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- Herausgeber: Editorial Martin
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Politics, philosophy
- Sprache: Englisch
Incompatibility and Other Essays was conceived in response to the non-functioning of power politics, at the international level, and the universal suffrage, locally, in each separate country. The four essays that make up the book address some flaws that should seem familiar to everybody; but that are not usually discussed as they are presented here. It is recommended that opposite political systems, such as liberal dmocracy and statism, should iron out their differences and come to terms with each other, however irreconcilable. If antagonizing parties compromised over their differences, that might seem valuable and praiseworthy, but it would detract from the significance of their principles. The debate cannot be solved while it is regarded as a contest of wills, or a power struggle. There must be an underlying agreement about common concerns, before it can begin. And probably also about ethics. To expect that politics can be conducted between positions that are reciprocally excluding begs the question. At best, it boils down to simulation. There is a widespread conviction that universal suffrage is more likely to focus on the needs and wants of the larger poverty stricken sector, than to warrant the viability of the system. To get this right, its workings must be understood. It is not enough to express indignation or resentment against privilege. Whoever takes charge of the task should be able to prove that he is up to it. Profiteering from speculation to give capitalism a reputation wont't do. Ownership ought to hinge on investment amounting to the full worth of assets. The majority rule is the main reason why economies run short of liquidity; however much it speeds up the monetary cycle. Much as government may be regarded as a necessary evil, because security is considered its principal responsibility toward the citizenry, without which no society cn hope to live peacefully, it offers a beginning everyone can follow up 0n. From a critical disposition, the topic has been approached with four essays. The firt one addresses the problem of incompatibility as crudely as possible, as long as it is left open to discussion. The second essay raises the question of societies that are ruled in a manner out of keeping with the prospect of attaining a three way liberal democracy as a form of government. In this way, these societies are being discriminated against as belonging to a 'developing'or 'third world' order. That would mean that while they are not ruled 'democratically', they are only 'rogue states', and therefore potential 'enemies'. The question is; must this be so? Essentially, every form of government requires a certain amount of consent, or approval, from the governed. If not, it would be in the process of undergoing change. The only change that is unacceptable is one designed to expand borders, likely to start a war; or to take away from some to share out to others, which amounts to the same thing again. To avoid this, the U.N. was bought into the picture as a supra-national entity. But, it needs to be empowered to take action. As a consulting organization it is not doing enough. The third essay is about the limitations of 'liberty' that are required to make this possible. And the fourth essay is about the capital requirementes for market stability, by way of removing some causes of uncertainty. One last thing: demagogy having taken over from representtaive democracy almost everywhere, even in a long standing bi-partisan system as that of the U.S., proves that a way will have to be found to make a liberal democracy work for all sectors, leaving none of the working class out in the cold; because the alternative could easily be that they would take over the market by gaining full control of the state and its revenue, putting an end to minority representation.
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Peter Lustig
Incompatibility and other essays
Editorial Martin 2020
Lustig, Peter
Incompatibility and other essays / Peter Lustig. - 1a ed. - Mar del Plata : Martín, 2020.
Libro digital, EPUB
Archivo Digital: descarga
ISBN 978-987-543-156-0
1. Filosofía Política. I. Título.
CDD 320.01
© Peter Lustig
www.editorialmartin.com
EDITORIAL MARTIN - 2020
ARGENTINA
Primera edición en formato digital: diciembre de 2020
Versión: 1.0
Digitalización: Proyecto451
Queda rigurosamente prohibida, sin la autorización escrita de los titulares del “Copyright”, bajo las sanciones establecidas en las leyes, la reproducción parcial o total de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento, incluidos la reprografía y el tratamiento informático.
First digital edition: december, 2020
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ISBN edición digital (ePub): 978-987-543-156-0
Incompatibility
Incompatibility Content
Introduction
I. The Singularity of Selfhood
II. A Communal Identity
III. Political Delusions (Liberalism)
IV. The Warpath
V. The Turning Point of Historical Studies
VI. The Place for Nostalgia
VII. Literature Fades
VIII. Education cum Therapy
IX. Differentiation
X. Integration
XI. Authority and the People
XII. Intramural Confrontation
XIII. Human Nature
• Introduction
The fact that all the attempts designed to encompass the common interests of humanity have failed, up to a given point, suggests that certain dead ends must have been reached along the way, which were never taken sufficiently into account. Devising a workable strategy to deal fairly and comprehensively with the demands of society requires that those differences that have stood as insurmountable obstacles be defined and discussed at length, before they can be cast aside. This entails drawing up a list of all the known sources of conflict and checking out the reasons why they should have remained unsolved. Systematic failure needs to be traced to the inadequacy of the methods employed, bearing in mind that, although it must be accepted that all the solutions applying to human affairs can only be temporary, some tend to be more conclusive and durable than others and the difference depends only on how they were implemented. In brief, if upon close examination of irreconcilable positions it is found that these are based on unyielding beliefs and fiercely held convictions, coming to terms would call for a discussion as open and uncommitted as possible. Unless something sensible came out of such a discussion, liable to be put into practice, nothing of any consequence would have been attained. That is why a strategy and a method are necessary, given that good intentions alone will never do when it comes to bringing about a change in the hearts and the minds of folks who, for the most part, cannot be expected to make such an effort unaided.
Toward this end, work must proceed at two distinct levels: one to deal with the psychological aspects of personal and collective insecurity and the other, with the objective reality of history and its underlying driving forces. If these two realms of human concerns can be brought together, it can be said that one was on track; otherwise, the result could lead to unrelenting hostility and that, in turn, would make it obvious that nobody was in the least inclined to listen. The issue centring upon the individual and the circumstances would then have to be fought out.
The main purpose of this work is to show up the notion that fighting in order to uphold an idea is a form of behaviour both futile and irrational. Not only because of the ethical inconsistency involved in killing people to improve society, but because the outcome is left to chance, not reason. This should not be understood to mean that the use of force is to be rejected out of hand, as a matter of principle, such as pacifism would have it. But, as long as civilization is bent on making sure that individual freedom does not interfere with social restraints designed to favour solidarity, there will be conflicts of interest, some of which may appear unsolvable. Fighting will not change this, no matter which way it goes, as the world wars have proven, whenever a no win situation arose in the aftermath (which, of course, does not mean that anybody ought to have given up trying to win while the war was still on).
The ground for these wars was laid very thoroughly along theoretical lines. Afterwards, what came to the fore were certain priorities, out of necessity. Freedom never came into the picture, either during the fighting or after. Moreover, the unprecedented practical and humanitarian problems brought about by all out war led to the assessment that its causes had to be economic, and that it was safe to conclude that all the additional suffering that war had brought upon the world might be compensated for by reparations in kind. Reducing the concept of total war to that of a trade war is insubstantial and unworthy of comment. In fact, if the causes of the war were economic, they could be sorted out in the market, not the battlefield. There would be no need for any arms races. Yet, every denizen who qualifies for the draft is rated as a prospective soldier by the demographic statistics. Population figures are even being used as a dissuasive factor, before resorting to warfare, when it appears that the imbalance in manpower might be a deciding factor. (Why else would the U.S. have been reluctant to fight in Korea or South East Asia, while they held a conclusive advantage in industrial capacity and weaponry?) Alternately, as China had opened its economy, in the seventies, and its immense population was no longer regarded as a regional menace, one could hardly say that G.W.Bush’s initiative to integrate the Americas economically compares unfavourably with what is going on in Venezuela, Argentina or Bolivia under ideologically incompatible regimes, opposed to the U.S. for more than just economic reasons.
This being so, one would have to ask what the people who vote for politicians expressing seemingly unwarranted resentment expect to gain while, to all intents and purposes, they appear to be doing so against their own best interests. There has got to be a different reason, or a number of different reasons, capable of providing personal and collective reassurance before cultural discomfiture at the idea that, as a people, they would be suffering the demeaning effect of subjection at the hands of aliens or outsiders. Can it be said that such a disposition of mind ought to be taken casually, because everybody knows that market size creates economic dependency, by definition, reducing lesser partners to minor roles? Of course not, because this kind of subservience amounts to a loss of freedom.
Freedom can mean a lot of things, depending chiefly on whatever hopes and fears may appear foremost to a person, on his home ground. This is where the question of an identity comes into play. An identity only becomes distinct as it is reflected between individuals, within a community that shares some easily recognizable common traits. (That is why too much diversity in a community is not of much help to achieve this feeling of belonging and it is important to train individuals to conform to a pattern of behaviour through “education”)
Mention of an education brings up the question as to why, even though “uneducated” populations are so malleable to populism, “educated” populations should have had their heads turned by mindless psychos, who had not a thought for the cravings of individuals and whose only aim it was to lock everybody tightly into an airtight system that would respond instantly to each and every one of these maniacs’ whims. This refers to Hitler, Stalin and so forth. Such self-appointed emblems of a shared identity -whether they were called nationalists, communists, fascists, etc.- played upon the uncertainty of the fate that awaited each man who stood unprotected in the path of concerted ethnocentric or class centred action, among cheering crowds galvanized by a rousing sense of fellowship.
In some respects, it might be said that, supposing an overhead view of the plight of both Russia and Germany had been taken toward the end of World War II, it would have been hard to tell the losers from the winners, in terms of victimization and brutality (not to mention material deterioration). It would not take a very far-reaching guess to draw up a comparison of the conditions under which people in the Western democracies were living, with those of the population on the losing side. Hence, there would not be much reason to think that politics were being conducted very differently here and there. Who knows whether Churchill, Roosevelt or Truman would have fared better at a war crimes trial, if they had not won the war? After all, Karl Popper felt he had to write “The Open Society and Its Enemies” to provide moral justification for the West’s decision to fight, so as to make the point clear (presumably because it was not so easy to see).
There can be no question about the ethical motivation supporting the struggle for the survival of democracy being beyond dispute. But, the point being made here is that there was little difference between the values that upheld the faith in their cause, on either side. Furthermore, this same singularity of values was confirmed at the time of post-war reconstruction. It applied to individuals and communities alike. The same traditions, updated. The same loyalties and allegiances. Unfortunately, the same heroics and brainwashing that led previous generations to march joyfully to obliterate everything their upbringing had prepared them to revere, were revived almost as soon as the peace had been signed. Only out of precaution was a shooting war prevented and the cold war kept within limits. But the thinking patterns and the feelings were the same, save for the notion that political integration might save Europe from future heartbreak. To the extent that the European Union would eventually broaden the unit within which otherwise estranged, politically unviable, regional populations could be included, a tentative solution was provided to prevent the possibility of another war. However, in the process, historically relegated national identities were given a place under the sun and stimulated to live up to the same standards that had been curbed by the defeat of militant nationalism. How was becoming a part of the European Union different from lining up with Greater Germany? Could that account for having gone to war?
Writing to enhance people as individuals and as members of separate and sovereign community centred political entities, one is obliged to put forward the notion that, with all the evidence showing that the manner in which men were taught to stand up for themselves and define their identity could only lead to bloodshed and destruction, it is high time that this situation should be addressed from a different angle. Seeing that the largely untrained and illiterate, or barely literate, populations of the Third World might be easier to influence (as the natives of Latin America were influenced by the Church, from the earliest days of the conquista), it would seem unforthcoming to propose allowing one or two generations to go by before expecting any progress to materialize through education. Already the populist trend in politics -not only in Latin America, but chiefly in all those countries with profoundly divided societies- indicates that, even though the people may have little or no understanding of economics, everyone knows well enough what suits him best and politicians who focus on assisting the least favoured sectors will have won the day hands down. So much for populism. A cause that ought to be of greater concern involves what sort of people are really being helped, if elections are going to be won by whoever doles out the largest handout: those who cannot help themselves, or those who will not; or those who turn politics into a full scale racket?
I. The Singularity of Selfhood
Given the inordinate predicament attained by Freudian psychology, in this day and age, it has become difficult to mark the territory of motivation in terms of an objective appraisal. It is always possible to attribute human behaviour to basic aspects of theory, without taking into account that, while theory involves conceptualization, some facts may be unwittingly overlooked or left out. This reasoning applies as much to the vagaries with which “human nature” is frequently invoked, to sideline complications in the search for causes, as to the deeper implication that certain unflagging principles may, indeed, exist beyond the whimsical realm of personal preference (conscious or otherwise) that determines how choices are made.
Actually, if there really is an ontological basis to the real world, it is hard to accept that there can be room for uncertainty or relativism in connection with available options. One gets the impression that the seemingly aimless digressions in which “science”indulges are only an excuse to cover up ignorance, a temporary face saving procedure to help self-anointed “experts” push forward the deadlines they have set for themselves, in response to public or personal expectations.
But, the fact remains that, while it continues to be considered legitimate to attribute the quality of an objective truth to evaluations made in response to stimuli, it would be wrong to omit a comparison with facts or reasons that are external to the circumstances under consideration. It would be even farther removed from the truth to say that something appears in a certain light because it is being regarded so through a particular lens and that, in reality, how it is seen depends on the colour of that lens. It might as well be said, risking charges of Medievalism, that grasping this “truth” is beyond the scope of the intellect, instead of denying the obvious by shrouding it in mystery.
There remains the question as to how well this “true”world, made up of what amounts effectively to “reality”, can be known and to what extent this actually matters, in view of the tendency to interpret and equivocate, rather than to disengage from subjectivity. How would anybody determine that regard for “truthfulness” can make a difference, if it is known that human nature will normally view any version of reality at a slant? Is it at all possible to consider this contradiction in a single breath? Can anybody make headway toward finding common ground for a compromise, or will convictions invariably take precedence over human lives, when “truths” are at stake? With what is a person left if he has been deprived of the right to exist because his convictions have come into question? Worse still, supposing he was alleged to hold these convictions because he had been assigned a collective identity, where does this leave him as an individual? Is victimization eased through sharing the fate of others, or is there a “moment of truth” when the only thing that counts is what happens to oneself?
The sufferer is always, inwardly, an individual. This is so to the extent that human nature is expected to look askance before a dire plight and “humaneness” under pressure is a virtue attributed to “education” (with or without the support of “reason”) How can“unselfishness”, or even “selflessness”, be explained while human nature is described as essentially self-centred? Does this not suggest there must be something “real”out there that belies “human nature”? If so, what are the chances that there may be no such “human nature”, but any number of possible choices regarding behaviour, with or without the benefit of “education”, and even before attaching a reason to these choices?
It is easy to formulate unlimited questions on an issue without coming forward with an answer. Yet, never for a moment can anyone deny that there is a warning note sounded every time interpretation is given the upper hand over attempting to show things as they really are. The danger lies in allowing oneself to be drawn away from a rational approach, though it were only for the sake of getting more attention. It would be useless to try to make heads or tails of something that was not devised for effective communication. So much for “irrationalism”!
The sum total of the arguments conducive to expose the disarray of opinions on an underlying reality, as an outcome of psychological diverseness, rules out any attempt to arrive at an objective assessment. Discussing psychology refers to the subject, not to the object. Despite the convenience, or the usefulness, of focusing on the reasons why some people do certain things, a study of behaviour can never explain away its external motivating agents, as if they only existed as an excuse for self-delusion and were not at all real themselves. The unavoidable conclusion suggests that psychology and ontology are separate fields that do not intersect and they must be dealt with accordingly.
II. A Communal Identity
Foremost lies the concern about demographic encroachment, so that the prospect of a “loss of identity” might afflict a polity as a consequence of having given way to multiculturalism. A case in point might be France, in danger of being taken over by a Muslim majority within the next so many years, as outlined in a big splash by one M. Picketty, an economist, with reference to a recent population survey.
It can only be remarked that countries geographically larger and emptier than France, that took in proportionally more culturally diverse people, were able to help immigrants adapt and become integrated within a couple of generations, even if this implied a measure of give and take that may have affected the outward appearance of society and modified to some extent its supporting cultural biases. Why would France be more vulnerable, being endowed with greater density of population, were it not for the inadequacies of its anti-discrimination legislation?
Aside from the consolidating experience of winning wars (as long as one’s own territory is never overrun), cultural identity does not come into consideration, at all. Involvement simply becomes a matter of taking sides and it has no bearing on who you are, how you look or what language you speak. It depends only on the way you think. A collective identity will have taken shape under unprecedented conditions, in the sense that life is, of necessity, unrehearsed and, therefore, unpredictable. Learning takes place in the course of events and this, in turn, becomes self-defining.
Whoever trains his sights on outlining a plan for the future -as in this case, to envisage a post-war scenario with tolerance for a shifting society- must be equipped with further insight, in order to exercise leadership where others are merely prepared to fall into step, as an alternative to millions being left entirely out of the picture, even to the extent that their survival were in the balance. Having made plain the difference between a leader and his following, there remains little to say about why some should succeed while others fail; but there can be no a priori certainty about outcomes, just as it would not make sense to attribute any initiative to the masses because they had responded to mobilization, in either political and/or military terms.
Some fixed notions as to why learning takes place can be traced to Antiquity. For instance, that knowledge is attained unrelated to practical interest, in response to “disinterested” curiosity. True as this may be, the only knowledge that counts is that which contributes to solve an existential problem. That people should at times take upon themselves the defense of a position detrimental to their fortunes, or their lives, in no way rules out that they may be doing so for a reason closer to their hearts, even if it means they would be bringing about their own downfall (as the Germans and the Japanese, in World War II). They partook of a gamble for the sake of something that meant the most to them, self-preservation, with an eye on what they held to be in their best interest.
Although not everybody can be expected to live up to such standards of “ïdealism”, neither are most people ready to muster the required intellectual effort to go about clarifying their disposition. This marks a form of basic inequality likely to raise a number of far reaching questions about the concept of universal suffrage and its effect on the running of public affairs. To say the least, it addresses the issue of leadership from the angle of a communal identity, referring indirectly to the practical implications of what is known or acknowledged. Why would anybody want to put forward notions unrelated to the realities germane to the following he is trying to rally and still expect to obtain results? Obviously, any such dramatic proposal should have greater appeal for the young, always ready to take things to extremes unguardedly, than to those whom experience has made more cautious or craftier.
Bearing in mind that what people are told will depend on who is being targeted with the information, subtlety is not likely to make much headway with the broader audience. Neither is learning. It is quite possible that history should stray from the more advisable course of action, if only because action is not always necessarily guided by knowledge or reason. Mostly, desperateness triggers responses more effectively than deliberation, because speed saves time. This leaves no room at all for rationalizing. There can be no pretense that decisions made on the spur of the moment might have anything to do with knowledge. The only reason for going into action unthinkingly would be because it was too late to engage in a debate (as when the Blitz began).
Once all hell has broken loose, the most anybody can hope for is that he will manage to slip through mayhem unnoticed. Nobody could blame a person for absconding from his responsibility toward his peers or “equals”, under circumstances devoid of ethical constraints (best described by Churchill’s claim that he was fighting for “my country, right or wrong”), in conditions of all out war! However, there are always some who are prepared to do more. They are the ones cut out to become leaders; even if, for the most part, they should only become such in thought (since there can be only one successful leader, always on the winning side, in any situation).
Broadly speaking, this attempt to encompass a reality associated with recent history is intended to help resolve the problem posed by the dearth of ideas capable of regulating a society that has surpassed the existing proviso for its own survival, on account of demographic and technological developments. This society may have been split into irreconcilable camps for cultural reasons; but it is more probable that these, chiefly expressed in terms of religious affiliation, should be reflecting economic conditions, rather than endorsing any irreducible incompatibilities. People everywhere tend to have similar goals and it would be reasonable to expect a person to want to adjust to a global environment, since that is the sort of world in which he must find his place.
It is well known that many would disagree with this outline. They make a point of upholding certain cherished cultural values. Some hard line moral imperatives are resilient to compromise, particularly as they are understood by the Muslim militancy. Conceivably, it is the religious leaders who are bound to present an unflexing front regarding the application of principles, to the extent that they should be preaching extremism and holy war (as an alternative to conventional war, which they could not muster, for the time being, due to an, as yet, unbridgeable technological backlog; although nobody can tell whether the gap will be closed sooner than later).
Once the threat of a Muslim conspiracy, worldwide, has taken root -as is the case-, the Muslim presence has added fear to the spontaneous rejection of its deliberate unconformity. It is not past the popular imagination to think of these people as a threat to world peace, failing to note the difference between a political crime, like terrorism, practised by fanatics, and an outright military onslaught, as was carried ought by the Nazis, in Europe, or the Japanese, in the Far East.
As a precaution, it would be sensible to keep track of the demographic expansion of a community that shelters in parochial custom, while it refuses to adapt and it grows in size. This does not amount to proposing that every Muslim deserves to be treated as a dangerous extremist, or even as a “sleeper”, because he looks and dresses differently, as is often unreasonably maintained. But the demographic effect of the presence of a larger number of Muslims might exert an influence similar to the much vaunted informality brought about by proletarianization, as promoted by the American servicemen wherever they were posted, after 1945. The result has been that people everywhere dress as if they were living in the U.S. and local costume is kept, at best, for ceremonial use on holidays. Not to mention the “refinements” of style trends that have done away with class distinctions linked to bourgeois conventionality. Hollywood and the cinema in general may also have contributed to this end; but one might argue that it all started with socially non-descript American soldiers being transported far and wide, because that was when it was first noticed. One can hardly say that this lapse into informality has improved the appearance of the milling city crowds; but the change is mainly on the outside. If, along with the hidden threat of terrorists becoming embedded in a society, the growth of this exotic flower associated with cultural defiance were to take control of the political system, in a country, invasion by means of demographic displacement would have anticipated a war of conquest, while actually making it redundant. There have been numerous precedents of this kind of “wandering” throughout history (and even earlier, before “homo sapiens” was left as the only surviving human type), not the least of them having taken place in Britain during the first millenium A.D., of which perhaps more is known than about most other such instances that took place in Europe, in spite of widespread illiteracy, at the time. Can it be said that the repeated cultural backslides, due to successive invasions that followed upon the withdrawal of the Romans, stood in the way of defining a national character, or that England was left at a disadvantage, in the long run, because it was made vulnerable to the Norman invader? One is inclined to believe that barely a physical or cultural trait remains in today’s population that could be traced farther back than 1066. Beyond that, one would have to move up to the XVII century to evaluate political and social developments that account for the stability that is taken for granted today. If anything, this stability, a lasting tribute to the traumatic overthrow of Charles I, in 1649, stems from the decision to abolish violence as a method to warrant political continuity and also because of permanent involvement with social progress, particularly as from 1945, when the war was won after everything else had been lost - except acquiescence to some kind of rule of law - and the welfare state was established, since now everybody was hungry and poor, in the wasteland that was post war Europe, and not least Britain.
With respect to how the present situation can be addressed (since the law does not provide for an instance in which a large sector of the polity chooses to exclude itself), it may presumably suffice to make up a list of regulations, to put an end to that, and seeing to it that they are enforced. A long way from stimulating bloodshed or recommending mass deportations, one would think.
III. Political Delusions (Liberalism)
Cromwell’s interregnum effectively put an end to the period of transition between conspiring warlords -intent on wresting the throne from their rivals to crown one of their own- and the consolidation of parliamentary procedure, legitimized chiefly by greater participation of the Commons. At this stage, Hobbes’ “Leviathan” appeared, as a metaphor to enhance the monarchy; but it is unlikely that it would have influenced the course of events, to the extent that it was later credited for having led toward implementing the three independent powers of parliamentary democracy.
Needless to say, Hobbes had no interest in the common folk and he would not get involved with the peasants and the poor, as they played no part in government. In fact, the idea that “the great unwashed” should have a say in decision-making was never part of the discussion, not even when “Liberalism”came to the fore, more than half way through the next century. Neither Locke, Hume, the English constitutionalists, nor the leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment ever came close to getting involved with social progress, in the same way that the Reformation never approached the extremes, in England, that it reached on the Continent, where it might well have been hailed as a precursor to bloody revolution. No definitive consideration was given to the possibility of establishing a republic, in Britain, in the course of shaping the institutions of a parliamentary monarchy; only in America was such a thing envisaged.
The uprising against “taxation without representation” had little bearing on the ordinary denizen, in the Colonies, by contrast with the revolt of the “sans culottes”, in France, a few years later. More likely than not, the American Revolution was led by the gentry, with the purpose of ratifying property rights and trade interests: viz. demanding ”freedom” from domination by legislation enacted at Westminster and enforced by the King’s redcoats.
An overview of the Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia, in 1776, would show an assembly of land owning, slave driving cotton planters whose main concern was to have control over the source of their wealth. In no way were the lesser folk represented. This needs to be made plain, before the notion of a “liberal democracy” can be linked to universal suffrage.
The term “liberalism”was coined by Adam Smith with reference to a person’s ability to go about managing his life according to his own free will. Hence, this person would be entirely “at liberty” to act always in his best interest. The logic behind the “Invisible Hand” is most revealing, in this respect. Smith must have imagined that thrift and “faith” would overcome any obstacles for somebody equipped with the essentials to make things work, as long as he could act unhindered by the dispossessed underclass, that was supposed to be there to do his bidding out of sheer despondency. Therefore, “labour” was just a commodity priced according to the law of supply and demand, like any other commodity, although it was tied to the elementary ‘needs and wants’ of a numerical majority. This particular instance of philosophic “liberalism” never bothered to make a distinction between surplus goods and surplus people, when supply exceeded demand.
In a society where the economy was driven by slave labour, it may be presumed that a regression to feudalism was the order of the day. In that sense, America was moving in a direction opposite to the course of events that led to the French Revolution. It is sometimes said that the beheading of the king had taken place in England a century earlier and that society had consequently had more time to mature. So the Terror and mob rule could never take place in England, and certainly not in America, where there had not been any royals or nobles, in the first place. The more enlightened version of the events that marked the history of the XVIII century asserts that Revolution actually brought about the empowerment of the bourgeoisie, since the bourgeoisie had filled the space previously occupied by the nobility, prior to its extermination. (Parallel to this interpretation runs the theory that the elimination of the Jews, in Europe, in the XX century, was the logical outcome of the displacement of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat; because the Jews were only a carry over from olden times and they had no role left to play as creditors of their betters in a classless society).
Explanations such as these just mentioned have two things against them: first, their obviousness and second, the sloppiness of slanted generalizations. What does stand them in good stead is that they draw attention to aspects of history that are at variance with the approved official version and so they can lead to further discussion.
“Liberalism” of the variety described by Smith, who transferred his belief in Providence onto the workings of business practice; or Malthus, who feared the revolt of the poor and recommended keeping them hungry and obeisant; or Ricardo, who worried about the rentiers’ unconcern about reinvestment, suggesting that they be subjected to “euthanasia” (presumably by taxing avarice out of existence) and, later, maintaining labour as the independent variable of economic progress, all represent successive stages that hindsight reveals as being worthy of logical redress. Even if “liberalism” should have lapsed from unconformity (in the U.S.) onto conservatism, elsewhere (particularly in the Third World), this only confirms that it was not able to fulfil its promise for a large enough portion of society, because it had strayed from its original purpose, so that its very definition has become incongruous.
Of course, it is far from the aim of this discourse to find fault with the principles of liberalism. Listing its failings should help to overcome them, since they lie principally with the scope and the manner in which they are applied. Everybody knows there cannot be a middle road; as soon as freedom is in the least curtailed, the evils of arbitrariness take over and certain incompatibilities arise when people grow weary of negotiating to no avail, and they end up wanting to fight rather than compromise.
IV. The Warpath
When the terrorist raid against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo took place recently, in Paris, the authorities immediately went about putting an end to the affair by shooting the perpetrators on sight. True, public demonstrations- unequalled since the end of World War II -brought about a gathering of government heads and politicians so diverse that the only thing that they can be said to have in common was their support for the “liberal” traditions of Western democracy. All this happened at once. Only afterwards was the decision taken to discuss methods and procedure to prevent a repetition of such things. Though the far right party of the Le Pens was invited to take part in the so called internal debate, they were unwelcome at the international level, where they would appear to represent a discriminatory disposition that might a) be regarded as a provocation and b) place France in an equivocal position with regard to xenophobia.
The massive repulse expressed by three or four million protestors was able to account for a call to take action which, in view of the large number and the ideological divergences of the participating politicians from all over the world, could be expected to resolve itself in an agreement to pursue the matter farther. No instant response or joint undertaking was forthcoming. Still, the security forces took it upon themselves to proceed right away, leaving aside considerations about citizen rights, international charters and all the weighty propositions that have been conceived to protect individuals from the power of the state. The terrorists were not treated like people assisted by human rights. They were wiped out then and there. No attempt was made to disarm them or to arrest them. A few snipers were simply instructed to pick them off. If anything, these terrorists were never going to be given a second chance to do their worst, whatever might be the outcome of imminent discussions on how to make borders safer, or restrict transit within the E.U., or carry out closer control of suspects traveling back and forth from locations outside Europe known to harbour training camps for converts and volunteers. Already, if they only sympathize with extremism, these people are being deprived of their rights as citizens (i.e. their “human rights”) to move about freely. Even before they have the opportunity to do something frightful, they lose their rights.
How can such a situation be reconciled with the “liberal” principles of democracy, unless the authorities take it upon themselves to make certain that misfits who pose a threat to their fellow men, for political reasons, are dealt with like any other sort of criminal caught red handed? One might go a step farther and ask how a liberal democracy, representing multiple opinions, could be made operational if violence were not to be eliminated out of hand, without regard to procedure, even if there seems to be a basic incompatibility between the precepts of democracy and the measures required to give it a chance to work.
The same incompatibility could be transferred, at a stroke of the pen, to the manner in which a pluralist relates to a fundamentalist, only this would apply at an earlier stage, before the situation were about to end in a free for all. There are many precedents, in recent history, in which politicians who were known for their undemocratic convictions switched to populism. Once in power, they claimed they had been legitimized by the vote, as if this were supposed to mean that they had always been in favour of democracy. From the standpoint of this critique, one finds it hard to believe, as well as the notion that a person’s views may change with the passing of time. Such a possibility might stand an intellectual in good stead; but it has no credibility at all in the case of somebody with political ambitions, in spite of which it has become a regular feature of democracy to have these former terrorists, or sympathizers with their cause, play the system to the extent that they can be passed off as “successful” politicians (assuming that whoever has the votes is, for that reason, upholding the best interests of the people). One can only wonder what these politicians might think and do if they did not have the votes or, worse still, if they were prevented from competing, as ex-cons, or even if they had never been sentenced. In the words of the wife of the outgoing president of Uruguay (he served time for active terrorism), if any attempt were made to depose her husband, they were prepared to take to the streets again. She gave this warning as a corollary to his inauguration. Coming from an old woman, it sounds somewhat grotesque; but it must be remembered that she, too, holds (or held) a seat in congress. The democratic system provides generous pensions for former executives and parliamentarians, particularly in countries where democracy is at a premium and it pays to access public office. It may be assumed that someone who had spent almost fifteen years in custody, without a change of heart - in view of what can be construed from the lady’s words -, might easily have done worse!
Quite apart from the question as to why so many successful politicians should have a past that was not precisely law-abiding, one ought to ask whether the reason might not lie with the discriminatory view in which the less affluent sector of society is held, in a “liberal” context, and whether this ought not to be attributed to too many people having been left out, basically because they did not fit the cultural bias that accorded an identity only to those who met the institutionally prescribed standards, socially and ideologically. Divided societies are always ripe for dissent: the worst form of dissent appears in the guise of religious conflict. Why? Because there is no way to reason around belief; so it becomes impossible to temporize. This was why the clergy were gradually disempowered in the West. No such disempowerment has taken place in the Muslim society (nor among the Zionists, or the Peronists, or the Congress Party, just to mention a few well known examples of single track thought models). In some respects, these constitute a solid majority bloc that is unlikely to give way to any sort of opposition. If some of the more damaging economic consequences of political reliance on state sponsored investment are surveyed, one could hardly expect that a rational electorate would endorse such a system. But that is how the vote tends to go. So, inevitably, one must conclude that more people stand to gain by depending on the state, either through participating in government, or benefiting from perks.
The ordinary voter does not take the long view of an economic trend, because a) he is faced by urgencies closer at hand and b) he is skeptical about the future, quite apart from whether he has a grasp of economics or is completely ignorant in that department, as is often the case. There are even members of the entrepreneurial class who ought to know better; but their thinking does not go beyond the returns of the balance sheet, at the end of the fiscal year. It cannot be said that they are ignorant; but they have other priorities than the long term outlook of the economy.
Supposing one were to piece together the economic plunge of regimes like those of Cuba and Venezuela with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is hard to understand how anybody could expect a policy of redistribution to hold up in the absence of investment, after all the haves had been fleeced dry or done in. That was what Stalin and Hitler did. They differed mainly in that Hitler lost the war. In addition to the very similar social discipline put into practice by sundry totalitarian regimes, to prepare for war, there is very little difference, if any, between what needed to be done after the collapse of their economies. That should speak for itself when it comes to evaluating state sponsored capitalism. In every case, after the resources taken over from the more affluent (or more helpless) sector of local society gave out, it became necessary to embark on wars of conquest, which mostly ended badly, as a logical outcome of unequal military and economic capabilities.
Was this something the leaders of the different regimes did not know or could not foresee? Of course not. They just decided to take their chances when the time was right, particularly because they could rely on the support of their infatuated populations that had been geared to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. One would have to have lived through the phase of nationalistic exaltation to realize how irrationally people can behave. Not only because of the blinding and intimidating effect of propaganda and the subtleties of the police state. The whole idea of the nation state, as preparatory for mobilization, leaves ordinary folks at the mercy of their loyalties: patriotism or religion, whichever should take priority in one society or another. The question is: how can this be dealt with and what can be done about defusing the danger of self-destruct?
Closest to the well-being of a society hampered by inequality lies the problem of deciding how far the encroachment of the government upon private incomes can go. This has nothing to do with jockeying for advantage in a parliamentary debate. The question is: when will the economy have reached the point of no return in the transfer of resources to the poor? It should be discernible when the first signs of a recession appear. That does not mean that there is a crisis in the offing, yet. But it ought to turn on a warning light. As a rule, the way in which a downturn in the economy is evaluated and acted upon reveals the difference between responsible management and otherwise. As soon as the inadequacy of a currency rating goes out of control, a major crisis may be under way. It would depend on how seriously concerned a government might wish to admit that it felt on such slippery ground and whether it was prepared to do anything about it, before the realization were to sink in that there was downright incompatibility between increasing expenditure and indebtedness and making a serious effort to balance the budget. What happens, then? A pendulum swing across the political board takes place and, for a time, everything goes according to the book, until there is a surplus to distribute, once again, and another round of over-spending begins. This cannot happen where the political pendulum does not readily swing back and forth and there is a rigid commitment to policy, based upon loyalty to a leader, or a regime, that can be expected to resort to pressure tactics, when it would be advisable to work out a method to make sure the resources will be there to carry out a specific program A declaration of incompatibility will be of no help. Neither will the arbitrariness of “strong”government. At best, one can expect a waiting game before a showdown; but it could not last indefinitely.
