A series of blog posts recently has led me to think about the realtionship between the liberal and the state.
Liberalism is largely defined by a committment to individual freedom (liberalism is an individualist philosophy, every individual is of equal worth, all have the right to determine their own life).
This leads the liberal to some complex areas which are still under much debate, but generally this leads to the views
- that you should be free to act unless your action harms someone else (the definition of harm is very much under debate, but in my mind the best measure is Mill's famous corn trader example), this includes free speach.
- that the Rule of Law should be paramount - all persons should be equal under the law and the law should be clear with no arbitrary judgments or laws.
- that power should be distributed as equally as possible, that whilst concentrations of power are inevitable, they should be constrained (by the rule of law) and that abuse of power should be punished severely.
Most people (ie everyone but anarchists) would agree that some sort of state is needed to enforce the rule of law. We cannot have people arbitrarily coercing others, so we give the state the sole right to coerce on the understanding that the state is our servent and not the other way round.
For the liberal, the state is an odd beast. The collectivist can (although not always) vest all power in the state, the liberal instinctively shies away from the state as it is a concentration of power (indeed of all coercive power and all legitimate force). That is the liberal used to.
The rise of collectivism in the late 19th and early 20th century has instilled a sense that the state is soley good, despite the atrocities of the collectivist experiments in Germany and Russia and the disasters of our own experiment with it.
In the US, the liberal is now almost totally beholden to the state, suggesting state action to solve every problem and restrictions on freedoms in the name of freedom. They still support many liberal aims, but the means often become illiberal. The libertarians take many of the same aims, but often take the relationship with the state to the other extreme, suggesting the state is near satanic in its evil. The few left in between have no home to go to.
Of course, US Liberalism has always been different to our British strand of the traditions, although it grew from the same routes, simply because of the circumstances of the founding of the USA and the different history, but the same ideals have been shared, but seem to be lost at times.
In the UK we have had collectivist strands in liberal thought. Many have become enamoured of the state whilst calling themselves liberals. This is often associated with 'social liberalism', but I would argue that it is an extreme interpretation of that.
Economic liberalism in the UK faired less well in the 20th Century, despite the Liberal Party and the LibDem's committment to free trade. Margaret Thatcher was in many cases an economic liberal, she tried to free much of the economy from state control, privatising many of the innefficent state monopolies. She was however more of an anti-socialist than a liberal, coming to her position not out of concern for individual freedoms but as an opponent of socialism, and clung onto many conservative beliefs such as the strong nation state and an authoritarian view of the state with little concern for the effects of her policies on people.
The conundrum of the state is that it doesn't exists in itself, you cannot point to something and say "That is the state", it is a collection of institutions and people, so when you talk of 'the state' you are talking of a large number of individuals interacting with each other and with the rest of us through many institutions. So when the liberal looks at it like this, he sees all these people who have their own objectives, and these institutions made up of people with similar objectives. There is no absolute harmony, the state is not a single entity with a single purpose.
So how should the liberal approach the state? We recognise the need for the state, with it rests the sole use of power, but we also see that the state is not a single body with a single purpose, it can come into conflict with itself and even if everyong involved has the best motives, they are unlikely to come up with the best solutions.
Liberals look at the state and see great potential, the love affair with the state is easy to fall into, there is so much potential, but liberals also see the dangers. The state has never been entirely beneficient, people with the best intentions have done incredible damage with the power of the state. You can never be sure of getting the right people: Many thought that New Labour would be the right people and look at how much they've disappointed.
The state is the sole repository of legitimate force, but this force can be used for harm as well as good (and people differ in their views of what is harm and what is good - who is right?).
If social liberalism is defined by the willingness to use the state to improve people's lives and increase freedom, then it must be tempered by some scepticism about the state and controls upon the state. Some say economic liberalism is rejection of the state (if that was the case then Thatcher was no economic liberal), true it does seek to restrict the state, but to increase freedom, to prevent the state harming people.
This duality of positive and negative approaches to the state is central to liberalism. Liberals support free trade and free movement of labour for several reasons: it is best for individuals, it increases wealth and offers opportunities for the poorest and increases freedom, but it also restricts the state and prevents the state from acting in favour of sectional interests through protectionism which whilst it protects the some it harms everyone else.
Liberals are nearly universally in support of state funding of education up to university - from the economic liberalism of Milton Friedman to the most ardent social liberal. This is because education is one of the best ways to improve the possibilities for an individual and the best way to improve their lives. Debate rages on the best methods to provide education and what should be taught, but at the heart there is near universal agreement.
An interesting example is the liberal committment to local, regional and international bodies. These take power away from the central state, local and regional bodies (local government or state and city governments) remove it from the central government and take it closer to those affected, international bodies seek to remove power from the state to act in ways which harm other states - such as removing the right to initiate wars, or to pollute without regard for the effects on others.
Here the central aim is dispersal of power, but we also wish to keep power best exercised by the state with the state - we don't want to be forced into actions contrary to liberal principles by other states.
There are many areas of disagreement amongst liberals on the topic of the state, but they are mostly to do with where the boundary between embracing and shunning the state should be drawn.
Essentially, liberals are the original minarchists, we believe in a minimal state, but no agreement on what that state should do has been reached (nor do I think it ever will).
Much of this is summed up very well by
Tim Worstall here and
Jock Coats has some comment on the current state of things
here.
