Love and Liberty

A number of self-styled ‘economic Liberals’ claim that the Liberal Democrats should return to ‘pure’, ‘free market’, ‘small-state’ Nineteenth Century Liberalism, and that if Mill or Gladstone were to hear Liberal Democrats advocating income tax rises (say) they would spin in their graves and take their votes elsewhere. I’m not an historian, nor especially well-read in history, but I have sufficient awareness of my own perspective to be careful of claiming that similar-sounding policies from the period would have had the same effect, or have been advanced with the same aims in mind.

Economics and a Sense of History

John Stuart Mill was a strong advocate both of individual freedom and the free market, but was absolutely clear that these were for different reasons: the former on principle, and the market simply because it worked. William Ewart Gladstone constantly wished to abolish income tax, but – in office – only sometimes lowered it, sometimes raised it to new highs, renewed it for longer than his predecessors and, when he made a final stand against it by leading the Liberals in a sudden pledge to get rid of it altogether, was comprehensively defeated at the next election and never tried it again. Gladstone also constantly wanted to cut public spending, but again comparing this directly with a ‘minimal state’ approach has no sense of history. Like Radicals who supported free trade because it would help the poor but are associated through an historical prism with the greediest of international capitalists, Gladstone’s desire to cut spending was heavily related to where the money was then spent, and it wasn’t on schools, hospitals, pensions and benefits. He wanted to pare down money spent on defence, and disapproved on moral grounds of much public spending because it was to feather the nests of the rich at the expense of the tax-paying poor. To claim that if Gladstone was suddenly to appear on today’s scene he would certainly call for vast slashing of spending on the poor to save money for the rich and that anyone who disagrees is therefore diverging from the pure flame of Liberalism is historical illiteracy of the highest order. Looking at Gladstone’s record, it might be true, or it might not. Looking at Gladstone’s record, he might strongly support one course and then swing through an equally passionate 180-degree turn, because he frequently did. And looking at Gladstone’s record, a great mass of perfectly sound Liberals of the time would disagree with him either way, because they frequently did, and we have every right to, as well. Because Liberals are like that.

Oh yes. And on the notion of ‘public ownership bad, private ownership good’, one issue on which Mr Gladstone kept being tempted towards whether he was a Tory or a Liberal was railway nationalisation, which he considered several times in several different forms. He saw it as a pragmatic and not a dogmatic issue, in common with most of the more sensible modern Liberal Democrats.

I suspect the people who most annoy some in the free market fetishist faction of the Liberal Democrats are not their polar opposites in the party – between whom they can happily trade fruitful insults like ‘Socialist!’ and ‘Tory!’ – but those of us who follow the historically more Liberal trend of taking a pragmatic view on economics. Liberalism is much more about power than money, and if the Twentieth Century was defined by Marxists and anti-Marxists who took mirror-image positions that economics was more important than anything else, well, that century’s over now.

I’m happy to listen to and debate with the self-styled ‘economic Liberals’. If what they propose sounds like it’ll work better, I’ll even vote for it. But to those of them whose contribution to the debate consists of ‘If you don’t agree with my precise economic prescription you’re not a proper Liberal like Mr Gladstone,’ I have three suggestions. First, you have a choice between persuading and haranguing people, as you evidently aren’t capable of both. Second, listen to other people once in a while and you might find other approaches might be equally valid. And third, after opening your mind, please open a history book and stop making bloody fools of yourselves.

Labels: History, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism