Ep. 224 Liberalism and equality / social justice

Hello everyone, I hope you are well. A lot of people lost their mind last year when the examiner asked the question to what extent do liberal support democracy? Why the chaos? Because the question went beyond the four areas that many centres pin their learning to, society, state, economy and human nature. And it focused instead on a specific core idea or principle. Yet take a look at the specification. The examiner has every right to ask you about these in the weeds questions. So on liberalism, these core ideas and principles are one individualism, two freedom and liberty, check out episode two, one, eight, three, the state as a necessary evil, four human rationality. Yeah, episode one, three, eight is your friend here, five liberal democracy, others panicked, but we on the A level politics show didn't listen to pod number one, seven, eight for this. And of course, six equality slash social justice. It is to this last principle that we turn today to what extent do liberal support equality and social justice. Now, I'm quite tempted here to divide up the essay into these two concepts that the specification splices together, equality and social justice in anticipation. That's a question on this area might ask about both. So my first theme will center upon liberal support for equality and my next theme, my next big paragraph will center upon liberal support for social justice. My direction liberals are fundamentally different in their support for both equality and social justice. Here goes then. Granted liberals, whether classical or modern have superficial agreement, we might say, on the basic forms of equality that they support due to the shared belief that they have about humans being rational beings, it does stand to reason that humans ought to have foundational equality. These are rights that all humans have by virtue of being born, which cannot or should not be taken away. It's what are also known as natural rights or inalienable rights. Modern and classical liberals with both support, Western class view that like men, women are rational too and thus they also have foundational equality. By extension, modern and classical liberals support formal equality. This is the idea that all individuals have the same legal and political rights in society throughout their lives. Betty Friedan spoke of ridding society of outdated laws that prevented such formal equality and instead spoke up in favor of legal equality, of laws protecting women against sex discrimination and of equalizing divorce laws. Modern liberals and classical liberals would also claim to both support equality of opportunity, the idea that all individuals should have equal chances in life, hence Friedan's campaigns against jobs that were deemed only acceptable to men. In addition, while there is much greater agreement on political equality, there is also some agreement on the limits of social equality. Indeed, neither classical or modern liberal support the idea of absolute social equality associated with socialism. For modern liberals and classical liberals, a society should be based on meritocracy where the cream rises to the top and due to each individual being unique, those with the most skill and those displaying the most effort will rise while those with the least will not. Thus, for both strands of liberalism, some social inequality is inevitable, even rules accepted that once helped by the state, individuals should be left to rise and fall on their own effort and talent. Neither modern liberals or classical liberals believe that you can socially engineer a society to be fully equal, like some socialists advocate. As they believe that ultimately each individual is unique and thus you need an economic system that promotes individualism, hence their support for capitalism, that may increase wealth, yes, but is also well known to increase disparity between the rich and the poor as well. Thus, we can make the case that modern liberals and classical liberals have similar views on equality, a society cannot be completely equal, but there ought to be formal and legal equality as well as equality of opportunity. Yet, there is still far more disagreement than agreement, especially over how you create the latter form of equality, equality of opportunity. For modern liberals, equality of opportunity cannot truly be realized by individuals all doing their own thing. They need help to exploit those opportunities, for example, through education. Mill wrote that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect is a moral crime if the parent does not fulfill this obligation, the state ought to see it fulfilled. The modern liberals, individuals rationally opt for societies that help those at the bottom. Rules is veil of ignorance, experiments. Imagine a world where no one knew their position in society and posed questions to the inhabitants of that world regarding the things that they would want in case they found themselves at the bottom of the social structure. Because humans are rational wrote rules, they would rationally choose a world where the risk of the potential for their own individual suffering was minimized, especially if they had no idea which side of the street they would end up on. Thus, modern liberals support the welfare or enabling state to bring about equality of opportunity. Yet this is a step too far for classical liberals who see equality as inextrably linked to the ability of every individual to keep their own wealth. The higher taxes needed to pay for the kinds of state services and enabling state would require is for classical liberals and encroachment upon their innable rights of pursuing life, liberty and a happiness through wealth accumulation. It would fall foul of locks vision of a minimal state that would only protect property rights as opposed to one that would radically alter the social structure and pushed for greater social equality. Such approaches also fall foul of classical liberals' egotistical individualistic view of the world where human nature is largely fixed and not all individuals have the same capacity to make it. Hence education is more a private matter for individuals and their parents to address. Thus for classical liberals economic equality and service or welfare equality is not achievable nor is it desirable. Yet for modern liberals human potential is boundless and un-fixed, hence a greater emphasis on wide scale investment in education and an enabling state to pay for it adhering to the idea of developmental individualism. Such views would naturally lead to public services that emphasize equal access to services such as state education and idea that is seen as completely unnecessary to classical liberals. Thus while liberals all support the basic tenets of foundational formal legal and political and equal opportunity, they have very different ideas on how they can be realized, especially the latter. For modern liberals some form of welfare equality equal access to services let's call it is necessary for equality of opportunity. Yet for classical liberals this approach is unjust. Speaking of justice let's look more closely at the concept of social justice. Granted liberals believe that to achieve social justice all humans should be treated impartially and fairly by the society and the state which governs it. Our matters of the state social justice is brought about by a state which treads lightly on the lives of individuals. Despotism and the draconian rule of kings must be avoided to achieve social justice. Locks mechanistic theory argues that the state is created by individuals for individuals. Any other state could not possibly look after the interests of individuals and their families. Both modern liberals and classical liberals accept that social justice cannot prevail without a social contract between citizens and their rulers and what lock described as a government by consent. To guarantee the unbiased neutral umpire to bring about social justice a minimal state with checks and balances is a necessary evil to guard against the worst elements of our nature. In society social justice can be achieved through locks concept of religious tolerance by extension all liberals, classical and modern support mills harm principle. The idea that the state and society should only intervene if an action of an individual harms other individuals all liberals accept that there is a realm of the individual private behavior that should be left free from state interference and the realm of the state matters that need state interference due to the potential negative effect upon other individuals. This is why most liberal support legalization of marijuana since many believe it comes under the realm of the individual and the right to consume whatever one so desires. Thus for liberals social justice is about tolerating what individuals do. The social mores of the day let's say the Victorian desire for women to avoid showing their ankles should be set aside by individuals to help achieve the aim of social justice. However, modern liberals believe that tolerance alone is not enough for social justice to be realized. They support positive freedom and therefore more state and societal intervention to encourage what we call the freedom to. While classical liberals continue to support negative freedom, that's freedom from the state and society to bolster social justice. Modern liberals believe that the state should remove barriers to freedom for a socially just society. This is why they would support the beverage report and the elimination of what we call the five giants of squalor, want idleness, disease and ignorance after World War II in the UK. Once individuals did not need to worry about where their next meal was coming from or paying for a sick relative to get medicine, they would be free to fulfill their potential and feel that they had received social justice. However, classical liberals believe in negative freedom in society whereby individuals ought to be free from state and societal obligation. This is social justice to them, the freedom from responsibility. The higher taxes needed to pay for a welfare state are seen as an encroachment upon that negative freedom and lack of responsibility that they crave and thus a denial of their own social justice. A similar divide is seen in economic matters, only modern liberal support keensionism and therefore increased state management of the economy in order to prevent mass unemployment. Ensuring people have a job is social justice for modern liberals whereas classical liberals believe in laissez-faire economics and therefore limited state regulation in the economy. Social justice for classical liberals cannot be controlled by state intervention in the economy and indeed would deny social justice for entrepreneurs wishing to make a quick buck free from overbearing regulation and taxes. However, modern liberals believe that markets have a tendency to fail and thus regulation was necessary to ensure that individuals were protected. Obama's regulation of the banks after the 2007-2008 crash would have been supported by modern liberals because it accepts that all the core concepts of liberalism including social justice are threatened by an almighty banking system while classical liberals would have disagreed with these interventionist policies because it interferes with the idea that the market regulates itself for classical liberals interventionist economic policies stymies the ability of individuals to create wealth. Wealth creation for classical liberals is social justice. Thus, modern liberals and classical liberals may support the principle of social justice when it comes to say the structure of the state that best promotes it but beyond that they have very different ideas about how social justice can be realized with classical liberals railing against an enabling state and state interference in the economy while for modern liberal social justice can only be achieved with measures to support positive freedom and an economic model that protects the vulnerable. So whilst there is merit to the opposing view, liberals are largely divided on the concepts of equality and social justice while modern liberals and classical liberals support the minimalist concepts of foundational formal and legal equality they differ over how a quality of opportunity can be realized while modern liberals and classical liberals may share a desire for social justice through a government by consent for modern liberals this narrow version of government is not enough for social justice to be fully realized. Okay, I hope you found this pod useful. Thanks for listening. If you want more ideologies pods then why not subscribe to plus plus plus for just £1.99 a month less than a cup of Starbucks maybe half the cost if you're going for one of those strawberries and cream frappuccino blended beverages you'll get full access to the complete back catalogue of a level politics shows all 224 at the time of recording. 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