Is Indian Democracy an Extraordinary Success Story?

Salvatore Babones puts the view that Indian democracy is an extraordinary success story in his book, Dharma Democracy: How India Built the Third World’s First Democracy, which was published last year.

Babones describes himself as “a skeptical quantitative and comparative sociologist who came to the subject with an interest in democracy not (initially at least) with any particular interest in India itself”

I read the book during my most recent visit to India. I came to it with a particular interest in India and a desire to understand whether that country is more appropriately viewed as the world's largest democracy, or as an elective autocracy in which personal freedom is severely restricted. Babones has persuaded me that the first view is closer to being correct.

The structure of this essay is as follows. In the next section I discuss the graph presented above. I then draw upon Dharma Democracy to explain why Babones implies that the freedom data depicted in the graph understates personal freedom in India. The following sections outline why Babones views Indian democracy as a success story, his explanation for that success, and the reception his book has received in India. I present some personal views before concluding.

A Visual Starting Point: Emancipative Values and Personal Freedom

To frame the discussion, I use the chart above showing data from the World Values Survey and the Human Freedom Index. The horizontal axis presents Christian Welzel’s emancipative values index, a measure of cultural support for autonomy and expressive freedoms. The vertical axis shows personal freedom as assessed by the Fraser/Cato Human Freedom Index. I have previously explained the chart more fully on this blog, when using it to explore global patterns of authoritarianism associated with political entrepreneurship.

I am using the chart here to highlight how India appears to be situated within the broader global landscape. India appears in the middle of the distribution: less free than Western democracies but significantly freer than many culturally comparable societies. The chart suggests that the degree of personal freedom in India is much as might be expected for a country with India’s level of economic development and cultural values.

However, historical data suggests that personal freedom was much higher in India during the first decade of this century. It declined to its current level (around 6/10) from a rating substantially higher than might be expected based on emancipative (around 7/10). 

Possible errors in the measurement of personal freedom

Babones implies that the Fraser/Cato index understates the personal freedom that Indians experience. He argues that there is bias in all democracy and freedom indexes that use of subjective data from the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem). Apparently, nearly all of V-Dem’s survey indicators are coded by country experts, most of whom are academics residing in the country being studied. In the case of India, that methodology may introduce bias in recent freedom indicators because Narendra Modi and his BJP party are “widely reviled among social scientists both within India and in the West”.

This raises several issues. First, the Fraser/Cato index’s reliance on V-Dem seems to be modest. As far as I can see, only one item tends to depress India’s freedom score: that is V-Dem’s score for Media and expression under the heading “Expression and information”. On that item, V-Dem’s score is not far below the scores of Freedom House, BTI and CLD, which are also used in the Fraser/Cato index. It is possible, however, that data from Freedom House, BTI and CLD are subject to similar methodological biases as the data from V-Dem.

Second, India’s academics have some good reasons to criticize Modi’s human rights record. Nevertheless, in my view Babones’ allegation of bias carries weight because V-Dem gives Indian democracy a lower rating at present than in 1976 - during Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency” rule - when civil rights were suspended.

Third, some other freedom indexes provide a rosier picture of civil liberties in India than Fraser/Cato. For example, the Civil liberties rating for India incorporated in the Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is higher than for Armenia and Georgia – a ranking which is inconsistent with that shown in the above chart.

On balance, it seems to me that Babones has made a plausible case that democracy and personal freedom are in better shape in India than is often claimed by critics of the Modi government.

 India as an Extraordinary Democratic Success

Babones argues that “India’s democracy is in better shape than that of just about any other developing country”. His central claim is that India’s democracy is historically exceptional.

He emphasizes that India is the only large, poor, post‑colonial society to maintain continuous electoral democracy for more than seven decades. Unlike Western democracies, which evolved gradually over centuries, India launched universal suffrage at independence despite widespread illiteracy and immense cultural diversity. For Babones, this makes India not a fragile democracy but an extraordinary one - a global outlier whose success cannot be understood through Western liberal frameworks.

He grounds this argument in several propositions:

·        India conducts elections involving hundreds of millions of voters with consistently high turnout. Babones sees this as evidence of a deeply internalized democratic ethos.

·        India’s democratic resilience is rooted in its dharmic heritage, which emphasizes pluralism, decentralisation, and negotiated social order.

·        Most post‑colonial states experienced military coups and/or authoritarian consolidation. India did not.

·        India has vast civil society networks which have tended to inculcate a sense of national unity.

·        India’s electoral system has enabled historically disadvantaged communities to gain political voice – it is helping these communities to overcome social disadvantages.

Babones has included a chapter discussing the status of Muslims in India. In that context he suggests that nationhood is a work in progress. One interesting statistic he cites is that 99% of Indian Muslims report being “proud” to be Indian. He also makes the point that in a country that is 80% Hindu, “Muslims will never experience full social inclusion unless Hindus actively invite them into the national mainstream.”

Reception of “Dharma Democracy”

I asked Grok and CoPilot to provide summaries of the reception that the book has received in India.

Grok notes that as a relatively recent book from a smaller publisher, it hasn’t yet garnered widespread mainstream academic or Western critical reviews. However, the book has been well-received in circles aligned with its thesis. Reviewers highlight its challenge to global democracy indices, defense of India’s success via “dharma” and Hindu civil society, and data-driven rebuttals to criticisms of Modi-era democracy. One highly critical reviewer argues the book is misguided because it fails to address the Indian Constitution’s alleged anti-Hindu biases.

CoPilot offered similar comments, noting specifically that some critics are concerned that support for the Hindu civilization thesis tends to downplay pluralism and legitimize majoritarian narratives. Extending its analysis beyond formal reviews, it notes that much Indian academic discourse pushes back against the core thesis of the book. Many Indian scholars continue to view recent developments in India’s democracy as problematic. CoPilot sums up: “The book has not been dismissed; it’s being taken seriously in India, but primarily as a provocative intervention in an ongoing debate rather than a settled or widely accepted interpretation.”

Personal Perspectives

I cannot claim to have spent much time discussing politics during my three visits to India. Readers who are interested in my motives for visiting India can find relevant information here, here, here, here and here.

However, when discussion has turned to politics, the people I met have tended to express views that either strongly oppose or strongly support prime minister Modi. There were exceptions, but the views seemed to be linked to education levels – those with a university degree tended to be critical of Modi’s human rights record, whereas those without a university education were highly supportive of his emphasis on nationalism and economic development.

One observation stands out: critics of Modi expressed their views to me openly and without hesitation. These were not whispered conversations but frank and confident exchanges, often in public settings. That willingness to criticise the government directly to a foreign visitor is not something one would expect in a society where personal freedom is severely restricted. This suggests that India’s public sphere retains a level of openness that complicates the more pessimistic narratives about democratic decline.

My own view of Modi has moderated over the years. When he was first elected, international reporting had me viewing him as a somewhat alarming Hindu nationalist, whose policies might cause disorder. Perhaps Modi has himself become more moderate as he has focused on achievement of Viksit Bharat, which translates as “Developed India”. The image he presents internationally is certainly that of an extraordinarily diplomatic leader who seeks mutually beneficial relations with nearly all other countries.

While reading Babones’ book I pondered whether a “dharma democracy” would differ substantially from one based on Western individualism. At a superficial level, a “dharma democracy” might be seen to place less emphasis on personal freedom because dharma is about “duty” or “right action” rather than individual rights. However, the Indian concept of dharma seems to me to be close to Aristotelian ideas of individual self-actualization in accordance with natural purpose (telos). Babones notes that the Indian philosopher, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), suggested “every form of life, every group of men has its dharma, which is the law of its being”.

It seems to me that when Indians speak of duty to the nation what they have in mind might generally have more to do with doing the right thing - for example, adherence to societal norms that make democracy possible – because such behaviour is honorable and integral to self-realization, rather than an obligation that necessarily entails self-sacrifice.

 I am left wondering whether there is much difference in practice in the way Indian democracy is conducted by comparison with Western democracies. It seems possible that Indian democracy may be conducted with a little more regard to the norms of reciprocity, fair-dealing and mutual respect that restrain citizens from seeking to use the political process to exploit their compatriots.  

Conclusions

Salvatore Babones argues in Dharma Democracy that India is an extraordinary democratic outlier among post‑colonial societies. I think that line of argument holds up surprisingly well once one examines both the historical record and the limitations of the freedom indices that dominate international commentary. The evidence suggests that India’s personal freedoms, while imperfect, are not in the state of collapse that some critics claim.

The dharmic framing of democracy that Babones highlights offers a useful reminder that democratic resilience can emerge from cultural resources that differ from those of the West. India’s traditions of pluralism, decentralization, and negotiated social order have helped sustain a vast and diverse electorate through seven decades of elections. Whether or not one embraces the full “dharma democracy” thesis, it is clear that India’s democratic foundations run deeper than many external observers assume.

The reception of Dharma Democracy inside India reflects this complexity. Supporters see it as a welcome challenge to Western academic pessimism; critics worry that it risks legitimizing majoritarian narratives. Yet the very fact that the book has sparked open, vigorous debate is itself evidence of a public sphere that remains lively and accessible.

My own conversations in India reinforce that impression. Critics of the government spoke freely and confidently, even in public settings - something inconsistent with the idea of a society sliding into authoritarian silence. At the same time, the polarization of views, often along educational lines, reflects the tensions of a rapidly modernizing nation.

In the end, distinctive characteristics of India’s society have shaped its experience of democracy. Distinctive cultural values help to explain why Indian democracy has been surprisingly resilient. If the norms of reciprocity, restraint, and mutual respect that underpin democratic life continue to hold, India’s democracy may remain not only durable but an extraordinary success story. 

Are integralists opposed to natural rights?

 

Who are integralists? And why should anyone be interested in their views about natural rights?

I knew next to nothing about integralists before reading Kevin Vallier’s book, All the Kingdoms of the World, published in 2023. I read the book because of my interest in political movements that may pose a threat to liberty. By examining integralism, the author aims to help liberals and post-liberals to understand religious anti-liberalisms.

Vallier writes:

“Catholic integralists say that governments must secure the earthly and heavenly common good. God authorizes two powers to do so, they assert. The state governs in matters temporal, and the church in matters spiritual. Since the church has a nobler purpose than the state (salvation), it may authorize and direct the state to support it with certain policies, such as enforcing church law. At times, the church may need assistance to advance its objectives.”

After reading that, my first thought was that it would be necessary for Catholics to make up a high proportion of the population of a country before integralism could possibly be a force to be reckoned with. The idea that governments should enforce Catholic church law in countries like the United States and Australia would seem almost as preposterous to most citizens as the idea that the governments of those countries should enforce Sharia law.

Yet, groups of people who have strong anti-liberal convictions (socialists and environmental activists as well as religious extremists) often find ways to exert political influence that is disproportionate to the numbers of their supporters.

Vallier suggests that the modern integralist movement was founded around 2012 as a movement for spiritual renewal based on views of Thomas Pink. However, integralism has been transformed by Adrian Vermeule and his allies to have a greater focus on politics. Vallier suggests:

“Vermeule is building a new anti-liberal elite designed to steer the New Right.”

Rather than attempt to provide a comprehensive review of Vallier’s book, I focus here on the views of Adrian Vermeule and their implications for natural rights.

The views of Adrian Vermeule

Vermeule is a Harvard law professor, and a leading scholar in administrative law. He became interested in integralism soon after his conversion to Catholicism in 2016.

Vermeule has little to say about integralism as an ideal. His focus is on “helping integralists to develop a serious theory of the state and a theory of state capture.”

Vallier notes that Vermeule builds on Patrick Deneen’s criticism of liberalism in his book, Why Liberalism Failed. In response to Deneen’s book, I wrote an essay entitled, “Is John Locke responsible for the failings of liberal democracy?” I suggested that Deneen’s argument that John Locke is responsible for the failings of liberal democracy stems from a mis-reading of a paragraph in the Second Treatise of Government. Nevertheless, I welcomed Deneen’s support for practices that sustain culture within communities and his recognition that it is important for members of self-governing communities to have exit rights.  

Vermeule rejects Deneen’s belief that “Politics and human community must percolate from the bottom up, from experience and practice.” Vermeule argues that in order to protect religious communities, Catholics must take over the state and destroy liberalism from the top down.

Vermeule brought to integralism a non-originalist, non-contextualist legal philosophy. Rather than adopting the usual approach of American conservatives who read the U.S. Constitution according to the framer’s intent or the text’s plain meaning, Vermeule argues that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with “the common good”.

The concept of “common good” is linked to natural law. Natural law is seen to direct humans to pursue goods that help them to flourish. Since humans flourish in groups, natural law determines the common good for each group as a whole. An effective criminal justice system is an example of a common good.

However, Vallier tells us that Vermeule seeks to advance the common good theologically as well as politically via a strong administrative state:

“The state can help citizens grasp and follow the natural law, promote the earthly common good, and even help them pursue the heavenly common good—corporate salvation in Christ. The administrative state serves as the church’s deputy for the salvation of souls.”

Vermeule’s vision of “integration from within” requires integralists to capture the state and turn it toward religious objectives. That will be possible, he asserts, because liberalism is doomed.  The tendency of liberals to push for new liberties will eventually exceed the populace’s appetite for freedom. As members of the public object to whatever appears on the progressive liberal agenda beyond legalisation of divorce, contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage and transgenderism, the persecution of non-liberals will become more aggressive. Non-liberals will crave the return of “strong gods”.  

Vermeule apparently believes that “a small, devoted cadre can instigate a Catholic-led American counterrevolution against liberalism.” Vallier suggests that in Vermeule’s view, Catholics have only two options: “become rulers or become subjects.” He states:

“Make no mistake: Vermeule means to install a ruler.”

Vallier discusses several reasons why a peaceful transition to integralist rule is unlikely to be possible. The most important point he makes is that even if Vermeule is correct about the collapse of liberalism, he has “no story” about why integralism must follow liberalism. Integralists would be competing with other groups. They would struggle to dominate Catholics with more moderate views and nonviolent unbaptized resistors, let alone “violent and enraged” progressives.

Vallier also argues that, once established, an integralist order would lack moral stability.  His line of argument is somewhat complicated, but his main point seems to be that “the integralist ideal depends on people acting from a firm grasp of the true good” rather than from fear.  He notes that Václav Havel’s observation that under communist rule in Eastern Europe everyone ended up complying with authoritarian social norms to avoid punishment, rather than from moral conviction.

The relevance of natural rights

The only reference I could find to natural rights in Vallier’s book is in a reference to John Finnis’s book, Natural law and Natural Rights. Vallier discusses human rights in the context of Catholic social thought. He notes:

“The Catholic Church embraces many such rights. These include the right to health care, the right to vote, and freedom of religion. Catholic social thought claims that governments exist to protect universal human rights. The church has not set natural law aside, though. When we talk about human rights, we thereby talk about natural law.”

At that point, the author provides a reference to Finnis’s book (pages 198-200) which contains a discussion of the grammar of rights. In his discussion of natural law and natural rights, Finnis notes that some values have been widely recognized in all human societies. All human societies show a concern for the value of human life, cooperation, property, and reciprocity. That provides the background against which Finnis develops his list of basic values, including life, sociability, and practical reasonableness. Practical reasonableness requires one “to bring one’s own intelligence to bear effectively … on choosing one’s actions and lifestyle, and shaping one’s own character”. Finnis argues that an important implication of practical reasonableness is that “it is always unreasonable to choose against any basic value, whether in oneself or in one’s fellow human beings.”

I can understand why Vallier views human rights in the context of Catholic social thought. Since one of his aims is to “reach out to those skeptical of liberal order”, none of his arguments “presupposes liberal commitments”. I hope he persuades many readers that integralism is inconsistent with the declaration of religious freedom adopted by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. However, from my perspective (as a non-Catholic) that doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.

In my view, the heart of the matter is whether integralism is consistent with recognition of natural rights. From my reading of Vallier’s book, it seems obvious that integralists are opposed to government recognition of the natural rights of individuals. For example, integralists want governments to help them to discourage heresy and apostasy.

As I see it, the best way to defend classical liberalism from the advocates of integralism, Sharia law, communism, illiberal progressivism, and every other brand of authoritarianism, is by promoting an understanding that government recognition of natural rights offers a solution to the social problem of enabling people to flourish in different ways without the flourishing of any person or group being given preference over that of others. Drawing extensively on the wisdom of other people, I sought to explain that approach in my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.   

Should Libertarians be Attempting to Influence Culture? A Discussion with Winton Bates and Chris Matthew Sciabarra (I)

 

I have asked Chris Matthew Sciabarra to present his views on the question posed above because he has possibly thought more deeply than any other living person about the relevance of social context to the pursuit of libertarian ideals. The depth of Chris’s thinking on these matters became apparent to me when I recently reviewed his trilogy of books on the dialectics of liberty:

Marx, Hayek, and Utopia, State University of New York Press, 1995.

Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, second edition, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013. (The first edition was published in 1995.)

Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

My review has been published on “The Savvy Street”.

In his dialectical approach, Chris emphasizes the importance of contextual analysis across time. The most relevant example is his discussion of Murray Rothbard’s views. Rothbard held that nonaggression is all that is required of a libertarian society, and that could be assured through adoption of a libertarian law code after government ceased to exist. Chris argues that the experience of political freedom is not likely to be fully efficacious in the absence of a supporting edifice of cultural and personal practices.

Before asking Chris for his contribution to the discussion, I outlined why I am reconsidering my views on the question of whether libertarians should be seeking to influence culture.

Why am I reconsidering my views?

Until recently, I was definitely opposed to J S Mill’s position in the passage quoted above. It seemed to me to be woolly thinking to suggest that the sanctions imposed by “prevailing opinion and feeling” were akin to tyranny. I have argued in the past that libertarians should focus on reducing the tyranny of the legal order. It seemed to me that while individual libertarians might take a position supporting or opposing particular elements of cultural change, in their role as advocates of liberty they should focus on issues specifically related to government e.g. constitutions, laws, regulations, and actions of government officials.

I began to reconsider my views before reviewing Chris’s books. After reading The Individualists, an excellent history of libertarian ideas Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi, I was prompted to write on this blog on the question: Where is the soul of libertarianism? That question stems from the subtitle of the book: “Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism”, and from the discussion, in the final chapter, of the battle between bleeding heart libertarians, left libertarians and paleolibertarians for control of the Libertarian Party in the United States. The Individualists left me wanting to promote the view that the soul, or essence, of libertarianism stems from the nature of human flourishing. I suggested that I would have preferred to see the book end by acknowledging that libertarians are engaged in an ongoing struggle against authoritarianism, as people on opposing sides of the culture wars seek to enlist the coercive powers of the state to pursue their interests.

Another reason for reconsidering my views is because it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the actions of governments and those of some other organisations.  For example, when interest groups lobby private businesses to adopt particular environmental or social policies, there is an increasing tendency for political parties to become involved by threatening regulation either in support of or in opposition to interest group advocacy. There also seems to be increasing acceptance that governments should take an active interest in codes of conduct adopted by organisations that have traditionally been viewed as independent of government (e.g. universities) particularly if they receive substantial government funding. Another example is the non-transparent influence of governments on the publication policies of social media outlets. It has become increasingly difficult for free speech advocates to distinguish between government censorship and the editorial policies of media proprietors.  

The only reason I can think of right now why libertarians should not be attempting to influence culture is the difficulty they would have in agreeing on what kinds of cultural change they would like to promote. Libertarians are, almost by definition, independently minded people.

With that thought in mind, I will now hand over to Chris.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s view

I want to thank Winton Bates for inviting me to participate in this ongoing dialogue, which began with his discussion of my Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy. Next year, I will formally mark the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the first two books of that trilogy—Marx, Hayek, and Utopia and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical—and the twenty-fifth anniversary of its finale, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism. I will devote more attention to each of these books as we approach their birthdays!

My appreciation notwithstanding, I’m somewhat overwhelmed by Winton’s view that I have “possibly thought more deeply than any other living person about the relevance of social context to the pursuit of libertarian ideals.”

Recently, several articles have been published, lamenting the state of libertarianism—how it has lost its relevance and practicality, how it has lost its way. I can attest to the fact that whatever libertarianism is today, it is not what it was when I first encountered it in the late 1970s. As a twentieth-century offshoot of liberalism, libertarianism emphasized the centrality of individual rights. But this was not a purely propertarian vision. It was a liberal ideal that situated intellectual, political, and economic freedom within an inclusive cosmopolitan social framework.

I often heard the mantra that libertarianism was about getting the government out of the boardroom and the bedroom. I took seriously Ayn Rand’s view that a “new intellectual” movement was necessary to unite the “homeless refugees” in American politics: the nontotalitarian “liberals” and the nontraditional “conservatives.” I took seriously Murray Rothbard’s call “for a new liberty” that transcended the limitations of left and right.

Even more importantly—and in complete agreement with Winton—I took seriously the neo-Aristotelian perspective that any struggle for human freedom is simultaneously a commitment to the project of personal flourishing. Each implies the other. Each requires the other. And each depends upon a culture that nourishes both.

Alas, we are facing a political climate here in America—and in many other countries throughout the world—in which there is a struggle between competing forms of illiberalism on both the left and the right. I have not concealed my view as to which is the greater threat. But illiberalism of any kind anywhere is a threat to human freedom and personal flourishing everywhere.

The opening epigraph of John Stuart Mill hints at the importance of focusing on how power manifests itself in reciprocally reinforcing ways. The approach of so-called “thin libertarians”—that is, those who have argued that freedom does not require a robust defense of anything beyond a nonaggression principle—is so myopic that it collapses in on itself. Somehow, someway, such “thin libertarians” have ushered in, through the backdoor, cultural presuppositions that they believe are necessary to the achievement and sustenance of human freedom.

Indeed, even Murray Rothbard, who once declared the sole importance of the nonaggression “axiom,” notably shifted his support toward what he called “Liberty Plus.” This was an acknowledgement that some kind of cultural matrix was necessary to nourish the freedom project. Rothbard argued that the paleoconservative values of a Christian culture, a “shared ethnicity,” and a “shared religion” were the only bulwark against the “modal” libertines who had taken up the banner of freedom. Hans-Hermann Hoppe furthered this view with a vengeance, arguing that libertarianism could not survive the conditions of “moral degeneracy and cultural rot” brought on by those who engaged in what he saw as the sordid promiscuity, vulgarity, obscenity, and illegitimacy of alternative lifestyles (in other words: anyone who identified as LGBT+).

Given that anarcho-capitalists like Hoppe advocate a society based on the creation of private propertarian fiefdoms, in which property owners can expel any groups upholding non-approved religious, cultural, or sexual practices, or even people whose skin color they don’t like, the very idea of a cosmopolitan liberal order was anathema. In other words, such libertarianism simply dispensed with liberalism, the very tapestry from which it emerged.

That’s not what I signed up for.

I believe that it is partially because of these developments in some libertarian circles that the radical liberal project remains stillborn, despite the gallant efforts of so many fine thinkers who have worked so hard to make the more robust case for freedom and flourishing. That project requires us to examine the systemic nature of tyranny and oppression—that is, the ways in which power relations are manifested on multiple levels in any given society. The cultural level is perhaps the most crucial of all.

And make no mistake about it: Power is not a purely political phenomenon. As Mill suggests, “prevailing opinion and feeling,” can be just as tyrannical as anything political. Indeed, James Madison warned that liberty could be destroyed from the top-down by political compulsion and from the bottom-up by the cultural imposition of conformity. Madison understood that liberty thrives on diversity.

So, in response to the question, “Should Libertarians be Attempting to Influence Culture?”, I can only say that this presupposes an understanding of more basic issues. First, libertarians should be focused on exploring the role of culture in shaping political and social outcomes. And in a global context, this also entails exploring how different cultures may or may not support the radical liberal project.

I have championed the dialectical method because, as the art of context-keeping, dialectics demands that we examine any problem, issue, or event on different levels of generality and from different vantage points. By shifting our perspective on any problem, issue, or event, we emerge with a fuller understanding of the varied ways in which these phenomena manifest themselves. We can then begin piecing together how the parts interrelate and function in a system examined across time.

I will have a lot more to say about these issues in forthcoming exchanges. For now, I’m delighted that Winton has invited me to participate in this unfolding dialogue.

Addendum:

Chris Mathew Sciabarra has also posted this discussion on his blog, Notablog. Please take a look at Chris’s blog.

Why has "Norms of Liberty" made a lasting impression on me?

 

Norms of Liberty is a work of political philosophy written by Douglas B Rasmussen and Douglas J Den Uyl, and published in 2005.

The blurb on Amazon provides a good description of what the book is about:

“How can we establish a political/legal order that in principle does not require the human flourishing of any person or group to be given structured preference over that of any other? Addressing this question as the central problem of political philosophy, Norms of Liberty offers a new conceptual foundation for political liberalism that takes protecting liberty, understood in terms of individual negative rights, as the primary aim of the political/legal order.” 

Rasmussen and Den Uyl argue for construing individual rights as metanormative principles. These principles establish the political/ legal conditions under which full moral conduct can take place.

The authors distinguish metanormative principles from normative principles that provide guidance for moral conduct within the ambit of normative ethics. This crucial distinction allows them to develop liberalism as a metanormative theory rather than as a guide for moral conduct.

The authors show that the moral universe can support liberalism without either being minimized or requiring morality to be grounded in sentiment or contracts. Rather, liberalism can be supported, and many of its internal tensions avoided, with an ethical framework of Aristotelian inspiration―one that understands human flourishing to be an objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, social, and self-directed activity.

Readers who are looking for a more expansive synopsis should read Ed Younkins’s essay, ‘Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Trilogy of Freedom and Flourishing’, published on The Savvy Street.

Some explanation of the authors’ use of the term ‘liberalism’ might be helpful at this point. As well as defending classical liberalism and libertarianism, the authors seek to defend other types of political liberalism (as the term is used in the United States) which still subscribe to some of the tenets of classical liberalism e.g. that people should be free to pursue their own conceptions of the good life.   

My purpose here is not to review the book but to explain why the book has made a lasting impression on me. First, I will explain why I thought the book made an important contribution when I first read it in 2007. Then, I will explain why I still think the book provides the most appropriate framework in which to consider the rights of individuals.

My initial impression

Rasmussen and Den Uyl advanced their argument for construing individual rights as metanormative principles in large part as a response to communitarian and conservative critics who claimed that liberalism had undermined its own principles.

I had read some communitarian literature prior to reading Norms of Liberty but I was more concerned about the threat to individual rights posed by people who wanted to make happiness a goal of national economic policy. The people concerned wanted to use survey data on average life satisfaction to monitor achievement of that goal. I was concerned that responses to life satisfaction surveys don’t give appropriate weight to everything that is important to people and that using such surveys to pursue a national happiness goal would interfere with individual choice. (I wrote an article about such matters in 2004. It can be found here.)

I read Norms of Liberty at a time when I was ready to move beyond utilitarianism. The welfare economics that I had been imbued with decades earlier seemed to imply that it would be good for governments to adopt aggregate welfare as an over-arching policy goal if only it was possible to measure individual utility in a manner suitable to be aggregated (or averaged) in some way. However, after some economists began to claim that life satisfaction surveys provided a way to do that, the potential conflict with individual liberty could not be ignored. It seemed wrong for liberty to be viewed as just an element in an individual’s utility function. But how could one avoid viewing liberty in that way if the sole goal of individuals is to maximize utility functions?

The answer that Norms of Liberty provided to me was that I needed to step aside from a framework in which all goals of individuals could be summarised neatly in terms of maximizing a nebulous concept referred to as “utility”. I needed to think more broadly in terms of individual flourishing as a multidimensional process. Liberty is integral to individual flourishing because individual flourishing is an inherently self-directed process.

I began blogging soon after reading Norms of Liberty. Some of my initial posts reflect the favourable impression the book had on me soon after I had read it. For example:  What does flourishing mean? , and Is Freedom and necessary condition for human flourishing?

 Later views

Over the years, I have discussed many different things on this blog.  Blogging has been a learning process. I cannot claim that the views I have expressed have always been philosophically coherent.  

Nevertheless, I claim a degree of consistency in advocating for a political/legal order which protects the possibility of individual self-direction, and ensures that the flourishing of any person or group is not given structural preference over any other. I also claim consistent optimism about the potential for the vast majority of individuals to flourish – with help from family and friends – if governments protect their natural rights and refrain from interfering with the manner of their flourishing. (I don’t deny that government assistance has helped some people to flourish but I observe that government assistance is often offered in a manner that encourages people to languish.)

Those ideas are also themes of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, as well as being reflected in many of the essays on this blog.

While re-reading Norms of Liberty a few days ago, I was struck by its relevance to recent political developments in many of the countries often referred to as western liberal democracies. When I first read the book, I had the impression that groups who sought to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others lacked the political power to implement their policies. At that time, the main threat to individual self-direction seemed to come from well-meaning paternalists who wanted to use the coercive powers of the state to make people happy.

More recently, it seems to me that some groups are increasingly seeking to use the coercive powers of the state to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others. I don’t see this tendency as being confined to any one religious or political group, although some are more prone than others to advocate restrictions on liberty.

One development that seems to me to be of particular concern is the increasing prevalence of the idea that freedom of speech should be restricted to protect people from being offended by what others may say about their ethnicity, religious views etc. If the legal system gives people greater incentives to take offence at what others say, it is reasonable to predict an increase in the extent to which people take offence, leading to demands for further restriction of freedom of speech. Threats of violence should be prohibited because they are incompatible with peaceful coexistence. Beyond that, however, restriction of freedom of speech is a slippery slope that is likely to increase, rather than lessen, conflict between different community groups.

Conclusion

My purpose in writing this essay has been to explain why Norms of Liberty, by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, has made a lasting impression on me.

At the time I first read Norms of Liberty, in 2007, I was particularly concerned about threats to liberty posed by the proposals of some utilitarians who want to make happiness a goal of national economic policy and to use survey measures of average life satisfaction to monitor achievement of that goal. I was concerned that average life satisfaction doesn’t adequately account for liberty. That provided the context in which I was ready to step aside from the idea that all the goals of individuals could be summarized in terms of utility maximization. It made more sense to think of individual flourishing as a multidimensional process which is largely self-directed and to think of liberty as the metanormative principle that protects the possibility of individual self-direction.

I still think the best defence of liberty is to view it as the means of protecting the possibility of individual self-direction, and ensuring that the flourishing of any person or group is not given structural preference over any other. While re-reading Norms of Liberty it struck me that since the book was written, groups seeking to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others have come to pose an increasing threat to liberty in the western liberal democracies. Peaceful coexistence among different groups is likely to break down if norms of liberty are not adequately defended.

What's wrong with people?

 

This question is posed in the title of Chapter 10 of Steven Pinker’s book, Rationality: What it is, Why it Seems Scarce, Why it Matters.

I enjoyed reading the previous 9 chapters but didn’t learn much from them. Those chapters were a painless way to refresh my memory about definitions of rationality, rules of logic, probability, Bayesian reasoning, rational choice, statistical decision theory, game theory, correlation, and regression analysis.

I particularly liked the approach Pinker took in discussing the research of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky which documents many ways in which people are prone to fall short of normative benchmarks of rationality. Pinker makes the point:

“When people’s judgments deviate from a normative model, as they so often do, we have a puzzle to solve. Sometimes the disparity reveals a genuine irrationality: the human brain cannot cope with the complexity of a problem, or it is saddled with a bug that cussedly drives it to the wrong answer time and again.

But in many cases there is a method to people’s madness.”

A prime example is loss aversion: “Our existence depends on a precarious bubble of improbabilities with pain and death just a misstep away”. In Freedom Progress and Human Flourishing, I argued similarly that loss aversion helped our ancestors to survive.

Pinker doesn’t seek to blame the propensity of humans to make logical and statistical fallacies for the prevalence of irrationality in the public sphere. He is not inclined to blame social media either, although he recognises its potential to accelerate the spread of florid fantasies.

The mythology mindset

Pinker argues that reasoning is largely tailored to winning arguments. People don’t like getting on to a train of reasoning if they don’t like where it takes them. That is less of a problem for small groups of people (families, research teams, businesses) who have a common interest in finding the truth than it is in the public sphere.

People tend to have a reality mindset when they are dealing with issues that affect their well-being directly – the world of their immediate experience – but are more inclined to adopt a mythology mindset when they are dealing with issues in the public sphere.

When economists discuss such matters, they may refer to the observation of Joseph Schumpeter that the typical citizen drops to a lower level of mental performance when discussion turns to politics. They reference the concept of rational ignorance attributed to Anthony Downs and Gordon Tulloch. They may also refer to Brian Caplan’s concept of rational irrationality. (For example, see Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, pp 114-115).

Pinker doesn’t refer to those economists’ perspectives but offers interesting insights about factors that might lead people to adopt mythology mindsets. In summary, as a consequence of myside bias, attitudes to the findings of scientific studies often have less to do with scientific literacy than with political affiliation. The opposing “sides” are sometimes akin to “religious sects, which are held together by faith in their moral superiority and contempt for opposing sects”. Within those sects the function of beliefs is to bind the group together and give it moral purpose.

What can we do?

Pinker’s suggestions for combatting irrationality in the public sphere are summed up by his subheading “Re-affirming Rationality”. He advocates openness to evidence, noting the findings of a survey suggesting that most internet users claim to be open to evidence. He suggests that we valorize the norm of rationality by “smiling or frowning on rational and irrational habits”.

Pinker identifies institutions that specialize in creating and sharing knowledge as playing a major role in influencing the beliefs that people hold. Since “no-one can know everything”, we all rely on academia, public and private research units, and the news media for a great deal of the knowledge which forms the basis of our beliefs. Unfortunately, these institutions are often not trustworthy.

In the case of the universities, Pinker suggests that the problem stems from “a suffocating left-wing monoculture, with its punishment of students and professors who question dogmas on gender, race, culture, genetics, colonialism, and sexual identity and orientation”. News and opinion sites have been “played by disingenuous politicians and contribute to post-truth miasmas”.

It is easy to agree with Pinker that it would be wonderful if universities and the news media could become paragons of viewpoint diversity and critical thinking. However, movement toward that goal will require large numbers of individuals to enlist for a ‘long march’ to re-establish norms of rationality in institutions that specialize in creating and sharing knowledge.                                                                    

To what extent do international differences in personal freedom reflect people's values?

 

The accompanying graph shows that personal freedom tends to be greatest in countries where people hold the most emancipative values (on average). However, it also suggests that in some countries personal freedom is much less, or much more, than might be expected on the basis of the values commonly held by the people. For example, there is less personal freedom in Belarus than might be expected, whereas there is more personal freedom in Armenia and Georgia than might be expected.

Before going further, I need to explain what emancipative values and personal freedom actually measure.

The concept of emancipate values was developed by Christian Welzel to measure the beliefs that people hold about such matters as the importance of personal autonomy, respect for the choices people make in their personal lives, having a say in community decisions, and equality of opportunity. Welzel’s research, using data from the World Values Survey, suggests that larger numbers of people have tended to adopt emancipative values in an increasing number of societies as economic development has proceeded. The strengthening of emancipative values is explained by growth of action resources (wealth, intellectual skills, and opportunities to connect with others) rather than civic entitlements such as voting rights. As emancipative values have strengthened, more people have come to recognize the value of civic entitlements and have used their growing material resources, intellectual skills, and opportunities to connect with others, to take collective action to achieve such entitlements. The process has been ongoing, with people showing greater concern for promoting more widespread opportunities—including greater opportunities for women, ethnic minorities and the disabled—as material living standards have risen and emancipative values have strengthened. (There is more information about Welzel’s research on emancipative values here.)

The personal freedom component of the Fraser Institute’s Human Freedom Index incorporates indicators of rule of law, security and safety, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, freedom of association and civil society, freedom of expression and information, and relationship freedom.

As already noted, international differences in personal freedom don’t always reflect people’s values. The reason why that is so is fairly obvious when one looks at the country labels I have shown on the outliers in the graph. What is it that Armenia, Cyprus, and Taiwan have that Egypt, Iran, China, Belarus and Vietnam do not have?   Representative government. 

Two cheers for democracy!

Are social movements drivers of progress?

 

In considering this question my focus is on Mikayla Novak’s recent book, Freedom in Contention, Social Movements and Liberal Political Economy.

Mikayla describes social movements as “sustained collective engagement by multiple participants … aiming to effect change within society”. Mikayla provides an enlightening account of the nature of social movements, the role of entrepreneurship within them, the tactics they use, and of factors that contribute to their success. I focus here on Mikayla’s view that social movements have played a critical role in the realization of liberties enjoyed today in the Western democracies. That line of argument is central to the book, and closely linked to the question posed above.

Before going further, I should note that Mikayla uses an “entangled political economy” framework to examine social networks. That framework, developed by Richard Wagner, views individuals and groups as being intertwined in overlapping relationships of different kinds - collaborative or competitive, or consensual or exploitive. In pursuing their goals, social movements have an irrepressible tendency to entangle with other movements, and with economic and political organizations.

In making the case that social movements have contributed to expanding economic, political, and social freedoms, Mikayla discusses the historical role of some important social movements. The American revolution is discussed as the culmination of a movement resisting imposition of unfair taxation. The Anti-Corn Law League is discussed as a movement rallying public support in opposition to agricultural tariffs that benefitted landowners at the expense of consumers. The movements involved in progressive extension of the voting franchise, including female suffrage activism, are discussed as part of a struggle to gain recognition that all individuals should have equal standing to participate in politics. The success of the American Civil Rights Movement in expanding economic, political, and social freedoms is argued to have inspired subsequent movements including anti-war, environmental and feminist movements.

The author’s coverage of contemporary social movements highlights responses to regulation limiting voluntary productive entanglements of an economic nature. Movements discussed include the Tea Party and the campaign to counter restrictive effects of regulation on availability of medication for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Mikayla also highlights the ongoing challenges posed by cultural-institutional environments that fail to prevent those with political influence using it to obtain benefits at the expense of others, and which repress social movement activities. She paints an alarming picture of rising illiberalism:

“Economic freedom has waned, minorities and many other groups around the world are victimized by violent, reactionary backlash dynamics, and, increasingly, we are meeting the end of a police baton or are being haunted by the constant eye of the surveillance state. All in all, the disturbing trend is that illiberalism appears, again, on the rise.” (p 136)

However, that is followed immediately by a more optimistic message about the future of freedom:

“Nevertheless, it is our position that great encouragement should be taken from the demonstrated self-organizational abilities of ordinary people, worldwide, to formulate social movements to demand their liberties and human rights.” (p 136)

Progress

Although Mikayla does not discuss the concept of progress to any great extent, she makes the important point that social evolution tends to be discordant and discontinuous. As a liberal, she focuses on the role of social movements play in the evolution of free and open societies, and expresses strong opposition to “totalizing schemes (drawn up by social movement participants, and by others) aiming at wholesale change to society”.

I believe that social movements have been an important driver of progress, as the concept is defined in my book Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.  I define progress as growth of opportunities for human flourishing – that means growth of opportunities for all individuals to meet their aspirations more fully. I don’t discuss the role of social movements explicitly, but note that social changes accompanying economic progress have played an important role in improving the opportunities available to women and members of minority groups.

My view of cultural evolution as largely benign and emancipative is consistent with the view of social movements that Mikayla presents. There is, however, a slight difference in emphasis. I view cultural evolution as the net result of progressive struggle and conservative resistance, and argue that conservative resistance serves a useful purpose in averting social changes that might later be widely regretted. Mikayla recognizes that counter-movements may be informed by ideological commitments rather than being reactionary, but she leaves the impression that they are more likely to oppose liberal freedoms than to advance them. (See pages 90-91.)

There is also an interesting difference between the items that Mikayla and I discuss as illiberal tendencies. As noted above, Mikayla emphasizes the tendency for minorities and many other groups around the world to be victimized by violent, reactionary backlash dynamics. The things I write about under this heading include cancel culture, attempts to suppress views of opponents, and terrorism. I think we are both right!

Summing up

Mikayla’s book makes an important contribution in reminding readers in the Western democracies of the emancipative role of social movements in realization of economic, political, and social freedoms that they now tend to take for granted.  In that context, social movements have been important drivers of progress, including the spreading of opportunities for more people to meet their aspirations more fully. Although I am somewhat concerned about the illiberal tendencies in some contemporary social movements, I share Mikayla’s optimism about the abilities of ordinary people to formulate social movements to advance and protect liberty.

How does it feel to be holding a copy of my new book?

 

It feels good!

I am one of those people who extols the virtues of eBooks. They don’t take up space on bookshelves. They don’t collect dust. They make it easier for readers to find what they are looking for by searching for particular words, rather than relying on an index. Their production probably does less damage to the environment. And they are often available at a lower price - that is certainly true for readers who are eligible to purchase the Kindle version of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing from Amazon.com.au.

However, there does seem to be something special about being able to hold the book I have written in my own hands. I think there is more involved than just being able to have one’s photo taken holding the book as a physical object. I could have had my photo taken displaying an electronic version on my iPad. It is a mystery to me why I feel that there is something special about holding a physical copy of my own book in my hands. Perhaps I should consider acknowledging that I have a deep-seated attachment to the idea that books are physical objects.

Enough of that!

In the preceding post on this blog, Who should read “Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing”? I briefly outlined the contents of the book and some responses by reviewers.

The main purpose of this post is to acknowledge the fine work of the publisher, Hamilton Books, an imprint of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group. Readers wishing to purchase my book from Hamilton will find it here.

When I was writing the acknowledgements in the book itself, it seemed premature to acknowledge the excellent work of the staff at Hamilton books. Now I have seen the results of their efforts, I have no hesitation in praising them.

I can’t claim great expertise in assessing the quality of the work of publishers, but it seems to me that the standard of publication of my book compares favorably with that of many of the books on my bookshelves. I was pleasantly surprised that publication of the book has occurred on time, in May, as the publisher foreshadowed.

The people I have dealt with at Rowman and Littlefield who have been particularly helpful include Julie Kirsch (Senior Vice President), Nicolette Amstutz (Director of Editorial), Brooke Bures (an editor I have been dealing with throughout the process), Mikayla Mislak (who helped me meet formatting guidelines), Catherine Herman (production editor), and Ashley Moses (Customer Service Department). These people were all friendly and helpful, and responded promptly to queries. I am also grateful for the efforts of other staff, with whom I have not had direct contact.   

Does T S Eliot provide useful hints about the resilience of Western culture?

 

The quoted passage comes near the end of T.S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding, which was written in Britain during the Second World War. Eliot goes on to use vivid imagery to describe the beginning:

“At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.”

The theme of the poem is:

“All shall be well, and

All manner of things shall be well”.

The author urges us to view history as a pattern of “timeless moments”. We celebrate those who died as a consequence of sectarian strife even though they were not “wholly commendable’. We do not celebrate them to “revive old factions”. We celebrate them because of what we have inherited and taken from them. They now accept “the constitution of silence” and are “folded into a single party”. They have left us with a symbol “perfected in death” that “all shall be well”.

The poem seems to me to offer hope for the future of Western culture, despite the author's experience of the “incandescent terror” of bombing raids while it was being written.

Eliot elaborates his views on culture in his book, Notes Toward the Definition of Culture. The first edition of that book was published in 1948, but he began writing it at around the same time as Little Gidding was published.

At one point, Eliot suggests that culture “may be described simply as that which makes life worth living” (27). He views culture as linked to religion: “there is an aspect in which we see a religion as the whole way of life of a people … and that way of life is also its culture” (31).

Eliot claims that it is an error to believe that “culture can be preserved, extended and developed in the absence of religion”. Nevertheless, he acknowledges: “a culture may linger on, and indeed produce some of its most brilliant artistic and other successes after the religious faith has fallen into decay” (29).

The author saw Western culture as already in decline at the time of writing, by comparison with the standards 50 year previously. Eliot “saw no reason why the decay of culture should not proceed much further” (18-19).

Although I am skeptical of such sweeping claims, I think Eliot makes an important point about the potential for cultural disintegration to ensue from cultural specialization:

“Religious thought and practice, philosophy and art, all tend to become isolated areas, cultivated by groups with no communication with each other” (26).

From my perspective, one of the most interesting aspects of this book is Eliot’s suggestion that “within limits, the friction, not only between individuals but between groups”, is “quite necessary for civilization” (59). In discussing the impact of sectarianism on European culture he acknowledges that “many of the most remarkable achievements of culture have been made since the sixteenth century, in conditions of disunity” (70). Perhaps disunity helped by encouraging artistic freedom of expression.

My reading of Notes Toward the Definition of Culture left me feeling optimistic that Western culture can survive the current culture wars. The culture wars seem to me to be akin the historical sectarian disputes between Catholics and Protestants.

Western culture has previously survived attempts of dogmatists to silence their enemies, so it can probably do so again.