Liberalism - Modern Liberalism & Positive Freedom & John Rawls

• Mills began to question other people – would it really be enough to leave them alone?
• Created modern liberalism which brought many new characteristics

Positive Liberty/Social Justice: Late 19^th Century – Early 20^th Century:

• New liberals re-examined the core principles of liberalism and reached radical conclusions about liberty.
  • Green and Hobhouse argued that modern society made a mockery of the idea that individuals were autonomous.
  • Individuals are subject to social-economic forces beyond their control. Impossible for people to have self-realisation – a restriction on liberty.
  • They introduced positive freedom: Denotes the belief that individuals are left alone are often inhibited rather than free. Such individuals needed enabling so that they are free to exercise their natural talent.
  • Led to liberals wanting to be free from poor health care etc – raised a question – how might this happen, brought on the next section.

Enlarged & Enabling State:

• Classical liberalism was strongly associated with the idea of minimal government closely linked to negative liberty.
• Modern liberals had no qualms about a new larger state could repel, new socio-economic threats to freedom and individualism.
  • They wanted more laws, state spending and more taxation.

Examples – The Quest For Social Justice:

• UK: A liberal government between 1906-1910. Provided one of the earliest instances of modern liberalism in action. The ‘people’s budget’ which introduced the state pension and increased taxation.
• USA: F.D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ where the state steered the economy and managed to secure employment
• The Beveridge Report: Britain’s post war state where citizens had been threatened by their freedom and individual poverty such as poor education and unemployment. Can only been overcome by state provision.

Enlarged & Enabling State #2:

• Having embraced collectivism, modern liberalism faced charge that it had betrayed classical liberalism and was now blurred with socialism.
• John Rawls argued for an enlarged state could guarantee the equality of opportunity to enable individual freedom.
  • Needed some work like more taxation but some individuals could still be persuaded that it was good and necessary. He wanted to enable the state: Extending the state’s activity so as to liberate individuals from restrictive social and economic problems thus enabling them to fulfil their potential.
• He argued that modern liberalism aimed to improve those less fortunate in society, but this was seen as the inevitable side effect of individual freedom and was the key difference with socialism.
• He insisted to ameliorate (improve) the social and economic condition of those who were deprived in society to enable them to fulfil their full potential. The gap between the rich and the poor did not matter.

Key Thinker 4: John Rawls (1921-2002):

• Thought to have been the most important modern liberal thinker.

1. Core liberal idea of foundational equality means that individuals are not just requiring formal equality under the law but they need greater economic equality.
   1. Could be done under a redistribution of wealth via an enabling state with more taxation.
2. The redistribution of wealth was not ‘a surrender to socialism’ but was actually in line with liberal thinking.
   1. He asked people to conduct an ‘original position’ whereby individuals would be asked to construct a society to be superior to the one they’re currently in. They should have no ‘veil of ignorance’ where they have preconceptions about people.
3. Human nature would lead to individuals to choose a society where poor people had better conditions. He wanted a larger state with more taxation and wealth redistribution.
4. Most individuals would choose to improve the poor but they would still want self-fulfilment and inequalities of outcome. He wanted the poor to live better but did not want to narrow the gap between the rich and poor – thus his ideas were away from socialism.

• Equality of opportunity – the liberal side
• Giving people equal opportunities to get jobs, work and to exceed. Give people an education let them do their best.
• Still got to develop themselves and work as hard for themselves within that context.
• Equality of outcome: we’re going to tax the rich, their pay would be enhanced but this gap should not narrow. Liberals are not interested in this idea as it is more a socialist idea.

Constitutional Reform/Liberal Democracy:

• Modern liberals want constitutional reform.
  • They want: a codified constitution, devolution of power, a more accountable HOL and electoral reform.
• Yet ultimately, they want a liberal democracy, completing the link between the core liberal values and universal suffrage. Such as a liberal PM in the late 1940s whom enabled equal rights for women and to lower the voting age to 16.
• This has shown little interest though, a fear that referendums and initiatives threaten the ‘tyranny of the majority’ and dilute representative democracy to protect liberal values.
  • Demonstrated by modern liberals support for the UKs Human Rights Act and widespread enthusiasm for supranational bodies such as the EU.
  • The UK’s decision to leave the EU was very much a ‘tyranny of the majority’ and these decisions should only be left to a liberal government.

Has Modern Liberalism Abandoned The Principal Of Classical Liberalism:
Yes:	No:
Classical liberalism defined liberty as individuals as being left alone. Modern liberals do not believe this and think that people will be enabled via interreference from others. (negative vs positive freedom)	Both classical and modern liberalism have an optimistic view of human potential
CL championed a minimal state, ML champion an enlarged, enabling state.	Both classical and modern liberalism believe in rationalism and insist upon tolerance of minorities
CL saw taxation as theft and wanted to restrict it. ML see taxation as the key method for implementing positive freedom	Both classical and modern liberalism see individualism as the goal of politics and society – they differ merely about how to achieve it
CL favoured laisse-faire capitalism from the which the state is detached. ML prefer Keynesian capitalism where the state seeks to manage market forces	Both classical and modern liberalism believe in capitalism and oppose state ownership of the economy
CL has an ambivalent view of democracy, increasing the interests of property owners. ML have championed representative democracy	Both classical and modern liberalism believe in a constitutional (‘limited’) state and ‘government by consent’