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    Adam Chmielewski – A global challenge to egalitarianism

    adam chmielewskiTo the question concerning the prospects for the marriage between liberalism and social democracy my response is twofold. In the first part of the essay I argue that, yes, from the point of view of present problems in Western countries, the prospects for such marriage are bright indeed. In the second part, I reconsider this opinion by reference to global problems. Sadly, however, it seems that in the face of global problems the genuine attempt to universalise the imperatives of liberty and equality must fail. As a consequence, the marriage between liberalism and social democracy, instead of being an exemplar of a decent and generous marital couple, becomes a morally questionable, gangster-like collusion against the excluded and the poor in Developing Countries.


    The marriage


    Of my several meetings with Adam Michnik, which were invariably stimulating occasions, a private dinner with him was particularly memorable. In the proceedings Michnik was toasted by a Polish businessman as the greatest Polish capitalist. The toast was justified by reference to the (genuine) fact that Michnik had significantly contributed to the overthrow of the “really existing socialism” in Poland, as well as by the (rather problematic) assertion that Michnik had been the head of the first, largest and genuinely Polish corporation. What the businessman had in mind was the corporation that publishes Michnik’s Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading newspaper in Poland since 1989.


    In spite of the understandable embarrassment caused at the table by this inaccurate compliment, Michnik did not lose his wit (he never does) and promptly responded: “Well, you know, to tell you the truth, I am actually a socialist who cannot forgive the socialism that it does not work”.


    This quip, expressed in a typical Michnikian manner, contains an interesting truth. It can be interpreted as a belief that the all-embracing Marxist social project had opened an attractive comprehensive egalitarian prospect the implementation of which was frustrated by the grave mistakes of the doctrine from which it was inspired. As a result, the purportedly universal emancipatory project led to deeply mistaken guidelines for social or economic practice and to an unprecedented oppression, thus belying its professed liberating intentions. In the end, it irrevocably vanquished any hope for a non-liberal road to emancipation.


    We may grant the obvious: reasons for the disaster brought about by the “really existing socialism” had to do with its irremediable errors in understanding human nature and society. One error was the overoptimistic belief that it is possible for human beings, if not to eradicate, then at least to control human possessiveness and rivalry. Another mistake, which is connected to the previous one, was the failure to understand that efficient organization of productive efforts capable of effective satisfaction of human needs requires less the renunciation of possessive and agonistic human instincts and more the skilful harnessing of these instincts for the advancement of societal aims.


    A decade after the collapse of “really existing socialism” Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder unanimously ushered the Third Way programme. As someone remarked, the Third Way consisted of a new set of values and aims which were to supersede the now antiquated slogans of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The latter were to be replaced by Community, Opportunity, Responsibility, Accountability, or CORA. It boils down to a conviction that if any social democratic agenda were to be implemented, it would have to be parasitic on liberal understanding and arrangement of societies. Blair and Schröder also concluded that not only there was no other way for the New Left but that this way was also promising and full of potential.


    Such design for the New Left, however, in the opinion of many, promised a political practice which was perilously alike to her older sinister sister TINA; the ideas of which were also proffered in a similar manner: there indeed seemed no other way. This had made the Third Way barely distinguishable from liberalism proper. It is probably for this reason that, so far at least, it failed to excite a support that would match the persuasiveness of liberalism itself.


    However, the problems of the untamed liberalism have yet to meet their solutions. If anything, these problems have multiplied: xenophobia, racism, nationalism, injustice and social inequality of men and women, violation of human rights, political exclusion not only were they not eradicated by the market, but are instead permanently reproduced by its “imperfections”. At least some of them are challenges that both liberalism and the Left, if the latter manages to restore a fraction of its past zest, must face. Since most of these phenomena are recognized as problems to be solved by both social democracy and liberalism, it is natural to think of the two as partners rather than enemies. Partial concurrence of their respective political agendas suggests that the New Left cannot ignore liberalism and its emancipatory potential in the economic, social, political, and moral spheres.


    A historical argument may be added to strengthen the point. After all, concepts of social equality, rights of women to self-determination, the state’s neutrality, separation of Church and State were first formulated and implemented in political practice by liberalism. The problem, however, is that only narrow groups of upper social strata benefitted from their implementation. Working classes were hardly amongst the beneficiaries of liberal reforms.


    So it is not surprising that both early and mature socialist emancipatory doctrines were formulated after some initial political and economic successes of liberalism, and were in fact aimed against what liberals viewed as their success. For the liberal success was the liberals’ only, and they evidently did not want to share it with anyone. It is precisely for this reason that the utopian socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, derided by Karl Marx, attacked the most sacred of liberal values, private ownership, saying that “property is theft.” Socialist and communist movements were the unwanted children of liberalism which, in an exclusionary manner, delimited the scope of its potentially universal emancipatory ideas. Traditional Left strove for emancipation in all areas which were neglected by liberals who, due to their initial success, became dogmatic, ossified and exclusionary, and transformed the universality of their freedoms into an exclusivist particularity. The leftist thought took over the emancipatory potential disregarded by liberalism, and radicalized it by restoring it to its original universality.


    But these animosities are now the things of the past. Since radicalism of the old Left has been moderated by the collapse of its impatient ambitions, we are back to square one: the Left has to reconcile itself with liberalism as a historical inevitability.


    Another argument in favour of the marriage of liberalism and social democracy has to do with traditional foci of both doctrines. Most versions of liberalism focus on economy; for Karl Marx, similarly, human emancipation was achievable by focusing on the economic sphere. In this sense Marxist social philosophy closely resembles the liberal one: Marxism was, just like liberalism, an emancipatory doctrine, and had a similar structure; the difference being that is was far more ambitious, because egalitarian.


    Accordingly, radicalism of the leftist thought consisted in the postulated extension of the scope of freedoms and of the access to goods by social groups which were excluded by liberals. This implied egalitarian demands of redistribution which were regarded by the establishment of that time, just like today, as an irresponsible populist radicalism. Maximization and extrapolation of emancipatory aspirations, postulated by the Left, was proportional to the degree of complacency by liberals who, after their initial successes, fell into the said complacency and arrogance which made themselves felt across the world, especially after 1989.


    This was the case, for example, in Central-Eastern Europe where, after the first successes of a local variety of liberalism, which was – and continues to be – a particularly virulent version of neo-liberalism, the region has been repeatedly shaken by tremors of social discontent and populist extremities. Interestingly, the tremors have been misread by both egalitarian populists and neoliberal market-populists: as a rule, the egalitarian populists propose to qualm the tremors by ripping of the rich; in response, the neoliberal market-populists patiently explain that everyone has a chance of becoming rich too, as long as the market is allowed to reign completely free and unobstructed by any sort of regulation.


    The opponents of egalitarian populists in those countries, however, do not call for a return of the “really existing socialism” of the past. At the same time, they do not want to be exposed to the “benefits” of the untamed market mechanisms. In other words, they do not hate the rich, but rather want to be rich themselves, and be assisted by the state in case they fail in their attempt to do so. This certainly opens a space for the marriage of the Scandinavian-like socialism which does not seem to be in conflict with liberalism


    Thus, answering the question of the prospects of marriage of social democracy with liberalism, I would reply by paraphrasing the above anecdote: a supporter of contemporary Left is a liberal who cannot forgive liberalism because it does not work. In other words: a man of the contemporary Left is a liberal who is much more liberal than liberals themselves.


    It would follow from this that the new Left should take over fundamental liberal ideas, including economic liberalism, from liberals themselves, hostilely if necessary, in order to put them at the service of democratic and egalitarian values. Modern Left, having gotten rid of old-fashioned class character, should replace limitedness and exclusiveness of liberal ideas and restore them to their original universality.


    Perhaps in doing so, the Left should follow in the direction pointed out by Sir William Beveridge, once a leader of the now defunct Liberal Party in the UK, who famously demanded that

    “liberty means more than freedom from the arbitrary power of Government. It means freedom from economic servitude to Want and Squalor and other social evils; it means freedom from arbitrary power in any form. A starving man is not free, because till he is fed, he cannot have a thought for anything but how to meet his urgent physical needs: he is reduced from a man to animal. A man who dare not resent what he feels to be injustice from an employer or a foreman, lest this condemn him to chronic unemployment, is not free”.


    The new social democracy, as the old one, has to continue the struggle for the aims which follow from an expanded understanding of liberal freedom. These aims, therefore, define the present tasks of social democracy, as they defined them in the past, and are not at all in conflict with liberal aims.


    The collusion


    We are far from home, alas, and not at all dry yet. For many philosophers and rock stars have been recently shaking our Western conscience by reciting disturbing facts: a child born in Sweden has a life expectancy of 80 years, the one born in Sierra Leone – less than 39. Per capita annual income in America is about $34,140, in Sierra Leone – $490. Toward the end of the past millennium 1,2 billion people lived below the World Bank’s poverty line set at $2 per day. In 2007 alone, no different in this regard from preceding years, ten million of children died due to malnutrition, lack of water and medication. The gap between the rich North and the poor South is widening as rapidly as globalisation develops.


    The globalised world is ridden by inequalities that should be morally upsetting to any compassionate person. Globalisation demands that the Western world faces that problem. Leaving such facts unnoticed is an infamy and it should be seen as such especially by its better, social democratic part; for no one would be more expected to help erase this infamy than Western social democracy.


    Traditionally, the Left has always been internationalist, at least in theory. Workers of all countries were supposed to unite. Socialism in one country was thought to be, by some at least, an impossible idea. Globalization has blurred the national borders and, along with them, the difference between domestic and foreign policies, thus achieving the purpose the old Left was unable to implement.


    So, it would seem that in view of the fact that our globalisation is in full rage, the time has come to globalise our egalitarian ethics as well. It would seem that, while trying to pull itself together in the countries of Northern hemisphere after the onslaught from the victorious international liberalism, social democracy can no longer ignore the challenge posed before it by globalisation; it has to globalise its own ideological perspective too. For, to repeat, the very meaning of social democratic egalitarianism implies universalism: non-universal egalitarianism makes as much sense as wooden steel. In other words, the time has come for the new Left to deliver on its past internationalism. This is even more the case if the new social democracy wishes to offer an equally comprehensive agenda as the one proffered by those liberals (nationalist liberals excluded) who justify, advocate and spearhead globalisation.


    What could be a social democratic response to this? Is it possible for social democracy to be internationalist as well? It is here precisely that its egalitarianism, universalism and internationalism stumble upon a serious obstacle.


    Peter Singer argued poignantly     that our daily obliviousness to the misery of people in Developing Countries resembles our moral indifference to the predicament of a child sinking in a pond in the neighbourhood were we to chose to continue to rush to our well paid job instead of saving it.


    So, what is to be done? The answer is obvious: money is in the pockets of rich people. Singer demonstrated that if only ten percent of the people with the highest incomes in the US alone were taxed in a proportion calculated by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, an annual collection would total to $404 billion. According to the guidelines set by the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2000, this would be more than twice than is necessary to change noticeably the conditions of living of the poor in the world. The Goals were formulated by a group of people led by Jeffrey Sachs, a former neoliberal who once supervised, for the Americans, the neoliberal reforms executed on the Polish citizens by Leszek Balcerowicz, and now works to erase famine and poverty in the world at large.


    A redistribution from the most well off to the least well off would be certain to favourably excite all social democrats across the board, had it not been for the fact that money raised in this way are to be shared not with their own kin within one state, but with distant and unknown humans inhabiting the states whose proper names most of the people in the West, social democrats included, never bothered to even learn.


    Here we come to the point where the liberal and social democratic paths seem to part. For most liberals, more economic growth would rise all boats. Whereas ethical and political imperatives of contemporary egalitarian universalists demand that all those boats which managed to mount the highest tides of growth should be, to a varying degree, sunk. The problem for Western social democrats is that most of the boats enjoying the high tide are swimming the Western seas, and they often do so in virtue of a ruthless exploitation of the peoples of the Developing World, 50 million children included.


    This is the challenge for the egalitarian moral imperatives seems insuperable for any social democratic movement in the West. This is because it is difficult envisage – by any stretch of imagination – a social democratic leader who would have the guts to say to his underprivileged electorate in any of the unquestionably rich Western countries: “We do not want more money for our co-nationals. We want to share at least part of our income in order to provide for a more decent and secure life for those who have been exploited ruthlessly for centuries and driven into bleak poverty by our native business led by our compatriots”.


    Who, save daydreaming philosophers, would be prepared to say, and do, such a thing?


    Furthermore, as a rule, social democrats view favourably ecological agendas advocated by green movements. Here they usually clash head-on with liberals who see the demands of the green movements as an impediment to economic growth. Having found, however, that political popularity of the green agenda cannot be ignored, neo-liberals advocate the transfer of pollution from Developed to Developing Countries.


    Do social democrats object to such transfers? I must have read my newspapers inattentively for I have not noticed that they do. What is certainly worrying for both liberals and social democrats is not so much the fact that we are dumping our pollution on poor countries, but more the fact that people in the latter insistently, and increasingly successfully, claim their right to activities such as their personal mobility, which has become an all too obvious comfort in the West several decades ago. Thus, the Chinese are now enjoying their Volkswagens to the extent that would stun the originator of the concept of the “people’s car”; Hindus will soon enjoy their Nanos – a quarter of a million annually. Despite their deep attachment to the ideology of human rights, social democrats and liberals are not excited by the fact that thanks to Tata Industries more people in the world will soon enjoy, or are already enjoying, what should be a right of everyone.


    Instead, we see here an interesting division of labour: more social-democratically minded people are voicing their concerns about the resulting pollution which will endanger the whole globe even more than is already endangered, whereas liberals are concerned about the consequences which global motorisation will have on the price of oil. Thus, despite theoretical disagreements, both liberals and social democrats work hand in hand in trying to deny the poor people in the world what they want, even if they want it superficially and for the wrong reasons.


    But this is not all: people in Developing Countries may want not only clean water, proper sewage, food, medicine, and the right to move in their Nanos – which look ridiculous and cost less than the stereos in mid-priced SUVs – but also, for example, asphalt roads for their funny carts, proper housing for each family, electricity in each house, and maybe even street lighting. It does not seem that any one in the West is prepared to seriously contemplate the economic and ecological consequences of a truly universal egalitarianism.


    It is here that the purportedly universalist liberalism hypocritically transforms itself into a nationalist liberalism, which curiously coincides with an equally hypocritical transformation of the no less universalist social democratic agenda into a particularist one. When it comes to global problems, despite the universalist ideological air exuded by both movements, they both tacitly conclude that modern liberalism may be harnessed to work for social purposes in some selected countries only: in the countries in which they happen to operate.


    Somewhat surprisingly the confrontation of liberalism and social democracy with global issues also demonstrates that the compromise between them is achieved relatively easy. The problem is that the compromise is morally disgusting.


    But no need to worry too much; there is a remedy for that too. If we are truly disgusted with ourselves for ignoring moral imperatives of helping the needy, we may always let the pangs of our Western conscience, liberal and social democratic alike, quieten by alms sporadically given to the poor who stitch our Adidas shoes and assemble our laptops for 17 cents an hour.


    And even if we sometimes forget to send our cheques, we may eventually console our conscience interpassively by remembering that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have given away staggering parts of their fortunes to global charity. By doing our charity for us, and instead of us, they take off from our shoulders the burden of doing charity ourselves.


    And they leave us free to fight for the betterment of our own lives.


    Special issue: social democracy
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