Category: Liberty

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Liberty

[1053] Of Liberal Islam is not liberalism

I have a tingling suspicion that the school of Liberal Islam is not part of liberalism. Earlier, I have reasoned that while I am a liberal, I am not a member of Liberal Islam. This entry will further strengthen that assertion.

Forgive me but when I refer to liberalism, I really mean classical liberalism. Nowadays, the core concepts of liberalism have won the global ideological battle so greatly that almost everybody at least gives a lip service to liberalism in order to share the victor’s glory. Everybody loves winners and this includes Liberal Islam. Even religious conservatives through varying degree nominally accept certain aspect unique to or introduced by liberalism. Thus, I must qualify liberalism before I go on.

The problem with Liberal Islam is that, it does not hold the concept of liberty for the sake of liberty. Rather, it holds liberty — particularly civil liberty — because the school interprets the sources of Islam to allow as such. Whatever the conservative camps are saying, Liberal Islam still refers back to the sources of Islam. At the very least, it is the Koran. A real liberal does not embrace liberalism because “revealed knowledge” tells him or her to do so. A real liberal embraces liberalism simply for the sake of liberty through his or her own reasoning. A real liberal is not a slave that follows every order or commandment presented to him or her. A real liberal thinks for him or herself.

If it is true that Liberal Islam is not part of liberalism, why does Liberal Islam call itself Liberal Islam?

I would venture to say that the term “liberal” of Liberal Islam acts as a superlative. The term “liberal” in Liberal Islam simply describes the fact that Liberal Islam is more liberal in its interpretation of the sources of Islam compared to that of religious conservatives’. Nothing more. In comparison, the same reasoning is meaningless in liberalism; it should be meaningless simply because “revealed knowledge” is irrelevant.

It is no question that some of the tenets of Liberal Islam are similar to that of liberalism. Nevertheless, Liberal Islam does not go as far as liberalism in embracing liberty. And that liberty encompasses more than civil liberties. Free market is an important pillar in liberalism but Liberal Islam does not seem to stress too much of it.

The fact that term “liberal” in Liberal Islam is a superlative, a socialist could be a member of Liberal Islam. Socialism is affirmatively not part of liberalism. If socialism were liberalism, then the Cold War would not have made sense.

Categories
Conflict & disaster Liberty

[1051] Of conscription in the name of disaster relief

Amid chaos in Johor, I am hearing worrying calls for something similar to conscription. I have not heard an outright call for conscription but Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil is suggesting something that comes close to that effect:

PETALING JAYA, Jan 14 (Bernama) — Woman, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil will announce the locations of all flood relief centres in Johor tomorrow so that the National Service Training Department (NSTD) can deploy its trainees to the areas.

She said with the addresses of these centres revealed, the department can move on its own to help the flood victims.

“For the cleaning works, please bring your own equipment,” she told reporters after the launch of an anti-drug campaign at Seri Sentosa flat, here Sunday.

Yesterday, she suggested that the National Service trainees be utilised to assist the Community Services Department (CSD) in helping flood victims in Johor.

A more worrying development is this:

KOTA BAHARU, Jan 14 (Bernama) — The Disaster Brigade is made compulsory at public institutions of higher learning (IPTA) in an effort to nurture caring attitude and exemplary conduct among students, said Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed.

“The formation of the brigade is made formal today and we hope private institutions of higher learning will follow suit,” he told reporters after delivering his new year address to principals, headmasters and district education officers from Tanah Merah district here today.

More from The Star:

KOTA BARU: Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed wants public institutions of higher learning (IPTAs) to make community work compulsory for undergraduates.

He said all IPTAs must form community brigades to help ease the sufferings of those who become victims of natural disasters such as floods.

The brigades’ role is to extend help to victims of natural disasters namely in clean-up programmes, he told reporters after meeting Jeli district education officers and principals here yesterday.

Instead of mulling over conscription — or whatever one may wish to call it — how about we fully mobilize our professional and volunteer-based military?

In the name of pragmatism, I would prefer a nationwide emergency that is conscious to civil liberties to any kind of conscription.

Even if conscription were acceptable, it would be highly inappropriate for Malaysian leaders to call for conscription while they themselves prefer to spend time vacationing abroad in times of disaster. Such leaders have no moral rights to call for conscription.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

p/s – implementation of conscription to increase others’ happiness is another example of conflict of happiness.

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Liberty

[1049] Of the end and conflict of happiness

I painfully wrote a piece on why liberty is the end of the state to further explore another related idea that I had shared earlier. Specifically, the earlier material would affect my perception on the state. Despite that, I did not say how it would affect my view of the state. This entry explains how it would affect my view of the state.

If I had concluded that happiness is the end of the state, that would effectively mean that I should be supportive of welfare state arrangement. The support for welfare state is the would be conclusion that I am uncomfortable of.

I see the purpose of welfare state as the advancement of happiness of the society that form the state; the state’s end is happiness. It seeks something similar to the joint utility function or joint happiness as mentioned previously. A welfare state seeks a “happiness floor” for its citizens. Never mind of the measurement of central tendency because that floor could be seen as a joint happiness. For the uninitiated, joint happiness is:

A democratic system may provide a mean or median happiness — mean or median joint utility function — and the state may take that as the state’s happiness.

Having a joint happiness will inevitably violate a person’s happiness. Why?

As written earlier, joint happiness does not represent non-centrists’ view or in this case, happiness. The farther a person’s utility function away from the joint happiness, the less happy a person would be. In other words, the end of the state contradicts the end of the individual, the citizens.

Perhaps an example is in order.

Let us consider a safety net called unemployment benefits. To escape debate on the effectiveness of unemployment benefits, let assume a very generous benefit that eliminates any possible effectiveness related to the state.

Also, let us assume of an unemployed person. Unemployment deprives the person from a stream of income. A prolonged unemployment later exhausts the person’s saving and eventually, zero wealth. This adversely affect the person’s happiness and brings the person’s happiness to somewhere below a joint happiness as agreed by citizens of a state to be enforced by the state. The state therefore provides unemployment benefits to the unemployed person.

Such provision however can only be possible through taxation.

For a person, let us call the person a dissenter, that disagrees with welfare state arrangement, any taxation upon the dissenter meant for unemployment benefits reduces the dissenter’s happiness. Notice how one’s happiness has to be subsidized by another person and this effectively reduces the happiness of the latter.

So, if I had concluded that the end of the state is happiness, I would have come to two conflicting conclusions. That was what was bothering so much.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedp/s – another example is the film adapted from Isaac Asimov’s idea which Will Smith starred in — I, Robot. Not directly related to happiness but the reasoning is similar: citizens’ security is trampled upon for the sake of the species’ security.

Categories
Books, essays and others Economics History & heritage Liberty

[1032] Of dismal science: it mocks liberalism, not economics

I managed to finish up a book on new year’s eve. It might be an odd way to celebrate the eve to you yappies but I am not to blame for that. Eid fell on Sunday and so, though I had the free will not to, I decided to tag along with my family to visit my grandma in Malacca.

Finishing up a book on new year’s eve allowed me to start reading a new one on January 1 itself. I bought three new titles into my collection earlier; of the three, I decided to start with Beinhocker’s The Origin of Wealth. Initially, I thought it would be dry but the first chapter truly attracts me. It starts with a history of economics.

This is what I learn from the first chapter: economics is called a dismal science by Peter Carlyle not because the discipline is all about doom and gloom. Specifically, as it is commonly thought, the term was a reaction to Malthusian theory which suggests that with exponential population growth vis-à-vis geometric food production growth, population would collapse sooner or later.

As mentioned in the notes of The Origin of Wealth, the term “dismal science” was coined by Carlyle in his work, Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, to mock the “alliance of economists and abolitionists”. Carlyle was a proponent of slavery while liberal economists were standing on the other side of the river, fighting for abolition of slavery. It really has nothing to do about economics having a pessimistic worldview.

On Wikipedia:

Developing a deliberately paradoxical position, Carlyle argued that slavery was actually morally superior to the market forces of supply and demand promoted by economists, since, in his view, the freeing up of the labor market by the liberation of slaves had actually led to a moral and economic decline in the lives of the former slaves themselves.

So, next time, be careful on how you use the term “dismal science”. It might not mean what you meant within the original context it was used.

Categories
Liberty

[1030] Of the state and spontaneous order

At the heart of libertarianism is liberty. From liberty arises spontaneous order.

Spontaneous order is an idea that says order will arise naturally amid chaos. The way I see it, spontaneous order really happens when a society organizes itself to confront an issue. The term society that I am using here comprises purely of civil society with not participation of the state.

In its purest sense, I strongly believe spontaneous order is part of anarchism.

Spontaneous order does not always work though. When spontaneous order does not work, it is a situation which I think could be described as market failure. Of all models, anarchism is the one most susceptible to market failure. This is the reason why the state of anarchism is unstable. While it may exist at one point in time, it will eventually succumb to some sort of stable order, be it autocratic or democratic, voluntarily or otherwise.

While I have that sorted out in my mind, I am currently trying to figure whether laws enacted by a state is part of spontaneous order. Could actions by a state or any authority with policing power be part of spontaneous order?

I believe it could, with a restriction. The establishment of the state, at least the democratic ones, is spontaneous order.

Emergence of a democratic state is a result of cooperation between free individuals to establish order. For a democratic state, all decisions by state originate from the individual citizens that form the state. Therefore, transitively, any decision by the state resulting from cooperation of free individuals is spontaneous order.

The legitimacy of the reasoning however depends on the democratic nature of the state. The democratic aspect is also one of the factors that legitimize the state’s existence. Any violation of any democratic process invalidates the legitimacy of the reasoning as a whole. That invalidation in turn makes any state’s decision after the violation as non-spontaneous order.