The twentieth century was the century of collectivism? Since the first years of the century and more accurately since The First World War, the spirit of individual liberty and the policy of economic freedom have appeared to be on regression. Every conceivable form of State management has been tried during the past 75 years: socialism, fascism, Nazism, welfare statism, and interventionism. And each has failed, bringing nothing but tyranny, poverty, and a lost sense of hope. But now with the twenty-first century, the age of collectivism may be is finished. And in its place is coming a new liberal era.
It is important to realize that by
classical liberalism means, i.e., the political philosophy which has emphasized
that civil liberties and economic freedom are inseparable, both requiring
respect for private property in a competitive, free market environment.
The historical liberalism traces the
origin of liberal ideas to the ancient Greeks and Romans. But, the
individualist foundation of liberalism developed in the seventeenth century in
the writings of Benedict de Spinoza and John Locke. However, it was only in the
eighteenth century that a general liberal world-view and philosophy was
systematically developed by the Scottish moral philosophers, the French
philosophes, and the American founding fathers.
While liberal ideas predominated
throughout the nineteenth century, an era of full laissez-faire never existed
and liberal policies in general were on the decline by the 1870s. John Stuart
Mill redefined liberalism and even open the door to the redistributional
welfare state. The liberal era ended with the First World War and the growth in
State power and control over economic affairs.
Now there is new interest in the
liberal alternative, the alternative foundations that have been offered for
liberalism—natural rights, utilitarianism, and contractarianism—with their
strengths and weaknesses.
Economic freedom is different from the
protection of individual Liberty. The writings of Austrian Economists,
particularly the works of F. A. Hayek, define the market economy as a
“spontaneous order” of mutual and voluntary cooperation.
Classical Liberalism
All earlier civilizations reached a
state of stagnation, long before they had attained the level of material
development that modern European civilization has succeeded in achieving.
Nations were destroyed by wars with
foreign enemies as well as by civil wars. Anarchy forced a regression in the
division of labor; cities, commerce, and industry declined; and, with the fall of
their economic foundations, intellectual and moral refinements had to give way
to ignorance and brutality. The Europeans of the modern age have succeeded in
intensifying the social bonds among individuals and nations much more strongly
than was ever the case before in history. This was an achievement of the
ideology of liberalism, which, from the end of the seventeenth century, was
elaborated with ever increasing clarity and precision and continually gained in
influence over men’s minds.
Liberalism and capitalism created the
foundations on which are based all the marvels characteristic of our modern way
of life.
Now our civilization is beginning to
scent a whiff of death in the air. Dilettantes loudly proclaim that all
civilizations, including our own, must perish: this is an inexorable law.
Europe’s final hour has come, warn these prophets of doom, and they find
credence. An autumnal mood is perceptibly beginning to set in everywhere.
But modern civilization will not
perish unless it does so by its own act of self-destruction. No external enemy
can destroy it the way the Spaniards once destroyed the civilization of the
Aztecs, for no one on earth can match his strength against the standard-bearers
of modern civilization. Only inner enemies can threaten it. It can come to an
end only if the ideas of liberalism are supplanted by an antiliberal ideology hostile
to social cooperation.
There has come to be a growing
realization that material progress is possible only in a liberal, capitalist
society. Even if this point is not expressly conceded by the antiliberal, it is
fully acknowledged indirectly in the panegyrics extolling the idea of stability
and a state of rest.
The material advances of recent
generations, it is said, have, of course, been really very agreeable and
beneficial. Now, however, it is time to call a halt. The frantic hustle and
bustle of modern capitalism must make way for tranquil contemplation. One must
acquire time for selfcommunion, and so another economic system must take the
place of capitalism, one that is not always restlessly chasing after novelties
and innovations. The romantic looks back nostalgically to the economic conditions
of the Middle Ages—not to the Middle Ages as they actually were, but to an
image of them constructed by his fancy without any counterpart in historical
reality. Or he turns his gaze upon the Orient— again not, of course, the real
Orient, but a dream-vision of his phantasy.
How happy men were without modern
technology and modern culture! How could we ever have renounced this paradise
so light-mindedly? Whoever preaches the return to simple forms of the economic
organization of society ought to keep in mind that only our type of economic
system offers the possibility of supporting in the style to which we have
become accustomed today the number of people who now populate the earth. A
return to the Middle Ages means the extermination of many hundreds of millions
of people. The friends of stability and rest, it is true, say that one by no
means has to go as far as that. It suffices to hold fast to what has already
been achieved and to forgo further advances. Those who extol the state of rest
and stable equilibrium forget that there is in man, in so far as he is a
thinking being, an inherent desire
for the improvement of his material
condition. This impulse cannot be eradicated; it is the motive power of all
human action. If one prevents a man from working for the good of society while
at the same time providing for the satisfaction of his own needs, then only one
way remains open to him: to make himself richer and others poorer by the
violent oppression and spoliation of his fellow men.
It is true that all this straining
and struggling to increase their standard of living does not make men any
happier. Nevertheless, it is in the nature of man continually to strive for an
improvement in his material condition. If he is forbidden the satisfaction of
this aspiration, he becomes dull and brutish. The masses will not listen to
exhortations to be moderate and contented; it may be that the philosophers who
preach such admonitions are laboring under a serious self-delusion. If one
tells
the future of liberalism the future
of liberalism people that their fathers had it much worse, they answer that
they do not know why they should not have it still better.
Now, whether it is good or bad,
whether it receives the sanction of the moral censor or not, it is certain that
men always strive for an improvement in their conditions and always will. This
is man’s inescapable destiny. The restlessness and inquietude of modern man is
a stirring of the mind, the nerves, and the senses. One can as easily restore to
him the innocence of childhood as lead him back to the passivity of past
periods of human history.
But, after all, what is being offered
in return for the renunciation of further material progress? Happiness and
contentment, inner harmony and peace will not be created simply because people
are no longer intent on further improvement in the satisfaction of their needs.
Soured by resentment, the literati imagine that poverty and the absence of
wants create especially favorable conditions for the development of man’s
spiritual capacities, but this is nonsense. In discussing these questions, one should
avoid euphemisms and call things by their right names. Modern wealth expresses
itself above all in the cult of the body: hygiene, cleanliness, sport. Today
still the luxury of the well-to-do—no longer, perhaps, in the United States,
but everywhere else—these will come within the reach of everyone in the not too
distant future if economic development progresses as it has hitherto. Is it
thought that man’s inner life is in any way furthered by excluding the masses
from the attainment of the level of physical culture that the well-to-do
already enjoy? Is happiness to be found in the unkempt body?
To the panegyrists of the Middle Ages
one can only answer that we know nothing about whether the medieval man felt
happier than the modern man. But we may leave it to those who hold up the mode
of life of the Orientals as a model for us to answer the question whether Asia
is really the paradise that they describe it as.
The fulsome praise of the stationary
economy as a social ideal is the last remaining argument that the enemies of
liberalism have to fall back upon in order to justify their doctrines. Let us
keep clearly in mind, however, that the starting-point of their critique was
that liberalism and capitalism impede the development of productive forces,
that they are responsible for the poverty of the masses. The opponents of liberalism
have alleged that what they are aiming at is a social order that
could create more wealth than the one
they are attacking. And now, driven to the wall by the counterattack of
economics and sociology, the future of liberalism they must concede that only
capitalism and liberalism, only private property and the unhampered activity of
entrepreneurs, can guarantee the highest productivity of human labor.
It is often maintained that what
divides present-day political parties is a basic opposition in their ultimate
philosophical commitments that cannot be settled by rational argument. The
discussion of these antagonisms must therefore necessarily prove fruitless.
Each side will remain unshaken in its conviction because the latter is based on
a comprehensive world view that cannot be altered by any considerations
proposed by the reason. The ultimate ends toward which men strive are diverse.
Hence, it is altogether out of the question that men aiming at these diverse
ends could agree on a uniform procedure.
Nothing is more absurd than this
belief. Aside from the few consistent ascetics, who seek to divest life of all
its external trappings and who finally succeed in attaining to a state of
renunciation of all desire and action and, indeed, of self-annihilation, all
men of the white race, however diverse may be their views on supernatural
matters, agree in preferring a social system in which labor is more productive
to one in which it is less productive. Even those who believe that an ever
progressing improvement in the satisfaction of human wants does no Good and
that it would be better if we produced fewer material goods—though it is
doubtful whether the number of those who are sincerely of this opinion is very
large—would not wish that the same amount of labor should result in fewer
goods. At most, they would wish that there should be less labor and
consequently less production, but not that the same amount of labor should
produce less.
The political antagonisms of today
are not controversies over ultimate questions of philosophy, but opposing
answers to the question how a goal that all acknowledge as legitimate can be
achieved most quickly and with the least sacrifice. This goal, at which all men
aim, is the best possible satisfaction of human wants; it is prosperity and
abundance. Of course, this is not all that men aspire to, but it is all that
they can expect to attain by resort to external means and by way of social
cooperation.
The inner blessings—happiness, peace
of mind, exaltation—must be sought by each man within himself alone. Liberalism
is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests.
It is no religion because it demands
neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and
because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to
explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say
anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of
special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special
advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely
different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the
members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to
the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can
be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one
thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in
order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as
far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To
diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim.
No sect and no political party has
believed that it could afford to forgo advancing its cause by appealing to
men’s senses. Rhetorical bombast, musicand song resound, banners wave, flowers
and colors serve as symbols, and the leaders seek to attach their followers to
their own person.
Liberalism has nothing to do with all
this. It has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party
idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These
must lead it to victory.
Ludwig von Mises said: “the issue is
always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.”
Undoubtedly, the market is the best that allocates resources in conditions
where there is a certain level of competition. But what happens when there are
asymmetries of information between some agents and others, when there are
monopolies, natural monopolies, oligopolies, duopolies, collusion? Or when the
“optimal” quantities offered by the market are less than the minimum quantities
required by society, as is in some cases in education, health and water?
The market allocates resources better
in all cases where there is, what is called, perfect competitivenness. In cases
where the conditions of competition does not exist, such as in monopolistic
markets (one main offerent) or ‘monopsony’ (one main consumer), ¿the state must
regulate (not intervene) the market?
The difference between monopoly and
natural monopoly is that in the case of natural monopoly there is no
possibility that two offerents can coexist. This is the case of a gas pipeline,
water or electricity distribution installations: the price must be regulated by
the state, so that it creates an incentive for the company to continue
producing. In the case of a monopoly, the most recent and most emblematic has
been Microsoft's Windows operating system in the US, a company that achieved a
strong monopolistic position and a destructive strategy of competition a few
years ago. It was then regulated by one of the strongest anti-monopoly laws in
the world in one of the most "liberal" countries in the world: USA.
Following the fact that the government forced Windows to comply with this law
and to compete, many operating systems (Apple's iOS, for example) emerged,
which meant increasing its consumption due to lower prices, not only with
benefits for US society. but worldwide.
While the state must produce public
goods that do not compete with private ones, such as public health and
education, for example, the big question we must ask ourselves as a society is:
¿how do we define the optimal quantity to produce these goods? Let's say for
example that all children and young people of school age go to school and have
preventive health near by their home or school. If the market cannot offer it,
the state must do it. This should occur mainly in goods and services that
impact human development and improve people's performance or the profitability
of human capital, as they also increase the country's production.
Remembering Vargas Llosa in his opinion
masterpiece, Liberals and Liberals: “one of the characteristics of liberalism in
our day it is found in the least thoughtful places and sometimes shines by its
absence where certain naive people believe it is.
Ortega y Gasset, propone que el
liberalismo debe ser ateo, desconociendo la libertad individual de tener fe o
creer en Dios.
La crítica de Ortega y Gasset a la
sociedad estadounidense y su “intento”, por entonces, de progreso tecnológico ¿es
una crítica al liberalismo económico?
Hayek admite a la Vda. de Keynes su
"ilimitada admiración" por el recientemente fallecido, lo que de-construye
aún más el discurso maniqueo: Hayek vs Keynes y el supuesto
"no-liberalismo" de Keynes, miembro del Partido Liberal de
Inglaterra. ¿Era Keynes un liberal?
El mercado ha ido perfeccionándose
gracias a la irrupción de la libertad. Sin embargo, no estoy seguro de la
relación positiva entre libertad y perfeccionamiento del mercado porque, por
ejemplo, el monopolio que es un mercado imperfecto, para perfeccionarse
requiere de la intervención o regulación del estado.
La descentralización es una forma de
liberalización de la sociedad. Esto es algo que propongo en mi libro
Descentralización y pacto fiscal en Bolivia: reducir el tamaño del estado
monopólico central para reducir su poder sobre los ciudadanos.
"Todo Liberal debe ser un
agitador." (Hayek) Es correcto lo que afirma Hayek de que el fascismo, al
igual que el comunismo, "odia" las bases del individualismo y el
pensamiento liberal: ¿propiedad privada, libre empresa y economía de mercado?
Mi duda surge en el sentido de que en muchos fascismos han existido y se ha
incentivado la propiedad privada, la libre empresa de los amigos del régimen y
la economía de mercado, como el caso del Chile de Pinochet, de la Alemania nazi
y del fascismo italiano.
Popper realiza una teoría heroica del
liberalismo en la más absoluta pobreza. Empatiza, en cierta forma con Marx, y
destroza a Hegel a quien culpa de todos los males, o quizás lo más
"charlatán" del marxismo: el materialismo histórico. Sus ideas tienen
más respaldo teórico que las de Hayek, quien se enfocaba más en lo económico. "El
más serpentino y eficaz enemigo de la cultura de la libertad, dice Popper, es
el historicismo." El historicismo es darle un sentido secreto, lógico y
ordenado a la historia. Idolatrarla es, consciente e inconscientemente, temer a
la libertad, asustarse "de asumir la responsabilidad" de concebir la
vida como creación permanente y asumir la autoría de lo que se logre o se
pierda...
Se le critica a Popper su intento por
regular la televisión, que reina en los hogares del mundo. Hoy en día los
contenidos de las redes sociales han llegado al máximo de la libertad y
curiosamente se han auto-regulado, siendo de mejor "calidad" a los
que ofrecía la televisión hace unas décadas. Es decir, que el temor de Popper,
que contradice sus ideales de libertad, al intentar regular la televisión, son
justamente criticados porque, quizás con "el diario del lunes", se acierta
al afirmar que se llegará al ideal de libertad con las nuevas formas de
comunicación existentes.
Isaiah Berlín es un Liberal político,
no económico.
Revel, socialista en su juventud,
puede ser el teórico del socialismo Liberal de Mujica, opuesto sí, al marxismo
cultural. Social demócrata y reformista para alcanzar la libertad y la justicia
social. Revel criticaba la libertad de las democracias occidentales en su freno
a la lucha militar contra el comunismo sin tomar en cuenta que esa libertad era
la garantía de desarrollo tecnológico y económico que permitiría derrotar al
comunismo. ¿Lo mismo sucederá con China? Revel es un apocalíptico de la
libertad y la democracia y responsabiliza en esto a la
"intelligentsia" de izquierda. Vargas Llosa los relativiza quizás un
poco por haber sido crítico de ésta y es optimista en cuanto a la libertad
porque cree que se apoya en el ciudadano común de nuestros países
latinoamericanos. Se debería medir el nivel de corporativismo de nuestras
sociedades para saber cómo "avanzamos" en cuanto a la libertad como
contradicción al tribalismo...
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