Global Studies 120 Short Paper

Liberalism Politics, Economics, Identities, and

Global Orders G L O B A L 1 2 0 , O C T O B E R 1 , 2 0 1 9

P R O F E S S O R K A I M . T H A L E R

S E C T I O N L E A D E R S N AT H A N I E L B U R O L A , T I N A G U I R G U I S , E U G E N E R I O R D A N

Enlightenment Liberalism • Traditional story: emerged during the Enlightenment period in Europe

• Belief in human reason

• 17th and 18th Century thinkers in France, Britain, Germany

• Reason

• Religious tolerance

• Political freedoms

• Economic freedoms

Liberalism’s Global Roots • Ibn Khaldun

• Rationalist

• Laws chosen by majority

• States prevent injustice against minorities

• But need limited bureaucracy & taxes

Liberalism’s Global Roots • Zera Yacob

• Rationalist

• Religious equality

• Gender equality

• Anti-slavery

Liberalism’s Global Roots • Haitian Revolution

Varieties of Liberalism • At least 30 different types (JG Merquior in Cole and Craiatu)

Political Systems • Democratic

• Limited

• Rule of law

• Free of legally-prescribed discrimination

Liberal Economics • Adam Smith and capitalism

• Division of labor

• “The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher

and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from

nature, as from habit, custom, and education”

• Self-interest

• “We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love,

and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages”

Liberal Economics • Adam Smith and capitalism

• Supply and demand

• “The country supplies the town with the means of subsistence and the materials

of manufacture. The town repays this supply by sending back a part of the

manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country”

• Free trade

• “the surplus part both of the rude and manufactured produce, or that for which

there is no demand at home, must be sent abroad in order to be exchanged for

something for which there is some demand at home”

How free should free markets be? • Market Fundamentalism and Hayek

• Regulation

• Market failures

• Social safety net

• “The successful use of competition does not preclude some types of government interference. For instance, to limit working hours, to require certain sanitary arrangements, to provide an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition. There are, too, certain fields where the system of competition is impracticable. For example, the harmful effects of deforestation or of the smoke of factories cannot be confined to the owner of the property in question.”

How free should free markets be? • “The successful use of competition does not preclude some types of government interference. For instance, to limit working hours, to require certain sanitary arrangements, to provide an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition. There are, too, certain fields where the system of competition is impracticable. For example, the harmful effects of deforestation or of the smoke of factories cannot be confined to the owner of the property in question.”

• “But there are two kinds of security: the certainty of a given minimum of sustenance for all and the security of a given standard of life, of the relative position which one person or group enjoys compared with others. There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.” - Hayek

Social equality or free to be unequal? • Religious freedom

• European writers focused on Christian freedom

• Ethnic and racial equality

• In theory, often not in practice

Social equality or free to be unequal? • Gender equality

• Wollstonecraft and early liberal feminism

• “When men fight for their freedom, fight to be allowed to judge

for themselves concerning their own happiness, isn’t it

inconsistent and unjust to hold women down?”

• Sexual minorities

Liberalism and Global Order • Democratic peace theory

• Noninterference

• Economic interdependence

• Restraining power of democratic public

• Democratic states don’t go to war with each other

• Democratic states less likely to go to war than dictatorships

• If democratic states go to war, likely against illiberal states

• But, lots of caveats...

Liberalism and Global Order • Human rights

• Early precedents

• Protecting ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’

• Codification after World War II

Liberalism and Global Order • Liberal interventionism

• “liberal republics also are prepared to protect and promote—sometimes forcibly— democracy, private property, and the rights of individuals overseas against nonrepublics, which, because they do not authentically represent the rights of individuals, have no rights to noninterference” (Doyle)

• Liberals may disagree about what rights violations justify intervention

• Liberals may cynically use human rights to illiberal ends

• Humanitarian intervention can backfire

Liberalism on life support? • Tolerance: liberalism’s greatest strength and weakness

• “Liberalism creates a big tent for many different conceptions of the ‘good life’, in accordance with its commitment to individual choice” (Cole and Craiatu)

• Illiberal actors can take advantage of toleration • But “Liberals have a duty to preserve liberalism through intolerance of intolerant enemies”

(Karl Popper in Cole and Craiatu)

Next Class: Fascism • What are the key features of fascism?

• How were early fascist regimes similar and different?

• What does it mean to be ‘reactionary’?

• How did fascism persist after World War II?

• Is there actually fascism today, and what does it mean to oppose it?