A Politics of Flourishing

When I look back on the pantheon of centre-right politics – Burke and Jefferson, Churchill and Menzies, Thatcher and Reagan – I can’t help but wonder, what happened? We constantly hark back to these leaders, repackaging their credos into PR-workshopped slogans, but it seems like the magic is gone. I think these great leaders had something we now lack: they had a vision of human flourishing on which they could build a coherent and compelling policy platform. Not a utopian masterplan, but a clear idea of what individual and collective flourishing looks like, and how government should create the conditions that enable it.

Today, the focus group is in the ascendant: policy is reduced to cynical calculations of votes gained in target demographics. The result is an incoherent patchwork of thought-bubbles and pork barrelling designed to create as many ‘winners’ as possible but with no overarching vision. We dress this up with the language of Menzies - throwbacks to ‘aspiration’ and a ‘fair go’ - and wonder why people aren’t buying it.

Labor aren’t any better – their own membership are dismayed by the lack of ambition and courage on display from a leader who mistakes posturing for leadership. Both sides have abandoned visionary leadership, and both have seen a revolving door of prime ministers.

We Liberals are rightly proud of our values, but I think we have focussed too heavily on abstract ideals like “small government” and “individual enterprise”, rather than creating a compelling picture of the kind of society we want to build. At times, we have become so focussed on the means that we have lost sight of the ends, and the means have become an end in themselves. For example, we talk endlessly about government debt and balanced budgets, but we don’t talk nearly enough about the prosperous future we want to create for the next generation, and how that future is seriously threatened by growing debt and a shrinking workforce to service it.

A politics grounded in human flourishing is not new. Aristotle’s central concept of eudaimonia - which he considered the ultimate end of both life and politics – can be translated as “human flourishing”.

Some argue, in the tradition of Hayek and Mill, that government should have no role to play in deciding what is the good life, or what a flourishing society looks like. I am sympathetic to this view, but there is an important distinction to be made. The goal of government should not be to impose its version of the good life, but rather to foster the conditions in which people can flourish.

Blind faith in the power of the free-market to do this is misguided. There are many cases where the sum of short-term, self-interested choices produce collective harms or long-term consequences that nobody would freely choose. Immigration, property development and the environment are all areas where short term gains often come at considerable long-term cost.

Freedom (including from government interference) is clearly an important ingredient in flourishing, but it’s not the only one. We are kidding ourselves if we think modern government can be conducted free of any judgement on what constitutes human flourishing. Every decision - on tax, education, industrial relations, immigration - carries with it an implicit notion of a flourishing society and how it ought to be achieved. I am merely arguing that we take that implicit notion and turn it into an explicit and compelling narrative.

The power of this approach is that it draws together disparate policy areas to serve a unified and coherent goal.

For example, take this guiding principle: “A flourishing society is one in which most people enjoy the dignity of meaningful work”. Education, immigration, industry policy, industrial relations, monetary policy and welfare all become coherent when aligned with this principle.

This post is the first in a series which will break down what I think are the essential conditions of flourishing, and how we might craft a coherent set of policies to achieve them.

Some of these aspirations include:

A society where people enjoy the dignity of meaningful work

A community that is cohesive, welcoming and safe

A society that is continuously improved through hard work and entrepreneurship

A society where all people, especially the elderly and disabled live with dignity

A society where the vulnerable are protected

A society which preserves and improves conditions for future generations

A society with a strong and vibrant civic life

A society which celebrates truth, beauty and justice

As well as some that I have already written about:

A society where raising a family is feasible

A society which protects the innocence and joy of childhood

A society where everyone has the opportunity to obtain secure housing and put down roots

These are some ideas, but not meant to be an exhaustive list.

Rather than churning out yet another patchwork policy platform designed to win over swing voters, we should step back and ask ourselves: what kind of society do we want to build? If we can come up with a compelling answer for that, we can inspire a new generation of Liberal voters to believe in our vision for Australia.