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Toward a Liberal Socialism?

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Toward a Liberal Socialism? Chantal Montle TOWARD A LIBERAL SOCIALISM? an the ideals of socialism survive the defend them against the defenders of "true collapseC of "actually existing socialism" and democracy." He has consistently put forward the current discrediting of the historic struggles the thesis that socialist goals could be realized against inequality? The very idea of social within the framework of liberal democracy and justice is threatened by the new anticollectiv- that they could only be realized acceptably ism, and the project of economic democracy within such a framework. For him, liberalism increasingly appears as the relic of a bygone and democracy necessarily go together: a age, dominated by the rhetoric of class democratic socialism is bound to be a liberal struggle. one. He writes that "the liberal state is not only The recognition of the virtues of pluralism is the historical but the legal premise of the indeed an important achievement, but it would democratic state. The [two] are doubly interde- be a serious setback in the fight for democracy pendent: if liberalism provides those liberties if we were to accept "actually existing necessary to the proper exercise of democratic (capitalist, liberal) democracies" as the "end of power, democracy guarantees the existence and history." There are still numerous social arenas persistence of fundamental liberties." 2 and relationships where democratization is Bobbio belongs to an important tradition of critically needed. The task for the left today is Italian liberal thought that since the nineteenth to describe how this can be achieved in a way century, under the influence of John Stuart that is compatible with the existence of a liberal Mill, has been receptive to socialist ideas. In democratic regime. the twentieth century it was crystalized around In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy' we the journal La Rivoluzione Liberale created by attempted to redefine the socialist project in Piero Gobetti and the movement Giustizia e terms of "radical and plural democracy" and to Liberta founded by Carlo Rosselli, who wrote a picture it as the extension of democracy to a book called Socialismo Liberale. The aim of wide range of social relationships. Our inten- this movement for liberal socialism was to tion was to insist on the necessity of articulat- combine socialist objectives with the principles ing socialist goals with the institutions of of liberal democracy: constitutionalism, parlia- political liberalism. I am convinced that the mentarism, and a competitive multiparty sys- only socialism with a future is a liberal tem. In recent years, this movement has gained socialism, and I want to examine in this article a new relevance due to the profound ideologi- the work of a few thinkers who provide us with cal transformation of the Italian Communist ideas useful for the elaboration of such a party (PCI). Its majority decided to renounce perspective. communism and to change its name to Partito Democratia della Sinistra (PDS). Norberto Bobbio and Italian Bobbio, whose influence in that debate Liberal Socialism should not be overlooked, remains faithful to this Italian tradition when he argues that today Norberto Bobbio has been for a long time one the project of liberal socialism requires a new of the most eloquent advocates of the need to social contract that articulates justice with civil recognize the value of liberal institutions and to rights. According to him, the current debate WINTER • 1993 • 81 Toward a Liberal Socialism? around contractarianism should provide the applied." These "rules of the game" are terrain for the democratic left to make an designed to facilitate and guarantee the widest important intervention: participation of the majority of citizens in the decisions that affect the whole of society. The The crux of this debate is to see whether, starting function of some of these rules is to establish with the same incontestable individualistic con- ception of society and using the same institutional what is meant by the general will. They structures, we are able to make a counter-proposal determine who has the right to vote, guarantee to the theory of social contract that neo-liberals that the votes of all the citizens have an equal want to put into operation, one which would weight, and specify which type of collective include in its conditions a principle of distributive decisions are going to be put into effect. But in justice and which would hence be compatible with addition to these three rules, there are others the theoretical and practical tradition of socialism that refer to the conditions that need to be (p. 117). fulfilled if the exercise of the freedom to It is no wonder then that Bobbio expresses choose is to be effective. There is first the sympathy for the proposals made by John principle of pluralism, according to which a Rawls in his celebrated book A Theory of democratic system must guarantee the exis- Justice, and that he takes Rawls's side against tence of a plurality of organized political Robert Nozick's defense of the minimal state in groupings that compete with one another. Anarchy, State and Utopia. He considers that, Second, voters must be able to choose between as long as democracy is alive and individuals different alternatives; and, finally, the minority retain a right to determine the terms of a new must be guaranteed the right to become a social contract, they are going to ask not only majority in its turn. for the protection of their fundamental rights Bobbio argues that only a liberal state can and of their property; they will also want to guarantee these arrangements and the basic ensure distributive justice. rights they entail: freedom of opinion, speech, But will such a new social contract provide assembly, the press, political association, and the solution, as Bobbio believes, to the so on. growing ungovernability of modern industrial These are the rights on which the liberal state has societies? Can a social contract that articulates been founded since its inception, giving rise to the the demands of justice with individual rights doctrine of the Rechtsstaat, or juridical state, in solve the problems facing complex societies the full sense of the term, i.e., the state which not today? Is that the way to get out of what he only exercises power sub lege, but exercises it presents as the "paradoxes of democracy"? within the limits derived from the constitutional This is not the view of contemporary commu- recognition of the so-called "inviolable" rights of nitarian critics of liberalism who affirm that, the individual. Whatever may be the philosophical because liberal individualism is the cause of the basis of these rights, they are the necessary problems, it cannot be the path to their precondition for the mainly procedural mecha- nisms, which characterize a democratic system, to resolution. In order to evaluate the adequacy of work properly. The constitutional norms which Bobbio's proposals, we need to examine his confer these rights are not rules of the game as diagnosis of the difficulties that confront such: they are preliminary rules which allow the democracy in complex societies. game to take place (p. 25). But will the game continue—and attract new Bobbio's Conception of Democracy players? Bobbio's "paradox" is the fact that we want more and more democracy in conditions Bobbio insists, again and again, that we should that are increasingly unpropitious, given the adopt what he calls a "minimal definition of growth of large state organizations, the devel- democracy" as a form of government "charac- opment of technocracy and bureaucracy, and terized by a set of rules (primary or basic) that the rise of cultural conformism. He writes: establish who is authorized to make collective decisions and which procedures are to be In a nut-shell, these four enemies of democracy- 82 • DISSENT Toward a Liberal Socialism? where I am taking democracy to mean the country should no longer be to establish "who" optimum method for making collective deci- votes, but "where" they can vote. sions—are the large scale of modern life; the increasing bureaucratization of the state apparatus; the growing technicality of the decisions it is Pluralism and Individualism necessary to make; and the trend of civil society As we have seen, according to Bobbio, liberal towards becoming a mass society. 3 socialism can offer a solution to the present What then is the remedy proposed by shortcomings of democracy by providing a new Bobbio? Can something be done to further the social contract having at its center a principle process of democratization in modern advanced of social justice. The aim is to combine social, societies? Bobbio insists that we should political, and civil rights, putting them on a abandon all hopes of a "true democracy," a strong individualistic foundation by appealing perfectly reconciled society, a radical consen- to the principle of the individual as the ultimate sus. Modern democracy, he insists, must come source of power. The issue of individualism is to terms with pluralism, and this implies that crucial for Bobbio: "Without individualism, dissent is permanent and inevitable. Consensus there can be no liberalism." 4 The compatibility is necessary only as far as the rules of the game of liberalism and democracy lies for him in the are concerned. Those rules, when imple- fact that both share a common starting point: an mented, are the best guarantees against autoc- individualistic conception of society. The racy and heteronomy, the best framework for modern idea of the social contract represents, the struggle for individuality, which he sees as in his view, a Copernican revolution in the the driving force of democratic politics. relationship between individual and society Once the illusion of direct rule has been because it marks the end of all organicistic and discarded, says Bobbio, we can begin to holistic notions.
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