Liberalism

Aren't we living in the best of times, eh? Democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious freedom... Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much injustice there is in the world? Sure, there's still plenty of injustice.

But we are on the right track -- it was definitely worse before. Yes it was: more and more people today are free from dictatorships. That depends on what you mean by dictatorship. Aren't we all slaves to money and consumption? These societies that you call free, that's where people are most controlled by multinational corporations!

Naah, dictatorship has to do with where the government gets its power. I mean: in a good society, the government has been handed the power by the people. The people are sort of saying: "okay, you can be in charge for a while, but only as long as you make decisions in a way that benefits the people. If you start benefitting yourselves, at the expense of the people, then we'll give the power to someone else instead." It's like a deal between the people and the government -- a social contract. The people, us that is, allow the government to have the power, we delegate power.

And if they misuse it we can take it back. And this is exactly why we need to separate the state from religion. The state is there for the people, not for God. Hmmm. But aren't you underestimating the importance of religion in society?

There's a reason that religion plays an important role in all civilisations we know of. If you try to eradicate religion, you'll notice how important it is for a stable society. I didn't say eradicate religion. Quite the contrary: we must be tolerant to all religions. Everyone is free to believe in whatever religion they like, but nobody can be forced to believe.

And that's why the basic human rights are so important: they are about each and every one of us, as an individual being free to believe, to say, and to live the way we want. And nobody has the right to violate those rights. So, society consists of individuals, and the role of government is to allow those individuals to be as free as possible. Hold your horses now young man. Society also consists of families.

And extended families. And companies. What if everyone just cared for themselves and their own pleasure? Society would collapse! If you focus only on the individuals, you miss the big picture -- how power is distributed in society.

We labourers must stick together for the common good -- for the collective. That's far more important than following the whims of a single individual! Oh yes, we do need other people -- we humans have a social nature, and we cooperate readily with others. But all such things must be voluntary, and based on agreements that both parties accept. If it isn't, it's oppression, even if it take place within a family or a company.

And where does this focus on the individual take us? It takes us to an egoistic society, where the rich only get richer! Not at all. Take a baker for instance; he wants to sell more bread, for his own sake, to serve his self interest. But he can only sell more bread, if the bread that he bakes is cheaper or better than the bread from other bakeries.

And that benefits his customers. So, it's not from the benevolence of the baker that we expect bread on the table, but from his looking after his own interests. Yeah right. Oh, for me? Tasty !