Iurie Rosca — Like the Soviet Regime Created a Religion, So Does Western Liberalism

Western liberalism was developed as a secular replacement for the Christian religion that forms one of the four pillars of Western civilization — 1) the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition, 2) , and 4) modern science and technology. Western liberalism is an attempt to bring the first three in line with modern science as the latest development. 

Greek thought based on reason and Roman law and organization can be viewed as precursors to the development of modern science. But traditional religion was a fierce opponent of the rise of modern science and stood forcefully in the way of its development and the promulgation of scientific understanding. Whether consciously or not, the Church recognized the threat of challenge and even replacement, which, of course, did eventually happen. Science now has assumed the mantle of the authority that the Church once wore, along with dominance of explanation in the culture based on the success of technology.

Christianity had already bifurcated into the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Byzantine Orthodoxy Church in the East. The two institutions have been diverging for some time and finally split formally in 1054. The Protestant Reformation that began in 1517, split Europe into warring parties, and culminated in the the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Arguably, Protestantism was the beginning of liberalism is the West, since it was aimed at liberalizing the authoritarian Roman Catholic Church as an institution. Protestantism was arguably a factor that led to the rise of capitalism as economic liberalism. 

Political liberalism can be traced to many factors, but the John Locke's Treatise on Government was foundation and served as a blueprint for the American founding fathers. The rise of political liberalism is often traced to the Magna Carta of 1215. The institutions of Western political liberalism are conspicuously English.

What is now regarded as Western liberalism is an 18th century phenomenon that replaced traditional religion with Deism, the belief that the Creator established laws of nature at the beginning and the universe has run like clockwork ever since. This allowed believers to begin to integrate traditional religion with modern science, which was typified by Issac Newton. As a result, scientists became the new priesthood, and science as the explication of "natural law" became the new religion.

The need for Deism ceased when conditions changed enough to permit what was formerly a heresy, namely, secular humanism. At this point, it was safe for liberalism to assume the garb of religion in the sense that it began to replace the social and cultural role of traditional religion.

It was a short step to making economics a science and therefore the elucidator of the natural laws of economics. Where liberals agree with Marx is over the economic infrastructure of a society determining the nature and scope of the social and political superstructure. But whereas Marx viewed this as historical and changing, liberals viewed in a based on natural law, hence, eternally true. This eternal truth could bc captured in formal models characteristic of modern science. This would become the new "theology," with economists the replacing the high priests. Economic liberalism would henceforth ground social and political liberalism.

But Karl Marx and Friedrich Eagles were also in the Western liberal tradition. There are two strains of Western liberalism, bourgeois liberalism and anarchism.

Bourgeois liberalism aimed to replace the feudal system, in which governance was vested in monarchs, aristocrats and landed gentry. with capitalism, with governance by owners of private property in constitutional republics.

Marx and Engels belonged to the anarchist wing, which was opposed to bourgeois liberalism where property owners replace feudal lords. Anarchism as a from of liberalism views the culmination of liberalism as the replacement of the nation state, where rule is based on law and its enforcement, with consensus governance that precludes legalized state violence, as well as intimidation and coercion based on the threat of violence. Anarchists recognized that the so-called rule of law under bourgeois liberalism simply leads to a new privileged class and an oligarchy of property owners.

While bourgeois liberalism came to dominate Western capitalistic countries that were constitutional republics, the anarchist model came to dominance in the East through the Russian and Chinese revolutions. While Western bourgeois liberalism has predictably led to oligarchy plutonomy, "sanctified" by Western political theory based on liberal economics as the discoverer of the natural laws of economics that dominate growth and progress, the communist project foundered in Russia and has been modified in the direction of bourgeois liberalism in China.

Religion has been replaced as a dominant factor in Western bourgeois liberalism, replaced by science, without actually attacking religion, although some Western liberals hold that religion is acting as a drag and should be rejected as superstitious. But under communism, religion was attacked by the state "acting in the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat" as "the opium of the people" that prevented mass consciousness raising.

The problem was that in the East, communism was far less successful in replacing religion, even with suppression, than scientism was in the West, owing to the success of science in improving individuals lives. Communism failed as a replacement for religion in the USSR, although the Chinese Communist Party has not yet given up on it. Nevertheless, President Xi Jinping is now attempting to integrate Confucian tradition with market socialism with Chinese characteristics.

This post by a prominent Moldavian politician is a reaction the Marxist-Leninist revolution in the East on its 100th anniversary, along with its failure and the subsequent rise of Western bourgeois liberalism. In reaction, traditionalism is rising in at least some of these countries. This is going to figure heavily in the march toward globalization that is taking place, so it worth paying attention to as a geopolitical force and factor.

On the occasion of the October Revolution centenary we decided to ask personalities from the Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia and western countries the same set of questions. These interviews are intended to represent a modest contribution to the re-evaluation of the events that had an impact in the 20th century. Although 100 years have passed, many misconceptions about the profound causes of this major overturn and the way the „proletarian revolution” is treated by the political elite, the academia and the church hierarchy still remain in the public consciousness of ex-communist countries and of the entire world. We think it is vital to find appropriate answers to questions of this intricacy.

Geopolitika

Like the Soviet Regime Created a Religion, So Does Western Liberalism

Iurie Rosca |  President of the Christian-Democratic People's Party of Moldova