The next election will be fought on the terrain of liberty. The Tories and, not surprisingly, the Liberal Democrats are gearing up for it. Worryingly though, when it comes to liberty, the British left has suffered a collective bout of amnesia. The progressive left once knew that the ultimate goal of socialists was to maximise the liberty of all to ensure that everyone could live their life to their full potential. But the left forgot about liberty for a number of reasons.
First, the twentieth century was an era of mass production and therefore centralisation, collectivism and command and control. It was an age of statism more than anything else that creed common to reactionaries and conservatives of both left and right that was paternalistic, sometimes authoritarian and always distrustful of people doing things for themselves. Second, the left confused liberty as ends with equality as means and in the process liberty became the enemy of equality. Third, we focused on the wrong type of liberty. There are competing versions of freedom and, unfortunately for the left, it was the right s interpretation which took root. This was freedom as a possessive and selfish individualism. It was freedom driven by the needs of the market, elevating the liberty to own and to buy above all else. The upshot was greater inequality, an inevitable consequence of markets that were left to their own devices. If this was liberty then it is no wonder the left said no thank you .
The rejection of liberty took us on a century-long detour in which too often the left subjugated the individual for the collective, as solidarity in the name of equality took preference over diversity. It led in the East to the gulag and in the West to a dreary and drab form of socialism that meant the council told you what colour to have your front door painted. Ultimately, the failure of the left to be more liberal paved the way for the new right, for Thatcher and a more entrenched version of a marketised politics. If the left could not offer its own version of liberty then it was no wonder people took the only alternative offered by the new right.
It is time to rejoin the battle for liberty and reconnect with our radical past. We are living in a new age of diversity. The era of mass production and big government that could control and command from the centre is over. People are simply unwilling to accept orders from above. The end of deference is to be welcomed and has given way to an age where people question and inquire before they commit. This emerging individualism creates a new opening in which personal fulfilment is paramount. The issue is, how is it to be achieved? The left must reject the primacy of market-orientated freedoms to consume and champion instead a much richer form of liberty liberty as autonomy, as self-management, self-determination and self-rule. A liberal socialism comes organically from the bottom-up, rather than imposed from the top down. It seeks more than anything else to empower people to be the masters of their own destiny. Of course, liberty means the ability to chose. If people want to cherish a new pair of Prada shoes above all else it is ultimately down to them. But we should be confident about two things; first, that our form of liberty is ultimately more rewarding than that of the right and, second, that we can choose collectively to limit the scope of consumerism liberty allows you to do that.
Liberty as autonomy requires Labour to drop its dependency on statism. The state provides security and order the prerequisites of civilisation. But the role of the state must be watched and guarded against. The state tends to be pro-establishment and at the very least conservative with a small c . That is why the left should be suspicious of it. Some on the left see the state as the only bulwark against the anarchy of the market as if that is the only form of liberty we are able to envisage and therefore must guard against. You cannot defeat the human desire for self-realisation by denying it. We must embrace the new individualism, place it in its true social context and use it to champion a truly popular socialism. In this way, we will reconnect with the rich legacy of the pre-statist left the ethical, moral and Christian socialist traditions that placed values above structures and materialism, as well as the trade unionists, mutualisers, co-operators and syndicalists who identified the need for people to take control over their own lives through collective self-help.
In place of statism, the left must embrace decentralisation and the empowerment of people as citizens through an ability to act and participate locally the new localism. This is not just a vital pragmatic step as we find that over-centralisation simply doesn t deliver. Liberty is an intrinsic value the ability to speak, to act, to fully be citizens is a prize in and of itself. It is something to be cherished and protected because it is the foundation stone of self-belief, equal worth and therefore a more equal society.
This is why the left must learn again to celebrate diversity, not just solidarity refusing to see the two as mutually exclusive. Individual liberty, in any sense, can only be the product of collective action. The greater the sense of difference, the greater the need for common bonds. Solidarity creates a readiness to share with strangers the strength and confidence to reach out. There are obvious tensions between the two that will inevitably lead to tough decisions. For instance, should a few people have the liberty to enjoy private education and private health if it denies real freedom to the many? Should the right to buy be extended for the benefit of one generation at the expense of all future generations? How do we protect the rights of minorities over majorities?
For Labour, the issue above all is how to extend and make real the liberty of the working classes and the dispossesed. Much of this will come from a more explicitly egalitarian agenda. But it also means empowerment in public services, local government and community organisations. More radically, it suggests the development of industrial democracy and an enhanced role for trade unions in the private sector, as well as new forms of mutuals, co-operatives and not-for-profit entities that span the public/private divide. It is, of course, vital for the most vulnerable that minimum national standards are guaranteed. Liberty cannot be gained at the expense of equality. This is why national institutions such as the NHS play a crucial role in building a mutual sense of belonging a living, national citizenship and is the reason why the debate about foundation hospitals has been so difficult.
The decisive political fault line of politics is now between liberty as consumption versus liberty as autonomous citizenship. It is a choice that New Labour faces when it confronts the reform of our public services. The temptation to mirror the market must be resisted. The less free we are in terms of self-rule, the more we aspire to the freedom of the market, the freedom to consume. Instead of engaging as consumers of health, in the same way we do with Tesco, we should participate as active citizens. The goal of consumption, after all, is to leave you thirsty for more.
John Gray tells us that politics is the art of choosing between rival freedoms . The right have a confused and limited view of freedom. On one hand, they favour a strong state to enforce market values; on the other, they would have us believe that liberty , in the form of the freedom to consume, is the natural order of things, if only the state did not get in the way. We can choose what type of liberty suits our moral purpose. Liberty as autonomy is the ultimate goal of the left harnessing and balancing solidarity and equality to achieve it. A liberal socialism is the only socialism worth having because it will be by the people, for the people. weblink: www.renewal.org.uk