A classical liberal manifesto

"Among the traditions that we must count as the most important is what we may call the 'moral framework' (corresponding to the institutional 'legal framework') of a society. This incorporates the society's traditional sense of justice or fairness, or the degree of moral sensitivity that it has reached... Nothing is more dangerous than the destruction of this traditional framework. (Its destruction was consciously aimed at by Nazism)."

The moral framework includes honesty, compassion, enterprise, community service, personal responsibility, tolerance and civility. These principles can be found at the heart of all the great religions although they do not need theological justification. This is a vital addition to the usual list of liberal principles: the suite of freedoms, including free trade and free speech, limited government, the rule of law and secure property rights.

The moral agenda establishes common ground with cultural and religious conservatives who sometimes fear that the agenda of economic rationalism is too narrow.  Classical liberalism has the potential to  reach beyond the free trade and the libertarian agenda to recruit  conservatives and also well-meaning and caring people on the left who are interested in the outcomes of policy initiatives as well as the intentions.

Why is this spectre haunting us now?

Soon there will be a visible and identifiable classical liberal presence in Parliament, starting at the top with the Prime Minister.  George Brandis is on side with some CL principles, Joe Hockey is good on some and other Liberals will be supportive.  Being the  national leader Mr Abbott will have to temper his enthusiasms and engage in the art of compromise but that will not apply to the senators elect  David  Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democrats and Bob Day of  Family First.  Leyonhjelm is an impressive media performer and he provides a clear liberal/libertarian message that resonates with a lot of Coalition supporters and  others who have never encountered classical liberalism before. That is a really novel development in Australian politics and it will be a great support to the classical liberal cause.

Add to that the growing confidence and capacity of the liberal/libertarian agencies and commentators. In addition to the relative even-handedness of the Murdoch press the blogosphere provides a number of outlets for the classical liberal message.  The young turks at the IPA are showing some form as they demonstrated in the defence of  free speech. The Centre for Independent Studies has been camped on the intellectual high ground for a long time and the good work goes on, especially in bringing to town one of the world’s leading exponents of classical liberalism, Deirdre McCloskey. The so-called “shock jocks” of the airwaves might be alarmed by the label of “classical liberal” but most of the time they support “the spectre” both in their own commentary and in the views of many of the people who phone in.

Advice to various groups and parties

To the Coalition.  It will be helpful to get up to speed on the classical liberal agenda and the principles that stand behind it. The PM could set The Guide to the Open Society and its Enemies as holiday reading for the troops.

To the ALP.  The party needs to rediscover the capacity for policy development and delivery that it demonstrated during the Hawke/Keating partnership of the 1980s when they enjoyed a front bench with the likes of Peter Walsh and Gary Johns.   This process of renewal will be difficult as long as the recent electoral failure is blamed on internal dissent and a poor campaign, rather than deficiencies in policy. For example, if the party had really addressed the problems of people with disabilities with a sense of urgency they would have provided generous but affordable funding in the first years of office, delivered through the existing channels of state governments and non-government agencies. Instead  years were wasted crafting a new Commonwealth bureaucracy to deliver benefits (if we can ever afford it) many years in the future.

To people who support the Greens. Become more alert to the “downstream” effects of Green policies. In a world of complex interactions it is essential to adopt an ecological approach to policies because in the same way that the dead fish in a river only appear some way downstream from the point of pollution, the effects of bad Green policies tend to be most visible at some distance from the inner cities and the Parliaments where they are planned and legislated. Some of the Green policies are most counter-productive in areas where they should be strong, like forests and fisheries.

To the intellectuals of the left. For the sake of a better quality of public debate it will help to be more inclusive in the forums and conferences of academics and  commentators. The public are entitled to have exposure to a wider spectrum of ideas than they usually obtain in the publicly funded venues of academic conferences, writers festivals, idea summits and the ABC.  It sometimes seems that the intellectuals of the left are struggling in the battle of ideas and the appropriate response may be to meet and find common ground with classical liberals and explore differences of opinion from that point, rather than adopting a confrontational and exclusive stance from the start.

To the mass media.  Poll-watching and trend-spotting can make for exciting news around election time but in between it will help the democratic process to keep the public informed about the nuts and bolts of policies, their implementation and their effects.  Sometimes we seem to have the paradoxical situation where the public is supposedly better educated than ever before in terms of secondary and tertiary education but the standard of media reporting and commentary has not risen to the same extent.

As the saying goes, “May you live in interesting times”. The times are interesting at present, with alarm bells ringing in the EU, the Middle East, the US and in our own economy. As another saying goes, “commeth the hour, commeth the man”, in this case “commeth the Idea”. Perhaps the hour of classical liberalism has come!