Modern Britain, 1750 to the Present

Introduction

We have seen that by 1819 Britain's ancien regime – dominated by the monarchy, the aristocracy and the established Anglican Church – extended its imperial territories and emerged as the strongest state in Europe. The expanding commercial reach of its Empire and a new fiscal-military apparatus allowed the new Leviathan of the British state to wage a hugely expensive series of wars against its rivals while violently securing itself against its reforming critics, whether in colonial Boston or on the bloody fields of Peterloo. By the 1880s Britons, if not their colonial subjects, were governed by a fundamentally different type of state, one still recognizable in the Anglo-American world today. The principles of efficiency and meritocracy displaced those of custom and birth that had characterized Old Corruption. Government was to be cheap and no longer dependent upon debt-financing or excessive taxation. As the business of government became dissociated from the narrow interests of the monarchy, aristocracy and clergy, it was elevated to an Enlightened science whose rationale and practice appeared to be based upon natural laws that were beyond question. This transformation has been described as a ‘revolution in government’, one that is often associated with a new ‘age of reform’ of Britain's political and economic structures. The question then is how, why and when did this happen?

At the heart of this revolution in government was the doctrine of laissez-faire. This French phrase meaning ‘leave alone’ in fact expressed the attempts of Adam Smith and his followers to reimagine the relationship between the state and economic life. Whereas Britain's ancien regime had sought a tight mercantilist control of economic life, proponents of laissez-faire believed that the state should not interfere with the economy or disturb what they believed were the natural rhythms of markets. They believed that the effectiveness of the state should no longer be measured by how much power and control it could exercise, or how many taxes it could raise. Instead, it would be assessed by how successfully it freed markets (so that their supposedly natural forms could maximize the wealth of the nation), as well as how cheaply and efficiently it could operate. Like markets, it was argued, the industry and moral character of respectable families and individuals were best realized when they were left alone by the state to govern themselves.