In the summer of 1989, the American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama heralded liberal democracy as the end of the development of ideological human history, but after more than a quarter of a century and with the length of the current Russian war on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin returned the West to an era of ideological and military conflict that Europeans and Americans believed they had left behind decades ago;
The world of free markets led by the "entrepreneurial state" and liberal democracy is in jeopardy as the dominant global model.
The liberal states defeated fascism and communism, but the map of the ideological struggle differed again. On the one hand, there is the United States and most of the countries of Europe, and on the other hand, there are Russia, China and various illiberal forces within the Western countries themselves, to win this conflict, and the liberals are trying to prove to the world once again Political systems based on individual rights and market economies are superior to those they describe as systems of fear and authoritarianism.
Fukuyama's new book "Liberalism and Its Discontents" provides an eloquent defense of the ideas of liberal freedom and pluralism that it sees as threatening, and highlights an examination of the vitality of the theories and political systems that shape human history, and are shaped in turn by their developments.
Liberalism is currently facing many resentments, and Fukuyama says that the best way to overcome these challenges is for liberal principled to take them directly, correct internal transgressions, and defend a renewed liberal vision as the best political model for respecting individual rights and economic opportunity within diverse societies, he believes.
Variety of opinions
Classical liberalism, in Fukuyama's definition, represents "a large tent encompassing a body of political views that nonetheless agrees on the fundamental importance of equal individual rights, law, and freedom" and represents a 17th-century system of thought and institutions designed to solve the problems of ruling a diverse group of people without power and constant war.
As Fukuyama explains, "The fundamental principle that liberalism enshrined is the principle of tolerance; you do not have to agree with your fellow citizens about the most important things, but only that each individual must decide what he or she is without interference from you or the state."
Modern-day liberalism requires free and fair elections, representative legislatures, a fair and impartial judiciary, impartial bureaucracies, an independent press and media, and a commitment to freedom of expression;
The writer says it is under constant attack from the populist right and the identity-based left.
If neoliberalism represents the economic interests of the super-rich and professional, then the populist response has in turn given voice to working-class discontent with liberal regimes of trade, immigration, and global identities.
This is evident in left-wing efforts such as the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, and on the right with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the election of Trump in the United States in 2016.
The birth of liberalism
Liberalism developed in the wake of Europe’s wars on religion and nationalism, and while the wars of religion in Europe were driven by economic and social factors, it derived its ferocity from the fact that the warring parties represented different Christian sects that wanted to impose their own interpretation of religious belief on their population, according to the presentation by the magazine. American Purpose" for the book.
This was a period in which followers of the forbidden sects were persecuted, as "heretics" were regularly tortured, hanged or burned, and their clergy persecuted.
The founders of modern liberalism such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke sought to downplay the aspirations of politics, not to promote the good life as defined by religion, but instead to preserve life itself, because the diverse populations could not agree on what the good life was.
In this sense, liberalism was merely a pragmatic tool for resolving conflicts in diverse societies, a tool that sought to lower the temperature of politics by removing questions of ultimate ends and transferring them to the realm of private life.
This remains one of its most important strengths today. If societies as diverse as India or the United States depart from liberal principles and attempt to base national identity on race, ethnicity, or religion, they advocate a return to potentially violent conflict. The United States is out of such conflict during its civil war, and India under (Prime Minister) Modi calls for communal violence by transforming its national identity into one based on Hinduism.”
However, there is a deeper understanding of liberalism, as it developed in continental Europe and has been incorporated into modern liberal dogma.
From this point of view, liberalism is not only a mechanism for avoiding violent conflict in a pragmatic manner, but also a means of protecting basic human dignity.
Another feature of historical liberalism is its association with the right to property, whereby property rights and the enforcement of contracts through legal institutions became the basis of economic growth in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, and other countries that were not necessarily democratic but had a system of protected property rights.
For this reason, liberalism is closely linked to economic growth and modernization.
indignation
It is no secret that liberalism has not always adhered to its ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law, particularly those who were considered "full human beings deserving universal rights", and this has been in dispute for centuries, and conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of the meaning.
Neoliberals made economic freedom a religion and belief, and progressives focused on identity and human universality as central to their political vision.
Fukuyama argues that the result has been the rupture of our civil society, with the resultant increased danger to our democracy.
The economic shortcomings relate to the tendency of economic liberalism to evolve into what has come to be called "neoliberalism".
Today, “neoliberalism” is a pejorative term used to describe a form of economic thought, often associated with the University of Chicago or the Austrian School, and with economists such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler and Gary Becker. As a catalyst for growth and efficient resource allocation.
The result was the emergence of a new world by the first decade of the 21st century;
Total income was higher than ever, but inequality within countries also grew tremendously, and many countries around the world saw the emergence of a small class of oligarchs, billionaires who could turn their economic resources into political power through lobbyists and property purchases. media.
Globalization has made it possible for them to transfer their money safely and easily, depriving countries of tax revenue and making regulation extremely difficult.
The second discontent with liberalism that developed over the decades was rooted in its basic premises. Liberalism deliberately lowered the horizon of politics. The liberal state would not tell you how to live your life, or what the good life entailed, and the question of how to pursue happiness was left to the individual citizen to decide for himself.
This results in a vacuum at the heart of liberal societies, a vacuum that is often filled with consumerism, popular culture, or other random activities that do not necessarily lead to human prosperity.
This was a criticism of a group of (mostly) Catholic intellectuals, according to the author.
This leads us to a deeper layer of discontent.
Liberal theory, in both its economic and political forms, is built around individuals and their rights, and the political system protects their ability to make these choices independently. Social, from families to relatives and peoples.