PRECIS OF JOHN CHARVET'S PAPER DELIVERED ON SATURDAY 19 AUGUST, 2006, AT THE FORUM

BEYOND LEFT AND RIGHT AND LIBERALISM

John Charvet is Emeritus Professor of Politics, London School of Economics.

Preliminary Comments on the meaning of left and right and the idea of going beyond them.

I defined the terms left and right as applied to politics in terms of a continuum from policies that promoted the interests of the less advantaged in society to ones promoting the interests of the more advantaged. left and right in this sense involves a conception of a just distribution of scarce resources of economic and social power. This is the primary meaning of the terms although other continua exist to which the terms are also applied although there is no very close correlation between the primary use and the others.
Two ways of going beyond left and right are distinguished: one involves the concern with issues that do not directly raise distributive questions, such as environmental or energy policy. These issues have serious distributive consequences and do not take us beyond right and left in any significant way. The second involves the idea of a comprehensive transcendence of distributive conflicts in the appeal to a principle that is held to unify all interests. This principle is some conception of community.

Before proceeding to discuss the second in more detail, I referred to two books entitled Beyond Left and Right. the first, published in 1963 consisted of a collection of essays based on the assumption that the new technologies would overcome the problem of scarcity and require us to rethink are attitudes to work, play and leisure. The second by Anthony Giddens published in 1994 held that traditional nation-states had been so severely damaged by 3 recent developments that the old ideologies of liberalism, socialism and conservatism no longer applied and we had to rethink the bases of our political association. These were globalisation, post-traditional orders and social reflexivity. I expressed great scepticism about these claims and stated that in any case Giddens offered very little positive thought on the matter.

Going beyond left and right with the Fascists

The fascists were the first to adopt Beyond Left and Right as a significant political slogan and they are important because many of their central features are found in other political movements that were essentially anti-liberal and that pursued transcendence of distributive conflicts based on community. My account of the fascists is greatly influenced by the recent book by Michael Mann entitled "The Fascists". he defines fascism as the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.

They were in the first instance extreme nationalists who believed in the nation as an organic community which involved the belief that the identity and interests of human beings who were members of the nation was wholly constituted by that membership. This involved a very low degree of tolerance for diversity and difference and a very hisgh degree of aggression towards elements in society that were seen as impure.

Their statism consisted in the support for an authoritarian state run by an elite party under the direction of a supreme leader. Society was to be organized through corporations that were run by elite party members.

Transcendence was a crucial part of their appeal to all classes and consisted in their appeal to the idea of the nation's interest in which everyone's interest was included.
the cleansing of the nation of impure elements both ethnic and cultural was an essential part of their programme and the method of achieving their aims was through the violence of the paramilitary organization of the elite party.

Similarity with other anti-liberal political movements.

Marxist communism was based on the idea of the achievement of a universal community in which all interests would be reconciled through the abolition of private property and the social division of labour. This involved a high degree of aggression towards elements that impeded the realization of this goal. The goal was to be achieved through violent action of an elite party organized paramilitarily and in the first instance through an authoritarian state under a supreme leader. Its difference from fascism lay in its non-nationalist conception of community and in its belief in the eventual disappearance of the state. however, in practice, Marxist communism has been remarkably similar to the fascists in its basic features.

The now frequently called Islamo-fasicsts believe in a transcendent and unifying community of all Muslims and express a low degree of tolerance for difference and diversity and a high degree of aggression to non-Muslims.

The Islamo-fascists at the same time have a very low tolerance for
difference and diversity and a high degree of aggression towards impure
elements. they have complete contempt for liberal rights and
democratic practices and believe in an authoritarian Islamic state.
They are dedicated to the cleansing of the Muslim heartlands of Jews,
Christians and Westerners and are organized paramilitarily justifying
murderous violence.

Liberalism

The aim of this section is to contrast liberalism which contains the
main left-right continuum within itself to these movement seeking to
go beyond left and right.

Liberalism has its own transcendent principle however in the idea of
everyone's interest in an equal freedom. This can be seen as in the
first instance a sort of compromise. We can understand this in terms of
the development of mutual religious toleration. Each religion's first
preference is to impose its beliefs and practices on the rest
of society. But the attempt to do this leads to a violent stand-off and
an agreement to respect each other's religious freedom. The liberal
principle of an equal freedom is a generalization of this. The
compromise is turned into a principle when the basis of the practice
is recognized to be a pluralism of good ways for human beings to live
rather then the one single truth and members of society are understood
as free and equal persons . Freedom here means that every normal
adult has the capacity to take responsibility for her life by
choosing for herself what career to pursue, what religion etc to
follow, who to marry, what political party to support and so on. While
some are more intelligent and better informed than others, no-one
has the right to take these decisions for others and impose their
beliefs on them. This lack of authority of some people over others in
such basic matters is the content of people's equality.

The principle of equal freedom needs to be elaborated into a set of
equal rights regarding speech, beliefs, association, movement and
property. But this process cannot avoid differences in interpretation
over an appropriate balance of rights and also over what exactly an
equal freedom means in regard to the central issue of access to
resources or the means of freedom. Does equality mean here that
everyone should have the same amout or that they should enjoy an
equal welfare or at the other extreme that they should be equally
free to use their resources as they please. Freedom and equality here
are in conflict. The more we aim at equality, the more we have to
restrict freedom and conversely. This generates the basic left-right
continuum.

Liberalism as presented above appears to be an anarchical form of
society based on uncoerced association. But most liberals accept that
human beings need to be organized into particular states so as to
better protect people's rights and to provide an authoritative
interpretation of the equal rights.

Comunitarianism

This is a philosophical movement arising in the 1980's that has been
essentially a critique of liberalism from a standpoint very similar
to the political movement s described above. They reject liberalism
becuse it is divisive of society by opposing individual interests and
individual and society and seeks a unifying standpoint in a principle
of community. This is derived form the conception of
individual identity as essentially formed by and given its content by
the cultural community they belong to. Liberalism presents
individuals as sel-creating beings coming together to create society
and this is a travesty of the social reality of human being. The
communitarian ethics is similarly one of fulfilling roles in a
society rather than one of individual rights.

The political impact of communitarianism has been particularly on an
understanding of multiculturalism through itsd emphasis on the
primacy of cultural identity, which requires us to respect others as
members of communities rather than as individuals.

The Liberal Defence against Communitarianism
Liberals can perfectly well accept that individuals are formed in
particular traditions. it claims only they have the capacity to
reflect on the demands of these and decide for themselves how they
should live their lives and not have tradition imposed upon them.
Liberalism also has a conception of community. Its fundamental
ethical principle involves the idea of a community of persons
enjoying equal rights and respecting each other on that basis. It
alos recognizes the need for political communities that require the
commitment and patriotism of their members. Finally it permits and
encourages its members to join together in voluntary associations of
all kinds, provided that all citizens are educated in their basic
rights and have the right of exit from such associations.

Liberal communities are not as tight knit as the ones that seek to go
beyond left and right but by allowing their members greater freedom,
they are much less violent and oppressive than the others and are the
most appropriate form for human flourishing for moderns societies.

- John Charvet