Previously, we examined and shattered the myth that capitalism is a right-wing force. Rather, the classes that benefited from the rise of capitalism were also those which brought us the age of liberalism. We saw how this theme was understood by Marx (as political economist), Lenin (as practical strategist), and Ernst Jünger (observing the reduction of all life to the economic plane). Finally, we saw how progressivism continues the conquest of humanity by the global marketplace, and discussed ways to restore values beyond the economic.
This piece will apply class analysis in a different way. Reactionary thought from de Maistre to Moldbug has claimed links between the ages of protestantism, liberalism, and modern progressivism. Mencius Moldbug brought renewed attention to this thesis by positing similar thought patterns between radical protestantism and radical liberalism. This raised a number of eyebrows. Despite themes such as freedom being important to both, it’s not at all clear how a religious dissenter in the 17th century, a liberal revolutionary in the 19th, and a progressive activist in the 21st really have anything in common.
The thesis of this piece is that class analysis can refine our thinking on the topic. It holds the key to reconciling the differences in social context with the notion that they can be placed in a common intellectual tradition. It also allows us to see how such actors may become victims of their own tradition, and that tradition’s true inner logic. For the sake of brevity, we will mainly focus on Britain and America rather than continental Europe.
First, we want to determine what the commonality between generations is. We know that each uses similar rhetoric: “freedom”, “liberty”, “equality”, “rights”, and like concepts are invoked by dissenter, liberal, socialist, and progressive. Of course, the precise meaning of these words shifts in the mouth of each, but the fact that the same words are used is important. Language is an important link. The shared use of words should lead us to suspect a common philosophical chain of inheritance. While this won’t be a full literature study, this suspicion is confirmed by examining the ties between movements. In the Anglosphere – particularly America – political liberty was explicitly tied into the religious liberty championed by Protestantism. Post-liberal movements such as socialism and progressivism based their challenge on the idea that bourgeois liberalism had been unable to fulfill its own values. Shared language is not just incidental, but the result of an ongoing dialectic in which later generations are continuing or challenging the work of earlier ones.
An important tool in our analytic toolbox is the work of Alasdair MacIntyre on the relationship between language and morality. Political ideology is tied to morality, since it always contains implicit ethical claims or rejections (even the total rejection, which is nihilism). MacIntyre’s work focuses in part on changes that occurred in our ways of defining moral thought. Known as a virtue ethicist, his work After Virtue details the impacts of these changes. One focus is our inability to understand much of the classical and medieval understanding of virtue. The part of his work which interests us is his observation that these changes have been masked by a shared use of the same moral language. We continue to use the words of our predecessors – “virtue”, “justice”, “love”, etc., but we have emptied out or replaced their meaning. An important shift happens during the Enlightenment with regards to the link between moral language and human nature. From Aristotle to Aquinas, morality is discerned by reflecting on human nature and human telos. From the Enlightenment onward, a shift occurs toward rules-based moral propositions. This culminates in deontology, utilitarianism, and the like. Importantly, it jettisons the idea that one can legitimately derive an “ought” from an “is”. Says MacIntyre:
This is a culture…in which therefore there has been not only the kind of change of belief represented by the secularization of Protestantism but also, even for those who believe, a change in the modes of belief. It is not surprising that key questions arise about the justification of belief, and most of all about the justification of moral belief. We are so accustomed to classifying judgments, arguments and deeds in terms of morality that we forget how relatively new the notion was in the culture of the Enlightenment.
Consider one very striking fact: in the culture of the Enlightenment the first language of educated discourse was no longer Latin, but it remained learning’s second language. In Latin, as in ancient Greek, there is no word correctly translated by our word ‘moral’; or rather there is no such word until our word ‘moral’ is translated back into Latin. Certainly ‘moral’ is the etymological descendant of ‘ moral is’. But ‘moralis’, like its Greek predecessor ‘ethikos’ – Cicero invented ‘moral is’ to translate the Greek word in the De Fato – means ‘pertaining to character’ where a man’s character is nothing other than his set dispositions to behave systematically in one way rather than another, to lead one particular kind of life.
[…]
…the history of the word ‘moral’ cannot be told adequately apart from an account of the attempts to provide a rational justification for morality in that historical period – from say 1630 to 1850 – when it acquired a sense at once general and specific. In that period ‘morality’ became the name for that particular sphere in which rules of conduct which are neither theological nor legal nor aesthetic are allowed a cultural space of their own. It is only in the later seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, when this distinguishing of the moral from the theological, the legal and the aesthetic has become a received doctrine that the project of an independent rational justification of morality becomes not merely the concern of individual thinkers, but central to Northern European culture.”
MacIntyre’s approach to morality gives us the key to understanding how shared language can mask radically different ideas. We can state that there is no contradiction between a shared ancestry of political thought and language and changing interpretation of that language. We have already noted the shared political cladistics between Protestantism, liberalism, and later movements. Now we must ask ourselves how these interpretations changed. The remainder of this piece will put forward the following hypothesis: class interests are a powerful explanatory factor for changes in the meaning underlying a shared, inherited language. This is consistent with the Patron Theory of Politics.
Protestantism
It’s fairly simple to place the start of Britain’s protestant era in the Tudor era. Its birth begins with Henry VIII’s separation of the church and ends with cultural hegemony under Elizabeth I. Since religion and politics are always tightly knit, it is difficult to pin down any time when the political concerns of liberalism begin to eclipse those of religion. However, we might take 1688 as a good estimate. This year sees the overthrow of Britain’s last Catholic monarch and the final establishment of a political order in which the protestant question is considered settled and socio-economic ones begin to take over.
We can identify several patrons behind the reformation. The Tudor dynasty is front and center as a political and economic benefactor. King Henry VIII was well aware of the conflicts which had preceded the rise of his dynasty, and the strengthening of central royal power was an overarching theme of his rule. The focus on his dynasty and its future was one of the driving factors which led Henry – lacking a male heir – to pursue the divorces which ended in his religious schism from the Papacy. As important as Henry, however, are the role of certain “new men” – that is to say, not of high and noble birth – in spearheading the reformation. Among the major figures are Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer, both born into upwardly-mobile families. It is worth noting that their political enemies in the conservative faction consistently feature noble names, most famously the Duke of Norfolk. Cromwell and Cranmer allied themselves with more radical continental reformers, and – through total loyalty to Henry’s centralizing program – to the Crown. This takes on something of a high-low dynamic against the middle of established nobility and church.
Cromwell’s reign ended with his execution as a scapegoat for opposition to reform and the failed marriage to Anne of Cleves. Cranmer’s lasted far longer, with his death only coming at the avenging hand of the Catholic Queen Mary. But overall, their establishment saw the rise of a host of new men. None of this is to say that Cromwell, Cranmer, and the rest were dishonest. By all accounts, they were convinced reformers. What is being claimed is that their agenda benefited themselves and the other “new men” in the court by reducing the power of old aristocracy and church, and increasing that of the King (for the short term). This latter patronage played a deciding role in their rise. There were “new men” on the other side, too, especially the famous Catholic martyrs Thomas More and Cardinal Fisher. But it was precisely their rejection of the reformation program which cost them their earthly power and their lives. They gave up the political interests of their class in pursuit of a greater religious conviction.
We are interested in the language which was used to justify this change. Reformers emphasized the notion that the “Romish” church had introduced innovations and undue laws on the faithful. In particular, it emphasized the English church’s independence and the notion that the Crown, and not any clergyman, was its supreme head. To speak of “liberty” in this time meant to emphasize the liberty of the English church vis-à-vis Rome. But this religious liberty from the threat of Papal power still goes hand in hand with notions of Christian duty and faith. Liberty means liberty from false authority, not authority justified by God and scripture. However, we see that the liberation of religious truth from earthly authority will not stop at the Papacy, but touch the Crown itself.
Cromwell and many of the Parliamentarians would invoke an incomplete reform as justification for their ultimate war against the Crown. The following decades would see men of all classes on both the sides of royalism and traditional religion, and that of political and religious reform. Ironically, the monarchy would suffer the most. We can conclude that the rise and final establishment of Protestantism in England benefited its strongest and most radical backers – the new men of the Parliamentary class, and those of the old guard who joined them. Both monarch and new men had been patrons due to a perceived interest in the new religion; but the royal power misjudged the internal logic of the system of thought and language which it had invoked. The new power and wealth of expropriated monasteries benefited the Crown in the short run. But it also increased the independence of the new men of church and parliament whose heirs could further expand their power at the cost of that very Crown.
Whig Liberalism
At the settlement of 1688, the powers of Parliament were secured and the new monarchic dynasty of William and Mary was left dependent on it. The class dynamics at play throughout Protestantism begin with the ascendancy of new men backed by the power of the Crown, and ended with the pushing aside of that Crown by a strengthened Parliamentary class. The tie between religious and political liberty had become fully developed by this time, as in the famous words of Whig leader William Pitt the Elder:
The errors of Rome are rank idolatry, a subversion of all civil as well as religious liberty, and the utter disgrace of reason and of human nature.
This era was the first time that the Whigs appeared under that name. The 18th century saw political liberalism come into its own as a system of thought. In this period, many new families ascended into the Parliamentary classes, including that of Pitt himself. Many of these families established wealth through the increasing opportunities of colonial adventure, be it in America or with the East India Company, or else through military service. Early Protestantism had been spearheaded by new men navigating an entrenched structure of church and aristocracy. Their power depended on capturing the support of existing structures. Two centuries later, increasing numbers seized opportunities to rise either at home or in colonial endeavors. While they still had to navigate existing structures, there was also more room to build power on independent grounds. It is fitting that we begin to see a dramatic shift in the language surrounding the concept of liberty, and its decoupling from a strictly religious duty.
The most prominent example of this is a man born to a family Puritan in religion and Parliamentary in loyalties: John Locke. From Locke came the idea of liberty as a natural state of man, circumscribed only by social contract. While the reformers had promoted a duty to preserve Christian religion, Locke ends his Two Treatises on Government with a radical claim: the right to political revolution. In the 18th century, the Radical Whigs drew on his writings to defend political projects more radical than those of Protestantism or 1688. While the Radical Whigs saw many heirs of the rising classes among their number, it is in America that Locke’s devotees had their strongest successes and where the class interest behind them can be best discerned.
Among the American founding fathers, George Washington stands out as being the only one with gentry background. But this was of little account to his colonial standing; John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and others represented the economically powerful families of the colonies amongst the American separatists. The victory of American independence meant that those powers held by Crown and Parliament would end up in their hands. It is important to remember the illusory nature of the sharp British-American divide. In fact, the leading families of the colonies maintained strong ties with the Parliamentary class in Britain, particular the Radical Whigs.
It is useful to look at the actions of Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox; respectively, they represented the conservative and radical factions of the Whig party. Burke was one of the strongest voices in Parliament for American interests and called for American freedom to tax itself. Burke did this in two ways. First, he appealed to the interests of Britain in continued trade with America, which brought far more wealth than a tax. Second, he invoked the language of English liberty, and this is of special interest to us. He states in his speech On American Taxation:
Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it…If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No body of men will be argued into slavery.
And in another speech:
…the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen…They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. The people are Protestants…a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it…As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you.
Burke invokes the language of liberty in an altogether new way. It is important to remember that at this time, Burke and Fox both supported Catholic emancipation. Contrasting with Pitt’s views above, this is a strong demonstration that English liberty is now of a political nature. The older view that such liberty must be embraced insofar as it established a free Protestant religion has passed away. Burke and Fox both deplored King George III’s attempts to strengthen the role of the Crown in government. Burke criticized British celebrations of loyalist victories against “fellow Englishmen” in the colonies. But Fox was even more outspoken, lauding the American rebellion as a blow of liberty against tyranny. When America faced defeat at Long Island, Fox declared his hope that “we shall never desert those who have acted unsuccessfully upon Whig principles.” The incentives of the British and American political classes were so aligned that on April 6, 1780 – with the American revolt barely finished – Parliament voted on the motion that “[t]he influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished”. The motion passed with 233-215.
It is quite clear that a shift in language had taken place. However, we can note that both the religious and political definitions of liberty served the interests of an identifiable class. It was a class of new families, mid-level nobility, and growing wealth (the latter first from monastic confiscations and eventually from colonial enterprise).
Labor and Socialism
If the 16th through the 18th centuries is the story of a new class rising, the 19th brought about a serious challenger from below for the first time. As the bourgeois rise also resulted in the creation of a new proletarian class, the notion of worker power is already a force only a generation after Burke and co. Already in 1820, the Radical war broke out, in addition to a series of attempted strikes by artisan workers, weavers, and others. Socialists such as Robert Owen oversaw the growth of a trade union movement from the 1830s onward. It is important to note the difference in class interests. The revolutionary bourgeoisie already possessed strong and increasing economic power. For them, the question was not how to obtain the means to create the social order, but how to remove political obstacles to them doing so. The question was, as we have seen, one of “liberty”. But for the new middle and working classes, these means did not yet exist. This meant that if they were to use the language of freedom and liberty, it had to expand so as to grant access to greater means.
The Chartists were the first movement to enjoy sustained energy and the backing of parts of the press, centering on issues of suffrage. It sought to remove the final political obstacles for the middle and working classes, agitating for universal manhood suffrage. Although this was not fully achieved until 1918, this movement sees an interesting shift in language occur. While the rhetoric of liberty is not fully abandoned, notions such as equality and enfranchisement come to the fore. The lack of equality and the franchise is positioned as enslavement, and therefore a violation of liberty. In the words of one sympathetic paper, the Northern Star:
Three and a half millions of people have asked permission to detail their wrongs, and enforce their claims for RIGHT, and the ‘House’ has resolved they should not be heard! Three and a half millions of the slave-class have holden out the olive branch of peace to the enfranchised and privileged classes and sought for a firm and compact union, on the principle of EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW; and the enfranchised and privileged have refused to enter into a treaty! The same class is to be a slave class still.
From the period of 1688 onward, a new ideological language come into its own. Taking pre-existing concepts such as liberty, it redefined and reinterpreted them. This language was used to legitimize and promote the interests of the class that used them. Therefore, we should not be surprised that in the 19th century, this language is inherited but again radically reinterpreted. This fits our hypothesis: liberalism is consistent as a tradition of language and rhetoric, but that it morphs as the class interests of its patrons change.
However, the right to vote alone was not the goal of such movements. It was a tool. The goal was access to greater wealth, education, and a greater economic basis. With the rise of radical movements such as communism, there appeared to be a coming clash of interests between the two classes: the established bourgeoisie and capital owners and the middle-to-working classes. The discontent opened windows for those attempting to make their name in politics to position themselves with the low against the high. But while much of the bourgeoisie fretted about the socialist peril, some among the parliamentary class saw an opportunity. If new economic policies could grant or redistribute a secure level of economic wealth, then the wind could be taken out of radical sails. The policy had worked before in Bismarck’s Germany.
Chief among these initiatives was the Fabian Society, which formalized a recognizably modern program. It believed that a socialist society could be gradually established by an enlightened political class, which would be able to benefit the working classes while preserving itself. In addition to this “aristocratic socialism”, it pursued “enlightened imperialism” on the basis that the British Empire could be a force for liberal values. In their famously dispassionate writings, the language of liberty has been displaced by a more sociological focus on collective development and equality. As in Fabian Essays in Socialism:
…the inevitable outcome of Democracy is the control by the people themselves, not only of their own political organization, but, through that, also of the main instruments of wealth production; the gradual substitution of organized coöperation for the anarchy of the competitive struggle; and the consequent recovery, in the only possible way, of what John Stuart Mill calls “the enormous share which the possessors of the instruments of industry are able to take from the produce.” The economic side of the democratic idea is, in fact, Socialism itself.
With the Fabians, at least part of the bourgeoisie finally abandoned the centuries-old language of English liberties and turned toward a rhetoric of internationalism, opportunity, stability, and (attempted) scientific objectivism. Its members also represented a spectrum of lower-middle and working class children who found opportunity through the systems of schooling and scholarships founded by socially conscious philanthropists. George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Annie Besant, and others fit this profile. And yet, they became important figures through involvement in literature and the cultural milieu of their day. Irish and Indian home rule, and similar reformist attitudes to the Empire, were common in their circles. Through this influence, the Fabian Society was able to influence – either directly or via the views they helped normalize – a spectrum ranging from social democrats, to the ascendant Labor party, to New Dealers, to the British fascist and proto-Keynesian Oswald Mosley.
With the triumph of liberal internationalism after WWI and the establishment of the welfare state in the coming decades, we note that the parliamentary classes have managed a tremendous act of self-preservation. Through the unifying power of the Great War on national lines and the institutions of wealth distribution, much of the working and middle class perceived their interests to have become aligned with the political agenda of the governing class. Those with talent were indeed able to ascend into their ranks. The economic position of this class was not greatly impacted by the shift to America as the center of the new order, although their geopolitical clout was diluted.
Progressivism and the Coalition of Minorities
The ultimate dissolution of formalized Empire brought on the question of how to sustain a global economic system. Through the late 20th century, corporations established global supply chains. Immigration rates into western countries increased. America abolished demographic considerations in 1965, while successive British governments used made speeches about regulating immigration as actual numbers grew. Politicians recognized that ethnic agendas, in addition to economic ones, would become fruitful grounds for building careers. Likewise, the normalization of working women during the world wars would be of benefit to the economic demands for expanding the labor force.
A major challenge arose during the economic stagnation experienced in the 1970s. In both Britain and America, the management of the state’s economic role led to inflation. Deindustrialization and growing unemployment were also occurring as the economy’s globalization continued. Economic theory at this time promoted the idea that privatization of various state concerns could help jumpstart economic growth and spur modernization. This program was undertaken by Thatcher, Reagan, and company. But it led to protests and massive political resistance on the part of the established forces which had labor as a political base.
It is clear that the move away from class-based politics toward identity politics helped to undermine this opposition. The rising numbers of migrants naturally led to conflict with the native populations, often in working and lower-middle class neighbourhoods. This allowed political conservatives to divert working class votes on grounds of restriction and law-and-order (rarely following through in any lasting sense). Meanwhile, the political Left promoted integration and could use the “racism” tar to make respectable workingman institutions seem low status when they protested against migration policies. Similar tactics could be used as women entered the workforce. Conservatives “protected family values” while the market consumed the family, and progressives advocated the expansion of the labor force. The result was a classic high-low game, where the economically powerful were able to fracture the institutions of the working and middle classes from beneath. The results today are clear: the familial and economic institutions of these classes have turned into political wreckage. Brexit and the Trump phenomenon grew out of the anger which this situation created.
But of course, this wasn’t reflected in the justifications invoked by the movers and shakers. The language inherited from liberalism and morphed by socialism continued to be used. Freedom and equality remained key concepts, though cosmopolitan in nature rather than English. It saw itself as improving the position of a wide array of disadvantaged groups – a coalition of minorities. But while the bourgeois class had to win political liberty, and the working class had to gain economic opportunity, the new ascendant coalition had to overcome cultural oppression. The very national and religious identities which had been able to unify opposed classes now became the targets of the new revolution. The most radically new language which came out of this phenomenon was that of intersectionality. It took the ideas of freedom and equality and recast them through the lens of a “matrix of oppression”. Through this lens, freedom and equality were not seen as achieved until the many overlapping layers of oppression had all been stripped away.
Two practical results have occurred, one favoring bourgeois class interests and one with a less positive impact. On the one hand, the centers where working class interests may have reconstituted themselves have been made unusable. Left-wing parties, universities, unions, and activist groups are too run through by internal power struggles to present any real threat. For each leader or group that threatens to create a political force, a rival faction can invoke intersectional language to undermine them. But on the other hand, members of the coalition of minorities have also gained wealth and have entered the ranks of the bourgeoisie. While they maintain the class interests of the bourgeoisie, intersectional language has proven effective in increasing their power within the economic class. Because bourgeois institutions have shaped their language in tandem with these generational shifts, actors on the margin have a greater interest in promoting their interests through the existing ideological language, If one falls within an oppressed category, one can force cooperation with the threat of pariah status; if one does not, the incentive is to cooperate so that this does not occur (and to increase status).
This class still possesses certain overriding interests in the new economic order – the top economic classes still capture the majority of economic gains. During the eras of protestantism and Whig rule, it had strong unity in consolidating gains. The economic nature of the labor conflict meant that the bourgeoisie had a clear common end of self-preservation, even if disagreements occurred on whether conflict or collaboration was the best means. But for the first time, the high-low game has created growing conflict within the bourgeoisie itself. It remains to be seen whether the internal class structure will reach a new equilibrium or be torn apart into recognizably different interests. While the conflict continues, the rise of neoliberal leaders such as French President Macron may signal that some among the establishment are seeking alternatives to the current ideological conflict.
Conclusions
While this recounting of ideological history has been lengthy, we’re now able to come away with some clear lessons about how English and American liberalism grew over the centuries. We’ve established that there are certain ties in ideological language which have remained common. From the Protestant and Whig eras to the modern day, the themes of freedom and liberty remain a powerful core to liberal rhetoric.
What changes is the interpretation of this word as it is viewed through a Christian lens, a political lens, an economic lens, and finally a cultural lens. At the same time, new languages begin to grow up around the idea of freedom. The sovereignty of the church gives way to the rights of free people in the Whig era. Labor’s rise heralds the growth of equality as a precondition for freedom. And progressivism places these received concepts into a new matrix of intersecting oppressions. The four stages each make their own contributions. Nevertheless, the shared nature of core parts of their language allows us to tie them into a common tradition.
But what is the mechanism of these changes? As we have seen, the shifting dynamics of class provide the strongest explanation. The reactionary claim of ties between Protestantism, liberalism, and progressivism have sometimes led to erroneous conclusions by those responding to them. Assumptions are made that the logic of Calvinism, for example, inevitably leads to pride parades. This is not the case. Of course, it is true that there are a variety of inherent conclusions to the premises of these ideologies. But the interests of political actors are often a driving force behind which of these conclusions creates the next dialectical stage. The dialectical movements which connect Protestantism to progressivism occur as successive patrons adapt inherited values and language to their interests. We have seen throughout this piece what precisely these interests were.
The power of the ascendant bourgeoisie ensured that the more radically anti-state forms of Protestantism did not gain power in Britain. This class did take the premises of English liberty in religion and draw conclusions about English liberty in the state. The middle and working classes took up the value of liberty and drew conclusions about the means of equality needed to exercise it. The coalition of minorities extended the logic of equality from the political and economic spheres to the cultural one.
Class analysis is a powerful tool of political economy and history. It provides key insights and answers important questions about how ideas develop. While the reactionary tradition has contributed excellent philosophical critiques of liberalism, class analysis has more often been taken up by traditions on the left. There is a useful reading of these traditions from the lens of political economy rather than ideological instruction. While Christopher Lasch and others have contributed to this, these engagements should be expanded and deepened. Such readings will provide essential tools for a true history of liberalism and the modern world.