L.T.Hobhouse and the New Liberalism

  What is the nature of Constant's distinction between ancient and modern liberty and how does this distinction inform the constitutional recommendations Constant makes in his Principles of Politics? How important do you think Constant's arguments are? 1. The crisis of liberalism: a European phenomenon see Edmund Fawcett, pp.146-72 2. Causes: the extension of the franchise? The rise of trade unions? New spirit of scientific inquiry? Growth of socialist ideas? Market failure (poverty)? 3. Also at the level of ideas: liberals still primarily thought of liberty as freedom from interference by the State. The so-called “Night watchman State”. 4. The liberal response: T.H.Green and the British Idealists. Influenced by Hegel. A redefinition of the meaning of liberty: the individual is politically free when s/he realises that her/his own good must also be the common good (embodied in and through the State). 5. So a recognition of the positive functions of the State: to remove the obstacles (ignorance, poverty, drunkenness) to the attainment of true liberty. See Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State) 6. J.A.Hobson, The Crisis of Liberalism (1909): “The old-laissez-faire liberalism is dead” (p.3) 7. L.T.Hobhouse, born in 1864, educated at Oxford, an academic and journalist (with the Manchester Guardian), author of many books including Liberalism (1911). 8. Provides a description of the elements of liberalism: civil liberty (freedom under the law), fiscal liberty (responsible government), personal liberty (liberty of thought); social liberty (versus unsocial freedom), economic liberty (the extension of public control), domestic liberty (based upon equality between man and wife), local, racial, and national liberty (autonomy), international liberty (opposition to the use of force), political liberty (universal suffrage). 9. In particular Hobhouse sets out a new and distinctive conception of economic liberalism : “The central point of Liberal economics is the equation of social serve and reward”. 10. Implications: ‘to maintain individual freedom and equality we have to extend the sphere of social control’. 11. Establishes the intellectual foundations of the welfare State 12. The strange death of liberal England (George Dangerfield): the liberal world and vision hits the buffers in August 1914.