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[ note: here "liberalism" (capitalized) refers to an approach to just governance based on equality and liberty. within that broader, philosophical ideology there are narrower, political ideologies ranging from libertarianism, to conservatism, to liberalism (lower case), to democratic socialism. mutual respect beats all of them, separately or together. ]




we humans are by nature social beings. we live together in organized groups. (let's call our groups, regardless of size, from hamlets to nation-states, "communities.")




ants and bees are social insects. they, too, live in organized groups.




ants and bees do not have the capacity to decide what the organization of their groups will be. we do.




in fact, we humans have no choice but to decide how a community will be organized, which largely determines how it will function. so, governance is an unavoidable issue for us.




not to be a spoiler, but the case for using mutual respect for governing governance ends with maximum practical liberty, reinforced political democracy, and a market-based economy. for the citizens of communities with those forms of social organization already in place, the only noticeable changes in their lives would be the elimination of unemployment, poverty, taxation, and public debt<u+2014>well, those things plus passively helping with environmental sustainability.




[curious readers uninterested in slogging through a philosophical tract can go directly to www.ajustsolution.com (page: real justice /economics).]




two ubiquitous processes of human communities




every human community will always have an economy and a political process. the economy is the process of producing and exchanging goods and services. the political process is the process of effecting choices for the community as a whole. [by "effecting choices" i mean choosing among perceived alternatives and taking action to bring that choice to fruition.]




choosing how the community's economy will be organized is one of the tasks for the political process. (to go with economic laissez faire is to effect a choice.) choosing how the community's political process will be organized is itself a choice to be effected for the community as a whole.




organizing principle




the structure and overall functioning of the political process is determined by an organizing principle. that principle can be implicit or explicit, secular or religious, consciously derived or a matter of happenstance. for every human community, though, there is always an organizing principle at work.




history teaches us that there is a 'default value' for the organizing principle of communities. that is to say, there is one organizing principle that will be used if no other one is chosen in its stead. in the absence of any other, the organizing principle of human communities will be 'rule by the most ruthless'.




understandably, people have sought other organizing principles. the modern era is defined, socially, by the attempt to use some secular conception of justice as an organizing principle for society. in doing that ideology was invented.




[karl marx, whose work has been hugely influential in this era, denied that a principle of justice was at work in his "scientific" account of the 'inevitable' development of human society ("dialectical materialism"), but his work definitely had a moral content. otherwise, there can be nothing wrong with "exploitation," even to the point of slavery. to apply any conception of morality to governance can be said to be an attempt at justice.]




enter locke... john locke




the most influential account of justice in the modern era is that of john locke. in two treatises of government , published in 1689 in england, he made equality and liberty the basis of justice. every western philosopher since him has been required to endorse or refute equality and liberty.




equality was the topic of the first of locke's treatises. though the thrust of his philosophy was to make governance more secular and less dependent on religion (ideological as opposed to theological), for him equality came from the bible. in that treatise of his a fundamental moral equality among men is an underlying condition that must be upheld for there to be justice in the governance of a community.




[a claim of moral equality can be purely secular, but in the england of locke's time that was no more likely than claiming equality for women was. also, in that time and place, as among so many others, the topic of governance left women out or treated them as property.]




in locke's second treatise he made a case for liberty as the predicate of justice. he used two accounts of liberty to make that case.




first, locke asserted that liberty is a 'natural right'. he did not invent the idea of natural rights. like so many ideas in western culture, it can be traced back to the ancient greeks. it was also discussed by scholars of the medieval catholic church<u+2014>as grants of a kind ordained by god within the 'natural law', i.e. the law 'written on the hearts of men' by the lord.




the idea of 'rights' was already deeply ingrained in the people populating the british iles in locke's time. natural rights is one formulation of the idea that there are certain rights to which all people are entitled merely by virtue of being human (dropping the genderism). locke said that the natural rights are life, liberty, and property. for people who believe in natural rights<u+2014>or any other form of a priori rights<u+2014>for any of those rights to be arbitrarily violated is on the face of it an injustice.




in locke's other account of liberty as the predicate of justice he started by defining injustice as being "subject to the arbitrary will" of another person. thus, freedom from the arbitrary will of any other person is justice. to be free of the arbitrary will of any other person is obviously at the same time to enjoy liberty. locke therefore concluded with perfect logic that justice is liberty.




the problem locke left us




there are all kinds of problems with liberty as the predicate of justice. on the face of it, can people running around doing whatever they want really be relied upon to result in just outcomes?




if justice is liberty, the answer has to be that whatever results from people doing whatever they want is just. outcomes are beside the point. to see what that would look like, as my good friend who is a doctor is fond of saying, watch any episode of the t.v. show deadwood . for my money, that show portrays a rather benign version of a community with unconstrained liberty as its organizing principle.




for locke, the natural rights of life and property trump liberty of that kind. everyone's liberty is constrained by those rights. yet, liberty itself is also a right. bertrand russell said that locke was a "successful" philosopher because every time he saw a contradiction looming he simply changed the subject.




when constraints are put on liberty to achieve justice, then those constraints become the real determiners of justice. in that case, outcomes do enter into the evaluation of justice. liberty becomes one possible "social good" (from john rawls) among others.




setting aside more philosophical complaints and the chances for violent mayhem ending in rule by the most ruthless, focusing on rights, especially rights, begets a self-centered approach to life. it's all about ' my right' to do this, have that, etc.




rights are the basis of governance in the u.s. i blame that approach to governance for the incivility and the loathing to take other people into account that in my observation pervade this nation these days.




turning to mutual respect




don't get me wrong. i love liberty. i very much doubt anyone could love it more than i do.




there is a better way, however, to achieve liberty. that way is mutual respect. as a practical matter, mutual respect would maximize the liberty that co-existing people can enjoy simultaneously. "practical" liberty is (as opposed to some idealized, hypothetical concept) 'real liberty', the liberty we experience in our day-to-day lives.




at bottom, "respect" in this context simply means taking other people into account. as an ethic it can operate on the personal level, in business, for the structure and overall functioning of the economy, and for the political process itself.




[readers should note that having the economy be passively governed by mutual respect would relieve it of being actively governed, as it is at present, by government and a quasi-governmental central bank.]




mutual respect has a history in western philosophy, too. it is present in the moral philosophies of both immanuel kant and g.w.f. hegel (ranked one and two, in one order or the other, on most people's lists of 'greatest modern philosophers'). it is also present in utilitarianism.




for that matter, any philosophy that includes, explicitly or implicitly, a belief in human equality includes a presumption of mutual respect. adopting mutual respect for governing governance does not depend on that or any other belief, but a belief in equality does bring a requirement of mutual respect with it.




back to locke for mutual respect




the mutual respect implicit in a belief in equality is manifested in locke's thought as equal respect for people's natural rights. when locke used a dialectical argument to make liberty the predicate of justice he was standing right in front of mutual respect, but was facing the wrong way, as it were.




recall that he defined injustice as being subject to the arbitrary of any other person. the opposite of being in that condition is justice. since the opposite of being subject to the arbitrary will of anyone else is at the same time being at liberty, locke surmised that justice is liberty.




on the other hand, there is a conclusion to be reached from locke's starting point that is every bit as logical as the one locke made. philosophically, this conclusion beats his because it is more immediate, it raises no contradictions, and it does not result in a predicate of justice that itself must be constrained to prevent rule by the most ruthless. practically, unlike equality per se and unconstrained liberty, taking this route to justice can efficaciously achieve just governance of both the economy and the political process while maximizing liberty.




[the most focused readers will have noticed that locke's definition of injustice must itself be substantiated, but we can leave that for another day. besides, i've never seen it disputed except, indirectly, by frederick nietzsche and ayn rand in their hyper-romantic mode.]




here it is: if injustice is being subject to the arbitrary will of any other person, then justice requires that everyone refrain from subjecting any other person to one's own arbitrary will.




when people are doing that, justice is the result. no constraints on such behavior are needed.




to refrain from arbitrarily subjecting other people to one's will is to take other people into account. to take other people into account is to respect them. so, most simply the predicate of justice is mutual respect.




closing




as i said at the beginning of this little essay, using mutual respect to govern governance would maximize practical liberty, reinforce political democracy, and retain the definitive institutions of the market-based economy. applying it to the economy would allow us to eliminate unemployment, poverty, taxes, and public debt while passively enhancing our chances for environmental sustainability. it would also provide a universal ethic to govern personal interactions and the conduct of business.




how all of that follows from recognizing mutual respect as the predicate of justice is not all that difficult or complicated, but it is more than can be addressed in one essay. much, much more is available for consideration at www.ajustsolution.com .
why mutual respect beats liberalism - american herald tribune
stephen yearwood