In my last post, I tried to argue that education was a good thing. Indeed, it is almost silly that I have to make that argument. It would have seemed bizarre to previous generations of Canadians who went to remarkable length to increase the level of formal education in our society. Previous generations of Canadians made it illegal to *not* education children. They introduced minimum working ages to ensure that kids were in school, they built a massive public educational system and then equally massive postsecondary university and college systems. They subsidized tuition through tax dollars, developed life-long education models, introduced senior colleges, promoted training programs at work, organized correspondence courses and now online courses and frontier colleges and after school homework programs. They expanded the range of subjects taught in schools; introduced immersion, and a host of other things. Those taking their stand against increased access to postsecondary education are, then, taking their stand against the weight of tradition and force of Canadian history. And, this is something we all, I suspect, know. As I said, have you ever seen a parent who has said "Yes, keep my son or daughter uneducated?" Was this, in fact, not one of the arguments against the Taliban ... their refusal to allow education to girls?
There is another argument that we can make in favour of increased access to postsecondary education as well: it is democratic and helps promote equality. Let me lay out the basis of this argument.
Canada is a liberal-democratic society. This doesn't mean liberal as in the Liberal party but liberal in terms of its commitment to individualism. Like many things over the course of Canadian history, that commitment to individualism has been honoured in the breach and we should not ignore that. We should not pretend that Canada was (or, is) a better country than it was (or, is). Individualism, historically, excluded all kinds of people on the basis of skin colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, social class. But, what we could say is that this is a goal and this is a standard against which we evaluate ourselves. For instance, we become upset with sexism -- say, someone who decides they won't hire women for a job -- because it violates our sense of individualism. We think that the best person should be hired for the job and that gender is -- most of the time -- irrelevant to qualifications. Individualism, in this way, serves as a marker against which we can assess decisions.
The Canadian belief in (or, ideal of) individuals is not, however, naive and its not revolutionary. Its not naive in the sense that most people recognize that we live in a society of manifest and real inequality. We live in a society where there are, for instance, significant distinctions in wealth, material circumstances, access to leisure pursuits, etc. Some children grow up on Cote de neiges; some grow up on impoverished northern reserves; some in the south end of Halifax.
What does this have to do with education? Liberal Canadians (again, small-l) looked on education as the great -- and non-revolutionary tool -- to address social problems. Education, said differently, is the great leveller. It is what allows for equality of the opportunity. I won't say I necessarily subscribe to all of this way of looking at things but let me lay this argument out for you. Its runs like this: if individualism means anything in Canada it does not mean what former Prime Minister Trudeau called equality of circumstances. Liberal Canadians accepted economic, social, political, etc., inequalities because, so this theory runs, they are based on natural differences between people. Those differences might in desire (one's wish to do something); they might be in ability (one's ability to do something better than someone else). And, on this level of natural differences, liberals do not believe that there should be much state interference. Again, as Pierre Trudeau among others have said, it is not the state's business to tell people what choices to make with their lives.
This is, however, different from allowing unequal competition based on things other than ability, desire or hard work. If one child, for example, had an advantage over another for reasons other than abilities, etc., that is not, Trudeau and others have argued, true individualism. The wealth of parents is one of those things that can (and, I'd likely argue does) provide an unequal and unfair advantage to some versus others. To continue this example: if one child -- by virtue of his parents wealth -- gets a manifestly better education than another child, then we don't really have individualism because this allows the wealthy child to occupy a more competitive position in the job market. When this happens we have a replication of social class, rather than a competition of individuals where the best qualified person gets the job.
In the Canadian liberal mindset, then, inequality is acceptable when based on certain things (desire, work, etc.) but not when it is based on others (replication of wealth). Why? Because the wealthy child who benefits from their parents wealth has actually done nothing to earn that privileged position themselves. They have obtain an advantage in the labour market, not by dint of their hard work, skill, intelligence, determination, etc., that is: something based on their character, but simply by virtue of the fact that their parents had money. If this were the case, a liberal might say, we don't actually know whether that rich kid was actually the best candidate for the job. And, if we start hiring people who are not the best for the job then companies and society suffer as well. We know only that he or she benefitted from their parents abilities, skills, etc.; and not whether they have those skills, abilities, etc., themselves. What we know is that that rich child won the genetic lottery and that is all. It is ethical -- is it fair -- that the child should benefit because they happened to get lucky and -- through no fault or action of their own -- were born into a rich family? Should we hire people on this basis? Is that good for employers? Is it good for society?
Increasing access to higher education (again, done as best as we can on the basis of choice, without telling someone what to do) is the way inequalities of condition (the genetic lottery) can be addressed to without levelling society. Instead of lowering everyone to the same social condition, Canadian liberals let equality go but try to raise each cohort of children to roughly the same competitive level through education. It is not 100% equal. Children born in wealthy families still have advantages others cannot afford (private lessons, tutors, trips, and the like) but as long as the same basic level of education is accessible, then, we can have about as good an equality of opportunity as is possible without crossing that line and starting to tell people what to do with their or their children's lives.
Education is, thus, an essential tool through which Canada has tried to realize individualism. All the caveats apply: it does not work perfectly. It does not create perfect equality. It is focused on individualism rather than equality, etc., and all those are true. The issue, however, with regard to free tuition, as I said before, is not its perfection. It is whether or not it advances certain objectives.
What all this is designed to say, then, is that there is an ethics to "free tuition." "Free tuition" might be about helping people. It might be about being nice to poorer Canadians. It might be about challenging the dynamics of social class. Or, it might be about a dozen other things. But, at its heart it is about a Canadian conception of individualism organized around the idea of equality of opportunity (which is not equality of condition or perfect equality). In addition to the social benefits that accrue to a better educated society that I mentioned in my previous blog, access to post-secondary education is about a society that is committed to individualism putting their money where their mouth is.
Because, after all, if one claims to believe in individualism and equality of opportunity but does nothing to create an individualistic society in which there is equality of opportunity, then, well ... one does not really believe in those things, does one?
Showing posts with label liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberalism. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Friday, July 10, 2015
Reconfiguring Progressive Politics Part I: Something Other than Socialism
In Reds, Rebels, Radicals, Ian McKay argues that there are a variety of ways to be a leftist in Canada. Leftism is less a specific and unchanging set of doctrines than an historically evolving political philosophy that moves to address different issues at different times as these gain importance because of changed circumstances. This much, one supposes, might be said about all political movements but McKay's point is a useful reminder because of the tendency in the media to treat the left as a single perspective that never changes: once a socialist, always a socialist. Exactly what it means to be "on the left" these days is, however, a matter of discussion (although not necessarily debate), the changed historical circumstances in which the political left finds itself operating, and its own efforts to define a meaningful politics and set of public policies that can produce stable alternatives to what it sees at the misguided policies that have reigned over Canada for longer than a decade.
A few blogs ago, I tried to address the confusing mish-mash of Canadian conservatism and what it means as a political option for Canadians. In this blog, I'd like to look more directly the NDP, and to some extent the Liberal Party, to try to engage the other options Canadians will have before them when they turn to the polls this fall. One of the mistakes that the political right has made, has been to assume that the Liberals and NDP are basically the same. Taking a page from American conservatives, Canadian conservatives got into the habit of referring to everyone who was not conservative as "left." Indeed, there was even some discursive connection of the liberalism with socialism. No less a figure that Stephen Harper, in fact, made such statements. It would be difficult to overstate how wrong this perspective actually is. What I want to do here is trace the development of what I will ultimately call "progressive" politics to set the stage for a further consideration of its current manifestations, which I'll likely address in a blog after this one.
Socialism and Civic Nationalism
Part of this connection of liberalism with socialism (the Liberal Party with the NDP) was political. It was a cheap effort to get votes by calling opponents names. Deployed against liberals, it became an odd sort of red baiting. Another part of it was political blindness. For a variety of reasons, commentators on the left simply did not understand the distinctions between post-WW II Canadian liberalism and the socialism (or, social democracy, if one prefers that term) of the NDP. There were, in fact, important and appreciative difference on the level of policy and philosophy even if individual supporters of one party or the other could periodically move fluidly between them. The distinction between liberals and socialists was not who was more progressive (or, who was the "real" progressive, or words to that effect) but distinctions of ideology that were, on some level, fundamental.
In the past, I have called the liberalism that came to dominate Canada after WW II "civic nationalism" and the name remains as good as any name. It was organized around a series of beliefs that focused on the individual and its protection in society. This included equality of opportunity, Charter rights, regional development programmes, a commitment to accepting diversity, and other measures, such as bilingualism. I am not saying that all these different policies fit together seamlessly, but they were, more or less, a coherent policy framework that was implemented in a reformist measure with the broad support of middle-class Canadians and which served to re-tool Canada. Voting Liberal, in other words (and I will have more to say on this later), meant something specific. It meant supporting a specific vision of the country and its future.
Voting NDP (or, for a socialist or social-democratic option) meant something else. Again, for purposes of analysis, we should put our views as to which perspective is better on hold. In other words, we should not be partisan and array a hierarchy of ideological perspectives. Canadian socialists -- who by and large inhabited the NDP -- did not reject diversity politics or oppose bilingualism or Charter rights, but were, simply, interested in different matters. These included labour codes, workplace health and safety, industrial democracy, limiting connections between the state and big business, finding mechanisms to address the social inequalities of power in Canadian society, working-class wages. In other words, they were different; not better; not worse. Different.
The confusion between the NDP and Liberals, between socialism and civic nationalism, then, arose from a variety of factors including: conservative politics and an effort to win votes by lumping their opponents together; an inability of right-wing commentators to understand the distinction between civil nationalism and socialism; an imported American rhetorical framework that divided all politics up into "left" and "right" in a way that broached no further diversity. And, I would also argue that they NDP confused matters themselves because they fished off the same pier, as it were, as the Liberals. For example, they were passionate defenders of minority groups. Indeed, they were likely more passionate than the civic nationalists who looked to find means to protect minorities as individuals who faced discrimination. And, they could use the same mechanisms (Charter rights) as liberals to make their defence. Economically, Canadian socialists -- sometime after WW II -- stopped talking about supplanting capitalism, made their peace with it, and looked to modify and manage it. There were important differences between the civic nationalist and socialist view of the economy but both believed in some form of management via the state. If liberals continued to believe in capitalism (which they did) ... oddly, so too did the NDP in practice. Theoretically, Canadian socialists argued against capitalism; in practice they accepted it and used liberal economic management tools.
Progressive Politics in Practice
What did this mean? A number of things:
1. Canadians who were looking to cast non-conservative, more progressive (for lack of a better word) votes had different options and those options were not a question of who was more progressive than the other. They were different visions of the future.
2. In practice, however, this difference could be confused and compromised both because of the politics of manipulation and because of some degree of convergence on means (even if the ends remained distinct).
3. Long-term success for the federal Liberal Party of Canada. As is well known, the federal Liberals ruled the roost for most of the last half of the twentieth century. If we begin after WW II, we have Liberal governments in power from 1945-57; 1963-84 (with the Clark interregnum), and 1993-2006. We don't need to get into this history. Civic nationalism did not "win over" Canada. It was clearly buoyed by the idiosyncrasies of the First Past the Post System. This allow it translate its support among a plurality of Canadians ... into majorities of working minorities in Parliament.
4. NDP -- socialism -- remained a minority option for Canadians. While drawing committed support from an not insignificant number of people, the NDP tended to succeed provincially in areas where liberalism was weak, class politics increased political polarization, and the middle class tended to look to conservatism (as opposed the liberalism) as its political home.
Implications
I mention all of these points because, for a long time, I was rather down on the idea that the NDP and the Liberals could be anything other than temporary allies, which, historically, has been precisely the case. Even when they might have competed over the same voters, they saw the world differently. They could cooperate, now and then, because they each saw the politics of conservatism as something to be avoided, but this did not mean that they parties could or would merge or even work together (say, via strategic voting). The reason for this was patently evident to most of the activists in both parties: they could not merge because they were different. Resistance to abandoning the NDP, for instance, was not just a dislike of Liberals (say, Martin or Chretien, each of whom could talk a progressive game) or personal political ambition. It was a sense that there was a fundamental incompatibility to the parties.
And, I think, by and large this was right. This is what I have tried to explain above. Supporting the NDP meant something different form supporting the Liberals.
A question that we have to ask, I think, and an important one, is this: is this any longer the case? If there was, say, a fundamental incompatibility between, say, industrial democracy and civil nationalism, does this type of incompatibility still exist today. Is the NDP a socialist political party any longer or ... if it is ... what is 21st century Canadian socialism? Can -- will? -- the civic nationalism of the Trudeau-Chretien era still appeal to Canadians? Are the political circumstances of today so different that its appeal might be more or less moot, as the need to address other issues and different problems becomes more pressing for the electorate?
There are no easy answers to this question. I will argue in my next blog, however, that the NDP is moving toward trying to address them by defining what we might call (and, what they do call) a "progressive" agenda for Canada. What this entails, is what I'll next address.
A few blogs ago, I tried to address the confusing mish-mash of Canadian conservatism and what it means as a political option for Canadians. In this blog, I'd like to look more directly the NDP, and to some extent the Liberal Party, to try to engage the other options Canadians will have before them when they turn to the polls this fall. One of the mistakes that the political right has made, has been to assume that the Liberals and NDP are basically the same. Taking a page from American conservatives, Canadian conservatives got into the habit of referring to everyone who was not conservative as "left." Indeed, there was even some discursive connection of the liberalism with socialism. No less a figure that Stephen Harper, in fact, made such statements. It would be difficult to overstate how wrong this perspective actually is. What I want to do here is trace the development of what I will ultimately call "progressive" politics to set the stage for a further consideration of its current manifestations, which I'll likely address in a blog after this one.
Socialism and Civic Nationalism
Part of this connection of liberalism with socialism (the Liberal Party with the NDP) was political. It was a cheap effort to get votes by calling opponents names. Deployed against liberals, it became an odd sort of red baiting. Another part of it was political blindness. For a variety of reasons, commentators on the left simply did not understand the distinctions between post-WW II Canadian liberalism and the socialism (or, social democracy, if one prefers that term) of the NDP. There were, in fact, important and appreciative difference on the level of policy and philosophy even if individual supporters of one party or the other could periodically move fluidly between them. The distinction between liberals and socialists was not who was more progressive (or, who was the "real" progressive, or words to that effect) but distinctions of ideology that were, on some level, fundamental.
In the past, I have called the liberalism that came to dominate Canada after WW II "civic nationalism" and the name remains as good as any name. It was organized around a series of beliefs that focused on the individual and its protection in society. This included equality of opportunity, Charter rights, regional development programmes, a commitment to accepting diversity, and other measures, such as bilingualism. I am not saying that all these different policies fit together seamlessly, but they were, more or less, a coherent policy framework that was implemented in a reformist measure with the broad support of middle-class Canadians and which served to re-tool Canada. Voting Liberal, in other words (and I will have more to say on this later), meant something specific. It meant supporting a specific vision of the country and its future.
Voting NDP (or, for a socialist or social-democratic option) meant something else. Again, for purposes of analysis, we should put our views as to which perspective is better on hold. In other words, we should not be partisan and array a hierarchy of ideological perspectives. Canadian socialists -- who by and large inhabited the NDP -- did not reject diversity politics or oppose bilingualism or Charter rights, but were, simply, interested in different matters. These included labour codes, workplace health and safety, industrial democracy, limiting connections between the state and big business, finding mechanisms to address the social inequalities of power in Canadian society, working-class wages. In other words, they were different; not better; not worse. Different.
The confusion between the NDP and Liberals, between socialism and civic nationalism, then, arose from a variety of factors including: conservative politics and an effort to win votes by lumping their opponents together; an inability of right-wing commentators to understand the distinction between civil nationalism and socialism; an imported American rhetorical framework that divided all politics up into "left" and "right" in a way that broached no further diversity. And, I would also argue that they NDP confused matters themselves because they fished off the same pier, as it were, as the Liberals. For example, they were passionate defenders of minority groups. Indeed, they were likely more passionate than the civic nationalists who looked to find means to protect minorities as individuals who faced discrimination. And, they could use the same mechanisms (Charter rights) as liberals to make their defence. Economically, Canadian socialists -- sometime after WW II -- stopped talking about supplanting capitalism, made their peace with it, and looked to modify and manage it. There were important differences between the civic nationalist and socialist view of the economy but both believed in some form of management via the state. If liberals continued to believe in capitalism (which they did) ... oddly, so too did the NDP in practice. Theoretically, Canadian socialists argued against capitalism; in practice they accepted it and used liberal economic management tools.
Progressive Politics in Practice
What did this mean? A number of things:
1. Canadians who were looking to cast non-conservative, more progressive (for lack of a better word) votes had different options and those options were not a question of who was more progressive than the other. They were different visions of the future.
2. In practice, however, this difference could be confused and compromised both because of the politics of manipulation and because of some degree of convergence on means (even if the ends remained distinct).
3. Long-term success for the federal Liberal Party of Canada. As is well known, the federal Liberals ruled the roost for most of the last half of the twentieth century. If we begin after WW II, we have Liberal governments in power from 1945-57; 1963-84 (with the Clark interregnum), and 1993-2006. We don't need to get into this history. Civic nationalism did not "win over" Canada. It was clearly buoyed by the idiosyncrasies of the First Past the Post System. This allow it translate its support among a plurality of Canadians ... into majorities of working minorities in Parliament.
4. NDP -- socialism -- remained a minority option for Canadians. While drawing committed support from an not insignificant number of people, the NDP tended to succeed provincially in areas where liberalism was weak, class politics increased political polarization, and the middle class tended to look to conservatism (as opposed the liberalism) as its political home.
Implications
I mention all of these points because, for a long time, I was rather down on the idea that the NDP and the Liberals could be anything other than temporary allies, which, historically, has been precisely the case. Even when they might have competed over the same voters, they saw the world differently. They could cooperate, now and then, because they each saw the politics of conservatism as something to be avoided, but this did not mean that they parties could or would merge or even work together (say, via strategic voting). The reason for this was patently evident to most of the activists in both parties: they could not merge because they were different. Resistance to abandoning the NDP, for instance, was not just a dislike of Liberals (say, Martin or Chretien, each of whom could talk a progressive game) or personal political ambition. It was a sense that there was a fundamental incompatibility to the parties.
And, I think, by and large this was right. This is what I have tried to explain above. Supporting the NDP meant something different form supporting the Liberals.
A question that we have to ask, I think, and an important one, is this: is this any longer the case? If there was, say, a fundamental incompatibility between, say, industrial democracy and civil nationalism, does this type of incompatibility still exist today. Is the NDP a socialist political party any longer or ... if it is ... what is 21st century Canadian socialism? Can -- will? -- the civic nationalism of the Trudeau-Chretien era still appeal to Canadians? Are the political circumstances of today so different that its appeal might be more or less moot, as the need to address other issues and different problems becomes more pressing for the electorate?
There are no easy answers to this question. I will argue in my next blog, however, that the NDP is moving toward trying to address them by defining what we might call (and, what they do call) a "progressive" agenda for Canada. What this entails, is what I'll next address.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
NDP Liberal Merger
An NDP/Liberal merger?
I'm sure everyone is blogging on this so ... why bother? Well, because I think talk of this merger tells us something about Canada and so I'll break from my promised next installment on censorship (which might be a relief to some) to address this.
This merger -- or, talk of or potential merger -- is important for two reasons:
First, note the way some journalists have addressed this issue: almost as if it were a scandal (I found The Globe's coverage particularly interesting in this regard). So and so denies ... sworn affidavits; so and so confirms .... Why address this issue in this way? It is no secret that the Liberals have "picked off" some NDPers over the years or that parties try to make allies in the case of a minority government. Indeed, I would be shocked if the left wing of the Liberal Party and the right wing of the NDP had not been in some level of communication over the years. Why present this story as an almost scandal? Perhaps a journalistic proclivity to see everything as misinformation and scandal in which the journalist becomes the hero of the story by uncovering the truth? If so, this type of presentation is a tad self serving, no? More darkly, one might see this mode of presenting this story as a continuity of leading media outlets anti-Liberal bias. I'm not certain of that and some analysis would need to be done, but I also would not discount the possibility out of hand.
Second, and I think more importantly, a Liberal-NDP merger would be something different then some sort of electoral alliance in which the parties looked for common ground that would allow them to form a reasonable governing bloc that could address matters of importance to themselves and a large section of the Canadian population (although certainly not all Canadians). This might include environmental issues, reversing some Conservative policies re funding for Status of Women or developing a realistic plan to address the economic morass that is federal finances.
A merger, however, would speak of something different. For a number of years I have been hypothesizing that the Liberal project for Canada, let's follow Ignatieff and call it civic nationalism, has reached its end. This end is not that it has been rejected by Canadians because we know that large parts of this project are now broadly supported. Canadians, by and large, accept the idea of equality of citizens, Charter rights, multiculturalism, and official bilingualism. Whether or not these things can be treated as part of an evolving project for Canada is, I think, an open question. Aside from the extreme edges of Canadian society, these things might almost be seen as status quo.
In this sense, the ending of the Liberal project for Canada might signal the development of a transition to something else. And, that transition might signal a political re-alignment. In this sense, an NDP-Liberal merger might be something more than a "get the Tories out" coalition. It might be part of a process through which a different type of Canada is evolving into being.
I'm sure everyone is blogging on this so ... why bother? Well, because I think talk of this merger tells us something about Canada and so I'll break from my promised next installment on censorship (which might be a relief to some) to address this.
This merger -- or, talk of or potential merger -- is important for two reasons:
First, note the way some journalists have addressed this issue: almost as if it were a scandal (I found The Globe's coverage particularly interesting in this regard). So and so denies ... sworn affidavits; so and so confirms .... Why address this issue in this way? It is no secret that the Liberals have "picked off" some NDPers over the years or that parties try to make allies in the case of a minority government. Indeed, I would be shocked if the left wing of the Liberal Party and the right wing of the NDP had not been in some level of communication over the years. Why present this story as an almost scandal? Perhaps a journalistic proclivity to see everything as misinformation and scandal in which the journalist becomes the hero of the story by uncovering the truth? If so, this type of presentation is a tad self serving, no? More darkly, one might see this mode of presenting this story as a continuity of leading media outlets anti-Liberal bias. I'm not certain of that and some analysis would need to be done, but I also would not discount the possibility out of hand.
Second, and I think more importantly, a Liberal-NDP merger would be something different then some sort of electoral alliance in which the parties looked for common ground that would allow them to form a reasonable governing bloc that could address matters of importance to themselves and a large section of the Canadian population (although certainly not all Canadians). This might include environmental issues, reversing some Conservative policies re funding for Status of Women or developing a realistic plan to address the economic morass that is federal finances.
A merger, however, would speak of something different. For a number of years I have been hypothesizing that the Liberal project for Canada, let's follow Ignatieff and call it civic nationalism, has reached its end. This end is not that it has been rejected by Canadians because we know that large parts of this project are now broadly supported. Canadians, by and large, accept the idea of equality of citizens, Charter rights, multiculturalism, and official bilingualism. Whether or not these things can be treated as part of an evolving project for Canada is, I think, an open question. Aside from the extreme edges of Canadian society, these things might almost be seen as status quo.
In this sense, the ending of the Liberal project for Canada might signal the development of a transition to something else. And, that transition might signal a political re-alignment. In this sense, an NDP-Liberal merger might be something more than a "get the Tories out" coalition. It might be part of a process through which a different type of Canada is evolving into being.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Janine Krieber's Liberalism
Janine Krieber does not like the "Toronto elites" or Michael Ignatieff ... who does? OK, that's too quick of a quip. The "Toronto elites" surely exist but they are also a convenient boogie man, dragged out of the metaphorical closet as a way of explaining X or Y, a sort of value elitist, economic group who secretly controls of the levers of power, at least, it seems, within the Liberal party. Focusing on unnamed Toronto elites is a good way to mobilize regional grievances. I live in NB. This kind of thing has been going on for years. Heck, my grandfather used to complain about "Upper Canadians."
The target of Ms. Krieber's vindictive, then, must be a bit less real and a bit less tangible then it first seams. The objective of her concern -- the supposed disintegration of the Liberal party -- is not. What I want to do in this blog is pick up on Ms. Krieber's concerns and suggest a different way of looking at them. What I want to suggest is that what is looking more and more like the slow death of the Liberal Party cannot be easily blamed on Paul Martin, the media, Toronto elites, Michael Ignatieff, or any other cause. Instead, what I want to suggest is that problems through which the Liberal Party is passing reflect a change in the dynamics of Canada. The Liberal Party "made hay," as it were, as the guardian of one particular vision of Canada. Because we don't often think in terms of visions beyond what are reported as feel-good, motherhood issues (everyone for world peace, put up your hand), the idea that vision is important is usually neglected in public commentary.
Perhaps the word "vision" is not the right word. Pick another one that you like better because understanding the idea behind what I say is more important than agreeing with my language. By vision I mean conception of Canada, a philosophy of nation, as it were: an ontology of the state or polity or civil society and state, an image of a different way of organizing public life.
The Liberal Party was the vehicle through which a specific conception of Canada naturalized itself as "the" Canada, except among those people who disagreed in some fundamental sense it. I don't have space to go into this here, but the Liberal party defended a conception of Canada that Michael Ignatieff called "civic nationalism": the ideal of a small l liberal polity. The logic of this ideal of Canada leads -- more or less directly -- to a series of policy reforms designed to transform Canada from the country that it was into ... well ... the country we have now. Multiculturalism, official bilingualism, regional economic development, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, universal health care, and other such reforms follow logically from basic "civic nationalist" ideal: individualism, equality of opportunity, etc.
For right or for wrong, for good or for ill, the Liberal Party defended this conception of Canada against alternatives to it: ethno-linguistically based nationalism in Quebec, socialism, conservative traditionalism, etc., and did so mainly with the support of middle-class suburbanites, whether they spoke French or English at home. This Canada had much to recommend it. It had serious weakness and I don't have space to get into these either (suffice it to say, I've never been a supporter of this particular vision). But, it did appeal to a wide number of Canadians because it was committed to justice, equality, capitalism, and those are things that middle class Canadians like. They have some reason to. The point system for immigration - -whatever its appreciable weaknesses -- was better than the racialized system that preceded it. Canada remains deeply mired in sexism but at least there is strong protection for gender equity in the Charter, and on the down the line. The civic nationalist Canada of today is, in marked ways, a more equal and just place than was the pre-civic nationalist Canada of the century before the 1960s.
What is going on, I think, and the reason I offer this admittedly rushed history lesson, is that the liberal or civic nationalist order appears to be running into its first serious challenge in some time. Civic nationalists -- in an admittedly odd coalition -- were able to defeat the Mulroney mega-constitutional reforms that would have changed the character of Canada (or, at least maybe). They were able to rule Canada with only that one exception, virtually without stop from the mid 1960s to the first decade of the new century. Why? Two reasons: (1) on some level middle-class Canadians shared the Liberal's philosophy of nation are were willing to turn out and vote for it, and (2) the opposition was divided. Those who rejected the ideal of the civic nation could not agree among themselves on an alternative and so were willing, for the sake of power, to make some form of peace with liberalism. The promoters of Quebec independence abandoned Marcel Chaput's discourse of "separatism" and instead adopted referenda, talked of "interculturalism," and "associations" with Canada, and promised to wait for "winning conditions" and be a good government in the meantime. Canadian socialists ditched the "waffle" and "industrial democracy" and talked vaguely about the "ordinary" Canada and slowly shift their economic policies to the centre (indeed, it appears a third of the NDP's federal caucus now feels so comfortable with the abrogation of socialism that they can openly reject gun control).
As to the Tories ... well ... they just stopped being Tories. No one really knew what a "community of communities" was anyway and, as George Grant noted forty years ago, most conservatives no longer subscribed to anything that could actually be called conservatism, at least of anyone had the faintest idea what the term meant in a philosophical sense. Mulroney tried, to be sure, but he either failed (Meech Lake), backed away (de-indexing pensions), or promoted reforms that were consistent with liberal political-economy (free trade). In other words, by the time he was done, Mulroney's government ended up representing -- perhaps against its will -- a variant of liberalism as opposed to an alternative to it.
What is going on in the Liberal Party today is something other than bad political management or bad leadership politics. What is going on is that the Liberals are losing their base of support. Is this because the Liberal ideal of Canada has become so naturalized that Canadians no longer feel it necessary to vote Liberal? In other words, are liberal ideals -- equality, multiculturalism, bilingualism, a role for the state in the economy -- so common place that Canadians feel that what we can do is debate the merits of this or that policy by voting for parties that represent one or another trend of civic nationalism?
This is an interesting idea. But, I don't think that this is the case. I think the massive self-disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Canadians -- those Canadians who chose not to vote -- is the thing we should look at to explain the demise of Canadian liberalism. After all, the Liberals have not changed much. Michael Ignatieff may be beholden to the Toronto elites but he's really just an anglophone Pierre Trudeau in terms of his ideology. I'd argue, instead, that the civic polity in Canada has been affected by two forces: (1) it has reached its outer limits in terms of improving Canada. The Party itself, in this sense, has succeeded in its mission but that mission cannot accomplish all its goals (or, at least the goals Canadians would set for it). And, (2), the balance of class power has shifted. In this sense, Ms. Krieber has isolated something important. She's just not explained very well why this important thing is occurring.
The target of Ms. Krieber's vindictive, then, must be a bit less real and a bit less tangible then it first seams. The objective of her concern -- the supposed disintegration of the Liberal party -- is not. What I want to do in this blog is pick up on Ms. Krieber's concerns and suggest a different way of looking at them. What I want to suggest is that what is looking more and more like the slow death of the Liberal Party cannot be easily blamed on Paul Martin, the media, Toronto elites, Michael Ignatieff, or any other cause. Instead, what I want to suggest is that problems through which the Liberal Party is passing reflect a change in the dynamics of Canada. The Liberal Party "made hay," as it were, as the guardian of one particular vision of Canada. Because we don't often think in terms of visions beyond what are reported as feel-good, motherhood issues (everyone for world peace, put up your hand), the idea that vision is important is usually neglected in public commentary.
Perhaps the word "vision" is not the right word. Pick another one that you like better because understanding the idea behind what I say is more important than agreeing with my language. By vision I mean conception of Canada, a philosophy of nation, as it were: an ontology of the state or polity or civil society and state, an image of a different way of organizing public life.
The Liberal Party was the vehicle through which a specific conception of Canada naturalized itself as "the" Canada, except among those people who disagreed in some fundamental sense it. I don't have space to go into this here, but the Liberal party defended a conception of Canada that Michael Ignatieff called "civic nationalism": the ideal of a small l liberal polity. The logic of this ideal of Canada leads -- more or less directly -- to a series of policy reforms designed to transform Canada from the country that it was into ... well ... the country we have now. Multiculturalism, official bilingualism, regional economic development, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, universal health care, and other such reforms follow logically from basic "civic nationalist" ideal: individualism, equality of opportunity, etc.
For right or for wrong, for good or for ill, the Liberal Party defended this conception of Canada against alternatives to it: ethno-linguistically based nationalism in Quebec, socialism, conservative traditionalism, etc., and did so mainly with the support of middle-class suburbanites, whether they spoke French or English at home. This Canada had much to recommend it. It had serious weakness and I don't have space to get into these either (suffice it to say, I've never been a supporter of this particular vision). But, it did appeal to a wide number of Canadians because it was committed to justice, equality, capitalism, and those are things that middle class Canadians like. They have some reason to. The point system for immigration - -whatever its appreciable weaknesses -- was better than the racialized system that preceded it. Canada remains deeply mired in sexism but at least there is strong protection for gender equity in the Charter, and on the down the line. The civic nationalist Canada of today is, in marked ways, a more equal and just place than was the pre-civic nationalist Canada of the century before the 1960s.
What is going on, I think, and the reason I offer this admittedly rushed history lesson, is that the liberal or civic nationalist order appears to be running into its first serious challenge in some time. Civic nationalists -- in an admittedly odd coalition -- were able to defeat the Mulroney mega-constitutional reforms that would have changed the character of Canada (or, at least maybe). They were able to rule Canada with only that one exception, virtually without stop from the mid 1960s to the first decade of the new century. Why? Two reasons: (1) on some level middle-class Canadians shared the Liberal's philosophy of nation are were willing to turn out and vote for it, and (2) the opposition was divided. Those who rejected the ideal of the civic nation could not agree among themselves on an alternative and so were willing, for the sake of power, to make some form of peace with liberalism. The promoters of Quebec independence abandoned Marcel Chaput's discourse of "separatism" and instead adopted referenda, talked of "interculturalism," and "associations" with Canada, and promised to wait for "winning conditions" and be a good government in the meantime. Canadian socialists ditched the "waffle" and "industrial democracy" and talked vaguely about the "ordinary" Canada and slowly shift their economic policies to the centre (indeed, it appears a third of the NDP's federal caucus now feels so comfortable with the abrogation of socialism that they can openly reject gun control).
As to the Tories ... well ... they just stopped being Tories. No one really knew what a "community of communities" was anyway and, as George Grant noted forty years ago, most conservatives no longer subscribed to anything that could actually be called conservatism, at least of anyone had the faintest idea what the term meant in a philosophical sense. Mulroney tried, to be sure, but he either failed (Meech Lake), backed away (de-indexing pensions), or promoted reforms that were consistent with liberal political-economy (free trade). In other words, by the time he was done, Mulroney's government ended up representing -- perhaps against its will -- a variant of liberalism as opposed to an alternative to it.
What is going on in the Liberal Party today is something other than bad political management or bad leadership politics. What is going on is that the Liberals are losing their base of support. Is this because the Liberal ideal of Canada has become so naturalized that Canadians no longer feel it necessary to vote Liberal? In other words, are liberal ideals -- equality, multiculturalism, bilingualism, a role for the state in the economy -- so common place that Canadians feel that what we can do is debate the merits of this or that policy by voting for parties that represent one or another trend of civic nationalism?
This is an interesting idea. But, I don't think that this is the case. I think the massive self-disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Canadians -- those Canadians who chose not to vote -- is the thing we should look at to explain the demise of Canadian liberalism. After all, the Liberals have not changed much. Michael Ignatieff may be beholden to the Toronto elites but he's really just an anglophone Pierre Trudeau in terms of his ideology. I'd argue, instead, that the civic polity in Canada has been affected by two forces: (1) it has reached its outer limits in terms of improving Canada. The Party itself, in this sense, has succeeded in its mission but that mission cannot accomplish all its goals (or, at least the goals Canadians would set for it). And, (2), the balance of class power has shifted. In this sense, Ms. Krieber has isolated something important. She's just not explained very well why this important thing is occurring.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Left and Liberal Hypocrisy
ﾠLiberals get blamed for a lot these days, at least in the circles I frequent. Conservatives, of course, have never been fans of l/Liberals. That is why they are c/Conservatives in the first place. We might expect, then, conservative ideologues, thinkers, politicians, etc., to unleash a continual stream of anti-liberal vendictive. This tendency is, of course, magnified by the fact that the Conservative Party has a well-stocked war chest. They can afford to take out anti-Liberal adverts whenever they perceive a slight shift in the polls.
ﾠ
Neither is NDP vindictive particularly surprising either. What is, of course, surprising, at least a little bit is the degree to which the NDP leadership seems to have decided that their best course of action is to be the Official Opposition's self-declared Official Opposition. The NDP leadership seems to spend more time attacking the Liberals than the Conservatives. In fact, at times -- as in the last federal election when the NDP helped to bring down the Liberal government of Paul Martin -- the NDP seemed almost blindly unconcerned with the Conservative policies. An example is seeming NDP shock that a Conservative government has abandoned the federal commitment to aboriginal rights enshrined in the Kelowna Accord, environmentalist commitments indicated by the Kyoto Accord, and the semblance of a national day-care programme worked out by the Liberals. Only a leadership unconcerned with Conservatism could be shocked by what the Conservatives have done. The NDP's lack of concern seems to relate to a political tactic: displace the Liberals as the national alternative to Conservatism. It appears that the NDP perspective is that only by taking down the Liberals will they be able to mobilize opposition to Conservatism "under their banner", as it were, and have a chance of attaining power. I'm not certain this is a good strategy and here is why.
ﾠ
First, in order to fulfill its plan, the NDP has adopted a Conservative anti-Liberal discourse: "by nature Liberals are hypocrites and incompetent." This discourse works well with Conservatives because it is how they see the world. They ascribe to Liberalism a series of moral weaknesses that have opened to the door to such supposedly nasty things as gay rights, de-criminalized pot, strong anti-harassment laws, a commitment to equality of opportunity through national child care, and the like. By contrast, the NDP actually does not see support for child care and gay rights, etc., as signs of moral weakness. On all these policy areas they much closer to the Liberals than the Conservatives. Like the Liberals, the NDP supports equality for gays, national child care, equality of opportunity for women, as well as gun control, regional economic development strategies, and a host of other things. There are -- or there should be -- points of opposition between NDPers (as socialists) and Liberals (as liberals). The NDP needs to spell these out. It hasn't done that. Instead, it has justified and rationalized a Conservative discourse that only ends up strengthening Conservativism in Canada. The first big problem with the NDP's anti-Liberal rhetoric, then, is that it ends up sounding very Conservative and, as such, ends up rationalizing a Conservative perspective.
ﾠ
Going along with this, NDP anti-Liberal discourse also misses the point. Listening to it, or reading it, one would get the feeling that the Liberals were a bunch of thieves and liars, morally decrepit people who can't do anything right. Again, this is the Conservative perspective but it should not be the NDP's perspective. It should not be the NDP's perspective because it fails to engage policy. What the NDP are saying, through their discourse, is, in effect, don't vote for them because they are morally bankrupt. Vote for us because we are honest and upright. Perhaps, but what is missing from this discourse is any reference to policy. In fact, the whole discourse of "vote for us because we are honest" is politically neutral. I'm a socialist politically but I have no illusions that socialists are any more honest then anyone else. Many of my friends are Liberals and Conservatives and they are good, well-meaning, hard-working and honest people. My concerns with Conservativism do not relate to any belief on my part that Stephen Harper is somehow dishonest. I don't think he is. (I do think he is a politician, which is something I will address in a future blog.) By focusing attention, then, on honesty, the NDP's discourse actually misses a chance to differentiate itself from Liberalism on key policy issues.
ﾠ
My point is this: the NDP's on-going war against Liberalism will necessarily fail to accomplish its ends. Its ends seem to be to displace the Liberals as the national official opposition to Conservatism and, from there one assumes, to make a run at becoming a governing party. It can't work because it ends up re-inforcing Conservatism and because it misses opportunities to actually do something that would allow Canadians to understand what voting NDP actually means. By adopting a Conservative rhetoric, what the NDP does is actually help Conservatives maintain power. This is a problem for the NDP -- regardless of what goes on electorally with regard to the Liberals -- because Conservative policies are antithetical to NDP policies. By re-inforcing Conservatism, the NDP actually succeeds in making Canada into precisely the type of country they do not want it to be. Likewise, it casts support for the NDP into the politically neutral realm of honesty that actually has nothing to do with policy or with our visions of what the future might should look like. In this regard, the NDP misses a chance to actually displace the Liberals through policy differentiation.
ﾠ
I'd suggest that the NDP has to follow a different route. It is supposed to be a different type of political party. It needs to take seriously the idea that political education is a fundamental aspect of a political party's work and that education is much more then saying "vote for me." It seems to engage society and articulate a different vision of the future. It cannot content itself with talking about Liberal hypocrisy and incompetence. It has to talk about society, political-economy, and itself. If it doesn't do that ... well ... its future will end up being more of the same old third party status, the very thing the party is now trying to desperately (but in such a misdirected way) to escape.
ﾠ
Neither is NDP vindictive particularly surprising either. What is, of course, surprising, at least a little bit is the degree to which the NDP leadership seems to have decided that their best course of action is to be the Official Opposition's self-declared Official Opposition. The NDP leadership seems to spend more time attacking the Liberals than the Conservatives. In fact, at times -- as in the last federal election when the NDP helped to bring down the Liberal government of Paul Martin -- the NDP seemed almost blindly unconcerned with the Conservative policies. An example is seeming NDP shock that a Conservative government has abandoned the federal commitment to aboriginal rights enshrined in the Kelowna Accord, environmentalist commitments indicated by the Kyoto Accord, and the semblance of a national day-care programme worked out by the Liberals. Only a leadership unconcerned with Conservatism could be shocked by what the Conservatives have done. The NDP's lack of concern seems to relate to a political tactic: displace the Liberals as the national alternative to Conservatism. It appears that the NDP perspective is that only by taking down the Liberals will they be able to mobilize opposition to Conservatism "under their banner", as it were, and have a chance of attaining power. I'm not certain this is a good strategy and here is why.
ﾠ
First, in order to fulfill its plan, the NDP has adopted a Conservative anti-Liberal discourse: "by nature Liberals are hypocrites and incompetent." This discourse works well with Conservatives because it is how they see the world. They ascribe to Liberalism a series of moral weaknesses that have opened to the door to such supposedly nasty things as gay rights, de-criminalized pot, strong anti-harassment laws, a commitment to equality of opportunity through national child care, and the like. By contrast, the NDP actually does not see support for child care and gay rights, etc., as signs of moral weakness. On all these policy areas they much closer to the Liberals than the Conservatives. Like the Liberals, the NDP supports equality for gays, national child care, equality of opportunity for women, as well as gun control, regional economic development strategies, and a host of other things. There are -- or there should be -- points of opposition between NDPers (as socialists) and Liberals (as liberals). The NDP needs to spell these out. It hasn't done that. Instead, it has justified and rationalized a Conservative discourse that only ends up strengthening Conservativism in Canada. The first big problem with the NDP's anti-Liberal rhetoric, then, is that it ends up sounding very Conservative and, as such, ends up rationalizing a Conservative perspective.
ﾠ
Going along with this, NDP anti-Liberal discourse also misses the point. Listening to it, or reading it, one would get the feeling that the Liberals were a bunch of thieves and liars, morally decrepit people who can't do anything right. Again, this is the Conservative perspective but it should not be the NDP's perspective. It should not be the NDP's perspective because it fails to engage policy. What the NDP are saying, through their discourse, is, in effect, don't vote for them because they are morally bankrupt. Vote for us because we are honest and upright. Perhaps, but what is missing from this discourse is any reference to policy. In fact, the whole discourse of "vote for us because we are honest" is politically neutral. I'm a socialist politically but I have no illusions that socialists are any more honest then anyone else. Many of my friends are Liberals and Conservatives and they are good, well-meaning, hard-working and honest people. My concerns with Conservativism do not relate to any belief on my part that Stephen Harper is somehow dishonest. I don't think he is. (I do think he is a politician, which is something I will address in a future blog.) By focusing attention, then, on honesty, the NDP's discourse actually misses a chance to differentiate itself from Liberalism on key policy issues.
ﾠ
My point is this: the NDP's on-going war against Liberalism will necessarily fail to accomplish its ends. Its ends seem to be to displace the Liberals as the national official opposition to Conservatism and, from there one assumes, to make a run at becoming a governing party. It can't work because it ends up re-inforcing Conservatism and because it misses opportunities to actually do something that would allow Canadians to understand what voting NDP actually means. By adopting a Conservative rhetoric, what the NDP does is actually help Conservatives maintain power. This is a problem for the NDP -- regardless of what goes on electorally with regard to the Liberals -- because Conservative policies are antithetical to NDP policies. By re-inforcing Conservatism, the NDP actually succeeds in making Canada into precisely the type of country they do not want it to be. Likewise, it casts support for the NDP into the politically neutral realm of honesty that actually has nothing to do with policy or with our visions of what the future might should look like. In this regard, the NDP misses a chance to actually displace the Liberals through policy differentiation.
ﾠ
I'd suggest that the NDP has to follow a different route. It is supposed to be a different type of political party. It needs to take seriously the idea that political education is a fundamental aspect of a political party's work and that education is much more then saying "vote for me." It seems to engage society and articulate a different vision of the future. It cannot content itself with talking about Liberal hypocrisy and incompetence. It has to talk about society, political-economy, and itself. If it doesn't do that ... well ... its future will end up being more of the same old third party status, the very thing the party is now trying to desperately (but in such a misdirected way) to escape.
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