“What people want in this country is action and not too much talk.” Rory Stewart
What is the radical centre? This is suddenly a more important question than it was, now that Chuka Umanna has linked the future of his Change UK party to this idea, and – even more – since Conservative leadership candidate Rory Stewart has embraced the phrase. So has the Lib Dem presidential hopeful Richard Kemp.
I should also explain that the idea is at the heart of Radix, which means that we have at least a claim to have been thinking about it for some time.
Part of the urgency for an answer is the rise of Nigel Farage, emblazoned across the front of the Sunday Express yesterday, boasting that he was going to “smash the system … like Trump”.
The problem here, from a radical centrist point of view, is not his animus towards the ‘system’ – we clearly need to change it, starting with the economic system – it is that smashing it without any idea how to rebuild it is precisely how we got into our current mess. This also appears to be the Trump way, dispensing with his ideologues and smashing a new bit according to what he felt like that morning.
So is it possible to counter a Trump-style populism with something popular – an ideology to tackle an anti-ideology?
One way is what the Greeks called a ‘Via Negativa’, describing the radical centre by what it is not. It isn’t a compromise between right and left. It doesn’t include a sprinkling of traditional Toryism (the birthright to power) and a sprinkling of traditional Labourism (distrust of pretty much everyone).
So what is it? Here are ten ways to start thinking about it.
1. A new economics. It means new approach to the economy, aware that our current economic institutions are centralising power and wealth – and taking it away from the enterprising wealth-creators of the future.
2. Action not endless discussion. Rory Stewart is good on this, explaining how our political culture has produced this kind of sclerosis which disapproves of doing things. There is an implicit critique of bloodless bureaucracy here, and running governments by data alone.
3. An anti-ideological ideology. It means a refusal to only act in accordance with ideology, rather as Michael Heseltine is best known for – his development corporations, borrowing a legal form that had been in turn borrowed for the new towns set up by the Attlee government in 1946.
4. Participative and clear-sighted, understanding the way the world really is, not how it is supposed to be – a view you can only really get when your government is participative at every level. The American writer Mark Satin says, in his book Radical Middle, that it isn’t a view of the right or the left side of the road but “a view of the whole road”.
5. A positive, human and humane future. That implies it understands clearly the threat to humanity posed by climate change and is prepared to act accordingly.
6. The devolution of political power. Radical centrists believe in people. That leads them to devolve power, aware that the sclerosis that so threatens us is partly to do with extreme centralisation.
7. The devolution of economic power. Radical centrists believe in the free market, but in its original sense not its modern one. It recognises that the concentration of wealth and power are not an unfortunate consequence of a free market – they are the opposite of it. If the rich and powerful can no longer be challenged by the small and powerless, then there is no market any more.
8. What is best in people. The radical centre celebrates our humanity, ingenuity, heroism and care for each other. We do so in the face of the fear encouraged by the other side, aware that either will simply recreate itself and create its own momentum. This is not a matter of events: people felt proud of themselves after the London Bridge terror attack because the Metropolitan Police commissioner encouraged them to do so.
9. Inclusive. This hardly needs saying, but it does require unpacking. Because the radical centre seems to me to regard politically correct language as a method by which those who are angriest exclude those less confident than themselves from public debate. That is certainly the effect it has.
10. Prepared to reform our failing institutions, even if they are beloved of the Left – the NHS needs serious attention if it is going to survive – by going beyond the infuriating impasse created by the British obsession with market privatisation.
Is this liberalism? It is true that it might be incorporated into liberalism more easily than other ideologies, but that may be because liberalism is older, more amorphous and more paradoxical than the others. It is also true that the radical centre draws from various ideologies – but it refuses to be limited by them either.
But then there is another paradox at the heart of the radical centre. It is an ideology in its own right, defending some of the trappings of traditional democracy. Yet is is also aware that this is one moment in human history when traditional ideology urgently needs to be set aside.
You don’t differentiate between “ideology” and “philosophy”, which may be a relevant distinction. Ideology usually includes some analysis of current society and institutions (at least post Marx) as a basis for political prescription and strategy while political philosophy is about a more general view of people, their motivations and potential. I suggest that the problem has been with ideology in that parties’ constructs of the world around them have not developed to reflect the real, modern world. The underlying philosophies are still there and represent the important choices.
Good point. Thanks Gordon!
Good article thanks David. My position is clear. Our political ‘representative democracy’ is not working and everyone knows it. Brexit has merely exposed its worst effects to the masses, big time.
Our solution is small government and sound money, the pillars of the Austrian economics school and promoted by Mises: https://mises.org/
Our small group have six demands with which to radically alter big government to that of localised power sharing:
http://harrogateagenda.org.uk/ and see the 15 min video explaining the main points:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvJAmkSOuck&feature=youtu.be
We might be described as libertarians rather than radical liberals because freedom and liberty are the cornerstones of a centre right political philosophy.
What about energy, de-growth and the unavoidable ongoing decline in prosperity?
I think that comes under 1 and 4 – seeing clearly and acting!
It’s probably worth noting, that by this criteria, the Brexit Party is a radical centrist party.
Neoliberalism as promoted by Mises et al is not the radical centre. Neoliberalism requires a technocratic supranational framework to ensure minimal interference by the demos in the frictionless running of the economy.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/22/the-truth-about-neoliberalism/
Neoliberalism therefore rejects the devolution of political power and rejects the devolution of economic power. It is also an ideology.
Similarly, the previous social democratic system was smashed with the intention of replacing it with neoliberalism hence the post war consensus was replaced by Thatcherism and Reaganism which was then tempered with the Third Way. That is neoliberalism was tempered by social democratic policies. In essence this is the basis of ordoliberalism which has its roots in Germanic economic ideology which is the current basis of the EU supranational economic framework in the form of a highly competitive social market economy.
This system likes previous iterations of the capitalist, i. E ideological, economy is useful in terms of wealth generation but it also needs to be tempered or actively limited by goals, regulation, policy and taxes in order to remain within environmental and ecological limits.
The radical centre in this respect deliberates whether the market should be tempered through more liberal nudge policies such as soft regulation, offsetting measures and aspirational goals which generally involves a lot of talking or whether the market should be limited through more direct state intervention through hard regulation, taxes and even rationing, in other words, limited by definable actions.
Some adaptable mixture of these hard and soft measures as determined through democracy and technocracy is in my opinion the purview of the radical centrist in our fast approaching age of ecological and environmental limits.
https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/
Stephen, thanks so much for your contribution, as always! But I’m unclear, certainly in my own writings, why you think the radical centre is a neoliberal idea. Let’s leave aside the question of whether ‘neoliberal’ describes anything either coherent or liberal – I’m not sure it does. Every political ideology is underpinned by an economic idea – and, in this case, it is pretty clear to me that the radical centre is underpinned by the failure of conventonal economics to deliver – and a growing sense that conventional economics is constructed over a disastrous commitment to growth which is not going to work any more. That might be many things, but neoliberal it isn’t!
Hi David. I’m not quite sure what you are getting at. Clearly neoliberalism is not the radical centre but are you suggesting the Brexit Party is.
I point you to this video in which The Brexit Party is discussing the British Steel plant. This is about as far as away you can get from neoliberalism without it being socialism.
https://www.pscp.tv/w/b8jOO3R3LTc3NjUyNTY3MzgzMzkxNDM2OHwxWXFKREJqREFSektW9qIYGwWPPUeT18xeFDbdVw5s-jlWv6MqV1S5thjW-AE=?t=10s
It appears to build on
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/03/uk-steel-industry-saved-tata?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H&utm_term=165110&subid=1637658&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Overall, the radical centre is going to be the synthesis of economic left and economic right policies, cultural left and cultural right policies, policies that synthesise the individual with the community and democracy with technocracy.
For many, this radical centre is best realised out of the EU neoliberal technocratic supranational Treaties.
Neoliberalism is fully articulated in this article https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/22/the-truth-about-neoliberalism/
The article fully articulates the missing link of technocracy which enables business to be the main governing unit within a neoliberal society as well as protecting ‘frictionless free trade’ from democratic interference. Of course, neoliberalism seeks a compliant state which supports the creation of a technocratic framework from which privatisation, marketisation and procurement rules are largely governed by economic interests rather than the demos.
Thank you Stephen Gwynne for the recommendation of the recent long read by Phil Mullan, which I repeat here:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/22/the-truth-about-neoliberalism/ : “The truth about neoliberalism
It is the fear of the nation state as a democratic force that underpins the neoliberal project.” I highly recommend this article with its historical sweep and incisive analysis. Although not unfamiliar with the territory and players, I found it provided a superb narrative that puts a lot into context.