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For the Common Good: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - The Communist Manifesto One of the most revolutionary and important books ever written, the Manifesto explains clearly and concisely what communism is, its goals, and its methods.
Tags The Exchange Socrates Exchange. Laura Knoy. Laura is well known in New Hampshire for her in-depth coverage of important issues and is widely regarded for her interviews with presidential hopefuls.
When pursuing their well-being, individuals are also, but not exclusively, bound to demands that are independent of their individual interests. Neoliberal theory and practice does not preclude a common law Buchanan and Tullock, ; Hayek, The common law that it involves is not, however, a law of the people that provides liberties rights and imposes a unique set of restrictions Buchanan and Tullock, ; Hayek, ; Nozick, Indeed, neoliberal political theory does not allow for the transformation of individual personalities or isolated natural selves into a collective or single public, viewed as the ultimate intentional lawmaker, which is the model we find, for example, in Locke, , Kant, , and Rawls, They do not constitute a common person subject to common legislation that defines and regulates political authority and applies equally to all persons.
On this view, human rights result from personal interests, and persons cannot be bound to claims that are independent of their private interests. These claims presuppose a public obligation or the possibility of coercion , which involves a political organization in which decision-makers act as collective agents: as members of a people rather than individuals. Yet on the neoliberal conception, collective deliberation of this sort limits, and even undermines, individual liberty Buchanan and Tullock, ; Hayek, ; Nozick, , leading to oppression Buchanan and Tullock, , if not to serfdom Hayek, The people as a political body is based on the supposition that someone the people can intentionally prevent or promote certain results, which, via end-rules, guiding organizations can compel individuals to attain.
Requiring that the situation of the less well off be improved via the principle of the equality of opportunity, for example, involves restricting individual liberty in order to improve the situations of others Hayek, , ; Nozick, This improvement is thought to be unacceptable because, in addition to presupposing that we can determine the circumstances under which individuals pursue their aims, binding persons to claims that are independent of their private interests constitutes an interference in their liberty Hayek, To regard only the public law as serving general welfare and the private law as protecting only the selfish interests of the individuals would be a complete inversion of the truth: it is an error to believe that only actions, which deliberately aim at common purposes, serve common needs.
The fact is rather that what the spontaneous order of society provides for us is more important for everyone, and therefore for the general welfare, than most of the particular services which the organization of government can provide, excepting only the security provided by the enforcement of the rules of just conduct. Hayek, , p. This means not only that governments ought to mirror that order—they cannot provide any rights of themselves—but also that the judicial system ought to be redesigned to fit with the Great Society.
This model cannot accommodate the idea of a public person, the people, to whom individuals belong; indeed, the role of ultimate intentional lawmaker is taken from the people and given to the spontaneous order , the Great or Open Society.
Under the negative conception of liberty, individual freedom is compatible with impediments and constraints liberty is not bare license, which ultimately undermines negative liberty; Berlin, Abstract rules allow for private restrictions on liberty, and neoliberal governmental organizations ought to ensure that any restrictions on liberty are limited to the private realm.
Neoliberal theorists do not understand this protection as a form of intervention or interference, however. Hayek, , for example, argues for this notion by establishing a distinction between repairing and intervening. When a person oils a clock, they are merely repairing it, securing the conditions required for its proper functioning. In other words, just as oiling a clock provides the conditions required for its proper functioning, so governmental protection of the private scope of restrictions on liberty allows for the proper functioning of the Great Society.
Both merely create the conditions under which individual wellbeing can be maintained, if not increased. They permanently adjust the rules to the neoliberal common law. Consider a situation in which two people, A and B, are involved in cooperative activity and in which both establish a common rule to safeguard the maximization of their interests.
Under this rule, A and B both contribute to the maximization of their own well-being. Although it accepts the interdependence of individuals when pursuing their personal well-being, neoliberal reparation does not allow for a common right to the results of that cooperative interdependence Hayek, ; Nozick, In denying the existence of a public person, a public will, and in ultimately challenging the idea that there is a common right to a share in the total well-being that results from the contributions of all, neoliberalism not only allows, but also requires , that one party has a claim to the exclusively private enjoyment of the benefits of their mutual relationship.
Accordingly, neoliberal repair a metaphor for neoliberal government ought to remove public law, which allows for the common right to well-being, and should replace it with private law. The resulting intensification of poverty and inequality Greer, ; Matsaganis and Leventi ; Stiglitz, , the diminishing security of employment and income Clayton and Pontusson, ; Stiglitz, , and growing authoritarianism Brown, ; Bruff, ; Kreuder-Sonnen and Zangl, ; Orphanides, ; Schmidt and Thatcher, are not problems in themselves.
Accordingly, when choosing between the intensification of poverty and inequality and allegiance to the right of non-interference, non-interference must prevail, thus preventing political and social action to reduce or compensate for poverty and inequality. Notwithstanding the underlying theoretical debate on the legitimacy and justice of the acquisition of private rights Hayek, ; Marx, ; Nozick, ; Rawls, , , enforcing the rules of the Open Society deprives one part of that society of the right to their well-being and to their contribution to the general well-being.
Under the neoliberal model of government and law, certain citizens are deprived of the right to enjoy the public goods that result from their collective activity, while others enjoy a private right to goods that result from the contribution of all. Since those who benefit are not able to acknowledge the contribution of others, they erase it and privatize the public law. This privatization shows that the neoliberal trinity of privatization, flexibilization and deregulation ultimately results from the original privatization of the public or common law.
Aside from the controversy concerning the epistemological value of the distinction between negative and positive liberty Berlin, []; Gray, ; Rawls, , ; Taylor, , theoretical disagreement about their meanings Taylor, , and the caricatures by which they are often understood e.
Similarly, the imposition of that right on society as a whole through legislation, including those who have been deprived of their well-being, also constitutes positive coercion.
Citizens who are deprived of their well-being must simply accept the neoliberal diktat , i. In a paternalistic way—according to Berlin, , positive liberty is always paternalistic in some sense—neoliberal politicians argue that there is no alternative TINA to neoliberal political legislation the government knows best.
Consequently, under the veil of state juridical and political violence, neoliberal politicians present governmental rules as an ultimatum , precluding consent, i.
The rejection of all public right, i. In other words, the neoliberal political order mirrors the despotic nature that neoliberals attribute to the meaningless or mystical general will Buchanan and Tullock, Neoliberal theorists understand public rules as means of protection, as if private interests were not highly dependent on law.
In addition, however, rather than accepting the collective protective scope of the law, they demand a monopoly on it. Although neoliberalism casts them as utterly independent actors—lone Robinson Crusoes—they are highly dependent not only on the contributions of others for their well-being but also on the positive law. Neoliberal positive liberty thus leads to the establishment of legal and political inequality: some command without consent, i. Ultimately, making use of the benefits of negative liberty depends on the political attribution to individuals of certain legal and political statuses, under which they can make use of their liberty.
Moreover, the positive liberty that underlies the spontaneous order not only deprives certain citizens of their share of the general well-being but also leaves no room to claim a right against that deprivation. Indeed, although framed by abstract rules, rights are always obtained under particular circumstances, i. Despite the interdependence of all individuals, individuals always remain separate unities and are thus deprived of the right to claim a common share of the fruits of their relationships—as if belonging to a common body entailed personal indifference and the abandonment of private interests.
Accordingly, if the Great Society, which replaces the will of the people, does not provide rights to citizens, and if those citizens do not obtain them from their private interactions, it is meaningless to claim such a right or to complain that such a right has been denied them.
There is nothing to claim or to complain about. In other words, where there are no rights, there can be no deprivation of rights. Even if individuals wish to complain about the deprivation of their rights, the neoliberal state—which considers such rights imaginary, fictitious, mystical—does not contain institutions that can address such complaints.
Under the neoliberal state, both the people and public institutions vanish into thin air. As Beck stresses with regard to neoliberal globalization, neoliberalism is the power of Nobody Beck Even though Nozick unlike Hayek accepts the existence of natural rights and liberties, his rejection of a public person and public restrictions shows that the assumption of natural rights does not guarantee their enjoyment.
A free serf is someone who, although deprived of political protection—whether this is understood as it was in the medieval era Bloch, , which made a distinction between the protector and the protected, or as it was understood in the liberal tradition Locke, ; Kant, , in which each person is simultaneously protector and protected—can still satisfy their bodily needs through selling themselves or their labor.
Neoliberal private restrictions on liberty cannot override the unrestricted autocratic deliberation of those who, in the absence of public law, can freely renounce their liberty in situations of extreme need, thus voluntarily enslaving themselves. The rejection of a public limit to individual liberty, along with the overlapping of public law and private interests, allows for unrestricted orders and, correlatively, for obedience without liberty on work precariousness see Gill and Pratt, ; on work conditions in sweat shops, see Bales Consequently, neoliberal political theory and practice allow for the creation of a situation in which some citizens serfs only obey while others lords only command.
This legal and political inequality is at work, for example, in systems where lords offer protection in exchange for total obedience on the part of serfs and vassals Bloch, From the perspective of neoliberal theory, we are all equal: neoliberal society does not contain legal or political inequality and does not divide citizens into those who are superior and those who are inferior. To be at the disposal of someone else who can do whatever they please and to whom one owes unrestricted obedience entails neither that one has an inferior legal status nor that the political relationship at stake is one of a superior to an inferior.
Persons have the same legal constitutional status they all are seen as equally free , and all are equally entitled to pursue their private interests. Even if people sell themselves, this concerns the private restriction of liberty from the perspective of neoliberalism and does not conflict with the conditions required for the proper functioning of the spontaneous order, i. Besides entailing what is known in political philosophy as the liberty of slaves, i.
Thus, even if in neoliberal spontaneous societies people are not assigned explicitly different political statuses, which entail different political rights and duties, neoliberal political society does not prevent people from becoming servile or, correlatively, from becoming despotic.
This fact reveals the extent to which neoliberalism entails a dangerous process of what some authors have called refeudalization Supiot, ; Szalai, , full analysis of which deserves examination of its own. Nevertheless, when obeying without liberty , if citizens fail to acquire their rights they risk becoming something less than a free serf, i.
A free excluded citizen is a citizen who lives in a free society without having the personal, social or institutional resources to make use of their own liberty. In this case, voiceless and invisible citizens can only enjoy purely negative liberty, in the absence of the personal, social and institutional resources with which they might otherwise achieve well-being. Neoliberalism also entails the continuous risk of passing from servile or docile citizenship into lawless personhood.
Neoliberalism does not reduce to fostering the entrenchment of political inequality: the division of citizens into those who obey and those who command. It also does not merely imply a situation in which some are protected by the state while others are not, where private interests have a monopoly on legal protection and rights while others are denied political protection and only have duties on work precariousness see Gill and Pratt, Ultimately, neoliberalism risks leading to the total exclusion of some citizens under the veil of full liberty.
The vanishing of the will of the people results in the invisibility of certain kinds of people, who are then forced to live in the spontaneous society as if they were stateless or lawless persons. Neoliberalism has retained some of the elements of that state such as the protection of the rights of the most vulnerable , although these elements have been reshaped by the market approach to social welfare Hartman, ; MacLeavy, On this basis, neoliberal officials have assigned public goods and services to private market providers, redesigning social programs to address the needs of neoliberal labor markets rather than personal wellbeing and establishing partnerships between the state and the private sector Brodie, For example, economic internationalization has affected the competitive viability of the welfare state Boyer and Drache, ; Rhodes, Also, the expansion of the state weakened intermediate groups and jeopardized individual liberties, subjecting citizens to increasing bureaucratic controls Alber, We shall not dwell on a full analysis of these developments.
The neoliberal market approach is, however, incompatible with the very idea of a welfare state. Moreover, the functioning of the welfare state requires the contribution of fellow citizens Marshall, ; Esping-Andersen, By contrast, the market approach rejects in principle all social rights, such as the right to education and health, and requires that individual welfare be an exclusively private enterprise Brodie, ; MacLeavy, Instead of being provided, such services ought to be purchased Brodie, ; MacLeavy, Moreover, if the economic market only identifies solvable needs, and if individuals cannot signal their lack of resources, the neoliberal welfare state cannot prevent individuals who have been deprived of their rights from becoming invisible, along with the resulting institutionalized insecurity Brodie, , intensified poverty and inequality, and diminishing of security of employment and income for many wage earners Clayton and Pontusson, ; Stiglitz, If the spontaneous society and its governments do not provide any rights, and if individuals do not acquire them in the economic market, there is no reason to claim such rights including social rights.
In this case, neoliberal social welfare reduces to charity Clayton and Pontusson, ; Raddon, ; Mendes, The neoliberal conception of welfare also shows how neoliberal theory and practice do not prevent the subordination of certain individuals to non-consensual external mastery. Neoliberalism is equally committed to state retrenchment or permanent austerity Whiteside, By requiring fiscal consolidation, cuts to social security, the privatization of public property, the liberalization of collective bargaining, and the shrinking of pensions Barro, , austerity not only undermines all attempts to establish social security but also challenges the liberal and democratic basis of society.
Samuelson recently wrote: "We face a choice between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where groups selfishly protect their own benefits. Appeals to the common good have also surfaced in discussions of business' social responsibilities, discussions of environmental pollution, discussions of our lack of investment in education, and discussions of the problems of crime and poverty.
Everywhere, it seems, social commentators are claiming that our most fundamental social problems grow out of a widespread lack of commitment to the common good, coupled with an equally widespread pursuit of individual interests. What exactly is "the common good," and why has it come to have such a critical place in current discussions of problems in our society?
The common good is a notion that originated over two thousand years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.
More recently, the contemporary ethicist, John Rawls, defined the common good as "certain general conditions that are. Examples of particular common goods or parts of the common good include an accessible and affordable public health care system, an effective system of public safety and security, peace among the nations of the world, a just legal and political system, an unpolluted natural environment, and a flourishing economic system. Because such systems, institutions, and environments have such a powerful impact on the well-being of members of, society, it is no surprise that virtually every social problem in one way or another is linked to how well tines systems and institutions are functioning.
As these examples suggest, the common good doe not just happen. Establishing and maintaining the common good requires the cooperative efforts of some, often of many, people. Just as keeping a park free of litter depends on each user picking up after himself, so also maintaining the social conditions from which we all benefit requires the cooperative efforts of citizens.
But these efforts pay off, for the common good is a good to which all members of society have access, and from whose enjoyment no one can be easily excluded. All persons for example, enjoy the benefits of clean air or an unpolluted environment, or any of our society's other common goods. In fact, something counts as a common good only to the extent that it is a good to which all have access.
It might seem that since all citizens benefit from the common good, we would all willingly respond to urgings that we each cooperate to establish and maintain the common good. Each offers it view on how it is that government is to hold and exercise power over individuals.
Each operates within a more general view of how it is that society ought to be regulated. According to that model government acts. One of the ways in which governments must act is to resolve the conflicts that arise in every society between the interests that individuals have in their own welfare and happiness and the interest that the group as a whole has in its welfare.
In any society there is a natural tension between the interests of individuals and the interest of the group as a whole. There is a conflict between what individuals want and what serves their interests and what is needed for the welfare, safety and security of the entire group. Government needs to moderate that conflict. Depending on the type of view that is operative concerning the nature of the social arrangement and the nature of government, the conflict will be resolved in favor of one or the other sets of interests.
Individuals may believe that they have the right to smoke tobacco. The group or society as a whole has an interest in preserving its heath and well being.
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