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Dankdude · #3 06-02-2008, 12:39 PM

http://www.la-articles.org.uk/FL-6-3-4.pdf

The Journal of the Libertarian Alliance

Vol. 6 : No. 3- Article 4 of 9

The Myth of the Free-Market Conservatives
by Matthew O'Keeffe

Sver since the timely demise of
Edward Heath as party leader,
members of the Conservative Party
have taken more and more to describing
themselves as 'free market' conservatives, all
the more so after Mrs Thatcher's victory in
1979. But while one cannot but applaud her
attempts to reduce the state sector, and such
policies as sale of council houses, some of
her other so-called 'market' achievements
remain more dubious. Of these, most notable
have been the removal of Trade Union
privileges, and the denationalisation of
certain state industries. The opposition, for
its part, has no qualms about denouncing
policies as 'free market'; but is the rhetoric of
either side really justified?
Of course the legal privileges and violent excesses
of the unions in the 1970s demanded
redress, but nothing in market theory
warranted the extent of the government's
subsequent policies. From the GCHQ
episode, to Mr Tebbit's plans to make the
unions democratic, to the question of the
closed shop, the attack on the unions has
been hysterical. A free market approach, by
contrast, would require, that Trade Unions be
free to constitute themselves as they wished,
'democratically' or un 'democratically'. It
would also require that employers be free to
hire exclusively unionised or non-unionised
labour, thus setting up a 'closed' or 'open'
shop as they saw fit. The policies which the
government chose, in the event, would be
better described as union-bashing than as
'free market'.
Ironically, there is another realm of
organised labour and restrictive practices
where the state has not even ventured. The
lawyers (with their many representatives on
the Conservative back benches) continue to
run the most rigidly state-enforced closed
shop there is. The logic of far too many selfstyled
'free marketeers' in the Tory Party
seems to be that the marketplace is fitting for
miners or dockworkers, but somehow a place
that does not become lawyers or doctors.

Only now is the government even daring to
consider deregulation of either law or
medicine. The professions as a whole remain
little more than middle-class trade unions
and have largely escaped the wrath of the
Thatcher administration.
And if one can doubt the reality of the
government's 'market' reforms in the realm of
organised labour, its policy with regard to
organised capital is also suspect. The
corporations remain as state-privileged as
ever the trade unions were. Corporations -
and in particular those corporations which
finance Conservative election expenses -
continue to enjoy special tax privileges,
limited liability, and even occasional
subsidies and protection from foreign competitors.
After a decade of market rhetoric,
denationalisation of the Bank of England,
removal of the privileges of the Central
Bankers, and any sort of return to free
banking all remain unthinkable. The
industries which have been denationalised
are hardly models of market theory (this is to
say nothing of the ridiculous and publiclyfunded
advertising extravaganzas that have
surrounded the sale of state industries);
neither Telecom nor Gas were deregulated or
sold in little pieces in accordance with the
dictates of perfect competition; instead both
were sold intact as giant monopolies, largely
to please the world of finance. The policy of
gigantism, in addition, has entailed a whole
plethora of New Dealesque regulatory
bodies.
Perhaps an inherently 'coalition' party like
the Conservatives cannot be expected to go
over to one ideology; perhaps the adoption of
more free market policies might nonetheless
be most effective for the goals which
conservatives pursue. Either way, there, are a
number of difficulties in the way of the
Conservatives if they do decide to become a
real free market party. Many of these come
from the preponderance of upper class and
upper middle class representation in their
ranks. Too many of the landowners in the
Cabinet are quite happy to see continued
farm subsidies, too many party members
have a vested interest in their particular
professions, and the Party as a whole relies
perhaps too heavily on corporate
sponsorship.

Meanwhile the government continues to
boast about how much it spends on the
welfare state, and state spending as a
proportion of GNP has fallen only slightly.
The free, market conservatives, if they exist,
will have to steer their party as surely away
from corporate capitalism as they have
steered it from state socialism.