Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century: Tensions, Exchanges, and Convergences 303141232X, 9783031412325

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Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century Tensions, Exchanges, and Convergences

Edited by Stéphane Guy · Ecem Okan · Vanessa Boullet · Jeremy Tranmer

Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century

Stéphane Guy · Ecem Okan · Vanessa Boullet · Jeremy Tranmer Editors

Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century Tensions, Exchanges, and Convergences

Editors Stéphane Guy Campus Lettres et Sciences Humaines University of Lorraine Nancy, France

Ecem Okan Campus Lettres et Sciences Humaines University of Lorraine Nancy, France

Vanessa Boullet Campus Lettres et Sciences Humaines University of Lorraine Nancy, France

Jeremy Tranmer Campus Lettres et Sciences Humaines University of Lorraine Nancy, France

ISBN 978-3-031-41232-5 ISBN 978-3-031-41233-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgments

The contributions included in this book are based on papers that were originally delivered at an international conference hosted by the University of Lorraine (France) and the research centre IDEA in 2021. We would like to thank them warmly, as well as the following partner institutions for their support in the organisation of the event: the CRECIB research network, the Universities of Hull and Tours and the PHARE research group. We are also grateful to the Palgrave publishers for their support and guidance.

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About This Book

This book aims to re-evaluate the relations between two major ideologies that have been increasingly contested in recent years, yet continue to be invoked or rejected as foundational systems for political thought or action. With socialism conceiving of itself as an alternative to economic liberalism, the two systems of thought emerged partially in opposition to each other. However, this book seeks to redefine their specificities and the way in which they have not only opposed each other but drew on common notions or paradigms to become both competing and complementary systems of thought and practices. With contributions from eminent political scientists and historians of political and economic thought, the book examines how the polarisation of debates and politicisation of concepts such as property, freedom, the individual or the State, serve to construct the adversary and form a basis for political commitment. Offering an interdisciplinary assessment of the relation between liberalism and socialism, the authors help to make sense of current debate on individual freedom, political obligation and the changing role of the State. Providing an innovative perspective, this edited collection will be of interest to scholars and students researching political and economic thought, history or science, as well as anyone seeking to understand current developments affecting Western societies, and their past, present and future ideologies.

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Contents

Introduction Stéphane Guy

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Friends or Foes? Liberalism and Socialism Between Concepts and Experience Liberalisms and Socialisms: Recalibrating Some Analytical Criteria Michael Freeden

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Antinomies of Socialism and Liberalism: Some Debatable Propositions Cornelius Crowley

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Social Liberalism and Liberal Socialism: Tensions and Compatibility Françoise Orazi

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Reassessing the Liberalism-Socialism Paradigm in Economic Thought Marx, socialism and liberty Fabien Tarrit

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Centralization, Decentralization and Adaptation Dean V. Williamson

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CONTENTS

Marx’s Socialism, Mises’s Liberalism and Their Problematic Theories of Needs and Preferences Sina Badiei

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On Utopia and Melancholy: Liberalism and Socialism at the End of the Cold War Iason Zarikos

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Socialist and/or Liberal Identities: Polity, Politics and Policy Individual, Free Association and Common Ownership: The British Co-operative Movement and Political Ideology François Deblangy

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The Labour Party’s International Thought from 1900 to 1918: Webs of British Liberal and Socialist Traditions Niaz Cary-Pernon

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Exploring the Relationship Between Liberalism and Socialism in Britain’s NHS Louise Dalingwater

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From Conceptual to Discursive Struggles: Activism, Partisanship and Rhetorical Strategies New Deal Liberalism and ‘Creeping Socialism’: The Republican Party and the Construction of Modern American Conservatism, c. 1933–c. 1960 Robert Mason

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The Conservatives’ Representation of Socialism and Liberalism During PMQs Since the 1990s Stéphane Revillet

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Prefigurative Activism Today: From Socialist Values via Anarchist Tactics Back to the Neoliberal Status Quo Rafal Soborski

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Index

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Editors and Contributors

About the Editors1 Stéphane Guy is a Professor of British history at the University of Lorraine, France and specialises in the history of ideas. The author of a monograph on the roots of British socialism, Genèse du travaillisme britannique (Michel Houdiard, 2019), he has published articles and edited books on political and intellectual history, the role of intellectuals in the public sphere and socialist thought. He is Deputy Head of the research centre IDEA (UR 2338). He launched in 2022 and currently supervises the seminar series ‘Constructing ideologies’ at the University of Lorraine. Ecem Okan is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Lorraine, France and specialises in the history of economic thought. She works on the relations between economics, political and moral philosophy, on the philosophy of history through the works of David Hume and Adam Smith in particular and on the Scottish Enlightenment in general. She is a co-organiser of the seminar series ‘Constructing ideologies’ at the centre for Interdisciplinarity in English Studies (IDEA), University of Lorraine. 1 The

authors are members of the Interdisciplinarité dans les Anglophones (IDEA) research centre at the University of Lorraine (France).

Etudes

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EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Vanessa Boullet is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lorraine. Her research focuses on Irish studies and on the interactions between economy, society and politics. She has developed an interest in the impact of multinationals on the Irish economy and its uneven development and also on economic policies implemented during the pandemic in Ireland. In 2022, she published The Unequal Costs of Covid-19 on Well-being in Europe with Louise Dalingwater, Iside Constantini and Paul Gibbs (Springer). She also tries to develop research in Applied Foreign Languages departments in France and she is the editor-in-chief of the journal Revue International des Langues Appliquées Etrangères. Jeremy Tranmer is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France, where he teaches British political, social and cultural history. He has published widely on the history and evolution of the British left, particularly of parties to the left of Labour such as the Communist Party of Great Britain. He has also worked on social movements such as anti-racism and anti-fascism. He is interested in the relationship between the left and popular music, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.

Contributors Sina Badiei is Junior Lecturer at the Centre Walras-Pareto of the University of Lausanne and Director of Program in the Philosophy and Human Sciences Department at the Collège International de Philosophie (Université Paris Lumières). His Ph.D., entitled “Positive Economics and Normative Economics in Marx, Mises, Friedman and Popper”, was the winner of the 2022 Best Dissertation Prize of the “Association Charles Gide pour l’Étude de la Pensée Économique”. His research deals with the relationship between normative economics and positive economics in the history of economic thought, especially in the Marxist and Neo-Ricardian schools, the Austrian school, the Chicago school and the Lausanne school. Niaz Cary-Pernon holds a doctorate from Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. She is a member of the Research Unit ‘Études Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone’ (EMMA), France. Her interests cover the Labour Party’s international thought, British foreign policy, the Cold War

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and the interpretive approach to international relations. Her recent publications include an article on British identities and the 2016 European Union referendum in Observatoire de la société britannique. Cornelius Crowley is Emeritus Professor of British Studies in Université Paris Nanterre. He recently published Jamesian Reading Lessons, The Wings of the Dove, Presses universities de Nanterre, 2021. Louise Dalingwater is a Professor of British Politics at Sorbonne Université. Her current research focuses on health and well-being in the United Kingdom, with some comparative research on European health systems (notably France) and global health policy research. She is Visiting Professor at the East European University. She is also chair of the International Health, Wellness and Society research network based in Illinois, United States. She was recently part of the Precision Health Network (an international research project led by the Universities of Lund and Malmo in Sweden). François Deblangy is a Ph.D. student in British modern history at Rouen University, France. His research work focuses on socio-economic history and industrial democracy. He is currently writing a Ph.D. thesis under the supervision of Pr. John C. Mullen about the history of worker co-operatives in Great Britain. He recently published an article about the development of the British worker co-operative movement from its inception to the late twentieth century. He is also a member of the Co-Operative Researchers; Network (CORNet). Michael Freeden is Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of Oxford and Emeritus Professorial Fellow, Mansfield College Oxford. His books include The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978); Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford, 1996); The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (co-edited, Oxford, 2013); Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015). He was the founder-editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. He has been awarded the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Studies by the UK Political Studies Association, and the Medal for Science, Institute of Advanced Studies, Bologna University, and is a Fellow of the Academy for Social Sciences.

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EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Robert Mason is a Professor of US history at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan (Cambridge University Press, 2012). With Iwan Morgan, he is co-editor of Seeking a New Majority: The Republican Party and American Politics, 1960–1980 (Vanderbilt University Press, 2013) and The Liberal Consensus Reconsidered: American Politics and Society in the Postwar Era (University Press of Florida, 2017). With Patrick Andelic and Mark McLay, he is co-editor of Midterms and Mandates: Electoral Reassessments of Presidents and Parties (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). Françoise Orazi is a Professor of British Studies at Lyon 2 University (France). Her work centres on the history of political ideas with a focus on liberalism. Her latest books are La Tolérance politique, Nouvelles perspectives sur les influences anglo-saxonnes, (Classiques Garnier, 2021) and L’Individu libre Le libéralisme anglo-saxon de John Stuart Mill à nos jours (Classiques Garnier, 2018). Stéphane Revillet is a doctoral researcher and teacher at the University of Bourgogne. He is a member of the research centre Centre InterlanguesTexte, Image, Langage (TIL). Specialised in British studies his research interests include parliamentary studies with a special focus on the Conservative party and leadership in the UK. Rafal Soborski is Professor of International Politics at Richmond American University London and Senior Research Fellow at University of Roehampton, School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He has taught and published extensively on ideology, social movements, globalisation, green politics and the far right. He is the author of two books: Ideology in a Global Age: Continuity and Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Ideology and the Future of Progressive Social Movements (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018). He chairs the Global Studies Research Network and is Editor of the International Journal of Interdisciplinary Global Studies. He currently works on an ESRC-funded project on immigrants and the far right.

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Fabien Tarrit is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Economics, Management and Social Sciences, University of Reims ChampagneArdenne in France. He is a member of the multidisciplinary research team REGARDS, in which he is in charge of the ‘Economic Philosophy and Theory’ research axis. His research interests focus on Marxism, class struggle, theories of justice and left-libertarianism. His recent publications include “Marx, Schumpeter et les classes sociales” in Actuel Marx (with Fabrice Dannequin), “Sorry, We Missed You-Unveiling the XXIst Century Proletarian Life” in M@n@gement (with Florent Giordano), “Erik Olin Wright (1947-2019): classes and utopia” in Cescontexto, and “Marxisme et théorie néo-classique” in Cahiers d’économie politique. Dean V. Williamson is an Economist (Ph.D. Caltech 1999) and an Independent Researcher. He spent twenty years as a research economist with the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice. More recently he spent time in Kyiv working as an advisor to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine. He is the author of The Economics of Adaptation and Long-term Relationships (Edward Elgar, 2019). Iason Zarikos is a Historian and Post-doctoral Researcher at the National University of Athens. He has worked in Greek and EU-funded research projects. His doctoral thesis was an intellectual history of Liberalism in late twentieth century. He has co-authored a monograph on the 1970’s. He has also published papers on the history of Climate Change, Liberalism as well as the links between the ideology of economic growth, the environment and consumerism. He is the co-editor of the two-volume project “The Making of the Atlantic Monarchy”, to be published by Bloomsbury. His current research project is an intellectual history of the early twenty-first century through the prism of climate change.

List of Tables

Marx’s Socialism, Mises’s Liberalism and Their Problematic Theories of Needs and Preferences Table 1

Comparative advantage with three goods

134

The Conservatives’ Representation of Socialism and Liberalism During PMQs Since the 1990s Table 1

Representation of the stakeholding society by the Conservatives

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Introduction Stéphane Guy

Although the fall of the Berlin Wall led Francis Fukuyama in 1992 to predict the triumph of liberal democracy, the terrorist attacks of 2001 in the USA and 2005 in the UK, the economic crisis of 2008, Brexit, the COVID-19 crisis and the rise of illiberal regimes within Europe have resulted in the reappearance of debates about the relationship between the state and the individual, ranging from the issue of voter representation and equality to the distribution of wealth and the role of public authorities in the promotion of the good life or environmentalism. These transformations have questioned the boundaries between systems of political and economic thought that had previously been considered, perhaps wrongly, as separate: China claims to fuse socialism and capitalism, while the ruling British Conservatives, like other governments advocating freemarket economics, have increased public spending massively to address the health crisis. In countries where the left has not gained sufficient support to be elected to government, it has displayed both a vibrancy that refutes the thesis of its collapse, but also deep divisions over the nature and extent of social reforms or the role of the state in the face

S. Guy (B) University of Lorraine, Nancy, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_1

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of globalization and multiculturalism. The principles of emancipation and individual rights based on modernity and the Enlightenment have faced criticism, expressed in the rise of populism, conservatism and the invocation of traditional values. A number of recent social and political developments and upheavals have made it necessary to reconsider simultaneously two founding pillars of Western culture, liberalism and socialism, their differences as well as their convergences and interactions. The war in, or invasion of, Ukraine that began in February 2022 is but one instance of the need to take the broader view when examining these ideologies. Basing oneself on Chantal Delsol’s conception, the conflict could well be the latest manifestation of a clash between civilizations, the Western culture of individualism (that includes both liberalism and socialism) being fundamentally at odds with the holism rooted in Russia as well as China or Arab countries (Delsol 2020). The flourishing and endurance of illiberal democracies in Central Europe highlight the disconnect between notions that, until the early twenty-first century, had seemed to go hand in hand: a free market, individual rights and universal suffrage (Mounk 2018). Tradition, paternalism and a critique of materialism have been repeatedly and increasingly pitted against the progressive perspective that liberals and socialists had so far claimed to embody. This conservative counteroffensive was partly grounded on the conviction that the 2007–2008 crisis exposed the limits of an exclusively growth-based economy promoted by the two ideologies alike, at the expense of ethics and community: What was needed urgently, on that view, was reflection about the purpose of production and “how much is enough” (Skidelsky 2012). The necessity for a combined reassessment of the legacy of socialism and liberalism is also prompted by the latest forms of popular left-wing activism found in environmentalist and animal welfare movements. In a number of these groups, the two ideologies have not been dismissed as the complementary faces of modernity but have provided inspiration and an intellectual basis for action and theory. On the one hand, in their defense of the common good, a large share of environmentalists embrace the critique of capitalism or neoliberalism along the lines of socialist theory: the thirst for profit and competition should be replaced, they contend, by cooperation and redistribution, democracy requiring not only procedural freedom but also positive justice and respect. At the same time, however, the founding principles of their protest and sometimes direct action draw on a liberal belief in universal rights, albeit

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extended to the non-human. In that sense, some traditional socialists have reproached them for condoning capitalist ideology by diverting attention from economic to what are deemed less urgent matters. Similar debates and paradoxes could be identified as regards minority activism: race and gender inequalities are considered alternatively as the outgrowth of neoliberalism which only state intervention could remedy, or as part of a convenient stratagem of the powerful (sometimes described derogatively as “pinkwashing”) to preserve their privilege and curb the economic and political freedoms of the majority. Figures such as Marxist scholar Adolph Reed (2020) and left-leaning philosophers like Richard AndersonConnolly (2019), Olúf´e.mi O. Táíwò (2022) and Susan Neiman (2023) have reproached identity politics for diverting attention from structural economic and class issues to what are deemed less urgent matters, thereby condoning capitalist ideology. All these recent, and less recent, tendencies and events raise the question as to what extent the two major ideologies of modernity, socialism and liberalism, have been transformed, diluted or recast over the decades and have interacted upon each other in the past and in the present. From a contemporary perspective, socialism and liberalism are undoubtedly perceived as two antithetical ideologies that point to competing conceptions of the State, the individual and justice. In everyday life and conversations, while the former term may be associated with intervention, collectivism or redistribution, the latter evokes individual rights, emancipation from any form of control, self-help and the free market. Such a binary account of the two systems, however, breaks down on closer inspection. History shows us conflicting loyalties among the leading figures of either ideology, along with circulation of ideas and endless reformulations of principles and dogma. On a number of occasions, liberalism and socialism have intersected. Departing from the strict philosophical radicalism of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill famously came to advocate state intervention as a necessary step to allow individuality to flourish and the higher pleasures to be satisfied, drawing on the romantic tradition that inspired a number of socialists in their critique of capitalism (Mill 2008). Heirs to the reformist thought of T. H. Green, the New Liberals of the early twentieth century saw in the state a crucial actor in promoting the liberty, i.e., fulfillment, of the individual (Tyler 2010–2012). More broadly, research on liberalism has on several occasions sought to emancipate it from reductive grids of interpretation that would overstate hard-nosed individualism (Rosenblum

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1987), legal processes (Rosenblatt 2018) or even the homogeneity of the ideology itself (Bell 2014), remarking that “liberalism’s vulnerability to critique emerges from its internal confusion” (Stears and Freeden 2015, 341). All these fault lines of the ideology have constituted opportunities for socialism to engage with liberal principles rather than simply reject them wholesale. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, socialism itself was increasingly divided between the Marxist call for a proletarian revolution and the rejection of bourgeois democratic institutions and the reformism supported by such intellectuals as the Fabians who, often initially attracted to Mill’s radicalism, claimed to reconcile individualism with a collectivist economy (Guy 2019). In Germany, the revisionist controversy was yet another instance of interaction between the two ideologies. Opposing economic determinism and the Marxist teleological prophecy of the collapse of capitalism, Eduard Bernstein advocated parliamentary reform and party politics to precipitate the advent of socialism, relying on pillars of the liberal tradition, democracy and selfdetermination (Bernstein 1993). In the twentieth century, the rise of the New Left and its assertion of social rights was a response to the oppressive state socialism of the Soviet bloc, endorsing liberal democracy as an unavoidable partner in the promotion of socialism. Under Tony Blair, New Labour went further in the process of emancipating socialism from the state by amending Clause IV: “power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few.” Yet even before this momentous change, Labour was marked by intrinsic contradictions, notably an attraction to the liberal principle of individual autonomy alongside the quest for social justice. A cornerstone of Labour’s socialist program in postwar Britain, the Beveridge Report’s commitment to minimum protection ensuring individual initiative would never be stifled by the state has been at the heart of not only the Conservative but the Labourite approach to welfare. These ambivalences of socialism have led to repeated attempts at defining a system of values that might transcend historical circumstances or partisanship, paving the way for an interaction with liberalism, theorized by thinkers like Leszek Kolakowski (1990), Norman Geras (1983, 2017; Pitts 2020) or, more recently, Axel Honneth, arguing for a renewal of socialism based on its traditional commitment to “social freedom” (2017).

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The diversity of cases where socialism and liberalism have seemed to overlap and indeed sometimes converge suggests that political, historical, economic and philosophical factors must be considered in order to make sense of these interactions. Depending on the disciplinary area in which they are studied, the two ideologies take on different meanings. If, for an economist, liberalism suggests a free market and socialism state control of the economy, philosophy will focus on the political implications of freedom. Distinguishing between positive and negative liberty, following the approach popularized by Isaiah Berlin, may lead one to consider liberalism as compatible with institutions that foster individual accomplishment (Berlin 1969), thereby qualifying the economist’s identification of the state with socialism. The political scientist will be keen to uncover the strategies underlying politicians’ and parties’ discourse resorting to the two notions, thereby pointing to the multilayered meanings of the two notions that may be appropriated, distorted, recycled in an endless competition for holding power and pressing the public into supporting them. Conversely, philosophers will seek to assess the claims laid by each system to the most equitable and reasonable way of organizing the polity and the production of wealth through a reflection on justice, democracy or equality. From another perspective, the historian of ideas shows the extent to which the abstract notions of society or freedom are deeply embedded in different contexts and how their meanings vary, often imperceptibly, according to circumstances and power struggles as well as abstract reasoning and argumentation. All these complementary approaches prove that any attempt at accounting for the complex relationships between socialism and liberalism requires an interdisciplinary analysis of definitions and theories that will take into account historical developments, the thought of the figures that have embodied and contributed to fashioning the two traditions, and the ways in which practical politics has not only reflected but informed these world-views. Drawing on different fields of knowledge, this book offers a conjoint study of socialism and liberalism by examining how they have both rejected each other and evolved by interacting and sharing common ground, sometimes speaking the same language and pursuing the same ideals, while posing, and being represented, as antagonists. Referring to past and contemporary contexts, drawing on economic and political science and ideas, on the history of thought and philosophy and on political history, the volume aims at providing readers with a multi-perspective account of how the two ideologies have been shaped over the centuries

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and continue to determine public debate despite recurring claims that the left–right divide is no longer relevant or that we live in a post-ideological age (Freeden 2005). The first part of the book focuses on what it means to bring together the notions of socialism and liberalism as objects of study. Embracing the two concepts raises epistemological and methodological questions that Michael Freeden sets out to formulate in historical and contemporary perspective. The chapter examines the shifting borders between the two ideologies: far from being monolithic, they are shown to be constantly overlapping and changing in space and time. Crucial to Freeden’s analysis is the tension between the grand narratives of the past and current challenges to party politics such as race, gender, the environment and mass democracy. A particular instance of the unsteady boundaries between the two ideologies is provided in chapter three with Françoise Orazi’s comparison and discussion of two seemingly equivalent systems of political thought: social liberalism and liberal socialism. Basing her contribution on various liberal traditions that have invoked equality or state intervention, and socialist ones advocating rights and choice over uniformity and bureaucracy, the author analyzes the political and philosophical implications of seeking to reconcile collective well-being with individual autonomy. From another standpoint, Cornelius Crowley also aims to come to terms with the dichotomy between socialism and liberalism by examining their common rootedness in a narrative of Promethean and definitive emancipation. Questioning the panacea of a solely institutional solution to injustice offered by socialists and liberals, the author argues that bridging categories, including “planetary deference” and the “inalienable dignity” of human beings, may both help to expose the flaws in the rhetoric of slavery and highlight the need for agency and responsibility as prerequisites to the realization of social justice. As economic and political systems, liberalism and socialism share the goal of satisfying the needs of humanity by defining the function of civil society and institutions to achieve prosperity alongside justice and selfdetermination. The contributions of Part II of the book show to what extent economic theory, whether advocating one or the other system, cannot dispense with reflecting on the purpose of society or community, the meaning of history or the very nature of the good life, thereby paving the way for a dialogue between two age-old foes. Fabien Tarrit, for instance, elaborates on the underlying humanism of the Marxist project, elsewhere explored by Muriel Seltman (2019), with the aim of showing

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the convergence between the liberal and socialist narratives of emancipation. Deploying a critique of capitalism, the author argues that Marx’s and Engels’ rejection of the state and invocation of free association as the end of history strike their roots in the liberal aspiration to individual freedom. In an attempt to vindicate the compatibility between individual liberty and communism, Tarrit nuances the accusation of authoritarianism that is usually leveled at the latter and seeks to shed light on the type of society that it could allow to flourish. A more critical approach to the possible convergences between the two traditions is voiced by Dean Williamson in his discussion of the assumption, formulated by Lenin among others, that the efficiency that capitalist economies strive for would be accomplished in a centralized collectivist system. The contributor’s chief contention is that the economy is subject to all sorts of contingencies that require careful thought about the nature of firms, governance and organizations: a reductive opposition between socialist centralization and liberal decentralization can be overcome by theorizing the shortcomings of each system and reviewing the tradeoffs, in organizational terms, induced by the shift from one to the other. A key point made by Williamson is the ability of agents, beyond the socialist/liberal opposition, to adapt to circumstances that contracts cannot anticipate. The flaws of binary oppositions are particularly obvious when theoretical pleas for socialism and liberalism fail to take account the anthropological factors underlying the aspiration of individuals to combine prosperity and self-determination. Sina Badiei, for instance, brings to light the common difficulties that are inherent in the theories of two of the ideologies’ arch-apostles, Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx. While promoting systems that aim at prosperity (with the underlying common assumption that they disagree on the means to achieve it rather than on the principle as such), both writers fail to make the difference between different kinds of needs, in particular between basic needs and preferences. Badiei argues that factoring in such a distinction would help avoid the dangers of inequalities resulting from “pure” economic liberalism, or of totalitarianism under a socialist regime: it would enable public authorities to guarantee a collective minimum alongside individual fulfillment and initiative. The status of needs and preferences in economic theory points to another area that is common to socialism and liberalism: the belief in unlimited growth. Seeking to account for a sense of melancholy that has

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been perceptible since the collapse of the Berlin wall and the wouldbe end of ideologies, Iason Zarikos suggests that growthism, which formed an “iron connection between socialists and liberals,” was devoid of any mobilizing force. Against such an ideology that presents growth as universal, Zarikos suggests that only a historicization of the notion can help address the challenge of consumption-induced climate change. What the theoretical debates and controversies on the strengths and weaknesses of either system display is how, beyond antagonisms, socialism and liberalism have tended to overlap and to share common assumptions and ideals deeply rooted in modernity. At stake in the conjoined study of the two systems is not so much the intrinsic, would-be essential values that they claim to stand for as the way in which actors in various contexts seek to (re)appropriate a number of notions while endeavoring to present them as universal, or, in Michael Freeden’s words, to “decontest” them (Freeden 2013, 23). A contextualization of ideological disputes reveals the ever-changing borders between socialism and liberalism. Part III of the volume supplies the reader with a number of past situations where the political identity of movements or institutions, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, appears to have been at the intersection of socialist and liberal traditions. Providing a historical overview of the cooperative movement from its inception in the early nineteenth century to the 1990s, François Deblangy highlights the competing ideals and principles that have been its fortune and misfortune: through its critique of capitalist exploitation, cooperatism has tended to be identified with left-wing activism, ever since Robert Owen, the father of “socialism,” launched the New Lanark experiment in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Yet the chapter also emphasizes how the cooperators’ suspicion toward the state and their strong attachment to individual initiative and prosperity prevented them from embracing a full-scale, state-initiated reorganization of the economy, leading them to be at odds with the Labour Party since its creation in 1906. Deblangy’s contention that cooperation was in fact more liberal in essence than socialist points to the difficulty raised by a facile opposition between “individualist” liberalism and “collectivist” socialism. In light of the chapter’s discussion, it is safe to assume that, historically, no human enterprise, of which cooperators were only an instance, may be identified absolutely with one or the other system, since, as Mark Bevir puts it, “ideologies are not mutually exclusive, reified entities. They are overlapping traditions with ill-defined boundaries” (Bevir 2011, 86).

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One might add that underlying Deblangy’s study are the paradoxes that socialism has repeatedly been confronted with, the ideology seeking both to emancipate the individual through the satisfaction of their desires (with selfish consumption as a basis for the good life) and to transcend material claims by achieving social justice and equality. Similarly, cooperation exposes liberalism’s ambivalent assumption that individual freedom constitutes the foundation of the good life in society: though “socialist” for its members, the cooperative does not challenge the competitive nature of the market economy, beyond the belief that the cooperative spirit may spread to society as a whole. Focusing on international policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Niaz Pernon sheds light on such paradoxes by demonstrating to what extent progressive political figures and intellectuals adopted a variety of nuanced standpoints regarding the British Empire and its interaction with domestic affairs. Although they shared a number of aspirations to justice in Britain and abroad, liberals, Fabian socialists and later Labour politicians or supporters invoked alternatively the need for regulation, cooperation, community or moral duties in dealing with international relations, blurring the distinctions between parties or groups. Within each of them, crises like the Macedonian campaign or the Boer Wars sparked debates over the function of the Empire and gave rise to new nuances and elaborations that constantly recast the boundaries between socialism and liberalism. Circumstances, party politics and individual commitments and trajectories all contributed to the expression of different views regarding freedom and equality that outgrew neatly defined, ahistorical conceptions of socialism and liberalism. A landmark achievement of postwar Labour policy, the NHS also exemplifies the interaction of both ideologies when it comes to reconciling well-being, social justice and efficiency. Louise Dalingwater discusses, throughout her chapter, the so-called socialist inspiration, in Aneurin Bevan’s words, for the NHS and the reforms that it has undergone, facing the two-pronged challenge of meeting the needs of the population as a coherent whole while remaining cost-effective. The principle of free access to healthcare has never been significantly questioned as such in its history and a crisis such as the COVID-19 outbreak has led to a rise in public spending on public health that might reflect the institution’s socialist roots. However, the author argues, continuous financial pressure alongside the implementation of a neoliberal agenda since the 1980s have

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caused the NHS to resort to market methods that have been increasingly perceived as being at odds with its founding principles. Against the backdrop of a shift from postwar welfarism to capitalist efficiency, the chapter reveals the difficulty of preserving a universalist, socialist-based, provision of healthcare while taking account of the individual’s growing aspiration to consume and spend less on a tax-funded NHS. In recent years, rationing has constituted a case in point of this tension: Louise Dalingwater argues that in response to financial pressure, the NHS has used this type of allocation to exclude certain groups from the services when they were deemed not to need them. Of course, this shows that, whether viewed as a socialist institution or a private enterprise, the NHS, like any organization, is confronted with political and ethical dilemmas that will be responded to by invoking alternatively the public interest or individual responsibility. By seeking to determine to what extent various movements or institutions are socialist or liberal, the contributions of Part III touch upon another fundamental dimension of a comparison between the two ideologies: that of interpretation. While actors engage in politics in the name of what they deem to be a coherent body of ideas, values or beliefs, history shows us that the meanings of these tenets vary according to their context: to grasp the relationship between the two ideologies, it is, therefore, necessary to consider them less as abstract philosophical systems of thought than as part of conversations (Skinner 2002) and discursive struggles that endow them with a multiplicity of meanings. Part IV of the book examines a number of situations where the notions of socialism and liberalism are wielded as political weapons, exposing the partisanship of competing actors as well as the flaws and gaps in their respective outlooks and agendas. Robert Mason, for instance, pays close attention to the American Republican Party’s response to New Deal “liberalism” from the 1930s to the 1960s. The very fact that in the American context, liberalism refers to left-wing policies involving federal or state intervention, and the promotion of individual rights is telling of its multiple ambiguities, much in the same way as “socialism” covers a whole range of sometimes incompatible ideas and practices. Robert Mason emphasizes how, beyond the scarecrow label of socialism that it tended to pin onto Democratic New Deal reforms, the GOP was deeply divided over its founding principles and identity. In different ways and terms, Republican officials oscillated between claims that their party embodied “true liberalism” as opposed

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to the “false” one of F. D. Roosevelt’s program, and attempts at reappropriating, when in office, some of the measures without appearing inconsistent and losing credibility. Beyond their “negative” stance, as Mason describes it, and their inability to come to terms with reforms that on principle were hard to challenge, these verbal contests testify to the difficulty of determining the inherently socialist or liberal (in the British sense) nature of a policy or agenda. Political actions and debates are informed not only by beliefs as such but also by rhetorical strategies that are, at best, ill-informed, at worst disingenuous and manipulative. On this view, the chapter by Stéphane Revillet shows how the multilayered meanings of socialism and liberalism can both converge or diverge, depending on the standpoint and interests of the persons who use the terms. Basing his work on Parliamentary debates in the UK, the author analyzes a whole range of instances when the notions were used by Conservative leaders to discredit Labour or vindicate their own party. Through the multiplicity of strategies that are discussed, the contribution exemplifies the ways in which the two notions can be opposed, merged, poached or even paraphrased by one group, blurring the facile identification of post-Thatcherite Conservatism with liberalism and Labour with socialism. From a broader perspective, Revillet’s and Mason’s contributions highlight the risks of minimizing the implications of the discursive struggle underlying practical politics. If actions, reforms and revolutions result from ideas, imagination and narratives rather than merely economic or social circumstances, then the fight over concepts is crucial. A concrete example of meanings determining political developments can be found in the last chapter of the book. Rafal Soborski seeks to assess the significance of the anti-capitalist response to the 2008 global crisis by focusing on the “movements of the squares” that sprang up in the USA, Spain or France. Analyzing what he calls a “99% vs 1%” populist rhetoric that was deeply rooted in anarchist conceptions of freedom (a concomitant critique of state socialism and capitalist exploitation, alongside an assertion of individual rights and autonomy), the author contends that the movements’ inability to achieve a momentous change of the financial markets’ supremacy was due to a lack of theory articulating practical and practicable alternatives to neoliberalism. Considering their own organizations as necessarily “prefigurative” of another social order, they failed to develop a program that might have transcended the crisis effectively. In that sense, the contribution highlights the deep and often paradoxical interactions between the two ideologies that this volume repeatedly

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brings to light: while relying on a left-wing rhetoric striking its roots in socialism, in effect, the movements’ promotion of individual emancipation has drawn on myths, notably the “technological miracle” of social media, that form the bedrock of the neoliberal ideology which they claim to break down. This suggests that, far from disappearing from public debate, the socialism and liberalism paradigm will continue, albeit in unexpected ways, to mobilize groups and inform political action and thought for many years to come.

References Anderson-Connolly, Richard. 2019. A Leftist Critique of the Principles of Identity, Diversity, and Multiculturalism. Lanham: Lexington Books. Bell, Duncan. 2014. What Is Liberalism? Political Theory, 42 (6): 682–715. Berlin Isaiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bernstein, Eduard. 1993. The Preconditions of Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bevir, Mark. 2011. The Making of British Socialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Delsol, Chantal. 2020. Le Crépuscule de l’universel. Paris : Cerf. Freeden, Michael. 2013. The Political Theory of Political Thinking: The Anatomy of a Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeden, Michael. 2005. Confronting the Chimera of a ‘Post-ideological’ Age”. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8 (2): 247– 262. Freeden, Michael, Lyman Tower, Sargent, and Marc Stears (Ed.). 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press, 2006. Geras, Norman. 1983. Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend. London: Verso. Geras, Norman. 2017. The Norman Geras Reader. Ed. Eve Garrard and Ben Cohen. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Guy, Stéphane. 2019. Genèse du travaillisme. La philosophie de l’histoire des Fabiens. Paris: Michel Houdiard. Honneth, Axel. 2017. The Idea of Socialism (2015). Cambridge: Polity Press. Kolakowski, Leszek. 1990. Modernity on Endless Trial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mill, John Stuart. 2008. Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism. Ed. Jonathan Riley. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Mounk, Yascha. 2018. The People vs. Democracy. Cambridge, Mass., London, England: Harvard University Press. Neiman, Susan. 2023. Left is not Woke. Cambridge: Polity Press. Pitts, Frederick Harry. 2020. A Liberal Marxism? Mutual Care, Global Humanity and Minimum Utopia. Political Quarterly, 91 (1): 235–242. Reed, Adolph. 2020. Socialism and the Argument Against Race Reductionism. New Labor Forum, 29 (2): 36–43. Rosenblatt, Helena. 2018. The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rosenblum, Nancy L. 1987. Another Liberalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Seltman, Muriel. 2019. Marx the Humanist. London: Troubador. Skidelsky, Edward and Robert. 2012. How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life. New York: Other Press. Skinner, Quentin. 2002. Visions of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Táíwò, Olúf´e.mi O. 2022. Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). London: Pluto Press. Tyler, Colin. 2010–2012. The Liberal Socialism of Thomas Hill Green. Exeter: Imprint Academic.

Friends or Foes? Liberalism and Socialism Between Concepts and Experience

Liberalisms and Socialisms: Recalibrating Some Analytical Criteria Michael Freeden

In exploring the relationship between any two ideologies, it is common to compare them in terms of national policies, crises, advocacy of economic arrangements, the role of the state, or democratic rights. Significant and revealing as these topics are, they are not my sole focus in this chapter. The study of ideologies is also the product of methodological choices and perspectives that heavily determine the questions we ask and the answers we then extract. So first I would like to set out four issues. Interpreting the liberalism/socialism nexus as a problem of boundaries that have become blurred as a set of distinct issues, or as containing stable components, can be deceptive for the following reasons. First, addressing those ideologies macroscopically in the singular conceals the many variants that always nest under such labels. Referring to liberalisms and socialisms in the plural may offer a more reliable point d’appui. Second, the tendency to approach liberalism and socialism as adjacent entities on a linear spectrum distorts the micro-morphologies of either, so that with regard to any number of themes the space between their

M. Freeden (B) Mansfield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_2

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concepts can narrow or expand. Third, the temporal dimensions of liberalisms and socialisms undergo constant modifications. Change at variable speeds applies not only to the large-scale evolution or retrogression of the ideological families but also to the different tempi that their several conceptual components exhibit vis-à-vis each other—some reasonably constant, others volatile and transient. Fourth, the clusters under discussion may share several ingredients and shed others, but what is crucial is the relative (and constantly fluctuating) mass each component possesses in the assemblage in which it is located, alongside some telling absences (Freeden 1996). All those features relate also to mutations in the roles of emotion and performativity that require constant monitoring in any comparative study.

The Tyranny of Boundaries The problem of boundaries or their frequent disregard and crossing is not of particular help in this context. Boundaries are a heuristic device drawn for pedagogical and simplification purposes, or for competitive party purposes. Postulating them as a given gets us off on the wrong foot. Ideologies emphatically do not have boundaries, as they are largely amorphous constructs, although they may have recurring themes that act as de facto cores or patterns. And it is also politically convenient for ideological rivals to invent and insist on boundaries when often what they produce are arbitrary lines in the sand. Bestowing a name on an ideology overlooks the fact that we are always talking about liberalisms, not liberalism; about socialisms, not socialism and that, were we to speak of boundaries, they could just as well indicate internal divisions within an ideology. What may be found inside the loose domain of the space we assign to those liberalisms or socialisms are clusters of ideas, concepts and attitudes in a state of continuous flux, yet scholars are frequently reduced to assembling freeze-frame samples over time and across space that they laboriously—and often unintentionally—paste together to create the illusion of continuity and body. The idea of progress, attached specifically to the two ideologies discussed here, is seriously culpable here. Not because ‘liberal’ progress as emancipating and civilizing, or ‘socialist’ progress as equalization and classlessness, do not exist as significant factors in the programmatic ambitions of each, but because it creates expectations of a mechanism rolling inexorably towards the uplands, as over-optimistic theories of progress profess (Nisbet 1980). Liberalisms have no truck

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with Hegel’s ‘cunning of reason’ with its advances and reversals eventually resulting in a synthesized end-state. But Marxist socialism also raised false expectations by subscribing to an inherently ‘scientific’ optimism about the bourgeoisie being its own gravedigger. Disruption of a process is not on that menu. Yet, as we know, revolutionary socialism is built around disruption, though even then Lenin’s ‘One Step Forwards, Two Steps Back’, is a critique, not an endorsement, of a failure of rhythm. The Chimera of Linearity The second issue concerns the tendency to order ideologies on a linear spectrum, whether straight or curved. At their heart are the notions of polarity and adjacency. Each raises its own difficulties. If we were to imagine a liberalism-socialism axis in the UK (and there is no evidence of such an axis), its constricted spectrum of positions would not reach anywhere near the poles that other versions of European centrist and left of centre ideologies have occupied. British socialism only marginally stretches to Marxist spheres, while British liberalism had by the late nineteenth century appeared to have abandoned the methodological and substantive individualism and anti-statism that typified variants of utilitarianism that had flowed into it. On an institutional-party level, that polarity may be vested in the British box-like rectangle of the UK parliament in which the two opposite sides glare at one another in mirror images of disapproval, reinforcing perceptions of binaries or hiatuses. Or polarity may appear to be sidestepped, flowing—apparently seamlessly—through the semicircle fan introduced in French legislative practice. It suggests the arc of a pendulum gently swinging from side to side through incremental changes, reaching an extreme only to fall back at speed and then to regain its poise in the middle. That illusion has frequently been applied to the liberalism/socialism relationship, encouraging its conceptualization as a set of dovetailing proximities or logical continuities, each evolving in its own way while keeping the other in its sights. This mirage was particularly nurtured by the new liberals, anxious Janus-like to reassure their forebears and supporters that liberalism was taking modernity in its stride in a manner highly respectful of its cultural and intellectual heritage, while simultaneously competing over the ground newly claimed by social democrats in offering a classless progressivism (Freeden 1978).

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Assumptions of adjacency raise thornier problems. Both historically and contemporaneously, ideologies are clusters of constantly shifting components, temporally but far from essentially tied together. Nor are the components of liberalism neatly arrayed to match socialist constituent parts. While some of them converge, others drift apart. In one version of the liberal-socialist matrix, understandings of the state may be miles apart—keeping the state at arm’s length and minimizing its function in older liberal versions, or serving as a pivot that holds together and enables social action, in later ideational developments. The state is singled out as an organ of great responsibility, emanating from within society as a prime agent of communal cohesion. But that is not accompanied by parallel alignments and dealignments of other sections of those ideologies: political participation can be pluralist, attached to economic roles, direct and not even meaningfully democratic. Conceptions of social relationship shift between separateness and autonomy, harmonious interdependence and centralization in either ideology and, moreover, not in parallel time spans. Because the same ducks are not lined up in a row, there is no stipulating what boundaries might look like—if at all. They may be drawn with jagged edges, or with enclaves that are stranded in ‘enemy territory’. Indeed, radicalism and moderation in either ideology can overtake each other on a ranking scale, depending on the issue in question. Competing orders of adjacency undermine theories of smooth transition, evolution, or complementarity: class, property, solidarity, democratic arrangements, individuality, all ebb and flow in their numerous versions, asymmetrically outpacing each other. Insensitivity to those nuances is sometimes aggravated by the misguided tendency to classify ideologies on the basis of one defining idea: tradition for conservatism, liberty for liberalism and equality for socialism. Particularly significant is the role of liberty in the socialist/socialdemocratic tradition. It assumes different garbs, appearing in diverse points on ideational maps. Because socialists are more comfortable with the distinct and independent existence of groups, they display fewer qualms than do liberals about attaching to them agency, rights and liberty though, as will presently be seen, the leading new liberal J.A. Hobson was an exception. Their assimilation of liberty, in particular, is scattered across a diverse ideological spectrum. It focuses less on the liberal legal-political rights to individual security and privacy, nor even on the liberal support for national self-determination. Instead, liberty includes forms of emancipation from oppression, prominent in Marxist solutions

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to the downtrodden plight of the enchained proletariat (Marx and Engels, 1848). By contrast, liberty is also central to the evolutionary socialism of Eduard Bernstein, for whom socialism includes liberal principles, and who is perceptively articulate on the subject. In The Preconditions of Socialism—working against the grain of socialist rhetoric and reshuffling the ideological morphology of socialists—Bernstein declared in 1899 that ‘for Social Democracy, the defence of civil liberty has always taken precedence over the fulfilment of any economic postulate. The aim of all socialist measures… is the development and protection of the free personality’. And he continued: ‘The individual will be free… from any economic compulsion in his actions and choice of vocation… in this sense one might call socialism organised liberalism’. Socialist organizations were hence distinguished from feudal forms of organization by ‘their liberalism: their democratic constitution and their openness’ (Bernstein 1993, 147, 150). In 1900 Bernstein continued that morphological recalibration, insisting that he ‘energetically defended the perspective that the principled opposition is not between liberalism and socialism, but between capitalism and socialism. Capitalism, the domination of capital power, is the exploiter, but not the incarnation of the liberal principle. Hence, social-liberal so far in no way meant something that was in any way fundamentally different from Social Democracy’ (Bernstein/Ostrowski 2021, 335). That conceptualization became equally central to British new liberalism and to Scandinavian progressivism, even when the vocabulary and the imagery were somewhat dissimilar. Accelerating and Decelerating Temporalities Leading Fabians were less clear about liberal principles, publicly rejecting them while effectively incorporating several such principles in their arguments. Thus, they assembled an often-inconsistent hodgepodge of claims about the ‘inevitability of gradualness’—Sidney Webb’s famous phrase (Webb 1923, 11) concerning the evolution of non-revolutionary socialism from earlier forms of radicalism—alongside a sporadic and often marginalized acknowledgement of already existing liberal elements in progressive thought. Reluctant to concede ground to the Liberal Party, which Fabians predominantly associated with individualism and the pursuit of private property, Webb associated evolutionary socialism not

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with the transformation or maturing of liberalism but with an ‘unconscious socialism’ that emerged from the practical reforms initiated by municipal authorities. It was expressed not in the older forms of Philosophical Radicalism but in the latest Radical Programme of 1888 which, as Webb declared in his contribution to the Fabian Essays of 1889, ‘may serve as a statement of the current Socialist demands’ (Webb in Shaw, ed. 1889, 82, 85–6). Fabians also seemingly shared frequent references to organic theories of state and society with the new liberals, but their conclusions were in sharp contradistinction. Webb gave unstinting support to the priority of the whole over its parts, a position rejected by Hobson. The divergence is worth quoting at length. Webb contended: Though the social organism has itself evolved from the union of individual men, the individual is now created by the social organism of which he forms a part: his life is born of the larger life… his activities belong to the activity of the whole… where … [individual] action proves inimical to the social welfare, it must sooner or later be checked by the whole, lest the whole perish through the error of its member. (Webb in Shaw, ed. 1889, p. 89)

Hobson, conversely, argued that the individual does not disappear in the unity of socio-industrial life, while insisting that was not tantamount to asserting that the raison d’être of society was to conserve individual rights. Turning the organic analogy on its head, Hobson maintained that such rights were conserved by the federal government: because it also recognises that an area of individual liberty is conducive to the health of the collective life. Its federal nature rests on a recognition alike of individual and social ends, or, speaking more accurately, of social ends that are directly attained by social action and of those that are realised in individuals. (Hobson 1914, 304; Freeden 1978, 110-11)

Individualism was far from being abandoned at the wayside of a historical one-way journey. In his contribution to the Fabian Essays, Sydney Olivier juggled the relationship between individualism and socialism: ‘Socialism appears as the offspring of Individualism, as the outcome of individualist struggle, and as the necessary condition for the approach to the Individualist ideal… Socialism is merely Individualism rationalized, organized, clothed, and in its right mind’ (Olivier in Shaw, ed.,

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1889, p. 138). His shuffling of cause and effect is indicative of the interwoven, overlapping and indeterminate rendering of the liberal-socialist nexus even in the minds of the most engaged and serious proponents of a gradual social democracy. Remarkable, too, is Hobson’s particular contribution to the gradualism conundrum. By 1926 he had moderated his earlier organic holism. Commenting on styles of political thinking that separated socialists from what he saw as the common-sense English disposition to be practical, Hobson now praised the English ad hoc approach to public affairs. Fumbling about and muddling through, such as ‘producing an amorphous constitution which no foreigner can understand’ was a stark contrast to ‘plotting beforehand the whole line of march and following it to some logical conclusion’. Continuity and difference co-existed, but not as co-equal. The former was the domain of science but the latter was the source of energy and inventiveness: ‘It takes an artist to recognize, value, and handle the novelties which the creative urge of life produces’. True, that too was fraught with dangers consequent on ‘our contempt for consistency, our hand-to-mouth improvisation’, so that it might appear that it was desirable to recommend ‘a more highly organized intelligence’ of the kind advocated by Webb and others. Nonetheless, ‘a keen desire… for harmony and order in all the arrangements of life is manifestly impossible’ (Hobson 1926, 178–9, 182, 184). Change was on the whole incremental, but likely to be haphazard rather than planned. Finally, this third feature refers not only to the differential spatial spread of themes and concepts but the temporal speed of conceptual change, mutation or regression. There is an assumption fostered by conceptual historians following Reinhart Koselleck that one of the characteristics of modernization is the increased tempo of change indicated by and incorporated in political and social concepts (Koselleck 1972). Plausible as that is, it overlooks the inescapable fact that the concepts tied together in an ideological assemblage do not display the same speed of change. Thus, within liberalism the concept of liberty understood as non-intervention, privacy and autonomy has remained stable over time in much the same form. But since John Stuart Mill, the conceptual interpretation of liberty has gathered pace through being joined—but not replaced—by liberty as self-development (Mill 1910). Liberal understandings of rights have undergone far more rapid change. The personal and political rights enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights have since been overshadowed by the increasing visibility of social and cultural rights.

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As for regression, that is the story of the decline in originality and drive of British liberal thought since the 1920s, as leading liberals joined the Labour Party not because they ceased to be liberals but because, in the words of one senior defecting Liberal, ‘the Labour party is now such an enormously better instrument for fighting economic wrongs’ (Trevelyan 1925). Left social liberalism had rewritten the liberal agenda of fundamental human rights to include all reasonable claims to a wholesome and full individual existence, while encouraging mutual aid and state enablement of the less fortunate (‘The claim for a share in life’ 1912). That intellectual and imaginative audacity was transplanted into the social-democratic wing of British socialism. Their language was similar to that of the new liberals but—as so often was the case across Europe (take, for example, French solidarisme)—once embedded in a different party and ideological configuration, that social liberalism lost its name and thus its visibility. The rump of remaining formal Liberals put dampers on the rhetoric of humanism so eloquently expressed a century and more ago and switched to a technical and dull economism, following in Keynes’ footsteps. Interwar centrist liberalism reverted to a more cautious, property-promoting and free-trade-oriented ideological position, while honouring elements of a social liberalism only in a much-muted voice. Sadly, that liberalism no longer even recognized its own past arguments as liberal, failing to claim the intellectual authorship of the Beveridge Report which was swiftly appropriated by Labour as its own (Freeden 1986). Post-1945 liberalism gradually reconfigured the balance of its elements to espouse a more conventional ‘political’ and civic creed, highlighting constitutional reform and local government-cum-devolution, while its social justice policy went down diverging routes (Freeden 2018). Workers were to be emancipated ‘by making property owners of them all’. The totalitarian experiences of mid-century—as per Isaiah Berlin— now justified once again the limitation of the state to secure individual freedom and a participatory democracy. One of the bizarre peculiarities of the liberal tradition as the twentieth century unfolded is that any historical appreciation of the transformative role of the new liberalism went missing in the 1920s and was only rediscovered by scholars in the 1970s.

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The Mutability of Conceptual Weights The fourth issue at stake in assessing the relationship between liberalism and socialism pertains to the relative weight assigned to ideas ostensibly shared by the two ideologies. Private property is a case in point. Among liberals, what was once a linchpin of their credo has been attenuated. Although it is still respected as a private right, it shares space with coownership and mutualism—a kind of collective voluntarism—as well as with a social recognition that the complexities of modern states require constant and co-ordinated intervention (‘interference’ was the revealing term employed by the classical liberals) just to keep the wheels of industry turning and the capacity of individual flourishing sustainable. Equally, the decline of class in socialist discourse has sharply decreased the impact of that factor, now slowly overtaken by other groupings, though in France support for industrial solidarity is still stronger. Locality and identity are two alternatives that have augmented or restated their gravitas. In some socialist eyes, alternative criteria of equalization have risen side by side with economic ones: thus, gender has become a substantial contender for the reranking of priorities, and notions of group solidarity are applied to it. In some liberal eyes, identity is less a question of equality and more an extension of the uniqueness and private rights of individuals to embrace their cultural self-identification—groups are treated as composite individuals (Hobson 1909, 73). In recent years, too, the social plight of immigrant groups and asylum seekers has been etched into liberal and socialist mentalities. As befits the nature of ideologies, the amalgams are fluid and tentative. In sum, the topography of the unreliable liberalismsocialism sequence is replete with many false binaries, such as capitalism vs. socialism, individualism vs. collectivism, social interdependence vs. social fusion or liberty vs. regulation. Yet empirical evidence rather than rhetorical force uncovers a far more fragmented and disconnected set of connections.

Adaptability and Volatility I would like to park temporarily the issues of capitalism and socialism, of states and markets and global justice, of who borrowed from whom, and to test some other perspectives that could offer insights into the morass of liberalisms and socialisms. There is a reason for that. The principles on which ideological alignments used to be made—nationalization, or free

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trade, or respect for venerated institutions—were muted or eclipsed with the dearth of great causes and the absence of social visions of the kind that typified the humanist post-1948 welfare state or, by contrast, the free market and deregulation crusade associated with Margaret Thatcher. Instead, a shift has occurred towards concrete and often discrete concerns over public health delivery, climate change, immigration, regional devolution or ethnicity, all of which call into question the assumed agendas and separateness of older ideological families. Among liberals and social democrats, the virtue of augmented adaptability is matched by the vice of increased volatility. Under such conditions, ideologies survive by transcending imposed party boundaries, exporting segments that are compatible with other political beliefs. A liberal constitutionalism respecting human rights has long been assimilated into progressive and centrist thinking, though not always into its policies, nor is there accord over which harms require rights protection—a moving feast as conceptualizations of human nature are ceaselessly regenerated. The current scramble for environmental principles and programmes in order to bolster and update older ideological morphologies is another such instance. The institutional guises of British socialism have endured different fissures. Even before the inception of the Labour Party, and to this very day, they have been torn between two modi operandi, fuelled by a working-class base (now partially aligned with the Conservatives) and a middle-class, ‘intellectual’ social-democratic component. Those rifts mirror the divide between the ‘bread and butter’ socialism that campaigns for better working conditions and a programmatic socialism designed to institute large-scale ethical and structural changes (Berki 1975). Liberalism and socialism have been particularly susceptible in recent years to ideological usurpation and distortion sweeping in from the margins. Much of it is focused around recalibrations of democracy, and it is easy to see how each ideology offers footholds for tweakings that propel them beyond their conceptual and ethical range. Not without difficulty, liberals have extended the eligible population to which their precepts obtain, though the abstract universalism of liberal political philosophers is rarely replicated in liberal ideologies. Indeed, the principle of guaranteeing an equal voice to all has fallen foul of many obstacles: in the past literacy, gender and age, and now nationality, residence or criminal status. The rise of the internet, however, has threatened to replace the democratic with the demotic and to remove the qualitative weight allocated to

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educated opinions that liberals have always sought to promote (Freeden 2022a). Intriguingly, left-of-centre ideologies are once again struggling with the hydra-headed manifestations of democratic practice, mistakenly thought to have been put to bed by past political and franchise reforms. The test of ideological stability or integrity lies in their live confrontation with the everyday, but the everyday is perennially disruptive and unexpected, requiring continuous attempts at reconciliation that are just as likely to fail as to succeed. To begin with, what is dangerously dubbed as ‘digital democracy’ (Hindman 2009) through the social media and the peddling of views on Twitter has ushered in a new era of super-atomization. Not only does it privilege some and silence others, but the notion of citizenship is supplanted and often displaced by adopting the perspectives of consumer groups, patronage client groups, or leisure groups, draining the standing of directly political forms of participation. Democracy is besieged by the cheap and unconstrained opening up of channels of opinion and agitation, creating a surplus of opinions barely capable of being registered, let alone differentiated one from another—an immeasurable quantity that cannot add up as an instrument of social decision-making. That is quite different from Paul Ricœur’s suggestive ‘surplus of meaning’ (Ricœur 1976)—a device intended to indicate the multiplicity of plausible interpretations that consumers of a text can discern. The surplus of opinions, however, applies not to the potential rich pickings a text can offer but to the blurring and obfuscating of the thoughtful discriminatory capacity that an effective democracy requires. In the nineteenth century, liberals were concerned about the tyranny of the majority as a bloc of the uneducated and the mediocre. Now the challenge for liberals is to shield rational argumentation from a free-forall that defies reflective consideration. The issue is performative as well as value-laden. Performative characteristics offer important readings of any ideology, given that they are action-oriented (Finlayson 2021). The family of liberalisms has long employed not a civil code, but a code of civility— its critics on the left may well call it a bourgeois set of manners—breached only in the rowdiness of the parliamentary boxing ring. Reflective deliberation and the principle of audi alteram partem are its chief features. But in a world of fast food and immediate responses, the liberal ideological style of slow cooking tries the patience of the public bent on short-term gratification.

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In the UK, the process of filtering the responses and actions of qualitative majorities has proved less of a problem for socialists. That has partly to do with a history of socialist embattlement that required the mobilization of ordinary people to capture privileged bastions of power in what was once perceived to be a dichotomization of society into rich and poor; and partly to do with a wholesale and rather non-discriminatory belief in the automatic justice of popular causes. Ifs, buts and maybes are not the normal vocabulary of radical reform, especially when political performativity is geared to large-scale activism and agitation alien to recent generations of liberals. Unlike liberals, moreover, and even collectivist liberals, socialists can live with the practice of endowing a community with unified political and social understanding and with the activity of disparate groupings dressed up as majorities. It is no surprise that, following the Brexit referendum, leading Labour Party members echoed the slogan ‘the will of the people’ that had been appropriated by populists, something liberals would have abjured. It is equally instructive that Rousseau, himself no liberal, applauded that General Will only and crucially when adding the proviso ‘properly informed’—a liberal prerequisite, and an observation often overlooked by those who accuse Rousseau of foreshadowing totalitarian democracy (Rousseau 1968). On the other hand, social democrats and labourites are worried about the cheap purchase of voting rights within constituencies: in the recent past single cause radicals have ironically used the market mechanism in the name of democracy to join the Labour Party for £3 and purchase the right to deselect long-standing, localized party members (Quinn, 2018). But there is another challenge, shared by liberals and social democrats. Imposed ideological unity through party manifestos or articulate leadership has all but evaporated, revealing the fissiparous nature of their diverse and often centrifugal clusters. One way of testing that contention is to proceed from the micro-analysis of a conceptual arrangement to construct a series of alternative and rival macros that may emanate from the former and that, in conjunction with other micro features, build up to fleeting ideological constructs that exhibit dissimilar patterns of stability. The aim here is not to demonstrate the obviously open nature of colloquial discourse but the fracturing of cohesion and confidence, alongside the rise and proliferation of issues that neither ideology had been historically equipped to handle. In no particular order some of the most prominent of those issues are youth, gender and gender fluidity, the oppressive presence of past racist views, and climate.

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Intimations of New Ideological Themes All these topics have been steadily gnawing at the central principles and programmes that have typified liberalisms and socialisms, and they hover between finessing or replacing them. Consequently, social reform, civil society, individual freedom, the elimination of class or the reversing of class power have lost much of their mobilizing force as ideals or slogans. They all still are relevant, but that language no longer speaks to younger, or hitherto marginalized, sectors of society. The slowly rising power of youth protest, buttressed by the inevitable unequal distribution of generational energy no longer available to the middle aged and elderly, has been an extraordinary development in ideologies whose radicalism was once fuelled from within their own senior hierarchies. The involvement of the young operates as a kind of counter-culture, particularly unnerving for socialist parties who have not yet taken on board that they no longer are that counter-culture. Apparent spontaneity (which, despite views to the contrary, anarchists do not display, as their protests are highly choreographed) introduces an attractive freshness into political processes weighed down by their own ideological routines and occasional dogmatism. One of the more peculiar features of those ideologies that ostensibly classify themselves as progressive and left-wing is the increasing discursive control some of their variants attempt to exercise over speech and writing. What used to be termed political correctness has mutated into cancel culture, ‘no platforming’ and linguistic censorship, and from the permissive to the obligatory—an obligation always buttressed by forcefully expressed moral outrage. Conventional ideological divides are no longer suitable to deal with those developments and, as usual, multiple readings can be given to the same policy or principle resulting in zero-sum, mutually exclusive, dilemmas. Liberals are ill-equipped to deal with the phenomenon of sustained anger and the refusal to engage in debate. They can comb their historical arsenal to call up equality of respect for individual sovereignty over self-definition. They might evoke the harm principle prioritized by liberals such as Mill, and now a continuously growing category as human psychological, emotional and bio-environmental knowledge evolves, and as human vulnerabilities are redefined and reconceptualized. Alternatively, they can revert to pluralism, tolerance and free speech. Those variants appeal to the right to be different: different in lifestyles versus different in not conforming

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to a particular choice of words. Socialists can invoke the communal identity of groups, or the need to empower overlooked or oppressed sectors of society and rectify social balances, and some of them may have no qualms about imposing standards of conduct on the unenlightened in the name of an unassailable collective morality. None of these ideational strategies may be sufficient to rescue liberalism or socialism from their latest detractors. Liberalism had sought to solve gender inequality—very slowly—by giving women the vote, a policy that had been criticized as a political sleight-of-hand through which women were merely transformed into men (Jaggar 1983). That critique was grounded on the belief that women possessed specific attributes that needed to be incorporated into fitting social arrangements and opportunities. But liberals have also been struggling with the cultural identity of women in other zero-sum ways that had not been foreseen. The issue of wearing headscarves by women for religious or ethnic reasons illustrates how liberal principles can support either side of the case. Liberals who endorse the universality of human rights will regard the bestowing of special rights on particular religious or ethnic groups as an infringement of the equality principle inherent to liberalism. But liberals who wish to emphasize respect for the particularity of individual and group lifestyles will regard the foisting of uniform rules as suppressing the uniqueness of human practices and the group right to own them. Hence, as is well known, some liberals object to Muslim women wearing headscarves in public, because they see that practice as a form of illiberal oppression of women by male-dominated creeds and customs, or perhaps because it may expose vulnerable minorities to injury and abuse by intolerant individuals. But other liberals support the wearing of headscarves because banning them is an illiberal form of coercion that undermines group identity and the right of people to make their free sartorial choices. Crucially, you can subscribe to the one or the other but not to both positions at the same time, yet again demonstrating that different elements within liberalisms pull in diverse directions. Moving beyond culture and ethnicity, liberals have recently been taken by surprise—one could say, wrongfooted—by the fragmenting of gender to include gender neutrality and indeterminacy, gender fluidity and non-binary self-description. As so often is the case, liberals then react by engaging different accommodatory tools from their existing conceptual arsenal: either endorsing individuality and multiple diversities, or protecting traditional categories from erosion and harm—especially

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defending safe spaces for women who insist on the unalterable nature of their sexual birth identity. The Liberal-Democratic Party in the UK has also rowed back from censuring gender-critical views (Liberal-Democratic Party, 2022). But gender fluidity remains one of many intractable dilemmas that dots ideological landscapes. The question of racism has also mutated in a striking way and is intimately connected with the temporality dimension in both liberalism and socialism. The mainstream notion of liberal time is associated with the dual progressive movement of individual development and civilizational growth. Its muted optimism anticipates a steady advance but, tellingly, an open-ended one. What used to be a vision of increasing harmony has been replaced by multiple indeterminate futures on a far shorter scale. Socialist time was strongly and teleologically confident in attaining an end-state of social justice, but its incremental version began to flower only towards the end of the nineteenth century. In its utopian versions, it eschewed temporal continuity in favour of a leap of faith into the unknown and the fanciful (Dahrendorf 1958). But both ideological families have had to deal with vocal groups far less interested in the future than in the past—in the sense of being bent on editing out large tranches of colonial and exploitative practices as part of ‘me too’ and ‘black lives matter’ movements. The eradication of certain types of collective and historical memory and memorialization (whether attracting approval or disapproval) is often considered imperative as an act of communal restitution, an assertion of the value of separate group identities, and above all a rewriting of ethnic histories so that current ethnicities may feel part of the national story, not incidental to it (Little 2022). The future plays only an indirect role in such cases—ensuring a revised code of conduct in one area of concern rather than envisioning macro social reform in economic and institutional spheres. Repairing perceived injustices used to be at the heart of social reform, but awareness of the rewriting of historical narratives is a new addition (Trouillot 1995). Giving voice to silences, both intentional and unintentional, is not easy, inasmuch as both liberalism and socialism are prime examples of logocentric ideologies, designed around the written and spoken word, and given that silences offer a space that lends itself to multiple ideological and imagined content (Freeden 2022b). Nor is logocentrism amenable to marketing techniques, especially the paring down of weighty political programmes—in the past the staple diet of socialists—to disjointed slogans.

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Positioning the perils of climate change as a central policy element of many contemporary ideologies has produced several dilemmas. How do ideologies cope when an item accruing increasing popular support not hitherto in their backlist becomes mainstream? On which already existing hooks can it be hung, or does this mean a partial clearing of the decks to allow it space? Both liberalisms and socialisms have universal aspirations, now often translated as global ones (though that is a different concept). The pandemic slogan, ‘no-one is safe till everyone is safe’, applies equally to global warming. So indirectly climate change can be introduced via that matrix. But advocates of a green agenda have no need to approach it via liberalism in the first place. It could well be accessed by means of a conservatism harnessing its etymology to preach conservation, given that the green precautionary principle is couched in conservative language. There are other liberal routes to climate policy, illustrating the malleability of ideological argument. Liberals also introduce it via the harm principle or via a rights agenda extended to incorporate responsibility towards future generations. Here the concern about the future is concrete, rather than subscribing to a general theory of time—or to the ‘rights’ (without corresponding duties) of non-human and inanimate nature. Socialists in particular also incorporate climate change into the demand for the equal distribution of material conditions, given that some societies and countries are particularly susceptible to the ravages of global warming. Underlying many of these issues are the two ideologies’ position on human fragility. British liberalism underwent a transformation from its mid-nineteenth-century conception of an assertive and self-confident individual to a recognition of human frailty as normal. The welfare state was to a large extent a project that addressed that personal precariousness, from which people required protection. For socialists and social democrats, the fragility was social and structural rather than individual. Its solutions went beyond redistribution of life chances to encompass a fundamental shake-up of the material forces of human interaction and production—a conception of vulnerability that has gained the upper hand (Freeden 2015). The rejigging of appeals to the head and the heart in a fast-changing cultural environment epitomizes the current state of British politics. Historically, both socialism and liberalism, in their many varieties, made chiefly intellectual cases for their principles and world views, whether they be the rational affirmation of individual liberty, human rights and progress; or a confidence in the apparent historical inevitability of

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equality, social justice and collective solidarity. Yet neither was immune to the emotional underpinning of their beliefs. Liberals have always been passionate about rights and protection against maltreatment, exemplified in their resolute opposition to the death penalty; socialist fervour was directed against material deprivation and human exploitation. Conservatives too were emotionally committed—to stability over change and to national traditions, while arguing rationally for the economic efficiency of private enterprise. But in recent years the dominance of British conservative politics has turned to invoking the guts—deep-seated social prejudices, knee-jerk responses, personal powerlessness, pumping up distrust through peddling palpable untruths and exacerbating the role of leadership both positively and negatively. The decline of politics as a battle over ideas, values and visions has been accompanied by disenchantment with its prospects. It has become a disorganized, casual arena for giving vent to— instead of constructively airing—resentment and anger, morphing into vague delusions of taking back control. But the real control that needs to be wrested back is the reclaiming of that ground by the left-centre, no longer adept at promoting grand rallying plans that arouse public enthusiasm. In that sense the broad families of liberalisms and socialisms have some way to go in putting their heads together, pooling their resources, and continuing to take each other seriously.

References Berki, Robert Nandor. 1975. Socialism. London: J.M. Dent and Sons. Bernstein, Eduard. 1993. The Preconditions of Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernstein, Eduard. 2021. Eduard Bernstein on Socialism Past and Present, ed. Marius S. Ostrowski. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Dahrendorf, Ralf. 1958. ‘Out of utopia: toward a reorientation of sociological analysis.’ American Journal of Sociology, 64: 115–127. Finlayson, Alan. 2021. Performing Political Ideologies. In The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance, eds. S. Rai, M. Gluhovic, S. Jestrovic, M. Saward, 471–484. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeden, Michael. 1978. The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Freeden, Michael. 1986. Liberalism Divided: A Study in British Political Thought 1914–1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeden, Michael. 1996. Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Freeden, Michael. 2015. Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeden, Michael. 2018. ‘British Liberalism in Search of Ideological Recalibration’. In Hans Schattle and Jeremy Nuttall, eds. Making social Democrats: Citizens, Mindsets, Realities: Essays in Honour of David Marquand. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 69–88. Freeden, Michael. 2022a. Ideology Studies: New Advances and Interpretations. Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge. Freeden, Michael. 2022b. Concealed Silences and Inaudible Voices in Political Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hindman, Matthew. 2009. The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hobson, John Atkinson. 1909. The Crisis of Liberalism: New Issues of Democracy. London: P.S. King & Son. Hobson, John Atkinson. 1914. Work and Wealth. New York: The Macmillan company. Hobson, John Atkinson. 1926. In Praise of Muddling Through. Harper’s Monthly Magazine, July, 177–184. Jaggar, Alison M. 1983. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Koselleck, Reinhart. 1972. Einleitung. In Brunner, O, W. Conze and R. Koselleck, eds. Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 1. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Liberal-Democratic Party. 2022. https://www.libdems.org.uk/code-of-con duct/transphobia. Accessed 15 December 2022. Little, Adrian. 2022. Temporal Politics: Contested Pasts, Uncertain Futures. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. https:// www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ Mill, John Stuart. 1910. Utilitarianism, On liberty, Representative Government. London: J.M. Dent and Sons. Nisbet, Robert A. 1980. History of the Idea of Progress. London: Heinemann. Quinn, Tom. 2018. This is How Labour Members can Deselect their MPs. Independent. September 12. Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1968. The Social Contract. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Shaw, George Bernard, ed. 1889. Fabian Essays in Socialism. London: Walter Scott. The claim for a share in life. 1912. The Nation. 28 September. Trevelyan, Charles Philips. 1925. Introduction. In Harold Langshaw ed. Socialism and the Historic Function of Liberalism. London: Cecil Palmer.

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Trouillot, Michel-Rolfe. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. https://www.un.org/en/aboutus/universal-declaration-of-human-rights Webb, Sidney. 1923. The Labour Party on the Threshold. London: Fabian Tract 207.

Antinomies of Socialism and Liberalism: Some Debatable Propositions Cornelius Crowley

Antinomies of Liberalism and Socialism: The Planetary Ground If by analogy with the “monopoly of legitimate violence”, blueprint for the modern State (Weber 1946), we envisage a monopoly of narrative power and rhetorical force, only in rare moments has liberalism exhibited any such discursive authority. Certain moments, soon eclipsed, can be foregrounded: 1848 as “year of revolutions” in Germany, Italy, France (Clark 2019); 1948 and the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations convened in Paris; 1975 and the Helsinki Final Act; 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Neither before nor since what was figured as an epochal “end of grand narratives” (Lyotard 1984), did liberalism secure an ideological hegemony in figuring either the dynamic or the ends of a modern history. For those observing the dynamic from a critical standpoint, it has always been possible to relativise the achievements of liberalism, expose the formalism of its discourses grounded in an Enlightenment

C. Crowley (B) Université Paris Nanterre, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_3

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paradigm of rights, foundational of an order of constitutional government accountable to the persons whose liberties are thus validated. The critic is ensured a vantage point for the display of a knowing irony, from which to expose what is all the time playing out is the conflictual agency of classes and interests, unfolding over the dialectical acts of a drama. The 1848 Communist Manifesto still reads as blueprint for any critical reading of the illusions of liberalism. Its rhetorical raciness remains intoxicating, reverberating in countless ventures in the idiom of political, social and culture critique. Despite warnings there for us in the “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (Benjamin 1940), the perspective still generally adopted in delineation of a project for revolutionary transition remains the charting of a world history that is forever in progress. Progress as social emancipation is thus achievable through the overturning of established positions, coupled with the vindication of those who are positioned as the structurally necessary but unacknowledged social class. In this grand narrative, liberalism, critically appraised as the discursive veneer of a transitional bourgeois hegemony, is positioned on the side of forces whose defeat is written into the longer term of the grand narrative. The play of irony is deemed fatal only to the illusions of those Enlightenment liberals for whom the theatres of history could be imagined as the constitutional convention in Philadelphia (Klarman 2016) or the various sites of debate and deliberation in Paris, beginning with the Jeu de Paume for the 4th August 1789 (Israel 2014). Actual history is an entirely different matter. This does not mean that socialism achieved a position of discursive eminence from which to leverage a mass mobilization. Ireland (1916– 1923), Algeria (1945–1962), Vietnam (1947–1975), India, before and after August 1948, are there to demonstrate the more effective leverage of national or religious community. Anti-imperial struggle could at times appropriate the idiom of socialism, but only insofar as it dovetailed with the cause of national liberation, the paramount goal. As for Ireland, in the War of Independence (1919–1921), followed by a civil war (1922– 1923) which pitted those accepting against those refusing the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (December 1921), the question of an Irish path to socialism was scarcely ever a central issue, whatever the upheavals in Germany and Russia during the period (Coquelin 2017). Suspicion of liberalism is widespread in the current twenty-first-century sphere of discourse. It is now difficult to free the term from its reductive comprehension as economic liberalism, a teleological reading where it is

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always already comprehended as the unfolding of the neoliberal moment that is its final and fully-fledged manifestation (Harvey 2005). Our intention cannot simply be to deplore the failure of liberalism to achieve effective ideological hegemony, apart from the soon closed windows of opportunity we have mentioned, between 1848 and 1989. More than two spectres now haunt the discourses and agency of our planetary present: that cast by chattel-slavery in the Atlantic world from before 1600 to the nineteenth century and beyond (Markham 2010); that of empire and colonization, factors of a global modernity and of the way we live now. To which must be added the omens of climate change, a spectre belatedly and inescapably pointing to a condition of common vulnerability and extended obligation. Here again, mistrust and condescension are glaringly in evidence: liberalism, glossed as neoliberalism, is in turn glossed as capitalism globalized and unchained, ecologically toxic. We argue here that the poles of socialism and liberalism endure as antinomies through which to conceive the procedures and ends of a political agency that is both possible and ethically acceptable. Together, or rather one set against the other, the categories define the scope of a discursive invention constitutive of modernity, whose bedrock tendency is a general logic of equality and liberty (Balibar 2010; Schiavone 2022). As such, the paradigms are equally vulnerable to projects which are tendentially localist, ethnically exclusive, anti-modern. In its most egregious and catastrophic accomplishment, Hitlerian national socialism was the calamitous, anti-liberal, inversion of the general promise of socialism (Faye 1972). If today there is a renewed visibility of the defining procedures of liberalism, it is because they are set off against the counter-attraction of actually existing illiberalism. An intrinsic, inalienable dignity, of the person and of persons, is thus the thread to be clutched in pursuance of ends habitually associated with a primacy of liberalism; also held to in pursuance of socialist ends. In other words, a liberalism now definable not in terms of a putatively unshackled free will, in terms rather of an ethical deference to the liberty-dignity of others (Levinas 1984). This implies as its concomitant a socialism definable in terms of the bedrock, nonnegotiable liberty-dignity of persons that are that are mutually obliged and co-responsible, never expendable to the achievement of any putatively common end. The co-responsibility of persons is to be figured as the collaborative agency of a community of humans, accountable before the planetary reserve of all that is beyond and before any anthropic imprint:

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beyond and before our technical fashioning of resources for use. Foreclosure of paramount and exclusive human agency thus entails procedures of stringent limitation, of not-doing, to be guaranteed in law, as the ground of the sustainable accommodation of humans, in cohabitation with other species, as the common dependents of the earth. The bridging category between the liberty of liberalism and the commonality of socialism is thus equality, to be leveraged in the institution of law. At the beginning of his archaeology of equality, from classical sources to the agenda of our twenty-first century present, Aldo Schiavone foregrounds the reflection of Montaigne, that “every man bears the whole Form of the human condition […] The “human” then, was nothing other than the “common”, the “shared” (Schiavone 2022: 1, 2).1 He ends his “work of historical interpretation and conceptual proposition” (Schiavone 2022: 1, 1) by highlighting the profound recent ruptures in the social conditions of a late capitalist economy, still organized in terms of the allocative input of capital for the anticipated return of a surplus value, through a harnessing of human resources, meshed with the resources of nature. In its current European and American locations, the social practices of capitalism have, superficially, departed from this nineteenthcentury nexus, which had brought together the mass production of goods in the factory system and the evident agency of the working classes engaged for wages, the agents of commodity production. An outsourcing of factory production to China is, however, more a displacement or externalization than a termination or supersession: The human changes: if its relationship with nature and the environment is modified, if the quality of relational life mutates (and every technological leap provokes such metamorphoses), the interior and social perception that we elaborate about ourselves and its projections on the plane of history are also transformed. (Schiavone 2022: Chapter 5, 2)

We may add that modification of the “relationship with nature” implies that the antinomies of socialism and liberalism are now to be addressed by way of the prior enabling condition that is planetary, to which we must defer. Acknowledgement of this ineluctable planetary restriction of our agency, I would argue, offers release from a discredited Prometheanism: 1 In quoting from Schiavone (2022), I am using the e-book edition. Pagination is thus chapter by chapter; the first mentioned number gives the chapter.

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the illusion of human agency as mastery. A release also from any sterile zero-sum play-off, where one argues for “more” A and “less” B, foregrounding either more/less “integral” socialism or more/less unshackled “liberalism”. Planetary deference, we argue, is the irrevocable ground of our principled inventiveness, by way of the concomitant invocation of the antinomies of socialism and liberalism.

What Law Can Performatively Do and Cannot Do: Necessary Distinctions Wage Slave/Chattel-Slave For eighteenth-century Great Britain, an Atlantic seaboard kingdom, the Pauline promise of freedom of the spirit through belief in Christ could resonate with the trope of “the freeborn Englishman” (Thompson 1968), with the proud conviction that “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”, as voiced in the poem “Rule Britannia” by James Thomson (1740), set to music by Thomas Arne. For Paul, the affirmation was coupled with a neutralization of distinctions: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (St. Paul: Galatians, 3:28). Sublime affirmation could, however, facilitate a failure to see and to address certain stark differences. Distinctions of condition are abolished “in Christ Jesus”. Belief in Christ overcomes, abolishes the law. Meanwhile the letter of the law deploys a complex gradation in the legal impairments of the freedom of the free (Pesante 2009: 290), though in no sense could these impairments be read as an erasure of the stark existential demarcation been “chattel” and the “self-ownership” of the “free” (Cohen 1995). Does it matter whether distinctions between “bond” and “free” are abolished in law or are left intact? Of course, it does matter. The distinctions between “bond” and “free” are all too evident in effect once one takes leave of the sublime breath of the spirit. But to foreground the alienation of “self-ownership”, to which the worker is subjected through contractual engagement for wages, blurs the crucial difference between “bond” and “free”, precisely to the degree that the presentation of such alienation as a social form of “wage-slavery” (Marx 1848) proves so rhetorically effective. Confrontation of the actually existing conditions of “bond” and “free” might have had different effects, might have proved more effective in the exposure of infamies, had Marx

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applied his rhetorical force to the hiatus between the Pauline spirit and the actual letter of the law. The latter did institutionalize the indisputable ownership of the body of the “chattel slave” by the master. Marx’s rhetorical force was applied to effective exposure of the merely “formal” liberties deemed to be foundational of the institutional order of a bourgeois civil society, enshrined in the rights declared in 1789. Envisioning what is now to be done in twenty-first-century conditions of a planetary economy of production and exchange requires a clear grasp of the social and material proximity between the forced confinement and discipline of a slave plantation and a factory system of production through contractual “free” labour, in the conditions which prevailed in the nineteenth century, and which can still prevail today. However, the task equally requires an avoidance of rhetorical shortcuts. In other words, comprehension of a global history of modernity and formulation of a present agenda of politics call for the categorical differentiation between these two conditions. “Wageslavery” is not “chattel slavery”. The former term should thus be left aside. The actually existing conditions of wage-labour, whether in 1840 or today, are to be precisely qualified in historical analysis, are to be regulated, countervailed in present social conditions, without conflation with the absolute indignity of “chattel slavery”. For a social and political movement in Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, formulation of demands could only be by way of the idiom that was to hand. So Chartism could and did voice the demands of women, children and men labouring in mines and factories by drawing on the idiom of liberty against tyranny, on the rights of “freeborn Englishmen”, on the conviction that “Britons never will be slaves”. And even more foundationally, drawing on the sense of the inalienable dignity of the person who laboured. Given the indisputable legal reality of slave labour in the Atlantic world, the blatant exclusion of chattel slaves from any formal liberty of “self-ownership” which, however manifestly impaired, was claimable by the “freeborn”, reference to “wage-slavery” as the condition of those whose labour is harnessed by the mill-owners within the system of factory production, had formidable and ambiguous effects. If chattel-slavery could and had to be abolished in law, there is the question of the common-sense evidence (or otherwise) of the termination of a condition which invited its social and legal qualification as “wageslavery”: termination either through a parallel performative act of law or through the performative upheaval of revolution. Could there be an abolition, in law and in the actual existing conditions, of the unequal

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market confrontation between capital and the contractually mobilized wage-labour of workers? Within the Chartist movement, and in the practices of workers’ collective organization, there did emerge, between the 1830s and the American civil war, a sense that there were indeed differences, notably regarding the heredity and transmission of conditions; freedom of movement (or otherwise); the term (or otherwise) of the submission (Scriven 2022). To conflate chattel-slavery and a wage-slavery of contractual “free” labour obscures the intrinsic indignity of chattel-slavery, a condition which is sui generis in its denial of an inalienable dignity. To argue that the freedom of wage-labour is a hypocrisy orchestrated by factory-owners and by theorists of the contractual engagement of labour, to argue that chattel-slavery is in effect a primitive mode of subjection, superseded by a more effective and more productive form of extraction, that of contractual “wage-slavery”, that the difference between the two is thus tactical, a function of the successive modes of actual extraction of labour for profit, has ambiguous effects, which remain of strategic importance: The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance, a society based on slave-labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer, the labourer. (Marx, Capital I, 1887: 153)

Conflation of the two modes of extraction offered a discursive template for critique of social relations, in nineteenth-century industrial capitalism and in current conditions of “advanced” global capitalism. If contractual wage-labour is a guise of “wage slavery”, then the performative force of law can and must abolish it. And if the social relations governing “free” contractual labour are the manifestation of a merely “formal” bourgeois liberty, which is effectively empty, then to brandish the framework of “formal liberties” is to court the critique of those who know better. To argue an intrinsic difference between the two conditions is, we contend, a matter of recognition and dignity. It is to avoid any blurring of distinct conditions, that of the unfree in the Caribbean or the American plantations, that of the workers, children, women, men, engaged in factories and mines. To argue this intrinsic difference is to call for a rereading of the categories established by Marx, which did expose hypocrisies of

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a liberal political economy. It is to alert to the effects of a rhetorical conflation between the contractual wage relation and chattel-slavery, the latter a condition from which there was no escape, transmissible to one’s offspring. It is to countenance a range of measures other than performative “abolition” for redress of the inequalities of the contractual engagement of labour for wages. It is to suggest that what is to be done in order to address the conflicts and the ongoing turbulence of capitalism, the impairments of liberty, the manifest social and symbolic inequities, cannot duplicate the performative act of an abolition by law. It involves rather a cumulative procedure of ongoing, interminable adjustment, not a sublime gesture of tabula rasa. The Institutional Force of Law In a book entitled L’Institution de la liberté, Muriel Fabre-Magnan examines the institutional force of law, the principled anteriority of “liberty” to the specific practices of contractual agreement between parties, which are thus bound. “Thus in legal terms, consent does not liberate, on the contrary it obliges…Liberties are posited and protected in law in order that each person may, at all times, decide to act according to her will and, if appropriate, by way of a change in intent” (Fabre-Magnan 2018: 56–57). The force of a “public social order” (Fabre-Magnan 2018: 65) entails limitation of the latitude of consent to conditions which are stipulated in contracts. There are areas and dispositions, proper to the person, which cannot fall within the scope of a contractual agreement between parties. For Fabre-Magnan, who cites a ruling of the French Constitutional Council, “the principle of dignity requires that the human person be preserved from all forms of servitude and degradation” (Fabre-Magnan 2018: 284), if necessary through curtailment of the exercise of a liberty of consent. A reserve of dignity is thus inalienable and intrinsic to the person, a reserve to be upheld in law. It does not fall within the compass of voluntary, contractual cession. Law thus “institutes” a public order which reserves the site of liberty-dignity. Fabre-Magnan is a liberal, she is certainly not a libertarian who foregrounds the scope of contractual agreement to the point of reproving institutional restriction of the space within which free agents consent to their mutual engagements, go about their discretionary business. The institution of liberty, she argues, points to an inalienable reserve of “dignity”, beyond and before possibility of voluntary alienation, and which no agreement between parties can encroach

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upon. In staking out a reserve of “dignity” that is unavailable as the site of opportunities to be pursued, Fabre-Magnan formulates a position which she spells out as one that is hostile to the practices of surrogacy (Fabre-Magnan 2018: 98, 124). Determination of prerogatives proper to and constitutive of the person, to be reserved on grounds of dignity, thus entailing a foreclosure of opportunities for “use”, even if responsive to need and bounded by contractual consent, is both crucial in principle and is also debatable, regarding its extension and application. We can note also that Fabre-Magnan’s demarcation of an inalienable liberty-dignity of person is congruent with a demarcation of planetary reserves to be placed beyond possible use. The potency of “dignity” as a principle of limitation can be drawn on for stringent interrogation of the customary scope of masculine presumption of consent: we can mention the social institution of marriage, in the absence of clearly defined, non-asymmetrical procedures for divorce; or the vast range of coercive, abusive practices involving the negation of a woman’s right of choice and control of procreation or in matters of “self-ownership” or sexual orientation. All these areas are impinged upon by a set of asymmetrical presumptions that are inherent in the pervasive modes of domination and subjection. They are, I would contend, of wider and more enduring implication than the specific, regulated practice of contractual surrogacy. Marx, Theses on Feuerbach The rhetorical force of the thesis that “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it” lies in the sleight-of-hand shift of the verbs: the turn from “interpreting” to “changing”. Who could argue against the necessity of “changing” the world? The sequence of Marx’s preceding theses, 1–10, foregrounds “social humanity” as a compass larger than “civil society” or a “civil society” of “single individuals”. All social life is here inescapably practical, a matter of agency and interaction, doing to, doing with. The reach of the theses goes beyond the horizon of a political project comprehensible solely in terms of the overturning of property entitlement, as enshrined in bourgeois liberal law. Social humanity is here a more extensive horizon of commonality than could be understood in terms of the revolutionary transfer of the property of industrial capital as means of production, such as the Soviet order of state communism did achieve.

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To “change the (social) world”, and not only “interpret” it, cannot now imply evasion of our awareness of the material limits and conditionality of a liveable social world. The conditionality of what is, of what is to be “changed”, is grounded in what is there, before and beyond the social world of humans. In other words, to “change the world” requires revision and enlargement of our comprehension, as guideline to any projected agency, any exercise of power predicated on the presumed availability of a planetary resource, there for us, on terms arbitrated by way of a political economy of use-value and exchange-value. Any social order of human agency, when relocated in the longer term of planetary time, now can only be comprehended as an order that is reflexively ecodependent, eco-conditional. Does this longer view reconfigure reception of the rhetorical force of Marx’s 11th Thesis? I would argue that our reception and possible invocation of the maxim is now predicated on reinterpretation of what it is we mean when we refer to “the world”, coupled with a reinterpretation of what it is we mean by the world’s’ “change”, its transformation. To “change” a social order now requires profound and reflexive reinterpretation of the planetary conditions we live by. This means that a revisionary reinterpretation is required as the prior condition of any change, that can only be a reflexive downward adjustment of human designs for transformative doing. This is not an attempt to evaporate intra-social conflict, though many will say it is just that. Socialism and liberalism, as regulative polarities for “doing” with others and to others, while deferring to planetary conditions, impose a more extensive and more demanding roadmap by which to chart the actual doing of what is to be done. I would argue that the doing, the changing, by way of an ongoing and revisable collective agency, requires that the rhetorical allurement of the 11th Thesis be set aside; that its performative promise be resisted insofar as it can be a mirage, sustained through the charms of dialectical inversion and chiasmus it draws on. At this stage, an ongoing collective labour is to be taken up for a project that is necessarily forward-looking, informed however by the spectres of modernity, animated by neither apocalyptic nostalgia nor apocalyptic aspiration. Marx’s 11th Thesis should not deflect from a patient attention to the greater substance of the earlier theses 1–10.

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Tensions within the 1789 Triad of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Attempted Stabilization of the Antinomies: liberté, égalité Returning to the crucial tension between liberté and égalité that he had already addressed in 1989, bicentennial of the French Revolution, Étienne Balibaragain organizes his reflection by way of the portmanteau word égaliberté (Balibar 2010: 129). The articulation of the terms is an attempt to forge a categorical response to a dilemma. Liberty sourced in the individual agent poses a condition of “self-property”. The dynamic thus unleashed will result in inequalities of achieved position and wealth, correlative to the enlargement of opportunities to engage the liberty of other free agents. If all agents are free, they do not have at their disposal comparable leverage of self-property, in the form of a capitalized, accumulated wealth, deployable within the political economy of opportunity and self-interest, the contractual space of the free market economy. Engagement will, therefore, be on unequal, asymmetrical terms, the asymmetry hinging crucially on the immediacy of, or detachment from, material need (sustenance, shelter), on having at one’s disposal the liberating resource of time (leisure, “free time”, the skolé of study and learning). The neologism égaliberté is indicative of Balibar’s refusal to resolve the dilemma through subordination of one of the polarities to the other. In this he seeks to go beyond the mainstream Marxist critique of liberalism, its exposure of the “formal” bourgeois liberties as at best an empty promise, pending effective accomplishment in the social relations of a fully-fledged socialism. The type of a fully-fledged socialism ideally goes beyond any temporary compromise “fix” (Streeck 2016), still accommodated within the ongoing dynamic of capitalistic free enterprise. The most notable historic “fix” is that represented by the Welfare State Beveridgean accommodation (1945–1979), the roots of which are British and liberal. Recent uses of the terms social liberal or liberal social, or indeed social democrat, are most of them pejorative designations, haughtily ascribed by critics of the compromise fixes. That “égaliberté” is a portmanteau word testifies to the dilemma to be addressed. Balibar does not offer any dialectical resolution. He takes seriously both the tradition of individual property-liberty stemming from Locke and the tradition of the political subject, called to the exercise of effective political responsibility, stemming from Rousseau (Balibar 2010: 137).

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1789 is a revolution enacted in and through the declarative force of law, an extension or generalization of the scope of the political through the maxim of inclusion in the political community of rights, without prior conditions of estate, property, rank, ethic or confession community. The blithe 1789 incapacity to confront the exclusion of women from political deliberation is thus remarkable. But in order to undo this egregious failure to see and remedy disabilities and exclusions, it is the liberal proposition of the generality of the political community that is there to be invoked. Though we must add here that inversion of patriarchy, overcoming of male presumption, amounts to the most profound “change” of the world that is to be addressed by the political community. No social revolutionary has the candour to believe that the performative force of liberal entitlement in law is the final word. Socialist praxis and theory, in the more than two centuries since 1789, foreground the shifting terrain of actual agency, its inherent conflictuality as the site of ongoing inequity in substantive matters of achievement, wealth, conditions of entitlement to social goods. What then is to be done? Performative abolition, and of what? Or a task of ongoing invention of procedures for the deployment of the strands of effective, constantly adjusted, “countervailing powers” (Galbraith 2017). Going back to Balibar’s 1989 proposition of égaliberté, we can quote what he says of law: “law, which J.D. Bredin recently proposed to define as “the art of resolving insoluble questions” (Balibar 2010: 59). Rather than a dialectical resolution of the antinomies of socialism and liberalism, what is to be taken up, we argue, is an interminable working through, accepting that each act ventured is liable to future revision and adjustment, on condition that the adjustment is an incremental furtherance of the ends associated with the two antinomies. This means that “selfownership” is not the assimilation of “liberty” to a power of expansive acquisition. It points to a condition of intrinsic self-possession and nonsubjection proper to the person. In an English tradition, it echoes in the proud cry of the Duchess of Malfi in John Webster’s eponymous play (1612–1613): “I am Duchess of Malfi still”. No spoliation of selfhood through torture can alter this. The extremity foregrounded in the drama points to a defining condition of “self-possession” as dignity. The articulation between equality and liberty is thus no more resolved today than in the period between 1789 and the 1848 Communist Manifesto. However, the play of inequalities is now more diffuse and manifold than the stark titanic confrontation between Capital and Labour, to which

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dialectical resolution might be envisaged by way of the historic destiny of a class destined to take up the baton which the bourgeoise had provisionally held. The pervasive note in discourses of radical critique is now a desperate irony, to the effect that it is easier to envisage planetary collapse than transition to a socialist order after capitalism. If there is an affinity between these two polarities of liberalism and socialism, it is that they are both open-ended, amenable to rigorous criticism in terms of their actually achieved outcomes. Amenability to criticism is the correlative of the endorsement of a non-determinist conception of political agency, substantively progressive in terms of outcomes, stringent with regard to responsibilities in present time. The ongoing agency through which we make history, for better and for worse, thus entails the accountability of present agency before those who come after. This does offer a touchstone through which to chart a dual fidelity. To the classical liberal dissolution of a legal order of distinct estates and hereditary destinies, to the work of exposure, central to the Marxist critique of a liberal “formalism”, of any inclination to consider that constitutional equality before the law, while it is a necessary condition, might be sufficient. There can never be a stabilization of the inherently dynamic instability of the triune principles of 1789. But there can be the invocation of a fourth factor, the incoercible externality of planetary conditions. The externality of our planetary conditions is operating a profound revision of our anthropological self-conceptions. Post-1789 “Fixes” of the Social and the Political Reading Balzac, Zola, and Thomas Mann, one is struck by the prescience and anxieties of European realist novelists writing in the aftermath both of the social and political upheavals of Enlightenment modernity and the partial, conservative stabilization of 1815. As if stabilization of the post-revolutionary political order was apprehended as an enterprise whose achievements were always precarious. As if systemic instability were the defining trait of the epoch. That Balzac’s novel Les Paysans (1844) is unfinished confers it an emblematic status as the representation of a dynamic instability, seized by a novelist whose yearning was for the fixed position of an ancien régime. For Lukacs (1963), Balzac was the most acute analyst of the liberal dissolution of fixed position, of an unstable state whose sole and necessary resolution lay in the achievement of a postbourgeois socialist order. Balzac’s aspiration to an order of settled position

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is the source of his anglophilia. On the English side of the Channel, there was the enigma, for Marx as for Balzac, of the English historic compromise. Here is Balzac’s presentation of the social order of France after 1815 in Les Paysans: An oligarchy of a hundred-thousand rich people has all the inconveniences of democracy, with none of the advantages. Every man his own master, every man for himself. Selfishness of family will kill the selfishness of oligarchies, so necessary to modern society, which England has so admirably practised for the last three centuries. (Balzac 1844: 207) (my translation)

The crucial issue in the French nineteenth-century novel is that of class struggle and cultural supersession, the leitmotif of which is ceci tuera cela. For Victor Hugo in Notre Dame de Paris (1831) the emblematic conflict is that of the stone edifice of faith and congregation pitted against selfreliant individualist liberty, catalysed by literacy and the printed book. The same motif of change and eviction is taken up by Zola in Le Ventre de Paris (1873). In the novel Rome (1896), Zola focuses on the journey to the Vatican of a young French priest who believes that the social doctrine of the Church can provide an antimodernist resolution of capitalist class conflict. The reference is to Pope Leo XIII and to the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). Catholic social doctrine sought an explicitly anti-modern resolution, grounded neither in the legal order of a post-1789 liberalism nor in the socialist project of expropriation and reappropriation of a property title exercised over the means of production, coupled with the contractual engagement of labour. In The Magic Mountain (1924), the confrontation between the progressive liberalism of Settembrini and the revolutionary projects of Naphta plays out before the uncommitted curiosity of Hans Castorp, in the seclusion of an Alpine sanatorium. The only resolution—sole escape from dilatory waiting in the mountain sanatorium—is here the catastrophe of war in 1914. Balzac looks back to an ancient regime or looks across to England. Zola’s political imagination is more darkly apocalyptic in addressing questions of class conflict in Germinal (1885), La Terre (1887), or in Rome. Thomas Mann registers both humanist aspiration and the apparent impotence of political liberalism. One can argue that novelists register the conflictual unresolved dynamic also attested in the discursive formations of socialism and liberalism, but which they ideally aim to resolve, to “fix”. One can also argue

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that if the novels are so acutely alive for today’s reader, it is insofar as they convey the potentiality of turbulent agency, the conflict between the opposing positions of classes and interests, between the competing regulative principles that are ideally invoked. Such conflictual agency is more tragic, in terms of the unanticipated results of victory or defeat, than the ideal order of programmatic invention, constitutive of liberalism or of socialism, might suspect or suggest. Both were formulated and propagated as competing Enlightenment-rationalist blueprints. But in the post-1789 west, and in a much wider world during the phase of national awakening and liberation from the western empires, nationhood and religious allegiance demonstrated their greater resources of passionate intensity for mobilization of the social groups thus aggregated. The resources of such passionate intensity are beyond the range of these two largely rationalist, programmes, which have sought to articulate liberty and equality, production and exchange for effective and equitable satisfaction of needs, access to social goods, the consolidation of “capacities”, to draw on the terminology of Sen (Balibar 2010: 154–155). This does not mean that socialism or liberalism have been exposed as mere illusions of Enlightenment. What has been invalidated is a logic of dialectical resolution where one of the poles might in the end absorb or trump the other. In the absence of such dialectical resolution, what remains is the sphere of the political as the site of a more than double fidelity: to the pole of liberty-dignity of the person, to the pole of commonality, the concomitant of which is the liberty-dignity of all others. In other words, political invention and practical agency can only be ongoing and revisable, accountable before the instance of planetary externality.

English Questions If a British path of discursive and practical invention is alluded to here, it is in order to point to a characteristic prudence in addressing the antinomies of socialism and liberalism, their balancing or management, without exclusive prioritization of one or the other. Composing with their conflicting demands might be a practice of mere attenuation or mitigation. Modest success (or avoidance of spectacular catastrophes) is perhaps evidence of a fortunate path dependency, proper to a British insularity coupled with the singular concomitance of a global imperial reach, the contradictions less immediately evident than in the case of a republican

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imperialism (Hargas 2022; Nora 2012). Among prudent lessons for the present, we count the axiom that challenges identified by way of the antinomies of socialism and liberalism are to be addressed as ongoing, open questions, not resolvable through any illusion of finality, the presumed precedence or finality of either pole. In this climactic moment of the twenty-first century, to decipher a specific British way which was practised through the conjuncture ushered in with the political revolution of 1789, involving a social and economic transformation of the material and the legal conditions of factory production by way of the contractual engagement of labour, is still instructive. In no sense does it offer grounds for any insular self-celebration: that would be to give in to the conviction of some necessary justification over time, a sense of the enduring “rightness” of a British political and social tradition. The site of what is now to be done is neither insular nor continental, is certainly not to be bathed in any imperial nostalgia. The lesson of a British liberal-socialist tradition is rather to point to a mode of ongoing inventive adaptation, in the absence of a doctrine of historical necessity: an art of doing without any charted-out teleology, of which intellectuals and planners might be the guardians and exponents. The more habitual British way has been a practice of incremental adjustment through law, leaving room for an ongoing agency that is polyarchic, an inventiveness of social affirmation and community, organization “from below”. A competition between alternative strategies within the British socialist tradition is explored by Stéphane Guy (2019). Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw are positioned as the voices of a “historical necessity of social democracy” (Guy 2019: 201–220), Graham Wallas and Hubert Bland as the voices of an antithetical position, sketched by way of a chiasmus: “The necessity of a belief against the belief in necessity” (Guy 2019: 267–285). Belief in a teleological necessity of progress to the historical end that is socialism is attributed to Webb and Shaw. Which leaves the question of the substance of a belief, the question of a disposition deemed to be “a necessity”, as alternative to “belief in necessity”. The necessity of a belief in what ?, we may ask, since the psychology of belief is usually associated with a dogmatic conviction as to the truth-corpus of what it is one believes and adheres to. We can take the Fabian Tracts, as examined by Guy, as emblematic of the immediate argumentative and polemical benefits of a doctrine of dynamic historical necessity. There is an incontrovertible gain in rhetorical force. “Rent”, that is the return to the “landlord”, owner of land, of a

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revenue which is not based on (his) labour-creation of value (Ricci 1969: 106), can be exposed as an unearned return on the private property of what is a common condition: the ground on which we live, by way of various modes of passage and settlement. Hence the manifest rationality of the Fabian proposal for nationalization of the real estate of the land, in lieu of its appropriation by an established oligarchy of landlords. The difficulty then has to do with the transferability and wider application of the Land-Rent paradigm to more recent and more mobile forms of wealth, forms more difficult to grasp, for purposes either of taxation or regulation, or purposes of eventual expropriation and nationalization. Or indeed for their comprehension and qualification within a political economy. As an Irishman, Shaw was an interested observer of the social revolution brought about by Conservative governments at Westminster, through a series of Land Acts passed between 1885 and 1903. The immediate effect of this massive transfer of property was the establishment of a class of Irish peasant proprietors, a transformational social settlement effected in advance of the national political settlement, with the transfer of political sovereignty, in the case of Southern Ireland, following a War of Independence between 1919 and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The sequence of the transformations determined the social trajectory which an Irish political revolution would borrow: a path entirely different to that taken in Soviet Russia, notably in Ukraine in the 1930s, or in China after 1949. Comparison between social conditions in the vastness of Russia and prospects for social revolution in Ireland, John Bull’s Other Island (Shaw 1904), between these two largely agrarian societies, is attractive. The paradigm of Land-Rent can have partial use for comprehension of the actual conditions on the ground in Ireland and in Russia, before their political revolutions. Adoption of the paradigm of Land-Rent as the matrix for a theory of social transformation in a more “advanced” capitalist industrial economy will prove less adequate, while however retaining , its rhetorical persuasiveness. Stéphane Guy seeks to delineate a “realist socialism” (Guy 2019: 289) in the writings of Wallas and Bland. The “realism” is here a function of the retreat from a doctrine of the historical necessity of progress (to socialism), coupled with the foregrounding of a “biological finitude” to be addressed. For Wallas, “it is through my assumed biological finitude that man can emancipate himself from it, through the implementation of progressive and effective measures” (Guy 2019: 293).

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Today we will probably have reservations about the prospect of an “emancipation” from biological conditions. “Finitude” now designates more than the mortal condition of individual human agents. The general condition to be acknowledged is a finitude and a dependency which are trans-species and planetary. As reconstructed by Stéphane Guy, the “scepticism” of Wallas and Bland, evident in their sketching of the outlines of a decently sustainable social order, is more prudent, in its attention, literally, to the ground and the air of our social being, than the determinist rationalism of Shaw and Webb. In terms of its intellectual genealogy, this responsiveness draws on a broadly British tradition: the non-determinist, habit-forming incrementalism of Hume, the dynamic of variation and adaptation which Darwin inferred from patient observation of life forms, an adjustment and tuning to given conditions. From these precedents, it is possible to discern modes of composition that are possible and are morally desirable, a vein of reflection and agency responsive to the antinomies of socialism and liberalism that is at once progressive and conservative.

Contemporary Conditions, Manifest Perils Those disappointed by the failures of proclaimed liberal governments to abide by the strictures of liberal thinkers, whatever the litany of tutelary figures—Friedrich von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Karl Popper—will point to the gap between principle in theory and circumstantial compromise in practice. Margaret Thatcher classified ministers as either “wets” or “dries” (Gilmour 1992). In the end, it was the “wets” who in the short term would win out, forcing her resignation in 1990. British politics since the eviction of Thatcher is a coda to this rare venture into principled or dogmatic radicality, inevitably followed by compromise and adaptation under John Major. The stringent liberal therapy of the 1980s was only palatable inasmuch as it could also claim to be a manifestly British or insular-nationalist pick-me-up (Hall 2022). Hence the importance of the Eurosceptic anti-EU excipient through which it could be propagated. This eventually led to the pivotal event of the 2016 referendum, a nationalist U-turn against the perceived liberal cosmopolitanism of an earlier, cooler, Britannia. Those who deplore the compromises of social democracy, or the capitulations of social liberalism, will point to the drift, in evidence from the beginning, of these hybrid compromise forms away from the paradigm of a fully-fledged socialism. Those disappointed by actually existing Soviet

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socialism could, between 1917 and 1989, point to the blatant gap between the proclaimed ends of October 1917 and the coercive realities of actually existing Stalinism. There could, intermittently, emerge endeavours aimed at closing the gap, memorably, fleetingly, in the “Prague spring” of 1968: “socialism with a human face”, the face that of Alexander Dubcek, now remembered as at the time it could be glimpsed, bewildered and moving as that of Buster Keaton. Enlightenment projects, crystallized in the rival paradigm of socialism and liberalism, leave room for charting the divergence between principled intention and actual achievement on the ground, in social destinies and in lives. Such inevitable drift is not to be equated with cases of the calamitous perversion of programmed aspirations, as in the Stalinist exercise of power. Divergence can be the ordinary adjustment to contingent circumstance, a condition of all political agency. It does not, however, mean that political invention is always and only an adjustment to changing circumstances. Insofar as they sketch out two principled formulations of a political design, liberalism and socialism represent the inventive and principled charting of actual possibilities, in terms of what is desirable, decently sustainable, just. And if we situate the present moment of political responsibility in the longer time of a modernity which is tendentially planetary, we can argue that they point both to the possibilities squandered and to possibilities still there to be seized. The taking up of vital possibilities requires lucid appraisal of errors, a non-apocalyptic engagement in a politics that is tendentially cosmopolitan. Those who observe the operations of illiberal, ethno-exclusive projects cannot point to any such divergence between promise and actual accomplishment. The procedures through which the perceived enemies of the illiberal state can be prosecuted, and the liberty-dignity of persons can be violated, should arouse no surprise. Insofar as illiberal populism prospers in opposition to Enlightenment socialism and liberalism, what is done in its name is what was declared would be done. There is no discrepancy here between the moral calamity promised and the actual accomplishment.

Conclusion: Thinking and Acting through the Antinomies, Planetary Common Ground Stéphane Guy alludes to Darwin (Guy 2019: 84), though not to an uncompromising single-purpose and exclusive struggle for life. What is referred to, what is observed by Darwin, is rather a dynamic of inventive

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adaptation, through modalities of inter- and intra-species conviviality and composition and interdependency. What can be inferred, regarding the invention of political procedures conducive to the ends of decent sustainability, is a process of collaborative adaptation and variation, in conditions accountable to all. Comprehension of the polarity of “liberty”, a category grounded in the inalienable “dignity” of persons, is thus concomitant with the dependence of each on an extensive sociability or, in the Humean sense, sympathy within the community of our peers, our equals and others. Interplay between the antinomies of liberalism and socialism is emblematic of our destiny: species adaptation to the common conditions of the dignity of all and of each. The limits of our sympathies are the limits of our sustainable lifeworld. Planetary conditionality of our social being is thus to be understood as the modality of our intra- and inter-species conviviality. No socialism in a single country. Not even the possibility now of a reformist social democracy in a single country. No horizon of socialism or social justice that is not planetary, in its encompassing of what is there, beyond the immediately local, the national society of immediate reference. Opening to what is beyond, adjacent to and conditional of our humanity. For a British intellectual tradition, resolutely empirical and observational, incremental in the pursuit of its aims, there are evident intellectual and moral resources to be drawn on, grounded (Latour 2018) in the necessary adjustment to what is there and to be done.

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Derrida, J., 2002. Marx & Sons, Actuel Marx-Confrontations, Paris: PUFGalilée. Ducange, J.N., Keycheyan R., Roza S., 2021. Histoire globale des socialismes , XIX e –XIX e –siècle, Paris: PUF. Fabre-Magnan, Muriel, 2018. L’institution de la liberté, Paris: PUF. Faye, Jean-Pierre, 1972. Langages totalitaires, Critique de la raison narrative, Paris: Hermann. Friedmann, Milton, 2020. Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Chicago: Chicago UP. Galbraith, John K., 2017. American Capitalism: The Concept of Counter-vailing Power (1951), New York: Routledge. Gilmour, Ian, 1992. Dancing with Dogma, Britain under Thatcherism, LondonNew York: Simon & Schuster. Guy, Stéphane, 2019. Genèse du travaillisme britannique, La philosophie de l’histoire des Fabiens, Paris: Michel Houdiard Éditeur. Hargas, Slimane, 2022. Jeux de miroirs , représentations croisées et colonialité: Histoire des (anti-)analogies entre les conflits anglo-irlandais et franco-algérien, 1830–1998, doctoral thesis, Université Paris XIII-Sorbonne Paris Nord. Hall, Stuart, 2022. Selected Writings on Marxism, edited Gregor McLennan, Duke UP. Harvey, David, 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism, New York: OUP. O’Toole, Finatan, 2017. Why George Bernard Shaw Had a Crush on Stalin. New York Times. September 11 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/ opinion/why-george-bernard-shaw-had-a-crush-on-stalin.html. Accessed 25 Nov 2022. Israel, Jonathan, 2014. Revolutionary Ideas, An Intellectual history of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre, Princeton UP. Klarman, Michael J., 2016. The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the US Constitution, New York: OUP. Latour, Bruno, 2018. Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, London: Polity Books. Levinas, Emmanuel, 1984. Difficile Liberté, Difficile liberté, Paris: Le Livre de poche, «Biblio-essais». Lukacs, G., 1963. The Meaning of Contemporary Realism, translated John and Necke Mander, London: Merlin Press. Lyotard, Jean-François, 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, translated G. Bennington, B. Massumi, Manchester: Manchester UP. Mack, Eric, 2022. “Robert Nozick’s Political Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/nozick-political/. Accessed 25 Nov 2022.

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Mann, Thomas, The Magic Mountain (Die Zauberberg 1924) 1996, translated John E. Woods, London: Vintage Books. Markham, C. (Ed.), 2010. The Hawkins’ Voyages During the Reigns of Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and James I , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511697586. Accessed 25 Dec 2022. Marx, K, 1887 (English Edition). Capital I, A Critique of Political Economy, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/ pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf. Accessed 25 Nov 2022. Marx K., 1845. “Theses on Feuerbach”. https://www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1845/theses/. Accessed 25 Nov 2022. Marx, K., 1848. The Communist Manifesto, https://www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/. Accessed 25 Nov 2022. Nora, Pierre, 2012. Les Français d’Algérie (1961), Paris: Christian Bourgois. Nozick, R., 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York: Basic Books. Pesante, Maria Luisa, 2009. “Slaves, Servants and Wage Earners: Free and Unfree Labour, from Grotius to Blackstone”, History of European Ideas, 35(3): 289– 320. Piketty, Thomas, 2021. Une brève histoire de l’égalité. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Ricci, D., 1969. “Fabian Socialism: A Theory of Rent as Exploitation”, Journal of British Studies, 9(1): 105–121. https://doi.org/10.1086/385584. Accessed 25 Nov 2002. Schiavone, Aldo, 2022. The Pursuit of Equality in the West, translated Jeremy Carden, Harvard University Press. Scriven, T., 2022. “Slavery and Abolition in Chartist Thought and Culture, 1838–1850”, The Historical Journal, 65(5), 1262–1284. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0018246X21000819. Accessed 25 Nov 2022. Shaw, George B., “Letter to The Guardian”, https://www.garethjones.org/sov iet_articles/bernard_shaw.htm. Accessed 25 Nov 2022. Shaw, George B., 1904. John Bulll’s Other Island. St. Paul, 1958. “Epistles to the Galatians”, The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, translated A. Marshall, London: Samuel Bagster. Streeck, Wolfgang, 2016. How will Capitalism End?: Essays on a Failing System, London, Verso. Thompson, E.P., 1968. The Making of the English Working Class, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Turner, Jenny. 2022, “Stuart Hall’s Legacies”, London Review of Books, 3 November. Weber, Max, 1946. “Politics as a Vocation” (1919), Max Weber Essays in Sociology, pp. 77–128, New York: OUP, 1946, translated and edited H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. Zola, Emile, 1896. Rome.

Social Liberalism and Liberal Socialism: Tensions and Compatibility Françoise Orazi

In the search for an intersection between liberalism and socialism, liberal socialism and social liberalism immediately come to mind. Though they are certainly not far apart, it appears, on closer examination, that their exact relation remains unclear. Can a certain version of liberalism amount to the same as a certain version of socialism, or must they ultimately remain different, maybe forming an alliance of sorts but lacking common theoretical framework and diverging as to the ideal society they aim for or as to the method to reach it? This rather simple question raises a score of intricacies, not least the stable definition of either political tradition, especially in adaptation to, and mutation because of, context. Obviously, this article does not pretend to answer such a complex question but rather to consider some methodological approaches that may serve to frame the question by bringing a few clarifying elements to the fore. Given the scope and variety of both traditions of political thought labelled, sometimes contentiously, socialism or liberalism as well as the elusiveness of the terms, as they apply to a nebulous synchronic and diachronic continuum of political theory or philosophy, ideologies or

F. Orazi (B) Université Lumière Lyon II, Lyon, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_4

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parties and currents active in the political arena, this article must first begin by a brief terminological examination. The second part will consider the economic question which is usually taken to signal a clear distinction between liberalism and socialism to conclude that it does not allow for a strict differentiation of liberal socialism and social liberalism. In a third part I will attempt an approach based on the core concepts of ideologies as mapped out by Michael Freeden. The final part will follow a more contextual approach which discloses “negative values” brought about by the historical conditions of the emergence of both doctrines.

Terminological Distinctions My starting point is that semantically at least, liberal socialism and social liberalism are two different categories: the noun signals the main ideological anchoring and is qualified by the adjective. In other words, inasmuch as they are each grounded in, respectively, socialism and liberalism, liberal socialism and social liberalism are, primarily, a form of their respective traditions of thought and, as such, remain distinguishable. As simple as the syntactic distinction may be, a brief look at the language of political theory is enough to establish that the actual usage of the terms is more complex. The intense debate over liberalism that, with (little) hindsight, can be said to have lasted three decades from the 1980s to the 2000s, has made it clear that liberalism is so broad a church, that even “social liberalism” is a rather wide designation, covering a variety of more precise hyponyms. From a historical point of view, social liberalism points to the late nineteenth, early twentieth century development of a revisionist “new liberalism1 ”—for instance Edwardian liberalism in Britain—which can be said to evolve throughout the twentieth century into “welfare state liberalism”—for instance Beveridge’s liberalism and later “social justice liberalism”, most notably with the turn towards justice endorsed by Rawls. Other labels have emerged since, both from the academic analysis of political ideologies and from the development of political ideologies. “Liberal egalitarianism” is found in academic discourse to describe political philosophy of the Rawlsian type while social liberalism is often 1 Academic interest for new liberalism began in the late 1970s under the aegis of Peter Clarke, Michael Freeden and Stephen Collini: for a list of the main publications on new liberalism see Jackson (2012, 35).

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conflated with “social democracy” in political sociology, as centre-left political parties and policies have identified as such. This may be simply because the terms are used rather to describe the centre-left political cluster which, in many western countries, included social liberals, from the inter-war to the immediate post second war periods, rather than ideologies from the point of view of a normative political philosophy. Though the ideological differences between the two are certainly not major ones, the example of Hobhouse’s thought trajectory points to a social liberalism which is clearly anchored in the liberal tradition, unlike social democracy. L.T. Hobhouse, in a short book published in 1911 entitled Liberalism (Hobhouse 1911), called for a revised liberalism that would continue to value freedom first and foremost, but made a difference—following T.H. Green—between “social freedom” and “unsocial freedom”. This paved the way for a reappraisal of the role of the State and a clear rapprochement with contemporary socialist views. Yet, faced with the horrors of the First World War a few years later, Hobhouse became far more wary of the tyrannical potential of the State and critical of the threat to individual freedom. His renewed focus on the main tenet of liberal thought supports the interpretation that he was fundamentally a liberal worldview that had taken on a socialist turn rather than the reverse. The “social” part of liberalism was conceived of as the most adequate means to serve the aspirations of liberalism. Interestingly Hobhouse’s social liberal legacy is still claimed today. Social liberalism, as set out most clearly in L. T. Hobhouse’s Liberalism in 1911, places freedom above all, but sees twin threats to freedom: economic inequality and over-mighty state power. So when inequality is neglected by government, social liberals tend to focus on policies to tackle it. When government is working to reduce inequality, social liberals are more likely to be concerned about tempering the power of the state. This mix of attitudes flows more clearly from social liberalism than from social democracy. However, that does not reduce the considerable amount of shared ground between the Liberal Democrats and social democratic thinking (Grayson 2007, 33). In the same way the term “third way” is also sometimes said to be in the vicinity of “social-liberalism” as it posits a middle-ground between traditional right-wing and left-wing policies. The term could be understood either as pointing to a conceptual distinction between three traditions, namely socialism, liberalism and a “third way” that belongs

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to neither of the first two; or as a merger of the first two, a “socialismliberalism”. However, given that the Third Way is more aptly defined as a turn to right-wing turn of social democracy in the 1990s, that pushed left-wing parties to the centre, or the middle as the German version (neue Mitte) more explicitly claims, it should be seen as a misnomer. The focus of this part has so far been on social liberalism rather than its counterpart. Yet it must be noticed that if, as a result of the terminological issues presented here, the “term” social liberalism is not as widely used as it once was, “liberal socialism” is more frequent in recent political theory (Mouffe 1993; McManus 2021). But to make matters even more complex, it turns out to have been popularized by liberal authors as much as by socialist ones.2 Rawls himself speaks of “liberal socialism” or “liberal democratic socialism” (Rawls, 136). Based on this example, it is tempting to conclude that liberal socialism and social liberalism cannot be firmly separated if the author of Political Liberalism himself resorts to this term. Yet it seems here that Rawls is speaking specifically of the economy in his search for an organization that is likely to foster justice as fairness, offering liberal socialism, along with property-owning democracy as the best options.

The Economy As the example of Rawls reminds us, social liberals can be critical of capitalism, even in its welfare state version, as failing “to guarantee either the fair value of citizens’ political liberties or fair equality of opportunity, given the scale of background inequalities in the ownership of property” (O’Neill 161). Even without going as far back as Locke’s famous chapter V in the Second Treatise, liberalism is not blind to the problem of the maldistribution of wealth. Reforming or regulating capitalism has always been part of the social liberal agenda, especially of social liberal economists like Hobson or Keynes.3 Yet this does not amount to a repudiation of private property and market economy: a liberal cannot condone an economy in which an individual would be barred from any economic autonomy or any free enterprise, while socialism would not sanction an 2 Including of course Carlo Rosselli with his 1930 Socialisme liberal. 3 Keynes also conflated liberal socialism and social liberalism: “[…] on different occa-

sions, Keynes evoked a ‘socialism of the future’ which is sometimes called social-liberalism or liberal socialism” (Cate 2012, 251).

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economic organization where any collective property would be outlawed and no regulations would apply to private businesses. To the young John Stuart Mill who had come to think very highly of the Owenites, it was precisely, even only, the economic divergence that could not be overcome, it “was a lutte corps à corps between Owenites and political economists, whom the Owenites regarded as their most inveterate opponents” (Mill 1981, 88). Yet, if classical liberal and socialist economic orthodoxies rank among the most salient differences between the two traditions of thought, there is still room for an economic rapprochement. Owen’s communities or cooperatives were meant to function within a market economy after all, and a much older John Stuart Mill, whose liberal views edged towards social liberalism by then, praised the cooperative movement: The prosperity of the co-operative stores shows that this benefit is obtained not only without detriment to cheapness, but with great advantage to it, since the profits of the concerns enable them to return to the consumers a large percentage on the price of every article supplied to them. So far, therefore, as this class of evils is concerned, an effectual remedy is already in operation, which, though suggested by and partly grounded on socialistic principles, is consistent with the existing constitution of property. (Mill 1967, 732)

What Owen’s “utopian socialism” and Mill’s point of view could agree on was an economic organization based on collectively owned economic units, including production units, within a market-based economy. In more specialized terms, there is no liberal reason not to celebrate the wide dispersal of ownership of the means of production and distribution since it fosters individual autonomy and safeguards against monopolies. The same sort of reformed capitalism is advocated by Rawls in the pages of Justice as Fairness mentioned above, in which he explicitly acknowledges Mill’s vision. “Note also that Mill’s idea of worker-managed cooperative firms is fully compatible with property-owning democracy, since such firms are not owned or controlled by the state” (Rawls, 176). However, Rawls forcefully opposes what he calls the “state socialist command economy”, a rigid centralized planning economy entirely controlled by the state. This enables him to conceive of a socialism that does not jeopardize freedom or democracy, “in contrast with a state socialist command economy, firms under liberal socialism carry on their activities within a system of free and workably competitive markets. Free

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choice of occupation is also assured” (Rawls 2001, 138). The differentiation between “state socialist command economy” and “liberal socialism” relies strongly on ownership (O’Neill 2020). In liberal socialism, ownership of the means of production is in the hands of society, not the state, allowing “economic power” to be “dispersed” (Rawls 2001, 138). In the same way, this time from a socialist vantage point, namely the liberal socialism of Erik Olin Wright, it is possible to envisage a much reformed capitalism: “capitalism between freely consenting adults is much less objectionable than capitalism between employers and workers who have little choice but to work for wages” (Wright 2010, 153). In a manner reminiscent of Rawls’s analysis, Wright distinguishes between three types of economy, capitalism, statism and socialism, which he explicitly opposes to the first two. While statism amounts to “an economic structure within which the means of production are owned by the state”, socialism is “an economic structure within which the means of production are owned collectively by the entire society (Wright 2006a, 106).” Wright recognizes that “this idea of a socialism rooted in social power is not the conventional way of understanding socialism. Indeed, many people use the term ‘socialism’ to describe what I am here calling statism (Wright, Socialism as Social Empowerment 2006b, 154)”, but insist that only ownership by the entire society can deliver the true aspirations of socialism, putting the ideal of a fair democratic society as more relevant to socialism than the orthodoxy economics. Here, the focus in on the moral ideals of socialism, in an approach similar to the new liberal approach described earlier: This reconceptualization, however, does capture a central moral idea about socialism: it is an economy organized in such a way as to serve the needs and aspirations of ordinary people, not elites, and to do this the economy must in some way or another be controlled by ordinary people—that is, subordinated to social power. (Wright 2006a, 106)

It seems, then, that social liberals and liberal socialists have convergent views on the economy. Though all socialism is clearly grounded in a critique of capitalism whereas only new liberalism or liberal egalitarians identify it as an obstacle to a free, fair and democratic society, Wright’s list of the six defects of capitalism could probably be endorsed by social liberalism, especially the first two:

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The dynamics of capitalist economic growth systematically generates both increasing concentrations of wealth and privilege and expanding pools of deprivation, marginalization and poverty, both nationally and globally. Since capitalism systematically denies the conditions for free human flourishing and development to large sections of the world population, even within the most advanced economies, universal emancipation is impossible under capitalist rule. ‘Freedom of choice’, claimed by its defenders as capitalism’s central moral virtue, can only be partial under capitalism, since the inequalities that it generates entail limitations to the ‘real freedom’—the effective capacity to act on their life plans, to implement the choices which matter to them—of so many. (Wright 2006a, 100–101)

Indeed, the opposition to “increasing concentrations of wealth and privilege” is as much a core commitment of liberalism as of socialism. Social liberalism sanctioned economic intervention from the start specifically to reduce poverty. As for the second point quoted here, the demand for “universal emancipation” and the acknowledgement of the lack of freedom for large parts of the population seem to echo T.H. Green’s 1861 Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract.

Diverging or Congruent Core Concepts? The economy is usually taken to be an obvious marker of difference between liberalism and socialism: as Wright himself points out, “the economy is usually seen as a sure way to characterize socialism. Most discussions of socialism build the concept in terms of a binary contrast with capitalism. The standard strategy is to begin with a discussion of different ways of organizing production, and from this to define capitalism as a distinctive type of “mode of production” or “economic structure” (Wright 2010, 72). Yet as far as the distinction between liberal socialism and social liberalism goes, it has proved rather unhelpful. Indeed, rather than a normative commitment or an ethical foundation on either part, it may be described as a secondary feature of both traditions of thought, so that the long-lasting association of liberalism with capitalism, for instance, appears as a means to an end. From this point of view, the liberal commitment to a market economy should be interpreted as implied by the liberal commitment to individual freedom, therefore subject to its fulfilling its promise of fostering individual freedom. This would explain J.S. Mill’s larger interest for socialism:

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[T]he intellectual and moral grounds of Socialism deserve the most attentive study, as affording in many cases the guiding principles of the improvements necessary to give the present economic system of society its best chance. (Mill 1967, 736)

This leads me to turn now to the core concepts of liberalism and socialism as established by Michael Freeden, to continue the enquiry on the common or different nature of social liberalism and liberal socialism. Michael Freeden has shown that we should not expect “ideologies[to] consist of mutually exclusive systems of ideas” (Freeden 1996, 24). He provides a well-known description of the ideological core of Socialism and what he names “Millite Liberalism”, by detailing the core concepts underpinning them. He offers a thorough listing of each ideology’s core concepts that I have replicated in the following figure. I have changed the order in which the core concepts appear in Ideologies and Political theory in order to show the congruence of some items. It appears, at least in the case of the concepts on the same line, that one may speak of affinity, though a thorough decontestation inevitably reveals variations. From these affinities, one may deduce at the very least a certain proximity between social liberalism and liberal socialism, whose core commitments share a welfarist element, a consideration for the autonomy of human beings, a recognition of their social character along with a historical approach as the purveyor of change and possibly progress as indicated in the figure. However, a few items on the list are left without a match in the opposite column, most conspicuously, liberty on the side of

Socialism (Freeden 1996, 425-) human nature as active history as the arena of (ultimately) beneficial change human welfare as a desirable objective the constitutive nature of the human relationship equality

Affinity

Millite Liberalism (Freeden 1996, 144-) individualism liberty progress rationality the general interest sociability limited and responsible power

Fig. 1 Core concepts

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liberalism and equality on the side of socialism. Can this lack of correspondence be interpreted as a sure sign of remaining, possibly irreconcilable, differences? Or have liberal socialism and social liberalism found ways to overcome the lack of compatibility of those specific points of doctrine? To try to offer an answer we must consider how social liberalism regards equality and where liberal socialism stands regarding liberty. Social liberalism has moved closer to equality through its redefinition of freedom. New liberalism managed to define freedom as dependent upon equality, by putting forward the notion of positive freedom, as famously defined by Green: That end is what I call freedom in the positive sense: in other words, the liberation of the powers of all men equally for contributions to a common good. No one has a right to do what he will with his own in such a way as to contravene this end. It is only through the guarantee which society gives him that he has property at all, or, strictly speaking, any right to his possessions. This guarantee is founded on a sense of common interest. (Green 1911, 372)

The implication of positive freedom is a potential growth of the individual, a “liberation of the powers of all men” in Green’s terms, that puts freedom in a progressive frame thereby endowing it with Marxist undertones: the individual requires “liberation of the powers”, he is then in a state of arrested development not too different from the state of alienation. Another step towards socialism is the collective objective of individual freedom, in keeping with Green’s holistic vision of society. This nullifies any atomistic worldview: “He [man] must, in short, be capable of conceiving and seeking a permanent well-being in which the permanent well-being of others is included” (Green 1883, 212). The notorious shift from classical freedom, or rather the classical liberal notion of freedom to the distinction between positive and negative freedom, famously refuted by Isaiah Berlin, was certainly a pivot in the coming together of liberalism and socialism. Along with, on a more pragmatic level, the spreading of mass politics which made it more difficult to ignore the condition of the working-class who, despite equal rights under the law, appeared to enjoy freedom in name only. The implementation of true liberalism for all meant that access to freedom needed to be fostered by active policies. The social turn of liberalism in the

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late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, subsequent to Green, justified marked progress in social legislation on the basis of a reformulated freedom. According to social liberalism, or new liberalism as this particular version came to be known, human beings have an ontological dependence on their community, and the supremacy of the common good requires equal access to freedom. Furthermore, since freedom is self-realization, which itself depends upon the common good, freedom becomes inextricably linked to equality, not only formal legal equality but also equality in the sense of social justice. Following this brief case study, it appears that social liberalism can be described as amounting to the promotion of equality to a position closer to the liberal core concepts. Strictly speaking, equality was not borrowed from a different tradition for it was always part of the liberal tradition with its insistence on the rule of law and the formal equality it implies. In the same way, traces of the individual’s dependence on the community can be found in the refutation of rights “as natural” and their attribution to civil society.4 These two further remarks speak in favour of equality as being no stranger to the liberal tradition. Yet one may also point out that it remained, so far, instrumental, a means to ensure the neutrality of the law or to account for the secularization of political thought. Using Freeden’s description, it can still be maintained that equality does not amount to a core concept of liberalism, though the new liberal morphology brought it in close proximity to the liberal core: “[…] equality was maintained as equality of opportunity, and in that form inequalities that were in the general interest were condoned. Equality remained subservient to a rational sociability and to the furtherance of the liberty of individual development and choice. (Freeden 1996, 206)

As for the modern variant of social liberalism, liberal egalitarianism, it also brings equality much closer to its core. Freeden’s discussion of what he terms “philosophical liberalism”, especially in its relation to equality, is far too detailed to be summed up (1996, 241–247), but it appears that liberal egalitarianism also places equality in close vicinity to liberty, as 4 See, for instance, “Rights are, then, the fruits of the law, and of the law alone. There are no rights without law—no rights contrary to the law—no rights anterior to the law. Before the existence of laws there may be reasons for wishing that there were laws—and doubtless such reasons cannot be wanting, and those of the strongest kind;—but a reason for wishing that we possessed a right, does not constitute a right” (Bentham 1838–1843).

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Rawls’ two principles of justice made clear, beginning with the “indefeasible claim to liberties”, which are immediately described as “equal” and further brought in proximity to equality as they are said to be “compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all”5 (Rawls 2001, 42–43). A parallel approach from the side of liberal socialism this time should lead us to consider whether liberty is brought closer to the conceptual core. To do so one must focus on defining the liberal turn in the socialist tradition. Here the choice of an example is not as obvious as new liberalism. This may be because the development of socialist thought appears less linear than its liberal counterpart. So that at any given time, several dissenting versions of socialism coexist, which also implies that the term socialist is more contested, and denied to various contenders (Leach 1996, 134–135). Nevertheless, the first obvious candidate would be the socialism of the future theorized by Anthony Crosland, while the second one would be the more theoretical reformulation of socialism under the aegis of leading theoreticians in the 1990s and 2000s, though it can be argued that the ongoing significance of Crosland is part of the latter.6 This later period is especially inspiring if one bears in mind Peter Osborne’s striking comparison with social liberalism: To write of the future of liberalism in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century was, of necessity, to write also about socialism. Today, a hundred years later, the reverse is true: it has become impossible to write of the prospects for socialism without raising once more the question of its relation to liberalism. Liberalism survived into the twentieth century in Britain only through it assimilation to socialism. Yet the future of socialism seems now to hang in the balance of its reorientation towards the liberal tradition. (Osborne 1991, 2)

5 The revised version of the two principles is “(a)Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; and (b) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle)”. 6 “The final and most compelling reason for Crosland’s ongoing significance is that he gave the Labour party a persuasive, electorally appealing character, acknowledging that ethical socialism was at its core a marriage of individual freedom and social justice” (Diamond 2016, 7).

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In this perspective, the reformulation of socialism implies a criticism of the State, which is described as alien if not opposite to the socialist tradition. Even a socialist with undeniable Marxist credentials like Ralph Miliband came close to claiming freedom as a critical value, without actually using the term, but implying it through “less oppressive”, “subordination” and “real autonomy”: The simple fact of the matter is that capitalist democracy, for all its crippling limitations, has been immeasurably less oppressive and a lot more democratic than any Communist regime, whatever the latter’s achievements in economic, social and other fields. Communist regimes might legitimately claim that they encouraged a far greater degree of participation in organs of power than did bourgeois democracy; but the claim was rendered spurious by the subordination of these organs to strict party and state control, with little (or no) real autonomy. (Miliband 1989, 31–32)

The rejection of totalitarian control can be theorized by positing a third category acting as a foil so as to define socialism as foreign to authoritarianism and the State. As already seen, Wright explicitly contrasts his liberal socialism with statism. On the question of freedom, Wright once more appears to come in close proximity to liberal egalitarianism as he proceeds to describe his political project by grounding its principles in justice. In this passage, Wright’s conception of justice begins with equality (1) and leads to the recognition of freedom understood as “the freedom of individuals to make choices”: Underlying the analysis in this book is what could be called a radical democratic egalitarian understanding of justice. It rests on two broad normative claims, one concerning the conditions for social justice and the other for political justice: 1. Social justice: In a socially just society, all people would have broadly equal access to the necessary material and social means to live flourishing lives. 2. Political justice: In a politically just society, all people would have broadly equal access to the necessary means to participate meaningfully in decisions about things which affect their lives. This includes both the freedom of individuals to make choices that affect their own lives as separate persons, and their capacity to participate in collective decisions which affect their lives as members of a broader community. (Wright 2010, 8)

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To finish this part dedicated to core concepts, it must be noted that, besides freedom and equality, Fig. 1 left two items without a possible correspondence, namely “rationality” and “limited and responsible power”. The two tenets of Mill’s view of the individual can hardly be said to have received the same attention from socialist theory. Still, the attack on statism certainly brings socialism closer to the last items on the Millite liberalism list, paving the way for a reappraisal of individual freedom of choice, which finds its full-blown expression in Wright’s liberal socialism. Erik’s socialism was deeply democratic and pluralistic, his commitment to human self-determination passionate, his guardianship of rights unfettered. His socialist ethic—what he called socialist democracy—was grounded in social power, a perspective that utterly rejected the idea that confining capitalism must be authoritarian or that advancing liberal rights must be a barrier to more egalitarian outcomes. Erik’s institutional evaluations placed human freedom front and center as he sought to secure means to mutually buttress liberty and equality through fraternity. (Katznelson 2020, 526)

Different “Negative Values” and Trajectories If the accord of liberal socialism and social liberalism can hardly be denied, its nature remains uncertain. Is it circumstantial, heavily dependent on the context or doctrinal and relatively ahistorical? Indeed, the main shortcoming of focusing on positive values and what an ideology is for is to leave what it is fundamentally against in the shadow, in this case overlooking liberal socialism’s and/or social liberalism’s diverging priorities and methods. Both liberalism and socialism have “negative” core notions, or arch-enemies in the form of social or political ills they cannot be expected to overlook. Their identification plays a significant part in the shaping of doctrines, so that for a socialist equality may mean putting an end to class while for a liberal it would rather mean equality of opportunity. The most obvious “negative values” stand out when examining the conditions of the emergence of these traditions of thought. For instance, the two aforementioned lone items on the liberal list, namely rationality and “limited and responsible power”, can be described as the most recognizable legacy of Enlightenment proto-liberalism7 and serve to remind us 7 See, for instance, Locke’s description of the limited role of the magistrate.

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that, economically, liberalism was designed against mercantilism and politically against the arbitrariness of absolute monarchy. Socialism, on the other hand, is the product of the second modernity and reacted against social inequality and economic exploitation. The heart of any tradition of thought can, therefore, be portrayed in terms of a theorized nemesis, with subsequent changes and adaptations to context never allowing for a full departure from this premise. Accommodating core concepts that are borrowed from outside traditions is always possible, even if it may entail defining positive core notions anew, as in the case of positive freedom. The priority may, however, well remain freedom from arbitrary authority, therefore limited power. According to this perspective, liberal socialism and social liberalism retain their original adversaries at the core of their identity, therefore diverging priorities, as well as a distinctive analysis of how to defeat them. Wright consistently pointed at class exploitation as the source of social injustice: “I continue to feel that Marxist class analysis is superior to the other traditions for a range of questions that I feel are of central importance, especially questions about the nature of capitalism, its harms and contradictions, and the possibilities of its transformation” (Wright 2015, 3). His liberal socialism was the result of an engagement with social science that led him to see Marx’s theory of capitalism’s future as inadequate and to focus therefore on achievability rather than theory. In contrast, liberal egalitarianism was not built on a systematic Marxianlike analysis of the short-comings of capitalism but on a belief in liberal institutions such as the rule of law. Forrester even argues that very little attention is paid to existing social conditions except for questions that could call for “applied-ethics” (Forrester 2022). Given the focus on the triumph of reason in liberalism, it is perhaps not surprising that liberal egalitarianism focuses on abstract normative philosophy mostly dependent on argumentation. In any case, liberal egalitarianism posits that justice is attainable without an overhaul of the social order: “It was assumed that liberal institutions, properly arranged, would be able to diffuse and neutralize injustice. No rupture or transition was necessary to secure these social benefits” (Forrester 2022, 10). In this way then social liberalism can be understood as an improvement of the existing regime whereas liberal socialism relies on an alternative regime.

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Conclusion It would then appear that the comparisons put forward in the second and third parts of this article point to broadly similar ideological contents as well as a similar ideal socio-economic organization for liberal socialism and social liberalism. From the angle of political sociology briefly raised in part one, this is hardly surprising: in a left-wing to right-wing spectrum any compromise between equality and liberty, or individual freedom and individual emancipation automatically results in a positioning in between two poles: liberal socialism having drifted to the right and social liberalism having drifted to the left, they find themselves more or less in the same place where they form an alliance, somewhere in the centre-left, where social democracy is usually said to belong. But most theorists mentioned in this article are concerned with an ideal world, a utopia, which, to paraphrase Wright could prove real. While their ideals may have much in common, it seems that social liberalism is engaged mostly in a reformist project, however far-reaching, while liberal socialism remains rooted in the search for an emancipatory alternative, a “metamorphosis” even if it regards revolutions or “systemic ruptural strategies” (Wright 2010, 228) as implausible and risky. Moreover, its belief in class struggle makes it more open to the possibility of conflict: […] the history of the future – if it is to be a history of emancipatory social empowerment – will be a trajectory of victories and defeats, winners and losers, not simply of compromise and cooperation between differing interests and classes. The episodes of that trajectory will be marked by institutional innovations that will have to overcome opposition from those whose interests are threatened by democratic egalitarianism, and some of that opposition will be nasty, recalcitrant and destructive. (Wright 2010, 228)

Social liberalism’s anticipation of the opposition to change is without doubt more tentative: The case is not so clear when we find the will of the individual in conflict with the will of the community as a whole. When such conflict occurs, it would seem that we must be prepared for one of two things. Either we must admit the legitimacy of coercion, avowedly not in the interests of freedom but in furtherance, without regard to freedom, of other ends which the community deems good. Or we must admit limitations which

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may cramp the development of the general will, and perchance prove a serious obstacle to collective progress. Is there any means of avoiding this conflict? (Hobhouse 1911, 140)

References Bentham, Jeremy. “The Works of Jeremy Bentham.” Online Library of Liberty. 1838–1843. https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/bowring-the-works-ofjeremy-bentham-vol-3 (accessed October 15, 2022). Cate, Thomas, ed. Keynes’ General Theory: Seventy-Five Years Later. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2012. Diamond, Patrick. The Crosland Legacy. Bristol: Policy Press, 2016. Forrester, Katrina. “Liberalism and Social Theory after John.” Analyse & Kritik (2022): 1–22. Freeden, Michael. Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Oxford: OUP, 1996. Grayson, Richard. “Social Democracy or Social Liberalism? Ideological Sources of Liberal Democrat Policy.” The Political Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2007): 32–39. Green, Thomas Hill. Prolegomena to Ethics. Edited by Andrew Cecil Bradley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883. ———. “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract.” In Works of Thomas Hill Green, edited by Thomas Hill Green, 305–386. London: Longmans, 1911. Hobhouse, L.T. Liberalism. Edited by James Meadowcroft. London: Williams and Norgate, 1911. ———. The Metaphysical Theory of the State: A Criticism. Kitchener: Batoche Books (1918) 1999. Jackson, Ben. “Socialism and the New Liberalism.” In Liberalism as Ideology: Essays in honour of Michael Freeden, edited by Ben Jackson and Marc Stears, 34–52. Oxford: OUP, 2012. Katznelson, Ira. “Is Liberal Socialism Possible? Reflections on “Real Utopias”.” Politics & Society 48, no. 4 (2020): 525–537. Leach, Robert. British Political Ideologies. London: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996. McManus, Mathew. “What Is Liberal Socialism?” Liberal Currents. 22 June 2021. https://www.liberalcurrents.com/what-is-liberal-socialism/ (accessed January 15, 2023). Mill, John Stuart. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume V—Essays on Economics and Society. Edited by John Robson. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1967.

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———. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume I—Autobiography and Literary Essays. Edited by John Robson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. Miliband, Ralph. “Reflections on the Crisis of Communist Regimes.” New Left Review, no. 177 (1989): 27–36. Mouffe, Chantal. “Toward a Liberal Socialism?” Dissent. Winter 1993. https:// www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1447453673MouffeTowar dALiberalSocialismWinter1993.pdf (accessed January 15, 2023). O’Neill, Martin. “Social Justice and Economic Systems.” Philosophical Topics (Fall 2020): 159–201. Osborne, Peter. “Introduction.” In Socialism and the Limits of Liberalism, edited by Peter Osborne, 1–14. London: Verso, 1991. Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001. Stears, Ben, and Marc Jackson. Liberalism as Ideology. Oxford: OUP, 2012. Wright, Erik Olin. “Compass Points: Towards a Socialist Alternative.” New Left Review 41 (September 2006a): 93–124. ———. “Socialism as Social Empowerment.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 50 (2006b): 147–167. ———. Envisioning Real Utopias. London: Verso, 2010. ———. Understanding Class. London: Verso, 2015.

Reassessing the Liberalism-Socialism Paradigm in Economic Thought

Marx, socialism and liberty Fabien Tarrit

Science must not be a selfish pleasure […] Those who have the good fortune to be able to devote themselves to scientific pursuits must be the first to place their knowledge at the service of humanity. (Marx in Lafargue, Liebknecht 1890: 64)

This is arguably the main purpose of science in general, and of the humanities and social sciences in particular. The latter’s peculiarity is primarily that the object of the discipline (human activity) is also its subject. The present contribution aims precisely to address socialism. The issue is to find out ways not only to help understand the world but also to think how researchers in social sciences and humanities may engage in the development of intellectual skills with a view to conceiving means for framing human relations as well as social relations in a way that best allows welfare for all and everyone to flourish. Just as it may be unrealistic, and especially dangerous, to stop critically questioning the essence of the

I am grateful to Pierre Van Zyl for his help. F. Tarrit (B) REGARDS, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_5

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existing social relations, it is necessary to discuss what may be possible in the future. In other words, we must not a priori decline to consider formulating ‘receipts (sic) […] for the cook shops of the future’ (Marx 2004 [1873]), on the only condition that such a practice should be clearly delineated, so that such a development cannot be referred to as a utopian one. However, while there is no doubt that Marx and Engels refused to speculate in these cook shops, and they had several reasons for this, they did not give many clues on the ways and means for organizing a collective of free human beings. I am trying to provide here some elements to reply to such a lack of thought. Thus, in general terms, socialism may be conceived as some form of convergence between a high level of development of the productive forces—which include technology but also human labor—and social relations that have been cleared from their major antagonisms and relations of domination, in such a way that technology is available for all. In other words, as Lenin famously claimed before the Council of people’s commissars in December 1920 ‘Communism is equal to Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country’. It should be borne in mind here that for Marx as for Engels, there was no essential difference between socialism and communism, and they used the one or the other interchangeably, treating them as if they were synonymous. Engels explained, in a late edition of the Communist Manifesto, why they used the word ‘communist’ rather than ‘socialist’, emphasizing that this choice was based on circumstances rather than ideas.1 Basically, the choice of the word ‘communist’ was guided by a connection with the working class, which was keen to use it, while ‘socialist’ was rather used by the ‘left’ petite-bourgeoisie. By the same logic, in the Manifesto, Marx and Engels were careful to distinguish their own doctrine from various forms of socialism: anarchism, referred to as lumpenproletarian socialism; petit-bourgeois socialism, related to craftsmen; agrarian socialism, associated with peasant anarchism; and even slave socialism, 1 ‘[W]hen it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood […] men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the “educated” classes for support. Whatever portion of the working class […] had proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself Communist. […] Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it’ (Engels 2012 [1888]: 108).

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referred to by Plato. Therefore, it is less for a theoretical divergence than for a practical difference that the word ‘communism’ was privileged over ‘socialism’. As far as the elaboration of a reflection on what socialism could look like is concerned, two views can be specified, as a first approach. On the one hand, some have claimed that creating such a theory is useless, in the sense that once selfishness and class conflict have been deleted, there is no necessity to build a model of a socialist social coordination, which will appear automatically (see for instance Plekhanov 1940 [1907]). On the other hand, some think that it is necessary to elaborate on that issue to give food for thought, and also because the scope of this perspective will necessarily be further obscured by the failure and collapse of the regimes that used the term ‘socialism’. It, therefore, becomes necessary to build an alternative in which the quality of life can be proved to be better. The argument here builds essentially on Marx’s and Engels’ texts, not as a dogma but as a guide for reflection, and also because it might be the case that Marxism is not sufficiently developed, although thousands of pages have been written on it, to dispense with its founders. This is also why I am convinced that these authors’ ideas, which history labeled as Marxism, are well suited for understanding the concept of socialism. Such were the introductory words of the Communist Manifesto which was the political program of the League of the Just, which became the Communist League: ‘A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. […] Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? […] It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Specter of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself’ (Marx and Engels 2011 [1848]). Such are these ‘views’, ‘aims’, and ‘tendencies’ that this text intends to address here. This contribution opposes socialism to capitalism, as a material mode of organization of the world, rather than to liberalism, as an intellectual way to interpret the world. I see liberalism rather as a concept, or as a set of concepts, which can relate to various conceptions of the world, and it can infer a defense of capitalism as well as a critique of capitalism, and potentially a defense of socialism. Hence, my suggestion is that it can be the case that liberalism and socialism are consistent with each other (Evans 1975; Fleurbaey 2003), and socialism can be understood as the emancipatory objective of liberalism. This contribution is

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rather focused on what socialism is opposed to, that is capitalism, as it is defended by some forms of liberalism. In the related literature, while some scholars oppose liberalism and socialism, either in favor of liberalism (Nozick 1974), or in favor of socialism (Simpson 1976; Levine 1982), others privilege the possibility of a synthesis between liberalism and socialism (see Rawls 1971; Reiman 2015), or of even going beyond such opposition (Van Parijs 1995). Marx himself did not see liberalism as an enemy but rather as an ally in the fight against monarchism. As such, he saw it as a relay for socialism. More specifically, I do not only consider Marx and Engels’ criticism of capitalism as a prerequisite, but I also see it as a condition for any reflection on socialism as an alternative form of social organization. That is the reason why I start from the assumption that a specific reflection on the content of a society which could be labeled as socialist can only develop on the basis of the analysis of the existing relations. In addition, my aim is to propose a discussion and elaboration on what the authors suggested rather than on what they formulated, and I intend to invite the readers not only to reflect on their approach but also to interpret what can be implicit in their contributions to the debate. This text aims to participate in the deepening of research on Marx’s works and is articulated in three sections: what socialism is not, Stalinism and statism (i), what socialism is opposed to, capitalism (ii), and what socialism is, a move to liberation (iii).

Socialism is neither Stalinism nor statism Institutions which were responsible, under the name of ‘socialism’, for a huge number of violations of human rights, collapsed more than thirty years ago, and it would be inappropriate today to refer to communism as a specter, as Marx and Engels did in the Communist Manifesto. It has rather become some sort of foil. The word did not survive the test of history. The weight of history cannot be ignored regarding ‘communism’, as well as ‘socialism’, which has also been affected by the First World War, the colonial wars, the bloody crushing of the German Revolution in 1919 and other events. Thus, while both terms are identified with treachery and state violence, it appears that ‘communism has suffered the greatest damage because of the way it was captured by bureaucratic realpolitik and made subservient to a totalitarian enterprise’ (Bensaïd 2010 [2009], emphasis in the original; personal translation). Agreement can easily be reached on the fact that identifying—or at least assimilating—socialism,

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as well as communism, with such historical crimes that include prosecution, tortures, murder, is a major intellectual fallacy, which has been put forward so often until now. Yet, even if such a claim is mistaken, the fact remains that the memory of these crimes exerts a significant pressure on the subjective conditions of our time, on the population at large as well as on researchers, whose works are nothing more than a reflection and a more or less distorted image of the ethos of a given society. I would like to attract the readers’ attention to two issues before going further. First, the political and social practices that were implemented in the name of socialism—or communism—cannot be understood as a distortion of Marx’s thought, and of Marxism more generally, as a heresy affecting a dogma. Rather, the regimes having claimed to act on the basis of Marx’s ideas did so first and foremost as an ideological protection with the aim of making their practice more acceptable, as an ideological superstructure whose function was to stabilize the relations of domination they were benefiting from. Second, the failure of the socialist revolution in Russia cannot be explained by the backward character of the country (Elster 1984; Cohen 1991). Such a statement, which claims to be based on Marx’s works, is rather based on a determinist reading of historical materialism, which is so much deeper than this superficial interpretation. Marx himself pre-empted this kind of claim, when he defended the international character of his theory: ‘If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development’ (Marx and Engels 1882). A schematic and/or non-dialectical interpretation of historical materialism gives history a determined and teleological path.2 Yet, a way to depart from such an interpretation is to understand history simultaneously as the history of the ‘development of the productive forces’ (Marx 1971 [1859]), ‘of class struggle’ (Marx and Engels 2011 [1848]), and of ‘individuals [who] seek only their particular interest’ (Marx and Engels 2004 [1845]). As such, historical materialism conceives the development of human societies as a way toward freedom, both within the process of production (peasants in feudalism controlled their activity while workers 2 For a non-schematic, clear, and detailed version of this kind on undialectical historical materialism, as well as its refutation, see Cohen (2000 [1978]). By the way, while Einstein was wondering ‘Why Socialism?’ in 1949, Cohen replied sixty years later with the reverse question, ‘Why not socialism?’.

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in capitalism do not) and outside this process (workers in capitalism are autonomous in their life choices, while peasants in feudalism were not).3 As such, historical materialism is seen as a theory of liberal modernity (autonomy both within and outside the production process), and the point here is to suggest that socialism tends to achieve full liberalism. An important feature of scientific work not only amounts to displaying observable phenomena but also to disclosing what is not visible in them. In other words, I try to understand why the almost total disappearance of regimes that use the words ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ does not necessarily amount to the full demise of the ‘communist hypothesis’ (Badiou 2015 [2009]) as a landscape for human emancipation from relations of domination, inequalities, the concentration of power and State oppression. My intention here is to present some ideas in order to better understand the claim that a planned and conscious organization of society does not imply the centralization of the means of production within a state, but it rather entails cooperation and free association of producers in self-managed collectives. It is conceivable that a society takes hold of the means of production, that money becomes a single unit of account that cannot turn into capital, that democratic planning gradually determines what production and distribution are, while saving both nature and the future, that the economy is becoming socialized, that the productive forces develop, and that the State withers away. The early stages of socialism can be conceived that way, such that the workers themselves decide the way labor, is implemented through a consciously planned organization, but an abstract measure persists, as well as alienation associated with labor. What can be observed then is an arithmetic equality, related to the objects that are produced (to each according to his/her capacities). In a further period, each individual receives endowments according to his/ her own character (to each according to his/her needs).4 I propose to discuss the claim that after a revolution, a transitional phase would prepare and predate the establishment of a socialist society—‘Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other’ (Marx and Engels 1972 [1875])—but

3 For further elaboration on that issue, see Meiksins Wood (2016). 4 This phrase (‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’) was

first formulated by Louis Blanc (1911 [1839]).

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it seems inappropriate for us to refer to it as the lower stage of communism. It amounts to the period, or at least to the historical moment, which consists of limiting the state to the function of both an inner organ of society and of a device entirely devoted to the collective organization of the social production, that is, in the service of ‘revolutioniz[ing] the present conditions of production’ (Idem). Marx had no illusion on the possibility of ‘the establishment of producers’ co-operative societies with state aid’ (Ibid., emphasis in the original). The issue is rather to ‘restore […] to the social body all the forces hitherto absorbed by the state parasite feeding upon, and clogging the free movement of, society’ (Marx [2010] 1871). Marx could not see the state as anything other than a means of domination of one class over other classes. Yet, as far as socialism was seen neither as a pure idea nor as a doctrine for a model of society, the method followed by Marx and Marxists was based on a critique of the political economy and on the analysis of capitalism, rather than on the presentation of what socialism would be or should be. It is neither a state regime nor a mode of production. As for Marx, Engels, and their followers, it would be an illusion to make up a new world without questioning how complex the material conditions of the way it appears are: ‘To attempt in practice, today, to anticipate this future result of […] communism would be like trying to teach higher mathematics to a child of four. We can (and must) begin to build socialism, not with abstract human material, or with human material specially prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism’ (Lenin 1964 [1920]). Conversely, against the common critiques which were often addressed to Marx, and which are still addressed to Marxism for not proposing specific solutions, he used to answer that ‘[t]he thing to be done at any definite given moment of the future, the thing immediately to be done, depends of course entirely on the given historical conditions in which one has to act. But this question is in the clouds and therefore is really the statement of a phantom problem to which the only answer can be—the criticism of the question itself . No equation can be solved unless the elements of its solution are involved in its terms’ (Marx 1968 [1881], emphasis in the original). Indeed, it does not make much sense to wonder what Marx meant by socialism in specific terms, since he never gave a detailed answer to that question, except in general terms about the realm of freedom. In my view, the main task for intellectuals and researchers in that area is less the building of models for a future society than the interrogation on the way in which capitalism more

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and more cripples the development of the productive forces more and more. This includes the destruction of the environment, the endangering of public health, the submission of science and technique, of knowledge and culture to the rule of trade, the increase of speculation and of financial parasitism, the disproportion of costly anti-democratic repressive institutions, the production of luxury goods and services… Such a reflection is a necessary condition for contributing to an elaboration on the possibility to build a theory of socialism.

Socialism against capitalism as a lack of freedom In a narrow (that is non-dialectical) materialist interpretation, ethical principles cannot be used as a primary explanation of historical change. To the extent that Marx went beyond ethics, he was not a moral philosopher, and his system has nothing to say about the ‘highest good’ (Tucker 1963), and he has no motivation for moral principles, referred to as ‘obsolete verbal rubbish, […] ideological nonsense’ (Marx and Engels 1972 [1875]). Socialists are not preachers of morality. In other words, socialism ‘as envisaged by him cannot then be seen as realizing a juridical principle like one of distributive justice’ (Geras 1984: 39), since such an institutional device will disappear with socialism, as a classless, and then Stateless society. Making exploitation fairer would thus be a pipe dream, since it is conceived as the basic injustice of capitalism as a predator of living labor. This amounts to saying that capital contributes to the production process. If it was the case, it would make sense to talk about justice or about just distribution. But the issue of justice is only an issue within class antagonism; it is not an issue anymore when classes have disappeared, which means that socialism is beyond justice. However, ‘[t]his does not mean that communism literally will bring an end to scarcity and to all conflict but, rather, that problems of conflict and scarcity will be so reduced […] that institutionalized principles of justice […] will no longer be needed’ (Buchanan 1987: 127, emphasis in the original). In other words, the claim that conflict will disappear under socialism does not make sense, since there are differences among individuals which cannot be summed up as social conflicts, so the institutions supposed to manage such conflicts should be discussed on a collective basis. At this stage, the state would have no reason to exist any longer, its ‘function [being to] maintain by force the conditions of existence and domination of the ruling class against the subject class’ (Engels 1878).

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The approach of the present contribution is not free of a priori moral concepts,5 since socialism is conceived here as a move against oppression. ‘We see with the greatest clarity: (i) That all these evils are from now on to be ascribed solely to a social order which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation; and (ii) That it is possible, through a new social order, to do away with these evils altogether’ (Engels 1969 [1847]). Therefore, if we go along with Engels’ enthusiastic view, we can see socialism in a twofold way. From the negative view, socialism is the abolition of the private ownership of the productive resources, that is the process by which the existing order disappears. From the positive view, socialism is a move to liberation. Rather than an end or a culmination, socialism is a critical normativity, that is a social criticism of the existing order, namely capitalism, both theoretically and practically. The present reality is, therefore, examined with respect to its gap with real freedom (as opposed to formal freedom6 ). In other words, socialism ‘cannot be built otherwise than with the aid of the human material created by capitalism’ (Lenin 1964 [1920]). Consequently, it fits within historical evolution, so that it cannot be conceived as a given situation to which humanity would tend, or should tend: ‘Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence’ (Marx and Engels 2004 [1845], emphasis in the original). An exit from capitalism through the removal of the wage-earning system would amount to deleting the exploitation of living labor, and in that respect the capitalist relations of production allow the development of the productive forces until the point at which they hamper it. Therefore, the economic development sets up the general period within which the

5 I rely on the Aristotelian distinction between moral goods and non-moral goods. While the former (which include laws) are conceived as standards relating to a given mode of production, the latter are conceived as dependent on living conditions, not on social relations. 6 Philippe Van Parijs (1991: 187, personal translation) refers to the ‘real freedom to lead one’s own life as one pleases, not only the formal freedom to do it’. This also refers to a Kantian notion of radical freedom with ‘the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations’ (Marx 1843, emphasis in the original). I suggest that this distinction (real vs. formal freedom) fits better our argument than Berlin’s distinction between negative freedom and positive freedom (see Berlin 1969).

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rise of socialism is a possible option, but not the specific period of transition. It is on this basis that socialism is first the creation, development, and accumulation of anti-capitalist conditions within capitalism itself. Hence socialism is not the achievement or the fulfillment of capitalism, but rather its own negation, its alternative, and such a negation is only real when it is put into practice through forms of anti-capitalist resistance, such that ‘nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption’ (Marx and Engels 1972 [1875]). It is, therefore, a matter of opposing the capitalist ownership regime, and ‘no wonder that the development [of the socialist revolution] involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas’ (Marx and Engels 2011 [1848]). Hence the theoretical goal does not amount to giving a justification for socialism as fair or as morally desirable, but rather to elaborating intellectual devices with a view to conceiving and criticizing the way in which the ruling classes legitimate their own rule and therefore impede the development of the productive forces. It is worth mentioning that the latter is considered here both in terms of social contradictions and in terms of environmental contradictions, and I am convinced that we should take seriously the claim that environmental degradation may be considered as a decline of the productive forces.7 This means that socialism is the—social—process through which the barriers (whether they are social or environmental) that have been developed by capitalist society against the rise of a ‘higher form’ (Marx [2010] 1871) of life disappear. In his early writings, Engels (1843) saw it as ‘a necessary conclusion, which cannot be avoided to be drawn from the premises given in the general facts of modern civilization’. This is all about drawing on what already exists. Marx extends this idea in his 1859 Preface: ‘The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production […]; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism’ (Marx 1971 [1859]). The central matter here is to exit from capitalism, which would amount to deleting the exploitation of living labor (as a constituent part of capitalism). This would free the workers from their main alienation (which is related to the exploitation in the productive sphere) and allow them to recover their vital force. This is a logical conclusion, which arises from an analysis of the 1830 revolution. Socialism is conceived ‘as the 7 For recent elaborations on this issue, see Löwy (2017), Pena-Ruiz (2018), Foster (2020), and Saito (2021).

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positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man. […] In the same way atheism, being the supersession of God, is the advent of theoretic humanism, and communism, as the supersession of private property, is the vindication of real human life as man’s possession and thus the advent of practical humanism’ (Marx 1954 [1844], emphases in the original). This means that socialism falls within a historical process and, to a certain extent, that capitalism comes across as a prelude, in the sense that it provides the foundations for a world economy and that it promotes the technical rationality able to create the material premises for socialism. “‘Scientific socialism’ understands both (a) that it itself is historically conditioned (such ‘understanding’ is only possible at the point at which ‘capitalism’s contradictions are acute’), and (b) that the ‘solution’ (i.e., communist revolution) is immanent in the problem (i.e., the developing contradictions of capitalism)” (Leiter 2002: 1134). Socialism as a form of organization would be managed on behalf of everyone, according to a shared agenda and with the direct or indirect participation of all the members of society. Competition would then disappear, and it would be replaced by association. Besides, since the management and ownership of industry by some isolated individuals necessarily leads to the rise of private ownership, and since competition is precisely that mode of activity of industry when it is run by a limited number of individuals, then private ownership cannot be separated from the management and ownership of industrial activities by isolated individuals and from competition. This form of ownership must then be deleted and replaced by the collective use of all the means of production and by the distribution of all commodities on the basis of a common agreement, which could be called the community of property. The removal of private ownership of the means of production itself can be understood as the most synthetic and most characteristic summary of this upheaval of the whole society required by the development of industry. This is also the reason why it is the basis for the transformation of capitalist society into socialism.

Socialism as a movement toward liberation What I propose here is to go further into the discussion of the issue of socialism and into its similarities with liberalism. This part of the text adopts especially a narrative mode of presentation, in order to give an

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imaginary representation of the way in which socialism would manage to break the relations of domination, as a movement toward real freedom. I conceive it broadly as a movement toward liberation, through human agency. This allows me to discuss the issue of morality, now in a positive way, and then of Marxist humanism, which can be conceived as practical humanism.8 Marx’s humanist materialism is conceived to be against any naturalist and mechanist humanism, as well as against any metaphysical materialism. This contribution states that a socialist society is based on a co-operative production, like capitalism, but without exploitation. Based on the abolition of private property of the means of production, socialism is conceived as a way to allow a better flourishing of human talents with the harmonization and free expression of everyone’s potentials. As such, socialism can be understood as a liberation of the productive capacity, that is a liberation of the material content, free to escape from a position in social form, that is from a social role.9 Socialism is, therefore, based on the collective ownership of the means of production and exchange; it aims to put a definite end to the private ownership of the means of production, as the foundation of capitalism. This amounts to breaking with determinism, since the socialization of the means of production would allow humanity to stop being submitted to so-called natural laws of the economy. It amounts to turning labor into a free activity. ‘Free activity for the Communists is the creative manifestation of life arising from the free development of all abilities of the whole person’ (Marx and Engels 2004 [1845]). In other words, socialism amounts to the free association of individuals, to the release and flourishing of human essence, and Marx ‘came to Communism in the interests of freedom, not of security’ (Kamenka 1962: vii). On the basis of the abolition of private ownership, socialism aims at allowing for the blooming of human skills and abilities, together with the harmonization and open expression of the productive capacity of all. What is at stake is to break with the determinism of the private ownership of

8 For a defense of Marxist humanism, regarding the inhumanity of the ways the dominated classes live, see Jakubowski (1971 [1936]). 9 For an insightful discussion on the distinction between material content and social form, see Cohen (2000 [1978], ch. 4). ‘The distinction between the matter and form of society […] serves to sustain the revolutionary critique of capitalism. […] Confusion of content and form supports the reactionary illusion that physical production and material growth can be achieved only by capitalist investment’ (Cohen 2000 [1978]: 105).

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the means of production, as long as their socialization allows humanity to break with the supposed natural laws of the economy. Socialism amounts to the free association of individuals and to the liberation of the human essence. The liberation of labor is, according to the meaning of Aristotle, a condition for ‘full justice’.10 The challenge is less on the construction of models than on the conception of spaces that can be left open in that new configuration. What is planned is that, in making production entirely social, the future society will prevent social classes from wasting their energy on a struggle for power. It will eliminate many causes for wars and for crises (starvation, overproduction, destruction of the biosphere). While organized under a production plan and a joint leadership, a socialist society would raise humanity far above ‘the icy water of egotistical calculation’ (Marx and Engels 2011 [1848]) in which it is forced to live at present because of capitalist relations, the law of value, and the profit regime. A socialist society would be organized by all human beings because all its members would be guaranteed extended rights for getting the necessary education and culture. Socialism would supersede capitalism with a view to ensuring the development of humanity and not only of minority social classes. Rather than a state of affairs, socialism is a movement toward emancipation. Basically, human essence is creative by nature, but this creativity is frustrated by circumstances (an oppressive social structure and a superstructure justifying this oppression). In other words, socialism amounts to the liberation of the content from the form, by which it was fetishized. Therefore, the social structure becomes submitted to individuals and socialism is understood as the trend by which individuals reappropriate their real power, which used to be frustrated in a social structure determined by relations of domination. This means that value depends no longer on exchange but on use, and this amounts to the end of coercion and allows for the flourishing of individuals under the regime of voluntary association. In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life living but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of

10 Aristotle (355–348 BC) defines it as the compliance with law, as long as the law aims to guarantee the happiness of the community and to strive for equality.

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the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! (Marx and Engels 1972 [1875]). From this perspective, human activity is free, spontaneous, and cooperative, while interpersonal constraints have disappeared. Priority is focused on the development of human individuality and on free individual flourishing, rather than on altruism, so that a choice can be made which is not between individualism without individuals and crude egalitarianism. Thanks to education and instruction, men and women could rapidly understand the whole system of production, and then use their abilities in a rational and harmonious way in several functions. Class differences would disappear with the abolition of the private ownership on which they are based, and then with a collective and rational use of productive forces. The end of the subordination of individuals to the division of labor and the end of the opposition between manual labor and intellectual labor would make labor both a need and a means for living. For as soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic (Marx and Engels 2004 [1845]). While it makes no sense to give a detailed description of the socialist mode of production, its principles (the relations of production) stem from the contradictions of capitalism, and its material and human foundations (highly developed productive forces) can be achieved through capitalism’s past results. Socialism refers to a classless society, with no State, no commodities, no wages, and then no money,11 where the economic 11 I am fully aware that the demise of money, as well as of the division of labor, creates some crucial difficulties, in anthropological terms, but this discussion goes beyond the scope of this chapter.

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activity is transparent because humans define in advance what is to be produced in quantity and in quality, on an equal basis, as well as the way to produce it. Difficult tasks and labor time are reduced, the distinction between leisure and labor gradually falls away, the thankless tasks that still exist, despite the high development of science and technology, are conducted on a rotating basis, free time and the conscious planification allow the flourishing of all human potential with the most rewarding relations, such that each individual flourishes too. Distributive inequalities still exist in a first stage, according to individual contributions, until abundancy is reached, and resources are allocated according to needs. The discussion is naturally far from being resolved, and we cannot avoid a reflection on the nature of social organization. While this matter goes beyond the scope of this contribution, its central character questions the democratic issue in Marx and Engels. While both authors rarely mentioned the “dictatorship of the proletariat”12 in itself, they did it while discussing specific events: ‘do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ (Engels 1891). While there is no doubt that history has made it unacceptable, it by no means prevents us from questioning the content that the authors gave it, as a widening of the concept of democracy presented by Marx in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, as an extension of democracy from political decisions to the economy, where coercion is intended to exist only against a minority who wants to keep its dominant position.

Conclusion While discussions on the viability of a socialist future have more or less disappeared during the last thirty years through the torments of history, it seems to us that they are still valid at least as part of a theoretical research program, for several reasons, some of which having been presented here. To better avoid the pitfalls in which it often fell, it was necessary to go back to the texts that gave socialism its consistency and relevance as a system of thought. With a view to restoring its meaning, I first attempted 12 This term was first used by Auguste Blanqui, who himself took it from Marat for whom what was necessary was a ‘dictator […] who would have shown his situational intelligence and his commitment to the cause of democracy’. Its meaning has radically changed now.

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to state that the mistakes that have been assigned to it cannot weaken its relevance. They were historical mistakes, as long as it was used by political regimes in order to legitimate objectives that were fully antagonistic to the original objectives. They were also theoretical mistakes with a schematic interpretation of historical materialism as if it explains history as a determined pattern. Socialism must, therefore, be disentangled from what it is not, a utopia, precisely because the issue of the existence of socialism can only be raised when the conditions exist for it—‘[m]ankind […] inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve’ (Marx 1971 [1859]). It is neither a model of society, since the conditions for its development can only depend on real conditions that are ceaselessly changing. Socialism can also not be considered as a state of affairs. It is a movement within the development of humanity. As such, its elaboration falls within a method, which is not separate from the conditions of its existence. It is a materialist conception, such that the conditions of reflection are bound by the material conditions of existence, both in its dialectical form and in history, which men and women built in conditions that they did not chose themselves. History is a necessity as a present condition inherited from the past, but the future is not written yet, since it depends on the present human agency (class struggle). This method thus achieves the result that, at a given time of its historical development, mankind is trapped within relations of production that are based on the private ownership of the means of production, the abolition of which is a necessary condition—but not a sufficient one—for moving to emancipation, that is real freedom,13 as an objective that no reasonable person could deny. This is the universal character surrounding the research program that I think should be developed or maybe resurrected. Tools will have to be mobilized in all the humanities, and also in natural sciences. A further reflection could be articulated around the issue of equality and liberty. Beyond the debate between objective equality (Rawls’s primary goods) and subjective equality (Sen’s capabilities), the equality of opportunity (Dworkin’s starting gate theory of justice) can be seen as a further form of liberty: a distribution is considered as just if it rewards effort and if it does not reward natural skills. Our point here is that such a liberal argument can be turned into a socialist one. A real equality of opportunity can only 13 I am convinced that real freedom, as the realization of the realm of liberty, covers all aspects of freedom, including collective and individual emancipation, self-fulfillment, and self-actualization.

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be a socialist one: not only equality of rights since social disadvantages still exist, not only equality of education because innate disadvantages still exist, but also a socialist equality of opportunity (Cohen 2009) such that all unchosen disadvantages are corrected, and that income differences are only differences in individual preferences, so that the pleasures of life are not very different for all. My point then is to claim that, since capitalism is a fetter to the achievement of the realm of liberty, and since socialism is a move which deletes the barriers to liberty, the most efficient way to fight for liberty, that is to achieve the goals defended by liberalism, is to stand up against capitalism, which means to implement a path eliminating the barriers to real freedom, which is my definition of socialism.

References Aristotle. 1988 [355–348 BC]. Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Badiou, Alain. 2015 (2009). The Communist Hypothesis. London: Verso. Bensaïd, Daniel. 2010 (2009). The Powers of Communism. International Viewpoint. 420. https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1799. Berlin, Isaiah, 1969. Two Concepts of Liberty. In Isaiah Berlin. Four Essays on Liberty, 118–172. London: Oxford University Press. Blanc, Louis. 1911 (1839). Organization of Work. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati Press. Buchanan, Allen E. 1987. Marx, Morality and History: An Assessment of Recent Analytical Work on Marx. Ethics, 98.1: 104–136. Cohen, Gerald A. 2000 (1978). Karl Marx’s Theory of History. Extended Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cohen, Gerald A. 1991. The Future of a Disillusion. New Left Review 190: 5–20. Cohen, Gerald A. 2009. Why Not Socialism? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Einstein, Albert. 1949. Why Socialism? Monthly Review, 1.1: 9–15. Elster, Jon. 1984. Historical Materialism and Economic Backwardness. In Terence Ball and James Farr. After Marx, 36–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Engels, Friedrich. 1843. Progress of Social Reform on the Continent. The New Moral World 19. Engels, Friedrich. 1957 (1878). Anti-dühring. M.E. Dühring bouleverse la science. Paris: Éditions Sociales. Engels, Friedrich. 1969 (1847). The Principles of Communism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Selected Works, 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers: 81–97.

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Engels, Friedrich. 2012 (1888). Preface to the English edition. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Yale: Yale University Press: 106–110. Engels, Friedrich. 1966 (1891). Introduction. In Karl Marx. The Civil War in France. Beijing: Foreign Language Press: 1–4. Evans, Michael. 1975. Karl Marx. London. Allen & Unwin. Fleurbaey, Marc. 2003. Justice sociale ou lutte de classes ?. Mouvements, 26.2: 48–54. Foster, John B. 2020. The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press. Geras, Norman. 1984. The Controversy about Marx and Justice. Philosophica, 33.1: 33–86. Jakubowski, Franz. 1971 (1935). Les superstructures idéologiques dans la conception matérialiste de l’histoire. Paris, Études et Documentation Internationales. Kamenka, Eugen. 1962. The Ethical Foundations of Marxism. London, Routledge. Lafargue, Paul. 1978 (1890). Reminiscences of Marx. In Paul Lafargue and Karl Liebknecht. Marx and Engels Through the Eyes of Their Contemporaries. Moscow: Progress Publishers: 64–65. Leiter, Brian. 2002. Marxism and the Continuing Irrelevance of Normative Theory. Stanford Law Review, 54.5: 1129–1151. Lenin, Vladimir I. 1964 (1920). “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder. In Vladimir I Lenin. Collected Works, 31, Moscow: Progress Publishers: 17–114. Levine, Andrew. 1982. Towards a Marxian Theory of Justice. Politics and Society, 11.3: 343–362. Löwy, Michel. 2017. Marx, Engels, and Ecology. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 28.2: 10–21. Marx, Karl. 1979 (1843). A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marx, Karl. 1959 (1844). Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Marx, Karl. 1971 (1859). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Marx, Karl. 2010 (1871). The Civil War in France. New York: Martino. Marx, Karl. 2004 (1873). Afterword to the Second German Edition. In Capital. Volume 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Marx, Karl. 1968 (1881). Letter to to Domela Nieuwenhuis in The Hague. In Marx and Engels Correspondence. New York: International Publishers Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 2004 (1845). The German Ideology. Critique of Modern German Philosophy According to Its Representatives Feuerbach, B.

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Bauer and Stirner, and of German Socialism According to Its Various Prophets. New York: International Publishers. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 2011 (1848). The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1972 (1875). Critique of the Gotha program. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1882. Preface of the Russian edition. In The Communist Manifesto. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ 1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm#preface-1882. Meiksins Wood, Ellen. 2016. Democracy Against Capitalism. Renewing Historical Materialism. London: Verso. Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Pena-Ruiz Henri. 2018. Karl Marx penseur de l’écologie. Paris: Seuil. Plekhanov, Gheorgi. 1940 (1907). The Materialist Conception of History. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Reiman, Jeffrey H. 2015. The Theory of Marxian Liberalism. Analyse und Kritik, 37.1–2: 149–169. Saito, Kohei. 2021. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy. New York: Monthly Review Press. Simpson, Evan. 1976. Socialist Justice. Ethics, 87: 1–17. Tucker, Robert. 1963. Marx and Distributive Justice. Nomos, 6: 306–325. Van Parijs, Philippe. 1991. Qu’est-ce qu’une société juste? Introduction à la pratique de la philosophie politique. Paris: Seuil. Van Parijs, Philippe. 1995. Real Freedom for All: What (if anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Centralization, Decentralization and Adaptation Dean V. Williamson

By the time the Great Depression had started to plumb its depths, the economics profession had begun to direct much of its energies into the new, hot topic of “stabilization policy”: going forward, what could government do to tame the “business cycle” and avoid recessions and depressions? Leave it to Oskar Lange to pose an idea so obvious that it was hard to conceive: Why not dispense with stabilization policy and simply centralize control of the entire economy within the government? If a system organized around a decentralized market were susceptible to business cycles, then why not just banish business cycles by centralizing control of those markets? One could imagine, as Lange often argued, that a Central Planning Board could assume a global perspective of markets spanning the entire economy and could thus anticipate and remedy global problems before they had become problems (Lange 1936, 1937). In contrast, economies organized around decentralized (market) processes were left to the vagaries of those decentralized processes. Those processes left it to autonomous agents (firms and individuals) to pursue their own parochial

D. V. Williamson (B) Economic Design LLC, Gdansk, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_6

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interests. Parochial interests might diverge from common interests. Would it not be better to harness the power of the central authorities to concentrate society’s energies on redirecting the pursuit of private interests into the pursuit of the common interest? To make things worse, these autonomous agents would operate at a great disadvantage vis-à-vis a Central Planning Board in that their own perspectives on the economy would be neither complete nor global but rather incomplete and parochial. It would seem obvious, then, that assigning the role of conductor to a Central Planning Board could induce superior performance and harmony over the abundantly apparent chaos and cacophony of uncoordinated, market-mediated exchange. In The Economics of Control (1946, 4), Abba Lerner elaborated on the point: The uncontrolled economy may be likened to an automobile without a driver but in which many passengers keep reaching over to the steering wheel to give it a twist while complicated regulations prescribe the order and degree to which they may turn the wheel so as to prevent them from fighting each other about it. The controlled economy has a driver, so these regulations are unnecessary.

Implicit in the opus of contributors like Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner were two conceits: first, the central authorities should control the economic system so that they might implement “socially desirable” outcomes. Second, the work amounted to a demonstration, on paper, of how the central authorities could seamlessly control the economic system. The central authorities would do this by impressing an aggressive interpretation of the Second Welfare Theorem into service. Lerner could observe that purely centralized administrative process had yielded a “disastrous result” through the course of the Soviet’s First Five-year Plan (1928–1932). But, harnessing the price mechanism would allow the central authorities to quasi-decentralize the problem of implementing desirable outcomes simply by stimulating economic agents (firms and consumers) with the right price signals. The authorities would themselves post those prices rather than allow prices to float freely. The practical problem would amount to “computing” those right prices. In his 2007 Nobel Prize lecture, Eric Maskin could observe that the debates over the feasibility of computing prices may have been “fascinating,” but post-war developments in implementation theory and social

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choice theory had mercifully enriched and expanded understanding of the issues (Maskin 2008, 571–572). New developments helped researchers appreciate that, on paper, problems of incentive compatibility could frustrate the implementation of desirable outcomes; neither administrative processes nor the imposition of prices by a Central Planning Board might enable the central authorities to implement their preferred outcomes; the central authorities might have to settle for second-best. Further, new developments illuminated the idea that identifying socially desirable outcomes could make for a fraught affair. Among other things, who decides what would constitute “socially desirable” allocations of goods and services? This paper concentrates on a third conceit implicit in the implementation of socially desirable outcomes: the central authorities could concentrate control of any set of activities within an economy, including the set comprising the entire economy, without facing any tradeoffs. In The State and Revolution (1970 [1917]), for example, Vladimir Lenin had argued that “Capitalism simplifies the functions of ‘state’ administration” such that running the economic system would amount to little more than applying technical processes that had become “so simplified and can be reduced to such exceedingly simple operations of registration, filing and checking that they can be easily performed by every literate person, …” (53). The State could thus take over the entire economy and operate it as one, great, vertically integrated entity. “The whole of society,” Lenin famously exclaimed, “will have become a single office and a single factory, …” (121). No dissipation of value would obtain, but, going forward, the State would be situated to distribute surplus more equitably. Lerner (1934) and Lange (1937), both quoting Trotsky’s Soviet Economy in Danger (Trotsky 1932, 29–30), had obliquely blamed the Soviet bureaucracy for the reality that much dissipation of value obtained through the course of the Soviet experiment. Among other things, that reality involved the destruction of agricultural productivity and the ensuing starvation of millions (Conquest 1986; Lyons 1937) as well as the deployment of slave labor on an industrial scale (Slezkine 2017). But, Lerner and Lange suggested that vesting a Central Planning Board with control of the price mechanism could finesse the worst impulses of the bureaucracy and yet enable that same bureaucracy to secure “the benefits of both the capitalist economy and socialist economy” (Lerner 1946). One could fold the musings of Lerner, Lange, Lenin and others into a larger inquiry about how incentives within bureaucracies inform tradeoffs

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(if any) encountered in scaling up centralized administrative process to encompass the whole of an economic system. It turns out, however, that contributors like Lerner and Lange were really just interested in repackaging centralization of the whole of the economic system in a way that might mitigate the predations of the state. They implicitly recognized tradeoffs but they yet averred that a form of centralization could be made to dominate the status quo. The status quo, of course, had involved some combination of centralization and decentralization of economic activity in that private parties would subject some volume of activity to administrative processes of their own design within firms, and these pockets of centralized, administrative process (firms) would interact with each other in markets. The boundaries of any one given firm would encompass certain assets and capabilities, but what advantages or disadvantages obtain from integrating more assets and capabilities within a given firm? Historically, the question of the boundaries of the firm would not have been cognizable by the antagonists in debates1 about the relative merits of decentralized processes and centralized processes. Such a question would not have been cognizable, because (it turns out) the antagonists had been working out of the same body of orthodox economic theory. That theory tells us that, on paper, centralization and decentralization should yield the same allocation of resources, the same output, the same distribution of goods and services. Decentralization and centralization should yield the same results. That said, developments in the economics of organization, some very old and some only now fitfully emerging, go some way toward illuminating tradeoffs. These developments speak to the same general theme: economies are neither purely centralized nor decentralized but rather are populated by pockets of centralization (firms, public entities and such); these pockets interact with each other in markets. But, what do the administrators who populate these entities do? The available theory illuminates a role for these people in adapting the activities of those same entities to contingencies, whether foreseen or unforeseen. Problems of adaptation are not cognizable in the orthodox theory. The reason is that adaptation is not the kind of thing that has lent itself readily to formal economic modeling. That does not mean that problems of adaptation are either unimportant or entirely defy some degree

1 This debate is also referred to as “the socialist calculation debate.”

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of formalization, but a lot of work remains to be done. That said, there is a body of theory, not all of it completely formalized, that has inspired a prodigious volume of empirical research. Much of that research illuminates how problems of adaptation inform the design of contracts and administrative processes.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Some of the Theory of Economic Organization What might problems of adaptation have to do with “liberalism” and “socialism”? This paper does three things. First, it draws a correspondence between the extreme decentralization of orthodox economic theory and the processes that, on paper, classically make Liberalism liberal: the magic of market-mediated exchange. In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1975, 336), Hannah Arendt compactly makes the correspondence by identifying Liberalism with the proposition that “the mere sum of individual interests adds up to the miracle of the common good.” That passage sounds a lot like the First Theorem of Welfare Economics.2 Second, the paper draws a correspondence between extreme centralization and the processes that distinguish the socialistic state: the magic of centralized, administrative process. Finally, the paper draws a correspondence between vertical integration and extreme centralization. Vertical integration involves bringing complementary assets and capabilities under concentrated governance within the firm, but what happens when we scale up the firm to encompass the entire economy? Do diseconomies ultimately obtain, or can we scale up at no cost? Herbert Simon’s telling of “[a] mythical visitor from Mars” (Simon 1991, 27–28) helps frame the question: Suppose that it (the visitor I’ll avoid the question of its sex) approaches the Earth from space, equipped with a telescope that reveals social structures. The firms reveal themselves, say, as solid green areas with faint interior contours marking out divisions and departments. Market transactions show as red lines connecting firms, forming a network in the spaces between them. Within firms (and perhaps even between them) the approaching

2 The first welfare economics theorem states that an equilibrium allocation is Pareto optimal. More on this below.

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visitor also sees pale blue lines, the lines of authority connecting bosses with various levels of workers… No matter whether our visitor approached the United States or the Soviet Union, urban China or the European Community, the greater part of the space below it would be within the green areas, for almost all of the inhabitants would be employees, hence inside the firm boundaries. Organizations would be the dominant feature of the landscape. A message sent back home, describing the scene, would speak of “large green areas interconnected by red lines.” It would not likely speak of “a network of red lines connecting green spots.” … When our visitor came to know that the green masses were organizations and the red lines connecting them were market transactions, it might be surprised to hear the structure called a market economy. “Wouldn’t ’organizational economy’ be the more appropriate term?” it might ask.

Were the perspicacious Martian to do some background research, he might observe that available economic theory does not give much insight into the question of why the “organizational economy” is structured the way it is. Why, the Martian might ask, does extreme centralization not emerge as a terminal state? Rather, he might observe that grand experiments with extreme centralization had proven problematic, and that economic systems had a way of reverting to forms that feature non-trivial degrees of decentralization. At the same time, however, he would yet observe diversity in the depth of the centralization both within the public sectors and private sectors across societies and time. What explains this variation? Finally, he might identify certain ideas and lines of research that may yet prove illuminating. I will suggest three. First, there is the question of what it means to exercise authority within the firm. What does it mean to be someone’s boss? This is an old question that pre-dates such seminal contributions as Simon (1951) on “the employment relation.” Second, Williamson (1971) places adaptation at the center of questions of the role of authority within the (vertically integrated) firm. Third, Williamson (1991a) takes a step back from full-on vertical integration and asks what parties to complex exchange can do by (possibly elaborate) long-term contract that would be harder to achieve by a sequence of short-term contracts. Our Martian might assemble these ideas into the following narrative: one can make a lot of progress analyzing contractual relations between private parties, whether firms or individuals, by treating those firms and individuals as just that: as individuals. Specifically, one may be able to treat

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the firm like a black box when examining certain inter-firm relationships; one may not necessarily have to dig into the details of how administrative process and the exercise of authority works within the “individual” (the firm). However, once parties to elaborate exchange, who had been interacting with each other boss-to-boss by means of contract, decide to formally integrate their relationship with a firm, then the workings of governance within the firm become harder to ignore. The magic of integration demands demystification. By the same token, the limits of administrative process with the firm need to be illuminated. Otherwise, why should we not expect that all assets and capabilities in the economy to be integrated into one, large firm? Would administrative process not come to direct all functions in the economy? So much for the magic of centralized, administrative process. What of the magic of the decentralized, market-mediated exchange? Historically, the fiction of extreme decentralization has imposed much structure on debates about the relative merits of centralization and decentralization. The reason is that extreme decentralization has proven to be more amenable to formal theorizing. I sketch some of that history of that theorizing here, starting with Vilfredo Pareto’s seminal contribution in the two volumes of his Cours d’Economie Politique (Pareto 1896, 1897). In the middle of composing Cours d’Economie Politique, Pareto appears to have become frustrated with the Marxists of his day. The global economy was only then emerging from the depression of the early 1890s. Marxist commentators looked to the depression as the latest evidence of the ultimate, inexorable and Chiliastic “crisis of Capitalism.” Capitalistic decentralization would give way to Socialistic centralization. Centralization would set society down the shining path to the absorbing state of state-less Communism. Marxists had been predicting the final crisis of Capitalism at least since the 1848 Revolutions had started to roil Continental Europe. At that time, the original Marxist, the 30-year-old Karl Marx, confidently predicted as much in the daily paper he was then editing, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. An older, more circumspect Marx tucked away his next prediction of the final crisis in the Afterword to the Second German Edition of Capital (2018 [1867]) when again, the global economy was sinking into depression. From Pareto’s perspective, the Socialist Chiliasm might be all very well and good, but both the Socialist program of centralization and the Capitalist non-program of decentralization (by means of la libre

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concurrence) should be made to stand up to performance benchmarks. Pareto contemplated extreme centralization and extreme decentralization as competing machines—specifically, steam engines—both subject to friction ( frottements ) and thermodynamic dissipation of energy. “La machine à vapeur n’utilise qu’une petite fraction des calories produites par le combustible,”3 he observed. But, one “machine” may yet outperform another: “[S]’il existait une machine qui utilisât mieux la chaleur, il faudrait se hater de la substituer à nos machines à vapeur”4 (Pareto 1897, section 837). Pareto’s formulation anticipates Arrow (1969) on “the costs of running the economic system,” the idea being that one system may generate more “transaction costs” than another in achieving a given distribution of goods and services, and it turns out that Pareto had in mind a very specific distribution. Imagine that everyone (“consumers”) in the economic system was assigned a random basket of “commodities,” and then imagine that everyone was allowed to (yet) seamlessly and frictionlessly barter with each other in one grand bazaar. It is conceivable that, on paper, the bartering process would yield a reallocation of commodities in which no pair of consumers would yet perceive any gains from further trade with each other. That is not the end of it. One could work backward and find a set of prices that would correspond to that ultimate allocation. Specifically, some entity—let’s call it the “Walrasian auctioneer” or the “Central Planning Board,” say—could post a very judiciously tuned set of prices for all commodities in the economy. Everyone could give up on the hassle of person-to-person barter and trade impersonally in accordance with those prices. They would find themselves at that same post-trade allocation of commodities—again, an allocation at which no one would perceive gains from further trade with anyone else. In this way, the “price mechanism,” a manifestation of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” will have decentralized exchange in the economy. Pareto and others worked off of Léon Walras’s conceptualization of an exchange economy (Walras 1926, Part III). Central to that conceptualization was Walras’s characterization of prices. Over-simply and irresponsibly: Walras characterized economy-wide exchange of “commodities” as a

3 “The steam-machine only uses a small portion of the calories produced by fuel.” 4 “If there exists another machine that dissipates less energy as heat, then we should

hasten to substitute our steam engines with it.”

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system of equations featuring supply and demand of commodities as functions of prices. Could one come up with a set of prices at which supply for all commodities would simultaneously satisfy demand for those same commodities? Basically, did the system of equations have a solution in the form of a set of market-clearing prices? Pareto sketched the idea that the distribution of commodities that obtains after trade in the Walrasian exchange economy would also satisfy the Pareto optimality criterion of no-further-gains-from-trade. Hence, Pareto’s sketch of the First Welfare Theorem: Walrasian equilibria are Pareto Optimal (section 720–735 of Pareto 1897). Pareto did not deploy the phrase “Pareto Optimality,” of course—instead he called the condition “ophélimité”—but he posed the Pareto optimality criterion as a performance benchmark. Could a system based on decentralized barter secure a distribution of commodities that would satisfy the Pareto optimality criterion? Could a system explicitly decentralized by prices secure the same distribution? Do “the costs of running the economic system” distort the ultimate outcome? Finally, could a system of centralized distribution satisfy the Paretian performance benchmark? Harold Demsetz argued that models of decentralized exchange implicitly accommodate transaction costs (“the costs of running the economic system”) insofar as costs are costs (Demsetz 2011a). He seemed to suggest that this business of setting up performance benchmarks against which to measure decentralized and centralized systems amounted to a distraction. Rather, “the task faced by neoclassical economics was to understand coordination in a decentralized economic system… [I]ts presumption of a free price system serve this task well” (Demsetz 2011b, 11). That said, Pareto’s contemporaries worked off of his contributions and further developed the idea that a Central Planning Board could situate itself to set prices and secure Pareto-efficient allocations. These authors then pushed the logic farther. They advanced the ambitious proposition that a Central Planning Board could judiciously rearrange the pre-market allocation of wealth among consumers, post its menu of prices, and then secure its desired post-market allocation. Oskar Lange, ever a great enthusiast of the gambit, argued that, in a “socialist economy,” the central authorities could implement the result by rearranging “the distribution of incomes” by rearranging “the distribution of ownership of the ultimate productive resources” (Lange 1937, 123). Rearranging ownership over resources would involve “expropriation,” and the central authorities should expropriate resources swiftly “at one

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stroke” in order to deprive the owners of such resources the opportunity to mount effective resistance (Lange 1937, 134). Lange was laying out an aggressive interpretation of the Second Welfare Theorem. The Theorem says that, on paper, a Pareto-efficient, post-exchange allocation of commodities can obtain from a judiciously selected set of prices and a judiciously selected pre-exchange allocation. It is that prospect of selecting a pre-exchange allocation that motivates Lange’s enthusiastic and approving appeal to “expropriation” on the part of the central authorities. Oskar Lange was not the first person to sketch the Second Welfare Theorem and to apply heavy interpretations to it. Enrico Barone (1908) took the time to lay out the logic more fully, although in his telling he seems more cautionary and incredulous in that he expressed much skepticism about the capacity of “Collectivist State” to implement the program. Not so, later contributors such as Fred M. Taylor (1929), Lange (1936, 1937) and Lerner (1946). Even Lange (1967) persisted in arguing that the gambit could be made to work especially since, by then, computing capacity had improved. A motivation for the gambit of pressing the Second Welfare Theorem into practice seems to have been an effort to impose extreme centralization while finessing the predations of the sort that the Soviets had imposed when implementing their “Great Break” (the First Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932). Note, however, what the Great Break was. One can interpret it as an exercise in the theory of the “Big Push.” The first sketch of the theory, if not the label “Big Push,” is attributed to RosensteinRodan (1943). It was a theory of economic development according to which the central authorities, rather than private enterprise, would be better equipped to set an economy into a stage of accelerated growth. It was a tale of “market failure” by which private parties collectively fail to exploit the external economies that obtain to their investments in complementary assets capabilities. The rote solution is to enable the central authorities to take on such investments, because they would be situated to assume a global view of investment and to therefore internalize those otherwise external effects. They would adopt a more ambitious investment program. The Big Push would amount to yet another iteration of economy-wide vertical integration not obviously unlike the programs that Lenin had theorized about and that Stalin had actually implemented. It amounted to just another argument for extreme centralization—which brings us back

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to our Martian’s earlier question: If centralization dominates decentralization on paper, then why do we not see it dominate in practice? What is missing? What is missing, of course, is a theory about the tradeoffs encountered in scaling up administrative process to encompass more and more assets and capabilities. Fitful developments that might collectively go under the label “the theory of the firm” might yet provide some clues and formative answers. I would suggest that a good place to start would be to relate “markets, hierarchy, and hybrids” to “hold-up,” friction (Pareto’s “frottements ”), adaptation and the exercise of “authority” within the firm. Specifically, I would suggest following the lead of Oxley (1997) in posing the idea that certain modes of organizing (possibly complex, long-term) exchange can be more “hierarchical” than others. One might identify extreme hierarchy with certain top-down corporate forms of firm governance as well as with the kind of firm governance, scaled up to encompass the whole of society, that Lenin (1917 [1970]) had explicitly contemplated. But one may also contemplate exchange organized outside of the purview of hierarchical governance structures. In the extreme, that would include exchange between independent entities in spot markets. But, then there are hybrid modes of governance. Specifically, independent parties to exchange might yet avail themselves of certain hierarchical governance mechanisms by ordering exchange within the scope of a long-running joint venture. So, how do problems of managing friction, hold up and adaptation map into a partition of governance structures ranging from least hierarchical (“markets”) to most hierarchical (“hierarchical”) while traversing intermediate cases (“hybrid”)? I provide a sketch: Markets: It is no accident that debates before the Second World War about the capacity of the State to mimic the price mechanism by means of a Central Planning Board revolved around “commodities,” just the kinds of things to which market-mediated exchange would be well adapted. Specifically, the debates revolved around the kind of exchange that Ian MacNeil (1974, 1978) would recognize as the most extreme, degenerative case of “transactional contracting” by which exchange is “sharp-in” by clear agreement and “sharp-out” by clear performance. One might even expect an Oskar Lange to agree that markets constituted a good means through which to organize exchange. Hybrid: Now imagine rather more complex exchange—exchange that MacNeil (1974, 1978) might recognize as “relational.” Parties to

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exchange might have to invest in capabilities and assets, including knowledge assets, that are specific to their relationship insofar as these assets and capabilities are not amenable to being redeployed outside of their relationship. The prospect of having to engage relationship-specific investments introduces a problem of underinvestment, the “hold-up problem”: absent contractual safeguards or long-term commitments, parties to complex exchange might opt to invest in less specialized assets that would be more amenable to redeployment in the event the relationship were to end. Greater degrees of specificity may thus create demand for more elaborate (and, possibly, costly) governance whether in the form of elaborate contractual mechanisms or full-on vertical integration. In the language of Oxley (1997), more elaborate mechanisms may have the appearance of being “more hierarchical.” For example, the governance of complex exchange might end up being subject to longer-term contracts featuring deliberative mechanisms and voting schemes. I would refer the reader to my explication of the long-running relationship between Human Genome Sciences and SmithKline Beecham as an example of a pair-wise relationship that was governed by a sequence of elaborate, long-term contracts (see D. Williamson 2019, 1–3). After nearly 20 years, that relationship was ultimately subsumed by merger within a single, corporate entity. Hierarchy: Subsuming Human Genome Sciences and SmithKline Beecham within a single, corporate entity ostensibly amounted to subjecting the assets and capabilities of these firms to centralized, administrative process. One can do a lot of research about contractual relations between firms by posing the convenient fiction that firms operate as if they are individuals, but once we bring such entities within a single firm, one can no longer ignore intra-firm governance. Among other things, we may find that governance within the firm may be somewhat fractured and feature competing factions. Aspects of it may look much like governance between firms. Meanwhile, in examining governance between firms, we may find that parties to complex exchange may assemble elaborate processes for governing that exchange—so elaborate that those parties may find themselves, by design, operating much as a single entity. Indeed, the question of what it means to be a “single entity” has sometimes bedeviled the antitrust authorities.5 When does “more hierarchical,” hybrid governance spill over into de facto integration?

5 See D. Williamson (2009) for examples.

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An important aspect of Williamson (1971) on “The Vertical Integration of Production” was a hypothesized distinction between integration and non-integration. “[W]hen conflicts develop,” Williamson argued, the firm possesses a comparatively efficient conflict resolution machinery. To illustrate, fiat is frequently a more efficient way to settle minor conflicts (say differences of interpretation) than is haggling or litigation. Interorganizational conflict can be settled by fiat only rarely, if at all. (Williamson 1971, p. 114)

Over-simply, someone situated in a hierarchy of bosses could resolve conflicts by telling someone further down the hierarchy what to do. Meanwhile, Alchian and Demsetz (1972, 777) disputed the appeal to fiat. It is common to see the firm characterized by the power to settle issues by fiat, by authority, or by disciplinary action superior to that available in the conventional market. (…) This is delusion. The firm does not own all its inputs. It has no power of fiat, no authority, no disciplinary action any different in the slightest degree from ordinary market contracting between any two people. I can “punish” you only by withholding future business or by seeking redress in the courts for any failure to honor our exchange agreement. That is exactly all that any employer can do. He can fire or sue, just as I can fire my grocer by stopping purchases from him or sue him for delivering faulty products.

Alchian and Demsetz effectively argued that the threat of exit from a relationship spans the range of mechanisms parties could use for governing their relationship. If so, then “hierarchy” and “hybrid” modes of governing relationships are indistinguishable; integration affords no advantages in managing relationships. Looking out on the world, however, Williamson (1991b) could observe that parties within the firm really do resort to internal processes, rather than to external courtordering, to mediate internal disputes. The implicit contract law of internal organization is that of forbearance. Thus, whereas courts routinely grant standing to firms should there be disputes over prices, the damages to be ascribed to delays, failures of quality, and the like, courts will refuse to hear disputes between one internal division and another over identical technical issues. Access to the

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courts being denied, the parties must resolve their differences internally. Accordingly, hierarchy is its own court of ultimate appeal. (Williamson 1991b, 274)

Robert Gibbons has observed many times that the question of how to characterize the relative advantages of and disadvantages of processes internal to the firm as opposed to arms-length contracting has been a decades-long project and remains an outstanding project (see, e.g., Gibbons 2004, 2010). It is not immediately obvious, then, that a body of theory that yet has difficulty sorting out what a firm is would go far toward resolving questions about the relative advantages and disadvantages of decentralization and aggressively scaled-up centralization. I would suggest, however, that that body of theory—or bodies of theory— do illuminate issues that could stand to be more widely appreciated outside of the network of people who contribute to it. Among other things, some of the theory takes on questions that defy ready formalization. Specifically, what do we mean when we talk of contingencies, whether foreseen or unforeseen? If parties to complex, long-run exchange can anticipate all payoff-relevant contingencies, then they should be able to craft complete contracts. Disputes never have to emerge going forward, because parties could just craft a complete, state-contingent plan. They could sort out potential disputes at the time of contracting. The reality, of course, is that complete contracting may amount to a convenient fiction for modeling certain phenomena, but one has to assertively move past it in order to make any sense of the fact that administrative process and the organizations that host those processes matter. Hence “incomplete contracting”: for reasons of bounded rationality, parties to long-run exchange may not be able to codify all payoff-relevant contingencies. Additionally, there is endogenous incompleteness in that parties to exchange may choose to leave contracts incomplete given it can be costly to specify certain contingencies. Hence the language of “uncontracted-for contingencies” as in Hart (1995). Williamson (1971) appealed to incomplete contracting in order to motivate demand of parties to exchange to set up (possibly) elaborate processes for dealing with uncontracted-for contingencies. Contingencies might arise in which the terms of exchange might prove poorly adapted. Parties might even decide that the relationship has become so poorly adapted that the most efficient adaptation would be to bring the relationship to an end. Alternatively, parties might agree on adapting their

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terms of exchange to the new circumstances and thus allow their relationship to continue. But, do parties really need to set up (possibly) elaborate and costly administrative processes for dealing with such contingencies? If their interests are aligned, why would they not seamlessly agree to work out new terms of exchange? It is still not obvious that organization matters. Alchian and Demsetz (1972) might yet be correct. Theorists would thus require more structure in order to rationalize a role for administrative process. Thus far, extra structure has come in the form of the hold-up problem and more generic “haggling costs.” “Hold-up,” recall, involves problems of ex ante underinvestment in relationship-specific assets. Klein et al. (1978) introduced the hold-up problem and posed integration as a way of remedying hold-ups. On my reading, Grossman and Hart (1986) and Hart and Moore (1990) elaborated on remedies to the hold-up problem, framing such remedies in a way that made the distribution of “control rights” the explicit focus of analysis.6 Haggling costs, meanwhile, help motivate the idea that renegotiating the terms of exchange (when and if uncontracted-for contingencies arise) can be costly. Economizing on such costs amounts to demand to design processes that enable “efficient adaptation” as in Masten (1988) or Masten and Crocker (1985). A general proposition would be that it can be both costly to set up and then maintain processes for managing uncontracted-for contingencies; parties to exchange will factor these costs into their decisions about whether to engage in exchange in the first place. Tadelis (2002) explores how the problem of efficient adaptation informs the integration/non-integration decision. Lyons (1995), Tzu (2003) and D. Williamson (2019, 114–157) take up efficient adaptation in the design of contracts in contexts that involve “friction” and hold-up problems. The greater the prospect of hold-up, the more integrated contracting parties appear to be. In contrast, where assets are more readily redeployable outside of a given relationship, contracts have the appearance of binding parties together less tightly.

6 On this count, I would direct the reader to Gibbons et al. on “Relational Adaptation” (2022).

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Conclusion This paper has identified Liberalism with extreme decentralization and Socialism with extreme centralization. Differences between the two are not cognizable through the lens of the textbook neoclassical theory. Historically, certain observers have elaborated on this fact to yet argue that whole economies could be integrated like one big firm and that such centralization would yield superior performance. Specifically, the central authorities would be situated to anticipate the “business cycle” and neutralize it. Administrative process will have relieved the pattern of boom-and-bust to which a system organized around decentralized, market-mediated exchange had been susceptible. Like Herbert Simon’s Martian, one can yet look out on the world and observe that it has been organized by neither extreme decentralization nor extreme centralization. Rather, it has been populated with pockets of centralization—firms and public entities—that engage with each other via market processes. Some of that engagement may have the look of crisp, market-mediated exchange of the sort contemplated by the orthodox theory. Much of it, however, involves elaborate contracting that governs exchange that unfolds over time. Elaborate relationships governed by elaborate contracts project neither the image of pure centralization nor pure decentralization but rather something of a hybrid. Time can be a problem for the orthodox economic theory, because economic theory deals with time the same way engineers deal with time. Engineers factor all future contingencies into a plan, an “optimal program,” hatched at time t = 0. Such plans do not contemplate unforeseen contingencies and do not contemplate being changed going forward. It turns out that a theory that does not contemplate uncontractedfor contingencies, whether foreseen or unforeseen, is not well situated to characterize differences between decentralized processes, centralized processes and hybrids. It also turns out, however, that a theory that does characterize such differences requires more structure than an appeal to uncontracted-for contingencies alone provides. Authority and hierarchy, much of the stuff of administrative process, means little when exchange is governed by little more than the threat of one party or the other to exit. Yet, folding hold-up problems and the costs of negotiating and renegotiating the terms of exchange go some way toward motivating tradeoffs

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between different modes of organizing economic activity, some of them more Socialistic (centralized), others rather more Liberal (decentralized). An answer to the question “Liberalism and/or Socialism?” would be that economies feature blends of Liberalism and Socialism, with much of that Socialism wrapped up in the internal processes of the firm. Economies support a host of liberal, decentralized processes in conjunction with a host of centralized processes. Neither one set of processes seems to dominate the other notwithstanding fitful debate ranging over more than a century about how one or the other should dominate. Meanwhile, further development in theories of authority and hierarchy may yet illuminate the relative merits of centralized processes, and one would hope that such developments would be applied to issues well outside the purview of the theory of the firm.

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Grossman, Sanford and Oliver Hart. 1986. The costs and benefits of ownership: A theory of vertical and lateral integration. Journal of Political Economy 94: 691–719. Hart, Oliver. 1995. Firms, Contracts and Financial Structure. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hart, Oliver and John Moore. 1990. Property rights and the nature of the firm. Journal of Political Economy 98: 1119–l 158. Klein, Benjamin, Robert Crawford and Armen Alchian. 1978. Vertical integration, appropriable rents and the competitive contracting process. Journal of Law and Economics 21: 297–326. Lange, Oskar. 1936. On the economic theory of socialism: Part one. Review of Economic Studies 4: 53–71. Lange, Oskar. 1937. On the economic theory of socialism: Part two. Review of Economic Studies 4: 123–142. Lange, Oskar. 1967. The computer and the market. In Socialism, Capitalism, and Economic Growth, ed. C.H. Feinstein, 158–161. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lenin, Vladimir. 1970 [1917]. The State and Revolution. Peking: Foreign Language Press. Lerner, Abba. 1934. Economic theory and socialist economy. Review of Economic Studies 2: 51–61. Lerner, Abba. 1946. The Economics of Control. New York: MacMillan. Lyons, Bruce. 1995. Specific investment, economies of scale, and the make-orbuy decision: A test of transaction cost theory. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 26: 431–443. Lyons, Eugene. 1937. Assignment in Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. MacNeil, Ian. 1974. The many futures of contracts. Southern California Law Review 47: 691–816. MacNeil, Ian. 1978. Contracts: Adjustment of long-term economic relations under classical, neoclassical, and relational contract law. Northwestern University Law Review 72: 853–905. Marx, Karl. 2018 [1867]. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1. Champaign, IL: Modern Barbarian Press. Maskin, Eric. 2008. Mechanism design: How to implement social goals. American Economic Review 98: 567–576. Masten, Scott. 1988. Equity, opportunism, and the design of contractual relations. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 144: 180–195. Masten, Scott and Keith Crocker. 1985. Efficient adaptation in long-term contracts: Take-or-pay provisions for natural gas. American Economic Review 75: 1083–1093.

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Oxley, Joanne. 1997. Appropriability hazards and governance in strategic alliances: A transaction cost approach. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 13: 387–409. Pareto, Vilfredo. 1896. Cours d’Economie Politique. Lausanne: F. Rouge. Pareto, Vilfredo. 1897. Cours d’Economie Politique. 2nd edn, Lausanne: F. Rouge. Rosenstein-Rodan, P.N. 1943. Problems of industrialisation of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Economic Journal 5: 202–211. Simon, Herbert. 1951. A formal theory of the employment relation. Econometrica 19: 293–305. Simon, Herbert. 1991. Organizations and markets. Journal of Economic Perspectives 5: 25–44. Slezkine, Yuri. 2017. The House of Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tadelis, Steven. 2002. Complexity, flexibility, and the make-or-buy decision. American Economic Review 92: 433–437. Taylor, Fred M. 1929. The guidance of production in a socialist state. American Economic Review 19: 1–8. Trotsky, Leon. 1932. Soviet Economy in Danger. New York: Pioneer Publishers. Tzu, Tian. 2003. Specific investments, flexible adaptation, and requirement contracts. Economic Inquiry 41: 299–304. Walras, Léon. 1926. Eléments d’Economie Politique Pure. Lausanne: F. Rouge. English edition: Walras, Léon.1954. Elements of Pure Economics (trans: Jaffe, William). London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Williamson, Dean. 2009. Organization, control, and the single entity defense in antitrust. Journal of Competition Law and Economics 5: 723–745. Williamson, Dean. 2019. The Economics of Adaptation and Long-term Relationships. Northampton: Edward Elgar. Williamson, Oliver. 1971. The vertical integration of production: Market failure considerations. American Economic Review 61: 112–123. Williamson, Oliver. 1991a. Economic institutions: Spontaneous and intentional governance. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 7: 159–187. Williamson, Oliver. 1991b. Comparative economic organization: The analysis of discrete structural alternatives. Administrative Science Quarterly 36: 269–296.

Marx’s Socialism, Mises’s Liberalism and Their Problematic Theories of Needs and Preferences Sina Badiei

The question of whether it is possible to offer normative and rational analyses of needs and preferences and establish an objective hierarchy of them has become, in light of the climate and ecological crises, one of the most critical social issues (Doyal and Gough 1991; Gough 2015, 2017; Reinert 2011; Lamb and Steinberger 2017). For example, for those working on ecological economics (Dodds 1997; Brand-Correa et al. 2020; Vogel et al. 2021) and Universal Basic Services (IGP 2017; Gough 2019, 2020; Coote and Percy 2020; Büchs 2021), public institutions should prioritize the satisfaction of basic needs over that of other needs and preferences.1 Indeed, individuals can freely decide whether to satisfy or not any of their non-basic needs or preferences, at least when they have 1 The distinction between ‘basic needs’—such as such as food, shelter, security, health, and sustainable environment—and ‘other needs’ or ‘preferences’ in ecological economics is very close to the one between ‘natural needs’ and ‘historical needs’ in Marx and the one between ‘physiological needs’ and ‘higher needs’ in Mises. In this chapter, ‘preferences’ and ‘non-basic needs’ have the same meaning.

S. Badiei (B) Centre Walras–Pareto, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] Collège International de Philosophie, Université Paris Lumières, Paris, France © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_7

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the means and resources required to satisfy them. Even if the decision to satisfy some preferences prevents them from satisfying others, the nonsatisfaction of these other preferences is the consequence of their free decision. In contrast, when it comes to basic needs, individuals do not have the same freedom to decide whether or not to satisfy them since when they are not satisfied, the very survival of individuals is imperiled. However, since most mainstream economists theorize needs and preferences in a purely formal manner, the distinction between basic needs and other needs and preferences is almost entirely absent from mainstream economics. Such formal theorization has been predominant since the ordinalist turn in microeconomics, inaugurated mainly by Pareto (Bruni 2002), and more specifically since Robbins’s influential Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. For Robbins, economists cannot analyze the needs and preferences objectively and should leave their discussion to philosophers and ethicists (1932, 23–44). Despite important critiques, such as those of Polanyi (1977, 19–34; Stanfield 1986, 33–41) regarding the problematic character of merely formal approaches to the question of needs and preferences, apart from Sen and scholars working on the capability approach (Sen 1983, 1987, 1992; Nussbaum 1992, 2011), not much has changed in mainstream economics. The main goal of this chapter is to show that merely formal analyses of needs and preferences and the refusal to offer normative and rational analyses of them play a significant role in two of the most influential attempts to defend socialism and liberalism, namely Marx’s defense of socialism and Mises’s defense of liberalism. The chapter shows that neither offers rigorous arguments to justify their formal approach to needs and/or preferences and that this failure weakens their respective defenses of socialism and liberalism. Furthermore, it shows that their refusal to offer rigorous analyses of needs and preferences exerts a deleterious impact on their so-called positive (as opposed to normative) economic theories. The first section shows that Marx’s theory of needs takes two distinct forms, but both theorize needs formally. Due to this formal characterization, Marx’s socialism depends on the necessity of overcoming the problem of scarcity. For Marx, socialism can only occur when societies have reached full economic development. The section then discusses the shortcomings of Marx’s theories of needs and their impact on his ideas concerning socialism. Finally, it shows that Marx’s formal treatment of needs also negatively influences his analyses of labor and capitalism.

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The second section shows that Mises rejects the possibility of characterizing at least some needs as objective, leading him to a formal theory of needs and preferences, which he relies upon to defend liberalism as the only sustainable form of social organization. The section explains the limits of this formal theory, showing that his attempts to explain the relationship between liberalism and the subjective theory of value are not convincing. The final part of the section shows that his formal theory of needs and preferences fails to explain the emergence of cooperation as a spontaneous and voluntary phenomenon. The chapter’s conclusion relies on the critical examination of Marx’s socialism and Mises’s liberalism to argue that less formal ways of theorizing needs and preferences can pave the way for the prioritization of certain needs and preferences. This in turn allows us to decide whether public institutions or the market should coordinate economic activities depending on the nature of the needs and preferences that various activities aim to satisfy. Moreover, the conclusion argues that even when we opt for market coordination, less formal ways of theorizing needs and preferences afford better arguments to justify the regulation of markets through public institutions.

Marx’s Socialism and His Formal Theories of Needs Before examining Marx’s analyses of needs, I should emphasize that this appraisal is limited to Marx’s economic writings. I do this not because I subscribe to Althusser’s famous distinction between a humanist and a scientific Marx (Althusser 2005, 25), which is an oversimplification (Badiei 2021, 239–262). To be sure, Marx is utterly critical of speculative philosophy in The German Ideology (Marx and Engels 1968, 111) and argues that every step of social analysis should be verified using empirical facts (ibid., 51). However, his later writings, notably Grundrisse and Capital, are strongly influenced by a Feuerbachian epistemology (Badiei 2021, 262). These writings aim to show that due to what Marx calls the fetishism of the commodity (Marx 1990, 163; Badiei 2021, 256–262), the social phenomena that we perceive empirically hide the essence of social reality and are misleading. Thus, only a theoretical grasp of the essence of the social phenomena in their totality can allow us to understand them. Given the role played by the Feuerbachian epistemology in Grundrisse and Capital, characterizing, as Althusser does, the

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period before the publication of The German Ideology as Feuerbachian and the period following it as anti-Feuerbachian are problematic. If so, why does this chapter focus on Marx’s economic writings? It does so to show that Marx’s theorization of needs in his economic writings has a detrimental impact on his economic defense of socialism. Moreover, even if Marx’s economic writings are imbued with philosophical ideas, they make very few references to his philosophical vision before The German Ideology. Marx’s Theory of Needs in Wage, Labor and Capital Marx’s economic writings discuss the problem of needs in two manners. Initially, in Wage Labor and Capital, written in 1847 and published in 1849, he argues that making a distinction between basic needs—such as food, shelter, security and health—and less urgent needs is impossible. For Marx, the satisfaction of needs is only partially related to the material connection between needs and that which satisfies them. As he puts it: A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls. (Marx 2020, 33)

Marx raises the question of the relational character of needs, viz., that certain needs become important since failure to satisfy them would mean belonging to an inferior social rank. Therefore, even if we distinguish basic needs from other needs and preferences, needs and their satisfaction have a dimension beyond the relationship between a person’s needs and their physiological and psychological constitution. Once a neighbor manages to satisfy a given need in a specific way, it is only by satisfying that need in the same way that we can avoid the feeling of inferiority to that neighbor. Marx is right to underline the relational character of needs, but he exaggerates its importance when asserting that a house is small only when the adjacent house is bigger. A house can always be smaller or bigger.

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However, by studying humans’ physiological and psychological constitution, the number of persons who dwell in a house, and other similar considerations, we can specify the characteristics a house should at least minimally have. These characteristics can be determined irrespective of those of the adjacent houses, and houses not fulfilling them can physically and psychologically harm their dwellers. Hence, in this conception of needs, the relational or social aspect entirely marginalizes the non-relational aspect of need satisfaction. If the only important criterion when examining one way of satisfying a need is whether it is similar to how other people satisfy the same need, then we can eliminate that need by ensuring that no one satisfies it. In other words, since the relational conception of needs only cares about equality in how individuals satisfy their needs, it cannot distinguish a society where all people satisfy a need equally and fully from one where that need does not exist, or one where no one satisfies it at all. Moreover, this relational or social way of theorizing needs is compatible with what Marx would later call primitive communism (Marx 1990, 452–453). Since primitive forms of communism allegedly satisfy the basic needs of all community members equally, and given that basic needs are the only existing and authorized needs in these communities, the relational theory of needs should consider them admiringly desirable. But Marx does not admire primitive communism, because the kind of communism that he advocates can emerge only after the full development of the forces of production through the capitalist relations of production (Marx 1991, 957–959). However, since all individuals satisfy their needs equally in both primitive and modern forms of communism, the relational conception of needs cannot explain why we should prefer postcapitalist forms of communism to primitive communism. This difficulty undermines Marx’s vision of history with its normative classification of different historical moments. For this reason, in Capital, Marx no longer relies on this relational theory of needs to question the possibility of making a distinction between various kinds of needs. Marx’s Theory of Needs in Capital Instead, in Capital Volume I, Marx introduces a distinction between natural and historical needs, but immediately argues that this distinction is untenable. As he puts it:

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Natural needs, such as food, clothing, heating, housing, etc., differ according to the climate and other physical characteristics of a country. On the other hand, the very number of so-called natural needs, as well as the mode of satisfying them, is a historical product and thus depends to a great extent on the degree of civilization attained. (Marx 1990, 275)

No one would dispute the historical character of the satisfaction of needs. In the past, people ate with their hands, whereas nowadays, most use utensils. Moreover, what we eat today differs from that eaten a few centuries ago. However, these changes do not mean that the nature of basic needs has changed, whereas Marx insists from the outset that the historical dimension is relevant regarding not only the methods of satisfying needs but also their very nature and number. Since historical conditions for him determine the number of needs, we cannot have any ahistorical conception of needs. We should moreover recall that for Marx, the historical task of capitalism lies in the fact that it expands the number of needs by creating more and more needs: The great historic quality of capital is to create this surplus labor, superfluous labor from the standpoint of mere use value, mere subsistence; … Capital’s ceaseless striving toward the general form of wealth drives labor beyond the limits of its natural paltriness [Naturbedürftigkeit ], and thus creates the material elements for the development of the rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption, and whose labor also therefore appears no longer as labor, but as the full development of activity itself, in which natural necessity in its direct form has disappeared; because a historically created need has taken the place of the natural one. (Marx 1993, 325; emphasis in original)

In other words, by developing the forces of production, capitalism creates the material conditions necessary for satisfying all needs and, more importantly, their proliferation. The fully developed and all-round individual that Marx refers to in Capital (1991, 957–959) and in the Critique of the Gotha Program (1970, 27) can emerge only when capitalism has developed all needs in their full diversity. While capitalism renders possible the development and satisfaction of all needs, since capitalist relations of production are prisoners of the straitjacket imposed by the value form (Marx 1993, 704–705), the satisfaction of all needs for all

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will never materialize under capitalism. Only modern forms of communism can realize the potential created by capitalism, but this modern communism can emerge only when capitalism has developed the material conditions of production to such an extent that all needs can be satisfied for all individuals. Hence, the transition from capitalism to postcapitalism does not require any normative analysis of needs, especially regarding the legitimacy of satisfying, through public institutions, certain needs—for example, basic or natural needs—but not other—for example, historical—needs. The issue, however, with this refusal to demarcate natural from historically created needs is that historical needs can be proliferated ad infinitum. For example, modern affluent societies offer the possibility of traveling to the moon. For rich people, traveling to the moon has thus become a new need. Should we then wait for further development of the productive capacities of humanity so that anyone may be able to travel to the moon? Moreover, who can guarantee that visiting more distant planets will not become a new need after the moon? The climate and ecological crises have shown that a world imposing no limit on the satisfaction of needs and preferences is not sustainable. Therefore, we can no longer postpone normative evaluations of needs and preferences based on the claim that capitalism will improve the methods of production to the point that all individuals may at least potentially satisfy all their needs and preferences. To be sure, in some brief passages of the Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx gives the impression that in the early stages of “a communist society … as it emerges from capitalist society” (1970, 25), such normative questions must be posed. For example, he mentions the necessity of “the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services” (24). Still, he maintains that the necessity of dealing with these questions is a defect of “the first phase of communist society,” and a truly developed communist society no longer needs to deal with them (27). It is thus not surprising that his treatment of these questions is utterly brief. Yet, unlike Marx’s approach, defenders of socialism and communism should try to explain how legitimate needs will be determined in such societies and ensure that the methods suggested are objective and reasonable enough to enjoy popular support.

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The Effects of Marx’s Formal Theories of Needs on His Economic Theory Marx’s refusal to develop a rigorous evaluation of needs exerts a detrimental influence on his ideas regarding post-capitalist societies and his analysis of capitalism. If, as Marx argues, the amount of socially necessary labor time needed to produce a commodity determines its exchange value, those who judge the commodity to be useful consider the labor that produces it to be useful. Therefore, the exchange or economic value depends not just on the labor time needed to produce a commodity but also on the specific use value of the labor employed. As Marx puts it, “the totality of heterogeneous use-values or physical commodities reflects a totality of similar heterogeneous forms of useful labor, which differ in order, genus, species and variety” (Marx 1990, 132). For example, a commodity resulting from so much labor but with no socially recognized utility would have no economic value. Hence, other than labor time, the utility or use value of labor must also be considered when judging its capacity to create economic value. But, how can we calculate the value produced by different forms of labor? If we take the simplest form as the basic unit for measuring the value created by labor, we should manage to explain the relationship between this simple form and more skilled forms of labor. For Marx, more complex labor counts only as intensified, or rather multiplied simple labor, so that a smaller quantity of complex labor is considered equal to a larger quantity of simple labor. (Ibid., 135)

Thus, in Capital, simple labor is opposed to complex or skilled labor. Yet, when Marx affirms that skilled labor equals a larger quantity of simple labor, we should ask how much larger. Ten times larger is not the same thing as ten thousand times larger. In other words, Marx argues that simple and skilled forms of labor are quantitatively related without providing any method of measuring their relationship. Before writing Capital, Marx had recognized, in his Critique of Political Economy of 1859, the necessity of explaining the relationship between simple and skilled forms of labor (1963, 282). In Capital Volume I, he argues that experience shows that skilled labor is constantly reduced to simple labor (Marx 1990, 135), but he clarifies this point only in the so-called unpublished chapter. According to Marx, as the subsumption

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of labor under capital becomes more real and less formal, the form of labor becomes increasingly subjugated to and determined by the needs of capital. By transforming labor processes and industrializing them, capital increasingly deprives labor of skills. It transfers all skills to machines and instruments, simplifying all forms of labor (ibid., 1019–1038). The reduction of skilled to simple labor is thus the result of the historical tendency of capitalism. Likewise, on many occasions in Capital Volume III, Marx argues that capitalist development leads to the “greatest possible reduction of work in all spheres of production to simple labor” (1991, 298). Similarly, he maintains in Grundrisse that “the principle of developed capital is precisely to make special skill superfluous; … to transfer skill, rather, into the dead forces of nature” (1993, 587). In other words, as capitalism develops, all forms of labor are simplified, so we no longer need to offer a way to measure the relationship between skilled forms of labor and simple labor. Historically speaking, the massive use of machines and computers by capitalists has certainly reduced many forms of labor, considered very skilled even in the recent past, to simple forms. However, we cannot ignore the utterly skilled work of the scientists and engineers who designed these machines and computers. Therefore, we cannot speak of the simplification of labor since this simplification results from the emergence of newer forms of highly skilled work. Thus, if the alleged tendency of capitalism to transcend the problem of scarcity prevents Marx from offering any detailed evaluation of needs, his belief in capitalism’s tendency to reduce all labor to simple forms prevents him from explaining the economic relationship between different forms of labor. It might be tempting to think that the first problem only influences Marx’s vision of post-capitalist societies, whereas the second impacts his analysis of capitalism. In effect, explaining how socialist societies choose the needs that are satisfied for all is paramount. However, equally imperative is explaining how to measure and evaluate the contribution of different forms of labor to the production of all the goods and services necessary for satisfying the chosen needs. In the Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx argues that in the early stages of communism, one determines the contribution of individual workers by taking “a given amount of labor in one form … for an equal amount of labor in another form” (1970, 26). However, he does not explain how to determine what he calls the amount of labor. If we do so by taking labor time as the only determining factor, why should workers who undertake different forms of labor accept this? If, in contrast, we measure the amount of different

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forms of labor, and especially the relationship between distinct forms of labor, using other mechanisms, they should be explained and justified. So, the negative impact of the second problem is not limited to Marx’s analysis of capitalism and equally weakens his vision of post-capitalist societies. To sum up, the economic value of labor depends on the labor’s duration and its skills. For liberal economists, the market mechanism of supply and demand explains the value of different forms of labor. Marx’s labor theory of value is supposed to explain the essence of economic phenomena, which lurks behind the misleading appearance of market exchanges and the mechanism of supply and demand (Marx 1991, 290–291). However, his theory does not offer any satisfactory method of explaining the relationship between different forms of labor.2 One way to explain the economic value of different forms of labor, without relying on the mechanism of supply and demand, is by classifying and valorizing different labor forms based on the importance of the needs they allow us to satisfy. If we adopt this method, the question of the value of different forms of labor is ultimately related to the evaluation and hierarchy of needs. Marx also wants to defend non-market methods of determining the economic value of labor. However, since he does not offer any rigorous evaluation of needs, his analysis of labor and its economic value remains similarly inadequate.

Mises’s Liberalism and His Formal Theory of Needs and Preferences Since Mises fully subscribes to an ordinalist version of the subjective theory of value (Mises 2008, 97), he considers that people’s needs and preferences and how they satisfy them depend entirely on their subjective value systems. As, for him, economics should be value-free and refrain from advocating any specific value system (ibid., 95; Mises 2007, 35; Mises 2014, 40), it should consider the decision to pursue any end3 as equally rational or irrational, because: 2 This problem is exacerbated, as I have explained elsewhere (Badiei 2021, 83–99; Badiei 2022), by Marx’s failed attempts to explain the criteria he relies upon to distinguish productive from unproductive labor. 3 For Mises, the ends pursued by individuals or public institutions correspond to the needs or preferences that they prioritize and choose to satisfy.

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to apply the concept rational or irrational to the ultimate ends chosen is nonsensical. We may call irrational the ultimate given, viz., those things that our thinking can neither analyze nor reduce to other ultimately given things. Then every ultimate end chosen by any man is irrational. It is neither more nor less rational to aim at riches like Croesus than to aim at poverty like a Buddhist monk (Mises 2008, 880).

However, if all ends are merely subjective and economics should not establish any hierarchy regarding the choice of the ends pursued by different individuals, economics cannot contribute to settling disagreements over the pursuit of divergent public or social ends. Thus, economics should be indifferent when governments promote very different policies, such as heavily taxing tobacco or healthy food, or heavily taxing wealthy or poor citizens. This indifference is incompatible with Mises’s active intervention in the political debates of his time and his defense of various political measures. He, therefore, develops a strategy according to which major disagreements over the choice of public ends concern the choice not of ends but of the means employed to achieve ends. In other words, what divides those parties which one calls today world view parties, i.e., parties committed to basic philosophical decisions about ultimate ends, is only seeming disagreement with regard to ultimate ends. … It can be shown that all these controversies concern means and not ultimate ends. (Ibid., 182)

So, for example, “liberalism is distinguished from socialism … not by the goal at which it aims, but by the means that it chooses to attain that goal” (Mises 2005, xxii–xxiii). This position is strange: for disagreements to be simply about the means to achieve ends, the ends must be identical. Mises replies by arguing that although the policies pursued by different political parties appear radically different, they essentially propose the same end: to make people “more prosperous and more content”; “they all pretend to aim at the highest material welfare for the majority of citizens” (Mises 2008, 183). This position is empirically erroneous: even in Mises’s time, there were many religious organizations for whom economic prosperity made people materialistic and corrupt (Pope Paul VI 1967). Similarly, back then, but especially of late, many ecological parties have advocated degrowth and not greater material prosperity (Flipo 2015).

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More importantly, when Mises talks about reducing disagreements over ends to disagreements over means, he uses the terms material prosperity and happiness as if they mean the same thing. However, since Mises insists on the merely subjective nature of value judgments, he cannot maintain that only material prosperity offers individuals the possibility of happiness. Mises’s Distinction Between Economics and Liberalism One may think that this inconsistency disappears if we consider the difference Mises puts forward between economics and liberalism: Liberalism is a political doctrine. It is not a theory, but an application of the theories developed by praxeology and especially by economics to definite problems of human action within society. As a political doctrine liberalism is not neutral with regard to values and the ultimate ends sought by action.… While … economics … uses the terms happiness and removal of uneasiness in a purely formal sense, liberalism attaches to them a concrete meaning. It presupposes that people prefer life to death, health to sickness, nourishment to starvation, abundance to poverty. It teaches man how to act in accordance with these valuations. (Mises 2008, 153–154)

Thus, Mises does not condone the choice of satisfying any specific need or preference when he speaks from the point of view of economics. In contrast, as a liberal, he defends material opulence as the most cherished end. Why does liberalism focus on material prosperity as the most treasured end? For Mises, it is not from a disdain of spiritual goods that liberalism concerns itself exclusively with man’s material well-being, but from a conviction that what is highest and deepest in man cannot be touched by any outward regulation. It seeks to produce only outer well-being because it knows that inner, spiritual riches cannot come to man from without, but only from within his own heart. It does not aim at creating anything but the outward preconditions for the development of the inner life. (Mises 2005, xx)

Still, such a resolution of the apparent inconsistency in Mises’s position is not satisfactory, since:

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1. the relationship between economics and liberalism remains unclear in Mises’s work, as it is unclear whether liberalism constitutes the only political doctrine compatible with Mises’s economic thought; and 2. if it is liberal to defend outward, material welfare as the primary goal of social policy and if, according to Mises, all political parties promise to increase people’s material prosperity, then all political parties are ultimately liberal. However, this position is, if not strange, at least counterintuitive. Mises offers one argument to explain the shift from economics to liberalism: The liberals do not assert that men ought to strive after the goals mentioned above. What they maintain is that the immense majority prefer a life of health and abundance to misery, starvation, and death. (Mises 2008, 154)

In other words, liberalism is the most reasonable political doctrine that can be defended from the point of view of economics because it corresponds more than all other political doctrines to the desires of empirically existing individuals. We cannot, therefore, defend the transition from economics to liberalism in a theoretical manner: we should do so empirically. Arguing that most people prefer to live a life where their basic needs are satisfied is an entirely reasonable statement on the empirical level. However, as soon as Mises talks about the desire of the majority of people to be abundantly wealthy, his position is no longer empirically evident and he does not provide any factual evidence to support it. Furthermore, Mises rejects the possibility of drawing a line between basic needs and other needs or preferences: Whether it is possible to separate neatly those actions which aim at the satisfaction of needs exclusively conditioned by man’s physiological constitution from other “higher” needs can be left undecided. But we must not overlook the fact that in reality no food is valued solely for its nutritive power and no garment or house solely for the protection it affords against cold weather and rain. It cannot be denied that the demand for goods

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is widely influenced by metaphysical, religious, and ethical considerations, by aesthetic value judgments, by customs, habits, prejudices, traditions, changing fashions, and many other things. (Ibid., 234)

By maintaining that basic needs should not be distinguished from other needs and preferences, Mises seems to ignore the difference between needs and the means of satisfying them. To be sure, the means employed to satisfy basic needs always include historical elements and metaphysical and religious beliefs. Nevertheless, even if the forms of satisfying basic needs have changed historically, given their physiological character, these needs are identifiable in all individuals. Therefore, their satisfaction must always fulfill certain conditions, and we can investigate them scientifically through chemistry, biology and medicine. For example, no metaphysical or religious belief can lead an individual to eat plastic or a hundred kilos of meat per day without endangering their health and survival. In contrast, as regards other needs and preferences, for example, owning many cars, they have changed and are changing as much as the means employed to satisfy them. Humans’ physiological constitution no longer constrains these needs and preferences, and we cannot investigate them scientifically. They can proliferate endlessly, and their satisfaction may encounter no limit. The short-circuit established between the desire of most people to satisfy their basic needs in a dignified way and the desire to be abundantly rich is therefore problematic. As such, the transition from economics to liberalism cannot be justified, from an empirical perspective, on the basis of an alleged desire of the majority of people to be abundantly rich. Nor can any a priori reasoning establish that most people regard material abundance as their most cherished end. Hence, given Mises’s insistence on the purely subjective nature of the needs and preferences that individuals choose to satisfy, it is unclear on what grounds he defends liberalism and the pursuit of material prosperity as the most rational and desirable end, and he does not help us understand why liberal societies should prioritize the pursuit of certain ends over others. The Effects of Mises’s Formal Theory of Needs and Preferences on His Economic Theory Mises’s refusal to offer rigorous normative analyses of needs and preferences weakens his defense of his political views and his positive economic

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theory. If, as he argues, individuals have different value judgments regarding the choice of the needs and preferences they want to satisfy, he must explain how any social cooperation is possible. In other words, if individuals are so different, why do they cooperate? According to Mises, “experience teaches man” (ibid., 157) that cooperating increases labor efficiency. To prove this, he relies on what he calls the law of association (ibid., 158), i.e., a modified form of Smith’s theory of absolute advantage and Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage (Ricardo 2014, 81–88). The law of association shows that “the gains derived from the division of labor are always mutual” (Mises 2008, 159) and reveals why, despite their different value judgments and pursuit of distinct ends, individuals have cooperated throughout history. Hence, “man becomes a social being not in sacrificing his own concerns for the sake of a mythical Moloch, society, but in aiming at an improvement in his own welfare” (ibid., 160). In other words, methodological individualism and the subjective theory of value do not call human cooperation into question. Instead, they explain its historical emergence rationally (ibid., 274). However, relying on the theories of absolute and comparative advantage within the framework of a purely subjective theory, such as Mises’s, is problematic. Mises refuses to acknowledge that these theories depend on the classical, i.e., objective, theory of value (ibid., 161). Still, if as Mises’s interpretation of marginalism maintains, individual differences are significant, they can prevent individuals from agreeing on the goods or services they should produce. The examples Mises analyzes assume that individuals are always interested in producing the same goods. Therefore, to determine whether their cooperation is advantageous, the only relevant question is whether cooperation makes producing these goods more efficient. Nevertheless, we can offer other examples to show why in the absence of common needs and preferences, individuals cannot cooperate. For instance, within the framework of comparative advantage as Mises uses it, let us take a slightly modified version of the canonical example used to explain the advantages of cooperation (Table 1). As we can see, B produces both a and b more efficiently than A, but her superiority in making b is higher than her superiority in making a. If A and B produce these two goods separately, A should work 220 hours to produce one unit of a and one unit of b, and B should work 170 hours to produce one unit of a and one unit of b. So, if they work separately, they will produce two units of a and two units of b. However, if B produces only b, she produces 2.125 units in 170 hours, and if A produces only

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Table 1 Comparative advantage with three goods

Hours of work necessary to produce one unit Person ↓ / Good → A B

a

b

c

100 90

120 80

120 80

a, she produces 2.2 units in 220 hours. Thus, if A and B cooperate, they can produce both goods more efficiently. However, let us imagine that A cannot work more than 220 hours and B cannot work more than 170 hours. Moreover, her working hours should allow A to obtain at least one unit of a and at least one unit of c, but she finds b to be devoid of any interest. As for B, her working hours should allow her to obtain at least one unit of a and at least one unit of b, but she finds c to be useless. As we can see, no form of cooperation between A and B is conceivable. Therefore, to explain the emergence of cooperation, we must abandon the radical interpretation of marginalism and recognize that individuals have common needs. The latter, especially those depending on individuals’ almost identical physiological constitution, have driven individuals to cooperate, even though differences in their preferences and value judgments may prevent them from cooperating to satisfy other needs and preferences. However, since Mises does not recognize that at least basic needs are common (Badiei 2021, 328–332), he cannot explain why, given their subjective differences, individuals have been able to cooperate. To deal with this dilemma, Mises mobilizes another argument: Within a hypothetical world in which all factors of production are absolutely specific, human action would operate in a multiplicity of fields of want-satisfaction independent of one another. What links together in our actual world the various fields of want-satisfaction is the existence of a great many nonspecific factors, suitable to be employed for the attainment of various ends and to be substituted in some degree for one another. (Mises 2008, 389)

Hence, since certain factors of production essential to any productive activity are scarce, individuals are interdependent and obliged to interact, despite differences in the choice of productive activities they wish to undertake. In a world where each person has unique preferences

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concerning the choice of their productive activities, and where the factors of production for any productive activity are either abundant or entirely specific to the productive activities preferred by only one individual, individuals may have no interest in coming into contact and can ignore each other. However, the fact that nonspecific factors of production are scarce only shows that individuals are forced to come into contact but shows nothing about the form that this contact may take. In other words, this scarcity does not show why the contact between individuals must take the form of cooperation and not the form of struggle, where each will try to eliminate or subjugate the others to appropriate all scarce resources. Consequently, this second argument of Mises also fails to show why or how individuals can cooperate if, as he contends, their value systems and preferences have nothing in common. Thus, Mises’s economic theory cannot explain one of the most important social phenomena, viz., cooperation, since we cannot explain the latter without accepting at least one of the following two theses: 1. Recognize that despite their differences, individuals also have common needs that explain why they have resorted to cooperation throughout history. Hence, the choice of the needs and preferences to satisfy is not merely subjective, and at least some needs are common and are probably responsible for the emergence of social cooperation. 2. Abandon the idea that cooperation is a voluntary phenomenon, which means that some individuals force others to cooperate with them. Only empirical historical studies can tell us which, or what mixture, of these two theses has been at the origin of the emergence of cooperation. However, both run counter to Mises’s economic theory, which explains cooperation as a non-coercive and purely spontaneous phenomenon but refuses to recognize certain needs and preferences as common.

Conclusion This chapter tried to lay bare the problematic character of how Marx and Mises analyze needs and preferences. It showed that they both theorize needs and preferences entirely formally, preventing them from offering

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rigorous normative evaluations of needs and preferences. More specifically, it showed that both dismiss the possibility of offering rational and objective arguments to hierarchize needs and preferences and prioritize basic needs as more fundamental. It is, therefore, not surprising that neither sees any prospect for political approaches that try to incorporate socialist and liberal elements. Yet, once we recognize the singular character of basic needs such as sustenance, shelter, health, security and a clean and sustainable environment, we may defend active interventions of public institutions to ensure the sustainable satisfaction of these needs in the most dignified manner for all individuals. We may equally recognize that since the non-basic needs and preferences are far less common, individual initiatives have a far better chance of succeeding when undertaking actions aiming to satisfy them. Public institutions should let individuals have the highest possible freedom to undertake necessary activities to satisfy their individualistic preferences. Decentralized mechanisms, such as markets, are thus more suitable for coordinating such activities, even if public institutions should still regulate them to ensure they do not endanger the satisfaction of basic needs for all individuals. Once we recognize that activities coordinated by markets aim to satisfy less basic needs and preferences, it becomes clear that these activities should not prevent public institutions from guaranteeing the sustainable satisfaction of basic needs for all. In contrast, the failure to distinguish basic needs from others may lead to totalitarian or laissez-faire forms of governance. Proponents of totalitarian forms of politics argue that society should choose the needs and preferences that individuals can satisfy. This may lead public institutions to impose certain needs and preferences as legitimate and consider the needs and preferences of individuals whose values are not akin to those of the majority as illegitimate. Therefore, these forms of politics fail to see that beyond basic needs, most needs and preferences tend to be very subjective, and individuals should have the right to pursue activities that may allow them to satisfy their non-basic needs. Proponents of laissez-faire forms of governance claim that since all needs and preferences are wholly subjective, public institutions should not do much. For them, public institutions should only institute the legal and juridical order that facilitates individuals’ private activities, punish lawbreakers and protect people against foreign enemies. For laissez-faire liberals, public institutions can also finance the construction of largescale infrastructure that private individuals cannot construct alone. Since

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actions of public institutions going beyond these tasks force them to undertake actions based on specific values, these actions will impose the values of rulers, forcing others to either resist or forsake their own values and beliefs. However, since the basic needs of individuals are common, public institutions can intervene more actively to ensure the satisfaction of these needs for all without invoking—contrary to what laissez-faire liberals maintain—subjective values and beliefs. Rational evaluations of needs and preferences are thus imperative if we want to theorize the relationship between the actions of individuals and those of public institutions in less dichotomic manners.

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Pope Paul VI. 1967. Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI on the Development of Peoples. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Reinert, Kenneth. 2011. No Small Hope: The Basic Goods Imperative. Review of Social Economy 69(1): 55–76. Ricardo, David. 2014. The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. New York: Dover Publications, Ins (Original work published 1817). Robbins, Lionel. 1932. Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. Sen, Amartya. 1983. Poor, Relatively Speaking. Oxford Economic Papers 35(2): 153–169. Sen, Amartya. 1987. The Standard of Living. Edited by Geoffrey Hawthorn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo978 0511570742. Sen, Amartya. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Oxford: Clarendon Press. https:// doi.org/10.1093/0198289286.001.0001. Stanfield, James Ronald. 1986. The Economic Thought of Karl Polanyi. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Vogel, Jefim, Julia K. Steinberger, Daniel W. O’Neill, William F. Lamb and Jaya Krishnakumar. 2021. Socio–economic Conditions for Satisfying Human Needs at Low Energy Use: An International Analysis of Social Provisioning. Global Environmental Change 69,102287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glo envcha.2021.102287.

On Utopia and Melancholy: Liberalism and Socialism at the End of the Cold War Iason Zarikos

A Strange Melancholy The end of the Cold War can be approached through an enigmatic prediction of Francis Fukuyama: “the end of History will be a very sad time” (Fukuyama 1989, 18). These are strange words coming from someone considered as the paragon of liberal arrogance and triumphalism. Fukuyama was, after all, the intellectual who proclaimed the definite victory of liberal democracy and capitalism over their rivals and the resolution of all fundamental contradictions hitherto animating the human adventure. Fukuyama’s conclusions and epistemology might have been idiosyncratic, but his melancholy was far from eccentric. In the aftermath of the Cold War, disaffection with contemporary politics and the broader orientation of western societies was on the rise. All across the West, voters expressed their emotional detachment from politics and their distrust for parties and politicians (Hobsbawm 1995, 581, Norris 1999, Pharr and Putnam 2000). Generalized mistrust was tied to the verdict that the

I. Zarikos (B) National and Kapodistrian University, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_8

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radical phase of Modernity had ended: inspecting the intellectual landscape, contemporaries could not discern any great ideologies fighting for the souls of citizens, no alternative futures being proclaimed, no heart-breaking ideas pulsating at the end of the millennium. One of the few histories of the era summarizes the dominant sentiment of the post-Cold War moment (Henry 2019, 446): “In Europe… amidst the new prosperity, there could be no denying the almost palpable sense that public life had somehow lost its soul.” One would expect that this feeling would originate in the defeated of the Cold War, socialists and communists. And certainly, the Left in Western Europe believed that the world had turned gray: the advent of free-market ideals in the West and the world-shattering conclusion of perestroika signaled the (terminal?) decline of the grand project of Socialism. But socialists were not alone. As the aphorism of Fukuyama attests, the victors of the Cold War subscribed to the same discontent and agreed with their opponents that liberal societies lacked inspiration and the impulse to explore further horizons.1 The most incisive dissection of liberalism’s exhausted energy was articulated by Pascal Bruckner in his “Melancholic Democracy.” Writing in 1990, the French intellectual was wondering “how can one live without enemies” and suggested that the liberal victory in the Cold War was the foundation of liberal exhaustion. Without enemies, he argued, “the proclaimed future is a duplication of the present” (Bruckner 1990, 20). After the convergence of socialism and liberalism, societies landed on an immobilized present, without any horizons to conquer or the necessary inspiration to invent them. Globally, democracy might be on the rise, but in the West, “democracy…is about to turn… to a synonym of our indifference toward the world” (ibid: 21). At the same period, the acclaimed journal Daedalus dedicated a special issue to the “Immobilized Democracies” of the West. Diagnosing the immobility of ideologies, the journal noted that liberal democracies 1 Throughout this essay, I avoid the term “conservatism” since in my view, the concept suffers from thematic and temporal hyper-extension and is thus irrelevant to the postcold war intellectual landscape. The focus of this study does not allow for a thorough discussion of this issue, but, since the term is widely used, some brief remarks are necessary. It is obvious that contemporary conservatives have (almost) nothing in common with counter-revolutionaries of late eighteenth century in terms of concrete political demands: interventionist monarchy is dead, aristocracy even more so, while the political authority of established churches has declined or disappeared.

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“find it difficult to project themselves into the future” (S.R.G 1992, vi). Cornelius Castoriadis, thinker of the anti-Soviet Left, an ideological variant theoretically fit to survive the end of the Cold War, was also unable to dissect both future and present. Bred from the “intellectual poverty of socialists and liberals,” he wrote, the new era cannot “conceive itself as something positive – or as something tout court” (Castoriadis 1992, 11, 21). Lacking any orientation for the future, the post-Cold War moment could not seemingly conjure itself into existence. Bruckner agreed with his ideological rival: “it is difficult today to imagine new mythologies” (Bruckner 1990, 164), while another Cold War victor, Giscard d’Estaing, lamented the rise of “societies without objectives” (Giscard D’Estaing 1985, 225–236). This feeling gave birth to a sense of paralysis (S.R.G. 1992, vi): “Individually and collectively ‘idling’, they give the appearance of trapped vehicles on a crowded motorway.” Something had changed because something had been lost: the collapse of grand ideological projects brought, if we follow another contemporary, Ulrich Beck, “the advent of small p politics” (Beck 1986, 183–236). Naturally, History did not cease to move but its destination remained concealed from the view of the great ideologies of Modernity. Long used to predict and even plan its trajectory in advance, liberals and socialists now faced an immobile present and its natural companion, an unknown future: “we don’t know where we are heading,” wrote Eric Hobsbawm (Hobsbawm 1995, 585): “the only thing we know…is that if Humanity is to have a recognizable future, this cannot take place through the prolongment of the past or the present.” Apart from a sense of immobility, all contemporary writers shared an intense dislike for the most famous work of the period, the one whose enigmatic prediction on the hue of the future offered the impetus for this study: the neo-Hegelian synthesis of Francis Fukuyama that asserted the permanent defeat of every alternative to liberal democracy, economic growth and free market. Nevertheless, if his detractors (and the historians after them) had read his text carefully, they would have traced certain worrying similarities between Fukuyama’s sentiment and their own postCold War melancholy. Fukuyama’s End of History sheltered indeed the Last Man, and She, committed to her Nietzschean lineage, lived a life lacking in ambition, dreams and pathos. “Jaded by the experience of history and disabused of the possibility of direct experience of values” (Fukuyama

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1992, 306), Fukuyama was inspecting a world already interpreted without enigmas to solve, without further horizons to conquer. The liberal utopia stressing the End of History resembled the democratic purgatory of Pascal Bruckner and the stillborn present of Castoriadis. “Centuries of boredom” will follow the victory of liberalism and this is the reason “why the End of History will be a very sad time.”

…and an Even Stranger Nostalgia A strange nostalgia for the Age of Ideologies promptly ensued. The Liberal West condemned twentieth-century utopias for their bloodlust and their hubristic prowess (Berlin 2013, 1–20, Auer 2004, 380–1), a conclusion that led Judith Shklar to postulate that liberalism ought to turn to “a party of memory” after the “parties of “hope” dominated and devastated the Age of the Extremes (Shklar 1989, 21–38). Her Liberalism of Fear called for the renewal of anti-authoritarian principles and the adoption of what was essentially a defensive ideological outlook.2 Nevertheless, the West, liberal and socialist alike, also felt “a powerful nostalgia for the time when history existed” (Fukuyama 1989, 18). This unexpected nostalgia was the other face of post-Cold War melancholy. Even 1989, the annus mirabilis of liberalism, proved nothing but a fleeting moment of euphoria. Deprived of utopian energy, 1989 was immediately interpreted by scholars as “banal” (Outhwaite and Ray 2005, 5), “self-limited” (Auer 2004, 361) and in general “conservative” revolutions. Jurgen Habermas even remarked that “a peculiar characteristic of this revolution […] its total lack of ideas that are either innovative or oriented towards the future” (Habermas 1990, 5). The comparison with the world-transforming aspirations of former European revolutions also found them deficient (Auer 2004, 364–5). The above depictions are of course extreme since Eastern European revolutions were certainly radical and dismantled the Cold War apparatus. Their denigration, nevertheless, testifies to the pessimism of the post-Cold War moment and the inability of the West to find lasting inspiration even in world-shattering events like those of 1989. The aphorism of Jurgen Habermas is useful as a depiction of the Western ideological landscape which, in any case, provided a major source of inspiration for the Eastern 2 Although no synthetic study currently exists, the anti-utopian sentiment has been detected (Maier 2000: 830).

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revolutions as well. Holding the same melancholic mirror to both East and West, to elections and revolutions alike, the new Europe of Nations could not reconnect with the dramatic pulse of radical ideas. This explains the peculiar nostalgia of another Cold War victor, Milan Kundera. Saluting the entrenchment of democracy and tolerance, the Czech writer (Kundera 1988, 62) was asking for more. For “if that tolerance no longer has any rich creativity or any powerful thought to protect, will it not become empty and useless?” Without new ideals, “the image of European unity slips away into the past. European: one who is nostalgic for Europe.”3 Theirs was a strange nostalgia. People who just awoke from a nightmare, from a dramatic century engulfed by powerful thoughts, savored its heroic aftertaste. Or, more accurately, they invented it from a safety distance. A crucial epilogue was written these years and through this anodyne nostalgia. The twentieth century became History and History can easily turn into a phantasmagoric spectacle: a terror that transcends our understanding, fascinates our intellect, but does not threaten us. The nostalgia of ideology in the aftermath of the Cold War was a version of the Sublime. But the thrill was real and accentuated through its connection to the perceived void at the heart of contemporary politics. In the aftermath of its triumph against socialism, liberalism lost its emotional appeal, its capacity to ignite passions and formulate new demands. Moreover, and despite the gap, socialism never staged a counter-attack. An immobile epoch that perceives its own immobility might offer a seductive narrative but its uncritical acceptance would abolish the historian’s task and render us captives of the actor’s self-descriptions. Our post-Cold War heroes do not tell the whole truth. For if the public life had somehow lost its soul, we must be aware that nobody loses her soul without a reason. Something tied victors and defeated to their common melancholy. What follows is an interpretation of the melancholy of the victors and the immobility of the defeated. My argument is that in order to understand the convergence of Right and Left, the melancholic victory of liberalism and socialist defeat, we need to re-interpret their twentiethcentury trajectories. Deep yet neglected temporalities, liberal and socialist, collided and matured in this post-Cold War moment. By excavating them,

3 Similarly, Judt (1996: 117–8).

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we might uncover not only a neglected link between liberals and socialists but also a utopia on the move.

Interpretations of Melancholy and the Frontier of History The discontent at the close of the millennium did not escape the attention of scholars. A plethora of explanations was offered for the rise of political disenchantment. The most obvious among them was that western societies had already realized their fundamental demands: democracy was stable, human rights were recognized, while there were few objections that central economic planning should be abandoned. Thus, a consensus was freely reached and no impetus for re-enchantment existed. In this perspective, the complaints of intellectuals could be seen as the expression of professional inertia and the disenchantment of citizens as a natural reaction to their self-conscious rejection of alternatives. In the end, if (almost) everyone is content with the present why should she renounce it? Despite its dangerous resemblance to a tautology, this is a valid explanation that needs, however to be supplemented and articulated de novo. For it leaves unexplained the sadness predicted by Francis Fukuyama and the melancholy of Pascal Bruckner. It ignores the contemporary verdict on the malaise of contemporary societies and its characteristics. It also ignores that everyone, citizens and intellectuals, expressed a vague but powerful wish for the re-orientation of societies toward nobler directions. Naturally, there were more interpretations. Scholars from a variety of disciplines postulated that the consensus was shaped (or somehow imposed) by the rise of corporate media, “naturally” aiming at the construction of broad depoliticized audiences (Kellner 1995), while others postulated a certain “cartelization” of political parties which, after the weakening of their “traditional” social basis, turned to the State in order to survive and, therefore, lost any motivation for elaborating new and radical ideas (Katz and Mair 1995). The rise of post-democracy, a term popularized by Colin Crouch, signaled the transformation of elite power over the inert masses and the hollowing of popular sovereignty (Crouch 2004, Mair 2013). In this intellectual landscape, nothing “truly” new could be born. A plethora of analyses connected the end of the Cold War with the rise of “Late Modernity,” an era of neoliberal dominance when the consumerist ethos triumphed over citizenship and social awareness. All the authors we

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encountered in the first part of our study subscribed, more or less, to the same conclusion: Modernity and its certainties have melted and from its ashes rose the late modern Individual, a narcissist trapped in the false promise of consumerism (Bauman 2000). The void left by the death of radicalism was filled by the rise of “hyper-individualism.” Now, if we abandon the generous but often incoherent quest for “interdisciplinary” explanations and reclaim the boundaries of History with social science, we can easily see that most of the aforementioned explanations rest on naturalistic epistemologies that necessarily obviate the study of concrete cultural contexts and the recorded experience of actors. The amassing of correlations, the postulation of an indelible “character” of institutions, the invention of individualistic, calculating “rationalities” dominate theories of media, consumerism and politics belong squarely to the domain of nomographic science. In response, I defend the character of History as an autonomous, idiographic discipline, whose method is not compatible with nomographic logics of inquiry (Collingwood 1995, Oakeshott 1983, Bevir and Blakeley 2019). Restrained by its philosophical presuppositions, this essay will deal directly only with explanations that can be illuminated sub-specie Historiae. Having discarded the perspective of “structural” or “systemic” features of social life, I will thus comment on the trajectories of modern ideologies, liberalism, socialism and neoliberalism, and the phenomenon of consumption. Through their history, I shall attempt a re-interpretation of the convergence between liberalism and socialism. For something crucial is missing. The Last Utopia The melancholy and the attendant nostalgia depended on the widely held belief that the end of the Cold War signaled the end of grand ideological projects—if not ideologies themselves. Concomitantly, academic interpretations of rising “depoliticization” and “individualization” rest on the same fundamental premise. No conclusion has been articulated with so much certainty and no conclusion could be more inaccurate. For there was a gigantic, utopian project that dominated politics and the intellectual landscape: liberals and socialists aspired to endless economic growth. This was an inherited conviction from the postwar era, but it should not be equated with other pillars of the liberal-socialist consensus: democracies should be preserved after being established, but

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growthism’s inexhaustible horizon guarantees its permanent urgency and the perennial demolition of foundations. Growth is an ideal on the move. Despite its dominating presence, there has been no synthetic study of the growth ideal.4 Historians are of course aware of the universal appeal of GDP, they ascribe “golden status” to the postwar decades of its flourishing, they distinguish between different models of achieving growth, but that is all. Neglecting the rupture effected by the interwar invention of the GDP index (Lepenies 2016) and the contemporaneous formation of statistical indexes related to the “standard of living” (De Grazia 2005), scholars ignore the specific origins of growthism and its distinctiveness from previous projects of economic expansion. The consequences of this neglect are grave. With scholars treating growth as a self-evident social desire, historiography has banished growthism from history and with it the ability to understand the character of the post-Cold War moment. I suggest that the historicization of growthism demonstrates that its post-Cold War permutation was shaped by the unique and fragile convergence of three distinct twentieth-century conversations, all of them involving liberalism and socialism. The first conversation pertained to the relationship of national growth with consumerism, the second to the peculiar temporality of growthism and the third to the latter’s impact on the ideological landscape. A brief exposition of these intertwined developments will help us understand the utopian consensus reached by socialists and liberals at the end of the Cold War and, by extension, the enigmatic prediction of Fukuyama about a victorious and sad future waiting at the edges of the new century.

The Three Stages of Growth Growth as Consumerist Growth Despite the widespread belief to the contrary and the silence of historiography, the linkage of economic growth to private consumption was not a historical (or “systemic”) necessity since the constantly increasing wealth could have been directed to other endeavors.

4 For special studies, see Collins (2002), Schmelzer (2012, 2016). For a synopsis, see Arndt (1978).

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During the postwar period, this possibility was indeed contemplated: acknowledging the ever-increasing abundance in the West, several intellectuals tried to disentangle their gaze from what was already seen as the “growth fetish” and reconnect with the vision of Mill and Keynes: societies were not built to consume, but to endow their members with cultural and intellectual prowess. Therefore, after reaching the highest stage of growth, social re-orientation was imperative lest the West slide into a shallow, suburban materialism (Galbraith 1958). This perspective explains why even Walt Rostow, the dean of Modernization Theory, was pondering in 1959 (Rostow 1959, 13–4): And then the further question, where history offers us only fragments: what to do when the increase in real income itself loses its charm? Babies; boredom; three-day weekends; the moon; or the creation of new inner, human frontiers in substitution for the imperatives of scarcity?

The questions of Rostow are revealing of the alternative trajectories that the West could have followed: its increasing wealth could have been directed not to private consumption but to larger families, reduction of work (and, therefore, the formation of a new work ethic), public expenditure and, in general, the cultivation of the self as prescribed by Keynes in his famous “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” (Keynes 1963). In the following decades, many intellectuals joined and radicalized the debate on Growth, but, ultimately, Rostow’s contemplation of alternative futures did not convince many. The increase in real income did not lose its charm: employed as a central argument in the titanic battle for the soul of Mankind waged by the two superpowers, it survived the end of the Cold War and ascended to the status of a de facto social right. Thenceforth, every loss of income was perceived as a sacrifice that must be legitimized and very soon remedied. The criticism of consumerism did not disappear completely: as we shall see, it bequeathed a critical cultural legacy to the post-Cold War era. Nevertheless, the appeal of a constantly rising personal income was not overturned. The consequences of this enduring charm will be made clear later, but, for now, the important point is to dispel the naturalist and ideological fallacy underpinning the automatic identification of economic growth with private consumption. Their connection was historical, not natural.

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The Eternity of Growth Tied to the question of mass consumption, was the debate on the physical Limits to Growth. This was a question raised by environmentalists in the 1960s and the 1970s. Their argument was deceptively simple and at first glance unassailable: endless growth in a finite planet was a physical impossibility and its pursuit threatened societies with collapse due to its ecological consequences (Voigt 1948, Ehrlich, 1968, Meadows, 1972). Despite the vibrant discussion among Liberals and (non-communist) Socialists, both parties eventually rejected the Limits to Growth perspective as anti-scientific and immoral. Technological power and human inventiveness would guarantee the “infinite substitutability of resources” (Simon 1981), and therefore, growth could continue forever as long as it could incorporate environmental protection under its auspices: this was the origin of the concept of “sustainable development,” a concept that as a rule was employed to express the idea that eternal growth could co-exist with the protection of the biosphere (Bernstein 2001). After overcoming the challenge of limits, growthism became so dominant that, in the 1980s, incessant growth was perceived as a precondition of political action. The terminology employed by Jacques Delors when discussing the future of Europe is characteristic (Delors 1993: 11): “European countries have entered an international race that will decide their economic survival and, essentially, their capacity for political action.” The urgent character of liberal and socialist demand for economic growth obliges us to ponder on ideological temporalities. This chapter argues that, contrary to certain famous accounts of historical temporalities (Koselleck 1990, Hartog 2015), there has never been a unified temporal horizon of political/ideological action. Each ideological demand carries its own temporal horizon, a perspective of fundamental importance if one wants to interpret the history of ideologies. We should, therefore, ask what was the temporal horizon of this triumphant, pre-political ideal after it emerged victorious from the debate about its potential limits? The race, to use Jacques Delors’s term, is inscribed, typically, in a linear time. And. indeed, this is where the increase in national wealth and the eternal improvement of the standard of living point to. But the linearity of growth is an illusion. As an ideal that can never be definitely achieved and, at the same time, is inspected on a daily basis, growth subsumes societies in a cyclical time. In this, success is always fragile and in doubt as certain economies are lagging behind others, then

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they might cover ground, before they are found again deficient compared to some other more dynamic competitor and return to the purgatory of expectant mediocrity.5 A race implies a finishing line, but the growth ideal admits none. From the eighties and onwards, the perspective of a final destination disappeared and with it the solidity of stadial history, the inner motor of liberals and socialists, melted into the air. This is a critical but neglected development of twentieth-century history. The “economic question” was answered in the most radical and unexpected way: economy will remain a problem forever, a race that feeds on itself. Societies will be amassing wealth forever, but will never escape its shadow. Sometimes, the promise of ideology is hard to pin down, sometimes a dream can also be a burden: committed to the temporality of growthism’s perennial satisfaction, liberals and socialists deprived their grandchildren of the possibility that they will inhabit a different world. They also abandoned some of their deepest and dearest dreams. Tied to the pursuit of the growth ideal, the great ideologies, Liberals and Socialists, silently rejected the contemplation of Walt Rostow, the hope of John Maynard Keynes or the final promise of Marxism. After the failed challenge of Limits, scarcity would never become obsolete and societies would never lift their focus away from economic imperatives. Ironies of History: the peculiar trajectory of growthism guaranteed in the most vocal and pressing manner that (economic) History will never end. The eternity of Growth gave birth to a distinct regime of historicity, a distinct sense of Time that was inconceivable before the invention of the GDP index and the challenge of limits. Political time was attached to the demands of an ever-returning deadline, a horizon, needless to say, completely different from other temporalities of the Age of Extremes. For the eternity of growth had nothing to do with the linear, forward-looking time of Paris, Saint Petersburg or Prague. It shared no similarities with the definite time of revolutions, achievements and dramatic decisions. The temporality of growth corresponds rather to the melancholic observation of the Red Queen (Carroll 2009, 145): “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same point.” 5 As mentioned above, the designation of growthism’s distinct sense of historicity is an analytic construct employed by the historian. As was expected, the ideologists naturalized their utopian project inscribing it in their diverse narratives of “‘progress’ and/or selfevident “economic necessity.”

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Writing in 1979, at the peak of the debate on limits, Stanley Hoffmann understood that a new relationship with time was being formed (Hoffmann 1979, 25): “ Can one live forever in the economic present, comforting oneself with comparative statistics and a half-cozy, halfworried enjoyment of goods, freedom and rights?” These words might sound familiar to the reader. In depicting a halfcozy, half-worried intellectual landscape, Stanley Hoffman was portraying the melancholic democracy of later years, its reasons for contentment and its sense of immobility. We approach thus a better understanding of the end of the Cold War. But before returning to 1989, we need also to address the victory of liberalism. A Liberal Growth Although rarely emphasized, it is beyond doubt that the liberalization of the Left in economic matters was due to the perception that incessant growth could be better achieved through market mechanisms. The relative demise of the Keynesian orthodoxy after the oil crises, the perceived economic success of the Thatcherite model as well as the stagnation of the Eastern bloc contributed to this conclusion. The State was seen as a failed manager that ought to retreat to the role of the guardian of the rules or, more generously, to supplying a number of public services (Borstelmann 2012, 214–220, Abdelal 2007). There might have been an independent socialist road to the denunciation of the State, an offspring of multiple intellectual sources (Bockman 2011, van der Linder 2022), and certainly the fall of Soviet Europe confirmed the absence of grand alternatives to liberalism, but, notwithstanding the conceptual poverty of interpretations revolving around the vague concept of “economic performance,” democratic socialism lost the battle for hegemony mainly on the battlefield of growth. Many scholars have identified neoliberalism as the sole responsible for the demise of socialism.6 Moreover, neoliberalism is held responsible for the emergence of a new type of competitive and materialistic citizen. This interpretation needs to be qualified. First, after decades of state expansion, neoliberalism seemed so radical in its scope that its prescriptions were only partially followed even after the demise of the Keynesian 6 This interpretation dominates even the latest studies despite their criticism of previous “top-down” approaches. See, for example, Gianmarco Fifi (2022).

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consensus.7 Second, regarding the issue of “materialism,” the testimonies of early neoliberals point to a different direction. Hayek and other neoliberals insisted that the moral superiority of capitalism does not lie with its procurement of material goods (Hayek 2012, 15–16, Jouvenel 1990, 47–48), while Ludwig Erhardt, the architect of the Western German economy, even scorned the focus on fixed growth targets, a position that a few decades later would amount to heresy (Schmelzer 2016, 183). The neoliberal suspicion toward fixed growth targets might today seem paradoxical, but, in the context of the postwar era, it is easily to discern why they were seen as a means of expanding government control over the economy.8 Concomitantly, the foundational demand of neoliberalism was not the everlasting multiplication of consumer goods or the emergence of an anti-social utilitarian being (Foucault 2012, 123), but the prevention of Tyranny due to the expansion of the State.9 This was the essence of Thatcher’s famous dictum that economics is just a means in the quest to change the nation’s soul (Thatcher 1981) and not the fragmentation of society into individuals. The elevation of neoliberalism into an all-powerful ideological force rests on a misreading of its history as well as the naturalization of the trans-ideological growth paradigm: the link of growth with consumption as well as its incessant pursuit were formed earlier and independently of the ascent of neoliberalism. The misleading identification of neoliberalism with “economism” demonstrates the serious misunderstandings caused by the dehistoricization of growthism and calls for the fundamental re-calibration of our conceptual apparatus. If the promise for everlasting growth was the product of a unique convergence of disparate ideas, each one carrying its own history, then

7 A representative list of neoliberal concrete demands can be found in Friedman (1962, 35–6). 8 For another example of right-wing reaction, Corthorn (2019, 65). 9 The emphasis on neoliberalism’s later history has obscured its origins and foundational

demands, hence the persistent “economistic” misconception that “the ideological core of neoliberalism consolidated throughout the 1970s and was centred on the faith in the selfregulating capacity of free markets and their superiority vis-à-vis any other allocative and distributive mechanism in upholding the individual’s rational pursuit of wealth” (Ferrera 2014, 424).

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the concepts of “economism” and “materialism” should be rejected as abstract and polemical terms. They should be rejected because they obscure the fundamental role that liberalism and socialism played in shaping the growth paradigm.10 They should be rejected because these concepts draw their credibility from the survival of ancient stereotypes regarding the prevalence of “spiritual” over “material” values and/or the dichotomy between “social” and “individual” goals. In the same vein, the problematic concept of “individualization” that dominates the interpretations of “Late Modernity” should also be abandoned since it reproduces the false dichotomies mentioned above. By re-inserting the growth ideal in liberal and socialist history and by keeping in mind that modern ideologies have never dissociated “collective” from “personal” ideals, we can recognize that access to mass consumption has acquired the status of a de facto social right, whose safeguarding (but also its abuse, cultural or fiscal) has never ceased to be socially inspected, tied to national policies and ideological imperatives (Zarikos 2022). In the end, the growth ideal was formed historically, revolving around a specific statistical index. It ensnared liberals and socialists, earned a prominent role in the gigantomachy between the two superpowers while emerging from the challenge of environmentalism not simply victorious, but eternal, an inexhaustible goal that promised to bend the limits of Nature to its will while remaining forever elusive. An ideal indeed. Far from the demise of grand-scale twentieth-century projects, the post-Cold War era witnessed the domination of the last of them. The growth ideal constituted the iron connection between liberals and socialists, an indispensable ideology that prevailed not because the nature of economy or “Modernity” demanded it but through a succession of contingent ideological choices. The domination of growthism’s was of fundamental importance for the dialectic of liberalism and socialism. Socialists never staged a counter-attack because they had no alternative growth model in mind and liberals triumphed because their model seemed the only functional one. Judith Shklar might have suggested in 1989 that only the anti-coercive liberalism of fear deserves the name of Liberalism, but it was the liberalism of growth that dominated the landscape.

10 For the role of international organizations, see Schmelzer (2016).

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But, still, why the melancholy?

An Uncomfortable Utopia We saw that the postwar era bequeathed to its successors an unexpected and radical solution to the problem of scarcity. Absolved by the possibility of success, liberals and socialists had to stay on the road with no horizon to conquer, no alternative economic possibilities to pursue. In the context of accelerating globalization, the road was riddled with crises, recessions and hurdles that were destined to re-emerge. This could have been a sufficient reason for the emergence of a comfortable discontent, but our sources tell a different story. For it was not the periodic refutation of the promise—which arguably strengthened its appeal—that gave birth to melancholy, but the character of the promise itself. The answer to post-Cold War melancholy lies in the historical ambivalence of modern ideologies toward consumerism. As we saw, the emergence of the concept of mass consumption amid the spectacular postwar growth re-invigorated the diachronic criticism against materialism (Berry 1994, Claeys 2022).In subsequent years, the criticism never lost its edge. Indeed, it can be found in Fukuyama’s half-triumphalist, half-melancholic 1989 essay where “the impersonality and spiritual vacuity of liberal consumerist societies” is uncontroversially recognized as a “defect” and a demonstration of the enigmatic “emptiness at the core of liberalism” (Fukuyama 1989, 14). His was not an argument against “democratic fatalism” as David Runciman postulated (Runciman 2013, 241–2), but a diagnosis of the shallowness of a materialistic life. And Fukuyama was not alone. Every single description of post-Cold War melancholy, every single criticism of contemporary malaise revolved around the shallowness of the emerging consumer culture. Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Modernity is an era haunted by the ascendance of consumerism (Bauman 2000), an all-powerful phenomenon that was awarded the ability to depoliticize societies and turn them to the pursuit not of ideals but of self-satisfied insignificance (Castoriadis 2000, 229– 30). Long suspicious of consumerism’s soothing properties, socialists readily proclaimed “consumer egoism” as a causal force that “made politics less important and less attractive” (Hobsbawm 1995, 581). Failing to disentangle their concepts from the self-descriptions of ideologists, historians have reproduced their analytical impasse. Historiographic connections between consumerism and the post-Cold War era

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might be rudimentary (Holslag, 2021, 53) or embedded in grand narratives about the temporalities that define our world (Hartog 2015, 113), but their normative crux is the same: societies fell prey to the sirens of consumerism instead of pursuing nobler (yet undefined) ideals. At the close of the century, with all “noble” ideals either materialized or bitterly refuted, liberals and socialists were left to pursue the one ideal that made them culturally uncomfortable. After the shared rejection of the Limits perspective, nobody either in the Right or the Left could actually demarcate the boundaries between “materialism” and “modern standard of living,” nobody could actually draw a red line separating “hyperconsumerism” from “quality of life.” The periodic eruption of economic crises brought a tentative and provisional relief to the epistemological crisis of modern ideologies since it allowed them to emphasize the “anti-social” aspects of “individualism” and “consumerism.” But ideologies are often victims of their own ambition. For their perspective is broad and their gaze extends beyond the exigencies of the moment. Crises erupted and crises were overcome, while the growth ideal remained in its place, dominating politics, offering solutions to a plethora of predicaments. Nevertheless, its consumerist promise did not supplant democracy, nationalism and human rights as the next noble aspiration of Mankind. Furthermore, ideologists kept contrasting the dreams of emancipation and freedom dominating the Age of Extremes with the shallow, uninspiring demand of ever-increasing consumption. Unsurprisingly, their melancholy deepened. We can now understand Pascal Bruckner’s emblematic definition of melancholic democracy in 1990. Democracy, he wrote, “is what is left after dreams are gone, a convenient space for people to grow wealthy or at least not slide to poverty” (Bruckner 1990, 20), but nothing more. There should have been something more, everyone agreed, but its nature eluded everyone. When liberals and socialists reached their utopian consensus of an economy that would expand forever, they did not deem their new dream worthy of its name: no growth radicalism has ever been recognized or celebrated and this absence is the reason why liberals and socialists proclaimed the “end of ideologies” and grand political projects. We can now see why the history of growthism has not been written. The dominance of naturalistic methods in academia is an important reason, the trans-ideological commitment to growthism further contributed to its naturalization, but a major reason for the neglect of

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growth radicalism is how we approach ideology. Our expectations of what an “authentic” ideological imperative might look like are deformed by ancient prejudices about spiritual and material values as well as modern expectations for heroes, self-sacrifice and grand proclamations. Unsurprisingly, an economic ideal that promises the morally ambiguous freedom to consume, an ideal, in other words, by definition “materialist” can easily elude our attention. The ambivalence of the great ideological traditions on the issue of consumer rights deprived growthism from the emotional and cultural appeal of other ideological imperatives. Ironies of History: the post-Cold War consensus between liberals and socialists was built on the foundations of a severe epistemological crisis. Ideologies specialize in de-contesting concepts (Freeden 1996), but, lacking in meta-theoretical reflection (Minogue 1985, 143, Lekkas 2012, 91–100), they cannot always overcome—or even articulate—their internal tensions. Sometimes, their antinomic character leads them to denounce a world of their own making. Hence, the self-effacement of ideology at the end of the Cold War, the schizophrenic treatment of consumerism and the de-historization of growthism. Hence, the nostalgia of peaceful people for years of blood and sacrifice and the immobility of democracy. Hence, Fukuyama’s treatise on utopia and melancholy and the forgotten whimper at the End of History.

Afterworld: A History for the Future In the end, Melancholic Democracy broke its promise and the End of History never came. Confronted by the successive crises of the early twenty-first century, the nonchalant melancholy, the nostalgic ennui, the sense of comfortable discontent have all receded into the past. Societies might not have discovered new horizons to conquer, but the feeling of siege that permeates their imaginary guarantees that democracy is not seen anymore as the host of our “indifference towards the world.” In this sense, the thread with the early 1990s has been broken. But in another sense, our discussion is more than timely. The same panoply of misnomers discussed above is re-employed to interpret the gravest challenge in the history of liberalism and the defining crisis of our times: climate change. Climate change is a crisis of growth liberalism and its rejection of Limits. It is a crisis of conflicting temporalities, inequalities and the emergence of eternally increasing private consumption as a de facto social right.

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Nevertheless, it is widely interpreted as the offspring of abstractions like “materialism” and “economism,” the byproduct of neoliberalism not as a distinct and thus definable set of ideas and practices, but as a synonym of modern society and, of course, consumerism, somehow disassociated from the history and internal tensions of ideologies. Our analytical prism remains inadequate, trapped in the unresolved tensions and chaotic self-descriptions of ideologists. Speaking of chaos and contradictions, I do not mean to depreciate the people we study. Conscience cannot foresee the unintended consequences of action. If hybris is the transgressing of limits nowhere defined (Castoriadis 1991, 115), History is the revelation of boundaries that human action unknowingly erected against itself. And the boundary about to be revealed is the impossibility of taming a rewilded Nature. This ominous revelation will usher in a new century. After a long wait, twenty-first century is finally here. In its shadow, the liberalism of growth will belatedly be recognized as a utopian imperative that for a few decades ensnared, if not the hearts, then the minds of the nations of Earth. But it won’t rule alone anymore. The storms of the winter and the heatwaves of the summer herald the return of an old acquaintance. After only a few decades of comfortable discontent, the Liberalism of Fear is preparing its melancholic return.

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Bockman, Johanna. 2011. Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-wing Origins of Neoliberalism. California: Stanford University Press Bruckner, Pascal. 1990. Melancholic Democracy. Athens: Astarte Borstelmann, Thomas. 2012. The 1970’s: A Global History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press Carroll, Lewis. 2009. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. New York: Oxford University Press Castoriadis, Kornelius. 1991. Philosophy, Politics and Autonomy. New York: Oxford University Press Castoriadis, Kornelius. 1992. The Fractured World. Athens: Ypsilon Castoriadis, Kornelius. 2000. The Rise of Insignificance. Athens: Ypsilon Claeys, Gregory. 2022. Utopianism for a Dying Planet: Life after Consumerism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press Collingwood, Robin. 1995. The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press Collins, Robert. 2002. More: The Politics of Growth in Postwar America. New York: Oxford University Press Corthorn, Paul. 2019. Enoch Powell, Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press Crouch, Colin. 2004. Post-Democracy. New York: Polity De Grazia, Victoria. 2005. Irresistible Empire, America’s Advance Through Twentieth Century Europe. New York: Belknap Press Delors, Jacques. 1993. Europe without Borders: The Challenge of 1992. Athens: Kalofolias Ehrlich, Paul. 1968. The Population Bomb. New York: Sierra Club Ferrera, Maurizio. 2014. Ideology, Parties and Social Politics in Europe. West European Politics 37: 420–438. Gianmarco Fifi. 2022. From Social Protection to ‘Progressive Neoliberalism’: Writing the Left into the Rise and Resilience of Neoliberal Policies (1968– 2019). Review of International Political Economy. Foucault, Michel. 2012. The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the College of France, Athens: Plethron Freeden, Michael. 1996. Ideologies and Political Theories: A Conceptual Approach. London: Oxford University Press Friedman, Milton. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16 (1989): 3–18 Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Penguin Galbraith, Keith. 1958. The Affluent Society. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company

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Giscard D’Estaign, Valery. 1985. Two French out of Three. Towards a Socially Conscious Liberalism. Athens: Euroekdotiki Jurgen Habermas. 1990. What Does Socialism Mean Today? The Rectifying Revolution and the Need for New Thinking on the Left. New Left Review 13: 5. Hartog, Francois. 2015. Regimes of Historicity: Presentism and the Experiences of Time. New York: Columbia university Press Hayek, Friedrich. 2012. Freedom and the Economic System. New York: Martino Fine Books Henry, Simon. 2019. Empire of Democracy, the remaking of the West since the Cold War, 1971–2017 . New York: Simon and Schuster Hobsbawm, Eric. 1995. The Age of Extremes. London: Abacus Hoffmann, Stanley. 1979. Fragments Floating in the Here and Now. Daedalus 108: 25. Holslag, Jonathan. 2021. World Politics Since 1989. London: Polity Judt, Tony. 1996. A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe. New York: New York University Press de Jouvenel, Bertrand. 1990. The Ethics of Redistribution. London: Liberty Fund Katz, Richard and Peter Mair. 1995. Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party. Party Politics 1: 5–28. Kellner, Douglas. 1995. Media Culture, Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the Modern and the Post-modern. London: Routledge Keynes, John Maynard. 1963. In Economic possibilities for our grandchildren. John Maynard Keynes, 358–374. Essays in Persuasion. London: W.W. Norton Company Koselleck, Reinhardt. 1990. Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time. Boston: MIT Press. Kundera, Milan. 1988. The Art of the Novel. London: Harper Perennial Classics Lekkas, Pantelis. 2012. Abstraction and Experience: A Formalist Analysis of Ideology. Athens: Topos Lepenies, Paul. 2016. The Power of a Single Number: A Political History of GDP. New York: Columbia University Press Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso Maier, Charles S.. 2000. Consigning the Twentieth Century to history: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era. American Historical Review 105: 807–831 Meadows, Donella (ed). 1972. Limits to Growth: A Report to the Club of Rome. New York: Universe Books

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Minogue, Kenneth. 1985. Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology. New York: St’ Martin’s Press Pippa, Norris (ed.). 1999. Critical Citizens: Support for Global Democracy. New York: Oxford Oakeshott, Michael. 1983. On History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Outhwaite, William and Ray, Larry. 2004. Social Theory and Postcommunism. Oxford: Oxford University Press Pharr, Susan and Putnam, Robert (eds). 2000. Disaffected Democracies: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Countries? New Jersey: Princeton University Press Rostow, Walt Whitman. 1959. The Stages of Economic Growth. The Economic History Review New Series 12: 1–16. Runciman, David. 2013. The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press S.R.G. 1992. Preface to the Issue “Immobile Democracy”. Daedalus 121: v–xiv. Schmelzer, Matthias. 2012. The Crisis Before the Crisis: The “Problems of Modern Society” and the OECD, 1968–74. European Review of History 19. Schmelzer, Matthias. 2016. The Hegemony of Growth: OECD and the Making of the Economic Growth Paradigm. Cambridge, University Press Shklar, Judith. 1989. The Liberalism of Fear. In Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. Nancy Rosenblum, 21–38. London: Harvard University Press Simon, Julian. 1981. The Ultimate Resource. Princeton: Princeton University Press Thatcher, Margaret. 1981. Mrs Thatcher: The First Two Years. https://www. margaretthatcher.org/document/104475, Accessed 10 November 2022. Van der Linden, Marcel (ed.). 2022. The Cambridge History of Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Voigt, William. 1948. Road to Survival. New York: William Sloane Associates Zarikos, Iason. 2022. The Great Scope of Small Things: Greek Residence between Crisis and Utopia. In Consumers, Consumption, Consumerism: Governmentalities during crisis, ed. Dimitris Lallas, 181–205. Athens: Papazisis

Socialist and/or Liberal Identities: Polity, Politics and Policy

Individual, Free Association and Common Ownership: The British Co-operative Movement and Political Ideology François Deblangy

The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the representative body of the co-operative movement worldwide, defines a co-operative as ‘an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise’.1 From this broad definition, one can already foresee the potential theoretical deadlocks of co-operation as a vehicle for structural social changes. Cooperators are expected to join forces and work within a collective but only as far as they do so of their sole free will and remain totally autonomous. They must strive to fulfil manifold needs and aspirations—possibly shared across society—but rely on their own enterprises to achieve these common goals. Other more clear-cut definitions specify that co-operatives are run for the mutual benefits and profits of their members, which adds a new controversy over the nature of profits, how they are to be made and shared among co-operators. This chapter sets out to elucidate the 1 www.ica.coop>cooperatives>cooperative-identity.

F. Deblangy (B) Rouen University, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_9

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founding principles of the co-operative movement and clarify what it has stood for over its long existence. As the birthplace and historical stronghold of cooperatism, Great Britain was chosen as an anchor point for this work. It will be argued that the true essence of cooperatism lies at the crossroads of liberalism and socialism whose development also happens to owe much to British thinkers. The first part of this chapter aims at assessing the ambiguous—not to say contradictory—ideological contributions which shaped the cooperative identity from the movement’s inception during the 1830s and 1840s (Neale and Hughes 1916) to its height, a century later. The following parts cover the successive turning points which marked its history and led it to take a stand, driving its centre of gravity in one direction or another. The post-war period saw unprecedented levels of state intervention in economic matters through nationalisations. Part two sheds light on the exacerbated tensions within the movement between those who agreed to give ground to state socialism and those who considered it as an outright threat to co-operators’ free choice. From the 1960s onwards, the traditional consumers’ movement lost momentum. By the mid-1970s, workers’ co-operatives had become the driving force and gained political recognition from Labour’s ‘New Left’. Meanwhile, the debate on workers’ control was launched in some radical trade unions. Co-operation and socialism were drawn together closer than ever before, as will be shown in part three. The final part of this chapter offers a critical reflection on how workers’ co-operation was deprived of its radical political meaning under the rule of neoliberal thinking and policies from the 1980s.

Liberal Means to Socialist Ends? Co-operative Ideological Assumptions Liberalism and socialism are two doctrines whose opposition is as commonplace as their connection. By concentrating on the big picture, two shared structuring features can be identified which will be referred to as ‘setting’ and ‘narrative’. Liberalism and socialism both allude to an ideal of social progress (Pollard 1968) through extended rights and liberties granted to a larger share of the population. However, beyond this vague, encompassing abstraction, one would struggle to find any further common denominator between the two. Liberalism originally stood for individual political and economic liberties while socialism was essentially a

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demand for collective social rights. The co-operative movement combines the same ‘setting’ and ‘narrative’ but never definitely chose one cause over the other. In this sense, original cooperatism borrowed concepts from liberalism and socialism. In Great Britain, where the movement is overwhelmingly embodied by large-scale consumers’ co-operatives,2 its history has been one of permanent dilemma to combine collective aspirations with individualism within a democratic framework. The links between cooperatism and the different branches of socialism are quite ambivalent and require some historical background. The British co-operative movement started to develop as early as the late 1820s and was given a structure through congresses held annually from 1831. Most of them were then chaired by Robert Owen himself, a founder of utopian socialism (Bonner 1961, 28). Utopian socialism—a term coined by Engels (1880) which he opposed to scientific socialism—refers to the theories of philosophers and communitarian experiments of wealthy philanthropists who believed in the peaceful and voluntary advent of a socialist society if propertied groups could be convinced of the moral superiority of such a social organisation. George J. Holyoake (1817–1906), a leading figure of the movement throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, was among the first to award Owen the title of ‘originator of co-operation’ (1875, 32) and give cooperatism its Owenist affiliation. As he wrote ‘Co-operation touches no man’s fortune; seeks no plunder; causes no disturbance in society; gives no trouble to statesmen’ (6). Co-operative societies were mostly founded and managed by ethical or utopian socialists who were looking for a desirable way out of the socially and economically damaging struggle between labour and capital.3 Indeed, the co-operative society in which a group of people assemble and set about satisfying their needs to showcase the potentialities of an alternative social organisation—without overtly unsettling the existing power structure—is highly reminiscent of the communities which utopian socialists such as Owen or Fourier tried to set up. 2 Consumers’ co-operatives are businesses democratically owned and managed by their customers who share their profits. Customers participate in the profits of the co-op through a dividend on purchase and in its control by electing the board of directors. In this chapter, they will often be opposed to the model of workers’ co-operatives which are democratically owned and run by the workers they employ. 3 This quest for a peaceful compromise between labour and capital was best epitomised by ‘labour co-partnerships’, i.e. early co-operative productive societies in which capital and control were shared among employees and capital-owners.

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This emphasis on self-help within a harmonious society free of conflicting group interests differentiates the co-operative ethos from the scientific socialist outlook. Cooperatism addressed people as individuals and never acknowledged the Marxist concept of class antagonism. Capitalism was named and disapproved of by most co-operative spokespersons but rather as the manifestation of an individual moral flaw than as a system of economic and social domination knowingly perpetuated by one fraction of the population at the expense of the other. Mass revolution and class struggle were completely at odds with the co-operative values of peaceful, progressive change through reforms and moral elevation. As co-operative institutions strengthened significantly in the 1860s and 1870s, the theory of scientific socialism was still in its infancy. But once Marx’s and Engels’ works had reached a wider readership with mass printing, co-operative ideologists were adamant in their demarcation between co-operation and socialism. While admitting that British socialism and cooperatism stemmed from the same roots, E. V. Neale and Thomas Hughes (1916, 51) argued that socialism was ‘essentially theories’ whose practical application they attributed to co-operation which they considered ‘rather a practice than a theory’. This deeply held belief that co-operation had a superior legitimacy as working hands of social progress and the binary opposition of doers and thinkers are common in co-operators’ writings and policy statements up to the post-Second World War period. Other eminent supporters of co-operation were Christian socialists, most remarkably in the field of industry. Dozens of industrial cooperatives were launched during the second half of the nineteenth century thanks to the financial support of wealthy social reformers influenced by Philippe Buchez’s work in France such as Edward V. Neale and Frank D. Maurice (Desroche 1971). Another source of incompatibilities between Christian socialists involved in the co-operative movement and other socialists was obviously religion. Up to the 1920s at least, British cooperatism had strong religious and spiritual overtones which any socialist from the Marxist school would have fiercely rejected. For instance, in the newspaper Co-operative News of 14 December 1918, the movement was personified as St George spearing a dragon identified as ‘the capitalist menace’. The ideal of ‘Sons of God’ working together instead of working against each other was also at the very heart of Neale and Hughes’ analysis of the co-operative ethos (1916, 36). Again, they stood in sharp contrast to the modern socialist prophecy of social revolution. On the

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other hand, among the most precious gifts Christian socialists thought God had given to mankind were individual liberty and free will, two founding principles of liberalism which they vehemently associated with industrial cooperatism. Most of the productive experiments advertised by Christian socialists were short-lived though and the movement was almost exclusively composed of consumers’ co-operatives from the start. Consumers’ cooperatives followed the business model described by the well-known Rochdale Pioneers’ articles of association in 1844. Their federal organisation and the creation of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS)—the national supplier of the dense British co-operative retailing network—in 1863 helped them grow to become a true mass organisation of around 2 million members by the end of the century. All of this happened years before the creation of the Labour Party in 1906 and its adoption of clause IV in 1918.4 Co-operation in Great Britain thus existed as a consumers’ movement as opposed to a workers’ movement, a role which was long played by trade unions only. Yet, successors of the early Christian socialists within the movement were not satisfied with a mere democracy of consumers and argued that workers should be given a share in management and profits of productive societies.5 They defended the industrial model of the co-operative co-partnership. Founder-members of these industrial co-operatives were ‘radical-liberals’ (Ackers 2016) who enjoyed relative success in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, mostly in Leicestershire. In 1882, they founded the Co-operative Productive Federation (CPF) in order to promote their alternative producer-led system of industry but the total number of these producers’ co-operatives barely exceeded 100 at its peak. This poor track record of British productive co-operative societies along with the coexistence within the majority of them of member and non-member workers gave credit to the Webbs’ widespread conclusions that such democracies of producers were doomed either to fail or to degenerate into small disguised capitalist enterprises. Beatrice Potter 4 This highly symbolic clause of the Labour Party’s constitution sets the goal ‘to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange […]’ (Webb 1918). 5 Productive societies were co-operative societies whose business operations included the production of the commodities they sold, as opposed to retail societies.

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Webb went as far as to describe them as ‘the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the brotherhood of workers sweating their fellow-men’ (1891, 34). These writings explain much of the harmful prejudice and suspicion against worker-managed co-operatives among the early designers of Labour’s ideological backbone (Jones 1975). The dividing line with producers’ cooperatives was maintained and employees’ representation on the board of directors was officially left to the discretion of individual co-operative societies during the 1888 co-operative congress. In fact, workers’ involvement in the control of their societies remained a rare occurrence. Instead, employees were represented only as individual consumers of their own retail shop. Although the co-operative movement did not rely on workers’ organisations to bring about social change, its relationships with other working-class movements were generally constructive. Trade unions were recognised as essential representative bodies and most co-operative societies required their employees to be affiliated to one of them. Fair industrial relationships were actively promoted and good working conditions (shorter working weeks and participation in profits) compared to conventional employers helped maintain them. There was however an undeniable humanist-liberal impetus—i.e. liberalism as ‘an ideology of humanism, of individual growth, flourishing and mutual aid’ (Freeden 2005)—in the leadership of the co-operative movement from its inception. The concepts of individual growth and mutual aid perfectly encapsulate the core values which stirred the movement. The majority of co-operative leaders and thinkers, enthused by the commercial success and popularity of the movement in retailing, thought of it as a vehicle for a grassroots reformism. After the CWS entered into production to supply its own affiliated retailing societies, the growth of this successful consumer-led organisation could have seemed limitless. Its architecture was often promoted as the best basis for the advent of a democratic socialist commonwealth of Great Britain. As far as the wider consumer cooperative is concerned, self-help liberalism remained the dominant driving force. The first half of the twentieth century was a time of thriving business and soaring membership for the ‘democracy of consumers’. When the First World War broke out, there were nearly 1,400 co-operative societies in Great Britain with a total membership of around 3 million. In 1917, the movement founded its own political party to be directly represented in parliament after nearly a century without any political organ. The Co-operative Party was created to defend the movement’s interests and mainly for specific and immediate business grievances

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regarding taxation or rationing. On wider social and economic issues, the Co-operative Party remained the objective ally of the Labour Party. But, as both movements grew ever stronger with swelling memberships, scientific and state socialism were superseding utopian socialism, and the Labour Party found itself at the gates of political power. The scene was set for a major ideological clash between cooperatism and modern socialism.

Socialisation Over Nationalisation: The Co-operative Movement and State Socialism Only ten years after its creation, the Co-operative Party entered into an electoral alliance with the Labour Party. The Cheltenham agreement of 1927 was reached to avoid Co-operative and Labour candidates running for election in the same constituency. Electoral records show tightly linked political fortunes for both parties which indicate a deep association in voters’ minds. After the agreement, nine Labour Co-operative MPs were elected at the 1929 general election. However, only one was returned at the 1931 election against the backdrop of a massive defeat for Labour. The first Labour Co-operative high tide (twenty-three MPs) came with the 1945 general election and Labour’s landslide victory. During the 1920s and 1930s, Co-operative MPs stood in the shadow of their Labour allies. The Co-operative Party never took a confrontational stand on major questions. Its spokesmen were mainly concerned with technical, down-toearth issues which directly affected co-operative societies’ functioning. For example, the vast majority of the speeches of their first National Secretary, Samuel Perry (1917–1942), dealt with trade legislation, import duties, tariffs and taxation (Hansard 1929–1931). The same can be said of the party chair in the following years, William Coldrick (1945–1955). As long as both parties were in opposition, the independence of the Co-operative Party was more of a declaration of intent than a fact. But when the time was ripe for the Labour Party to seize power and advance the cause of socialism directly from the central government, the co-operative movement felt both relieved and threatened. On the one hand, the road seemed opened for a radical change in the British economy, still one of the most powerful in the world. On the other hand, Labour leaders were elected to carry out an ambitious nationalisation programme to take control over massive parts of the economy to be ruled according to the doctrine of state socialism. By 1945, when the Attlee government took office, both movements were stronger than ever.

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The six hundred and sixteen co-operative societies affiliated to the Cooperative Party alone accounted for nearly nine million members. The cumulated sales of all British co-operative societies reached £350 million. The Labour Party had twelve million votes and won three hundred and ninety-three seats in the House of Commons. The movement’s stance on the role of the state—a determining ideological split between socialism and liberalism—was a useful indicator of its political position. Cooperatism did not reject economic interventionism in principle but favoured a decentralised control of public services and a limited involvement of central state authorities. Co-operators were among the keen supporters of the first municipal undertakings in the fields of transport or energy supply in the 1930s. Labour Co-operative MPs never promoted absolute economic liberalism and soon welcomed public ownership of further key sectors. During the Second World War, their proposals for prospective measures of economic reconstruction frequently allowed for a degree of state control. Alfred Barnes, chair of the Co-operative Party (1924–1945), was convinced that ‘the Bank of England or financial control should become a public responsibility’ (Hansard 1943). Although there was a wide consensus on both sides of the political spectrum on the question of state ownership of railways or coal mines, the nationalisation of the Bank of England remained a delicate issue for traditional liberals. Regarding the running of mines, Barnes even held the radical democratic socialist view that ‘the community should take the place of the mineowner’ (Ibid.) Democratic socialists advocated for the socialisation of the means of production in a decentralised, collectively-owned economy and thus rejected marxism-leninism-inspired state socialism. Yet, the fact that Barnes put an emphasis on the broad term of ‘community’ rather than on ‘miners’ or ‘unions’ is a clear indication of the persistent reluctance of the movement to legitimate workers’ control over production. During the second half of the 1940s, statements of policy in major cooperative congresses and co-operative publications extensively dealt with the issue of state socialism and bureaucracy. Speakers and writers vehemently asserted the superiority of their proven method to bring forth socialisation in a more humane, legitimate way. ‘Individual freedom’ and ‘voluntary association’—archetypal liberal watchwords—were praised as the only true democratic path to socialism. In 1948, the then general secretary of the Co-operative Party, Jack Bailey wrote:

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The voluntary Co-operative system of industry, both productive and distributive, should be jealously preserved and encouraged by Socialists. It is nearer their own ideal than semi-corporatised State industry. Far from regarding Co-operation as a mere step to State ownership, they should, in some fields at any rate, regard State ownership and control only as the first step to a more complete Co-operative Socialist system (1948, 104–105).

With prominent figures of state socialism and advocates of central economic planning such as Herbert Morrison and Stafford Cripps holding key positions in the Labour government—respectively Leader of the House of Commons and President of the Board of Trade—liberal cooperative leaders’ concerns were not baseless. Through the enactment of the successive nationalisation measures from 1946 to 1950, the British central government added nearly 2 million employees to its payroll and took more or less direct control over companies accounting for 20% of the British GDP. The co-operative movement overall was in favour of the nationalisation of a certain number of basic industries which they agreed should be run by a state authority to ease and guarantee a fair distribution of basic commodities. But co-operative spokesmen believed the Labour government was being overzealous. In a speech given as chairman of the national Co-operative Congress held in Brighton in 1947, G. L. Perkins warned the Labour government that: While they had fully consented to the nationalisation of certain basic services – mines, the Bank of England, Transport, and Power Undertakings – it did not mean that the Co-operative Movement was prepared now or later to enter into a suicide pact for the transfer of its services, trades and industry, to any National Board or State Corporation. (Peddlie 1948, 214)

According to some labour historians such as Tomlinson, distrust between the Labour government and the co-operative movement was not onesided. The vast majority of Labour executives were trained and educated by the Fabian Society and relied on the expertise and knowledge of a state bureaucracy. To them, the existence of such a massive, elusive consumers’ movement outside their sphere of influence was nothing but a missed opportunity. Even beyond the leadership of the party, Tomlinson notes that the ‘Left’s distrust of the consumer meant hostility to any programme of reform which was ‘consumption led’ (Tomlinson 2002, 11).

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This tense relationship between the two movements barely improved over the following years. By the end of the decade, co-operative executives still identified Labour’s state socialism as the main threat and reiterated their determination “to preserve and maintain the right of co-operators to develop their own resources under their own democratic control in the satisfaction of their needs, and in keeping with co-operative purpose and practice”. (Co-operative Union 1949, 300)

Others within the co-operative movement who might have seen in Labour’s access to power a once-in-a-lifetime chance to share their experience as a bottom-up democratic system of trade and industry with a government keen to learn and mutualise knowledge were bitterly disappointed (Burge 2012). Not only did Labour leaders have their own views on how to rule the economy, but time was playing against them as they inherited devastated infrastructures, massive economic and social ills and continuing wartime controls and rationing. Nationalisations and reconstruction were thus undertaken without ever consulting the co-operative movement which found it regrettable and upsetting. Co-operative societies were practically denied any role to play in these challenging times and could hardly do anything more than complain and warn the Labour Party, as they did in a crystal-clear statement of policy: […] in future, there shall be no public declaration by the Labour Party on issues which are of vital importance to the Movement without consultation with the Co-operative Movement in the first place. (Ibid., 300)

The movement’s irritation at vertical state intervention continued well into the 1950s and was not limited to the Labour government. The Co-operative Party also expressed these hard feelings against both major political parties without renouncing their commitment to what they considered true democratic socialism. In 1952, they published a statement describing their conception of social ownership in A People’s Industry: […] “nationalisation” and “socialisation” are not necessarily the same thing. Though nationalisation is often a necessary instrument for achieving socialist purpose, it is possible to have a very great deal of nationalisation without achieving socialism. There is a tendency, for people at both the red and blue ends of the political spectrum, to think that socialism always means nationalisation; that to advocate more and more nationalisation is to advocate more and more socialism. “Nationalisation” may be only a

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convenient slogan to avoid the necessity for new thinking. (Co-operative Party 1952, 351)

At the time, the co-operative movement was still growing. In 1958, cooperative societies’ overall membership reached its peak at 12.5 million individual members.6 Nevertheless, it already seemed to some members of the government that the movement was about to play its swan song. In 1955, the Conservative government had already appointed an Independent Commission into the Co-operative Movement chaired by Hugh Gaitskell to inquire into the critical situation of co-operative societies. For decades, many of them had been merging together to strengthen their position and resist the pressure of conventional competitors. When the commission finally reported to the government in 1958, its secretary Anthony Crosland described an old-fashioned model losing momentum and clinging on stubbornly to ethical fundamentals. The concentration process of co-operatives accelerated all through the 1960s, in the distributive as well as in the productive sector with the CWS laying off thousands of employees. The once wealthy and glowing consumer co-operative movement was rapidly losing market shares to the fierce competition of the new store chains. Mass consumption and aggressive marketing strategies struck a hard blow to the small- and medium-scale local retailing societies. By then, the co-operative commonwealth was no longer a rising, popular social movement. And it had never been a truly effective political force.

Co-operation on the Shop Floor? Radical Socialism and Workers’ Control In the 1950s, producers’ co-operatives were still negligible contributors to the vast co-operative movement. Less than 40 were still in business which only accounted for around 2% of the total value of co-operative productions, the vast majority of which came from the CWS manufactures. Consumers’ co-operatives had always been reluctant to give workers a say in the running of the shops and manufacturing plants they owned,

6 This compared favourably with the very close number of votes cast by the Labour Party during the 1959 general election (12.2 million) and the total number of unionised workers (9.6 million).

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partly because of a historically strong suspicion of workers’ representation but also because they claimed workers were already represented as consumers and members of their retail societies (Cole 1951, 145). But during the late 1960s and the 1970s, the tables started to turn. While the consumer-led model of trade and industry was falling into oblivion, terms such as industrial democracy or workers’ control were making their way through company shop floors, militant or academic circles and up to the House of Commons and even the government itself. When Labour came back to power in 1964, the Wilson government set out to reform the British industrial relations system and regulate collective bargaining. The Donovan Commission was appointed as early as 1965 to solve the issue of unofficial strikes and ‘wage drift’. The following year, the less publicised but arguably far more influential Industrial Reorganisation Corporation (IRC) was launched to assist the industrial policy of ‘rationalisation’. The main objective was to boost national companies’ competitiveness and build up international industrial colossuses. Dozens of Britain’s biggest companies were absorbed or merged together, causing the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. Both Labour income and industrial policies were harshly resisted by a confident trade union movement. Highly unionised key sectors such as engineering and shipbuilding stood at the forefront of this working-class backlash. As some union leaders and shop stewards noticed the limited impact of striking in companies which were being shut down altogether, they started trying out new types of industrial actions. As Ken Coates, founder-member of the Institute for Workers’ Control (IWC), noted ‘[b]efore 1971 the vocabulary of sit-ins was hardly ever used in Britain’ (1981, 11). Things dramatically changed after the workers of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) took over the yards around Clydebank and kept them running for nearly 8 months to prove the Heath government wrong about their viability. Leading a ground-breaking experiment in workers’ control was beyond the ambitions of the shop stewards’ committee but the successful outcome of this unprecedented occupation inspired radical socialists in the whole labour movement. The early 1970s became a time of lively and animated debates on industrial or workplace democracy. These were nurtured by an exhilarating international context of May 1968 protests in France, the Italian ‘Hot Autumn’ and the spontaneous creation of workers’ councils in Czechoslovakian industrial plants, which Tony Benn—then Labour Minister of Technology—visited in September 1969 (Benn 1989). 1968 was also the

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year the IWC was founded to promote workers’ control in industry and carry out research about factory occupations and shop-floor initiatives towards workplace democracy (Coates and Topham 1968). Between the summer of 1971 and the end of 1975, no less than 200 factories were occupied in Great Britain. Most of these sit-ins and ‘workins’ were launched and organised by shop stewards affiliated to radical political parties such as the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) or trade unions such as the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AEUW). Between 1959 and 1975, the size of the shop stewards’ movement nearly doubled to reach a membership of around 350,000 (Mills 1982). A highly determined spirit of protest spread through several industrial sectors, often passed over from one company to another. Mutual inspiration and strategic assistance were key elements in the renewal of such far-reaching industrial actions. The ‘Glorious Summer’ of 1972 was the climax of this working-class struggle (Darlington and Lyddon 2001). Trade union leaders were efficiently challenging managers’ prerogatives and owners’ exclusive property rights. Yet, however symbolic or evocative these struggles might have appeared to workers’ control or selfmanagement enthusiasts, they remained essentially defensive and in only six cases did a sustained occupation evolve into some kind of co-operative experiment. Many socialists in the Labour Party such as Tony Benn, Leslie Huckfield and David Watkins saw an explicit continuation between these industrial conflicts and the co-operative ideals of democratic management. This link was especially put under the spotlight after the 1974 general election and the appointment of Tony Benn as Secretary of State for Industry. While in opposition, Benn became a close partner and a mediator to trade unions within the Wilson government as well as a convinced advocate of industrial democracy. Once in office, he decided to give financial assistance to three large ailing companies that were converted into workers’ co-operatives (Coates et al. 1976) against the advice of the highly regarded Industrial Development Advisory Board (IDAB). Indeed, self-management and common ownership alluded to the socialist ideals of workers’ emancipation, sharing of wealth and socialisation of the means of production. While British trade unions were mostly lukewarm supporters of workers’ co-operatives, the Labour Party manifesto of October 1974 announced ‘plans for a radical extension of industrial democracy’. The Fabian Society itself was starting to give in to claims of economic democratisation and workers’ management (Bray and Falk

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1974) from the New Left. The co-operative movement stayed carefully aloof from these socially and politically divisive conflicts between the Conservative opposition and the Labour government. The socialist/liberal dividing line within the co-operative movement shifted from the post-war issue of state bureaucracy to that of the freemarket economy and industrial democracy. In the mid-70s, the number of worker co-operatives soared in Great Britain, from around 60 in 1975 to over 300 in 1980 and nearly 1,500 in the late 1980s. A growing proportion of them were formed by radical socialists with strong anticapitalist views who maintained close relations with militant unionism despite the small size of their own businesses. Members of these new workers’ co-operatives contested the economically liberal dogma of free enterprise either to safeguard employment in deprived areas or to commit to socially useful production. They were seeking to disseminate the idea of industrial democracy through the expansion of workers’ control over companies. Once again, the views of the left wing of the labour movement and those of the co-operative movement differed rather on the means than the ends. But when the Labour government considered introducing legislation to support common ownership in industry, voices started to rise among Labour Co-operative MPs to shake up the movement and question its unwillingness to support workers’ co-operatives. The Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM) emerged in the early 1970s as a small-scale alternative model of enterprise. It was initially a private initiative of Ernest Bader, a Quaker industrialist who converted his medium-sized family business into a common-ownership enterprise in the late 1950s. Far from regarding workers’ control as a desirable alternative to capitalist enterprise, Bader thought the solution to industrial unrest was the abolition of individual property rights over capital. He, therefore, created the Scott Bader Commonwealth, a trustees’ organisation, to hold the shares of the Scott Bader Company in one indivisible and indistributable certificate to ‘neutralise’ capital (Bader 1971). The first common-ownership enterprise was launched and its profits were used to support the establishment of a few other companies which constituted its ideological offspring. While ICOM enterprises embodied a more democratic and ethical business model than conventional companies, they fell short of any radical socialist expectation of labour’s control over capital. But as Bader was stepping down from his executive functions, the ICOM became less identified with its initial religious matter. Its straightforward model rules which excluded outside capital-owners to

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‘achieve democratic control of their work by people at work’ (ICOM 1974) started to appeal to workers’ collectives in search of a way out of autocratic management structures. When the Labour government finally introduced its first timorous piece of legislation to support the establishment of a new type of democratic enterprises, they drew heavily on the work of the ICOM. The movement was chosen among a few other organisations to make small grants and loans out of government funds to finance ICOM companies. The ICOM Act 1976 only allocated a few hundred thousand pounds of public money which contrasted sharply with the great ambitions of some Labour MPs. In the words of Chorley MP George Rogers: For over 50 years the Labour Party has been pledged to replace capitalism by common ownership. There has been some little progress in this direction. […] Common ownership means more than putting lone workers on company boards or issuing them with a few company shares; it means more than profit-sharing or capital-sharing. Genuine common ownership means worker control based on ownership. (Hansard 1975)

From this quotation among many others, it is quite obvious that the idea of industrial common ownership had been taken far beyond the semantic field Bader had originally constrained it to.7 Some Labour Co-operative MPs like Robert Edwards—then president of ICOM—and Ted Graham— National Secretary of the Co-operative Party from 1967 until his election to parliament in 1974—also joined forces to push the bill through: The challenge is before the existing co-operative movement—the challenge to help not only orthodox cooperatives, but worker co-operatives as well. […] Too many worker co-operatives, in which the workers participate and help to run the organisation, have been allowed over the years to go down. (Hansard 1976)

For radical members of the labour movement, common ownership was more and more associated with industrial democracy and workers’ participation in control of their workplace. Its affiliation to socialism was now 7 There were also internal conflicts within the ICOM movement between traditional followers of Bader’s Christian principles and more radical newcomers who wanted to give the movement a more political stance and lobbying role, as its chairman wrote in a letter addressed to ICOF trustees—the financial arm of ICOM—in May 1978 (Sawtell 1978).

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far from tenuous. During the second reading of the ICOM Act, Labour Co-operative MP Ioan Evans, referring to the 1918 Labour Party constitution, stated: ‘We Socialists believe in common ownership’ (Ibid.). Evans went on to critically address both Labour and co-operative approaches to common ownership development: At this time of unemployment we should consider not simply picking up the failures of private enterprise, but positively moving into new areas and creating forms of common ownership. […] The consumers cooperative movement in Britain has wide-ranging expertise, not merely in retailing but in manufacturing, banking, insurance, property and accountancy. That experience could be called upon and used by the Government in developing co-operative activities. (Ibid.)

There was only one step left to take to formalise the reunion of socialism and co-operation, which Ted Graham took: ‘To me, co-operation is do-it-yourself Socialism’. From 1974 to 1975, the term ‘workers’ cooperatives’ appeared in British left-wing politics as the most perfect form of worker-owned and worker-controlled company. After the enactment of the ICOM bill, their number began to increase. By the late 1970s, most workers’ co-operatives were registered under ICOM rules (Cornforth et al. 1988). The Labour Party had intended to take positive political action to revitalise the co-operative movement through state intervention since the early 1970s, about which the voluntary consumers’ movement was highly sceptical. The 1970 Labour Party manifesto mentioned the ‘establishment of a Co-operative Development Agency to give added strength to the rationalisation and development of co-operatives’. Such an agency was finally formed in 1978 under the Co-operative Development Agency (CDA) Act. But much to the regret of those in the Labour Party who wanted the government to actively support the creation of a whole co-operative industry, opposition from both the Conservatives and the co-operative movement greatly impoverished the act and hindered the agency’s undertakings. The CDA was finally designed as a poorly equipped state agency with an annual budget of £300,000 solely to cover its own functioning and provide promotional and advisory services to existing or potential co-operatives. It was denied the capacity to directly finance co-operatives. The chairman as well as a large part of its board

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were to be appointed by the Secretary of State from a list of representatives of the various bodies of the movement, especially from institutions of the established retailing societies (the CWS, the Co-operative Union or the Co-operative Bank). Overall, Labour policies to extend industrial democracy either through the establishment of workers’ co-operatives or the reforming of the management structure of existing companies brought disillusionment. In order for the CDA Act to be voted with all-party support, the Conservatives had to be satisfied that this government agency did ‘not have any kind of permanent life as a drain on public funds’ (Hansard 1978a). As for the wider co-operative movement, it did not want to allow any kind of political interference within a historically voluntary movement. In the field of industrial relations, the 1977 Bullock Report on industrial democracy written by a Committee of Enquiry set up by Harold Wilson to allow workers’ participation in management—primarily with a view to alleviate industrial unrest—had very little impact.8 The government eventually presented a watered-down version of these recommendations and refused to impose any form of legal framework to preserve the British system of voluntary agreements. Labour MPs who were hoping for a drastic turn denounced ‘cosmetics on the unacceptable face of capitalism’ (Hansard 1978b). The Trades Union Congress (TUC) only gave the government’s White Paper a cautious welcome while the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) maintained their opposition to any kind of board-level representation of trade unions. In the end, any attempt to democratise the management of British industry was abandoned. After Labour’s political defeat in 1979, the party sank into long wilderness years in opposition. While some militants and advocates of industrial democracy kept on fighting within Labour-controlled local authorities to support the establishment of worker-run businesses, a political reclaiming of workers’ participation as a ‘third way’ (Jay 1980) between capitalism and socialism was taking the lead in the executive. In 1981, a traumatic split occurred between the socialist left wing and the liberal right wing of the party led by former Chancellor of the Exchequer and President of the European Commission Roy Jenkins which ended up with the creation 8 In the main, the authors suggested that British companies of over 2,000 employees copycat the German co-determination system of a two-tier board of directors split between representatives of trade unions and shareholders. Wilson, Harold. 1971. The Labour Government 1964–1970. A Personal Record. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

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of the breakaway Social Democratic Party (SDP). The Co-operative Party was severely hit by this identity crisis. It lost 4 of its 17 MPs to the new SDP, including Dickson Mabon, the party’s only Privy Councillor and a former Minister of State. The beginning of the 1980s was a time of conflict and division for the labour movement and its co-operative ally had its fair share of it. At the 1983 election, the Co-operative party was further marginalised and reduced to just seven MPs (Kippin 2016).

‘Create Your Own Job, Become Your Own Boss’: Co-operating the Neoliberal Way Despite the apparent status quo, the long-running debates about industrial democracy and the renewal of the co-operative movement under the forms of small-scale workers’ co-operatives gave credit to the idea that policies could—and should—do something about workplace democracy. Local initiatives to set up workers’ co-ops by Labour-controlled cities or county councils multiplied from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. As the underfinanced central CDA was unable to carry out the missions it was originally supposed to fulfil, local activists and councillors started to organise. A national network of local CDAs progressively developed. By 1984, there were 80 Co-operative Support Organisations (CSO), the majority of which had full-time staff (Emerson 1989). But as unemployment was hitting deprived areas ever harder, these co-operatives gradually became part of a patchwork solution to the social ills caused by a worsening deindustrialisation aggravated by heavy cuts in government spending. The ideal of worker’s co-operation was quickly reduced to either a local makeshift solution to unemployment or a flagship of the new neoliberal entrepreneurial figure. Giving working people a say in the management of their companies was advertised as a way to give them an insight into the complexities of a manager’s position. A supporter of the ICOM Act himself, Ted Graham declared: ‘I like the idea of common ownership in the sense that ordinary people put at risk some of their capital and their future work’ (Hansard 1976). This win-or-lose approach to industrial democracy clearly put the emphasis on workers’ personal investment and individual ‘business acuteness’. Such individualistic arguments do not value common ownership for its democratic legitimacy and fulfilment of collective political aspirations but as a tool for self-appraisal and an opportunity for personal achievement. They refer to the common ownership of one company’s

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assets, not of the means of production. They betray a resurgence of liberal orientations within the co-operative movement. They do not question the relevance of the free-market economy and thus deliberately miss the socialist point of extending workers’ democratic rights to the economic sphere. After Neil Kinnock’s election as leader of the opposition in 1983, Co-operative MPs who had stuck with Labour followed the party’s liberal move to the centre. Under Conservative rule, a philosophy of ‘people’s capitalism’ was substituted for the term of ‘industrial democracy’. The running of the CDA was a telltale indicator of this ideological shift. Its first director, Dennis Lawrence (1988) was a theorist of the social-liberal ‘third way’—a centrist political position reconciling centreright economic policies with centre-left social policies. George Jones, his successor for the position from 1982, was seconded from the multinational corporation Unilever. This appointment was perfectly in tune with the (neo)liberal case for co-operation in industry as Liberal MP David Alton claimed in parliament: Co-operatives in their own right are worth encouraging, and I particularly draw attention to some words used by Mr. George Jones—indeed, for the reasons that he expressed, we Liberals support co-operatives. He said: “The quality of goods manufactured is very high … A pride of ownership seems to come through as the worker realises that bad goods drive away customers … People are sitting on top of a profit and loss account, so they get a rapid education in the realities of business that you cannot get with a traditional workforce”. (Hansard 1984)

When the Conservative government decided to wind up the national CDA in 1990, Labour and Co-operative MPs praised the agency’s accomplishments as a very cost-efficient support organisation of co-operative businesses. One of them was Tony Blair who warned the government about the risks for co-op workers whom he revealingly described as people ‘who want to be their own bosses and keep the profits that they make’ (Hansard 1990). During the debate, Labour Co-operative MP Dennis Turner was the only one to bring up the co-operative movement’s political affiliation with socialism: The whole idea of co-operative development and co-operative enterprise and its links with Socialism is anathema to the Government. That is the real reason why the CDA is being wound up. The Minister cries crocodile tears at the end of the CDA […]. (Ibid.)

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From 1979, worker’s co-operation and its powerful symbolism became a highly important political football as it was claimed to epitomise two diametrically opposed political ideals, namely the satisfaction of social needs through the socialisation of the means of production and the neoliberal ‘emulation’ of self-sustaining entrepreneurs. The ideological architect of Thatcherism himself, then Secretary of State for Industry, Keith Joseph gave his blessing to workers’ co-operatives in parliament: ‘Provided that they are unsubsidised, the Government regard co-operatives as a perfectly valid manifestation of private enterprise. We wish them well’ (Hansard 1980). Over the years, industrial democracy and co-operation were ideologically downgraded to an apolitical form of ‘participation’ strictly limited to financial rewards and left to employers’ discretion. This translated into the development of fiscal incentives for employees to hold shares in their companies through Employee StockOnwership Plans (ESOPs). ESOPs were promptly recognised as relevant tools by all main political parties to pay lip service to workers’ participation. The Labour Party itself espoused the liberal idolatry of the individual ‘freedom of workers to control their environment’ (Labour Party 1987). Labour’s conversion to neoliberalism took on a new dimension during the 1990s. Their 1992 manifesto offered to create new tax incentives by way of industrial democratisation to give employees an ‘opportunity to own collectively a significant stake in the company for which they work, through a democratic Employee Share Ownership Plan (ESOP) or a co-operative’ (Labour Party 1992; Baddon et al. 1989).

Conclusion It would seem extremely presumptuous to assign a definite political complexion to a nearly 200-year-old peculiar organisation such as the British co-operative movement. Despite its display of ‘social distancing’ from party politics, it founded its own political apparatus over 100 years ago. And in spite of the Co-operative Party’s strong relationship with the labour movement, it always treasured a tradition of ideological independence, especially during the two World War periods. When workers’ co-operation—understood as the purest form of workers’ control over industry—started to appear to radical socialists as an alternative to capitalist free enterprise, traditional institutions which made up the biggest part of the movement remained silent, at best. While many in the labour

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movement were highly optimistic about the prospect of industrial democracy and the positive contribution co-operatives could bring to this end, the ideal of the socialisation of the means of production never materialised beyond the local scale. And except for the ICOM, the co-operative movement did not do much to help. Aside from the serious financial and democratic crisis the movement was going through, it is very likely that the salient evocation of socialist concepts of class struggle and revolutionary anti-capitalism were far too radical to gain their support. As we have seen, there is a dominating tradition among co-operators from the consumers’ movement of humanist-liberal thinking and belief in progressive reforms towards a peaceful settlement of disputes between capital and labour. Christian socialists who founded the first co-operatives in the field of industry shared this view. As a result, it is hard to ignore the direct influence of liberalism upon the co-operative movement. The Liberal Party manifesto of February 1974 summed up in one single sentence the clear distinctions between the Marxist analysis of social history—i.e. historical materialism—and theirs: ‘The basic principle of Liberalism is a concern for the individual. We do not think in terms of bosses or masses or classes’ (Liberal Party 1974). From what we can learn of its history, the co-operative movement belongs to the same ideological family. Growing interest in workers’ co-operatives during the high tide of British trade unionism and socialist militancy during the first part of the 1970s was a noteworthy historical exception to the rule of parallelism between socialism and cooperatism. By the end of the twentieth century, neoliberalism had become the political vogue and found advocates in all big parties, including among Labour’s executive and its Co-operative ally. A classless society was to be governed by a partyless government. In 1997, Tony Blair’s New Labour completely fell into line with liberal individualism: We aim to put behind us the bitter political struggles of left and right that have torn our country apart for too many decades. Many of these conflicts have no relevance whatsoever to the modern world - public versus private, bosses versus workers, middle class versus working class. It is time for this country to move on and move forward. (Labour Party 1997)

This ideological turn strongly affected the co-operative sector and social enterprises (Huckfield 2021). Thus, cooperatism can reasonably be

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considered as a humanist-liberal ideal which has from time to time appealed to different branches of the socialist movement as long as it was not usurped by neoliberalism. Recent events in British politics tend to validate the theory of a neoliberal takeover of cooperatism, which seems more ingrained than ever before. Since the Blair years, the Co-operative Party has consolidated its political base and improved the balance of power with the Labour Party. Since the 1997 general election it has never won less than 24 seats in parliament. During the political campaigns of the 2000s, the co-operative principle of ‘mutualism’ has become a major issue. Again, a semantic battle occurred between ‘the left’s preference for increased use of co-operatives in the private sector, and the Blairite right’s preference for an expanded use of mutualism in public services’ (Kippin 2016). The promotion of mutualism to make up for shrinking public services was a godsend to Conservative leaders who were eager to carry out further privatisations of public assets after the financial crisis of 2008. In 2010 Conservative prime minister David Cameron formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats—which had resulted from a merger of the short-lived SDP and the Liberals in 1988. Both parties campaigned for the setting up of a ‘Big Society’ in which ‘consumers gained real “people power” control over services formerly provided by the state’ (Rosen 2012). Cooperatives, mutuals and social enterprises were called upon to help local authorities take on the role of the diminished public sector (Da Costa Vieira and Foster 2022).

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Bonner, Arnold. 1961. British Co-operation. The History, Principles, and Organisation of the British Co-operative Movement. Manchester: Co-operative Union Ltd. Bray, Jeremy and Falk, Nicholas. 1974. Towards a Worker Managed Economy. Fabian Tract 430. London: The Fabian Society. Burge, Alun. 2012. Co-operation: A Post-war Opportunity Missed? A Welsh Perspective. The Bevan Foundation/Wales Co-operative Centre. Coates, Ken. 1981. Work-ins, Sit-ins and Industrial Democracy. Nottingham: Spokesman Books. Coates, Ken. et al. 1976. The New Worker Co-operatives. Nottingham: Spokesman Books. Coates, Ken and Topham, Anthony. 1968. Industrial Democracy in Great Britain. London: MacGibben & Kee. Cole, George D. H. 1951. The British Co-operative Movement in a Socialist Society. London: George Allen & Unwin. Co-operative Party. 1952. The People’s Industry: A Statement on Social Ownership, by the National Committee of the Co-operative Party. Annals of Public and Co-operative Economics 23(4): 348–369. Co-operative Union. 1949. The Co-operative Movement in a Collectivist Economy (Statement of policy). Annals of Public and Co-operative Economics 20(3): 282–301. Cornforth, Chris, Thomas, Alan, Lewis, Jenny and Spear, Roger. 1988. Creating Successful Worker Cooperatives. London: Sage Publications. Da Costa Vieira, Thomas and Foster, Emma A.. 2022. The elimination of political demands: Ordoliberalism, the big society and the depoliticization of co-operatives. Competition & Change 26(2), 289–308. Darlington, Ralph and Lyddon, Dave. 2001. Glorious Summer. Class struggle in Britain 1972. London: Bookmarks Publications Desroche, Henri. 1971. Images and Echoes of Owenism in Nineteenth-Century France. In Robert Owen. Prophet of the Poor, ed. Sidney Pollard and John Salt, 239–284. London: MacMillan. Emerson, Tony. 1989. Some Issues on the Relationship Between a Co-operative Support Organisation and its Client Co-operatives. Milton Keynes: The Open University (M.Phil. Thesis). Engels, Friedrich. 1986 (first published in 1880). Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Moscow: Progress Publishers. Freeden, Michael. 2005. Confronting the Chimera of a ‘Post-ideological’ Age. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8: 247–262. Hansard. 1929–1931. Contributions of Mr Samuel Perry (31 October 1929–06 October 1931).

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Hansard. 1943. Post-War Reconstruction. House of Commons Debate (07 December 1943). Vol 395 cc809–10. Hansard. 1975. Common Ownership. House of Commons Debate (02 July 1975). Vol. 894 cc1475–9. Hansard. 1976. Industrial Common Ownership Bill. House of Commons Debate (12 March 1976). Vol. 907 cc808–82. Hansard. 1978a. The Co-operative Development Agency. House of Commons Debate (11 May 1978). Vol. 949 cc1550–63. Hansard. 1978b. Industrial Democracy (White Paper). House of Commons Debate (23 May 1978). Vol. 950 cc1335–55. Hansard. 1980. Worker Co-operatives. House of Commons Debate (24 November 1980). Vol. 994 cc187–8. Hansard. 1984. Co-operative Development Agency and Industrial Development Bill. House of Commons Debate (07 February 1984). Vol. 53 cc777–854. Hansard. 1990. Co-operative Development Agency. House of Commons Debate (10 January 1990). Vol. 164 cc1039–61. Holyoake, George J.. 1875. The History of Co-operation (Vol. I). London: Trübner & Co. Huckfield, Leslie. 2021. How Blair Killed the Co-ops. Reclaiming Social Enterprise from its Neoliberal Turn. Manchester University Press. ICOM. 1974. This is ICOM. A Description of the Industrial Common-Ownership Movement, London: John Bellers. Jay, Peter. 1980. The Workers’ Co-operative Economy. In The Political Economy of Cooperation and Participation, ed. A. Clayre, 9–45. Oxford University Press. Jones, Derek C. 1975. British Producer Cooperatives and the Views of the Webbs on Participation and Ability to Survive. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 46(1): 23–44. Kippin, Sean. 2016. Why Sticking with Labour is Likely to be the Co-operative Party’s Quickest Route Back to Power. London School of Economics, August 30. Lawrence, Dennis. 1988. The Third Way. The Promise of Industrial Democracy. London: Routledge. Labour Party. 1987. Britain will Win with Labour. London: The Labour Party. Labour Party. 1992. It’s Time to Get Britain Working Again. London: The Labour Party. Labour Party. 1997. New Labour Because Britain Deserves Better. London: The Labour Party. Liberal Party. 1974. Change the Face of Britain—Take Power—Vote Liberal. London: The Liberal Party.

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Mills, Albert James. 1982. Worker Occupations, 1971–1975: A Socio-historical Analysis of the Development and Spread of Sit-ins, Work-ins and Worker Co-operatives in Britain. Durham University (Ph.D. thesis). Neale, Edward Vansittart and Hughes, Thomas. 1916. Foundations: A Study in the Ethics and Economics of the Co-operative Movement. Manchester: Cooperative Union Ltd. Peddlie, James M. 1948. The Problem of the Co-operative Attitude to Nationalisation before the Congress of the International Co-operative Alliance. Report of the Seventeenth Congress at Prague. London: ICA. Pollard, Sidney. 1968. The Idea of Progress. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Potter, Beatrice. 1891. The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Rosen, Greg. 2012. Co-op Politics: Introducing the UK’s Fourth Largest Political Party. The Guardian, May 22. Sawtell, Roger. 1978. Hand-Written Letter to ICOF Trustees (May 1978). Roger Sawtell’s Papers. ICOF (RSP/3). “Working Together”. Manchester (Holyoake House): Co-operative Heritage Trust. Tomlinson, Jim. 2002. The Limits of Tawney’s Ethical Socialism: A Historical Perspective on the Labour Party and the Market. Contemporary British History 16(4): 1–16. Webb, Sidney. 1918. The New Constitution of the Labour Party. London: The Labour Party.

The Labour Party’s International Thought from 1900 to 1918: Webs of British Liberal and Socialist Traditions Niaz Cary-Pernon

The Labour Party’s ideology has been essentially analysed through British domestic questions. The studies focusing on Labour’s position on world politics (e.g. Corthorn and Davis 2008; Douglas 2004; Gordon 1969; Mangold 2001; Vickers 2003, 2011; Winkler 2005) have raised two issues: socialist measures advocated or implemented, and the conception of a world-view exhibiting bipartisanship or internationalism. This involves the challenge of tracing the specific features of Labour’s socialism in world affairs. The notions of bipartisanship or internationalism highlight the conservative or the liberal orientation of the Labour Party’s foreign policy, thereby showing its affinities with other ideological traditions. Generally, it has been pointed out that, from the emergence of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in 1900, renamed the Labour Party in 1906, to the end of the First World War (WWI) in 1918, British Labour and liberal figures made numerous contributions to foreign policy debates. Thus, the first decade of the twenty-first century was marked by

N. Cary-Pernon (B) Research Unit ‘Études Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone’ (EMMA), Montpellier, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_10

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the publication of studies investigating the influence the radical Liberals, also called the new Liberals, exerted on Labour’s international thought (e.g. Ashworth 2007, 2009; Cline 1963; Powell 1986; Rathbone 2003; Shepherd 2010; Sylvest 2004; Thompson 2011; Thorpe 2011). While drawing upon this academic tradition, the present chapter shifts the focus. It explores how some beliefs held by Labour and liberals resonated with a variety of international dilemmas. Partisan structures, whose overlapping memberships presented key tributaries, are of particular relevance. The term ‘partisan’ relates to interest or pressure groups. Interest groups usually attempt to influence policies without assuming government responsibilities while the actions of pressure groupings seek to shape government policies. The aim is to examine the liberal elements of the Labour Party’s socialist tradition in order to delve into the gradual constitution of its international agenda. The terms ‘liberal’/‘liberalism’ refer to reformist politics primarily associated with the Liberal Party; they also involve those supporting the latter’s positions. The words ‘Liberal’/‘Liberalism’ deal with the Liberal Party. More specifically, references to the ‘new’ or ‘radical’ Liberalism point to the shift to social or welfare liberalism. The terms ‘socialist’/‘socialism’ cover the British version of a political reformist tradition criticizing liberal capitalism while defending the interests of the working class. The British socialist strategy mainly consisted in integrating these interests into the existing capitalist system in order to modify it democratically. Focusing on the period between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of WWI, the conceptual framework of this chapter follows Henry Drucker’s explanation of the Labour Party’s ‘ethos’ and ‘doctrine’ (Drucker 1979) as well as Mark Bevir’s comments about ideologies not being mutually exclusive concepts (Bevir 2000: 277–301; Bevir 2011). The notions of ‘traditions’ and ‘beliefs’ in relation to ‘dilemmas’ are employed. They refer to the interpretive approach developed by Bevir and Roderick Rhodes (2006). Traditions are webs of beliefs and practices that are comprised of inherited patterns of thought and actions. These beliefs and practices exhibit a minimal level of coherence. Traditions forge the chains of variant interpretations that actors make, accept or convey. They are normative because they constitute both conditions and precedents for actions. They remain contingent and, therefore, can evolve, interacting with the environment, along with new challenges and dilemmas.

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In this chapter, it is argued that the Labour Party’s thought at the beginning of the twentieth century encompassed a system of ideas interacting with liberalism and international dilemmas. This resulted in the development of specific foreign policy beliefs and traditions. The aim is to examine convergences as well as divergences between two systems of international thought, each system being impacted, in turn, by its own internal differences and multi-identities. Addressing the concepts of ‘liberalisms and socialisms in the plural’, as highlighted by Michael Freeden in Chapter 1, provides a comprehensive approach to the study of clusters of ideas, motivations and convictions underlying conflicting and overlapping interactions. Drawing upon Freeden’s analysis of ideologies (Freeden 2022), the hypothesis is that the notions of norms and empirical idealism offer insights into these exchanges. Idealism is employed in its philosophical and ontological meanings. It holds that concepts are constitutive and determining factors. The idealist component of Labour’s socialism in foreign policy emphasizes the primacy of international justice and co-operation. Labour’s empirical beliefs and practices derive from the contingency of traditions. They can continue or change through the interactive experiences of individuals. The adjective ‘pragmatic’ has not been used due to its associated implications. It does not help distinguish a variety of traditions that constitute the specific ‘ethos’ (Drucker 1979) of a party. Consequently, normative aspects, explicit or underlying values in the interpretations of dilemmas by Labour and liberal actors, are regarded as essential in this chapter. Given constraints of length, the chapter is not so much concerned with the substantive detail of the beliefs of the selected structures. It is neither a study of interindividual dissension and personal inconsistency nor a narrative history of the internal development of Labour’s foreign policy. The different parts deal with central inter-linkages between crucial webs of Labour and liberal beliefs related to world politics. Three criteria justified the selection of the examples: their representative nature concerning liberal and Labour interactions in partisan groups which helped the Labour Party elaborate its international thought; their potential relevance for apprehending other chapters of the book; and their status as dilemmas revealing Labour-liberal responses to existing foreign policy norms. The primary sources consist of Labour’s debates at the Annual Party Conference as well as of the statements and actions of prominent political or intellectual figures within Labour-liberal networks. Therefore, the first part delves into the early emblematic structures of

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the multifaceted exchanges between Labour and liberal circles. In the second section, the Labour Party’s nascent socialism is set against the background of the new Liberalism. The final part examines the development of two institutional norms through the experience of Labour-liberal collaborations during WWI.

Socialism and Liberalism: Forging Links Through Partisan Discussion Groups The first part studies the initial discussion circles that enabled liberals and members of Labour to exchange their perceptions of the international order during a period marked by the gradual institutional separation of the Liberal Party and organized labour. Emphasis is put on the dynamics forged by ‘intermediaries’ that expressed Labour and liberal considerations of world affairs. The word ‘intermediaries’ accounts for the structures and for the agents that helped establish ideational trajectories contributing to setting the leitmotifs of future debates on international relations. Initial Networks of Left-Wing and Liberal Circles The early stage of the development of the future Labour Party’s worldview reflects the positions of the bodies whose meetings were attended by its prominent figures and the radical Liberals. The Fabian Society and the Rainbow Circle epitomized their interconnections before the official emergence of the LRC. The Circle was created in 1894, ten years after the foundation of the Fabian group. It was an eclectic dining club consisting of progressives who met until 1924 (Rathbone 2003). The social and political theorist John Hobson, politician Charles Trevelyan and the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, played a central role in the Circle. Hobson and Trevelyan were initially Liberals; in 1918 the former joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the latter the Labour Party; MacDonald was, albeit not continuously, a member of the Fabian Society, the ILP and the Social Democratic Federation. The three groupings participated in the formation of the LRC; MacDonald’s contribution to debates over international questions occupied the foreground in the first thirty years of the Labour Party’s evolution. The Fabian Society constituted a key body in which figures of the Rainbow Circle pursued Labour and liberal exchanges. Some Fabians,

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e.g. essayist William Clarke, politician Sydney Olivier, in addition to the political psychologist and educationist Graham Wallas, took part in the reflections of the Circle which sought to lead the Liberal Party’s doctrine towards new, collective directions. The Fabian group included, in turn, Hobson and Trevelyan. Even though the Fabians identified themselves as socialists, the majority first argued that no independent working-class political entity was needed. The early Fabians’ strategy, headed up by Sidney Webb, consisted in staying with Liberalism while adopting a policy of ‘permeation’ so as to convert members of the Liberal Party into reformist socialists (Schneider 1973). The Rainbow Circle’s multi-identity memberships corresponded to the Fabians’ global approach: bringing together ideas across party lines. However, this position was questioned by the ILP founded by Keir Hardie in 1893 precisely with the aim of representing labour in an independent political group based upon the conversion of the trade unions. Indeed, labour and industrial questions generated disagreement in the Liberal Party, whose policies generally emphasized conciliation and arbitration to deal with the growing tensions between the unions and employers. Besides, the Lib-Labs were criticized at the annual meetings of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the late 1880s. For instance, Hardie pressed for debates over economic issues and the sectional interests of labour (Powell 1986). Here, the role and function of the trade unions, which had co-operated with the Liberal Party for decades, became a dissenting point. Admittedly, the Fabians became convinced of the interest of their affiliation with the Labour Party when other organizations, e.g. the ILP and the TUC, took actions to co-ordinate the labour movement dynamics within a political entity. This, however, did not mean that some members had not expressed their disagreements with the Fabian ‘permeation’ strategy. Olivier, and the social commentator and novelist Herbert George Wells, defended the idea of forming a socialist political party. For Olivier, the ‘permeation’ policy had not proved efficient (Guy 2017). The Society’s subsequent Labour affiliation can be viewed within the framework of Fabian-liberal adherence to a system of thought that could incorporate and better represent their ideas. Cross-party discussion groups proved insufficient. Indeed, Labour-liberal collaboration in the Rainbow Circle or the Fabian Society derived from a reformist ethos resting upon the ideas of interventionism, equality of opportunity and meritocracy (see Rathbone 2003). Disappointed at the traditions of the classical Liberal

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Party, the latter’s ideological evolution was advocated so as to implement progressive, radical policies. Labour’s and the new Liberals’ normative principle of interventionism implied the necessity of creating institutions to regulate international relations gradually. However, in world affairs, Labour’s sectional solidarity created a difference. It involved the co-ordinated representation and promotion of specific, class-based interests within organizations such as the Second International. This organization, which was a federation of socialist parties and trade unions, influenced the European labour movement. It first stood for parliamentary democracy before adopting the Marxist doctrine of the class struggle. Hardie, along with the ILP, and MacDonald, through the Fabian Society and the LRC, were involved in the Second International. The latter defended the principle of arbitration in order to settle disputes between nations. Its main objective was preventing a general European war. As the British Empire had faced international conflicts recurrently, the question of war became a major dimension of debates on world affairs in Labour and liberal partisan circles. Early Labour-Liberal Circles and the British Empire It has been stated that the early Fabians primarily investigated British domestic issues and that they did not regard themselves as an intellectual group concerned with foreign affairs (e.g. Douglas 2004). Yet, numerous foreign policy issues were debated in the late Victorian era. The Fabian Society’s position was marked by its multifaceted attitudes towards international relations. Its internal debates on empires and wars echoed multiple perceptions of British foreign policy. The arguments underlay domestic as well as international reforms. For instance, when George Bernard Shaw officially supported imperial expansion in his tract Fabianism and the Empire in 1900, the preceding year had already been marked by highly divergent opinions on imperialism. In 1899 MacDonald took a stand against British policy in the Transvaal, whereas the Fabian Society did not pronounce against the South African war (Schneider 1973). The imperial conflict, therefore, led the Society to engage in debates on the role of the British Empire as a progressive force in the world, which revealed diverse currents of opinion on imperialism. MacDonald highlighted the moral basis the British Empire had to be endowed with, i.e. the duties and responsibilities an imperial Britain had

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to accept in order to be able to justify its paternalistic rule over other peoples. This included the promise of freedom in colonized territories and ‘the ideal of co-operation between equal nations’ (Schneider 1973). Conversely, Shaw, and the majority of the early Fabians, regarded the British Empire as a powerful force serving the interests of the ‘civilized peoples’ only. In the imperial configuration of international relations, the United Kingdom had to be placed at the centre of its own empire (Schneider 1973). Thus, the two streams of the Fabian Society defended various imperialisms, another concept better apprehended in the plural, thereby justifying divergent practices of foreign policy. As a journalist and a leading thinker in the Rainbow Circle, Hobson wrote a critique of imperialism in 1902. Imperialism: A study was based on political and economic arguments he had developed earlier, especially when he had visited South Africa as the special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in 1899 to report on the Boer War (Hobson 1900). This visit resulted in the publication of a book in 1900. It argued that the war represented the interests of an international group of financiers and capitalists. In 1902 Hobson further developed his exploration of the damaging features of the exploitation of colonized territories. He explained that imperialism resulted from the mother country’s economic greed and led to aggressive and militarist actions in the international arena. At the domestic level, Hobson argued that imperialism provided a political outlet in colonies for the investment of illegitimate surplus and profits made by private owners in their mother country. As a member of the Fabian Society, Hobson attempted to obtain its opposition to the war against the Boers (Shepherd 2010). Debates about the war showed the rift that had opened between the early Fabians over British imperial policy. A broader contextualization of this dissension displays a concurrent split within the Liberal Party between its imperialist and anti-imperialist branches. The polarized standpoint was also present in the Rainbow Circle. Set against this liberal dualism, Labour leaders’ imperial positions expressed distinct attitudes. They disagreed over the function of the British Empire and not over the existence of an imperial policy. Here, Webb’s authority proved crucial. Supporting Richard Burdon Haldane, a future Labour politician, Webb co-ordinated the Fabian leaders’ decision to side with the Liberal imperialists. Webb and Haldane welcomed Lord Rosebery’s argumentation advocating staunch imperialism within the Liberal Party, whereas the Gladstonian Liberals vehemently denounced the barbaric methods employed in the struggle

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in South Africa (Schneider 1973). The ideological diversity of liberal opinions about imperialism was reflected in the Circle’s periodical, the Progressive Review. Hobson was second editor under the Fabian journalist William Clarke. Both condemned imperialism and, in this context, the hostility between Clarke and MacDonald exhibited tensions among the Fabians within the Circle. Therefore, in Labour’s and the new Liberals’ early considerations of foreign policy, the former’s belief in independent working-class solidarity based upon the trade unions and global institutions such as the Second International gradually established a distinction between the two collaborative systems of thought. Besides, their responses to the Boer War show the elaboration of three currents. On the one hand, Hobson expressed the economic and political factors of his anti-imperialism. On the other hand, the analysis of British territorial expansionism was underpinned by two sets of ideas. Either the principle of benevolent imperialism was defended, as championed by MacDonald; or the concept of autocratic control in the British Empire was advanced by the majority of the early Fabians. The three trends shared a common contextual background consisting of the motives behind war from which their reflections had derived. In the Fabian Society and the Rainbow Circle, the Boer War represented a pivotal event. Foreign affairs were debated through the lens of an imperial dilemma. Specifically, the interventionist principle advanced by the Fabians aimed at establishing new, albeit diverging, obligations to Britain’s imperial expansion. Hence, the continuation of further reflections on the motives for war in Labour-liberal partisan structures. How did their positions continue to forge patterns of thought concerning international actions?

Liberal Norms and Labour’s Idealism The second part focuses on debates about the international order before WWI. First, it explores a specific case which offers insights into future convergences and divergences between various systems of thought, expressing or questioning traditional foreign policy norms. Then, similarities between the Labour Party’s general approach to world affairs, in the early stage of its development, and forms of liberal norms are established. The notion of idealism helps understand the initial nature of Labour’s socialism in the international arena.

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Old-Style Foreign Policy Norms The early twentieth century was marked by multiple tensions. In this regard, the Bosnian crisis of 1908 exemplified long-standing European foreign policy norms through various practices of power politics. These norms constituted informal guides for international behaviour, thereby characterizing the identities of European actors. The Bosnian crisis was caused by the annexation of the Balkan provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina by a great European power, Austria-Hungary. It related to the Congress of Berlin: Austria-Hungary was given the right to occupy these Balkan territories temporarily, while the latter remained possessions of the Ottoman Empire officially. The Porte preserved direct rule over numerous areas of the southern Balkans, including a large part of Bulgaria and all of Macedonia. Thus, the principle of the European balance of power was employed to preserve the international order by matching foreign affairs postures and embarking upon a policy of alliances. The Congress also confirmed the norm of the ‘Concert of Europe’, which had become an informal agreement reached among the big European powers at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It stabilized Europe by erecting a European system rested upon great power co-operation. However, the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 provided the opportunity for Austria-Hungary to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. The argument was that the new Turkish regime would seek to regain control over them. This episode revealed that the Austrian and Russian Foreign Ministers conducted ‘secretive high politics’, when Russia did not object to the annexation by Austria-Hungary after bilateral negotiations. This bilateral approach proceeded from another norm of the balance of power. Two big nations engaged in the competitive acquisition of territory, which involved other international actors and divergent schemes. The annexation was unpopular in Russia because of widespread anti-Austrian opinion. Serbia, a neighbouring country whose ethnic identity was close to the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, expressed outrage. The Serbian authorities demanded that a part of these territories be ceded to them. Resorting to alliance strategy, Russia accepted the Serbian demand, mainly because of domestic pressure, while failing to obtain its French ally’s support. Meanwhile, Austria, backed by Germany, used threat diplomacy, stating that the Serbian territories would be invaded if their claims did not stop. The episode did not lead to a war. Russia notified Germany that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was accepted.

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Nonetheless, the old-style European power politics and the balance of power principle were destabilized by the victory of Germany and AustriaHungary. This triumph re-established the association of the League of the Three Emperors. Previously, Benjamin Disraeli had headed up the British delegation during the Congress of Berlin. The latter’s aftermath corresponded to the British scheme. Later, the Balkan Wars in 1912 resulted in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. These conflicts were perceived as a threat to the interests of Russia, Austria and Germany. In this intricate foreign policy pattern, the British Liberal government organized a peace conference in 1912. It showed that Britain and Germany could negotiate through diplomatic channels. It also helped reassert the great powers’ interests, initiatives and solidarity. For example, Austria attempted to reduce Serbia’s influence. Therefore, when the Great War broke out, multiple dilemmas had already occurred, revealing competitive behaviour patterns. British political figures could not ignore their impact. Given their perceptions of traditional foreign policy norms, how did Labour and liberal figures react? Liberal and Labour’s Pre-First World War International Views The Bosnian crisis offers insights into British liberal interaction with the Balkans (Ashworth 2005; Perkins 2014). The event was set against the background of the Eastern question of 1875–1878, implying the Bulgarian agitation. Furthermore, Liberals engaged with a practice that became recurrent in subsequent decades: arousing public opinion against the Conservatives’ foreign policy. Gladstone campaigned on behalf of the Balkan Christians against the brutal suppression of an uprising in Bulgaria, then an Ottoman province. Advocating reform, Gladstonian Liberals denounced Disraeli’s moderate international posture towards the Ottoman Empire. Among leading figures, Liberal politician James Bryce and Trevelyan participated in a movement which gathered individuals from various backgrounds: churchmen, politicians, journalists or relief workers. Their activism displayed similarities with other upcoming groups concerned with the Balkans. Liberal actions during the Bulgarian agitation advocated the interests of humanity and the notion of freedom for human progress. However, they favoured Christian values only (Perkins 2014: 34–52, 68–70). Furthermore, the campaign aimed to realign the Liberal Party along more radical, moral arguments.

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The Macedonian question was another multinational dimension of the Bosnian crisis (Perkins 2014: 102–131). It reactivated the Balkans as a liberal cause, and Arthur Ponsonby, Charles and Noel Buxton or Henry Noel Brailsford were particularly involved. The latter visited Macedonia in order to report for the Manchester Guardian (Perkins 2014: 145). In response to the Macedonian unrest, a Balkan Committee was formed in 1903. This pressure group acted under the presidency of Bryce and the chairmanship of Noel Buxton. It campaigned for British intervention in Macedonia against Ottoman misrule. The pro-Boers, notably those of the Stop the War Committee, provided significant membership in the Balkan Committee. The latter was also supported by Labour leaders, and MacDonald attended some of the Committee’s meetings. Thus, the Balkan Committee was part of a network of political activists whose involvement concerned imperial and European regions. It promoted an interventionist state norm backed by political and moral values. Brailsford and Charles Buxton joined the ILP in 1907 and 1917 respectively, and Ponsonby and Noel Buxton became members of Labour after WWI. The Bosnian crisis displays how co-operation between Labour and liberal figures continued in a pressure group created to influence government actions and promote moral norms. The Macedonian campaign also related to the Congress of Berlin of 1878 which had revised the San Stefano Treaty. It highlighted the Conservatives’ responsibility for the unrest in Macedonia. The episode reactivated Gladstonian liberalism that had been tarnished by the Boer War: to the radical Liberals, jingoism and imperial chauvinism had replaced the values of justice and humanity. Consequently, moral arguments underpinned the new Liberals’ position in order to restore genuine liberal norms. Meanwhile, many among those who backed the Balkan Committee continued to justify their support for the Macedonian Christians (Perkins 2014). However, the Young Turk revolution greatly challenged these perceptions. It defended the principle of reforming the Ottoman Empire from within, along with secular and liberal ideas. Accordingly, the Balkan Committee radically modified its strategy by promoting education in the Ottoman Balkans. The new regime seemed acceptable. It could solve the Macedonian question progressively through the liberal values of self-government (Perkins 2014: 131). This revealed that the Macedonian campaign opposed illiberal states. Radical reforms,

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notably the nature of a state regime, could lead to adapting attitudes towards a new international situation. Empirical arguments proved valuable to the members of the Committee. For example, the notion of expertise, knowledge and often personal experience based on visits to the regions considered, relied on the principle of objectivity. It meant producing policies based on observable facts, which differentiated this approach from the sensational style characterizing the publications on the Bulgarian or Macedonian questions. Here, the connections between the new Liberals’ and the Fabians’ world-views are evident. The method impacted further debates over international relations. Thematically, the relevance of education and political regimes in the process of democratizing societies provided common ideological backgrounds to Labour and liberal figures later. Generally, the Balkan crises help understand why Labour’s initial reflections centred on how international relations should improve in order to prevent future wars. More specifically, prior to WWI, i.e. before many radical Liberals started to flee into the Labour Party, the latter’s international thought focused on human nature, a thematic category implying political, moral and/or economic factors. This can be noted in Socialism and Society in which MacDonald sketched out the socialist position in the early Edwardian period. The use of general terms such as ‘brotherhood of man’ establishes transnational social groups and notions, conferring a universal moral value to Labour’s programme: ‘Socialism has a world policy as well as a national one, a corollary to its belief in the brotherhood of man’ (MacDonald 1905: 120). As highlighted by its 1906 manifesto, Labour considered external and domestic policy ideas as a continuum rather than as distinct fields: ‘Wars are fought to make the rich richer and underfed school children are still neglected’ (Craig 1975: 10). Combining national causes with international questions shows methodological affinities with the new Liberalism’s biological analogies of social interdependence. Labour’s intrinsically dialectic tackling of international topics by referring to general human categories differed from the mainstream foreign policy practice of the balance of power, which centred on the interests of a few, distinguishable European countries whose decision-makers did not consult their populations. Regarding common human values, the similarity with the aforementioned liberal campaigns during the Balkan crises can be established. Likewise, Labour’s arguments pertaining to human nature echoed Norman Angell’s insistence on the role of the emotionalism of the mass mind.

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For Angell, political education could remove irrationalism, a notion he associated with emotionalism characterizing his contemporary political environment. For instance, Labour depicted the world order through ideas or ideational analogies: ‘Socialism has a great part to play immediately in international politics. It alone can banish national jealousies from Foreign Offices; it alone offers the guarantees of peace which are a necessary preliminary to disarmament’ (MacDonald 1905: 120). Here, the Foreign Office became an emotional, and not a rational, structure whose actions were damaging. The lexical field of ‘jealousy’ referred to political considerations regarding war and peace. Socialism thus represented a promise of support for removing wars from the world order. The argumentation also stressed the danger of policies favouring military power, and the undemocratic nature of the old-style diplomacy conducted in a government department as opposed to parliament. Furthermore, as a class-based political group, Labour mostly viewed international relations through an economic lens in order to condemn what was held to be the main feature of the capitalist world order, immorality: ‘This Congress, believ[es] the harrowing war in South Africa to be mainly due to the corrupt agitation of the Transvaal mine-owners, having for its object the acquisition of monopolies and a cheap supply of coloured and European labour […]’ (Report of the First Annual Conference of the LRC 1901: 13). The order epitomized the values of an international oligarchy whose interests lay in war industries. These statements resonated with Hobson’s publications and debates within the Rainbow Circle or the Fabian Society. It was acknowledged that diplomatic practices or international labour movements had introduced some international order. Norms of diplomatic protocol regulated code-based behaviour, and Foreign Offices conformed with the norms at the government level. Organizations such as the International Trade Secretariats or the Second International had also federated labour or class solidarity. However, Labour’s arguments condemned the old-style diplomacy characterized by secretive practices and established by a few world powers. This campaign against former practices reflected the new Liberals’ moral crusade against the Conservative government whose postures crystallized in the figure of Disraeli. What distinguished Labour’s initial world-view was the systematic association of the domestic level of injustice with the causes of a conflictual international system. Socialism provided an ideal that promoted justice both at home and abroad. The international realm of human conduct

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could be constructed ‘[to establish] a well-thought and constructive foreign policy’ (Labour Party Conference on Disarmament and the Present International Situation 1911, in Windrich 1952: 3). Establishing peace thereby meant taking preventive economic measures against an order which had proved hostile and challenging in Europe. This idealist position displayed philosophical claims. More specifically, socialism implied an active commitment to the virtues of justice and courage in an international system orientated around ethically common interests. In foreign policy, socialism represented a political force ideal against the competition state, helping foster the conditions in which individuals could develop peacefully. Set against the background of the Balkan crises, this approach was progressive. It promoted new ideas and methods. Its vocal figure was MacDonald, even if his actions did not always prove consistent. His imperial project during the Boer War exemplified this. In 1911 he depicted the socialist movement as ‘idealist’ or ‘utopian’ (MacDonald 1911: ix). Here, what united Labour and liberal world-views pertained to their collective understandings of international behaviour, promoting moral and prescriptive norms. Thus, liberal intellectuals and political activists continued to influence the development of Labour’s international thought. Cross-party pressure entities provide significant cases of this impact. Nonetheless, Labour’s idealism and insistence on justice offered an ideological promise whose socialist contents were yet to be constructed.

The Great War and Labour’s Empirical Approach to International Relations The ideational content of Labour’s international thought was further elaborated in an array of Labour-liberal institutions founded during WWI. The empirical approach employed sought to change traditional foreign policy norms. Various groups were also formed in order to design new plans for a peaceful future. How did the experience of a world war impact Labour and liberal collaborative networks? Labour-Liberal Partnerships and the Just Peace During WWI, multiple networks provided further bridges for collaborations between Labour and liberal figures. Many of them aimed to promote peace. They employed different methods relying on diverse

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international order conceptions. The No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF), founded in 1914 by Fenner Brockway, who had joined the ILP in 1907, and Bertrand Russell, who became an ILP member in 1915, displayed emblematic features of Labour and liberal thinking. It campaigned against the imposition of compulsory military service which, at this stage, was only an idea. By 1915, the British government took the first steps towards a process that resulted into the Military Service Act becoming law in 1916. Following its Statement of Faith declaring that its members refused to bear arms because they considered life to be sacred, the NCF helped conscientious objectors within an organized system (Shepherd 2010: 27). In order to draw the attention of the public and decision-makers, it set up a press department and a political department. A weekly newspaper, The Tribunal, was created in March 1916; leaflets and pamphlets were also published. Moreover, Brockway was the editor of the Labour Leader, the ILP’s paper. MacDonald, who resigned from the leadership of the Labour Party in 1914 in protest against the war, wrote in this paper as the leader of the ILP in Parliament. Through the political department of the NCF, MPs were briefed, and drafted questions were addressed to ministers. In parallel, the NCF collaborated with international groups such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation, founded by pacifist Christians in Britain and Germany at the outbreak of WWI. This international body was established in the United States in 1915 and worked towards peace among the belligerent countries. Thus, the NFC endorsed a three-dimensional identity. It acted as a protest group against WWI, as a support group for conscientious objectors and as a pressure group trying to influence the British government. This activism served a dual objective, which condemned the war while presenting Christian arguments as the new norms of preserving peace. The religious factor constituted a uniting force that had been reinforced during the Labour-liberal campaign for Macedonia. The moral principle of the refusal to participate in war represented a structural dimension justifying the ILP’s support. All these characteristics can be found in other concurrent structures whose leading Labour and liberal figures reactivated preceding experiences: arousing public opinion against a traditional, government solution to an international conflict. Their overlapping institutional memberships helped convey their ideas, which can be classified into two main categories: dealing with international anarchy and international governance.

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The notions of international anarchy and of ‘a league of nations’ soon embodied different plans for organizing the post-war world order. Both terms are believed to have been coined by the Liberal (later Labour) thinker Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson. The traditional state behaviour associated with anarchy referred to the absence of international authority over national sovereignties in world affairs (Dickinson 1916). Thus, the Labour Party regularly stated that the non-regulation of relations between countries by global institutions favoured national competition which, in turn, caused conflicts: ‘[There should be] an international authority to settle points of difference among the nations by compulsory conciliation and arbitration, and to compel all nations to maintain peace’ (Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1916). The argumentation mainly implied political considerations in reference to the long-standing informal international patterns, which had been constantly challenged by great powers. Labour’s institutional norm provided a concrete solution to the process of restoring a just peace. The idea of a ‘league of nations’ represented a global governance approach whose specific features were deployed differently in Labour-liberal circles. The Union of Democratic Control (UDC) was founded immediately after the outbreak of WWI by Liberals Angell, Edmund Morel and Trevelyan as well as by MacDonald. Ponsonby also became one of the early leaders of the group. Morel joined the ILP in 1918, Angell became a member of the Labour Party in 1920, and Ponsonby was elected to Parliament as a Labour Party candidate in 1922. Other vocal figures in the UDC included politician Arthur Henderson, who replaced MacDonald after his resignation from the leadership of the Labour Party, and Russell. The UDC campaigned against the war, and annexationist war aims in general, and called for the principle of a negotiated peace. Specifically, the democratic control of foreign policy was advocated: potential decisions had to be debated in parliament prior to their implementation by Foreign Offices (Records of the UDC 1914–1966). This directly challenged the European norms of power politics and balance of power. As institutional interest groups, the NFC and the UDC promoted two principal causes. The former used pacifist values deriving from moral and religious guiding norms; the latter stressed the regulatory role of an international regime whose democratic function was viewed in a consequentialist manner. Both campaigned for imposing new, progressive norms aiming to structure and institutionalize international relations. However, this approach remained a general methodological principle. The

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practical dimensions of the idea of ‘a league of nations’ needed to be further developed. This was achieved by other bodies whose structural identities did not prevent them from collaborating with political actors in order to impact decision-making. Creating an International Community or Society From 1914 to 1915, the idea of ‘a league of nations’ was also explored in a study circle, the Bryce Group, named after one of its leading figures. Proposals were written, impacting the debates about the post-war order and the prevention of future conflicts (Douglas 2004: 18–19; Dubin 1970; Laity 2001). The presence of Hobson and Dickinson in the group is of particular importance, since they both attended the UDC. Brailsford and Wallas also collaborated. This constituted another direct approach to influence public opinion on international issues. The Bryce Group sought to provide concrete plans for a just peace. It led to the creation of a collection of bodies such as the League of Nations Union in 1918 which, in turn, emerged out of the League of Nations Society. Brailsford, Hobson and Leonard Woolf proactively participated in the projects. In 1916 the League of Nations Society examined various forms of the international order, tackling the settlement of disputes, the observance of treaties and the question of mutual defence through agreement among countries. The League of Nations structures were designed to elaborate regulatory proposals, and hence, enriching those developed in the Bryce Group. Thus, the projects consisted in providing concrete solutions. They explored norms and values regarding a notion that had previously been an ideal. The Bryce Group, for instance, produced a war prevention plan. In this regard, its members disagreed about the use of force as a functional instrument to preserve peace (Dubin 1970). The use of force to prevent future wars constituted a principle whose elaboration aroused dissension. As in Labour-liberal circles in the past, the opponents associated the principle with old-style foreign policy practice. As analysed previously, Labour’s initial world-view constantly emphasized the association between military factors and capitalist interests. This argumentation drew upon liberal ideas explored by Hobson and then by Brailsford. The proliferation of other British peace bodies, e.g. the Peace Society created in 1916, shows that peace was regarded as a permanent characteristic of the international order, and not as a transitional period between conflictual international relations.

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To that purpose, Hobson was a member of the International Arbitration League which had always advocated the settlement of disputes between nations without resorting to war, and, as the name implies, arbitration was the core principle. Hence, the future global peace governance, debated in the structures founded during WWI, was mainly characterized by its legal norm. In this regard, the Fabian Society created an International Affairs Committee within its Research Department in 1914. Woolf acted as secretary and Webb actively participated in the programme of the Committee. Its arguments followed those advanced by the Bryce Group (Douglas 2004: 18–19). In parallel, various collectivist and reformist projects developed, exploring the normative content of two types of international government and state intervention. The first category focused on political and economic dimensions. In 1915 Hobson published Towards international government in which he examined the role of an international council in charge of eradicating the economic causes of wars. In 1916 Woolf’s International government came out. It outlined the characteristics of a structure relying on the confederation of nation states whose potential conflicts could be arbitrated through regional, geographic institutions. Both works illustrated the principle of the convergence of economic and/ or geopolitical interests in an international society helping group actors co-operate. However, Woolf’s argumentation emphasized the normative function of an authoritarian structure. The latter could not only monitor but also sanction in order to guide international actors’ behaviour. This echoed the Fabian Society’s paternalistic perception of representative authorities. Their expertise entitled them to make decisions to safeguard the common social welfare. The second conception of an international government was advanced by Brailsford in A league of nations (1917). He elaborated a project about an international structure resting upon ethical and moral values of cooperation and human rights. The author considered how a community of peoples, instead of nations, could emerge by promoting the normative function of fraternity. Fraternity was held to be a key value in order to pacify the world order from below as opposed to an exclusively international, i.e. inter-government, approach. The norm of peaceful resolution referred to notions whose scope and content were general. The main purpose was to structure the international order according to common values shared globally. They primarily sought to generate new identities

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through progressive ideas, creating an international community. Consequently, the reflections through wartime collaborations between Labour and liberal figures gradually led to the emergence of two diverging institutional norms in the Labour Party, defending the creation of an international society or of an international community.

Conclusion This chapter studied how the multidimensional identities of some British partisan groups enabled Labour and liberal actors to establish bridges for exchanging ideas on the reform of the international order at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their actions, motives, concerns and preoccupations regularly dealt with long-standing foreign policy norms and practices that were held responsible for causing recurrent wars. The nature and strategy of the groups showed how their leading individuals, often with overlapping memberships, used and reacted to the conflictual circumstances of their own society. Seen through the perspective of a joint study of liberalism and socialism (Part 1), the new Liberalism and the Labour Party’s socialism in world affairs appeared flexible and compatible. Leaders stated that divergences among states were generated by competitive international behaviour patterns, which combined Labour’s idealism with liberal norms. By sharing a common goal with the new Liberals, the Labour Party founded the idealist component of its empirical posture: it advocated a just and peaceful international system by using observable facts and experiences. This included, for instance, visits to territories whose plight had brought dilemmas to the fore. Furthermore, a significant number of Labour-liberal circles included leaders of the Fabian Society such as Woolf or Webb. They attempted to share, within the Labour Party, a liberal world-view that would rely on paternalistic, benevolent state actions led by political and intellectual experts. In parallel, another Labour perception emerged. It was championed within the ILP by Brailsford, a follower of Hobson. Here, the argumentation mainly revolved around the impact of global political and economic disorder at the domestic level of the general population. A moral vision was advocated in order to solve international conflicts. Generally, Labour and liberal reflections were premised on the modification of international relations parameters through a process involving not only politicians but also public opinion. Specifically, Labour and Liberal (later Labour) figures focused on moral norms in a liberal framework

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which promoted causal, functional and instrumental guides for human behaviour. The word ‘human’ could correspond to an individual as a member of the political elite, or to an individual within a popular, representative community. This constituted, for example, the position of the UDC. Furthermore, Hobson’s works influenced Labour’s ideal, defending international justice as an international norm to be standardized. Domestic and international affairs were placed along a continuum and their interactions mattered. In this regard, the ILP members of the structures under study represented a vocal group. Thus, collaboration in Labour-liberal partisan circles paved the way for two diverging social perceptions of world affairs in the Labour Party, pointing to new beliefs, traditions and approaches. They concerned the nature of the party’s reformist socialism in the international arena. One category corresponded to the ideal of a moral community whose shared values sought to produce international identities. This suited the ILP’s considerations of economic factors as causes of social tensions. In the second grouping, the promotion of a functional institution in charge of co-ordinating international relations relied on normative cooperation patterns. As developed by the Fabians, this international society could include the existence of a powerful structure whose responsibility consisted in establishing regulatory arbitration principles. In both cases, however, the contents of the rules and standards of international cooperation were yet to be constructed. What distinguished Labour’s from the new Liberals’ understanding of the world order, thereby forming a distinct cluster of ideas, pertained to the emphasis laid by the Labour Party on sectional, economic interests. Nevertheless, behaviour patterns of the international society or community had to find a common solution if the co-ordination of the co-operation between states failed. In general, the question of preserving the security of a peaceful world order resulted in further debates and divergences after WWI.

References Ashworth, Lucian. 2005. David Mitrany and south-east Europe: The Balkan key to world peace. The Historical Review 2: 203–224. Ashworth, Lucian. 2007. International relations and the Labour Party: Intellectuals and policy making from 1918–1945. London: I.B. Tauris.

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Ashworth, Lucian. 2009. Rethinking a socialist foreign policy: The British Labour Party and international relations experts, 1918 to 1931. International Labor and Working-Class History 75: 30–48. Bevir, Mark. 2000. New Labour: A study in ideology. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 2(3): 277–301. https://doi.org/10.1111/ 1467-856X.00038. Bevir, Mark. 2011. The making of British socialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bevir, Mark, and Roderick Rhodes. 2006. Governance stories. London: Routledge. Brailsford, Henry. 1917. A league of nations. London: Headley. Cline, Catherine. 1963. Recruits to Labour: The British Labour Party, 1914–1931. New York: Syracuse University Press. Corthorn, Paul, and Jonathan Davis, eds. 2008. The British Labour Party and the wider world: Domestic politics, internationalism and foreign policy. London: I.B. Tauris. Craig, Frederick, ed. 1975. British general election manifestos, 1900–1974. London: Macmillan. Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes. 1916. The European anarchy. London: Allen and Unwin. Douglas, Ray. 2004. The Labour Party: Nationalism and internationalism, 1939– 1951. London: Routledge. Drucker, Henry. 1979. Doctrine and ethos in the Labour Party. London: Allen and Unwin. Dubin, Martin. 1970. Toward the concept of collective security: The Bryce Group’s ‘Proposals for the avoidance of war,’ 1914–1917. International Organization 24(2): 288–318. Freeden, Michael. 2022. Ideology studies: New advances and interpretations. New York: Routledge. Gordon, Michael. 1969. Conflict and consensus in Labour’s foreign policy, 1914– 1965. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Guy, Stéphane. 2017. La social-démocratie britannique à l’épreuve du positivisme: La contribution de Sydney Olivier à la Fabian Society. Revue Française d’Histoire des Idées Politiques 2(46): 171–203. Hobson, John. 1900. The war in South Africa: Its causes and effects. London: James Nisbet. Hobson, John. 1902. Imperialism: A study. New York: James Pott. Hobson, John. 1915. Towards international government. London: Allen and Unwin. Laity, Paul. 2001. The British peace movement, 1870-1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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MacDonald, Ramsay. 1905. Socialism and society. London: Independent Labour Party. MacDonald, Ramsay. 1911. The socialist movement. London: Williams and Norgate. Mangold, Peter. 2001. Success and failure in British foreign policy: Evaluating the record, 1900–2000. New York: Palgrave. Perkins, James. 2014. British liberalism and the Balkans, c. 1875–1925. PhD diss. Birkbeck, University of London. Powell, David. 1986. The new liberalism and the rise of Labour, 1886–1906. The Historical Journal 29(2): 369–393. Rathbone, Mark. 2003. The Rainbow Circle and the new liberalism. Journal of Liberal History 38: 24–28. Report of the … Annual Conference of the Labour Representation Committee. 1900–1906. London: Labour Party. Report of the … Annual Conference of the Labour Party. 1906–1918. London: Labour Party. Schneider, Fred. 1973. Fabians and the utilitarian idea of empire. Review of Politics 35(4): 501–522. Shepherd, John. 2010. The Flight from the Liberal Party: Liberals who joined Labour, 1914–1931. Journal of Liberal History 67: 24–34. Sylvest, Casper. 2004. Interwar internationalism, the British Labour Party, and the historiography of international relations. International Studies Quarterly 48(2): 409–432. Thompson, James. 2011. The Liberal Party, liberalism and trade unions, 1906– 1924. Cercles 21: 27–38. Thorpe, Andrew. 2011. Labour leaders and the Liberals, 1906–1924. Cercles 21: 39–54. Vickers, Rhiannon. 2003 and 2011. The Labour Party and the world, 2 volumes. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Windrich, Elaine. 1952. British Labour’s foreign policy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Winkler, Henry. 2005. British Labour seeks a foreign policy, 1900–1940. New Brunswick: Transaction. Woolf, Leonard. 1916. International government: Two reports prepared for the Fabian Research Department. Westminster: Fabian Society.

Exploring the Relationship Between Liberalism and Socialism in Britain’s NHS Louise Dalingwater

Aneurin “Nye” Bevan claimed that the National Health Service (NHS) was genuinely “a piece of real socialism”. However, especially since the late 1970s, it has been contended that this is no longer the case since the introduction of neoliberal policies in the public health domain. In 1979, with the arrival in power in the UK of the Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, neoliberal policy emerged as a key feature of government policy owing to the belief that market exchange itself had become an ethic guiding all action, including public action (Harvey 2007). For several decades now, the introduction of market mechanisms in the NHS and the increasing contracting out to the private sector has led some commentators to fear “the creeping privatisation” of the NHS (Health 1994; Pollock 2004; Calvoski and Calnan 2020). Yet, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some observers have contended that there has been a reversal of neoliberal policy with a significant expansion of public spending and the retreat of many marketoriented policies (Cooper 2020; Lent 2020). This chapter is particularly interested in the clear paradox which exists in the NHS of an essentially

L. Dalingwater (B) Sorbonne Université, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_11

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socialist project, a universal health system which has remained free at the point of use since its inception in 1948, and the introduction of free market policies which have guided the approach to public health care delivery since the 1980s. This chapter will thus begin by briefly examining the theory on the interactions between socialism and liberalism before focusing on the particular case of the NHS. It will present specific examples of how socialism and liberalism would seem to interact and, in some ways, disrupt the provision of public health care in Britain.

Interactions Between Socialism and Liberalism: What the Literature Says Liberalism and socialism are usually presented as two opposing forces. The term liberal was first used in the eighteenth century. Gaus and Courtland (2011) contend that liberal’s accord primacy to liberty. John Locke (1690), who founded classical liberalism, supported the promotion of civil liberties and private property as natural laws and rights of all human beings. David Hume (1739–40) argued that private property was an essential ingredient of liberal theory. John Stuart Mill (1859) defended individualism to confer to human beings the rights to pursue their own way. Mill (1848) attacked communism as the danger of uniformity of thoughts, feelings and actions. Freedom, for him, was preferable to equality. Adam Smith also argued that private property was a fundamental human right above socio-economic equality considerations. Socialism, on the other hand, opposes the focus on private property and individual rights. Raymond Williams identifies the first use of the term socialist in the English language in 1826. Socialists consider that the rewards of production come from the society as a whole. Socialism upholds a number of values which oppose those of liberals: equality, communal and co-operative production (Barker 1991) and socio-political solidarity (Buzby 2010). Socialists also contend that to ensure equal rights; government intervention is necessary. They recognise that some sections of the population are more vulnerable to poverty, illness and precarious living as a result of the functioning of market economies (McFate 1995). The following analysis will focus on interactions between socialism and neoliberalism more specifically, given that the paradoxes in the NHS system are especially related to the introduction of neoliberal policies from the 1980s onwards. The debate that opposes socialists and neoliberals is

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that whereas the latter give preference to a minimal state and full rein to the free market, the former promote a powerful state which uses political or technocratic regulation in order to maximise socio-economic justice. Neoliberalism has been described as the “world hegemonic system of ideas from the 1980s” (Boettke and Leeson 2004). It is seen to represent a specific stance against Durkheim and Mauss, and also much other historicist sociology. It represents a rejection of Durkheim’s proposal to form professional organisations to enhance social solidarity. Neoliberalism thus calls into question Durkheim’s human ideal and protection of the welfare state with progressive taxation and state intervention and also Keynesian demand side economics (Boettke and Leeson 2004). While neoliberalism emerged in the 1930s and 1940s following debates in the Mont Pelerin society, it was not until the late 1970s that neoliberal policies were ushered in, with the arrival of the Conservative government in power in the UK in 1979, mirroring practices at the international institutional level with the Washington Consensus, which advocated a neoliberal policy approach. The Washington Consensus was a set of policy recommendations and actions led by the IMF, the World Bank and the US Treasury Department, advocating macroeconomic stabilisation through privatisation of national industries and reduction of public expenditure. So the market and free enterprise are a key part of neoliberal theory. One of the most well-known definitions of neoliberalism is the one developed by David Harvey, in which he describes neoliberalism as: A theory of political economic practices that proposes that human wellbeing can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free market, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. (Harvey 2005: 2)

Neoliberalism differs from classical liberalism in that it does not completely reject government intervention but supports a different kind of governance which places the market order ahead of democratic demands. But the effect is also to reduce the role of the state as Mladenov (2015) underlines: “an important element of neoliberalism is the retrenchment of the welfare dimension of the state” (p. 446).

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The economic crisis of the 1970s, stagflation (a combination of low growth, high unemployment and high inflation) and a fiscal crisis which forced the UK to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led to a counterattack on Keynesian demand side policies and an expanding welfare state. As Dorey (2015) underlines, the Left, and particularly Marxist scholars, contended that the economic problems of the 1970s represented a crisis of late Capitalism. The Conservatives, however, argued that the crisis was due to the political failure of Keynesian economics, social democracy and an inefficient and oversized public sector. Here, the Conservatives radicalise the term social democracy, which the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as a political ideology which in its origins referred to the process of advocating a move from capitalism to socialism. However, the post-war consensus was actually a more moderate form of this ideology, which called for more state intervention and extensive social welfare programmes and a mixed economy rather than full state ownership (Bevir 2000).

The Socialist Project and the NHS It is important to understand how and why the NHS has been considered as a socialist project and at the same time why the increase in neoliberal policies in the public sector has been seen to undermine some of these socialist tenets. It will be argued in the course of this chapter that in many ways the NHS can still be considered a socialist framework despite the introduction of market mechanisms and fundamental reforms to health provision in the UK. It is important to note that it would be impossible to relate all the possible theories and definitions of socialism to the essential framework of the NHS because socialism contains a significant number of different theories. The Dictionary of Socialism published in 1924 by Angelo Rappoport gives no fewer than 40 definitions of socialism (Rappoport 1924, 34–41). Given that the vast number of definitions and theories relating to socialism and the fact that the purpose of this chapter is to link the socialist and (neo)liberalist tenets within the NHS, it is worth considering the ways in which the NHS was considered to be a socialist project according to its creator Aneurin “Nye” Bevan. In an interview on the eve of its creation, he called the NHS “a piece of real socialism” and argued that it was in opposition to “the hedonism of capitalist society” (Tribune 2020).

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Bevan argued that the process of creating a free and universal system was a way of ensuring the decommodification of health care. He posited that the creation of the NHS should be placed in the wider context of social transformation and the empowering of workers that the Labour Party of the time wished to bring about. For its creator, the NHS was a socialist project more than any other part of the social service system the Labour Party brought in during the post-war period because it was not based on how much individuals contributed and therefore represented a massive redistribution of national income. According to Bevan, it allowed even the poorest in society to benefit from modern medicine, irrespective of their income (Tribune 2020). While socialism is much more than redistribution, this can be seen as one of its key tenets. Bevan also argues that the NHS is a social project because it democratises social consumption and destroys a key concept of capitalism: that is, the money barrier between doctor and patient, so the service provided is non-capitalist. He opposes this redistribution mechanism to the liberal idea of property ownership. The NHS is presented as a symbol of collective ownership, which was also a significant tenet of socialism (Tribune 2020). The final indications of why the NHS can be seen to be founded on key socialist values is also expressed in Bevan’s publication In Place of Fear (1952), which was published just after the creation of the NHS. He underlines how a free health service is necessary and why all other forms of financing health services are unfair or inappropriate. He examines private charity, private insurance and a mix of private and public insurance schemes and rejects all of these in his publication. He shows that in all these kinds of systems such schemes would undermine the socialist project because medical choices would be made in relation to fiscal means. We can thus define the elements of socialism identified by Bevan at the outset of the NHS as: decommodification, redistribution, social egalitarianism, democratisation of social consumption, collective ownership (as opposed to private ownership) in health care and, finally, medical care according to need rather than financial considerations. There have been a number of other observers who have made similar claims about the NHS being a socialist system, including the editor of the journal of the Socialist Medical Association. The President of this same association, David Stark Murray claimed that the NHS was based on “socialist principles” (cited in Powell 1997). In the 1950s, Tribune considered the creation of the NHS as one of the greatest socialist measures undertaken. Michael Foot, former leader of the Labour Party

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and Bevan’s biographer, claimed that the NHS could be considered to be one of the greatest socialist achievements ever enacted (cited in Powell 1997). In essence, the fundamental objective of the NHS is to provide health services to the whole population on the basis of need. This basis, which can be seen as Tony Delamothe (2008) claims “responding to the old Marxist rallying cry […] from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has not been overturned since the inception of the NHS. Yet as we will consider in the next sections, the introduction of market mechanisms has somewhat affected the initial social project in subtle ways. The NHS has been called a “socialist island in a capitalist sea” (Powell 1997). This institution was created on 5 July 1948 offering a universal health service free for use at the point of delivery. The NHS was part of a number of reforms which were introduced under the post-war Labour government, led by Clement Attlee, to provide a welfare state to the British people, based on the recommendations of Sir William Beveridge contained in the 1942 Beveridge Report (Beveridge 1942). The NHS was thus part of a welfare framework, which has nevertheless evolved over time. It was promoted as a social programme allowing welfare mechanisms to be expanded in order to protect citizens from poverty and risk. But the creation of the welfare state under the Labour government did not fundamentally challenge the structures of capitalism and really represent a triumph of socialism. On its inception, it can be considered to be the high point of British social democracy, not just on account of the creation of the NHS but also the birth of a welfare state. But as John Saville (1957) points out, there were a number of weaknesses and limitations. Unlike Anthony Crosland (1963), who considered the creation of the welfare state to represent the end of capitalism, Saville recognised that the requirements of industrial capitalism (i.e. a highly productive labour force) were actually the key drivers in the creation of a welfare state, as noted in the Beveridge report. Moreover, as Saville underlined, the welfare reforms and benefits of welfare also appealed to the ruling classes who had benefited and could still benefit from such a system. While the NHS is still acclaimed as a socialist island in a capitalist sea, Martin Powell (1997) posits that this is not completely accurate. He accepts that the NHS has socialist components, but the NHS cannot be considered as a complete socialist project because of a lack of socialist

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means. If the state were to control the means of production, the land on which all NHS institutions are built, the labour and the capital would also be controlled in a centralised manner, and it would be impossible to run. It has also been difficult to resist the introduction of market mechanisms given that all other areas of public life have introduced such mechanisms. Writing in the 1990s, it is clear that in many ways his observations are still accurate today. Since the 1990s, the NHS has moved even further away from a socialist project owing to a greater involvement of the private sector. It is fair therefore to claim that the system is a complex combination of socialist and neoliberal values. On the one hand, the NHS is still free on the basis of need for most health care interventions, but it does have a number of market components upheld by a series of laws which call into question health care provision on an equitable basis as the following examples will show.

A Universal Public System Run According to Market Principles As soon as welfare became too costly to deliver and started to affect productivity, its size and scope were limited. While the reforms of the NHS were introduced later, it was the 1976 Labour government who started to wind down the welfare state. The Callaghan government reduced spending in the period from 1976 to 1978 by 9.5% in real terms. Hospitals and schools were closed, housing and road works severely disrupted. However, market mechanisms were not introduced in the NHS until the 1980s (Ke 1990). The importance given to the market since the late 1980s is significant, particularly in areas like public services, and has led to a complete overhaul of the running of said services (Keat 1996). Radical changes were introduced in a vast number of institutions in the public sector in local government, education and health care in order to run these services more efficiently along a market model. These reforms meant that institutions had to adopt commercial forms of organisation and respond to consumer (service uses) through quasi-market mechanisms (Keat 1996). This section will consider how neoliberal reforms have disrupted the components of socialim within the NHS which we identified as decommodification, redistribution, social egalitarianism, democratisation of social consumption and collective ownership, even though it has been contended that some of these were impossible to enact from the

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beginning. It will give credit to some of the theses that claim that by introducing market mechanisms, the system is moving away from the essential components of socialism (Pollock 2004; Pollock and TalbotSmith 2006). But the following examples also show that in reality it is much more complex than a simple move from socialist to neoliberal principles and the system still upholds a complex combination of the two. NHS Legislation: Upholding the Social Contract or Encouraging Privatisation? Much of the legislation which has been brought in since the 1980s has been considered to be a series of attempts to marketise the health service, which does indeed go against some of the fundamental principles of public ownership, described above as essentially socialist tenets and also decommodification. Following a six-month review of the NHS, Roy Griffiths, the managing director of Sainsbury’s supermarkets, accompanied by three other businessmen Britan Bailey, Jim Blyth and Michael Bett, published a report which echoed public choice and neoliberal theorists’ critiques of public sector management (Griffiths and Fowler 1983). Griffith argued that the NHS, like any other business or organisation, needed to focus on productivity, cost control, service provision and staff incentivisation in order to prevent its demise. An overhaul was necessary, according to Griffith, who remarked: “…if Florence Nightingale were carrying her lamp through the corridors of the NHS today she would almost certainly be searching for the people in charge”. The report thus recommended aligning health service provision to the private sector. Health leaders, physicians and government agencies were called upon to ensure that health care provision was centred on levels of service, quality of products, cost improvement, productivity, motivating, rewarding staff and research and development (Griffiths and Fowler 1983). Managers and clinicians were advised to set priorities, establish measures of output and “accept the management responsibility that comes with clinical freedom” (Griffiths and Fowler 1983, 172). The recommendations were accepted and a Health Services Supervisory Board created in October 1983. The Department of Health and Social Security established an NHS Management Board in April 1985. Family Practitioner Committees were dissolved and managerial bodies with performance indicators and annual General Practitioner (GP) reports replaced them. They were in charge of assessing quality and level of

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primary care provision. Regional Health Agencies (RHAs) were given new managerial tasks, notably to set performance criteria and to monitor and evaluate performance according to government objectives. Many other tasks were delegated to District Health Authorities (DHAs), which in turn were encouraged to purchase services and perform management tasks. The providers were either directly managed or run as independent trusts. Doctors were also encouraged to purchase care from hospitals or elsewhere. However, the government did continue to reject charges and insurance, meaning that the reforms still left intact two of the founding principles of the NHS: central funding through taxation and universal access. Nevertheless, neoliberal values were said to run through these reforms with stricter monitoring and accountability. Another significant move towards market mechanisms was the passing of the Community Care Act of 1990. Under this legislation, NHS hospitals, ambulance and community health services were instructed to operate as semi-independent trusts similar to businesses in the private sector with a purchaser-provider split. Health authorities became commissioners and purchasers of health services. Health services were no longer reliant on an annual block budget and focus was drawn towards cutting costs and competing for services along with other businesses. Rather than receiving capital equipment from the Department of Health, hospital trusts had to buy services from private companies. This led to the decline and closure of trusts. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) introduced in 1992 under John Major’s Conservative government led to the further involvement of the private sector. Investors in the private sector raise money and in return have a contract to design and build the hospital, and then operate it for at least thirty years (Pollock 2004). However, the hospital remains responsible for paying back the debt, interest and shareholders profits and not the government. PFIs soon proved costly and inefficient. Payment by results was also introduced in the 1990s, and a price set up for each treatment (national tariff) so providers would tend to take on more profitable treatments than others, reducing availability of the less profitable services, namely chiropody and physiotherapy (Pollock and Talbot-Smith 2006). In addition, when in office, Labour introduced other marketised frameworks, such as the Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) run by independent and mainly private providers, the Framework for Procuring External Support for Commissioners (FESC) and the Productive Ward Programme and Foundation Trusts (FTs) (Moody 1997).

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However, it has been contended that the 2012 Health and Social Care Act really pushed the NHS further towards a neoliberal framework as Holly Pownall from the University of Bristol posits: Strong commitments to neoliberal values clearly underpin the Coalition Government’s agenda for the National Health Service (NHS). A programme of austerity and fundamental restructure has been designed to orchestrate a reduced role for the state in the provision of healthcare services, and create an alternative framework premised on competitive market forces and increased responsiveness to local patient needs. (Pownall 2013)

The reforms undertaken as part of this act were heavily criticised, in particular section 75, which required commissioners to tender out all services. After the bill was enacted, private contractors were more likely than physicians to win these calls. The regulation acted as a driving force behind the marketisation of the NHS, offering private companies the opportunity to provide NHS services where they were likely to make the most profit. Companies like Care UK or Virgin Care tended to bid for the most profitable services-diagnostics, elective surgery, and simple treatments, -leaving emergency medical care, the elderly, mental health services, and anything else which was unlikely to be profitable to the public market. In 2017, private companies won 70% of NHS tenders in England. Virgin Care won a record number of £1 billion contracts, for example. Private care providers were awarded 267 of the 386 contracts available in 2016–17 (Department of Health and Social Care 2019). According to the UK Department of Public Health’s 2019 annual report, an all-time high number of contracts were awarded to the private sector, to the tune of £9.2 billion for the 2018/9 period. Former NHS chief executive Simon Stevens thus argued for an end to this NHS market structure. He called for the replacement of this Act by one which could lead to the integration of services and joint planning among different providers. He contended that the Health and Social Care Act, and in particular Section 75, regarding procurement, patient choice and competition, ran counter to new initiatives to integrate health and social care services (and indeed the founding values of the NHS) (Timmins 2020). Some would argue that this call to return the NHS to a fundamentally public service according to socialist principals and the need to integrate social care on the basis of the original NHS contract has been heard. The

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Coronavirus pandemic and the stark realisation of the need to protect the public health system gave the impetus to Boris Johnson’s government to change track and overhaul the 2012 Act and replace it by the Health and Care Act in July 2022. In reality, this change is perhaps more a pragmatic approach than a full scale rejection of neoliberal values. It is a way of trying to salvage a health service no longer fit for purpose to provide health to the population. Moreover, the Johnson government was understandably concerned about the dwindling positive opinions on the NHS, which could seriously undermine Conservative Party support. In 2021, overall satisfaction with the NHS fell to 36%, a decrease of 17% compared with the previous year (The King’s Fund 2022). The new legislation aims to reverse the obligation to tender out to the private sector. It also scraps the contentious Section 75 which enforced competition. Simon Stevens was upbeat about the bill as it was going through parliament arguing that “the reforms would undoubtedly both help tackle health inequalities and speed the recovery of care disrupted by the Covid pandemic”. Another positive move in the New Health and Care bill is the creation of Integrated Care Systems (ICS). Established as statutory bodies, they will replace Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). They will be responsible for commissioning and bringing together local NHS and government services in areas of health and social care. As the Local Government Association (LGA) underlines, it will enable providers (NHS and local government) to join together to plan health and care services around patients’ needs. However, the bill does not give priority to public provision. The British Medical Association (BMA) contends that to reduce competition and the domination of private providers, legislation should have gone further and made the NHS the default tender and only allow private tender if services could not be provided by NHS bodies. The BMA also expressed concern that the legislation leaves it open for corporate health care providers to be on the board of ICSs, so they urge a provision to be added so that accountability only lies with public providers. Moreover, while the Act aims to integrate health and social care, social care remains fundamentally privatised. Residential care is for the majority private care. The market is dominated by a small number of dominant multinationals (RBS and Qatar Investment Fund). There is nothing in the bill which points to a fundamental deal for social care. Local councils are struggling to pay for publicly provided social care because of a lack of funding. In particular, it

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was reported that UK councils are currently facing a £3 billion black hole in their budgets (BBC News 2021). The final concern is the increased powers to be given to the secretary of state, which makes the NHS more of a political object and prone to political decisions rather than ethical ones. The Issue of Rationing Another issue which raises questions as to the fundamental social contract of the NHS is the issue of rationing. This was something that Bevan feared, and he called for the essential consideration of need and social medicine rather than fiscal considerations in the provision of health care. Rationing can be defined as the exclusion or denial of a service and withholding of resources. It has become part of the process to make efficiency gains and to solve the funding crisis of the NHS. Rationing is considered to be a key component of neoliberal policy. Yet it does not necessarily equate with market mechanisms. It can also be seen as a way of ensuring that everybody gets a fair share of a scarce good. The creation of NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), established in 1999 under the New Labour government, was considered to be a way of making rationing fair because NICE recommendations are made on the basis of clinical and economic expertise. Yet other observers have argued that NICE is an “Orwellian moniker”, deciding on matters of life and death and denying care (Boettke and Leeson 2004). Funding pressures and private practices in the system mean that unfair rationing may take place. Klein and Maybin (2012), for example, note that unfair strategic rationing is very much evident in national health systems. For example, longer waiting lists are actually part of a process of strategic action in the governance process of the NHS to defer treatment to the next financial year. Paradoxically, contracting out to the private sector and other neoliberal reforms can be seen as attempts to reduce the need to ration public health services. A prime example of the issues surrounding rationing is the case of Continuing Health Care (CHC legislation). Continuing Health Care (CHC) is a package of care which is provided outside the hospital and funded by the NHS. It is granted to individuals with specific health care needs, but amounts to providing all health and social care free of charge to patients with specific needs in their own home or in a care home. It could be contended that this health care package, which is unique to

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Britain, maintains the tenets of a socialist system offering support for health care and recognising the interlinkage between health and social care needs irrespective of financial considerations. The National Framework for Continuing Health Care (Department of Health 2012, 2018) sets forth the standard basis for decision-making and is intended to make it fairer with a decision tool process. However, the conclusions of an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) noted that there were clear concerns that processes were not being conducted properly. The Continuing Health care Alliance which joined together after this inquiry raised concerns that NHS CHC is still inaccessible for many who should qualify for help. Only 21% of applications are successful. In 2017, 31 semi-structured interviews across the UK were conducted with health care professionals in CCGs who were responsible for overseeing CHC commissions. All CHC managers interviewed stated that they did not ration CHC, that it would be illegal to do so and that evaluations were based on need. However, one CHC manager believed that the actual framework itself amounted to rationing of health care because in reality it was impossible to deliver the package to all those who should be receiving it. She stated: “At the end of the day it’s rationing health care and we are the people that have to try and deliver it” (CHC Manager, W. Midlands (2), Dalingwater 2018). In addition, underlying financial pressures mean that undue rationing is taking place. A social worker explained: I am a senior social work practitioner and only work contracts across the UK. I specialise in adults, mental health and learning disability. As I travel across the country and carry out Checklists and attend full Decision Support Tools (DST) I see a stark difference in how it is done in every area I go. I find you get nurses who are sympathetic and will work towards full funding if they can, and other nurses who deal with full DSTs like it is their own money. The one conclusion I have come to, is that in many areas Continuing Health Care (CHC) funding is budget driven and as all things in the NHS these days is a total post code lottery. What most people do not realise is the NHS really doesn’t exist anymore. Successive governments have all, be they Labour or Conservative, have all moved it in stages to privatisation by stealth and the NHS as we know it is now being allowed to wither on the vine. (Care to be different, December 2016; Dalingwater 2018).

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Fundamentally, a process which is intended to provide health and social care on the basis of a primary health care need may thus be thwarted by neoliberal forces to rationalise. There are also a number of other examples of rationing which have meant that patients either do not receive treatment or have to self-fund. This is very costly if they have to turn to the private sector. A clear example of rationing and uneven distribution of health care is in the case of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment. Until July 2022, the availability of treatment on the NHS free of charge depended on the decision of the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The Fertility Network found that there were significant inequalities in the provision of IVF depending on the locality. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that women over 40 should receive three cycles and women from 40 to 42 one cycle of treatment if they have been unable to conceive for two years or more. However, research has shown that some CCGs have been reducing access to IVF by adding extra criteria such as the obligation to have no children, not be overweight or smoke. Some CCGs have even halted or suspended treatment. The Fertility Network found that the majority of CCGs (89.9%) failed to offer the recommended three full IVF cycles to clinically eligible women under 40 and that the majority of CCGs (72.4%) did not offer the recommended one full IVF cycle to clinically eligible women aged between 40 and 42 (Fertilitynetwork UK 2021). Local public administrators of NHS public health services can therefore be seen to be internalising neoliberal rationing processes. The same rationing process can also be observed in the case of knee operations in England. Weight/body mass index (BMI) were recently introduced by NHS commissioning groups for patients requiring knee replacement surgery. The long waiting lists were already prohibitive for this kind of surgery (at least 2 years in some localities). One in 10 people are likely to need a knee replacement so the new restrictions on operations (along with deferment owing to long waiting lists) can again be seen as a way of rationing health care and increasing inequalities in the provision of health care across England (McLaughlin et al. 2022). In these cases, neoliberal rationing is clearly evident. The individual is made responsible for the health care process and is forced to take responsible actions to ensure that the treatment will work by, for example, monitoring his or her weight, giving up smoking, reducing drinking,

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eating more healthily and taking exercise. Healthcare workers are encouraged to engage the individual in taking care of his or her health. Such processes actually run counter to the socialist principles along which health care should be provided on an egalitarian basis according to need. This rationale began essentially in 1997 with the arrival of the New Labour government and has been continued, based on the notion of agency, autonomy and self-responsibility, as part of a “responsible citizen” framework, which ultimately results in deterring individuals from health care access. As early as 1980, Robert Crawford had identified the moralisation of health practices which shifts the responsibility of ensuring good health onto the individual, what he termed “healthism” (Crawford 1980). It is very much part of a neoliberal process which Harvey described in his 2005 publication: The state withdraws from welfare provision and diminishes its role in areas such as health care, public education, and social services … The social safety net is reduced to a bare minimum in favour of a system that emphasizes personal responsibility. (Harvey 2005: 76).

Again, this kind of discourse and processes runs counter to the collective notion of health care delivery which Bevan promoted on the outset of the NHS.

Conclusion In short, the attachment of the British people to the NHS is often explained by the fact that it is the last bastion of proper social engagement that still remains intact. It proves that the free market is not always the best way that health services should be delivered and that universal health systems are effective. It is clear that some of the tenets of socialist principles identified by the creator of the NHS, Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, are still evident today. The NHS is a system free at the point of use and promises to provide health care on an egalitarian and needs basis. The British people do have access to a public health service for all their basic health care needs and in comparison with completely privatised systems, such as the United States; it is clear that access is relatively good. Yet neoliberal market forces are far from absent from the NHS and they can be seen to increasingly disrupt the process of health care delivery for all. Legislation and inevitable rationing has meant that the market and private

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providers have come to play an increasingly important role in the NHS. Financial considerations are sometimes upheld above socialist tenets of equal access to health care for all. It remains to be seen whether the most recent health and care act will reduce the role of the private sector in the NHS. Other future pressures such as the retention of health workers, pay and conditions and the need to join up health and social care will also mean that the health service may be restructured in a way that no longer upholds some of its founding principles.

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From Conceptual to Discursive Struggles: Activism, Partisanship and Rhetorical Strategies

New Deal Liberalism and ‘Creeping Socialism’: The Republican Party and the Construction of Modern American Conservatism, c. 1933–c. 1960 Robert Mason

The response of the Democratic Party to the Great Depression in the United States – involving the New Deal and its agenda of government activism – left Republicans in ideological and electoral disarray. This chapter explores debates among Republicans about what became known as New Deal liberalism, debates that were formative in refashioning conservatism in the United States as an ideology focusing on the ills of ‘big government’. It demonstrates how, within the analyses of Republicans, there was little distinction between liberalism and socialism, with connections between socialism and communism then becoming a focus of concern as the Cold War arrived. In the public arena, Republicans spoke of New Deal liberalism as a danger to democracy, in an era of dictatorship, as well as a threat to American ideals of individualism. During the 1930s, they emphasised that their party – and not the Democrats’ – was the true advocate of liberalism. After World War II, within the context of not only the advent of the

R. Mason (B) University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_12

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Cold War but also a fresh impetus for democratic socialism in Western Europe, Republicans, now playing down their own ideological claim to liberalism, tried to demonise their rivals’ liberal agenda through the label of ‘creeping socialism’ – close, they sometimes insinuated, to communism. Although historians usually see this rhetoric, as well as that of the New Deal’s parallels with dictatorship, as alarmism designed for reasons of electoral opportunism, this chapter shows that – even if concerns about the party’s descent to minority status in the two-party system were crucial to them – alarm about the implications of New Deal liberalism also closely informed the private analyses of American politics among Republicans. As a result, American conservatism, as well as the policy agenda of the Republican Party, of this era possessed an oppositional and frequently negative character, which exacerbated Republican efforts to achieve a long-term challenge to the Democrats and New Deal liberalism at the polls for several decades.

Republicans and New Deal Liberalism The meaning of the term liberalism in American politics underwent thoroughgoing transformation during the era of the Great Depression. The New Deal, under Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, seeking to tackle the problems of the Depression, was, according to historian Alan Brinkley, ‘a confusing amalgam of ideas and impulses—a program that seemed to have something in it to please everyone except those who sought a discernible ideological foundation for it’ (1998: 18). Despite this apparent incoherence, what became known as New Deal liberalism involved an expanded role for the federal government – and especially for the executive branch – in assuming new responsibility for ‘the security and stability that [Roosevelt] hoped to impart to American life’ (Kennedy 2009: 254). ‘The faith of a liberal’, Roosevelt said on a visit to Los Angeles in October 1935, ‘is profound belief not only in the capacities of individual men and women, but also in the effectiveness of people helping one another’ (Roosevelt 1935). If, implicitly, such words were supportive of an expanded role for government, Roosevelt emphasised pragmatism, insisting, as the midterm elections of 1938 approached, that ‘the New Deal, keeping its feet on the ground, is working out hundreds of current problems from day to day as necessities arise and with whatever materials are at hand. We are doing this without attempting to commit the Nation

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to any ism or ideology except democracy, humanity and the civil liberties which form their foundations’ (Roosevelt 1938). Although Roosevelt emphasised pragmatism and disclaimed ideology, the New Deal was a project of reform bolder than had previously occurred in the United States, especially because it involved historic expansions of government power. In 1932, during his quest for the presidency, he signaled an intention to orient the focus of government towards ‘the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid’ (1932, 7 April); when seeking re-election four years later, leaving behind the rhetoric about national unity that had characterised the early New Deal, he denounced his opponents as ‘economic royalists’ (1936, 27 June). If such words had resonance of a challenge to the status quo, the extent to which the New Deal was a conservative project to save capitalism or had a radical agenda, in the direction of a mixed economy, has long attracted historiographical controversy (Hopkins 2011). Among the key elements of the ‘first New Deal’ in 1933 and 1934 were not only reform and regulation of the financial sector but also planning initiatives in pursuit of economic recovery. The cartel-like approach of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) did not last long, but the subsidy system of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) had influence beyond the New Deal. Boldest among an array of public-works projects designed to provide work to the unemployed was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which furthermore aimed to achieve economic development for a historically deprived area of the country. This was ‘the largest public enterprise of its type anytime anywhere’, observes historian Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones. ‘It dwarfed, for example, anything ever attempted in the Soviet Union’ (2013: 86). Without creating even ‘little TVAs’, the ‘second New Deal’ of 1935 and 1936 involved a new agency for public works, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), together with steps towards the development of a welfare state. The Social Security Act of 1935 provided mostly insurancebased support, often in cooperation with local governments, for the elderly, the unemployed, those unable to work, and children affected by poverty. It did not address healthcare. Also of 1935, the National Labor Relations Act, often known as the Wagner Act, consolidated and expanded protections for labor rights that had been part of the NRA. These protections were among the factors that spurred a growth in union membership, and unions became an important and active ally of the Democratic Party. Although there are parallels between the reforms of the

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second New Deal and those of social Democrats in Europe, and although this quest for security and stability involved historic expansions of government power, in other respects the initiatives of the New Deal were more moderate. For example, the housing policy of the New Deal provided support to private and individual homeownership, and the United States failed to develop to any significant extent public housing, as widely seen in Europe (Kennedy 2009: 257–259). In his second inaugural address Roosevelt seemed to set bolder goals; ‘I see one-third of a nation illhoused, ill-clad, ill-nourished’, he said, pledging action to address this deprivation (1937, 20 January). But any quest for a third New Deal soon faltered. Still more conspicuous among the New Deal’s limitations was its inattention to questions of individual rights, with race-related inequality an especially notable oversight. Only much later would ‘rights consciousness’ emerge as significant among the concerns of mainstream politicians identified with the legacy of New Deal liberalism (Cowie 2016: 183–184). The initial response of Republicans to the arrival of the New Deal – within the context not only of economic crisis but also of the electoral repudiation that their party had suffered in 1932 – was one of uncertainty, including measured support of initiatives such as reform of the financial system (Mason 2012: 41–45). But it did not take long for their party as a whole to embrace a position of opposition, often alarmed in nature, and not infrequently focusing on the theme of socialism. For example, Henry P. Fletcher, soon to serve as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), labeled the New Deal as ‘[Roosevelt’s] experiments in state socialism’ (1934, 28 February). Such an observation interpreted the New Deal most of all as an assault on private property. Later that year, Fletcher defined the administration’s agenda as ‘[having] for its purpose if not indeed the ownership, at least the rigid governmental control and operation of agriculture, business and industry’ (1934, 30 October). Such interpretations often involved international comparisons. According to historian Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘The Great Depression created one of the most intense global moments in contemporary history … [when] societies around the world simultaneously faced similar questions and threats, however different their longer trajectories, the precise ways in which problems intersected, and the answers eventually chosen’ (2016: 1). Republicans, to be sure, often saw New Deal liberalism as socialist within the context of international comparison – looking in particular to dictatorships such as the Soviet Union rather than democracies of

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Western Europe. The New Deal, said Senator Lester J. Dickinson of Iowa, involved ‘Socialism of the Karl Marx variety, following the principles laid down in Russia’ (1934, 26 April). Most of all, Republicans insisted on the New Deal’s foreignness. ‘The real issue’, Frank Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News who would be party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1936, said of the 1934 midterms, ‘is whether the United States shall abandon its traditional form of government and forsake the economic philosophy which provides reward for industry and assures to every man and woman, every boy and girl a chance to win the great prizes of life, that preserves intact both our human rights and our property rights, whether we shall abandon all this for the dogma of Marx and the political serfdom of Moscow and Berlin’ (AP 1934, 9 September). Republicans did not at first accept the New Deal’s claim to be liberal, and for a while there was a battle over terminology (Glickman 2019: 142–146). At the forefront of that battle was Herbert Hoover, whose bid for reelection as president had been defeated by Roosevelt in 1932. Published in 1934, The Challenge to Liberty – the manuscript of which had earlier been entitled American Liberalism – defined the New Deal as ‘regimentation’ that, through its expansion of government, was ‘the road not to liberty but to less liberty’ (Nash 2013: xix, xx). Before long, however, in contrast with what he saw as the New Deal’s ‘false liberalism’, Hoover defined his ideological concerns as ‘historic liberalism’. ‘The New Deal having corrupted the label of liberalism for collectivism, coercion [and] concentration of political power’, he wrote to a fellow Republican in 1937, ‘it seems “Historic Liberalism” must be conservatism in contrast’ (xxii). Although as president Hoover himself had tackled the arrival of the Depression with government initiatives unprecedented in scale, out of office he was uncompromising in his rejection of the New Deal. Decentralisation was important, he thought, for the protection of individualism (Fawcett 2018: 264–271). Republicans of a different stripe, however, also spoke of their party’s claim to be liberal, in this case not to question the New Deal more fundamentally but instead to signal sympathy with its goals – if also discomfort with its means and its achievements. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, for example, while also criticising the New Deal’s ‘false liberalism’, argued that the party should be supportive of measures to tackle socioeconomic need, such as unemployment insurance and retirement pensions. ‘… [T]he spirit of our liberalism … should declare that human rights are superior to property rights, but the latter are part of the former

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and both must take firm order under the Constitution’, Vandenberg wrote in late 1934. ‘It should accept social responsibility and avoid socialism’ (‘Liberalization of Party’ 1934, 30 December). Over time, such a response to New Deal liberalism – liberal Republicanism – achieved significance, especially at the state level, in parts of the United States (Smemo 2015).

New Deal Liberalism and Dictatorship In early 1934, Franklin Roosevelt secretly celebrated his fifty-second birthday with a toga party – making a joke, among friends, of those who attacked him as a would-be dictator (Lippman 1978, 10 October). Even among those Republicans who found reason to be supportive, in part, of the New Deal, many raised concerns about the growth of government, especially involving the role of the president. A certain sympathy towards the administration’s efforts to tackle the Depression led Arthur Vandenberg to be an active advocate of banking reform in 1933, for example. But much more frequently his disagreement with what Republicans would soon attack as ‘big government’ overcame such sympathy (Kaplan 2015: 21–40). While he did not see ‘a deliberate purpose to create a Fascist or a Soviet state’, even as a moderate Vandenberg defined the party’s mission as challenging ‘the tides of potential socialism, the feudal trends toward insufferable bureaucracy, the regimented subordination of all our activities to the dictates of the state, the drift toward Federal insolvency, and the emasculation of vital constitutional checks and balances’ (1934, 7 July). As Vandenberg’s words demonstrate, Republicans saw New Deal liberalism as involving a diversion from the Constitution’s emphasis on limited powers, especially because of the new role for the presidency that was being developed (as dictatorial, even, in nature), and from its protection of states’ rights (Rosen 2014: 2). At a conference of Midwestern Republicans in 1935, John D. M. Hamilton of Kansas spoke of the New Deal’s ‘bureaucratic despotism set upon a fixed course to destroy this government of the people’ (Hamilton 1935, 10 June). So confident were many Republicans at the conference that defense of the Constitution could be an effective mobilising force among voters, there was discussion there of relabeling the Republican Party as the Constitution Party (Mason 2012: 57). Even if the idea did not progress beyond the stage of discussion, it underscored the perception, widespread among Republicans, that New Deal liberalism had a foreignness alien to American politics. Ogden L.

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Mills, who had served as Treasury secretary under Hoover, said that ‘the so-called New Deal is an American offshoot of a world-wide movement that threatens to overrun and overwhelm the civilization that a short ago seemed free from any attack’; what was under attack, he added, was ‘liberalism’ (‘Mills Declares’ 1936: 1). Buoying such a case against the New Deal was a series of Supreme Court decisions that found unconstitutional key aspects of its agenda of activist government, such as the Schechter case of 1935 that invalidated the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which had created the NRA, on the grounds that this involved unconstitutional delegation of power by Congress to the executive branch as well as subjecting interstate commerce to unconstitutional regulation. Although Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, the party’s 1936 challenger to Roosevelt’s reelection, garnered a reputation as a ‘me-too’ Republican who advocated anti-Depression programmatic initiatives while arguing that the New Deal was ineffective and wasteful, he also saw defense of the Constitution as central to his candidacy’s case against the administration (McCoy 1966). As the 1930s went by, Republicans were likelier to connect the New Deal with fascism, though without dropping the language about its kinship with communism. Glenn Frank, a progressively inclined Republican who chaired the Republican Program Committee, designed to reflect on the party’s agenda after its 1936 defeat by a landslide, said in early 1938 that ‘the fascist program of the New Deal … threatens to Hitlerize what was once democratic self-government’ (Associated Press 1938, 30 January: 1). He argued that an authoritarian impulse characterised the New Deal, visible in an intolerance of opposition, the concentration of power in Roosevelt himself, and – perhaps most of all – ‘the authoritarian belief, honestly held, in the all-dominant state as the savior of mankind’ (‘Frank Fearful’ 1938, 15 April). Roosevelt’s 1937 project of Supreme Court reform – known as the ‘court-packing plan’ and understood as an effort to place on the court justices with a constitutional interpretation more sympathetic to the New Deal – had revitalised the argument that he sought too much power. This was true, too, when, because of World War II, he launched bids for a third term in 1940 and then for a fourth term in 1944 – unprecedented in American history. While before voters Republicans spoke of the dangers posed by a presidency with excessive powers, privately their outlook was sometimes rather bleaker. As election day approached in 1940, Monte Appel, who had served in the Hoover administration, wrote, ‘We are going to lose our

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liberties. We are going to give them up to a man who has no attachment to the American scheme of government and the American way of living, who still dreams of a personalized government with all powers centered in himself’ (1940, 16 October).

Liberalism, ‘Creeping Socialism’, and Communism Republican attacks on New Deal liberalism as socialist achieved fresh energy during the early years of the Cold War. In 1946, the party achieved an electoral breakthrough in regaining control on Capitol Hill when its politicians harnessed a tide of anti-incumbent discontent with the economic troubles of post-World War II reconversion through a campaign that posed the question, more prosaically and more pragmatically, ‘Had enough?’ (Boylan 1981). Republicans nevertheless continued to assert that New Deal liberalism resembled socialism and totalitarianism, with Joseph W. Martin Jr. of Massachusetts, soon to be Speaker of the House, telling fellow Republicans that their party’s success in gaining control of Congress would ‘guarantee to the people of America that Communism, Fascism or any other form of State Socialism will not flourish here!’ (Savage 1997: 97). The fresh energy that the Republicans’ anti-socialism acquired was twofold in nature. First, the Fair Deal of Harry Truman, who succeeded to the presidency when Roosevelt died in 1945, advanced initiatives that underscored differences between the two parties, including, for example, a proposal for health insurance attacked by opponents – notably the American Medical Association – as ‘socialized medicine’ (Smith 2012; Gordon 2003: 121–130). If during the 1930s the rise of dictatorship elsewhere in the world had informed many Republicans’ understanding of New Deal liberalism, by the late 1940s parallels with social democracy in Western Europe – especially the United Kingdom – encouraged them to view the Fair Deal as socialist in nature (Bell 2004: 160–197). Second, an upsurge in domestic anticommunism accompanied the arrival of the Cold War, leading to Republican charges not only that the Democrats were failing to prevent both communist expansionism overseas and communist subversion at home, but also that New Deal liberalism, socialism, and communism were interrelated ideologies. Encouraging this Republican interest in dramatising what they saw as the threat of New Deal liberalism was the frustration of electoral ambition. The breakthrough at the polls achieved in 1946 proved to be fleeting, with control of Congress

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lost again just two years later, when – against expectations beyond as well as within the Republican Party – Truman achieved election as president against Thomas E. Dewey, the Republicans’ second-time candidate for the White House. The party’s defeats of 1948 intensified deep-seated factional conflict between the more moderate in the party, associated with Dewey, and the more conservative, associated with Robert A. Taft, leading to the embrace of ‘liberty against socialism’ as the party’s strategic theme in the 1950 midterm campaign against the Democrats, straightforwardly tagging and targeting the Fair Deal as socialist (Patterson 1972: 419–473; Mason 2022: 149–154). Among the strands of the Republican National Committee’s campaign efforts in 1950 was the distribution, in hundreds of thousands, of The Road Ahead: America’s Creeping Revolution, a 1949 book by conservative journalist John T. Flynn, which popularised the concept of ‘creeping socialism’. Flynn connected creeping socialism not with communism but with fascism – which was socialism, he wrote, ‘plus the inevitable dictator’ (Moser 2005: 177–178). If popularised by Flynn, the concept was not new. In 1939, as a presidential aspirant Thomas E. Dewey sought to synthesise sympathy with the New Deal’s goals and antipathy towards its political agenda by attacking it as incoherent: ‘halfway for a sort of creeping socialism and halfway for private enterprise’ (‘Dewey’s Record’ 1944, 25 September: 398). Then, as World War II was ending, Herbert Hoover picked up the term to warn Americans that spreading in Europe and Asia were communism and socialism ‘or the decoy term, “planned economy”’ – ‘all collectivist’, Hoover said, with ‘a common base in bureaucratic power over the liberties and economic life of the people’ (AP 1945, 12 August). If Republicans had lost the battle for the term liberalism (with Hoover, in continuing to insist that his beliefs represented ‘the only genuine liberalism’, acknowledging that they attracted the label ‘reactionary’), they saw strategic value in asserting connections between liberalism and socialism. As suggested by the Republican attacks on the New Deal during the 1930s as similar to communism, anti-communism had long carried power in American politics. Not only did the arrival of East–West tensions make this power more urgent, but so did a series of espionage scandals that – persuading many that the threat of domestic subversion was real – facilitated the charge that the Democrats were ‘soft’ on communism (Fried 2003). Although Republicans usually spoke separately of creeping socialism and of softness on communism, as different failings of

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the Truman administration, some rhetoric forged the two. For example, at a meeting of Long Island Republicans, Albert S. Callan, a member of the New York state committee, said that ‘each step we take towards a socialized state in this country leads us eventually down the path to communism’ (‘Saving U.S.’ 1949, 28 August). Representative Charles A. Halleck of Indiana, for example, said that the ‘statism’ that Truman advocated ‘travels under many labels’ – ‘communism in one country, socialism in another, fascism in another, nazism in another, and so on’ (‘Halleck Condemns’ 1949, 25 September). Taft argued that the choice of ‘liberty’ over socialism was necessary ‘to meet the aggressive ideology of communism’ (AP 1950, 1 April). In a radio talk attacking Truman’s healthcare proposal, Representative Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, then the chair of the Republican National Committee, characterised it as among the ‘sly schemes that are propelling us faster and faster down the Russian road’ in comparing it with the policies of socialist and communist countries, placed in contrast with ‘the American voluntary scheme of individual responsibility’ (1949). Perhaps the most skilled – and probably the most controversial – practitioner of such a strategy was Richard Nixon. Nixon was among the Republican victors of 1946, securing a California seat in the House of Representatives by defeating Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis. He then earned fame, and notoriety, for his pursuit of anti-communist internal subversion as a member of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC). Most prominently he pursued espionage charges against Alger Hiss, who had served as a government lawyer during the New Deal; in 1950 Hiss was found guilty of perjury for his denial of espionage allegations. The year 1950 also saw Nixon’s elevation to the Senate, thanks to his defeat of Helen Gahagan Douglas. Two years later he was Eisenhower’s running mate in what proved to be the Republicans’ first successful quest for the White House since Hoover’s victory of 1928 (Gellman 1999/2017). Across these campaigns Nixon attacked New Deal liberalism as leading to socialism, and he charged Democrats with ‘softness’ on communism. Against both Voorhis and Douglas he deployed a strategy also employed by other Republicans – a condemnation of the comparison between the Democratic opponent’s record and that of Representative Vito Marcantonio, who represented East Harlem in the House for the American Labor Party, not only with socialist but also with communist sympathies. In the case of Douglas, the campaign flyer setting out the comparison, printed on pink paper, was known as the ‘pink list’,

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and Nixon called his opponent the ‘pink lady’ (White 1997/1998: 44, 73–74). That Nixon earned controversy as a campaigner was the result not only of this message but also of the aggressiveness with which he attacked his opponents. Underlying this approach was the insight that the Republican Party’s opposition to New Deal liberalism was unlikely to achieve victory; as his campaign manager Murray Chotiner explained to a ‘campaign school’ for Republicans, ‘it is too difficult to sell the public the idea that welfare is to be shunned or that fair dealing is to be avoided’ (Mason 2012: 136). The return of the White House to Republican control as a result of the 1952 elections would foster a greater sobriety in Republican analysis of New Deal liberalism, no longer similarly focused on socialism. The decline of the Red Scare at the federal level, connected with the downfall in disgrace of Senator Joseph McCarthy (Wisconsin), its most prominent proponent, in 1954, had a similar impact on anti-communist arguments against New Deal liberalism. Though associated with the party’s moderate wing, Dwight Eisenhower in seeking the presidency stressed anti-communism among his attacks on the incumbent Democrats. Moreover, soon after his arrival at the White House Eisenhower spoke of ‘creeping Socialism’ and even warned that ‘if this group takes over again we very gravely run the risk we’ve had our last chance’ (AP 1953, 12 June). When challenged, however, Eisenhower pointed only to the Tennessee Valley Authority, the New Deal’s most ambitious project of economic intervention, even if confined to one region, and he refused to place its existence in question (United Press 1953, 18 June). To be sure, in seeking to recruit Eisenhower as a Republican politician, Thomas E. Dewey in 1949 insisted to him that he alone could ‘save this country from going to Hades in the handbasket of paternalism-socialism-dictatorship’ (Griffith 1982: 99). But, worried like many Republicans about a ‘drift toward statism’ (92), Eisenhower pursued an agenda that searched for a ‘middle way’ – as historian Robert Griffith puts it, ‘between capital and labor, between entrepreneurial liberalism and socialism, between the Republican Right and the Democratic Left’ (91). Eventually labeled ‘modern Republicanism’, this agenda sought to contain the growth of the federal government while, crucially, being accommodationist in failing to challenge the achievements of the New Deal. This accommodationist approach, together with governing responsibility, defied the old rhetoric. ‘After 20 years of attacking the White House, they suddenly find they can’t do it any longer’, wrote journalist Griffing Bancroft. ‘… Even

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creeping socialism and government hand-outs don’t get far, since most of these things Republicans have been wailing about for so long are now part of the Republican program’ (1954, October 4: 10). But if greater sobriety now informed analysis within the Republican Party as a whole of New Deal liberalism, Eisenhower’s quest for a ‘middle way’ kindled a new conservatism both within and beyond the party. Clarence Manion, for example, a former dean of Notre Dame Law School who hosted a pioneering conservative talk radio show, attacked Eisenhower’s initiative in highway construction – which sought to rely for funding on user fees such as fuel taxation rather than on general revenues – as ‘creeping socialism’. More broadly, for Manion, Eisenhower’s ‘modern Republicanism’ continued a ‘drift toward central government’ that placed democracy in jeopardy (INS 1955, 7 March). Most radically, Robert Welch of the John Birch Society, a conspiracy-minded and secretive organisation of anti-communism – which continued to see the welfare state as socialism and socialism as a form of communism – called Eisenhower a ‘dedicated, conscious agent’ of the Soviet Union and the ‘Communist conspiracy’ (Mulloy 2014: 1). But even within his own party Eisenhower was the focus of condemnation. Although an emphasis on fiscal responsibility was at the heart of its search for a middle way, the administration’s post-reelection budget caused Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the leading figure among Republicans of this new conservatism, to condemn Eisenhower’s failure to attack New Deal liberalism and especially the extent of federal spending. Noting Karl Marx’s belief that the United States ‘could be conquered without firing a shot, simply by undermining and destroying our basic economic institutions’, he argued that ‘we have been so thoroughly saturated with the New Deal doctrine of big, squanderbust Government that, as a party, we Republicans have on more than one occasion shown tendencies to bow to the siren song of socialism and, instead of hurling a challenge against the ravages of the pseudo-liberals among us, have accepted their doctrines lock, stock, and barrel, saying only “we can do it better”’ (Knighton 1957, 9 April: 5).

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Modern American Conservatism as Anti-liberal and Anti-socialist Responding in early 1950 to attacks on his agenda as involving socialism, Harry Truman characterised his opponents as ‘the party of negative inaction’: ‘Instead of presenting a positive program of their own, the Republicans sit around waiting for us to make a proposal. Then they react with an outburst of scare words’ (Democratic National Committee Research Division, n.d.). With conservative thinkers then embarking on a project to reflect on their ideology within the contemporary context, ‘in practical terms much of conservatism in the mid-1950s was defined by its opposition to liberalism’ (Schoenwald 2001: 21). But even this project retained an essentially negative dimension. While hostility to liberalism remained central to conservative concerns, the ‘fusionist’ project promoted by William F. Buckley Jr. in National Review sought common ground among diverse conservatives – notably between social and cultural traditionalists, on the one hand, and economic libertarians, on the other – through shared opposition to communism (Felzenberg 2017: 68). The electoral arena within which the Republican Party was largely dominated by the debate about New Deal liberalism and its contemporary application; with the party assuming the position of opposition, whether more moderate or more fundamental in nature, negativity was probably inescapable (Sundquist 1983). Republicans had long noted, and decried, that negativity, without success for their party in correcting it. ‘There was a vast amount of reaction against the New Deal, but what were the people offered in its stead?’ asked Senator William Borah of Idaho after the 1934 midterms, when Republicans suffered historically significant losses. ‘They can’t eat the Constitution’ (Woolf 1934, 2 December). Then, as election year 1936 approached, newspaper publisher Frank Gannett told fellow Republicans, as election year 1936 approached, that their party should ‘present a constructive program instead of merely negative criticism’ (AP 1935, 20 November). Based on his experience as an advisor to Wendell Willkie during the 1940 presidential campaign, Russell Davenport observed that ‘the psychology of opposition, not the psychology of leadership’ characterised the Republican Party; while the party’s position was against the initiatives of New Deal liberalism, Republicans ‘had nothing to put in the place of these things’ (n.d.). That problem seemed remarkably persistent.

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When Nixon became president, he privately told congressional Republicans, in seeking to mobilise their support for his domestic agenda, that an ‘“against” psychology’ characterised their party. For him, it remained problematic that ‘as a party we could never compete with the Democrats on who wanted to spend more’, as his aide Patrick J. Buchanan noted of his comments. ‘I think we have been responsible, but let us face it; they are the ones who come off as wanting to do more for the people as a result’ (1971, 29 January).

Conclusion The battles fought by Republicans first to claim liberalism as their own and then to define New Deal liberalism as socialism seem to have been unsuccessful for their party. To be sure, they managed to achieve some victories at the polls against the Democrats during the 1940s and the 1950s. But, except at moments of international crisis, questions of activist government usually remained central to political debate, and the solutions of New Deal liberalism were persistently those preferred by a majority of Americans. Meanwhile, even though Republicans engaged in intense intraparty dispute – between the more moderate and the more conservative – about how best to challenge New Deal liberalism, no successful alternative emerged. Theirs was, too often, merely the ‘Party of No’ (McLay 2021: 34). Moreover, although Republicans and conservatives apparently acquired a more positive identity during an era of liberal travails in the 1970s and of Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy in the 1980s, more recently darker attacks on opponents have again often characterised their political outlook. And yet the attacks on New Deal liberalism also had positive consequences for the conservative cause. Although the agenda of Democratic politicians during this era was often less bold than even the social Democrats of Western Europe with whom Republicans drew parallels, the attacks that they encountered – about ‘dictatorship’, about ‘socialism’ – weakened their momentum (especially during the early years of the Cold War) and further moderated their goals. Even while New Deal liberalism remained dominant in US politics, conservatism managed to achieve some influence.

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The Conservatives’ Representation of Socialism and Liberalism During PMQs Since the 1990s Stéphane Revillet

In the 1990s, some Conservatives began to fear that with the ‘defeat’ of socialism, signalled by the declining power of the trade unions, the movement of the Labour Party towards the centre-ground in the domestic political arena, and the end of the Cold War, socialism would become less of a threat (Hayton and McEnhill 2015). In a speech at a Demos conference in 2006, David Cameron wondered how the Conservative Party, which had defined themselves as ‘the anti-socialist party’ (Cameron 2006), were to re-define themselves ‘once full-blooded socialism had disappeared from the political landscape’ (Cameron 2006). The solution proved quite straightforward: the Conservatives would not change their strategy and keep portraying socialism as the archenemy of the nation (especially in the form that the Labour Party is supposed to embody) while, at the same time, successive Conservative leaders would promote their own ideology: a blend of conservatism and liberalism. Socialism and liberalism are ideologies which, in Michael Freeden’s terms, ‘are not an exact representation of an ideational reality, but a symbolic reconstruction of it’ (Freeden 2003). From this perspective,

S. Revillet (B) University of Bourgogne, Dijon, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2_13

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such a process entails a biased representation (or reconstruction) of opposing parties’ identities and ideologies. The Conservatives have long adopted a strategy of dividing ideological lines based on the rhetoric of anti-socialism directed against the Labour Party. Over time, this narrative has become a myth, one of two enemies embodying two ideological positions placed at the extremes of the axis of good and evil, diametrically opposed and seemingly irreconcilable. However, a study of the speeches of Conservative Prime Ministers during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) reveals a different reality. The Conservative Party’s representation of socialism associated with the Labour Party on the one hand and its representation of liberalism associated with the Conservative Party on the other hand are not opposed to each other, but rather define and feed off each other in a dynamic of constant conceptual redefinition and repositioning. This representation does not change as it moves along a continuum between liberalism and socialism but rather is organised in a multidimensional space. Drawing on the work of Michael Freeden (2015), this chapter considers that the representation of these two ideologies is based on the principle of the existence of several liberalisms and several socialisms made up of several conceptual layers (dimensions). This approach allows us to better identify, from the speeches of several Conservative Prime Ministers, the different shifts from one interpretation of liberalism to another in relation to and opposition to socialism. This study has proved relevant in the context of PMQs which are characterised by a culture of conflict. Indeed, the confrontational layout of the House of Commons (reflecting a Darwinian first-past-the-post electoral system), the function and nature of PMQs, the high attendance of MPs, the absence of a vote at the end of the debates, the high tolerance of the Speaker, the great visibility and popularity of the debates and the extremely competitive zero-sum game environment, all make PMQs a fighting arena where the prescribed rhetorical tools are verbal attacks, insults and impoliteness. These rhetorical devices facilitate the emergence of symbols which contribute to the one-dimensional representation of two antagonistic ideologies. In the light of these preliminary remarks, this chapter aims to explore how the Conservatives have given a symbolic representation of socialism as a mirror image of their own ideology based on liberalism. Through the exploration of the process of symbolisation of ideologies, a dialectic between ideologies and identities and between liberalism and socialism

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emerges, highlighting the complexities and fluctuations of the Conservative party’s ethos (especially when the ideological lines no longer run in intrinsically opposed ways), thereby designating the symbolisation of ideologies as an electoral and partisan strategy. In order to carry out this study of the representation of socialism and liberalism during parliamentary debates, 429 PMQs sessions were put under scrutiny for references to those ideologies. The study spans more than 15 years, including John Major’s premiership (November 1990– May 1997), David Cameron’s premiership (May 2010–July 2016) and Theresa May’s years as UK Prime Minister (July 2016–July 2019). This chapter is a fragment of a larger study of the leadership of Conservative Prime Ministers during PMQs starting with the introduction of cameras in Parliament in 1989 and ending with Theresa May a few months before the introduction of distancing measures in Parliament in March 2020 which dramatically changed the nature of the debate during PMQs.

Representation of Socialism Rhetorical Devices From the beginning of the twentieth century, anti-socialism became a motto in the Conservative Party. Clarisse Berthezène (2015) explains that with the newly created Labour Party winning 29 seats in the 1906 elections, a ‘new division of political forces between socialists and antisocialists’ appeared (Lawler-Wilson 1909: 17). Then, the extension of the franchise in the UK in 1918 followed closely on the heels of the Bolshevik revolution, causing real paranoia within the Conservative Party, which officially decided, during their party conference in 1920 ‘to combat the Socialists and extremists in the ranks of organised labour’.1 The fight against socialism became the party’s watchword. From 1918 onwards, the Conservatives decided to stop using the term ‘Labour’ and replace it with the term ‘socialist’ laden with undertones of a foreign ideology. The three Conservative Prime Ministers studied here (John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May) represented Labour’s socialism at the Dispatch Box based on three main elements: the definitional process, the (negative) appraisal process and finally the disqualifying process.

1 T.J. Whittaker, NUCA Conference in Birmingham, 10th June 1920.

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The definitional process is threefold. Labour’s socialism is first associated with other ideologies and movements. It is likened to Marxism, Stalinism, Communism, Trade Unionism, Trotskyism and to the Luddites. Then, it is defined through key concepts like (re)nationalisation, corporatism, common ownership, the Welfare State, state interventionism (a centralist state controlling the private sector) and unilateralism. Last but not least, the Prime Minister explains what socialism looks like in practice through economic policies. It includes high spending, borrowing, higher taxes, state subsidies, the Keynesian tradition and giving up the nuclear deterrents and high benefits. The concepts and policies described by the Conservatives in this context constitute a loose and biased definition of what socialism is. The second element in the representational process of socialism is based on a negative appraisal of the ideology conveyed through derogatory and disparaging terms. These verbal attacks on socialism can be classified in three categories: exaggerations (hyperboles), insults (and sarcasm) and straplines and puns (catchphrases and repetitions). All three Conservative Prime Ministers portrayed Labour and socialism using almost the same stylistic devices with exaggeration ranking high on the list. For John Major, having a Labour Government would amount to ‘living out of respect in an underprotected overtaxed socialist backwater’,2 adding that Manchester, ‘under socialism, now owes nearly as much as El Salvador (ravaged by 10 years of civil war)’.3 He also accuses the Labour Party of acting out of ‘hatred of diversity and excellence’4 and of ‘hating profits and share ownership’.5 As far as David Cameron is concerned, Labour lives in a ‘Marxist universe appealing to tribal socialism’6 supporting ‘unlimited welfare’7 and advocating ‘overspending, overborrowing, overtaxing, wasteful welfare, bloated expenditure’.8 Theresa May explains that for the Labour Party ‘the only good

2 Hansard, HC Deb, 12/03/1992, vol. 205, 3 Hansard, HC Deb, 14/04/1994, vol. 241, 4 Hansard, HC Deb, 11/03/1997, vol. 292, 5 Hansard, HC Deb, 25/05/1995, vol. 260,

col. 970. col. 416. col. 141. col. 934.

6 Hansard, HC Deb, 09/10/2013, vol. 568, col. 152. 7 Hansard, HC Deb, 28/11/2012, vol. 554, col. 222. 8 Hansard, HC Deb, 05/11/2014, vol. 587, col. 824.

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trade deals are with Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea’9 because they ‘live on planet Venezuela’.10 The negative appraisal of Labour’s socialism is also rendered through insults (also called face threatening/attacking acts in the politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987 [1978]) and sarcasm. Labour is dismissed as ‘a hard-left old-fashioned socialist government’,11 and as ‘incompetent socialists to boot’.12 They are also called the ‘loony left’,13 ‘peaceniks’,14 ‘the Red Princes’15 and even the ‘Labour beats’. The Leader of the Opposition (Ed Miliband) is compared with ‘Bert in the Muppet show living on Sesame Street’16 for ‘want[ing] to borrow more and spend more’. For John Major ‘the unions are the dog’, and ‘Labour is the lamp post’.17 The last category of verbal attacks to disparagingly characterise the Labour Party in association with socialism includes catchphrases, puns and repetitions. Theresa May strove to brand Labour as the party of ‘tax, tax, tax, injustice, injustice, injustice’.18 David Cameron came up with other slogans like (the Labour Party is) ‘antienterprise, anti-business, anti-growth’19 or crafted puns like ‘if the Leader of the Opposition is trying to move left, I’d give him full Marx’.20 Other catchphrases are worth mentioning: ‘if you vote red you live in the red’21 or ‘one size fits all, take it or leave it’.22 Anti-socialism being a long-standing tradition in the Conservative Party, such verbal attacks against socialism and Labour are not specific to the period under study. For example, in January 1981, Margaret

9 Hansard, HC Deb, 28/06/2017, vol. 626, col. 594. 10 Hansard, HC Deb, 11/10/2017, vol. 629, col. 330. 11 Hansard, HC Deb, 19/07/2017, vol. 627, 12 Hansard, HC Deb, 27/02/2013, vol. 559, 13 Hansard, HC Deb, 27/04/2011, vol. 527, 14 Hansard, HC Deb, 30/06/2010, vol. 521,

col. 836.

15 Hansard, HC Deb, 02/07/2014, vol. 583, 16 Hansard, HC Deb, 26/06/2013, vol. 565, 17 Hansard, HC Deb, 15/07/1993, vol. 228, 18 Hansard, HC Deb, 10/07/2019, vol. 663,

col. 888.

19 Hansard, HC Deb, 05/02/2014, vol. 575, 20 Hansard, HC Deb, 04/11/2015, vol. 601, 21 Hansard, HC Deb, 19/11/1996, vol. 285, 22 Hansard, HC Deb, 22/03/2017, vol. 623,

col. 270.

col. 314. col. 173. col. 855. col. 294. col. 1172. col. 310. col. 960. col. 835. col. 85.

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Thatcher dismissed socialism as being ‘synonymous with total control by the Government and lack of liberty by the subject’23 claiming a few years later, in 1990 that ‘those who have lived under Socialism know that it produces only poverty and oppression’.24 Boris Johnson, while defending his Brexit deal in December 2020, attacked Labour on the grounds that they would oppose any of his Brexit deals and called for people ‘to resist the depredations of the socialists opposite’.25 Labour and Socialism as a Negative Symbol The lack of nuance or mitigation of the attacks is deliberate. Whether it is hyperboles, abusive terms, catchphrases or puns, these rhetorical and stylistic devices serve the same purpose: to reduce the Labour Party and socialism to the smallest semantic unit. In other words, the representation of Labour’s socialism is reduced to its most simplistic form. The ideology and the party are turned into a caricature deprived of all complexities. They have become negative symbolic objects that are wielded like weapons to undermine Labour’s authority and credibility. The analysis of the various stylistic devices used to represent socialism provides a better understanding of the process of symbolisation. According to Charles Elder and Roger Cobb, a symbol ‘is a human invention and arises from the process of attributing meaning to an object’ (Elder and Cobb 1983: 29) (anything can be a symbol: a word, a phrase, a gesture, an event, a person, a place, a thing or in our case a political party and their ideology). That is to say, the signifier, here socialism, is imbued with a rich diversity of meanings, values and significance. Edward Sapir and later Murray Edelman called such symbols condensation symbols (as opposed to referential symbols which are purely denotative and stipulative); they serve to summarise and condense experiences, feelings and beliefs (Edelman 1971). During PMQs, when debates are less constrained and more of a rhetorical exercise, Conservative Prime Ministers and MPs have repeatedly endowed the term ‘socialism’ with the same negative values and meanings over the years. As symbols emerge from an ongoing process of social interaction and communication, the function of PMQs in the process of

23 Hansard, HC, Deb, 22/01/1981, vol. 997, col. 420. 24 Hansard, HC, Deb, 22/02/1990, vol. 167, col. 1063. 25 Hansard, HC, Deb, 16/12/2020, vol. 686, col. 268.

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symbolisation is all the more relevant. It is one of the few events when the entire parliamentary group is gathered in the House of Commons at the same time, allowing the symbol to circulate among members of the party and beyond. As explained earlier, symbols are initially used as a vehicle for condensing and simplifying a variety of stimuli (Kertzer 1988: 40). The more stimuli a symbol triggers, the more potent the symbol is. The power of condensation symbols lies in their emotional force and impact (Edelman 1971; Elder and Cobb 1983: 33). Their emotional force overweighs the rationality of any argument. In order to strike a chord among voters and draw support, leaders will increase the emotional impact of the symbols they use. To do so, the members and leaders of the parliamentary party will attack the moral values of socialism. This tactic is particularly relevant when one considers that scholars like Donald Kinder and Mark Peters. (Kinder et al., 1980), or Ian McAllister (2000) have ranked honesty and integrity as the first qualities people expect from their politicians in office. This constitutes the last stage in the representation of socialism, which aims to disqualify the Labour Party as a relevant political adversary. The Conservatives strive to demonstrate that the Labour Party as a socialist party has fallen below appropriate moral and ethical standards. Corruption is one of the many charges directed at Labour with John Major pointing at ‘the depth of corruption and despair that there is as a result of Labour local authorities’26 or denouncing ‘Labour’s crony politics’,27 while David Cameron is wondering whether ‘tax avoidance is modern socialism’.28 Another set of accusations is put forward relating to Labour’s lack of transparency and democracy. It is claimed during PMQs that ‘trade unions buy their Labour candidates and buy their policies’,29 which is in David Cameron’s words ‘a sad day for democracy’,30 and in John Major’s opinion ‘a disgrace for British democracy’.31 In addition, Labour is likened to a

26 Hansard, HC Deb, 12/04/1994, vol. 241, 27 Hansard, HC Deb, 13/06/2012, vol. 546, 28 Hansard, HC Deb, 18/04/2012, vol. 543, 29 Hansard, HC Deb, 25/02/2015, vol. 593,

col. 17. col. 322. col. 317. col. 317.

30 Hansard, HC Deb, 03/07/2013, vol. 565, col. 917. 31 Hansard, HC Deb, 23/07/1996, vol. 282, col. 144.

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‘quangocracy’32 and criticised for being ‘more and more authoritarian’33 with a leader ‘living up to the words of Marx: ‘Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them, well, I have others’’34 (Theresa May clarified, in a subsequent answer, that those aren’t the words of Karl Marx but of Groucho Marx). Finally, for the disqualifying process to be complete, the three Conservative Prime Ministers successively and insistently denounced the deviant, or at least, inappropriate behaviour of the members of the Labour Party. In doing so, they saw to it that socialism (no matter the form it was to take) was associated with, and even responsible for, such blameworthy acts. The comment by a Conservative MP (C. Johnson) in April 2019 preferring a no-deal Brexit to ‘ushering in a Marxist, antisemite-led Government’35 is a good case in point. The link between socialism and low moral standards is further exemplified by an MP (C Shepherd) pointing out in 1993 that ‘schools were hijacked in the 1960s and 1970s by the trendy lefties’36 leaving today’s parents with ‘no moral base’,37 or by another member of the House in February 2019 (M. Caulfield) rejoicing that some Labour members38 defected to the Conservative Party ‘due to the bullying and antisemitism that [they] received from Momentum and the hard left’.39 Ideologies in a Mythical World The creation of such symbols stems from a need to distinguish among people and to establish or to affirm social identities (Elder and Cobb 1983: 129). They reinforce the dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The Conservatives’ strategy is to create a clear-cut ideological divide between themselves and their political opponents. This implies that Labour is no longer an adversary who is ‘an acceptable opponent’ but

32 Hansard, HC Deb, 20/06/1995, vol. 262, col. 152. 33 Hansard, HC Deb, 09/06/2010, vol. 511, col. 326. 34 Hansard, HC Deb, 10/07/2019 vol. 663, col. 309. 35 Hansard, HC Deb, 03/04/2019, vol. 657, col. 1033. 36 Hansard, HC Deb, 02/03/1993, vol. 220, col. 137. 37 Ibid. 38 For example, Anne Meadows. 39 Hansard, HC Deb, 20/02/2019, vol. 654, col. 1466.

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an enemy: an unacceptable opponent (Edelman 1988: 67). Such a representation of the political order does not pertain to the real world but rather to the myth where the ‘malevolent Opposition’ plots against the ‘benevolent Government’. The merger of Labour and socialism into one negative symbol reflects Jonathan Leader Maynard’s contention that ‘ideologies are so fundamentally bound up with identities, and identities are inextricably ideological’ (Maynard 2015: 23). From a Conservative’s perspective, the Labour Party is essentialised by socialism and as such it has been made the enemy of the country. Enemies are identifiable as stereotypes of persons. They are attributed inherent traits that mark them as evil and immoral (Edelman 1988: 87), which makes it psychologically and ethically possible to attack them ad hominen or to symbolically kill them. Fighting this enemy becomes a common cause, thereby reinforcing the Conservative group’s unity and identity (Sfez 1988: 97). In sum, the sort of socialism embodied by the Labour Party has become a (negative) symbol. It poses a critical threat to the country, with trade unionists who ‘want to disrupt our schools, our borders and our country’,40 a threat to moral values insofar as low ethical standards go hand in hand with socialism. Besides, socialism creates a society of ‘shirkers’41 enslaved by state benefits and not of ‘strivers’, according to David Cameron. It also threatens the economy and the social order of the nation given that an ‘ideological Labour Government would cause chaos and disruption’42 and would ‘overthrow capitalism’.43 More importantly, Labour socialism poses a grave threat to democracy and individuality, and ‘Britain would become another North Korea, where centralised control of economic activities leads to political repression’.44 In other words, Labour’s socialism has become the symbol of a threat to people’s basic right to freedom. As explained earlier, the creation of such symbols generates archetypical patterns which pertain to the realm of the myth (Edelman 1971: 40), which provides a binary representation of the world placing the Conservatives at the other end of the good-evil spectrum posing as the saviours—those who will restore people’s liberty. 40 Hansard, HC Deb, 30/11/2011, vol. 536, 41 Hansard, HC Deb, 11/07/2012, vol. 548, 42 Hansard, HC Deb, 04/03/1997, vol. 707, 43 Hansard, HC Deb, 23/05/2018, vol. 641,

col. 933. col. 305. col. 291. col. 833.

44 Hansard, HC Deb, 25/02/1997, vol. 291, col. 145.

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Viewed through the lens of Isaiah Berlin’s concept of freedom (Berlin 1969), only conservative liberal policies will provide both negative and positive freedom. Negative freedom, understood as being free from outside interference, is resorted to in order to fit into the narrow (rather warped) interpretation of Classical liberalism which will release people from a large number of constraints (be it the state or the trade unions or even socialist policies) and allow them to have the necessary means or resources to act upon their will (this is called positive freedom, that is to say being free and able to do something). In short, deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation (also known as the D-L-P formula) and choice will help improve salaries, provide better schools and a better education and so on.

The Conservatives’ Representation of Liberalism A Positive Symbol Throughout the debates mentioned above, the three Prime Ministers and the Conservative parliamentary party were fully engaged in the appropriation of the principles of liberalism. Their strategy consisted in opposing Labour’s socialism to the Conservatives’ practice of liberalism leaving a one-faceted understanding of the political doctrine of liberalism as if it were a prize in a zero-sum game: one is either a Labour socialist and cannot be a liberal or one is a Conservative and a liberal. As explained previously in this chapter, socialism is portrayed as an ideology that runs counter to the liberal tenets the Conservatives are said to champion. In a confrontational system, such an opposition contributes to an implicit representation of the Conservatives’ liberalism through a kind of mirror image. Not only do the Conservatives strip Labour of all liberal features but they also lay hands on the liberal doctrine through elaborate rhetorical strategies. One of them is the use of syllogism. Let us focus on the following statement by a Conservative MP (W. Morton) dated from February 2016: The Conservative Party is the party of enterprise and aspiration and believes in enabling hard-working people to keep more of the money they earn.45

45 Hansard, HC Deb, 13/04/2016, vol. 608, col. 343.

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Through this enthymeme, the Conservatives equate their party with the liberal principles of aspiration and enterprise, which are made possible by free market and deregulation. These in turn will provide people with a wage, which is to say, with the means to act upon their will. This rhetorical syllogism is an attempt to create associations between liberalism and the Conservative Party. Another example is provided by John Major, who promotes choice as a way of achieving freedom. He contends that through privatisation ‘situations where choice is available are created’, making it possible for people to enjoy the ‘freedom to choose’.46 The syllogism is completed through Major’s conclusion that ‘the truth is that when people choose, they choose conservatism and not socialism’.47 In order to ensure that liberalism is an asset for the party, the Conservatives make a positive symbol out of it. To that aim, it was necessary in the first place to decontest the notion of liberalism (Freeden 2015: 42) by circumscribing one aspect of it. As liberalism is a multi-layered concept (Freeden 2015: 37) featuring a multitude of characteristics, the Conservatives chose to focus on one specific field: the economy. The next stage in the symbolisation process was to associate positive notions and values with the term or the principles underpinning economic liberalism by praising the efficacy of privatisation and deregulation. For example (in the 1990s), ‘liberalisation […] should mean more choice, better services and lower fares’48 producing ‘a better service for the customer’49 with companies like Railtrack which will ‘be an effective and popular privatisation’.50 It even became a model for ‘countries around the world’, which are ‘following the privatisation trail blazed by the Conservative Party in the 1980s’.51 The Conservatives, through the imagery of the conquest of new territories, present themselves as innovators and pioneers who have brought in a new economic system creating wealth and jobs.52 For the term to become a symbol, it needs to be endowed with an emotional

46 Hansard, HC Deb, 14/07/1992, vol. 211, col. 970. 47 Ibid. 48 Hansard, HC Deb, 23/06/1992, vol. 210, 49 Hansard, HC Deb, 12/12/1995, vol. 268, 50 Hansard, HC Deb, 02/02/1995, vol. 253, 51 Hansard, HC Deb, 22/07/1993, vol. 229, 52 Hansard, HC Deb, 11/03/1993, vol. 220.

col. 134. col. 830. col. 1215. col. 500.

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appeal arousing different feelings and reactions. For John Major, privatisation is a ‘great success story – so successful that it has confounded its critics’. The process is repeated during PMQs; the Prime Minister and Conservative MPs kept spinning the same success story claiming that ‘each privatisation has proved a success, that it (the privatisation of British Rail) is a great success’. To make the emotional appeal stronger, some positive moral values are attached to the notion of privatisation in sharp opposition to the negative moral values attributed to socialism. Deregulation and free trade are praised for ‘encouraging innovation and self-respect’,53 for being ‘just and ethical’. According to a Conservative MP in October 1994 (Mr Waterson), denationalisation would even stop cronyism insofar as it would ‘prevent the Government (a Labour government) from appointing their own placemen to run half the British industry’.54 Finally, the economic liberal tenets advocated by the Conservatives are intertwined with the concept of freedom. As illustrated in the comment by Peter Ainsworth (a Conservative MP) extolling the virtues of liberalism as a catalyst for freedom, the economic liberalism implemented by the government is based ‘on free trade, free markets, free enterprise policies and freedom from the social chapter’.55 In other words, unlike the Labour Party who are in favour of the social chapter,56 the Conservatives, through their economic policies are the protectors of the freedom of British citizens and as such are a true liberal party. However, the flip side of symbols is that they can evolve into negative symbols. Ambiguity and fluidity, which are the main characteristics of symbols, entail that the relationship between the signifier and the signified can change over time. New meanings can be infused. In the early 2000s, the type of economic liberalism the Conservatives had championed and put into practice started to evoke negative meanings and arouse negative feelings even among Conservatives. In 2002, Theresa May called her own party the ‘nasty party’ in reference to the ‘rampant materialism and individualism’ attached to their liberal policies. Consequently, she called for

53 Hansard, HC Deb, 28/06/1994, vol. 245, col. 54 Hansard, HC Deb, 25/10/1994, vol. 248, col. 55 Hansard, HC Deb, 20/02/1996, vol. 272, col. 56 The social chapter (from the Maastricht Treaty)

679. 756. 172.

deals with workers’ rights and pay laying down provisions for improving standards in areas such as working conditions, employment, social security and trades union rights.

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a shift away from that type of liberalism towards what David Cameron would call ‘compassionate conservatism’ (Alexandre-Collier 2010). Social Liberalism as a Tool to Detoxify the Party In reference to Michael Freeden’s layers of liberalism, one can state that, from David Cameron’s premiership onwards, the Conservatives have relied predominantly on two different layers of liberalism: an implicit neoliberalism and an overt social liberalism (at least on the face of it). During PMQs, David Cameron conspicuously promoted a more socially inclusive and progressive conservatism (Dorey 2007), repeating forcefully that what his Government was doing was what ‘a compassionate Conservative government does’57 and insisting that is ‘the action of a progressive conservative government’.58 The new rhetoric imbued with social liberal tenets has been counterbalanced by underlying references to neoclassical liberalism. Such hints pervade the PM’s speeches delivered at the Dispatch Box praising the success of privatisation,59 supporting a reduction in the money spent on welfare programmes60 and advertising the Conservative Party as the party of ‘aspiration and enterprise’ or promoting the reduction of bureaucracy and allowances61 while encouraging workfare (instead of welfare) and anti-unionisation drives. By defining himself as a ‘liberal conservative’ (Hayton and McEnhill 2015), David Cameron played on the ambiguity of the term ‘liberal’ as a dog whistle to appeal to a wide range of individuals with conflicting views (both inside and outside his party). Striking the right balance between appearing progressive and still being committed to core economic or social conservative principles was of paramount importance to avoid alienating large segments of voters. Samesex marriage is a case in point. While defending the values of marriage62 David Cameron congratulated himself and his supporters for voting in 57 Hansard, HC Deb, 03/02/2016, vol. 605. 58 Hansard, HC Deb, 13/04/2016, vol. 608, col. 343. 59 Hansard, HC Deb, 30/04/2014, vol. 579, col. 818–819. 60 Hansard, HC Deb, 13/01/2016, vol. 604; 17/12/2014, vol. 589; 06/02/2013,

vol. 558. 61 Hansard, HC Deb, 02/03/2011, vol. 524, col. 294. 62 Hansard, HC Deb, 06/02/2013 vol. 558, col. 269. D Cameron: […] I am a great

supporter of marriage. I want to promote marriage, defend marriage, encourage marriage + 09/10/2013 col. 151 I think marriage is a great institution.

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favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, 2013 on 5, February 2013, and ‘allowing two gay people who love each other to be able to get married’.63 Besides, in a PMQs in October 2013, his commemoration of Alan Turing for the injustice he experienced as a gay person is followed by (literally a couple of minutes later) his reaffirmation of the heterosexual quality of marriage when it comes to the transfer of unused tax allowance between ‘the husband or the wife’.64 The bottom line with such a strategy is to make one’s ideology and ideas appealing to the ‘many not the few’.65 Liberalism used as a symbol is an effective instrument to reach the masses. First, one of the major features of condensed symbols is their multivocality (Kertzer 1988: 11), that is to say, different meanings and images are tied to them and understood differently by different people, thereby multiplying the possible interpretations of those symbols. Moreover, contrary to elaborate technical speeches, symbols are more likely to engage people and raise their interest because, as Murray Edelman explains: People think in terms of stereotypes and oversimplifications due to some incapacity to recognize or tolerate ambiguous and complex situations and respond chiefly to symbols that oversimplify and distort. (Edelman 1971)

Put more simply, political symbols function as semantic short-cuts which make it easier for people to treat concepts as things (Kertzer 1988: 7). Liberalism, socialism and conservatism are presented as ideologies which rely on simplification and even oversimplification; so much so that they have become symbols and function as such, making them easy to identify, to understand and to oppose. This symbolisation of ideologies results in the reification of opposing ideological lines (Edelman 1988: 50), simplifying the process of choosing between candidates because most voters are not fully informed or certain (Popkin 1991: 51). Condensation symbols are quite efficient tools to send mixed (sometimes contradictory) messages. This communication strategy relies more on a pragmatic and a partisan approach than on an ideological one. In this case, the Conservative Party reacts more to circumstances than to establish principles of its 63 Hansard, HC Deb, 06/02/2013, vol. 558, col 269. 64 Hansard, HC Deb, 16/10/2013, vol. 568, col. 736. 65 Reference to the New Labour’s slogan, itself a reference to P. Shelley’s line in The

Masque of Anarchy.

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own, thereby reinforcing the idea that conservatism is ‘above all things a spirit and not an abstract doctrine’.66 But what happens when those dividing ideological lines between parties no longer run in strictly opposing ways?

Blurred Lines and Turf Wars The Stakeholder Society As illustrated earlier, the Conservatives’ discourse moved to the centre as Prime Ministers like David Cameron relied on a more social liberal rhetoric in a bid to detoxify the ‘nasty party’ (Heppell 2014: 155). In the late 1990s, the Labour Party moved towards the centre as well with an unavowed neoliberal approach (Jessop 2007). This shift was illustrated in Tony Blair’s new scheme called the ‘Stakeholding Society’. In 1995, the British Labour Party officially announced its abandonment of its commitment to the common ownership of the means of production. Not long after that, in January 1996, Tony Blair set out his vision of a ‘stakeholder economy’ (also ‘stakeholding society’), one in which ‘we shift the emphasis […] towards a vision of the company as a community or partnership in which each employee has a stake (Blair 1996)’, but also customers, employees, suppliers and the community at large, opening the door to a left-of-centre project for government. The term shareholding society is a loose and ambivalent umbrella concept, ‘giving the British people a proper stake in their country’,67 according to a Labour MP (Mr Sheerman). It is a symbol laden with both neoliberal substance and social overtones. The Conservatives recognised the danger of allowing the stakeholder concept a free run and decided to counter attack to defend their territory. They launched a blitz battle over just a couple of weeks and fought hard to prevent the term ‘stakeholding society’ from becoming a Labourowned issue. They forcefully imposed their own definition of the concept through the lens of their own biased interpretations. The table below shows what meaning the term ‘stakeholding society’ takes on for the

66 J. Buchan, preface to A. Bryant, The Spirit of Conservatism, London, Methuen & Co., 1929, p. VII. 67 Hansard, HC Deb, 25/01/1996, vol. 270, col 475.

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Conservatives when it is associated with their party or with Labour. Those extracts are all from the PMQs sessions of January 1996. Two opposing visions of the ‘stakeholding society’ are presented here through Conservatives’ speeches. On the one hand, when the concept is associated with the Conservative Party, it rests on liberal principles (see bolded elements on the left-hand side of Table 1) with a premium on private property, the individual and also on a Government who provides the appropriate means and resources to individuals through tax cuts. On the other hand, when the stakeholder society is depicted in reference to the Labour Party’s policies, it is dismissed as an empty slogan promoting the twin evils of Labour’s socialism: the unions and anti-business sentiment. As in a trademark dispute, the owners are fighting for their exclusive rights over the concept of a ‘stakeholding society’. The Conservatives did their best to stop the Labour Party from creating a symbol out of this Table 1

Representation of the stakeholding society by the Conservatives

Conservatives’ stakeholding society

Conservatives’ view on Labour’s stakeholding society

[…]to give people a stake in society is to allow them to own their homes, to own shares, to have their own pension schemes and, above all, to pay low taxes. (16/01/ 1996) We know and have been practising what it means for the past 16 years. It means giving people a direct, personal interest in what happens—lower taxes, more home ownership, more personal pensions—exercised by the holders themselves (16/01/1996) Private ownership enables people to have, if I may use the phrase, a stake in this country (09/01/1996)

The Leader of the Opposition now tells us that it is a slogan, and the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) tells us that he has not the faintest idea what it means (16/01/ 1996) Labour party’s vision of a stakeholding society, which would place burdens on businessmen and, indeed, bring back vested interests in Labour’s old friends (the trade unions) (16/01/1996) We know who Labour’s stakeholders are. We know who owns 50 per cent of the votes at the Labour party conference. We know who pays 50 per cent of the money that the Labour party gets. They are Labour’s stakeholders (the unions) (25/01/1996) That union (the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) sponsors the deputy leader of the Labour party; it is one of the stakeholders in the Labour party (30/01/1996)

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concept which is generally associated with the Tory Party. The squabble did not last long. The Labour Party eventually gave up this concept since, according to Labour’s experts, stakeholding as an idea would jeopardise New Labour’s relations with the business community (Goes 2004: 114). This attempt by the two main parties to converge towards the centre (of the political spectrum) seems to be driven more by pragmatism than by ideology. According to Steve Davies, the period 1985–2015 was a period of political alignment centred around the principles of a liberal economy based on free markets, individualism and deregulation. These three decades of alignment came after the realignment phase between 1974 and 1985, which occurred in reaction to the post-war consensus and saw interventionism losing ground. The Conservatives’ move towards a rhetorical social liberalism (new liberalism) and Labour’s move towards a rhetorical economic liberalism is evidence of the protean quality of liberalism and socialism. This attempt by the Conservatives to claim social credentials is not aimed at defining liberalism as the ideological brand of the Conservative Party but rather signals a return to the unifying principle of the Conservative Party: One Nation conservatism, which seems to be preferred to liberal conservatism. Claiming Labour’s Heritage The Conservatives Claiming Credit for Labour’s Social Achievements In their quest for social credentials and in addition to creating programmes, schemes and slogans resonating with explicit social liberal undertones (like ‘popular capitalism’, ‘progressive compassionate government’, ‘Help to Buy’, ‘the Shared Society’ …), the Conservatives tried to claim ownership of Labour’s flagship social programmes and policies, including the NHS or the National Minimum Wage (NMW). To achieve such a goal, David Cameron and Theresa May relied on a narrative attributing the creation of the National Minimum Wage to their party. By instilling confusion into people’s minds, they advertised the National Living Wage as a Conservative policy designed to ‘provide support to people’,68 ‘to help with income inequality’69 and to cause ‘the highest

68 Hansard, HC Deb, 19/07/2017, vol. 627, col. 831. 69 Hansard, HC Deb, 06/01/2016, vol. 604, col. 285.

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rise in lowest earners’ pay for 20 years’.70 ‘For the first time in our country, a national living wage will come in in April 2016’,71 ‘introduced by a Conservative-led government’,72 ‘never done by Labour, but introduced by a Conservative Government’.73 However, as persuasive as they might have been, their claim is misleading in so far as the National Living Wage was simply a renaming of the National Minimum Wage. Basically, the Government’s National Living Wage was just a new minimum wage for workers aged over 25 but rebranded as The National Living Wage in 2015. When Theresa May rhetorically asked MPs ‘when the Labour Party ever introduce[d] the national living wage’ and answered ‘never’, adding that ‘that was a Conservative Government and a Conservative record’, Jeremy Corbyn, then Leader of the Opposition, tried to set the record straight by counterclaiming that ‘it was Labour that first introduced the minimum wage – with opposition from the Conservative Party’,74 explaining that the Conservatives’ ‘National Living Wage is a corruption of the very idea’. Such an attempt to steal ownership of the NMW is a telling illustration of the evolution of the party on social issues (at least from a rhetorical perspective) especially in relation to John Major’s hard words on the National Minimum Wage in the 1990s (which ‘would have devastating effects for people, […] raise inflation and unemployment’75 ). In his time as Prime Minister, John Major resorted to the same strategy, not with the National Minimum Wage but with the NHS. He didn’t rebrand the social programme but tried to claim credit for the existence of the NHS. He admitted its creation by Labour but explained that it was the Conservative Party which made it last and made it stronger: It is perfectly true that the Labour Party established the National Health Service, but it is the Conservative Party that has built up the health service. We have been in power for two thirds of the period that has elapsed since

70 Hansard, HC Deb, 27/02/2019, vol. 655, 71 Hansard, HC Deb, 20/01/2016, vol. 604, 72 Hansard, HC Deb, 27/02/2019, vol. 655, 73 Hansard, HC Deb, 05/07/2017, vol. 626,

col. 329. col. 1407. col. 329. col. 1160.

74 Hansard, HC Deb, 19/07/2017, vol. 627, col. 831. 75 Hansard, HC Deb, 06/06/1991, vol. 192, col. 406.

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then, and we have built up the health service from its beginnings into a service that is now recognised as the best in the world.76

These efforts to lay hands on iconic social policies constitute manifest attempts to decouple Labour from social issues. In the competitive context of PMQs, sharing ownership of an issue with the opposing parties is not an option, it is an all-or-nothing situation in which only one party can claim to be on the side of the lowest incomes or the poorest members of the society. Not only did the Prime Minister try to strip the Labour Party of their major achievements in terms of social progress but the Conservatives also tried to cut them off from the lineal descent from prominent Labour figures. Claiming Filiation with Labour’s Prominent Figures In a bid to give credit to their shift towards a more social stance, the Conservatives invoked great figures of the Labour Party in relation to their policies. Names which have become symbols of social progress, for instance Clement Attlee (in relation to the implementation of the 1942 Beveridge Report) or Aneurin Bevan, were used by May and Cameron to call up the image of the welfare state and social reforms. The aim of the two Conservative Prime Ministers was to capitalise on the fame and achievements of the social reformers by portraying themselves as being more legitimate heirs than the members of the Labour Party would ever be. This strategy consisted in using references to Beveridge’s rhetoric, for example: We have been ensuring that we provide for people at every stage of their lives. For young people, we are ensuring that they have the opportunities to lead full and healthy lives into the future and ensuring that we provide for them not just through the welfare system but with our long-term plan for the national health service. At every stage of life, we are ensuring that we as Conservatives are improving people’s lives.77

There is no denying that these words (especially those in italics) bring to mind the famous phrase from the Beveridge Report: ‘from the cradle to the grave’. Theresa May uses these phrases as an overt signal that 76 Hansard, HC Deb, 21/01/1997, vol. 288, col. 738. 77 Hansard, HC Deb, 01/05/2019, vol. 659, col. 197.

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she walks in Beveridge’s footsteps suggesting she aligns her policies with the social principles advocated by him and enacted by a former Labour Government. May and her predecessor both went on to use prominent Labour figures to demonstrate the political and moral degeneration of the Labour Party. In February 2019, May laments that the Labour Party and Hamas and Hezbollah are friends, and that Hatton78 is a hero and Churchill a villain.79 She concludes that ‘Attlee and Bevan will be spinning in their graves and that is what the right honourable Gentleman (Jeremy Corbyn) has done to a once-proud Labour Party’.80 This is part of a strategy to discredit Corbyn who announced he would only talk to Theresa May about Brexit if she ruled out a no-deal scenario. May quoted one of Labour’s messages on Twitter reading: ‘Apparently Corbyn is prepared to hold talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad and Iran without preconditions. But not with the UK Prime Minister. Why?’. Through the comments that Bevan and Attlee would disapprove of their own party’s actions, the Conservatives imply that these Labour politicians would identify more closely with the Tories, vindicating their policies in the process. David Cameron goes even as far as speaking for Aneurin Bevan who, if ‘he were here today, he would want a seven-day NHS, because he knew that the NHS was for patients up and down the country’.81 This might sound slightly ironical knowing that Bevan did not hold the Conservatives in high esteem; during a speech at a party rally in 1948, Bevan stated: ‘So far as I am concerned, they are lower than vermin’. The Conservatives’ effort to manipulate Labour’s lineage (and legacy) by disaffiliating prominent politicians from the Party and (re)affiliating them with the Conservative Party is a manoeuvre to undermine Labour’s reputation while improving their own social credentials.

78 Derek Hatton is a former British politician who was found (in 1986) to have committed wilful misconduct as he was deputy leader of Liverpool City Council. He was also accused of corruption in 1993. Later in 2018 he was suspended from the Labour Party for allegedly writing an anti-Semitic tweet in 2012. In 2020, he was arrested for suspected bribery related to building and development contracts in Liverpool. 79 Hansard, HC Deb, 20/02/2019, vol. 654, col. 1461. 80 Hansard, HC Deb, 20/02/2019, vol. 654, col. 1457. 81 Hansard, HC Deb, 24/02/2016, vol. 606, col. 292.

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Conclusion Through a typical and symbolic representation of socialism set in opposition to a successful and emancipatory liberalism, the Conservatives intend to widen the ideological and identity gap between their group and the Opposition parties. However, liberalism, as represented and used by the Conservatives is not the ideological equivalent of Conservatism but rather it is a rhetorical means to serve the political interests of the party. Conversely, socialism as portrayed by the conservatives is presented as the ideological essence of the Labour Party, as an evil standing in sharp contrast with the freedom promised by the Conservatives. In this oversimplified mythologised political world, liberalism and socialism are mutually dependent, they exist in a symbiotic relation in which one feeds off the other. Moreover, their representation does not evolve on an axis between two poles but within a multidimensional space composed of different definitional layers. Socialism and liberalism have turned into symbols that are wielded as powerful weapons in Parliament, especially during PMQs, and owners of such symbolic objects are cautious not to lose ownership of them. The Conservatives have used socialism as a symbol to undermine the Labour Party’s credibility and legitimacy while using, at the same time, social liberalism and even some of Labour’s symbols to bolster their own authority as the governing party. As symbols derive their power from their ambiguity and ambivalence, they can also put the users of such symbols at odds with some members of their group who support clear-cut ideological lines between opposing political parties. When the Conservative leaders move too far on the progressive side of liberalism (on the face of it at least), they risk alienating a part of their support, as evidenced in Philip Davies’s question to Theresa May, who had committed to spending billions of pounds on public services, local councils and for the national living wage82 : Prime Minister, I believe in the free market, I believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility, and I am suspicious of the nanny state. Am I still a Conservative?83

82 Hansard, HC Deb, 27/03/2019, vol. 657, col. 313. 83 Hansard, HC Deb, 23/05/2018, vol. 641, col. 840.

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References Alexandre-Collier, Agnès. 2010. Les habits neufs de David Cameron. Les conservateurs britannique (1990–2010). Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Two Concepts of Liberty. In Four Essays on Liberty, 118– 172. London: Oxford University Press. Berthezène, Clarisse. 2015. Training Minds for the War of Ideas: Ashridge College, the Conservative Party and the Cultural Politics of Britain, 1929–54. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen. 1987 [1978]. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cameron, David. 2006. Modern Conservatism. Speech at Demos, 30 January 2006. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/jan/30/conser vatives.davidcameron. Accessed 03 December 2022. Dorey, Peter. 2007. A New Direction or Another False Dawn? David Cameron and the Crisis of British Conservatism. British Politics 2 (2): 137–166. Edelman, Murray. 1971. Politics as Symbolic Action. New York: Academic Press. Edelman, Murray. 1988. Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Elder, Charles D. and Cobb, Roger W. 1983. The Political Uses of Symbols. London: Longman. Freeden, Michael. 2003. Ideologies: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freeden, Michael. 2015. Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goes, Eunice. 2004. The Third Way and the Politics of Community. In The Third Way and Beyond, ed. Sarah Hale, Will Leggett and Luke Martell, 108–127. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hayton, R. and McEnhill, L. 2015. Cameron’s Conservative Party, social Liberalism and Social Justice. British Politics 10 (2): 131–147. Heppell, Timothy. 2014. The Tories: From Winston Churchill to David Cameron. London: Bloomsbury. Jessop, Bob. 2007. New Labour or the Normalization of Neo-Liberalism. British Politics 2 (3): 282–288. Kertzer, David. 1988. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kinder, D., Peters, M., Abelson, R. and Fiske, S. 1980. Presidential Prototypes. Political Behavior 2 (4): 315–337. Lawler-Wilson, W. 1909. The Menace of Socialism. London: Grant Richards. Maynard, Jonathan L. 2015. Identity and Ideology in Political Violence and Conflict. St Antony’s International Review 10 (2): 18–52.

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McAllister, Ian. 2000. Keeping Them Honest: Public and Elite Perceptions of Ethical Conduct Among Australian Legislators. Political Studies 48 (1): 22– 37. Popkin, Samuel. 1991. The Reasoning Voter. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Sfez, Lucien. 1988. La symbolique politique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

Prefigurative Activism Today: From Socialist Values via Anarchist Tactics Back to the Neoliberal Status Quo Rafal Soborski

It has been over ten years since the ‘movements of the squares’ (Gerbaudo 2014)—including 15-M or Indignados in Southern Europe, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and its worldwide spin-offs, and other anti-austerity mobilizations—focused the hopes of the political left and the broader public outraged by the excesses of neoliberal capitalism brought into sharp relief by the 2008 financial crisis. The protests had ideological and organizational roots in the ‘alterglobalization’ or ‘global justice’ movements of the 1990s, though their emphasis on occupying public spaces was new, drawing inspiration from the preceding Arab Spring uprisings. The main wave of mobilizations peaked in late 2011 and waned in the course of 2012, but their tactics were later mimicked by others, for example, the French Nuit Debout movement in 2016. While the movements that revolved around occupations of public squares—I will call them ‘occupy’ movements from now on, even though they extend beyond OWS and other Occupy mobilizations of 2011— offered a powerful symbol of the global rejection of neoliberal capitalism,

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their accomplishments were underwhelming. It is true that the movements changed the nature of the national conversation in the United States and elsewhere by highlighting the destructive effects of neoliberal policies which had culminated in the gravest economic calamity since the Great Depression and by foregrounding the extreme inequality produced by four decades of neoliberal restructuring. Occupy protests also galvanized progressive wings of the Democratic Party in the United States as well as helping elevate leftist Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labor Party in Britain in 2015; they also inspired entirely new antiausterity political parties, such as Podemos in Spain. However, while such developments are of unquestioned significance, the movements otherwise achieved little translation into a real-world change or policy outcome. In fact, it is the right, rather than the left, that has triumphed in recent years; Brexit, Trump and the authoritarian shift in many places, both in the Global South and the Global North, which has culminated in the Russian aggression in Ukraine, are the most obvious examples. In terms of political economy, the ‘credit crunch’ and the associated sovereign debt crisis, especially in Southern European countries, have been followed by a decade of neoliberal austerity, disrupted, to some extent, only by the COVID-19 pandemic (Soborski 2021; see also Dalingwater, this volume). Meanwhile the broader context has been one of accelerating polarization and consolidation of resources and power in the hands of a miniscule group of global plutocrats, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. To be sure, it would be both unfair and naïve to trace the problems we are facing today back entirely to what progressive activists did or did not do a decade ago. Social movements’ effects are often subtle, diffuse, and extended in time, they can also be overlooked when the movements’ goals are accomplished and begin to be taken for granted. Yet, although occupy movements exerted a significant biographical impact on their participants (Vestergren et al. 2017) and had some later valuable offshoots (Welty 2014), most commentators now look back at them with a sense of frustration due to their inadequate political articulation and strategy (Boggs 2012; Soborski 2018; Srnicek and Williams 2015; Winlow et al. 2015; Žižek 2011). Considering the enormous opportunity that the 2008 crisis offered progressive activists to challenge neoliberalism, as well as the broad-based support from the general public that they enjoyed, their impact has not been felt as much as it could have been. This chapter contributes to the vast literature on the legacy of occupy movements by bringing the question of ideology into the debate. It

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argues that while their populist narrative—which revolved around the opposition between the ‘99 percent’ majority population and the ‘1 percent’ super-wealthy minority—invoked socialist themes with potential to mobilize the public; the movements failed to transcend the parameters of neoliberalism. Even though neoliberalism’s ideological domination, which has now endured for almost five decades, helps to explain this, another major hindrance was the anarchist tactic of prefiguration which had entrenched itself at the heart of anti-neoliberal activism. The intention of prefigurative politics is to unite its means with its aims—in other words, in a prefigurative movement the process is harmonized with the objective—and the appeal of prefiguration is related to a widespread perception that corruption and hypocrisy are all-pervasive in mainstream political space. However, prefigurative activism also has problematic implications and this chapter sheds some light on the latter by considering their ideological dimension. The next three sections focus on the interaction between the main ideologies that shaped occupy movements: socialism, which informed—albeit, due to constraints of prefiguration, only implicitly—the values underpinning their populist narratives; anarchism, from where the movements’ prefigurative tactics originated, and neoliberalism, which maintained a hegemonic grip over their ideational horizons while receiving unwitting reinforcement from the ethos of prefiguration.

99 Percent: A Populist Narrative in Search of a Socialist Host ‘We are the 99 percent’ was the rallying cry of OWS and other occupy movements. The catchphrase aimed to capture the essence of their protest against the financial crisis and subsequent austerity policies imposed by neoliberal governments and international financial institutions. Regardless of some of its issues and contradictions (Soborski 2018: 70), the narrative revolving around the 99 percent had a remarkable mobilizing potential and has remained in the public lexicon in spite of the forced clearance, in the course of 2012, of the movement’s encampments in the Global North. In the wake of the financial crisis, the inclusivity of the slogan enabled occupy movements to attract the increasingly squeezed middle classes and capitalize on the widespread outrage with the tiny minority who had been largely responsible for the turmoil but who had only consolidated their extraordinary privileges in its aftermath. However,

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while the opposition between the 99 and the 1 percent was a great discursive tool to highlight the shocking concentration of wealth and power, it was also an extremely capacious concept—just like the population that it aimed to represent—and the rhetoric of it remained vague and woolly, as in ‘it is easy to see what the movement is demanding: quite simply, a world that works for the 99%’ (Van Gelder 2011: 6). ‘We are the 99 percent’ is a paradigmatic example of populist speech. Populism is a discursive style which revolves around the opposition between a ‘people’, whom populists claim to represent, and an exploitative minority, exactly as in the 99 versus the 1 percent. Unlike comprehensive and distinct ideological systems, such as socialism or liberalism, populism is at most a ‘thin’ ideology (Freeden 1998; Stanley 2008) in that, aside from drawing the sharp distinction between the people and the elite, ‘it does little else’ (Freeden 2003: 98). In view of that, populism in itself is too narrow to be able to determine what is so virtuous about the majority that it claims to embody and what objectives it aims to pursue on its behalf. Anything that populism ‘does’ in its concrete articulations (by individuals, parties or movements) beyond drawing that basic contrast can only stem from an ideological identity that it acquires by becoming associated with a broader system of ideas, or an ideological host. In the case of occupy movements that ideological association remained tacit, but pointed in the direction of socialism. While the 99 percent discourse was thin on overt ideological identification, it implicitly alluded to the notion of social class or at least the precariousness and a sense of economic vulnerability experienced by the vast majority of people in spite of them making every reasonable effort to avoid destitution. Socialist themes are identifiable not just in the 99 percent discourse of OWS, but also in slogans of other movements of the squares, including ‘we are one hand’ rallying cry of the 2011 Egyptian uprising, which stressed the unity of the masses as transcending any religious or ethnic divisions (Gerbaudo 2012: 10), or the Indignados’ claim to represent ordinary working people against self-serving elites epitomized by la Casta (‘the caste’) or ‘Troika’, a decision-making group consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the Troika had been in charge of the policies of extreme austerity imposed on Greece and several other European countries, and was a convenient symbol for everything that was wrong with the neoliberal system of global governance). In all these cases, the centripetal emphasis on the unity of the people implied a possibility of

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overcoming the trend toward fragmentation inherent in identitarian politics that had stalled many progressive movements before the occupy wave. The fact that this popular unity was conceived in opposition to the neoliberal establishment signaled a possibility that the movements would engage with broader questions of capitalism and political economy. Indeed, the movements’ slogans ‘had an appealing air of class antagonism’ (Winlow et al. 2015: 152). However, while the populist sentiment of occupy movements had a socialist undercurrent, they failed to channel their enthused proclamation of collective power into a cohesive sense of political direction or purpose. Parts of the heritage of the left explain this reluctance of the movements to fully utilize the ideational resources available in the socialist tradition. The obstinate hierarchies of the ‘old’ left, its commitment to industrialism without limits, and its neglect of a range of identity-related questions, were regularly invoked in arguments rejecting socialism for the sake of horizontal activism (Hardt and Negri 2012). In fact, what was played out within the movements were the long-standing disagreements and tensions between two broad perspectives within the left—socialism and anarchism (Ibrahim 2013; Rowe and Carroll 2014). Caricatures and misrepresentations abounded in exchanges of diatribes regarding, on the one hand, the supposedly inevitable rigidity of the organizational straitjacket of socialism and, on the other hand, the presumed petulant pretentions of anarchists to change the world without engaging with the institutions of power. What was overlooked were important synergies between the two traditions. Socialism’s industrial and authoritarian incarnation does not exhaust what socialist tradition has to offer; it also includes William Morris, Robert Owen, the Diggers and Levellers and others whose ideas cohere with the decentralized nature of anti-neoliberal movements. On the other hand, even though classical anarchists were unequivocal in their rejection of the state, it does not follow that they did not appreciate the idea of institution as a political tool. However, in the case of occupy movements a particular interpretation of anarchism, sometimes called neo-anarchism (Taylor 2013) eclipsed more socialist tendencies. Anarchist influences are particularly evident in the emphasis on horizontality as an organizing principle of anti-neoliberal movements; this, in turn, is related to the importance attached to prefigurative aspects of activism. It is the activists’ commitment to prefiguration that prevented the socialist seeds incipient in the 99 percent discourse from sprouting into an ideological branch

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solid enough to support a cohesive social movement. Prefigurative politics produced instead a more informal and ephemeral form of activism revolving around occupations of public spaces as materialization of what some anarchist theorists call ‘temporary autonomous zones’ (Bey 2003). The next section discusses how anarchist influences restricted the ‘repertoires of contention’ (Tilly 1986) that anti-neoliberal movements were prepared to employ.

Anarchist Prefiguration and Its Limits The coining of the term ‘prefiguration’ is usually credited to Carl Boggs (1978 [1977]: 100) who described prefigurative politics as ‘the embodiment, within the ongoing political practice of a movement, of those forms of social relations, decision-making, culture, and human experience that are the ultimate goal’. However, prefigurative practices can be traced back to nineteenth century anarchism. The nature of prefiguration is captured in the words of one of anarchism’s early propagandists, Emma Goldman (2005 [1924]): ‘All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose’. Prefigurative movements strive to remain faithful to their principles when engaging in daily collective routines and political activities. The appeal of this is related to some long-standing concerns with how initially open and democratic organizations degenerate into closed and authoritarian structures. A classic account of the process is available in Robert Michels’s Political Parties (1962 [1911]), which introduced to political sociology the concept of ‘iron law of oligarchy’. Accordingly, ‘who says organization, says oligarchy’ (Michels 1962 [1911]: 365); with this in mind, prefigurative movements committed to horizontality tend to refuse to formalize their actions or put forward any official representatives. On the other hand, with the passage of time, and often concurrently with processes of bureaucratization, the goals of progressive organizations also get moderated and co-opted. This is illustrated by transformation of much of democratic socialism into social democracy and the absorption of the latter into political mainstream. In the 1960s in the Western world, that mainstream was Keynesian in nature, and hence broadly compatible with both liberal and some socialist principles; the co-optation of social democracy became more problematic from a socialist perspective when the mainstream acquired a firmly neoliberal character—Tony Blair’s

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Third Way epitomized the resulting ideological hollowing out of the center-left. A similar process of deradicalization took place within Western environmentalism from the 1970s onward (Ely and Mayer 1998). Motives behind prefigurative activism are thus noble, related to efforts to steer clear of hypocrisy whereby praiseworthy political ends justify unprincipled political means. However, prefigurative politics, like any politics, is more suited for certain contexts and groups than others (Soborski 2019). For example, the nature of the problems that left-wing progressives were confronted with in the 1960s meant that a prefigurative mode of organization had some distinct advantages: ‘because often goals were nonmaterial and political, and not economic (an end to the war in Vietnam being the most obvious) – and because often they were, in fact, qualitative and moral – […d]isruption, the threat of moral and political resistance, was as effective as an economic strategy would be in a labor struggle’ (Breines 1980: 423). Today’s problems, on the other hand—the economic and human cost of neoliberalism, austerity, corporate exploitation of communities, and the environment—are all material in nature and moral outrage does little to address them without specific alternative proposals and plans of action. Prefigurative mode can also work in small groups displaying a significant degree of ideological and lifestyle consensus such as Quaker communities. In contrast, contemporary anti-neoliberal activism is neither small-scale nor uniform in terms of its participants’ values and lifestyles. Occupy mobilizations had mass character and, in keeping with the 99 percent mantra, their ‘membership’ cut across a number of socio-economic characteristics. Activists’ identities were also highly individualized (Stern et al. 2014: 137) hindering aspects of decision-making and focused collective action. Anarchism’s political ideal revolves around ‘the abolition of political power and a spontaneous social order based on altruism and mutual interdependence’ (Freeden 2003: 84). Accordingly, anarchist movements aim to prefigure a horizontal society where no individual exercises control, economic or political, over others. This aspiration informed how occupy movements viewed themselves and the political modus operandi that they adopted. Initially, the mobilization was to be about ‘one demand’ so broad and all-encompassing that everyone in the movement could support it of their own accord without any suspicion of pressure from others—‘WHAT IS OUR ONE DEMAND?’ was the slogan featuring on the original poster calling to ‘Occupy Wall Street’ published by Adbusters magazine and credited by some as the initial ‘branding’ of OWS (Yardley

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2011). However, in a movement that was at the same time extraordinarily diverse and firmly committed to consensus-based direct democracy, an agreement on what the demand was to be proved impossible to reach. As Rodrigo Nunes (2005: 311) pointed out: ‘[t]he dream of ‘absolute openness’ means that openness is only possible if we abstract all concrete differences. Also, nothing can ever be affirmed, for that would contradict openness’. In effect, since any single demand would have been too restrictive and divisive, OWS ended up declaring itself a movement ‘with no demands’, and many activists and fellow travelling intellectuals (Castells 2015; Harcourt 2012) assumed that this, and the associated slogan of the movement—‘We Are Our Demands’—was a way to implement its prefigurative commitments. In the case of OWS, but also earlier European mobilizations such as the Indignados, it was thus the movement itself that was turned into the object of political action, while the absence of a systematic political program meant that the experience of activism became the value to guide the action. The choice was hailed as fulfilling the potential offered by prefigurative politics—‘the refusal to adopt formal leadership or any predefined ideological goal was a conscious strategy which pointed towards the kinds of possible future(s) desired’ (Howard and Pratt-Boyden 2013: 729)—and as allowing activists to remain untainted by the corrupting mechanisms of power. However, critics highlight a range of problems with this way of thinking about prefiguration, especially the fact that the principles that were to be prefigured tended to be rejoiced for the dynamics that they were meant to generate within the space of activism rather than for any impact they might have on the broader world. Although prefiguration promised to liberate activists from the straitjacket of political organization and doctrine, it also carried with it the risk of ‘fetishization of form over function’ (Wolfson and Funke 2017: 90) or, in another turn of phrase, a ‘fusion of form and content that reduces the latter to the former’ (Taylor 2013: 738). Importantly, part of the discursive celebration of prefigurative politics was an ostensible rejection of ideology (Soborski 2018: 51–66). According to advocates of ‘non-ideological’ activism, prefigurative mobilizations resist ‘the urge to formulate policy demands, to endorse party politics, or to embrace the worn-out ideologies of the cold war’ (Harcourt 2012: 54); they ‘aim to be free of ideological or institutional constraint’ (Howard and Pratt-Boyden 2013: 733); they refuse ‘singular demands, ideologies, or programmes for social change’ (Maeckelbergh 2012: 211);

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they ‘do not adhere to dogma and hierarchy’ and are instead ‘based in trust and love’ (Sitrin 2006: 2). It is fair to say that the majority of movement insiders, including many academics, believed that this professed lack of interest in ideology liberated the activists from an ideational straitjacket. However, from a different perspective, it could be argued that this approach resulted in lack of focus, ephemerality of struggles, neutralization and unwitting susceptibility to recuperation and co-optation, or mere ‘selective facilitation’ (Tarrow 2011: 209) by neoliberalism. To be sure, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, prefigurative anti-neoliberal activism of occupy movements was informed by ideology, which—as ‘the DNA of praxis’ (Freeden 2005a: 262)—is part and parcel of any political action. However, as a result of the dismissal of ‘ideological politics’, it was not an ideology debated overtly and used as a valuable resource in political action. Instead, it was an implicit and suppressed one which did its work behind the scenes. Furthermore, virtues of prefigurative politics notwithstanding, an important lesson from recent mobilizations is that activists’ withdrawal from programmatic debates made it easier for neoliberals to advance the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ to the existing system. The next section sheds light on how aspects of neoliberalism may have been inadvertently buttressed by its would-be opponents—an example of the capacity of ideological hegemony to operate without awareness, let alone resistance, of those who are subject to it.

The New Spirit of Neoliberalism? Following Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell (2007: 28), neoliberalism can be defined by its dedication ‘to the extension of market (and market-like) forms of governance, rule, and control across – tendentially at least – all spheres of social life’. Neoliberalism represents an outgrowth of classical liberal economic theory but shares common ground with conservatism and a case has been made for its exclusion from the liberal family (Freeden 1996: 276–314; Freeden 2001: 200). While possibly an intruder in the liberal territory, neoliberalism today claims to represent a non-ideological common-sense—a discursive strategy to make global capitalism seem as inevitable as the weather and thus to dissimulate, naturalize, and dehistoricize its impact. However, whereas neoliberal luminaries and policymakers today disavow ideology (Soborski 2018: 26–27), their forerunners who contested, then from the position of marginality, the golden age of Keynesian capitalism, had an ample appreciation for the power of

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ideas. Interestingly, one of the early architects of neoliberal hegemony, F. A. Hayek, often invoked the example of socialists, especially of the Fabian sort, when arguing in favor of taking political ideas seriously. He admired his socialist rivals for their understanding of the importance of a good political argument and for their ideological persistence during the era of unbridled capitalism in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In his essay titled ‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’ (1949), Hayek emphasized the ability of intellectuals, ‘the secondhand dealers in ideas’ as he fondly dubbed them, to destabilize an ideological consensus through a long-term effort of constructing a counterhegemonic position. When it came to the neoliberals’ own journey to hegemony, this took approximately three decades following the end of the Second World War and required an unwavering commitment to what seemed like a distant ideal. Hayek had accepted that freeing the market from the state would be ‘a long-run effort, concerned not so much with what would be immediately practicable, but with the beliefs which must gain ascendence’ (in Srnicek and Williams 2015: 55). Milton Friedman, another leading free-market intellectual, made a similar point: ‘Our basic function [is] to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable’ (Friedman 2002 [1962]: xiv). Indeed, when the time came, marked by stagflation, the early 1970s oil shocks, increased labor militancy and the overall sense of crisis afflicting the Keynesian model, then the free-marketeers were there, ready to seize the opportunity—something that the left-wing progressives were not able to do in what seemed to be, for them, a similarly opportune context of the recent dramatic convulsions of neoliberalism. Fifty years later, neoliberalism’s status may not be quite like that it once enjoyed. According to some commentators, this is a ‘post-hegemonic’ neoliberalism, one ‘without normative or democratic authority’ and based instead ‘around an ethos of punishment’ (Davis 2016: 123–24) associated with austerity. Using a different turn of phrase, Neil Smith (2010: 56) described the present-day condition of neoliberalism as ‘dead yet still dominant’. While the characterization of neoliberal hegemony as zombielike is captivating—and has for some time been trending in post-crisis accounts of neoliberalism (e.g., Fisher 2013; Peck 2014; Wright 2015: 111)—this does not alter the fact that its grip on people’s lives all over the world continues to be very tight and real. After all, as Colin Leys (1990: 127) remarked, ‘for an ideology to be hegemonic, it is not necessary that it be loved. It is merely necessary that it have no serious rival’. Illustrating

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this point, whereas recent anti-neoliberal mobilizations drew the public’s attention to a range of problems caused by neoliberalism, they did not succeed in their attempts to destabilize it. Furthermore, the movements’ ideological frames exhibited significant penetration by neoliberal ideas, or perhaps an uneasy overlap, or resonance, between neoliberalism and anarchism. Some critics went as far as to argue that prefigurative anarchism, far from posing a challenge to neoliberalism, is actually its product (Fisher 2013). As was discussed in the previous section, occupy movements revolved around its participants, with ‘We Are Our Demands’ as one of the movements’ defining slogans. However, the occupiers did not see themselves as parts of a united collective, but instead as individuals whose identities were not to be ‘oppressed’ by a political program or predetermined group commitments. There was deliberate absence—motivated by a prefigurative dedication to absolute horizontality—of a clear purpose or vision to unify the cacophony of different voices celebrated in the spaces of occupation. In this regard, the anarchist practice of prefiguration proved compatible with some features of the highly individualistic vision of human nature held by neoliberalism, especially its professed prioritization of personal autonomy and creativity (Pugh 2011: 294). This unintended synergy between discourses of neoliberalism and its opponents is not new. Scholars have shown, using earlier examples, how neoliberalism can benefit when progressive movements speak the language that reverberates with its own vernacular and hence supply ‘charismatic rationale for a mode of capital accumulation, touted as “flexible”, “difference-friendly”, “encouraging of creativity from below”’ (Fraser 2013: 130). A classic work in this area is the study by French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello of what they call ‘the new spirit of capitalism’ which, they say, revolves around: [A]utonomy, spontaneity, rhizomorphous capacity, multitasking (in contrast to the narrow specialization of the old division of labour), conviviality, openness to others and novelty, availability, creativity, visionary intuition, sensitivity to differences, listening to lived experience and receptiveness to a whole range of experiences, being attracted to informality and the search for interpersonal contacts – these are taken directly from the repertoire of May 1968. (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007: 97)

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The elective affinity between more recent prefigurative activism, itself rooted in the New Left’s political culture of the 1960s, and neoliberalism, has been identified by scholars who study the anarchist orientation of today’s progressive social movements, for example Rodrigo Nunes (2005: 311): ‘[b]y becoming this transcendent ideal, horizontality and openness – themselves not unfamiliar to business and management discourses – can become very similar to liberalism’. More to the point, Jodi Dean (2009: 34) has argued that a typical long-term expression of prefigurative commitments is often limited to ethical consumerism (see also Cohen 2009: 166–67). The overlap between countercultural and neoliberal and consumerist values has been explored also in the field of cultural studies (Frank 1997; Heath and Potter 2006). However, it remains largely unacknowledged by the academic enthusiasts as well as practitioners of recent prefigurative activism. The prefigurative approach also bears some responsibility for occupy movements’ limited engagement with questions of class and international political economy. As discussed earlier, their discourse was largely restricted to drawing a bare opposition between the elites (1 percent) and the masses (99 percent). Devoid of adequate ideological scaffolding, the movements were unable, or unwilling, to go beyond mere ‘platitudes about equality and fairness’ (Winlow et al. 2015: 155). The neglect extended to the question of how power is played out on social media that the movements placed at the center of their discourse on democracy and horizontalism. This particular techno-enthusiastic position has waned over time as the increasing penetration of electronic communication by the logic of neoliberal capitalism is now hard to ignore. However, in its early days, occupy movements, and prior to them the alterglobalist movement, did not appreciate how drenched in neoliberalism is the internet. The logic of networks, touted by techno-utopian academic commentators as promoting radical democratization (e.g., Castells 2015), represents in fact the new mechanism of control that has replaced the hierarchical instruments of the Fordist era (Pugh 2011: 294). The naïve association of networking with horizontalism that used to be extremely popular among anti-neoliberal activists and intellectuals (as discussed in Soborski 2018: 35–50) may have been yet another illustration of neoliberalism’s pervasive and intractable influence. As Gerbaudo (2012: 8–9) puts it: ‘The technovisionary discourse on social media appears as the reflection of a neoliberal ideology, incapable of understanding collective action except as

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the result of some sort of technological miracle fleetingly binding together egotistical individuals’. It is important to query whether the movements of the squares were in fact as genuinely horizontal as they declared themselves to be. Gerbaudo’s is one of several accounts demonstrating that in OWS, an elite group of activists assumed the role of ‘opinion’ and ‘organisational’ leaders: ‘Such activists came to acquire a role as invisible choreographers who by using social media to publicise the movement’s plans and events have had much influence in shaping its manifestations’ (2012: 131–32). Other activists and scholars have reported that hierarchies based on gender, ethnicity and class were also discernible in various occupations (Anonymous 2012; Grande 2013; Pickerill and Krinsky 2012). Of particular relevance here is the phenomenon described by an activist-writer of an earlier generation, Jo Freeman (1972), as ‘tyranny of structurelessness’. Drawing on 1960s’ anarcho-feminist movements, Freeman argued that ‘there is no such thing as a “structureless” group’, because ‘any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion’. While structurelessness is not possible to accomplish in social practice, the idea is also problematic in that it obscures the operation of informal and unacknowledged mechanisms of power, based on celebrity status of some group members or their superior cultural capital. A major concern in this context is lack of accountability of such informal leaders: since their leadership is not officially acknowledged, they are, ipso facto, not constrained by any proper limitations. A related point to note is that prefigurative politics may have a class dimension. As Juris (2013: 57) observed, it was preferred by middle-class white youth, while working-class activists of color did not feel welcome in the spaces of this form of activism. Rituals—a facet of any political action (Flood 2002: 182–94), but particularly significant in prefigurative movements and abundant in occupy protests (see, for example, Harcourt 2012: 39–40, 42)—tend to have an energizing influence on their participants, but they can also be exclusive and excluding. On this account, while occupy movements claimed to represent the 99 percent, they fell short of transcending the class dimension of neoliberal capitalism.

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Conclusion In his seminal work on political ideologies, Michael Freeden argued that ‘the most important facet of ideological morphology [is] the absence of absolute boundaries which separate the features of ideological systems’ (Freeden 1996: 87). Consequently, ‘[i]t is useless to entertain the notion of precise ideological boundaries, or of features exclusive to one ideology or the other’ (Freeden 1996: 88; see also Freeden, this volume). This is an important caveat for a student of ideology when they examine a field where different ideological currents compete but also merge and enrich or undermine each other. The recent anti-neoliberal movements of the squares are a case in point. The activists’ actions were informed by diverse political ideals and hence ideologies, even though the latter often remained ‘invisible as such to the wearers themselves, never the most informed about the traditions they inhabit’ (Freeden 2005b: 139). The relative significance of different ideological tributaries that coagulate in the syncretic ideological field of anti-neoliberalism is subject to an ongoing debate (Rowe and Carroll 2014; Soborski 2012). This chapter provided some pointers as to the lineage of the discourses produced and circulated within the spaces of recent anti-neoliberal activism. It argued that the narrative of the 99 percent was an instance of socialist populism; socialism acting as the ideological vessel for the rudimentary populist rhetoric of ‘us versus them’. Socialism’s influence was evident in those bits of the 99 percent discourse which emphasized the economic, classbased nature of the antagonism. However, such discursive threads were few and far between as the socialism of occupy movements rarely dared to speak its name and remained an implicit influence. The chapter then considered anarchism that some activists and fellow-traveling intellectuals eagerly acknowledged as an organizing principle of the movements, and which was evident in the mode of action that they adopted. This was a particular incarnation of the anarchist tradition, one aiming to prefigure absolute horizontality in the spaces of occupation. It rejected, or ignored, the classical anarchist analysis favorable of alternative institutions, such as syndicates, councils, or federations (Taylor 2013: 734), and emphasized instead ideals of autonomy, creativity, and spontaneity. Paradoxically, in an example of unintentional ideological triangulation such prefigurative politics of the squares may have been conducive to the logics of neoliberalism, discussed in the third section. The connection between counterculture and capitalism has been a subject of several studies but their focus tended

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to be on the rejuvenation of capitalism once it had devoured the spirit of the New Left and the 1960s counterculture. Today, it may not be so much a case of neoliberalism swallowing the reaction against it, but rather of the latter borrowing much of its own ideological repertoire from the neoliberal adversary in the first place. This demonstrates the extent to which the hegemony of neoliberalism pervades even the politics of its contestation. Anti-neoliberal movements cannot match the material might of neoliberalism’s main constituencies, the corporation and the transnational capitalist class (Sklair 2022), and so the main asset that they are left with is their capacity, in principle, to think beyond what is empirically given and their potential power to shape collective imagination. Critics of recent prefigurative activism make an important point when they emphasize that its scope was delineated by the here-and-now of occupation and hence its transformative power had a limited reach. At the same time, whereas the anarchist politics of prefiguration helped the activists avoid the traps of institutionalization, it rendered them unable to benefit from the ideational resources obtainable from the rich tradition of socialist theory and practice. Averse to theoretical analysis and openly ideological debate, occupy activists did not fill the mold of 99 percent with political content ‘thick’ enough to articulate concrete aims and demands. Prefiguration may have also prevented them from appreciating how close to neoliberal values came some of the assumptions guiding the movements, especially as thorny questions and doubts were swept under the carpet, or—more precisely—under the concrete of the occupied squares. While the financial crisis of 2008 and the anti-neoliberal movements that arose in its aftermath may have taken away some of neoliberalism’s sheen, it has nevertheless continued its global expansion in various forms including the ‘military-nationalist’ or ‘reactionary’ incarnation personified by Donald Trump (Fraser 2017; Kiely 2019). Still, neoliberalism, like any ideology, will not be left unchallenged, especially given neoliberal capitalism’s exceptional proneness to crises. As the field of ideology is in constant flux, only time will tell what ideological reconfiguration will emerge when a major resistance to neoliberalism materializes again.

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Index

A Ainsworth, Peter, 262 Althusser, Louis, 121 Alton, David, 183 Angell, Norman, 202, 203, 206 Appel, Monte, 239 Arendt, Hannah, 103 Aristotle, 91 Attlee, Clement, 171, 218, 269, 270 B Bader, Ernest, 178, 179 Bailey, Britan, 220 Bailey, Jack, 172 Balibar, Étienne, 47, 48 Bancroft, Griffing, 243 Barnes, Alfred, 172 Barone, Enrico, 108 Beck, Ulrich, 143 Benn, Tony, 176, 177 Bentham, Jeremy, 3 Berlin, Isaiah, 5, 24, 67, 260 Bernstein, Eduard, 4, 21 Bett, Michael, 220

Bevan, Aneurin, 9, 213, 216–218, 227, 269, 270 Beveridge, Sir William, 24, 60, 218, 269, 270 Bevir, Mark, 8 Bezos, Jeff, 276 Blair, Tony, 4, 183, 185, 265, 280 Bland, Hubert, 52–54 Blyth, Jim, 220 Boggs, Carl, 280 Borah, William, 245 Brailsford, Henry Noel, 201, 207–209 Brockway, Fenner, 205 Bruckner, Pascal, 142–144, 146, 156 Bryce, James, 200, 201 Buchanan, Patrick J., 246 Buchez, Philippe, 168 Buckley Jr., William F., 245 Buxton, Charles, 201 Buxton, Noel, 201 C Callaghan, James, 219 Callan, Albert S., 242

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Guy et al. (eds.), Liberalism and Socialism since the Nineteenth Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41233-2

295

296

INDEX

Cameron, David, 186, 251, 253, 254, 257, 259, 263, 265, 267, 269, 270 Castoriadis, Cornelius, 143, 144 Chotiner, Murray, 243 Churchill, Winston, 270 Clarke, William, 195, 198 Coates, Ken, 176 Coldrick, William, 171 Corbyn, Jeremy, 268, 270, 276 Cripps, Stafford, 173 Crosland, Anthony, 69, 175, 218 D Darwin, Charles, 54, 55 Davenport, Russell, 245 Davies, Philip, 271 Davies, Steve, 267 de Balzac, Honoré, 49, 50 Delors, Jacques, 150 Delsol, Chantal, 2 de Montaigne, Michel, 40 d’Estaing, Giscard, 143 Dewey, Thomas E., 241, 243 Dickinson, Lester J., 207, 237 Disraeli, Benjamin, 200, 203 Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 242 Dubcek, Alexander, 55 Durkheim, Émile, 215 Dworkin, Ronald, 94 E Edwards, Robert, 179 Eisenhower, Dwight, 242–244 Engels, Friedrich, 80–82, 85, 87, 88, 93, 167, 168 Erhardt, Ludwig, 153 Evans, Ioan, 180 F Fabre-Magnan, Muriel, 44, 45

Fletcher, Henry P., 236 Flynn, John T., 241 Foot, Michael, 217 Fourier, Joseph, 167 Frank, Glenn, 239 Freeden, Michael, 8, 60, 66, 68, 251, 252, 263, 288 Friedman, Milton, 54, 284 Fukuyama, Francis, 141–144, 146, 155, 157 G Gaitskell, Hugh, 175 Gannett, Frank, 245 Geras, Norman, 4 Gladstone, William E., 200 Goldman, Emma, 280 Goldwater, Barry, 244 Graham, Ted, 179, 180, 182 Green, T.H., 3, 61, 65, 67, 68 Griffiths, Roy, 220 Guy, Stéphane, 52–55 H Habermas, Jurgen, 144 Haldane, Richard Burdon, 197 Halleck, Charles A., 242 Hamilton, John D.M., 238 Hardie, Keir, 195, 196 Hatton, 270 Hayek, F.A., 54, 284 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 19 Henderson, Arthur, 206 Hiss, Alger, 242 Hobhouse, L.T., 61 Hobsbawm, Eric, 143 Hobson, J.A., 20, 22, 23, 62, 194, 195, 197, 198, 207–210 Hoffmann, Stanley, 152 Holyoake, George J., 167 Honneth, Axel, 4

INDEX

Hoover, Herbert, 237, 239, 241, 242 Huckfield, Leslie, 177 Hugo, Victor, 50 Hume, David, 54, 214

J Jenkins, Roy, 181 Johnson, Boris, 256 Jones, George, 183 Joseph, Keith, 184

K Keynes, John Maynard, 24, 62, 149, 151 Knox, Frank, 237 Kolakowski, Leszek, 4 Koselleck, Reinhart, 23 Kundera, Milan, 145

L Landon, Alf, 239 Lange, Oskar, 99–102, 107–109 Lenin, Vladimir, 7, 19, 101, 108, 109 Lerner, Abba, 100–102, 108 Locke, John, 47, 62, 214

M Mabon, Dickson, 182 MacDonald, Ramsay, 194, 196, 198, 201, 202, 204–206 Major, John, 54, 221, 253–255, 257, 261, 262, 268 Manion, Clarence, 244 Mann, Thomas, 49, 50 Marcantonio, Vito, 242 Martin Jr., Joseph W., 240 Marx, Karl, 7, 41–43, 45, 46, 50, 72, 80–83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 93, 105,

297

120–128, 135, 168, 237, 244, 255, 258 Maskin, Eric, 100 Maurice, Frank D., 168 Mauss, Marcel, 215 Maynard, Jonathan Leader, 259 May, Theresa, 253–255, 258, 262, 267–271 McCarthy, Joseph, 243 Michels, Robert, 280 Miliband, Ed., 255 Miliband, Ralph, 70 Mill, John Stuart, 3, 4, 23, 29, 63, 65, 71, 149, 214 Mills, Ogden L., 239 Morel, Edmund, 206 Morrison, Herbert, 173 Morris, William, 279 Morton, W., 260 Murray, David Stark, 217 Musk, Elon, 276

N Neale, Edward V., 168 Nixon, Richard, 242, 243, 246

O Olivier, Sydney, 22, 195 Owen, Robert, 8, 63, 167, 279

P Pareto, Vilfredo, 105–107, 109, 120 Perkins, G.L., 173 Perry, Samuel, 171 Plato, 81 Polanyi, Karl, 120 Ponsonby, Arthur, 201, 206 Popper, Karl, 54

298

INDEX

R Rawls, John, 60, 62–64, 69, 94 Reagan, Ronald, 246 Ricœur, Paul, 27 Ricardo, David, 133 Robbins, Lionel, 120 Rogers, George, 179 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 11, 234–240 Rosebery, Lord, 197 Rosenstein-Rodan, P.N., 108 Rostow, Walt, 149, 151 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 28, 47 Russell, Bertrand, 205

Trotsky, Leon, 101 Truman, Harry, 240–242, 245 Trump, Donald, 276, 289 Turing, Alan, 264 Turner, Dennis, 183 Tyler, Colin, 3

S Schiavone, Aldo, 40 Scott, Hugh, 242 Sen, Amartya, 94, 120 Shaw, George Bernard, 52–54, 196 Simon, Herbert, 103, 104, 114 Smith, Adam, 106, 133, 214 Stalin, Joseph, 108 Stevens, Simon, 222, 223

W Wallas, Graham, 52–54, 195, 207 Walras, Léon, 106 Watkins, David, 177 Webb, Beatrice Potter, 170 Webb, Sidney, 21–23, 52, 195 Welch, Robert, 244 Wells, Herbert George, 195 Williamson, Oliver, 104, 111, 112 Williams, Raymond, 214 Willkie, Wendell, 245 Wilson, Harold, 181 Woolf, Leonard, 207–209 Wright, Erik Olin, 64, 65, 70–73

T Taft, Robert A., 241 Taylor, Fred M., 108 Thatcher, Margaret, 26, 54, 153, 213, 256 Trevelyan, Charles, 194, 195, 200, 206

V Vandenberg, Arthur H., 237, 238 von Mises, Ludwig, 7, 54, 120, 121, 128–133, 135 Voorhis, Jerry, 242

Z Zola, Emile, 49, 50