EB: Do you think that the fundamental principles of liberalism are undermined by this crisis? Can they be saved?
PM: What is undermined are the fundamental principles of globalization, which are called liberal—that is, the competition of everyone with everyone or the idea that human order results from the impersonal regulation of the flux. This ideology exploited certain liberal themes, but the liberalism we must preserve is something different. A liberal regime organizes peaceful competition in order to define and implement rules of common life, and it distinguishes rigorously between the realm of political command and that of entrepreneurial freedom in the largest sense of the term, which includes in particular the free communication of moral, social, intellectual, and religious influences. And here is the key point: The liberal regime presupposes the national framework; there has never been a liberal regime without a national framework. In recent years, our regime has undergone a corruption that has affected all classes: the rich, since the regime has favored finance and rent-seeking, especially in real estate, and has incentivized the high technostructure to turn its back on the nation, sometimes to the point of losing a sense of the common good; and lower-income groups, which have been discouraged from working by indiscriminate social spending. The functions directly related to sovereignty—military, security, justice—have been deprived of resources. Thus, either we will proceed to reallocate resources in favor of these essential functions and rewards for working, or we will further immobilize ourselves in the State’s administration of ever-scarcer resources, while we continue to wither away morally and politically.
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Scott BeauchampWriter - Critic - Poet - Editor Archives
December 2020
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