A new progressive story and the politics of freedom
Politics shapes what is possible in the context of public service reform, and the kind of public service reform I care about is of the progressive kind. Here are some thoughts on why progressives have struggled to win the argument in recent years, and how they might start to gain ground in future. I wrote this piece in late 2019, just after the ‘Brexit election’. So much has changed since then, but as we start to get to grips with the pandemic it feels more important than ever that progressives come up with a ‘political story’ that can help to set the parameters for our eventual recovery.
George Mombiot is surely right. The ‘Brexit election’ demonstrated just how far progressives are from a story with the potential to build a new political consensus. The progressive vote might have been split. The UK might be more (small c)onservative than any of my liberal-urbanite friends might care to admit. And Brexit might have thrown multiple ‘dead-cats’ amongst the progressive pigeons. But no matter the context, the absence of a new story about the kind of society progressives are seeking to build was palpable. There was policy, lots of it; some good, some less so. There was conviction, at times bordering on righteousness. And there was noise. But I for one could discern no story. Nothing that sought to connect vision and values with policy and practice.
This is far from a criticism. There is something almost mythical about the promise of a story with the potential to bring warring factions together; a narrative hook that has something for everyone. The risk of course is that the search for such a story becomes little more than an exercise in political communications. The line. Three words that say it all. It feels flippent to suggest that a campaign strategy might not be enough. A story without foundation or substance will get us nowhere. The story progressives need sits in that happy place between values, concrete policy, and leadership. It is informed by lots of people doing lots of hard thinking and others who turn these thoughts into tangible action.
In one of many office post-election debriefs, a colleague argued persuasively that the challenge facing progressives is not values or policy. It is culture and leadership. But whilst there might be no shortage of ideas, it is not at all obvious to me that these ideas have started to inform proper deliberation about what a new progressive story might be. In fact, the biggest risk in the months and years ahead is that conversations claiming to be about ideas, are really about personalities. The job of constructing a new progressive story, will get lost amid the clamour for brave and charismatic new leadership. But deliberation is what matters. A story is felt, as much as it is heard. And you don’t get to feeling without deliberation, at least not in my book. Here is my (small) contribution.
The politics of belonging
The obvious starting point for a new progressive story is one that George Mombiot himself suggests; the politics of belonging. Mombiot argues that only with a story that starts with people’s natural altruism and the human instinct towards cooperation can we counter the ‘neo-liberal’ tendency towards individualism and atomisation.
And Mombiot isn’t the only one. This desire to challenge the ‘neo-liberal’ idea of human nature runs through so much of the progressive thinking I have come across in recent times; from Kate Raworth’s Doughnut economics and its rejection of ‘rational economic man’, to Hilary Cottam’s Radical Help and its rejection of ‘new public management’ dogma. It can be seen in the rise in popularity of alternative forms of ownership — not least cooperatives — and in the embrace of the commons as an alternative way of managing public goods. Humans are not disinterested and dispassionate. And we do not act purely on the basis of our self-interest. We care. We love. We collaborate.
Critically, this consensus about human nature isn’t just hopeful or romantic, it is grounded in empirical evidence. Thanks to Elinor Orstrom, we know now that the prisoner’s dilemma only provides a rationale for ‘the tragedy of the commons’ because the prisoner’s in question were kept in not-so glorious isolation; an unnatural state of affairs (watch her nobel prize lecture to find out more). And according to the Harvard Grant Study the single biggest predictor of a person’s life chances is their capacity to form and sustain intimate relationships (as set out in the breathtakingly good Triumph of Experience). Human beings are social, collaborative and caring, and we should design society as such. What’s not to like?
But is the politics of belonging the right starting point for a new progressive story? I recently read this piece by Paul Cotteril, which explores the relationship, and potential conflict, between the politics of belonging, and the desire for personal autonomy. Can the former win when seen either in opposition to, or as restrictive of, the latter? Or is the pull towards autonomy simply too strong?
“What people really, really want is to be left alone to get on with their lives, to enjoy their freedoms. To explore other freedoms.”
This made me think of my parents. Children of the post war generation. Privileged but not exceptionally so. Liberal in most ways. Open minded and empathetic towards others. Committed to social justice. But ultimately defined by their desire to avoid definition. They whole-heartedly reject the social straitjacket of their parents’ generation and their early 20th century sensibilities, manifest in their refusal to get married — ever and under any circumstances — despite a 50-odd year relationship. Ultimately, the political ideal that was most likely to appeal to my parents was autonomy; the freedom to choose what they did, how they lived and with whom.
I will not claim that my parents are representative of the population at large; liberal, metropolitan baby boomers to a T; but I was struck by Cotteril’s assertion that this pull towards autonomy is common across a number of different social groups, independent of class or background. For my parents it was definitely true that “forcing a collective agency upon people — readying them for a struggle that they don’t feel is theirs — fosters resentment, not affinity” and there was patently no desire to “stick to pre-war traditions of family and community”.
If this impulse is as strong for others as it is for my parents, then perhaps Mombiot is making a mistake, not by arguing for the politics of belonging, but by playing into a narrative that suggests freedom and belonging are mutually exclusive. In so doing, Mombiot is falling into the same narrative trap that has been set for so many progressives over the last 30 years; by arguing for belonging, they are arguing against freedom. For all that the architects of Brexit appealed to an underlying sense of resentment, or indeed nostalgia, they also appealed to a desire to be ‘free’, from the shackles of the EU, which was positioned as the oppressive and constraining force. By arguing for solidarity with the EU, progressives were conned into arguing against the pull towards autonomy.
Until they are able to break free of this narrative trap, progressives are unlikely to achieve a new political consensus in favour of more progressive values.
A new politics of freedom
The challenge for progressives is that the story of freedom has been hijacked by those who believe that economic rationality is the only way to understand human behaviour. We are only truly free if we are free to pursue our own (economic) self-interest, and any attempt to limit or curtail the extent of these freedoms should be avoided at all costs. Markets of exchange must be free, and any attempt to correct a market failure or to mitigate the impact of ‘externalities’ is an impingement on that freedom. Government is oppressor and the size of the state directly parallels the level of oppression.
Is it possible to claim the territory of freedom in pursuit of a more progressive future? And what kind of freedom would we be talking about? One version of this story could be found in an unlikely place; the adopted father of free-market orthodoxy and the champion of “self-interest”, Adam Smith. According to my (limited) understanding, Smith is not the father of economic rationality that many assume him to be. Whilst for Smith, individual self-interest did indeed lie at the heart of economic decision making, his was a self-interest informed by sympathy, reciprocity, and ultimately love; we know and understand ourselves, and our own interests, in relation to how we feel about others. This is not a rationalistic, utilitarian perspective, but one that relies upon a socially constructed moral code.
In Smith’s world the freedom to act in one’s interests and to pursue one’s desires does not necessarily entail individualism:
“All the members of human society stand in need of each other’s assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bonds of love and affection, and are, as it were drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.”
For Smith, there was such a thing as society, and markets of free exchange (not capitalism; Smith was writing before the interests of capital had begun to dominate market based economies) in which people are free to build bonds of sympathy and reciprocity were the best way of giving it life. For progressives, this socially constructed notion of freedom, could provide a new and compelling narrative hook. We all want to be free; to live, work, love, pray, vote; in whatever way we choose. But true freedom relies upon relationships of love, care, acceptance and negotiation, without which we are unable to form, nurture or sustain any sense of our own self-interest. This is a freedom informed by human psychology, rather than economic rationality; a feeling, rather than a material position. If thought about in these terms, freedom does not imply atomisation or individualism, it implies connection.
Progressives could argue that if our sense of freedom ultimately derives from the strength of our connection to others, then a ‘free’ society must be one in which all citizens have the opportunity to form relationships of love, care, acceptance and negotiation.
What could this mean in practice for the role of government? Let’s take economic policy and the commitment to ‘free markets’ as an example. Jesse Norman’s book, ‘Adam Smith: What he thought and why it matters’ tells the story of a moral philosopher who believed that competitive markets were the best way to nurture and sustain the social bonds that lie at the heart of a thriving society:
“For Smith, the crucial linking idea is that of the continuous exchange that occurs in all human interaction. This may be the exchange of goods and services in markets. But it can also be the exchange of meanings in language and in other forms of communication. And it can be the exchange of regard or esteem that in Smith’s view underlies the formation of moral and social norms in society.”
But he also argued that effective competition isn’t an inevitable product of ‘free’ markets:
“It requires mechanisms that force companies to internalise their own costs and not push them on to others, that bear down on crony capitalism, rent extraction, ‘insider’ vs ‘outsider’ asymmetries of information and power, and political lobbying.”
In other words, Smith was a critic of what Norman calls crony capitalism. For progressives, this position creates the potential for a significant and radical programme of reform. This programme would be underpinned by a commitment to making markets more ‘competitive’ and, critically, more productive. If a market based economy derives its ‘value’ from the extent to which it builds bonds through mutual exchange, then markets in which these bonds are undermined by significant asymmetries of power are not performing their proper function. Take the dysfunctional markets for land and property. A progressive programme that starts with a relational notion of freedom could use wealth taxes to dis-incentivise speculation that locks wealth into the (relatively) unproductive housing market, redirecting it into the real economy.
At the same time, a notion of freedom grounded in relationships would suggest that markets themselves must take their responsibility to promote bonds of love and care much more seriously. In practice this would mean a progressive programme that seeks to get behind the growing movement for responsible business practices that prioritise people and planet alongside profit. Whilst it is tempting for progressives to be cynical about this movement, this cynicism only serves to reinforce a narrative in which freedom is incompatible with belonging. In practice it is about much more than ‘greenwashing’. Take, for example, the growing network of B-Corporations.
Legislation should get behind and reinforce these trends. Take the duty of vigilance law in France that places the onus on large companies to both measure and mitigate their impact on the environment, whilst promoting wider human rights. The recent action brought against Total by a group of NGOs is the first time this law has been brought into use; it could be game changing. In this country, a proper commitment to implementing and expanding social value legislation through all government procurement has similar potential. And the government can provide leadership, for example through the creation of missions around which stakeholders coalesce (see IIPP’s mission orientated innovation policy). But the private sector must take responsibility.
Conclusion
This story is obviously far from complete, and it might also represent a profound misreading of Smith. But, if you believe that people do ultimately want to be free, and that their freedom is contingent on access to relationships of love, care, acceptance and negotiation, then perhaps there is something in it.
