This piece is inspired by the ongoing debate about net neutrality and the implications. There are not many things more democratic than the internet, and restricting it is one of the most oppressive things that any government can do. But then how can a country that prides itself as being the freest country on earth be caught up in something so inherently restrictive? What is this demon that haunts America so much that they keep having these socially cyclical debates, for let us face it, the net neutrality ruling will place poorer Americans at a disadvantage, and getting out of the poverty trap will become harder.
History is full of ironies, and one of the biggest in recent times is the ongoing political evolution of the United States into an inward looking, parochial society that keeps talking about “traditional values” and similar parodies.
For many Americans now, being “liberal” is seen as a bad thing, which is ironic, because their country was founded on the liberal values that “all men are created equal”. Cast your mind back to 1776 and think about it for a moment. In the Europe of 1776, the idea of all men being equal was ridiculous to say the least. If you were not a member of the aristocracy, or the religious order, you were going nowhere, fast. What the hell was free speech? Who needed such philosophical hocus pocus?
However, for about a century prior to 1776, a mini-revolution was sweeping Europe, led by names such as Voltaire, Adam Smith, René Descartes, Jean Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft among others, who espoused the horror that men and women were equal, and Montesquieu, who introduced the blasphemy that is the doctrine of separation of powers. This revolution, called the Age of Enlightenment, was being resisted by the aristocracy in Europe, but was on the surface at least, eagerly embraced by the American founding fathers (all men were equal as long as their skin was white).
Considering the era in which it was written, the US Constitution is a revolutionary document, which would inspire many other constitutions in deed, such as France and in word, like Nigeria’s. 19th century Europe witnessed a struggle between absolute rule and liberal values, and the slow emergence of another line of thought championed by great thinkers such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
This change from the rule of a man accountable only to God to the rule of the people was a slow, and in many cases, very bloody project. It would take a hundred and seventy years, until the end of the second world war, before Western Europe hopped on the boat of equality of all humans, and even then, that was because of the combined effect of the horrors of the long years of war and American guidance.
So, that is Europe. What, however, happened in America?
I talked about Karl Marx and Fred Engels. They brought about a new way of thinking, socialism, as canonically ensconced in The Communist Manifesto. We all know how that went. Now, the point is that in my view, socialism was the natural successor to the US Constitution. If all men should indeed be equal, there has to be a way to control for the basest impulses of men, and that is where the state comes in. The state ensures that all men are as equal as is possible.
How does the state ensure that all men are “equal”?
Equality before the law. Equal access to the same opportunities, and all of that good stuff. In a truly liberal society, people are equal before the law, but then based on their abilities and/or progeny, some will be economically advantaged. Socialism wanted to eliminate that, but I think seventy years of history has shown that eliminating economic inequality is simply not possible. It however appears that I’ve veered subject.
The topic is about America losing its way.
While Europe was getting more liberal, something different happened in the US. As earlier said, the US founding fathers, while all sweet and sugary in their documentation for the Constitution, did not really consider all human beings equal. Black people, Indians, in short, anyone not white (and even the definition of white has been in flux as Irish, Jewish and Italian Americans will gladly tell you), was not equal. This was a time bomb that was always going to undermine the Constitution within the United States. America’s economic progress was built on inequality, and that inequality has dominated American life for almost two centuries now. That fundamental inequality, based on race, is evident in the recent moves made by American conservatives, as the ruling against net neutrality perfectly encapsulates. And I daresay that they are truer to the US Constitution, than American liberals are.
For those of us on the outside, we might be witnessing the decline of the United States as the bastion of socio-economic liberalism that has been the fundamental guarantee of the global economic order since the end of 1945. Its prospects for overall world stability in general, and as a precedent for governments such as ours in particular remain largely unknown.
Who said the end of history was in 1989, again?
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