Liberalism is an ideology and a social philosophy, which emerged in 17th and 18th century Europe. Its central claim is, that the form or structure of society should be be determined by the outcome of processes, which are interactive, and open (in principle) to all members of society. The free market, and multi-party liberal democracy, are the best known examples of liberal process. Liberalism, together with nationalism, can be considered as the foundational ideology of modern western states: liberal-democratic nation-states with a market economy. 'Liberal' refers not only to ideology and political parties, but to a historically unique form of society. On that ground alone, it can not be simply identified with 'freedom' - a form of society is not a freedom as such. The practice of political liberalism is often repressive anyway, but even in its theory liberalism is not an advocacy of absolute liberty, nor of individualist ethical egoism. Process, and the acceptance of its outcome, are the central ideals of liberalism. The claim to promote freedom is essentially propaganda, and it can not serve as a definition of liberalism.
The labour market best illustrates liberal process. It is nominally open and transparent, since vacancies are made public, and anyone can apply for any job. There is competition among applicants, and employers exercise a free and selective choice among them. Since the process is open and fair, say liberals, its outcome is just. They do not see personal disadvantage, or structural issues such as poverty, as ethically relevant. The labour market might 'allocate' an individual to a job which is unbearable, unsafe, and unhealthy, at starvation wages, and the individual might be desperate to escape from this condition but unable to do so - but liberals would still view that individual as 'free'. Even if that misery was the norm in a society, liberals would not see that society as 'unfree' or 'unjust' because of that.
Liberals are generally hostile to any 'interference with process'. They claim, for instance, that the distribution of wealth as a result of the market is just - and therefore reject the ideal of redistribution of wealth. In fact, liberalism rejects any design or plan for society - religious, utopian, or ethical. Liberals feel that society and state should not have structural goals, since the liberal processes should themselves determine their structure. This anti-utopianism became increasingly important in liberal philosophy, with the emergence of Communist states and their centrally planned economy.
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| John Stuart Mill |
Classic political liberals also reject moral values external to liberal process: the most far-reaching liberal position is that there are no values, only opinions. All liberals hold that opinions should be expressed in public, and that in some way this 'market of opinions' will favour the truth. (The idea, that truth can be revealed by discourse, is much older than liberalism). The liberal rejection of external moral norms influences the liberal idea of human rights: both good and evil humans have equal rights, which apply equally when they facilitate good or evil actions.
As a social philosophy, liberalism holds that human beings are inherently unequal, and specifically that they have unequal talents. Liberalism advocates that society should be structured to reflect this inequality, by rewarding the talented and (at least relatively) punishing the untalented. Liberalism advocates social stratification: in modern liberal societies the primary stratification is income inequality, resulting from a competitive labour market. The labour market stratifies by ethnic origin and gender, and it generally allocates the lowest incomes to the children of those with a low income. For liberals, this is the way it should be: they often have a hostile attitude to the poor, and some are Social Darwinists. Liberalism does not recognise an end point to this process, and therefore considers increasing inequality as legitimate and just.
Although it presents itself as an ideology of limited state power, the ideological goals of liberalism are not enforceable on a non-liberal population without political repression. Where liberalism as foundational ideology is unchallenged, the repression may be limited to small minorities. In Europe, the unexpected re-emergence of a radical anti-liberal ideology in the form of Islamism, has led many liberals to advocate repressive measures, and the selective repeal of civil liberties which they formerly claimed to defend.
A global ideology
By the end of the 19th century, the broad principles of liberalism formed the dominant ideology in the United States and western Europe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberalism extended its ideological domain to eastern Europe. Opposing ideologies, especially Islamism, are a reminder that liberalism itself is an ideology, but in the western democracies it is often so pervasive, that it is taken for granted.
In most of the world, the term 'liberalism' refers to the general ideology described here, and to that type of political movement. That is how it is generally used in political science. In common US usage, however, it is an antonym of 'conservative', or a synonym for 'left'. This is confusing, especially seen from Europe, where liberalism is generally classified with 'the right'. From the perspective of history and political science, however, the United States is clearly a liberal society, and its two main political parties are liberal in terms of ideology. In fact the United States is the primary agent of the global expansion of liberal democracy, since 1918.
Liberalism is a universal ideology, and in principle liberals seek to apply it to the entire planet, and the entire human population. It is inherently hostile to competing non-liberal societies - which it sees not simply as different, but as wrong. (Islamist states have now replaced the Communist state, as the commonly perceived 'opposite' to a liberal society). Most liberals have supported the expansion of liberal society, although in the 19th century that meant among the 'civilised nations'. For a long time the free market was considered the only cross-cultural and 'exportable' element of liberalism. Only towards the end of the 20th century did liberals advocate, that all African and Asian societies should become liberal-democratic.
Liberals define liberalism itself as 'freedom', so they rarely think consent is required for the imposition of a liberal society. After the end of the Cold War, this belief acquired a geostrategic significance: many western liberal-democrats now believe, that a war to impose a liberal-democratic society is inherently just. Liberals hold this equivalence of liberalism and freedom to be an absolute truth, and consequently see all non-liberals as enemies of freedom. Liberalism therefore includes an implicit premise, that all criticism of liberalism is invalid.
Liberalism is a universal ideology, and in principle liberals seek to apply it to the entire planet, and the entire human population. It is inherently hostile to competing non-liberal societies - which it sees not simply as different, but as wrong. (Islamist states have now replaced the Communist state, as the commonly perceived 'opposite' to a liberal society). Most liberals have supported the expansion of liberal society, although in the 19th century that meant among the 'civilised nations'. For a long time the free market was considered the only cross-cultural and 'exportable' element of liberalism. Only towards the end of the 20th century did liberals advocate, that all African and Asian societies should become liberal-democratic.
Liberals define liberalism itself as 'freedom', so they rarely think consent is required for the imposition of a liberal society. After the end of the Cold War, this belief acquired a geostrategic significance: many western liberal-democrats now believe, that a war to impose a liberal-democratic society is inherently just. Liberals hold this equivalence of liberalism and freedom to be an absolute truth, and consequently see all non-liberals as enemies of freedom. Liberalism therefore includes an implicit premise, that all criticism of liberalism is invalid.
The belief in the absolute truth of its own core doctrines, and in the absolute rightness of the liberal cause, has made liberalism a violent ideology. In western Europe, liberal violence characterised the early phases of the transition to liberalism, and subsided once the ideology was established. Most victims of liberal violence now fall in wars of liberalisation fought by liberal-democratic states (wars such as the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan also have geostrategic objectives, so the casualties and atrocities can not be attributed solely to liberalism). Where a liberal society is threatened from within, the ideology can lead to brutal repression, including the mass killing and torture of opponents. The restoration of free-market liberalism in Chile, under General Augusto Pinochet, was accomplished by 2 279 known killings of real or presumed opponents [2] and 28 459 known cases of torture. [3]
Relationship to other ideologies
Early political liberalism opposed the existing doctrines on the legitimacy of government, especially religious belief in the authority of the monarch. It opposed the power of religion, and in Catholic Europe the Church itself. Early economic liberalism opposed mercantilism, and the mediaeval economic order. In the course of the 19th century, the emergence of new anti-liberal ideologies re-aligned the political spectrum. The left then referred to Marxist-inspired social and political movements: liberalism now took its place on the right - although it did not displace older conservative traditions. After the Russian Revolution, that seemed a permanent state of affairs. Liberalism became typically pro-American: it stood for the free market as a pillar of western democracy, in the face of Soviet totalitarianism and central planning. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the centrally planned economies left liberalism, so it seemed, without a major ideological opponent. The perceived threat from Islamism (an ideology which went largely unnoticed during the Cold War) has led some liberals, to treat it as the primary ideological opponent. That, in turn, has led to a revival of the anti-clerical and anti-religious tradition in European liberalism.
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| Friedrich Hayek |
The conservative attitude of liberals toward western societies, has often brought them into alliance with non-liberal conservatives in those countries. Liberalism has also compromised with one specific form of non-liberal ideology: nationalism. A political community based on common origin, history, and language is not liberal, but liberals never tried to form the voluntarist, contractual, non-historical state, which liberalism would logically imply. The nation state was simply taken for granted, as the political and economic arena for liberal process. In practice, many European liberal parties endorse cultural nationalism, and some are xenophobic. Since liberals believe in inherent inequality, some sympathise with biological and racial theories of inequality, especially as a justification for non-intervention by the state in social inequalities.
Liberal states and societies
Liberalism as ideology exists in both liberal and non-liberal societies. The strength of explicitly named Liberal Parties says little about the degree of liberalism. The British Liberal Party, for example, dominated 19th-century politics, but almost disappeared by the 1950's (it has revived in the last few decades). Throughout that time, British society was pervaded by liberal values, and at present only a tiny Islamist minority challenges them explicitly. A similar pattern can be found in other European states - pervasive liberal hegemony, accompanied by the apparent decline of the Liberal parties, which then specialised in the promotion of market liberalism. In non-liberal or illiberal societies, on the other hand, liberalism is inherently radical, since it seeks a total transformation of the existing society. It is not however the only radical alternative to any given non-liberal society: the dichotomy liberal / illiberal suggests that all non-liberal societies are clones, but that is not the case.These states can be considered liberal-democratic states, with a liberal form of society:
- The United States and Canada.
- The member states of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
- The European microstates associated with the European Union: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino - but not the Vatican.
- The remaining OECD member states, except Turkey and Mexico: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
- Mercosur members, candidate members, and associate members, except Colombia: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.
Turkey, Colombia, and Mexico are market economies, and they meet the formal criteria for a liberal democracy, but internal tensions and violence disrupt the liberal political process.
Market liberalism
Since the emergence of economics as a separate discipline in the 19th century, a comprehensive liberal economic theory has developed, but it has never been entirely separated from political liberalism. Although the label 'market liberals' is applied to liberal movements and parties which emphasise economic policy, it is more correct to say that all liberals are market-liberals. Certainly there is no liberal political grouping, which advocates a centrally planned economy within a liberal-democratic society.
The free market is not simply 'exchange' or 'trade'. Two people who exchange products can not form a free market in the liberal sense, even if their transactions are monetarised. The element of competition is missing in this two-person society. A minimal liberal free market needs at least three parties, with two of them in competition - for instance, two competing sellers and one buyer. The resultant pressure on the two sellers to lower prices, is the simplest type of 'market force'. Such a force comes into existence without any conscious action on the part of the three parties. In modern markets there are millions of parties, and complex market forces. Market-liberals value this characteristic of the market: they believe in the moral necessity of market forces, and hold that entrepreneurs form a good and necessary social group.
For all liberals, interactive process legitimises outcome: in market liberalism, the market is the primary process, and market transactions are the interaction. Market liberals believe that economic transactions should take place in an interactive framework, which maximises the effect of each transaction on every other transaction. Liberals see the market as good, and often as semi-sacred. They want the market to be as large as possible, involving all of society. In modern liberal-democratic states almost all adults participate in the market. (A private club in a Communist state, where members can hold a closed free market, would satisfy no liberal).
Liberals are therefore hostile to economic self-sufficiency - so strongly, that they believed in war to 'open up markets'. The most famous example is the Opium War, when Britain forced the Chinese Empire to allow the import of opium. This liberal belief in market expansionism has revived after the end of the Cold War. Market liberals are hostile to trade barriers: "free trade" is a classic slogan of market liberalism.
Market liberals believe that important aspects of society should be determined by the market, certainly the distribution of income and wealth. They reject interference in the market - historically by guilds and the church, in modern economies by the state. Market liberals are anti-utopian in the sense of opposing economic planning, especially centralised state control of the entire economy. They believe that the market produces the best design for society, and that is is wrong to substitute any other design. However, market liberalism is itself a utopia: in the ideal world of market liberalism, no goods or services exist which are not the product of market forces, but all goods or services which are market-responsive would exist. This is in itself a utopian project, implying a total structuring of society.
The social institution of the entrepreneur is central to the market-liberal view of society. An entrepreneur is a person whose profession is, to respond to market forces. In the 19th century most entrepreneurs were still private individuals, later the business firm took over this function. The enterprise/firm is a permanent organisation, structured to respond to market forces. Without the entrepreneur there is no free market, therefore market liberals demand a privileged social status for the entrepreneur. The early liberal theorists were hostile to the urban guild economy of mediaeval Europe: they saw it, in effect, as a conspiracy not to compete. In their view of history, the entrepreneur rescued Europe from the poverty of the Middle Ages. (This view was shared by Karl Marx, who admired the cultural dynamism of the free market). Not just mediaeval Europe, but all societies without an entrepreneurial caste, were seen as failures.
A central (but rarely explicit) political demand of market liberals is therefore, that entrepreneurs should have control of the economy. This has been so fully integrated into the culture of western liberal-democratic societies, that few people ever think about it. But it would be no less logical, to hand the economy to engineers, or priests - or not to privilege any one group. The choice depends on underlying values, and liberals value the entrepreneur. This value preference of liberals, and its widespread acceptance, has helped create 'the business community'. That is a real and identifiable social elite - with specific cultural preferences, specific clothing, and often a specific form of language (sociolect). It does in fact control the economy, in liberal-democratic states. Although probably not foreseen by early liberals, market liberalism has become an ideology in support of this elite.
Liberal positions and policies
The goals of present-day political liberalism are illustrated by the policy proposals of two mainstream Liberal Parties in Europe, the Dutch VVD and the German FDP. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Since they operate within an existing liberal-democratic society, they do not need to restate its founding principles daily. (They do have declarations, where those principles are set out). [15][16] Their day-to-day policy proposals indicate their focus on the market and the entrepreneur, and the generally negative and repressive tone of their social policies. The standard liberal claim to promote and defend 'freedom' must be understood in this context - and its meaning in that context continues to evolve. The word 'freedom' may mean something entirely different to liberals, and to their opponents. Many present-day liberals seek a society, where the state strictly enforces certain cultural norms and values, either national or 'western' in character.
VVD and FDP
The liberal parties advocate less bureaucracy, more competition and more market. They seek to reduce all state subsidies (at least until the current economic crisis). They want privatisation of postal services, telecoms, the railways, and energy and water utilities. They want deregulation of the energy sector, and the sale of all state holdings in private firms. They want priority for road transport over all other forms of transport, privatisation of the entire transport infrastructure and its management, and privatisation of all public transport. They seek legal privileges for business, especially small businesses. Global free trade is the ultimate goal, specifically the creation of a Euro-American Free Trade Zone. They want restrictions on alcohol and tobacco advertising lifted, since they constitute state interference in the market. They seek to selectively limit the power of the state, for instance by abolishing tax inspectors access to bank accounts, and abolishing personal tax numbers (since these make income traceable). They seek lower taxes for higher incomes.
On social policy, they assume natural inequality, and consequently they oppose in principle anti-discrimination laws, or equality laws. They prefer 'equality of opportunity', for instance for women, to legally-enforced 'equal treatment' (equality of outcome). They want all minimum wages abolished, and explicitly want more low-paid jobs, with a maximum term of one year for state unemployment benefit. Employee protection laws would be changed to benefit the employer, not the employee; small businesses should be be wholly exempt from such laws. The unemployed should lose employee protection, when they re-enter the labour market. The liberals oppose transfer taxation, which transfers income to poorer groups. They seek compulsory competition between schools and universities, and abolition of all restrictions on genetic research. They want to introduce genetically modified crops in agriculture, and end government support for ecological farming. They support research into nuclear energy, and want to keep the nuclear option open.
Their most rigid policies are related to immigration and national identity. They oppose all immigration, if it is avoidable - and seek to limit it in any case. They would restrict migration to those who speak the national language, have a job, and subscribe to the national values. They want compulsory integration and language courses for foreigners, and demand that the government punish those who do not learn the national language. They reject cultural relativism, and seek to prohibit discussion or debate about national values, which they insist on. The government, in their view, must enforce cultural assimilation, and prevent multiculturalism. The liberals see the national core values as Judeo-Christian, so that Islamic traditions are not part of them: no Islamic tradition must therefore be allowed to develop. They claim that Islam does not belong in their country, unless it accepts liberal values. No foreign Muslim preachers or teachers would be allowed, and Islamic teachers must use their classes to promote the national constitution. They want the government to impose compulsory values on immigrants - meaning the fundamental values as set out in the constiutution, specifically democracy, the rule of law and human rights. They oppose freedom of conscience, or cultural freedom, as regards these values. They explicitly oppose freedom of religion for immigrants, if their religion includes opression of women, arranged marriages, or the preaching of hatred for others. They reject freedom of religion for Muslim men who refuse to shake hands with a woman, and demand a legal ban on the burqa.
Geert Wilders and the PVV
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| Geert Wilders of the PVV |
Immigration from non-western countries would be banned, as would double nationality. Any foreigner convicted of a crime would be deported. If naturalised, they would be stripped of their Dutch nationality, and then deported. If ethnic-minority children repeatedly commit crimes, then their parents would be stripped of their Dutch nationality and deported. Moroccan 'street terrorists' would be deported on a second conviction regardless of nationality. Speaking any language except Dutch in a government building would be prohibited.
Squatting would be banned: so would the animal rights group Respect for Animals, paedophile associations, and the Dutch Indymedia website. "Coffeeshops" (which legally sell cannabis products) would all be closed, and possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms would be criminalised. The "three strikes and out" principle would impose automatic life sentences, on the third conviction for violent crime. 'Re-education camps' would be introduced, and sentences for all crime would be tougher. Police would get the power to stop and search at all times, in all places (at present this is limited to declared zones). The party also wants to introduce internment without trial ('administrative detention' on the Israeli model).
The intensity of repression and compulsion advocated by these substantial liberal parties (Wilders' PVV is the largest party in the Netherlands, according to March 2009 polls) is evidence of the oppressive nature of liberalism itself. Their preference for right-wing ideals which are not in themselves liberal - such as nationalism, Judeo-Christian values, and Atlanticism - is also evident.
Libertarianism and neoconservatism
The term 'libertarianism' is American in origin, and is only in general use in the United States and Canada, and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries. Libertarianism is liberalism: more specifically, it belongs to the Anglo-American liberal tradition. Sometimes the term is used interchangeably with "classic liberalism". The theoretical justification of libertarianism does differ from that of early and current European liberalism, but the general principles are no different. Libertarian political activism does address some issues of individual choice, such as drug legalisation, but it is primarily 'anti-statist', opposing state intervention, above all in the economy. In other words, it is de facto a market liberalism. The theoretical principles also make it more fundamentally conservative: libertarianism rejects any innovative action as 'coercion', if that action would harm conservatives who oppose it. (That is perhaps a more radical statement of the general anti-utopianism of liberalism).'Neoconservatism' is similarly an American neologism, invented because the term 'liberal' was already in use for their political opponents in the US. Some European political allies of US neoconservatives do describe themselves as 'liberal' - and that is the appropriate term, since their goal is to spread liberal society and liberal-democracy throughout the world. In varying degrees, neoconservatives seek to impose it by military force, and they influenced US-led intervention in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. They too have adopted Islam as the perceived chief obstacle to liberalisation, and some believe in an internal battle for liberal and Judeo-Christian western civilisation, against immigration-driven Islamisation (the Eurabia scenario).
The defects of liberalism
The ethical rejection of liberalism is derived from its universal claims, its insistence on a particular social, economic and cultural structure, and its innate conservatism. The liberal insistence on a world shaped by liberal process (for instance an income distribution shaped by market forces), places liberalism on a war footing with all other possible worlds. Not just an Islamic society, but all possible non-liberal societies, conflict with the liberal value preference. As Robert Nozick puts it: [20]
...no end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized without continuous interference with people's lives.
Liberals do not see liberal process itself as an 'interference' in this sense, and they reject all non-liberal action which might be needed to realise any alternative outcome. The insistence on non-interference amounts to a veto on any non-liberal utopia, on any major social, political, or economic ideal. It amounts to a rejection of "end-state" or "patterned" structures, as such. Nozick is very explicit, but all liberals share this kind of anti-utopianism to a very large degree. They therefore reject any transformation of an existing society, either by the state or a political movement, or indeed the creation of a new 'society' in whatever form. In political practice, liberalism also attaches this conservatism to existing societies and cultures, even if their origins are distinctly illiberal.
This inherent conservatism of liberalism, coupled with its insistence that it is the only valid social and political order, makes it in historical perspective a major threat to innovation. The historical perspective also indicates the response: when universal ideologies conflict, the result is political strife and usually violence. Ironically, the political repression advocated by liberals themselves offers an appropriate short-term response to liberal activism. If the Koran can be banned, for instance, then so can the works of liberal ideologues such as Nozick, Hayek, and Popper. At present, however, there is no specifically anti-liberal movement in liberal societies, certainly not in Europe.
References
- ELD member parties
- Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. Appendix II
- Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura, Chile
- FDP: Beschlüsse, Positionen, Programmatik
- FDP, Deutschlandprogramm 2005
- Gleichbehandlung durch Bürokratie bietet keinen Schutz vor Diskriminierung
- 10 Punkte zur Erneuerung der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft
- Offensive für den Arbeitsmarkt
- Eine zukunftsorientierte Integration von Migranten macht Deutschland erfolgreich!
- Teilhabe durch Arbeitsplätze im Niedriglohnbereich
- VVD: Standpunten integratie
- Geen kansarme immigranten meer toelaten
- Liberalisme
- Cultuurrelativisme
- Liberaal Manifest
- Wiesbaden Declaration Of Basic Principles for a Liberal Civil Society
- Maantaal: De PVV staat voor Panisch Voor de Vrijheid
- PVV Election Manifesto 2006
- Geert Wilders, Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Het is tijd voor een liberale jihad.
- In Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), p. 163.
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