In my last post, Can Obama write?, I noted that Jonathan Raban has recently suggested that Barack Obama is unusual among modern politicians in encouraging debate, and being open-minded and pragmatic about political solutions. According to Raban, Obama promises an administration which is genuinely participatory, built from the base up. While I am inclined to agree with this analysis, I believe it is only one of several possible perspectives on this remarkable new political force, and not necessarily the most percipient or revealing one. At the risk of provoking my readers, I’m going to suggest an alternative means of considering Obama’s position and potential importance in the political world. I would submit that my analysis depends upon a set of assumptions which are in turn based on an attempt to understand much of the political development of the last one hundred and fifty years in both British and American politics.
This analysis begins by proposing that the late Victorian era, in which Gladstone, Cobden and Bright were dominant figures, was a golden age for Britain relative to the rest of the world — an age of industrial power and associated political influence which Britain would never again equal. British politics were unusually healthy because such dominant political figures and thinkers combined “left wing” social progressive attitudes (Gladstone’s particular interest in bettering the poor, his anti-imperialism, and his support of Irish home rule were examples of such progressive views) with a free market economic philosophy of great perceptiveness and rigour.
To such figures, the free market as a concept was the creation of brilliant Scottish Enlightenment radicals, and in their view certain variations of the free market provided a far better means both of creating and distributing wealth than could be achieved through major state intervention. Gladstone not only opposed high levels of income tax but opposed income tax in principle, as an unfair burden on the honest labours of men. He favoured purchase taxes instead as a fairer means of accruing state revenue. During his time as Chancellor, he managed to cut income tax by more than half, proceeding by various stages from 10p in the pound to 4p in the pound, though to his great regret he never managed to eliminate it entirely.
The association of radical views with free market methods is far from arbitrary. Philosophically, libertarian social views emphasising the predominance of the individual conscience were (and still are) highly consistent with the economic notion that the individual should be allowed to spend what he earns as he wishes.
The burgeoning of the Labour party in the early twentieth century — combining socially progressive views with a centralist and authoritarian economic platform — resulted in a major rupture between social and economic policy. In large part as the result of Labour’s rise, the Liberal party lost power. For the best part of a hundred years until the present era, British politics consisted of a Labour party who were socially liberal but economically authoritarian, and a Conservative party who were conservative in social policy, but favoured a broadly libertarian or free market economic policy. Both the right and the left, according to this view, suffered from deep internal contradictions between social and economic policy.
There are signs that politics is being realigned once more in favour of the “classic liberal” conjunction between progressive social policy and free market methods. Tony Blair, for all his faults, perceived that the great weakness of the Labour party was its centralist, statist economic policies. His abolition of Clause 4 — and with it the injunction that the state should control the “commanding heights” of the economy — was a defining moment in the New Labour movement. The direct result was to free Labour of its authoritarian economic shackles and enable it to legislate for a modern world of expanding global markets.
The Conservative party is also evolving towards a greater consistency of social and economic policy, though its own history is to some extent the inverse of the Labour party. In the case of the Conservative party, Margaret Thatcher had applied free market principles during the 1980s, but the Conservative party was still held back from progressive social policy by a morally restrictive set of social assumptions. This morally authoritarian and prescriptive aspect of Tory policy (unfortunately and disastrously epitomised by John Major’s “Back to Basics”) combined with sexual scandals and political sleaze to render the Conservative vulnerable to New Labour. The result is that the Conservatives have been out of office for more than a decade. In large part, the Conservative leader David Cameron’s subsequent analysis has proved correct. His shift in favour of greater tolerance towards minorities and his introduction of a range of progressive green policies have not only helped to “decontaminate” the Conservatives but have helped to outflank Labour as a force for progress. In other words, by various reforms the Conservative party has aligned itself with a progressive libertarian outlook in social policy which is philosophically consistent with its underlying liberal or free market economic policy.
It could be argued that the two great American political parties until now have been similarly affected by a rupture or disjunction between social and economic policies. The Republican party, though a complex coalition of factions, has been characterised by a combination of social conservatism (epitomised for example by anti-abortion, anti-gay social views) with libertarian or free market economic policies. In an inverse mirror image, the Democratic party has combined relatively liberal social policies with a more statist and centralist economic policy characterised by a greater reliance on federal tax and spend.
Raban’s view that an Obama Presidency would represent a genuine reform of the old Democratic statist top-down administration in favour of a more pragmatic and open base-up administration is reasonable and plausible, and is a useful political model in discussing the differences between a potential Clinton and an Obama administration. But I should like to submit that there is another, perhaps more wide-ranging difference between the two — namely, that Obama represents a return to a philosophically consistent set of policies in which liberal, tolerant and inclusive social policies are aligned with free-market methods.
For those who doubt the free-market aspect of Obama’s policies, I would suggest his book The Audacity of Hope offers numerous examples. The chapter on “opportunity” is particularly interesting.
Calvin Coolidge once said that “the chief business of the American people is business,” and, indeed, it would be hard to find a country on earth that’s been more hospitable to the logic of the marketplace. Our Constitution places the ownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty. Our religious traditions celebrate the value of hard work and express the conviction that a virtuous life will result in material reward. Rather than vilify the rich, we hold them up as role models, and our mythology is steeped in stories of men on the make — the immigrant who comes to this country with nothing and strikes it big, the young man who heads West in search of his fortune.
Obama is unambiguous, too, about the overall benefits of the free market:
The result of this business culture has been a prosperity that’s unmatched in human history. It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services — electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances — that are still unattainable for most of the world.
Obama not only accepts this pro-market history, he welcomes it and plans its extension and enhanced operation:
The bankruptcy of communism and socialism as alternative means of economic organisation has only reinforced this assumption. In our standard economic textbooks and in our modern political debates, laissez-faire is the default rule; anyone who would challenge it swims against the prevailing tide.
Obama’s central vision of the purpose of government is not to supplant the market with state appropriation and state redistribution, but to “open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better.”
Hamilton and Lincoln’s basic insight — that the resources and power of the national government can facilitate, rather than supplant, a vibrant free market — has continued to be one of the cornerstones of both Republican and Democrat policies at every stage of America’s development. The Hoover Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the interstate highway system, the Internet, the Human Genome Project — time and again, government investment has helped pave the way for an explosion of private economic activity.
Government intervention should aim to improve the workings with the market economy, not set itself in opposition.
… through the creation of a system of public schools and institutions of higher education, as well as programs like the GI bill that made a college education available to millions, government has helped provide individuals the tools to adapt and innovate in a climate of constant technological change.
As a liberal and progressive, Obama advocates a comprehensive range of “safety net” measures to help all those who are rendered vulnerable by the economy, but these too are designed to work with the grain of the free market, rather than provide some important countervailing force against the dark forces of capitalism.
Aside from making needed investments the market can’t or won’t make on its own, an active national government has also been indispensable in dealing with market failures — those recurring snags in any capitalist system that either inhibit the efficient workings of the market or result in harm to the public. Teddy Roosevelt recognised that monopoly power could restrict competition, and made “trust busting” a centrepiece of his administration. Woodrow Wilson instituted the Federal Reserve Bank, to manage the money supply and curb periodic panics in the financial markets. Federal and state governments established the first consumer laws — the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Meat Inspection Act — to protect Americans from harmful products.
It would be possible to continue almost ad infinitum to make the case that Obama is a strong advocate of the free market, with appropriate safety devices, but my purpose in this essay is to point to a larger pattern.
I submit that during the last thirty years or so, two great developments have overridden the usual left-right political definitions. The first is the increasing triumph and acceptance of tolerant liberalism (considered “left-wing” in the older political currency) as the foundation of social relations. Second, in the economic sphere, the triumph of the free market over state-ordered systems both in generating and distributing wealth has been widely accepted. Most astute democratic politicians who genuinely seek a popular electoral mandate align themselves in one form or another with both these definitive developments.
From this perspective, it is possible and plausible to portray Obama not as a unique and messianic figure offering a vast but vague sense of hope, but rather as a highly intelligent and astute pragmatist who has absorbed and internalised the most important lessons of contemporary social and political change. These lessons suggest that the politics of the future, particularly in established democracies, will consist of a combination of left wing liberal social attitudes combined with the calculated use of free market methods to achieve social objectives.
It could be argued that such a combination, far from being arbitrary or a result of random development, is not only philosophically consistent (both social liberalism and the free market are based upon high degrees of individual responsibility and personal freedom) but is also responsive to modern trends in favour of greater choice.
In Obama’s rise and rise, therefore, I submit we observe this combination in its clearest and most trenchant recent form. Not unlike Gladstone, he holds powerful and sincere progressive social views, but instead of seeking to impose radical solutions through the traditional heavy hand of state bureaucracy, he seeks to pursue those aims by carefully improving market workings where possible, “rigging” the market where necessary to generate the desired social result.
Can Obama think? I believe he can. If he triumphs over Clinton and (in due course) McCain to become President of the United States, his accession will not merely be a welcome change in personal style, but will also represent the assertion of the new and revived progressive political alignment over the old.
Finally, however, why should these somewhat abstract distinctions matter? There is one subject which increasingly arises during interviews with voters, and which some people believe should not be raised, largely because it is not constructive. (That’s too bad: we discuss what we like on this blog.) In America, certain major political figures — John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King — have been the victims of successful assassination attempts. Others, such as Ronald Reagan, have survived such attempts. It cannot be denied that a significant number of US voters have claimed during interviews that they are nervous of voting for Obama because of that underlying threat.
For what it is worth, I believe the chances of assassination increase somewhat if the political figure in question is regarded as messianic, polarising, and therefore appears threatening to some sectors of the population. Again, for what it is worth, I don’t believe Obama is any of those things. I agree with Raban that he is primarily a voice of reason and inclusivity. Rather than characterise him as unique, unprecedented, the harbinger of a new and wholly original political vision, I suspect he, and his popular image, are better served if he is portrayed as a leading figure in the wider political movement to marry liberal and left wing social views with a knowledgeable and fluent utilisation of the free market.
Unfortunately, it only takes one unbalanced person and a lapse in security to generate tragedy. But for the reasons above I don’t believe Obama is a likely object of assassination attempts, or at least not any more than any other popular democratic politician. Even if he does not become President in this particular election — he is, after all, still very young for a major political figure — the strong likelihood is that he will continue to advance and prosper, and in due course will make his profound mark on both American and world politics.
This analysis begins by proposing that the late Victorian era, in which Gladstone, Cobden and Bright were dominant figures, was a golden age for Britain relative to the rest of the world — an age of industrial power and associated political influence which Britain would never again equal. British politics were unusually healthy because such dominant political figures and thinkers combined “left wing” social progressive attitudes (Gladstone’s particular interest in bettering the poor, his anti-imperialism, and his support of Irish home rule were examples of such progressive views) with a free market economic philosophy of great perceptiveness and rigour.
To such figures, the free market as a concept was the creation of brilliant Scottish Enlightenment radicals, and in their view certain variations of the free market provided a far better means both of creating and distributing wealth than could be achieved through major state intervention. Gladstone not only opposed high levels of income tax but opposed income tax in principle, as an unfair burden on the honest labours of men. He favoured purchase taxes instead as a fairer means of accruing state revenue. During his time as Chancellor, he managed to cut income tax by more than half, proceeding by various stages from 10p in the pound to 4p in the pound, though to his great regret he never managed to eliminate it entirely.
The association of radical views with free market methods is far from arbitrary. Philosophically, libertarian social views emphasising the predominance of the individual conscience were (and still are) highly consistent with the economic notion that the individual should be allowed to spend what he earns as he wishes.
The burgeoning of the Labour party in the early twentieth century — combining socially progressive views with a centralist and authoritarian economic platform — resulted in a major rupture between social and economic policy. In large part as the result of Labour’s rise, the Liberal party lost power. For the best part of a hundred years until the present era, British politics consisted of a Labour party who were socially liberal but economically authoritarian, and a Conservative party who were conservative in social policy, but favoured a broadly libertarian or free market economic policy. Both the right and the left, according to this view, suffered from deep internal contradictions between social and economic policy.
There are signs that politics is being realigned once more in favour of the “classic liberal” conjunction between progressive social policy and free market methods. Tony Blair, for all his faults, perceived that the great weakness of the Labour party was its centralist, statist economic policies. His abolition of Clause 4 — and with it the injunction that the state should control the “commanding heights” of the economy — was a defining moment in the New Labour movement. The direct result was to free Labour of its authoritarian economic shackles and enable it to legislate for a modern world of expanding global markets.
The Conservative party is also evolving towards a greater consistency of social and economic policy, though its own history is to some extent the inverse of the Labour party. In the case of the Conservative party, Margaret Thatcher had applied free market principles during the 1980s, but the Conservative party was still held back from progressive social policy by a morally restrictive set of social assumptions. This morally authoritarian and prescriptive aspect of Tory policy (unfortunately and disastrously epitomised by John Major’s “Back to Basics”) combined with sexual scandals and political sleaze to render the Conservative vulnerable to New Labour. The result is that the Conservatives have been out of office for more than a decade. In large part, the Conservative leader David Cameron’s subsequent analysis has proved correct. His shift in favour of greater tolerance towards minorities and his introduction of a range of progressive green policies have not only helped to “decontaminate” the Conservatives but have helped to outflank Labour as a force for progress. In other words, by various reforms the Conservative party has aligned itself with a progressive libertarian outlook in social policy which is philosophically consistent with its underlying liberal or free market economic policy.
It could be argued that the two great American political parties until now have been similarly affected by a rupture or disjunction between social and economic policies. The Republican party, though a complex coalition of factions, has been characterised by a combination of social conservatism (epitomised for example by anti-abortion, anti-gay social views) with libertarian or free market economic policies. In an inverse mirror image, the Democratic party has combined relatively liberal social policies with a more statist and centralist economic policy characterised by a greater reliance on federal tax and spend.
Raban’s view that an Obama Presidency would represent a genuine reform of the old Democratic statist top-down administration in favour of a more pragmatic and open base-up administration is reasonable and plausible, and is a useful political model in discussing the differences between a potential Clinton and an Obama administration. But I should like to submit that there is another, perhaps more wide-ranging difference between the two — namely, that Obama represents a return to a philosophically consistent set of policies in which liberal, tolerant and inclusive social policies are aligned with free-market methods.
For those who doubt the free-market aspect of Obama’s policies, I would suggest his book The Audacity of Hope offers numerous examples. The chapter on “opportunity” is particularly interesting.
Calvin Coolidge once said that “the chief business of the American people is business,” and, indeed, it would be hard to find a country on earth that’s been more hospitable to the logic of the marketplace. Our Constitution places the ownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty. Our religious traditions celebrate the value of hard work and express the conviction that a virtuous life will result in material reward. Rather than vilify the rich, we hold them up as role models, and our mythology is steeped in stories of men on the make — the immigrant who comes to this country with nothing and strikes it big, the young man who heads West in search of his fortune.
Obama is unambiguous, too, about the overall benefits of the free market:
The result of this business culture has been a prosperity that’s unmatched in human history. It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services — electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances — that are still unattainable for most of the world.
Obama not only accepts this pro-market history, he welcomes it and plans its extension and enhanced operation:
The bankruptcy of communism and socialism as alternative means of economic organisation has only reinforced this assumption. In our standard economic textbooks and in our modern political debates, laissez-faire is the default rule; anyone who would challenge it swims against the prevailing tide.
Obama’s central vision of the purpose of government is not to supplant the market with state appropriation and state redistribution, but to “open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better.”
Hamilton and Lincoln’s basic insight — that the resources and power of the national government can facilitate, rather than supplant, a vibrant free market — has continued to be one of the cornerstones of both Republican and Democrat policies at every stage of America’s development. The Hoover Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the interstate highway system, the Internet, the Human Genome Project — time and again, government investment has helped pave the way for an explosion of private economic activity.
Government intervention should aim to improve the workings with the market economy, not set itself in opposition.
… through the creation of a system of public schools and institutions of higher education, as well as programs like the GI bill that made a college education available to millions, government has helped provide individuals the tools to adapt and innovate in a climate of constant technological change.
As a liberal and progressive, Obama advocates a comprehensive range of “safety net” measures to help all those who are rendered vulnerable by the economy, but these too are designed to work with the grain of the free market, rather than provide some important countervailing force against the dark forces of capitalism.
Aside from making needed investments the market can’t or won’t make on its own, an active national government has also been indispensable in dealing with market failures — those recurring snags in any capitalist system that either inhibit the efficient workings of the market or result in harm to the public. Teddy Roosevelt recognised that monopoly power could restrict competition, and made “trust busting” a centrepiece of his administration. Woodrow Wilson instituted the Federal Reserve Bank, to manage the money supply and curb periodic panics in the financial markets. Federal and state governments established the first consumer laws — the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Meat Inspection Act — to protect Americans from harmful products.
It would be possible to continue almost ad infinitum to make the case that Obama is a strong advocate of the free market, with appropriate safety devices, but my purpose in this essay is to point to a larger pattern.
I submit that during the last thirty years or so, two great developments have overridden the usual left-right political definitions. The first is the increasing triumph and acceptance of tolerant liberalism (considered “left-wing” in the older political currency) as the foundation of social relations. Second, in the economic sphere, the triumph of the free market over state-ordered systems both in generating and distributing wealth has been widely accepted. Most astute democratic politicians who genuinely seek a popular electoral mandate align themselves in one form or another with both these definitive developments.
From this perspective, it is possible and plausible to portray Obama not as a unique and messianic figure offering a vast but vague sense of hope, but rather as a highly intelligent and astute pragmatist who has absorbed and internalised the most important lessons of contemporary social and political change. These lessons suggest that the politics of the future, particularly in established democracies, will consist of a combination of left wing liberal social attitudes combined with the calculated use of free market methods to achieve social objectives.
It could be argued that such a combination, far from being arbitrary or a result of random development, is not only philosophically consistent (both social liberalism and the free market are based upon high degrees of individual responsibility and personal freedom) but is also responsive to modern trends in favour of greater choice.
In Obama’s rise and rise, therefore, I submit we observe this combination in its clearest and most trenchant recent form. Not unlike Gladstone, he holds powerful and sincere progressive social views, but instead of seeking to impose radical solutions through the traditional heavy hand of state bureaucracy, he seeks to pursue those aims by carefully improving market workings where possible, “rigging” the market where necessary to generate the desired social result.
Can Obama think? I believe he can. If he triumphs over Clinton and (in due course) McCain to become President of the United States, his accession will not merely be a welcome change in personal style, but will also represent the assertion of the new and revived progressive political alignment over the old.
Finally, however, why should these somewhat abstract distinctions matter? There is one subject which increasingly arises during interviews with voters, and which some people believe should not be raised, largely because it is not constructive. (That’s too bad: we discuss what we like on this blog.) In America, certain major political figures — John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King — have been the victims of successful assassination attempts. Others, such as Ronald Reagan, have survived such attempts. It cannot be denied that a significant number of US voters have claimed during interviews that they are nervous of voting for Obama because of that underlying threat.
For what it is worth, I believe the chances of assassination increase somewhat if the political figure in question is regarded as messianic, polarising, and therefore appears threatening to some sectors of the population. Again, for what it is worth, I don’t believe Obama is any of those things. I agree with Raban that he is primarily a voice of reason and inclusivity. Rather than characterise him as unique, unprecedented, the harbinger of a new and wholly original political vision, I suspect he, and his popular image, are better served if he is portrayed as a leading figure in the wider political movement to marry liberal and left wing social views with a knowledgeable and fluent utilisation of the free market.
Unfortunately, it only takes one unbalanced person and a lapse in security to generate tragedy. But for the reasons above I don’t believe Obama is a likely object of assassination attempts, or at least not any more than any other popular democratic politician. Even if he does not become President in this particular election — he is, after all, still very young for a major political figure — the strong likelihood is that he will continue to advance and prosper, and in due course will make his profound mark on both American and world politics.
2 comments:
Really interesting pieces Warwick, thank you. It has been fascinating to watch this race and encouraging to see how a close contest motivates people to get out and vote. Obama has already inspired a political/cultural conflation in a music video 'Yes, We Can' which can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
and a hilarious spoof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs&feature=related
Who said politics couldn't be cool?
William, many thanks. It certainly is turning out to be a fascinating contest. Thank you for the links to youtube pieces.
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