Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?

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If members of the shadow frontbench seek inspiration on how to differentiate their future administration from the mendacious nonentities who have run the country for the past 13 years, they could do worse than read this book. Free and Equal is a stirring call by an LSE philosopher and economist for egalitarian liberalism based on the ideas of John Rawls. The late Harvard professor wrote a book 50 years ago that saw him feted as a political thinker of the calibre of Plato, Hobbes and Mill, but, as far as I can tell, he had precisely zero impact on the real world. Maybe now his time has come. As economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler argues in this hugely ambitious and exhilarating intervention, it is by rediscovering Rawls that we can find a way out of the escalating crises that are devastating our world today. Taking Rawls's humane and egalitarian liberalism as his starting point, Chandler builds a careful and ultimately irresistible case for a progressive agenda that would fundamentally reshape our societies for the better. An uplifting vision of a new, egalitarian liberalism, and a bold practical programme for how we can reinvigorate democracy and transform capitalism In the UK, legislators do not spend as much time raising money for the next round of elections as they do in the USA, but they are amenable to the blandishments of those who provide them with second jobs or lobbyists who pay well for a friendly word in the right ear. What is to be done? One really radical proposal is to institute Athenian-style democracy – to choose parliaments through some form of random selection, creating a high probability that these assemblies will be truly representative. Chandler is less bold. He thinks, perhaps optimistically, that political parties are indispensable to democracy, formulating policy and championing their preferred causes. To avoid their capture by the folk with money and jobs to offer, he would forbid the private financing of parties and place the burden on the taxpayer instead.

This is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the left, and indeed the future of liberal democracy Jon Cruddas MPThis is a morally steadfast book, which liberalism's honest opponents should take for their target, and which will enliven liberal theory and perhaps even reinvigorate liberal political practice -- Daniel Markovits The writing of utopias has fallen out of fashion, whether because we are jaded, pessimistic about the chances of realising even a fraction of proposals that might be considered utopian, or for some other reason. Free and Equal is a breath of fresh air, therefore. It is unabashedly utopian in its proposals for social, economic, political and educational change. It is nonetheless perfectly realistic in the sense that few or none of Daniel Chandler’s proposals for a better world would be impossible to bring about if we had the gumption to try to do so.

It is a claim that will likely raise eyebrows even within the discipline. When I interviewed Marc Stears, a political theorist who left a post at the University of Oxford to be an adviser to the then Labour leader Ed Miliband, he listed Rawls among the thinkers he left behind in the ivory tower: ‘There was no day where a bit of Rawls helped me’. The arguments in Free and Equal suggest that statement was a little too hasty and dismissive – demonstrating how Rawls can be used to speak to modern political issues. Yet the book falls short of demonstrating Rawls’ theories are anything like necessary or essential, and that they can provide the sort of holistic vision Chandler thinks we need. Many of the policy recommendations are better described as loosely inspired by Rawls’ values rather than directly applying them This is a book brimming with hope and possibility - a much-needed alternative to the cynicism that pervades our politics, setting out a 'realistic utopia' that can galvanise people from all walks of life. Free and Equal has the potential not only to transform contemporary debate, but to offer a touchstone for a modern, egalitarian liberalism for many years to come, cementing Rawls's place in political discourse, and firmly establishing Chandler as a vital new voice for our time.

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