[lbo-talk] Re: biz ethics/slavery/groups/constitutional

[Bill Bartlett]

At 1:43 PM -0700 2/9/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>joanna bujes <jbujes at covad.net> wrote:
>
>I have some problems with the below:
>
>andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
>>
>>  Liberalism started as a way of avoiding religious persecution: a few
>>  hundred years ago it was perfectly normal for countries to go to war
>>  over religious differences and to burn heretics at the stake.
>
>It's debatable whether the wars were over "religious differences" or
>whether they were over who got to control the money/resources/power that
>were automatically granted organized religion
>  * * *
>
>I'm a materialist, Joannaj, I assume that the ultimate cause of the 
>wars was class conflict or other material issues. But I'm not a 
>reductionist: those conflicts took a religious form, and we ignore 
>that fact at our peril. It's real progress that in the 
>industrialized west most people don't think religion is something 
>you go to war for or burn people for anymore. I may be oversensitive 
>to the point as a Jew. I am not here referring to the Nazis, but to 
>2000 years of prior religious persecution.
>
>  > Liberalism was a response to that: its original advocates advocated
>  > tolerance for different religious viewspoints.
>
>There's another perspective to that: it trivialized/falsified religious
>feeling by reducing it to a "belief" and it asserted that a human
>society could achieve justice and a common weal independently of any
>deeper connection to a universal order.
>
>* * *
>
>Same difference, far as I am concerned.
>
>>  Over the centuries liberal goals have expanded to include a very
>>  radical vision of justice, freedom, and equality.
>
>I would disagree that a "radical vision of justice, freedom, and
>equality" necessarily sprang from liberal roots. Though they might have
>sprung from questioning liberal assumptions.
>
>* * *
>
>Who said "necessarily"? Not me!
>
>>  Progress hasn't been as fast as BM and I would like, and liberalism
>>  has not guaranteed results; a lot of liberal societies have been
>>  inconsistent in pursuing these goals. But these societies have pursued
>>  them, unlike fascist tyrannies, fundamentalist theocracies, Communist
>>  dictaorships, feudal and absolutist monarchies, and the other
>>  alternatives that history has thrown up for us to consider. So be
>>  careful before you throw away the political idea that has uniquely
>>  made what both of us would consider progress possible.
>
>Perhaps we have not exhausted all the alternatives.
>
>* * *
>
>Suggest another. BM's alternative is tyranny -- imposing his values. 
>We'd like his tyranny because we tend to share those values, but I 
>oppose the principle of the thing. Carrol's alrernative is civil war 
>-- he thinks we are headed that way, right Carrol? Charles like the 
>old-style Communist tyrannies. Ravi suggested aome stone-age model, 
>which is not realistic barring catastrophe. So maybe we have not 
>exhausted the alternatives, but what are they? Please describe one 
>in at least very general terms.

I believe Justin is correct to say that the best (or at least the 
most civilised) form of political government is liberal political 
government, that is to say government based on the rule of law.

However there are alternative models of social organisation, which 
dispense with political government entirely. Unfortunately these 
types of government require as a pre-condition that the problem our 
political government was invented to deal with, irreconcilable 
conflicts of interest, be eliminated. Differences of opinion wouldn't 
(can't) be eliminated, however fundamental conflicts of INTEREST 
(class differences in other words) can be.

It is all very difficult for people in our present society to 
comprehend the idea (let alone accept the possibility) though. Simply 
because they take such irreconcilable conflict of interest for 
granted. Justin can't imagine a society where people co-operate 
voluntarily for their mutual benefit. So of course he can't take 
seriously the idea of a society without any mechanisms for compelling 
people to contribute towards mutual well-being.

But as has already been alluded to in this thread, human society has 
only quite recently invented political government. For most of our 
evolution humanity managed quite well without it. In fact political 
government was only invented to deal with the problems of class 
conflict. Even ordinary warfare was ever managed quite efficiently 
without political government, however class war requires the 
invention a new and unnatural form of social organisation. Political 
government, the government of the people.

Not only would elimination of class interests (socialism) make 
elimination of political government possible, I believe political 
government is actually incompatible with socialism. Real socialism 
that is.

So Justin is right to defend liberal values of rule of law from those 
who would replace it with less civilised methods. Government of the 
people by rules which apply to all in equal measure is certainly 
better than arbitrary rules, issued by tyrants. Or the rule of the 
jungle, might is right. (The form of government, incidentally, which 
is openly advocated and practiced by the Bush administration.)

But He goes too far to suggest it is the highest form of social 
organisation that is possible. If  the material conditions necessary 
for socialism exist, then a higher form of social organisation is 
possible. Even if some might argue that those material conditions are 
yet lacking, then it would not follow that they can never exist and 
so a co-operative commonwealth must at least be admitted as a 
theoretical possibility.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas