I have long kept intellectual and personal company with radical leftists, and in the last several years I have radicalized enough that I no longer count as a progressive — I am a leftist now, too.
But I have a long-standing impasse in talking with many of my leftist comrades, because I also I have a deep commitment to liberal democracy: universal human rights, rule of law, democratically accountable institutions, et cetera. Many leftists see embracing both socialism and liberal democracy as hopelessly confused. I have some questions for them.
First, though, a little clarity about what I mean.
Liberal democracy
I grant how the history of liberal democracy suggests something fundamentally wrong with it. Many of the Enlightenment thinkers who originally shaped the body of libdem ideas and institutions named private property ownership as a primary human right on a par with free speech and freedom of religion. The emergence of libdem governments from that was entangled with the grave injustices of colonialism, slavery, genocide, and the birth of capitalism. Plus, of course, realworld liberal democracies today are capitalist societies exhibiting countless social injustices. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
But libdem principle and left ideals are woven together in my heart and mind.
Where history shows libdem principle & institutions delivering injustices in practice, it also suggests that libdemming harder helps. More commitment to rights & democracy makes societies more just.
The Civil Rights Movement provides a familiar example. I am not a fool who thinks that the CRM fixed racist injustice in these United States by improving rights protections and access to the the ballot box for Black people. Obviously racist injustices remain. But it would be both dismal and absurd to deny that the CRM corrected injustices at all. And though we must understand power politics to understand how the CRM forced institutional changes, that offers an incomplete understanding. The CRM used not just power politics; it also stood heavily on an insistence on libdem principles, to drive institutions not only to better serve Black people but to become more consistent with those libdem principles. Grounding political claims in libdem ideas about universal rights stood literally at the center of the name of the Civil Rights Movement.
Not that we can rely on Libdemming Harder as our sole instrument to bring justice. Injustices persisting in the wake of the CRM exemplify how history demonstrates a need for adjuncts and counterweights for the limitations of libdem principles & institutions. And I believe that we have plenty of headroom for very different liberal democracies which are much more liberally democratic and deliver much better justice than we have now.
The draw of libdemming harder includes me finding socialism not just compatible with libdem principle but implied in it … or at least in the democratic half. Surely capitalism’s private ownership of the means of production is un-democratic? Surely we can at least conceive of a body of libdem principle which does not count private property among our basic rights but does find a right to the material necessities for a dignified life? I am hardly the only person to suggest this.
Matthew McManus’ book The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism [manifesto • review • interview] demonstrates how there is in fact a robust intellectual & political tradition marrying liberalism with socialism.
Paul Crider’s Socialist-Liberal Nexus makes the case another way, and his manifesto Inheritance of Equals: A Case for Liberal Socialism makes a case for a liberal socialist vision:
Liberalism defines itself in terms of freedom, and liberal socialism is no different. But the freedom of liberal socialism is ambitious and expansive, mingling and interpenetrating with equality like a yin and yang. We will see that equality is necessary for and constitutive of freedom, and vice versa.
Those works are recent, but the position is not at all new. McManus provides the history — and when I originally wrote this post, before he published, I registered how Point 10 in the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program justifies its socialist claims with nothing other than a direct quote of the statement of libdem principle from the top of the United States’ Declaration of Independence.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security
My hope is that entwining libdem and socialist principle addresses the worrisome history of the socialist project. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao do not prove anti-leftists’ claim that socialism inevitably leads to horror, but they should inspire some wariness. That all three rejected libdem principle suggests that we should think twice before doing the same.
If we believe that socialism holds more promise than history has yet proved, I think we must at least respect having that same hope for better liberal democracy.
I ask leftists who reject any marriage of leftist ideals with liberal democracy:
-
If you hold that “liberal democracy” by definition includes capitalism, how should I name a socialist society with governance grounded in liberal principles of universal rights, democratically accountable institutions, rule of law, and all that other libdem jazz? You need not accept this as a good idea or even plausible to attempt; I just ask what I should call it to avoid confusion.
-
If you hold that “liberal democracy” by definition includes the Westphalian nation-state, how should I name a social or political order other than the state which supports liberal principles like universal rights, democratically accountable institutions, and rule of law? Again, I do not ask you to accept this as a good idea or even plausible to attempt; I just ask what I should call it to avoid confusion.
-
If you reject libdem universal rights, democratically accountable institutions, rule of law, et cetera as cursed to inevitably produce injustice, what governance principles & forms do you propose instead? I do not demand every detail, but I need at least as much clarity as the 200-odd words in the Declaration of Independence the Black Panthers quoted.
More
A publication which embodies the spirit I am talking about. I enjoy their podcast series with the witty name Neonliberalism.
Liberal Currents offers discussion, elucidation, and defense of liberal principles and institutions. These principles—however qualified—are freedom, individualism, universalism, and pluralism, grounded in a respect for the dignity of ordinary people living ordinary lives. These principles are embedded and protected within liberal institutions: the rule of law, due process, democratic politics, private property, markets, and institutions of free inquiry and expression.
While the authors may at times disagree about the various forms liberalism may take as these values are contextualized in lived experience, the unified editorial voice believes liberalism is alive and more critical than ever. As popular faith and confidence in liberal principles and institutions ebb, Liberal Currents commits to their rejuvenation and vigorous defense.
“Radical liberalism”
A Bluesky thread by
Aaron Ross Powell:
What is “radical liberalism?” I get asked this occasionally, as it appears in my bio here and in the tagline for my
ReImaginingLiberty.com podcast, which is about “the emancipatory and cosmopolitan case for radical social, political, and economic liberalism.” So here’s a 🧵 setting it out.
“Liberalism” is a contested term, but the family resemblance among its varieties is ultimately about a shared set of values. Liberalism values dignity, autonomy, freedom, and the capacity of each of us to choose and craft the course of our own lives. It thus opposes hierarchy and dominance.
I am a “radical” liberal because I don’t just center those values in my political and social thought, but view them as the whole ballgame, and recognize the degree to which taking them seriously means throwing off a lot of the mechanisms of control many people are perfectly comfortable with.
Put simply, unless you are actually harming others, you should be able to live as you see fit, and you should afford everyone else the same freedom. It is wrong to compel other people to live the way you'd prefer, and it is especially wrong to use state violence to do so. You don't get to tell the rest of the world how to be. But you do get to choose how you want to be. That means you can't force your social preferences on others and you can’t tell them what they're allowed to exchange with others. Nor, if you hold to liberal values, should you want to. 5/
That “nor should you want to” is where liberalism is seen as not just a set of policy or institutional guidelines, but as a system of values. A virtuous person doesn’t say, “I shouldn’t murder people, even though I want to.” A virtuous person would never have the desire in the first place.
The same is true of the liberal person. A liberal person doesn’t say, “I’d really like to stop LGBT people from openly living their lives, but I can’t.” A liberal person wants LGBT people to be able to live how they choose to live, and sees a world where they can’t as bad for everyone.
Liberalism is an ethic about how we ought to view ourselves in relation to others, and how we ought to view others in relation to ourselves. It is applying the basic virtues of respect for others and joy in their ability to flourish to politics. This means illiberalism is necessarily unvirtuous.
Radical liberalism, then, doesn’t just oppose state control, but it also must oppose social conservatism, which is an unvirtuous desire to compel society (which means to compel people other than ourselves) to live in accord with our personal preferences.
It is perfectly liberal to be personally conservative: “I want my life to conform to a set of relatively stable preferences and behaviors.” It is illiberal to be socially conservative: “I want everyone else’s life to conform to that same set of relatively stable preferences and behaviors.”
To be liberal — and, remember, virtue requires liberalism — you cannot believe that everyone else must do as you approve. That’s not your choice to make, it’s theirs. And because people are individuals, the world will be diverse. Because people are changing, the world will be dynamic. Radical liberalism, then, is a deep commitment to, and love for, a diverse and dynamic world, and the myriad ways people pursue (and hopefully find) their bliss within it. And it is an unwavering rejection of the urge to control, whether that be in the social, political, or economic spheres.
Paul Crider adds:
It’s interesting that Aaron doesn’t directly touch on state economic policy, or really statism at all. As written, I pretty much agree with it. I cringe at the liberal perfectionism (pluralism is a value that must be affirmed), not because it’s wrong, but because the real tension is so bare.
I used to use “radical liberal," but I’ve moved away from it, I guess because I think liberalism comprises multiple values that are sort of always in balance or negotiation with each other, and “radical" often implies reducing to single essence.
Still radical in the ninja turtle way though.
I’m very fond of Black radical liberalism, but that’s, you know, a bit awkward for me to self-apply.
A paper in which Charles W. Mills argues that “the foundational values of liberalism have a radical potential that has not historically been realized”.
It includes an academic but very useful short comment about the range of things that liberalism contains and could contain, starting from a quote from British Political theorist John Gray’s book Liberalism:
Common to all variants of the liberal tradition is a definite conception, distinctively modern in character, of man and society [⋯] It is individualist, in that it asserts the moral primacy of the person against the claims of any social collectivity; egalitarian, inasmuch as it confers on all men the same moral status and denies the relevance to legal or political order of differences in moral worth among human beings; universalist, affirming the moral unity of the human species and according a secondary importance to specific historic associations and cultural forms; and meliorist in its affirmation of the corrigibility and improvability of all social institutions and political arrangements. It is this conception of man and society which gives liberalism a definite identity which transcends its vast internal variety and complexity.
What generate the different varieties of liberalism are different concepts of individualism, different claims about how egalitarianism should be construed or realized, more or less inclusionary readings of universalism (Gray’s characterization sanitizes liberalism’s actual sexist and racist history), different views of what count as desirable improvements, conflicting normative balancings of liberal values (freedom, equality) and competing theoretical prognoses about how best they can be realized in the light of (contested) socio-historical facts. The huge potential for disagreement about all of these explains how a common liberal core can produce such a wide range of variants. Moreover, we need to take into account not merely the spectrum of actual liberalisms but also hypothetical liberalisms that could be generated through novel framings of some or all of the above.
The subtitle “Or, Ten Reasons Why Liberalism Cannot Be Retrieved for Radicalism (And Why They’re All Wrong)” names the paper addressing these concerns:
-
Liberalism Has an Asocial, Atomic Individualist Ontology
-
Liberalism Cannot Recognize Groups and Group Oppression in Its Ontology—I (Macro)
-
Liberalism Cannot Recognize Groups and Group Oppression in Its Ontology—II (Micro)
-
Liberalism’s Values (Independently of the Ontology Question) Are Themselves Problematic
-
Liberalism’s Enlightenment Origins Commit It to Seeing Moral Suasion and Rational Discourse as the Societal Prime Movers
-
Liberalism Is Naïve in Assuming the Neutrality of the State and the Juridical System
-
Liberalism Is Necessarily Anti-Socialist, so How “Radical” Could It Be?
-
The Discourse of Liberal Rights Cannot Accommodate Radical Redistribution and Structural Change
-
American Liberalism in Particular Has Been so Shaped in Its Development by Race that Any Emancipatory Possibilities Have Been
Foreclosed
If those points trouble you, check it out.
