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Authors: Michael Freeden
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less significantly, this layer of liberalism endorsed the earlier liberal goal of protecting people—whether individuals or society as a whole—from undue intervention in their space. But the net was cast far more widely, including the blocking of newly discovered threats to the more limited kind of individual flourishing promoted in layer three. It was now contended that hindrances to human development do not just involve inappropriate physical or legal intervention, or the pressures of public opinion. Major additional barriers existed to the working out of one’s human potential, such as the five giants of ‘want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness’—in the words of the British mid-20th century liberal reformer William Beveridge (1879–1963)—all of which required eradicating or alleviating. The removal of such barriers did not entail the kind of illiberal positive liberty that imposed a template of self-realization on individuals, ‘forcing them to be free’. Rather, it facilitated the liberty to pursue the layer three conception of self-development through positive state action. Hence, third, the democratically monitored state was enlisted to assist in that mammoth task because some important human needs, such as securing a job or health care, were in far too many cases beyond the capacity of individual initiative.
Fourth—a particular feature of the new liberalism—society was conceived of as a harmonizable, unitary entity with shared rational ends. Divisions of class, geography, and even religion were at best irrelevant, at worst pernicious, though practising liberals often fell short of that august view and, as a rule, failed to embrace sweeping gender equality. In Britain, that fourth layer pushed out the boundaries of liberalism in its integration of the individual and the social more than any other European liberalism. Its main achievement during much of the 20th century was in laying the ideological foundations of the welfare state, a thoroughly and indisputably liberal creation. The famous ‘Beveridge Report’ of 1942, with its plan for post-war reconstruction that would alleviate poverty through social insurance and children’s allowances, became a milestone in the rise of the welfare state. In typical liberal fashion it combined private endeavour with public support. The state was transformed into a major, though not sole, agent of public good and public virtue. Similar tendencies could be found in the communitarian and statist liberalism of late 19th century French solidarisme .
Last but not least, as discussed in Chapter 2 , the most novel aspect of the fourth layer lay in its version of an organic society. The left-liberals a century ago subverted the undemocratic implications of the organic analogy. Hobhouse in particular rejected the conflict version of social Darwinism, holding instead that social evolution displayed an increasing rationality and sociability and set the stage for the emergence of intelligent cooperation. For them, the lesson of the organic analogy was the promotion of individual rights by the benevolent state. An area of individual liberty was conducive both to the individual and to the health of the collective life.
The fourth sheet of paper let in the third sheet’s notion of temporality in the form of individual growth and progress but aligned it to the broader compass of social evolution. It acknowledged the individual at the centre of the first sheet but challenged any view of impermeable barriers between person and person, welcoming instead some incursions into private space in the spirit of community, when mutual assistance was the only route to individual well-being. That is why some forms of social insurance—health and unemployment—were made compulsory, to secure a common pool of wealth to help those individuals who faltered under the normal strains of life ( Figure 4 ). The fourth sheet obscured the message of the pre-social naturalness of rights,
Fourth—a particular feature of the new liberalism—society was conceived of as a harmonizable, unitary entity with shared rational ends. Divisions of class, geography, and even religion were at best irrelevant, at worst pernicious, though practising liberals often fell short of that august view and, as a rule, failed to embrace sweeping gender equality. In Britain, that fourth layer pushed out the boundaries of liberalism in its integration of the individual and the social more than any other European liberalism. Its main achievement during much of the 20th century was in laying the ideological foundations of the welfare state, a thoroughly and indisputably liberal creation. The famous ‘Beveridge Report’ of 1942, with its plan for post-war reconstruction that would alleviate poverty through social insurance and children’s allowances, became a milestone in the rise of the welfare state. In typical liberal fashion it combined private endeavour with public support. The state was transformed into a major, though not sole, agent of public good and public virtue. Similar tendencies could be found in the communitarian and statist liberalism of late 19th century French solidarisme .
Last but not least, as discussed in Chapter 2 , the most novel aspect of the fourth layer lay in its version of an organic society. The left-liberals a century ago subverted the undemocratic implications of the organic analogy. Hobhouse in particular rejected the conflict version of social Darwinism, holding instead that social evolution displayed an increasing rationality and sociability and set the stage for the emergence of intelligent cooperation. For them, the lesson of the organic analogy was the promotion of individual rights by the benevolent state. An area of individual liberty was conducive both to the individual and to the health of the collective life.
The fourth sheet of paper let in the third sheet’s notion of temporality in the form of individual growth and progress but aligned it to the broader compass of social evolution. It acknowledged the individual at the centre of the first sheet but challenged any view of impermeable barriers between person and person, welcoming instead some incursions into private space in the spirit of community, when mutual assistance was the only route to individual well-being. That is why some forms of social insurance—health and unemployment—were made compulsory, to secure a common pool of wealth to help those individuals who faltered under the normal strains of life ( Figure 4 ). The fourth sheet obscured the message of the pre-social naturalness of rights,
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