Category: liberalism

Ingredients of a Good Society

Leave a comment

November 30, 2025

By Stephen Stofka

Seated around the table this Thanksgiving week were several generations, Boomers, GenX, Millennials and Zoomers. Here is a list of generational cohorts and the span of their birth years (Source). Some Boomers reminisced about rock groups and concerts they had been to in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The names might have been vaguely familiar to the late Millennials and Zoomers. The younger folks talked about video games and music groups that were barely familiar to the old timers there. One younger person had repetitive motion syndrome, like an arthritis in their thumb from overuse of a game controller. The Boomers at the table had the arthritis of old age, unable to bend a thumb into a 90 degree angle.

The multi-generational gathering prompted me to look at the world through the lens of age, from the young to the old. As we grow up, we borrow money for a car, a vacation, higher education or a house. The source of those funds is the savings of older workers and retired people. As we reach middle age, we become keenly aware of our future financial security. Our social contract is an intergenerational compact, a churning of money between the generations. Money helps support our sense of security and I thought security would be a good second avenue of exploration.

We don’t get to choose our birth parents, our country or time of birth. All of us are fragile at birth, but some of us are born into fragile circumstances. Our country may be at war or suffering  political instability. Our community or home may be violent. Perhaps our parents are poor or homeless. One or both parents may have a mental illness or a drug addiction. We grow up in an environment of fear and anger, then absorb that into our personality, our soul. Or we may be born into a stable home and community where fear and anxiety is not the background music to our daily lives.

Professional athletes test the boundaries of their sense of security. They develop strength, stamina and skills by extending their comfort zone. By repeatedly taking chances, they learn to use their fear as a preparation for competition. When a top athlete starts fighting the fear instead of using it, they can’t compete at the highest levels. They are competing with their own fear instead of another athlete.

In his book Leviathan, the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) wrote that the instinct for survival was an essential characteristic of human temperament. Government was an artificial creature created by society as a means of security in an “every man for himself” world. For that security, we traded away some of our individual freedom, reaching a delicate compromise between security and freedom. In ancient Mesopotamian lore, the Leviathan was a sea serpent that attacked sailing ships (Source). I like to think that Hobbes chose that mythical creature to symbolize the danger inherent in a sovereign government. It is not a benign force in our lives, but the lesser evil.

This is in stark contrast to another 17th century philosopher John Locke (1632 – 1704), who saw government as the instantiation of a social contract. Government was a protector, a guarantor of natural rights. These two different perspectives of government shape the policy choices we favor. Libertarians think government should be a peacekeeper, a security broker between all the elements in society. It should be a keeper of the commons, the public institutions that connect us and guard both our internal and external security. It should facilitate the economic exchange between local regions, between people and companies as we provide for our daily needs. It should protect and enforce the sanctity of contract that supports that economic exchange.

Liberals favor a far more expansive role for government as the embodiment of the social contract. Even the word security has a broad meaning that encompasses far more than physical protection from harm. On his annual State of the Union speech on January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt articulated four freedoms, one of which was a freedom from want. As Roosevelt saw it, government had a responsibility to provide some economic and health security to its citizens. These two visions of the boundaries of a government’s responsibility underlie much of the Congressional combat we read about each day.

Hobbes was alive in 1648 when the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and established state sovereignty within the Holy Roman Empire. To maintain its sovereignty, or self-governance within its territory, a state must manage the flow of people and goods across the borders of it territory. We do not choose our country of birth but we can choose to flee that country if political and economic circumstances threaten the security of ourselves or our family. Do immigrants have a natural right to live in a safe and flourishing environment wherever they choose? Immigrants can challenge a country’s management of its borders and in doing so, challenge its sovereignty and security.

A state cannot live by the same principles as people. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1785) wrote that people were autonomous individuals with an intrinsic worth and in pursuit of their own purposes. Even though we interact with people in limited roles during the course of our daily exchange, we should respect their autonomy and dignity and not regard people merely as tools. In international relations, a liberal perspective wants states to abide by that Kantian principle.

States are not people, living in a society where a government provides some security. States live in the dog eat dog world that Hobbes imagined, a state of anarchy where each state must be on guard against threats from other states. That is the realist perspective in international relations. To protect their autonomy, sovereignty and capacity, they must occasionally act in a ruthless manner. During war, states draft men in their late teens and twenties, taking disproportionately from some families and not others. Is that fair? The key to survival is surviving, not fairness.

If their parents cannot bring them enough food, then eagle chicks will kill their siblings to increase their share of food. Is that fair? No. Is it moral? No. Without morality, there can be no dignity. Kant simply posited an inherent dignity to each individual, a fait accompli. Even though they lived at different times, I imagine that Hobbes would have been dubious of such a claim. Dignity is not inherent but ensured by a government that makes and enforces rules. I imagine that Locke would have countered Hobbes by arguing that governing by cooperation works better than intimidation. That requires a consensus among the individuals of society who recognize the benefits of the tradeoff between security and freedom. The debate is a constant tug of war between different visions and principles.

Young states are vulnerable to threats from more established states. Their political, military and bureaucratic systems are not fully developed and tested. The newborn United States was mindful of the threats posed by older European powers like England, France and Spain as well as the native Indians. In a major revision to the 1776 Articles of Confederation that bound the 13 colonies into a United States, the Constitution, drafted in 1787, gave the office of the President a lot of power to counter those threats. Many Presidents, including President Trump, have tested the boundaries of that power. Rarely have the other two branches of government offered so little resistance. All of the generations sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table were worried about that.

Compromise is at the heart of the Chinese notion of the interaction between yin and yang. Freedom and security are like that, ever searching for a balance. Too much of one results in too little of the other. Each lifetime contains about four generations with different priorities. They must reach a political compromise but can never reach a satisfactory compromise that satisfies those different priorities. I hope everyone had a good holiday and I will see you next week.

/////////////////////

Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash

The Battle of the Big Robots

Leave a comment

March 2, 2025

by Stephen Stofka

In this week’s conversation Abel and Cain discuss current events and two theories of international relations – realism and liberalism.

Abel looked out the window of the restaurant onto the busy street. He fidgeted on the bench seat in the booth opposite Cain.

Cain sensed his discomfort. “Is it too bright for you?”

Abel shook his head and shifted closer to the window. “No, there’s a bit of a lump in the bench seat cushion.” He gave a quick laugh. “A Trump lump. Trump’s transactional style is forcing European countries to shift their diplomatic positions.”

Cain took a sip from his coffee cup. “It’s about time that they shouldered some of the burden for their own defense. After World War II, America wanted a larger security role to avoid a large-scale military build up that led to the first two world wars. But that was 75 to 80 years ago. Trump is renegotiating those post-war agreements.”

Abel slipped a cube of ice into his coffee. “I never thought I would see the day when the US voted with Russia and North Korea and against most other countries in the U.N. Trump is building an autocracy the same way that Putin did in the early years of his reign.”

Cain shrugged. “The U.S. often stands alone in support of Israel in the U.N. This vote is not a slippery slope to autocracy. It’s a pragmatic vote. Trump does not want to aggravate Russia ahead of negotiations over a peace in Ukraine.”

Abel said. “There are too many principles being sacrificed to pragmatism if you ask me. The U.S. stands with Israel to recognize its democracy, its sovereignty and its right to exist. Russia and North Korea represent what George Bush once called an “axis of evil.” You say that Trump is placating the devil to better his bargaining position.”

Cain motioned for more coffee. “International relations is a system built on anarchy. Each country claims to be the final authority. It’s a high stakes poker game and sometimes countries have to bargain with their enemies.”

Abel thought for a moment. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, you’re saying. That’s the realist approach to international relations. That analysis sees national states as big robots on the world stage. They are the primary actors, motivated by concerns about their own security, sovereignty, and interests. John Mearsheimer is the most widely read proponent of that type of analysis.”

Cain interrupted, “Yeah, that’s his name. In the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were worries that terrorist groups might get a hold of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons. Ukraine transferred more than 2000 nuclear weapons to Russia and the U.S. helped dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear facilities (Source). It was Mearsheimer who said that Ukraine, being next door to Russia, should not give up its nuclear weapons. He got a lot of guff for that. Ukraine would be in a more advantageous bargaining position if they had kept their nuclear weapons.”

Abel nodded. “Maybe Mearsheimer’s perspective is the better analysis, but that perspective assumes that we are little more than lions and hyenas fighting over a kill on the African plains. Two world wars and a 45-year cold war have taught us that our ability to fight has become too destructive. We won’t survive as a species unless we cooperate. The nations of the world must build common ground based on social relationships, shared values and democratic institutions. Trump is upending that entire project.”

Cain shook his head. “You’re talking about liberalism, the theory that states are defined by geographical borders but operate within the constraints of their civilian institutions, you know, like shared norms, the right of the people to choose their own government.”

Abel nodded. “Yeah, and human rights. The importance of NGOs, non-governmental organizations like CARE, Feed the Children and Doctors Without Borders (Source).”

Cain interrupted, “It’s an aspirational theory but we are left with ugly truths about human nature, state actors and power. As Russia and China have gained in economic and political strength, they have reasserted their desire to increase their sphere of influence. Putin wants to rebuild the former Soviet Union. China wants control of Taiwan. They are building bases in the South China sea, creating conflict with the Philippines and Vietnam.”

Abel smiled. “So, this lump in my seat cushion is not Trump, it’s a cancer of the human spirit, huh? Geez, I hope we’re better than that or we’re doomed. Should we not try to build a world based on cooperation and compassion?”

Cain shrugged as he took a sip of coffee. “We can try but the ugly reality is that resources are not distributed evenly around the world. Russia has little access to open water during the winter. To Putin, the Crimea Peninsula in the Black Sea is vital to Russia’s security (Source). Russia, China, and Iran have deep memories of European aggression. The western powers can’t just say “oh, we’re going to be good now” and expect other countries to trust that rhetoric.”

Abel asked, “You’re saying that we can’t overcome the national memories of past conflicts? That we’re doomed to endless feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys? There is an underlying cynicism in that analysis that is just too pessimistic for me. Besides, consensus is so much more efficient than conflict.”

Cain frowned. “Talk about consensus. At the Munich Security Conference this month, J. D. Vance scolded those European nations that have been willing to sacrifice individual freedom for the sake of consensus (Source – video). A forced consensus is more of a characteristic of totalitarian governments.”

Abel shook his head in disgust. “Imagine if Macron or some other European leader came over here and started lecturing Americans on their policies regarding freedom of speech. J. D. Vance is the personification of American hubris. A pompous preacher. The satirist Stephen Fry remarked that freedom of speech is a step to justice and fairness, not an end in itself (Source, 2:40). Unlike Americans, the European protection of speech emphasizes freedom and responsibility (Source). Individuals have a responsibility to the group. It’s not a one-way street. But don’t look for the word ‘responsibility’ in the American Constitution. It’s not  there (Source). Maybe Americans could learn something about responsibility from Europeans on this topic.”

Cain scoffed. “Yeah, right, responsibility. How about Europeans being responsible for their own defense? Vance reminded them of that responsibility. The U.S. is $36 trillion in debt. American taxpayers can’t keep footing the bill for Europe’s defense so they can give European citizens generous social service programs. The French retire at 62! When the EU was forming thirty years ago, the defense target was 3% of each country’s GDP. Many of them haven’t even been spending 2% of GDP. The U.S. is spending almost 4% of GDP on defense. The European nations have not been doing their part. Free riders. They needed a good old swift kick in the can.”

Abel asked, “Do you think Trump wants to end NATO?”

Cain shrugged. “Who knows. He’s not in love with the organization. That’s for sure. The U.S. has other concerns, particularly in Asia. Ukraine was never in America’s security interest. Mearsheimer made that point after Russia took Crimea in 2014 (Source). Expanding NATO to include countries like Ukraine and Georgia just make Russia uncomfortable. The old saying is ‘don’t poke the bear.’”

Abel shook his head. “So, you agree with Trump that Ukraine started the war?”

Cain replied, “No, Trump’s brain is jumbled up with the last thing he heard on TV. But Ukraine could have stayed neutral instead of seeking a security alliance with NATO. Wake up, Ukraine! You’re next door to Russia and you have no nuclear weapons anymore. Stay neutral. Like I said, ‘don’t poke the bear.’”

Abel signaled for the check. “You’re depressing me.”

Cain laughed. “Hey, it’s not me. International relations is a study in power. Nation states are like big robots with national leaders pulling switches and levers inside the big machines.”

Abel smiled. “Reminds me of The Big O animation series (Source). Grim.”

Cain stood up. “I’ll catch the check and see you next week.”

Abel scootched to the outside of his seat. “Another eventful week, I’m sure. See you next week.”

 ////////////

Image by ChatGPT in response to the prompt “draw an image of two big robots facing off against each other.”

The Conservative Project

Leave a comment

January 10, 2021

by Steve Stofka

In response to the storming of the Capitol building on Wednesday, a Republican Congressman attacked the actions of the rioters as the opposite of conservative values. In his mind, those values were respect for law and order, a strong military, personal responsibility and freedom, fiscal responsibility, limited government, free markets, and respect for traditional institutions. As I will show, these principles form a wish list of unattainable ideals because one principle subverts another. Without a cohesive supporting structure, conservatism suffers from the same ills as utopian philosophies.

I’ll cover two of these principles: responsibility and freedom. Responsibility can’t incorporate freedom without limiting it in some way. Responsibility is a social covenant – the limiting principle of freedom. All too often, we protect our own freedom and restrict the freedom of others. Some conservatives who believe in personal freedom reject a responsibility for others. The wearing of masks has highlighted this issue. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy.

Too often we reach for solutions that restrict the freedoms of those who are not “us.” Conservatives who advocate for individual freedom reject liberty for those who believe differently than they do. They define human life as the joining of two microscopic cells at conception, then admit no freedom to those who define human life differently. In their support of a progressive income tax, liberals favor the institutional freedom of government over the individual freedom to reap the rewards of one’s labor. Each of us points to the mote in our neighbor’s eye, oblivious to the faults of our own arguments, principles, and perceptions.

At its heart democracy is a contest to control the rule making process. It is prone to mob rule, the changing of the rules to advantage a particular group of people. The conservative Pennsylvania state legislature changed the rules shortly before the election so that mail-in ballots could not be counted until after the polling station ballots were counted. They encouraged Republican voters in the state, most of them rural and with shorter lines at polling stations, to vote in person. On election night, they presented results that excluded most Democratic mail in ballots and later claimed that only ballots cast in person were legitimate. Was this motived by some conservative principle? No, it was prompted by political survival.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Leader, is a political strategist above all else. He has pointed out that Republicans have not held a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for more than a hundred years. The shift of the population from rural to urban areas has led Republicans to adopt street fighting legal and political tactics to command a voice in state and federal politics. For decades, some states resisted redrawing their voting districts so that rural communities would have far more power than their dwindling population.  Freedom is power. The first principle of a political party is to survive, and to do that conservatives have had to curtail the freedom of others so that they can maintain their own freedom and power.

Both the conservative and liberal projects exclude inconvenient aspects of current events because reality is complex and inconvenient for partisan purposes. Like a scientist who makes simplifying assumptions to model a process, political factions distort events to justify their perceptions and beliefs – if facts don’t fit their political narrative, change the facts.

The master fact-shaper is Rupert Murdoch. Over the first five years of building the news bubble called Fox News, he lost almost a half-billion dollars. The network’s audience is less than a fifth of just one major network, but its controversial hosts leverage their impact by taking controversial positions.

Seeing the success of the Fox model, One America Network has presented an even more polarized version of events, hoping to pull viewers away from Fox. Politicians are wary of a challenge from a small cadre on the extreme wing of each side, so they embrace the extreme to avoid “getting primaried.” In the fractured media landscape, some are imitating that polarizing process, rushing to the extremes to gain an audience.

The Republican Party was the champion of anti-slavery during the Civil War. Members of that party now want to preserve the statues of Confederate generals who fought to protect slavery. Why? After the Civil War, the cause of the Confederacy was repackaged by Southern elites as a cultural and historical institution; conservatives defend some cultural institutions while rejecting others as invalid. They champion the family and the institution of marriage but get divorced as much as the rest of the population. They support the Constitution’s protection of religious institutions if they are Christian, but barely tolerate its protection of other religions.

Unlike the liberal philosophy, the conservative project must ever be a reactionary ideology, a cadre of self-proclaimed elitists who resist the normal and healthy change of human institutions. Like utopian philosophies, its goal is stasis.

Although conservatism espouses freedom, it cannot incorporate the liberty of the human will into its philosophy. Without that freedom, personal responsibility is but a set of behavioral rules, conventions imposed on the majority by a minority. It is a strategy, not a philosophy. Because it cannot absorb change, it is a lifeless shell that other ideologies inhabit for a time, then discard, like the hermit crab.

In the 19th century, Republicans first found and inhabited the shell. In the past forty years Libertarian groups, Christian groups, the Tea Party, and conspiracy theorists have donned the empty shells of conservatism, only to be frustrated by the very rigidity of the ideology. Those who are comfortable in the shell are the political strategists like Mitch McConnell who use it quite ably as a shield from political attack.

//////////////////

Photo by Jan Zikán on Unsplash

Pandemic Detour

Leave a comment

July 19, 2020

by Steve Stofka

World War 1 and the flu epidemic that followed was the death knell for the 19th century. Previous epidemics ended the Middle Ages in the 14th century and the Renaissance in the 17th century. Pandemics are permanent detours onto an alternative route through time. Will historians regard the Covid pandemic as the close of the 20th century? Depends on what happens in the next hundred years. History travels slow as a tortoise. The present is as fast as Achilles and eventually overtakes the past.

Pandemics cleanse the politics of the age. Both political parties have fractured in the past two decades. Will this pandemic close the coffin on one or both parties? In name, no. Both parties have a duopoly on voting in each state so sub-groups within each party try to take over the party apparatus. The 2016 election was a takeover of the Republican Party by conservative media, legal and political interests that have been fighting for control of the party since the 1980s.

President Trump is the poster boy of that effort. Conservative groups needed someone to sign off on judicial appointments and other legislation. They preferred someone with little experience, who was impressionable and a bit dim for the rigors of the office. They got more buffoon than they bargained for. If he becomes a one-term President, the people, organizations and money that put him in power will fight their long game – to gut or eliminate most of the federal bureaucracy. The few Federal government institutions left will be the military, a slim State department, domestic policing agencies like the DEA and the Border Patrol, the Treasury, IRS and the courts. In a strict conservative view, defense, enforcement, monetary authority and justice are the only legitimate functions of a federal government.

Each pandemic is a challenge to competing visions of the future. Conservative groups have patience, resolve, and money. If they have their way, the 20th century will have been a political experiment in American socialism that began when progressives gained political power at the start of the last century. The 21st century will return the country to its founding principles.

Liberals envision a more expansive role for a central government. Should there be a limit to the role of government in our daily lives and where should it be set? Without a limiting principle, liberal groups struggle to develop a concise and cohesive philosophy. Perhaps that is the strength of a liberal viewpoint.

Americans have been fighting each other for far longer than they have fought with the rest of the world. In a country with diverse cultural backgrounds, social and political tension is inevitable. The 1918 epidemic helped reshape the country but did not end this grand experiment in republican democracy. Let’s hope that the 2020 pandemic doesn’t change the chemistry of this country so drastically that the experiment ends.

/////////////

Notes:

Photo by 35mm on Unsplash

The Nature of Transactions

Leave a comment

Conservatives are concerned about the moral behavior of individuals, but not about their economic behavior unless it is a transaction between two consenting adults which violates conservative moral sensibilities.  For that reason, many conservatives vote for laws banning prostitution, the use of drugs, and homosexuality, to name a few. 

Liberals are concerned about the moral behavior of companies, but less concerned about the moral behavior of individuals.  Conservatives and liberals have fundamental conflicting views of the nature of a transaction.

Conservatives tend to idealize process so they often view a transaction between two parties as a voluntary trade.  Liberals view a transaction as a process whereby one party gains some advantage, however slight, over another.  Because of their view, conservatives want little regulation of the economic behavior between people or between companies and people.  Liberals often mistake this view as a sympathy for companies but is a conservative reverence for the sanctity of transactions between parties that leads them to reject regulatory laws.

Because of their view of the nature of transactions, liberals want more regulations in an effort to reach a “fair” transaction where one party’s advantage over another is kept to a minimum.   What is the proper number of referees in a football game?  Conservatives want fewer referees, liberals want more.

Liberalism

Leave a comment

Previously I discussed the contradictions in conservative philosophy.  Today I’ll examine contradictions in modern liberalism, which has borrowed aims, ideas and sentiments from classical liberalism but has evolved from those roots.

Liberalism claims a fundamental belief in the inherent goodness of people, that there is an implied social contract between people to treat each other fairly.  It professes commendable goals of equality and individual freedom but is less concerned with the process of attaining those goals.  The underlying morality of the means toward an end often conflicts with the morality of the goal.  To say that liberalism believes that the ends justify the means is a false oversimplification of the philosophy because liberalism is concerned with process, but that concern is subservient to the goal.  Principles compromised in the path toward a worthy goal are an acceptable trade off.

John Locke, regarded as the founder of classical liberalism, conceived of equality as a natural state that human beings are born into.   Each person is not inherently subject to another and all people in a political society have a right to be treated equally under the law.  Modern liberalism broadens that concept of equality to mean that all people in a society should have equal opportunity to further their economic station; that each person in a society should have at least a minimum amount of goods to survive.

In Locke’s view, each person has a right to own property – property of any sort, not just land – and it is the government’s chief role to protect that property. No person may be forced to give up their property unless that person chooses to do so by some sort of implied or explicit contract.  As modern liberalism expanded the idea of equality, a contradiction in principles arose.  If a society was to ensure some level of survival to all people in that society, it would have to take property from those who had it in order to give it to those who didn’t.

Equal opportunity is a utopian ideal.  Few modern liberals would reasonably assert that such an ideal is attainable.  What is attainable is more equal opportunity.  In pursuit of that goal, public educational institutions were founded – funded not by taxes apportioned equally among the citizens but by monies – property – taken from those who had property.  No one can reasonably question the immense value that a schooled citizenry has to society.  Over the past 150 to 200 years, the outcome of such a policy has been a great boon to society.  If the means of getting there has meant some compromise of the principle of protection of private property, that is an acceptable trade off, modern liberals would argue. 

Equality, or fairness, under the law is a core concept of classical liberalism.  No reasonable person would argue that it is fair that someone starve to death on the street while those with full bellies walk by.  Although modern liberalism professes a belief in the inherent goodness of people, it does not trust in the goodness of people to freely choose to help those in need.  This contradiction is so profound that, for some, it undermines the moral basis of modern liberalism.  Modern liberals assume that there are not enough people who will freely choose to help those in need that people must be made to help those in need.  Rather than passing the hat, liberals pass a tax.

Inequality of circumstance, of station, of living standard – is unavoidable.  That is the natural state that human beings – in fact, all creatures – are born to.  To minimize that inequality in pursuit of a vision of justice and fairness may be a laudable goal but the mission is sullied by a less than principled process in pursuit of a worthy aspiration.  Some people will doubt such noble intentions, others will fight confiscatory laws or hide their property – making it all the more difficult for modern liberals to attain their ends.  Process matters.