As I was commenting in my last post, the modern neoliberal Tory is not a conservative and differs quite considerably from the traditional conservative concept of individual freedom. Traditional conservative thinking has always been characterised by the notion that individual thoughts and behaviour need to be constrained and regulated, by morality, law and the threat of sanctions and punishment. This is considered necessary both for the individual themselves and for the benefit of society as a whole. Conservatives have always stressed the need for moral training to regulate ‘the passions’ and for the necessity of the rule of law to restrain such passions when individual self-regulation fails. However, the neoliberal has an obsession with freedom as a lack of restraint, of a deregulated individualism where any form of regulatory control is seen as threatening ‘the free person’ and a ‘free society’. That is why neoliberal politics must never be confused with either traditional conservatism or liberalism. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that “liberty is the silence of the law” but I will argue that is a stupid thing to say and makes no sense. This is expanding on the thinking of Thomas Hobbes who argued that
"Liberty, or freedom, signifies, properly, the absence of opposition; by opposition, I mean external impediments of motion. A freeman is he; that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to do."
That statement looks quite impressive, but what does it actually mean? Am I having my freedom impeded by being physically and/or legally prevented from killing someone if that is what I have a will to do? What if I wish to commit rape? Obviously such statements are far too ambiguous to be taken at face value, and are in fact quite meaningless. But that is the manner in which the neoliberal presents them to us; this is the Thatcherite way of speaking. Bentham actually goes on to tell us that “every law is an evil, because every law is a violation of liberty; so that government, I say again, can only choose between evils” As a result, for someone who adopts Bentham’s philosophical concept of freedom, preventing rape and murder must themselves be acts of evil. We are now straying into the realms of insanity. You see, when Thatcher tells us that there is no such thing as society, then who is to say that rape and murder should not be your right if you have a will to do so? This is the real poison of individualism, the concept that such judgements are the remit of families and voluntary associations. The Ku Klux Klan is a voluntary association. So is Al-Quaida. ISIS calls itself a family. As a result, are their definitions of morality and ethical behaviour as relevant or more relevant than the decisions of the US Supreme Court, or the European Court of Human Rights which are most certainly not voluntary organisations, indeed they are very graphic manifestations of the big bad state. If you follow this line of thought you can only conclude that Thatcher and her acolytes are actually very bad people, because you must ask the question, why do they wish to argue such things?
Anarchists argue for the abolition of the state, and the neoliberal argues for a minimal state. What the neoliberal has actually done is invert the anarchist argument to justify its position. The anarchist argues that it is the state that has created capital and that the capitalist has his capital only by the grace of the state, whist the neoliberal argues that it is the state that is destroying capital and is the greatest barrier to capitalist development. But neoliberals need the state for its purposes. They do not even begin to understand the concept of individual liberty, which, as Marx tells us, can only be individuated within a social context because they continually deny that context. As a result, the neoliberal, whilst actively destroying the foundations of authority, whether that be the authority of law, of the state or the judiciary, or the moral and ethical framework of the society, utilises the institutions of the state to pursue a relentless fascist style centralisation in order to pander to corporate business interests and the financial classes. The pigsty has abandoned the sole purpose for its existence, to represent the British people who elect them, and has substituted a governmental system directed solely at the special interests of business and finance, thus the unceasing war against local government, unions, workers rights and the public sector in general. As a result I conclude that modern neoliberals from whatever party they represent are, at the same time, a form of anarchist and a form of fascist, thus my description of the modern neoliberal as an anarchic fascist. The dominant concept of the isolated individual is an anachronism, but has been promoted very successfully in modern times, despite the empirical evidence that it is a nonsense. Modern society is the product of the scientific revolution and scientific techniques in all areas of collective life. You will all be very familiar with my fondness for Adam Smith, and the key message that runs through Smith's work is that science and scientific technique is a completely social activity. Smith's argument for the wealth of nations is based on a complex division of labour that necessitates the cooperation of many people; it is necessarily a very collective enterprise, and it is not as if this is new, Smith published this in 1776. Since then the continuing empirical evidence of scientific progress highlights very graphically the poverty of an individualist philosophy. The scientific community is itself a good example of a practical and operating social structure, and no individual could possible carry out any real meaningful research except on some very narrow field. I apologise for the length of this post, but once again, you have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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