Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (3 page)
Read Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) Online
Authors: Michael Freeden
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014959958
ISBN 978–0–19–967043–7
ebook ISBN 978–0–19–164925–7
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For Amelia, Orli, Leonie, Theo, and Laila
Contents
List of illustrations
6
Philosophical liberalism: idealizing justice
7
Misappropriations, disparagements, and lapses
References
Further reading
Index
1 Liberalism word cloud
www.BeingLiberal.org
2 Signing the United Nations Charter
The Granger Collection/TopFoto
3 The Free Trade Hall, Manchester
© Classic Image / Alamy
4 The social reforms of the Liberal government
© The British Library Board
5 Václav Havel waves to crowds in Prague
© CTK / Alamy
When people first used the word ‘liberal’ as generous or ample they had little idea of the mighty current liberalism was to unleash. Some indication of its future life emerged when ‘liberal’ became associated with open-mindedness and tolerance. But ever since the term ‘liberales’ was coined in Spain two hundred years ago to represent a political party, liberalism has been positioned squarely on the public stage: as a rallying cry for individuals desiring space to be free from unjustifiable limitations, and as a set of fundamental institutional arrangements meant to legitimate and civilize the practices of politics. Above all it has become indicative of ideas and policies intended to reform, to emancipate, and to open up possibilities for individuals wishing to live their lives according to their own understandings. Like all ideologies and collectively held belief systems, liberalism competes over public recognition and implementation, and like all of them it has also been decried from numerous quarters.
Yet the problem is this: There is no single, unambiguous thing called liberalism. All the liberalisms that have existed, and that exist, select—deliberately or unconsciously—certain items from an accumulated and crowded liberal repertoire and leave others out, both because some elements are incompatible with others and because intellectual fashions and practices change. As a consequence, a host of belief systems and theories nest under the heading liberalism, none of which can contain all the possibilities—the ideas and the political arrangements—that the term in its maximal but hypothetical fullness can encompass, or that liberal political practices have encompassed over time and across space. Consider for example phrases such as classical liberalism, social liberalism, or neoliberalism: three versions that are still current today. Classical liberalism revolved around individual liberty (the close etymological relation of liberalism), human independence, and the rule of law, and it importantly restricted what states and governments were entitled to do to individuals. Social liberalism—and the new liberalism that emerged in Britain just over a century ago, in tandem with some of its Scandinavian social-democratic counterparts—explored the conditions for individual development and growth, sustained by networks of mutual assistance and interdependence. From that branch of liberalism arose the modern welfare state. However, in a particularly confusing way, ‘neo’ and ‘new’ pull in very different directions. Neoliberalism—a product mainly of the second half of the 20th century—emphasizes the beneficial consequences of competitive markets and personal advancement far more than the general nourishing of human well-being. Its liberal credentials are highly contentious, as will be argued in
Chapter 7
. Those who think that liberalism is largely about unrestrained private activity and those who believe liberalism is about the reasonable development of individuals in a mutually supporting and project-sharing society do not have too much in common.
No less strikingly, there is often disagreement over which of liberalism’s features is the most important, a disagreement evident among both liberals and their critics. Is liberalism about the increase of individual liberty or about treating everyone with equal respect? Is it about limiting harm to others or about enabling human flourishing? Is it about being more humane or more productive? Is there one true liberalism surrounded by shadowy imitations? Have other ideologies pecked away at liberalism like vultures, carrying off some of its choice parts but leaving the rest to shrivel? The challenge for the student of liberalism is to make sense of these different understandings rather than to express a rigid preference for one of them. It may therefore be more accurate to talk about
liberalisms
in the plural, all part of a broad family exhibiting both similarities and differences (
Figure 1
). Many members of the liberal family overlap in their characteristics, but some are hardly on speaking terms.
1.
This word cloud represents some of the diversity and internal complexity of the ideas comprising liberalism and from which different liberalisms may be fashioned. Even then, it does not include privacy and property, which many believe are also integral to liberalism.
Has liberalism triumphed?
Both as a political-ideological creed and as a philosophical reflection on the features of a just society, countless liberal enthusiasts regard it as a great success story. One of their most ardent voices has been that of Francis Fukuyama, an American philosopher who, over twenty years ago, announced the victory of the ‘liberal idea’. Liberalism, in his view, had become universally accepted, and no other ideology could make a similar claim to such universality. Was that then the end of ideological conflict? Were we all liberals now? Three problems with that confident view immediately come to mind. First, where is the finishing post of an ideology positioned? When does an ideology cross the line and breathe with relief: ‘we’ve finally beaten the others!’? History offers little indication of such finality, particularly when we judge present events and ideas. After all, even a belief in magic—once a powerful factor in interpreting what happens in the world—has not entirely disappeared in modern societies. Unless we know what the criterion of an ideological victory is, and unless we can establish a clear end to ideological clashes, the question remains meaningless. In effect, those who assume the victory of liberalism merely assert uncritically that one version of liberalism has won and the others have lost. That, too, must remain unsubstantiated, for what counts as victory in the field of ideas, theory, or ideology will always be contested. Short-term victories may well end up as long-term defeats: the history of 20th century communism attests to that, but who knows what may happen to communism’s fortunes in the even longer term?
Second, there is scant evidence that liberalism has been accepted in most parts of the globe. Side-by-side with aspirations to some kind of liberal democracy we encounter ideologies based on religion, forms of radical populism, autocratic states of belief and rule, and, of course, many conservative regimes. In Fukuyama’s own society, in the USA, a considerable amount of invective is piled up against liberalism. But is there nonetheless a process of growing convergence on liberal points of view? Well, it seems premature and wrong-headed to pass judgement on the future spread of other ideologies. Predicting the future of ideas has become more, not less, difficult in a fast-changing and increasingly fragmented world. Even those who claim to witness a move towards growing globalization may be talking about competing visions of globalism that differ markedly from one another: for instance, a globalization of market values as against a globalization of human solidarity. So the globalization of liberalism is still a glint in someone’s eye, and it may never happen.
Third, Fukuyama implied that there was one clear thing called liberalism. The evidence suggests otherwise. We can be greatly assisted in understanding liberalism by recognizing that there are various ways of looking at it. Each perspective will illuminate some of its features while obscuring others. When we look at a painting, we may ask questions about the artist, about its composition, about its aesthetics, about the techniques and materials used, about its commercial value, or about its place in the history of art. It all depends on which subject interests us most. Similarly, with liberalism as with all ideologies, there is no distinct approach that will tell us all we want to know about it, no easy single definition that will cover all its manifestations.
This book will therefore explore liberalism from a number of angles. Using Fukuyama’s flawed metaphor, there are many liberal runners in that so-called race, so even were we impetuously to declare liberalism a winner, this would not reveal which of liberalism’s many versions has ‘won’. The ideas and arrangements nesting under the label ‘liberalism’ may mutate significantly, as indeed they already have done in the past. The frequent bouts of ‘endism’ that afflict political commentators as well as social prophets exude more than a whiff of utopianism, of teleological inevitability, or perhaps even cynicism. Yet even though no definition of liberalism can include all its varieties, its more durable features will be spelt out in
Chapter 4
.
The seductiveness of liberalism
There is something about liberalism that many people find very attractive. Although liberalism falls short of the final universalism attributed to it by Fukuyama, a large number of political philosophers nonetheless regard it as a noble vision of social and political life that should be extended to all. Failing even that, liberalism is a widely revered set of ideas, at least in the Western world—though, as we shall see, it is also deplored both by radicals and by conservatives. Moreover, liberal practices on the ground have institutional consequences, and those consequences are woven into a grand—and sometimes self-congratulatory—historical tapestry. Many of those practices are contained in the phrase ‘liberal democracy’. As a principle of good government, liberal democracy has firm roots in numerous countries and is an aspirational goal in others. It has a clear message: democracy, if by that we mean the rule of the people, is all well and good, but winning elections and popular government on their own are merely a minimum kit. That kit is necessary but insufficient for a political system to be called ‘liberal’. Liberals maintain that democracy must display additional characteristics for it to be considered a worthy system of government. Democracy needs to be fair, tolerant, inclusive, restrained, and self-critical, not simply the pursuit of majority rule. Liberal democracy involves not just elections, but free elections. It involves not just representative government, but accountable and constrained government. It involves not just the right to vote, but the equal and unsupervised right to vote. And it involves attention to the well-being of all the members of a society, a principle that requires some governmental activity but may be open to different interpretations. The qualities liberals demand are extensive and varied: it is a lot easier to preach liberalism than to realize it.
Liberal practices affect constitutions, the degree of openness permitted in political debate, and the basket of rights that societies are willing to distribute among their members. Often, too, they involve ambitious schemes of redistributing wealth to increase the life chances of all, although some commentators, usually from a conservative or libertarian perspective, might deplore that as a form of socialism. And, as usually is the case with any ideology, a gap may open up between declared principles and effective practice. Liberal principles may be breached even by those subscribing to them, and some societies reject them out of hand. In that case, we may have to decide whether liberal principles or liberal practices bring us closer to identifying what is typical of liberalism. Assessing liberalism is not an armchair intellectual activity—though there is nothing wrong with that. It relates rather to what kind of politics a society engages in at the coalface.