Liberalism - The National Pathology
There are a few things about wealth in this country that we should get our collective head around.The first is that we are more vulnerable to it. From the beginning of time people craved riches but understood that it was never likely to be theirs. Liberal economics turned all that on its head, and in Canada most people have achieved a standard of living thought impossible only a few decades previous. The average kitchen that cost $9,000 in 1958 now costs almost $60,000. In the U.S., the number of vehicles owned between 1969 and the late ‘90s grew by a phenomenal 144%. More staggering yet is that this figure represents twice the growth of the number of drivers. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Transport reported that the number of cars per household was higher than the number of people. The number of people now owning second homes is simply overwhelming. Our vulnerability to wealth has also hurt us physically. Our calorie intake per day is now 20% greater than just three decades ago.Second, wealth is far more visible. Just take a look at the average television fare. Weekly shows used to be about Coronation Street, the Beachcombers, or Archie Bunker – middle class folks struggling to keep ahead. Now it’s all about the rich, or those striving to be so, with much of it reaching down to appeal to those in their early grades of schooling. In these shows every house is massive, every car is the hottest. On every billboard we pass by, easy wealth beckons to us, reminding us that what we have is not as great as it could be.Third, wealth has proved to be a costly venture. The current economic decline will cost the world well over a trillion dollars – money wasted by speculators and “get rich quick” schemes. The resulting poverty, home and business bankruptcies has been staggering. We have dealt with our desire for wealth by using the credit card – exceedingly. Our spending isn’t coming from our saving so much as its practiced by pushing our present debt into the future. Our homes are bigger than we require, our cars are faster than needed, our stomachs are stretched more than we like, and if the Grim Reaper of financial accountability descended on us all at once, our crushing debt would send us back to the poor house.Researchers remind us that people who live in such a fashion constantly fix themselves on acquiring more, often to the neglect of other societal needs. This is what narcissism is all about. But is it what Canadians really want? The truth to that answer is mixed. If we knew that living beyond our means meant a crushing debt load passed on to our children, would we cut back? Knowing that our consumer patterns are threatening the very life of the planet, would we make do with less? Would we make the financial sacrifices necessary to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work, or that child poverty would finally be defeated.Today’s liberalism must face this reality head-on, and with vision. Conservatives in recent years have reveled in the kind of world 18th century liberal philosopher Adam Smith envisioned when he spoke about letting the free market run its course. They have held to this to such a degree that we have the crushing debt loads we have now. It’s how they justify their aversion to state intervention in terms of poverty reduction, healthcare and education.Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen reminds us all that Smith held great fears of what would happen if markets controlled societies. Conservatives never mention that Smith widely defended and promoted public services, such as free education and poverty relief. His worry about the inequality and poverty that might stubbornly remain in modern market economies has proved prophetic. Adam Smith worried that when our most cherished hopes are for ourselves and not for society or even the future, we will be drawn into a world of risk and crushing debt – again prophetic.With all this, we have a vivid picture of a new pathology: the more we want for ourselves exclusively, the more vulnerable society becomes overall. How will liberalism answer this? How does the state use its power to liberate the individual and where do we draw the line between the individual and society as a whole? This will represent liberalism’s greatest future challenge.Liberalism evidenced great tenacity in delivering the world from authoritarianism and financial elitism – a matter of historic record. But does it have the moral clarity and courage at present to deliver us from ourselves? And how is this to be done politically, when so much in politics is about attempting to please the citizen to acquire the vote? Truth is not determined by majority vote, and we fool ourselves when thinking so.Liberalism has been the great purveyor of financial infrastructure in the Western world and it has proved highly successful. But that great undertaking has produced a world of narcissistic temperament. It is time that the new liberalism, the muscular kind, find the courage to lay the grid for a new moral infrastructure, one that says we can’t proceed or hold any legitimacy as long as we spoil the planet, leave poverty unaddressed, citizen potential unused, women unequal, aboriginals sidelined, our local communities neglected, and the gap between rich and poor widening at alarming rates. A liberalism that tackles these kinds of challenges is the pressing need of the hour.