Two contradictory notions permeate the political discourse in western democracies.
One is that the electorate in most democratic countries has become too polarised, with radicals on both the right and the left pushing people towards the extremes of the political spectrum. The other is that the establishment centre-right and centre-left parties are practically indistinguishable as both are willing to compromise their core beliefs to maintain power.
So, are centrist politics suffering from an ideological void that prevents the robust tackling of today’s socioeconomic challenges? Centrist politics are often associated with neo-liberal political and economic thinking.
Centrism is subject to various definitions. Still, liberalism dominates how some political leaders see the world. It does not just occupy a place between left and right; it cuts across both.
Some who like to brand themselves as liberals frame politics as something that happens mainly in the corridors of power: parliament and government ministries. The reality is that most voters care little about the sanctum sanctorum of power politics. What matters to them is what happens in their everyday life, in the home, and the workplace.
Traditional political leaders believe that practising moderation in socioeconomics is the best guarantee of retaining or acquiring power. Many young people aspiring to build their careers through politics know that projecting themselves as moderates gives them the best chance of joining the crowded traditional political centre.
Raoul Martinez is a philosopher and the author of Creating Freedom: Power, Control and the Fight for our Future. He argues: “The centre is a social construction, commanding loyalty from those whose privilege protects them from the ravages of the system they support.
The centre-ground does not necessarily represent majority opinion – it is a consensus of the powerful.”
The realities that today’s political leaders need to address are rising inequality and a growing generational and educational gap
Some analysts interpret the last French election parliamentary results as a failure of the centrist politics promoted by Emanuel Macron. Tony Blair may be repeating the same mistakes as Macron by militating to strengthen the centre in British politics. Both politicians fail to acknowledge that liberal centrism has left people behind and that its support for free markets and globalisation created new forms of exclusions.
At the end of the 1990s, European politically liberal thinkers shared an optimism about the direction of history. Liberal politicians helped build the welfare state and promoted progressive reforms that benefitted the poor. They defended free public health and education, civil and human rights, social equality, and migration. Many liberals earnestly believed that the future of liberalism was bright. They prematurely declared that ideology had become irrelevant following the end of the Cold War.
Today one can understand how fallacious some of the centrist thinking was. The realities that today’s political leaders need to address are rising inequality and a growing generational and educational gap. To these, one must add the need for ramping up security and defending civil and human rights against the threats of demagogues and ultra-conservative fundamentalists.
The struggles to abolish shameful realities like slavery, child labour, colonialism, and promote civil rights, racial and gender equality, and grant fundamental human rights to all, required courageous societal leaders to challenge the dominant narrative of the day. Those who showed the grit of authentic leadership were often labelled as extremists and sometimes imprisoned and killed. Social progress has usually only been achieved by radical political activity rather than by a “moderate” approach.
US politician Barry Goldwater was famous for saying: “Extremism in defence of liberty is no vice; and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue”. Political leaders that gravitate to the political centre between apparent extremes may temporarily avoid social conflict as centrist political thinking has the aura of moderation, reasonableness and realism.
Still, it often lacks the dynamism needed to address today’s societal challenges. We are what we are today because past political leaders struggled to promote the change that was needed to build a fairer society. It takes robust understanding from political leaders to develop and defend convictions that are incompatible with the established assumptions of peers and the powerful.
Martinez is right when he argues: “The moral challenge every generation must address is to see beyond the prejudices, lies and smears of their own time; to identify the injustices, threats and problems of their era; and work together to overcome them.”
Confronting extremist populism should not take the form of a return to the centre ground by turning back the clock to the 1990s. Political leaders can defeat populism by working for the whole community, not the privileged majority.