Obama's State of the Union Address: Modern liberals, social mobility and positive liberty

At the end of January US President Mr Barack Obama used his State of the Union Address to announce his intention to fight inequality (BBC, 2014). The speech bears a resemblance to that of David Lloyd George, former leader of the British Liberal Party, who accompanied the announcement of the 1909 People's Budget with a speech declaring that:

'This is a war Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests.'

Lloyd George's time as Chancellor, and then as leader of the Liberal Party and as Prime Minister, ushered in a new era for liberalism. His 'modern liberals' used their mandate to pursue the Liberal welfare reforms, bringing in Progressive Taxation and School Dinners, National Insurance and Pensions.

The US President is now striving for these same sorts of reforms. Success, as it was measured by Lloyd George's liberals, will depend upon social security in health and welfare, and on social mobility. These two factors, within a market society, are the expression of positive liberty - the idea that liberty is not just the tearing down of certain barriers, but also the raising of those people in need up and over them, and enabling them with the tools and knowledge that they need. The idea that, freed from fear by security in health, people will pursue their careers with enthusiasm. The idea that, with fair and plentiful access to opportunities, people will apply themselves and succeed, claiming the rewards that follow to the benefit of all.

Lloyd George's successors, the Liberal Democrats of today, have made this social mobility a priority campaigning issue at recent elections. That commitment has evolved out of the old Liberal Party belief that a government can do more for people than get out of their way. That it must also strive to help everyone to advance and join a universal, educated and skilled middle class. That idea forms a core part of the Lib Dem's stated commitment to building a fairer society.

In essence, achieving this means ensuring two things: first, that everyone, no matter where they start, can get access to opportunities; and second, that everyone is fairly rewarded for their efforts by way of training, skills, wealth, and advancement.

The People's Budget of 1909 was only the beginning of this turn for liberalism. Its expressions continued to evolve, having a particular influence on the Liberal Party's 'Yellow Book' (1928), an intense study of economic and industrial conditions in the UK in the 1920s, between whose pages lay the words:

'We believe with a passionate faith that the end of all political and economic action is not the perfecting or the perpetuation of this or that piece of mechanism or organisation, but that individual men and women may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'

To meet those same aims, President Obama has, throughout his time in office, pursued a path now very familiar to US Democrats. The path of intervention by the government. From Keynesian intervention in the market - marked by stimulus packages and progressive taxation funding public works - to government intervention on matters of social liberty and social justice.

In this 2014 State of the Union, Mr Obama has called for another push towards those goals, saying that should any opportunity arise to fight inequality, that he will take it. He called for an increase in the minimum wage, and a drive to get people signed up for Obamacare, to ensure universal coverage by medical insurance (NPR, 2014).

The aim for these modern liberals is to, through the ideas of positive liberty, build a world better than the one we dwelt in before civilisation arrived. As Thomas Paine put it in Agrarian Reform:

'In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period. But the fact is that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before civilization began.'

For Obama, as for the Liberals of Lloyd George of 1909 and the UK's Liberal Democrats of today, the success of their endeavours will be shown by measurable outcomes: social mobility for the poorest, shown by beginnings never being able to get in the way of success; by social security guaranteed through universal health coverage and pensions for all citizens. Only with those frameworks in place will these modern liberals and Democrats see liberty as being a reality.

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References:
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+ BBC's 'State of the Union: President Obama's Full speech'; 29 January 2014.

+ BBC's 'State of the Union: Obama promises action on inequality'; 29 January 2014.

+ NPR's 'Inside The State Of The Union: What The President Proposed'; 29 January 2014.

+ State of the Union Address 2014

+ 'Yellow Book' or 'Britain's Industrial Future: being the Report of the Liberal Industrial Inquiry'; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1928.

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