Ian McKay — Are we witnessing the death of liberal democracy?

"Liberal democracy" is an oxymoron. What passes for liberal democracy is dying owing to its internal oppositions. Liberalism and democracy are incompatible. Being based on property, liberalism is naturally biased toward oligarchy

Property ownership and property rights are dominant in liberalism and this leads to plutocracy. Ian McKay cites C. B. Macpherson on this. The problem arises from the basis of liberalism in property to the bias toward capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism is the favoring of capital, both real and financial, over the other factors, labor (people) and land (environment). Interest and profit are based on rent extraction, so capitalism tends toward rent seeking.

C. B. Macpherson needs to be rediscovered along with Hyman Minsky, Karl Polanyi, and Kenneth Boulding.

The Conversation

Are we witnessing the death of liberal democracy?

Ian McKay, Director of the Wilson Institute for Canadian History, McMaster University

Reuters — Hungarian PM sees shift to illiberal Christian democracy in 2019 European vote

Traditionalism is on the rise and it's taking a bite out of liberalism. This wave is not unique to Hungary.

In an annual speech to ethnic Hungarians in Baile Tusnad in neighboring Romania, Orban portrayed the 2019 European parliamentary vote as decisive for the future of Europe.

He said the Western political “elite” of the EU had failed to protect the bloc from Muslim immigration and it was time for them to go. “The European elite is visibly nervous,” Orban told hundreds of cheering supporters.

“Their big goal to transform Europe, to ship it into a post-Christian era, and into an era when nations disappear - this process could be undermined in the European elections. And it is our elementary interest to stop this transformation.”...

“Christian democracy is not liberal...It is illiberal, if you like,” Orban said....

The historical dialectic chugs along.

Reuters
Hungarian PM sees shift to illiberal Christian democracy in 2019 European vote

Staff

See also

Steve Bannon plans to lead a populist revolt throughout Europe which, if successful, will crush George Soros and his network of open-border NGO's to smithereens, according to the Daily Beast....

Zero Hedge
Bannon Sets Up For EU Showdown With George Soros

Tyler Durden

David Masciotra — The American Conservative

Unusual to find praise for a radical "Ivy League" leftist in The American Conservative, but here it is.

In Defense of Howard Zinn

The American Conservative

David Masciotra

William Holland — US military brass seek unified ‘Nazi’ command

Something more to think about, although the title is more provocative than it needs to be. "Nazi-like" would be more apt in my view.

The term "Nazi" more than raises eyebrows and more than eyebrows need to be raised.

Asia Times
US military brass seek unified ‘Nazi’ command

William Holland

The United States has already gone against the views of the Founding Fathers regarding "entangling alliances" and constitutional delegation of wars powers to the legislative branch.

Would replacement of the currency organizational structure of the military with a general staff further erode the liberal vision upon which America was founded?

Would a president that controls foreign and military policy back by a general staff be the way to do to meet contemporary challenges. Or is this a slippery slope that the country has arguably already started to slide down on to extend and maintain American hegemony?

Ted Galen Carpenter — The Real Problem with Gina Haspel's CIA Nomination

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed the cautionaryadmonition: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.” Too often, we have ignored that warning. Gina Haspel’s defenders assert that her behavior conformed to procedures that senior CIA officials (and presumably the Bush White House) had approved. The international community rejected the “just following orders” defense that defendants invoked at the Nuremberg trials. Haspel’s defense is no more valid or persuasive. We should not accept a female version of the Marquis de Sade to lead the CIA. A refusal to do so would be a modest, but important, first step in reclaiming America’s soul.

The foundation of liberalism is the rule of law regarding human rights and constitutional liberties. I would say that the real problem with respect to liberalism is failure to observe the rule of law, along with failure to hold those violating the law to account.

Liberalism is idealistic, whereas politics and economics are realistic. This leads to paradoxes of liberalism that affect liberal democracy.

Good article. Worth reading the whole thing.

The National Interest
The Real Problem with Gina Haspel's CIA Nomination

Ted Galen Carpenter | senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest

Also

A Chilean reports on women torturers under Pinochet.

Counterpunch
It’s Time the United States Accounts for Its History of Torture

Ariel Dorfman

Article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times

Andrew Batson — Mudde & Kaltwasser on populism

I found Populism: A Very Short Introduction by Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser to be very useful and conceptually clear, a worthy addition to Oxford’s charming Very Short Introductions series.
The real contribution of the book is that it provides a definition of populism that is both conceptually clear and empirically useful–no mean feat. Here it is:

We define populism as a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people. 

Populism must be understood as a kind of mental map through which individuals analyze and comprehend political reality. It is not so much a coherent ideological tradition as a set of ideas that, in the real world, appears in combination with quite different, and sometimes contradictory, ideologies.…

The difference between populist democracy and liberal democracy is that the former posits the tyranny of the majority, while the latter protects minorities with legal rights.

Andrew Batson's Blog

Mudde & Kaltwasser on populism
Andrew Batson

Allum Bokhari — NYT Op-Ed Claims Internet ‘Threatens Democracy’ by Bypassing the Establishment Class

So, to sum up: The Internet has removed “constraints on what can be said.” It has meant that the mainstream media and party establishments have “lost most of their power.” Legacy institutions can no longer “set bounds” on us.

And this is all bad! And scary! And a threat to democracy!

This is quite interesting in light of the social organization in the US during the anti-war protests in the Vietnam era. There was an almost total blackout of alternative opinion in the US media and what coverage there was pictured the opposition as a motley band of socialist crackpots, communist sympathizers, or DFHs (dope-crazed "dirty fucking hippies practicing "free love").

The only communication apparatus the anti-war movement had was the alternative newspapers ("underground press") that cropped up samizdat-style.

The Internet and social media have changed all that by bringing balance into the equation. The powers-that-be are freaking out. It's safe to assume that "they" are hard at work trying to devise ways to put a stop to this "outrage."

Breitbart News 

NYT Op-Ed Claims Internet ‘Threatens Democracy’ by Bypassing the Establishment Class
Allum Bokhari

Jonathan Turley — Why I Will Not Be Joining The Protests Against President Donald Trump

Below is today’s column in USA Today on the protests against President-Elect Donald Trump and why, despite having a house full of family members and friends who have come to protest Trump, I will not be joining them. Instead, I will be home with my kids as we have been in every inauguration – celebrating the peaceful transfer of power in our democracy and wishing the newly elected president (and our country) the best with an inaugural toast. I criticized Trump (and Hillary Clinton) during the campaign (and I will not hesitate to criticize Trump again for policies or actions that I disagree with). However, I find the claims of illegitimacy and attacks this week to be highly disturbing. I totally respect the right of people to come to protest Trump and his policies. However, there appears to be a concerted effort to delegitimize his presidency and create a type of political mythology about this election.

In this column I discuss that mythology and, more importantly, the meaning of the day of inauguration for many of us. Regardless of my criticism of both Trump and Clinton, I always knew that on January 20th I would raise a glass to the 45th President of the United States and wish him or her . . . and us . . . the best of luck in the coming years. It is a time when we reaffirm our commitment not so much to a politician but to each other. We reaffirm a common article of faith that, despite our disagreements and divisions, we remain one country joined by our belief in democratic transition and government. There is much to celebrate this week as a glance around the world at places like Gambia will readily confirm. Donald Trump will be the 45th President. Our President....

Jonathan Turley
Why I Will Not Be Joining The Protests Against President Donald Trump
Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University

Mike Lofgren — Did Trump Kill ‘Liberal Democracy’?

Donald Trump’s victory has spurred commentary about the “death of liberal democracy,” but the seeds of that demise were planted in the 1980s amid elite orthodoxy in favor of neoliberal economics, argues Mike Lofgren.

Consortium News
Did Trump Kill ‘Liberal Democracy’?
Mike Lofgren, former career congressional staff member who served on the House and Senate budget committees

Gwyyn Guilford — Harvard research suggests that an entire global generation has lost faith in democracy

Provocative research. I have several thought about this.

First, was the meaning of "democracy" presumed or specified. If "democracy" is defined as "government of the people, by the people and for the people," then no nation today is living under democracy. Most liberal democracies are republics, which have been controlled by elites historically and this remains true today. Patricians are seldom much concerned about the interests of the plebeians other than with respect to getting their votes periodically in elections.

Secondly, if "democracy" is taken to mean "majority rule," then the United States is not a democracy, for several reasons. Most importantly, minorities are protected from the tyranny of the majority by constitutional rights and a judiciary as a check and balance on the legislative and executive powers. 

In the US, the senate is comprised of two senators from each state regardless of size or population. This protects state sovereignty in a federation. 

Less important — usually — is the role of the electoral college in balancing the interests of different demographic areas, chiefly the state with large urban populations and the states with large rural populations. But this becomes very important when the winner of most electoral votes does not carry a majority.

These aspects of liberal democracy result in some of the paradoxes of liberalism that result in dissatisfaction with political liberalism.

In addition, political liberalism must be harmonized with social and economic liberalism, which engenders further paradoxes of liberalism.

While the study suggests the rise of illiberalism, the obvious question is why this change in attitude has occurred, what it pretends, and how it can be addressed in liberal democracies.

Quartz
Harvard research suggests that an entire global generation has lost faith in democracy
Gwyyn Guilford

ht Jerry Lynn Scofield at Naked Capitalism

David Rosen — Has the NYPD Become a Paramilitary Force?

"I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh largest army in the world," former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg boasted back in 2011.

Since that time, the New York Police Department has become even more militarized, practiced in command-and-control practices that Brooklyn College sociologist Alex Vitale describes as "paramilitary policing."

The federalization and militarization of the NYPD following 9/11 created the model of paramilitary policing that's reshaping law enforcement throughout the country.
Vitale identifies these seven qualities as the principal aspects of the increasingly popular framework of paramilitary policing:

• Surveillance and infiltration of nonviolent political organizations.

• Denial of protest permits and tight restrictions on demonstration locations.

• Heavy deployment and use of defensive equipment, such as body armor.

• The use of 'less lethal' weapons on non-violent protestors.

• Deployment of highly trained specialized police units to control demonstrations.

• Preemptive arrests and targeting of protest leaders.

• Coordination between local and federal law enforcement officials.

• Other practices often accompanying paramilitary policing include the use of sophisticated cyber technologies, video surveillance and agents provocateurs.

Truthout

Has the NYPD Become a Paramilitary Force?

David Rosen

Not to be outdone:

Nor are any booking records generated at Homan Square, as confirmed by a sworn deposition of a police researcher in late September, further preventing relatives or attorneys from finding someone taken there.

“The reality is, no one knows where that person is at Homan Square,” said Craig Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who studies policing. “They’re disappeared at that point.”

Welcome to Amerika. This is Gestapo tactics, plain and simple.

The Guardian

Homan Square revealed: how Chicago police 'disappeared' 7,000 people

Spencer Ackerman

NBC News
Jon Burge Case: Police Torture Scandal Still Casts Long Shadow Over ChicagoJon Schuppe

Sharun Mukand and Dani Rodrik — The political economy of liberal democracy

There are more democracies in the world today than non-democracies, according to data from Polity IV.1 Yet, few of those are what we would call liberaldemocracies – regimes that go beyond electoral competition and protect the rights of minorities, the rule of law, and free speech and practice non-discrimination in the provision of public goods.

Hungary, Ecuador, Mexico, Turkey, and Pakistan, for example, are all classified as electoral democracies by the Freedom House.2 But in these and many other countries, harassment of political opponents, censorship or self-censorship in the media, and discrimination against minority ethnic/religious groups run rampant. Fareed Zakaria coined the term ‘illiberal democracy’ for political regimes such as these that hold regular elections but routinely violate rights (Zakaria 1997). More recently, political scientists Steve Levitsky and Lucan Way (2010) have used the term ‘competitive authoritarianism’ to describe what they view as hybrid regimes between democracy and autocracy.…

Freedom House and Fareed Zakaria are tipoffs of false narrative.

More ideological musings by economists pontificating beyond their field using selective sources that agree with their views.

This post is only interesting for the title. Too bad that they did not do justice to this important subject that is also timely in current affairs, but rather took a neoliberal view of it.

Vox.eu
The political economy of liberal democracy
Sharun Mukand, Professor of Economics, University of Warwick, and Dani Rodrik, Albert O. Hirschman Professor at the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study; and CEPR Research Fellow

John Henley — Eurozone's enforcer ready to keep Greece's new leader in line

Dutch economist Maarten Verwey has unprecedented powers as his taskforce oversees the implementation of Greece’s cash-for-reforms rescue package 

Whoever ends up moving into Maximos Mansion, the official Athens residence of Greece’s prime ministers, after Sunday’s election, they will not, in any meaningful sense, be running the country.

That honour might be said to go instead to a besuited Dutch economist in Brussels with the imposing title of director-general in the secretariat-general of the European commission in charge of the Structural Reform Support Service.

Maarten Verwey, a senior civil servant at the Dutch finance ministry who joined the commission in 2011 and led its Cyprus assistance programme, heads what amounts to an EU taskforce for Greece, Greek media have said.

His powers are unprecedented. And if few voters on the streets of Athens have heard his name, many understand that how they cast their ballot in the elections will make little difference to what happens next.

“It’s a done deal,” said Christos Sotirakis, 43, a bank employee. “It doesn’t matter who wins, we know what they’ll be doing. More taxes, more cuts, more austerity. Every party signed up to it. There’s no real point voting.”

Anti-austerity Syriza leader and outgoing premier Alexis Tsipras, who resigned this summer after accepting punishing new bailout terms to ward off bankruptcy and keep Greece in the euro, and Vangelis Meimarakis, of the centre-right New Democracy, are tied in the polls.

But under the draconian conditions of Greece’s third cash-for-reforms rescue package, Athens effectively surrendered control over great swaths of economic and social policymaking to its eurozone lenders.…

In exchange for the bailout funds, Greece, which needs to repay about €1.3bn in loans this December and another €6bn in 2016, has pledged to radically overhaul its economy and make far-reaching changes to the health, welfare, pensions and taxation systems.…

According to the financial weekly Agora, Verwey’s 20-strong staff “will essentially write the legislation for almost all areas of government policy, from corporate income tax and labour market policy to the health and welfare system … and prepare interim reports during the evaluation of the economy”.…

Yannis Stathopoulos, a waiter, said he would definitely not be voting. “I’ve given up,” he said. “Did we really invent democracy?” 

Goodbye Greek democracy. Hello neoliberal transnational technocracy. Of course, as long as European borders remain open, which may not be for long, Greeks can move elsewhere and compete for jobs with the rest of the refugees.

The Guardian
Eurozone's enforcer ready to keep Greece's new leader in line
John Henley
ht Random in the comments

David F. Ruccio — Critique and the neoliberal university

The neoliberalizing (commercializing) of education and culture, by monetizing education and capitalizing the university. 

With the ending of liberal education, can liberal democracy survive? 

The neoliberalizers see the problem as a tyranny of the majority aka rule of the rabble and seek to end that, too, but destroying its roots. This is nothing less than a veiled attack on popular sovereignty by undermining its foundation in education and culture.

The current model is that the faculty works for the administration, and the administration carries out of the wishes of the trustees that represent big donors. Students are clients and customers. 

Formerly liberal education dedicated to critical thinking and creativity is being repurposed to feed the machine with qualified and compliant labor.

Occasional Links & Commentary
Critique and the neoliberal university
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame

Dani Rodrik and Sharun Mukand — The Puzzle of Liberal Democracy

Good analysis of some of the paradoxes of liberalism resulting from conflicting rights. But the authors fail to mention the US as a prime violators of civil rights, previously of the powerless but increasingly of anyone that is regard as a threat by dissenting from the status quo, for example, by asserting political rights and civil rights over property rights through organization, protest and potential civil disobedience, not to mention violations of international law, including torture as a policy both inside and outside the nation's borders. Nor does it mention the complicity of other so-called liberal democracies in carry out rendition and torture.

Moreover, the authors cite neocon Fareed Zakaria and Freedom House as sources. Freedom House is a US sponsored NGO that carries out neoconservative clandestine operations in foreign countries.

Freedom House, a U.S. government-funded pro-democracy organization founded in 1941, describes itself as "an independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world. Freedom House supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights."[1]

Best known for its annual "Freedom in the World" survey as well as its clandestine support to opposition groups in countries like Cuba and Iran, since the 9/11 attacks and the onset of the "war on terror" Freedom House has devoted considerable energy to assessing the impact of "radical Islam" both in and outside the United States, including promoting policies in countries that have been targeted as part of U.S. anti-terrorism campaigns.

Although in recent years the organization has appeared to relax its close association with hawkish U.S. policies, its leadership remains heavily represented by individuals affiliated with neoconservatism and it has continued to support projects aimed at bolstering aggressive U.S. foreign policies.... — Institute for Policy Studies

But the part about the conflict among type of rights is right on. Liberalism as a social, political and economic theory is beset with internal contradictions.

Liberal democracy rests on three distinct sets of rights: property rights, political rights, and civil rights.

They don't mesh very well and so liberal democracies either find themselves grinding gears in the effort to progress, or becoming illiberal to avoid emerging challenges as contradictions in principles rather than face them as paradoxes to be resolved, which is much more difficult and unpalatable to the powerful.

This is the howler through.

The main beneficiaries of civil rights, by contrast, are typically minorities that possess neither wealth nor numbers. Turkey’s Kurds, Hungary’s Roma, Russia’s liberals, or Mexico’s indigenous population ordinarily command little power within their countries. Their demands for equal rights therefore do not have the potency that demands for property and political rights have.

Russian liberals are repressed minority like Turkey’s Kurds, Hungary’s Roma, and Mexico’s indigenous population. What are these guys smoking. No mention of US minorities that have been repressed for centuries, those of African descent, whose ancestors were enslaved, and Native American descent whose land was expropriated, and who still make up an underclass numbering in the millions.

Project Syndicate
The Puzzle of Liberal Democracy

Dani Rodrik is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and Sharun Mukand, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study and Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick

Joe Firestone — Fast/Track/TPP: The Death of National Sovereignty, State Sovereignty, Separation of Powers, and Democracy

The economics is horrible but the politics is catastrophic. This really is the road to serfdom under corporate totalitarianism as a New World Order in which everything is subordinate to property rights.

New Economic Perspectives
Fast/Track/TPP: The Death of National Sovereignty, State Sovereignty, Separation of Powers, and Democracy
Joe Firestone

Mike Krieger — Peter Thiel Blasts: The American Political System Is "Not A Democracy Or Constitutional Republic"

Libertarians coming to the conclusion that it may not be just government that's the problem but government capture by large firms and oligarchs — a conclusion that left libertarians came to some time ago.

Zero Hedge
Peter Thiel Blasts: The American Political System Is "Not A Democracy Or Constitutional Republic"

Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog

David Ellerman — Does Classical Liberalism Imply Democracy?

There is a fault line running through classical liberalism as to whether or not democratic self-governance is a necessary part of a liberal social order. The democratic and non-democratic strains of classical liberalism are both present today—particularly in America. Many contemporary libertarians and neo-Austrian economists represent the non-democratic strain. We will take the late James M. Buchanan as a representative of democratic classical liberalism (with assists from the earlier democratic classical liberal philosophers, John Stuart Mill and John Dewey). Unpacking the implications of classical liberalism for any socio-organizational structures requires a tour through the intellectual history of the voluntary slavery contract and the voluntary non-democratic constitution (or pactum subjectionis) and it requires the recovery of the theory of inalienable rights that descends from the Reformation doctrine of the inalienability of conscience through the Enlightenment in the abolitionist and democratic movements. The argument concludes in agreement with Buchanan that the classical liberal endorsement of sovereign individuals acting in the marketplace generalizes to the joint action of individuals as the principals in their own organizations.…

Contains an excellent summary of classical liberalism. Here is the conclusion.

Re-constitutionalizing the corporation

Today the structure of most companies of any size—namely, the employment relation with the "employer" being the corporation with absentee "owners" on the stock market— institutionalizes irresponsibility by disconnecting the far-flung shareholders from the social and environmental impact of their "corporate governance."21

There have been a few social commentators who have pointed out the institutionalized irresponsibility of the absentee-owned joint stock corporation. In his 1961 book aptly entitled The Responsible Company, George Goyder quoted a striking passage from Lord Eustace Percy's Riddell Lectures in 1944:

Here is the most urgent challenge to political invention ever offered to the jurist and the statesman. The human association which in fact produces and distributes wealth, the association of workmen, managers, technicians and directors, is not an association recognised by the law. The association which the law does recognise—the association of shareholders, creditors and directors—is incapable of production and is not expected by the law to perform these functions. [Percy 1944, 38; quoted in Goyder 1961, 57]

This modest proposal re-constitutionalizes the corporation so that the "human association which in fact produces and distributes wealth" is recognized in law as the legal corporation where the ownership/membership in the company would be assigned to the "workmen, managers, technicians and directors" who work in the company. If the modest proposal were accepted that the contract for the renting of human beings be recognized as invalid and be abolished, then production could only be organized on the basis of the people working in production (jointly) hiring or already owning the capital and other inputs they use in production. The legal members of the firm as a legal party would be the people working in the firm. Such a firm is a democratic firm and the private property market economy of such firms is an economic democracy.22

Conclusion

When firms are organized as workplace democracies, then that is the natural generalization of sovereign individuals acting in the marketplace so ably described in the classical liberal free- market vision—to associated individuals acting as the principals only delegating decision- making authority in their own organizations.

I would call this a must-read for those interested in the intersection of economics, political science and philosophy. This is becoming a defining issue of our times.

Does Classical Liberalism Imply Democracy?
David Ellerman

David P. Ellerman (PhD in Mathematics) is a philosopher and author who works in the fields of economics and political economy, social theory and philosophy, and in mathematics. He has written extensively on workplace democracy based on a modern treatment of the labor theory of property and the theory of inalienable rights as rights based on de facto inalienable capacities. (Wikipedia)

Seth Ackerman — The Red and the Black

This is an astute examination of the issues involves in moving from capitalism in liberal democracy to socialism in social democracy (not to be confused with statism). It's also a good lesson in the history of economics.

Jacobin
The Red and the Black
Seth Ackerman | editor at Jacobin and a doctoral candidate in history at Cornell
(h/t Brad DeLong)

Dani Rodrik — Rethinking Democracy

A true democracy, one that combines majority rule with respect for minority rights, requires two sets of institutions. First, institutions of representation, such as political parties, parliaments, and electoral systems, are needed to elicit popular preferences and turn them into policy action. Second, democracy requires institutions of restraint, such as an independent judiciary and media, to uphold fundamental rights like freedom of speech and prevent governments from abusing their power. Representation without restraint – elections without the rule of law – is a recipe for the tyranny of the majority.... 

When democracy fails to deliver economically or politically, perhaps it is to be expected that some people will look for authoritarian solutions. And, for many economists, delegating economic policy to technocratic bodies in order to insulate them from the “folly of the masses” almost always is the preferred approach....

Optimists believe that new technologies and modes of governance will resolve all problems and send democracies centered on the nation-state the way of the horse-drawn carriage. Pessimists fear that today’s liberal democracies will be no match for the external challenges mounted by illiberal states like China and Russia, which are guided only by hardnosed realpolitik. Either way, if democracy is to have a future, it will need to be rethought.

Project Syndicate
Rethinking Democracy
Dani Rodrik | Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey