Welfare Reductions and False Recoveries: Why Natural Liberty Isn't Enough

There is a line in the United States Declaration of Independence that runs:

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' [ed - emphasis mine]

During the Age of Enlightenment, the idea that human beings had a fundamental right to certain unalienable freedoms served as a powerful force in combating the established power and rights of monarchs. However, the idea of 'natural' liberty also bred a problematic distrust for organisations, particularly government.

'Natural' liberty only allows for the removal of restrictions, leaving people to the struggle that lies beyond. In that struggle people are vulnerable to the inequality and unfairness of a way of life without safety nets, and where people are only restrained by the limits of their own power.

These concerns are as vital as ever as we see the ideology of natural liberty being brought to bear in government policy. The government's welfare reforms, criticised as 'overambitious and poor value for money', and involving deep cutbacks, have finally started to roll out in earnest (Sergeant, 2013). The reduction of safeguards would be bad enough at any time. However, when there is a weak - what some have even denounced as false - economic recovery under way, individuals and communities are placed in great danger as the weakening of safeguards threatens to send them back into trouble (Elliott, 2013).

Enlightenment writers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau were amongst those who argued that there were limits to the freedoms that natural liberty could offer to individuals. They argued that what was needed instead was a social contract - an agreed set of laws that could govern a state by protecting the ability of individuals to exercise their rights without infringing upon those of others.

John Stuart Mill called this the harm principle. Mill set out that this limitation of the absolute freedom of people was of great importance. That, without checks, the exercise of unrestrained action on the part of one could override the ability of another to exercise their rights.

In On Liberty, Mill laid out why ensuring the liberty of all individuals is essential:

'The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of administrative skill or that semblance of it which practice gives, in the details of business; a State, which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.'

The essence of negative liberty, freedom from restrictions, is not enough. People must be free to choose, and to think for themselves, because in that freedom, in those choices, is the path along which people develop into rational and critical thinking individuals. And those skills are essential for innovation, for remaking the world in better forms.

To find that path, a more positive liberty is needed - one where people are enabled. A social contract, with the harm principle built in, that seeks to construct the right surroundings for humans to find and develop the absolute best of themselves. Enlightenment thinking, inherited by the ideology of liberalism developed in the 19th century, described those free institutions as those that left people free to make their own choices and protected them against those things that might prevent them from doing so (Collins, 1971). At times those impediments might even be the structure of the system itself. As Thomas Paine described:

'Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.'

We need to foster the development of systems of government that address the domination of individuals and subversion of their freedom. This means restraining the ability of the strength of one, some, or many, to overmaster the essential right of an individual to decide for themselves, about their own lives. But in doing so we must not forget the weakness of natural liberty and of focussing only on removing restrictions: the suffering, poverty, and exploitation imposed by competition. We must not forget those who need enabling action on the part of others to exercise those same essential rights.

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References:
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+ Mike Sergeant's 'Universal Credit scheme rolls out'; on the BBC; 28 October 2013.

+ Larry Elliott's 'UK economic recovery built on shaky foundations - again'; in The Guardian; 27 October 2013.

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 'The Social Contract'; 1762.

+ John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty'; 1859.

+ Thomas Paine's 'Agrarian Justice'; 1795.

+ Irene Collins' 'Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe'; The Historical Association; 1971.

Letta's success in surviving Berlusconi is not conclusive, it is only the beginning of a better path.

The survival of Prime Minister Enrico Letta's Italian Government, in the face of the political controversies surrounding Senator Silvio Berlusconi, is an important moment for European politics. But that success is not conclusive, and is only the beginning of a better path.

Letta, leader of the Partito Democratico (PD) and head of the left-wing bloc of parties, was forced by the 2013 Italian elections to form a coalition with Berlusconi's Il Popolo della Liberta (PdL), which headed the right-wing bloc of parties. The controversial PdL Senator, Berlusconi, had sought to wield his supporters against the government over their fiscal policy, in order to redress the balance of the coalition in his own favour (Davies, 2013).

However, support for his threat - resignations should his demands not be met - dwindled in the face of the potential instability that the fall of the government might bring, and Berlusconi was forced to back down and support the government's position (Davies, 2013). But those in favour of a sensible and moderate resolution to Italy's problems, without this kind of 'brinkmanship', should be wary of heralding such a moment as a victory. Such a statement would be entirely premature.

Facing down personal interests in favour of greater goals can be a brave move in politics. And this time it has bought a government time to get its house in order. But the continued presence of the Movimento 5 Stelle, Italy's continuing financial difficulties, the continuing indecisive division of Italian politics between two large left and right blocs, and above all the continuing need to find a cure for political disaffection, means that there is still a lot of work to be done (Toscano, 2013; The Guardian, 2013).

Ultimately, then, these moments - as with this one for the Italian Premier Letta -  are only beginnings. That is important to remember. And remember it we must if we are not to delude ourselves into complacency by putting too much faith in particular symbolic events, or symbolic victories, as heralding some sort of magical transformation.

Psychiatrist Carl Jung described these kinds of construction as 'archetypes'. These archetypes, based on existing objects and roles, and then shaped by culture and history, in turn shape our reactions to the things we encounter. They serve to simplify our navigation through the world. However, strictly adhering to these 'instinctual' relations to objects, persons or events - particularly when success or victory are involved - limits us. Buying into these archetypes - stereotypes or cultural constructions - only encourages an unhealthy lack of scepticism towards our own reactions to the world and far too great an amount of certainty.

A much healthier alternative is to find hope in moments such as Senator Berlusconi's climbdown, not as a conclusive transformative event, but to find hope in it as a beginning. Taking hope in beginnings means still cherishing successes, but without relying on it to magically transform us. It instead encourages us to see success as work done, in our ongoing efforts to transform ourselves.

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References:
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+ Lizzy Davies' 'Silvio Berlusconi makes humiliating climbdown in Italian parliament'; in The Guardian; 2 October 2013.

+ Lizzy Davies' 'Silvio Berlusconi U-turn keeps Italy's grand coalition afloat'; in The Guardian; 2 October 2013.

+ Alberto Toscano's 'Italy's latest coalition crisis is a morbid symptom of deeper political malaise'; in The Guardian; 1 October 2013.

+ The Guardian's 'Italy: Red Letta Day'; 2 October 2013.

A liberal case for staying in the European Union...

The debate about Britain's future in the European Union got under way in earnest this week, with Mr Nick Clegg setting out the Liberal Democrat position. The core of Mr Clegg's argument revolves around economics, which will also likely be the heart of the ultimate debate on Europe.

However, there are important reasons to believe in a European Union beyond the financial benefits. A federation of the European Union's sort also offers protections of liberties that are beyond a singular nation's ability to offer.

As Mr Clegg is trying to build a pro-Europe coalition, he has kept his focus on the most politically relevant and visible reasons for the UK staying in Europe. That has meant putting front and centre the matters that will most affect jobs, growth and general economic well-being, issues on which he has the apparent support of British businesses (Macrory, 2013). Amongst these matters are certain factors that will have an impact on the country's financial health, namely, time consuming nation by nation trade negotiations and a diminished standing in international relations should Britain break with the EU (BBC, 2013).

Opponents, rather than challenging these points, instead tend to focus their efforts on different issues - sovereignty, the cost of EU institutions, and the 'repatriation' of labour laws to allow domestic businesses greater leeway with regards to how they treat their employees, from the minimum wage to dismissals.

But beyond the important benefits that Mr Clegg stressed - like the international diplomatic value of being part of something bigger than just one country - there are reasons to be positive about being part of a supra-national federation of nations:

• General protections and freedoms to prevent the exploitation that is allowed by competing national systems of labour law;
• General protections of political and civil freedoms, including courts of appeal against arbitrary or unjust treatment;
• Broad legal protections against big businesses dodging tax through federation-wide regulations;
• Freedom of movement, both in leisure and work, so as to give individuals the liberty to escape civil, political and corporate tyrannies;
  

 ...and these are but a small cross-section of the benefits offered by such a federation.

And where the promised benefits of this system are unable to find realisation, the solution is not to be found in dissolution but rather in reform and improvement. Dissolution would only be a backward step, likely only to lead to the re-emergence of old evils chained by a federal system.

We must give heed to calls from pro-Europeans such as Mr Clegg to trust in engaging positively with reform and improvement. As we do, we must also remain wary of attempts to unmake our protections and safety nets, efforts that only drag us backwards. Our hopes lie in engagement and co-operation, in breaking down borders, building up friendships and uniting our efforts across and between nations.

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References:
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+ BBC's 'EU exit would be economic suicide, warns Nick Clegg'; 8 October 2013.

+ Sam Macrory's 'Nick Clegg playing with fire on Europe'; from totalpolitics.com; 7 October 2013.

Agents of SHIELD: Do our protagonists need to be good people?

Joss Whedon and Marvel have made a brave move in making SHIELD the protagonists of their new series. So far in Marvel's new movie and tv franchises they have been involved in, and okay with, stealing research from independent scientists (from Jane Foster and Erik Selvig in Thor), and lying about secretly developing massively destructive weapons (in the Avengers).

In the first episode of the new SHIELD series, we have now seen black-bag-over-the-head kidnappings and secret motives, and in the second episode we have seen an idealistic new recruit immediately asked to do things against her ideals. It is a brave move to make these dangerous, deceptive, and complicated people the protagonists.

Flawed protagonists are nothing new though. Shakespeare liked to offer his viewers complex characters, tragic heroes mired by fatal flaws. We have seen violent anti-heroes like Wolverine, serial killers like Dexter, the unstable drug kingpin Walter White, and the vain, delusional, psychopath Patrick Bateman.

Agents of SHIELD presents you with the eponymous agency in the role of heroes - heroes prepared to do whatever is necessary - and openly asks you to cheer for them. When it comes to such problematic characters, that is not an easy thing to ask. But, it is important that somebody does.

Trying to understand complicated people, even those with ideas antithetical to our own, is at the core of how we learn empathy. By expecting us, the audience, to make the leap, imperfect protagonists challenge us to imagine other perspectives from which we might perceive the world.

But there are dangers here that should not be ignored. By presenting characters in contexts and roles normally reserved for the heroic, or at least generally good, their methods and their values can be normalised to an audience watching uncritically.

As has been said before, that is not a responsibility of the artist. It is however something to always be kept in mind when considering the context in which people are presented. Narrative, story, context - these things matter. When facts are set within narratives, the details of those stories can subtly alter how facts are interpreted by observers. We, the audience, need to be vigilant; we need to be alert to the possibility that those people presented to us as heroes, who we think of as heroes, may very well not be.

Who really benefits from the spat between Miliband and the Mail?

In the last week the Daily Mail's appalling ad hominem attacks upon Mr Ed Miliband and the reputation of his father Ralph Miliband caused something of a storm. It has now come to light that the Daily Mail had also sent a reporter to gatecrash the funeral service of a member of Mr Miliband's family for reaction interviews to the controversy.

In response, Mr Miliband has written a letter of complaint to the proprietor of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere, demanding action be taken over the newspaper's practices. Despite an apology from the Editor of the Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mail thus far appears to have no intention of changing tack - today making an odd, and you would think unhelpful, comparison between the response of 'the left' to Mrs Margaret Thatcher's death and it's own attacks on Ralph Miliband (Glover, 2013).

The question that has to asked is who will ultimately benefit from this confrontation?

Well it certainly won't benefit the Daily Mail, although it will also be unlikely to hurt them. Without the serious threat of punitive legal action or a stern regulator, they have little motivation to change their business model. And the views of those already reading the Daily Mail and voting Conservative are unlikely to be changed by a debate that is taking place far from the Daily Mail's pages.

The same goes for those reading other newspapers and voting otherwise. The real effects of this incident will be upon floating, undecided, voters. The real winner on that front - not likely planned on the Daily Mail's part - will be Mr Ed Miliband himself and the Labour Party. The Daily Mail's image is so tied in the minds of many to the nastier side of Toryism, that this whole mess will only drive floating voters away from the Conservatives and reinforce Labour's position at the polls.

Hopefully such an outcome will prove to be a stern warning as to the dangers of bringing ad hominem type tactics to the political arena. Not only is there a dangerous chance that, speaking to a purely practical level, these tactics will backfire, but they also muddy the pool and lower the standard of debate.

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References:
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+ Stephen Glover's 'How typically hypocritical of the Left, who danced on the grave of Mrs Thatcher, to be upset about debate over Red Ed's Marxist father'; in The Daily Mail; 3 October 2013.