A Flag for Social Liberalism

 

My design of a flag to represent social liberalism.

 

Politics is a world of colours, symbols and flags. This is certainly the case for almost all political parties in democratic countries. Political symbolism has also been associated with particular political ideologies. The red flag and the red star are universally recognised symbols associated with socialism, with the hammer and sickle and the red rose being associated with communism and social democracy respectively. Another example is the association of anarchism with the black flag and the black circled capital A.

 

In this blog article, I outline my proposal for a flag to represent social liberalism. The flag that I have designed has a set of balanced yellow weighing scales at the centre of a red vertical stripe that covers the left third of the flag. The remaining two-thirds of the flag is yellow. I shall first outline a broad definition of social liberalism, before explaining my rationale for my flag design in the preceding sections of my article.

What is social liberalism?

Social liberalism is a progressive political ideology that emphasises the need to have social justice in order to enhance and facilitate the rights and freedoms of the individual. It is not to be confused with cultural liberalism, as is often the case in American political discourse.

 

Cultural liberalism refers to the equal liberties, equal rights and equal opportunities of all individuals, regardless of their personal characteristics. In other words, it is the part of liberalism that emphasises the rights of marginalised groups, such as women’s rights, LGBT+ rights and the rights of ethnic minority groups. All liberals should ideally adhere to cultural liberalism, regardless of whether they are social liberals, economic liberals, centrist liberals or green liberals etc.

 

All social liberals should adhere to cultural liberalism, however what distinguishes social liberalism as a distinctive school of liberal thought is the emphasis it places on social justice. Social liberals advocate for the most equitable distribution of wealth and resources throughout society within the framework of a capitalist liberal democracy. Access to wealth and social resources (such as healthcare, education, housing, fair employment, workers’ rights and the arts and culture) is vital in enabling individuals to realise their personhood and maximise their talents and abilities to the full. We therefore might think of social liberalism as social justice liberalism, social welfare liberalism or social resources liberalism.

 

In the 20^th century, social liberals in Britain and America advocated for the establishment of welfare systems and the advancement of workers’ rights. An excellent historic example of a social liberal government would be the American New Deal administration of President Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930s. In more recent times, social liberals have called for urgent action to address climate change and have begun to advocate for a universal basic income.

 

On the traditional political spectrum, social liberalism is situated on the centre-left. This is due to its emphasis on social reform and political reform, as well as its opposition to entrenched inequalities and social hardships. In addition, it rejects right-wing politics and economics, the centrist status quo and the revolutionary anti-capitalist politics of the hard left. Political thinkers that made important contributions to social liberalism include John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill, Thomas Hill Green, Leonard Hobhouse, John Maynard Keynes, John Rawls and Amartya Sen.

 

Why does social liberalism need a flag?

The purpose of a flag for social liberalism is to distinguish its identity as a political movement. it is to provide it with political symbolism to be recognised on an international scale. Social liberal parties are few and far between internationally and in many countries, they face challenges from more dominant economic liberal parties. Across continental Europe, Latin America and Australasia, social liberal parties are often overshadowed by larger economic liberal parties and a general political culture that associates liberalism with the economic right. A flag would give social liberalism a clear presence as a distinctive school of thought and activism within liberalism.

 

A universally recognised flag would give social liberals a clearer voice and political identity. It would give social liberals are political presence and allow them to cooperate more confidently within nations and across borders. It would also highlight the social liberal involvement in wider political and social movements, while increasing the popular political awareness of the social liberal perspective and analysis of politics and economics.

 

Why balanced weighing scales?

I chose the symbol of a set of evenly balanced weighing scales due to its historical association with the values of liberty, justice, fairness and equality, values that all social liberals share. In particular, it represents the liberal politics of social justice as exemplified through the works of Green, Hobhouse, Rawls and Sen. The symbol of the balanced weighing scales represents a synthesis between the ideals of liberalism and the ideals of social justice as epitomised by social liberalism.

 

Why use the colour yellow?

Yellow is already widely associated with liberalism. The colour features prominently in the logo of the Liberal International and is used by national liberal parties in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Estonia, Latvia and as far afield as the Philippines. It is due to the pre-existing strong colour association between yellow and liberalism that I chose to use it to colour the majority of my flag.

 

Beyond this, yellow is also widely associated with the values of happiness, optimism, creativity and intellect, all of which are positive traits that any liberal society would aim to foster. Yellow is also a distinctive colour, when compared to other political movements that already have strong colour associations, such as socialism and red, ecologism and green, feminism and purple and to a large extent, conservatism and blue. The one clear drawback to using the colour yellow is that in America, it has become associated with some right-wing movements, such as the Tea Party Movement (which appropriated the yellow rattlesnake Gadsden Flag), the libertarian right and anarcho-capitalism. This is why I thought it was important not to use a single colour yellow flag, so as to distinguish it from those rightist political movements.

 

The particular shade of yellow I chose to use was that of the golden yellow used on the bird logo of the British Liberal Democrats. On my flag, yellow symbolises liberality, freedom and individuality. It is there to represents social liberalism’s presence within the wider international liberal movement, with its roots in the European and American political traditions.

 

Why use the colour red?

The second colour on my flag is the colour red. The usage of red has a long political history. Today, it is mostly associated with socialism and social democracy. However, in the 19^th century, it was the colour of political radicalism and was thus appropriated by liberals, republicans and anarchists, as well as by socialists.

 

Prior to the rise of socialism as a democratic force, red was linked to liberalism in electoral politics, especially across the Americas. Several liberal parties in both North and South America still use the colour red to this day. This includes several social liberal parties in the region, such as the Liberal Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Honduras, the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colorado Party in Uruguay, all these parties have their roots in the 19^th century. The most obvious exception to this is the US Democratic Party, which in recent decades has been associated with the colour blue.

 

The exact shade of red I chose to use is the shade that is present on the logo and party flag of the Liberal Party of Honduras. I also felt it was important to include a colour from a well-established liberal party from a developing world country. Liberalism, especially social liberalism, is not just for developed comparatively wealthy Western democracies, it is for all countries regardless of their level of development. The red on my flag is used to symbolise social justice, equality and solidarity, as well as social liberalism’s roots in the radical movement of the 19th century and its presence as a progressive left movement today.

 

Who should use this flag?

I have specifically designed this political flag to be used by all social liberals, welfare liberals, radical liberals and left-liberals. Any and all proud centre-left liberals should feel free to appropriate this flag. It has been specifically designed to represent social liberalism, social liberal activists and supporters, it is not meant for any other purpose other than this. I do not endorse the use of my flag or its symbolism for any other purpose. I hope it will be used to identify social liberals in numerous countries, within political parties and to represent social liberalism within wider political and social movements.

 

May this flag become a symbol of those liberals who strive for a synthesis between individual liberty and social justice. May this yellow and red flag come to epitomise the liberal politics of social justice and the equitable distribution of wealth and resources needed for individuals to maximise their individuality.

Remembering The Real British Empire

The Myth of Empire

Ah Great Britain, this sceptred isle! Britain which once ruled the waves and had a global dominion. Glorious Britannia which brought justice, parliamentary government and “civilisation” to the world. An Empire of benevolence and morality, like a mother to her children offering the light of guidance to her colonies. It built the Indian Railways, secured international trade links and put in place good legal order and effective public administration for its colonies. It nurtured them to the point to which they could become nations in their own right. This is the myth of Empire!

This myth is a justification narrative and discourse backed up by British culture. From the poetry of Rudyard Kipling; to the works of Joseph Conrad; to the 1950s and 1960s films depicting the heroism of Empire; to the documentaries of conservative historians; Britain is depicted as the just civilising imperialist. For decades schoolchildren were taught to think positively about the British Empire. Empire Day was actively observed as an article of patriotism. Rule Britannia was sung with real pride and maps of the world with areas shaded in pink were held in true awe.

This cultural hegemony led to the British people forgetting, or perhaps mis-remembering, their imperial past. In modern times it is sustained by the notion of British exceptionalism. This is the secular nationalist idea that Britain is a natural world beater (or at least ought to be). Britain according to this is a world power with all the bombast and entitlement of a would-be superpower, despite the vast, vast majority of the British Empire no longer existing. Similar to the American ideal of manifest destiny, Britain’s manifest destiny is to shape the world and continue to lead it as a moral power at the diplomatic level. According to this, Britain is exceptional and must be independent from less exceptional international forces with full control over its laws (from the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’), money (as the first truly global capitalist superpower) and borders. Clear traces of British exceptionalism are present in the debates surrounding Brexit.

The Reality of Empire

But what was the real British Empire? The real British Empire was the Empire of racism, exploitation and domination. For over a century and a half, Britain traded and sold Africans to plantation owners in the Caribbean and the Americas, and in return Britain received sugar and tobacco amongst other goods. The transatlantic economy of the 18^th century was based on the physical enslavement of millions of Africans, facilitated by Britain. Profit and greed were the main motivators for both slave traders and imperialists alike. Even after the British slave trade was abolished in 1807, it was not until 1833 that slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. The end of British slavery resulted in large amounts of compensation being paid to slave-owners for the loss of their “property”, while the slaves themselves were left in a precarious position often leading to poverty and unemployment. They had achieved their freedom from physical bondage, but not their freedom from socio-economic bondage or from institutional racism. The British Empire and the period of the slave trade treated black people as just another commodity to be bought and sold, nothing more than a piece of property to profit from.

What about the jewel in the crown of the Empire, the Indian subcontinent? Britain’s Indian Empire alone accounted for hundreds of millions of people. Benjamin Disraeli famously adorned Queen Victoria with the title of Empress of India. But this was no “civilising mission”. The discourse of bringing civilisation is a highly racist one designed to amplify cultural notions of racial supremacy. The Indian subcontinent has a very rich history and civilisation stretching back for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the British. Starting with the ancient Indus Valley civilisation and the Brahmanism of the period; the life of the Buddha and the emergence of Buddhism; followed by the Mauryan Empire and Ashoka the Great; it witnessed the Hindu revival and the Islamic conquests; finally it saw the magnificent Mughal Empire and Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal.

The relationship of the British East India Company and later the British Raj to the Indian subcontinent was one of economic extraction. Like with the slave trade, Britain’s Indian Empire was a source of profit. The much-lauded Indian Railways were not built for the good of the Indian people, but instead to link cotton fields to British ports, so that cotton could be efficiently shipped back to Britain. The railways were expanded following the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 to ensure more effective military transport across the subcontinent and to maintain Britain’s grip on it. Up to 3 million people died from the Bengal famine of 1943, while there continues to be a scholarly debate as to whether Britain helped to cause the famine, Britain’s poor response undermined its credibility.

The British Empire was ruled through violence. In 1919, almost 400 people were massacred by British soldiers in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar in India. The actual number could be far higher. During the 1950s, Britain brutally cracked down on the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya as it had done a century earlier in India during the Mutiny of the 1850s. During the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, Britain invented concentration camps to control the Boer population, which led to terrible human rights abuses. Colonial violence was also seen on the streets of Britain’s American Colonies and Ireland on the road to their eventual independence. Violence was also used on the domestic British population to suppress calls for democracy and political reform at home. The most infamous example of this was at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester in 1819, when 19 people were killed and hundreds injured in what became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

The Legacy of Empire

The British Empire has left behind a bitter legacy of racism, religious sectarianism and homophobia in many of its former colonies. Apartheid in South Africa owed much to the legacy of British colonialism. Britain’s terrible handling of the partition of India and Pakistan led to a million deaths and overlooked legitimate claims for nationhood from countries such as Kashmir, a conflict that continues to this day. The Arab-Israeli Conflict dates from the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948. Many countries in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and Oceania continue to have homophobic policies which date from the days of British imperial rule. Britain exported its homophobic policies and its homophobic Anglican religion to many countries with no previous history of state-imposed homophobia.

Today whole swathes of the British population are kept in ignorance of their imperial past by the imperial mythology that serves the British establishment. We look at glorious Georgian and Victorian buildings and monuments in many of our major cities, such as Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, Lancaster, Glasgow and London and fail to ask what paid for them. Some would have been paid for through slavery, others by the exploitation of distant colonists. Britain got rich off the misery of its colonial subjects. Britain’s quasi-feudal establishment gained the power and prestige of global rulers, while the legitimate demands for political citizenship from its lower middle class, working class and female population were actively suppressed. The British Empire was first and foremost a system of domination at home and abroad.

Today, the United Kingdom can rightly claim to be a great country. It is a successful (if imperfect) liberal democracy and minority rights are protected throughout society. However, we cannot overlook the fact that vast inequalities still exist on the basis of race, gender, class, sexuality and disability amongst other social characteristics. We must not overlook the injustices of our past. The British Empire was built on domination, exploitation, slavery, racism, sectarianism, classism, misogyny and homophobia. The British people should be as conscious of their controversial past as the Germans are towards the crimes of the Nazis.

Britain can build a great future, but only with true knowledge of its past. We should aim to rectify the negative legacy of the British Empire where possible. Children and adults should be properly educated about the history of British colonialism. We should free ourselves from any delusions of British exceptionalism. Britain is a great country, but one of many around the world. As a nation, if we can recognise the negative parts of our past, we can come together to build a better, brighter future, one built on liberty (as non-domination), equality and community for all.

Remembering the Republican Liberal Political Tradition

Liberalism and Republicanism have been in the vanguard of advancing political liberty, socioeconomic justice and democracy over the last few centuries. Both philosophies are at the heart of the turbulent changes that happened in European and American nations in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The history of liberalism stretches back to the writings of John Locke in the late seventeenth century. Although liberalism did not emerge as a self-conscious political project until the early nineteenth century, where it emerged in Spain as a political movement for radical constitutional reform during the Peninsular War. Republicanism has a much longer history stretching back as far as the Roman Republic and even further to Ancient Athens and its classical philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle.

 

            Liberalism was born out of republican philosophy. The root of liberalism comes from the republican virtue of liberality (liberalitas). This was the virtue which concerned generosity (both personal and societal) and open-mindedness. The New York academic Helena Rosenblatt has charted the history of liberalism as a form of liberality in her 2018 book, The Lost History of Liberalism.

 

The two political philosophies have been closely linked together. Both were at the heart of the American Revolution in the eighteenth century and the European Spring of 1848. It is in the French Revolution that we can see the biggest contrast between the two philosophies. Initially, the French Revolution was very much a liberal revolution committed to liberty, individual rights, constitutionalism, government by consent and limited monarchy. The liberal revolution of 1789 gradually becomes more republican with France being declared a Republic in 1792. France’s republican experiment becomes most radical in 1793 with the rise of Maximilian Robespierre and the clearly illiberal ‘Reign of Terror’.

 

In recent decades within the academy, both liberalism and republicanism have seen a revival in the western political philosophical tradition. Starting with the publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice in 1971 which gave a philosophical contractarian basis to American social liberalism, which itself has been built on by successive authors most notably by Amartya Sen in The Idea of Justice. Republicanism has also witnessed a substantial revival with the neo-republicanism of Philip Pettit. Pettit’s Republicanism (published in 1997) successfully re-conceptualises freedom as republican liberty, that is liberty as non-domination.

 

            Looking back at history it is often difficult to distinguish two distinct political projects. Many leading liberals were also republicans and vice versa. Thomas Jefferson was a liberal political thinker who was a founding father of the American Republic. Additionally, Thomas Paine was a radical republican writer, who also drew heavily on the classical liberal political culture of his time. The great French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu was one of the leading liberal thinkers of the eighteenth century who provided the main inspiration for the republican system of government in the United States. Even John Locke’s writings have clear elements of republicanism within them. There are examples of republicans who were clearly not liberal, such as Oliver Cromwell and Robespierre; as well as liberals who were not republicans, such as the original Spanish liberals (Liberales) who strove to establish a constitutional monarchy.

 

            The republican liberal political tradition has a long intellectual lineage in British history and politics. It stretches back long into the seventeenth century, not just to Locke’s Second Treatises of Government, but prior to that with the period of the English Civil War, or more accurately the English Revolution. The work of the republican poet John Milton is of note in this regard, as is the democratic radicalism of the Levellers, who agitated for individual liberties, equality before the law, popular sovereignty and inalienable rights.

 

            Republican liberalism was present within the British Liberal Party. The late Victorian MP, Charles Dilke is a good example of this, as is the party’s twentieth century economic platform of ‘ownership for all’. The party of Jo Grimond advocated for the spread of wealth, asset ownership and industrial democracy throughout society, advancing a republican conception of economic citizenship. This notion would be developed further with James Meade’s concept of property-owning democracy, which itself became Rawls’ ideal version of a just society. Aspects of republican liberalism can be seen as late as 1989 in Citizens’ Britain, written by the first leader of the (Social and) Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown.

 

            A brief note on why I am referring to republican liberalism and not liberal republicanism. This is because the main object of my personal political focus are the rights and liberties of the individual within a political and economic system based on republican principles. As opposed to the object being a republican society itself (complete with commitments to virtue, the common good and liberty as non-domination), which also respects individual rights and liberties. This may be an epistemological point, but nevertheless an important one to clarify.

 

            Liberalism and republicanism have been central to the development of progressive politics and contemporary liberal democracy. Their ideas have transformed the world. Together their ideas hold out the prospect for a radical, free and egalitarian society. In particular, they would add greater intellectual weight to contemporary calls for a universal basic income in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. In a world where the progressive left is scrambling to find a viable alternative to neoliberal hegemony, they could do far worse than rediscovering the radicalism of the republican liberal political tradition.

 

Bibliography

Ashdown, Paddy (1989) Citizens’ Britain: A Radical Agenda for the 1990s. London: Fourth Estate Limited.

Locke, John (1980) Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis; Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

O’ Neill, Martin and Williamson Thad (2012) Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. Chichester and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Pettit, Philip (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Rawls, John (1999) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Rees, John (2017) The Leveller Revolution. London: Verso.

            Rosenblatt, Helen (2018) The Lost History of Liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

            Sen, Amartya (2010) The Idea of Justice. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

            White, Stuart (2014) “Alternative liberal solutions to economic inequality”: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/alternative-liberal-solutions-to-economic-inequality/. Accessed: 23/05/2020.