The Queen’s Speech has been hailed by Polly Toynbee as laying down a “thick redline” between the parties in the run up to the election. In response to Cameron’s funeral oration for the Big State, New Labour has unashamedly demonstrated its faith in Big Government to enforce equality and ramp up educational standards. Cameron accused the speech as being full of “fake dividing lines”. Yet the dividing line over the use of the state is a real difference. The promise is that it is not a particularly productive or meaningful one.

The idea that we should have “faith” in the state is as misguided as having “faith” in the market. To ascribe theological properties to these institutions is to denude them of human agency and democratic oversight. And therein lies the problem with either side of the state/anti state divide that is set to define the intellectual battle lines of the next election. The problem is not the size of the state; its capacity should be as large or small as the social problems it needs solve. The problem concerns the democratic legitimacy of the processes by which it seeks to impose solutions. Neither social democratic nor neo-liberal outlooks are particularly equipped to deal with this.

While the social democratic outlook tends to view the states as generally benign, the classical liberal views it as a grim but necessary trade off between liberty and security. Hence the state is a necessary evil that must constantly be watched lest it grow beyond its minimal security remit. In contrast Republican views the state as an institution that can both reduce arbitrary power in society and itself become a source of arbitrary power.  Liberty is made possible rather than impeded by the rights and power relations protected and enforced by the state Yet if the state is to create the conditions that prevent citizens from dominating each other in social and economic life this can only be done legitimately if it is itself structured so that it has a non-dominating relationship to its citizens. 

So how does what may be Labour’s last Queens speech for a decade measure up when it comes reducing arbitrary power? The Equality Bill is a good example of the state reducing arbitrary economic and cultural power. In turn the Personal Care at Home Bill, if it can be afforded, would reduce the possibility of people being forced into nursing homes against their will, when they can still live out home. Yet the Governments failure to advance constitutional reform, notably its avoidance of PR betrays a long-standing inability to link state action with non-arbitrary democratic processes.  The most meaningful divide is not which party uses the state more or less but which is most adept at using the state to reduce arbitrary power in society without becoming a source of arbitrary power itself.

New Comment