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Continued from here.
Moving within a range between reservation and hostility, contemporary devotees of liberalism are uncomfortable with and highly sceptical of politics, mainly working with a strong presumption against it.
This is odd in its nearly unequivocal one-sidedness. For nothing better epitomises modern freedom's unique achievement than the new character it has lend to politics as an inclusive institution encouraging popular participation. It is a glaring sign of how much modern liberal attitudes have veered off from the posture taken by classical liberalism.
Today's liberal tends to be rather against house-building, metaphorically speaking, because of the countless dangers it exposes the builder to, while the classical liberal emphasised the dangers of construction work to ensure that houses will be built more safely, more effectively and more numerously.
The most notable modern distortion/misunderstanding pertaining to the original vision of freedom as spelled out in classical liberalism is due to an almost complete reversal of the belief of the protagonist thinkers in
- a powerful state, and
- vibrant political activism
as being the lifeblood of a free society.
In the preceding posts of this series, I argue that freedom is an adaptation to the historical trend toward individualism building up throughout the mediaeval age and eventually gaining cultural dominance in the waning years of feudalism; individualism is first and foremost a spontaneous emergence, only later to become rationalised as an ideal and a political goal. Classical liberalism is the leader in this rationalising process. The uprooting of the community-bonded individual sets in motion the story of modern liberty, which sees a secular shift
- from a model of community based on common 'honour' to one shaped and driven by personally differentiated 'interest', and
- from man as "enactor" of static roles serving the perpetuation of a relatively stable culture to man as the active author and agent of change in a fluid, constantly evolving culture.
What is new about freedom is a broadly spread willingness among the social actors — government and citizenry — to refrain from practising intolerant dominance (of a cultural blueprint over the individual and outsiders) and to accept a novel balance of mutual restraints, such that ruling institutions are controlled by citizens and citizens are controlled by ruling institutions.
When formerly culture permeated the self and defined and dissolved its boundaries, now the self, indeed millions of selfs, stretch and change culture with their initiative and idiosyncrasies; when formerly power was separated from the populace, dominating, instrumentalising and exploiting it, now the populace permeates power.
As the division of labour keeps making progress in the course of human history, the individual qua individual — rather than qua cultural representative — emerges increasingly as part of the division's differentiated structure.
Man is given more options freeing him to take decisions that offer him still more options, a process that builds the self as an increasingly autonomous force giving it an awareness and a material base which differentiate, estrange and finally separate him from a type of communal life that has a greater claim on his identity than he does himself. Because anthropocentric freedom — the individualistic disposition in man, see more here, here, and here — blends so well with an expanding division of labour, man qua individual becomes a new productive force. Cultivating his needs in as far as they strengthen his potential becomes an evolutionary pattern favouring certain societies over others, thus ushering in the age of individualism.
Politics in a free society is an adaptation to the individualistic paradigm. Individualism is culture building. Politics in a free society develops into a widely ramified culture of mutual accommodation. Individualism spawns a culture in which a new type of politics comes to play a pivotal role. Individualism's political culture cannot be reduced to elections and singular episodes of majoritarian decision making. Politics in a world of free individuals forms a continuum on which personal discretion transitions into political themes, claims and institutions. Politics reacts to the multiplication of options and choices generated by an individualistic populace, providing a multidimensional platform for social dissension and confrontation, negotiations and other forms of competitive and open-ended accommodation among agents of considerable personal autonomy. For a person to be an individual she needs room to challenge others and assert herself. In this way, she accumulates advantages and assets dear to herself and is therefore in need of protection against and consideration by others. The characteristic elements of politics in a free society are inherent in the needs of self-interested individuals and their interaction among one another: open but controlled dissension, initiative and competitive outcomes, enjoying legitimation to the extent that they leave all in a position to lead a reasonably self-interested life.
Underlying the social patterns of interlocking self-interest, the logic of mutual restraint needs two revolutionary extensions for individualism to become the dominant and stable cultural form: a state strong enough to protect individuals from predation by other individuals reverting to the model of the exclusive, sectarian community oppressive to the individual. And an effective system to monitor, police, and guide governments of unprecedented capabilities and power. What is needed is a system of mutual restraint, the core piece of which being a reciprocal order wherein the state restrains its citizenry and the citizenry restrains the state.
Harnessing the individual thereby turning it into a wealth creator (as opposed to a low-productivity serf or a wealth-destroying predator) and a respected political participant produces a growing material base and a reliable source of popular support for the state. The citizenry, in turn, is prepared to accept restrictions on its autonomy in order to receive the public goods it desires (peace, stable property rights, privacy etc), while the state is prepared to bind itself to rules and power limits since this is the only way for it (a) to grow rich and be more capable to respond to popular demands for public goods, and (b) become genuinely respected, even well-liked and generally popular so as to keep its disciplinary tasks to manageable and reasonably civilised proportions.
One might interpret this relationship of mutual restraint as a trade-off by which the state grows more powerful and more capable of attending to its tasks and duties, whilst the citizenry is able to better cope with the challenges posed by the historic trend toward individualism.
In a free society, politics is a discovery procedure that serves to ferret out the changing conditions of a reasonable balance between the counter-currents of collective power and individualism.
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