The SDP’s Ideological Legacy
What was the ideological inheritance of the Social Democratic Party? And what did it bequeath to the Liberal Democrats? Dr Tudor Jones analyses what the SDP stood for.
Although at its foundation in the Social Developed mainly by Gaitskell’s parliamen- tary supporters, revisionist socialist thought Democratic Party was the first significant new party found its most coherent expression in Anthony in British politics since , it inherited a long Crosland’s major work The Future of Socialism ideological tradition. The core values and beliefs and (). The analysis which underpinned Crosland’s principal arguments focused both on distinctive themes of that tradition – British social major changes in the pattern of economic democracy – were to shape the character and broad power in Britain since and on the policy approach of the new party and were thus to achievement during that period of full employ- ment and sustained economic growth by means influence, too, the Alliance which the SDP was to of Keynesian macroeconomic intervention. form with the Liberal Party. Such developments, Crosland persuasively ar- gued, had removed many of the deep flaws of prewar capitalism. The social-democratic Fortified by this theoretical analysis, revi- tradition since 1945 sionist social democracy proceeded to challenge entrenched Labour orthodoxies in two ways. Most of the former Labour MPs and many First, it repudiated the traditional view that so- of the other new members who joined the cialism could be identified, above all, with the SDP in the early s had been influenced public ownership of the means of production. by the assumptions and values of British social It thereby questioned the established Labour democracy. Since this term had gradu- commitment to extensive public ownership as ally come to mean, in Hamilton’s succinct defi- the precondition for achieving all major re- nition, ‘a non-transformative type of socialism formist objectives. or social reform’ in the sense that it offered an Second, Labour revisionism presented a dis- ideological approach that sought ‘amelioration tinctive ethical interpretation of socialism in of injustice and the promotion of common terms of core values such as personal liberty, welfare and a measure of equality .... rather than social welfare and, in particular, social equality, transformation of the economic and social ideal ends that could be pursued, it was now structure’. argued, within the context of a mixed economy. During the s and early s this so- Moreover, from this ethical perspective the tra- cial democratic approach in Britain became ditional doctrine of public ownership – as en- synonymous with the revisionist tendency shrined in Clause IV of the Labour Party con- within the Labour Party. This amounted to a stitution – was viewed as merely one useful deliberate attempt, most apparent after means among several others for realising en- following Hugh Gaitskell’s accession to the during socialist values and ideals. party leadership, to reformulate the principles Throughout the s and early ’s revi- of democratic socialism and to revise Labour sionist ideas on public ownership, economic policies through a new analysis of economic strategy and social policy were further devel- and social changes in postwar Britain. oped and promoted – notably by Crosland,
4 journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 Five years after the Limehouse Declaration: Shirley Williams, David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers at Bath, 25 January 1986.
Gaitskell, Douglas Jay and Roy Politically and ideologically, too, the purposes of ‘a new-model liber- Jenkins – and incorporated into party British social democracy seemed an tarian decentralist social democ- policy documents such as Industry and increasingly marginalised force by racy’. Although little systematic Society ().The economic founda- the late s. On its left flank it progress was made in that direction, tion on which those ideas rested was found itself challenged within the both Marquand, by implication, and a firmly Keynesian one since that Labour Party by the revived funda- Roy Jenkins, more explicitly, indi- creed offered the techniques by mentalist socialism of Tony Benn and cated that a new political vehicle which future Labour governments his supporters. On its right flank, might be needed for a revised social would, it was hoped, seek to achieve meanwhile, it was confronted after democratic theory and strategy. In economic growth and full employ- with the revived market liberal his Dimbleby lecture, ‘Home ment and hence secure the economic doctrines of an increasingly Thoughts from Abroad’, Jenkins thus surplus that could be redirected into Thatcherite Conservative Party. The welcomed the possibility of a new higher social expenditure. Built growing isolation of social democrats party of the radical centre which around this Keynesian foundation within the Labour Party at this time would support state intervention and was the distinctive strategy of was also greatly increased by their market forces in equal measure. Croslandite social democracy – strong identification with the cause namely, the promotion, within a of British involvement in the Euro- mixed economy, of social welfare and pean Community. Their predica- Social democracy in greater equality by means of high ment deteriorated further with Roy the SDP public expenditure and redistributive Jenkins’ departure from British poli- taxation and upon the basis of sus- tics in to become President of When that new party did eventu- tained economic growth. the European Commission and with ally emerge on the political scene in This revisionist social democratic the deaths of Crosland in and March , its new launch state- model was a major ideological in- John Mackintosh, another iconoclas- ment, ‘Twelve Tasks for Social fluence on Labour thinking and tic thinker, in . Democrats’, together with books by policy for about years – from the In the face of their declining in- three of its founder-leaders – David mid-s to the mid-s. But in fluence some social democratic poli- Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley the face of the inflationary pressures ticians, notably Mackintosh, David Williams – sought to provide the of the s, the intellectual and po- Marquand and Evan Luard, had be- Social Democratic Party with a clear litical appeal of Keynesian social de- gun to develop a critique of the political and ideological identity. mocracy began to fade. Intellectu- centralist and corporatist tendencies At first this undertaking appeared ally, its confident assumptions were inherent in state socialism. Both to be inspired by the pantheon of undermined by the economic stag- Mackintosh and Marquand had also major British socialist thinkers of the nation, sterling crises and bitter in- stressed the need to revise past – G.D.H. Cole, R.H. Tawney dustrial conflicts of those years, and Croslandite social democracy in the and Evan Durbin, to whom Owen, consequently by the strains of office harsher economic and political cli- Williams and Rodgers respectively exerted on the Wilson and Callaghan mate of the late s, and thereby paid homage. But it also became governments between and ’. to work out what Marquand called evident that the SDP’s political lead- journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 5 ers were engaged in developing a ity of opportunity and treatment. nounced by the party’s rank-and-file critique of the bureaucratic There were thus, as Owen admitted, activists. By , however, David centralism and statism of established ‘genuinely conflicting arguments Owen had discarded the term itself, Labour policy. For they demon- and attitudes .... posed within the favouring instead the idea of a ‘so- strated a shared commitment to the centralist/decentralist dilemma’. cial market economy’ or ‘social mar- principle of political and economic Nevertheless, this emphasis on ket’. For in his view, the ‘mixed decentralisation previously affirmed political decentralisation, welcomed, economy’ had become a broad, de- by Marquand, Mackintosh and of course, by the new party’s Liberal scriptively imprecise term to which Luard in the late s. allies, had become established as an virtually anyone in British politics Owen thus advocated a revival of essential element of early SDP could subscribe. From September ‘the concept of fellowship and com- thought. As part of the developing , therefore, after succeeding Roy munity within a participatory demo- social democratic critique of an Jenkins as SDP leader, Owen increas- cratic society’ in place of the ‘deeply over-centralised and bureaucratic ingly employed the concept of a ‘so- centralist’ tradition of Fabian collec- state, associated both with traditional cial market economy’ as a means of tivism which had dominated the socialism and with the postwar defining his party’s ideological posi- Labour Party for so long. In prac- collectivist consensus in general, the tion. tice, he argued, that process would idea was reinforced by an eagerness The term ‘social market’ had first require ‘a detailed programme of leg- to embrace a market-oriented mixed been used by German economic islative and administrative reforms to economy. For Marquand such a liberals after and taken up by diffuse power in Britain’. That goal commitment constituted one of the Christian Democrats, particularly was supported, too, by Williams who most distinctive and important prin- by Ludwig Erhard. It originally meant a market economy in which the state’s role was restricted to en- What remained, however, of the SDP’s suring that market forces operated without distortion. The term en- original social democratic legacy, apart tered British political discourse in from enduring egalitarian and welfarist when it was enthusiastically adopted by Keith Joseph and his ideals, was perhaps more a political style free-market Conservative Centre for Policy Studies. Within the SDP, and approach – pragmatic, flexible, however, Owen revised the mean- favouring cautious reformism with the aid ing of the concept so that it implied, in Peter Jenkins’ definition, ‘that of active government and an enabling wealth should be created by mar- state. ket forces but redistributed accord- ing to social principles’. This in- terpretation suggested that the op- favoured both an extension of indus- ciples of social democracy. A few erations of the market economy trial democracy and wider popular months after the new party’s foun- were to be supplemented by gov- participation in public policy-mak- dation he thus depicted the mixed ernment intervention of various ing and on public bodies. economy not just as the source of kinds – by an industrial strategy, for This decentralist approach was prosperity and personal freedom but instance, that would promote skills endorsed by official party statements also as ‘neither a staging post on the training and research and develop- of principle and policy. The original road to full socialism not a regretta- ment; by an incomes policy; and by Limehouse Declaration of , for ble compromise between economic the redistribution of incomes and instance, affirmed the new party’s sin and economic virtue, but an en- resources by means of taxation and support for ‘the greatest practical tity in its own right, positively de- a more generous welfare system. degree of decentralisation of deci- sirable in and for itself’. Owen elaborated his interpreta- sion-making in industry and govern- In the Labour Party from which tion of the social market economy ment’. Embedded in all this, how- Marquand had recently departed in the opening chapter of his book ever, as Owen and Williams recog- such a stance remained ideologically A Future that Will Work (), as well nised, were some problematic issues, contentious. For support for the as in a succession of articles and including the possibility of dispari- mixed economy had become La- speeches. Further theoretical jus- ties in, say, health care provision be- bour’s ‘official heresy’, as the politi- tification for the idea was provided tween different localities and regions. cal journalist Peter Jenkins neatly by Owen’s economic policy adviser In that instance, decentralisation described it, reflected in official Alex de Mont and by the social might well clash with the social policy documents and in the con- policy specialist Nick Bosanquet, democratic commitment to equal- duct of Labour governments, yet de- who stressed the need to combine
6 journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 competitive markets with govern- equation. It could thus be inter- tain its appeal and value in the face ment action to provide public serv- preted as meaning a market of the economic and political ices such as health-care and educa- economy accompanied either by a changes sweeping through Britain tion and to correct market failures minimal state that intervened only and the Western world during the such as, for instance, the omission of to ensure competition and end mo- s. the costs of pollution from the mar- nopolies or by an active, enabling ket price of a good or service. state that intervened to correct mar- Dr Tudor Jones is a senior lecturer in poli- By the concept of the so- ket failures and promote social wel- tics at Coventry University. His publi- cial market economy had become fare and justice. It was also unclear, cations include Remaking the Labour closely identified with Owen’s lead- largely for that reason, what exactly Party: From Gaitskell to Blair ership and was officially adopted as the economic and social policy im- (Routledge, ) and ‘Liberal Demo- a central SDP policy at the party plications of the idea were for the crat Thought’ in The Liberal Demo- conference of that year. In spite, SDP’s programme and strategy. crats (ed. D. MacIver) (Harvester however, of its elevated status in Wheatsheaf, ). SDP thinking and policy it did not feature prominently in the Alliance Conclusion Notes: programme in the run-up to the As a consequence, Owen’s innova- M.B. Hamilton, Democratic Socialism in general election. The detailed Britain and Sweden (Macmillan, ), pp. tive use of this distinctive but im- Alliance policy statement, The Time , . precise idea failed to provide a clear See, for instance, D. Marquand, ‘Inquest Has Come, whilst endorsing the ideological redefinition of social de- on a Movement’, Encounter, July ; E. broad underlying approach of the mocracy towards the end of the Luard, Socialism without the State social market economy, contained SDP’s political life. In other respects, (Macmillan, ); D. Marquand (ed.), no references to the phrase itself. It John P. Mackintosh on Parliament and So- its doctrinal and strategic platform merely stated that the Alliance par- cial Democracy (Longman ). was built upon ideas and attitudes – D. Marquand, ‘Inquest on a Movement’, ties ‘bring together ideas which the political and economic decentralisa- Encounter, July , p. . Conservative and Labour Parties tion, constitutional reform, selective See Marquand, op. cit.; R. Jenkins, ‘Home believe to be mutually exclusive: government intervention within a Thoughts from Abroad’, Dimbleby lec- enterprise and welfare, a market market economy – which helped to ture, , published in Partnership of economy and social justice’. This Principle (The Radical Centre; Secker & cement the Alliance with the Liber- Warburg, ), pp. _. omission of the term was repeated als after , marking out a broad See D. Owen, Face the Future (revised in the Alliance election mani- common ground of principle and edition, Oxford University Press, ), festo Britain United, although Owen policy. p. ; W. Rodgers, The Politics of Change himself did try to revive his empha- What remained, however, of the (Secker & Warburg, , p. ); S. sis on the social market during the Williams, Politics is for People (Penguin, SDP’s original social democratic ), p. -. election campaign. legacy, apart from enduring egalitar- Owen, op. cit., pp. , . Ultimately, then, the idea of the ian and welfarist ideals, was perhaps ibid., p. . social market economy exerted lit- more a political style and approach Williams, op. cit., p. . tle direct influence on Alliance strat- – pragmatic, flexible, favouring cau- Owen, op. cit., p. ; see also Williams, op. egy, even though it had been one of cit., p. . tious reformism with the aid of ac- the few distinctive political ideas to D. Marquand, Russet-Coated Captains: The tive government and an enabling Challenge of Social Democracy (SDP, ), emerge from SDP thinking between state. But what had given British so- p. . and . It had proved useful, cial democracy its distinctive char- P. J enkins, The Guardian, September in terms of both policy and rheto- acter in the period from the mid- . ric, in helping to widen the gap be- s to the mid-s – namely, its See also, for example, D. Owen, ‘Agenda tween a more market-oriented SDP for Competitiveness and Compassion’, central strategy of egalitarian redis- Economic Affairs, :, October . and the more collectivist and inter- tribution through the use of tax and See A. de Mont, A Theory of the Social ventionist approach of social demo- welfare systems and upon the basis Market (Tawney Society, ), and N. crats such as Denis Healey, Roy of Keynesian economics – had by Bosanquet, ‘The “Social Market Hattersley and John Smith who had the late s largely declined as a Economy”: Principles, Behind the Poli- remained loyal to Labour. But as its cies?’ Political Quarterly, July–September major political influence. . critics argued, both at the time and When, therefore, the newly D. Owen and D. Steel, The Time Has later, the Owenite concept of the formed party, the Liberal Democrats, Come (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ), pp. social market economy lacked either painfully emerged in from the –. a precise meaning or intellectual co- collapse of the Alliance, it, too, like See, for instance, L. Andrews, Liberalism herence. It was unclear, for instance, Versus the Social Market Economy (Hebden the SDP in , faced the task of Royd, ); D. Brack, The Myth of the whether the emphasis lay on the ‘so- establishing a distinctive political and Social Market Economy (LINk, ). cial’ or the ‘market’ factor within the ideological identity that would re-
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