Manchester - A Tale of Two Systems.
Summary: The two ideologically opposed political systems that have dominated the last 150 years of world history were formulated at the same time, in the same city – Manchester, by two ideologically opposed men - Karl Marx and Richard Cobden.
Politically, many people think of Manchester, our region’s major city (sorry, Liverpool) as a hotbed of socialism. At the last General Election, the entirety of Greater Manchester returned Labour MPs, many constituencies have always been Labour held. The city has a ‘Museum of Socialism’, it is home to Co-operative Society, The Guardian, and now the BBC. Its main Football Team plays in red. It’s also where Friedrich Engels lived and met with Karl Marx – in Chetham’s Library in the City Centre.
Friedrich Engels wrote his book ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ based on his experiences in Manchester in 1845. The Industrial Revolution sparked into life in England some 30 years before the rest of the world caught on, and hence the transformative effect on cities like Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham – and on their populations – flocking in from the countryside to work in the factories was still a great social experiment.
In these new, industrial cities with their densely populated slums, lack of sanitation, clean air or fresh water, death rates amongst workers from diseases like smallpox, measles and whooping cough were four times higher than in the countryside, and the quality of life and diet much worse.
Engels and Marx met regularly in Manchester to discuss this deprivation and how it could be solved, resulting in their follow-up to Engels’ book – ‘The Communist Manifesto’ in 1848 and its central tenets of State Control and the worker’s ownership of the means of production. The publication of this book led to the explosion of Bolshevism in Russia and its satellites, the formation of the Soviet Union and eventually the the drudgery and oppression of Communism and deaths of tens of millions of people..
But few people know about the huge – and possibly greater contribution - to Right Wing* politics and Small State, Free Trade Liberalism, made in this great northern city.
At about the same time that Engels and Marx were squirreled away in the city’s coffee houses, writing their miserable book, Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was hard at work running his Manufacturing Company. He also witnessed at first hand the deprivation and poor living conditions of the working people in the city, and wished to put an end to it. But unlike Marx and Engels, Cobden considered the cause of this impoverishment before trying to establish a solution. The cause he identified was – ‘The Corn Laws’.
At the time, most MPs were rich landowners, who in order to be able to charge a high price for the crops from their own farms, passed laws that imposed hefty tariffs on the abundant, less expensive crops imported from overseas. This protectionism led to an effective monopoly, high prices, frequent shortages, and an unhealthy and malnourished workforce. Richard Cobden understood that scrapping the Corn Laws would achieve four morally desirable aims:
In his own words:
Guarantee prosperity of manufacturer by affording him outlets.
Cheapen the price of food and increase employment and prosperity.
Make English agriculture more efficient (productive).
Introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of peace.
In 1838 he founded the Anti-Corn Law League and began campaigning for their repeal. During his campaign, he was elected as Member of Parliament for Stockport in 1841. Undeterred by fierce opposition from the landowners in the House of Commons, he began his campaign in Parliament for the Corn Laws to be scrapped. In 1846, he got his way - on the 16th of May, by pulling together a coalition of 1/3 on third of the Conservatives, and two thirds of the Whig party thus creating a majority of 98 votes, splitting the Conservatives and bringing down the government in the process.
Without the Corn Laws, the price of food dropped, and competition increased, thus improving standards. Working families could instantly afford to improve their living conditions, their diet and health, and even education for their children. This better educated, and more skilled workforce created more wealth, greater consumer spending, innovation, and productivity, thus driving the explosion in Industrial Capitalism that made the United Kingdom a World Power.
Cobden did not to stand in the subsequent General Election, instead taking a ‘year out’ to accept invitations from Europe and America to speak about his struggles and spread word of the benefits of Free Trade. Now a globally renowned statesman, Richard Cobden returned to Politics in 1847, representing the West Riding of Yorkshire. During these tumultuous times in America, and in the Ottoman, Russian and British Empires, much of Cobden’s energy was spent campaigning for peace, often against the grain of the general mood in Parliament and in the Country. Had Cobden been as influential in the sphere of Foreign Affairs as he had been in that of Economics, many of the fractious relations between states and cultures which blighted the 20th Century may have been avoided.
Cobden built on his achievements to bring about the world’s first Free Trade deal - the ‘Cobden-Chevalier Treaty’, between the United Kingdom and France, in the face of fierce opposition in both countries. Having been in a near constant state of war for the previous 500 years, there was great mistrust and animosity between the two countries. However, certain in the knowledge that Free Trade would bring about an new era of cooperation, peace and prosperity, Cobden persevered and the treaty - the first of its kind - was duly signed in 1860. France and the United Kingdom have been close allies ever since.
Cobden died in 1865, but his great legacy to the world - of international cooperation, peace and prosperity through Free Trade lives on to this day. It is no co-incidence that conflicts between countries with healthy ‘Cobdenite’ trading relationships are rare. Together with his forbear Adam Smith, Richard Cobden helped shape the modern global economic system of Free Markets, International Trade and Floating Exchange Rates, that help to increase peace and co-operation and spread wealth to developing countries in Africa and Asia and the former Soviet Block.
But it is the Industrial City in North-West England where Cobden worked and formulated his ideas that lends its name to the school of Economic Theory he established - Manchester Liberalism; The ‘Manchester School also promoted pacifism, anti-slavery, freedom of the press and separation of church and state, peace, non-intervention and retrenchment.
It is also worth noting that it is precisely the principles of Manchester Liberalism that underpin UKIP Economic, European and Foreign policy.
"Peace will come to earth when the people have more to do with each other and governments less."
"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is – in extending our commercial relations – to have with them as little political connection as possible."
- Richard Cobden.
Epilogue
Further proof that Manchester Liberalism is the route to a more peaceful and prosperous society is evident in those places where such theories have been rejected, namely the European Union. In its adoption of protectionist schemes such as the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU forces consumers to pay prices around 17%** higher for food than in countries where no such protectionism occurs due to reduction in efficiency, productivity and competition. By placing quotas on farms, instead of allowing the Free Hand of the Markets to determine production levels and prices, the EU undermines markets in developing countries through ‘dumping’ of excessive produce, keeping them in penury and reliant on an ever increasing foreign aid budget.
The Single European Currency has lumbered countries in Southern Europe with ruinous and unserviceable debts, whilst Germany has a massive trade surplus, unfairly aided by the devalued Euro - at the expense of neighbours like UK who have accumulated massive trade deficits. The aggressive Mercantilism displayed by major EU members is a persistent cause of tension with international partners.
Interfering Industrial Policies lumbering private industry with ever more red tape, regulation and social responsibility stymies economic growth and increases costs to the consumer. Conversely, by allowing corporations to dictate policy, through opaque lobbying groups and committees, and deals like TTIP, the EU has further short circuited the democratic process, and diminished the power of the electorate and abdicated the accountability of politicians.
The adoption of a ‘Foreign Service’ with an expansionist agenda - into the Ukraine and now into Turkey - (thus giving the block a porous border with war and terrorism-riven Syria) has sewn the seeds of unrest and repeated the folly of the Crimean War (against which Richard Cobden was a great campaigner) thus guaranteeing decades of future poverty and conflict.
In summary, the European Union, in almost every policy area is fundamentally at odds with the Cobdenite principles that have served we in the UK and our natural Global Partners well in the past. Quite simply, the United Kingdom does not belong in this club.
Notes:
* By Right Wing Politics, I mean low tax, individual liberty, choice, competition, a small, non-interfering state, Free Enterprise, and Neo Liberal, Free Trade Economics, not the ‘Right Wing Politics’ portrayed by the Left Wing Media – in perhaps their greatest deceit - as Fascism, Hitler and White Supremacy. Indeed, if we scratch the surface, Hitler and his Nazis – the National Socialist Worker’s Party –, with their state control, nationalisation, disregard for individual freedoms and red flag was overtly LEFT WING.
** http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/abolish-the-cap-let-food-prices-tumble
