Though Cowards Flinch

I am not here addressing a long treatise against Hobbes’ thesis of barbarism which can only be overcome by sacrificing freedom to the state. Such a theoretical work must wait until I have more time. Yet in discussing with a Liberal Democrat friend the role of the state in certain matters, I feel obliged to commit some thoughts to writing.

As mentioned in a previous article, Nick Clegg has recently come out to declare that the state should ‘back off.’ The examples which he gave were primarily education and health care. In this line of argument Clegg follows a long line of late 20th Century politicians from the American Christian evangelists (and their allies in corporate America) to the left wing No2ID campaign.

It is the ‘right wing’ attacks upon the role of the state that concern me most at the present time. As regards both health care and education, the reforms which guaranteed everyone free secondary education free from indoctrination and free health care were pioneered by those nominally in charge of the state. Those changes seem to have been the high-water mark of the left wing movement in Britain.

In the USA, the period opening with the Roosevelt-Truman Presidency and a Congress which even had socialist independents in the Senate and closing with Richard Nixon was the high water mark. During these years even the conservatives nominated for the Supreme Court like W.E. Burger delivered judgments on things like abortion, domestic surveillance and desegregation which would today be considered liberal.

No one denies that the left – as it was traditionally seen – is in retreat almost across the board in Western Europe, the United States and other developed nations. Many who now currently rank themselves as ‘centre left’ (but whom the rest of us see as somewhat ‘centre right’) see this as a good thing, a modernisation which was inevitable. In Britain, so thought the leaders of Labour; Kinnock, Smith, Blair and now Brown.

The rhetoric of the last two particularly mirrors a lot of the nonsense the Conservatives started in the 1980′s about choice. Back then it was ‘choice’ in education and it masked the reintroduction of selection by the back door and the marketisation of education. For the Conservatives, the rhetoric hasn’t changed. One must only look at the Reform think tank.

Yet the worrying part of this is that since what has traditionally been seen as the two sides are using the same rhetoric and are basically tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee in terms of policy, there is no one defending the gains the British people achieved back in the 1940′s. The conclusion must be seen that the low water mark hasn’t been reached – and now the third and final party has thrown their hat into exactly the same ring with exactly the same rhetoric.

When the state withdraws, those with economic resources that might be brought to bear step in. As this usually means that capitalists, religious organisations and so forth move in, the state has often formed the last bulwark of the left on matters such as education and health care. In the US, where the constitution prevents the withdrawal of the state from education, the response of the right has been to denounce the public school system – particularly from a Christian standpoint.

No party is now defending that bulwark. All are calling for it to be rolled back, and for a greater role for voluntary organisations. Has anyone bothered to consider the effect that all this might have in the medium-to-long term? In the US, the inability of the left to reorganise the Democratic Party and find a stance which doesn’t involve looking ashamed that the state does anything has seen categorical roll backs in welfare etc,

This causes the very thing which the Democrats don’t want – more people feeling vulnerable and seeking out ideologies like fundamentalist Christianity which will happily point to ‘the enemy’ and declare that all woes can be ended by destroying that enemy. The enemy for them is the ‘liberal intelligentsia’ with its ‘homosexual agenda’ and so forth and their masking of their hatred of Christianity with a feigned ‘tolerance.’

I do not source these because you can hear them ad infinitum by looking at anything by Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson or other similar talk show hosts whose audiences run into millions.

With Britain, the situation will always be rather different because there is no history here of widespread, mainstream Christian evangelism. Necessarily, therefore, the same agenda must cloak itself in different robes. In the US, corporate America disguises itself as Christianity, funding huge creationist museums and churches and TV programmes etc which feed their audiences the lie that welfare causes domestic abuse, the homosexuality is promulgated by state schools against the will of parents etc.

There have been similar instances here but this is a society that, as a result of religious apathy, has become much more secular and less responsive to such motivations as the USA. We also have a much more active, powerful left wing movement in the trade unions and their affiliated bodies – a movement which itself prevents the spread of the same hope-conquering despair that is emergent across the former industrial belt of the USA.

The word ‘choice’ is therefore used repeatedly as a bludgeon until anyone who listens to Radio 4 can only roll their eyes every time they hear a Conservative speak about the role of the state. Nick Clegg is just one more to add to the eye-roll list.

One must ask the question, how long till all the judges on the Federal Bench are evangelical Christians? How long until not just a hundred and sixty Representatives are ‘saved’ but three hundred? Britain is not so far along – de-industrialisation never hit this country so hard as it hit the United States. Yet with the extension of private sectors in education etc, how long til we finally crowd out the bulwark which the state forms and launch ourselves down the same path as the USA?

We should always remember that the most farseeing of capitalist bosses see the advantages is wrapping themselves in things like religion and promoting religion through education. Promoting ideologies which are hostile to critical thinking means less pesky workers criticising – and those that do not conform can be denounced as unchristian or unpatriotic or un-whatever other ideology the capitalists cloak themselves in.

That is the almost certain result for Britain of these constant and persistent attacks on the role of the state in matters such as education.