I am curious if proponents of liberalism would at least agree with this analysis though:

There are three broad principles of the modern liberal state: capitalism, democracy, and liberalism.

In my view, it seems that both capitalism and democracy are subservient to liberalism. For instance, progressive liberals are willing to constrain capitalism precisely because they see it as conflicting with liberalism. Conservatives are skeptical of this, but only because they don't see unrestrained capitalism as at odds with liberalism.

There are pretty vocal groups on the left and right who are skeptical about democracy, precisely because democracy can constrain liberalism. Hence, I would say liberalism is the highest principle. "Freedom over all else," with freedom obviously being the ideal of freedom in the liberal tradition.

So what's the claim then, that all of the advancements you've listed were primarily caused by liberalism and would simply be unachievable without it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't have liberalism as such in mind at all -- though perhaps I should have, but I forgot the name of the thread! I was adding my voice to @Joshs's doubt about the apocalyptic view of history, in which things have gotten noticeably worse and we need to do something quite radical about it. I would be dubious about such a view no matter whether it was voiced with a left or a right accent. Au contraire, the evidence of historical/ethical progress in Western democracies is to me overwhelming -- again with a grim caveat about the looming environmental disaster.

I'm happy you agree that they are advancements, though.

Hence, I would say liberalism is the highest principle. "Freedom over all else," with freedom obviously being the ideal of freedom in the liberal tradition. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't understand this. Is there a particular liberal philosopher you have in mind, who says this? I'm trying to associate "Freedom over all else" with, say, Rawls, and it doesn't fit at all. Once again I have the feeling that there's a whole conversation, largely polemical in nature, about "liberalism" going on that I've never followed. To me, liberalism is epitomized by Political Liberalism by Rawls, not by what is amusingly called "liberalism" in the US.

Gotcha, so I guess or disagreement might be this: I think the rather titanic problems of liberalism in the current moment, not least of which is the rise of the far-right and long term discontent over the replacement migration strategy vis-á-vis growth, the long term problems of globalization in the developing world (where in at least some instances it appears to retard growth and good governance), and the looming ecological crises, are not accidental to liberalism itself, but directly attributable to it




As mentioned earlier, I think Locke and Mill's justification of enslaving populations by force to "liberate them from indolence," is a prime example. Cold War colonial war rhetoric is also a good example. Obviously, the wars were so difficult because people in the occupied states largely did not want to remain part of the colonial empires. But, they had to be "freed by force" because the communitarian ideologies (Marxism, political Islam, etc.) that held sway with large segments of the population oppressed individual and market rights (liberal freedom).

Hobbes grounds the state entirely in the atomized individual in the "state of nature." The state has legitimacy just insomuch as it is a better choice for individuals qua individuals to actualize their individual freedom (generally as fulfilling whatever desires they happen to have). This is the core assumption of "social contract theory," which is certainly still present in contemporary liberal theorists. An ideal society maximizes liberty for individuals as individuals (including liberty vis-á-vis desires for material goods, which is why "economic growth" and consumption play such an outsized role in liberal theory and welfare economics).

This is the ordering of the higher (common good) to the lower, the whole to the parts (in line with reductionist tendencies in materialist thought). The common good becomes merely a colocation of individual goods. The "veil of ignorance" is all about the individual for instance, and indeed the individual as initially abstracted from all community and common goods or social identity.

By contrast, there is Hegel, one of the great critics of social contract theory:

My particular end should become identified with the universal end… otherwise the state is left in the air. The state is actual only when its members have a feeling of their own self-hood and it is stable only when public and private ends are identical. It has often been said that the end of the state is the happiness of the citizens. That is perfectly true. If all is not well with them, if their subjective aims are not satisfied, if they do not find that the state as such is the means to their satisfaction, then the footing of the state itself is insecure.”

A common critique of liberalism is that this conception of the state (which often finds its way into legal decisions, particularly in the US through the Federalist Papers) only works so long as custom, culture, etc. continue to bind individuals together as wholes. Yet liberalism, and particularly capitalism, undermine all such connections, making liberalism self-undermining.

There are pretty vocal groups on the left and right who are skeptical about democracy, precisely because democracy can constrain liberalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Democracy can constrain liberalism?

Well, people naturally can vote to power undemocratic authoritarian people, who do away with democracy, the rights of the individual and the rule of law. Yet is that democracy in the end? Few if any authoritarians, even the Marxists, say they are doing away with democracy (but are just improving it to listen actually to the people).

Now democracy constraining capitalism and the market mechanism can indeed happen, but I don't think that is "constraining liberalism". The usual case is for example social democratic parties limiting the free market in the objective of curtailing the excesses of the free market, which typically tends in reality to form an oligopoly in the market, not the theoretical and perfect "free market". And people are happy with this. Most liberals and even libertarians understand that not everything can be solved by the market mechanism and naturally you have to have solid institutions for capitalism and the markets to perform well.

Besides, those that are sceptical about democracy (or neoliberalism) are nearly everybody simply angry about how badly the whole system is working currently: that it's only the rich or those close to power that benefit, or that there is corruption or inefficiency or useless bureaucracy. It's really only a very few people that are inherently against democracy as the vast majority believe that "the people" are still quite rational and capable of handling a democracy.

the rather titanic problems of liberalism in the current moment, — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK, as long as we don't equate these alleged problems with "the apocalyptic decline of Western civilization"!

I think Locke and Mill's justification of enslaving populations by force to "liberate them from indolence," is a prime example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of liberal political theory? Extreme cherry-picking, wouldn't you say? :smile:

Cold War colonial war rhetoric is also a good example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, of rhetoric, not liberal political philosophy.

An ideal society maximizes liberty for individuals as individuals — Count Timothy von Icarus

This I would accept as a traditional liberal political tenet, but set on its own, it sounds as if there has never been an issue about what kind of maximization is appropriate or possible, nor how social identity may further individual flourishing. We both know that isn't so. Not for nothing is Rawls' book called A Theory of Justice, not A Theory of Liberty.

The "veil of ignorance" is all about the individual for instance, and indeed the individual as initially abstracted from all community and common goods or social identity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But it needn't be, as Rawls makes clear. If common goods and social identity are part of what you want the ideal state to value, then you'll choose accordingly from behind the veil, even though you may not know your own status. This isn't to say that the original-position thought experiment isn't rife with problems. Perhaps for that very reason, it's proved enduringly useful, as philosophers like Nussbaum work to clarify and improve it.

OK, as long as we don't equate these alleged problems with "the apocalyptic decline of Western civilization"!

I maintain that Western Civilization has been in serious decline since the death of Marcus Aurelius and the ascension of his son to the purple! :cool: :rofl:

Extreme cherry-picking, wouldn't you say? :smile:

No, and it seems absurd to me to call this cherry picking when all the major liberal states engaged in absolutely massive colonial projects that they justified in the terms of liberalism, for most of their history, across most of the world's landmass, affecting most of the human population, largely stopping only when military defeat forced them to stop (and arguably, they just continued it by other means under neo-liberalism via less direct coercive measures to force liberalization, e.g. in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, etc., including backing armed groups, coups, etc.)

Locke and Mill I pick because they are foundational liberal theorists, but I could just as well point to America's Founding Fathers (the oldest example of liberalism in practice) or the justification of colonial rule and slavery by the liberal scions of the French Revolution. The big drive for abolition (which only targeted the most egregious practice of this sort) came from Christianity (as it did in Europe at the end of antiquity, where slavery was largely abolished), not liberalism. The "Battle Hymn of the Republic," is not a secular or deistic ode for instance.

Did some liberals object to these practices on liberal grounds? Yes, particularly to the exceptionally egregious institution of African chattel slavery, although even most of those who balked at hereditary slavery nonetheless championed colonial expansion over the rest of the American continent on liberal grounds (and the subsequent genocide of the native population).

But saying that just because there were some unheeded liberal voices against colonial expansion across North America, into India, into almost all of Africa, into China (attempted but partly repelled), and the Middle East, or say, opening Japan to trade with artillery fire, etc., that this isn't "real liberalism" would be a bit like saying collectivization wasn't "real communism" because a handful of communists opposed it.

Democracy can constrain liberalism?

I think so. Desegregation was unpopular, even in the North where it largely had to do with bussing for schools (e.g. riots in Boston). It would have lost as a ballot question, even if African Americans were allowed to vote. If you're familiar with the way democracy interacted with sectarian politics in pre-war Lebanon or post-war Iraq, I think you can find lots of examples of this sort of tension between democracy and individual liberty.

The Western liberal states have benefited from largely homogenous populations, so they haven't had these same tensions (lately). But that's because of both huge, sometimes coercive campaigns to create homogeneity and titanic rounds of ethnic cleansing to sort people across Europe.

Besides, those that are sceptical about democracy (or neoliberalism) are nearly everybody simply angry about how badly the whole system is working currently: that it's only the rich or those close to power that benefit, or that there is corruption or inefficiency or useless bureaucracy. It's really only a very few people that are inherently against democracy as the vast majority believe that "the people" are still quite rational and capable of handling a democracy.

Right, skepticism over "illiberal democracy" doesn't tend to result in a wholesale abandonment of democracy. Rather, complaints against Brexit, Trump, Erdogan, Orban, etc. are generally against "populism" and a democracy that is "too direct." Hence, advocacy for changes like a switch to closed list parliamentary systems, where party elites pick the MPs and people just vote for a party and their platform, or the advocacy for rank choice voting specifically as a means to preclude radical shifts in policy (both of these policies might be good ideas BTW).

For progressives, checking democracy generally involves strengthening the reach and independence of the administrative state (the "deep state" of career professionals, technocracy) often at the expense of the directly elected executive and using courts (and so appeals to other elites , judges) to expand rights that voters cannot overturn. Or progressives recommend something like a city manager system, where the executive is selected by elected representatives with the help of the administrative state itself. Whereas conservatives have tended to just want to weaken the state so that it cannot be wielded by the "people" against the individual.

Right, that's a pretty common response, and in line with Fukuyama's argument. Liberalism is inevitable and human nature. I disagree on that obviously. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So do I. There is no political or economic system which is inevitable and optimally reflective of human nature. The nature of human nature is to transform itself via cultural development.

Monarchy and Marxism were no more or less natural than liberalism. When in the course of history one political-economic system replaces another it doesnt mean the previous structure was unnatural , false, unethical or not workable, only that the culture eventually outgrew it. The more successful a cultural order the more thoroughly it transforms the possibilities available to thought and the more effectively it sets itself up for its own surpassing.

Like Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger, I foresee a post-liberal order, but this means building upon , while transforming, the insights that allowed liberalism to surpass previous systems of thought. You, by contrast, dont seem to want to build upon liberalism but instead reject it wholesale. This suggests two possibilities to me. The first is that the guiding inspiration for the new order you want to create involves ignoring the past three centuries of liberal thought in favor of religious and philosophical ideas propounded prior to the rise of liberalism and capitalism. The second possibility is that your definition of liberalism is so narrow that you don’t recognize how your own vision fits within the three-century-old spectrum of liberal thought. The first possibility places you somewhere in the vicinity of the Far Right, but I’m not prepared to slap that label on you.

Just to highlight this: I agree, and too often, in authoritarian hands, it turns into "Make X Great Again!" with results we can all observe daily. We, meaning Western democracies, in fact have taken a whole new approach, in roughly the last century, and as a result things are vastly better off for women, poor countries we used to exploit, working people, people of color, and people with illnesses and disabilities — J

:100:

I maintain that Western Civilization has been in serious decline since the death of Marcus Aurelius and the ascension of his son to the purple! :cool: :rofl: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, that Commodus was a severe disappointment . . . downhill ever since.

it seems absurd to me to call this cherry picking when all the major liberal states engaged in absolutely massive colonial projects that they justified in the terms of liberalism, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, we're just at cross-purposes in terms of what we're referring to as "liberal." I call citing such views cherry-picking because they are (far) outliers in terms of liberal philosophical theory. (And are you sure about Mill and "enslavement"? He says the opposite in "The Negro Question.") To put it mildly, this isn't what we study when we study Locke and Mill, any more than we give time to Kant's racism or Heidegger's Nazi nonsense. It's too easy to pick the worst things Philosopher X said, and claim you've characterized their views fairly.

Whether there is such a thing as "major liberal states" justifying bad actions in terms of a benighted understanding of philosophical liberalism, I leave to you. And of course the atrocious colonialism of European nations is the opposite of rare; you and I agree there, no cherry-picking involved. I just think blaming it on liberal political theory is too easy.

BTW, I think this is fair if the measuring point is 1925 (a century). But what if we use 1975, half a century? Or the end of the Cold War, when neo-liberalism was really taking off and liberalism ceased to have any competition to "keep it honest." Certainly, there has been some expansion of rights since then, but also a lot of backwards steps.

Since then, median wages across the developed world have stagnated despite gains in productivity from the information revolution, while wages for lower income workers have actually tended to fall in real terms. Economic growth has tended to almost totally benefit a small elite, and economic mobility has been declining. The Black-White wealth gap in the US expanded to become larger than under Jim Crow, while America's underclass endures homicide rates above those of the Latin American states used to justify refugee status (or states with active civil wars in some cases).

Plenty of other similar stuff I'm sure you're familiar with. My point would be that if a trend extends across half a century, and appears to be accelerating, it isn't a hiccup.



Mill was against the institution of slavery as practiced, on liberal grounds. However, in "Considerations on Representative Government," he calls for compulsion over “uncivilized” peoples in order that they might lead productive economic lives, even if they must be “for a while compelled to it,” including through the institution of “personal slavery.” This is very similar to Locke's justification of slavery as "freedom from indolence," many of the American Founder's justification of slavery as "temporary but necessary," and liberal justifications of colonialism up through the 20th century.

I don't think these are equivalent to something like Kant or Hegel's statements on race because these sorts of justifications were used in revised form by liberal theorists and statesmen through the ends of colonialism and the justification of some of the more unsavory parts of neo-liberalism look very similar. If freedom is primarily (or at least largely) freedom to consume, then "economic growth" becomes a justification for all sorts of actions because it is "emancipatory in the long run." Also, they come directly out of the vision of freedom and the "state of nature" anthropology, they aren't some sort of ancillary comment tacked on to theories that would otherwise negate such views.

The justification for colonialism also looks a lot like the justification for tearing down the Church and forcing monks and nuns out of the monasteries and convents in France, Italy, and Spain (or the mass executions of clergy in France). The people have to be "freed from custom" to live more individualist, productive lives. Hence, it isn't just a sentiment grounded in racism, the same logic extended to the Infernal Columns' actions Vendee in France.

"Considerations on Representative Government," — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for this reference, I wasn't aware of it. Sigh, even Mill . . . racism runs deep.

Looking over the historical moments you cite, all I can do is repeat that such a picture would have us believe that some monolithic thing called liberalism never gave a damn about morals or justice or good government, caring only for individual freedoms no matter the cost, tearing down whatever was necessary to achieve them, etc., etc. That is very far from what I see in Rawls, the liberal theorist whose work I know best, and what I know of modern history (though I am not a historian). Meaning no disrespect, have you actually read A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism? There's much in both books that would interest you, I think.

Right, skepticism over "illiberal democracy" doesn't tend to result in a wholesale abandonment of democracy. Rather, complaints against Brexit, Trump, Erdogan, Orban, etc. are generally against "populism" and a democracy that is "too direct." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Populism is many times very illogical. Populist can praise liberal/libertarian values and in the same time go against them. Perfect example of this is when populist claim to be "free speech warriors" and also curtail and limit views that they don't support.

The illogical aspect of this is even more clear when we look at authoritarian system like Marxism-Leninism. Democracy ought to have functioned through the party, and in fact the term "Soviet" is an adjective that comes from the Russian word for council or assembly. How democracy can work when the whole ideology starts with there being the class-enemy of the capitalists shows this fatal flaw in the thinking. In fact populism makes this separation of the "ordinary people" and the "evil elites" also, which basically undermines the faith in democracy from the start. Populism has the tendency to favor "strong men" who are needed because the republic doesn't work at the moment.

The case about democracy being "too direct" is basically made by there being a Constitution that cannot be changed with a simple minority or in some cases, at all. I do welcome these kinds of safety valves.