The first to use the word "liberal" was the French philosopher Man Doubert in 1818, and he defined it as "the doctrine calling for the development of freedoms". From that day, the controversy over the concept did not stop in terms of interpretation and definition, in expansion of the intellectual and political sphere, or exclusively in the economic field alone.
Thus "liberalism" has become almost synonymous with democracy among Egyptian intellectuals and politicians, and among American youth it is closer to what is known as social democracy in Scandinavian countries, and it is the biggest insult in the mouths of left-wingers.
As for us, we will not enter this controversy, and we will mean by liberalism the two sides of the coin, that is:
- The theory that building the best possible economy passes through the sanctity of ownership and freedom of economic initiative, in light of competition and market mechanisms, and with minimal interference from the state.
- The capitalist system that puts these "postulates" into practice through countless and not considered private companies, and at the top of the pyramid are the five hundred largest companies that control the world economy. The primary goal of this system - regardless of the field of production and its conditions - is to achieve the maximum possible profits, without any consideration for the human or environmental cost, and then to re-employ part of it to ensure more production and more profits; And so without end.
Everything was said in liberalism, praising the improvements it has achieved in the standard of living of hundreds of millions of people, and praising the costly costs of the process. Sterile controversy is also not going to enter it; What concerns us is the only question that must be asked when examining any political or economic system: Can this entity - as it is and in these circumstances - continue or is it doomed to collapse sooner or later?
Look at the Swedish political system with all the flaws of representative democracy, but also with all the mechanisms of amendment that it possesses, and with the stability it achieves as a result of understanding about the method of transferring power, and the widespread acceptance it enjoys on the part of the people is not lost. You can say that this system is able to communicate for a long time.
Now take the current Egyptian regime with all of its time bombs, the absence of any mechanism for remediation and internal reform, not to mention its less than modest performance, and the growing rejection of it by societal groups whose circle is expanding day by day. You will not need to read in a cup and history will not deny you if you say: The question for this system is not: will it collapse? Rather: when will it collapse?
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When we examine the capitalist system, and in light of the pandemic that struck it as the earthquake strikes the most luxurious building, the people who built it believed that it is still remaining A number of questions come to mind:
Is it possible for liberalism to continue with a series of disintegrated production whose loops are distributed all over the world according to the cheapest labor, if the world were hit by a pandemic - as we know it today - that production was disrupted and millions of workers were thrown into unemployment?
Is it possible for liberalism to communicate and major international companies in the field of tobacco, soft drinks and ready-made foods accused by all public health professionals of profiting from the spread of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and that they are the cause of disease of hundreds of millions of people? He spoke, and there is nothing wrong with the role of the pharmaceutical and weapons companies.
Is it possible for liberalism to continue despite the price of destroying the environment through the chemicals it produces from its companies that poison the land, sky and sea?
Is it possible for liberalism to continue in light of the expansion of the class gap between countries and within each country, putting in the hands of 1% of the population 50% of the world's wealth, which can be considered as a seed for how many wars and how many revolutions may come on the green and the land?
Can liberalism continue after the divorce between the capital invested in industry and the capital invested in money, that is, in speculation in the stock market? Any economic justification - not to mention moral - to place the rapid imaginary profits of a handful of speculators - and most of them thieves and fraudsters - above the interests of millions of people can lose all of their savings in a jiffy?
Is it possible for liberalism to continue in light of the fierce trade war today between China and America, and in light of the specter of the return of customs borders that will put in front of international companies a huge amount of restrictions and obstacles that will put an end to the single open market?
In the context of the current situation in the world and what we know about the history of liberalism; The closest objective answer to all of these questions may be: Why not? If its crimes against the environment were sufficient for its collapse, it would have breathed itself in the nineteenth century, as pollution in new industries in major western cities reached a degree of gravity that led to the birth of a new branch of medicine called "medicine", and the fact that it was the medicine of the effects of work that was destroyed and still being destroyed Health of millions.
Is it possible for liberalism to communicate and major international companies in the field of tobacco, soft drinks and ready-made foods are accused by all public health professionals of profiting from the spread of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and that they have caused the illness of hundreds of millions of people? He spoke, and there is nothing wrong with the role of the pharmaceutical and weapons companies
And if its crimes against people were sufficient for its collapse, it would have breathed its utmost at the beginning of the twentieth century. We cannot imagine today the magnitude of the injustice that occurred in the nineteenth century on the millions of peasants whose lands were expropriated as happened in Scotland, or poverty - as happened in France and Germany - forced them to join factories to work for more than twelve hours with a wage that could hardly be paid.
Therefore, when Britain abolished slavery in its colonies in the year 1933, the Almighty yelled that the state must begin to emancipate the white slave, that is, the entire British people. There was no exaggeration in that demand, because liberalism was taking advantage of the local working class with the same mentality as colonial slaves. When this white slave revolted, they refused to employ five-year-old children in coal mines; The state was sending him the army - and in particular, imagination - to mass killing peaceful protesters, as happened in 1817 in the famous St. Peters Field incident in Manchester.
However, despite all the crimes against the human being and the environment, Liberalism was able to communicate through the distribution of crumbs, and the maneuvering, acclimatization and concessions of the working class that it demonstrated throughout the last two centuries, especially from enormous ingenuity in the conquest of political and cultural decision-making centers, and influencing them to protect their legitimate and illegal interests.
Did it not come out sound, healthy and more vital - or less fierce than ever before - after the crisis of 2008 and before the crisis of 1929? What makes us hope that her fate will differ after the Corona pandemic, and it may be just one of the crises, even if the largest?
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officially; The Soviet Union collapsed on December 26, 1991 when the Soviet flag was lowered and the Russian flag was raised to the Kremlin for the first time. There are those who still think that this collapse of the fiercest opponents of liberalism was the royal gift to it, and it will become clear one day that it was a poisoned gift because any unchecked system preserves a kind of balance that is like mammals in nature when the broken animals disappear from it, so it eats all the grass that cannot regenerate for its large number Then you will die of hunger at the end.
The same applies to political and economic systems when you do not find anyone who forces them to balance and overstates and causes them to perish. Are we today in such a situation? Of course not, but there is more than one phenomenon that tells us that the era of arrogance is over, and that the smartest temple guards are beginning to feel the field of the earth beneath their legs.
What does it mean when last August 181 the president of a major American company goes ahead with a pledge that they will take into account the interests of workers and society, and not just the interests of bond owners? Why do we read articles in American newspapers today that raise - in different formats - a question that was thrown a year ago: How to do different capitalism (how to do capitalism differently)?
As if there is now - inside part of the class that most believes in liberalism - the beginning of more than painful reviews. Perhaps because the most mature people feel that the catastrophe of climate change - which is watching us and for which they bear a large part of responsibility - may not leave a habitable land for their grandchildren or even for their children.
But; What is the level of their readiness to review and what is the size of that review? What I read between the lines is that the review - which is very painful for them - is acceptance of some role for the state, the entity whose sanctuaries say must stay out of economic affairs. Perhaps there is no greater lie than the one spread by liberalism, as it has always claimed that all that it wants from the state is a kind of positive neutrality and letting economic institutions work to create the wealth that society will pay off.
When examining the true relationship for the last two centuries, You will discover that liberalism demanded everything from the state and took everything from it, and gave little in return, and that it did not live and grow because of the invisible hand of His Holiness the market or the freedom of initiative, but rather thanks to the protection of the state that was despising it.
Throughout the nineteenth century - when labor protests in Europe or America did not stop - companies were crying out to the state, sending the police and sometimes the army to rid them of their predicament. Throughout the twentieth century we have seen how western companies erected in third world countries have invoked their countries to continue stealing the resources of the poor people.
This is how the coup happened in Iran in 1953 to preserve the udder of cheap oil, in Guatemala in 1954 to preserve the banana monopol, and in Egypt in 1956 to retrieve a dairy cow called the Suez Canal. last but not least; The coup in Chile killed an elected president because he wanted his country's wealth for its people, not for the big corporations.
In the twenty-first century, we saw in the year 2008 a crazy banking system that collapses because of its large manipulation of people's money, and in the end, only the state was found to be saved by bankruptcy. At least we can admit to China that it does not practice the hypocrisy that prevails in the West, where nothing is more clear in this country than the alliance between a state in the full service of liberalism, and liberalism in full compliance with the state.
Talking about the state's "return", therefore, does not make sense because the state was not absent from the game one day, but was in most countries - which condemns liberalism - like a guard dog, as soon as it whistles on it until it comes to defending and attacking anyone who represents a danger, or like The body necessary for the life of the parasite attached to the gut absorbs its energy and adds nothing to it.
As a reminder before continuing the conversation, The state - in the specific technical sense - are structures and institutions that possess human, material and knowledge resources, driven by the political system, and its primary objective is in the public good. Otherwise, Liberalism is a company that possesses human, material and knowledge resources, driven by people and boards of directors, and its main good and private objective. It may be unfair to say that there is always a conflict between the two interests, but it is certain that I do not lie with the slogan "What is good for GM is good for America."
The state - in the specific technical sense - are structures and institutions that possess human, material and knowledge resources, driven by the political system, and its primary objective is in the public good. Otherwise, Liberalism is a company that possesses human, material and knowledge resources, driven by people and boards of directors, and its main good and private objective
We all know today what is in the interest of the world and humankind: stopping coal and gas factories, banning chemical pesticides, nationalizing pharmaceutical companies to make what the world needs and not what bank accounts need, putting strict restrictions on transactions on the stock exchange so that the 2008 disaster does not renew, banning soft drinks and foods Equipment and tobacco, or heavy back taxes on them, put the forests of Brazil, Congo, and Indonesia under international protection for their massive role in reducing global warming, and compensating states and locals for the loss of the wood industry.
Likewise, the entire North Pole - like the Antarctic - was placed under the protection of international agreements prohibiting any gas or petroleum investment in it, and preventing it even from navigation when global warming opens free avenues for dangerous pollution in it, financing unemployment resulting from these measures, and building a solidarity-based economy based on Clean energies from taxes are imposed on wealth that exceeds a certain limit, and on large companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, and it is beneficial to close tax shelters in all parts of the world that are today the major treasures to collect the thefts that go to the major nations victim.
When you look at this list, it becomes clear to you that it is impossible to apply it, because liberalism will choose the collapse of the world over its collapse, with such measures. But at least; Is it possible to make some improvements so what does he not all realize does not leave his heart?
Even this requires the widest international alliance to confront the liberal octopus. We are not far from such a thing, and we believe that the European Union itself is unable to confront; Which country today can - even domestically - take measures to preserve the health of its citizens and protect its seeds, which places it directly in a position of conflict with major ocean and human destruction companies?
Of course, a state like this must be a national and democratic state that places the public good - as is the mission of every self-respecting state and its function - above all considerations; But how can democracy be confronted today by liberalism that penetrated and subjugated it in more than one place and time? It is the painful revisions that democracy will face if it does not want to sink as well on the day that liberalism sank, and we all drown with it, God forbid. For the rest of the conversation.
- Source: Al-Jazeera