CURRENTLY…
Social Liberalism, it is said, is a form of liberalism which prioritises co-operation over competition, compassion over selfishness and humanitarianism over egomania. In saying this, Social Liberalism must therefore necessarily focus on the development of human capacity, as the prerequisite for a vibrant, dynamic and innovative social fabric.
For without this focus on Human Development, society would consist solely of a very few well heeled and a great many barefoot people, where such disparities would eventually lead to the breakdown of the social order altogether.
But what is Social Liberalism, definitively? Is it a form of Liberalism which supports charitable causes? Is it a form of Liberalism which advocates taxation as a means of providing social services? Or is it a form of Liberalism which presupposes that private initiatives for social good are preferable over public ones?
What indeed is this animal known as Social Liberalism? Is it even real? The first time I encountered this beast, it seemed like an altogether too convenient rebranding of Liberalism; designed to pacify 3rd world citizens who bleed, daily, under the yoke of “neo-conservative imperialism”.
Largely called the “Third Way”, haughtily called the “Social Dimension of Liberal Policy” and whispered, upon the boards of power, as “Compassionate Individualism”; Social Liberalism is, in fact, a myth, a misnomer and a non-entity. Put very simply, Social Liberalism does not exist as a type or form of Liberalism, as a thing in and by itself, at all; simply because, if it did, it would be impossible to distinguish it from Liberalism proper.
Defining Liberalism as = (Democracy + Human Rights + The Rule of Law + A Market Economy + An Open, Tolerant, Opportunity Laden and Participative Society); understates, in some ways, the fundamental Liberal commitment to the preservation of life. This means that, among other things, that Liberalism is opposed to the death penalty; opposed to imprisonment without rehabilitation and opposed to inequalities in opportunity distribution.
It is the very unacceptability of this inequality of opportunity distribution, which drives the desire for a Social Liberalism. All too often, Liberalism has been accused of being “the will of the strong and the survival of the fittest” and as this relates to our lives, this would mean that, as a result of the injustices of colonialism, that only those who benefited under the colonial system would prosper in a post colonial environment.
However, Liberalism, because of its fundamental commitment to the rights of individuals, is opposed to the “right of might” and the “rule of the powerful”, choosing instead a process of negotiated compromise that includes the need for consensus and co-operation.
As a result of this, the desire for unfettered liberty is tempered, within Liberalism, by the rights of the weak and the need for social agreement. Not unanimity per se, but broad consultation which leads to a principled position that is acceptable to all people.
Well, this is what Liberalism is supposed to be. It is distinguished from conservatism where conservatism chooses to impose the will of a few over the needs of the many; and it is distinct from socialism where socialism chooses the will of the representatives as the will of the many.
However, Liberalism in South Africa has come to be defined as a reactionary recourse to a robust refusal to engage and participate, believing that, in an imperfect system, participation is skewed in favour of those in control.
But this is true in all ideological systems, such that those who contribute constructively are heard, while those who sit on the sidelines and complain are ignored. It is therefore nonsensical for liberals to complain rather than to contribute, just because “those in control” are not self declared liberals.
In fact, it is the hallmark of conservatism that holds non-participation as the means of demonstrating disrespect and by extension dissent. In any event, it is hypocritical for liberals to now complain rather than to contribute, when they were quite willing to co-operate with the apartheid state, for the purpose of trying to “change the system from within”.
One wonders, what is the difference now? Apart from the fact that the “baas” is now black? Perhaps this is the only reason for the reactionary, “armchair critic” position of Liberalism in South Africa today?
Perhaps in trying to grow the Liberal party of South Africa, the Liberals have brought conservatives into the Liberal fold. Conservatives who hanker after the days when the “coolies, kaffirs and kleurlinge” knew their places; conservatives who think in terms of “us and them”, who seek to utilise their elected positions to further the supremacy of their own personal world view; and, of course, conservatives who don’t want to change the socio-economic status quo, because it’s very comfortable for them.
It is this sense of complacency which dogs conservatism, making it intrinsically prone to being vulnerable to the empathy of socialism, the resoluteness of nationalism and the diligence of unionism. But more specifically, it is this complacency which jars so heavily with Liberalism, which in itself is wholly innovation driven.
So, in co-opting conservatives, Liberal parties tend to have to assume a middle of the road position; which does not compromise their Liberal principles per se, but also does not chase the prudish members, voters and funders away.
By assuming this position, there is no room for ideological debate and no room for political philosophy. In such a political environment, political success comes from melding common sense with common ground to produce policy, which sounds more like a customers’ evaluation process than a principled policy driven position. In such a party, the welfare of insecure middle class people will naturally find common cause; the welfare of aspirant entrepreneurs will find favour while the welfare of the educated elite will find priority.
Although it must be said, that this very compromise would also force itself, through its middle class guilt, to conduct social outreach programs, which would be of benefit, purely, in making political capital. However, this would never address the needs of the many; such fundamental political failure being the result of the Liberal-Conservative compromise, in and by itself.
This would leave the field wide open for a Socio-National-Unionist party to really cleanup on the disaffected vote, which ordinarily would flow to a Liberal party. However, if the Liberals stood alone, without the conservatives, the agenda of the weak, the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden would take centre stage, in keeping with the principles of liberalism and more specifically the liberal principle of equality of opportunity.
This would allow a Liberal party to garner support outside of the limited agendas of privilegedom, thereby assuring greater support and voter turnouts during general elections.
HOWEVER…
In soliciting support, outside of “elitist policy” constituencies, Liberal parties will be faced with the reality that most people, all over the world, do not know or understand what the identifier “Liberal” actually means. However it must be said, that for most people, it instinctively, refers to the basic and inherent freedoms, which all people are entitled to.
This has been further complicated by an alarmingly rising trend, over the last decade, which has been to lambaste “Liberalism” as the root of all evil in the world; and to accuse “Liberalism”, fallaciously, of being guilty of all of the crimes of conservatism. Interestingly, this brand hijacking has come at a time when the 1st world has moved into a globally exploitative and extractive program of neo-conservatism, as defined by the 1st world itself.
It seems however, that quite suddenly, that the world has come to believe that “Sweatshops, Child Labour and Poverty” are the faults of “Liberalism”. It is hard to believe that the neo-conservatives could have achieved this grand a brand assassination campaign, in so short a space of time, given their inherent glib complacency.
It must be then that; this process of seeding this false information must have come from somewhere else; from a group of people with lots on enthusiasm and political commitment. They must have been hardworking community activists, highly stressed development practitioners, scholarly teachers, contemplative academics; and generally people with the desire to achieve great social reform and to bring about radical social justice.
In short, they must have been crusaders, crusaders for human rights, crusaders for global peace, crusaders for the cause of the 3rd world’s displaced, the downtrodden, unwashed masses condemned to the poverty of rural and peri-urban ghettoes; which were built solely to meet the demand for cheap, submissive labour, sweating blood to keep productivity high, labour costs low and the director’s wife in the luxury which she expected when they got married.
In the 1960’s these crusaders were called “Peace-Niks” and over the years they have come to be exemplified by environmental activists caught up in our rage over the destruction of our natural environment, solely for the purposes of satisfying our modern, consumer goods manufacturing demands.
By and large this type of political activist or crusader is easy to spot; they have a penchant for being opposed to pretty much everything and choose to define the world in terms of simplistic logic that aggregates all similar things together and assumes illogically that nuances and fundamental differences cannot, for some reason, exist between things which are inherently divergent. Indeed, this has them punting the evils of conservatism as the fruits of liberalism; just because the market economy is common to both belief systems.
Evidently those who decry liberalism as evil, for its belief in the market economy, are unfortunately given to following the totalitarian principle that “in politics, when you have nothing to say, make sure that you shout whatever it is that you do end up saying”. This is the reason that they mistakenly accuse liberalism of killing children in fireworks factories.
If they were however to simply read the principles of liberalism, they would understand that liberalism is predicated upon a culture of human rights and that these human rights must necessarily entrench a culture of labour rights; and that this is wholly supported by the fundamental liberal policy in response to poverty, that of public education; which allows people the opportunity to grow and develop to their full potential.
Further that these human rights must be protected by the rule of law, to give full effect to the social contract that all people have entered into, for the purpose of living in peace and pursuing their ambitions and aspirations, with equal opportunity to do so.
And finally that where the market economy meets the rights of people, that the rights of people must take precedence, and that this market economy cannot function as the thing that it is intended to be, without being within the context of a tolerant, open, opportunity laden and participative society.
From this it hardly sounds like liberalism is a grand design to enslave people, instead it actually sounds like liberalism is about protecting the welfare of each and every member of society, not as a number or a statistic, but as a person, who has a distinct persona and a unique perspective on “life, the universe and everything”.
Hardly a difficult concept to sell, in fact most people in the world will support this position, so why not in South Africa? It would seem then that in order to actually achieve the thing that liberalism articulates towards achieving, it needs to first establish its own faith in the legitimacy of its own cause; which in South Africa may be harder to do than initially imagined; if the South African vehicle for liberal politics continues to be controlled by conservatives.
Avishkar Govender
eThekwini-Durban
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
SADC - AU