Time to Rediscover Real Republicanism

The proposed flag of an English Republic by William James Linton.

This weekend the eyes of the world are on London for the Coronation of King Charles III. The Coronation has shown that Britain as a nation excels at delivering pomp and ceremony. This is despite the fact that the ancient tradition of coronating a King, steeped in feudal symbolism and the Protestant religion, looks increasingly out of place in a modern, secular and multicultural liberal democracy. It is also an important moment to reflect upon the republican political tradition, as dozens of republican protesters have been arrested for protesting against the Coronation and for exercising their democratic rights and freedoms.

 

What is most striking at first glance is the great poverty of republicanism in today’s Britain. By this, I do not mean that only 27% in a survey last year would support Britain becoming a republic. I mean that real republicanism has largely been forgotten. Today, republicanism is seen by most, including by most republicans, as simply meaning support for an elected head of state. This is a great philosophical injustice. This is republicanism at its most banal, its most vapid and its most politically vacuous.

 

Republicanism as a political theory is not solely, or even mostly, about having an elected head of state. In fact, throughout history many republics have not had direct elections for the head of state. A contemporary example of this is that of Germany. In Germany, the President is elected by a national Federal Convention. The Convention is comprised of elected members of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, as well as elected delegates from each of the German states. Even the American President is, strictly speaking, not directly elected. Voters in America do not vote directly to elect the President, they vote to elect delegates to the Electoral College. It is the Electoral College that elects the President, not the American people directly.

 

For most republics throughout history, having an elected head of state has merely just been the cherry on top of the republican cake. Republicanism is about much more than the political nature of the head of state, it is about the political nature of the structure of government, its elected representatives and the citizens who vote for them. It is about the values, the principles, the attitudes and the political culture that informs a political society as a whole. Real republicanism is not just about a head of state, it is about the whole nature of government, citizenship and political society.

 

Republicanism as a political theory centres upon building a political society that values citizenship, virtue, democratic participation and the common good. These principles inform all the political actors (citizens, voters, activists and politicians) and all the political institutions (councils, devolved assemblies, the national parliament and the head of state) of a society. It should recognise the common citizenship of all within society, as well as believing that all citizens have a right to democratically participate in the running of the society, and that in all things, the common good must be advanced. Activists and politicians must be driven by a sense of virtue and responsibility to the people. They must recognise what is in the common good of society and always defend the principles of democratic participation for all, while respecting their political opponents and treating them with virtue.

 

Liberty is also of great importance to republicans. In his 1997 work Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, the Irish political philosopher Philip Pettit revived the concept of republican liberty. This being liberty as non-domination. The freedom of citizens to be free of the arbitrary interference of another to make certain decisions on their behalf. In other words, the liberty that comes from not being deprived of the agency and autonomy to make important decisions, that you are able to make for yourself, without your prior consent.

 

Pettit contrasts republican freedom with negative liberty, the freedom from physical restraint and coercion. However, I would argue that republican liberty is the truest expression of classical liberal negative liberty. You cannot have true freedom from coercion, unless you have liberty in the absence of domination. Not to mention, that there are aspects of republican liberty that can be identified in the works of great liberals, such as John Locke, Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill.

 

Today, excellent examples of republican political societies can be seen in modern republics, such as Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Finland, Iceland and Taiwan. However, I would argue that Norway, Sweden and Denmark are more republican in terms of their political societies than the modern United States. This may seem like a controversial statement considering that Norway, Sweden and Denmark are constitutional monarchies and not republics. These Scandinavian countries with strong political traditions centred around community and social democracy are far more in keeping with the values and principles of a republican political society than the US. Especially those parts of modern America that are gripped by divisive right-wing politics, conspiracy theories, the rejection of democratic principles and the post-truth fascistic politics of Donald Trump. The modern US Republican Party is far removed from advocating for real republicanism. It truly is “Republican” in name only.

 

The first step towards Britain becoming a Republic is to build a republican political society. Individual republicans can start to do this right now by embodying the republican principles of public service, virtue, mutual citizenship and the common good in all of their actions. Republics are built by citizens, not just by political institutions and national titles. Regardless of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, there is nothing to stop republican principles from being advanced throughout British society and British politics. We can start to lay the foundations for a future British Republic by embodying republican principles in our personal political conduct. In time, if practiced widely enough, this would foster a political society that centres around a richly republican political culture of citizenship, virtue, democratic participation, republican freedom and the common good.

 

It would help in the development of a popular republican imaginary, if republicans in Britain today had a symbol behind which they could rally behind. Republican movements throughout the ages have used flags to symbolise the republican rebirth of their nations. The best example of this is the blue–white-red vertical striped French tricolour that originated in the first French Revolution of 1789. In The English Republic, published in 1851, William James Linton proposed a blue–white–green horizontal striped tricolour (see above) to be the flag of his English Republic. British republicans previously used a red-white-green horizontal tricolour from the early 19^th century until the early 20^th century. However, this flag is identical to the modern flag of Hungary. Therefore, it is imperative that British republicans create a modern flag to represent the republican movement and the republican political society and government they hope to build.

 

This Coronation weekend, we must remember that republicanism is a deep and rich political philosophy that amounts to far more than just the nature of a country’s head of state. To build a Republic without republicanism is a fruitless task. If Britain was today to start having an elected head of state, without the formation of a republican political society, it would be a “Republic” in name only. Let us begin to build a liberal democratic Commonwealth by fostering a new republican form of politics in our society. The time has come for British republicans to rediscover real republicanism.

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.

Privatisation Isn’t Working

(Photo credit: The Times/News Group Newspapers)

 

Privatisation has become the epitome of the neoliberal policy paradigm. It has become synonymous with Thatcherism in the United Kingdom. Successive Conservative, Labour and coalition governments have preserved the consensus on privatisation, since the initial raft of privatisations of the government of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

 

Privatisation is when the ownership of a company or industry passes into the hands of private shareholders and private managers. It contrasts with nationalisation, when a company or industry is publicly owned by the state, and mutualisation, when a company or industry is owned by its stakeholders and/or workers. Over the past four decades, privatisation has been applied to the energy industry (most notably British Gas and its “if you see Sid tell him” share sale campaign), the water industry, British Rail, Royal Mail, telecommunications (most notably BT), aviation and the vast majority of building societies. Even services within the NHS have been outsourced to private companies.

 

Not all these examples of privatisation have been a disaster, some have been very successful. The privatisation of telecommunications and aviation have proven to be a roaring success with a truly competitive market able to function to provide genuine choice for customers. However, these examples are more the exception, than the rule.

 

As Britain teeters on the edge of the social catastrophe caused by the huge looming cost of living crisis, senior politicians are starting to question the sanctity of privatised industries. While public support for public ownership is high. In this article, I shall briefly discuss how progressives ought to address the privatisation of energy, the railways and water.

 

Energy

 

No privatised industry is coming into as much scrutiny in contemporary British politics as the privatised energy industry. On 26^th August, the government will set the level of the energy price cap. It is unanimously expected to rise considerably. British consumers have already seen their gas and electricity bills skyrocket, and in the coming months they are due to hit unprecedented levels. Upwards of 10 million British citizens face being pushed into fuel poverty. Britain faces the biggest social crisis since the 1970s and perhaps even the 1930s. While the big energy companies make record profits.

 

How ought politicians to respond to this almighty social crisis on the horizon? The New Economics Foundation supports the introduction of a much higher windfall tax set at 45% of the profits of the oil and gas companies. The Liberal Democrats, and now Labour, have called for October’s energy price cap rise to be scrapped. While the Green Party has called for a super tax to be placed on the “dirty profits” of the big oil and gas companies to pay for the mass insulation of people’s homes. In addition, the Co-operative Party has called for the Household Support Fund to at least be doubled. All of which are great immediate policy solutions. All of which the government should immediately act upon.

 

But what should progressives do in relation to the ownership model of the energy industry? Echoing Gordon Brown’s recent calls, any energy companies which are unable or unwilling to lower energy prices for consumers should be taken into public ownership. Any energy companies taken back into public ownership, should only be returned to the private sector if a truly competitive energy market is able to function. However, if an effective competitive market is not able to function in gas and electricity, and there is reason to suspect this, then the state should reserve the ultimate right to transfer all the privatised energy companies into public ownership. This should follow similar lines to EDF and the French Government.

 

It also must be asked whether the privatised energy companies are capable of meeting Britain’s climate change commitments. As the real-world impacts of climate change are being felt, can Britain rely on an energy sector that is still overly dependent on the high profits that come from fossil fuel emissions? The very emissions that are destroying the environment. Any approach of environmental planning needed to mitigate climate change would struggle to be realised, if carbon hungry energy companies continue to put profits ahead of people and planet.

 

The privatised model of energy provision has had 40 years to prove that it can benefit customers. It has had 30 years to prove that it can go green and radically decarbonise. It has failed on both counts. It is becoming clear that the current privatised energy companies are incompatible with Britain’s net zero commitments. Climate change is already a lived reality for billions of people on planet Earth. We are feeling its effects here in Britain. The day is rapidly coming when the state will have to take urgent interventionist action as the climate emergency becomes a full-blown climate crisis.

 

Given the limited capacity for a genuine competitive market in energy and the increasing urgency with which Britain needs to decarbonise, not to mention the need to lower energy bills, then the nationalisation of the privatised energy companies is likely to be the only viable route to take. Environmental realism, more than socialism, will eventually result in the need for the central state to take control over the national energy supply. In this scenario, even mutualisation would not be sufficient, as the state would have to take radical economic action to address climate change.

 

But even if energy remains privatised for the meantime, we cannot go back to business as usual. The state should strengthen the energy regulators to address any unfair and anti-competitive practices by firms in the energy market, such as price-fixing. The government should also sponsor widespread community owned green energy cooperatives, such as community owned wind turbines and solar panels.

 

Finally, the age of the big oil and gas companies paying zero tax must end. We should implement a radical carbon tax on the part of the profits of the energy companies generated by carbon emissions, with the proper tax infrastructure to ensure that the carbon tax is properly collected. We should seek to emulate Sweden’s approach, which has one of the highest carbon taxes in the world. The money generated should be used to invest in state and community owned renewable energy generation.

 

The Railways

 

The railways have continually been a source of contention ever since they were privatised in the 1990s. The railways are a natural monopoly, with one section of train line franchised out to only one private company at any one time. The tickets for rail users continue to go upwards, as the standard of service on the railways remains highly varied, while the pay packets of railway executives continue to bulge.

 

In truth, the railways are already semi-nationalised. The operating company, Network Rail, which administers the railway infrastructure is already publicly owned. It is essentially just the rail stock itself which is privatised. This is the craziest form of privatisation imaginable. The infrastructure of a natural monopoly is nationalised, while the profits of the railways are leached off by the private sector. The risk has been nationalised, while the reward has been privatised. The privatised railways are structured as a rich rail executive’s charter. This farce has to end.

 

But even in regard to the rail stock, the picture is far from consistent across the whole of the UK. Essentially all of the rail stock for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Greater London and Kent are already publicly owned. Approximately half of the rail services in the North of England are already publicly owned, with a notable portion of the services in the East Midlands also nationalised. In addition, rail freight transportation is publicly owned.

 

The railways should be entirely and permanently nationalised and taken into public ownership. However, we should reject a statist and bureaucratic model of renationalisation. Instead, while the railways should be publicly owned, the running of the railways should be more bottom up, mutual and democratic. Rail users, rail workers and community groups which rely on the railways should have a democratic say over the management of the new British Rail. All the members of British Rail, would be entitled to a periodic dividend as profits are shared in the form of price cuts to tickets. In practice this model would work on a similar basis to that of a consumer cooperative.

 

Therefore, initially the railways should be nationalised and then transferred into mutual ownership, financed by the state. It is reasonable to ask why we should not initially just mutualise the railways right away. The reason is that the railway system is already semi-nationalised. It makes sense to complete the nationalisation first. Also, any new British Rail would require initial central, national coordination in the first instance, which only the state can provide.

Water

As regions of the UK head into drought, as climate change begins to have an impact on Britain’s water supply, it has to be asked whether we can still afford the privatised model of the water industry. Added to this, the water crisis has been compounded by the inefficiency of the water companies as up to a quarter of their water is lost in leaks. While water executives continue to reap huge salary rises.

 

Water is a near absolute natural monopoly. The majority of water users in the UK have just one water supplier. There is absolutely no viable competitive market possible when it comes to the supply of water. There are only so many reservoirs, aquifers and rivers to get water from. Water like all natural resources is limited and finite. Once again, the privatised water industry benefits the private water companies and their executives, while maladministration is rife across the privatised water network.

 

An alternative to the privatised model of the water industry can be seen in the corporate governance model of Welsh Water, the water company that administers almost all of the water supply in Wales. Welsh Water is structured as a mutual company on a non-for-profit basis. The profits that the company makes are reinvested into the maintenance of the Welsh water supply and into lowering the bills of water users.

 

The entire water industry in England should be mutualised along lines similar to that of Welsh Water. The mutualisation of water will lead to lower bills for water customers and a more efficient water service as more profits are reinvested into the maintenance of the water system. Profit sharing and not state management should be the driving feature of a model away from water privatisation. Also, the regional basis of the pre-existing English water suppliers lends itself more to mutualisation than nationalisation. Therefore, regional water non-for-profit mutual companies are more preferable than a state-centric nationalised water industry.

 

Can we still afford privatisation?

 

Privatisation was quite literally sold to the British public on the basis of creating a property-owning democracy of citizen shareholders. In practice however, privatisation has resulted not in the creation of a property-owning democracy, but in the creation of a property-owning aristocracy of wealthy corporate executives and elite shareholders. Private executives and shareholders reap the profits and dividends of the privatisation of the utilities and the railways, while customers have to contend with ever higher prices to use these essential services.

 

Britain’s natural wealth and profit is being squandered away by incompetent managers, corporate executives and distant wealthy shareholders. Imagine if that wealth and profit went straight to the public exchequer in order to ensure a just transition to a green future. Alternatively, imagine if that wealth and profit was shared more fairly by being reinvested into services and into lowering the bills of customers.

 

For too long, privatisation has been a charter for rich executives to plunder Britain’s natural asset-based wealth. This is wealth that should be going to the government and/or being reinvested to improve services and help customers. In energy, the railways and water, a natural competitive free market does not operate. The railways and water are natural monopolies, while an effective competitive market struggles to operate in energy, if it even operates at all. In such scenarios, the public are increasingly squeezed as they are made to pay ever higher prices for unsatisfactory services, as the profits generated are squirrelled away into the pockets of a private elite few.

 

At a time when we are facing an entrenched cost of living crisis, when the NHS and other essential public services are stretched to breaking point, as the price of everyday essentials continue to skyrocket, Britain can no longer afford to lose such essential wealth and profit into the hands of private shareholders. The age of privatisation has to end, and in its place a new age of nationalisation and mutualisation should take its place. The only question is, do Labour and the Liberal Democrats have the courage to propose a radical alternative to privatisation?

(Chart of my alternative energy, railway and water ownership models)

We Need Industrial Harmony Between Bosses and Workers

(This blog article was originally published on the blog of the Social Liberal Forum on 7th July 2022, during the latest rail strike. Please see the link to original article here.)

Recently, Britain witnessed a series of rail strikes across three alternate days leading to six days of disruption on the railways. The railway union, the RMT, have not ruled out a future series of strike action in the weeks to come. The threat of industrial action is not just limited to the railways. Nurses, teachers and barristers are also considering industrial action. Britain may well be on the verge of a summer of discontent.

This is yet another consequence of the cost of living crisis. The squeeze on living standards that is being caused by rising inflation is adding to demands from the trade unions for higher wages for their members. This comes on top of years of stagnant wage growth in the public sector stretching back to the years of austerity in the early 2010s. The cost of living crisis is nothing new, it has been a lived reality for the poorest working class communities for well over a decade. The difference now is that due to rising inflation, this crisis is gathering pace and is starting to impact upon the budgets of middle class families.

All of which has summoned memories of the 1970s. However, it is important to recognise that Britain is not going to experience the level of strife and militancy that was seen in the 1970s. In 1970 alone, 10 million working days were lost due to strike action. Today, the trade union movement is much weaker and with a much smaller membership base than was the case in the 1970s. For any capitalist economy to be fair, it requires an active trade union base. There will come times when trade unions have to collectively bargain and strike to achieve fairer pay and conditions for their members. In fact, part of the reason for the stagnant wage growth in the public sector is due to the weakness of the labour movement, not its strength.

The Conservative Party will nevertheless use this opportunity to resume its historic role as the class warriors fighting for the interests of capital against labour. The Tories have been vociferously anti-trade unionist for decades. Tory ministers will actively use the opportunity of the RMT strike to drive forward their own divisive right-wing politics in an attempt to drive a wedge between the public and the trade unions, while the Labour Party of Keir Starmer seems adrift in the face of the current industrial action, devoid of big ideas and unable to develop a compelling narrative to advance social justice and workers’ rights.

The industrial strife of the past must never return. But equally, we must recognise that the crushing victory of Thatcherism in the 1980s, along with the impact of austerity in the 2010s, has left workers powerless and with stagnant wages. Labour both appears to be unwilling and reluctant to revisit the anti-trade union laws of the past. Besides, even if it was possible to unleash trade union militancy again, this would only play into the hands of the Conservatives. The rise of Thatcherism in the 1970s was helped, in part, by the industrial unrest of the period.

The real radical response to industrial unrest is not to unleash it, but to seek to end it once and for all. Not by having a crushing victory over either capital or labour, but by forging industrial harmony between the two sides of economic life. This is the stance of social liberals. Social liberals neither except the militancy of hard-line socialists, nor the economic hardships of ruthless employers. In the historic class struggle, social liberals sought to build a bridge between bosses and workers. On the one hand, supporting social welfare, public services and rights for workers, while on the other hand valuing the contribution of ethical employers and socially responsible businesses.

Social liberals however, do not think it is sufficient just to guarantee that workers and employers exist and operate within a framework of fairness. What is needed to establish industrial harmony is for power to be shared between capital and labour and for the two to work in tandem with one another. This is epitomised by the social liberal commitment to co-determination. It is not enough just to ensure a fairer firm and a fairer set of labour relations; the whole nature and power structures of the firm and labour relations need to be radically overhauled.

Co-determination is where both workers and bosses would act as partners within the company, firm and workplace. The employees would be able to elect a works council. This would be made entirely of worker representatives and would address matters in the workplace such as, terms of employment, human resources and worker productivity. In the age of the Internet, E-democracy holds out the prospect of workers being able to participate in workplace elections across a large geographical area. Platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams could enable elected members of a works council to convene with each other virtually at opposite ends of a country, or even on the other side of the planet. The capacity for virtual works councils elected via E-democracy, only strengthens the contemporary relevance and necessity for co-determination.

The members of the works council would also in turn be able to elect representatives onto the overarching company board to sit alongside traditional professional managers and senior stakeholders. It is not enough just to have a single tokenistic worker representative on a company board. Social liberals must strive for worker representation on company boards to range from 33% of the board to 50%. Such a model of co-determination as outlined here has proven to be successful in Germany, especially in post-war West Germany. It has led to higher productivity, higher worker satisfaction and personal welfare and greater ethical conduct by the company management. In time, it is also reasonable to assume that co-determination would result in fairer wage rises for workers and less need for industrial action, due to greater levels of engagement between employers and employees.

Co-determination represents a form of industrial or economic democracy. Radical liberals, such as John Stuart Mill, John Dewey and Jo Grimond were committed supporters of expanding democracy into the workplace. The social liberal commitment to co-determination should not be seen as an unpalatable compromise between capital and labour. In reality, it represents the empowerment of workers after decades of neoliberal disempowerment, demoralisation and economic hardships. Workers would be given a democratic voice and have the ability to exercise power within the workplace to the benefit of the workforce and the firm overall.

Strike action is not glorious, it is a reluctant necessary evil for every worker involved. Bulging executive pay packets in an age of food banks is not a sign of economic progress, it is a sign of fundamental hardship, even oppression within the economy. It is the job of social liberals to end all forms of hardship and oppression. It is the job of social liberals to build a new more egalitarian model of capitalism, one built on social justice and co-determination. One which ensures social welfare and public services to the least advantaged members of society, while giving all workers a democratic voice and a degree of power within their workplaces.

The strife and class warring of the past must be rejected. Economic hardship and workplace oppression severely restricts an individual’s freedom and autonomy. The time has come for co-determination. The time has come to truly empower workers in partnership with their management. The time has come to strive for industrial harmony. Let this be the mantra of social liberals in the trying economic times to come.

We need a Mont Pelerin of the Left

The neoliberal world is in turmoil. The economic ideology which has been a dominant feature of international politics for several decades faces its biggest challenge to date with the response to COVID-19. Neoliberalism in many countries, especially in the West, has reached hegemonic status and it continues to have a profound impact on developing world countries as well.

The emergence of neoliberalism onto the global stage in the 1970s and early 1980s was the result of decades of intellectual and ideological development by right-wing academics and economists. The seminal meeting in the formation of neoliberalism was the meeting at Mont Pelerin, Switzerland in 1947. This followed on from an earlier meeting at the Colloque Lippmann in Paris in 1938. Presiding over the meeting was the leading right-wing economist Friedrich von Hayek, who a few years earlier had published his most well-known work, The Road to Serfdom. Alongside Hayek were the leading neoliberals of the time including Hayek’s mentor and fellow Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, the Chicago economist Milton Friedman and the leading Ordoliberal economist, Wilhelm Röpke. All the major schools of neoliberal thought were represented at Mont Pelerin: the Austrian School, the Chicago School and the Ordo School.

The Mont Pelerin gathering laid the foundations of the Mont Pelerin Society, along with a statement of six aims which gave an ideational basis to neoliberalism. Over the decades that followed, Hayek and Friedman worked to establish a public policy basis for what Friedman was already calling by 1951 “neo-liberalism”. The ideas of neoliberalism were disseminated by academic research institutions such as the Economics Department of the University of Chicago and leading right-wing think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) established in the United Kingdom in 1955.

What began to emerge therefore was the framework of an international ideology which has become established as neoliberal hegemony. Today that hegemony has been challenged by the global coronavirus crisis like never before, as domestic governments extensively expand their intervention in the economy to counter the public health crisis. Neoliberalism has faced substantial challenges in the past, such as the North Atlantic Financial Crisis of 2008. Back then the narrative was that neoliberalism was finished and that a return to a more statist, if not Keynesian, economic order seemed likely. This did not happen and instead a new phase of neoliberal austerity began with unprecedented cuts to social welfare and public services.

This time must be different. There can be no going back to austerity. Even leading British right-wing think tanks appear to see that the writing is on the wall for austerity. What progressives need to ensure is that a viable alternative replaces neoliberalism which places the values of social justice, the common good, ethical economics and economic democracy at its heart. To do this, there will need to be a project not too dissimilar to the one which began to forge transatlantic neoliberalism at Mont Pelerin. In the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis, there will need to be a consensus on the left as to the form an alternative to neoliberalism should take. This will inevitably include a gathering of leading progressive intellectuals. The likes of Rutger Bregman, Mariana Mazzucato, Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang, Naomi Klein, Guy Standing and Amartya Sen would seem like obvious candidates to provide the ideas to shape such an alternative.

What issues would a Mont Pelerin of the left need to resolve? Firstly, how best to deliver social justice and a radical redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest in society. One idea which has achieved greater prominence since the current crisis began, is that of the universal basic income (UBI). While UBI has committed supporters from the socialist left to the libertarian right (even Friedman advocated a form of it with the negative income tax), the real battleground will be around the form a UBI takes, how generous it is and how it is funded. A libertarian model of flat taxes and minimal welfare provision to deliver UBI would seem greatly unpalatable to socialists, social democrats and social liberals.

Another issue that would need to be resolved is the politics of ownership. Should key industries be nationalised and taken back into the public sector? What role should there be for employee models of ownership, profit-sharing and traditional worker cooperatives? Not to mention the reorganisation of the firm as an institution with a view to making it more democratic and accountable to both its workforce and customer base.

An overriding theme of any alternative to neoliberalism has to be a commitment to ending that other major global crisis which risks the stability of the world, the crisis of climate change. Ideas such as the Green New Deal would help to facilitate a sustainable economy with a high reliance on renewable energy sources built on solid Keynesian foundations. If the current crisis has shown anything it is that the reckless pursuit of profit and growth as being the only viable ends to the economy is hollow and even destructive. There is more to an economy than just GDP. New measurements of the economy will have to be adopted as well, perhaps those which measure levels of inequality and wellbeing.

            The international academic left will have to bring together the multiple strands of thought which it advances against neoliberalism into a single project with a multinational basis. What is needed is a new form of progressive politics for the world of the twenty-first century, just as social democracy and Keynesian social liberalism were well-placed to effectively address the socioeconomic inequalities of the post-war era. A post-Keynesian and progressive gathering similar to that at Mont Pelerin could begin to usher in an effective and viable alternative to neoliberalism. The ideas of such a programme could inform policy research in numerous academic institutions and progressive think tanks around the world with the potential to construct a new progressive hegemony. The old economic order is crumbling and must be replaced by something more progressive and egalitarian than what went before. There is no time to waste.

Bibliography

            Birch, Kean (2017) A Research Agenda for Neoliberalism. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Birch, Kean and Mykhnenko, Vlad (eds.) The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism. London: Zed Books.

Friedman, Milton (1951) “Neo-liberalism and its Prospects” in Farmand, 17 February 1951, pp. 89-93: https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/friedman_images/Collections/2016c21/Farmand_02_17_1951.pdf. Accessed: 25/05/2020.

            The Guardian – (16/05/2020) “Rightwing thinktanks call time on age of austerity”: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/16/thatcherite-thinktanks-back-increase-public-spending-in-lockdown. Accessed: 25/05/2020.

Hayek, Friedrich von (2001) The Road to Serfdom. Abingdon: Routledge.

Held, David (2004) Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Mirowski, Philip and Plehwe, Dieter (2015) The Road from Mont Pelerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Mont Pelerin Society – “Statement of Aims”: https://www.montpelerin.org/statement-of-aims/. Accessed: 25/05/2020.

Peck, Jamie (2014) Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

            Steger, Manfred B. and Roy, Ravi K. (2010) Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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.