only strong philosophical justification but also strong citizen endorsement, something that is especially difficult to achieve in conditions of pluralism. KEY FIGURE JOHN RAWLS (1921–2002) A US political philosopher, Rawls used a form of social contract theory to reconcile liberal individualism with the principles of redistribution and social justice. In his major work, A Theory of Justice (1970), he developed the notion of ‘justice as fairness’, based on the belief that behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ most people would accept that the liberty of each should be compatible with a like liberty for all, and that social inequality is only justified if it works to the benefit of the poorest in society. Frederic Reglain/Getty Economic management In addition to providing social welfare, twentieth-century Western governments also sought to deliver prosperity by ‘managing’ their economies. This once again involved rejecting classical liberal thinking, in particular its belief in a self-regulating free market and the doctrine of laissez-faire. The abandonment of laissez-faire came about because of the increasing complexity of industrial capitalist economies and their apparent inability to guarantee general prosperity if left to their own devices. The Great Depression of the 1930s, sparked off by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, led to high levels of unemployment throughout the industrialized world and in much of the developing world. This was the most dramatic demonstration of the failure of the free market. After World War II, virtually all Western states adopted policies of economic intervention in an attempt to prevent a return to the pre-war levels of unemployment. To a large extent these interventionist policies were guided by the work of the UK economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). 40 Chapter 2 KEY CONCEPT demand’ in the economy, and that government can regulate demand, primarily through adjustments KEYNESIANISM to fiscal policy, so as to deliver full employment. Keynesianism refers, narrowly, to the economic Keynesianism came to be associated with a narrow theories of J. M. Keynes (1883–1946) and, more obsession with ‘tax and spend’ policies, but this broadly, to a range of economic policies that have ignores the complexity and sophistication of been influenced by these theories. Keynesianism Keynes’ economic writings. Influenced by economic provides an alternative to neoclassical economics globalization, a form of neo-Keynesianism has and, in particular, advances a critique of the emerged that rejects ‘top-down’ economic ‘economic anarchy’ of laissez-faire capitalism. management but still acknowledges that markets Keynes argued that growth and employment levels are hampered by uncertainty, inequality and are largely determined by the level of ‘aggregate differential levels of knowledge. In The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money ( 1963), Keynes challenged classical economic thinking and rejected its belief in a self-regulating market. Classical economists had argued that there was a ‘market solution’ to the problem of unemployment and, indeed, all other economic problems. Keynes argued, however, that the level of economic activity, and therefore of employment, is determined by the total amount of demand – aggregate demand – in the economy. He suggested that governments could ‘manage’ their economies by influencing the level of aggregate demand. Government spending is, in this sense, an ‘injection’ of demand into the economy. Taxation, on the other hand, is a ‘withdrawal’ from the economy: it reduces aggregate demand and dampens down economic activity. At times of high unemployment, Keynes recommended that governments should ‘reflate’ their economies by either increasing public spending or cutting taxes. Unemployment could therefore be solved, not by the invisible hand of capitalism, but by government intervention, in this case by running a budget deficit, meaning that the government literally ‘overspends’. TENSIONS WITHIN... LIBERALISM Classical liberalism v. Modern liberalism economic liberalism social liberalism egoistical individualism developmental individualism maximize utility personal growth negative freedom positive freedom minimal state enabling state free-market economy managed economy rights-based justice justice as fairness strict meritocracy concern for the poor individual responsibility social responsibility safety-net welfare cradle-to-grave welfare  Liberalism 41 Keynesian demand management thus promised to give governments the ability to manipulate employment and growth levels, and hence to secure general prosperity. As with the provision of social welfare, modern liberals have seen economic management as being constructive in promoting prosperity and harmony in civil society. Keynes was not opposed to capitalism; indeed, in many ways, he was its saviour. He simply argued that unrestrained private enterprise is unworkable within complex industrial societies. The first, if limited, attempt to apply Keynes’ ideas was undertaken in the USA during Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’. By the end of World War II, Keynesianism was widely established as an economic orthodoxy in the West, displacing the older belief in laissez-faire. Keynesian policies were credited with being the key to the ‘long boom’, the historically unprecedented economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s, which witnessed the achievement of widespread affluence, at least in Western countries. However, the re-emergence of economic difficulties in the 1970s generated renewed sympathy for the theories of classical political economy, and led to a shift away from Keynesian priorities. Nevertheless, the failure of the free-market revolution of the 1980s and 1990s to ensure sustained economic growth resulted in the emergence of the ‘new’ political economy, or neo-Keynesianism. Although this recognized the limitations of the ‘crude’ Keynesianism of the 1950s–1970s period, it nevertheless marked a renewed awareness of the link between unregulated capitalism and low investment, short-termism and social fragmentation. Liberal democracy Liberal democracy is the dominant political force in the developed world, and a significant force in the developing world (India, for example, is the world’s largest liberal democracy). The greatest extent of liberal-democratic governance’s spread came in the aftermath of the fall of communism, sparked by the East European Revolutions of 1989–90. Liberal democracy, nevertheless, has a hybrid nature. It combines a ‘liberal’ emphasis on limited and accountable government with a ‘popular’ stress on free, fair and competitive elections. It thus fuses two styles of rule: zz constitutional rule zz democratic rule. Constitutional rule Although liberals are convinced of the need for government, they are also acutely aware of the dangers that government embodies. In their view, all governments are potential tyrannies against the individual. On the one hand, this is based on the fact that government exercises sovereign power and so poses a constant threat to individual liberty. On the other hand, it reflects a distinctively liberal fear of power. As human beings are self- seeking creatures, if they have power – the ability to influence the behaviour of others – they will naturally use it for their own benefit and at the expense of others. Simply put, the liberal position is that egoism plus power equals corruption. This was expressed in Lord Acton’s famous warning: ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, and in his conclusion: ‘Great men are almost always bad men’ (1956). Liberals therefore fear arbitrary government and uphold the principle of limited government. Government can be limited, or ‘tamed’, through the establishment of constitutional constraints and, as discussed in the next section, by democracy. 42 Chapter 2 A constitution is a set of rules that seeks to allocate duties, powers and functions among the various institutions of government. It therefore constitutes the rules that govern the government itself. As such, it both defines the extent of government power and limits its exercise. Support for constitutionalism can take two forms. In the first place, the powers of government bodies and politicians can be limited by the introduction of external and, usually, legal constraints. The most important of these is a so-called written constitution, which codifies the major powers and responsibilities of government institutions within a single document. The first such document was the US Constitution, but during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries written constitutions were adopted in all liberal democracies, with the exception of the UK, Israel and New Zealand. In many cases, bills of rights also exist, which entrench individual rights by providing a legal definition of the relationship between the individual and the state. The earliest example was the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’, which was passed by France’s National Constituent Assembly in 1789. The principle of basic rights was enshrined in international law by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Where neither written constitutions nor entrenched bills of rights exist, as in the UK (the 1998 Human Rights Act being essentially Written constitution: A a statute of rights), liberals have stressed the importance of statute law in single authoritative document checking government power through the principle of the rule of law. that defines the duties, powers and functions of Second, constitutionalism can be established by the introduction of internal government institutions and constraints which disperse political power among a number of institutions so constitutes ‘higher’ law. and create a network of ‘checks and balances’. As the French political Bill of rights: A constitutional philosopher Montesquieu (1689–1775) put it, ‘power should be a check to document that specifies the power’ (Montesquieu 1969). All liberal political systems exhibit some rights and freedoms of the individual and so defines the measure of internal fragmentation. This can be achieved by applying the relationship between the state doctrine of the separation of powers, proposed by Montesquieu himself. and its citizens. This seeks to prevent any individual or small group from gaining dictatorial Rule of law: The principle power by controlling the legislative, executive and judicial functions that all conduct and of government. A particular emphasis is placed on the judiciary. As the behaviour, of private citizens judicia