Post-Liberalism and the Left

[Ideologue]

Ide's not a leftist?  That's news to me

I see what you did there.

Anyway, I pay my taxes, and what's more I advocate for shit that doesn't benefit me (e.g., the end of the current student loan boondoggle even if my own are not forgiven; a negative income tax floor that I would not get; and so forth).

[Sheilbh]

I don't see that really. The left is not going to be "outgrowing" the collective solutions to individual problems it has supported for decades like social security and the NHS. There is a whole lot about the left that is and will remain very much NOT focused on the individual.

You're right.  But this is the critique that both the Red Tories and Blue Labourists make. 

They both argue that Thatcherism hollowed out society ('there's no such thing as society'), the left's response has been to just increase the role for the state or the state through the private sector.  While the state is a collective solution to problems I don't think it necessarily feels that way.  The relationship is still pretty lonely.  You pay your taxes, you take your benefits and that's about it.  That's a world away from the collective ethos of the high welfare state in the 50s and 60s.  The only fully collective bit left, I think, is the NHS which is probably why it's almost an article of belief.  I think Nigel Lawson said that we'd replaced the CofE with the BBC and the NHS.  This is why I think Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society' though woefully communicated and managed is actually very interesting, positive and worth encouraging.

What I mean by the left focusing on the individual is that I think the left's been hugely liberal since the sixties.  It's generally been a really positive thing.  The suspicion of 'family values' politics was motivated by the fact that it was normally a cover for anti-gay, anti-single parent and often anti-women views.  Similarly nationalism or even patriotism was often just the respectable face of racism and chauvinism.  Right now I always get suspicious when I hear someone talking about 'Englightenment values' because there's a high chance they'll turn out to be simply anti-Muslim - also as a gayer I suspect their sympathy for gay rights goes only so far as we can be used to beat up on Muslims.

All of that was good.  The emphasis was on individuals living their own lives, unshackled by preconceptions and a society and state that victimised the outsider: whoever you are, you should live the best life you can, the life you want enabled by the state.  The problem is, in my view, that it doesn't hold together.  I think for the collective response to problems you need a strong degree of social identity and trust.  Lots of individuals just suspect one another of sponging.  So it's become a a sort of social Thatcherism.  The state isn't reflecting a collective solution - with the exception of the NHS - rather I think it's more like a consumer relationship.  While it was a useful and necessary corrective, it's hollowed out society and undermines support for collective social plans. 

What I think, and I think what the article suggests is that the Left should move on.  They were right and won on family values.  But now I think we can actually inject a bit more family into our politics because our understanding of families is broader and includes single parents and gay families.  Similarly I think we can deal with more patriotism and nationalism because for most people they're sufficiently removed from racism.  Personally I'd like to see an attempt to reinvigorate the trades unions.  I also think the Left should steal Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society' which could be really powerful if well communicated.  I think his education policy, which seems to me a facet of the 'Big Society', has been done well and looks to be extremely positive and pretty popular.

[Martinus]

I think that's a uniquely British (or perhaps Anglo-Saxon) perspective. I can't think of a single major instance when it was the case on the European continent. You guys have this screwed up sick sentiment for religion as a result.

I don't think the UK's unique in religion having served as a binding force in a European society.   

Are we talking about the same thing? You said that religion and the left has been intertwined. I said that it it has been rarely (if ever) true in the continental Europe. I never said religion has not been an influential social force in Europe. 

Edit: Unlike the US and the UK, in continental Europe, the mainstream leftist thought has been (almost universally) represented by social democracy. It has never been very close to religion and has often been quite hostile to religion. If you are looking for the continental Europe's equivalent of the UK's "leftist Christians", it would be Christian democrats, who indeed adopted some of the demands of the worker movement, but did it in a definitely conservative, mainly Catholic or Lutheran, way.

[Martinus]

Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

In general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

I disagree. Politics in the former Eastern Bloc is much more corrupt and primitive, because it is not as sophisticated as it is in the West. As a result, politicians from both ends of the political spectrum, especially those who spent most of their lives under communism, even if they are not cynical, tend to have a much more heavy-handed, black-and-white worldview and do not perceive certain nuances and respond to modern challenges as well as the Western ones (compare the sophistication of UK conservatives on stuff like gay marriage to primitive homophobia of Polish or Hungarian "conservatives").

As we come from the Eastern Bloc, we have a tendency to view global politics in the same way we view our local politics (i.e. primitive and corrupt) which is not always correct.

[Martinus]

I don't see that really. The left is not going to be "outgrowing" the collective solutions to individual problems it has supported for decades like social security and the NHS. There is a whole lot about the left that is and will remain very much NOT focused on the individual.

You're right.  But this is the critique that both the Red Tories and Blue Labourists make. 

They both argue that Thatcherism hollowed out society ('there's no such thing as society'), the left's response has been to just increase the role for the state or the state through the private sector.  While the state is a collective solution to problems I don't think it necessarily feels that way.  The relationship is still pretty lonely.  You pay your taxes, you take your benefits and that's about it.  That's a world away from the collective ethos of the high welfare state in the 50s and 60s.  The only fully collective bit left, I think, is the NHS which is probably why it's almost an article of belief.  I think Nigel Lawson said that we'd replaced the CofE with the BBC and the NHS.  This is why I think Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society' though woefully communicated and managed is actually very interesting, positive and worth encouraging.

I think what misleads and misguides people in this is that we tend to view politics on the left vs. the right spectrum, whereas historically, there have been three, not two, main ideologies recognized - liberalism, conservatism and collectivism - each with its own outlook on the world.

Liberalism has won - both in terms of democracy/pluralism and the free market/capitalism - and both collectivists and conservatives adopted its ideas (collectivists - in terms of personal individualism; conservatives - in terms of free market economy). That in a sense is problem for these two ideologies - they offer idiosyncratic answers because they do not champion their own ideas, but have been tricked by liberals to champion their ideas. I don't mind it since I support liberal ideas - but that's a problem for both the "true leftists" and the "true rightists" as they have been duped.

Incidentally, liberalism (both in its personalistic individualism and free market capitalism aspects) is what creates the "hollowed out society" that you mentioned - it's neither collectivism nor conservatism that does it, since both rely on the group (as opposed to liberalism which relies on an individual). I guess the author of the opening article is a collectivist and does not realize that.

[Neil]

You know, sometimes I think it'd be nice to go back to a simpler time, when society had norms and enforced them.  The future belongs to those peoples who have adopted all those values.

Besides, then we could throw rocks at Martinus, not so much for being gay, but for wearing chokers all the time.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally, liberalism (both in its personalistic individualism and free market capitalism aspects) is what creates the "hollowed out society" that you mentioned - it's neither collectivism nor conservatism that does it, since both rely on the group (as opposed to liberalism which relies on an individual). I guess the author of the opening article is a collectivist and does not realize that.

This is exactly what the article's about.  Liberalism's won but is looking more miserable now than it has in the past 30 years.  There's not many people on the right or left who are happy about the state of the markets and a populist right is rising - I think he's right to predict European culture wars - and globally I think we're starting to face the rise of illiberal democracies in Africa and the Middle East. 

The conservatives in politics have, I think, dealt with this better than the left.  It's easier for the conservatives to tame and civilise the market than for the left to talk in terms of collective identity again.  As he says the problem for the left is one of 'rights without relationships' because a large part of the left's success over the last 30-40 years has been to free people to form their own relationships and lives.  The challenge for the right is to find a way to deal with the collapse of faith and trust in the market and our economy without simply pining for some imagined, 'It's a Wonderful Life' style paternalist capitalism.  Similarly the left needs to develop some sort of collective identity without either giving up or refighting battles on equality.

An example is, as you mentioned earlier, gay marriage.  In this country many Tories, most of Labour and all Lib Dems support it.  In addition the Tories want tax benefits for all married or civilly partnered couples.  Labour and the Lib Dems oppose it because they think there's an implied moral judgement.  Personally I think that's something the left-wing should back because family identity matters and it's something the state should recognise and support.  I think the days when it was a condemnation of single-parent families or cohabitees have gone (and anyway there's other tax benefits for parents).

I think it's all a part of the reason the European left's had such a torrid time in the middle of the biggest economic crisis the capitalist world's seen since the 30s.

Edit:

I don't mind it since I support liberal ideas - but that's a problem for both the "true leftists" and the "true rightists" as they have been duped.

As I say I think liberalism's over-reached and it's been enabled by left and right.

[Viking]

Incidentally, liberalism (both in its personalistic individualism and free market capitalism aspects) is what creates the "hollowed out society" that you mentioned - it's neither collectivism nor conservatism that does it, since both rely on the group (as opposed to liberalism which relies on an individual). I guess the author of the opening article is a collectivist and does not realize that.

I'm gonna have to agree here, liberal liberalist that I am... The downside of being free from the Nanny state is that you don't have a nanny any more. The friends you have, the girls you date, the clubs you join the hobbies you have and the women you marry are in most cases imposed on you by your community (friends, family, society, school, work, etc.). If you don't have mother, teacher, doctor, cousin or boss bullying you into getting married, getting a job, having friends and obviously disapproving you not getting married, having a job or being social. To put it bluntly, an arranged marriage is still a marriage and many people who would have been arranged into a marriage in previous generations don't do it themselves.

[Tamas]

All these arguments are destroyed by a simple fact:

we (as societies reaching a certain level of development) had ALL you miss, and GOT RID OF IT. Sometimes at great cost. IT WAS THAT HATED.


I don't think we see societies eliminated because of liberalism. I see societies losing cohesion because there are multiple strong organizing theories in existence simultaneously. And fighting. And you aging "oh well yeah liberalism is kinda ackward" are about to switch sides.

The idea of a community of individuals, formed to maintain and protect their personal liberties (ie. liberalism), is not less valid, or able, to maintain a society than religious conservatism, or communism or whatever. It appears more fragile, because by it's nature it lets other ideas appear and potentially grow, and above all else, liberalism depends on developed concepts, while the most of the rest depends on almost instinct-like primitive notions, like religion, simple tribalism, or "he has more, so let's gang up and take it from him"

[Crazy_Ivan80]

.  There's not many people on the right or left who are happy about the state of the markets and a populist right is rising -

Probably because way too many people can't be bothered to figure out the difference between capitalism and the free market.

[Sheilbh]

I disagree. Politics in the former Eastern Bloc is much more corrupt and primitive, because it is not as sophisticated as it is in the West. As a result, politicians from both ends of the political spectrum, especially those who spent most of their lives under communism, even if they are not cynical, tend to have a much more heavy-handed, black-and-white worldview and do not perceive certain nuances and respond to modern challenges as well as the Western ones (compare the sophistication of UK conservatives on stuff like gay marriage to primitive homophobia of Polish or Hungarian "conservatives").

As we come from the Eastern Bloc, we have a tendency to view global politics in the same way we view our local politics (i.e. primitive and corrupt) which is not always correct.

I think there's more corruption there which does change perception of politics.  I think there's also maybe a weaker tradition of the rule of law - which does matter in Hungary's current case.

I'm not sure it's more sophisticated though.  For me the striking feature about Central and Eastern Europe is that it's not got the clear right-left distinction that's common in Western Europe (possibly because the left was discredited by Communism and the mainstream right not helped by the 90s?).  But I wouldn't be surprised if that's the future for the rest of Europe.  It'll have different characteristics but I think the old unified ideological parties are weakening with the rise of more extreme or populist versions and alternative ideologies like liberals and Greens.  The future's maybe politics that's either as fragmented as the Dutch or liable for upheaval as the Czechs?

we (as societies reaching a certain level of development) had ALL you miss, and GOT RID OF IT. Sometimes at great cost. IT WAS THAT HATED.

I'm not talking about theocracy or communism though, at worst I'm talking about shire Toryism and post-war Labourism.  And, as I say, I don't think we should go back.  Liberalism's done well for the past 30 years but I think it's gone too far for both left and right, to the detriment of a lot of people at the bottom of society.  It's a question of how to keep the good bits and move on, for both left and right.

The idea of a community of individuals, formed to maintain and protect their personal liberties (ie. liberalism), is not less valid, or able, to maintain a society than religious conservatism, or communism or whatever.

It was a Thatcher quote: 'You know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.'

[Tamas]

What do you mean it gone too far for both left and right? I would be inclined to say that left and right got left (haha) behind too much then.

Theory: nothing has changed in the last few decades, except that liberalism, or at least what we call liberalism, sort of bribed people, with a more or less constantly growing economy and that now seems to stop. I don't think it has to stop of course, but that's certainly the fear.

And as fear starts to kick in, instincts start to kick in as well, and as I said, I don't liberalism does well with instincts. Other, inferior ideologies do.


If there is anything to be done, it should be the return, or, creation, of a strong and determined liberal ideology. Sort of like a "radical middle", if you will.

[The Brain]

Farism is the answer.

[MadImmortalMan]

Urbanization had a huge role in this, I think. Living in a big city makes you anonymous and changes the way you think about your interactions with others. Any collective solution to anything created by such people is going to have a less-connected feel to it because that's the kind of lives they lead and the way they know to interact with the world. It will by definition be more done in bulk and uniform in approach.

[Neil]

Urbanization had a huge role in this, I think. Living in a big city makes you anonymous and changes the way you think about your interactions with others. Any collective solution to anything created by such people is going to have a less-connected feel to it because that's the kind of lives they lead and the way they know to interact with the world. It will by definition be more done in bulk and uniform in approach.

And now that anonymity is going away.