Stuart Hall - Left and Rights

7/29/2019 Stuart Hall - Left and Rights

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Left AndRights

Citizenship has become the flavour ofthe month. It has re-entered the

political debate with a vengeance.Mrs Thatcher uses it: so does the Left.

Stuart Hall and David Held arguethat the concept of citizenship must

lie at the very centre of a newsocialist politics

citizenship' has been largelyabsent from political dis-cussion and debate for morethan two decades. Only in

relation to questions of race and immig-ration did it carry a deep political

charge. Were the boundaries of citizen-ship to be redrawn with the end ofempire? Could there be more than oneclass of citizenship for people of diffe-rent ethnic backgrounds? The debate,crowned by the intervention of EnochPowell in the late 1960s, marked a highpoint in the political currency of thisdimension of citizenship. Elsewhere, theconcept seemed rather out-of-date. Sud-denly, however, citizenship is once moreon the lips of politicians, academics andcommentators of all political comple-xions. Why this renewed concern? Whatis at stake in this debate about citizen-ship between Right and Left?

A number of different factors seem tobe responsible for the return of citizen-ship to the political agenda. Some derivefrom the experience of Thatcherism it-self: the dismantling of the welfare state,the growing centralisation of power, theerosion of local democracy, of freespeech, trade-union and other civilrights.Some have a wider, more 'global',

context: the growth of regional national-ism in Scotland and elsewhere; theprospects for greater European integra-tion; the weakening of the old East-Westfrontiers under the Gorbachev offensive;the growing pace of international in-terdependence and globalisation - all, inone way or another, exposing and erodingthe sovereignty of the nation-state, theentity to which, until now, the modernlanguage of citizenship primarily refer-red.

These changes have been accompaniedby shifts in attitude towards the idea ofcitizenship on both the Right and theLeft. It used to be fashionable in somesections of the Left to dismiss the ques-tion of 'rights' as, largely, a bourgeoisfraud. But the experience of Thatcherismin the West and of Stalinism in the East

has gradually shifted the Left's thinkingon this question. The shift on the Right ismore complex and uncertain. Thatcher-

ism's drive towards unrestricted privateaccumulation, its attack on public ex-penditure, collectivism and the 'de-pendency culture' made it the naturalenemy of citizenship in its modern, wel-fare-state form. As the prime minister

put it: 'There is no such thing as society,only individual men and women and theirfamilies.'

However, this unswerving commitmentto individualism and the competitiveethic has awakened, in its turn, the spec-tre of Hobbes' 'war of all against all': thebreakdown of a sense of community andinterdependence, the weakening of thesocial fabric and the loosening of thehounds of social violence - so often fea-tures of a society dedicated exclusively tocompetitive self-interest. Thatcherismhas therefore rediscovered the need forsome concept to help integrate and 'bind'

society and has come up with the idea ofthe 'active citizen', who engages in 'doinggood' but in a purely private capacity. Inthis discourse, citizenship is detachedfrom its modern roots in institutionalreform, in the welfare state and com-munity struggles, and rearticulated withthe more Victorian concepts of charity,philanthropy and self-help. In morerecent versions, the 'active citizen' isdecked out in the pious homilies ofThatcherism's version of the NewTestament.

Clearly, we need a framework for think-ing about citizenship and its place in theagenda of the Left which sets it in thecontext of recent developments. Far fromsimply returning us to the old languageof citizenship, such an exercise requiresus to confront new questions and torethink the concept itself in the light of anew historical situation.Does 'citizenship' belong, naturally and

exclusively, to the Left? It has been partof what can broadly be identified as avariety of progressive historical move-ments - from older ideas of a just moralorder to Paine's Rights Of Man and Chart-ism. Nevertheless, it seems to be the casethat citizenship belongs exclusively toneither Right nor Left, nor indeed to

centre-ground. Like all the key contestedpolitical concepts of our time, it can beappropriated within very different poli-

16 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1989


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'The law inits majestic

equalitygives everyman (princeand pauperalike) an

equal right tosleep under abridge or eatat the Ritz'

tical discourses and articulated to verydifferent political positions - as its re-cuperation by the new Right clearlyshows. The concept can only mean some-thing decisive for the Left if we areprepared to do some theoretical and poli-

tical work around it, actively integratingit within a whole set of related politicalideas.

While there is no 'essence' to citizen-ship, it does have a long and rich historywith which any new conception mustcome to terms. From the ancient world tothe present day, citizenship has entaileda discussion of, and a struggle over, themeaning and scope of membership of thecommunity in which one lives. Who be-longs and what does 'belonging' mean inpractice? Membership, here, is not con-ditional: it is a matter of right and entitle-ment. But it is two-sided, reciprocal:rights in, but also responsibilities

towards, the community. These rightshave to be defined and specified, becauseotherwise their loss cannot be chal-lenged, and may even go undetected. Butformal definition alone will not suffice.Rights can be mere paper claims unlessthey can be practically enacted and real-ised, through actual participation in thecommunity. These then are citizenship'sthree leading notions: membership;rights and duties in reciprocity; realparticipation in practice.

The issues around membership - who

does and who does not belong - is where

the politics of citizenship begins. It isimpossible to chart the history of theconcept very far without coming sharplyup against successive attempts to res-trict citizenship to certain groups and toexclude others. In different historicalperiods, different groups have led, andprofited from, this 'politics of closure':property-owners, men, white people, theeducated, those in particular occupa-tions or with particular skills, adults.However, as the struggles against exclu-sion have developed and broadenedacross history, so those stemming fromthe exclusive enjoyment of the advan-tages of property, ownership, wealth and

privilege - in short, questions ofclass -have come to dominate the 'politics of

citizenship', absorbing a wide variety ofdifferent struggles against differentforms of exclusion under their rubric.

Certainly, class has constituted, histor-ically, one of the most powerful andramified of barriers to membership and

participation by the majority. But thishas also set up a tension within the ideaof citizenship itself. Fbr, as the politics ofcitizenship has been absorbed into classpolitics, so the citizenship idea has lostsomething of its specific force.owever, this exclusive refer-ence to class is one of the

things which is changingwith the renewed interest in

citizenship. In reality, attempts to res-trict membership and participation takemany different forms, involving diffe-rent practices of exclusion and affectingdifferent groups. This should be enoughto convince us that questions of citizen-ship, though bound to place the issues ofclass at their centre, cannot simply beabsorbed into class politics, or thought ofexclusively in class terms, and in relationto capitalist relations of production.

A contemporary 'politics of citizenship'must take into account the role which thesocial movements have played in expand-ing the claims to rights and entitlementsto new areas. It must address not onlyissues of class and inequality, but alsoquestions of membership posed byfeminism, the black and ethnic move-ments, ecology (including the moralclaims of the animal species and of

Nature itself) and vulnerable minorities,like children. But it must also come toterms with the problems posed by 'dif-ference' in a deeper sense: for example,the diverse communities to which webelong, the complex interplay of identityand identification in modern society, andthe differentiated ways in which peoplenow participate in social life. The diver-sity of arenas in which citizenship isbeing claimed and contested today isessential to any modern conception of itbecause it is inscribed in the very logic ofmodern society itself.

However, this expansion of the idea of

citizenship may run counter to the logicof citizenship, which has tended toabsorb 'differences' into one common,

universal status - the citizen. In the yearof the anniversary of the French Revolu-tion, it is worth recalling that its threecardinal principles - liberty, equalityand fraternity - formed a matrix withinwhich the citizens of the new Republic

claimed universal recognition on thebasis of a common equality. This lan-guage of theoretical universality andequality is what distinguished this mo-ment - the moment of the 'Rights of Man'- from earlier phases in the long marchof citizenship. But in the light of theexpansion and diversity of claims dis-cussed above, the question must be posedas to whether the variety and range ofentitlements can be adequately express-ed through or represented by a single,universal status like 'citizenship'. Isthere now an irreconcilable tension be-tween the thrust to equality and univer-sality entailed in the very idea of the

'citizen', and the variety of particularand specific needs, of diverse sites andpractices which constitute the modernpolitical subject?

We will come back to this question of'difference' later - it is, in some ways, the

joker in the citizenship pack. However,what the previous discussion makesclear is that contemporary claims tocitizenship are interrelated with a rangeof other political questions. What wethink about this range of political ques-tions will inevitably affect what we thinkabout citizenship itself.

What does the language of citizenshiprights really mean in contemporary soci-ety? And who are the subjects of suchrights? Citizenship rights are entitle-ments. Such entitlements are public andsocial (hence Mrs Thatcher's difficultieswith them). They are 'of right' and canonly be abrogated by the state underclearly delimited circumstances (eg, inthe case of imprisonment, which curtailsliberties which all citizens should other-wise enjoy). However, though citizenshipis a social status, its rights are entitle-ments to individuals. Individual citizensenjoy such entitlements on the basis of afundamental equality of condition - ie, ^their membership of the community.Citizenship rights establish a legiti- i



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'The

weaknessesandimitat ions of

a purelystatist

conception o fcitizenship

have becomemuch moreobvious inthe l ight of

recenthistory'

mate sphere for all individuals to pursuetheir actions and activities without riskof arbitrary or unjust political interfer-ence. Early attempts to achieve citizen-ship involved a struggle for the autonomyor independence of individuals from thelocale in which they were born and fromprescribed occupations. Later struggleshave involved such things as individualentitlement to freedom of speech, ex-pression, belief, information, as well asthe freedom of association on which

trade-union rights depend, and freedomof women in relation to marriage andproperty. Citizenship rights can there-fore be thought of as a measure of theautonomy an individual citizen enjoys asa result of his or her status as 'free andequal' members of a society. The otherimportant feature is that, though theyare guaranteed to citizens by the state,they are also, in an important sense,guaranteed against the arbitrary exer-cise of state power. Citizenship in its fullsense therefore combines, in rather un-usual ways, the public and the social withthe individual aspects of political life.The left critique of this position is by

now quite familiar, and carries consider-able weight. It centres on the emphasis,in the language of rights, on individualentitlement. There are really threestrands to this critique. First, the degreeto which individuals really are 'free' incapitalist democracies is open to ques-tion. Second, everything depends on howfreedom is defined. The rights and free-doms which interest the new Right referto a very narrow arena of social action,and are constructed around a verylimited conception of individual needsand desires. Largely, these are restrictedto individuals as isolated atoms, acting intheir own interests, maximised throughexchange in the marketplace. Rights arenot considered to have a social dimensionor an interdependent character. Third,citizenship rights, particularly in Bri-tain, are largely defined negatively. Thereare no laws preventing you entering theRitz or buying property in Docklands orapplying for most jobs. Whether in factyou have the means or the capacity to door achieve any of those things, positively,is a quite different matter. In the famouswords of Anatole France: The law in itsmajestic equality gives every man(prince and pauper alike) an equal rightto sleep under a bridge or eat at the Ritz.'

This is really another way ofrestating the Left's critique ofclassic liberalism in terms ofthe tension between 'formal'

and 'substantive' rights. The citizen mayformally enjoy 'equality before the law'.But, important though this unquestion-ably is, does he or she also have thematerial and cultural resources tochoose between different courses of ac-tion in practice? The 'free and equalindividual', as one commentator sug-gests, is a person found more rarely inpractice, than liberal theory suggests.What liberal theory, in both its classic

and contemporary forms, takes forgranted has, in fact, to be seriouslyquestioned. Namely, whether the existing

relations between men and women, be-tween employers and employees, betweenthe social classes, or blacks, whites andother ethnic groups, allow citizenship tobecome a reality in practice.This question lies at the centre of the

'politics of citizenship' today. Any cur-rent assessment of citizenship must bemade on the basis of liberties and rightswhich are tangible, capable of beingenjoyed, in both the state and civil socie-ty. If it is not given concrete and practical

content, liberty as an abstract principlecan scarcely be said to have any veryprofound consquences for everyday life.It is difficult to hymn the praises ofliberty, when massive numbers of actualindividuals are systematically restricted- for want of a complex mix of resourcesand opportunites - from participatingactively in political and civil life. Grossinequalities of class, sex and race sub-stantively hinder the extent to which itcan legitimately be claimed that indi-viduals are really 'free and equal' incontemporary society.

There is therefore, much of substance tothe Left's critique of the liberal concep-tion of citizenship. On the other hand,this may have led us to go too far in theopposite direction. We must test every'formal' right we are supposed to enjoyagainst its substance in practice. Butthis does not mean that the formal defini-tion of rights - for example, in a constitu-tion or bill of rights - is unimportant, or amatter of 'mere form'. Until rights havebeen specified, there is no way of moni-toring their infringement or of calling toaccount their practical implementation.

In general, what this discussion suggests is

that the 'politics of citizenship' today

must come to terms with, and attempt tostrike a new balance between, the indi-vidual and the social dimensions ofcitizenship rights. These two aspects areinterdependent and cannot be separated.Neither, on its own, will suffice. On theother hand, there is no necessary contra-diction between them.

The new Right would argue exactly theopposite, and this is one reason why therelationship between the individual andthe social dimensions of rights becomesone of the key issues at stake in ex-changes between the the new Right andits left critics. The new Right has a very

clear and consistent position on the ques-tion and the related issues of freedomand equality.The new Right is committed to the

classic liberal doctrine that the collectivegood can be properly realised in mostcases only by private individuals acting

'in competitive isolation, pursuing theirinterests with minimal state interfer-ence. At root, the new Right is concernedwith how to advance the cause of 'liberal-ism' against 'democracy' (or, as they putit, 'freedom' against 'equality') by limit-ing the possible uses of state power. Onthis view, the government can only legiti-mately intervene in society to enforce

general rules - formal rules whichbroadly protect, in John Locke's works,the 'life, liberty and estate' of the citizen.

Hayek, a leading advocate of these ideas,argues that a free liberal order is incom-patible with rules which specify howpeople should use the means at theirdisposal. Governments become coerciveif they interfere with people's capacity todetermine their own objectives. Hencethe reliance in Hayek's work on 'law', hiscritique of the so-called 'totalitarianism'involved in social planning and rejectionof the idea that the state can representthe 'public interest'.

ayek's prime example ofcoercive government islegislation which attempts

to alter the 'material posi-tion of particular people or enforce dis-tributive or "social" justice'. Distributive

justice, he argues, always imposes onsome person or group someone else'sconception of merit or desert. It requiresthe allocation of resources by a centralauthority acting as if itknew what peopleshould receive for their efforts or how tobehave. In his view, there is only onemechanism sufficiently sensitive to de-termine collective choice on an indi-vidual basis without such imposition -the free market. When protected by aconstitutional state and a framework oflaw, it is argued, no system provides amechanism of collective choice as dyna-mic, innovative and responsive. The freemarket is, for the new Right, the keycondition of the liberty of citizens. Whenoperating within the framework of aminimal state, it thus becomes constitu-tive of the nature of citizenship itself.The Left has always taken issue with

this line of argument. The free market, ithas argued, produces and reinforcesthose very forms of exclusion and 'clo-sure' associated with private property

and wealth, against which the idea ofcitizenship was directed. Hence, throughthe redistributive welfare state, the pre-rogatives of property and wealth had tobe cross-cut, modified or, in T H Mar-shall's famous phrase, 'abated', by thecountervailing rights of citizenship. Inpractice, the only force of sufficientlycompelling weight to bring to bearagainst the powers of property and capit-al was that of the state. Hence, for theLeft, the state was not inimical but essen-tial to the very idea of citizenship.It is indeed difficult to see how a proper

conception of citizenship could be estab-lished or effectively secured without the

intervention of the state. On the otherhand, it is not necessary to acceptHayek's line of reasoning to see thatcitizenship also entails the protection ofthe citizen against the arbitrary over-weening exercise of state power. Theweaknesses and limitations of a purely'statist' conception of citizenship havebecome much more obvious in the lightof recent history.

There is, then, an inevitable tension inthe Left's position on citizenship, since itboth requires and can be threatened bythe state. One tendency of the Left hasbeen to resolve or bypass this difficulty

by, so to speak, dissolving the wholequestion into that of democracy itself.The extension of popular democracy, it is



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i n the

relationshipbetween

citizenshipand

democracy isentailed a

new balance- a new

settlement -between

liberty andequality'

thought, will resolve all these knottyproblems. Hence the Left's advocacy ofcollective decision-making and democra-tic participation as a resolution to all theproblems of citizenship. Why bother todefine and entrench specific rights if, inan expanded democracy, every indi-vidual is destined to become 'fullysovereign'? Thus, by focusing squarelyon the extension of democracy, the Lefthas tended to leave any further specifica-tion of particular citizenship rights, and

the complex relations between liberty,social justice and democratic processes,to the ebb and flow of democratic negotia-tion. From Karl Marx to Lenin to RoyHattersley (in his recent defence ofLabour Party policy against Charter 88)this is a constant and recurring theme.'The people' are to become sovereign(via, respectively, the Commune, Soviets,Parliament). 'The people' are to becomegovernors of their own affairs - withoutlimit, so the argument runs. Within thisbroad democratic advance, the specificquestions of citizenship and the difficul-ty of defining particular rights will takecare of themselves.

This 'democratic' solution is in many ways

an attractive argument. But it presentscertain real difficulties. It is vulnerableto the charge of having failed to addressthe highly complex relations in modernsocieties between individual liberty, dis-tributional questions of social justice,and democratic processes. It does notreally resolve the question of who 'thepeople' are whose democratic sovereign-ty and enfranchisement is supposed tosettle at a single stroke so many ques-tions about particular rights. And itposes the extremely awkward issue of

whether there are to be any specifiablelimits to democracy. In short, is 'demo-cracy' alone, unsupplemented and un-modified by any concept of citizenship,any longer enough?

Should there be any limits on the powerof 'the people' to change or alter politicalcircumstances? The experience of 10years of 'elective dictatorship' under MrsThatcher may have changed the Left'sthinking on this question. For example,should the winning of a majority vote atan election constitute a mandate to des-troy parts of the system of local govern-ment which has been so important a

counterweight to the encroaching powersof a centralising state - especially ifachieved under our highly lopsided, first-past-the-post electoral system? Shouldthe nature and scope of the liberty ofindividuals be left entirely to the 'play' ofdemocratic decision? Don't individualsneed to have their rights to freedom ofspeech, thought and expression pro-tected? Must minorities conform, simplybecause they are minorities?

By answering questions about thenecessary limits to democracy in theaffirmative, the new Right at least recog-nises the possibility of real tensions

between individual liberty, collective de-cision-making and the institutions andprocesses of democracy. By not syste-matically addressing these issues, the

Left, in contrast, has perhaps too hastilyput aside the problems. In making demo-cracy, at all levels, the primary socialobjective to be achieved, the Left hasrelied on 'democratic reason' - a wise andgood democratic will - for the determina-tion of all just and positive social outcom-es. But can 'the people' always be reliedupon to be just to minorities or to margin-al and so-called 'unpopular' interests?Can one assume that the democratic willwill always be wise and good?

This is not a matter of abstracttheoretical debate. It is aroundsome of these tensions that thenew Right generated so much

political capital against the Left. Itforced the Left to acknowledge the un-certain outcomes of democratic life: theambiguous results of the welfare state,for example. It highlighted the fact thatdistributive justice can also lead tobureaucracy, surveillance and the exces-sive infringement of individual options(and not only in Eastern Europe). Itrepresented the reallocation of re-sources by the local state (for example, inthe form of 'equal opportunities' and'anti-racist programmes') as an imposi-tion of minority interests on the major-ity! These experiences have not neces-sarily made people more optimistic aboutcollective democratic decision-making ormore ready to fight to defend it.Take the question of 'popular sovereign-

ty'. Will the fact that we are all membersof the great, collective democratic sub-ject - 'the people' - provide a guaranteeof the rights and the liberties of theindividual citizen? Not necessarily. 'Thepeople' is, after all, also a discursivefigure, a rhetorical device, a mode ofaddress. It is open to constant negotia-

tion, contestation and redefinition. It rep-resents, as a 'unity', what are in fact adiversity of different positions and in-terests. In its populist form - 'giving thepeople what they want' - it has beenexploited by Thatcherism as a form ofpopulist mobilisation against a range ofdifferent minorities who are 'not one ofus'.

'The people' has also functioned so as tosilence or marginalise the conflicts ofinterest which it claims to represent.Thatcherism has operated within a nar-row and exclusive definition of 'the peo-ple'. It defines 'the people' as those who

identify with or have done well out of theenterprise culture. But since, in reality,only a small number of prosperous peo-ple, mainly living in parts of the southeast, can be represented in this figure, itis in effect a way of suppressing therights, marginalising the needs and de-nying the identities of large numbers ofother 'people' - including the Scots, thepoor, the unemployed, the homeless, theunderclasses, black pe'ople, manywomen, single-parent mothers, gay andlesbian people, and so on. Far from re-solving anything, it is a highly-contestedand contestable idea, around which agreat deal of 'ideological work' is con-stantly going on.

Then there is the problem of what poli-tical entity the citizen is a citizen of.

Everywhere, the nation-state itself - theentity to which the language of politicalcitizenship refers - is eroded and chal-lenged. The processes of economic, poli-tical, military and ecological inter-dependence are beginning to undermineit as a sovereign, self-contained entityfrom above. The rise of regional and local'nationalisms' are beginning to erode itfrom below. In certain respects, this mayhave negative consequences for citizen-ship: how to give effect to the 'rights' of

the citizens of Bhopal against chemicalpollution caused by a multinational com-pany registered in New York and operat-ing worldwide? In other respects, itsconsequences for citizenship may bepositive. The European Court has cer-tainly provided a critical bulwark for thecitizen of the UK against the steadyerosion of civil liberties under Thatcher-ism. But whether these processes workto the advantage or disadvantage ofcitizenship, the question remains: is thisthe right moment, historically, to betrying to define claims and entitlementsmade in terms of membership of the

nation-state?

There are then all kinds of problems which

undermine any certainty that greaterdemocracy will, in and of itself, resolvethe dilemmas of citizenship. Is there anyway through this impasse?One point which does follow directly

from the foregoing discussion can bestated clearly, and provides us with afresh start. There is a need to thinkthrough, and give institutional express-ion to, the demands of citizenship anddemocracy as closely-related issues: butit is important to keep these questionsdistinct. Democracy can only really existon the basis of 'free and equal citizens'.But citizenship requires some specifica-tion, and some institutional and politicalprotection, separate from and beyond theextension of democracy. In short, in therelationship between citizenship anddemocracy is entailed a new balance - anew settlement - between liberty andequality.

Can the parameters of such a 'newsettlement' be further specified? Itappears that a plausible resolution ofsome of the dilemmas of contemporarypolitics can only be provided if enhancedpolitical participation is embedded in a

legal and constitutional framework thatprotects and nurtures individuals andother social categories as 'free and equalcitizens'. However, to go down that roadhas some real political consequences. Itrequires us, for example, to recognisethe importance of a number of fun-damental tenets, often dismissed be-cause of their association with liberal-ism; for example, the centrality, in prin-ciple, of an 'impersonal' structure ofpublic power; the need for a constitutionto help guarantee and protect rights; adiversity of power centres, both withinthe state and outside it, in civil society;

mechanisms to promote open debate be-tween alternative political platforms; aninstitutional framework of enforceableand challengeable rights.



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Charter 88s a necessary

but not asufficientmeansforpeople toestablish

themselvesin the ir

capacity ascitizens'

In many countries, West and East, thelimits of 'government' are explicitly de-fined in constitutions and bills of rightswhich are subject to public scrutiny,parliamentary review and judicial pro-cess. The Left has sometimes been impa-tient with this procedural approach -and it is certainly true that no writtenconstitution or judicial review, alone, hasbeen able to guarantee the rights of thecitizen against a state which is deter-mined to abolish or reduce them. Never-

theless, the experience of recent historysuggests that this idea is fundamental todemocracy, conceived as a process whichbites deep into the structure of state andsociety. Constitutional entrenchment,however, is not enough. Any conception ofdemocracy which seeks to elaborate it asa form of 'socialist pluralism' requiresthe limits on 'public power' to be reasses-sed in relation to a far broader range ofissues than has been hitherto commonlypresupposed.

W

hat would be included insuch an expanded systemof rights? A constitution orbill of rights which en-

shrined the idea of the 'double focus' ofcitizenship - equal rights and equalpractices - would have to specify rightswith respect to the processes that deter-mine outcomes. Thus, not only equalrights to cast a vote, but also to enjoy theconditions of political understanding, in-volvement in collective decision-makingand setting of the political agenda whichmake the vote meaningful. These condi-tions for real political participation in-clude, rights with respect to information,education, the 'right to know', includingthe defence of the right to make publicthings which governments prefer to keep

under official restriction. There wouldhave to be a bundle of social rights linkedto reproduction, childcare and health;and economic rights to ensure adequateeconomic and financial resources for acitizen's autonomy. Without tough socialand economic rights, rights with respectto the state could not be enjoyed in prac-tice; and without rights in respect of thestate, new forms of inequality of power,wealth and status could systematicallydisrupt the implementation of social andeconomic liberties.

For example, a right to reproductivefreedom for women entails making public

authorities responsible, not only formedical and social facilities to prevent orassist pregnancy, but also for providingthe material conditions which help tomake the choice to have a child a genuine-ly free one. A right to the capacity reallyto choose between courses of actionobliges the state to implement ways ofdistributing wealth and income muchmore equitably. One way of making suchresources available may be a guaranteedminimum income for all adults, irrespec-tive of whether they are engaged in wageor household-labour. Strategies of thistype have to be treated with caution sincetheir implications for collective or societ-

al wealth-creation are complex and notfully clear. However, without a minimumguaranteed resource-base, many people

will remain highly vulnerable and depen-dent on the charity or goodwill of others -a condition which, despite Mrs Thatch-er's passion for replacing welfare rightswith private philanthropy, is in contra-diction with the very idea of citizenship.Such a system of rights must specify

certain responsibilities of the state togroups of citizens, which particular gov-ernments could not (unless permitted byan explicit process of constitutionalamendment) override. The authority of

the state - even of a much more democra-tic one than we enjoy at the moment -would thus, in principle, be clearly cir-cumscribed; its capacity for freedom ofaction to a certain degree bounded. Thischallenges some fundamental assump-tions still widely held on the Left.

We would go further. The importantpoint about such a constitution or bill ofrights would be that it radically enhancesthe ability of citizens to take actionagainst the state (including a socialiststate) to redress unreasonable encroach-ments on liberties. This would help tip thebalance from state to parliament andfrom parliament to citizens. It would bean 'empowering' system, breaking withany assumption that the state can suc-cessfully define citizens' wants andneeds for them, and become the 'caretak-er of existence'. It would redefine thebalance between state and civil society,which is at the heart of so much rethink-ing, from Left and Right alike.

Of course, empowerment would notthereby be guaranteed. But rights couldbe fought for by individuals, groups andmovements and could be tested in, amongother places, open court. The Americansystem makes it clear that this can leadto interminable wrangles, social change

getting delayed and bogged down in 'dueprocess' within the system. On the otherhand, the European Convention on Hu-man Rights has been a better defence ofcivil liberties than Britain's more vener-able, customary arrangements. On ba-lance, the gains from going in this direc-tion are preferable to the present situa-tion where it is extremely difficult tobring our archaic state system, operat-ing so much of the time on the basis ofundefined 'club' rules, to any openaccountability.

Enter Charter 88. Charter 88 is rightlyconcerned with enshrining the rights

and liberties of British subjects in a billof rights and a constitution - and therebymaking them 'citizens' for the first timein their history. The Charter is an im-mediate and practical intervention incurrent political discussion of the firstimportance and, as such, is to be wel-comed and endorsed. But, if the argu-ment above is correct, then it is a neces-sary but not a sufficient means for peopleto establish themselves in their capacityas citizens. In the context of the long-term struggle for socialism, it can beseen as one, but only one, essential mo-ment in the elaboration of a diverse rangeof new rights and their conditions ofexistence.

The question of difference, however,which we discussed earlier, raises much

deeper, more troubling issues, which arenot easily resolved in the short term.Older European ideas of citizenshipassumed a more culturally-homogeneouspopulation, within the framework of astrong and unitary national state. Itseemed appropriate, therefore, to believethat widening the democratic franchiseand participation of all citizens would,naturally, enlarge the freedoms, rightsand liberties of everyone.But social and cultural identities have

become more diversified and 'pluralised'in modern society. The modern nation-state is increasingly composed of groupswith very different ethnic and culturalidentities. Many of these groups belongto other histories, cultures and traditionsvery different from those of the indige-nous people. These cultural differencesare crucial to their sense of identity,identification and 'belongingness'. Simi-lar differences are also beginning toshow through in the communities andregions which originally constituted theUnited Kingdom. These differences pre-sent new challenges to, and produce newtensions within, what we called earlier

the 'universalising' thrust in the idea ofcitizenship.

Of course, permanent residents in thesociety, whatever their differences oforigin, history and culture, must be ableto claim common rights and entitle-ments, as full members of the politicalcommunity, without giving up their cul-tural identities. This is a key entitlementin any modern conception of citizenship -especially in societies whose populationsare increasingly culturally and ethnical-ly diverse. But this may not resolve all theproblems. Differences of all kinds willcontinue to create special and particular

needs, over and above those which can beaddressed within a universalistic con-ception of citizenship. As the Rushdieaffair demonstrates, it is not always pos-sible to keep universal political claimsand particularly cultural ones in sepa-rate compartments. They keep overlap-ping and invading each other's territory.

he politics of citizenship, insum, throws us into the deepend of some very profound,general, theoretical concerns

about politics as well as posing a set ofcomplex organisational issues. To think itthrough - a project only just beginning -we need to attend to both dimensions. Theelements of equality and universalityassociated with the idea of 'the citizen',and the diverse and particular require-ments of different groups which have tobe met if they are to enjoy 'free andequal' status, demand that the Left clar-ify, more profoundly than it has so far,both the principles of the politics ofcitizenship and their institutional re-quirements. What is at stake is nothingless than reformulating socialism to takebetter account of 'citizenship' and theconditions and limits this imposes onstate action and political strategy.

Different elements of the argument in this article areelaborated in Stuart Hall, The Voluntary Sector UnderAttack(an IVAC publication) and in David Held, Poli-tical Theory And The Modern State (Polity Press,forthcoming, July) .


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Stuart Hall - Left and Rights

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