China’s academics tackle the ‘Big Brother’ state — Gordon Watts

I don't have a big problem with this, which may surprise some since I self-identify as a libertarian of the left. How can this be consistent with personal freedom?

The reason I don't have a big problem with it is three-fold. First, new technology will be used. End of discussion. The second reason is related to this. China is up-front about it and the West is not. There is virtually "total information awareness" in the West in the newly emerging surveillance state owing to the proliferation of technology.

This means that Chinese people know what they face, and many Westerners do not realize the level of scrutiny to which they are exposed. We know this from leaks.

When one knows the extent of a problem the problem can be addressed. When one doesn't and those responsible are hidden behind a wall of secrecy there is little that can be done specifically.

I am also aware that there are vast cultural differences among peoples and the Western presumption of a single "human nature" that accords with Western views is philosophically untenable. As a result, peoples that have a long history of social living rather than a short history of a frontier society that no longer exists are likely to have different worldviews, different ways of organizing experience, and different value systems.

A chief objective of left libertarians is to resolve paradoxes arise from the trifecta of liberty, equality, and solidarity in society. Liberty cannot entail license, for example. Where and how to draw the lines based on criteria is a chief issue in political theory and practice.

The third factor is scale. Societies are now so large as to be difficult to manage but some governance is required to prevent anarchy in the sense of chaos. This is now a primary challenge as some countries populations exceed hundreds of millions. 

Why is this particularly important. Because the priorities of government are security, welfare and general well-being in that order. Maintaining security in a large-scale society is a huge challenge in itself and it is complicated by the the need for liberty and privacy. This involves difficult political choices by leaders that know they will be held to account for lapses in security.

So instead of getting all idealistic, a sense of proportion must be established in order to address emerging challenges in contemporary complex adaptive social systems. People should look to their own locale, region, and nation, as well as take the newly emerging global society into account rather than obsess over what others are doing and choices they are making.

This is difficult for Americans owing to American exceptionalism, one aspect of which is the assumption that the whole world should either emulate America or be forced to do so, which is, of course, illiberal in the extreme when violence is involved. At the same time, Americans in general cannot agree on what "American" actually means. 

Instead, let's look at social, political and economic issues systematically. This requires achieving harmony, which the Chinese culture values most highly.

Asia Times
China’s academics tackle the ‘Big Brother’ state

Gordon Watts

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

Jim O'Reilly — Some thoughts on liberal democracy as a deceptive term

Reflections with which I agree.

Comments on Global Political Economy
Some thoughts on liberal democracy as a deceptive term

Jim O'Reilly

See also

In my view, Dugin gets this right, too, as opposed to bourgeois liberalism's, "My way, or the highway."

The third totalitarianism is transnational corporate totalitarianism under the control of international capital, which happens to be mostly in Western "liberal" hands.

Geopolitika

The 'Third Totalitarianism' From The West

Alexander Dugin

Tyler Cowen — *Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker *

That is the new, excellent, and detailed book by Eric Schliesser, a political scientist at Amsterdam. I would say that Schliesser is a very learned “left Smithian,” and that you should take the subtitle very very seriously.

Should be aware of. Schliesser contradicts the neoclassical and Samuelson views of Smith.

Marginal Revolution

*Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker *

Tyler Cowen | Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center

John Keane — Capitalism and Democracy [part 4]

Earlier parts of this series on capitalism and democracy raised questions about the tense and often contradictory relationship between capitalist markets and the egalitarian spirit and power-humbling institutions of democracy. Each contribution has pointed out that we shouldn’t be surprised that monitory democracies* otherwise as different as South Africa, Argentina, France and the United States are all feeling the pinch of plutocracy. For if capitalism is defined as a restless system of commodity production, exchange and consumption based on risk taking, competition and profiteering, then it follows that market winners will grow wealthy while others fall behind. From the point of view of democracy, the trouble with capitalist competition, as George Orwell pointed out, is that somebody has to win, while others lose. Part four of this series probes this point. It complicates things by asking: what exactly do we mean by equality?

John Keane's Blog
Capitalism and Democracy [part 4]

John Keane | Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), and a co-founder and director of the Sydney Democracy Network (SDN)

* John Keane, "Monitory Democracies?" Paper prepared for the ESRC Seminar Series, ‘Emergent Publics’, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 13th-14th March 2008 

Mariana Mazzucato — STATE VS. MARKETS: A MISLEADING DICHOTOMY

The debate about the relative roles of the state and the market in capitalist economies tends to swing from side to side in the hearts and minds of public opinion: periods when the state is defended for its role in economic development are always superseded by an attack on its intervention into ‘well functioning’ markets. It has been like this throughout the twentieth century. And it is what has happened since the most recent global financial crisis and economic recession: a brief period right after its outbreak, when there was consensus that the state had a key role to play in both saving the banks and using fiscal policy to promote growth, was quickly apprehended by those who feared rising levels of public debt. Indeed, this debt was mistakenly seen as the cause rather than the result of the crisis—due to lower tax receipts, rising bailouts, etc. So austerity became again the flavour of the day, while any sort of serious economic and industrial policy became anathema.

What is missing from the public perception is how through the history of modern capitalism, the state has done, and continues to do, what markets simply won’t. This is not about its role in simply fixing ‘market failures’, but its role in directly shaping and creating markets.…

MARIANA MAZZUCATO — Economics - Innovation - Inclusive Growth
STATE VS. MARKETS: A MISLEADING DICHOTOMY

Mariana Mazzucato | RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex

See also Interview on CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria

Martin Armstrong — Socialism v Capitalism

In contention for silliest post ever. Displays complete ignorance of the issues.

Armstrong Economics
Socialism v Capitalism
Martin Armstrong