Searching for a new liberal party....

****

I'm a Tory so I guess it's none of my business but it worries me a little that there is no genuinely liberal voice in UK politics. Perhaps the collapse of the party that colonised liberalism with a sort of tepid social democracy presents an opportunity to rediscover a genuinely liberal voice in British politics.

First here's the always on the money Graeme Archer on the subject of yesterday's Liberal Democrat annihilation:

Take away every elected Tory, and Toryism would continue, and sooner or later find a way to be represented in parliament again. Ditto Labour. But take away every elected Lib Dem, and what are you left with? The vacant contradiction at the heart of the "LibDem" construct: neither properly liberal, nor effectively social democrat. Just nothing.

Yet liberalism is a real thing - the Dutch show this with not one but two liberal parties (as I understand it one is quite crunchy and classical liberal whereas the other is more cuddly and lentil-eating). The problem is that the Liberal Democrats simply aren't liberal - indeed their political position was for me summed up by their leader on Bradford Council when she said - indeed says repeatedly - 'we're not liberal, we're liberal democrats'.

Now while Graeme suggests that all the real liberals were absorbed into the Conservative Party (certainly the economic liberal were but there's a strong case to be made for all the inheritors of Gladstonian liberalism to be in my party - even down to the nannying fussbuckets since Gladstone was certainly one of those) this means that whiggish tendencies have to fight their corner with proper conservatives of one sort or another.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats are doing a lot of soul-searching. Some of this is pretty unedifying - I watched some activist laying into Danny Alexander during the BBC's Euro elections programming. It wasn't about policy but an extended moan about going into coalition and how it didn't work out. But elsewhere the debate is more real with 'social liberals' like Tim Farron in one camp and economic liberals like David Laws in the other. For the former their policy prescriptions are almost indistinguishable - a penchant for localism aside - from those of the Labour Party whereas the Conservatives would welcome Laws or Jeremy Browne with open arms.

What is lacking here is a real liberal challenge to current economic orthodoxies or setting out policies that actually sit with the views of the private sector, middle class, metropolitan population. These policies could have the following components:

1. An international focus. For the Liberal Democrats at the moment this is done through blind adherence to the European 'project' despite all its manifest illiberalism, protectionism and preference for dirigisme over economic freedom. Rejecting this model means rejecting the EU and arguing for a unilateral approach to free trade - looking beyond a stagnating and inward-looking Europe to emerging nations and the old 'anglosphere'.

2. A preference for local over national. Partly from its base in local government and partly out of conviction, the Liberal Democrats have always supported the idea of 'localism'. But for this to work, you have to accept inconsistencies - the 'postcode lottery' beloved of the media. In return you get more accountability, a drive to improve, and more creativity in the design and delivery of government services.

3. Emphasising markets rather than planning. This isn't saying 'no planning' but it is expressing a belief that markets are, ceteris paribus, better at allocating scarce resources than planners. Such an emphasis might lead to new solutions to the challenges of pensions and caring for the elderly - getting away from the tax and provide approach to look at insurance systems for example.

4. Prioritising personal choice over social prescription. Bits of the social liberal agenda fit in well here - support for same sex marriage and more open immigration, for example. But this must be joined by wider personal choice issues and by rejecting the nanny state approach to public health. Plus, of course, things like free schools and home education.

The four broad principles provide the basis for a different agenda - one that is prepared to explore currency choice, drugs liberalisation and devolved city government. It would be very distinct from the dominant centre-right, conservative approach that focuses on getting the right governance and the right people in charge - making the state model work rather than reforming it through devolution, markets or a combination of the two.

Perhaps after it has searched its soul the Liberal Democrat Party will emerge renewed and ready to embrace a genuinely liberal policy agenda but somehow I doubt this. Rather we will see the Liberal Democrats squirm about trying to triangulate a slightly more left-wing agenda in a last ditch attempt to survive. And because the Party's last few redoubts - Sutton, Eastleigh, Colchester, Orkney & Shetland - will hold out along with a smattering of hard-working councillors across the country, the Party will believe it has the means to rise again. Meaning that my hope for a real liberal party would be dashed!

....

The basis for revolution (or how a commie talks some sense)

****

Chris Dillow is a commie (OK, a Marxist, but since Karl Marx wrote the manifesto for communism that makes him a commie in my book) which is pretty close to unforgivable. However, he speaks sense when he says this:

And this is why I say the totalitarians have won. A totalitarian is a fanatic who believes that one ideology should dominate society. And (some) managerialists are - in this sense - totalitarians, who have extended top-down control freakery to places where it is counter-productive and destructive of traditional values. 

 Many years ago I concluded (in one of those all too infrequent flashes of wisdom) that not everyone agreed with me. And that it would be a pretty sad old world were that to be the case. Not that I'm wrong, of course, but that any idea must be challenged - how often do we see the biggest public administration disasters (look at NHS computerisation) occurring where there is no challenge, where everyone thinks it's a good thing.

This is why the closing down of debate by the use of bans is wrong. I think Marxism is wrong (axiomatically) but welcome people who want to argue from a Marxist viewpoint. The biggest problems - the recent banking crisis, the continued failure of international aid, the sclerotic European Union, England's failure to win international trophies at football - all stem from adherence to received wisdom and the absolute dismissal of radical or different approaches to these problems.

I recall campaigning during the 2001 General Election in Keighley, handing out "save the pound" leaflets outside the market, when a Labour councillor stopped for a chat - "I thought you were a sensible Tory, Simon," he pointed at the leaflet, "you don't believe this do you?"

Strip the politics away and this was simply an expression of that year's perceived wisdom - Europe and the Euro are good things and only frothing loonies believe otherwise. Yet those who took a contrary view were right were they not? Despite being contrary, despite being narrow-minded 'Little Englanders'!

The purpose of the government, to many of its denizens (and especially the non-elected ones) is to direct us all to the right decisions, right actions, to promote conformity. And, since I'm a grumpy old liberal rather than a Marxist, here's a reminder to government about its authority and impermanence:

There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void.

I'm such Chris, as a good commie, would agree that this is the basis for revolution. However it is prosecuted.

....

Quote of the day - Charles Moore on liberals

****

Or rather ' liberal progressives':

The answer, I suggest, is that one of the most important elements in the creed of “liberal progressives” is that they are fair and open-minded, and the rest of us aren’t. 

Moore is speaking in the context of the BBC in explaining how, despite it contortions around the concept of balance, it persists in portraying an essential 'liberal progressive' world view sustained by only employing people who share that view.

Liberalism is an important idea that has been captured and corrupted by people who are essentially Fabian social democrats. People whose first point of argument - as we've heard from Nick Clegg and Vince Cable today - is that something must be done and it will be done by government. However fair-minded this may be, however caring and open, it isn't what the political ideal of liberal means.

....

The immigration question - or how to spot a libertarian

****

Lots of people lay claim to being 'libertarian'. This credo is quite popular these days as people rant and rail against "statism" and "big government". Calls are made for more free speech, for the dismantling of the nanny state, for the troops to be brought home post haste, for fewer regulations and less government interference. Gay (or rather an ever lengthening string of letters - I think we're up to LGBT now but more may have been added while I wasn't watching) rights are extolled and encouraged and religions are condemned for their outmoded attitudes to all sorts of things - but mostly sex.

And then we get to immigration. At this point I watch as strange contortions go on while people explain how they really are libertarian but that this doesn't mean we can't have a ban on "permanent" immigration. Accompanying this almost Cardhousian contortion is a commitment to the nation state - to Britain or England.

Let me explain - firstly by quoting a pretty good liberal (in the days when liberal meant what we now mean by libertarian):

“The world is my country,
all mankind are my brethren,
and to do good is my religion.” 

Pretty good, eh! But it is a philosophy without boundaries - it's not just trade, speech and enterprise that should be free but movement. To call for tighter restrictions - even bans - on immigration is to reject the essence of this freedom. And that means you aren't a libertarian.

Nor can you hide behind statements about "level playing fields" or misconceptions about immigrants and benefits. These are no different from arguments for protectionism and managed trade - they block our goods so we block theirs, they protect their farmers so we protect ours.

You see folks, you're not libertarians at all really - what you are is conservatives. You like small government, you're a fan of voluntarism, you think business is important and you place great store in the old liberties of England - all that Magna Carta and killing the king stuff. But just as importantly you think place is important - nation, county, town, Your place, my place - a sense of belonging to somewhere that really matters.

A bit like Kipling - who certainly wasn't a libertarian:

 GOD gave all men all earth to love,
    But since our hearts are small,
Ordained for each one spot should prove
    Belovèd over all;
That, as He watched Creation’s birth,
    So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
    And see that it is good.
So one shall Baltic pines content,
    As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove’s droned lament
    Before Levuka’s Trade.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
    The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground—in a fair ground—
    Yea, Sussex by the sea! 

So, my friends, if you are a conservative, have the good grace to admit to it rather than pretend you're a sexy, trendy, Rothbard-quoting libertarian.

....

Nannying Fussbucket of the day - another illiberal Liberal Democrat: Jenny Willott MP

****

I do sometimes wonder whether there remains anyone in the Liberal Democrat Party who actually possesses a shred of belief in liberalism. Each day I see another example of a Liberal Democrat politician advocating something that restricts freedom and limits choice.

Today it's Jenny Willott who thinks that the poorer residents over her inner-city constituency should be made to pay more for a bottle of wine:

"We need to do much more to tackle this problem - alcohol abuse is not only destroying the lives of individuals and families, it is also a huge burden on society as a whole.

"These measures are not about stopping responsible drinking but designed to tackle the minority who cause alcohol-related crime and disorder in our local communities, as we see each weekend in Cardiff.

"This is something I feel very strongly about and have been calling for action on for years. I am delighted that the Government is proposing to introduce a minimum price for alcohol, and encourage as many people as possible to contribute to the consultation to ensure we get this vital policy right."

I'd love to understand what strange process goes through the minds of these Liberal Democrat MPs - forget about the facts, let's get a headline in the local rag by proposing yet another illiberal restriction, control of ban! I can only suppose that political parties are not subject to the trades descriptions acts!

....

Today's illiberal liberal - Lynn Featherstone

I really do despair at times at the intellectual contortions that some "Liberal Democrats" have to go through to justify their use of the term 'liberal' in describing themselves. Here's Lynn Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP sucking up to the Hampstead feminist lefty vote:

When asked if I supported the campaign ‘No more Page 3′ during an interview with the Independent on Sunday – I said yes!

It isn’t top of my list of things to do – but it is part of the whole issue surrounding the coarsening of women’s representation in the public space – and it is anything but harmless.

Page 3 has the effect of enforcing the notion that women are little other than sex objects. For me, a semi naked woman in a ‘family friendly’ daily newspaper for the direct purpose of the titillation of men is an outdated idea that has no place in a modern world or in a country that prides itself on the strides made in the last 40 years towards equality between the sexes.

There is an honourable argument (that I don't personally agree with) against 'Page 3' - Ms Featherstone rather tritely touches on it by talking of coarseness and women's representation. But this argument is not, and never has been, a 'liberal' argument. If anything the focus on public morals and behaviour reminds us of Georgian sensibility or of a Victorian high Tory viewpoint.

What I find odd is that our National Gallery is filled with paintings depicting women as sex objects - a glorious Reubens is above and there are thousands of others showing seductions, orgies and even rapes. Yet Ms Featherstone does not campaign for covering these images but rather the slightly less stylish snaps of naked ladies in The Sun.

I'm guessing that the women pictured in The Sun appear willingly and are paid well for doing so. At which point the Liberal argument should be to applaud their enterprise, respect their individual choice and, if offended, not buy the newspaper concerned. Not to try and ban the pictures.

....

John Leech - another socialist in liberal democrat clothing

****


The government's Faustian pact - a deal that still remains despite the financial train crash - with the banks has cost ordinary folk dear. Yet this so-called "liberal democrat" wants to make it even worse:

...although the taxpayers own 82% of the company, we do not have a rep on the board and cannot force the company to lend money to businesses and create jobs.

This man is an MP - elected to provide intelligent leadership - and he wants to "force" a bank that's lost £1.5 billion in a year to lend money it doesn't have to businesses. It seems the argument is that Vince Cable thinks this a good idea. And, of course, Vince is the man because he used to work in a big (oil) business so understands all this money stuff.

More to the point (and I don't know Mr Leech's background) our MP seems to have not the first idea about the duties and responsibilities of a company director. Generally speaking their first duty is to the company's interest. And right now this is to get the balance sheet fixed, pay off those bad debts and make RBS a viable business. Running the business into the ground by forcing it to make a load more bad loans on political direction is a daft idea.

Mind you, we could have let RBS go bust in the first place. That would have been a liberal response!

...

The Liberal Democrats need "Nicks" not "Tims"

****

There are, it seems to me, two sorts of Liberal Democrat. I’m going to call them “Nick” and “Tim” for the sake of explanation.

For many year’s Tim was the man. Liberal Democrats – and Liberals before – were activists, campaigners, street politicians. The purveyors of pavement politics, the champions of potholes, the organisers of dog pooh campaigns and the persistent pointers at things in the local paper – and these tactics worked, Tim and his friends got elected. 

Tim isn’t really a liberal or even much of a democrat. Tim knows the buttons to press with the local ‘community’. Tim is prepared to be inconsistent and contradictory, to say one thing on the council estate and a completely different thing in the terraced town centre. To campaign against a wind farm while, at the same time, making the right green noises to a different audience somewhere else. 

Tim doesn’t think about the philosophical basis for his liberalism but prefers instead to make the right, slightly pink-tinged remarks about tax, business and the environment. The sort of remarks that get you liked, that plays to the prejudices of people who consider themselves “liberal” but aren’t.

Because farmers like subsidies, Tim will campaign for subsidies without thought. If NIMBYs and BANANAs approach Tim, he will support them without question. Tim is progressive in that slightly mushy, largely meaningless way - as if he'd stopped thinking about politics after his first "it's not fair" thought at the age of 14.

For Tim the acme of politics is the “good constituency MP”, the man or woman who does little else than chitter and worry at little local issues, who cares more about electoral tactics and the next “Focus” leaflet than about the economy or the environment (except, of course, when those are the correct tactical topics for that “Focus” leaflet).

The Liberal Democrats were filled with Tims. The pavement politics, the deception, the inconsistency worked and the chambers began to fill with Liberal Democrats. And thoughts turned to government, to the prospect – at local level first, then nationally – of having to propose some sort of coherent believable strategy for government. Tim was lost. Tim wanted to just attack the Tories, to continue the never-ending local campaigns about potholes and cracked paving stones. Government wasn’t for Tim.

But there was “Nick” to help. Nick was different. He hadn’t grown up as a local activist; he’d been on the international stage. Nick was well-educated – top schools, Oxford – and worked in banking, management consultancy and the European bureaucracy. Nick actually believed in something called ‘liberalism’, actually had a philosophical basis for the arguments he made and put forward policies that weren’t simply a tactical response to whoever in the local constituency shouted loudest.

Nick provided some gravitas, a sense that this was a party with a real programme rather than a collection of slightly odd people brought together mostly by a desire for power and a shared dislike of Labour and/or Conservative. Nick began to think, to propose policies based on local power, on the effectiveness of markets and on personal choice. For sure, Nick’s ideas were dragged back by Tim who wasn’t quite ready (or rather worried that his carefully manufactured activist image would be damaged by actually having to believe in something) for a coherent policy for government, but those ideas began to get a purchase with supporters. And Nick came to lead.

Now times are tricky. Nick took the liberal democrats into government, made them support some tough policies necessary for that government to work. And Tim isn’t happy. Tim liked it when he didn’t have to defend the difficult decisions of government. Tim preferred the time when the prospect of eternal opposition allowed him simply to say the things that got the best response from his voters. Tim just wants to be a “good constituency MP”, some form of self-directed delegate of the loud voices in some part of England. Tim wants the Liberal Democrat comfort zone.

And Tim is wrong. Tim will make the Liberal Democrats irrelevant again. A bunch of irritating blow flies rather than a diligent hive. An opportunistic, devious, untrustworthy and prejudiced bunch of slightly left-wing activists rather than a serious party with a set of serious policies based on a coherent, believable political philosophy.

....

The sorry end of liberalism in the liberal democrats

****

The papers have been filled with Clegg inspired testosterone as the might Deputy prime Minister regales his followers with all the things he has stopped from happening - you know the things like developing choice and competition in care, health and education.

And this is pretty sad because I thought Nick was a liberal. You know what I mean? The sort of politician who believes in the power of independence, in giving people choice and that responsibility comes from freedom not from government dictat.

It would appear not. It would appear that the last vestiges of liberalism have faded - Clegg now leads a social democratic party virtually indistinguishable from the social democratic party led by Ed Miliband.

I'd hoped that having liberals in the coalition would push my party away from the state-directed controls to which we were wedded - be it on the environment, on crime or in public health.

Sadly it appears not. Indeed I hear more genuinely liberal voices from the right of my party and (inconsistently it must be said) from UKIP.

The Liberal Democrats are no longer a 'liberal' party, Shame really as Britain needs one.

...

Joining the Liberal Democrats doesn't make you a liberal!

****

A while ago I wrote a little comment explaining why “Jack of Kent” – the estimable David Allen Green, lawyer, blogger, skeptic and sometimes journalist – isn’t a liberal. It is a mark of David’s popularity (and his assiduous self-promotion) that this little blog post remains one of the most visited at The View from Cullingworth.

It seems now that “Jack of Kent” has gone the whole hog and joined the Liberal Democrat Party:

The Labour opposition is impotent. In government they were illiberal and often brutal. There is only one political force which is having an actual liberal effect in our polity as it is presently constituted, and it is the Liberal Democrats.

Yet – as I pointed out – David isn’t a liberal but a social democrat. No genuine liberal could believe this:

The liberal endorses an individual's autonomy unless there is a greater public interest in interfering with that autonomy.

Such a position is indistinguishable from the essential social democrat position – it places society’s interests above those of the individual. The problem – or confusion – may lie in a differing understanding of what the term ‘liberal’ actually means. I fear that David’s view owes less to Gladstone and more to Herbert Croly, the godfather of Roosevelt’s politics and founding editor of New Republic:

Government, according to Croly, could no longer be content with protecting negative rights; it needed to actively promote the welfare of its citizens.

This position, the championing of positive rights and the embracing of regulation to correct “market failure” are the essence of “progressive” politics. Indeed, Britain’s Liberal Democrats remain overwhelmingly a party of social democracy – a marriage between the Fabianism of people such as Shirley Williams and the grass roots activism that typified the old Liberal Party.

My argument before was that, in rejecting ‘market orthodoxy’, David was rejecting the basis of liberalism – that free exchange between individuals represents the best way to order things.  Instead we get American “liberalism” – a mish-mash of social democracy, ‘progressivism’ and above all the promotion of group rights above personal rights. Indeed, the preamble to the Liberal Democrat’s Constitution makes explicit that the party is not a liberal party:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

So “Jack of Kent”, who isn’t a liberal, will feel quite at home in what isn’t a liberal part.

....

In which I find myself agreeing with Nick Clegg (except I don't believe him)

****

In an interview with Henry Porter at The Observer, Nick Clegg - professional euro-crat turned Deputy Prime Minister said something I agree with:

"I need to say this – you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

Absolutely Mr Clegg, my sentiments entirely. So why is your "Protection of Freedoms Bill" so selective in the freedoms it wants to protect? And why don't I believe you when you make such an agreeable statement?

Is it because I watched your party colleagues calling for intrusive and draconian extensions to police power under the licensing act? Plus of course the Liberal Democrats illiberal and undemocratic support for minimum alcohol pricing! And should I mention the smoking ban - introduced on the back of bad science - that has further harmed our struggling pubs.

And why not restrictions on speed cameras, voyeuristic (and pretty useless) CCTV and the hounding of innocent motorists on the back of ANPR? Where is the removal of rights of entry to private property for public officials and the reform of family courts to stop the police seizing the children of innocents?

I could go on, Nick. I know you mean well. But these "Protection of Freedoms" come while your government extends restrictions and while your old pals in Brussels drift slowly towards a secret, unaccountable, almost fascistic superstate.

So Nick, I don't believe you.

....

Tim Farron or "Some so-called liberals really don't get it do they?"

Tim Farron, who I believe holds some elevated position in the Liberal Democrat Party and represents South Lakeland at Westminster is prattling on about needed "fair trade" for upland farmers.

I see farmers who struggle to keep going and just to pass on the farm to their children. It really is high time we give farmers a fair deal. I am doing all I can to make sure that their concerns are heard. We need a strong supermarket regulator as soon as possible and we need to provide fair trade for British farmers.

Let's be clear, Mr Farron is right when he says farmers struggle, work daft hours in all weathers and are often living below the poverty line. And that often the price they get for their produce barely represents the cost of production. But his solution - regulating prices - is wrong.

Let's begin with subsidy. The Common Agricultural Policy dishes out 55 billion Euros in farm subsidy. So why then Tim are your upland farmers below the poverty line?

Each year we’re seeing a further concentration of benefits in the hands of fewer,
larger landowners, who seem to use their subsidy cheques to buy up more land and more subsidy ­entitlements,” Jack Thurston, the co-founder of farmsubsidy.org, told the Scotsman. “Most people think farm subsidies are there to help the small guy but we’re seeing it’s quite the reverse. The bigger you are, the better your land, the more public aid you get,” he said.

So there you have it, Tim. Billions in subsidy to farmers is being scooped up by landowners leaving tenant farmers and upland farmers with less income. And you want to blame supermarkets? Are you so in love with the EU that you can’t see how its corrupt subsidy system is the problem and that more regulation, more price controls will serve only to distort the system even further?

Let’s look at what happened in New Zealand where there was a similar situation with plenty of upland sheep and cattle farmers a long way from the market. And there was a distorting subsidy system. In the 1980s the Government scrapped the subsidy. And all the farms closed? No.

New Zealand agriculture is profitable without subsidies, and that means more people staying in the business. Alone among developed countries of the world, New Zealand has virtually the same percentage of its population employed in agriculture today as it did 30 years ago, and the same number of people living in rural areas as it did in 1920.

Indeed if you read on Tim, you’ll find that sheep farmers – you know the chaps who come to your surgeries – were hardly affected at all by the changes:

Sheep farmers, who as a group were the most heavily subsidized, were (not surprisingly) hardest hit by the elimination of subsidies. Those farmers who were heavily in debt at the start of the reform period were hit hard by rising interest rates, and a transition program was negotiated to ease their situation. Farm-related sectors like packing and processing, equipment and chemical supply, and off-farm transport also suffered, but this was regarded as evidence of their previous inefficiency. Overall the ‘transition period’ lasted about six years, with land values, commodity prices, and farm profitability indices stabilizing or rising steadily by 1990.

If you were a real liberal, Tim – one who believed in free markets allowed to operate freely – you’d be campaigning for us to scrap agricultural subsidy so as to allow farming to thrive. Instead, like a good social democrat sucking at the taxpayers teat, you call for more regulation, more price controls and more taxpayers money directed to special interest groups.

....

Second thoughts on a limited understanding of "the progressive"

***

It is clear that, when the left use the term “progressive” it has a different meaning from the meaning most people attach to the idea of “progress” – for the left “progressive” is another way of describing the idea that man can be improved. Clearly this idea of “progress” differs from the orthodox socialist concept of “progress”. In a paraphrase of Trotsky here:

“The greater the expansion of the productive forces, the nearer do men approach the kingdom of freedom, and the looser become the chains of necessity. The Marxist, therefore, always supports that society whose productive forces are expanding.”

But “progressives” must have rejected this approach or else how could modern Trotskyite groups and the Greens co-habit a realm of “progressive values”? If “green economics” is about anything it is about the rejection of the orthodox Marxist economics described above – and to the society implied by socialism: a society led and controlled by those engaged in production (however defined).

It seems to me that progressive values are, in fact, unconnected with economic progress but are reflections of attainable social conditions: non-discrimination, freedom of lifestyle choice and the defining of entitlements as rights.

Non-discrimination: the idea that we should not “discriminate” (in the modern sense of the word) is a core mantra for the left. Indeed accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia or other discriminatory action are central elements of the debate between left and right in both the UK and the USA. The problem is that the “progressive” conceptualisation of non-discrimination differs from what I’ll call (for the purpose of absolute distinction) the “liberal” understanding of the concept. For the left – using the collectivist group definitions they favour – non-discrimination is dealt with by the enforcement of non-prejudicial rules of behaviour: we pass laws to punish sexism, ageism, racism, homophobia and prejudice against the disabled.

A liberal says the laws should not be used to control behaviour – for sure the various group prejudices are wrong but I have a right to be racist or sexist if I wish. Saying this doesn’t make me racist or sexist and there is an argument for saying that racism or sexism represents aggression – worthy therefore of society’s intervention. But what about all the other possible prejudices and discriminations? Do they not also merit protection – must left-handers, the short-sighted, the overweight and the ginger-haired “mobilise and organise” to campaign for legislation outlawing discrimination based on these conditions?

Freedom of lifestyle choice: as with non-discrimination this “progressive” idea draws on the importance of group-think and the rejection of individualism. Social policy is formed so as to support people in their chosen alternative lifestyles rather than as a means to improve the general welfare of the population: we craft policies directed at “communities” rather than at individuals. As with non-discrimination this forms a debate between left and right – with the left accusing the right of either not “respecting” those who have made “alternative” lifestyle choices or worse of actively promoting an orthodox lifestyle through policy.

As before the liberal critique of this approach rests not in responding to the left’s stereotyping of the right as racist, sexist homophobic bigots but in understanding that it isn’t the role of the state to govern the choices of individuals. People making lifestyle choices (or having those lifestyle choices made for them by circumstance) need to be aware of the challenges and costs that choice entails. By dividing society up into groups – often into “good” groups and “bad” groups – we present again the problem of the outsider, the person who does not slot neatly into the left’s stereotypes. Because the “progressive” idea is anti-individualist there is an assumption that each person will submit to a group – and that policy will be directed at those groups communicated to them through the moderation of the selected group leadership.

Entitlements as rights: to the liberal, entitlements are not inalienable so are ipso facto not rights – not so for the “progressive”. Entitlements – to work, to education, to welfare benefits and so on – are described as “rights” even when they are self-evidently things that cannot be assured or left unchanged. Thus the minimum wage is portrayed as a “right” given to workers by a benign progressive government. Partly this remains a matter of semantics – even spin – “rights” is a far more accessible idea for the ordinary man than the more nuanced concept of being entitled to something.

Interestingly though the “progressive” view doesn’t accord the same strength to rights to property – be that land (or rights to use land) or other property. Again the liberal position relies on property rights and their absolute protection in law – the “progressive” view that property rights can be alienated to suit some specified group need runs counter to the liberal ideal of a free society. Again a debate between left and right arises – once more centred on the key difference: “progressives” focus on group needs rather than individual rights.

It seems to me that the core principle of “progressive” thinking lies in supporting group rights rather than individual rights. Good things have come from this focus – our changed and changing attitude to women, gays and those with a different skin colour, for example – but also great damage is done to property rights, economic freedoms and to freedom of speech. In the end one of the divides in politics will always be between those who promote the idea of the free individual and those who see the individual in terms of the groups into which that person falls.

...