Clegg’s Open Society
Nick Clegg’s speech today at Demos (available here) was an outlining of what liberalism means to him. It was also very much a speech to give the party faithful a boost just before Parliament breaks for the holidays. I thought it was interesting because he brings up a few issues that I mentioned in one of my posts yesterday.
He brings up the issue of an equal playing field and uses the phrase “glass floor” to represent the advance some people get just because of the accident of their birth, rather than on their merit. It should be, but isn’t, a fact of life that social mobility should allow those with talent to rise and those without it to sink regardless of who their parents are. In terms of open and closed societies he sums this up as:
First, in an open society there should be no unfair barriers to people’s talent and aspiration. All roads must be open.
In a closed society, the routes to advancement are blocked by an elite who hoard opportunities for themselves and their children. A series of ‘glass floors’ ensure that the children of the affluent maintain their standing relative to other groups. A closed society is one in which people ‘know their place’. In an open society, people choose their place.
OK, so he doesn’t mention letting those without the ability move down but that’s the logical inference when you remove the “glass floor”. It’s just not a vote winner to say it.
Clegg also touches upon the point that completely unregulated markets and institutions can lead to illiberal results for wider society, even if the act of regulation is itself arguably an illiberal act. As a bit of a side note I’d say that of course it’s better to get a good outcome than to stick dogmatically to a certain philosophy, regardless of the results, through some notion of ideological purity. Here’s what he has to say about unaccountability:
We British are an open-spirited people. But we are hobbled by closed institutions. By instinct we believe in fair play and giving everyone a fair chance in life.
But our politics and economy are distorted by unaccountable hoards of power, wealth and influence: media moguls; dodgy lobbyists corrupting our politics; irresponsible bankers taking us for a ride and then helping themselves to massive bonuses; boardrooms closed against the interests of shareholders and workers. The values of the hoarders are increasingly out of touch with the spirit of openness alive in the UK.
This chimes pretty much with what I said in my earlier post where I said that state intervention can be justified to bring avoid monopolies and attempt to increase competition. Clegg also goes further and notes how centralised power, in this case corporate power, can have a distorting influence on the political sphere as well as the economic one.
He brings up the issue of Lords reform, saying:
The Lords is perhaps the most potent symbol of a closed society. Because we are in the process of building support for a Lords reform package, I am sometimes advised not to be too outspoken on this issue. But I’m afraid this is one boat that urgently needs rocking.
and I really have to say is that he’d better get rocking now because time’s ticking away and he needs to get on with it. By the time it fights its way through the Lords or a Parliament Act is used it could be time for the next election!
The speech as a whole is a good one but one can’t help be a bit sceptical about what exactly is being done to further most of these aims. Indeed, what can be done to further them when you’re the junior partner in a coalition with a party that is by definition opposed to radical change?
This last week and a half has shown some encouraging rhetoric from Clegg and other Lib Dems, but such green shoots of newfound strength have been seen before (at the 2011 Lib Dem conference, for example) and in the months since they’ve amounted to very little. Perhaps this latest bout of muscular Liberalism will stick around. Otherwise what’s the point in giving the speeches in the first place?
