Speech by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha,
President, Liberal Party of Sri Lanka,
Vice President Of Liberal International
February 3rd 2001

I am delighted to be here at the 1st National Convention of the Liberal Party of Bangladesh. As you may know, until your party was established, the Sri Lankan Liberal Party was the only Liberal Party in South Asia. However, in the last few years we have seen, in addition to your party, the emergence of a Liberal Group in Pakistan, and also an organization in India, the Association of Youth for a Better India, that advocates specific liberal policies.

But we are all relatively new. So why is it that Liberalism did not have an established position in our countries in the first fifty years after the colonial period? It was after all the dominant political philosophy at the time when the British ruled us and helped to develop the political practices and institutions that we still to a great extent follow.

The answer I think is connected with the theme of your Conference, which I was happy to note is 'Liberalism for Human Development'. That seemed unthinkable to our leading politicians way back in the 1940s, for the simple reason that, at the time the British agreed to independence, the dominant political ideology in Britain was socialism. And, just as socialism advocates monopolies in other areas, it also claims a monopoly of progressive political ideas. The myth spread in all our countries that, for human development, socialism was the only way.

And unfortunately, with the collapse of the Liberal Party in Britain between the two world wars, the only opposition to the claims of the socialists came from the Conservative Party. But the Conservative Party did not for a very long time have any clear ideology, indeed its leaders fought shy of claiming any theoretical basis except that of pragmatism. It is only in the last quarter of a century, with the advent of Margaret Thatcher, that conservatives assert an ideological base, which in a sense goes contrary to one of the features that had dominated the British Conservative Party previously. In getting rid of many of the old guard, Mrs. Thatcher made it clear that the landed aristocracy with its occasionally benign paternalism had had its day. Her priority was the business sector, and she seemed to suggest that in promoting its interests she could not stop to worry about the interests of other members of society.

Now I am probably being unfair to Mrs. Thatcher, who perhaps genuinely believed that, if business prospered, the whole country would prosper. But that was not the impression she created, and in many respects the effect she had was to reduce the share of the worse off members of society. Yet we have to grant that she certainly had an impact, an impact that has been felt in our part of the world as well, an impact that has led to the death of socialism as we knew it from the fifties through to the eighties. Her famous slogan, 'Labour isn't working', summed up the effect of socialism, or rather statism: it left the economy stagnant, with no growth, and as a result no development. And unfortunately, in such a context, it was the worse off members of society who suffered most.
 
So what we had then were two competing world views, neither of which saw human development as a fundamental issue. The socialist view saw what might loosely be termed social justice as its priority, through redistribution. Of course this was meant to improve the lot of the worse off, but it did this at very basic levels, with no commitment to raising standards as a whole. Even more dangerously, it acted on the basis of statism, which took away initiative not only from individuals, but even from much of the state machinery. What I might call this lowest common denominator approach to life led rapidly to stagnation, the stagnation from which our economies in South Asia suffered for so long.

The opposite conservative view was that growth was the priority, and this was to be achieved through the private sector. Such an approach did not of course go down well in the early days of democracy in our region, which is why almost all our elected politicians until the eighties claimed to be socialists. Capitalism seemed then to be the prerogative of dictatorships, the military regimes that you and Pakistan have had, and the authoritarian dispensation of J R Jayewardene in Sri Lanka. But capitalism in an authoritarian society is inevitably crony capitalism, without any of the other freedoms necessary to make economic freedom beneficial to society at large.

For such regimes of course, benefits to society in general were not considered important. But even for more accountable conservative regimes, social benefits are not a priority. Their view seems to be that, if there is economic growth, i.e. if the size of the cake increases, then everybody will be better off inasmuch as the size of their own share increases. What they ignore is that, in this process, the worse off can actually regress, and rarely have the opportunities to take advantage of increasing economic activity.

And that is where Liberalism fits in, as the medium between these two viewpoints. Liberalism recognizes that socialism is stultifying, precisely because it restrains and restricts individuals from fulfilling their potential. The private sector must be the principle agent of activity, in almost all spheres we would suggest, and variety and choice must be encouraged. But to say that and stop is to ignore the fact that many, particularly in societies such as ours, do not have the ability to choose or the means to act.

So Liberalism recognizes too an active role for the state, in ensuring that the worse off are protected, and their opportunities are enhanced. To cite the great 20th century Liberal thinker John Rawls, Liberals believe in the maxi-min principle, namely the idea that it is the responsibility of the state to maximize the benefits of social activity to the minor members of society. The state should ensure that, as the cake gets larger, the share of those who had the smallest slices earlier are enlarged.

How should it do this? Not by nationalization and redistribution, which as we have seen means that the cake remains the same size or gets smaller, so everyone is worse off. Rather, it should be by measures that allow human beings to act freely, ie measures that develop their capabilities. Hence the Liberal commitment to education and health, as to which our countries are still relatively backward; hence the commitment to infrastructural development, with emphasis on those areas where otherwise people are deprived of communication, transport and utilities; hence the encouragement of investment policies that target opportunities where they are most needed.

Of course all these measures to encourage human development should go hand in hand with safeguards for human freedom. Hence the need of open information policies that ensure debate and discussion; hence the need for transparency and accountability in government, and indeed for all public bodies, to ensure that what belongs to the people is open for their inspection; hence the principle of subsidiarity, to make levels of government applicable only to sectors that can monitor them closely.

The Liberal view in short is that politics is about people. It is not about abstractions such as equality or growth, it is about enabling people to fulfill their own individual potential. For that reason, when we talk about human development, it is the Liberal philosophy that should attract us.

For fifty years this region has progressed far too slowly, or indeed not at all perhaps, if we compare it with say the countries of South East Asia, which were far behind us when we got our independence. There is little doubt that this has much to do with the statism we went through for much of this period. But the experience of the business oriented military regimes we have had - and the crony capitalism the Philippines and Indonesia too suffered from for so long - reminds us that private sector friendly policies by themselves are not enough. What is necessary is recognition of the role the private sector plays in development, together with government policies and management systems designed to ensure that the worst off in society, people and regions, develop.

This I believe is the reason liberal parties have begun to develop in the region, this is the reason other parties have begun to proclaim explicitly liberal policies. We must encourage these developments in other parties and work together with proponents of liberalism within them. But we should also remember that many of the parties they belong to still cling to concepts that can work against the liberal ideal, and in particular the concept that governments - or, rather, their leaders - are the source of all wisdom. Liberalism however believes in freedom as an absolute, freedom to be limited only by the freedom of others. For this reason we must continue to enunciate programmes based on our principles, because without those principles development is based on whims and fancies and can suddenly cease to be a priority.
 
With liberal principles human development - human freedom and the opportunity to exercise it -- can develop apace. Let me reiterate then how pleased I am to be here at this Congress, where you will be discussing so appropriate a theme. I trust then that our programme will help to develop ideas which are much needed in this region, where so far human development has lagged far behind our human potential.

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha
President
Liberal Party of Sri Lanka