Gad Horowitz ‘Conservatism,Liberalism and Socialism in Canada:An interpretation. What is his argument in 2 or 3 sentences . WHY does he make this argument/explanation/ interpretation. Why is it import
Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation Author(s): G. Horowitz Source: The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d’Economique et de Science politique , May, 1966 , Vol. 32, No. 2 (May, 1966), pp. 143-171 Published by: Canadian Economics Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/139794 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Canadian Economics Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d’Economique et de Science politique This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms CONSERVATISM, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM IN CANADA: AN INTERPRETATION G. HOROWITZ McGill University 1 / Introduction: the Hartzian approach In the United States, organized socialism is dead; in Canada socialism, though far from national power, is a signfficant political force. Why this striking difference in the fortunes of socialism in two very shnilar societies? Any attempt to account for the difference must be grounded in a general comparative study of the English-Canadian and American societies. It will be shown that the relative strength of socialism in Canada is related to the relative strength of toryism, and to the different position and character of liberalism in the two countries. In North America, Canada is unique. Yet there is a tendency in Canadian historical and political studies to explain Canadian phenomena not by con- trasting them with American phenomena but by identifying them as variations on a basic North American theme. I grant that Canada and the United States are similar, and that the similarities should be pointed out. But the pan-North American approach, since it searches out and concentrates on similarities, cannot help us to understand Canadian uniqueness. When this approach is applied to the study of English-Canadian socialism, it discovers, first, that like the American variety it is weak, and second, that it is weak for much the same reasons. These discoveries perhaps explain why Canadian socialism is weak in comparison to European socialism; they do not explain why Canadian socialism is so much stronger than American socialism. The explanatory technique used in this study is that developed by Louis Hartz in The Liberal Tradition in America’ and The Founding of New Societies.2 It is applied to Canada in a mildly pan-North American way by Kenneth McRae in “The Structure of Canadian History,” a contribution to the latter book. The Hartzian approach is to study the new societies founded by Europeans (the United States, English Canada, French Canada, Latin America, Dutch South Africa, Australiayf D V I U D J P H Q W V W K U R Z Q R I I I U R P ( X U R S H 7 K H N H W o the understanding of ideological development in a new society is its “point of departure” from Europe: the ideologies borne by the founders of the new society are not representative of the historic ideological spectrum of the mother country. The settlers represent only a fragment of that spectrum. The complete ideological spectrum ranges-in chronological order, and from right to left-from feudal or tory through liberal whig to liberal democrat to 1New York: Harcourt, Brace (Toronto: Longmansyf K H U H D I W H U F L W H G D V / L E H U D l Tradition. 2New York: Harcourt, Brace and World (Toronto: Longmansyf f; hereafter cited as New Societies. XXXII, no. 2, May/mai, 1966 This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 144 G. HOROWITZ socialist. French Canada and Latin America are “feudal fragments.” They were founded by bearers of the feudal or tory values of the organic, corporate, hierarchical community; their point of departure from Europe is before the liberal revolution. The United States, English Canada, and Dutch South Africa are “bourgeois fragments,” founded by bearers of liberal individualism who have left the tory end of the spectrum behind them. Australia is the one “radical fragment,” founded by bearers of the working class ideologies of mid-nineteenth-century Britain. The significance of the fragmentation process is that the new society, having been thrown off from Europe, “loses the stimulus to change that the whole provides.”3 The full ideological spectrum of Europe develops only out of the continued confrontation and interaction of its four elements; they are related to one another, not only as enemies, but as parents and children. A new society which leaves part of t-he past behind it cannot develop the future ideologies which need the continued presence of the past in order to come into being. In escaping the past, the fragment escapes the future, for “the very seeds of the later ideas are contained in the parts of the old world that have been left behind.”4 The ideology of the founders is thus frozen, congealed at the point of origin. Socialism is an ideology which combines the corporate-organic-collectivist ideas of toryism with the rationalist-egalitarian ideas of liberalism. Both the feudal and the bourgeois fragments escape socialism, but in different ways. A feudal fragment such as French Canada develops no whig (undemocraticyf liberalism; therefore it does not develop the democratic liberalism which arises out of and as a reaction against whiggery; therefore it does not develop the socialism which arises out of and as a reaction against liberal democracy. The corporate-organic-collectivist component of socialism is present in the feudal fragment-it is part of the feudal ethos-but the radical rationalist- egalitarian component of socialism is missing. It can be provided only by whiggery and liberal democracy, and these have not come into being. In the bourgeois fragment, the situation is the reverse: the radical rationalist- egalitarian component of socialism is present, but the corporate-organic- collectivist component is missing, because toryism has been left behind. In the bourgeois fragments “Marx dies because there is no sense of class, no yearning for the corporate past.”5 The absence of socialism is related to the absence of toryism. It is because socialists have a conception of society as more than an agglomeration of competing individuals-a conception close to the tory view of society as an organic community-that they find the liberal idea of equality (equality of opportunityyf L Q D G H T X D W H 6 R F L D O L V W V G L V D J U H H Z L W K O L E H U D O V D E R X t the essential meaning of equality because sorcialists have a tory conception of society. In a liberal bourgeois society which has never known toryism the demand for equality will express itself as left-wing or democratic liberalism as opposed to whiggery. The left will point out that all are not equal in the competitive pursuit of individual happiness. The government will be required to assure 3Martz, New Societies, 3. 4Ibid., 25. 51bid., 7. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 145 LE CONSERVATISME, LE LIBERALISME ET LE SOCIALISME AU CANADA: UNE INTERPRETATION C. HOROWITz Les socialismes americain et canadien-anglais ont ceci de commun qu’ils sont faibles par comparaison avec le socialisme europe’en. Mais le socialisme est beaucoup plus vigoureux au Canada anglais qu’aux Etats-Unis. Pour rendre compte de cette vitalite’ relative du socialisme au Canada anglais, nous utilisons dans cet article la the’orie que Louis Hartz a expose’e a lreffet que les nouvelles societe’s fonde6es par des Europe’ens sont des fragments de societe’s detache’s de lEurope. L’argument essentiel est que la culture c frag- mentaire > ne comprend qu’une partie de l’6ventail id6ologique de la m&re patrie. Les Etats-Unis, par exemple, constituent un fragment bourgeois e’tabli par des disciples du libe’ralisme ou de rindividualisme qui ont abandonne’ l’apport tory > de l’eventail ide’ologique. Le socialisme nait seulement de la confrontation entre le liberalisme et les valeurs < tory v. C'est une synthese des e'le'ments rationalistes et 6galitaires du libe'ralisme dune part et de l'e'le- ment collectiviste du systame x tory yf f d'autre part. Quand l'un ou l'autre de ces 1e'ments fait d6faut, le socialisme napparatt pas. Le socialisme n'apparait pas aux Etats-Unis parce que l'element c tory >n ‘existe pas. On peut concevoir le Canada anglais comme un fragment bourgeois analogue L celui des Etats- Unis: pas d’he’ritage fe’odal dans le systeme des valeurs, par consequent pas de socialisme. C’est l’opinion de Kenneth McRae dans son etude publie’e dans The Founding of New Societies de Hartz. McRae reconnait que l’e’le’ment tory ? existe chez les Loyalistes qui ont fonde’ le Canada anglais et qu’il explique le de’veloppement ulte’rieur de caracteristiques non-americaines et non-libe’rales. La presence de cet e’le’ment a tory yf ! H [ S O L T X H U D L W H J D O H P H Q W X Q e insistance moins marquee au de’but sur l’egalitarisme et moins marque’e subse’quemment sur le progras du mouvement socialiste. Mais McRae ne mentionne ces caracteristiques que pour les ecarter. Selon lui, les fondements du Canada anglais sont le liberalisme americain. Il existe bien des tendances yb W R U ” H W V R F L D O L V W H V P D L V F H O O H V F L V R Q W V D Q V L P S R U W D Q F H 1 R X V S U H W H Q G R Q V T X e les e’le’ments non-libe’raux d’origine britannique sont partie inte’grante des fondements de la societe canadienne anglaise tout autant que les 61ements liberaux d’origine americaine. Nous ne nions pas que l’element liberal pre- domine, mais il est important de souligner que ce neest pas le seul 1e’ment, qu’il est associe’ ci des tendances vitales et ldgitimes de valeurs x tory ?> et socialistes qui sont liees d’aussi pres que le liberalisme a 1’essence ou au fondement du Canada anglais. Les caracteristiques non-am&ricaines ne parais- sent ne”gligeables que si le Canada anglais est compare & l’Europe. Mais quand le Canada anglais est compare’ aux Etats-Unis, les differences sont tres significatives au contraire. Le parti conservateur canadien est, dans une grande mesure, un parti de libe’ralisme d’affaires comme le parti republicain. Mais il n’y a pas que cela This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 146 G. HOROWITZ dans l’histoire, car contrairement au parti republicain et suivant en cela le parti conservateur britannique, le parti conservateur canadien ne constitue pas un bloc libe’ral monolithique. Les vieilles tendances pre’liberales ont laisse des traces bien marque’es dans le parti conservateur britannique et des traces mois precises mais encore importantes dans le parti canadien. Bennett, Meighen et Drew ne sont pas seulemient des repliques canadiennes de McKinley, Hoover et Taft. Dans le conservatisme canadien, on trouve un e’le’ment du systeme typiquement re’actionnaire des valeurs britanniques (< tory >> (<< tory >> collectiviste plutot qu’individualiste et libe’ralyf H W D X V V L X n e’le’ment de la de’mocratie ( tory >> 2 la Disraeli, i.e., en somme, un souci de caractere paternaliste pour le bien du peuple et la mise en e’vidence du parti (( tory >> pour la defense de cette cause. Ce courant de conservatisme est mani- feste dans le (< new deal >> de R. B. Bennett. Le conservatisme de Diefenbaker est un curieux amalgame d’ide’es populistes de l’Ouest et des idees tradition- nelles de la de’mocratie ( tory >> . La pense’e de George Grant pre’sente une certaine affinite entre le conservatisme et le socialisme qu’il est impossible de de’celer aux Etats-Unis. Au Canada anglais, le socialisme est du type britannique et non-marxiste. De son cdte, le socialisme ame’ricain a ete’ le fait d’etrangers qui se sont de’pouilles de leur socialisme, comme de plusieurs autres caracteres europeens, au cours de leur ame’ricanisation. Le fait que le marxisme a ete’ la seule variete’ de socialisme qui a gagne’ des adeptes aux Etats- Unis confirme l’opinion de Hartz d l’effet que le caractere exclusivement libe’ral du fragment ame’ricain de socie’te condamne tous les socialismes a dispara’tre sauf ceux qui ont l’appui d’immigrants non encore ame’ricanise’s. Au Canada anglais, les socialistes ne sont pas des etrangers, mais des immigrants britanniques. Ils pouvaient conserver leur socialisme, non seulement parce que celui-ci convenait a un systeme politique de valeurs comprenant des ele’ments non-libe’raux, mais aussi parce qu’ils n’avaient rien 2 subir qui ressembldt au processus d’ame’ri- canisation. Leur socialisme e’tait ttn aspect de leur caractere de britanniques plut6t qu’un trait e’tranger qui devait disparaitre au cours d’une assimilation culturelle. Aux Etats-Unis, le socialisme a toujours e’te’ d’un autre monde et sectaire; au Canada anglais, il a ete, britannique et non-marxiste, un parti politique authentique plut6t qu’une secte religieuse. Les trois composantes du syste’me des valeurs politiques canadiennes anglaises se sont de’veloppe’es en interaction les unes les autres. Les valeurs , tory > et le socialisme ont perdu de lear purete’ au contact du libe’ralisme; le libe’ralisme de meme, en comparaison avec la branche americaine, au contact du socialisme et des valeurs (< tory >> . Pour comprendre le parti libe’ral, il faut donc le considerer comme un parti du centre avec des adversaires puissants a la fois sur sa gauche et sur sa droite. Hartz pretend que le libe’ralisme reformiste americain, en de’pit de rappui qu’il a donne en fait au pouvoir e’tatique dans le Netv Deal, n’a pas renonce a son engagement ide’ologique envers l’individualisme libelral. Comme le liberalisme de Roosevelt n’avait pas d’adversaire socialiste sur sa gauche, il n’a pas subi lrinfluence de ride’ologie socialiste. Du meme coup et de nouveau a cause de l’absence du socialisme, il pouvait se definir 2 gauche sans ambi- This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 147 guite’. Il ne s’est pas donne’ une image ambivalente, 2 la fois conservatrice et radicale comme les liberaux reformistes europe’ens, qui devaient alternative- ment attaquer le status quo puis le defendre contre leurs adversaires socialistes. Il e’tait en mesure d’ignorer meme toute ide’ologie et d’instaurer de profondes reformes sans devoir s’arreter en deqa du socialisme. Le libe’ralisme reformiste canadien, tel que repre’sente’ par Mackenzie King, avait bien, au contraire, un adversaire socialiste sur sa gauche. Il fut par consequent marque’ par l’ideologie socialiste, mais pour re’pliquer aux attaques socialistes, il devait se deplacer vers le centre plutdt que de prendre position & gauche comme Roosevelt. A cause de la presence d’un parti socialiste, King a 6te’ force’ d’adopter le modele lib6ral europe’en de prefe’rence au modele reformiste americain. Le parti libe’ral est encore un parti du centre plut6t qu’une parti de gauche. Contrairement au libe’ralisme re6formiste ame’ricain, il ne s’identifie pas aux couches inferieures de la population en opposition avec les milieux dirigeants des affaires. nl s’identifie plut6t en pratique avec les milieux d’affaires et son ideologie est vraiment centriste ; il fait appel a toutes les classes de la societe plut6t qudaux unes contre les autres. Un parti de gauche, comme les De’mo- crates lib6raux americains, innove en faveur des couches inferieures de la socie’te; un parti du centre, comme les liberaux canadiens, n’est pas un parti innovateur. Un tel parti attend que les innovations, proposees par la gauche, aient gagne’ la faveur generale, et c’est alors qu’il les re’alise, a la maniare de King. Que le parti liberal soit un parti du centre est confirme’ par des etudes de scrutin montrant qu’il a l’appui de toutes les classes egalement (ce qui n’est pas le cas des De’mocrates dont l’appui vient surtout des couches infe- rieures de la populationyf . greater equality of opportunity-in the nineteenth century, by destroying monopolistic privileges; in the twentieth century by providing a welfare “floor” so t-hat no one will fall out of the race for success, and by regulating the economy so that the race can continue without periodic crises. In a society which thinks of itself as a community of classes rather than an aggregation of individuals, the demand for equality will take a socialist form: for equality of condition rather than mere equality of opportunity; for co- operation rather than competition; for a community that does more than provide a context within which individuals can pursue happiness in a purely self-regarding way. At its most “extreme,” socialism is a demand for the abolition of classes so that the good of the community can truly be realized. This is a demand which cannot be made by people who can hardly see class and community: the individual fills their eyes. 2 / The application to Canada It is a simple matter to apply the Hartzian approach to English Canada in a pan-North American way. English Canada can be viewed as a fragment of the American liberal society, lacking a feudal or tory heritage and therefore lacking the socialist ideology which grows out of it. Canadian domestic This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 148 G. HOROWITZ struggles, from this point of view, are a northern version of the American struggle between big-propertied liberals on the right and petit bourgeois and working-class liberals on the left; the struggle goes on within a broad liberal consensus, and the voice of the tory or the socialist is not heard in the land. This pan-North American approach, with important qualifications, is adopted by Hartz and McRae in The Founding of New Societies. English Canada, like the United States, is a bourgeois fragment. No toryism in the past; therefore no socialism in the present. But Hartz notes that the liberal society of English Canada has a “tory touch,” that it is “etched with a tory streak coming out of the American revolution.”6 The general process of bourgeois fragmentation is at work in both English Canada and the United States, but there are differences between the two fragments which Hartz describes as “delicate contrasts,”7 McRae as “subtle” and “minor.”8 Put in the most general way, the difference is that while the United States is the perfect bourgeois fragment, the “archetype” of mono- lithic liberalism unsullied by tory or socialist deviations, English Canada is a bourgeois fragment marred by non-liberal “imperfections”‘-a tory “touch,” and therefore a socialist “touch.” The way Hartz and McRae would put it is that English Canada and the United States are “essentially” alike; differences are to be found but they are not “basic.” Surely, however, whether one describes t-he differences as delicate, subtle, and minor or as basic, significant, and important depends on one’s perspective, on what one is looking for, on what one wishes to stress. Hartz himself points out that “each of the fragment cultures … is ‘unique,’ a special blend of European national tradition, histori- cal timing,”9 and so on. He is “concerned with both general processes and the individuality of the settings in which they evolve.””0 Nevertheless, his main focus is on the uniformities, the parallel lines of development discovered in the comparative study of the United States and English Canada. This follows quite naturally from his world historical perspective, his emphasis on the three-way contrast of feudal, liberal, and radical fragments. From this perspective, the differences between English Canada and the United States are indeed “subtle” and “minor.” But they are not absolutely minor: they are minor only in relation to the much larger differences among feudal, bourgeois, and radical fragments. If one shifts one’s perspective, and considers English Canada from within the world of bourgeois fragments, the differences suddenly expand. If one’s concern is to understand English-Canadian society in its uniqueness, that is, in contrast to American society, the differences become not “delicate” but of absolutely crucial importance. Hartz’s pan-North Americanism is a matter of perspective: he recognizes the un-American characteristics of English Canada, but considers them minor in relation to the much larger differences between bourgeois and other fragments. McRae’s pan-North Americanism, however, is not merely a matter of perspective, for he seems to consider English Canada’s un-American characteristics to be absolutely “minor.” For McRae, they are minor not only K6Ibid., 34. tibid., 71. SKenneth McRae, “The Structure of Canadian History,”.. in ibid., 2,39. 91bid., 72. IOIbid., 34. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 149 from the world perspective, but from the narrower perspective which considers the bourgeois fragments alone. Take as an example the central concern of this study-the differing weights of Canadian and American socialism. From the world perspective, the difference is perhaps “insignificant.” As Hartz says, “there may be a Tory touch in English Canada, but the fragment, despite the C.C.F. of recent times, has not yielded a major socialist movement.””1 From the narrower perspective, however, the presence of a socialist movement in English Canada is remark- able. The danger of a pan-North American approach is that it tends either to ignore the relative strength of Canadian socialism or to dismiss it as a freak. It explains away, rather than explains, the strength of Canadian socialism. This is the approach adopted by McRae. Hartz is content to point out that English Canada does not have a major socialist movement. McRae`s stress on English-Canadian-American similarity is so strong, however, that it is no longer a question of perspective but of error, for he attempts to boil a minor socialist movement away into nothing, and thence to conclude that there is no “basic” difference between the two bourgeois fragments. The first step in his argument is to point out that socialism was “successful’ only among Saskatchewan farmers, that it “failed” in the industrial areas. The CCF was therefore “basically” a movement of agrarian protest similar to American farmers’ protests; its failure in urban Canada is parallel with the failure of socialism as a worldng class movement in the United States.” But words like “success” and “failure” are dangerous because they hide degrees of success and failure. The CCF failed to become a major party in urban Canada, but it succeeded in becoming a significant minor party-a success denied to the American socialists. This is a difference, not a similarity. Furthermore, McRae ignores the fact that in one urban Canadian province-British Columbia-the CCF did succeed in becoming a major party. And he ignores the ties between the Canadian labour movement and the CCF-NDP (surely a phenomenon worthy of explanationyf E L G H Q W L I L Q J W K H & D Q D G L D Q O D E R X r movement “in broad terms” with the American, as one “not significantly attracted to socialism.”‘8 In the second step of the argument, the suecess of tlhe CCF in Saskatchewan is explained away by dismissing Saskatchewan socialism as just another American agrarian protest. This is also an error, because unlike the American movements the Saskatchewan CCF was socialist. Confronting this hard fact, McRae attempts to explain it by noting that the Canadian prairies were “generously sprinkled with British immigrants already familiar with Fabian socialism.”‘ But is it not significant that immigrants who brought socialist ideas to the American liberal society had to abandon them in the process of Americanization, while those who brought these ideas to Canada built a major (provincialyf S D U W Z L W K W K H P ? McRae’s coup de grace to Canadian socialism is the observation that “with the formation of the NDP . . . the last half realized elements of socialism … seem to have been absorbed into the liberal tradition.”‘5 The error here is to ascribe the moderation or liberalization of “doctrinaire” socialism in Canada “lIbid. 12Ibid.31 269-70. 131bid., 269. lld 5bd,23 This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 150 G. HOROWITZ to a special Canadian circumstance-the (overestimatedyf S R Z H U R I O L E H U D O L V P – when it is in fact a part of a general process of liberalization of socialism which is going on in every country of the West. The doctrine of the NDP is no more liberal than that of many other Western socialist parties. The most important un-American characteristics of English Canada, all related to the presence of toryism, are: (ayf W K H S U H V H Q F H R I W R U L G H R O R J L n the founding of English Canada by the Loyalists, and its continuing influence on English-Canadian political culture; (byf W K H S H U V L V W H Q W S R Z H U R I Z K L J J H U y or right-wing liberalism in Canada (the Family Compactsyf D V F R Q W U D V W H G Z L W h the rapid and easy victory of liberal democracy (Jefferson, Jacksonyf L Q W K e United States; (cyf W K H D P E L Y D O H Q W F H Q W U L V W F K D U D F W H U R I O H I W Z L Q J O L E H U D O L V P L n Canada as contrasted with the unambiguously leftist position of left-wing liberalism in the United States; (dyf W K H S U H V H Q F H R I D Q L Q I O X H Q W L D O D Q G O H J L W L – mate socialist movement in English Canada as contrasted with the illegitimacy and early death of American socialism; (eyf W K H I D L O X U H R I ( Q J O L V K & D Q D G L D n liberalism to develop into the one true myth, the nationalist cult, and the parallel failure to exclude toryism and socialism as “un-Canadian”; in other words, the legitimacy of ideological diversity in English Canada. From a world perspective, these imperfections in English Canada’s bourgeois character may appear insignificant. From the point of view of one who is interested in understanding English Canada nolt merely as a bourgeois frag- ment, but as a unique bourgeois fragment, the imperfections are significant. 3 / The presence of toryism and its consequences Many students have noted that English-Canadian society has been powerfully shaped by tory values that are “alien” to the American mind. The latest of these is Seymour Martin Lipset, who stresses the relative strength in Canada of the tory values of “ascription” and “elitism” (the tendency to defer to authorityyf D Q G W K H U H O D W L Y H Z H D N Q H V V R I W K H O L E H U D O Y D O X H V R I D F K L H Y H P H Q W ” and “egalitarianism.”‘6 He points to such well-known features of Canadian history as the absence of a lawless, individualistic-egalitarian American frontier, the preference for Britain rather than the United States as a social model, and generally, the weaker emphasis on social equality, the greater acceptance by individuals of t-he facts of economic inequality, social stratifica- tion, and hierarchy. One tory touch in English Canada which is not noted by Lipset, but has been noted by many others (including McRaeyf L V W K H I D r greater willingness of English-Canadian political and business elites to use the power of the state for the purpose of developing and controlling the economy. Lipset accepts the notion, common among Canadian historians, that the Loyalist emigres from the American revolution were a genuine tory element; that their expulsion from the United States to Canada accounts for the development of the United States in a liberal direction and of English Canada in a conservative direction. English Canada’s “point of departure,” in this 16In The First New Nation (New York, 1963yf H V S F K D S . This content downloaded from f:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 151 view, is not liberal but conservative. The idea is that English Canada was founded by British tories whose purpose was to build a society which would be not liberal like the American but conservative like the British. McRae correctly finds this notion to be an exaggeration of the difference between the Loyalists and the revolutionaries, between English Canada and the United States.17 The picture of English Canada as a feudal fragment rather than a bourgeois fragment (which is what is implied by the Loyalist mythyf L V L Q G H H G D I D O V H R Q H 0 F 5 D H D U J X H V F R U U H F W O W K D W W K H / R D O L V W V D Q G W K e Family Compacts did not represent British toryism, but pre-revolutionary American whiggery with a “tory touch.” But he errs in underestimating the significance of the “touch.” He notes several factors differentiating the Loyalists, and subsequently English Canadians in general, from the revolu- tionary Americans: belief in monarchy and empiire unity, greater stress on “law and order,” revulsion against American populistic excesses, different frontier experiences, and so on. But he notes them only to dismiss them. “Basically,” the Loyalist, and therefore the English Canadian, is the American liberal.’8 He is not “exactly” like the American,19 McRae adds, but nevertheless he is the American. This is going too far. It is legitimate to point out that Canada is not a feudal (toryyf I U D J P H Q W E X W D E R X U J H R L V O L E H U D O f fragment touched with toryism. It is not legitimate to boil the tory touch away to nothing. If the tory touch was strong enough to produce all the un-American characteristics we are considering, it becomes misleading to identify the English Canadian with the American liberal. Possibly McRae is pushed into his pan-North Americanism by his assumption that a significant tory presence in English Canada can be derived only from the discovery of a similar presence in pre-revolutionary America, and thus from an interpretation of the American revolution as a genuine social revolu- tion directed against a significant tory presence in the United States20-which would indeed be a false interpretation. But no such interpretation is necessary. Let us put it this way: pre-revolutionary America was a liberal fragment with insignificant traces of toryism, extremely weak feudal survivals. But they were insignificant in the American setting; they were far overshadowed by the liberalism of that setting. ITe Revolution did not have to struggle against them, it swept them away easily and painlessly, leaving no trace of them in the American memory. But these traces of toryism were expelled into a new setting, and in this setting they were no longer insignificant. In this new setting, where there was no pre-established overpowering liberalism to force them into insignificance, they played a large part in shaping a new political culture, significantly different from the American. As Nelson wrote in The American Tory, “the Tories’ organic conservatism represented a current of thought tiat failed to reappear in America after the revolution. A substantial part of the whole spectrum of European . . . philosophy seemed to slip outside the American perspective.”2′ But it reappeared in Canada. Here the sway of liberalism has proved to be not total, but considerably mitigated by a tory 17New Societies, 235-40. l81bid., 234. 19Ibid., 238. 20bid., 235. 21William Nelson, The American Tory (New York, 1961yf ; . This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 152 G. HOROWI[Z presence initially and a socialist presence subsequently. There is no need, in order to support this view, to return to the discredited interpretation of the American revolution as a social revolution. One Canadian-American difference strikes both Hartz and McRae with particular force: t-he persistent piower of Family Compact whiggery in Canada as contrasted with the rapid and easy victories of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy in the United States. In the United States the Federalist-Whigs are easily defeated, and the democratization of political life occurs swiftly and thoroughly. Later the Whigs give up their antipathy to the people, adopt the rhetoric of democracy and egalitarianism, and return to power as Republicans through adroit appeals to the Horatio Alger dream, the “capitalist lust” of the American little man. By contrast, in Canada, the Family Compacts were able to maintain ascendancy and delay the coming of democracy because of the tory touch “inherited in part from American Loyalism, which restrained egalitarian feeling in Canada.”22 McRae notes that even with the coming of responsible government, “there was no complete repudiation of the Compacts and what they stood for…. Something of the old order” was preserved even after its disappearance.23 Despite the importance which Hartz and McRae ascribe to the persistence of whiggery as one of the factors which differentiate English Canada from the United States, the most significant aspect of the phenomenon from their point of view is that it ultimately disappeared.24 The American and English- Canadian bourgeois fragments, though separated at the beginning by the power of the Canadian whigs, ultimately move together, close to t-he point of almost exact similarity. From my point of view, however, the early power of whiggery serves to emphasize the importance of the tory touch in English Canada. After all, whiggery “ultimately” fell not only in the United States and Canada, but everywhere. The significant contrast is not between situations in which it falls and those in which it does not fall, but between situations in which it falls quickly and those in which it persists. In the United States, the masses could not be swayed by the Federalist-Whig appeals to anti-egalitarian sentiments. In Canada the masses were swayed by these appeals; the role of the Compacts was to save “the colonial masses from the spectre of republicanism and democracy.”’25 What accounts for this is the tory presence in English-Canadian piolitical culture-the “greater acceptance of limitation, of hierarchical patterns.”26 As McRae admits, this outlook did not disappear with the defeat of the Compacts, and the character of Canadian right-wing liberalism continued to be distinctive after the coming of demo- cracy. The American Whigs returned to power as Republicans by encouraging the dream of the little man to be equal with the big man; the notions of capitalism and democracy had to be thoroughly merged. In Canada there was “greater acceptance of hierarchical patterns”; the Alger dream was much weaker in the masses, so there was no need to harness it in order to keep the right wing in the saddle. 22Hartz, New Societies, 91. 23Ibid., 244. 24Ibid.p, 37. 2F5eIbid., 243. 26,Lipset, The First New Nation, 251. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 153 The next step in tracing the development of the English-Canadian political culture must be to take account of the tremendous waves of British immigra- tion which soon engulfed the original American Loyalist fragment. Here McRae’s concern is to argue that the liberal ideology of the Loyalist fragment had already “frozen, congealed at the point of origin”; that the national ethos had already been fully formed (an American liberalism not “exactly” like American liberalismyf W K D W W K H O D W H U Z D Y H V R I L P P L J U D W L R Q S O D H G Q R S D U W L n the formation of English-Canadian political culture; that they found an established culture, and were impelled to acclimatize to it.27 It is imporant for McRae to prove this point, for while there is roomn for the argument that the Loyalists were American whigs with a tory touch, the later British immigrants had undoubtedly been heavily infected with non-liberal ideas, and these ideas were undoubtedly in their heads as they settled in Canada. The political culture of a new nation is not necessarily fixed at the point of origin or departure; the founding of a new nation can go on for generations. If the later waves of immigration arrived before the point of congealment of the political culture, they must have participated actively in the process of culture formation. If this be so, the picture of English Canada as an almost exactly American liberal society becomes very difficult to defend. For even if it be granted that the Loyalists were (almost exactlyyf $ P H U L F D Q O L E H U D O V L W L s clear that later participants in the formation of the culture were not. Between 1815 and 1850 almost one million Britons emigrated to Canada. The population of English Canada doubled in twenty years and quadrupled in forty. The population of Ontario increased tenfold in the same period-from about 95,000 in 1814 to about 950,000 in 1851.28 McRae himself admits that “it would be inaccurate to say that this wave of migration was absorbed into the original fragment: an influx of these proportions does not permit of simple assimilation.”29 Nevertheless, he concludes that “despite the flood tide of immigration … the original liberal inheritance of English Canada survived and dominated.”30 According to McRae, the universal urge to own property and the classlessness of North American society had such a powerful impact on the immigrants that they simply “forgot their old notions of social hierarchy” and became American liberals.31 Surely this argument is an instance of stretching the facts in order to fit a theoryl Do people simply “forg” their old notions so quickly and so completely? Is it not possible that the immigrants, while they were no doubt considerably liberalized by their new environment, also brought to it non-liberal ideas which entered into the political culture mix, and which perhaps even reinforced the non-liberal elements present in the original fragment? If the million immigrants had come from the United States rather than Britain, would English Canada not be “significantly” different today? The difficulty in ap-plying the Hartzian approach to English Canada is that although the point of departure is reasonably clear, it is difficult to put one’s finger on the point of congealment. Perhaps it was the Loyalist period; perhaps it was close to the mid-century mark; there are grounds for arguing 27New Societies, 244-7. 2SIbid., 245. 291bid., 246. 3OIbid., 247. 3lIbid., 246. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 154 G. HOROWITZ that it was in the more recent past. But the important point is this: no matter where the point of congealment is located in time, the tory streak is present before the solidification of the political culture, and it is strong enough to produce significant “imperfections,” or non-liberal, un-American attributes of English-Canadian society. My own opinion is that the point of congealment came later than the Loyalists. The United States broke from Britain early, and the break was complete. Adam Smith and Tom Paine were among the last Britons who were spiritual founding fathers of the United States. Anything British, if it is of later than eighteenth century vintage, is un-American. The American mind long ago cut its ties with Britain and began to develop on its own. When did Canada break from Britain? When did the Canadian mind begin to develop on its own? Not very long ago mosit Canadians described themselves as followers of the “British way of life,” and many railed against egalitarian ideas from south of the border as “alien.” Nineteenth-century British ideologists are among the spiritual founding fathers of Canada. In the United States they are alien, though we may make an exception for Herbert Spencer. The indeterminate location of the point of congealment makes it difficult to account in any precise way for the presence of socialism in the English- Canadian political culture mix, though the presence itself is indisputable. If the point of congealment came before the arrival of the first radical or socialist-minded immigrants, the presence of socialism must be ascribed primarily to -the earlier presence of toryism. Since toryism is a significant part of the political culture, at least part of the leftist reaction against it will sooner or later be expressed in its own terms, that is, in terms of class interests and the good of the community as a corporate entity (socialismyf U D W K H U W K D Q L n terms of the individual and his vicissitudes in the competitive pursuit of happiness (liberalismyf , I W K H S R L Q W R I F R Q J H D O P H Q W L V Y H U H D U O V R F L D O L V m appears at a later point not primarily because it is imported by British immigrants, but because it is contained as a potential in the original political culture. The immigrants then find that they do not have to give it up-that it is not un-Canadian-because it “fits” to a certain extent with the tory ideas already present. If the point of congealment is very late, the presence of socialism must be explained as a result of both the presence of toryism and the introducion of socialism into the cultural mix before congealment. The immigrant retains his socialism not only because it “fits” but also because nothing really has to fit. He finds that his socialism is not un-Canadian partly because “Canadian” has not yet been defined. Canadian liberals cannot be expected to wax enthusiastic about the non- liberal traits of their country. They are likely to condemn the tory touch as anachronistic, stifling, undemocratic, out of tune with the essentially American (“free,” “classless”yf V S L U L W R I ( Q J O L V K & D Q D G D 7 K H G L V P L V V W K H V R F L D O L V W W R X F h as an “old-fashioned” protest, no longer necessary (if it ever wasyf L Q W K L V E H V t (liberalyf R I D O O S R V V L E O H Z R U O G V L Q Z K L F K W K H H Q G R I L G H R O R J K D V E H H n achieved. The secret dream of the Canadian liberal is the removal of English Canada’s “imperfections’>-in other words, the total assimilation of English Canada into the larger North American culture. But there is a flaw in this This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 155 dream which might give pause even to the liberal. Hartz places special emphasis on one very unappetizing characteristic of the new societies- intolerance-which is strikingly absent in English Canada. Because the new societies other than Canada are unfamiliar with legitimate ideological diversity, they are unable to accept it and deal with it in a rational manner, either internally or on the level of international relations. The European nation has an “identity which transcends any ideologist and a mechanism in which each plays only a part.”32 Neither the tory, nor the liberal, nor the socialist, has a monopoly of the expression of the “spirit” of the nation. But the new societies, the fragments, contain only one of the ideologies of Europe; they are one-myth cultures. In the new setting, freed from its historic enemies past and future, ideology transforms itself into nationalism. It claims to be a moral absolute, “the great spirit of a nation.”33 In the United States, liberalism becomes “Americanism”; a political philosophy becomes a civil religion, a nationalist cult. The American attachment to Locke is “absolutist and irrational.”34 Democratic capitalism is the American way of life; to oppose it is to be un-American. To be an American is to be a bourgeois liberal. To be a French Canadian is to be a pre-Enlightenment Catholic; to be an Australian is to be a prisoner of the radical myth of “mateship”; to be a Boer is to be a pre-Enlightenment bourgeois Calvinist. The fragments escape the need for philosophy, for tiought about values, for “‘where perspectives shrink to a single value, and that value becomes the universe, how can value itself be considered?”35 The fragment demands solidarity. Ideologies which diverge from the national myth make no impact; they are not understood, and their proponents are not granted legitimacy. They are denounced as aliens, and treated as aliens, because they are aliens. The fragments cannot understand or deal with the fact that all men are not bourgeois Americans, or radical Australians, or Cat-holic French Canadians, or Calvinist South Africans. They cannot make peace with the loss of ideological certainty. The specific weakness of the United States is its “inability to understand the appeal of socialism” to the third world.36 Because the United States has “buried” the memory of the organic medieval comnmunity “beneath new liberal absolutisms and nationalisms”37 it cannot understand that the appeal of socialism to nations with a predominantly non-liberal past (including French Canadayf F R Q V L V W V S U H F L V H O L Q W K H S U R P L V H R I F R Q W L Q X L Q J W K H F R U S R U D W H H W K R s in the very process” of modernization.38 The American reacts with isolationism, messianism, and hysteria. English Canada, because it is the most “impierfect” of the fragments, is not a one-myth culture. In English Canada ideological diversity has not been buried beneath an absolutist liberal nationalism. Here Locke is not the one true god; he must tolerate lesser tory and socialist deities at his side. The result is that English Canada does not direct an uncomprehending intolerance at heterodoxy, either witliin its borders or beyond them. (What a “backlash” 32Ibid., 15. 33Ibid., 10. 34Hartz, Liberal Tradition, 11. 35Hartz, New Societies, 23. 38Ibid., 119. 37Ibid., 35. 38Ibid., 119. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 156 G. HOROWITZ Parti-Pris or PSQ-type separatists would be getting if Quebec were in the United States!yf , Q ( Q J O L V K & D Q D G D L W K D V E H H Q S R V V L E O H W R F R Q V L G H U Y D O X H s without arousing the all-silencing cry of treason. Hartz observes that “if history had chosen English Canada for the American role” of directing the Westem response to the world revolution, “the international scene would probably have witnessed less MeCarthyite hysteria, less Wilsonian messianism.”39 Americanizing liberals might consider that the Pearsonian rationality and calmness which Canada displays on the world stage-the “mediating” and “peace-keeping” role of which Canadians are so proud-is related to the un-American (tory and socialistyf F K D U D F W H U L V W L F V Z K L F K W K H F R Q V L G H U W R E e unnecessary imperfections in English-Canadian wholeness. The tolerance of English-Canadian domestic politics is also linked with the presence of these imperfections. If the price of Americanization is the surrender of legitimate ideological diversity, even the liberal might think twice before paying it. McRae comes close to qualifying his pan-North Americanism out of existence by admitting at one point that “it would be a mistake to underrate the emotional attachment that many Canadians . . . still feel for British institutions…. English Canadians . . cap the foundations of their North American liberal social ethos with a superstructure embodying elements of the wider British political heritage.”40 But the pan-North Americanism wins in the end; the foundations of English Canada are American liberal, only the superstructure is British. My argument is essentially that non-liberal British elements have entered into English-Canadian society together with American liberal elements at the foundations. The fact is that Canada has been greatly influenced by both the United States and Britain. This is not to deny that liberalism is the dominant element in the English-Canadian political culture; it is to stress that it is not the sole element, that it is accompanied by vital and legitimate streams of toryism and socialism which have as close a relation to English Canada’s “essence” or “foundations” as does liberalism. English Canada’s “essence” is both liberal and non-liberal. Neither the British nor the American elements can be explained away as “superstructural” excrescences. 4 / Un-American aspects of Canadian conservatism So far, I have been discussing the presence of toryism in Canada without referring to the Conservative party. This party can be seen as a party of right-wing or business liberalism, but such an interpretation would be far from the whole truth; the Canadian Conservative party, like the British Conservative party and unlike the Republican party, is not mono- lithically liberal. If there is a touch of toryism in English Canada, its primary carrier has been the Conservative party. It would not be correct to say that toryism is the ideology of the party, or even that some Conservatives are tories. These statements would not be true even of the British Conservative party. The primary component of the ideology of business-oriented parties is liberalism; but there are powerful traces of the old pre-liberal outlook in the British Conservative party,4′ and less powerful but stil perceptible traces of 391bid., 120. 4oibid., 267. 41See Samuel Beer, British Politics in the Collectivist Age (New York, 1965yf H V S F K D S V 3 and 9-13. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 157 it in the Canadian party. A Republican is always a liberal. A Conservative may be at one moment a liberal, at the next moment a tory, and is usually something of both. If it is true that the Canadian Conservatives can be seen from some angles as right-wing liberals, it is also true that figures such as R. B. Bennett, Arthur Meighen, and George Drew cannot be understood simply as Canadian versions of William McKinley, Herbert Hoover, and Robert Taft. Canadian Conserva- tives have something British about them that American Republicans do not. It is not simply their emphasis on loyalty to the crown and to the British connection, but a touch of the authentic tory aura-traditionalism, elitism, the strong state, and so on. The Canadian Conservatives lack the American aura of rugged individualism. Theirs is not the characteristically American con- servatism which conserves only liberal values.42 It is possible to perceive in Canadian conservatism not only the elements of business liberalism and orthodox toryism, but also an element of “tory democracy”-the paternalistic concern for the “condition of the people,” and the emphasis on the tory party as their champion-which, in Britain, was expressed by such figures as Disraeli and Lord Randolph Churchill. John A. Macdonald’s approach to the emergent Canadian workdng class was in some respects similar to that of Disraeli. Later Conservatives acquired the image of arch reactionaries and arch enemies of the workers, but let us not forget that “Iron Heel’ Bennett was also the Bennett of the Canadian New Deal. The question arises: why is it that in Canada the Conservative leader proposes a New Deal? Why is it that the Canadian counterpart of Hoover apes Roosevelt? This phenomenon is usually interpreted as sheer historical accident, a product of Bennett’s desperation and opportunism. But the answer may be that Bennett was not Hoover. Even in his “orthodox” days Bennett’s views on the state’s role in the economy were far from similar to Hoover’s; Bennett’s attitude was that of Canadian, not American, conservatism. Once this is recognized, it is possible to entertain the suggestion that Bennett’s sudden radicalism, his sudden concern for the people, may noit have been mere opportunism. It may have been a manifestation, a sudden activation under pressure, of a latent tory-demoicratic streak. Let it be noted also that the depression produced two Conservative splinter parties, both with “radical” welfare state programmes, and both led by former subordinates of Bennett: H. H. Stevens’ Reconstruction party and W. D. Herridge’s New Democracy. 42Historic toryism finds expression today in the writings of Conservatives like W. L. Morton, who describes America as a liberal society integrated from below, by a covenant of brothers, and Canada as a monarchial society held together at the top, itegrated by loyalty to the Crown. (The Canadian Identity (Toronto, 1961yf f In another of his writings Morton stresses the tory belief in personal leadership, in loyalty to leaders and readiness to let them govern. (“Canadian Conservatism Now,’ in Paul Fox, ed., Politics: Canada (Toronto, 1962yf f He takes an organic view of society, stresses the values of authority and tradition, rejects the liberal values of individualism and egalitarianism. He calls for the rejection of the “dangerous and improper idea of the electoral mandate” (ibid., 289yf + H F D O O V I R U W K H F U H D W L R Q R I D & D Q D G L D Q V V W H P R I K R Q R X U V L E L G f. And he exhorts Canadian Conservatives frankly and loyally to accept the welfare state, since “laissez faire and rugged individualism” are foreign to “conservative principles” (ibid., 289yf & D Q D – dian and British tories are able to rationalize their parties’ grudging acceptance of the wel- fare state by recalling their precapitalist collectivist traditions. Can one conceive of a respected spokesman of traditional Republicanism denouncing “rugged individualism” as un-Republican? This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 158 G. HOROWITZ The Bennett New Deal is only the most extreme instance of what is usually considered to be an accident or an aberration-the occasional manifestation of “radicalism” or “leftism” by otherwise orthodox Conservative leaders in the face of opposition from their “followers” in the business community. Meighen, for example, was constantly embroiled with the “Montreal interests” who objected to his railway policies. On one occasion he received a note of congratulation from William Irvine: “The man who dares to offend the Montreal interests is the sort of man that the people are going to vote for.”43 This same Meighen expressed on certain occasions, particularly after his retirement, an antagonism to big government and creeping socialism that would have warmed the heart of Robert Taft; but he combined his business liberalism with gloomy musings about the evil of universal suffrage44-musings which Taft would have rejected as un-American. Meighen is far easier to understand from a British than from an American perspective, for he com- bined, in different proportions at different times, attitudes deriving from all three Conservative ideological streams: right-wing liberalism, orthodox tory- ism, and tory democracy. The Western or agrarian Conservatives of the contemporary period, John Diefenbaker and Alvin Hamilton, who are usually dismissed as “prainre radicals” of the American type, might represent not only anti-Bay Street agrarianism but also the same type of tory democracy which was expressed before their time by orthodox business-sponsored Conservatives like Meighen and Bennett. The populism (anti-elitismyf R I ‘ L H I H Q E D N H U D Q G + D P L O W R Q L V a genuinely foreign element in Canadian conservatism, but their stress on the Tory party as champion of the people and their advocacy of welfare state policies are in the tory democratic tradition. Their attitudes to the monarchy, the British connection, and the danger of American domination are entirely orthodox Conservative attitudes. Diefenbaker Conservatism is therefore to be understood not simply as a Western populist phenomenon, but as an odd combination of traditional Conservative views with attitudes absorbed from the Westem Progressive tradition. Another aberration which may be worthy of investigation is the Canadian phenomenon of the red tory. At the simplest level, he is a Conservative who prefers the CCF-NDP to the Liberals, or a socialist who prefers the Con- servatives to the Liberals, without really knowing why. At a higher level, he is a conscious ideological Conservative with some “odd” socialist notions (W. L. Mortonyf R U D F R Q V F L R X V L G H R O R J L F D O V R F L D O L V W Z L W K V R P H R G G W R U y notions (Eugene Forseyyf 7 K H Y H U V X J J H V W L R Q W K D W V X F K D I I L Q L W L H V P L J K t exist between Republicans and Socialists in the United States is ludicrous enough to make some kind of a point. Red toryism is, of course, one of the results of the relationship between toryism and socialism which has already been elucidated. The tory and socialist minds have some crucial assumptions, orientations, and values in common, so that from certain angles they may appear not as enemies, but as two different expressions of the same basic ideological outlook. Thus, at t-he very highest level, the red tory is a philosopher who combines elements of 43Roger Graham, Arthur Meighen, vol. II (Toronto, 1963yf . 44Ibid., vol. III (Toronto, 1965yf . This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 159 socialism and toryism so thoroughly in a single integrated Weltanschauung that it is impossible to say that he is a proponent of eitier one as against the other. Such a red tory is George Grant, who has associations with both the Conservative party and the NDP, and who has recently published a book which defends Diefenbaker, laments the death of “true” British conservatism in Canada, attacks the Liberals as individualists and Americanizers, and defines socialism as a variant of conservatism (each “protects -the public good against private freedom”yf 5 5 / The character of Canadian socialism Canadian socialism is un-American in two distinct ways. It is un-American in the sense that it is a significant and legitimate political force in Canada, insignificant and alien in the United States. But Canadian socialism is also un-American in the sense that it does not speak the same language as American socialism. In Canada, socialism is British, non-Marxist, and worldly; in the United States it is German, Marxist, and other-worldly. I have argued that the socialist ideas of British immigrants to Canada were not sloughed off because they “fit” with a political culture which already contained non-liberal components, and probably also because they were introduced into the political culture mix before the point of congealment. Thus socialism was not alien here. But it was not alien in yet another way; it was not borne by foreigners. The personnel and the ideology of the Canadian labour and socialist movements have been primarily British. Many of those who built these movements were British immigrants with past experience in the British labour movement; many others were Canadian-born children of such immigrants. And in British North America, Britons could not be treated as foreigners. When socialism was brought to the United States, it found itself in an ideological environment in which it could not survive because Lockean individualism had long since achieved the status of a national religion; the political culture had already congealed, and socialism did not fit. American socialism was alien not only in this ideological sense, but in the ethnic sense as well; it was borne by foreigners from Germany and other continental European countries. These foreigners sloughed off their socialist ideas not simply because such idelas did not “fit” ideologically, but because as foreigners they were going through a general process of Americanization; socialism was only one of many ethnically alien characteristics which had to be abandoned. The immigrants ideological change was only one incident among many others in the general process of changing his entire way of life. According to David Saposs, “the factor that contributed most tellingly to the decline of the socialist movement was that its chief following, the immigrant workers, . .. had become Americanized.”46 A British socialist immigrant to Canada had a far different experience. The British immigrant was not an “alien” in British North America. The English- 45George Grant, Lament for a Nation (Toronto, 1965yf 6 H H * D G + R U R Z L W ] 7 R U L H V , Socialists and the Demise of Canada,” Canadian Dimension, May-June 1965, 12-15. 40Communism in American Unions (New York, 1959yf . This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 160 G. HOROWITZ Canadian culture not only granted legitimacy to his political ideas and absorbed them into its wholeness; it absorbed him as a person into the English-Canadian community, with relatively littde strain, without demanding that he change his entire way of life before being granted full citizenship. He was acceptable to begin with, by virtue of being British. It is impossible to understand the differences between American and Canadian socialism without taking into account this immense difference between the ethnic contexts of socialism in the two countries. The ethnic handicap of American socialism consisted not only in the fact that its personnel was heavily European. Equally important was the fact that it was a brand of socialism-Marxism-which found survival difficult not only in the United States but in all English-speaking countries. Marx has not found the going easy in the United States; but neither has he found the going easy in Britain, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. The socialism of the United States, the socialism of De Leon, Berger, Hillquit, and Debs, is predominantly Marxist and doctrinaire, because it is European. The socialism of English Canada, the socialism of Simpson, Woodsworth, and Coldwell, is predomi- nantly Protestant, labourist, and Fabian, because it is British. The prevalence of doctrinaire Marxism helps to explain the sectarianism of the American Socialist party. The distinctive quality of a sect is its “other- worldliness.” It rejects the existing scheme of things entirely; its energies are directed not to devising stratagems with which to lure the electorate, but to elaborating its utopian theory. Daniel Bell describes the American Socialist party as one “whose main preoccupation has been the refinement of ‘theory’ at the cost, even, of interminable factional divisions.”47 “It has never, even for a single year, been without some issue which threatened to split the party.”48 For Bell, the failure of American socialism is its failure to make the transition from sect to party, to concem itself with popular issues rather than theoretical disputes. The unfortunate decisions made by the party-especially the decisions to oppose the two world wars-were a result of this sectarianism, this refusal to compromise with the world. The CCF has not been without its otherworldly tendencies; there have been doctinal disagreements, and the party has always had a left wing interested more in “socialist education” than in practical political work. But this left wing has been a constantly declining minority. Tle party has expelled individuals and small groups-mostly Communists and Trotskyites-but it has never split. Its life has never been threatened by disagreement over doctrinal matters. It is no more preoccupied with theory than the British Labour party. It sees itself, and is seen by the public, not as a coterie of ideologists but as a party like the others, second to none in its avidity for office. If it has been attacked from the right for socialist “utopianism” and “impracticality,” it has also been attacked from the right for abandoning the “true” socialist faith in an un- principled drive for power. The contrast between American Marxist socialism and Canadian non-Marxist socialism, and the weakness of Marxism not only in America but in all other 47″The Background and Development of Marxian Socialism in the United States,” in D. Egbert and S. Persons, eds., Socialism in American Life (Princeton, 1952yf . 48Ibid., 221. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 161 English speaking countries, at first led me to think that Hartz’s “single factor” explanation of the illegitimacy of American socialism might be overdone. This question arose: was it socialism per se that could not live in the United States, or only Marxist socialism? What if American socialism had looked to Britain rather than Germany, if it had been “empirical” rather than doctrinaire Marxist? The answer that suggested itself was that if American socialism had not been handicapped by its Marxian character-if it had been handicapped only by the fact that America had not known toryism and therefore would not listen to socialism-it might have been able to live a little longer and might not have died such a horrible death. What this line of reasoning ignored was the fact that there was an impact in America of British socialist thought which was, however, even weaker than the Marxist impact. Why, in America, an English-speaking country, should the British influence on socialism have been so much weaker than the German? Precisely because the “single factor” explanation is not overdone. Socialism could not attain any degree of strength in America, for the Hartzian reason, except for a short while as a socialism in America but not of America, that is to say, except among unassimilated foreign groups. There was an unassimilated continental European group; there was never an unassimilated British group. The British influence was therefore much weaker than the Marxist. At first I thought that since Marxism fails not only in the United States but in all English-speaking countries, peculiarly American characteristics cannot be the explanation of its failure in the United States. This is true; the peculiarly American characteristics account for the failure of all socialisms, even English- speaking socialism, in the United States. The failure of Marxian socialism is less complete and less rapid than the failure of the others precisely because of the peculiar American cultural characteristics which mean doom for all socialisms except those sustained by immigrants prior to their Americanization. The strength of Marx relative to other socialisms in America is a confirmation of the Hartzian hypothesis. 6 / Canadian liberalism: the triumphant centre Canadian Conservatives are not American Republicans; Canadian socialists are not American socialists; Canadian Liberals are not American liberal Democrats. The un-American elements in English Canada’s political culture are most evident in Canadian conservatism and socialism. But Canadian liberalism has a British colour too. The liberalism of Canada’s Liberal party should not be identified with the liberalism of the American Democratic party. In many respects they stand in sharp contrast to one another. The three components of the English-Canadian political culture have not developed in isolation from one another; each has developed in interaction with the others. Our toryism and our socialism have been moderated by liberalism. But by the same token, our liberalism has been rendered “impure,” in American terms, through its contacts with toryism and socialism. If English- Canadian liberalism is less individualistic, less ardently populistic-democratic, more inclined to state intervention in the economy, and more tolerant of This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 162 G. HOROWITZ “feudal survivals” such as monarchy, this is due to the uninterrupted influence of toryism upon liberalism, an influence wielded in and through the conflict between the two. If English-Canadian liberalism has tended since the depres- sion to merge at its leftist edge with the democratic socialism of the CCF-NDP, this is due to the influence which socialism has exerted upon liberalism, in and through the conflict between them. The key to understanding the Liberal party in Canada is to see it as a centre party, with influential enemies on both right and left. Hartz’s comparison of the Liberal Reform movements of the United States and Europe casts light on the differences between American and English- Canadian liberalism. Hartz defines Liberal Reform as the movement “which emerged toward the end of the nineteenth century to adapt classical liberalism to the purposes of small propertied interests and the labouring class and at the same time which rejected socialism.”49 The fact that European Liberal Reform was confronted with a significant socialist challenge meant (ayf W K D t liberals influenced by socialist theory, tried to “transcend the earlier indivi- dualism” and recognized “‘the need for collective action to solve the class problem,”50 and (byf W K D W O L E H U D O V I D F H G Z L W K S R Z H U I X O H Q H P L H V R Q E R W K W K e left and the right, presented an ambivalent conservative-radical image; they attacked the tories and the status quo, but they also defended the status quo from its socialist enemies. American liberals, impervious to the socialist challenge and therefore unaffected by socialist ideas, remained “enslaved” to individualism. “Even in its midnight dreams” American Liberal Reform “ruled out the concepts of socialism.”5’ Its goal was not to reform modem capitalism by abandoning Lockean individualism and moving in the direction of socialism, but, by smashing or controlling trusts and bosses, to restore the old individualistic way of life. It struggled to retain individualism and yet to recognize the new problems of a modem industrial society: “An agonized reluctance . . . charac- terized the outlook of Progressivism toward the positive legislation advanced everywhere by Western Liberal Reform.”52 Yet American Liberal Reform had an unambiguous radical image; its only enemies were the big-propertied liberals of the right. American Liberal Reformers were thus “Csaved from a defensive appearance, were able to emerge as pure crusaders.”’53 If they had had to answer socialist attacks, they would have appeared much less radical. The relevance of this analysis for the English-Canadian situation is apparent. In English Canada Liberal Reformn, represented by King’s Liberal party, has had to face the socialist challenge. Under socialist influence, it abandoned its early devotion to “the lofty principles of Gladstone, the sound economics of Adam Smith, and the glories of laissez faire.”54 King’s Industry and Humanitti 49Liberal Tradition, p. 228. 5NIbid., 231. 51Ibid., 234. 52Id. 243 5-Ibid., 229. 54Bruce Hutchison, The Incredible Canadian (Toronto, 1952yf + X W F K L V R Q Z U L W H V S f of Industry and Humanity: “In ahrost every respect this book repudiates the historic? Liberalism of Canada, denounces the economic system which Liberal politics have nurtured, proposes a society of an entirely different sort, edges uncomfortably close to the theories of the Socialist CCF.” See also F. A. McGregor, The Fall and Rise of Mackenzie King: 1911- 1919 (Toronto, 1962yf . This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 163 and the Liberal platform of 1919 mark the transition of English-Canadian Liberalism from the old individualism to the new Liberal Reform.55 King’s Liberal Reform, since it had to answer attacks from the left as well as from the right, projected a notoriously ambivalent conservative-radical image: Truly he will be remembered Wherever men honor ingenuity Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity. When he faced Bennett and Meighen, King was the radical warrior, the champion of the little people against the interests. When he turned to face Woodsworth and Coldwell, he was the cautious conservative, the protector of the status quo. He … never let his on the one hand Know what his on the other hand was doing.56 Roosevelt’s New Deal involved “departures from the liberal faith of a veiy substantive kind.”‘7 Unlike the earlier Progressivism it did not shun state action. But neither did it consciously abandon Locke. Since Roosevelt did not have to face the socialist challenge, he did not have to “spell out his liberal premises. He did not have to spell out any real philosophy at all. His ‘radicalism’ could consist of what he called ‘bold and persistent experimenta- tion’ which of course meant nothing in terms of large social faiths and was indeed perfectly compatible with Americanism.”58 The Republican opplosition tried to alert the American people to the fact that Roosevelt’s experiments were indeed socialistic and un-American, but the American people did not listen. They were convinced by Roosevelts plea that his legislative schemes were “mere technical gadgetry,”59 that questions of political philosophy were not relevant. Roosevelt and the American people, by closing thefr eyes to the philosophical implications of the New Deal, had their cake and ate it too; they subverted Lockean individualism in fact, but they held on to their Ameri- canismyf W K H L U / R F N H D Q L Q G L Y L G X D O L V W I D L W K . Hartz points out that this “pragmatism” of the New Deal enabled it to go “5Before the thirties there was no strong socialist party in Canada. I would therefore be on safer ground if I were to locate the socialist challenge and liberal response in the thirties rather than at the time of the First World War. Nevertheless, the King of Industry and Humanity and the platform of 1919 does manifest the kdnd of transition from individualism to socialized Liberal Reform that occurred in Europe. The socialist challenge was there, not in the form of a menace at the polls, but “in the air,” in the political culture as a legitimate ideology which evoked response-rejection and incorporation-from other ideologies, even though it was not yet a power at the polls. And from 1921-the time of Woodsworth’s election to the Commons-the direct political influence of Woodsworth on King comes into the picture, even though Woodsworth in the twenties did not present a significant electoral danger. American liberalism did not have to answer socialist attacks not primarily because of the weakness of socialism at the polls but because of its weakness in the political culture-its alien, illegitimate, un-American character. I might also mention that British liberalism began to revise itself in response to the socialist challenge long before socialism became a significant electoral menace. 56F. R. Scott, “W.L.M.K.,” The Blasted Pine, ed. F. R. Scott and A. J. M. Smith (Toronto, 1962yf . 57Hartz, Liberal Tradition, p. 263. 581bid. 59Ibid.30 260. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 164 G. HOROWITZ farther, to get more things done, than European Liberal Reform. “Te free- wheeling inventiveness typified by the TVA, the NRA, the WPA, the SEC”60 was nowhere to be found in Europe. Defending itself against socialism, European Liberal Reform could not submerge questions of theory; it had to justify innovations on the basis of a revised liberal ideology; it had to stop short of socialism openly. The New Deal, since it was not threatened by socialism, could ignore theory; it “did not need to stop short of Marx openly”; hence it could accomplish more than European Liberal Reform. King had to face the socialist challenge. He did so in the manner of European Liberal Reform. No need to worry about abandoning individualism; Locke was not Canada’s national god; like European liberalism, Canadian liberalism had been revised. The similarity of socialism and Liberal Reform could be acknowledged; indeed it could be emphasized and used to attract the socialist vote. At the same time, King had to answer the arguments of socialism, and in doing so he had to spell out his liberalism. He had to stop short of socialism openly.6′ Social reform, yes; extension of public ownership, yes; the welfare state, yes; increased state control of the economy, yes; but not too much. Not socialism. The result was that King, like the European liberals, could not go as far as Roosevelt. “What makes the New Deal ‘radical’,” says Hartz, “is the smothering by the American Locklan faith of the socialist challenge to it.” Roosevelt did not need to reply to Norman Thomas as the European liberals had to reply to their socialists. Roosevelt therefore did not have to “spell out his liberal premises and hence create the atmosphere of indecision which this necessarily involved.”62 Atmosphere of indecision: Is this not the characteristic atnosphere of King Liberalism? Hartz asks: ‘What would Roosevelt have said had he … been compelled to take Thomas . . . seriously?”63 and shows that Roosevelt would have been forced to defend private property against nationalization, to attack “bureau- cracy” and the all-powerful state, to criticize “utopianism” and “impractica- bility” in politics. He would have had to qualify his radicalism by an attack on the larger radicalism which faced him to the left. In other words, instead of being “radical,” he would be half radical and half conservative, which is precisely the position that the Liberal Reforners of Europe were compelled to occupy. Instead of enlisting the vigorous passions of youth, he might easily be described as a tired man who could not make up his mind; a liberal who tried to break with Adam Smith but could not really do so.64 What Roosevelt would have said if he had answered Norman Thomas is what King did say in answering Woodsworth and Coldwell. Like the Europeans, and unlike Roosevelt, he had to defend private property, he had to attack excessive reliance on the state, he had to criticize socialism as “impracticality’ 6oibid., 271. 61Speaking in the Commons on February 27, 1933, King assured the socialists that their objectives were not alien to the spirit of Liberalism. His objection was to their “implied method of reform through dictatorship.” Nornan McL. Rogers, Mackenzie King (Toronto, 1935yf . 62Hartz, Liberal Tradition, p. 261. “Ibid., 262. 64Ibid. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 165 and “utopianism.” “Half radical and half conservative-a tired man who could not make up his mind”-is this not the living image of Mackenzie King? “In America, instead of being a champion of property, Roosevelt became the big antagonist of it; his liberalism was blocked by his radicalism.”65 In Canada, since King had to worry not only about Bennett and Meighen and Drew, but also about Woodsworth and Coldwell and Douglas, King had to embark upon a defence of private property. He was no traitor to his class. Instead of becoming the antagonist of property, he became its champion; his radicalism was blocked by his liberalism. An emphasis on the solidarity of thfe nation as against divisive “class parties” of right and left was “of the very essence of the Reformist Liberal position in Europe.” “Who,” asks Hartz, “would think -of Roosevelt as a philosopher of class solidarity?”66 Yet that is precisely what Roosevelt would have been if he had had to respond to a socialist presence in the American political culture. And that is precisely what King was in fact in Canada. His party was “the party of national unity.” One of the most repeated charges against the CCF was that it was a divisive “class party”; the purpose of the Liberal party, on the other hand, was to preserve the solidarity of the Canadian people-the solidarity of its classes as well as the solidarity of French and English. Hartz sums up Roosevelt in these words: ‘What emerges then . . . is a liberal self that is lost from sight: a faith in property, a belief in class unity, a suspicion of too much state power, a hostility to the utopian mood, all of which were blacked out by the weakness of the socialist challenge. “67 King’s liberal self was not lost from sight, for the socialist challenge was stronger in Canada than in the United States. The Liberal party has continued to speak the language of King: ambiguous and ambivalent, presenting first its radical face and then its conservative face, urging reform and waring against hasty, ill-considered change, calling for increased state responsibility but stopping short of socialism openly, speaking for the coanmon people but preaching the solidarity of classes.68 In the United States, the liberal Democrats are on the left. There is no doubt about that. In Canada, the Liberals are a party of the centre, appearing at times leftist and at times rightist. As such, they are much closer to European, especially British, Liberal Reform than to the American New Deal type of liberalism. In the United States, the liberal Democrats are the party of organized labour. The new men of power, the labour leaders, have arrived politically; their vehicle is the Democratic party. In English Canada, if the labour leaders have arrived politically, they have done so in the CCF-NDP. They are nowhere to be found in the Liberal party. The rank and file, in the United States, are 65Ibid., 267. 66Ibid. 671bid., 270. 68″The Canadian voter is in favour of progress and against social experimentation” (my emphasisyf 1 D W L R Q D O / L E H U D O ) H G H U D W L R Q 7 K H / L E H U D O 3 D U W R I & D Q D G D 2 W W D Z D 1 D W L R Q D l Liberal Federation, 1957yf f “Liberalism accepts social security but rejects socialism; it accepts free enterprise but rejects economic anarchy; it accepts humanitarianism but rejects paternalism.” (Lester Pearson, Introduction to J. W. Pickersgill, The Liberal Party (Toronto, 1962yf [ f “Liberalism insists that the government must not stand by helpless in the face of … human suffering…. Liberals, however, do not believe in socialism, with its veneration of the powerful state; with its emphasis on bureaucracy; with its class consciousness.” (Pickersgill, The Liberal Party, p. 115.yf This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 166 G. HOROWITZ predominantly Democrats; in Canada at least a quarter are New Democrats, and the remainder show only a relatively slight, and by no means consistent, preference for the Liberals as against the Conservatives. In the United States, left-wing “liberalism,” as opposed to right wing “liberalism,” has always meant opposition to the domination of American life by big business, and has expressed itself in and through the Democratic party; the party of business is the Republican party. In Canada, business is close to both the Conservatives and the Liberals. The business community donates to the campaign funds of both and is represented in the leadership circles of both. A comparison of two election broadsides, one by an American liberal Democrat and one by a Canadian Liberal, is most instructive. Kennedy or Nixon, by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., is suffused with the spirit of the New Deal. Liberalism is defined as “opposition to control of the government by the most powerful group in the community.”69 The Democratic party is described as the party which unites all other groups, including individual “nonconformist businessmen” who have transcended their class interests, for the struggle against the forces of business orthodoxy, against the status quo. The Republican party is labelled as the party of the orthodox business “establishment.”70 The book closes with an attack on bankers, owners of television stations, Wall Street brokers, General Motors, Du Pont, and -the American Medical Association. The Liberal Party, by J. W. Pickersgill, is suffused with the ambivalent, centrist, radical-conservative spirit of Mackenzie King. The Liberal party is for judicious reform, against unreasoning attachment to the status quo, but of course it is also opposed to headstrong and irreverent socialism. Schlesinger does not hesitate to relate liberalism to the conflicting interests of specific social forces. Pickersgill defines liberalism in vague, inoffensive generalities: “The first principle of Liberalism is that the state . .. exist[s] to serve man, and not man to serve the state. The second principle of Liberalism is that the family is the foundation of human society and that it is the duty of all govern- ments to promote the welfare of the family and the sanctity of the home.”7′ The Liberal party in Canada does not represent the opposition of society to domination by organized business. It claims to be based on no particular groups, but on all. It is not against any particular group; it is for all. The idea that there is any real conflict between groups is dismissed, and the very terms “right’ and ‘left’ are rejected: “The terms ‘right’ and leff belong to those who regard politics as a class struggle…. The Liberal view is that true political progress is marked by . . . the reconciliation of classes, and the promotion of the general interest above all particular interests.”72 A party of the left can be distinguished fromn parties of the centre and right according to two interTelated criteria: its policy approach, and its electoral support. 69(New York, 1960yf 2 , E L G 3 L F N H U V J L O O 7 K H / L E H U D O 3 D U W . 72Ibid. 68. David Marquand notes that the British Liberal party’s “proudest boast is that they are not tied to the great power blocs of modern society, that they are a party of indi- viduals and not of interests…. Their ideology … is characterized by a pervasive disdain for the unpleasant realities of social and political conflict and a refusal to admit that society is made up of opposing groups.” (“Has Lib-Lab a Future?” Encounter, April 1962, 64yf This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 167 POLICY APPROACH The policy approach of a left party is to introduce innovations on behalf of the lower strata. The Liberals, unlike the liberal Democrats, have not been a party of innovation. As a centre party, they have allowed the CCF-NDP to introduce innovations; they have then waited for signs of substantial accept- ance by all strata of the population, and for signs of reassurance against possible electoral reprisals, before actually proceeding to implement the innovations. By this time, of course, they are strictly speaking no longer innovations. The centre party recoils from the fight for controversial measures; it loves to implement a consensus. Roosevelt was the innovator par excellence. King, though he was in his own mind in favour of reform, stalled until public demand for innovation was so great and so clear that he could respond to it without antagonizing his business-sponsored right wing. He rationalized his caution into a theory of democratic leadership far different from Roosevelt’s conception of the strong presidency: Mackenzie King’s conception of political leadership, which he often expressed, was that a leader should make his objectives clear, but that leadership was neither liberal nor democratic which tried to force new policies … on a public that did not consent to them.73 He believed that nothing was so likely to set back a good cause as premature action.74 This was the official Liberal explanation of King’s failure to embark on any far reaching programme of reform until 1943. King himself undoubtedly believed that his caution was based at least in part on a “democratic” theory of leader- ship. But his diaries suggest that the reforms came when they did because CCF pressure became so threatening that it could no longer be ignored by King’s right-wing colleagues, so threatening that King felt able to surrender to it without jeopardizing the unity of his party. The bare facts are these: In August, 1943, the CCF became the official opposition in Ontario. In September, 1943, the CCF overtook the Liberals in the Gallup poll (Canada: CCF 2w9, Liberals 28yb 2 Q W D U L R & & ) b, Liberals 26yb 7 K H : H V W & & ) b, Liberals 23yb f.75 King’s reaction is summed up in the following quotation from his diary: “In my heart, I am not sorry to see the mass of the people coming a little more into their own, but I do regret that it is not the Liberal party that is winning that position for them…. It can still be that our people will learn their lesson in time. What I fear is we will begin to have defections from our own ranks in the House to the CCF.”76 Almost immediately after the release of the Sep- tember Gallup Poll, the Advisory Council of the National Liberal Federation, meeting at King’s request, adopted fourteen resolutions ‘constituting a pro- gramme of reform . of far reaching consequences.”77 King wrote in his diary: “I have succeeded in making declarations which will improve the lot of . . . farmers and working people. . . . I think I have cut the ground in large part from under the CCF….”78 ‘The great numbers of people will see that I have been true to them.”79 73Pickersgill, The Liberal Party, pp. 26-27. 74J. W. Pickersgill, The Mackenzie King Record (Toronto, 1960yf . 75Globe and Mail, Sept. 29, 1943. 76Pickersgill, Record, 571. 77National Liberal Federation, The Liberal Party, 53. 78Pickersgill, Record, 601. 79Ibid., 635. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 168 G. HOROWITZ The Liberal slogan in the campaign of 1945 was “A New Social Order for Canada.” The election of June 11 returned King to power with a drastically reduced majority. The CCF vote rose from 8.5 per cent to 15.6 per cent, and its representation in the Commons from 8 to 29. But King’s swing to the left had defeated the CCF’s bid for major party status. The C’CF’s success was much smaller than it had expected. The success was actually a defeat, a disappointing shock from which socialism in Canada has not yet recovered. The Liberal-CCF relationship in 1943-1945 is only the sharpest and clearest instance of the permanent interdependence forced upon each by the presence of the other, a relationship which one student describes as “antagonistic symbiosis.” The Liberals depend on the CCF-NDP for innovations; the CCF- NDP depends upon the Liberals for implementation of the innovations. When the left is weak, as before and after the Second World War, the centre party moves right to deal with the Conservative challenge; when the left is strengtiened, as during the war and after the formation of the NDP, the centre moves left to deal with that challenge. In a conversation between King and Coldwell shortly before King’s death, King expressed his regrets that Coldwell had not joined him. With Coldwell at his side, he would have been able to implement reforms which were close to his heart; reforms which had either been postponed until the end of the war or not introduced at all. He said the CCF had performed the valuable function of popularizing reforms so that he could introduce them when public opinion was ripe. Coldwell replied that it was impossible for him to join King, especially in view of the people who surrounded King.80 There, in a nutshell, is the story of the relationship between the Liberal party and the CCF-NDP. The Liberals, says King, are too conservative because the left has not joined them. The left has not joined them, replies Coldwell, because they are too conservative. King wanted to show the people that he was “true to them.” He was saddened that the CCF and not the Liberals were fighting the people’s battles. But he could not move from dead centre until CCF power became so great that the necessity of moving was clear, not only to himself but to all realistic politicians. King’s best self wanted to inniovate; yet he saw the Liberal party not as a great innovating force but as the party which would implement reforms once they had been popularized by the CCF. Yet he wanted to absorb the CCF. The lot of the centrist politician is not a happy one. Norman Thomas explains his party’s failure to make a significant impact on politics during t-he depression with a phrase: “It was Roosevelt in a word.”81 The explanation of the impact made by the CCF on Canadian politics during the depression and especially the Second World War has been presented just as simply by Eugene Forsey: “Canada has had no Roosevelt and no New Deal.”82 The absence of Lockean “monotheism” strengthened socialism in Canada. Socialism was present in the political culture when liberalism began to concern itself with the problems of the industrial age; liberalism was therefore forced 801nterview with M. J. Coldwell, March 28, 1962. 81M. Seidler, Norman Thomas (Syracuse, 1961yf . 82Untitled manuscript, n. d., New Democratic Party Files, Ottawa. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 169 to react to the socialist challenge. In doing so, it was cast in the mould of European Liberal Reform (centreyf S D U W L H V D P E L Y D O H Q W U D G L F D O D Q G F R Q V H U Y D – tive, alternating attacks on the status quo with defence of the status quo. Socialism had sufficient strength in English Canada to force liberalism into the European ratier than the American position-centre rather than left. King’s liberalism was therefore not capable of reacting to the depression in a Rooseveltian manner. As a result, socialist power grew. Socialism was not powerless, so there was no New Deal. There was no New Deal, so socialism grew more powerful. Socialism grew more powerful, so King reacted with “A New Social Order for Canada.” The centre and the left dance around one another, frustrating one another and living off the frustra- tion; each is locked into the dance by the existence of the other. I have been stressing the strength of Canadian socialism in order to make clear the differences between the Canadian and the American situations. Of course this does not mean that the differences between Canada and Europe can be ignored. Canadian socialism has been strong enough to challenge liberalism, to force liberalism to explain itself, and thus to evoke from it the same sort of centrist response as was evoked in Europe. But socialism in Canada has not been strong enough to match or overshadow liberalism. The CCF became a significant political force, but except for the years 1942-45 it never knocked on the gates of national power. In Europe, the workingman could not be appeased by the concessions of Liberal Reform. The centre was squeezed out of existence between its enemies on the right and on the left. In Canada, the centre party’s concessions were sufficient to keep the lower strata from flocking en masse to the left. The concessions were not sufficient to dispose of the socialist threat, but they were sufficient to draw the socialists’ sharpest teeth. In Canada the centre party emerged triumphant over its enemies on the right and on the left. Here, then, is another aspect of English Canada’s uniqueness: it is the only society in which Liberal Reform faces the challenge of socialism and emerges victorious. The English-Canadian fragment is bourgeois. The toryism and the socialism, though significant, are “touches.” ELECTORAL SUPPORT There is a dearth of information about the influence of class on voting be- haviour in Canada, but there are strong indications that the higher strata are more likely than the lower to vote Conservative, the lower strata are more likely than the higher to vote CCF-NDP, and that both groups are about equally attracted to the Liberals.83 This would, of course, confirm the picture 83The left-centre-right character of NDP, Liberals, and Conservatives appears very clearly in the distribution of the trade union vote among the three parties in the election of 1962: Union families Non-union families Conservative 26yb b Liberal 38yb b NDP 22yb b R. Alford, “The Social Bases of Political Cleavage in 1962,” in J. Meisel, ed., Papers on the 1962 Election (Toronto, 1964yf . This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 170 G. HORoW= of Conservatives as the right, NDP as the left, and Liberals as the ‘classless” centre. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in the United States, where the lower strata prefer the Democrats, the higher prefer the Republicans, and there is no centre party. Although this picture of the relationship between class and voting is broadly true, it is also true that class voting in Canada is, generally speaking, over- shadowed by regional and religious-ethnic voting. In some parts of Canada, e.g. Ontario, class voting is as high as in the United States or higher. Never- theless, in Canada considered as a whole class voting is lower than in the United States; non-class motivations appear to be very strong.84 Peter Regenstrief suggests that one factor accounting for this is the persistent cultivation by the Liberal party of its classless image, its “abhorrence of anything remotely associated with class politics,”85 its refusal to appeal to any class against any other class. What this points to again is the unique character of English Canada as the only society in which the centre triumphs over left and right. In Europe the classless appeal of Liberal Reform does not work; the centre is decimated by the defection of high-status adherents to the right and of low-status adherents to the left. In Canada, the classless appeal of King centrism is the winning srtategy, drawing lower-class support to the Liberals away from the left parties, and higher-class support away from the right parties. This forces the left and right parties themselves to emulate (to a certain extentyf W K H / L E H U D O V ‘ classless strategy. The Conservatives transform themselves into Progressive Conservatives. The CCF transforms itself from a “farmer-labour” party into an NDP calling for the support of “all liberally minded Canadians.” The Liberal refusal to appear as a class party forces both right and left to mitigate their class appeals and to become themselves, in a sense, centre parties. Class voting in Canada may be lower than in the United States not entirely because regional-religious-ethnic factors are “objectively” stronger here, but also because King Liberalism, by resolutely avoiding class symbols, has made other symbols more important. He blunted us. We had no shape Because he never took sides, And no sides, Because he never allowed them to take shape.86 F. H. Underhill and many other pan-North Americans simply assume that the Liberal party is a party of the left like the liberal Democrats of the United States. They admit that it has not behaved as a left party, but they consider that this is merely an accident-a matter of piersonalities perhaps: perhaps King’s personality. Any day now, a magic word will be spoken, a great Rooseveltian leader will appear, the Liberal party will shed its misleading centrist image, its “essentially” leftist nature will be clear for all to see, and organized labour and other elements of the left will return from their NDP 84R. Alford, Party and Society (Chicago, 1963yf F K D S . 85″Group Perceptions and the Vote,” in Meisel, ed., Papers on the 1962 Election, 249. 86Scott, The Blasted Pine, 27. This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism 171 exile to their “natural” Liberal home.87 What these people fail to realize is that important political phenomena are seldom accidents. The Liberal party behaves as a centre party because it is a centre party. It is a centre party because cultural factors (the presence of non-liberal ideologiesyf D Q G L Q V W L W X – tional factors (the tendency to a multiplicity of parties in Canadayf K D Y e combined to produce a socialist party on its left. It will cease to behave as a centre party when its enemy on the left disappears. But the NDP, although it may not be “going anywhere,” is not about to disappear. Underhill believes that if the Liberal party becomes a left party, organized labour and other leftist elements will join it. But the Liberal party will not become a left party unless these elements join it. What makes this vicious circle possible is the existence in Canada of an alternative which does not exist in the United States-a socialist party which is strong enough to play an important role in national politics. As long as a socialist party is alive and as long as the left has this alternative to a Liberal party interlocked with the business community, the Liberal party will continue to be centrist in the European way rather than “truly liberal” (leftistyf L Q W K H $ P H U L F D Q Z D D Q d as long as it continues to be centrist, the left will continue to support the socialist party. The “antagonistic symbiosis” of Canadian liberalism and socialism probably cannot be ended even by the magic of a charismatic leader. 87″It is just possible that the so-called Liberal party under Mr. Pearson will become at last a Rooseveltian party of the left…. If that happens, I predict that our trade unions will follow the Reuther example.” (F. H. Underhill to G. Horowitz, Feb. 18, 1962yf . This content downloaded from 141.117.125.176 on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:49:28 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms