NON– F I CTI ON

Beyond Liberty Is the future of liberalism progressive?

ed. Julia Margo ippr / 254pp. / £14.95

Review by Simon Kovar

“LIBERALISMstands for liberty; its very name declares it”, began a Liberal Party pamphlet of the 1920s. The editor of this volume argues that for liberalism to be “relevant”, it must move “beyond” a concern with individual liberty and embrace instead a “progressive” commitment to social equality. This approach is presented as a riposte to the ideas behind The Orange Book, but unlike that earlier volume, Beyond Liberty sets one foot firmly outside the liberal tradition – and it is not too sure what it wants to do with the other. Above all, it is not clear whether a liberalism that no longer stands primarily for liberty stands for anything very much at all, or for that matter can or should be described as liberalism. Progressivism has proved a slippery political concept. In historical terms, it has no anchorage in any one political tradition and was one of a string of ‘governing concepts’ toyed with by New Labour; from an early interest in Will Hutton’s idea of a ‘stake-holding’ society to Etzioni’s theory of ‘communitarianism’ and Anthony Giddens’ ‘Third Way’. So when Margo argues that liberalism must become “progressive”, we are entitled to ask at least two questions: what, exactly, is meant by “progressive”; and what, if any, is the party political subtext vis-àà-vis the Liberal Democrats? Margo’s premise is that “traditional liberalism is increasingly anachronistic in the modern world”. Here the term “traditional liberalism” signifies what the editor calls “19th Century Gladstonian ideas of self-help”, which, she suggests, continue to linger in contemporary liberal thinking as represented by The Orange Book. She contends that this tradition lacks empirical foundations in light of recent research in the social sciences, which emphasises the contexts and structures

“Both Steve Webb and David Laws use the language of the ‘enabling state’, an idea quite different from Margo’s interventionist state”

that either inhibit or facilitate meaningful individual autonomy. The persistence of structural poverty and inequality necessitates an activist role for the state, and thus a “progressive” emphasis on “fairness” ought to displace the primacy accorded liberty. Liberals have tended to view equality as instrumental to the primary end of individual freedom, rather than as an intrinsic value, one which involves not merely equality of opportunity but also a substantial redistribution of economic and social goods. Let us go beyond the tendency to translate the platitudinous into the provocative (yes, we can all agree that the world has moved on since the 19th Century), and dwell for a moment on Margo’s parody of “traditional” liberal politics. John Stuart Mill expressed the classic liberal idea of free trade when he wrote that “trade is a social act”. This is very different from the ‘laissez-faire’ of caricature, and sharply differentiates liberalism from the New Right of the 1980s. Professor Michael Freeden’s essay is a standing rebuke to his editor in this context, noting that the classical liberal “idea of the market extended far beyond what is now termed ‘economic liberalism’. It included international free trade as the opening up of the boundaries of national interaction”. He further asserts that “the crowning achievement of British liberalism was its subtle and intelligent integration of the requirements of social welfare into a continuing respect for individual liberty”: no denial there of the social contexts of human agency, but no question either of moving “beyond liberty”, in the sense suggested by Margo. Indeed, Edwardian liberalism rejected “the common organic analogy with a social whole ready to sacrifice some of its parts for the general good” in favour of “an alternative definition of the general good as dependent on individual thriving and the bestowal of citizens’ rights, without which the social whole would atrophy and decay”. If “progressivism” is about sacrificing liberty to the interests of the social whole – with vestiges of a totalitarian approach – then it can have no appeal for liberals. “The allure of liberalism”, Freeden writes, “is that it does not engage in harsh dichotomies but moves reflectively among the various balances that its core principles offer”. Margo is hardly alive to this nuance, which is why she cannot comprehend the fundamental philosophical agreement between two of her other contributors, Steve Webb and David Laws, and even describes the latter as a “conservative” liberal. Moreover, her argument becomes mired in considerable linguistic confusion as she variously implies that liberalism is redundant and must be displacedby progressivism; that it requires rehabilitation in the form of “progressive liberalism”; or that we need a partnership between liberals and progressives. Of course, this last suggestion resurrects that perennial question of coalition, and

46 | The Liberal | Autumn 2007