James Bartholomew -a belated response
Posted by Owen Sanderson on March 16th, 2007
Sadly we have no video of James Bartholomew’s talk from Tuesday, but nonetheless, I feel that a response to his talk- possibly the most controversial talk that Clare Politics has run so far- is in order.
To summarise Bartholomew, as I understood it:
- the welfare state has failed, and failed the poor more than anybody else
- the welfare state has failed, because the state is fundamentally worse at making decisions about welfare entitlement than private or charitable provision
- a history of Britain without the welfare state would see economic growth channelled partly into charitable provision, resulting in a more successful provision of welfare for the poor.
- the social effect of the welfare state has been overwhelmingly negative
If anyone else that was at Bartholomew’s talk wishes to add any arguments to these three, I’d be happy to discuss those also, though I should also admit at this point that I have not read his book.
Bartholomew was interesting, though wrong, for a number of reasons. He did not come out with the standard libertarian argument based on property rights, and he did not even champion individual liberty as an end in itself. Bartholomew’s views seemed to actually rely on the benefits of non-state welfare for the poor, rather than arguing on the basis of right. Issues of inequality and the ultimate goal of society (economic growth?) were left untouched. Instead, Bartholomew asked us to imagine the last 100 or so years without state welfare (he dated the beginning of the rot to 1870, but acknowledged that the postwar Labour government extended the welfare state substantially).
His vision of a society without state welfare was a society in which families and charities cared for those requiring healthcare or in poverty, leaving behind 5%, rather than the 30% he feels have been failed by the welfare state. This is in essence a retread of the old arguments about welfare creating dependency on welfare. Bartholomew though infused this with a reverence for the family, citing statistics to indicate that the existence of families inhibited crime, and that the welfare state inhibited family cohesion. To an extent Bartholomew was correct- when the NHS was established, it was a form of female emancipation from the charity/work-related healthcare that had existed before. Similarly the existence of universal benefit freed women from waiting for their menfolk to return, via the pub, from the collection of unemployment benefit.
Which brings us neatly onto the Big Lie of Batholomew’s talk. This was his argument that the welfare state has created permanent mass unemployment, which he adds to the welfare-related misery of the poor. This is wrong. The period after the creation of the welfare state proper, from roughly 1945-1965, saw the highest level of employment since records began. By contrast, the 1930s saw episodes such as the Jarrow Crusade, because of the high levels of long-term unemployment. I didn’t have the chance to ask him how he justified this wanton rewrite of history, but it calls into question the rest of his doom and gloom about the welfare state.
Aside from this though, my main objections are:
-administration by government is not necessarily bad, particularly if local- Bartholomew’s laissez-faire Victorians did far more through local and civic government than he was willing to acknowledge
-freedom does not appear to be a goal that he values, or at the very least he does not acknowledge how important universal entitlements can be in promoting freedom.
-economic growth since 1945 cannot be decoupled from the existence of a welfare state
James Bartholomew acknowledged that the abolition of state welfare could not happen in a democracy, and that actually abolishing the welfare state, rather than not having set it up in the first place, could be damaging. It seems he will continue -fortunately for the rest of us- to be a lone voice crying in the wilderness.
Not that speaking at Clare Politics is the wilderness. Far from it.
Filed under: conservatism, history, poverty, society, ukpolitics on March 16th, 2007
Owen
So the offending Clareification issue finally made it out into the big wide world. I have to admit to being highly disappointed. It is both needlessly offensive and not very funny.
He’ll be a lucky boy to escape punishment.
Oh, and i think you’re being hard on Bartholomew. His is an excellent book and i’m surprised by your comments. If you want to read an innovative welfare policy, then take a look at the 30/30 policy drafted by the Australian LDP party - a libertarian group.
Obviously, pommygranate, Clarification won’t be very funny for you, being riddled with college in-jokes. For example, perhaps ‘Quite what this dude has done to provoke the ire of the author remains a mystery’ because you’ve totally failed to realise that the guest editor likes the UCS president very much. Contribute more sketchy intuitions to the conceptual analysis of ‘offensive’ if you like, but we’ll keep the debate over whether it was funny as internal as the important debate over whether it is offensive has gladly been.
First, sorry for not having any views on James Bartholomew.
Second, it’s interesting that pommygranate thinks the issue “equates Muslims with rapists.” I think it’s a very real possibility that many important people thought that too, and yet the inference is simply bizarre. And (unlike any bloggers) I’ve double-checked with Mr Guest Editor. No one in Clare seriously thinks he meant that, do they?
Third, I think we should be generally thankful for the online coverage of the Clareification story. I believe that emails from all over the world have had a positive effect on the college’s ad hoc disciplinary policy. Nonetheless, the material should not have been put into the public domain. It is now nothing more than ego food for arrogant bloggers.
Matthew - I was a student once, too!
Jonathan - if the College had simply released the publication immediately and not made such a big secret of it, then us “arrogant bloggers” would not have wasted our time wildly speculating as to its contents.
Anyway, yours is an interesting blog. Good luck with it.
These are open questions:
a) Does the “Islamic World” really mean “all Muslims”? In the context in which the phrase appears - and in the news generally - it’s a bit more complicated than that, isn’t it?
b) Is the analogy in any sense “equating Muslims with rape”? I think this requires a few far-fetched leaps of inference.
I mean, these things really bug me, because my answers to these relatively simply questions do not seem to be the only answers.
But back to the Bartholemew talk - unfortunately I missed it, but from the summary above it seems that Bartholemew suggests that charity by rich people/companies will provide some of the services that the welfare state currently does (maybe free hospitals, arts sponsorship etc?). I have to object to this. It would result in extremely patchy provision with unfashionable issues, such as care of adults with special needs or disabilities, getting entirely left out. Opera would probably get a huge influx of funding but as GP and dentist visits would be reliant on people having health insurance, poor families wouldn’t get vaccinations and the tradition of giving false teeth for a 21st birthday present would be revived. I, for one, don’t trust business and individuals to give in a connected and non-egotistical way.