The third phase of ‘social’ liberalism is associated in Britain with
the political careers, speeches and writings of Lloyd George, John
Maynard Keynes and Lord Beveridge. Lloyd George, as Chancellor
of the Exchequer in the pre-First World War liberal government can
be seen as the practical inaugurator of social liberalism with his
introduction of both old age pensions and death duties – that is both
state welfare schemes and progressive taxation. Beveridge in his
Second World War coalition government White Paper put forward a
blueprint for the modern welfare state in which state-organised
‘insurance’ schemes and taxation would protect all citizens from the
Five Giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.
Keynes as an economist and administrator successfully argued the
need for government intervention to ensure the efficient working of
a capitalist economy. In the United States, the inter-war Roosevelt
New Deal administration rather pragmatically adopted a similar
interventionist approach to the economy and welfare which has
influenced the liberal left ever since. Continental European liberal
and radical parties have not all adopted this third phase of liberalism.
Indeed left-wing Christian democrat movements like the former
French MRP (Mouvement Republicain Populaire) may be seen as in
some respects having much more in common with the British Liberal
Democrats than their nominal allies in the Liberal International.Conservatism
It can be argued that conservatism is more of an attitude than a
doctrine. In every society many, often a majority, have been happy
to conserve the existing values and institutions of that society.
Naturally the more prosperous and successful members of any given
society are more likely to identify with its core values and institutions
than less poor and successful citizens. Conservatives in a military
dictatorship in the South are likely to be committed to radically
different institutions and values from those in democratic industrial
Britain or the United States.
Some components of a basic conservative attitude might, however,
be suggested. A pessimism about human nature is often to be
discerned (see previous chapter) with an associated stress on the need
for domestic ‘law and order’ measures and strong armed forces to
repel international threats. The need to support existing spiritual as92 IDEOLOGIES