David Cameron is a Socialist? Now there is a provocative title. It’s the kind of statement that is sure to evoke incredulity, mockery, and make the Scottish Libertarians seems like tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorists or Cold War paranoids seeing red under every bed. Nonetheless, that is our message and it demands an explanation.
When libertarians use the word socialist we are not referring to Marxism per se, but rather to a social, political, and economic philosophy that has been dominant in Western culture since 1929. It’s more of an ethos or spirit of the age that dominants all major political parties and academia. In essence, we are all socialists – even the Conservative leader David Cameron.
To understand Socialism in this context, we must first look at what came before. Just as Socialism is the dominant ethos of this era, Liberalism (now called Classical Liberalism) dominated the previous one. Whether you were on the right or the left, the principles of Classical Liberalism were generally agreed upon by all parties. So a politician could declare that “We must ensure the flow of commerce” without a single voice of dissention being heard. In the same manner that today a politician, like David Cameron, guarantees that his policies would not affect the flow of public services with the only dissent being from those who do not believe him.
The Classical Liberals believed that the purpose of government is to protect the natural rights to life, liberty, and property of each individual. In the early Twentieth Century, a split occurred among the Classical Liberals. Some believed that it was not enough for government to be little more than a referee ensuring everyone played fair. They believed that government should get in the game and be a proactive force for good.
With the advent of The Great Depression, the Classical Liberal states of Britain and the United States seemed to flounder with the alleged failure of capitalism, meanwhile Socialist Germany and the Communist Soviet Union seemed to flourish. Many Western nations began following Hitler’s model by implementing a stronger centrally planned economy and welfare state. This is still the norm and the only difference between countries and political parties is a question of degrees.
Since then, the socialist knob has been gradually turned up and with that more and more people are seeing the failure of the socialist system as governments of all parties routinely trample individual rights in the name of the greater good and central planning under the shadow of failing economies. This has resulted in the rise of libertarian parties throughout the Western world calling for a return to Classical Liberalism.
I recently saw a humorous picture illustrating the difference between how men and women see colour. Where the woman sees maroon, plum, and eggplant, the man sees purple. By the same token, where the mainstream sees Liberal, Progressive, Greens, SNP, Labour, Conservatives, Republicans, and Democrats, the libertarian sees socialists. They are simply varying degrees of the same basic principle.
All of these political ideologies and parties fundamentally believe that the purpose of government is to centrally plan and manage society and the economy for the greater good through the imposition of laws, regulations, and taxation all backed by the threat and/or use of government force exercised through fines or imprisonment. All that differentiates them is whatever they deem to be the greater good and the means to achieve it.
Though the intent may be to use the power of government for good, like the ring from The Lord of the Rings, it corrupts the user. As political parties consistently fail to achieve their utopia they credit this to their lack of power and demand more, thus moving society closer to a totalitarian state moulded according to a select vision of what they feel constitutes the greater good. As Lord Acton famously wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Libertarians recognise that you cannot do good by violating the rights of others to their life, liberty, and property, whether this is done by individuals or by government. Having good intentions does not authorize murder, slavery, theft, or actively thwarting people’s choices where no one else is harmed. It may seem good in the short term, but in the long run you discover it was poisoned from the start.
David Cameron is certainly not a socialist to the same degree as members of the Scottish Socialist Party. However, he was born into and has inherited a system built on socialist principles, many of which he may take for granted as “just the way things are” without fully appreciating the ideologies behind them. The voters that he appeals to are in the same boat, and so he must continue these policies if he hopes to get elected. However, if we look at David Cameron not through our modern lens but through those of a Classical Liberal Conservative, such as Winston Churchill, then we see him as just another socialist violating the rights of the people in the name of some “common good”.
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