Liberalism & Revolution

 I read how the MAGA crowd think we need a revolution. Revolution is a right when politics fails, and democracy does not fail when one's political views fail to convince the majority of their utility. Promoting revolution in those circumstances is the whining of spoiled children. They are not excluded from political life the way our own revolutionaries were. They are not being rounded up and put away in gulags or concentration camps or dropped out of helicopters over the ocean. These proposed revolutionaries want control over people's lives and nothing more. What they feel is oppression is what a toddler feels when a parent does not let them have their way.

Having said all that, The Liberal Patriot posted Reports of Liberalism’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated:

t’s become fashionable over the past few years to claim that liberalism has somehow failed as a political philosophy. For the most part, these assertions have come from the right – particularly self-proclaimed “national conservatives” who idolize Hungarian despot Viktor Orban and often champion Catholic theocracy as the ideal form of government. Other more mainstream voices on the right don’t go that far but still denounce the “decadent society” allegedly produced by liberalism. The left also has anti-liberal streaks of its own, including one faction that seeks to use institutional bureaucracy to enforce ideological conformity and another that finds common cause with the post-liberal right.

In the view of these strange bedfellows, liberalism represents a decrepit, impotent past while their ideologies – never mind their lack of specifics or internecine disagreements – are once again the wave of the future. And there’s no denying that illiberal political movements and parties continue to gain ground in the United States and other democracies around the world; election results in Sweden, Italy, and Brazil over the last few weeks testify to that. But the war in Ukraine and protests in Iran show that the appeal of liberalism – and the underlying human appetite for freedom – remains as strong as ever.

Let’s take a look at both cases.

Meanwhile, over at the Scottish Review is The time for a revolution? Which, although slanted towards the UK, shows more imagination than what our "revolutionaries" propose. This op/ed piece starts in 1942:

This was the year the Liberal, Sir William Beveridge, with wife Janet and his committee, produced a report pointing the way forward for society. Many of you will have heard about this at school, as did I – his aim to eradicate the five great evils of society: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. He called these 'giants on the road to post-war reconstruction'. In their introduction, they stated:

A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.

Then comes forward to today:

Let us look again at those historic evil giants in today's context. Want means an inability to afford the necessities for a decent life, again widespread through our society, especially among the young and pensioners. Disease in 1942 meant tuberculosis and the fatal childhood infections – now we think of antibiotic resistance, viral epidemics, and the degenerative diseases of an ageing population. Ignorance means failure of part of the population to acquire basic social, language and mathematical skills – now look at the declining achievements of Scottish school leavers. Squalor means homelessness and begging, poor housing. There are many more beggars on the streets of our cities than we ever saw in the 1950s. Idleness means unemployment or precarious employment. Now, many of our graduates and school leavers find themselves in this latter state, as others drift down to London for jobs. All of these relate to lack of sufficient income and opportunity; the key to this lies in the adjective, sufficient. What is sufficient?

The fact is that if you are poor you are condemned to struggle for everything. Poor housing and diet will make you more susceptible to illness for which you are likely to get less efficient healthcare despite the efforts of the NHS. Your schooling is more likely to be less effective and social pressures will increase your risks of accidents, drug and alcohol issues. Your attractiveness to employers will be low, and you may end up on the street.

I see beggars in the streets of Muncie, which does shock.  Where do Indiana's college graduates go if not out of state for careers with a living income? Nothing the MAGA Republicans propose attends to these problems. The only political problem concerning the MAGA Republicans is retaining their power at all costs.

I have no doubt that the situation in UK and Europe is as revolutionary a time as it was in 1942, and that this needs a revolution in both our governance and in our own behaviour. The only wise words I have heard from our four recent pathetic and ineffective Prime Ministers were Johnson's presumably insincere reference to the need for levelling up. This is at the heart of socialism. It requires a revolution among both politicians and public, essentially to move from selfishness to selflessness, from motivation by money to motivation by a desire for a fulfilled and healthy life for all. It requires, perhaps, a change to looking for growth not in gross domestic product, a measure of how much we spend and which has led to climate change, but in gross domestic contentment.

sch 10/6/22