Why I'm a liberal conspirator

The Liberal Conspiracy is launched today. I'm part of it, and I hope to post there regularly.
Not everyone's so enthusiastic though. DK says:

I have a problem with this whole "liberal-Left" issue: to me, the terms are near incompatible. Many of us have long argued that the terms Left and Right are effectively meaningless, and that the actual fight is between those who are statist...and those who are free-market libertarians.

I agree that the statism-libertarianism debate is important, but I think this misses quite a bit:
1. The left-right distinction isn't entirely meaningless.  One big distinction concerns how we think about the effects of policy. The left, following Rawls, gives greater weight to its impact upon the worst-off than does the right. And this is one reason why leftism and liberalism go together. One reason why I oppose infringements of civil liberties - drug laws, control orders or stop & search powers - is that these bear most heavily upon the poor and powerless.
2. Classical liberals and libertarians don't push their arguments far enough. They are entirely correct to say, following Hayek, that big government fails because complex organizations cannot be run from the top down. Which raises the question: why do company bosses claim to do just this, and get multi-million dollar pay-offs when they fail? Inequalities of wealth and power - those between bosses and workers - often rest upon an anti-Hayekian faith that hierarchical management is feasible. It's not. I'm a liberal because I think top-down management fails in government. I'm a left liberal because I think it fails in companies too.
3. It's not just states that limit freedom. Bosses do too. It's not good enough to argue, as the right does, that market forces will solve this problem; they don't always grind fine enough.
4. For freedom to really matter - and to win popular support - it must be more than the absence of state coercion. It must imply the opportunity to positively control one's life, to make something of it. Real freedom, as Philippe van Parijs argued here and in this book, requires redistribution, in the form of a basic income for all.  There's no logical connection between redistribution and big government.
5. The question isn't just: how big should the state be? It's also: who should run it? To those of us on the left, the answer is not: a British elite as distinct from a Brussels elite. It's: the people. Being on the left means empowering people.
6. Tories' attitude to freedom and market forces is rank hypocrisy. In the 80s, they told us to get on our bikes and to respect management's right to manage. You'd think, therefore, that they'd support free migration. But do they heck?
I hope that I - and others - will expand on all this in time over at the Conspiracy.

Comments

[Matthew Sinclair]

Do you think that all the rest of the Liberal Conspiracy, or even more than a couple of them, agree with you that the problem with the Right is not enough Hayek?

It appears to me that they mean "liberal" in the same way an American does. I.e. the liberal left is just the left-left that dislikes Stalinism.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with co-operating with those you disagree with on many issues if there is a core of agreement that makes the co-operation worthwhile. However, there are still two questions left:

1) Do you agree with the rest of the Liberal Conspiracy on more substantive issues than you do with DK?

2) Where is the efficiency gain in concentrating your collective blogging? In my experience it tends to lead to laziness thanks to a kind of subconscious tragedy of the commons.

[Tristan Mills]

I'd consider myself on the liberal left yet I don't care about how companies are run. If the directors mess up and then get huge amounts of money, the company will not survive in the long term. The competitive pressures which are missing for the state are there for companies.

Point 1 is correct - my reasoning is based upon what effect things have on the poor - unfortunately many proposals from the broader left fail the poor even more...

2) As above, I simply don't care how companies are run and its not the place of government (or me) to tell them how to do it.

3) The richer society, the less effect bosses will have on their employee's freedom - the same with the greater the diversity of jobs.
This is an area that I'm genuinely in two minds in - one part of me says just leave things be - the other says some intervention may be necessary.

4) I'm not 100% opposed to CBI, but I shy away from redistribution in the more general sense - it can create massive poverty traps if you're not careful.
CBI or negative income tax however incentivise people to work and also give them a boost. Ideally neither would be needed (or state intervention in health, housing or education) and the long term aim must be to remove the need for these (perhaps not possible, but high aim is not a crime).

5) Agree. I think the state needs to be as small as possible. Zero may not be possible (unfortunately) so we need to constrain its power and it should be run in a democratic manner (with the constraints to prevent majoritarianism).

6) Definitely agree. The Tories are not liberals. Thatcher was partly a liberal, but I think predominantly an anti-socialist and a social conservative.
Things like free immigration are a natural extension of free trade (not believed in by the Tories anyway it seems). All humans should have equal rights, and that includes the right to seek to better their lives. Many Tories and right-libertarians (although by no means all of them) place their fellow countrymen above all others. (Of course, we all prefer our own tribe to an extent, but the liberal will not discriminate against other tribes on these fundamental universal matters).

All the best with the Liberal Conspiracy, I hope you can persuade the more illiberal 'liberals' of their folly.

[Alex]

What we're really after is a politics that is to anarchism what social democracy is to Marxism.

[dearieme]

"The left..gives greater weight to its impact upon the worst-off than does the right.2 I suspect that you may be wrong there. There certainly once was a Right that cared very much about the worst-off, but which thought that the way to help them was through paternalism, Church, noblesse oblige, Charity, social discipline, elementary schooling, Boy Scouts and whatnot. There was also a Right that thought that Secondary and University Education was a key - it introduced the Butler Education Act.

[Kevin Carson]

Tristan Mills,

The competitive pressures really are not there. If they were, most large companies wouldn't exist in the first place. The average large company exists in a cartelized oligopoly market, in which the dominant firms share the same dysfunctional culture. Competition is limited by state regulatory cartelization, state subsidies to the inefficiency costs of large size, and state-promoted entry barriers. It is limited, more directly, by the common culture shared by the dominant firms in the market.

[chrisc]

It will be very interesting to see the topics on which Chris blogs on this new site given that most the the posters (from what I know anyway) are big-state dirigistes.

[reason]

Kevin Carson - ever heard of increasing returns to scale?

[reason]

I'm a pragmatist.

I see need for "countervailing power" as promoted by Galbraith. I played monopoly as a kid, I know that competition is always under threat, recently from leveraged managerialist capital.

I think externalities are pervasive and need regulation to internalise them in markets as much as possible.

I believe information issues are critical and basic research will not be financed adequately by the market. The market and science don't mix well, they have fundamentally opposed moral systems (one open, truth based the other secretive and marketing based).

That doesn't mean are aren't concerned about an excessively powerful and inefficient state.

But I see a healthy vital democracy as providing the accountability needed to control it (and the other organs of state - the judiciary and the beurocracy). I want to see this democracy under constant review, and see the principle of subsidiarity as an important guide. (A holy constitution written by the Gods of antiquity as in the US is a disaster for democracy.) A limited state is supported historically best by democracy despite what Libertarians would have you think.

[Joe Otten]

1. "The left, following Rawls, gives greater weight to its impact upon the worst-off than does the right." Sorry to be pedantic, but this is a good reason to be not-right, not to be left.

I see the veil as primarily an ethical not a political principle. The right are largely uninterested in ethical politics, at least of this sort. But there is still a difference between the left and liberals, standing in the veil, the former sacrificing some liberty for equality, the latter sacrificing some equality for liberty, and greater prosperity all-round.

2. Yes of course command and control fails in companies too. It is not such a big problem because it is easier to opt out of working for a company or buying its products than it is to opt out of being governed by the state.

Again, Conservatives would defend big pay-offs for incompetent management because their raison d'etre is defending elite privilege. The difference between the left and liberals lies in what, if anything, you propose to do about it.

3. Right. And how good is the state at limiting the ability of bosses to limit the freedom of workers? Sure, you can pile regulation on to the labour market, benefiting those in work at the expense of those driven out. But, frankly, the only significant power a worker has is, if they are in demand, to go and work somewhere else instead. That sort of leverage is not in the gift of the state.

4. Basic Income is a great idea but much too expensive. It might be doable when we are three times as rich as this, if we can keep the cost of living down.

5. Good to see the left have adopted some liberalism.

6. Right, and that's just scratching the surface. Adam Smith warned against letting entrepreneurs influence government because this would lead to corruption and rent-seeking. For Labour and the Tories, this is the relationship with business: not lowering barriers, but rent-enabling.

[reason]

Joe Otten,
basically I agree with except on a couple of issues.
on 4 - Why do you think that? I thought that people who have looked into it reckon it is possible. You mean you don't like the level of taxes needed to finance it.
on 3 - I dispute
But, frankly, the only significant power a worker has is, if they are in demand, to go and work somewhere else instead. That sort of leverage is not in the gift of the state.
The state may not be able to help in every case, but by discouraging monopoly (and often therefore monopsony), golden handcuffs, and providing training and alternative employment opportunities (not to mention macro-economic stability) they have a role to play.

[Trooper Thompson]

I wasn't going to comment and then I came across:

"A holy constitution written by the Gods of antiquity as in the US is a disaster for democracy."

The United States is not supposed to be a democracy, it's a constitutional republic, based on individual freedom, the rule of law and limited government. The fact that this constitution has been undermined and disrespected does not change its greatness. Of course it's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than the British constitution - whatever that is.

[reason]

By golden handcuffs, I am referring to locked-in pension and health schemes. The State can penalise them in tax law and provide alternatives to discourage them.

[reason]

Trooper Thompson,
yep - your part of the problem.

[Matt Munro]

"I'd consider myself on the liberal left yet I don't care about how companies are run. If the directors mess up and then get huge amounts of money, the company will not survive in the long term. The competitive pressures which are missing for the state are there for companies."
Posted by: Tristan Mills | November 05, 2007 at 04:53 PM

But surely you should care, what if they are expoliting their workforce, using child labour, ripping off the pension fund, screwing up the environment or putting the public at risk ? Competition may (debatably) destroy the company if it's badly run, but being badly run also makes it more likely to be unethical, who should prevent/repair that damage ?

[Trooper Thompson]

Reason,

Oh, really? What problem's that? That not everyone agrees with you? Aw, sorry.

Don't worry, over at the 'liberal conspiracy' it's only nice people allowed to comment, so no one will interrupt your fascinating discussions.

[reason]

Trooper Thompson,
you misunderstand me, I'm a passionate democrat (not Democrat!). I believe in an evolving democracy and 18th Century holy cows get in the way. There is nothing worse than a constitution born in a bloody revolution - it is the work of martyrs and can't be criticised. In America there is too much discussion about what the founders meant when they wrote the constitution (reminds me of analysis of holy scripture), rather than what would be best for the country in the 21st Century. The US has a major constitutional crisis at the moment, and nobody dares to ask whether perhaps maybe the constitution itself might be part of the problem.

[Cleanthes]

"To those of us on the left, the answer is not: a British elite as distinct from a Brussels elite. It's: the people. "

I really do hope that by this you are not inferring that the right does not believe this, because that's how it sounds to me in the context of a post about the differences between right and left.

The point about the British elite is not that it is not "the people", it is that it is much closer to the people than the Brussels elite. That is not to say that we like them either: it's just that they are easier to kick in the shorts properly and regularly.

The way to get "the people" to govern is to reduce the power of government - so that people can govern themselves - themselves note, not others.

Right libertarians recognise this. Left libertarians, by contrast and for all their protestations about small government, cannot get away from the fact that redistribution requires government and is almost guaranteed to create rent seeking in the attempt to grab a share of the redistrubuted proceeds of others efforts.

[reason]

Cleanthes...
what makes you think rent seeking doesn't happen with a minimal government? (Hint: Where does the word rent come from?)

[dearieme]

"but it's a damn sight better than the British constitution - whatever that is": but if you don't know what it is, how do you know that it's worse than the American one?

[Trooper Thompson]

Reason,

and you misunderstand my original point: the United States is not supposed to be a democracy, but a constitutional republic. There is a fundamental difference, that you need to see, and you must realise the weaknesses of democracy, expressed somewhere as two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for supper. Under the US constitution, your rights do not come from the state, or the law - they precede both.

The US constitution also acknowledges that the state is and always has been the greatest threat to liberty that exists. Throughout history, tyranny and oppression are the norm, so the constitution puts limits on government. It is not perfect, and contains mechanisms for its own amendment.

You are right to say there is a constitutional crisis in America - but wholly wrong in your following point. The crisis is the violation by the executive of the rights of the people, seen clearly in the Patriot Act and the various other 'anti-terrorist' laws and executive orders, and the utterly supine Congress who refuse to hold the executive in check etc. America's problems do not come from the constitution, but from the neglect of the constitution. This is my view, which is why I hope Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination and the Presidency, because he is a libertarian and a strict constitutionalist.

[Trooper Thompson]

""but it's a damn sight better than the British constitution - whatever that is": but if you don't know what it is, how do you know that it's worse than the American one?"

Because, my friend, the United States constitution is concise and succinct AND WRITTEN IN ENGLISH!

[reason]

I can't see the difference between a proper democratic constitution and what you call "a republic". There needs to be a process for creating law, that also defines what laws are allowed. Full stop. I also don't see how rights precede a government. Think about genuine anarchy - your rights are what you personally can defend. Rights are only meaningful with a process to enforce them. Your distinctions just seem silly to me. And what exactly do you mean by "liberty". I guess it is something different from what I might mean by freedom. And no I don't think the "the state is and always has been the greatest threat to liberty that exists" - disease, wild animals, other humans and lack of mobility created a much less "free" anarchic world.

[Trooper Thompson]

'I can't see the difference between a proper democratic constitution and what you call "a republic"'

You must try, reason! You must try. It means that you cannot take my rights away, no matter if everyone else agrees with you. Democracy says you can, but my inalienable rights, that precede your state say you can't.

'I also don't see how rights precede a government'

Then read the constitution we are talking about - it says that they come from God.

Understand, that's the basis. That's the presupposition, the starting point, the given that we have these rights, how best to safeguard them?

To the rest of what you say, of wild beasts and savages, I'll paraphrase you Thomas Paine: Society is a blessing, but the state is at best only a necessary evil.

[Cleanthes]

"other humans "

Quite. The answer to that is NOT the *state*, but the rule of law, specifically, the process by which individuals agree to certains rules of conduct. This is the key reason that right libertarians agree that court system is a necessary component of a minimal state.

As for the rest of your post there, I disagree. It is vital that the state recognises that the right to life, the right to enjoy property, free speech, etc etc - the basic minimum liberties - are NOT in the gift of the state. They precede the state and the state may not interfere with them.

Earlier:
"what makes you think rent seeking doesn't happen with a minimal government? (Hint: Where does the word rent come from?)"

I don't. But when the rent seekers have to seek rent from individuals they have to do much more work and have to coerce/boondoggle a much larger number of individuals.

When the government controls a huge sum of money, the target is both bigger and less resistant to rent seeking - it has to set up systems to manage the redistribution which always will be gamed.

[reason]

"Then read the constitution we are talking about - it says that they come from God."

Just because some 18th Century zealots said such things, doesn't make them so. Besides, I don't believe in God.

"It is vital that the state recognises that the right to life, the right to enjoy property, free speech, etc etc - the basic minimum liberties - are NOT in the gift of the state. They precede the state and the state may not interfere with them."

It is vital to whom? And even if the state recognises such a fiction, it still doesn't make it so. Those rights only exist BECAUSE they are recognised (and ultimately enforced). Sure that can be part of the constitution, but because people are fallible is is darn silly not to have some process to change the constitution. (And what exactly does the right to "enjoy" property mean exactly? There will always be limits on what I can do with my property, and property rights DO come from the state. If you don't think that then make a journey back to what it was like to be a hunter gatherer. Your property is "yours" only because other people recognise it as such.)