Liberalism is not socialism

Laurie Penny asks “Why do liberals hate Margaret Thatcher?” The simple answer is, of course, that they don’t. Some might like her, some might love her, some might despise her. They aren’t the homogenous bunch implied by Penny’s question. But acknowledging that would undermine Penny’s hyperbole, which in turn would destroy her whole writing style.

But what is startling about Penny’s question is the implication that she is liberal. Anyone who has ever read pretty much any of her work will know that she is a socialist through and through. And even if you think socialism is the best thing in the world ever (and it very clearly isn’t, but that's for another day) you should still be aware that socialism is not liberalism – and the two are often in conflict.

Of course, you could argue that Penny is liberal in the sense that she is towards the liberal side of the liberal/authoritarian spectrum. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work either. Socialism requires an authoritarian side to it in order to function (redistribution, for example, clearly requires coercion in practice). Furthermore, Penny’s awful whining about spending cuts shows that she is a statist through and through; she can't cope with the reduction in the size, scope and influence of the state.

I want to be clear here – I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with a socialist like Penny expressing their opinions. Indeed, she is paid by a largely socialist magazine to write socialist articles. But the word liberal has been much maligned, and it doesn’t need to be further maligned through misuse by socialist types such as Laurie Penny.

Ultimately, her question should have read "why do socialists hate Margaret Thatcher?" Then again, I don't suppose that said question would have had the same capacity to bring about paragraph after paragraph of bile against "Thatcher as an icon". It is pretty obvious why socialists would hate Thatcher, as she did a lot to break down the (failing) consensus politics that had so dominated in this country since the war...