One of the worst aspects of
liberalism is that it is an ideology. Worse still is the fact that the
bourgeoisie itself believes in this ideology – that, after all, is the secret
of its power. According to this ideology, a free
society is one founded on individualism. There are two aspects to the life of
an individual: one is the “wealth” that an individual possesses, what is known
as “self-interest”; and the other is the “public” facet of an individual’s life
which is made up of social relations and beliefs and opinions. The bourgeoisie
believes that a society is free if and only if it can keep the private aspect
of the lives of its individual citizens entirely separate from their public
aspect. And this neat separation can be achieved only upon condition that at
least one of these two aspects of individualism can be optimised
scientifically. Given that it is impossible, by definition, to have a “science
of belief and opinion” (science cannot be, by definition, a matter of opinion),
it follows that only the private sphere – the sphere regulating the
maximisation of individual wealth – can be determined scientifically.
Indeed, the very “freedom”
on which the liberal State prides – freedom of expression, of opinion and
belief and life-style - itself is dependent on the “necessity” of the private
sphere. Only if the individual pursuit of self-interest can be regulated
“scientifically’ will it be possible for individuals to indulge in and enjoy “freedom
of expression” in a manner that does not interfere with the functions of the liberal
State. And vice versa, only if the
private sphere can be regulated “scientifically” can the liberal State maintain
its “neutrality” in the public sphere. But this is so if and only if both the
powers and the functions of the State are confined to (a) the protection of
individual self-interest – which can be done purportedly “scientifically” -,
and (b) to the avoidance and prohibition of any interference by the public
sphere against the private sphere. In
a liberal society, the State can enforce the “liberties” of its citizens only
upon condition that their self-interests can be determined through a
neutral-scientific social mechanism for their optimisation – the market
mechanism -, and that their opinions and beliefs do not interfere with this
mechanism. It follows necessarily that the two spheres can be kept separate if
and only if the State is “neutral” and, as a corollary, the “neutrality” of the
State can be assured if and only if the State limits its powers and functions
to ensuring (a) the scientific operation of the market mechanism and (b) the
non-ingerence or non-interference of the public sphere with the private sphere.
(Given that the private sphere is determined scientifically and technically, it
is impossible for it to interfere with the public sphere if it is governed
scientifically.)
It is self-evident that the
liberalist ideology presumes that it is in the self-interest of each and every
individual to ensure that the Economic,
the private sphere, is insulated from the Political, the public sphere. This insulation of the
two spheres is the foundation of liberalism: political economy on one side and
freedom of expression on the other: - necessity
here and freedom there. Clearly,
then, the constitution of the liberal
State must be founded, first, on the necessary conflict of individual self-interests, and, second, on the equally
necessary agreement of all its
individual subjects on the neutrality of the State and on the
necessity of applying scientific principles to the private sphere. This is the
basis of the rationalist scientific
and secular roots of liberalism. Liberalism
is the theory that the social antagonism of individual economic self-interest
is compatible with political "freedom" even though quite evidently
the "market mechanism" is founded on "the fever of
self-interest" (Hegel) and is therefore in blatant contradiction and
antithesis to the “agreement” of individuals to (a) the scientific basis of
government and (b) to the presumed “neutrality” of the liberal State. It is
this inner contradiction that liberalism cannot resolve because the capitalist
interests it represents lead to "conflict", to "crisis"
(Schumpeter) - however much liberalism may wish to homologate economic
equilibrium with political stability and "liberty".
The contradiction, the
fatal flaw at the heart of liberalism is that it is impossible to separate
Politics from Economics – and therefore the liberal State, far from being
“neutral” and “rational” must necessarily be “partisan”. The presumed neutrality
of the liberal State – the confinement of its powers to the tutelary function (Nietzsche), that is
the protection of private rights from
political interference either by the State or by other individuals – turns the
public sphere also into a private sphere in the sense that public opinion under
liberalism must be thoroughly de-politicised
so that the public sphere, the Political, becomes just as much a private sphere as the sphere of economic
individual self-interest, the Economic.
And because of this de-politicisation of society under the “night-watchman
State” or “State of Law” of liberalism, it is clear that the citizenry, the
public sphere, can no longer form or dictate the political will of the State.
The liberal State then becomes a mere arbiter
that does not and cannot express the political will of its citizens. This is why “democracy”, understood as the privatisation of the
public sphere through its self-enforced separation from the private sphere of
self-interest, is the modern form of the decline of the State. If by
democracy we understand not the active
participation of every citizen to the formation of the State (the freedom
of the ancients) but rather the passive
enjoyment of “personal liberties” or “private rights” (the freedom of the
moderns), then the fate of the liberal State – its Ohnmacht or powerlessness – is sealed once and for all!
A society that is founded
on capitalist social relations of production quite simply must rely on a
liberal State. And that is for the reasons we adduced above: such a society
must be founded on (a) individualism, (b) individual rights, (c) the strict separation
of property rights from freedom of expression, and finally (d) the limitation
of State powers to enforcing both these rights (property and expression) in
such a manner that freedom of expression does not interfere with property
rights. But what this means is that the
“neutrality” of the liberal State with regard to the private sphere of property
rights leads to the privatisation and therefore the de-politicisation of
freedom of expression – and hence to the de-politicisation of society. If
freedom of expression is legally barred from interfering with the economic
institutions of capitalism and if the liberal State is charged with the
function of preventing such “political” public interference with “private”
economic decisions, the inevitable outcome of this State neutrality is that the
liberal State is entirely incapable of mediating the inevitable “political” repercussions
of “private” economic decisions on the “public” sphere of personal expression
and life-style, which equally inevitably must either be given a say on the regulation of private property rights or else – in the absence of such
political representation – must lead to the revolutionary or otherwise violent
overthrow of the liberal State!
Either the
Political is allowed to interfere with the Economic, in which case the liberal
State must be abolished; or else both
the political and economic institutions of capitalist society will be torn
asunder by conflicts and antagonisms that the liberal State is constitutionally unable to mediate and
resolve. Either way, the liberal State is doomed to wither or to be overthrown
and superseded. This is the self-dissolution (Selbst-aufhebung) of the liberal State.
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