Liberal Vision

Finkelstein: LDs should be happy just to be in power

The headline (above) is, admittedly, slightly paraphrased–but this is essentially Danny Finkelstein’s message in The Times today:

The LDs may be dropping in the polls, but they’re IN POWER and should be happy with that.

For those who don’t have access beyond the pay-wall, the Fink argues that the whole point of being high in the polls is to get into government. Thus it’s better to be in government and on 14% in the polls, than out of government and on 20% in the polls. Popularity is simply a means to an end, so if you have achieved the end, this is what matters.

He also claims that a drop in popularity is inevitable when in government, especially for the “junior partner” of a Coalition.

With the rise in LD fortunes in recent times, the Party, he argues, had to make a choice–to remain a Left-ist protest vote (with the option of siding with Labour) or to position itself in the Centre, allowing the option of holding power with either “main” party.

I slightly disagree on the Left-Right model: it’s up to the LDs, surely, to promote the liberal elements of the “Left”–greater civil liberties, a fairer voting system, constitutional reform, tax reform, penal reform, liberal policies on migration (well said, Vince!), less reactionary views on the EU and so on. This is our raison d’etre.

Finkelstein does, in fairness, understand this. He proposes that liberalism can be seen as Centre ground, and that this can appeal to the electorate:

“There is an audience — and an agenda — for a centre party that offers voters a chance to liberalise the others” he says.

The issue of what happens in subsequent elections is extremely pertinent. The LDs should not simply be grateful for 4/5 years in power, and then crawl back to irrelevance. The Cons can’t have their gluten-free soya cake and eat it. Our presence in the Coalition changes everything, and the question of what we do at future elections won’t go away.

On this question, and the dilemma of the polls, I am (for once) on the fence. Affecting government policy is great–but the question is how to make this a more permanent affair. Thoughts below, if you will.

Tags: coalition, Finklestein, Liberal Democrats, liberalism, opinion polls

Burkan Nationalism

The fallout from France’s recent decision to ban people wearing the burka in public epitomises the irreconcilable divide between conservative (with a small c) and liberal ideology. Those truly committed to a liberal agenda should oppose calls for the government to further dictate what we can and can’t wear in public.

Firstly, this isn’t a debate about religion, security or multiculturalism. It’s about individual liberties. Many Conservatives opposed the smoking and hunting bans on precisely these grounds. They seem to have forgotten these noble principles when it comes to this issue.

But civil liberties don’t just extend to principles you agree with- they must be universal. As a lifelong non-smoker (and no fan of fox hunting) I will still defend the rights of others to do this. As I would defend a Muslim’s (or anyone else’s) right to wear whatever he, or she feels fit in public.

Which brings us on to the crux of the debate: the reasons for implementing such a ban. Very few commentators are taking the security concerns issue seriously; after all there are no calls to outlaw oversized hats or sun glasses in public. Private property, of course, is a different issue and the question of appropriate attire should be left to the discretion of proprietors.

In France, part of the justification was the threat to “Frenchness”. Which is fine–so long as you are not one of the anti-French that their all-knowing bureaucrats decide constitutes a threat to national identity. Neither is popular opinion a reasonable justification. The role of government is to protect everybody’s rights- not just those of the groups large enough to make themselves heard. The fact that this will only affect 2,000 French residents is as irrelevant as Mugabe arguing that only a small handful of white farmers will suffer as a result of his “popular” land re-distribution schemes.

The justification championed by Mr Sarkozy (and Andre Gerin– which is a good indication that it’s a truly terrible idea!) is that the burka represents a symbol of oppression of Muslim women: “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience,” Sarkozy informed parliamentarians. Agreed- It most probably is. I, like many others, am not duped by the media focus on “happy-burka-wearers” into believing that there isn’t a deeper social issue at stake here. But since when has prohibition been the best way of approaching such egregious issues? Does anyone really think that banning black eyes in public will prevent domestic violence? If those pertaining to champion Muslim’s women’s rights are sincere in their virtues they should be looking much deeper than at outlawing a visual representation of that oppression.

Unlike some of the more vitriolic lefties I don’t see those calling for a ban as racist, ignorant or anti-Muslim. But I do see them as conservative. And it serves as a timely reminder that the ugly “nimby” side of conservatism will always be at odds with those committed to a liberal society.

Tags: bansturbation, burka, France, liberalism

LUDWIG VON MISES (1881-1973) LIBERALISM (1927

Mises was an Austrian in the sense that he was born into a high bourgeois  German speaking family in the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Mises was from a high bourgeois Jewish family which had roots in Vienna.  However, he was born in Lemberg, now the Ukrainian town of Lviv, which has been also been part of Lithuania and Poland.  The range of languages and ethnicities in the town reflected that history and in Liberalism he refers with great emphasis to the conflicts and suffering of that situation, arguing that the situation can only be experienced in that way in a non-liberal society.

His father was a liberal politician, and Liberalism also refers with great emphasis to the decline of the old liberalism, the liberalism of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries.  The family moved back to its roots in Vienna, and Mises attended the university there, first becoming qualified in law, and the coming under the influence of the ‘Austrian School’ economists Carl Menger and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk.

Mises became an economist in that school, and for many Austrian School economists and libertarians now, he is the most important figure in that school.  Hayek was his student, when Mises became an academic economist.  Mises also worked as an adviser to governments and the Vienna Chamber of Commerce until 1934 when he moved to Switzerland.

He moved to New York in 1940 to escape Nazi-dominated Europe and had some difficulty finding an appropriate niche, but was able in the end to become a recurrent visiting Professor at New York University, though this was privately funded by sympathetic business people.  In his time in Europe, his students included many future economists, government advisers and politicians.

At least some of the more liberal aspects of post-war European economics were under Mises influence.  His students, and others under his influence, in the United States ensured the continuation of the Austrian School, most famously the economist and Anarcho-Capitalist thinker Murray Rothbard.

Mises’ most influential books are probably: Socialism (1922), a lengthy critique of socialism in many aspects and varieties; and Human Action (1949), developed from Nation, State, and Economy (1919), a long treatise which grounds economics in the broadest categories of human life.

He also took part in a famous 1920  debate with the Marxist Oscar Lange about the possibility of economic calculation under socialism.  Mises denied the possibility of economic calculation without a price mechanism guiding the decisions of economic agents.  As he argues in Liberalism, the pursuit of a completely planned economy can only collapse into chaos as decisions will be made with no regard to the best allocation of resources. Liberalism, though probably not one of his most influential books, is a convenient place to introduce his ideas.

We shall return to the other books, and to Rothbard.  Mises was not an Anarchist, and is at great pains in Liberalism to establish that liberalism is not opposed to the state.  His vision of the state is very minimal though, and he strongly condemns deviation from such a view.  This leads to him to reject John Stuart Mill as an authentic liberal, because of Mill’s increasing tendency over time to think that society could evolve towards socialism, or even communism, and preserve liberty.  Mises’ reaction seems harsh in relation to On Liberty and some other Mill texts.  It’s true that at the time of On Liberty, Mill toys with the idea of socialism in Principles of Political Economy, but very briefly and it is only later that Mill makes sustained gestures towards socialism.  In any case, this illustrate Mises’ view that in every way real liberalism has been declining since the mid Nineteenth century, and has become a form of moderate socialism.  Mises does not quite adopt the minarchist view that the state only exists to protect life, liberty and property, but he certainly regards these as the essential aspects of liberalism and rejects most forms of state action going beyond them.

He argues against unemployment benefits, on the grounds that they increase unemployment, and hold back changes in the labour market, of a kind necessary for economic development.  He does think that labour exchanges to help workers find new employment are allowable.  Mises does not completely exclude education from the state sphere, but certainly thinks that in the circumstances in which he grew up that compulsory schooling is dangerous, because it inevitably creates problems about which languages are preferred and more or less disguised pressures to adopt the majority language.  In this context, he also argues that a large state machine worsens relations between different groups, because of the competition to control the state in order to gain economic benefits that results.

Only liberalism respects both individual rights and objective sociological and economic realities.  Wealth is only created if there is private property and associated laws and institutions of the market, which allow the incentives to invest and produce.  Anyone who rejects this rejects reality and is a neurotic.  Mises supports the idea of the League of Nations (the forerunner of the United Nations), arguing it needed stronger powers to prevent war and to prepare colonies for self-government.  Though he supports a world structure to prevent aggression, he opposes European federation on the grounds that this would just promote a European level version of statist nationalism.

Tags: liberalism, ludwig von mises