Definitions
Online Definition
From Wikipedia centrism could be defined as a political outlook that balances social equality and social hierarchy. A more basic definition of this would be that it supports equality to a point, acting as a midpoint between the capitalist free market ideas and the socialist total equity ideas.
It does not support total equality and suggests there should be the ability for some people to be better off than others.
My Definition
Obviously political viewpoints are a matter of opinion. Two people may both be ‘centrist’ but could hold extremely different ideals. This is why it is important to to cling to ideology, but actually to ideas that can drive us forward. Anyway, below is my definition of centrism:
Centrism defines a centre ground of political thought where ideas from right wing politics and ideas from left wing politics can be combined to form a hybrid system. It relies on compromise between people with varying political standpoints, with an aim of progression. It may, as an example, use capitalist ideas as a method to support efficiency of businesses (sometimes public ownership can cause inefficiencies) but also use socialist ideas to support poorer people in our society by providing access to necessary services such as education or medical care.
Centrist Political Parties (UK)
At the moment, centre ground in the UK is quite empty. The Labour government in the Blair era moved close to the centre. In the time since, Labour has shifted back to moderate left.
Liberal Democrats
The liberal democrats are one of the centre ground parties in the UK. During the coalition government, they ended up supporting the Conservative government. They managed to pass policies such as The Fixed Term Parliament Act, and other policies. However this coalition actually caused a massive drop in Liberal Democrat support since they ended up supporting unpopular policies such as Increasing Tuition Fees even though they promised to oppose it in the election campaign. As of 2023 there is once again increasing support for the liberal democrats.
Change UK (Dissolved)
This was a party created in 2019 by defectors of the conservative and the labour party, who in both cases were unhappy with the political views of their parties. In the 2019 general election all remaining MPs lost their seats in parliament and the party dissolved. It is up to opinion whether ChangeUK failed due to ingrained party loyalty in British voters, or due to the lack of a solid manifesto on what they wanted to do if elected as a party.
Some ideas:
These ideas are not final or fully fleshed out. Research and dialogue is needed for an ideas to to find out what creates the best balance and an improved society. Just because what we have works to a point shouldn’t mean that we stop striving for improvement.
Close all the tax loopholes.
The rich should not be able to avoid paying taxes that other people are forced to. Wealth disparity should be reduced. This however is not a simple problem, as in general the rich end up paying a lot higher of a tax bill as a percentage of earnings then middle or lower class, so any move would have to be balanced so as to motivate hard work, but also increase the fairness of the system.
Make sure services like healthcare, education are free and available to all.
Education and healthcare are seen as two of the most important services in the country. It would be important for these to be funded well (but regulated so money is not easily wasted).
This may include University although a graduate tax may be a good idea if University did become free (then it would be an investment of the state into the future). The graduate tax shouldn’t be too large as we want to encourage education and not penalize people for wanting further education. It should also not be too small so that the general taxpayer ends up ‘footing the bill’. Also should include some method for making sure students are not incentivized to drop out and avoid a graduate tax.
Exert government control over big corporations.
If you look at companies like Alphabet (Google) and Amazon, you cannot deny the changes they have created for society, and many are not bad. However, the value of these companies now exceed $1 trillion. The scary fact is that these are becoming bigger then the economies of small countries, and soon may exceed the economies of big countries. If the government does not take action to make sure these are kept in check and do not oppose the will of government (and the people), then soon the government will not have power to take action against them. I’m not sure the right action here but it is obvious that something needs to be done, whether splitting the companies up/increasing the anti-monopoly regulations that are in place/increasing fines for violating regulation. If we don’t take action now they could just refuse to do anything in the future as they will have all the cards.
Increase access to low interest loans and government support for small business and start-ups.
There is no reason why the government should not give small businesses a helping hand, allowing them easier access to funding to compete with big business. Big business effectively can act like a centralised power, but offers terms that bring them gains as well. The government should step in to reduce the profit making on the side of big businness for small business in the UK.
Make it easier for workers to take a stake in business.
No we shouldn’t just seize shares of companies and hand it over to workers, but we should incentive these companies to move to a worker-ownership module since there is evidence that workers who own part of the business the work in are more likely to work harder/more motivated. There is also evidence that these companies have seen better growth then companies not in this model (though more research is needed to decide how best this would be done and what the exact effects are).
I think one of the important thing to political debate is listening to other ideas, and finding common goals and solutions which help us to build a better society.
Note: this page is in a state of being rewritten, contact me at contact@inlinethoughts.com if you notice any problems/have any thoughts 🙂