Gotham Diary:
Money and Justice
7 July 2014
When I ordered a copy of John Campbell’s biography of Roy Jenkins, the late British politician, I sensed that there would be something in the book “for me,” a personal message of some kind. I had no idea what the message would be, but it turned out that I was right to expect one. I’m still reading the book — I’ve almost reached the point where Jenkins abandoned his quarrelsome relationship with the Labour Party leadership for the presidency of the European Commission — so it is too soon to be framing any kind of review. But the message has been delivered.
Roy Jenkins was born into a Labour family, and he never wavered from the core Labour objective of eliminating poverty. But even before he left Oxford, on the eve of World War II, Jenkins was a bon viveur, and he would always have plenty of friends — especially lady friends — who came from conservative backgrounds. Creature comforts meant a great deal to him, as did his moderate but very steady diet of wining and dining. Shy and arrogant, he was drawn to people who interested him and almost unconscious of everyone else. He was a merciless debater, a master Parliamentarian whose articulate and entertaining speeches in and out of the House of Commons had an impact that one is tempted to call sexy. These orations seem always to have inspired somebody or other to conclude that Jenkins would be Prime Minister one day. That never happened, for reasons that make Campbell’s biography a fascinating case study.
Jenkins did not enter Parliament until 1948, by which time the Labour program of nationalization, subsidized health service, and anti-imperial austerity was well underway. From the start, he was concerned with what would happen next. This put him at odds with colleagues on the left wing of the party, who believed that the program must be seen through to its complete realization before any talk of “next.” In other words, Jenkins was no ideologue. Indeed, he would come to call himself a “radical,” by which he meant being free to do unexpected things, to make the most exciting use of sudden opportunities. Although the son of a coal miner (albeit one who made a very youthful transition to union management and middle-class respectability), Jenkins had no “labor” in his blood. He was never anything but an Oxford-educated politician who earned a considerable income as a writer. He was not marred by the generalized resentment that, for example, made Barbara Castle so inveterately scrappy. (Although she had to stop trusting Jenkins, because he put moral principles ahead of party, Castle could never stop liking him.) Also unlike Castle and other figures in Labour government, Jenkins did not believe in overwork. A quick study, he did what needed to be done without putting on a show of long hours. He protected his good life and pursued it unashamedly.
It is impossible for me not to admire Roy Jenkins. He had his faults, certainly, but they were not the kind of faults that I find it hard to forgive, because my own are so similar. (My own are also worse.) As so often is the case, now that I’m an old man, admiration springs without any associated idea of friendship. I should probably have found Jenkins to be glib, and I should probably have struck him as terminally unfocused. Beneath the surface, however, I feel a profound sympathy for the man as a thinker.
***
The story of Jenkins’s career can be reduced to a stark summary. Although he felt certain of his ground by the early Fifties, it would crumble beneath him for the rest of his life. He would find it ever more difficult to walk a path between the detached evils of his day, money and justice. Today, public life offers no ground at all for such a path.
Money and justice are things that every human being needs and wants. It is vital for people to be able to take of themselves and their families in security and comfort, while drawing deep if unthinking satisfaction from the sense that their communities are benevolently lawful. Without money and justice, men and women lose their grip on human nature, and become demoralized savages (much more confused, however, than any animal). But something almost as bad happens when there is too much money, or too much zeal for justice.
Politics in the democratic West has always shown an alarming tendency to polarize toward excess of one or the other. For many rich people, justice is little more than the facility that protects their private property. For many who are not and have never been rich, money is a commodity that ought to be distributed with rigorous equality. Robber barons and Marxists claim a disproportionate share of political discourse, which is probably why fewer and fewer people who aren’t either robber barons or Marxists pay any attention to politics. We grasp that robber barons and Marxists create one another, if only to have partners in argument. But their debate is idle and distracting.
What’s especially galling is to hear the attempt to harmonize money and justice dismissed as “a third way.” It is the only way.
***
The most exciting moment in Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life occurs on page 437 — I say this, having read but four pages further (with a good three hundred to go). During his second stint as Home Secretary, Jenkins delivered a speech that was broadly critical of government policies. He was taken aside by Barbara Castle, a fellow minister. Castle, as I say, liked Jenkins very much — women seemed to — but she was a firm believer in the party line. She worried that such outspoken speeches would ruin his career.
At this point, red in the face with sudden emotion, Roy said violently, “What makes you think I care about my political career? All that matters to me is what is happening in the world, which I think is heading for disaster. I can’t stand by and see us pretend everything is all right when I know we are heading for catastrophe.”
Where did Jenkins find the courage to speak so nobly? It’s no mystery to me: he lived a good life.
Daily Blague news update: Benefit Corporations.