What I want to look at in this post is whether there is anything within that outer shell of liberalism that has both survived the neoliberal age and is worth further preservation. To begin with, I need to start with a definition. Liberalism is not canonical: there is no Big Book of Liberalism we can refer to. Of course, the absence of any single tome is regarded as proof of liberalism's commitment to pluralism and its belief in human progress, just as the worship of a single book, whether the Bible or Das Kapital, is taken as evidence of close-mindedness (this is obviously an over-simplification, but it suits the liberal narrative of the contest of ideas). Reducing liberalism to a single idea, such as liberty, is inadequate because the term is usually historically contingent. Liberty for John Locke did not mean the same thing as it did for John Stuart Mill, let alone Jacinda Ardern. The traditional way round this problem for liberalism's champions and opponents (at least on the right) is to define it as praxis rather than theory: an approach to public policy, and a set of associated cultural habits, rather than a distinct body of thought.
In the eyes of contemporary liberal theorists such as Edmund Fawcett, author of Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, this praxis depends on four core ideas: a belief that conflict is unavoidable but consensus is possible; a distrust of power; faith in human progress; and tolerance and mutual respect. As we're in the realm of the pragmatic (if only rhetorically), one could also add a preference for "what works" and "evidence", an empirical gloss on what remain recognisably Enlightenment ideas. At this point it is worth emphasising that many people who regard the Enlightenment as a good thing have a superficial understanding of the historical reality, which would be offensive to modern eyes in many respects (see Locke once more), and are really talking about liberalism (by the same token, many contemporary anti-enlightenment advocates are actually arguing for a return to the proto or early enlightenment that encompasses Machiavelli and Hobbes, not a revival of Classical virtues or Medieval scholasticism). It is also worth separating out the theme of universalism, which is implicit in most of the core ideas - i.e. the belief that the whole of humanity is the proper domain of liberal practice, which is seen in the commitment to human rights and internationalism.
The problem with this praxis approach is that there are obvious contradictions in the history of actually existing liberalism, particularly in politics. For example, liberals have often been violently averse to consensus if it has required them to actually compromise. In one sense this is a banal point. If your opponent is unwilling to make concessions, you may have to be equally obdurate if you are going to achieve progress (see the history of the British Liberal party in the 19th century). But there have also been many occasions when political liberals have so narrowly defined consensus as to alienate even their own supporters (see the 2010-15 coalition). Likewise, liberals have been no less enthusiatic in centralising power than conservatives or socialists, and have arguably (if we adopt a party-independent definition of "liberal") overseen more of this than either. Their faith in human progress has been tempered by elitism (their instinctive competitiveness means they love winners), while they have always placed narrow boundaries on their tolerance and respect for others (see the attitude of the various shades of liberalism towards Jeremy Corbyn for a recent example).
As regards pragmatism, liberalism has shown itself to be no less prone to delusion and the pursuit of the unattainable than any other worldview. In the form of liberal internationalism, it has often caused greater suffering than the evils that it has sought to address and has produced consensus mainly in the common belief that it is a global menace. Related to this, the commitment to universalism has always been more theoretical than practical, hence it is more likely to appear in the realm of rhetoric than in the fine detail of policy. In reality, liberalism is instinctively discriminatory because it ultimately values individual choice over collective entitlement. Indeed, its commitment to human rights is ultimately a commitment to the singular right of choice ("Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television"). This bias to choice translates into a preference for equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome, which inexorably leads to means-testing and judgementalism at the operational level (means-testing is not a cost-saving tactic but an exercise in virtue).
From a liberal perspective, these contradictions can be taken as evidence that liberalism is dynamic, but that is akin to Walt Whitman's "I am large, I contain multitudes", which might be witty but it doesn't make liberalism any more coherent (indeed, this lack of consistency is a central concern in liberal philosophy - e.g. John Rawls's use of 'reflective equilibrium'). Critics can reasonably point out that these contradictions actually reveal a more fundamental and questionable set of beliefs than the admirable core ideas laid out by Fawcett. These are: that competition is applicable in all social transactions; that the restraint of power means the restraint of the majority; that social betterment is an oblique strategy so we must have blind faith in progress; and that my privacy and my property are beyond your censure. It would be unfair though to reduce liberalism to selfish individualism. If it has any validity as a moral order it is in the idea that the rights I demand for myself should be extended to others, even if the record suggests a blindness to the common humanity of some of those others (I find I keep returning to Locke). Liberalism's historic challenge has been to champion the value of autonomy while not conceding the necessity of equality, hence justifications such as Rawls's 'difference principle'.
Though it is presented as progressive, political liberalism has always been a strategy of grudging concession. It is easy to misremember the 19th century as purely a long drawn-out contest between die-in-a-ditch conservatives and liberal reformers, ignoring the many self-styled liberals who were at the centre of resistance to reform, from Irish home rule to universal suffrage. Liberalism's struggle to reconcile its principles to the twentieth century, particularly in the face of democracy and the growth of the welfare state, would lead to its political fragmentation, but this was paradoxically a sign of its ideological hegemony: both Labour and the Conservatives have been essentially liberal parties in their upper echelons for the last 100 years and it is liberalism that has dominated both the state and the para-state (the BBC, the broadsheet press, academia etc). In other words, liberalism negotiated the last century by moving beyond the hurly-burly of electoral politics to become the worldview of the state apparatus. As a consequence, changes in government became less significant. In retrospect, watersheds like 1979 or 1997 look less dramatic than 1923.
But this did not mean that liberalism became the champion of the activist state in the twentieth century. Far from it. Instead it imported a pessimism about the state's capabilities and a suspicion about political motives. Yes, Minister was a supremely liberal interpretation of British government. This cynical liberalism captured the state but it did so for essentially defensive reasons: to prevent socialism or nationalism capturing it instead. The manoeuvre involved both a self-denying ordinance, in which government and capitalism were confined to separate spheres, and an approach to welfare that combined noblesse oblige and matronly judgmentalism. These tendencies were eroded by the neoliberal turn in the 1980s, leading to the colonisation of the apparatus by commercial interests and a more shrill and disciplinary regime founded on the concept of human capital. Liberalism's problem in the current century is that the challenges we now face, most notably climate change and galloping inequality, cannot be overcome without a politics that sees the restraint of capitalism and private property as a more urgent priority than the restraint of the state.
So what is left of ethical liberalism? Or, to put it another way, are there any features of liberal theory that remain in tension with neoliberal praxis? There are certainly many features that have fallen by the wayside, leading to the strange sight of liberals recanting what were once liberal shibboleths. For example, there has been a turn away from universalism to particularism: in practice, an insistence that while rights may be universal, the exercise of those rights is contingent. That may simply be a frank admission of liberalism's true beliefs, but the lack of enthusiasm for mounting even a cursory defence of universalism is notable. This has manifested itself recently in both an uneasiness in the face of calls for solidarity (e.g. the belief that blacks in the UK do not suffer the same prejudice as those in the US) and an insistence on performative solidarity in respect of selected minorities (e.g. the extension of potential residency rights to natives of Hong Kong at a time when immigration from other former colonies is being made more difficult).
Just as troubling has been the liberal indulgence of moral panics over free-speech. While this is often motivated by petty self-interest - one age cohort defending its privileges against the next - it is clear that many liberals have decided that the civility required for plural discourse should be freely extended to the right but not so freely to the left. This discrimination suggests a nostalgia for a marketplace of ideas dominated by the opposing poles of liberalism and conservativism. The charge that the left is lacking in civility is clearly projection. It is liberals who have increasingly adopted an intemperate attitude to even the most mild challenge from the left. For example, the other day I was struck by a couple of tweets in which John Rentoul and Andrew Adonis decided to smear and deride George Lansbury. In Rentoul's case as an excuse for having a pop at Corbyn, and in Adonis's case in order to puff his upcoming biography of Ernie Bevin. What was notable was not merely the combination of spite and marketing, but the lack of historical nuance or generosity (Lansbury started his political career as a Liberal and remained a politician defined by his liberal Christian ethics).
The combination of this performative incivility towards the left and the condemnation of the left for its incivility is not just hypocrisy, it suggests that liberalism is losing its bearings. The hegemony of neoliberalism has left political liberalism devoid of meaning beyond the gestural, while liberal internationalism has been revealed to be nothing more than realpolitik plus pious language. Facing this void, liberalism increasingly seeks to define itself against a malicious enemy. The liberal contempt for populism, and the tendency to see it in any and every challenge to the liberal order, is a proxy for its lingering distrust of democracy. While it would never make the mistake of dismissing the popular will as exercised at the ballot box, it will continue to elevate the courts and constitutionalism over electoral politics when it feels its interests are threatened, as was only too obvious during the Brexit saga when the achievable goal of a mildly-left Labour government willing to concede a second referendum was rejected in favour of a judicial deus ex machina that could never do more than delay the inevitable.
What has remained constant in liberalism is its commitment to private property, the restraint of the state and individualism. These are also the elements of liberalism most congenial to the political right, or at least the broad right short of outright Fascism. It is still the legitimating ideology of the bourgeoisie. However, its much vaunted commitment to tolerance and pluralism has not survived into the 21st century, and it is perhaps no coincidence that these are the elements least congenial to the right. In practice, they haven't been marginalised but co-opted by conservatives to define the boundary of the acceptable, blackballing the "intolerant, woke left" and imagining society as a plurality of beleagured constituencies, such as Jews living in fear of antisemitism or Hindus living in fear of jewel thieves. Meanwhile, a more generous tolerance, pluralism and universalism are easily found on the left. The truth is that ethical liberalism long ago became hegemonic in society, just as economic liberalism did. The paradoxical result is that liberalism's victory has produced not consensus but a renewed conflict between the left and the right centred on private property as the emblem of environmental degradation and social inequality. On a weekend of protests against state power, it is the universality of political conflict that remains the most valuable insight of liberalism.
I think the problem is that it is probably worthless to think about 'liberalism' in terms as broad as you are here. It's obvious that there are few continuities between liberal practice and ideology in the 19th century and the likes of Adonis or Rentoul, who are no more than managerial centrists who employ liberal ideology merely as an excuse to intervene in other countries' affairs.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, as we are seeing, liberalism is withering completely ideologically and in practice. Most countries have seen the withdrawal of basic civil liberties in the past few months, liberal attitudes towards prejudice and discrimination are rapidly collapsing under the onslaught of identity politics, and liberalism's commitment to private and personal property must be seen as somewhat shaky in a climate where the government and big corporations between them are paying almost everyone's wages.