WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.480 --> 00:00:05.200 Want to welcome everyone back to the Pekanana Show. Return 2 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:09.560 into the show. See Jangle, How you doing, CJ doing good? 3 00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:13.759 Thanks Pete, thank you for coming and agreeing to do 4 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.800 a reading with me. Now, this is a longer chapter. 5 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:18.199 I don't know that we're going to get through the 6 00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:22.239 whole chapter, but I think this is a really important 7 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:28.839 chapter in Paul Gottfried's book After Liberalism. So we were 8 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:31.519 just before we started recording talking about Paul Godfreed. You 9 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:35.359 actually just finished doing a live stream with him. Talk 10 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:37.840 a little bit about this book and why you were 11 00:00:38.039 --> 00:00:39.719 eager to read from it. 12 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:45.039 Well, anything Paul's written I take very seriously. Paul's a 13 00:00:45.119 --> 00:00:47.479 very academic writer. You know, like a lot of his 14 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:51.600 commentary and stuff. It's very popular, but he's a very 15 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:54.000 dense academic writer. And the thing about Paul is he 16 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.920 has a very wide grasp on all the various contributions, 17 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:00.280 and he has the ability to kind of sift through 18 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.400 all the commentary over the centuries and recognize which sources 19 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:07.920 have been the most transformative. You know, which ones you 20 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.760 have to talk about. You can't talk about liberalism in 21 00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:13.439 the twentieth century without talking about you know, John Dewey 22 00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:15.359 or John Gray or people like that. So a lot 23 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:20.239 of these more academic aspect of things he captures very well. 24 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:22.840 Even even like a lot of us on the dissident right, 25 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:25.760 you know, we'll read people, but we don't. Actually he's 26 00:01:25.799 --> 00:01:29.400 he's much more involved in the the the trajectory of 27 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:31.760 the academy, you know, over the over the years, over 28 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:35.079 the centuries. So I think Paul is really good if 29 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:38.280 you need to get a sense of where the like 30 00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:41.640 the the the basics of officialdom came from. So in 31 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.920 terms of this book, after Liberalism, you know, he actually 32 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.519 discusses this in chapter one. It's impossible to define. We 33 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:49.879 don't know what liberalism is. It's it's been used in 34 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:52.799 so many different contexts and so many different frameworks that 35 00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:54.519 it's hard really to pin it down. And you can't 36 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:56.319 pin it down. You have to define it every time 37 00:01:56.359 --> 00:01:58.680 you're going to address it. That's important to remember and 38 00:01:58.760 --> 00:02:01.680 keep in mind when talking about people like James Lindsay, 39 00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:04.640 you know, other pro classical liberals out there. We need 40 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:08.520 to keep in mind that liberalism is incredibly difficult to 41 00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:12.680 define because of its historical path. But it's also sort 42 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:16.319 of one of those hegemonic phrases that you just assume 43 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:19.280 that you know because it's just part of our political discourse. 44 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:21.840 But he points out that it's a lot more difficult 45 00:02:21.879 --> 00:02:24.520 than that, so we'll probably get into some specifics related 46 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:28.039 to that, but go ahead. That's my take on the 47 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:29.120 overall cool. 48 00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:32.199 All right, Well let me let me share the screen 49 00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:39.039 up here, and yeah, there we go. Very cool. All right, 50 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:44.080 So we're hopping over chapter one to chapter two, which 51 00:02:44.159 --> 00:02:47.360 is liberalism versus democracy, and I think this is really 52 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:49.000 where you start getting into the meat of it. And 53 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:50.800 he also does a really good job of hitting some 54 00:02:51.039 --> 00:02:54.599 history here. So if you've heard me do readings before, 55 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:56.800 stop me at any time to come in on anything, 56 00:02:56.840 --> 00:02:59.400 even if it's mid sentence. Yep, I think the only 57 00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:01.439 person who's there done that to me as AA, but 58 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:02.960 I don't mind it at. 59 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:04.919 All, So yeah, okay, I'll see what I can do, 60 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:05.520 all right. 61 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:12.080 Liberalism versus democracy liberal and democratic mentalities a process of 62 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:14.599 your attention at the turn of the century and even earlier, 63 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:17.439 was the movement from a bourgeois liberal into a mass 64 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:21.360 democratic society. Not all of those who observed this process 65 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:24.560 made the same judgments about it. Some, including the European 66 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:31.719 socialists and the founding generation of American social planners welcomed democratization. Others, 67 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:35.479 such as Max Weber Max Weber sorry, considered it to 68 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:39.960 be an inevitable outcome of capitalism, technology, and the spread 69 00:03:40.039 --> 00:03:44.560 of the electoral franchise. Still others, typified by Sir James 70 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:49.199 Fitzjames Stephen eighteen ninety two to eighteen ninety four, prominent 71 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.680 eighteen twenty nine to eighteen ninety four, pardon me, prominent 72 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:58.599 jurist and a decidedly anti egalitarian liberal, protested that unseemingly haste. 73 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:03.120 Protested the un seemingly haste with which John Stuart Mill 74 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:06.919 and his friends greeted the new democratic age, quoting the 75 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.199 waters are out and no human force can turn them back. 76 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:12.800 But I do not see why as we go with 77 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:16.000 the stream, we need saying hallelujah to the river God. 78 00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:19.120 Yeah, let's let's pause right there. I mean, I think 79 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:21.439 the idea I mean, for a lot of people, probably 80 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.040 not new to your audience, but the idea that there 81 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:28.519 is this difference between democracy and liberalism, I think is 82 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:30.519 new to a lot of people. I mean, we the 83 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:34.199 phrase itself liberal democracy or democratic liberalism. The two go 84 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:36.800 hand in hand to so many people, but like look 85 00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:39.120 at look at people like Victor or Bond, and how 86 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:43.120 serious he is about the democratic interests of his own 87 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:46.800 people require him to be illiberal. So these two don't 88 00:04:46.839 --> 00:04:48.680 go hand in hand. And we'll get I think a 89 00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:51.279 little bit more into the differences between liberalism, but I 90 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:53.480 think that right there is really important. A lot of 91 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:56.839 a lot of the original Like classical liberals in England 92 00:04:56.879 --> 00:04:59.720 were very anti democratic. They didn't trust this spirit of 93 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:04.439 the masth and especially the ability of the new elite, 94 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:10.360 the merchant class, the capitalists to basically use democracy as 95 00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:13.959 a weapon for their own pursuit of material interests. 96 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:19.399 It was obvious to them, where a lot of people 97 00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:21.240 now are just waking up to the fact that it 98 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:24.720 can be used as a weapon, where back then many 99 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:29.839 had already seen it or foresaw it. The tension between 100 00:05:29.839 --> 00:05:33.199 liberalism and a successor ideology in between the social classes 101 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:37.920 embodying those ideas provides a recurrent theme in nineteenth century 102 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:43.040 political debate. Francois Gusseau seventeen eighty seven eighteen seventy four, 103 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:47.319 the Huguenot Prime minister under Frances Liberal July monarchy, and 104 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.720 a distinguished historian of England considered democracy to be as 105 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:55.920 much of a curse as monarchical absolutism. As French Prime 106 00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:00.399 minister in the eighteen forties, Guseeau fought doggedly against the 107 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:04.680 extension of the limited franchise, the sins from property tax 108 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:06.639 payers to other French citizens. 109 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:08.759 Yeah, I mean that, I mean that right there is 110 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:11.399 important too, Like when we think of democracy, and I 111 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:13.000 know it's kind of an overrated point. A lot of 112 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:16.439 people make fun of, you know, people distinguishing in American 113 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:21.480 you know government between like republican and democracy and stuff, 114 00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:24.720 and sometimes that that is like overstated, but there is 115 00:06:24.839 --> 00:06:27.560 a truth to the fact that mass democracy in the 116 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:31.160 twentieth century sort of the American twentieth century model is 117 00:06:31.279 --> 00:06:35.439 not the original republican instinct. In fact, you know, the 118 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:39.839 original Republican quote unquote democratic instinct was very much anti 119 00:06:40.199 --> 00:06:43.600 mass democracy. They did not trust the extension of the 120 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:46.040 the What he means by the franchise is the ability 121 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:48.879 for everybody to vote regardless of their class, regardless of 122 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:52.319 their property status, their race, their sex, et cetera. So 123 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:58.079 the original you know, trailblazers of liberalism were definitely not 124 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:00.399 pro master modocricy. 125 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:05.759 He distinguished sharply in his speeches and political tracts between 126 00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:08.759 those civil rights suitable for all citizens, such as freedom 127 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:11.720 of worship and the vote. By means of the second, 128 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:19.000 Gizo maintained the lower class could destabilize society radically, redistributed, redistributing, 129 00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:25.360 redistributing pop property, and bringing resourceful demagogues to power. He 130 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:31.480 believed the bourgeoisie formed a class capasitid those who would 131 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:34.920 be guided by reason and their stake in society in 132 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:41.639 directing the actions of government. Indeed, yeah, that's guided by reason, 133 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:48.360 because I've studied you know, when you study objectivism at all, 134 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:52.519 whatever you see that like those three words together, you 135 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:56.800 immediately think it jumps to one thing. Right. 136 00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:00.519 It's also I mean, this is this is sort of 137 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:05.560 like it is a contribution of like Enlightenment thinking, and 138 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:09.519 it affects objectivism obviously, but it also permeates into libertarianism, 139 00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:14.040 even certain trends of like Marxism and certain certain aspects 140 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:18.920 of socialism. Just the idea that we can use reason, 141 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:22.160 utilize it and guide to society, you know, by our 142 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:26.639 own expertise, is definitely an enlightenment, you know, holdover. 143 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:31.759 Yes. Indeed, Guseeau recommended the idea of creating a state 144 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:36.399 through representation which would fully reflect the values of bourgeois 145 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:42.759 electoral law aristocracy. Although in eighteen thirty one he fought 146 00:08:42.799 --> 00:08:46.159 to give representation to government functionaries and other professionals who 147 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:51.559 paid lower taxes than required for franchise eligibility, he nonetheless 148 00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:54.919 argued for the special suitability of the upper middle class 149 00:08:54.919 --> 00:09:01.519 for political participation. Only that class combined wealth with only 150 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.759 that class combined wealth with formed intelligence. 151 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:08.159 In other words, the original liberalism was not at all 152 00:09:08.200 --> 00:09:11.799 interested in, you know, handing a power over to every 153 00:09:12.919 --> 00:09:17.919 you know, ghetto pop culture, you know, subsumed consumer right. 154 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:21.039 That was never the goal of liberalism. Much too probably 155 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:24.480 the frustration of people like James Lindsay who think in 156 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:28.840 these absolutist individualist terms. You know, these original liberals they 157 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:32.559 never would have been interested in, you know, sharing political 158 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:36.480 power with the proletariat or the you know, the cultural 159 00:09:36.759 --> 00:09:37.879 culturally deranged. 160 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:42.240 Yeah, they certainly wouldn't be championing the Civil Rights Act. 161 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:44.919 I mean, if you're if you're confused about your own 162 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:47.159 gender and you want to start chopping yourself to bits, 163 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:48.559 maybe you shouldn't have the vote. 164 00:09:49.159 --> 00:09:54.639 Yeah. The English Juran jurist William Lackey, who admired Gizo, 165 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:58.519 devoted his long polemical work Democracy and Liberty eighteen ninety 166 00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:02.080 six to the pop to the polarity between liberal order 167 00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:06.799 and democratic equality. Surveying England's parliamentary history in the second 168 00:10:06.840 --> 00:10:11.320 half of the nineteenth century, Lecky wrote Lericky worried that 169 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:16.080 a universal franchise was irreversibly changing both English society and 170 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:20.679 the English state. Not surprisingly, his book appeared at a 171 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.279 time when English socialism was becoming a political power, and 172 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:27.960 Leaky devotes more than one hundred and forty pages to 173 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:33.320 analyzing the new radicalism. In eighteen ninety three, the Independent 174 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:36.480 Labor Party officially came into existence in the Yorkshire town 175 00:10:36.519 --> 00:10:40.159 of Bradford. Since the elections of eighteen seventy four, however, 176 00:10:40.440 --> 00:10:43.840 avout socialists had sat in the British Parliament and socialist 177 00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:47.679 labor unions had been around since the eighteen fifties, to 178 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:51.440 the consternation of German liberals. German socialists meeting in the 179 00:10:51.480 --> 00:10:56.200 Saxon town of Gotha, had drafted a program in eighteen 180 00:10:56.320 --> 00:10:59.679 seventy six calling for public ownership of the means of production. 181 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:05.440 The Gotha Socialists also demanded an entire battery of social 182 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:09.279 programs to be introduced by a properly democratized German state. 183 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:15.799 In France, the Revolutionary Socialists, this is all right, here 184 00:11:15.799 --> 00:11:20.759 goes one. Jules Gazzet sat at the sat in the 185 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:23.639 Chamber of Deputies from eighteen ninety three on, and as 186 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:27.639 like he as he reminded us these days in the Catechism, 187 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:32.679 socialist presents the family as an odious form of property, 188 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:37.559 one destined to give way to a multiplicity of sexual 189 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:39.759 relations for men and women alike. 190 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:42.919 Yeah, I think one of the points here is something 191 00:11:42.919 --> 00:11:47.240 that we all recognize now. At the origin of these 192 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:53.080 liberal or democratic movements, you know, there was a difference 193 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:55.480 between them. They didn't stem from the same impulse, I 194 00:11:55.480 --> 00:11:57.399 guess is what I want to say here that you 195 00:11:57.440 --> 00:11:59.879 know that came America was sort of the first two 196 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:02.480 nite these concepts in its own, you know, for his 197 00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:06.039 own purposes. But I think Paul's point here is throughout 198 00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:09.519 the Western European world, Germany, France, England, et cetera, these 199 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:10.919 were very different instincts. 200 00:12:12.039 --> 00:12:15.840 Yeah, all right, One way to look at such social 201 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:19.919 quarrels is to observe how dated they are. These battles 202 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:25.159 were supposedly, supposedly waged between reactionary and democratic liberals. Those 203 00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:28.120 liberals who were just in humanitarian, it has been argued, 204 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:31.679 went with changing times, while others who were not, such 205 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:36.559 as DiFranco, Italian economists and socialist Elvedo Pereto, fell into 206 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:41.360 bad company and even sometimes into fascism. Implicit in such 207 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:44.000 a view is the distinction that more and more modern 208 00:12:44.039 --> 00:12:47.279 liberals have drawn throughout the twentieth century between themselves and 209 00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:50.639 those they have replaced. It is purely it is a 210 00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:55.240 purely strategic stance that minimizes the reality of past conflicts. 211 00:12:55.840 --> 00:12:59.879 Like the mainstream, Like the mainstream new deal liberal his 212 00:13:00.039 --> 00:13:04.720 storiography in post war America, the liberal historical view stresses 213 00:13:04.759 --> 00:13:08.039 the natural progression of the progression of things by which 214 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:10.720 the new liberals took over from the old. 215 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:13.360 Yeah, this is this is important because like a lot 216 00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:15.519 of people who have this, I mean, this is this 217 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:18.759 is classic like James Lindsay type stuff, Like everything is 218 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:22.120 kind of reaching it's its own conclusion. It's been on 219 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:25.360 too trajectory for you know, hundreds of years, and in fact, 220 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:28.039 this was actually a sort of mentality that Murray Rothbard 221 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:31.120 had early on and not later Murray Rothbart who recognized 222 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:34.519 the function of the power elite, but earlyer Murray Rothbart 223 00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:36.879 he saw, like if you read his essay you know, 224 00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:40.480 left right in the Prospects of Liberty, it's all this, yeah, 225 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.399 it's all this, like this single merit meta narrative. It's 226 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.360 all like coming into fruition. Everything's improving over time. He 227 00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:49.639 definitely drops that at the end of his life when 228 00:13:49.639 --> 00:13:52.840 he when he talks about there's an essay on you know, 229 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:57.279 Mesis's role or whatever, you know, within Austrian economics, but 230 00:13:57.279 --> 00:13:59.279 he definitely drops this. But the point is that a 231 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:02.039 lot of people in the twentieth century America do have 232 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:06.120 this mentality where, you know, some people took the wrong path, 233 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:09.360 but this has been the liberal projects has been slowly improving, 234 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:12.480 you know, over time. And Gottfried's saying that that actually, 235 00:14:12.799 --> 00:14:16.480 and this is one thing that Gottfried is really I 236 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:18.519 wouldn't say it's unique to him, but it's something that 237 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:22.360 he really is unique in terms of like overall traditionalist 238 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:25.759 conservatives like who have this meta narrative story of things. 239 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:31.519 He does emphasize discontinuity. Paul Goffried always recognizes that the 240 00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:35.000 New Deal replaced something before it, and the you know 241 00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:37.960 the point the post nineteen sixties left replaced the New 242 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.399 Deal left, and like there's all these discontinuities. He doesn't 243 00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:45.360 see things in terms of this overall continuity. That's something 244 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:48.559 that Paul always emphasizes that every historical epoch is unique 245 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:49.120 to itself. 246 00:14:50.039 --> 00:14:56.360 Yeah, you're gonna just did an episode on the same thing. 247 00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:00.679 Epochs how things change, how but it seems like it 248 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:01.559 goes in cycles. 249 00:15:01.879 --> 00:15:04.720 Yeah, but the but the current twentieth century, like people 250 00:15:04.759 --> 00:15:07.080 who see America as sort of like the fruition of 251 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:10.120 all the best aspects of Western history and it's all 252 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:14.279 culminated into America. They need the overall narrative thing because 253 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:16.480 every age has to be like an improvement and it 254 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:19.159 has to be this organic process, and America is sort 255 00:15:19.159 --> 00:15:22.000 of at the top, like the post war America is 256 00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:24.519 like the ultimate end of history. It's the end of man. 257 00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:28.039 Is the best and most complete political system in terms 258 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:31.320 of justice and wealth and the equality and all these things. 259 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:34.840 Whereas Gottfried says, you know, no, he denies he denies 260 00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:37.559 the continuity there. He says, what we see in liberal 261 00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:41.919 democracy in our age is basically a repudiation of you know, 262 00:15:42.279 --> 00:15:43.440 historical epochs. 263 00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:47.360 Yeah. Anyone who looks at the what the United States 264 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:52.559 has become and says, oh, this is this is dizen ith. 265 00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.879 You're you're in sane, You're insane. Yeah, I mean, it's 266 00:15:56.919 --> 00:16:01.399 just it's brainwashing. Right, let's move on. It is possible 267 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:05.600 to perceive continuity in the movement from a bourgeois liberal 268 00:16:05.639 --> 00:16:09.960 society into a more democratic one, but that continuity is 269 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:13.360 not the same as direct continuation, as was noted by 270 00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:19.159 Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and other early twentieth century social commentators. Rather, 271 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:22.000 we are dealing here with a series of points leading 272 00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:26.000 from a from a bourgeois into a post bourgeois bourgeois 273 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:30.799 is bourgeois age, that is, with a process of displacement 274 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:34.840 that went on for several generations. Thus, Weber focused on 275 00:16:35.639 --> 00:16:41.120 rational rationalization in analyzing the movement from a bourgeois capitalist 276 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:46.799 towards a bureaucratized socialist society. A liberal bourgeois world created 277 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:52.320 the secularist foundations and economic organization necessary for socialist rule. 278 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:58.000 Another pessimistic social commentator with liberal leadings. Joseph Schumpeter believed 279 00:16:58.120 --> 00:17:01.639 that the middle class concept of readom encouraged the expression 280 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:06.839 of critical opposition. This tolerance undermined the belief system of 281 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:11.359 an older liberal society and prepared the way for social democracy. 282 00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:13.880 Yeah. So I think this is important because here we 283 00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:16.759 see and Goffrey is going to get into this more, 284 00:17:16.759 --> 00:17:18.720 I think, and I think he also does later in 285 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:21.240 the book. But we always have to keep in mind 286 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.000 that there's a big difference between what you might call 287 00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:30.519 historicist liberalism and universalist liberalism. Historicist liberalism was the instinct 288 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:35.799 that that labeled itself liberalism, but within the context of 289 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:40.359 a certain political paradigm. And so the English, the English liberals, 290 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:45.640 you know, saw themselves basically as pursuing new avenues of 291 00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:48.799 freedom within the context of their own history, within the 292 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:52.480 context of their own political uh, you know, horizons. Whereas 293 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:54.640 and that's not the mentality that a lot of like 294 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.960 objectivists on you know, I Randians, but also like some 295 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:01.400 libertarians and James Lindsay and other advocates of what they 296 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:04.960 call classical liberalism, they have a more universalist liberalism where 297 00:18:05.880 --> 00:18:11.599 the ethnicity, the cultural context doesn't really matter. Every individual 298 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:16.200 has these you know, universal human rights, and it doesn't 299 00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:18.799 really matter what the context, the political context is. These 300 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:22.200 things are eternal and they're sort of transcended over all things. 301 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:25.880 That's universalist liberalism. So what Godfrey's trying to say here 302 00:18:26.440 --> 00:18:29.279 is that, you know, the original liberalism, what's much more 303 00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:33.119 rooted within particular societies. That's why German liberalism was different 304 00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:35.640 than English, which was different than French and so on. 305 00:18:36.519 --> 00:18:41.680 Yeah, but neither are those attempts by old style European 306 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:45.039 liberals to find links between two distinctive social and political 307 00:18:45.079 --> 00:18:49.319 formations denies the differences between them. Both Vber and Schumpeter 308 00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:53.000 were looking at the conditions in which social changes took place, 309 00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:57.039 and they note the overlaps as well as distinctions between 310 00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:04.400 the epos and question, hasa panjatas condulus, I think that's correct. 311 00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:06.440 It's gonna that's as correct as I'm gonna get it 312 00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:11.799 there good enough? Yeah. A German germanophone Greek scholar whose 313 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:14.480 work is not yet widely known, breaks new ground in 314 00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:19.839 this respect. Condolus examines the distinctions between liberal bourgeois and 315 00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:25.920 mass democratic societies by looking at their literary and cultural artifacts. 316 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:30.839 Modern democracies differ from pre modern ones, according to Congdolus, 317 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:37.119 in that they disassociate citizenship from cultural and ethnic identities, 318 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:41.000 and in the way in which mass production affects society. 319 00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:45.240 Yeah, this is this is something I'm personally interested in, 320 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:48.960 and I think a lot of younger people might emphasize 321 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:52.240 this even more than Paul does. But we have to 322 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:55.799 pay attention to how cultures like the market, you know, 323 00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:59.559 the so called free market, the the the the capitalist space, 324 00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:04.000 the the production of consumer goods, they don't they don't 325 00:20:04.039 --> 00:20:07.160 just respond to consumer interests, They often direct them. They 326 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:10.519 often change the culture itself, and they're often placed into 327 00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:14.359 culture with the objective of transforming them. And so the 328 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:18.319 emphasis on what has mass production done to society? I 329 00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:22.559 think it's something that right wingers need to continue to emphasize, 330 00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:24.359 you know, much more than liberals. You kind of see 331 00:20:24.359 --> 00:20:26.920 as this neutral space wherever the free market is, it's 332 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:31.039 there's like just you know, cultural neutrality there. But I 333 00:20:31.359 --> 00:20:34.440 think that Condoleus is entirely correct, that that that the 334 00:20:34.599 --> 00:20:38.680 entire you know, cultural landscape can change just by the 335 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:40.079 introduction of mass production. 336 00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:46.119 Well, it also seems like a lot of the economics 337 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:54.359 that you see pushed from like libertarians, is doesn't really 338 00:20:54.359 --> 00:20:57.880 take into account what we've seen as far as globalism, 339 00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:03.839 as far as to advanced in technology itself, also its 340 00:21:03.880 --> 00:21:08.079 social engineering, things like that exactly. Just it exists in 341 00:21:08.119 --> 00:21:11.319 a vacuum. You can make it work in a vacuum. 342 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:15.359 But what when you have to introduce it to I mean, 343 00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:18.279 can you imagine, like all of a sudden, the United 344 00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:23.000 States just dropped all its regulations on trade and manufacturing 345 00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:29.519 and just went okay, go yep. I mean that's something 346 00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:32.559 that Mesas would have. Mesas would have been okay with 347 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:35.599 Rothbard probably would have wanted the state. Rothbard would have 348 00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:38.599 wanted the state out of the way. But you know 349 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:41.599 it's still you look at that and you're like, Okay, 350 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:44.920 I understand why you want to do this because you 351 00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:51.279 see what government and what what quote unquote cronyism that 352 00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:55.720 that word that they love so much does. Yet you're 353 00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:59.960 not taking into account what Condoless is talking about here 354 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:05.799 talking about disassociating citizenship from cultural and ethnic identities. What 355 00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:10.000 that does to what that does when you have because 356 00:22:10.039 --> 00:22:11.920 if you have a free market, you also have no 357 00:22:12.039 --> 00:22:13.680 borders because you're gonna have free trade. 358 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:22.079 Yeah. It also it also universalizes and it makes uniform 359 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:24.920 world culture. I mean, the more you extend, I mean 360 00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:28.119 this is actually this is controversial, but this is actually 361 00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:30.680 a point that Lenin makes. You know, as you extend 362 00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:34.559 the capitalist order, you're going to do away with old cultures. 363 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:38.839 It's inevitable that everything is going to become homogeneous culturally 364 00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:44.000 when you do this. Yep, if I can cite him. 365 00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:45.640 Perfectly, I mean I read through all of State and 366 00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:49.519 Revolution on this show. So yeah, there, Lenin is not 367 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:53.039 a He's not a friend of the show. Definitely, He's 368 00:22:53.039 --> 00:22:54.359 definitely been a big part of the show. 369 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:56.640 Well, he's got insights that are worth learning from. You know, 370 00:22:57.400 --> 00:22:58.960 I'm not going to be autistic about it. 371 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:01.839 Well, some time times, if you even read Rothbart, it 372 00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:07.400 almost seems like the dialect like his dialectical style is Lenin's. Yeah, sure, 373 00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:10.799 like he stole, like he bred Lenin and he decided 374 00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:12.799 to use that dialectical style, which I don't think is 375 00:23:12.839 --> 00:23:15.160 a bad thing because I think Lenin was was definitely 376 00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:18.000 the most intelligent of all of them. 377 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:19.920 Right and what and by the way, what Lenin is 378 00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:23.519 critiquing is not some Messissian paradise. But he's critiquing basically 379 00:23:23.599 --> 00:23:27.160 the managerial capitalism, right, yeah, all right. 380 00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:32.039 The modern as opposed to pre modern, The modern as 381 00:23:32.039 --> 00:23:35.440 opposed to pre modern and democrat is not continually situated 382 00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:39.000 and has a fluid cultural identity being shaped by a 383 00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:44.880 consumer economy. Yep, that's a sentence right there, man, it is. 384 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:47.960 Yeah, the consumer economy shapes man. Man doesn't shape the 385 00:23:47.960 --> 00:23:49.519 consumer economy. It's important. 386 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.440 Yeah, so I said social engineering. It just doesn't. It's 387 00:23:53.559 --> 00:23:55.519 you're not taking that into account when you're talking about 388 00:23:55.519 --> 00:24:00.920 this free quote unquote free market. Yep. He also inhabits 389 00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:04.359 a culture that remains hostile to the older liberal universe. 390 00:24:05.400 --> 00:24:10.440 Postmodernism in literature and literary criticism condolist argues, is the 391 00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:13.880 latest in a series of cultural strategies aimed at subverting 392 00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:18.400 the nineteenth century liberal order. The refusal to recognize a 393 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:23.119 fixed or authoritative meaning for inherited texts, which is characteristic 394 00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:28.920 of postmodernism, represents an assault upon liberal education. Contrary to 395 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:32.200 the world of moral and semantic order presided over by 396 00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:38.400 an ethical deity which bourgeois liberals preached, the postmodernists exalt indeterminacy. 397 00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:42.720 They decry the acceptance of tradition and discourse as well 398 00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:46.240 as in political matters as a fasci as a fascist 399 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:51.480 act of domination, or as the inadmissible allowance of the 400 00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:54.440 past to intrude upon the present. And I would say 401 00:24:54.440 --> 00:24:55.599