Free Market Foundation Head of Policy Martin van Staden writes recently that, “one hopes that the muscular liberals will gain the advantage in this particular movement before it is too late for liberal order to be rescued.” The (classical) “liberal order” can be understood as composed of civil society organisations, think tanks, political parties, governments, and arguably the most important component: the individual citizen.
What, if any, telos or final cause should animate these various players in the liberal order? The positive strengthening of (and when necessary, the armed defence of) individual liberty. In some contexts, for example a liberal political party in government, this telos requires active, difficult assessments of the reality of the day, and deciding where the wins can be obtained, versus where lines of liberty should be drawn beyond which any compromise is simply not possible. (If compromised on, such issues, policy- or legislation-wise, would render such an entity effectively non-liberal, to say nothing of the grave harm caused to the party’s credibility and future commitments and threats).
The context for a liberal citizen, or a liberal think tank, may indeed in some ways be easier to make sense of than that of the political party. These can be more strident, and more unequivocal – especially in public.
While it can serve a liberal party or politician’s long-term aims of pro-liberty and pro-growth reforms to be unequivocal and ‘hard-headed’ in public statements about developments within government, at other times their cause can be better served by taking a different tack.
Utilitarian
This is terribly utilitarian on my part, but for liberals in government especially, the balancing act between being ‘muscular’ and ‘constructive’ in the implementation of, and advocacy for, liberalism will always be a very tight calculation. A muscular liberalism that is too inflexible risks squandering opportunities once in government, and one would perhaps never see such an opportunity again. However, should the liberal party or individuals who have this opportunity too readily compromise on core principles, it is very likely a good thing that they remain outside government, playing an effective and principled opposition role.
In some instances, it will indeed be the best strategy to go in ‘all guns blazing’; provided it is with an assessment of the long-term game, and of which opportunities one might be giving up for the short-term emotional or psychological high. Where policies (and reforms) that strengthen individual liberty and facilitate private sector economic growth can be pursued either in a slower (or shotgun) manner, those gaps should be taken.
Seismic shifts in terms of ideological and policy-related thinking, and then the implementation of policies radically different from those that came before, are difficult to see in the moment. From that point of view, assessing whether a liberal party in government has been ‘successful’ might only be possible over a very long time period. (Perhaps this is a cop-out on my part).
South Africa’s economy is decidedly mixed. There is much more statism and collectivism than liberalism and free markets, but nonetheless some elements of the latter are present. Shouldn’t all opportunities (with full view of the risks of being in government, and the necessary risk-management strategies and red lines in place) be seized?
All available
Should one use all the available platforms, resources, tools, and opportunities to work with and influence those in other parties and other parts of civil society and the media? There are, unfortunately, only trade-offs in the game of running a government. Indeed, liberalism is one of the few, if indeed the only, philosophy on human nature and government that realises and accounts for people’s various limitations, hubris, lust for ever more power, and so on, in what needs to be done to build the institutions that best resist excesses and abuses.
Strength, to be such, also requires one to be adaptable and flexible. The muscular liberalism for which Van Staden argues – “Muscular liberalism is liberalism that does not endlessly apologise and compromise on its own principles or the (admittedly sometimes harmful) outcomes of those principles” – risks losing out on the opportunities it may have at a given point in time, if it is only ever focused on the ‘perfect time’ or a version of utopia.
South Africa cannot be returned to a tabula rasa, where our ideal form of liberal government and society could be designed. But as liberals we really shouldn’t want it that way; reality is what it is, and working with what we have will ensure liberalism continues to be a defining undercurrent in South Africa politics and in society.
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