Liberal socialism

Liberal socialism is a socialist political

philosophy that incorporates liberal
principles.[1] Liberal socialism does not
have the goal of completely abolishing
capitalism and replacing it with
socialism,[2] but it instead supports a
mixed economy that includes both
private property and social ownership in
capital goods.[3][4] Although liberal
socialism unequivocally favours a
market-based economy, it identifies
legalistic and artificial monopolies to be
the fault of capitalism[5] and opposes an
entirely unregulated economy.[6] It
considers both liberty and equality to be
compatible and mutually dependent on
each other.[1]

Principles that can be described as

liberal socialist are based on the works
of philosophers such as John Stuart Mill,
Eduard Bernstein, John Dewey, Carlo
Rosselli, Norberto Bobbio, Chantal
Mouffe and Karl Polanyi.[7] Other
important liberal socialist figures include
Guido Calogero, Piero Gobetti, Leonard
Hobhouse, John Maynard Keynes and R.
H. Tawney. To Polanyi, liberal socialism's
goal was overcoming exploitative
aspects of capitalism by expropriation of
landlords and opening to all the
opportunity to own land.[8] Liberal
socialism has been particularly
prominent in British and Italian politics.[6]

Liberal socialism's seminal ideas can be

traced to John Stuart Mill, who theorised
that capitalist societies should
experience a gradual process of
socialisation through worker-controlled
enterprises, coexisting with private
enterprises.[9] Mill rejected centralised
models of socialism that could
discourage competition and creativity,
but he argued that representation is
essential in a free government and
democracy could not subsist if economic
opportunities were not well distributed,
therefore conceiving democracy not just
as form of representative government,
but as an entire social organisation.[10]

Variants and their history

Britain

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill, influential 19th century English
thinker of liberalism who adopted some socialist
views

The main liberal English thinker John

Stuart Mill's early economic philosophy
was one of free markets. However, he
accepted interventions in the economy,
such as a tax on alcohol, if there were
sufficient utilitarian grounds. He also
accepted the principle of legislative
intervention for the purpose of animal
welfare.[11] Mill originally believed that
"equality of taxation" meant "equality of
sacrifice" and that progressive taxation
penalised those who worked harder and
saved more and was therefore "a mild
form of robbery".[12]

Given an equal tax rate regardless of

income, Mill agreed that inheritance
should be taxed. A utilitarian society
would agree that everyone should be
equal one way or another. Therefore,
receiving inheritance would put one
ahead of society unless taxed on the
inheritance. Those who donate should
consider and choose carefully where
their money goes—some charities are
more deserving than others. Considering
public charities boards such as a
government will disburse the money
equally. However, a private charity board
like a church would disburse the monies
fairly to those who are in more need than
others.[13]

Mill later altered his views toward a more

socialist bent, adding chapters to his
Principles of Political Economy in defence
of a socialist outlook and defending
some socialist causes.[14] Within this
revised work, he also made the radical
proposal that the whole wage system be
abolished in favour of a co-operative
wage system. Nonetheless, some of his
views on the idea of flat taxation
remained,[15] albeit altered in the third
edition of the Principles of Political
Economy to reflect a concern for
differentiating restrictions on "unearned"
incomes, which he favoured; and those
on "earned" incomes, which he did not
favour.[16]

Mill's Principles of Political Economy, first

published in 1848, was one of the most
widely read of all books on economics in
the period.[17] As Adam Smith's Wealth of
Nations had during an earlier period,
Mill's Principles of Economy dominated
economics teaching. In the case of
Oxford University, it was the standard
text until 1919 when it was replaced by
Alfred Marshall's Principles of
Economics.

At some point, Mill also promoted

substituting capitalist businesses with
worker cooperatives, saying:

The form of association,

however, which if mankind
continue to improve, must be
expected in the end to
predominate, is not that which
can exist between a capitalist
as chief, and work-people
without a voice in the
 management, but the
association of the labourers
themselves on terms of
equality, collectively owning
the capital with which they
carry on their operations, and
working under managers
elected and removable by
themselves.[18]

Ethical socialism
R. H. Tawney, founder of ethical socialism

Liberal socialism has exercised influence

in British politics, especially in the variant
known as ethical socialism.[19][20] A key
component of ethical socialism is in its
emphasis on moral and ethical critiques
of capitalism and building a case for
socialism on moral or spiritual grounds
as opposed to rationalist and materialist
grounds. Ethical socialists advocated a
mixed economy that involves an
acceptance of a role of both public
enterprise as well as socially-responsible
private enterprise.[4] Ethical socialism
was founded by Christian socialist R. H.
Tawney and its ideals were also
connected to Fabian and guild-socialist
values.[21]

It emphasises the need for a morally-

conscious economy based upon the
principles of service, cooperation and
social justice while opposing possessive
individualism.[22] Ethical socialism is
distinct in its focus on criticism of the
ethics of capitalism and not merely
criticism of material issues of capitalism.
Tawney denounced the self-seeking
amoral and immoral behaviour that he
claimed is supported by capitalism.[20]
He opposed what he called the
"acquisitive society" that causes private
property to be used to transfer surplus
profit to "functionless owners"—capitalist
rentiers.[22] However, Tawney did not
denounce managers as a whole,
believing that management and
employees could join together in a
political alliance for reform.[22] He
supported the pooling of surplus profit
through means of progressive taxation to
redistribute these funds to provide social
welfare, including public health care,
public education and public housing.[23]
Tawney advocated nationalisation of
strategic industries and services.[24] He
also advocated worker participation in
the business of management in the
economy as well as consumer, employee,
employer and state cooperation in the
economy.[24] Though he supported a
substantial role for public enterprise in
the economy, Tawney stated that where
private enterprise provided a service that
was commensurate with its rewards that
was functioning private property, then a
business could be usefully and
legitimately be left in private hands.[4]
Ethical socialist Thomas Hill Green
supported the right of equal opportunity
for all individuals to be able freely
appropriate property, but he claimed that
acquisition of wealth did not imply that
an individual could do whatever they
wanted to once that wealth was in their
possession. Green opposed "property
rights of the few" that were preventing
the ownership of property by the
many.[25]

Ethical socialism is an important

ideology of the British Labour Party.
Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee
supported the ideology, which played a
large role in his party's policies during the
postwar 1940s.[26] Half a century after
Attlee's tenure, Tony Blair, another Labour
Prime Minister, also described himself as
an adherent of ethical socialism, which
for him embodies the values of "social
justice, the equal worth of each citizen,
equality of opportunity, community".[27]
Influenced by Attlee and John
Macmurray (who himself was influenced
by Green),[28] Blair has defined the
ideology in similar terms as earlier
adherents—with an emphasis on the
common good, rights and responsibilities
as well as support of an organic society
in which individuals flourish through
cooperation.[28] Blair argued that Labour
ran into problems in the 1960s and
1970s when it abandoned ethical
socialism and that its recovery required a
return to the values promoted by the
Attlee government.[6] However, Blair's
critics (both inside and outside Labour)
have accused him of completely
abandoning socialism in favour of
capitalism.[29]

Germany

Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany (1969–

1974)
An early version of liberal socialism was
developed in Germany by Franz
Oppenheimer.[30] Though he was
committed to socialism, Oppenheimer's
theories inspired the development of the
social liberalism that was pursued by
German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, who
said the following: "As long as I live, I will
not forget Franz Oppenheimer! I will be
as happy if the social market economy—
as perfect or imperfect as it might be—
continues to bear witness to the work, to
the intellectual stance of the ideas and
teachings of Franz Oppenheimer".[30]

In the 1930s, the Social Democratic Party

of Germany (SPD), a reformist socialist
political party that was up to then based
upon revisionist Marxism, began a
transition away from Marxism towards
liberal socialism. After it was banned by
the Nazi regime in 1933, the SPD acted in
exile through the Sopade. In 1934, the
Sopade began to publish material that
indicated that the SPD was turning
towards liberal socialism.[31] Curt Geyer,
a prominent proponent of liberal
socialism within the Sopade, declared
that Sopade represented the tradition of
Weimar Republic social democracy—
liberal democratic socialism and
declared that Sopade's held true to its
mandate of traditional liberal principles
combined with the political realism of
socialism.[32] After the restoration of
democracy in West Germany, the SPD's
Godesberg Program in 1959 eliminated
the party's remaining Marxist policies.
The SPD then became officially based
upon freiheitlicher Sozialismus (liberal
socialism).[33] West German Chancellor
Willy Brandt has been identified as a
liberal socialist.[34]

Italy
Carlo Rosselli

Italian socialist Carlo Rosselli was

inspired by the definition of socialism by
the founder of social democracy, Eduard
Bernstein, who defined socialism as
"organised liberalism". Rosselli expanded
on Bernstein's arguments by developing
his notion of liberal socialism (Italian:
socialismo liberale).[35] In 1925, Rosselli
defined the ideology in his work of the
same name in which he supported the
type of socialist economy defined by
socialist economist Werner Sombart in
Der modern Kapitalismus (1908) that
envisaged a new modern mixed
economy that included both public and
private property, limited economic
competition and increased economic
cooperation.[3] While appreciating
principles of liberalism as an ideology
that emphasised liberation, Rosselli was
deeply disappointed with liberalism as a
system that he described as having been
used by the bourgeoisie to support their
privileges while neglecting the liberation
components of liberalism as an ideology
and thus viewed conventional liberalism
as a system that had merely become an
ideology of "bourgeois capitalism".[36] At
the same time, Rosselli appreciated
socialism as an ideology, but he was also
deeply disappointed with conventional
socialism as a system.[37] In response to
his disappointment with conventional
socialism in practice, Roselli declared:
"The recent experiences, all the
experiences of the past thirty years, have
hopelessly condemned the primitive
programs of the socialists. State
socialism especially—collectivist,
centralising socialism—has been
defeated".[37] Rosselli's liberal socialism
was partly based upon his study and
admiration of British political themes of
the Fabian Society and John Stuart Mill
(he was able to read the English versions
of Mill's work On Liberty prior to its
availability in Italian that began in 1925).
His admiration of British socialism
increased after his visit to the United
Kingdom in 1923 where he met George
Drumgoole Coleman, R. H. Tawney and
other members of the Fabian Society.[38]

An important component of Italian liberal

socialism developed by Rosselli was its
anti-fascism.[39] Rosselli opposed
fascism and believed that fascism would
only be defeated by a revival of
socialism.[39] Rosselli founded the
Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Liberty)
movement as a resistance movement
founded in the 1930s in opposition to the
Fascist regime in Italy.[40] Ferruccio Parri
—who later became Prime Minister of
Italy—and Sandro Pertini—who later
became President of Italy—were among
Giustizia e Libertà's leaders.[36] Giustizia e
Libertà was committed to militant action
to fight the Fascist regime and it saw
Benito Mussolini as a ruthless murderer
who himself deserved to be killed as
punishment.[41] Various early schemes
were designed by the movement in the
1930s to assassinate Mussolini,
including one dramatic plan of using an
aircraft to drop a bomb on Piazza
Venezia where Mussolini resided.[39]
Sandro Pertini, President of Italy (1978–1985)

After Rosselli's death, liberal socialism

was developed in Italian political thought
by Guido Calogero.[42] Unlike Rosselli,
Calogero considered the ideology as a
unique ideology of "liberalsocialism" that
was separate from existing liberal and
socialist ideologies.[42] Calogero created
the "First Manifesto of Liberalsocialism"
in 1940 that stated the following:

At the basis of liberalsocialism

stands the concept of the
substantial unity and identity
of ideal reason, which supports
and justifies socialism in its
demand for justice as much as
it does liberalism in its demand
for liberty. This ideal reason
coincides with that same
ethical principle to whose rule
humanity and civilization, both
past and future, must always
measure up. This is the
principle by which we
recognize the personhood of
others in contrast to our own
person and assign to each of
them a right to own their own.
After World War II, Ferruccio Parri of the
liberal socialist Action Party briefly
served as Prime Minister of Italy in
1945.[38][43] In 1978, liberal socialist
Sandro Pertini of the Italian Socialist
Party was elected President of Italy in
1978 and served as President until
1985.[43]

Belgium

Chantal Mouffe is a prominent Belgian

advocate of liberal socialism.[44] She
describes liberal socialism as the
following:
To deepen and enrich the
pluralist conquests of liberal
democracy, the articulation
between political liberalism
and individualism must be
broken, to make possible a new
approach to individuality that
restores its social nature
without reducing it to a simple
component of an organic
whole. This is where the
socialist tradition of thought
might still have something to
contribute to the democratic
 project and herein lies the
promise of a liberal socialism.

Hungary

In 1919, the Hungarian politician Oszkár

Jászi declared his support for what he
termed "liberal socialism" while
denouncing "communist socialism".[45]
Opposed to classical social democracy's
prevalent focus on support from the
working class, Jászi saw the middle
class and smallholder peasants as
essential to the development of
socialism and spoke of the need of a
"radical middle-class".[45] His views were
especially influenced by events in
Hungary in 1919 involving the Bolshevik
revolution during which he specifically
denounced the Marxist worldview shortly
after the collapse of the Hungarian
Soviet Republic, calling his views "Anti-
Marx". His criticism of Marxism was
centered on its mechanical and value-
free and amoral methodology:[46]

In no small measure, the

present terrible, bewildering
world crisis is a consequence of
Marxism's mechanical
Communism and amoral
nihilism. New formulas of
 spirit, freedom and solidarity
have to be found.

Jászi promoted a form of co-operative

socialism that included liberal principles
of freedom, voluntarism and
decentralization.[45] He counterpoised
this ideal version of socialism with the
then-existing political system in the
Soviet Union, which he identified as
based upon dictatorial and militarist
perils, statism and a crippled economic
order where competition and quality are
disregarded.[47]

Jászi's views on socialism and especially

his works justifying the denouncement of
Bolshevik Communism came back into
Hungarian public interest in the 1980s
when copies of his manuscripts were
discovered and were smuggled into
Hungary that was then under Communist
rule.[47]

See also
Christian socialism
Democratic socialism
Economic liberalism
Libertarian socialism
Ethical socialism
Liberalism
Liberal Socialist Party (Switzerland)
 Market socialism
Mixed economy
Reformism
Social corporatism
Social democracy
Social liberalism
Social market economy
Third way

Notes
1. Gerald F. Gaus, Chandran Kukathas.
Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE
Publications, 2004. p. 420.
2. Ian Adams. Ideology and Politics in
Britain Today. Manchester University
Press, 1998. p. 127.
3. Pugliese, 1999, p. 99.
4. Thompson, 2006, pp. 60–61.
5. Roland Willey Bartlett. The Success
of Modern Private Enterprise.
Interstate Printers & Publishers,
1970. p. 32. "Liberal socialism, for
example, is unequivocally in favour
of the free market economy and of
freedom of action for the individual
and recognises in legalistic and
artificial monopolies the real evils of
capitalism."
6. Steve Bastow, James Martin. Third
way discourse: European ideologies
in the twentieth century. Edinburgh,
 Scotland, UK: Edinburgh University
Press, Ltd, 2003. p. 72.
7. Nadia Urbinati. J.S. Mill's Political
Thought: A Bicentennial
Reassessment. Cambridge
University Press, 2007. p. 101.
8. Dale, Gareth (14 June 2016). Karl
Polanyi: A Life on the Left . Columbia
University Press.
ISBN 9780231541480. Retrieved
4 April 2018 – via Google Books.
9. Miller, Dale E. (2003). "Mill's
'Socialism' ". Politics, Philosophy &
Economics. 2 (2): 213–238.
doi:10.1177/1470594x0300200200
4.
10. https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/
ethic/article/viewFile/1677-
2954.2010v9n1p17/18741
11. [1] Archived 26 June 2008 at the
Wayback Machine
12. "IREF | Pour la liberte economique et
la concurrence fiscale" (PDF).
Archived 27 March 2009 at the
Wayback Machine
13. (Strasser, 1991).
14. Mill, John Stuart and Bentham,
Jeremy edited by Ryan, Alan. (2004).
Utilitarianism and other essays.
London: Penguin Books. p. 11.
ISBN 978-0-14-043272-5.
15. Wilson, Fred (2007). "John Stuart
Mill: Political Economy" . Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Stanford University. Retrieved 4 May
2009.
16. Mill, John Stuart (1852). "On The
General Principles of Taxation,
V.2.14". Principles of Political
Economy. Library of Economics and
Liberty. Missing or empty |url=
(help) (3rd edition; the passage
about flat taxation was altered by the
author in this edition, which is
acknowledged in this online edition's
footnote 8: "This sentence replaced
in the 3rd ed. a sentence of the
 original: 'It is partial taxation, which
is a mild form of robbery'").
17. Ekelund, Robert B. Jr.; Hébert, Robert
F. (1997). A history of economic
theory and method (4th ed.).
Waveland Press [Long Grove,
Illinois]. p. 172. ISBN 978-1-57766-
381-2.
18. Principles of Political Economy with
some of their Applications to Social
Philosophy, IV.7.21. John Stuart Mill:
Political Economy, IV.7.21.
19. John Dearlove, Peter Saunders.
Introduction to British Politics. Wiley-
Blackwell, 2000. p. 427.
20. Thompson, 2006, p. 52.
21. Thompson, 2006, p. 52, 58, 60.
22. Thompson, 2006, p. 58.
23. Thompson, 2006, p. 58–59.
24. Thompson, 2006, p. 59.
25. Carter, 2003, p. 35.
26. David Howell. Attlee. Haus
Publishing Ltd, 2006. pp. 130–132.
27. Stephen D. Tansey, Nigel A. Jackson.
Politics: The Basics. Fourth Edition.
Routledge, 2008. p. 97.
28. Carter, 2003, p. 189–190.
29. Florence Faucher-King, Patrick Le
Galès, Gregory Elliott. The New
Labour Experiment: Change and
Reform Under Blair and Brown.
 Stanford University Press, 2010. p.
18.
30. Kevin Rep. Reformers, critics, and
the paths of German modernity: anti-
politics and the search for
alternatives, 1890–1914. Harvard
University Press, 2000. p. 238.
31. Edinger, 1956, p. 215.
32. Edinger, 1956, p. 219–220.
33. Dietrich Orlow. Common destiny:a
comparative history of the Dutch,
French, and German social
democratic parties, 1945–1969.
Berghahn Books, 2000. p. 108.
34. Stephen Eric Bronner. Ideas in
action: political tradition in the
 twentieth century. Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999. p.
104.
35. Manfred B. Steger. The Quest for
Evolutionary Socialism. Cambridge,
England, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2006. p. 146.
36. Pugliese, 1999, p. 51.
37. Pugliese, 1999, p. 53.
38. Pugliese, 1999, p. 59–60.
39. Zygmunt G. Barański, Rebecca J.
West. "Socialism, Communism, and
other 'isms'" by Robert S. Dombroski,
The Cambridge companion to
modern Italian culture. Cambridge,
 England, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2001. p. 122.
40. James D. Wilkinson. The Intellectual
Resistance Movement in Europe.
Harvard University Press, 1981. p.
224.
41. Spencer Di Scala. Italian socialism:
between politics and history. Boston,
Massachusetts, USA: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1996. p. 87.
42. Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira.
Democracy and public management
reform: building the republican state.
Oxford, England, UK: Oxford
University Press, 2004. p. 84.
43. Pugliese, 1999, p. 236.
44. María José Coperiás Aguilar. Culture
and power: challenging discourses.
English edition. Valencia, Spain:
Valencia University Press, Ltd., 2000.
p. 39.
45. Litván, 2006, p. 125.
46. Litván, 2006, p. 199.
47. Litván, 2006, p. 200.

References
Noel W. Thompson. Political economy
and the Labour Party: the economics of
democratic socialism, 1884–2005. 2nd
edition. Oxon, England, UK; New York
City, USA: Routledge, 2006.
Matt Carter. T.H. Green and the
development of ethical socialism.
Exeter, England, UK; Charlottesville,
Virginia, USA: Imprint Academic, 2003.
Lewis Joachim Edinger. German exile
politics: the Social Democratic
Exexctive Committee in the Nazi era.
University of California Press, 1956.
Stanislao G. Pugliese. Carlo Rosselli:
socialist heretic and antifascist exile.
Harvard University Press, 1999.
György Litván. A twentieth-century
prophet: Oszkár Jászi, 1875–1957.
English edition. Budapest, Hungary:
Central European Press, 2006.
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