VIDEO 1: How universal is liberalism?

Political morality concerns that practice of making moral judgements about political action and political
agents.

Can we say illiberal regimes are illegitimate or is liberalism only mandatory (from a political morality
standpoint) in societies that actually embrace and accept it.

Main Question: Is liberalism parochial to a relatively few countries or us it universal?

Universalists say that liberal democracies should export their values abroad.
Paroichalists say that political morality cannot be universal and only in countries where it has roots can
liberalism be seen as a mandatory mode of governance.

Pluralism is the belief that allows for difference in ideas just as there are differences in cultures, values and
traditions. There is tolerance towards those who follow different beliefs.

The guy in the video argues that if the political necessity (brought on by political morality) of liberalism is true
to anyone (any society) then it must be true to everyone.

Types of liberalism:
 The most minimal liberal definition of liberalism can be seen as the ultimate political power resting
with the people, without restraint (bad since majority can impose tyranny).
 Classical liberalism advocates for laissez-faire type of economy where free trade and free market rules,
while negative laws protect people from government tyranny.
 Egalitarian liberalism, also known as social democracy, defends the economics and social rights of the
people, with positive laws, and puts the responsibility of protecting the vulnerable on the government.

Justice, democracy and liberalism are shared values but what do they really mean? (Constructivism; say justice
is connected to freedom to pursue whatever you want, this becomes a reason for invading the Soviet Union)

The two absolute tenets of liberalism are:

1. Coercive government is illegitimate except if it shows equal concern for everyone, implying that
everyone has equal say in governance: equality (democracy?)
2. Coercive government is illegitimate unless it respects the right and responsibility of each individual to
determine what counts as success in living and pursue it: liberty.

The problem of the state is to respect simultaneously and reconcile equality and liberty, which has different
demands.
An example is that in a perfectly equal world, people would have to give up their liberty since they
wouldn’t be allowed to become richer with respect to the rest of the population regardless of their skill
and contribution to the society (flat equality).
 This also emphasises the fact that not only equal concerns for economics, but for politics must be
shown by the government, which includes respecting the rights of the individuals to have an equal
voice and be able to express their opinions freely to persuade others.

Distributive justice is framed in the context of insurance against things such as disease and unemployment,
regardless of what one’s status of wealth is.

Liberalism can have different consequences for different societies. For example, in the conservative Muslim,
and especially Arab world, support for Islamist and other radical ideologies can severely curtail personal
freedoms whereas Westernised dictatorships can keep the lid on these regressive movements using
oppression.

Cultural relativism, parochial: Political morality of a particular community must be a morality that reflects the
roots in an resonates with shared understanding and history of the community.
Cultural diversity is important, so we must respect this.

Parochial: A society which has not known democracy will be riddled with tensions, will become unstable if an
attempt is made to engraft democracy to a culture resistant to it.

Parochial: Asian values, for example, the Chinese have a different understanding of democracy, since Chinese
think of it as a means while Western world sees it as an end.

Question about relatums: Moral convictions should be universal. How deep can relativity go and when must it
bottom out?
It must come to a point in which it deploys principles of moral valence, morally speaking, are things
getting better or worse (respect for human beings, prosperity of community, how to measure morally
good or bad)?

The two principles are of moral valence

What counts as going better has to do with the fate of each individual and the fate of each must count
the same when coercion is employed.
What counts as things going better for an individual it says that must be left to the person whose life it
is.

If these are true for us, it must be for everyone.

Coercion is justified only when it is consistent with the dignity of the person coerced, it cannot be unless it
treats its fate as important as anybody else’s. It cannot be inconsistent with dignity if it usurps that person’s
judgments about what it is to take his interest into account as an equal.

If you don’t agree with these, you have another theory of moral valence, which should be universal.
Any political morality cannot be true or false, but different IS an INCOHEREENT CLAIM. Skepticism of this, that
there cannot be right or wrong is a moral position.

What about exporting our liberalism to the rest of the world.

This view justifies the aggression against other countries which shares different believes since while it takes
from the other communities’ collective values and the liberty to have different values, it takes into account
the individual’s right have liberty, thus showing that individualism is more important than collectivism.

Free speech leads to wrong conclusion sometimes such as the Supreme Court asserting the right of
corporation to give away unlimited donations to political campaigns which takes the power away from the
people.

What about Nazism being banned in European countries?

Stop talking about exporting liberalism and start talking about importing liberalism from universal, timeless,
objective moral truth.

Parochial views:

No universal norms.
Belief in the universal values of liberal ideas being associated with patterns of interventionism.
Kosovo, East Timor. Afghanistan and Iraq.

Liberalism is important but hard to define.

Liberal: A decent person who hasn’t been mugged yet.

Late 18th century: belief in liberty as the key condition intellectual social and economic growth and the
progress as an attainable outcome from it. Only constraints are embodied and agreed framework of law
administrated with impartiality and integrity.

Question: If it is no parochial, is it true to say liberalism is a universal political morality.

It isn’t universal PM, no society is immune to liberal ideas, no society is immune to their ultimate
implementation, but these ideas have to compete with others, especially in divided communities where there
is a case of authoritarian rule.
Ottomans, Yugoslavia, Singapore flourishes, so it is difficult to change. Newly emerging powers don’t
subscribe to liberal ideas. In authoritarian societies, liberal policies are usually implemented piecemeal,
Turkey, eastern Europe.

Ideas of the world consisting of a plurality of types of political system still have some moral value.
The world is still divided into different civilizations and the main rationale and function of a multiple balance in
past has been to preserve the freedom of members while minimising the risk of war.

Autonomy of civilisations is important and if we respect different morality systems we can live in relative
tranquility and reject the temptations of universality of our own values.

Liberalism isn’t parochial but is one political morality with an appeal everywhere but on that must coexist and
compete with other political moralities.

Debate:

Accommodation to competing political moralities shouldn’t be confused with accepting the parochial view
that what is true for us mustn’t be true for everyone else.

Say Singapore, a case for a different political morality. It must rest in more general moral principles. Just
because Singapore is doing well without liberalism, we cannot say there is a case for Singapore.

Is the plurality of political moralities like individual values desirable.

Disagreement of the interpretation of the meaning is desirable, but not the main principles.

What about forcing Catholics to fund Planned Parenthood?

They shouldn’t be forced to provide abortion.
However, Church employees should have abortion access.

Look at Lebanon, failing democracy but is this because colonialism and material wealth conditions which the
West has and thus can afford the costs of liberalism?

Bannon Debate:

Main Question: Is populism the future, can liberal values push back?

Bannon opening remarks:

Is it going to be nationalist or socialist populism?

Financial elites brought the United States to its knees to create money so they could bail themselves out. That
wasn’t a free bailout, pension accounts got zeroed, the little guy got to pay the price.

Trump presidency is a result of that. 70% of the country thought the country was in decline.

The technocratic elite have left a financial wasteland and has decoupled from the middle and lower classes.
Economic nationalism doesn’t care about race or gender, lowest black unemployment rates.

Will it be a nationalist populism that bleeds in capitalism and deconstructs the administrative state and break
down the crony capitalism? Or will it be socialist populism?

David opening remark:

It is anger and fear that drives people to the polls, which don’t offer anything productive.

Populism begins by subdividing people and saying that because of their actions, some people aren’t the
people but those people, and says the people matter and those people don’t.
Trump saying 52% of women, but this was almost wholly white women.

Bannon
The reason Trump rose is because of past administrations.
Factories and jobs that left lead to the opioid crisis.
Liberal democracy is entangled with neoliberalism and neoconservatism which leads to a economic crisis.

Mark
The failures of a good system is not a justification to turn to an evil one.
Populist movements sees the fissures like the huge wealth gap and seizes them to destroy and overthrow
whereas liberals see as things that can be addressed with reform and renewal.

Bannon
Fascism looks to worship the state.
Trump movement looks to economic nationalism, America first and the deconstruction of the administrative
state. So it is against fascism.

Not maximising shareholder value but the citizenship value.

Mark
American first is bad and we left hat behind to build a community of democratic nations with clashing
interests but are estronger when we work cooperatively to build peace and prosperity, in constrast to right
wing populism.

Bannon:

Countries don’t want to destroy EU but want to reclaim their sovereignty, even if comes at the expense of
EU’s destruction or not.

We have socialism for the very rich and very poor, and a brutal Darwinian capitalism for the middle class.
If we don’t bring out the better qualities of capitalism, we will fail. The millennials have no affordable housing,
no pension fund due to gaps, so millennials must support populism.
Mark

Trump is just a continuation of Obama economy.

Populist economics results in disaster because it doesn’t address issues but just exploits emotions.

Bannon wants to be engaged in the world but the trade deals, commercial rlatiomshop capital markets and
Ameerican security guarantee. They neeed to step up to do their parts whether its renegotiating trade deals
or NATO.

All of this money needed is financed by the “deplorables” and the little guys and their kids. US shouldn’t be an
empire but a revolutionary power under Trump.

Mark says you are only a patriot if you love our country as it is, not an idealised version.

Bannon says economic populism is a solution to poverty for all people, realigning some Bernie voters to
Trump. 1.3 million Obama voters didn’t vote for Hillary, blacks.

Marks says Trump if he really believed Blacks would vote for him, would allow them to vote by reducing
voter laws. This also caused laws during Obama era to be lead to less Black voters.

Bannon says there is no correlation between white supremist terrorism and Trump campaign.

Example of George Soros

So many conspiracy theories about his Jewishness, but in the end if you really believe that he is trying to
subvert nations, as he did with the Bank of England and trying to stop populism, any news story about him that
you do, you know anti-Semites will use this. Should knowing that your valid reports on Soros’ activities can
lead to antisemitism stop you from reporting on them? Freedom of press.

“party of Davos” “we are the steady state” these guys talked about taxes but not evasion which really gets
them millions while making others poorer
From a legislative point of view, the originalist judges appointed by Trump is aiming at deconstructing
administrative state.

Mark says this is corroding the democratic institutions of Amereica.

Bannon says he is deconstructing the administrative state that benefits the big guys and the elite.

Mark says international liberalism and institutionalism holds the liberal democratic order.

Bannon says the liberal democratic order, in which US is disadvantaged due to bearing most of the ecostrs,
live at the expense of the little guys not Only in America but allaroundn the world and benefeits the elites.
Bannon says future blongs to populism and either left wing or right wing. If it is right wing it will
deeconustricting the administrative state and opening up the power of capitalism or even more state
intervention in your life.

Booker, Bernie, warren, the democratic party is becoming more progressive.

Deindustralisation wrecked americans, opioids. People fighting against a corrupt, permanent political class.
The backbone of our country, is the little guy. The backbone of the populist movement aree the same little
guys.

From POLI 260

Domestic effects of liberalism and the foreign relations aspects of liberalism (democratic peace theory)
Neoliberalism explained

If we aren’t interventionist and believe that eeveryone is equally moral worthy, then the country lottery goes
against this and free immigration should be instituted for the people of countries that don’t give them rights.

Paradox: Proclaiming the foundational moral autonomy of the individual is an immoral denial of the primacy
of a community of faith for others.

There is no question that we have moral obligations to aid others in achieving their human rights. However, it
is politically naïve to assume a moral universalism that does not prioritize one’s own community. i.e morally
there should be open borders but, politically, we exclude others to uphold an identity.

From a transnational cosmopolitan perspective, the rights of citizenship ought not to possess any advantages
over those rights to which all humans are entitled. Refugees, immigrants and aliens.

Citizenship is a fundamental determinant of a democracy. Citizens possess political rights but they also have
responsibilities and duties towards other members of their community.

Does the cosmopolitan denationalization of citizenship empty citizenship of any meaning (abstract ideals vs
grounded practices) by depriving politics of any real content?

Begin with the perception of difference among groups and claim that difference is no less fundamental than
that of commonality

“liberal ideology holds that individuals everywhere are fundamentally the same, and are best off pursuing self-
preservation and material well-being. . . Thus all individuals share an interest in peace

In other words, there has been a shift to prioritize global inclusivity based on the claim of a universal
humanity.
cosmopolitan citizens of the world linked together through transnational markets, a universal law of human
rights, and global institutions of public governance

other liberal positions that the elite take such as open spaces and gentrification rise the cost of housing as well
as make the poor people flee into poor nneeighbourhoods, leading to segregation

Makau Mutua:
The Human Rights Agenda:

Human Rights corpus is Eeurocentrict and the framework in which it is attempted to be exported from the
West to the east falls under neocolonial context in which the Weesterners are superiors and easterners are
subordinates. This undermines the movement’s basic claim of universality.

The HRCorpus also disregards the anti slavery and anti colonial and womens suffrage campaigns. West wants
to create inferior dumb copeies of Western norms by making concepts such as political democracy a
precondition to human rights, thus forcing the eastern people to adopt western norms.

The superior rhetoric results in a loss of cross cultural legitimacy and undermines its universalists appeal.

The globalization of human rights fits a historical pattern in which all high morality comes from the West as a
civilizing agent against lower forms of civilization in the rest of the world. It is important to note that it was the
European crimes that gave rise to universal human rights but now, it is preached by the West to the east
which doesn’t have millions of people killede in World Wars but in most cases, just mind their own businsses.
Also it is important to note that human rights movement didn’t start until the Holocaust where the victims
were Eeuropean white Jews while the genocide and enslavements of Africans didn’t promt this kind of change.

Whilee liberalism focuses on the political and cultural violations committed mostly in the Third World, it never
focuses on th economic rights violated in the West such as 60% making minimum wage due to free enterprise
being a part of liberalism.

If one culture is given the right of imperialism, the right to defined and impose on others what ideas good for
humanity, the very meaning of freedom itself will have ben abrogated

NAFTA aims to prevent Chinese subversion through Mexico and tries to establish north America as a
geostrategic manufacturing base.

Neoliberalism is for free trade and profit maximisation, shareholder value and deregulation.