Traces the development and practice of British politics from the late 19th century to the 1950s, highlighting the consolidation of government and economic production and consumption in the ‘collective era’. Beer first describes four premodern mindsets: old Tory (hierarchic, corporatist), old Whig (which transposed executive power to the cabinet), liberal, and Radical. The Enclosure Acts of the 1700s indicated the introduction of group politics (albeit aristocracy, the balanced constitution, and mercantilism remained dominant), in a long-term transition from patronage to party. In the 1800s, the primary distinction between liberals and Radicals lay in the theory of representation, one favoring liberty to act one’s conscience (the ‘masterless man’) and the other the ‘will of the majority’; Radical politics nonetheless incompletely utilized party to express class and ideological ends, according to later Socialists. The collective era, which reached its height in the 1950s, introduced or reified corporatist forms of a managed economy in combination with the welfare state. Beer then analyzes the workings of the Labour Party since the 1890s. Socialist doctrine held that party program reflects class interest, and all important decisions were to be taken before reaching Parliament. In 1907, the party formally voted itself power to instruct its MPs, although Radical views of the state’s role in alleviating evil and creating good persisted until the 1920s. The miners union’s joining the Trades Union Congress in 1909 was initially seen as a setback, until its commitment to nationalization during World War I. In 1917, Labour broke with David Lloyd George; in 1918 it committed to state ownership of the means of production, a which was unchallenged until 1951. Beer writes that Labour had to do so to differentiate itself after the ‘entente cordial’ with Liberals in 1907. On taking power as a minority government in 1929, Ramsay MacDonald faced the choice of ideology or pragmatism. Needing Liberal support, he along with Snowden, Thomas, Henderson, and Webb chose the latter. By 1931, absent a clear answer to the depression, MacDonald was forced to accede to 10 percent cut in unemployment benefits in order to win loans from New York banks. Allowed to play a large role in Churchill’s wartime government, Atlee executed the Socialist nationalization program over 1945-51; however, pressed by increasingly negative balance of payments and simultaneous demand for domestic goods, the party-government determined to steer workers into export trades or production of popular goods. The problem became closing the ‘manpower gap’ and reducing volatility of demand, finance being secondary. But after the TUC’s 1946 opposition to wage restraint, Hugh Dalton was replaced by Stafford Cripps, who returned from physical controls to market manipulation – a shift which included manufacturers accepting reduced prices and profits. The deal fell apart in 1950 (following 1949’s devaluation of sterling), at which time the unions asserted a measure of independence from Labour, in order to directly participate in collectivist bargaining. This was crucial in forging the new social contract, the paradigm of the managed economy, which Beer dates to 1940 (not 1945, because it was then workers accepted sacrifices to win the war). Henceforth, class was again not inherently political and determinist. In the 1950s, commitment to nationalization and its residual class image came to hurt Labour (Beer notes that 1/3 of the working class consistently voted Conservative throughout), presaging party change. The Fabians counterattacked but the Parliamentary leadership along with the TUC, which provided more than 50 percent of party revenue, prevailed. Turning to the Conservative party, Beer revisits the old Tory and Disraeli’s ‘Tory democracy’ mindsets: belief in hierarchy; that society is an organic unit with a traditional (not rational) social ethic; that politics isn’t the highest calling but rather is an obligation in service of society; that the governing class leads by virtue of talent; that voters choose leaders, not policy, because of the leadership’s being in tune with changing circumstances, tradition, interest groups, and of course electoral calculation. Thus, in the 1930s the less ideological, more adaptable Tories converted to monetary expansion, mercantilism, and industrial and agriculture ‘rationalization’, thereby abandoning gold and free trade. Tariff ‘reform’, headed by Chamberlain, was an important step toward the managed economy. Trade associations, rising in response to unions (and in contrast to US antitrust doctrine), were the gateway to producer group representation. By the 1950s, the Conservatives too were ready for collectivism, in which 1) the managed economy relied on bargaining with producer groups and 2) the welfare state accommodated consumer interests, as represented by party-government bidding for votes. In the collective era, government couldn’t be separated from production and consumption: ‘consumer sovereignty’ trumped popular sovereignty, Beer concludes. Yet differences remained: Labour focused on equality of outcomes, the Tories, who presumed inequality because of hierarchy, on distribution of power. Thus the question of morality – the just distribution of power to rule – persisted: voluntarism, the view that human wishes are the basis of legitimacy, conflicts with rationalism, a theory of fair ends. Apart from Beer’s framework, collectivism was upended by the reemergence of supply-side economics, that prices communicate demand and so the allocation of resources and rewards.
Political development
22. Sampson, Mandela (5 Dec 2020)
An authorized biography, bolstered by the author’s contemporaneous journalism, seeking to assess the political temperament and performance of Nelson Mandela. Prepossessing the demeanor of a tribal chieftain and educated by Wesleyans, Mandela’s prison years instilled discipline and broadened vision, the crucial step toward peaceful revolution and African statesmanship par excellence. Taking to Johannesburg in the 1950s, where he practiced law and politics making expert (if ‘vicious’) use of the Socratic method, Mandela discovered a cultural energy comparable to the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s. He was impulsive and of two minds, torn between multiracial communism and black nationalism. Mandela opposed the socialistic element of 1956’s Freedom Charter, but contemporaries thought that if he wasn’t a member of the South African Communist Party, it was ‘merely tactical’. Less enamored of nonviolence than Oliver Tambo or Walter Sisulu, he abandoned the approach after the Sharpeville riots failed to catalyze political change. Following his capture and trial, Robben Island isolated Mandela from daily tactics: the African National Congress inmates turned to collegial development of strategy while learning to master animosity toward the Afrikaners. Meanwhile, the author tends to jump ahead consistent with contemporary left-liberal views, blaming the CIA and Thatcher for opposing sanctions, being slow to reconcile to the ‘inevitable’ ascendancy of Mandela and the ANC (soon coming to power in 1987?!), and failing to anticipate the end of the Cold War (in 1978!). Sampson notably overlooks that the Cold War’s end made it safer for the Nationalist government to retrench. But the dynamics of Mandela’s negotiations with Botha and deKlerk read more reliably, particularly in the portrayal of his views on renouncing violence, as do his thoughts on opposing general amnesty in exchange for commencing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Mandela misapprehended the cost of the ANC’s historic alliance with the USSR, and was slow to grasp the prospect of nationalization as deterring Western investors. In office, modeling is mixed (i.e., antagonistic) cabinet on Clemenceau’s, he displayed a quiet dignity, his forgiveness establishing moral supremacy, in contrast (the author says) to aggressive black American politicians. A persistent themes is the tension between the demands on a politician (i.e., winning power, projecting ideology) and the vision of a statesman (long-term good of the community). The last word: ‘You don’t lead by position but by the strength of your ideas’ (p. 529).
19. Howard, Lessons of History (1 Nov 2018)
The French Revolution spurred the rise of nationalism in 19th-century Europe, a phenomenon which proved the major impetus for statecraft and warfare over the succeeding two centuries. More than simply self-conscious culture, nationalism in the 1800s was ideological, entwining a loose worldview with a defined sense of universal (often cultural) mission. It complemented economic modernization while overshadowing Marxism, which in its early phase had no conception of statecraft. Nationalism complicated life for Eastern Europe’s Jews, but (in its imperial guise) looked in colonial lands like routine military conquest. For social Darwinians cum nationalists, war was the ultimate test of folk strength – a view which died out after the carnage of World War I. In the 19th century, the Prussian mindset conflicted with German nationalism; Treitschke’s view that the essence of the state was power (macht), which required an army, bridged the two; ultimately, Nazism replaced Preussentum. Little is said of the interwar era. Howard coopts Churchill to makes a case for postwar British nationalism – as way to consensually accommodate postwar British decline – while giving the Russians a pass because the victorious Soviet army was ‘popular’ in postwar Eastern Europe! They and the Americans were the century’s inheritors of the universal mission, and in the current (when published) century, nationalism rather than social justice or economic equality remained the driver of public spirit. It provides the state apparatus with legitimacy: if unmoored (for example by supranational elites), the structure becomes alienating and oppressive. Turning to warfare, in which the author specializes, Howard’s primary insights are that 1) pre-WWI army doctrines failed to grasp the impact of mechanization despite the evidence of late-19th-century warfare – maneuver was ignored, and 2) in the greatest military literature, the hero cannot win, as abundantly demonstrated in WWI. As to history, the field is meant to train laymen – not professionals – to understand precedents of the contemporary. Howard asserts all ages of are equal interest to the historian, although the book fairly omits the developing world, and is comfortable with historicism though not polemical. In a ranging essay on ‘structure and progress’, he surveys why history has been held valuable and himself settles on its role in tracing society’s movement from the realm of necessity to the realm of choice. Such progress looks a leftward ratchet. The volume is not representative of his professional achievement and perhaps understates his contribution to understanding the relationship of warfare, society, and politics; however, it evinces the postwar bien pensant, the elite who could not see through the Soviets and uphold the enduring value of the liberal society.
20. Dunn, Breaking Democracy’s Spell (4 Nov 2018)
Democracy has successfully established itself worldwide, but its record is poor. The author contends democracy is a formula for ‘direction of legitimate coercion’ over territory and population, for the citizen’s subjection to power without sacrificing dignity. Its good name owes to success of Western governments, particularly the USA, and its strengths are in the capacity to harness sociopolitical struggle; monarchy and aristocracy cannot allow for the possibility of conflict. However, democracy as commonly understood ‘equivocates’ between authoritative standard of right conduct and describing the political character of the regime. In an extended treatment of authoritarian China’s coming to terms with democracy, he shows that Chinese hierarchy includes an obligation to instruct the population. But his alternate example of good government rests on the country’s post-1980 economic growth (the real cost of which is not yet known to the West), and ignores that hierarchy has no tides to the commonweal. (Separately, he adds the true exemplar of democracy is India because of its size.) Dunn does not like democracy’s lack of alignment to egalitarian and leftist outcomes, which he dresses up as ‘reliable’ ties to justice and utility. He equates self-government with egalitarian outcomes, instead of opportunity. Ultimately, he seems to dislike Western (especially American) democracy because Americans don’t listen to their betters. He laments the failure of progressives to make the case for the folly of the Iraq invasion or the necessity of climate-change legislation, and proposes the university can steer the world out of its problems. He shows no concept of Thucydidean (or Lincolnian) persuasion (i.e., to know what to do and to be able to explain it), of knowing and representing the group. Dunn appears most concerned power that elites don’t hold power; it’s revealing that his critique lacks Fukuyama’s treatment of accountability and order (i.e., rule of law). The polemic scores a few points but abstruse language muddies the argument, which at any rate fails to really address the important questions of who should rule in the 21st century.
9. Bagehot, Physics and Politics (8 Jun 2019)
A sociological study of characteristics which distinguish prehistoric (‘savage’), stationary, and progressive states, observing that ‘government by discussion’ combined with deliberation before acting produces the ideal nation. Lawfulness is the prime need of early societies: it’s more important elites know the application of custom than to achieve equality or fairness. Revolutionary principles don’t advance societies which don’t yet know their own nature, and it’s well that prehistoric races mixed little, for it would have produced a ‘general carelessness and skepticism … encourag(ing) the nation that right and wrong had no real existence, but were mere creatures of human opinion’ (p. 43) Custom binds age to age: an initial act of will leads to unconscious habit. But custom becomes a trap, a state of arrested development; further to oppose custom stifles innovation and invites opprobrium where there’s belief in collective guilt. Accumulated custom, pace Rousseau and Strauss, is thus significantly different than prehistory. Only government which encourages the discussion of significant, and more and more, matters makes the transition. Classical Athens was first to do so, followed by early modern Europe (after the interlude of medieval Christendom). Ultimately, order and choice are equally necessary for social progress: the energy of progressive nationals grows by coalescence and competition. Victorian England is a leading exemplar. In the course, Bagehot elaborates that military prowess (war) is the most obvious form of competition, of bringing social advantage to bear; the Jewish race is the sole exception of a nation achieving ‘variability’ without losing legality, probably because it’s skewed to the law; unconscious imitation is the main conduit of social catalytics, for disbelief often needs more reason than acquiescence. Though susceptible to charge of discredited social Darwinism, the problem Bagehot set to address cannot be explained away, and his effort has not been superseded by postmodern thought.