Smells Like Positive Freedom

I recently became involved in a frank and enjoyable discussion in Outside The Beltway's comments section on the minimum wage, poverty and it's alleviation. With that discussion still fresh in my mind I was interested to see that the UK conservative leader David Cameron had a keynote speech on the subject yesterday.

Some quotes, from the Guardian/AP report:

"I believe that poverty is an economic waste and a moral disgrace,"

Poverty should not be measured in absolute terms, but relative: "the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted," he said. "So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty."

"Tackling poverty involves much more than the redistribution of money through the tax and benefits system. We have to think about the causes of poverty," he added.

"We have to disaggregate the problem - to look at the various types of poverty that exist, and the factors that contribute to them. Because for most people, material poverty is a consequence of other factors: family breakdown; drug and alcohol addiction; unemployment; poor education.

"Entrenched poverty often reflects the absence of the supporting structures and constructive relationships which help you stand on your own feet and which are the foundation of aspiration, ambition and hope. This is what government should be focusing on. Instead, Labour rely too heavily on redistributing money, and on the large, clunking mechanisms of the state." [Emphasis mine - C]

Sure smells like positive freedom to me - something which has always been anathema to the American political Right, who view freedom only in it's negative definition. Certainly, it is far more centrist than any American conservative leader could get away with.

So...have the UK's Tories lapsed into socialism or are the U.S.' conservatives just leaning too far right and finding themselves way behind on the compassion curve?

Well, not every UK conservative is happy about Cameron's speech - as comments at Conservative Home Diary blog show.

But it is certainly a discussion worth having, on both sides of the pond.