Liberalism & Conservatism

[Guest]

It would be a waste of your time. You'd be better off joining wyvern in his bunker.

It is wyvrn, thank you. And I have no bunker. I live above ground in the real world. And I am not a coward, afraid to see the current world for what it is, like you are.

 

[irishog77]

Well this got weird.

 

[Cackalacky]

That's the whole point. It's counter intuitive but top-down structure is detrimental to community, not a necessary component thereof. Communities are most effectively built from the grassroots.

This is interesting. Locke states that community, out of necessary self preservation requires a supreme legislative and executive authority, to the extent that they carry out the legislative will of the people. It is necessary per his previous arguments. Corporate and capitalism models are all arranged in a top down structure as well, with the main goals of maximizing themselves and self preservation. Contrary to a communal equality model. The top down model is exhorted in America for its virtuous nature and ambitious results while community organizers are strongly criticized as communist and Marxist.

Where is the dividing line between a communal organization and a corporate one and their deleterious effects to the community? Population capable of being sustained? Resources required? Benefits produced? Authority being dispersed among how many people? Is survival of the individual and group enhanced? Effective communities require coordination. Some level of authority is required for organization.

 

[Cackalacky]

It is wyvrn, thank you. And I have no bunker. I live above ground in the real world. And I am not a coward, afraid to see the current world for what it is, like you are.

All right dude. Let's get back on track here. Moving forward if you want to contribute to this thread let's address the topics as presented by Whiskeyjack as defined in the OP and out of respect for some legitimate non-football talk. This is a forum for all topics and is specifically, non football. The football talk is elsewhere on this site. As long as you keep it on topic and respectful, I think you will find open ears to your contributions.

 

[phork]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVKCJklf3oo

Same guy. Yoinks.

 

[wizards8507]

Where is the dividing line between a communal organization and a corporate one and their deleterious effects to the community? Population capable of being sustained? Resources required? Benefits produced? Authority being dispersed among how many people? Is survival of the individual and group enhanced? Effective communities require coordination. Some level of authority is required for organization.

A couple of points.

1. The appearance of top-down authority in a democratic, small-r republican, or anarcho-capitalist society is an illusion. That power originates from the people and is therefore bottom-up-and-down.

Democratic (majority rule) - People directly exert power bottom-up.

Republican (representative rule) - People put power in their representatives bottom-up. The representatives then exert power top-down, but the origin is still at the individual level.

Anarcho-capitalist - Initially, there is no power but that of the individual. It is gradually concentrated in those places in which individuals choose to engage in the free exchange of goods and services.

2. I still take issue with the premise that it should somehow be our goal to pursue effective communities or the ideal society. Our goal, assuming we're working within a Judeo-Christian or at the very least a theistic framework, should be to know, love, and serve the Lord. Serving the Lord (by serving one another through the virtuous exercise of our free will) requires liberty. Effective communities will be a by-product of this end as individuals choose to pursue virtuous deeds together.

P1. Our goal should be to know, love, and serve God.
P2. Knowing, loving, and serving God requires acts of virtue.
P3. Acts of virtue require the ability to freely give of oneself.
P4. Freely giving of oneself can only be accomplished if one is also free to sin.
P5. Both freedom to sin and freedom to give of oneself require individual liberty.
C. Therefore, our goal should be to maximize individual liberty.

This argument happens to hold even if individual liberty failed to produce the most effective community (though I happen to believe it would also be successful in that regard, but that's another argument entirely).

 

[Black Irish]

This is interesting. Locke states that community, out of necessary self preservation requires a supreme legislative and executive authority, to the extent that they carry out the legislative will of the people. It is necessary per his previous arguments. Corporate and capitalism models are all arranged in a top down structure as well, with the main goals of maximizing themselves and self preservation. Contrary to a communal equality model. The top down model is exhorted in America for its virtuous nature and ambitious results while community organizers are strongly criticized as communist and Marxist.

Where is the dividing line between a communal organization and a corporate one and their deleterious effects to the community? Population capable of being sustained? Resources required? Benefits produced? Authority being dispersed among how many people? Is survival of the individual and group enhanced? Effective communities require coordination. Some level of authority is required for organization.

I don't believe that corporate=capitalist. I'm not sure if you are necessarily saying that, but that's what I'm reading. Capitalism is as much about the lone entrepreneur who invents the next great widget working out of his garage and becomes a millionaire as it is about the mega-companies of the world (e.g. GE, McDonalds). The corporate structure is just as much at play in the arena of government, where profit is not a motive but the goals of self-preservation & self-maximization are very evident.

I think you can have a community style capitalist model. Look at Ebay, especially in the beginning. People buying and selling among themselves, and the only authority comes from the ratings, from the community members themselves. If you anger the community, you can't function effectively in that capitalist market. You don't need a corporate hierarchy to keep order in that arena.

Capitalism isn't automatically "top-down" as you say. Ask the self-employed businessman who is out there hustling and sweet-talking for clients how in control he feels. But he is just as much a capitalist as the Fortune 500 CEO with a private jet. They are just different manifestations of the same economic model.

I don't care for the assertion that "Capitalism = Big business conglomerates" and that capitalism is automatically at odds with grass roots community structure. And I believe that the best and most effective authority is moral authority. People will kick a bad boss or a lousy elected official to the curb in a heartbeat. But people will go through a buzz saw for a person or idea that they have their hearts and souls invested in, even if that person had no tangible power.

 

[Buster Bluth]

I don't care for the assertion that "Capitalism = Big business conglomerates" and that capitalism is automatically at odds with grass roots community structure.

Don't you think two factors, economies of scale and corporations not dying, sort of guarantee that's exactly what happens?

If you are a small business and do well you get larger and inherently increase your advantage over your competitors. You get exponentially larger in a race of who can scale up the fastest, no? With capitalism's machinery and technology, production capabilities allow you not only to dominate your local area, but the world.

In my own family's experience, we own a road contracting company, founded by my great-grandfather in 1912. Every time it's passed on to the next generation there is a roll of the dice to see if it'll be there in the next generation. It could fail at any point and ease entry into the market for someone else. But we're small potatoes, the large guys who gross billions are public companies. Their owners don't die. They grow and grow and grow and grow and the chances of them going under is definitely smaller than our small business.

In effect, the companies that scale up dominate the market and push everyone else into niches. Our company, as successful as its been, is a niche company. We're not doing state highways, that market is dominated by three multi-national corporations, and I'd argue they've insulated themselves from the destructive forces of capitalism.

I don't believe that corporate=capitalist. I'm not sure if you are necessarily saying that, but that's what I'm reading. Capitalism is as much about the lone entrepreneur who invents the next great widget working out of his garage and becomes a millionaire as it is about the mega-companies of the world (e.g. GE, McDonalds).

Sure but more often than not we see him sell his big idea to the big boys. It's a rarity to see inventions topple the giants now that the corporations have gotten so large and so diversified. The one I can think of off the top of my head is digital cameras toppling Kodak.

Capitalism isn't automatically "top-down" as you say. Ask the self-employed businessman who is out there hustling and sweet-talking for clients how in control he feels. But he is just as much a capitalist as the Fortune 500 CEO with a private jet. They are just different manifestations of the same economic model.

Isn't hat lone ranger operating in a niche though? The corporations dominating the market get the cookie and those self-employed fellows and small businesses get the crumbs.

There are these guys dominating the food industry:

..and then there's the independent guy with an organic farm or something. As good as that is for him, he's just in a niche.

I would argue that most industries today resemble that oligopoly of a half-dozen giant corporations who have scaled up their operation and it's inherent with capitalism.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

That's the whole point. It's counter intuitive but top-down structure is detrimental to community, not a necessary component thereof. Communities are most effectively built from the grassroots.

There are many nations, virtually the entire West, that grew out of political liberalism, and yet I can't name a single one that has followed the Libertarian track over the Progressive one. Lockean individualism is a powerful solvent for the things that bind communities together--religion, neighborhoods, civil society, etc. When those things invariably start to shrivel in a liberal political order, the state steps in to regulate where once customs and tradition held sway.

Ok lets reset. Liberalism, conventionally attributed to liberals (democrats) and conservatism, typically attributed to Republicans. Now you get my point.

You have yet to demonstrate an ability to respectfully debate with others on this message board. If you'd like to participate in this thread, please try to familiarize yourself with the course materials and stay on topic. I anticipate that a recurring theme in Deneen's course will be how similar the two major parties are, and our lack of genuine political alternatives. Based on your post above, this should be right up your alley.

But I'm not going to debate foreign policy with you here. If you'd like to renew our exchange in the Petrodollar thread, you're welcome to do so.

1. The appearance of top-down authority in a democratic, small-r republican, or anarcho-capitalist society is an illusion. That power originates from the people and is therefore bottom-up-and-down.

Can you point to one such society today? Because this doesn't describe our country very well. How accessible are your state senators? If you have concerns about the effect that a new Wal-Mart's arrival will have on your local economy, to whom can you appeal? Those decisions are made far away and high up a strongly vertical power hierarchy.

I still take issue with the premise that it should somehow be our goal to pursue effective communities or the ideal society.

Our goal should be designing a social order that promotes human flourishing. Lockean individualism does not do that.

Serving the Lord (by serving one another through the virtuous exercise of our free will) requires liberty.

This gets back to your definition of liberty. Liberals define liberty negatively-- freedom from coercion. Classical philosophers defined it as freedom to pursue what is Good, True and Beautiful. Thus the need for liberal arts education. Ancient Greeks believed that their men needed to learn about philosophy, music, politics, art, etc. in order to effectively exercise their franchises as senators of the city-state. In other words, they needed to be educated regarding their specific community's vision of the Good Life in order to rule responsibly.

Locke's philosophy, with its emphasis of the individual over community and the importance of securing property, is at best agnostic (and at worst, nihilistic) on the subject of the Good. So while autonomy (as in a certain degree of self-possession) is necessary for the exercise of virtue, the primacy that Locke grants to individualism and materialism makes the public promotion of virtue nearly impossible.

I don't believe that corporate=capitalist...

I think you can have a community style capitalist model.

G.K. Chesterton would have agreed with you. "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few."

But which sort of capitalism do you see predominating in America today? Chesterton's distributist vision of a nation of entrepreneurs and small businesses, or the corporatist model that lobbies its way to an unassailable "market" position? Tangentially related, but the Federal government considers the cut-off for "small" businesses to be those with less than 500 employees.

 

[wizards8507]

There are many nations, virtually the entire West, that grew out of political liberalism, and yet I can't name a single one that has followed the Libertarian track over the Progressive one. Lockean individualism is a powerful solvent for the things that bind communities together--religion, neighborhoods, civil society, etc. When those things invariably start to shrivel in a liberal political order, the state steps in to regulate where once customs and tradition held sway.

I disagree with your ordering of cause and effect. Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying (1) Customs and tradition order society, (2) Lockean individualism takes over, (3) Customs and tradition die out, (4) State intervention is necessary to order society due to the decline in those things.

I think that's exactly backwards. In reality, it works something like this. (1) People independently form customs and tradition by exercising Lockean individualism and freely associating with one another, (2) The State sees an opportunity to expand its power and intervenes, (3) Customs and tradition are no longer necessary to order society, (4) Customs and tradition fade as the state grows and individualism dies.

Individualism does not mean "no association with others," it means "FREE association with others." That's how communities and traditions are formed and strengthened. Of course societies take the progressive path over the libertarian one. Some men desire power and, unchecked, they'll pursue that power not only over their own lives, but over the lives of others. The State provides the perfect cover of legitimacy in the usurpation of that power.

Can you point to one such society today? Because this doesn't describe our country very well. How accessible are your state senators? If you have concerns about the effect that a new Wal-Mart's arrival will have on your local economy, to whom can you appeal? Those decisions are made far away and high up a strongly vertical power hierarchy.

Play by the rules, Whiskey. This isn't the Politics thread. We're discussion political philosophy and my statements are much more fundamental. The nature of man and the ordering of society make up a conversation that occur outside of a world where state senators and Walmart play a role.

 

[Black Irish]

Don't you think two factors, economies of scale and corporations not dying, sort of guarantee that's exactly what happens?

If you are a small business and do well you get larger and inherently increase your advantage over your competitors. You get exponentially larger in a race of who can scale up the fastest, no? With capitalism's machinery and technology, production capabilities allow you not only to dominate your local area, but the world.

In my own family's experience, we own a road contracting company, founded by my great-grandfather in 1912. Every time it's passed on to the next generation there is a roll of the dice to see if it'll be there in the next generation. It could fail at any point and ease entry into the market for someone else. But we're small potatoes, the large guys who gross billions are public companies. Their owners don't die. They grow and grow and grow and grow and the chances of them going under is definitely smaller than our small business.

In effect, the companies that scale up dominate the market and push everyone else into niches. Our company, as successful as its been, is a niche company. We're not doing state highways, that market is dominated by three multi-national corporations, and I'd argue they've insulated themselves from the destructive forces of capitalism.



Sure but more often than not we see him sell his big idea to the big boys. It's a rarity to see inventions topple the giants now that the corporations have gotten so large and so diversified. The one I can think of off the top of my head is digital cameras toppling Kodak.



Isn't hat lone ranger operating in a niche though? The corporations dominating the market get the cookie and those self-employed fellows and small businesses get the crumbs.

There are these guys dominating the food industry:

..and then there's the independent guy with an organic farm or something. As good as that is for him, he's just in a niche.

I would argue that most industries today resemble that oligopoly of a half-dozen giant corporations who have scaled up their operation and it's inherent with capitalism.

What you are saying is right on its face, but it's not entirely to my point, which is that capitalism does not automatically equal large corporate structure. True, the large, powerful corporation is the most visible & influential manifestation of capitalism in America, but it is not the only manifestation. I'm arguing against the assertion that "you have the big, powerful corporations over here, and that is capitalism, and then you have a grassroots structure over there, and that can not be capitalism."

Just because a company is small and niche, does not make it any less a model of capitalism than the Fortune 500 company. Just as the five person council of a small town is just as much a form of representative government as our monolithic, ever-growing federal government. Capitalist companies may trend towards getting bigger, but that is the way of just about any organization in a growing country: government, non-profit social groups, religious denominations.

Basically, you are making the case for capitalism in practice, while I'm making the case for it in theory. But that's a whole other argument, whether the true nature of a philosophy rests in its theoretical form or in how it is practiced in the real world.

 

[Cackalacky]

What you are saying is right on its face, but it's not entirely to my point, which is that capitalism does not automatically equal large corporate structure. True, the large, powerful corporation is the most visible & influential manifestation of capitalism in America, but it is not the only manifestation. I'm arguing against the assertion that "you have the big, powerful corporations over here, and that is capitalism, and then you have a grassroots structure over there, and that can not be capitalism."

Just because a company is small and niche, does not make it any less a model of capitalism than the Fortune 500 company. Just as the five person council of a small town is just as much a form of representative government as our monolithic, ever-growing federal government. Capitalist companies may trend towards getting bigger, but that is the way of just about any organization in a growing country: government, non-profit social groups, religious denominations.

Basically, you are making the case for capitalism in practice, while I'm making the case for it in theory. But that's a whole other argument, whether the true nature of a philosophy rests in its theoretical form or in how it is practiced in the real world.

This is the crux to f it right? And the point of this discussion. The theory, however well intentioned, is based on flawed assumptions and the practice/application of the theory has not emerged because either the theory is flawed resulting in differening applications or the applications by its adherents don't really follow the precepts of the theory.

As Whiskeyjack pointed out most societies, Christian or otherwise tend to go the progressive route and are not a strictly libertarian no matter how they claim to align or what practices they claim to use. This includes corporations and capitalists who tend to have to rely on others either for capital or require workers who are in turn required to purchase their own property. Therefore the impetus is not on community for the capitalists, but is an ever present desire to grow and shield themselves from the dangers of idealized capitalism. Even capitalists will rely on the state to preserve the capital no matter how it is gotten. This is one big assumption that Locke and his "theory got wrong."

 

[Old Man Mike]

I'm not sure if it even makes sense to try to cram large corporation behavior into any political philosophy label. Whether it's a NECESSARY endpoint or not, the real world endpoint of large corporate behavior best fits the model of an advanced animal seeking all means available to survive and thrive. It operates exactly like a Lockean "king" acquiring its "property" and ferociously defending it. As it finds itself in confrontation with competitors for its "sustenance"/lifesblood/security, it will attempt {as a Darwinist self-interested entity} to outcompete those competitors for whatever they threaten. Thus they enter The Inevitable Struggle for Existence where the more "fit" will survive and the less "fit" will die.

Big corporations are more like Lockean, or better Darwinian, almost robotically-simple, animals in their pursuit of survival and thrival. Secure control of "food", "freedom to roam and gather", and "freedom to crap" where it's convenient, are basic desires. The fact that the more "fit" the corporation is will be viewed as a good thing by persons describing "goodness" in society with having lots of stuff [and we officially do: "the Pursuit of Happiness" is almost always honored in our courts as the ability to make money and keep it or the stuff we buy], as those "fit" corporations provide lots of that "efficiently". This often deliberately ignores what the consequences are of free-range resource eating, gathering, and crapping on actual persons who just happen to be in the way [let alone non-human elements of nature, or general future concerns --- but acknowledging those is WAY forbidden in modern America, so perhaps those categories of what might describe "goodness" in society should be dropped from this discussion.]

The fundamental disconnect between these big Darwinist organizations and the individual people of a social structure impacted by them can be found by examining the "values mandalas" of the two types of entities. A values mandala is just a pictorial device to make what is most important to an entity easy to see. It's like a bulls-eye-ringed "target". The bullseye contains a concept/valued "x"/descriptive label of that which is most important to "you"... that for which you'd give up other things, rights, qualities-of-life to preserve. Example: your own survival might be in there. Another might have his wife's survival in there [i.e. he'd give up his own life for her]. Another might have Jesus Christ's Love Commandments in there. Probably no one would have Exxon or GM in there. And Exxon or GM won't have you or your wife in their own values mandala either [to say nothing of Jesus and Love].

The point is: what Exxon values MOST is not you nor any individual in the society, nor anything except the survival or Exxon. Whereas it's possible to imagine a corporation which would willingly terminate itself to protect individual peoples, such a corporation would probably have to be small enough to be effectively personified and run by a person or small group of people who considered themselves more neighbors and friends than businessmen. "Mom and Pop". One cannot sanely imagine a large corporation behaving this way. Conflict between the values base of such an entity-at-economic-war-with-other-similar-entities will inevitably crush other entities in their gears, because those others are not near the values central core.

In my opinion, defining a society with the "liberal" or "conservative" label should not sweep up corporations in its label. Corporations are effectively "personal property" if they are small enough to have humans as effective consumer/eliminators of their property, or they are potentially-dangerous loose-cannon Darwinist predators [who shed both desirable and undesirable stuff as they roll across time] in need of the same sort of animal-control that society would feel proper for any non-human force. ... as "hip" readers will have already caught, my opinion contains the corollary that the US legal system defining corporations as individuals with rights was a colossal error. This has forced our society to consider these entities and their behaviors in terms of our "liberal" or "conservative" biasses instead of the non-citizens that they actually are.

... I know that this is really irritating to some. I honestly apologize.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Two of the three reading assignments this week are available online. Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" is roughly 15 pages long, and Fareed Zakaria's "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy" is about 20 pages long. Both were written for a broad audience within the last 25 years or so, so they're much more accessible than last week's selections from Locke.

I disagree with your ordering of cause and effect. Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying (1) Customs and tradition order society, (2) Lockean individualism takes over, (3) Customs and tradition die out, (4) State intervention is necessary to order society due to the decline in those things.

My argument is that communitarian values, among which are customs and tradition, inevitably start to decline and will eventually disappear in any society organized under Lockean principles. Government simply fills the vacuum.

I think that's exactly backwards. In reality, it works something like this. (1) People independently form customs and tradition by exercising Lockean individualism and freely associating with one another, (2) The State sees an opportunity to expand its power and intervenes, (3) Customs and tradition are no longer necessary to order society, (4) Customs and tradition fade as the state grows and individualism dies.

This is the libertarian narrative (Hayek's spontaneous order, etc.) But it's just as liberal in its essential character as Progressivism, so it carries all the same assumptions and philosophical baggage. There are lots of respectable thinkers who argue that America was on the right path until FDR's New Deal forced us onto the disasterous path to Progressivism instead, and that if we just had the courage to right those mistakes, we could realize our national destiny of becoming a libertarian paradise. Definitively debunking that thesis would require me to prove a negative, which I obviously can't do. But I'd suggest that the fact that no such society has ever existed anywhere, and that virtually every liberal democracy has ended up on the same Progressive path, is strong circumstantial evidence against that theory.

Regarding your specific order of events above, I'd argue that customs and traditions do not arise from Lockean individualism, but from Man's essential nature as a political creature. And the social glue that holds civilization together is not of the "freedom of association"/ arms-length/contractual sort, but the Pietas owed to one's family, neighbors and community. States are unavoidable social constructs, as are markets. Insisting that one is more "natural" or "virtuous" than the other is a false dichotomy. In a system based on Locke's philosophy, one or the other is going to be tyrannical, because communitarian values will be unable to survive.

Individualism does not mean "no association with others," it means "FREE association with others." That's how communities and traditions are formed and strengthened. Of course societies take the progressive path over the libertarian one. Some men desire power and, unchecked, they'll pursue that power not only over their own lives, but over the lives of others. The State provides the perfect cover of legitimacy in the usurpation of that power.

And markets don't? They just provide an alternative method for vertical power hierarchies to form in the absence of communitarian values. I assume you're familiar with the social ills generated by giant monopolies during the American Gilded Age? That's what laissez-faire economics gets you.

Play by the rules, Whiskey. This isn't the Politics thread. We're discussion political philosophy and my statements are much more fundamental. The nature of man and the ordering of society make up a conversation that occur outside of a world where state senators and Walmart play a role.

See my 2nd paragraph above. The fact that no such society has ever existed anywhere is compelling empirical evidence that the natural end of political liberalism is not the libertarian utopia you're advocating for here.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the real ideological split in this nation is not between libertarians and Progressives, but between communitarians and individualists. How one comes down on the anti-vaxxer issue should be telling.

 

[wizards8507]

See my 2nd paragraph above. The fact that no such society has ever existed anywhere is compelling empirical evidence that the natural end of political liberalism is not the libertarian utopia you're advocating for here.

That's because those societies strayed from the path. Look, I'm realistic. I know we'll never see a truly anarcho-capitalistic State, so there has to be some compromise. The US Constitution would be a good start. If we held to that framework as written, we'd be much better off than we are with the deviations taken throughout history. It's not that follow Locke leads to statism, but just the opposite. You end up at statism when you deviate from the Lockean path.

http://youtu.be/dvbz-Q4tvCY

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the real ideological split in this nation is not between libertarians and Progressives, but between communitarians and individualists. How one comes down on the anti-vaxxer issue should be telling.

Now who's painting the false dichotomy? Libertarians (individualists if you prefer) aren't unmedicated loner hermits. I have strong bonds to my family, church, alma mater, etc., but I would certainly resent having those bonds forced upon me through no exercise of my own free will. What gives any man or woman authority over my person, a creation made in the image and likeness of God?

Give me one argument for mandatory vaccinations and I'll give you an equally plausible argument in favor of eugenics, forced abortions, sterilization, involuntary euthanasia, and reproductive quotas. You don't see the danger here? Granting the power to enforce reasonable proposal X erodes the safety mechanisms to prevent horrific policy Y.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk.

 

[Old Man Mike]

I shouldn't write this, but my uncountable years of ancientness have taught me that very few citizens make any decisions based on "philosophies" or ideologies. Almost everyone [who even bothers] just makes that stuff up to make their decisions seem more thoughtful.

Whereas some ideologues doubtless exist and charge into every decision waving the flag, my experience indicates that at base there are only three abundant types of people:

1). Those who don't really give a damm about others;
2). Those who would like to help other people; and,
3). Those who would like to help other people IF THEY KNOW THEM AND THINK THAT THEY"RE OK.

The first group are sociopaths usually kept under control by fear of the law. The other two groups often label themselves with things like "liberal" or "conservative" but in fact both want to be "liberal" about some things and "conservative" about others.

... apologies to my colleague in the larger world of university education and higher intelligence [Professor Deneen] but I sometimes wonder if exercises such as his class are really preaching to a choir already composed of relatively thoughtful people. ... perhaps that's good enough....

 

[Cackalacky]

What's wrong with eugenics

Regarding your statement about vaccinations and a false dichotomy between and eugenics and all other forms of forced reproductive behavior.

The purpose of vaccinations is one of great importance to our society, in preventing major diseases that would significantly demolish our population. To not vaccinate your child is a choice at this moment but quite clear one that affects everyone around you. We can see the outcome of being exposed to a disease that infects 90% of the unvaccinated people it contacts in this most recent Measles episode. By not vaccinating you become a hazardous material. I personally would not want to my newborn or elderly immunocompromised family members subjected to a preventable disease because another person DGAF. That persons decision has the potential to affect many other people.

As far as eugenics goes, it has a nasty connotation thanks to the scientific racism perpetrated by the Nazis but the other side of thst is eugenics is to an extent in many aspects of our life. It can be called artificial selection of even gene therapy but it is still eugenics. But generally eugenics leads to a lack of diversity in the gene pool and so that is ill advised. But the human race has been losing genetic diversity on its own since we left Africa with white Europeans being the least diverse humans on the planet from a genetic perspective and not including isolated populations that do not interbreed with outside populations ( which are few). This fact makes having vaccinations all the more important.

But you might say... Look at China! And what the state will do to you with its one child policy, euthanasia etc. I say China is an authoritarian government with a massive population crisis and right or wrong that is what they have chosen to pursue as a solution. Thise are enforced policies. Could 1 Billion people revolt against their small government? Sure? Why don't they? As far as other things you mentioned, arranged marriages, forced abortions, genitalia mutilation are found in all cultures and societies at different developmental stages, but primarily in religiously dominated authoritarian countries.

For the most part, aside from letting women choose to be able to have abortions and the debate at which point it is moral to do so, liberal societies have few of the ills you claim and none of which are even close to the rationale for vaccinations.

 

[Cackalacky]

Two of the three reading assignments this week are available online. Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" is roughly 15 pages long, and Fareed Zakaria's "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy" is about 20 pages long. Both were written for a broad audience within the last 25 years or so, so they're much more accessible than last week's selections from Locke.



My argument is that communitarian values, among which are customs and tradition, inevitably start to decline and will eventually disappear in any society organized under Lockean principles. Government simply fills the vacuum.



This is the libertarian narrative (Hayek's spontaneous order, etc.) But it's just as liberal in its essential character as Progressivism, so it carries all the same assumptions and philosophical baggage. There are lots of respectable thinkers who argue that America was on the right path until FDR's New Deal forced us onto the disasterous path to Progressivism instead, and that if we just had the courage to right those mistakes, we could realize our national destiny of becoming a libertarian paradise. Definitively debunking that thesis would require me to prove a negative, which I obviously can't do. But I'd suggest that the fact that no such society has ever existed anywhere, and that virtually every liberal democracy has ended up on the same Progressive path, is strong circumstantial evidence against that theory.

Regarding your specific order of events above, I'd argue that customs and traditions do not arise from Lockean individualism, but from Man's essential nature as a political creature. And the social glue that holds civilization together is not of the "freedom of association"/ arms-length/contractual sort, but the Pietas owed to one's family, neighbors and community. States are unavoidable social constructs, as are markets. Insisting that one is more "natural" or "virtuous" than the other is a false dichotomy. In a system based on Locke's philosophy, one or the other is going to be tyrannical, because communitarian values will be unable to survive.



And markets don't? They just provide an alternative method for vertical power hierarchies to form in the absence of communitarian values. I assume you're familiar with the social ills generated by giant monopolies during the American Gilded Age? That's what laissez-faire economics gets you.



See my 2nd paragraph above. The fact that no such society has ever existed anywhere is compelling empirical evidence that the natural end of political liberalism is not the libertarian utopia you're advocating for here.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the real ideological split in this nation is not between libertarians and Progressives, but between communitarians and individualists. How one comes down on the anti-vaxxer issue should be telling.

Just wanted to say that I agree with pretty much all of this post. I also wanted ask if the social democracy (like the Scandinavians countries) is possibly an end point for liberalism since the state inherently accepts some moral and fiscal responsibility for its citizens and that there is a definite basment level of prosperity, which I would argue is also more morally benevolent than pure unfettered capitalism. And since both individuals and those practicing capitalists dont want true capitalism, I find that heading in ankther direction may be a fruitless path. I am not taking Hegels position as I dont think there will ever be an end point but it is difficult to see where it heads from here.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

That's because those societies strayed from the path. Look, I'm realistic. I know we'll never see a truly anarcho-capitalistic State, so there has to be some compromise. The US Constitution would be a good start. If we held to that framework as written, we'd be much better off than we are with the deviations taken throughout history. It's not that follow Locke leads to statism, but just the opposite. You end up at statism when you deviate from the Lockean path.

Deneen's post this week deals with this explicitly. But in short, his response (which I agree with) is that a large and powerful state is inevitable in societies based on liberal political philosophy.

Now who's painting the false dichotomy? Libertarians (individualists if you prefer) aren't unmedicated loner hermits.

I think you misread me. Both libertarians and Progressives are individualists; they simply disagree over how far the State should be allowed to go in preventing individuals from limiting their own autonomy. My point was how one feels about the morality of refusing to vaccinate is telling as far as communitarian v. individualist values go. But communitarians have no political representation.

I have strong bonds to my family, church, alma mater, etc., but I would certainly resent having those bonds forced upon me through no exercise of my own free will. What gives any man or woman authority over my person, a creation made in the image and likeness of God?

Did you consent to your father's authority over you? The Federal government's? How about God's? No one is suggesting that such bonds be legally "forced upon" you, but I think it's important that we recognize the critical importance of such relationships and to stop undermining them in our culture. For instance, maintaining a strong marriage is hard work, but it's harder than ever before because we've revised the concept of marriage down to a contractual recognition of mutual romantic feeling. Thus, when you and your wife inevitably go through struggles in the future, you will have a harder time getting through it than you should because there's no longer any social stigma attached to divorce. Indeed, "no fault" divorce means one doesn't even have to have a good reason for dissolving a marriage. That's just one of a thousand ways in which Locke's radical individualism undermines the social forces that truly knit human society together.

Give me one argument for mandatory vaccinations and I'll give you an equally plausible argument in favor of eugenics, forced abortions, sterilization, involuntary euthanasia, and reproductive quotas. You don't see the danger here? Granting the power to enforce reasonable proposal X erodes the safety mechanisms to prevent horrific policy Y.

Again, who argued for forced vaccination? I personally feel like it's an outrageously ignorant and/or immoral choice to make, but that doesn't mean I'm in favor of an Orwellian response by the State. But I would support excluding anti-vaxxers from schools, sporting events, amusement parks, etc. (assuming they don't have a valid medical or religious exemption). On the advice of our pediatrician, I had to cancel a trip to Disneyland we had planned months in advance due to the measles outbreak in California because my daughter is only 9 months old and won't receive her first MMR shot for another couple months. If such people are content to home school and avoid large public gatherings, then they should be free to keep their kids "untainted" by modern pharmaceuticals. The State's interest in maintaining public health should not override parents' natural authority over their kids in that case. But their right to be ignorant and selfish ends as soon as it becomes a menace to public health.

I shouldn't write this, but my uncountable years of ancientness have taught me that very few citizens make any decisions based on "philosophies" or ideologies. Almost everyone [who even bothers] just makes that stuff up to make their decisions seem more thoughtful.

I agree that very few people think about this stuff, but wouldn't you agree that such ideas still matter? Changes in the realm of philosophy and ideology had clear and significant impacts as the world shifted from classical antiquity, to the middle ages, through the Reformation and into modernity. World War II was, in many ways, a war of ideologies over realpolitik.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Here's Deneen's week-2 post about classical liberalism:

This week we move from a consideration of the main sources of classical liberalism to several more contemporary voices. While many authors might have been considered, I will focus on three main features of contemporary “classical liberalism” that are worth emphasizing. They are: 1. liberalism’s creation of limited but powerful government, seen in the arguments of Paul Starr in his book Freedom’s Power; 2. liberalism as a the first universal political ideology, articulated by Francis Fukuyama; and 3. liberalism’s affinity for, and ultimate taming and even suppression of, democracy. I will discuss each aspect, and conclude by suggesting potential problems arising from each that classical liberalism presents to itself.

A Limited but Powerful State

Paul Starr has written a singularly helpful book. Many of the main currents of liberalism today present a story of a fundamental break that occurred in the history of liberalism, between the “classical liberalism” of Locke and Montesquieu, which inspired (among other things) America’s constitutional tradition; and the liberalism of the 19th- and 20th-centuries, beginning with the Progressive tradition and further developed by mid-century liberals like FDR, JFK, LBJ, Tip O’Neil (among others, in the realm of politics), and Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Dahl, Louis Hartz (among others, in the realm of ideas), and later 20th-century figures like John Rawls. According to both figures in the Progressive era (e.g., Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Croly), and contemporary conservatives who are critical of the Progressives (“natural rights conservatives,” as we will see in several weeks), the progressive tradition constitutes a fundamental break with the classical liberal tradition. One finds many instances in which prominent figures in the progressive liberal tradition place themselves in opposition to the basic presuppositions of the classical liberal tradition, particularly the emphasis upon individual autonomy, a belief in individual agency and responsibility (which is contrasted to social forces), and inviolable rights (especially property rights).

Starr has been an active voice on behalf of contemporary “progressive liberalism” (and we will be reading and discussing some of those arguments in two weeks), but his book begins with a strong argument for the continuity between the classical and progressive liberal traditions, and an endorsement of many of the main features of classical liberal constitutionalism. While he also finds a number of features of classical liberal constitutionalism ultimately to be wanting—particularly in light of historical, and particularly economic, developments—he nevertheless accurately perceives that there are many basic continuities within these two phases of the liberal tradition. Starr is able to see these continuities by a focus on what he describes as liberalism’s main effort to “discipline power”—not simply to minimize or decrease power, but in fact, to “discipline” power in such a way that in fact allows power to increase. The frequent emphasis upon liberalism as a form of “limited government” often blinds many observers to the fact that liberalism seeks the growth, increase, and expansion of power—political, economic, scientific, and military. Liberalism is “limited” inasmuch as it (claims) to be indifference to any particular way of life: it does not presume a human telos or shared conception of the Good that ought to be the aim of all human beings. Rather, by assuming the incommensurability of our wants and desires, it seeks to organize both government and society in such a way that those wants and desires can be variously pursued in a generally peaceful and stable manner. Starr unwittingly echoes the sentiments of Machiavelli in chapter 15 of The Prince, acknowledging this basic feature of liberalism:

Earlier republicans held that politics demands a devotion to the public good, but they conceived of civic virtue as a quality that only leisured gentlemen cold be trusted to display. Skeptical of such claims, liberals looked to political institutions as machinery for the public good that could work reliably with men as they really are, not as dreamers and dissemblers might wish them to be. This impulse lay behind their rationale for representative government and the deliberative procedures embodied in it. And nothing was more critical to this aspect of the classical political discipline than dividing power. [p. 58]

Thus, power needs to be “disciplined,” particularly by devices in liberal constitutionalism such as separation of powers, checks and balances, representation, and multiplying interests to create political stalemate. But in successfully disciplining power, power becomes a reliable servant of individual pursuits, and can thereby be expanded. Indeed, liberal citizens will come to demand the increase of political, economic, scientific, and military power, inasmuch as the wants and desires of liberal citizens are actually multiplied and new ones are constantly created. All of the energies of liberal societies become oriented toward “growth.” Limits that restrict our ability to pursue individual ends become the one insupportable commitment of a liberal society.

On the one hand, politics must thereby be limited: unlike classical political philosophy (e.g., Aristotelian), which argued that the aim of politics was the cultivation of human virtue for the goal of realizing the human telos, liberalism holds that government should be largely out of the business of encouraging one way of life or belief over another. In this sense, liberalism is more “limited.” However, classical political philosophy held that the goal of cultivating virtue required a polity of modest size, scope, power, wealth, and even (potentially) duration. The polity itself had to be moderate, thrifty, and virtuous. It had to be geographically small and economically modest. It was thereby less likely to be expansive and corrupt; but as a result, it was more likely to be subject to conquest and enslavement by greater powers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Aristotle’s arguments on behalf of the ideal polis occur just as Aristotle’s student, Alexander the Great, is absorbing the Greek poleis into the Macedonian empire.

By contrast, liberalism’s limited ends justified a potentially limitless expansion of means: in order to assist every individual’s capacity to realize his or her own personal ends, an expansion of power was required. If the aim of politics is to provide “commodious living” (in the words of Thomas Hobbes) or “indolency of the body” (in the words of John Locke), then the main aim of politics is not to influence how people lead their lives, but to assist in providing them every possible tool for the realization of their own life goals. Starr persuasively argues that this expansion of power is best achieved by “disciplining” power. Thus—ironically perhaps—the more “expansive” ends of classical political philosophy led to a more practically limited government; while the more “limited” aims of liberalism leads to the expansion of “disciplined power.” It’s not mere coincidence that the most powerful nations in the history of the world are modern liberal democracies—even more powerful than competitor dictatorial nations that organized their society’s around the goal of military might, e.g., Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Liberalism’s aim and organization of “disciplining” power allows power to expand exponentially. And, as a result (Starr will argue), requires eventually the need not only to discipline public power (the aim of classical liberalism), but also private concentrations of power, particularly economic power (a main aim of progressive liberalism).

In contrast to the arguments we will see lodged by proponents of “Natural Right Conservatism” in several weeks’ time—and even some proponents of “Progressive Liberalism”—there is warrant to believe that Progressive liberalism is in certain respects less a departure and rejection of classical liberalism than its logical successor.

Universal and Homogenous State

Some 25 years after the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s seminal article, “The End of History?,” my students—who were then not yet born—were singularly fascinated by the argument. Their horizon has been shaped by what Fukuyama predicted (and then partially recanted)—that the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the triumph of liberalism as “the end of history.” While they have vague memories of the devastation and terror of 9/11, the idea of fundamentalist Islamism serving as a viable political alternative to liberalism is not remotely a consideration for them. They are the first “post-historical” generation, born after the possibilities of fascism and communism had evaporated, having been raised in an age when liberalism apparently has no viable competitors. Fukuyama seemed to them to be describing historical fact rather than prophecy.

Inasmuch as liberalism is the “water” in which they swim, they have little capacity to understand that liberalism is not simply just “there” like the sun, air, and the sky, but was the result of philosophical ideas and daring action. Fukuyama tells a story in which the rise and triumph of liberalism was historically and naturally inevitable: it is the only regime that accords with our nature as creatures that crave “recognition” (in Hegel’s parlance) and which allows for the full unleashing of our scientific, technological, and economic ingenuity. Liberalism is the first ideology—that is, a set of ideas that seek the remaking all human societies in their image and likeness, regardless of any particular history, culture, and traditions—and leads inexorably to the creation of the “Universal and Homogenous State.” That state—hoped for by Hegel’s disciple, Alexandre Kojeve—is, on the one hand, universal, because its philosophical principles can be accepted as true anywhere and everywhere. It is homogenous because those principles require standardization of political and social life through law, education, commerce, and even a universalized mass culture. Having discerned the outlines of the universal and homogenous state, Kojeve resigned his teaching post and took up a position as a bureaucratic functionary, concluding that administratively advancing the universal and homogenous State now was more important than teaching and writing and thinking about it.

Fukuyama came to have misgivings about his own arguments for the inevitability of the “end of history” for two reasons. First, in the original article itself, and in the subsequent book revealingly entitled The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama recognized that the “end of history” would mean the triumph of the secular bourgeois human, surrounded by comfort, predictability, and security, and bored senseless—Nietzsche’s “Last Man.” Distraction through popular culture might satiate a large number of this mass, but some would prove discontent, leading, Fukuyama suspected, to a potential resumption of history as some of these figures rose up in opposition to the comfortable degradation of the “universal and homogenous state.” Perhaps the “end of history” was not the end after all.

Secondly, Fukuyama came to recognize a fundamental and inevitable contradiction between the two impulses that he attributed at the heart of liberalism’s universal appeal: its insistence upon human dignity (“recognition”), on the one hand, and its capacity to generate extraordinary scientific and technological advances, on the other. Fukuyama’s subsequent writing focused on the ways that the latter imperative, in the form of biotechnology and genetic engineering, would likely come into conflict with the former commitment. He would express his deep misgivings about liberalism’s inevitable bright future in his subsequent book Our Posthuman Future. Interestingly, as we will discuss in a few weeks, the libertarian strand of liberalism is much less worried about these developments, and begins to resemble certain characteristics of “progressive liberalism” in its cheerleading of post- and trans-humanism.

Liberal Democracy?

Lastly, with the assistance of Fareed Zakaria’s article “Illiberal Democracy,” we explored the question of liberalism’s relationship to democracy. While most of my students take for granted that liberalism and democracy are natural allies, Zakaria’s article, and discussions that one finds throughout the classical liberal tradition (including the Federalist Papers) emphasize that liberalism and democracy are strained partners at best. While there is an affinity between liberalism and democracy, for liberalism to succeed, it must restrain, “discipline,” and even in certain essential respects supress democracy.

The affinity between liberalism and democracy is found most fundamentally in liberalism’s insistence upon consent as the only basis for legitimate power and authority. While in theory liberalism can accept any form of government, including a constitutional monarchy, from the very beginning, the architects of classical liberal regimes decided that periodic consent was the best means of ensuring ongoing legitimation. While John Locke speaks of the theoretical possibility of “tacit consent” as an ongoing basis on which to ground claims of legitimacy, as a practical matter, it is difficult for people simply to pull up stakes or foment a revolution when they decide that their tacit consent no longer suffices. Elections solve a practical problem, and liberalism became wed to democracy.

But liberalism also came into being at least in part to restrain democratic impulses, particularly driven by the classical belief that democracy is simply the rule of the poor many who seek to exercise unjust power over the wealthy few. Locke forefronts property as a fundamental right, and that belief is explicitly echoed by James Madison in Federalist 10, when he states that the purpose of government is to protect the “diverse faculties of men,” particularly inasmuch as that diversity is expressed through differences in property accumulation. The mechanics of constitutionalism seek to secure ongoing popular consent, but also to restrain and even discourage active political participation. Just as classical liberal thinkers hoped and believed that commerce would take the place of war and military honor as a central activity of the government, they hoped too that private economic concerns would come to preoccupy liberal democratic citizens, lessening and even eviscerating their interest in public affairs.

Thus, while political scientists of various stripes often lament the declining interest and participation of liberal democratic citizens in political affairs (e.g., elections), considering the basic premises of the classical liberal tradition, we should not be surprised that this is one of the signs of its success. But in this case, again, we see an apparent contradiction that may imperil the marriage of liberal democracy: if the citizenry ceases to have considerable interest in exercising even nominal forms of ongoing consent, then the presumptive basis for political legitimacy becomes tenuous. While some political scientists see political disinterest as a sign of relative political health—particularly those who (largely unwittingly) follow the logic of Locke’s theory of “tacit consent”—elections practically cease to be exercises of ongoing consent and instead become captured by more intensely interested political partisans—factions—that the system was designed to disarm. The current political divisions of our polity may not be the result of discrete problems subject to a tweak, but rather emanate directly from the logic of liberalism. And if that logic continues to unfold, we can only assume that untutored democracy will use the engine of liberalism to dismantle liberalism’s achievement.

History, it seems, may not be over after all.

 

[wizards8507]

Here's Deneen's week-2 post about classical liberalism:

I'm not going to be nearly as articulate in my disagreement with this post as Deneen was in making it, but here goes. It's a fascinating argument that presents progressivism as the inevitable end of classical liberalism, but I'm not buying it. My biggest problem is with the following thesis:

By contrast, liberalism’s limited ends justified a potentially limitless expansion of means: in order to assist every individual’s capacity to realize his or her own personal ends, an expansion of power was required.

Two issues.

1. A classical liberal government is not supposed to "assist every individual's capacity to realize his or her own personal ends." Rather, it is supposed to allow every individual to pursue his or her own personal ends. Whiskey, you made the point earlier that liberalism is fundamentally built on the idea of negative liberty, but Deneen flips that here and presents the liberal government as an agent of positive liberty. Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration stated that "all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness," while Locke tells us that "the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness." Our freedom to pursue happiness, together with the freedom to fail in said pursuit, requires neither action nor power on the part of the state. Further, it is the pursuit rather than the achievement of happiness from which we derive meaning, since achievement of said happiness would lead to utter boredom as described by Fukuyama.

(This sentiment is echoed in the business world by Michael Novak who said (paraphrasing) that the spirit of capitalism is not acquisition, but increase.)

2. Deneen ignores the fact that State intervention (i.e. "power") in support of one individual's personal ends often impedes the ability of another individual to pursue his personal ends. You cannot view the relationship between the State and the individual in a vacuum, nor can you view it as a relationship between the State and "the people" collectively. Rather, it is millions of relationships between the State and each individual. An example of an expansion of power in the name of allowing individuals to pursue their own ends would be universal health insurance. Amy wants to be a painter but being a painter doesn't come with employer-sponsored health insurance. To support Amy's pursuit of her own personal ends, the State exerts power over the health insurance system and grants her coverage. This lone interaction seems to follow the progression from classical liberalism to progressivism, but the State's expansion of power is not a lone interaction at all. In exerting power in the name of Amy's personal ends, the State is compromising Dr. Bob's and Insurance Executive Mary's pursuit of their personal ends. Growth of power in the name of one individual or group's liberty to pursue happiness always comes at the expense of another individual or group's right to do the same.

*All emphasis mine.

 

[Cackalacky]

It's my personal opinion that a state that is able to responsibly provide its citizens with enough resources for them to to determine their own path is far superior than Janet Ernsts "rows and rows of bread bags on shoes" version of America where people should just learn to accept having little. Philosophically, and from a moral standpoint, that is a much more benevolent option for a social contract IMO. Because it's citizens would have adequate access to resources and be allowed to decide for themselves how best to live, as opposed to having to have meager or few resources available and their development, therefore becoming restricted in life.

And as to returning to the original intent of the US Constitution, it was PURPOSELY left ambiguous. So ambiguous in fact the the role of the president was not even clearly defined. As each president has come into office they each have done something to expand the role and power of the office. So, we began deveating from the original intent well before Washington left office. One could argue that classical liberalism has not even been actually practiced even though the intent was implied. The original intent of a republic is for the power to lie in congress but each president and even the SCOTUS have chipped away every term since Adams issued the Alien and Sedition Act. Soooo how do we return to an ambiguously defined and infantile understanding of the founding document knowing what we know now?

 

[Old Man Mike]

To Whiskey's enquiry as to whether I think that such things as being discussed here "matter": of course I do. These things, in my moral universe, constitute prime value decisions, and whether we construct our society one way or another either points to Christ-like charity-based action or to self-centered immorality. [That's a real world assessment based not upon theory but observation --- all people not in favor of charity-based-actions by government are not immoral, but it is obvious that a great many of them have the mindset NOT to act with significant charity, or we would have no conundrum to deal with here.]

What my remarks were about is that I am pessimistic as to whether these social ethics discussions can ever have impact on the real world of politics and therefore the issues of whether the state will ever act effectively in the way that Pope Francis [and Jesus] would prefer us to act. The wave-off position that everyone can solve their own problems and raise themselves up by their bootstraps is preposterous nonsense from anyone's experience with people who have been dealt hard blows by genetics, accident, bad parenting, early ignorant decision-making, or whatever.

Persons can and should do what they can to cure their own "ills", but to claim that everyone has the capacity to do so with enough effect is just denial. The issue in this thread may ostensibly be "what is the 'best' state organization for the good of the citizenry", but that verges powerfully on the question of the persons-carrying-significant-burdens-which-squash-potential. These persons can be viewed as a major concern for active relief by the chosen organization, or as statistical sacrifices for the "good" [defined usually in terms of making and keeping money and property by individuals] of the rest of the citizenry --- "The General Good" as usually phrased.

And this issue applies despite the counter-thought of "well, individuals should have the right to give succor to such burdened 'fellow citizens' only if they want to, and according to Christian moral principles should be doing so by individual choice --- which is the free will basis of moral decision whereas forced charity is not." Even so the issue of government activity remains because:

a). the country is not Christian; nor even particularly "spiritual";

b). many of those who claim to be are largely "Old Testament type Christians" who conveniently forget the Beatitudes when it's time to act;

c). willing Christians who have gotten the message and the zeal, plus the other charity-oriented givers in the society, [of which there are, Lord be praised, many], are not themselves able to cover the needs neither as individuals nor as members of charitable organizations.

Thus there is still a massive unfilled need in the citizenry. So, no matter if persons say the above philosophy about what people SHOULD be doing to help neighbors in difficulty, not enough people ARE doing it. And that throws us back into a REALITY discussion as to whether a "state" [with much more wherewithall to facilitate various forms of relief] should properly be empowered to do so... because the answer to this is not just "philosophy" but the chances of many persons to fulfill their potential --- as allegedly "everybody" wants.

I am a citizen of the country and therefore have a right to express my vision of what I'd like the country to be doing, and to vote on it. I would be doing so knowing that I myself, as a somewhat privileged society member, would be voting to give up a bit of my "gains". So, this would not be air-headed "philosophy" by me. Nevertheless, I would view the Beatitudes-based-caring-for-citizens-with-serious-burdens a "proper" government. I would not define "happiness" in terms of making and keeping money, but in terms of helping those individuals with serious burdens get to a life-condition, where their chances THEN to seize opportunities to reach whatever potential that they have are REAL chances, and not philosophical slogans.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

1. A classical liberal government is not supposed to "assist every individual's capacity to realize his or her own personal ends." Rather, it is supposed to allow every individual to pursue his or her own personal ends. Whiskey, you made the point earlier that liberalism is fundamentally built on the idea of negative liberty, but Deneen flips that here and presents the liberal government as an agent of positive liberty. Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration stated that "all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness," while Locke tells us that "the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness." Our freedom to pursue happiness, together with the freedom to fail in said pursuit, requires neither action nor power on the part of the state. Further, it is the pursuit rather than the achievement of happiness from which we derive meaning, since achievement of said happiness would lead to utter boredom as described by Fukuyama.

As Deneen further outlines in today's post (shared below), Progressivism was both a critique and an extension of classical liberalism. America's political philosophy was still very libertarian during the Gilded Age, while the Industrial Revolution was causing immense social upheaval. Intellectuals began to argue that classical liberalism was insufficient to protect people from monopolists, polluters, market forces, etc. And thus, Progressivism was born. As I argued earlier in this thread, classical liberalism's animosity toward unchosen authority (norms, tradition, community, etc.) weakened much of the social glue holding our society together, which allowed for the rise of corporate leviathans. Americans cried out to government for salvation, so Washington promptly constructed an even larger leviathan to combat the corporate one. That's why liberalism ends in tyranny eventually. Why do you believe that Americans would live happier and more virtuous lives if we abolished one leviathan, only to let the other roam unchecked?

Both libertarianism and Progressivism are similar in that they place liberty (or more accurately, human autonomy) as the summum bonum of politics, but they disagree about how it should be secured. Their approach to hard drugs helps illustrate the distinction. Libertarians argue that, for autonomy to have any real meaning, people must be free to jeopardize it (by experimenting with substances like heroine). Progressives believe that government should actively help people to achieve and protect them from losing their autonomy. Where do you come down on this issue? If you think government regulation of hard drugs is legitimate, you may be more Progressive than you think.

2. Deneen ignores the fact that State intervention (i.e. "power") in support of one individual's personal ends often impedes the ability of another individual to pursue his personal ends. You cannot view the relationship between the State and the individual in a vacuum, nor can you view it as a relationship between the State and "the people" collectively. Rather, it is millions of relationships between the State and each individual. An example of an expansion of power in the name of allowing individuals to pursue their own ends would be universal health insurance. Amy wants to be a painter but being a painter doesn't come with employer-sponsored health insurance. To support Amy's pursuit of her own personal ends, the State exerts power over the health insurance system and grants her coverage. This lone interaction seems to follow the progression from classical liberalism to progressivism, but the State's expansion of power is not a lone interaction at all. In exerting power in the name of Amy's personal ends, the State is compromising Dr. Bob's and Insurance Executive Mary's pursuit of their personal ends. Growth of power in the name of one individual or group's liberty to pursue happiness always comes at the expense of another individual or group's right to do the same.

Of course. That's the libertarian critique. And the Progressive retorts that the impact on Bob and Mary's autonomy is negligible compared to the benefit Amy (and millions like her) is receiving, resulting in a strong net positive for society that benefits even the inconvenienced doctor and insurance executive.

What my remarks were about is that I am pessimistic as to whether these social ethics discussions can ever have impact on the real world of politics and therefore the issues of whether the state will ever act effectively in the way that Pope Francis [and Jesus] would prefer us to act. The wave-off position that everyone can solve their own problems and raise themselves up by their bootstraps is preposterous nonsense from anyone's experience with people who have been dealt hard blows by genetics, accident, bad parenting, early ignorant decision-making, or whatever.

If such discussions cause even one person to discover how very similar the two major parties are, or to question our ability to solve deep-seated problems within the current ideological framework, then I think they will have been well-worth the effort.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Here's Deneen's Week-3 post on Progressivism:

There is legitimate debate over whether “progressive liberalism” constitutes a radical departure from, and even betrayal of, the basic commitments of “classical liberalism,” or whether it represents the next logical step in liberalism’s development. Both positions have merit.

Many of the original architects of “progressive liberalism” begin with an explicit rejection of several of the main constitutive beliefs that undergird “classical liberalism.” Foremost among those arguments is a critique of classical liberalism’s “anthropological individualism,” that is, the beliefs expressed by the proto-liberal Hobbes and liberalism’s architect John Locke that humans are understood to be by nature autonomous wholes, driven fundamentally by self-interest and instrumental reason. By extension, architects of “progressive liberalism” reject classical liberalism’s insistence that these basic features constitute the unchanging nature of human beings; rather, figures like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georg W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx argue that man’s nature is not “fixed” in this way, but rather evolves and develops in historical time. Man’s nature is more “fluid” than proposed by classical liberals, a belief that lies at the heart of progressive liberalism’s greater optimism in the project of creating a universally equal and just regime—even, in the words of several authors under consideration today, ushering in the “Kingdom of God.”

At the same time, progressive liberalism shares certain fundamental commitments with classical liberalism. The first of these is a deep distrust of custom, tradition, and unchosen authority. Following upon this, the two liberalisms share a belief in individual self-fashioning, though progressivism regards such self-creation to require considerable support by broader social forces and contributions. Both traditions seek expansion of the “sphere” in which citizens and humans identify, and at least initially, regard the nation-state as the natural domain in which individual liberation from parochial limitations can be achieved (however, as we will see, more contemporary progressives increasingly view the nation as unnecessarily limiting, and instead look to the prospects of a cosmopolitan, global form of membership). Both emphasize that liberation from the past and place sets into motion the basic engine of progress, though classical liberals stress that progress is achieved in the material, scientific, and economic realms, while progressive liberals believe that such material progress augurs the moral progress of humankind as well.

The American tradition is marked by a period in which Progressive liberalism was ascendant—conveniently designated as the Progressive era. Its major philosophical architects include authors we have under discussion this week: John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Rauschenbusch. We could add to this list the significant political figures of Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, among others. All of these figures are inspired by the philosophical sources and arguments that we have touched on above, but perhaps above all, were immediately inspired by the very practical concerns about how best to address the perceptible injustices, abuses, and profound inequalities that were being generated by the American economic system as the Industrial Revolution transformed American society after the Civil War. A constant refrain in this week’s readings is the pressing need to change some of the basic working assumptions of classical liberalism in order to redress the injustices generated by a dynamic but socially disfiguring economy.

One of the consequences of the political, social, and economic dynamism that was unleashed by classical liberalism was the widespread sense that it had underestimated the capacity for human transformation as well. Dewey, for example, in Chapter 5 of his short book Individualism, Old and New (“Toward a New Individualism”), praises the “old” liberalism for its success in “liquifying static property” of the type that had been prevalent in aristocratic ages, and for eliminating the local bases of social life as the economic and political system became visibly more national and “interdependent.” Dewey dismisses the “romantic” individualism that had animated the American belief in individual self-reliance (here echoing Frederick Jackson Turner’s observations that the age of the American frontier had come to a close), instead calling for recognition that it was empirically now the case that Americans were now part of a “social whole” in which no individual could be understood to exist in practical separation or individuation.

The “old individualism” had successfully undermined any vestiges of aristocratic society or Jeffersonian agrarianism, but the nation had not yet made the leap into a new age in which there would be an “organic” reconciliation of individual and society. The “liberalism of the past” had created the conditions that now required its own supercession: the advent of a new liberalism was now in view, needing the push by philosophically and socially sensitive thinkers like Dewey who envisioned humanity’s own self-transformative potential.

Herbert Croly similarly saw a fundamental transformation taking place, particularly in the lived reality of a national system of commerce, culture, and identity. However, this national system was animated by a belief in Jeffersonian independence, even as in fact the new national system reflected new forms of interdependence. He called for the creation of a “New Republic” (which would be the name of the journal that he co-founded), one that would achieve “Jeffersonian ends by Hamiltonian means.” Democracy could no longer mean individual self-reliance based upon the freedom of individuals to act in accordance with their own wishes; rather, it needed to be infused with a social and even religious set of commitments that would lead people to recognize their participation in the “brotherhood of mankind.” This aspiration had been thwarted heretofore by antiquated belief in individual self-determination, neglectful of the fact of profound and growing interdependence. That interdependence, however, was now generating the potential for “the gradual creation of a higher type of individual and higher life.” As Walter Rauschenbusch would echo in his call to establish the “Kingdom of God” on earth, a new and more deeply social form of democracy “would not accept human nature as it is, but move it in the direction of its improvement.” By overcoming the individualistic self-interest that Rauschenbusch saw informing even traditional Christian theology—whose object had traditionally been individual salvation—Rauschenbusch, like Dewey and Croly, envisioned the “consummation” of democracy in the form of the “perfection of human nature.”

While one sees calls for “collectivist” economic arrangements in the practical recommendations of these thinkers—Dewey, for instance, calls for “public socialism” and Croly writes in support of “flagrant socialism”—it would be mistaken to conclude that they are therefore antithetical to a belief in the inviolability and dignity of the individual. A consistent theme in the readings by Dewey and Croly is the belief that only by eliminating what they regard as the cramped and limiting individualism of “old liberalism” can a truer and better form of “individuality” emerge. Only through complete liberation from the shackles of unfreedom—including especially the manacles of economic degradation and inequality—can there be an emergence of a new and better form of individuality. A consistent theme is that the apotheosis of democracy will lead to a reconciliation of the “Many” and the “One,” a reconciliation of our social nature and our individuality. John Dewey writes, for instance, that “a stable recovery of individuality waits upon an elimination of the older economic and political individualism, an elimination that will liberate imagination and endeavor for the task of making corporate society contribute to the free culture of its members.”

While we will have to wait until that elimination of old liberalism is complete to know fully how that reconciliation of “individuality” and “corporate society” will be achieved, what is clear in these central and formative arguments in the Progressive Liberal tradition is that only by overcoming Classical Liberalism can true liberalism emerge. The argument continues to this day whether this represents a fundamental break with, or fundamental fruition of, the liberal project.

 

[Kaneyoufeelit]

I finally wrangled a copy of The Great Debate today and I look forward to joining this discussion. Some of the other books are proving harder to find, and I'm hesitant to buy them at this point. Has anyone had any luck finding them online?

On a somewhat related note, while I was at the library today, I found a section with courses on CD. I picked up one on Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy in America. I started listening to it and it's quite accessible and not at all as dry as you might think. I'm excited to listen to that as I'm going through these readings.

 

[Cackalacky]

I finally wrangled a copy of The Great Debate today and I look forward to joining this discussion. Some of the other books are proving harder to find, and I'm hesitant to buy them at this point. Has anyone had any luck finding them online?

On a somewhat related note, while I was at the library today, I found a section with courses on CD. I picked up one on Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy in America. I started listening to it and it's quite accessible and not at all as dry as you might think. I'm excited to listen to that as I'm going through these readings.

Try AbeBooks - Used Books, Rare Books, New Books & Textbooks
I found many of these books for less than $10 each.

 

[Cackalacky]

Here's Deneen's Week-3 post on Progressivism:

I am working through the Dewey book as we speak but for the sake of acknowledging my confirmation bias, Deheen pretty much nails it AFAIAC. And the more that I read, the more I think that social democracies may be the culmination of classical Liberalism (desired or not). I have my disagreements with Rousseau and Hegel as well but rejecting the assumptions on clasical liberalism are easy from an athropological standpoint as Deheen states. Its almost an inevitable rejection, which may be why most liberal societies are trending to social democracies.

I have aslo been reading up on the changing role of the US president. One thing that is quite clear is that many presidents, due to the nature of its unclear role, have taken many liberties while in office to shift power from the congress to the executive. The president is an "individual"and is at odds with the congress, represnting the larger "people". Its interesting to me that this individual has been almost singlehandedly responsible for making wide ranging policy decisions that affect much of the American tradition along the progressive liberal path as opposed to the larger body of congress.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

With respect, I disagree with virtually all of this. Far from cultivating whites as a separate voting block, Republicans opposed Southern Democrats who opposed the Civil Right Act in the 1960s and Republicans helped LBJ (in fact were decisive in passing) pass the legislation. If anything, their lack of prejudice hurt them for years; Southerners ran their own candidate and voted for Democrat-running-as-an-independent George Wallace for president in 1968 rather than the Republican Nixon. It wasn't until the Dems went far to the left with McGovern in '72 that Southern conservatives backed a Republican. That, -- i.e., hard shift of Democrats to the far left -- not cultivating racism (which is what you imply), began the migration to the Republican Party for Southern Democrats. Reagan, an old Democrat himself, completed the shift -- Reagan, the guy who signed the bill making MLK's birthday a national holiday.

I also strongly dispute the comment re Republican corruption between 1900 and FDR. Yes to Harding, but Coolidge cleaned up Harding's corruption (a party cleaning up its own scandals is pretty uncommon); Hoover was indisputably honest, and I've never heard anything about Teddy Roosevelt or Taft being corrupt; Teddy is, in fact, a hero of modern liberals.

Edit: I'm not a particularly big fan of either party, as organizations, btw. But facts is facts.

Well said. I agree that Harding was deemed corrupt. His biggest sin was naming his cronies to his cabinet. While he was very affable personality-wise, his passivity allowed for the Teapot Dome scandal, etc. His VP, Coolidge; however was the polar opposite of Harding. As you stated Coolidge cleanded up Harding's mess & steered the economy into the Roaring 20s. His lack of personality is what hurt his reputation....hence his nickname "Silent Cal". He was a horrible public speaker but IMO the most underrated POTUS in history.

Hoover chose membership into the Republican Party for one reason: it looked to be the favorite to nominate the next POTUS. Before that both Woodrow Wilson & FDR were quoted as supporting him as Wilson's successor & "making a fine choice for POTUS". Hoover was also a supporter of Teddy Roosevelt's progressive Bull Moose Party & supported him for POTUS. Go look at Hoover's & FDR's claimed remedies for ending the Great Depression. They weren't that different. WWII was the catalyst for getting the US out of the Great Depression in a lot of historians' opinions.

The Dem Party was the party of Jim Crow. Eisenhower's Civil Rights Act was watered down by the Dem Party. Pardon my laziness, but if memory serves there were only two people who filibustered Eisenhower's Civil Rights Act....JFK & LBJ. Johnson was savvy enough to get on board during his Presidency and deserves credit for passing a Civil Rights Act w/ teeth. It's a different world now, but I suspect JFK would be rejected by today's Democratic Party....OR...he would change some of his personal views to adapt to today's Dem Party. It's also intersting to see how other POTUS's strayed from their label as a conservative or a Progressive. Some do it pragmatically, some have a change of heart & some flat out want to hustle votes.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Here's the Week 4 post on Progressive Liberalism -- Contemporary Voices:

Turning from the theologically-infused liberal Protestant proponents of Progressivism of late-19th and early-20th century to some of its proponents in more recent decades, one is struck by both continuities and ruptures. In Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country—originally delivered as the Massey Lectures at Harvard University—we hear many echoes to the founders of Progressivism, including frequent invocations of John Dewey. This should not surprise us, given Rorty’s lineage: he was the maternal grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch. However, in chapters explaining the development of “modern liberalism” in Paul Starr’s Freedom’s Power, we see a concerted effort to create some distance between Starr’s updated liberalism and Progressivism. I think there are reasons to wonder whether Starr succeeds in separating the two as cleanly as he might wish.

Rorty’s short book Achieving Our Country sought to revive the fortunes of the Left from what he regarded as its lamentable embrace of cultural and identity politics. He called for a robust re-engagement with the Progressive legacy that had been established by Dewey, Croly, and Whitman, and in particular called for an embrace of the aspirational nature of the American project that had been relinquished by the Left following the disillusionment of the Vietnam War. His rhetoric, and even his theology, was deeply inspired by his Progressive forebears. Rorty called for a rejection of the idea of original sin as part of the inescapable human condition, condemning the Augustinianism of Reinhold Niebuhr and Jean Bethke Elshtain for pessimism about the potential for politics to overcome what traditional theology regarded as our fallen condition.

Instead, he evoked the names and language of John Dewey and Walt Whitman, both of whom aspired to “achieve our country,” to bring into being a nation that had been placed by Augustinians outside history with the eschaton, instead calling for the replacement of the “nation state” with the “kingdom of God.” Such an aspiration called for a reimagination of human potential, a possibility that had been created by political democracy and its generation of new human types, new forms of life, even humans with “more being” than predemocratic humans. America, Rorty argued, had been understood by the Progressives to be the “first cooperative commonwealth,” and even the usherer in of a world system that would supercede the nation-state: “the Parliament of Men, the Federation of the world.”

In contrast to Rorty, Paul Starr seeks to ground progressive (or “modern”) liberalism within the orbit of classical liberalism’s realism—thereby embracing the whole of the liberal tradition—on the one hand endorsing substantive commitments of the Progressive tradition, while at the same time disavowing aspects of Progressivism that Starr regards as based in unwarranted idealism and tending toward dangerous forms of paternalism.

Starr credits “modern” liberalism with four innovations that depart from basic aspects of “classical” liberalism:

1. Liberalism’s embrace of democracy

2. Progressivism’s call for greater economic equality (and expansion of federal government)

3. Libertarian liberalism’s call for expanded personal liberty (and a corresponding diminution of government)

4. Liberal Internationalism

Two of these are particularly worthy of some attention, numbers 2 and 3—the expansion of national power in order to address economic inequalities and promote equal opportunity; and the simultaneous commitment to decreasing both local and national power in regard to personal liberty (i.e., the demise of “morals legislation”). While these represent seemingly opposite commitments, they are born of a similar set of concerns and commitments. Emerging in reaction to growing economic inequality with the rise of the industrial revolution (and exacerbated by the dynamics of global capitalism), “modern liberalism” arises in significant part out of the same motivations of classical liberalism: in order to liberate people from unchosen, oppressive circumstances.

Progressive liberals conclude that while the political project of liberation has had considerable success, the price of that success—particularly the liberative effects of the market—have paradoxically resulted in a situation in which large numbers of people are increasingly destined for stunted lives due to penury and the narrow options for economic success. The original need to restrict arbitrary government is now amended to include more oversight over the economic concentration of power. Government—liberal government—is now seen less as an obstacle to personal liberty than as an essential partner in liberating people from the injustices of an economic system that generates titanic forms of inequality.

At the same time, a traditional role for government is enforcement of laws regarding “morals and manners.” Like straitened economic prospects, these laws and rules come under suspicion for leading to stunted and narrow experiences. Starr quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes, who writes (in words that echo John Stuart Mill) that “the theory of the Constitution is an experiment, as all of life is an experiment.” Government in the realm of private action and morality is reduced in scope and activity, born of the belief that anything should be permitted so long as no one is immediately and obviously harmed.

While one can perceive the theoretical consistency of the two positions—both aiming at affording the opportunity for varied and fully actualized life plans—at the same time one is also confronted by their contradiction. In economic matters, as a nation of citizens we are to view our fates as being bound together, with each of us owing to everyone else an obligation to afford decent prospects for a fulfilling life. Our lives are inextricably linked together, and the nation is to provide the umbrella through which our shared fate is mediated (the socialist thinker G.A. Cohen compared a nation to a camping group, in which all work together for the benefit of each other, without keeping close tabs on who brings or uses necessary goods). While Starr abandons much of the quasi-theological rhetoric of the original Progressives, the aim is the same—to foster a sense of deep social solidarity among all citizens within the nation.

However, in the realm of personal morality, we are to regard each other as radically individuated selves whose actions should be of no concern or moment to anyone else, as long as no one is being obviously harmed. While seeking to infuse the economic realm with the mantle of morality, in the “personal” realm, the language of personal choice comes to predominate. Progressives argue that the sum of individual choices in the economic realm has enormous implications for the social whole, requiring a commitment to redressing the social dislocations that the sum of those individual choices involve. However, the same logic is not to apply when considering “personal choice.” While the accumulation of various personal decisions—for instance, divorce or pornography—in fact arguably has rather profound social implications, we are largely required to ignore these in the name of the liberty of lifestyle “experimentation.” We are to adopt an attitude of “non-judgmentalism,” and even indifference. These two core commitments of modern Progressive liberalism induces schizophrenia that so deeply informs contemporary American politics.

As we will see, the opposite tension (and even schizophrenia) applies to “Natural Rights Conservatives,” who defend an extensively unregulated market and support various forms of morals legislation. What we should notice is that the two political worldviews have been successful mainly in the areas where they are more “libertarian”: progressives in expanding the sphere of personal liberty, conservatives in defending an extensively free market order (both, of course, would likely conclude otherwise). What is noteworthy is that neither has been nearly as successful in the less “libertarian” part of their agenda, which suggests that the “contradiction” at the heart of their respective commitments has a tendency to resolve itself in the favor of social “solvents” rather than “morality.” This outcome may be deeply reflective of the overall tendency of American politics, born of the liberal tradition.

Starr finally wants to claim that “modern liberalism” is distinct from late-19th and early-20th-century progressivism in several respects. First, he claims that liberalism has made its peace with democracy. However, liberalism’s continued reliance upon courts to circumvent popular opinion (e.g., in the gay marriage issue), as well as its enthusiasm for expansion of government bureaucracy (and its close alignment with public unions) belies this claim. Secondly, he claims that modern liberalism has abandoned the “paternalism” of the old Progressives—who supported Prohibition and eugenics, among other issues. But modern liberalism’s obsession with bodily health, evident in its war upon smoking, fast food, and large sodas suggests otherwise. Its support for unlimited (and publicly funded) abortions—even its distaste for unaborted humans with Down’s syndrome—and its growing enthusiasm for euthanasia also suggests otherwise.

Lastly, Starr suggests that modern liberalism has embraced a more realist “liberal internationalism” that accepts certain inescapable aspects of power politics that aim in general for the support expansion of liberalism, though recognizes the need for realist compromise (here, he seems to be thinking of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy). However, this stance seems to be at best a temporary commitment, with many liberals favoring the ultimate overcoming of the nation-state in favor of what might ultimately be a single liberal cosmopolity, one global nation ensuring uniformity of law, global oversight of global corporate power, and a borderless, open liberal society. One need only recall Rorty’s hopes for a “parliament of men, a federation of the world” (quoting Tennyson) to understand that a different end-game remains the aspiration of “the party of hope.”