Don’t Buy the “Marketplace of Ideas” — Terry Hathaway

Economic imagery pervades societal discourse. Part of this imagery projects markets as existing everywhere; the common societal parlance sees talk of the car market, the grocery market, the computer market, or, simply, the market. Yet, excepting traditional marketplaces or medinas, these markets have no physical manifestation. Unlike with other major social institutions there is no where to visit; there is no headquarters.

Instead, markets are said to exist when there are competitors in the provision of services or goods and where each competitor has a fair and equal chance of succeeding. The market, then, exists in a metaphorical, rather than physical, sense – it implies that the capitalist system operates diffusely like a marketplace, rather than there being an actual marketplace in which economic transactions take place.

The further extension of economic imagery has seen the market metaphor applied to the provision of political and economic ideas, with the notion being that there exists a level-playing field on which ideas are free to compete and that this competition will weed out weaker ideas. Hence, “no platforming” of racist or homophobic speakers should be staunchly opposed as it will impede the competitive destruction of abhorrent ideas. An important ancillary notion is that any idea that has come to be orthodox received wisdom has justly achieved this status through free and fair competition in the marketplace of ideas.

The problems with this account of the ideational development of society are legion, but I’ll limit myself to explaining just three, namely 1) product heterogeneity, 2) distribution of ideas, and 3) production of ideas....

Developing Ideas

Don’t Buy the “Marketplace of Ideas”
Terry Hathaway | Lecturer at the Norwegian Study Centre at the University of York.

The West’s Arrested Social Development — Helmut K. Anheier

In 1995, the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf argued that developed countries’ “overriding task” for the subsequent decade was to "square the circle of wealth creation, social cohesion, and political freedom.” More than two decades later, most have not even attempted that feat....

The paradoxes of liberalism involve the incompatibility of social liberalism, political liberalism, and economic liberalism, in particular, a fundamental tension between accumulation and democracy. Enlightenment liberalism (not to be confused with enlightened liberalism) is bourgeois liberalism, the bourgeoisie being the owners of property.

The particle is strong on analysis and weak on solutions.

As Marx observed, the problem is property. Property is a social construct based on legal institutions. It can be addressed through institutional reforms that limit economic inequality, which leads to social and political inequality through status, networking and power. But that would involves modifying the concept of economic liberalism to bring it into balance with social and political liberalism. This requires more than surface alterations ("band-aids"), e.g., more progressive taxation. It requires revisiting the Enlightenment concept of liberalism, which was an advance at the time but an anchor to the past now.

Project Syndicate
The West’s Arrested Social Development

Helmut K. Anheier is Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and at the Max Weber Institute, Heidelberg University.

Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order — John J. Mearsheimer

Abstract

The liberal international order, erected after the Cold War, was crumbling by 2019. It was flawed from the start and thus destined to fail. The spread of liberal democracy around the globe—essential for building that order—faced strong resistance because of nationalism, which emphasizes self-determination. Some targeted states also resisted U.S. efforts to promote liberal democracy for security-related reasons. Additionally, problems arose because a liberal order calls for states to delegate substantial decisionmaking authority to international institutions and to allow refugees and immigrants to move easily across borders. Modern nation-states privilege sovereignty and national identity, however, which guarantees trouble when institutions become powerful and borders porous. Furthermore, the hyperglobalization that is integral to the liberal order creates economic problems among the lower and middle classes within the liberal democracies, fueling a backlash against that order. Finally, the liberal order accelerated China's rise, which helped transform the system from unipolar to multipolar. A liberal international order is possible only in unipolarity. The new multipolar world will feature three realist orders: a thin international order that facilitates cooperation, and two bounded orders—one dominated by China, the other by the United States—poised for waging security competition between them.

John J. Mearsheimer is a foreign policy realist.

MIT Press
Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order
John J. Mearsheimer | R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago

See also

The Geopolitics
The Best of Both Worlds: Chinese Foreign Policy Through the Lens of Realism and Liberalism 

Shubham Swaroop

The FBI is Tracking Our Faces in Secret. We’re Suing. — Kade Crockford , Director

At least China is upfront about this. And is taking all the media flak.

The whole kerfuffle over Huawei is about who is going to control the information, foreign intelligence services or Five Eyes (US, UK, Canada, Oz and NZ).

ACLU
The FBI is Tracking Our Faces in Secret. We’re Suing.

Kade Crockford , Director

Why is “millennial socialism” on the rise? Because liberalism is failing — Lea Ypi

Should be "neoliberalism" instead of "liberalism."

Good article on the paradoxes of liberalism.

New Statesman
Why is “millennial socialism” on the rise? Because liberalism is failing

Lea Ypi | Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Capitalism vs democracy: Europe’s hard problem — Mark Mazower

Modern Europe’s political structure is based on the supposition that capitalism and democracy can be compatible – so the most urgent challenge of our times is reconciling the two.

In short, economic liberalism and political liberal generate paradoxes that require a comprehensive worldview (systematic set of presumptions) that balances social, economic and political liberalism for Western liberalism to survive.

New Statesman
Capitalism vs democracy: Europe’s hard problem

Mark Mazower, director of the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris

See also

Monthly Review
The systemic crisis of world capitalism
Prabhat Patnaik
Originally published: Peoples Democracy (August 25, 2019)

On Demagogues and Democracy — Eric Schliesser

Some social & political theory. Focuses on Walter Lippmann, The Good Society.

Although Eric Schliesser doesn't mention it in this post, Aristotle discussed these issues in detail in his Politics.

Digressions&Impressions
On Demagogues and Democracy
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

The road to serfdom before Hayek (Knight, Lippmann, and a note on Weber today) — Eric Schliesser

So, here's my hypothesis. The road to serfdom thesis was if not inspired by Lippmann, at least prompted, in part, by him. But Lippmann did not hold the thesis; it is articulated by Knight in his review of Lippmann and (mistakenly) ascribed to Lippmann. Knight, however, thinks there is nothing inevitable about the thesis because he thinks the future is still very much open. I cannot prove that Hayek read Knight's review of Lippmann. (Knight was later a somewhat ambivalent referee for The University of Chicago Press of Road to Serfdom.) But Knight articulated several major challenges to liberal self-reflection in his review of Lippmann. And some of Hayek's major contributions to the liberal self-imagine, for good and ill, can be fruitfully interpreted as responses to that review.

Digressions&Impressions
The road to serfdom before Hayek (Knight, Lippmann, and a note on Weber today)
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Fred Weir: The tempest over Putin’s remarks on “liberalism”

While I agree with most of what Fred Weir writes here, I also think that Putin understands more about the Western liberal tradition that arose during the Enlightenment than Weir thinks. Nor was Russia a stranger to Enlightenment ideas then. Weir is also wrong in thinking that Russia has no liberal tradition. In fact, Russia adopted its own version of the Western liberalism in the period called "the Russian Enlightenment, which adapted Western thought to the situation prevailing at the time in the Russian Empire. Putin would certainly be aware of this.

Putin's own political party is liberal  in the broad sense and constitutes the largest and most powerful liberal political faction in Russia. This doesn't conflict with also being conservative. While Edmund Burke is considered a founder of modern Conservatism, he was solidly in the Western liberal traditions. American has a liberal and conservative faction in the context of American liberalism.

Reading Putin's interview with the Financial Times from which his recent criticism of liberalism is taken, it seems cleat that he is writing in the context of the liberal tradition and is criticizing what he sees as its contemporary excesses in the name of "freedom" and "human rights." Probably most American conservatives would agree with him, as Fred Weir opines. American conservatives regard themselves as the most genuine representation of Western values, meaning Enlightenment values.

I have been writing for some time on the paradoxes of liberalism and the transition of the historical dialectic socially and politically from the opposition of liberalism and fascism, on one hand, and communism, on the other, to the opposition of liberalism and traditionalism.

The issues have largely arisen from the West and the US especially, rushing to replace traditionalism with liberalism worldwide. As Putin observes, this has resulted in severe pushback domestically as conservatives in the liberal tradition have become uneasy with the messy process of social and political change that calls into question traditional values.

I don't see Putin as speaking philosophically here as much as pragmatically. Pushing liberalism to what many view as the extreme, especially too quickly, is resulting in dissatisfaction that is manifesting as the rise of nationalism and populism, as Putin mentions. It is also a push back against what many sees as incursions on democratic rule and national sovereignty.

So while I identify as a left libertarian, I am also a realist. But from the pragmatic point of view from which I believe Putin is speaking. I agree with him, the political idealists are getting ahead of themselves and this generating blowback.

The Committee for East-West Accord
Fred Weir: The tempest over Putin’s remarks on “liberalism”
Fred Weir

Fred Weir is a Canadian journalist who lives in Moscow and specializes in Russian affairs. He is a Moscow correspondent for the Boston-based daily The Christian Science Monitor, and for the monthly Chicago magazine In These Times — Wikipedia

Rob Larson — Capitalist Freedom Is a Farce

Milton Friedman was wrong. Capitalism doesn't foster freedom — it produces autocratic workplaces and tyrannical billionaires....

Another paradox of liberalism that arises from economic liberalism and affects social and political liberalism, too.

Jacobin
Capitalist Freedom Is a Farce

Rob Larson

Paul Thagard — Jordan Peterson’s Flimsy Philosophy of Life

Jordan Peterson is the pop philosopher of greatest interest in the US right now. His thought is of interest for that reason, especially for those who like staying au courant. But his is more important in the large picture for why he is regarded as important, especially in a culture in which philosophy is held in low esteem and Ayn Rand is actually considered a notable thinker by serious people in politics.

I submit that a major reason for Peterson's popularity is his worldview, rather than any of his particular views. The national dialectic in the US now, and to some degree internationally, is the tension between traditionalism and liberalism that came to the fore in the Renaissance with the rise of science and interest in classical literature. Peterson addresses this tension in a popular fashion that a lot of people can relate to.

The liberal wave began its crest in the Enlightenment, when the replacement of dogmatic theology and the alliance between church and state power declined, as theology was being replaced by naturalistic philosophy, and law based on religious dogma was being replaced by positive law based on natural law.

Traditionalism is based on the great chain of being worldview. Liberalism is based on scientific naturalism. The link between them is the understanding of "nature" and "natural" based on the Western intellectual tradition that began with ancient Greek thought.

This rise of liberalism and scientific naturalism resulted not only in an intellectual transformation in cultural worldview, but replacement of the traditional order by the liberal order as feudalism collapsed, sweeping away monarchies and empires, replacing them with democratic republics based on liberalism.

But classical liberalism was bourgeois liberalism based on property ownership. "All men are born equal" — sort of, that is. This "sort of" has lead to many paradoxes of liberalism that add to paradoxes that arise from combining liberalism and traditionalism. These paradoxes appear as contradictions that result in cognitive-affective dissonance.

In dialectical progression in contrast to strictly linear progression, the past is brought along into the present and continues to influence the future in a way that is far more complicated and also complex than physical processes. This is called variously "path dependence," "hysteresis," "historicity" and social and cultural embeddedness." Biological phenomena exhibit this more than purely physical, and social phenomena more than biological, e.g., owing to cultural embeddedness and institutional rigidity.

The result is that many Americans are suffering from a "split personality," torn between traditionalism  and liberalism. This is especially the case with people that are religious (traditional) and also committed to individual freedom (liberal). This is not to say that this affects only Americans, only that Americans have their own characteristic "brand" of it owing to their history.

This results in paradoxes as apparent contradictions. An appeal of a thinker like Jordan Peterson is to offer a worldview in which those paradoxes can be resolved, reducing cognitive-affective dissonance. But in doing so by the route he has set on, Peterson has become a controversial figure.

So the question arises, how sound is his position? Paul Thagard, Canadian philosopher and cognitive scientist, responds.

Psychology Today
Jordan Peterson’s Flimsy Philosophy of Life

Paul Thagard | Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Association for Psychological Science

See also

The Conversation
Human evolution is still happening – possibly faster than ever

Laurence D. Hurst | Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at The Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath

Pratap Bhanu Mehta — A darkening horizon [for the liberal order]

As the recently much derided “liberal order” ebbs away, what is the ideological constellation that will replace it? The liberal order was often more an idea than a reality and in international politics, often not very liberal at all. But it operated within a series of normative horizons — economic centrism, openness to trade, multiculturalism, and so on. The flagbearers of that order are losing credibility all across the world, for a variety of reasons. Deep misjudgements on inequality, issues of identity and structural corruption made liberal, centrist politics lose its sheen. Of course, each country from India to Brazil, Hungary to the United States has its own historical specificity. But there are still common tropes that are running through the politics of these countries. Do these common tropes signal a new set of normative horizons? Here are some elements of the new constellation that will characterise the politics of more countries....

The Indian Express
A darkening horizon
Pratap Bhanu Mehta | vice-chancellor, Ashoka University

Eric Schliesser — On the Crisis of Liberalism

Regular readers know (recall) that I believe the second wave of liberalism+ has ended and that it may not survive the present darkness. (In brief: first long wave: 1776-1914; second wave: 1945-2009. Some readers will say, good riddance, and to you I say, I hope you do better.) The present crisis is much visible in our daily politics (and headlines), shifting public norms, and the rising confidence of regimes and thinkers who, again, openly espouse hierarchical, ethnic, zero-sum, eugenic, and violent solutions to present conflicts.* While there is much urgent, practical work to be done to salvage institutions that may be at the core of a renewal, some reflection away from daily politics is also required. This also requires attention not just because we need polities that make minimal decency possible,** but also because we need (or so I assume today) properly functioning liberal institutions to meet humanity's great challenges -- environmental disaster, genetic engineering, ethnic conflict, -- ahead. To reflect one our shortcomings is a means of being liberal as well as a path toward its possible renewal. This is the second post (recall) in an open-ended series (see also here, here, and here).

What follows, then is the start of an attempt to display the existential challenges to liberalism that arise from within. I do not offer solutions to these challenges and so invite readers to chime in....

My thoughts: Modern liberalism is the result of the 18th century Enlightenment attempt to forge a new world order after the breakdown of the interregnum during which feudal Christendom had dominate the West since the fall of the Roman Empire and the remnants of eastern empire had gone its own way. The aim was to provide a naturalistic basis for the world order that had been organized around the great chain of being.

This gave rise to two challenges. The first was the presented by the issues around formulating a new order based on the rise of science and the antagonism between science and religion. The second challenge was presented by the dominant mode of production, industrial capital, that was replacing the dominance of agriculture under feudalism.

The result was bourgeois liberalism disguised in the garb of "democracy," even though bourgeois liberalism was largely a resurrection of the Roman republic that was dominated by the patricians as the ownership class. The feudal lords were replaced by industrial capitalists.

Political economy was organized around the idea that capital formation leads to growth and a rising tide lifts all boats ("trickle down"). Thus, the program of political economy was based on favoring capital over land (the environment) and labor (workers, who comprised the majority of the population).

This resulted in numerous paradoxes of liberalism as "internal contradictions"in the bourgeois liberal order when a rising tide didn't lift all boats and many people left left out. In addition, environmental degradation greatly increased with increased population coupled with economic growth.

The consequence is the present crisis of liberalism.

Digressions&Impressions
On the Crisis of Liberalism (I)

On the Crisis of Liberalism (II)
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

See also

On The Mont Pelerin Society at 70; or the Transmission of the Ideals Political Freedom

Paul Tucker — The 5 best books on The Administrative State

Experts versus populists, bureaucracy versus democracy: Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England and a fellow at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government, chooses books that wrestle with the central dilemmas of today's liberal political order….

Important with respect to the paradoxes of liberalism that are are now coming to a head in the conflict between politics as usual and populism. Steven Bannon's chief target was the administrative state, which is bound up in the meaning of "draining the swamp." This post is a good summary of the issues involved and the major positions concerning them.

Everything comes back to the elected legislature, because our system of government ultimately depends upon the legislature drawing lines between the pursuit of efficiency and of equity, reconciling our disagreements on various fronts for the time being. Legislation itself is a commitment device. You can’t flick a switch and it’s no longer law; you have to go through a process to change it, and it’s done in more or less bright sunlight. We debate legislative change, which is terrific. My book is trying to draw on both our liberal traditions and our republican traditions. The problem with the liberal tradition, as Lowi saw, is that it too easily ends up saying that vague delegations are inevitable, and therefore we must have these technocrats overseen by the courts and we must make it easy to challenge their rules and decisions via the courts.

I don’t want to argue against those processes, but they can’t suffice because they amount to no more than one group of unelected officials (judges) overseeing another group of unelected technocrats (central bankers and regulators). So, if we have legislatures that just pass vague statutes—in effect handing over their power and responsibility to set high policy—and then say that judges will see it’s all okay, then something has gone deeply wrong.…

These issues are directly related to economic policy, most obviously monetary policy set by a politically independent central bank. They also concern governance and policy in general in a democratic republic as the contemporary state becomes less democratic and more technocratic.

Should we be governed more by laws passed by democratically elected representatives or by technocrats that are appointed rather than elected? The answer involves tradeoffs.

Almost all aspects of policy and its implementation are now bureaucratic, managed by "experts," usually drawn from the field expertise, that is, the industry. The top level is appointed politically and the lower level consists of career civil service personnel. This puts governance largely in the hands of unelected technocrats that may harbor conflicts of interest, but it also provides expertise and a measure of continuity in a complex world in which the public and politicians are woefully ignorant of the background and nuance.

Five Books
The best books on The Administrative State, recommended by Paul Tucker

Cora Currier — Every Right to Be Angry: Two New Books on Women’s Rage Are Timed Perfectly for the Brett Kavanaugh Debacle

This is not going away anytime soon.

One aspect of the new "civil war" between traditionalism and liberalism is emancipation of the repressed with women in front.

"The should know their place" is so 20th century. Women are seeing themselves as the new "Negroes."

On the blogs and in social media, many men are freaking out that their male privilege is under attack by "rabid feminists aka "feminazis." It's mostly right wing men, supported by some right wing women, but hardly exclusively. There are lots of men that consider themselves "liberals" are turning out to be selectively liberal.

The Intercept
Every Right to Be Angry: Two New Books on Women’s Rage Are Timed Perfectly for the Brett Kavanaugh Debacle

Cora Currier

See also

Site moderator rejected submission for Donna Strickland, the first female physics winner in 55 years, in March...

The Guardian
Female Nobel prize winner deemed not important enough for Wikipedia entry

Leyland Ceccoalso

also

The Texas Trubune

A Texas yard sign depicted a GOP elephant with its trunk up a girl’s skirt. Police seized it.

Kristine Phillips, The Washington Post

RT — Serbia's president tells RT a 'Pandora's box' was opened when EU recognized Kosovo, not by attempt to mend ties

"How can we open a Pandora’s Box?! Who opened this Pandora’s Box in 2008 having accepted, acknowledged and recognized the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo?!" Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze.

This has been as influential in influencing the world order as the expansion of NATO toward the borders of Russia and the coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine, a coup that was immediately ratified by the West. But Kosovo was arguably the beginning of the break down of the post-WWII (neo)liberal world order. 

The world has been witnessing the only beginning stages of the turmoil involved in the unfolding of a new world order that reduces the influence of the West to its proportional size, replacing the outsized role it has played for half a millennium. The drums of war are beating louder.

RT
Serbia's president tells RT a 'Pandora's box' was opened when EU recognized Kosovo, not by attempt to mend ties

Frank Li — “All Men Are Created Equal,” Really?

Frank Li begins up many interesting points and, in my view, gets a lot right in this post. It is worth considering in that it is comparison of systems by a person that knows both the Chinese and American.

But Li omits some of the key Western thinking about the philosophical basis of liberalism, which distinguishes individuality from personhood. 

A dilemma arises between individuality and personhood. On one hand, individuality is unique and varied and all individuals are clearly not equal in many respects. On the other hand, "personhood" is held to be the basis of equality among all humans in terms of what makes one human. In the West, all persons are "equal before the law, for example. This is a key fundamental of Western liberalism and "American values."

The reasoning for this is that all natural persons "born of the union of man and woman" are human beings and are therefore assumed to share the same nature. Persons are "equal" in the sense that as as human beings, persons share in the same nature and thus have the same dignity, as well as the same inherent potential for self-discovery, self-actualization and self-realization. 

To paraphrase Emmanuel Kant, being rational and moral agents, persons are ends in themselves; therefore, it is never proper to treat persons instrumentally as means. This is the basis for universal human rights, for example, a concept that has been adopted globally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights voted on by the UN General Assembly.

This philosophical distinction of individual from person is derived from the Western religious conception of soul, the history of which in the West is traced by to God's breathing life into Adam. The Hebrew term for breath is "ruach," which may also translated into English as "spirit." The Latin root of "spirit" is "spiritus," which means both "breath" as a natural phenomenon and "spirit" as a metaphysical one. 

In this view, all humans inherit that original breath of God or "holy spirit" (Hb. ruach ha qodesh) through Adam. This "breath of life" is common to all. It is the immanence of God in the world as "the spirit of truth." But this "holy spirit" is God in exile, as were. until a human realizes his or her true nature. 

A similar notion of breath and spirit is found Eastern traditions as chi (qi) in Chinese, ki in Japanese, and prana in Sanskrit. 

According to perennial wisdom, this truth is discoverable by anyone at time. For an interesting story of such self-discovery by a contemporary Vietnamese Confician, see the preface to The Monistic Tradition.

With the transition from the mythological age to the philosophical age that occurred in the West with the rise of modernity, the mythological concept was found to be lacking and the Enlightenment thinkers. Descartes made a bold stab at it with the "cogito." "I think therefore I am" is "Cogito ergo sum" in Latin. This was the beginning of modern rationalism. Hume countered with his "fork," which assumes that all knowledge is either empirical, derived from sense perception, or logical operators, which are empty of content. Hume's analysis found no trace of a "soul."

Kant attempted to synthesize Descartes' rationalism with Hume's empiricism and skepticism of "metaphysics." Kant essentially agreed with Hume that metaphysics is unscientific. But regarding Hume's fork as unsatisfactory, he attempted to show why. The Critique of Pure Reason provides a deeper analysis than Hume did, and one that some view as a harbinger of cognitive science. 

But in showing that neither God nor soul could be proved by argument, Kant was left reliant on faith for belief in metaphysical objects like God and soul unless he could show some rational basis. Kant thought he could show a rational basis for agency that is both rational and moral based on pure duty to act universally. He set this forth in The Critique of Practical Reason in terms of the universality of pure duty based on a rational justification of the Golden Rule as morally compelling for a rational agent.

In the transition from the philosophical age to the scientific age that began in earnest in the 19th century, Hume's fork prevailed as the basis for scientific naturalism as a methodological principle, e.g., expressed as positivism and empiricism. However, many equated this methodological principle of naturalism with the metaphysical principle of materialism, which is make an illegitimate jump in reasoning based on its own assumptions. Concluding from absence of evidence naturalistically obtained to non-existence is "magical thinking" in that it exceeds the scope and scale of the assumptions.

But assuming naturalism as exclusive removes not only the mythological basis for equality of persons in the religious notion of soul but also the philosophical basis for personhood in the notion of person as rational and moral agents. A logical conclusion of this train of thought was B. F. Skinner's behavioristic psychology that views humans interns of stimulus-response mechanism, like other organisms pursuing "utility" and contending for "scarce resources." That provoked a reaction as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, for instance.

When materialistic determinism replaces free will, the concepts of freedom and responsibility become cultural artifacts. The notion of equality of persons underlying the rule of law rather than men looses its basis. In this case, instrumentality takes over, and individuals become means. "Might makes right" as a "fact of nature." 

A double standard of justice is not an issue here, since the mighty can privilege themselves, e.g., based on demonstrated "merit" and controlling the levers of power. "The little people" are, well, little people, unless they have the impetus and wherewithal to stand up and join together. The challenge of the "mighty" is to make sure this doesn't happen by smashing threats as it arises, or by creating conditions that permanently weaken any opposition to prevent threats.

This question of equality is one of the enduring questions with which humanity is struggling now, although most people have no idea of the issues, the stakes, or the history of the debate surrounding them. This results in some of the paradoxes of contemporary liberalism and the confrontation of liberalism with traditionalism globally, and humanity at this stage of its development lacking the means to deal with this without conflict of ideologies and interests. 

In addition, the current debate about inequality is framed in terms of individuality and unequal distribution, when the important issues lie much deeper in terms of personhood and rights.

economicintesect.com
“All Men Are Created Equal,” Really?
Frank Li | Chinese ex-pat, Founder and President of W.E.I. (West-East International), a Chicago-based import & export company, B.E. from Zhejiang University (China) in 1982, M.E. from the University of Tokyo in 1985, and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1988, all in Electrical Engineering

David Gordon — Liberalism and "Classical Liberalism" — An Unfortunate Evolution

Backgrounder in the history of the development of liberalism. While it written from a Libertarian point of view, it is useful in understanding the historical background.

For a more thorough treatment although still a summary backgrounder, see the entry on liberalism at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Where it falls short is assuming the John Locke somehow discovered the foundations of genuine liberalism, when the fundamentals emerged in ancient Greece and where treated throughout the history of Western thought and manifested differently in Britain, the Continent, and America.

Both the Gordon and Stanford Encyclopedia summaries focus on liberalism as an Anglo-American phenomenon and neither mentions either the history or Continental approach to liberalism, or the antecedents. "Laissez-faire" is, of course, a French term, and the early French writers on economics and political theory were highly influential in the development of economic and political liberalism. Gordon mentions only Frédéric Bastiat.

Gordon and Stanford Encyclopedia also ignore the German contribution to the development of liberalism is ignored, which is understandable given the scope of their summary. But it is a major omission in that many consider Kant rather than Locke to be the father of modern liberalism. Prussian philosopher and educationist Wilhelm von Humboldt, who today is not adequately recognized for his contributions to the Western intellectual tradition, was also a major influence. The Stanford Encyclopedia article on liberalism does make mention of him but only in a brief sentence about his influence on J. S. Mill and it cites Humboldt's The Limits of State Action in the bibliography.

Of course, Anarchists were the the arch-liberals in the sense of advocating for complete freedom from government intrusion in the lives of individuals. While Marx and Engels disagreed with the anarchists of the time over means, they were in agreement over the principle of freedom from state control of individuals and proposed what they concluded from their analysis to be an optimal means for means of achieving this goal. 

After witnessing the French Revolution, Marx and Engels did not simply assume that getting rid of the state through overthrowing the state would lead to utopia immediately. That would take a gradual process of development that would need an interim arrangement to manage the transition as peacefully as possible under the circumstances. They also recognized that the elites in power and their regimes would not just roll over.

Another point that is interesting is that Mises, Hayek and Rothbard all wrote books specifically on liberalism from the classical liberal point of view updated in terms of modern Libertarianism.

A work I like in the tradition of welfare liberalism is John Kenneth Galbraith's The Good Society: The Humane Agenda.

In order to really understand your position, you have to think a thing through carefully using creative and critical thinking. This is best accomplished by writing. At the end of the process, there is something to share with others that may be of value — and could even change the world.

Mises Wire
Liberalism and "Classical Liberalism" — An Unfortunate Evolution

David Gordon |  Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, and editor of The Mises Review

Raphael Machado — Native Brazilian Traditions Against Liberal Globalism

Traditionalism versus liberalism.

Fort Russ
Native Brazilian Traditions Against Liberal Globalism

Raphael Machado

Dr. Charles Eastman was the son of a European American father and Native American woman. He was raised as a Native American (Sioux) and subsequently became a physician. He reported on his upbringing and the culture that was native to him. His works are available for download at the Internet Archive. I particularly recommend The Soul of the Indian.

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