Despite its recent origins, liberalism has an articulated history testifying of its key role in modern Western society. The two great revolutions, in America in 1776 and France in 1789 refined some of the key ideas behind liberalism: democracy, equal rights, human rights, the separation between State and religion and freedom of religion, and the focus on the individual well-being.
Nineteenth century was a period of intense refinement of the values of liberalism, which had to face the novel economic and social conditions posed by incipient industrial revolution. Not only authors such as John Stuart Mill gave a fundamental contribution to liberalism, bringing to the philosophical attention topics such as freedom of speech, the liberties of women and of slaves; but also the birth of the socialist and communist doctrines, among others under the influence of Karl Marx and the French utopists, forced liberalists to refine their views and bond into more cohesive political groups.
In the twentieth century, liberalism was restated to adjust to the changing economic situation by authors such as Ludwig von Mises and John Maynard Keynes. The politics and lifestyle diffused by the Unites States throughout the world, then, gave a key impulse to the success of liberal lifestyle, at least in practice if not in principle. In more recent decades, liberalism has been used also to address the pressing issues of the crisis of capitalism and the globalized society. As the twenty-first century enters into its central phase, liberalism is still a driving doctrine that inspires political leaders and individual citizens.
No matter where we live, all societies carry baggage and a considerable amount of it. But, in a nutshell, what distinguishes successful societies from those that are not is that dynamic societies are the ones that know what to abandon and when. China, for example, is essentially a Confucianist culture. Confucianism is an ideological system that places education at a very high level of priority. But it is also a system which strongly discriminates against women.
Contemporary Chinese societies have continued to carry the emphasis on education. But they have smartly discarded the traditional discrimination against women baggage. Rest assured, as Jean-Pierre Lehmann, an emeritus professor of international political economy in Switzerland argued, if China were still binding its women’s feet, there would be no spectacular economic growth in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. According to him, the fact that China no longer binds women’s feet may make the Chinese feel less “Chinese”. But it lets China move ahead economically, politically and socially.
The following are the most crucial questions at this point. What has allowed the Chinese to make these choices? What allows similar changes to occur in other regions and cultures? Ultimately, what has transformed cultural legacies into dynamic engines of growth, welfare and prosperity in both the material and spiritual domains has been the liberating force of liberalism.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann stated that Confucianist scholars such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, the Hindu scholar Ram Mohun Roy and the numerous Christian liberals and humanists are all from different cultures. But also all share a common goal of sorting out their respective ideological baggage to see what works and what doesn’t.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann further noted that the potential for change is evident even in cultures which are today widely seen as almost a lost cause. Consider the Arab/Muslim world. Perhaps surprisingly to outsiders, a liberal tradition, a tradition of sorting through the cultural baggage, does exist in Arabic and Islamic thought. The Tunisian scholar, the late Albert Hourani, demonstrated this vividly in his magnificent book, “Arabic Thought” in the Liberal Age of 1968.
Albert Hourani described how, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thinkers and writers such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani developed a powerful stream of Muslim thought along lines comparable to the evolution of secular and liberal thought in Europe. And, surprising as that may sound, Al-Afghani’s agenda of reform and liberalism did not prevent him from being a fervent nationalist and anti-imperialist.
Ultimately, however, as Hourani’s book shows, liberalism came to be aborted in most of the Middle East. How so? Well, opponents of liberalism in the Islamic world opted for an easy, but effective, move. They equated liberalism with “Westernism”. And that allowed them to dictate that all that old baggage whether effective or not be retained. Had the equivalent happened in China, the Chinese would still be binding women’s feet.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann argued that in fact, we would all do well to remember that the West’s ideological origins are not at all liberal even though it is correct that liberalism has emanated primarily from the West. After all, dogmatic literal interpretations of the Bible allowed the Florentine government to place Galileo under house arrest just for saying that the earth turned around the sun. Even today, fundamentalist Christians in the United States appear not prepared to give up the fight when they seek to ban the teaching of Darwinism in schools, for example.
Now it is realised that intellectual curiosity and cultural openness are not permanent features of any society. Take Japan as an example. In the 1960s, Japan was a hothouse of cultural curiosity, openness, import and experimentation. For whatever reason, in the course of the 1980s, Japan switched off. It has become far, far more inward-looking. In fact it has strangely turned into a somewhat masochistically narcissistic society, which, despite its great potential, goes a long way to explain its present social and economic decline.
All of that is why people are convinced that liberalism is a universal doctrine, the most basic premise of which is to oppose dogmatism in any form. Hence its advocacy of tolerance, openness and pluralism. And hence its attraction across many cultures. So, Jean-Pierre Lehmann kindly requested us that the next time we hear criticisms of “neo-liberalism,” keep in mind the huge value of the underlying premise in that concept on a broader scale.
Whatever is bothersome about the “neo” part, liberalism as such appears to be nothing less than the key to allowing a society to operate successfully in the modern, globalized world. I think that is indeed a blessing, not a curse.
The Political Economy of Liberalism
DANGEROUS PEOPLE
The current global sheeple (human mass) is a pathetically willing victim of the prevailing hyper modernity. This modernity is centered, not on the wellbeing of life, humans or otherwise, but rather on the destructive drive for an ever more accumulation. This drive spares nothing. If it were possible, even the whole universe would become its victim. Fortunately, the reach of humans is quite limited and cannot cause wide spread damage outside of our precarious planet. Even here, it is a minority of the human community, extremely obsessed with power and money (at the expense of everything else) that is doing intentional harm. In the absence of more precise words to identify such individuals, we have decided to adhere to the broadly used terms of sociopaths and psychopaths!
These members of the human species have inborn deficiencies that won’t allow them to appreciate the core values of collective societal existence. They are not in tune with the commonly shared values of societies, hence the word sociopaths. Differentiating between life sustaining and life destroying activities is not an easy undertaking to these fellows, hence their ‘growth fixation’. They lack the faculty to feel the most obvious emotions of humanity. These individuals are devoid of empathy and tend to be extremely selfish, greedy and self-centered. Concern/care about their fellow humans is almost nonexistent in the world of the psychopaths. All societies have psychopaths/sociopaths in their midst. Rough estimates of psychopaths in any human society ranges from 5 to 10% of total population. It is by far the male sex that suffers the most from psychopathic afflictions! Studies have shown that psychopathic conditions are physical and are not curable. Affected individuals, states one study, ‘displayed significantly reduced grey matter volumes in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles. Damage to these areas is associated with impaired empathising with other people, poor response to fear and distress and a lack of ‘self-conscious’ emotions such as guilt or embarrassment.’ (King’s college, UK)
Recent studies have also revealed that entrenched professional politicos, CEOs of banks/large corporations and criminals in jail tend to share, to a large extent, significant psychopathic traits. This was a truly alarming discovery. After such findings, the world has become more anxious about the activities of psychopaths and sociopaths, irrespective of their formal positions in societies. It is no surprise that many of the current war-craving individuals belong to the category of clinical psychopaths. For the most part, oligarchs also live in the same psychopathic camp. Oligarchs tend to be ostentatious, selfish and greedy, basic requirements for admission to the club. Outright lying, violence waging, callous manipulations and brutal actions are some of the defining characteristic of psychopaths/sociopaths! We live in dangerous times. The weapons of old are no more and the new ones are designed to cause immense destruction to all and sundry. Therefore, the custody and management of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) should never be trusted to reigning psychopaths of the world system, if humanity wants to stick around!
Wars, conflicts, systemic genocide, surveillance, etc. are all strategies employed to maintain the existing psycho led anti-life status quo. It is not the majority’s desire to wage continuous wars, whatever the reasons. Human beings achieved a whole lot, at least in the narrow area of bettering their lives, not as a result of selfishness and manipulation, but because of integrity and co-operation. Scientific achievements and technical knowhow were not borne of lies and phony analysis. Unfortunately our current world, run by elites who seem to have no respect for the truth or the well-being of the general public, is on the precipice. See the articles next column, on page 32 & 44. Here are some interesting notes on the above general subject by Bob Altemeyer, a retired psychology professor who spent most of his life researching authoritarianism (The Authoritarians).
Authoritarian leaders
Altemeyer’s explanation – The psychopathology of authoritarian leaders.
In contemplating the success of the dark forces who create and rule over pathocracies, it behooves us to understand their nature. Altemeyer refers to them alternately as “authoritarian leaders” or “social dominators”. He describes them like this:
High scorers (on the test that measures the traits of authoritarian leaders) are inclined to be intimidating, ruthless, and vengeful. They scorn such noble acts as helping others, and being kind, charitable, and forgiving. Instead they would rather be feared than loved, and be viewed as mean, pitiless, and vengeful. They love power, including the power to hurt in their drive to the top…. Social dominators thus admit, anonymously, to striving to manipulate others, and to being dishonest, two-faced, treacherous, and amoral. It’s as if someone took the Scout Law (“A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, …”) and turned it completely upside down…This description is in fact almost identical to what psychologists refer to as the psychopathic personality. These people have two big advantages over the rest of us. First, they have no inclination to be bound by the rules that the rest of us are bound by. And secondly, they have their authoritarian followers (more about them later) to give them lots of aid and support.
The authoritarian followers-Human gullibility and sycophancy
Altemeyer’s explanation – The gullibility of authoritarian followers
Gullibility is one of the trademarks of the authoritarian followers, who provide crucial support for their authoritarian leaders. Altemeyer defines authoritarian followers as having three core characteristics: 1) high degree of submission to authority; 2) willingness to attack other people in the name of the authority; and 3) highly conventional attitudes. Altemeyer discusses the submission to authority, lack of independent thinking and need for approval that characterizes the authoritarian followers: Authoritarian followers seem to have a “Daddy and mommy know best” attitude toward the government. They do not see laws as social standards that apply to all. Instead, they appear to think that authorities are above the law, and can decide which laws apply to them and which do not – just as parents can when one is young…
If you ask subjects to rank the importance of various values in life, authoritarian followers place “being normal” substantially higher than most people do. It’s almost as though they want to disappear as individuals into the vast vat of Ordinaries. Though they habitually use the rhetoric of righteousness, they tend to be full of hatred, and their behavior quickly turns ugly when they are under stress. Altemeyer explains: They get off smiting the sinner; they relish being “the arm of the Lord.”… which suggests authoritarian followers have a little volcano of hostility bubbling away inside them looking for a (safe, approved) way to erupt….They usually avoid anything approaching a fair fight. Instead they aggress when they believe right and might are on their side. “Right” for them means, more than anything else, that their hostility is (in their minds) endorsed by established authority, or supports such authority. “Might” means they have a huge physical advantage over their target, in weaponry say, or in numbers, as in a lynch mob. It’s striking how often authoritarian aggression happens in dark and cowardly ways, in the dark, by cowards who later will do everything they possibly can to avoid responsibility for what they did. Women, children, and others unable to defend themselves are typical victims. Even more striking, the attackers typically feel morally superior to the people they are assaulting in an unfair fight…’
The astute readers might perceive the above frightening psychological topography prevailing amidst our own politicos. Welcome to the world of Ponerology (the science of evil). Take note: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Jiddu Krishnamurti. Good Day!
PM Abiy to address Djiboutian parliament today
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (Phd) will address the Djibouti parliament today Sunday April 29, in his first foreign visit.
PM Abiy, who was elected on April 2 by the parliament, was full of activity by visiting and delivering speeches in regional states around the country.
He will also held bilateral talks with authorities in Djibouti, which is the main sea gateway for Ethiopia.
The relation of Ethiopia and Djibouti is in good condition besides the initial low level tie at the beginning of the EPRDF lead transitional government came to power in early 1990s. The bondage of the two countries become warmer, when Ethiopia the most populous nation without sea outlet, moves its ports activity to Djibouti after the border conflict between Eritrea in 1998.
Currently Ethiopia and Djibouti have various social and economic co-operations and are stated as an example for regional integrations in the continent. They have linked with optical fiber cable, electric, water and modern electrical railway and have agreed with several upcoming co-operations including the construction of natural gas pipelines and facilitate joint customs facility in addition to open school for Ethiopian community in Djibouti city.
The former PM Hailemariam Dessalegn is the first Ethiopian head of government to pay the first official state visit to Djibouti in 2015, while leaders before him made several visits at the neighboring nation. Experts stated that however Ethiopia has high demand to expand options to use some other ports in the region, at the current level ports in Djibouti are more feasible in terms of modern infrastructure like railway and other alternatives.
Forex crunch affecting FDI
The current hard currency crunch that affects the activity of industries is now challenging the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country.
It has been reported that the hard currency shortage has been observed in the past many years, while the recent effect is much higher than what was observed before.
The business community engaged in the import business has been claiming that they are unable to run their business as usual. On the other side the manufacturing industry that is mainly aligned with hard currency to import raw materials and parts for machines claimed that they are forced to undertake their operation with not more than 10 percent of their capacity.
It is also indicated that some of the international investors, who are mainly engaged on huge investments that local investors do not have the know-how or capital, also suffered from lack of hard currency to transfer their dividend out of the country.
Potential upcoming FDIs who are informed about the forex crunch are said to be rethinking their investment in the country.
A company called Square Pharmaceuticals Limited, the flagship company of Square Group, a Bangladeshi company has changed its mind to invest in Ethiopia after it got information that it would be difficult for it to transfer back its dividend within short period of time. The company then changed its first plan and went to Kenya.
The company which is a leader on the pharmaceutical industry in its country was first interested to invest in Ethiopia since the government of Bangladesh allowed the company to invest out of the country as a pilot project.
“Now our company, which is the biggest pharmaceutical industry in Bangladesh that has 267 pharmaceutical industries, has decided to invest in Kenya,” an official at the company said.
About two years ago a Bangladeshi DBL Group, a platinum supplier for H&M, a Swedish based global clothing retail giant, has got promotional support from its government to invest out of the country and is now engaged in integrated industrial complex with over USD 100 million investment in Meqele, Ethiopia.
The developing nation of Bangladesh does not allow local investments to go out of the country, while it has provided permit for the first time to DBL to invest outside the nation as a model. The company has secured significant finance from the state owned Development Bank of Ethiopia and Sewedfund, a parastatal organization in Sweden for its investment in Ethiopia.
Officials at Square told Capital that DBL has been allowed to invest outside Bangladesh “but our case is special since we got a green light to come up with equity from our country to invest outside our nation,” they said.
Square Pharmaceutical that has over 17 percent market share in its country has an experience of 60 years and annual sales of USD 417 million.
Ethiopia has become a favorite FDI destination since it facilitates several preferential advantages to absorb foreign investors. For instance the government is facilitating land with very low lease rate, low electric tariff and the cheap labour is also the another big advantage that FIDs are interested to invest in the country.
In the first half of the current budget year the country attracted USD 2.2 billion FDI according to the data from Ethiopia Investment Commission.
