The Strange Survival of Liberal England

ISBN 97805218881678 (hardback) £50.00 (US$ 99.00)

Prior to his untimely death in 2006 Ewen Green was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Duncan Tanner is Professor of History and Director of the Welsh Institute for Social and Cultural Affairs at the University of Wales, Bangor. Both have written extensively on British political affairs.

Now and then, just now and then, in all walks of life one comes across a real little gem; this is one of those times reading this book is a pure delight. The book is a collection of nine essays the authors of which could constitute a who's who of current historians. The essays are arranged into three unequal sections dealing with; 'the use and abuse of economic ideas', 'Keynes and his interpreters' and 'economic forces and their significance'. The book's title is an allusion to George Dangerfield's classic The Strange Death of Liberal England, in which Dangerfield argued that British Liberalism was effectively finished as a political creed by 1914. The book owes much to the work of the renown historian Peter Clarke, who, amongst others, saw that Edwardian British radical Liberal culture was still alive, if not kicking, in its previous form. In line with this thinking is the notion that ideas become popular within an organization when they satisfy political needs. Furthermore the 'social purchase' of an idea -its capacity to articulate and mobilise popular interests-also determined the extent of its appeal to the electorate.

The book focuses on the relationships between ideas, human agency and politics; for me those two words human agency are important for too many historians write as though the actors they present had no free will, no preconceived ideas and no political or ideological stand point. How often do we read because of such and such situation so and so took a certain decision, especially so today when economic forces are supposed to be all powerful. This ideological aspect is brought out well in Boyd Hilton's essay (1) on Robert Lowe, one time Chancellor of the Exchequer under Gladstone.

Review length constrains me from dealing fully with all nine essays. However, while some naturally appealed to me more than others, all are worthy of at least a cursory mention. Of particular interest was James Thompson Political economy , the labour movement and the minimum wage 1880 -1914, (Essay 2). This is a brilliant debate on 'the minimum wage' an issue which by no means divided Right / Left or Liberal / Conservative. There was even differences among trade unionists where the stance ranged from strong support for the notion to scepticism about the very principle. The fear that the minima would swiftly become the maxima may well have coloured such thinking. Perhaps you, like me, have been inculcated with the notion that the minimum wage was a late twentieth century idea promoted by the British trade unions and the Labour Party; if so it is interesting to read (p80) that some have suggested that the 'minimum wage was more popular amongst economists in the United States than in Britain. We might be less surprise to read that pre WW1 religion entered the fray fuelling demands for and shaping conceptions of the living wage. Thompson provides nice sections on gender free negotiations, sweating and the Webbs' notion of parasitic trades.

Hard on the heels of the minimum wage essay is John A Thompson's Economic interpretations of war: American Liberals and US entry into World war 1, (Essay 3). It is not unreasonable to question the inclusion of this essay and Eugenio Biagini's Keynesian ideas and the recasting of Italian democracy 1945 -1953, (essay 7) in this volume supposedly concerned with Liberal England. However, on closer examination it will be seen that liberal ideas, first formed in England, managed to spread far beyond the shores of that small nation; this was (is?) especially so in the case of Keynesian economics, or at least what some promote as that great man's philosophy.

Duncan Tanner in Essay 4 Political leadership, intellectual debate and economic policy during the second Labour government, 1929 -1931 gets right to the heart of the actor v structure debate. Noting that 'institutions can help shape political values and influence political actions' affecting 'both the reception and generation of ideas'. At the same time he reasons that appreciating how political animals act is a complex business. The government in question was in power while the country was in the throes of an economic crisis. Yet Tanner points out that they were not forced by circumstances to act in the manner they did; there were always alternatives, always different choices, even if these became more constrained as time went on. The political ideology and personal preferences of those in power helped not only to form their actions but would also lead to them fighting the 1931 general election on the worst possible terms.

In part 2 Richard Toye considers The Labour Party and Keynes (essay 5). Many would consider that the Labour party and Keynes go together like fish and chips, salt and pepper etc. but Toye questions what exactly was, or is, Keynesianism because JM Keynes and his ideas have been used, twisted and adulterated by so many over so many years. After reading Toye I am left with the feeling that Keynes and Keynesianism has become like Marxism, not in actual content, but to the use which they are put, the manipulation of their supposed content to suit situation of which the original author would have no knowledge. Only today while reading the Economist I saw the philosophy of Keynes being linked with the current situation in USA.

Ewen Green follows with an essay (6) The Conservative party and Keynes hardly natural bedfellows but Harold Macmillan was certainly at the centre, or even left, of his party. Supermac's economic policies and his desire for full employment would seem to many to be following Keynes philosophy, or at least the 1960 construct of Keynesian economics. Even Margaret Thatcher, Sir Keith Joseph and the rest of the 80s neo-cons high jacked Keynes and his ideas. Although Joseph's 1976 assertion that 'Keynes was not only not a Keynesian , but that he was a monetarist' causes us to doubt the sanity of that Tory minister.

Stefan Collins in essay 8 Where did it all go wrong? Cultural critics and 'modernity' in inter-war Britain, deals mainly with the work of TS Eliot and RH Tawney. In so doing he demonstrated that there is more to liberal thought than dust dry economics.

Barry Supple's essay (9) Moral choice and economics: British political economy in the twentieth century, is a little cracker. This really should be required reading before listening to any political or economic pronouncement. Supple presents basic facts. Despite the UK becoming less prominent in the world each of its generations have been better off than their predecessors. Those who bear the cost of economic belt tightening don't reap the rewards; this applies to different national areas and to different times. When we listen to the neo-cons telling us 'that some industries had [have?] to give way to change that is not to say that more could not have been done by way of retraining, help for the mobile, benevolence for the inadequate-or… public incentives to modernise firms and industries'. Britain in the late twentieth century became economically more unequal, this was a trend started by Thatcher's right wingers and sadly continued by the Blair administrations. It has continued apace during the present era. Supple questions the notion of 'what the country can afford', how often have we heard that phrase when public services are debated? Supple points out that this has little to do we GDP /GNP but everything to do we affordability under the current tax regime [my emphasis]. Needs are socially and psychologically determined and for decades the apparent needs of many have outpaced the rate at which resources have been made available. "…[T]he uneven distribution of income among the retired is perhaps the most extensive modern example of inequality". I fear it will only get worse Professor Supple.

It has been said that 'the best books are those that tell us what we imagine we knew already'. The interesting word there is 'imagine' for this volume engages the mind, broadens the intellect and most unusually for 'serious' books is a jolly good read. Green and Tanner have assembled a work that shows that Liberal England is not only surviving but is positively blossoming.

Don Vincent