MONICA  QUIRICO

La crisi del liberalismo britannico (1930-1950)

N. 201

Summary — In the thirties and forties, English liberalism was forced to take account of a number of phenomena of international scope (the impact of the two world wars, the great depression, the advent of totalitarianism) which cast doubt on its fundamental tenets. To these factors were added the serious difficulties in which the Liberal party found itself. The breadth of support for a greater degree of public intervention in the economy was growing. The challenges to the liberal paradigm came not only from its traditional opponents (the collectivists, whose position was strengthened by the attraction of the Soviet experiment), but also from two prominent liberal intellectuals who argued for a radical revision of competitive capitalism: Keynes and Beveridge. Their teaching was to be accepted by the post-war Labour Government, whose most central policies — the nationalization of the most essential productive sectors and the construction of the Welfare State — were not widely opposed (the critical voices of philosophers like Hayek, Popper, Michael Oakeshott and Michael Polanyi, who rejected all forms of planning, were those of a small minority). The internal repercussions of the Korean war (the priority given to rearmament at the cost of the health system, a central column of the Welfare State) were to lead to the Labour party's defeat in the General Election of 1951.