287. The crisis of
liberalism
There are various forms of liberalism.
Loosely, it means liberty of choice for the individual. But what kind of liberty? Choice of what?
What does it mean for an individual? The cardinal, present form of liberalism
consists, I think, of the following principles.
First, autonomy of the individual (as
opposed to its social constitution).
Second, a focus on negative freedom; lack
of interference with the individual. This stands in contrast with positive
freedom, to pursue one’s view of the good life, on the basis of corresponding
values, virtues, and competencies. In liberalism that is left up to the
individual, free from public meddling.
That has indeed been liberating, with its
contribution to momentous achievements such as human rights, legality,
ownership rights, police monopoly of violence, equality under the law, being
innocent until proven guilty, independent judiciary, and different forms of
emancipation.
Third, the assumption and ideal of
rationality driving human action and public policy.
Fourth, a reduction of human nature to the
drive of self-interest, even at the expense of others. Other human features that
might keep this back, oriented at relationships rather than autonomous agents, such
as benevolence, care, trust, empathy, and altruism, are not regarded as being
part of human nature, and are felt to be ‘wishy-washy’, intangible, not satisfying
rational requirements of objectivity, logical rigour, and measurability.
And then there are markets. Their miracle
is that through self-interest they promote maximum material welfare. Without
that, liberal self-interest would not have been palatable.
As noted by Milbank and Pabst[i],
while values and virtues, as instruments for positive freedom, are seen as up
to individuals, beyond the pale of politics, the potential for vice, in excessive
self-interest at the cost of others, is a public matter, since it limits
negative freedom. Containing the hazards of self-interest then becomes the only
moral task of government. No appeal can be made to virtues since those are
outside public discourse, and are too vague, various and ‘irrational’ to have
any bite. Only imposition of control is left.
This idea goes back to Hobbes’ idea of the
need for a ‘Leviathan’ to contain the ‘war of all against al’.
To be rational and without regard to
individual values, motives, talents, experience and conditions, control has to
be bureaucratic, uniform and impersonal (one thinks of Weber here), imposed by
the state (or in name of the state[ii]).
As a result, conduct is increasingly regimented and strangled by an
accumulation of control.[iii]
Efficiency is objective and measurable, as
minimum monetary cost, while value is subjective and hence unwieldy, if it goes
beyond mere exchange value, expressed in price. This reduction of value to
exchange goes by the name of ‘commodification’.
As a result, in the realm of rational
policy efficiency always wins. If quality is to play a role, it is to be fixed
in objectified, quantifiable, standards of skill, process or outcome, which
contributes to the accumulation of stifling control.
As noted by Milbank and Pabst, taken
together, this explains the puzzling phenomenon, in present society, of an
alliance between market ideology, demanding maximum negative freedom for
self-interested conduct, with centralized control of such conduct, to limit
threats to negative freedom. Socialist ideals of a strong state can thus ally
with liberal ideals of negative freedom. A requirement for this was only that
socialism drop its old ideals of upholding social justice beyond the decrees of
laws, in humane conduct, protecting the weak, and guiding and ‘uplifting’ the
populace with education and culture.
This results not only in a reduced scope
for positive freedom, for the pursuit of a flourishing life, but, ironically,
even of negative freedom, in that limitation of scope. And so liberalism
swallows its own tail.
[i] John Milbank & Adrian Pabst, ‘The politics of virtue’, London:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
[ii] As in the case of the control of hospitals, in terms of detailed
protocols for work, delegated to health insurance companies, after the change
of the system in 2008, in the Netherlands
[iii] That has led me
to explore a lighter form of control that leaves more room for trust, called
‘horizontal control’, discussed elsewhere in this blog.