During the last three months, there was a renewed curiosity within the idea and politics of ‘Blue Labour’—by media protection, the formation of a Blue Labour parliamentary group, and the rising prominence of Blue Labour’s founder Lord Maurice Glasman. Blue Labour is considerably amorphous, in that it tries to reconcile numerous strands of Labour Get together custom. It may be broadly understood as a post-liberal motion that’s important of liberalism, the unfavorable impression it has had on society, and its dedication to individualism. Based on Dr. Richard Johnson, Blue Labour is greatest described as a “melancholic” motion. One which bemoans the lack of previous Labour traditions and rejects progressivism, capitalism, and globalisation—all of which has been damaging to the working class of Britian. Certainly, Glasman himself has written that Blue Labour denounces the “soulless utilitarianism” of progressivism. As a substitute, it believes, amongst different issues, within the frequent good, that “human beings are usually not commodities” and lengthy for “connection and that means” by reciprocal obligations, the significance of democracy by a sovereign physique like Parliament, and internationalism by democratic nation states (Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour: The Politics of the Frequent Good (Polity, 2022) at pages 3-4).
On issues of the British structure, Glasman makes conventional socialistic-political constitutional arguments. For instance, he claims Blue Labour helps the legislative freedom of an elected majority in Parliament, rejects a written structure or different types of institutional impediments, and denounces supranational constraints on democracy (Ibid, at pages 3-4, 35, and 37-38). Of relevance to this submit, Glasman additionally rejects a “rights-based politics” and the “summary preferrred of the person” (Ibid, at pages 40-43)—which may be interpreted as a rebuttal of a society and structure that emphasises particular person rights. He then goes on to state his desire for democratic politics and the frequent regulation to barter and shield rights and freedoms (Ibid). Importantly, Glasman then argues that “democratic politics ought to provide solidarity and connection” as an alternative of a “technocratic liberalism” that pursues a “imaginative and prescient of fulfilment exterior of all relationships” (Ibid, 40-41). Certainly, scattered all through his political writings and Blue Labour literature extra broadly are concepts about “mutual flourishing”, “reciprocal obligations”, “contributions to society”, “having the capability to dwell the great life with others”, and “fraternity”. There’s a heavy emphasis on residents’ obligations to others with the intention to constrain the pursuit of particular person pursuits. Nonetheless, Glasman doesn’t clarify what the implications of such arguments are for rights in a Blue Labour-inspired society and structure.
Whether or not intentional or not, these concepts about society and reciprocity communicate to an moral socialist and communitarian custom that developed inside the early Labour Get together from 1900 to 1929. This custom noticed the goal of better societal cooperation being achieved by, amongst different issues, eradicating absolutely the nature of rights and, as an alternative, reframing them as being linked to societal duties. The goal of this submit is to supply a legal-historical account of rights and duties from 1900 to 1929—which could then be used to assist form debates inside Blue Labour and develop its theoretical method to rights.
A Cooperative Society through Rights and Duties
Influenced by an ideological dedication to moral socialism and communitarianism, key figures within the early Labour Get together believed that British society was atomised, individualistic, and dominated by the doctrine of laissez-faire. This was thought to have actively promoted a self-interested citizenry. In 1912, Ramsay MacDonald—the get together’s chief strategist, mental thinker, and first Labour Prime Minister—claimed that the final century in England had been generally known as:
“the century of individualism as a result of throughout its two center quarters, specifically, the pendulum swung far in the direction of the intense of particular person liberty of the atomic or mechanical type.”
Equally, Geroge Lansbury, a number one Christian socialist and Labour MP, claimed he would yield to nobody in his “hatred” of the individualistic social order he thought was constructed on “fraud” and “humbug”.
These observations have been appropriate, as most facets of late nineteenth and early twentieth century United Kingdom centred round freedom of the person. From tradition, faith, and the function of the British Empire, nice emphasis was positioned on non-interference, particular person accountability, and freedom of conscience. Furthermore, nineteenth and early twentieth century Whig and Gladstonian liberalism constantly supported a society and economic system that have been unregulated and self-correcting. R.H Tawney, a key mental contributor to the early Labour Get together’s political thought, claimed that one of these laissez-faire thought had relied on a easy assumption: that people have been remoted actors and calculated their social and financial means to insular ends. Consequently, any reciprocity or cooperation that did happen was solely inside the parameters of getting one thing to realize personally from cooperation—this made it simpler for residents to take advantage of and undercut each other. MacDonald made related observations and concluded that the financial mannequin adopted and competitiveness inside society amplified individuals’s base instincts as an alternative of their ethical ones. He used the instance of individualism being embedded in manufacturing facility legal guidelines and different statutes, claiming they have been the imperfect realisation of the human ego.
What’s extra, key figures within the early Labour Get together additionally rejected the disproportionate emphasis and paramountcy given to pure (or absolute) rights, unfavorable freedoms, and passive rights (like property) within the British structure and, by extension, society. They understood the English structure that had emerged after the Civil Struggle and Superb Revolution as having no conception of individuals being united by mutual obligations or encouraging constructions that allowed individuals to work collectively in the direction of the frequent weal. As a substitute, what remained have been personal rights and the state because the important guarantor of these rights. After all, throughout the nineteenth century, an influential Whiggish view framed the English structure as one which was match for a quaint England full of strong people who loved historic frequent regulation liberties. This led to widespread assist for restricted authorities and incremental political concepts that aimed solely at enhancing particular person liberty.
After all, key figures within the early Labour Get together had a want to guard residents’ “freedom to”, or civil and political liberties. However it was felt that the precedence given to particular person entitlements and areas of freedom, by politicians and constitutional preparations, fed into the possessive individualism that was already current in society. Extra particularly, the chief grievance was that such an emphasis on particular person freedom resulted in claims, counterclaims, and the precedence of personal rights. In consequence, social disunity was additional exacerbated as individuals have been pitted in opposition to one another. Main figures within the early Labour Get together additionally believed that the rights and liberties discovered within the British structure had been designed anterior to any unbiased service. This meant that they have been positioned in a privileged place and trumped different communal values and societal obligations. For instance, Tawney lamented the appropriate to property that yielded reward with none service carried out. He argued one of these passive and absolute proper served as a precept of division and enabled individuals to withstand obligations to others.
With such societal and constitutional preparations believed to cut back solidarity between teams of individuals, key figures within the early Labour Get together started to make headway in advancing another mannequin of rights by concepts of organicism (natural society) and fraternity (fellowship or brotherhood). Each notions used rights and duties as a medium to realize their goals.
Organicism (Natural Society)
By the 1900s, evolutionary biology was getting used to clarify social points by political theorists and teachers. The natural society—which was stated to be a product of the forces of organic legal guidelines—grew to become a well-liked analogy for the social construction of society and the interdependence of human conduct. Nonetheless, inherent within the discourse have been Darwinian assumptions concerning the battle for existence, pure choice, and survival of the fittest. As such, conservative theorists, like Herbert Spencer, used organicism to justify laissez-faire, reinforce individualism, and the aggressive nature of society. However others started to recast organicism inside a extra collective framework. It was argued that whereas evolution did progress by pure choice and survival of the fittest, it did so inside a framework of interplay and cooperation. On this account, those that survived have been those who had develop into integrative and learnt to work with others. With this reframing, it turns into clear why the likes of Tawney and MacDonald co-opted organicism as a template for a society based mostly on cohesion and interdependence—the place every particular person was intrinsic to the well-being of others. Based on Peter Clark, MacDonald harnessed the “scientific spirit to socialism”. Whereas MacDonald himself claimed, “the explanation why socialism and the scientific thoughts needs to be congenial to one another shouldn’t be far to hunt. The scientist loves order and is repelled by dysfunction”.
We will summarise Tawney and MacDonald’s understanding of an natural society in three key factors. First, they believed that individualism would develop into indifferent from the person and would, as an alternative, be repurposed to serve the pursuits of society. Secondly, there could be better coordination amongst residents in society. Lastly, every particular person in society would work in the direction of the frequent good. Based on Tawney, individuals in an natural society have been capable of develop into extra deliberate and purposeful brokers. He argued:
“ideally conceived, society is an organicism on totally different grades and human actions type a hierarchy of operate which differ in type and significance, however every of which is of worth by itself airplane, offered that it’s ruled nonetheless remotely by the top which is frequent to all.”
Equally, MacDonald was additionally dedicated to a mannequin of social evolution, not simply as a imprecise analogy however as a precept that ruled day-to-day processes of society. He identified society as having an incoherence to it, as if it have been a “machine out of drugs”. As such, he wished society to be reorganised in order that social features might be carried out by cooperating people. With this in thoughts, MacDonald disassociated atomistic individualism from individuality inside a communal framework. He claimed that “our life is of worth” the place “… it has contributed to the fullness of social life and the event of social organisation and effectivity”. MacDonald used the idea of organicism to counsel that society’s respective components might be reorganised into an moral unit—one which moved in the direction of a stage of structural organisation by which cooperation would displace the inefficiency of self-interest and competitors.
At this level, we start to see how Tawney and MacDonald integrated rights and duties into their understanding of organicism and, importantly, as a medium to a extra cooperative society. First, there was a rejection of the unconditional, absolute, or inalienable nature of rights. This was considered as a deformity in society, one which created materialism and elevated possessive individualism over communal wants. The intention was to make sure no proper could be positioned in a privileged, untouchable, place over different public pursuits or wants. Secondly, after rejecting the unconditional nature of rights, makes an attempt have been made to forestall rights being anterior to, devoid of, and divorced from social objective or operate e.g., any type of productive contribution to society. Tawney and MacDonald went on to position vital emphasis on the worth of duties in making a extra cohesive and cooperative society. Extra particularly, they each defined their desire for rights to function inside a proper–obligation nexus. First, MacDonald said the person was not an finish in himself, however the means to an finish; they have been there to serve a objective for society. A proper was not one thing inherent in an individual however was situated inside and akin to a community of social obligations. MacDonald defined this in a novel method. The state, he claimed, ought to “by no means recognise the existence of a ‘proper’—say to get drunk—if it is aware of that that ‘proper’ disables its possessor from fulfilling his duties”. For MacDonald, “the socialist state didn’t take away obligations from individuals… as a result of it insisted on their participation…” and, as such, the state didn’t view the person as a possessor of rights however the doer of duties: “a proper is the chance of fulfilling an obligation, and it needs to be recognised solely in as far as it’s essential to the efficiency of obligation”. Secondly, Tawney argued that the rights prolonged to residents needed to be examined in opposition to social justification and contributions to society. Due to this, there needed to be a powerful correlation between rights and duties:
“all rights, in brief, are conditional and spinoff as a result of all energy needs to be conditional and spinoff. They’re derived from the top objective of the society by which they exist…if society is to be wholesome, males should regard themselves, not primarily, as homeowners of rights, however as trustees for the discharge of features and the devices of social objective”.
Total, it was believed that this place on rights allowed people to fulfill their home duties (volunteering, employment, or public-facing companies) and, extra broadly, take a extra lively function in society or political and financial life.
Fraternity (Fellowship)
Like organicism, fraternity was an excellent by which to reorganise society extra cooperatively. Nonetheless, it differs in that it centered much less on the form and construction of society and extra on the inner realisation and ethic that causes individuals to be cooperative and perform acts of service. A society based mostly on fellowship seemed to morally combine the group by fostering a way of belonging and shared destiny amongst individuals.
Fraternity was predominately superior by people of the Christian socialist motion. Those that offered substantive considering on the matter—which discovered footing amongst key early Labour Get together figures and MPs—included Charles Gore, Henry Scott Holland, and William Temple. Broadly, these figures rejected the evangelical Christian concentrate on individualism. For Gore and Holland instructed that the main focus ought to, as an alternative, be on the idealistic notions of self-sacrifice and cooperative group. Each believed fellowship was one thing which stemmed from spiritually cooperating with God, and was deep inside human nature. To understand this innate attribute, they inspired individuals to hitch in with their group. For instance, each Gore and Holland argued that individuals couldn’t be detached to the destiny of their fellows, with Holland claiming that individuals naturally desired to work collectively and “…each private act is woven into the lifetime of the group”. Temple additionally described fellowship in an analogous method. He argued that individuals couldn’t be separate or remoted from the corporate of others and, due to this, our interplay with neighbours did greater than meet our personal wants—it helped to result in cooperation that served the well being of society.
The ethic of fraternity led to a conceptual and sensible desire for duties over rights amongst these figures. It was thought that the language round particular person rights and absolute entitlements was of ‘mine and thine’, and of battle. Responsibility, then again, was a language appropriate with cooperation. A elementary consequence of this reorientation in the direction of duties, in response to Temple, was the recasting of an individual’s relationship with others and society as one in all obligation and repair—versus particular person claims. This meant the primary query individuals ought to ask themselves is “what do I owe this particular person” versus “what does she owe me”. Contemplating this, Temple believed this maxim might be utilized to work, leisure, financial programs, and administration. Gore additionally claimed that rights have been meaningless with out duties, being inextricably derived from them. Extra particularly, rights solely stemmed from the extent to which individuals fulfilled the phrases of stewardship entrusted to them by God and the duties owed to others. Lastly, like Temple and Gore, Holland famous how sure entitlements, like the appropriate to property, had been understood as particular person possessions. This, he claimed, provoked the traits of individualism and thing-centredness in society.
Christian MPs of the early Labour Get together have been influenced by one of these thought and noticed fellowship, duties, and human nature (social and cooperative) in related phrases. Lots of them aimed to enhance social relations in ways in which allowed for human flourishing and concord. John Wheatley, who was chargeable for one of many few successes within the 1924 Labour authorities (the allocation of extra state funding to municipal authorities for house-building through the Housing (Monetary Provisions) Act 1924), claimed that socialism was one thing that emanated from the spirit of brotherhood. He believed this ethic was ever-present within the hearts of individuals however was suppressed by the battle that happened within the aggressive surroundings of capitalism. As well as, Margaret Bondfield, the primary feminine Cupboard member within the 1929 Labour authorities, was a congregationalist whose important goal was to see the golden rule of “thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself” being utilized to each the economic system and society.
Lastly, like most Christian socialists, Lansbury believed that reaching brotherhood was inextricably tied to socialist concepts of bringing individuals collectively in programs of cooperation. At a gathering of the Christian Supreme of Brotherhood in 1911, he expressed his hope that Christian women and men take part with the Labour Get together’s goal of making a extra fraternal society. Like his colleagues, Lansbury’s important goal was to arouse an effort inside folks that stemmed from the next sense of their accountability in the direction of the well-being of others and the nation. Consequently, Lansbury superior social insurance policies that have been rooted in service and neighbourliness. This was made clear when crafting social and redistributive laws. Lansbury wished social entitlements to be designed so that individuals have been put able to undertake societal obligations. Due to this, he was typically quoted saying that the early Labour Get together’s motto needs to be “no rights or privileges with out duties”. In 1909, Lansbury defined how his instructed Poor Regulation reforms, the extension of social entitlements to alleviate poverty, aimed to foster reciprocal duties amongst residents:
“our proposals have for his or her object the awakening in every of us a recognition of our duties in the direction of our neighbour; and never merely my obligation in the direction of my neighbour, however my neighbour’s obligation in the direction of me. In lately it’s quite vital that the latter needs to be stored in view.”
Rights and Duties in Apply
In observe, the relationship between rights and duties assorted from a strict one to a looser, much less prescriptive, correlation. Secondly, there was a broadly equal relationship between rights and duties. By this, I imply rights wouldn’t be hierarchically superior to duties, duties wouldn’t precede rights, and the duties concerned weren’t punitive, coercive, nor unfairly geared toward stigmatised sections of society. As a substitute, the duties have been moral in nature, utilized to everybody no matter background, and virtually all the time have been group dealing with or designed to evoke an inner want to help the group or nation. Lastly, it turns into clear that the deployment of rights and duties was genuinely perceived as a method or medium to reaching a extra dutiful society.
From his theoretical work, Tawney seemingly employed a strict relationship between rights and duties; a proper may solely be accessed with the simultaneous fulfilment of a duties. Nonetheless, when translating this theoretical place into observe, Tawney was not as prescriptive within the correlative set of obligations that he instructed residents have been required to fulfill. As a substitute, residents could be given the discretion and scope to find out how they undertook societal obligations. In different phrases, they’d fulfil what they believed their duties to be. That is most evident within the schooling coverage Tawney crafted for the Unbiased Labour Get together in 1924. In sum, schooling entitlements have been to be accessible for all kids, lead to residents who may improve society’s capability to unravel issues and, importantly, permit that youngster to hold out their societal duties later in life.
Furthermore, main figures within the early Labour Get together additionally supported the concept of strict duties correlating to social entitlements. This was most evident when campaigning for the “proper to work” from 1907. MacDonald instructed the proposals for financial entitlements or placement in a public work scheme couldn’t be given as a “mere palliative or as charity”—as this might merely perpetuate the evil of unemployment. As a substitute, those that acquired such entitlements had an obligation to undertake academic coaching in order that “surplus labour at one level of the market could also be educated to be efficient elsewhere”. This, he claimed, would lead to a “new type of social organisation”, labour energy being higher organised for society, and ensured that “everybody who provides service to society shall obtain from Society an ample measure of alternatives to dwell and luxuriate in dwelling”.
Conclusion
This legal-historical submit has tried to stipulate a principle of rights that may align with a Blue Labour constitutionalism. It has performed this by recounting the moral socialist and communitarian custom of rights and duties, as superior by main figures within the early Labour Get together. Hopefully, this shall be of use to Blue Labour because it seems to develop its theoretical method to the British structure and rights into extra sensible coverage proposals.
Dr Sanjit Nagi, SOAS.
I want to prolong gratitude to UKCLA editors, Professor Se-shauna Wheatle and Dr. Paul Scott, for his or her extraordinarily useful suggestions on earlier drafts. Any errors on this submit are my very own.
Steered quotation: S. Nagi, ‘A Blue Labour Constitutionalism: Rights and Duties’, U.Okay. Const. L. Weblog (seventeenth April 2025) (out there at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))
