Category: Cold War

Ancient Rome, Cold War, Democracy

The Decline of Liberal Democracy
Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. It was always contentious, that idea.

Having laid siege to the bastions of liberal democracy for the past several decades, the forces of reactionary, righteous partisanship can sense victory. Those on the left (though such a homogeneous block is anathema to our current condition – even the idea of homogeneity itself!), the forces of wokeness are terrified, huddled in digital groups, occasionally poking each other in the eye for perceived slights against an increasingly opaque agenda. Gender, race, and identity are more and more personalized, unitized and separated from community, rendering the former concepts meaningless. On the right, there is anger at perceived disenfranchisement, alienation and discrimination by educated elites in academia, media and politics. Around the world in the past four or five years, political victories in the West combined with a surging China and a reassertive Russia have succeeded not only in heading off a fourth wave of democracy, but in pushing back the advances of earlier generations.

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Bewilderment, Church, Cold War, EU, Europe, Greece, Hayek, Heidegger, Inequality, Juergen Habermas, Philosophy, Religion, Technology

The Lost Soul of Europe
Clyfford Still's 1944-N No. 2
Clyfford Still’s 1944-N No. 2. For Still, art was dead in the aftermath of World War II, for it was based on European ‘dogma, authority, tradition. The totalitarian hegemony of this tradition I despise, its presumptions I reject’ (MOMA)

What has happened to Europe? What of our glorious post-war project to bring together our cultured peoples after centuries of war, that brave experiment not merely in statecraft, but in post-state statecraft, to redefine government, and seize peace to our hearts? It has persevered and grown for over sixty years, launching exuberantly into the new Millennium with the Euro, but now she finds herself beset on all sides by vast forces including geopolitics, security, technology and global finance. Worst of all, Europe seems to have lost its soul. Not merely its raison d’etre, but its spirit, its ambition. What is missing?

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Big Data, Blockchain, Cold War, Democracy, Ethics, Hayek, Inequality, Justice, Markets, neoliberalism, Philosophy, political philosophy, Social Justice, Technology

Hayek, The Busted Flush: Economic Value, Marketisation, and Social Justice

Hayek has had some dark times, and some critics, but the last twenty years of his life or so were pretty sweet. Since he died, he’s had an awful time of it.
How do markets optimise the delivery of social services and social welfare? This question surfaces many of the challenges for the Austrian School, the philosophy that free markets and the price mechanism can do a remarkable job in managing people and their behaviour. While initially Friedrich Hayek’s theorising argued that the role of the State should be minimal, he ultimately conceded that some State regulation was required in order to maintain markets, and some other functions. For example, ‘[t]o prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances, or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition. The only question here is whether in the particular instance the advantages gained are greater than the social costs they impose.’ (The Road to Serfdom, p.38/9) The ultimate question of Hayekian liberalism is how much does the government have to interfere? What is the minimum possible function of government? Continue reading “Hayek, The Busted Flush: Economic Value, Marketisation, and Social Justice” →

Church, Cold War, Democracy, Europe, France, History, Justice, National Identity, political philosophy, Rule of Law, United Nations

The Idea of France

Delacroix's <i>Liberty Leading the People</i>
Delacroix’ Liberty Leading the People. She – Liberty – is so much more than the country: she is the ideal and the aspiration, the unadulterated guiding principle. Her path remains clear; but have the people stopped following her?

As Francois Hollande transitions from the bureaucratic administrator of the Fifth French Republic to a wartime leader in the latest instalment of the rolling war on terror, decisions are being made about France. The latest pronouncements – from overbearing surveillance measures introduced in the Summer in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo killings, to the most recent introduction of a three month state of emergency in order to deal with the Paris attacks – diminish democratic governance and accountability, in the short-sighted interests of expediency and national security. But this disaffected progression is not new; perhaps the January and November attacks were more overtly offensive than before, and appear more obvious inflection points, but we must go back ten years to the riots of 2005 to try and understand what is happening. Furthermore, the decisions being made today are not merely reflective of missteps taken in the past, but instructive as to the kind of France that is emerging for the future. And for France, we can read Europe, and Western Liberalism.

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1989, China, Cold War, Democracy, Development, History, Multi-National Corporation, Tiananmen Square, UNDP, United Nations, Zizek

Inequality and Democracy

Wen Jiabao
Outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao: “Social strains are clearly increasing.”

Outgoing Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao today added his voice (not for the first time) to those warning against rising inequality as a threat to China’s development.  Imbalances in economic growth he warned were threatening the success of the economy.  “We must make ensuring and improving people’s wellbeing the starting point and goal of all the government’s work, give entire priority to it and strive to strengthen social development,” he added.  It is a common refrain, and one that goes to the root of modern statecraft.

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