Liberalism vs Neoliberalism

Liberalism is typically approached as ‘interests defined in terms of cooperation’. On a conceptual level, the term entails idealistic notions of peace, harmony, justice and freedom of individuals. Classical liberalism entails the protection of individual interests by the state. It also elaborates upon the system of government that would be most consistent with the maintenance of global peace and harmony. While it is not outright dismissive of the notion that total peace cannot exist, it does firmly elaborate upon the peaceful nature of human beings and uses the evolution of civilization to justify the stance that the human being can be cultured to become more peaceful over time. Neo-liberalism, on the other hand, is an evolution of classical liberalism in context of economy and wars. It posits that the interdependence of states in context of economy will lead to the decrease for the need of militarization, and elaborates upon the many benefits that such a model could entail. This paper seeks to elaborate upon the constituents of the liberal school of thought, its distinction into classical and modern forms and how those models compare and contrast with one another. To begin with, the nomenclature of the term ‘liberalism’ primarily points towards the concept of freedom. The word liberal entails liberty and equality before law. The ontology and epistemology of such a concept, therefore, elaborates upon the various ways in which equality, justice and freedom can be developed and provided room to flourish. “We take these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that amongst these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (American Declaration of Independence, 1776) Within the three frameworks of analysis, liberalism centralizes around the need for protection of human rights. The provision of human rights, according to this school of thought, would ensure that the need for violence and aggression would be minimized. The solution to the problems of violence, wars, genocide and political and ethnic disparities, therefore, would begin with the provision of human rights. An archaic example of a liberal effort at provision of human rights is that of the Magna Carta which was signed in 1215 with the intention to place all human beings as equals before the law. The English Common Law and Bill of Rights in 1689 was signed with similar intentions to impose a legal framework of the provision of basic human rights. Rousseau proposed the Social Contract to elaborate upon the responsibilities of a state towards its citizens. This became a core premise of the agendas of the liberalist school of thought. It included the most basic need for man to be free, and for human beings to come together as a society. It defines sovereignty as the existence of human beings together and at peace with one another -that the desire for common good should govern the communities. 1 John Locke further elaborated upon the concept of State of Nature, in which he pointed out that the state of sovereignty would be for individuals to have the liberty to do as they please. Of course, this would be inclusive of legal boundaries and the exercise of moral principles, but the basic premise is that of absolute liberty. 2 On the subject of human nature, liberalism contends against the realist insistence that man is inherently crude. It challenges Morgenthau’s analysis of the primacy of animus dominandi or the basal instincts of mankind which lead to the desire for power maximization. Liberalism instead insists that man is inherently peaceful by nature, and that wars are a mere distortion of the natural way of things. Immanuel Kant in particular stresses upon the peace of human nature, and how 1 “Social Contract Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” 2 “Social Contract Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” that can be cultured in order to enhance the assurance of avoidance of warfare, violence and other global inconveniences. Norman Angell for one contends that the malleability of human nature is a fact. Mankind can learn to evolve into a more peaceful global society. The use of physical force is gradually diminishing, and it can be hypothesized that this will progress into the latency of this potential. Human beings, according to Angell, could be conditioned into stopping the use of physical force, which would translate to abstention from wars and conflict on a national and international level.3 It isn’t just Norman Angell who hypothesizes that human nature can be cultured for it to become more peace oriented. Mueller explicates upon how violence is becoming more of an anachronism as moral learning is progressed. On a state level, liberalism points towards the liberal capitalist model of government. It propagates that no better institution of governance can possibly exist, and Francis Fukuyama explicates upon this analysis by citing the demise of the Soviet Union as an example of how the liberal capitalist model of governance is the unchallenged superior-most way that a government can possibly be exercised. He goes so far as to declare that it cannot evolve further. Another important facet of state-level liberalism is democracy. Doyle declares that liberal democracies are “uniquely willing to exchange the use of force together”. Neo-Kantian principles dictate that the liberal democratic form of governance exercised by certain states would serve as a model for the rest of the world.4 The democratic peace theory centralizes around how liberal democracies are less likely to go to war with one another. It projects these notions from the ideals that states that exercise free market economies and fulfill the rights of their citizens would have a lesser need of going to war with one another. 3 Angell, The Great Illusion a Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage. 4 Burchill et al., Theories of International Relations. And this is where liberalism expands into its international level, or third framework of analysis. States would not need to go to war with one another if they had stable economy and democratic provision of human rights. Because the reason that states go to war is in fact that it is in the monetary and political interests of a minority elite. Paine in “Rights of Man” elaborates upon how war is a useful tool for princes, soldiers, diplomats and statesmen to retain their power. Schumpeter adds that wars provide governments with excuses to raise taxes, expand the influence of bureaucracy and increase control of citizens over states.5 Liberalism seeks to dismantle all of these things. It advocates the freedom of individuals from arbitrary state power, and also seeks to minimize the influence of state in economic apparatus. It was actually the First World War that led to the development of the international mode of liberalism, or liberal internationalism as it is referred to. After the violent brutalities of the First World War, and the economic crisis that such large scale conflict entailed, states sought to develop a framework to prevent such warfare from ever recurring. The United States, of course, used this opportunity to establish its relevance in the international system. Woodrow Wilson proposed the Fourteen Points which laid the foundation for liberal internationalism. They commenced with the requirement of open diplomacy -- because secret alliances had so worsened the outcome of the First World War – and explicated upon the avoidance of war in the future. Because as far as the liberal school of thought is concerned, war is a mere tool to further the mercantilist accumulation of material wealth. It is the perversion of an innately peaceful human nature because it was disrupted, and if a framework for the prevention of such a disruption could be constructed, mankind would steadily evolve into increasingly cooperative societies. Norman Angell elaborated upon the irrelevance of power in the face of economic gains. And Alfred Zimmern in 1928 published his thesis that focused on the exercise of democracy in order 5 Burchill et al. to ensure peace. The normative nature of Zimmern’s ideas was expansive: not only did it dismiss the idea of absolute sovereignty, but also stressed upon the elimination of centralized power and a system of checks and balances. So the classical model of liberal internationalism explicated upon the theoretical need for prevention of conflict. It highlighted for the first time the imminence of the requirement of preventive measures for large-scale conflict and violence in general. It expanded upon notions of harmony, peace and global stability. The League of Nations was constructed in order to explicate upon the liberals’ insistence that man by nature is intended to exist as a social participant, and that the identification of the international system as a collective community would prevent violence and conflict. And liberal internationalism laid the foundations for the imminence of economic gains. But the progress and evolution of these insistences is what brought about neo-liberalism, or liberal institutionalism as it is called. Because while the classical model of liberalism as expanded into its international framework provided the theoretical requirement of international peace and stability, it failed in actually explicating upon a model to do so. The theoretical explanations of the ideas that war could be prevented with the implementation of free trade and democracy did not have a practical framework for implementation. And that is what brought about the Second World War. So in the face of massive economic crisis following the second great catastrophe, states began to realize the significance of economic interdependence as originally proposed by liberal theorists preceding the War. France and Germany commenced economic cooperation with a merger of coal and steel industry. And the spillover of this initiative led to the gradual integration of European States into the liberal maverick of economic cooperation that is known as the European Union. Neoliberalism or liberal institutionalism is also known as the theory of complex interdependence as it was called by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye. These theorists explained how states can commence cooperation over a convenient function (coal and steel in the example of Germany and France), which will gradual progress into complex interconnected layers of dependency. This interdependency need not be interstate or regional but can expand to a global level. The need of military development would be inversely proportional to economic connectivity in a world where conflict would not suit the monetary interests of states. Complex interdependence highlights the need for ‘absolute gains’ rather than relative gains. It entails that cooperation can be achieved without hegemonic influence. Furthermore, as states cultivate complex economic interdependence, the mercantilist need for accumulation of wealth is minimized. Rosecrance in 1986 pointed out that the need for territorial expansion would decrease as states would begin to define power in terms of trade rather than territory.6 The development of institutions to regulate such a practice of complex economic connectivity would ensure the survival of such a model. The term ‘institutions’ in this context refers to a legal framework of governance that would hold members and signatories responsible to its provisions. Grotius called this the law of nations or ius gentium. It pointed out the need for treaties and alliances as natural principles to bind states together. This is what laid the foundation for international law. The International Court of Justice and International Labor Organization exist as a consequence of the propositions of liberal institutionalism. The United Nations, too, is theoretically a liberal institutonalist organization that is intended to ensure a system of checks and balances towards global peace, harmony and security. 6 Burchill et al. Furthermore, in contemporary context, the increasing relevance of globalization strengthens the independence of trade from state influence. This indicates a shift away from Keynesianism, which centers around state influence on economic practices. Complex interdependence basically lays the foundation for international pluralism – the involvement of transnational organizations to link national interest groups in transnational structures. And in doing so, it seeks to cultivate the harmony, hierarchy consensus that is proposed by Confucianism. So on the whole, how does liberal institutionalism compare and contrast to its predecessor? As is aforementioned, it is an evolution of liberal internationalism and is the practical framework of the theoretical propositions for global peace and stability that liberal internationalism originally put forth. Its core similarities include that liberal institutionalism seeks to concentrate on the role of economic connectivity to minimize military confrontations. It attempts to implement a tangible implementation of liberalism in an organized manner and strongly believes in the idea of sovereignty defined in terms of society as proposed by Lockes. And it is in fact a continuation of Angell’s thesis of the irrelevance of military and political power against economic development. And in certain ways, it is safe to assume that neo-liberalism advocated democratic government as proposed by classical liberalism: military rule typically thrives on autarky or self sufficient nationalism which goes against free trade that is more exercisable in democracies. But complex interdependence also contrasts against classical liberalism in that it undermines the idea of absolute freedom. Liberal institutionalism seeks to organize and regulate the progressive economic interdependency of states, but in doing so imposes a system of checks and balances which goes against the propositions of Alfred Zimmern. Furthermore, liberal institutionalism counteracts the classical liberals’ dismissal of the relevance of power. This is because neoliberalism defines power in terms of trade. Of course, these are minor distortions to a theory that in essence is the same as its evolved form. On the whole, the most significant similarity between liberal internationalism and liberal institutionalism is that both are tools to further the realist pursuit of power by the United States. Liberal internationalism is frequently used as a justification of humanitarian intervention. This is exemplified in the cases of Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda, Somalia and Serbia. It was used to justify the US role in Iraq war and is basically a construct that aids the hegemonic relevance of the United States. Liberal institutionalism is no different. The institutionalization of nuclear non-proliferation did nothing to minimize the inherent threat posed by nuclear weapons. Instead, the non-proliferation treaty ensures that the military might of the United States is not counterbalanced by other states. So in conclusion, the theoretical conceptions of liberalism have evolved over time into more practically implementable models but are utilized as tools to exercise realist power, and in this way they are the same. References Angell, Norman. The Great Illusion a Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage. London: The Knickerbocker Press, 1910. Burchill, Scott, Andrew Linklater, Richard Devetak, Mathew Paterson, Richard Reus-Smit, and Jacqui True. Theories of International Relations. Third. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. “Social Contract Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” Accessed May 28, 2019. https://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/#SH2c.