Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Freedom alliance

Case 3: The free alliance.

It is a strange fact about our Democracy that it has not thrown off the shackles of its eighteenth century and pompous roots. I mean as a method not have too many internal wars, and not have too much torture, and occasionally to shed one government and get another, or Democracy is fine. And one suppose it is always better to have vaguely open method for entering the ruling classes that is not military. One is still governed by small cliques, but no one really dies getting into power. Likewise it has always been democracies proudest boast that it at least allowed free speech. Or perhaps better it allowed one to say anything but would usually (unless it made commercial sense) ignore the result. There has been a recent caveat hereof course. We do not ignore the result if you are a Muslim and what you say is what we call the extremist side at which point we tend to persecute the name of what might be then.
All of which are fine pragmatic reason for supporting democracy. The trouble is that it justifies itself not on these but on an absolutist claim to be the one best (or least worst) system. In the name of this claim we wage wars (endlessly). More than that we assume that we have right to fight all other ‘non- democracies (whether we choose to do it or no), on the grounds they are somehow not valid. More than that we like o claim that when we have fought and defeated their regimes, a democracy will simply and naturally flourish (a faith in this thought/hope is on of the more beautiful things in creation).

The reason for this faith is of course simple. It lies in recent(is) experiences. Firstly in the experience of the twentieth century, that saw democracy, with is ally in commercial capitalist see off all rivals. The looping together of political and desire freedoms then saw off any other model. And yet there as no reason why these two have to be linked together. A fact China noted and learnt from. All that can be said about the hooping together of capitalism and democracy is that it happened the once; and that it is clear (as Marx – who is the real theorisation the liberals are unconsciously drawing upon here), pointed out that all capitalism need a fairly complex social order. This is because they need an order which is capable of responding to the very dynamic society, full of torrents and change, and complexities of unfairness (who has and does not have the money). Capitalism wealth breeds complex societies, which are very difficult to govern.
More than that one might actually suggest capitalism undermines any government system, by making the society so complex every system looks either hopeless inept, or powerless or merely corrupt. And in this progression to political dissolution (and conceptual if not actual anarchy) democracy is the last system to be undermined. It is the one that it is easiest at times to defend. The reason here is that it is here it actually does do (to a fairly limited degree) what it says that it does. That is it allows other voices into capitalism. Voices that pull one away from a complete capitalism that would let the poor starve. A move that can then in the name of nation sovereignty and global organization impose some kind of limit upon the market. The problem of course is that as capitalism has grown this limit, even in the face of massive economic melt down had become very hard to impose. This is the time that state should triumph over the failed market. And yet it does not Indeed the bankers in the form of the credit agencies and a worry about the deficit seem to have triumphed. They caused the crisis and not then benefit form it. Traditionally then democracy was the last place certain non capitalist values would lied. It provided a rhetoric for the non-market part of society Its sole role was then to allow this rhetoric to articulate itself in a very complex capitalism shifting world.
However it is very easy to over estimate democracy. It was always associated with another great legacy from our history – namely nationalism. Nationalism (France and even more Russia) provides the other great refuge from capitalism (this time with a rightwing tendency). It then allows nations o minimise their democracy and maximize the power of their nation state to do things. A model that clearly is very much alive in Russia . The difference perhaps (ns it is only suggestion) between these two model is that the nationalism root is the one nations end to follow (or ought to follow) if they have large amounts of mineral resources an little else. Russia then makes sense as a nation; Scots nationalism was made by Oil, and the separatism of the Niger Delta people was inspired by oil. Mineral wealth tends to bred local or regional chiefs, and nationalism is the ideology that spins that chieftanhood out into a moral philosophy (it is better that the Democratic Republic of Congo model).
Democracy (but also Nationalist) triumph then lies in their ability to survive the sheer complexity and shifting identity of capitalism. They do to a degree hide something from capitalism. And yet they do not really understand their role in this manner. On the contrary they take as the rhythm the far higher destiny o somehow being the end of human history. Critical of course in this move is the idea of freedom. Freedom with a capitalism matters because it is the alchemy that allows something to happen, for both democracy and nationalism. Both of these system represent two slightly different attempts (Enlightenment and Romantic) to jump upon the name freedom, and to attempt to breed a single idea looping capitalism to a political system. That is the point of democratic freedom is that it breeds a connection between certain political rights which are often rather limited in their scope and power and commercial rights ,which crosses the globe; The individual and its company are both free, and free in the same sense. We both can speak our minds and say what we think. The fact that the firm is a global multinational with vast resources and I well just me, does not matter, for we are all fee now, and should be listened. In effect freedom justifies the global monopolies of free speech by the said large powerful companies.
There is however a caveat here, For freedom clearly provides and escape clause. In that there is nothing stopping large scale organizations based upon the idea of freedom springing up in nations to rival large companies. There is nothing stopping it, well save finance? As a rule such large organization need money to organize, and so need some kind of commercial support. A fact the internet may change .If this is so, then it is plausible that this freedom will become more valid. And yet given the sheer welter of information that the same technology that creates the internet also creates, this change is only possible at a cost. The cost is that actual freed debate ( which is was the eighteenth century actually eulogies) is lost under the welter of information. The only way then to get an opinion across is to howl loudest and longest and simplest. Even if then information allows one to magnify voices, the voice that magnifies is not the impassioned reasoner that the model thought as its basic citizen, so much as the mob it always hated., Ironically then the eighteenth century pursuit of freedom, and the idea of a freedom looping individual with state and company, will (possibly) aid most that very individual the said eighteenth century rationalist feared most the rabble raiser.
Freedom then created a single political axis linking individual with capitalism and state. It was the word that made this link possible- or perhaps better demanded it. Freedom came the Gear that allowed modernity to function in our minds. And yet their was from the early nineteenth century always another possibility. Another route into freedom. This was the romantic root, that tied freedom to a landmass, and so to a nation. to be free was then to be a freeborn citizen of a place a nation. It was then to be able to participate in being that nation (whatever that meant) and enjoying it fruits. This freedom then pitched nations against capitalism organization It has the immense advantage then of implying organization traditionally large enough to manage capitalism, and limit it in some sense. and yet it necessarily also imposed limited upon that freedom, the limits of borders. Freedom became then even more multi-faceted. A nations freedom was to in the name of a higher freedom able to limit capitalism within borders, without compromising its nature over much. More than that it was (in capitalist states at last) at least as much a part of the nations duty to protect freedom to trade and so protect the ‘nations wealth’. More than that the exchange was a real one, as a nations freedom as directly proportionate to its power, and its power traditionally pivoted around its ability to produce wealth – that is its capitalist roots. From which it flowed that a nations power need capitalism, and need not then to piss it off too much. The only exception was of course those mineral rich countries, where the capitalism need the resource too much, as was prepared to bend over backwards to get it. Nation states then both opposed and protected capitalism.
And yet of course all these limiting factors where in a sense of little or no importance. nor was the fact the fact that the system was assumed to be temporary by the most influential of thinkers (h assumed nations would not survive in the face global competition), all that matters was the politicians and people bought the myth, that is they carried on in the rallying call of freedom pretending that nation, democracy and economic freedom where all much of a muchness. That one really could not tell then apart. The unstable dynamic this claim fashions has then been a driving force for last 150 or so, it lead to the creation of empires and commonwealths, and the destruction of rainforests, and the hypocrisy of the west to take what it can whenever it likes , and to feel good about itself, and its own liberal values, in the process. The west has then driven the freedom bus very hard, and used it to triumph (or at least to understand its triumph, and make it look moral)
But far more than that it has of course used it as an excuse to fight war it wants, always in the name of freedom, and create new governments as it chooses. Nor does not matter if the government it creates barely function (or did not function at all), For at least they were founded upon ‘freedom’. Any action even up to genocide was acceptable in this higher cause. Blood was then spilled in ‘foreign countries’ , and the inhabitence of these other lands were blamed for that spill. It happened we were told because the people had not accepted the rivet of freedom that is they had not yet learnt how freedom combines its three pillars together (as we learnt). The blood and death was somehow then apart of the learning experience That is it was a part of their coming around to our way of thinking. Well maybe. But there is a tendency even now (when we assume the west triumph) to try other systems first. What else are the Maoist guerrillas in Nepal or more successfully Hugo Chavez (although he rides in the name of socialism, a resource based nationalism wave – and so is not so very different – hence perhaps his success). Other voices the do occur, and will occur, and there is no guarantee then the blood will lead to the shotgun marriage of freedom we in the west rather assume it will.
It also goes without saying that freedom at home is not a happy bunny. Or better it does not do what says it does (beyond certain very limited moves already noted) . I mean the windy rhetoric is all about the right to discuss and debate and the ability to choose government. And yet the rivet that holds the system together is rather abstract, and the powers that rivet create nebulous. government then tend to only be able to do certain things, impose certain limits or else bend to the capitalist will. This means that when people come to vote the arguments they are faced with are either necessarily highly technical or else (and this is the one that tends to work) very abstract in nature. We then tend to make political choice not based on the nitty gritty of real discussion but rather in terms of tribal loyalty and fairly abstract concerns – such as worries about immigrations (always more complex than the argument allows) or crime or a deficit of social disorder. The very parameters of our politics are necessarily of a very abstract nature, as the freedom that rivets the system together is necessarily nebulous and removed. Freedom then defines our society in terms of abstraction, an abstraction informing the entire way we can debate.
Freedoms power lies in its ability to be a rivet or gear. It is the point beyond all visible worlds, were capitalism, nationalism and democracy meet and bind together. It is point our freedom comes from, is then beyond all sight: It is the light of a meta-sun hidden always from view: The Platonic Good – perhaps. It is the old heaven writ large upon the world. It is then no wonder that others attempt at times to profess other faiths, or that the path to this one true heaven is so bloody. Crusades always are. The real problem though is whether the sheer overwhelming might of capitalism will impose this model upon the earth, one way or other. Or whether other systems will find different compromises with capitalism, that is other places beyond sigh that yet might meet with it and be one with it. Or else whether the world ecological system and the scientist who champion it trumps the entire argument about freedom first. Or finally our sheer current freedom of information on the internet might warp how we understand our freedom (it clearly is). The only thing we can absolutely guarantee is that whatever happens freedom as it currently understands itself will not go down without a fight. For fighting has always been is metier.

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