The liberalism is not just about making a society monetarily better off. It is just not about the ideology that wants to lead to a free and just society. It is not just about the minimizing government controls so that the individuals can make their own decisions about the self and the society. It is all about making the whole society capable of governing itself. Other things are just sane output of the whole exercise.
Every individual must be free that makes the whole society free. They need not any Big Brother watching and herding them to the destination he feels better. A bunch of the people in governments cannot govern the aspirations of every individual. They want to make whole society a tailored garment that will not agitate and earn the means of the living in the given limited scope of their choice.
It is the wrong assumption of the critiques that the individuals are not capable of taking their own political, economic or social decisions. They think that the free markets inevitably bring exploitation. “Public sorting public problems” seems impossible to them. Rather the critiques forward a bold question, if people are so capable of making their own economic decisions, then why are they so incapable of making political or social ones?
The answer to the last question is easy. The people are not incapable of making social or political decisions but it is the system that the governance create does not allow people to make their independent decisions and to act upon it! There is no freedom in the present all governance systems that value the inherent capabilities of the individuals. So this is a worthless argument. Social history does not support this claim. When we look back at the history of India we find that the people were better off when the Kings did not interfere much in social and economic life. We find many roads and public places were built by the people after collecting the donations. The guilds led in the construction of most of the public works. It is not correct that the individuals are incapable of taking social decisions and acting on them. The kings too financially contributed to such works but it too was not mandatory.
Lands were not forcibly acquired by the rulers but were bought at market price. We have many copper plate inscriptions those records such transactions. The right to property was acknowledged by the government. In short, the people were capable enough to make their own economic decisions. Though we have scattered information on the economic and social affairs of the pre-medieval era, they are enough to indicate the economic and social freedom people enjoyed. It reflects in the literature right from Hal Satvahana’s Gatha Saptashati to various plays and poetry till post-Gupta era. The literature mirrors the social conditions and aspirations of the individuals that were far better than medieval era when the political and religious tyranny begun to plague social fabric of India. Rather the decision making on behalf of the people by the new creed of feudal lords made people hapless. The rulers and religious bosses added to the difficulties by withdrawing their right to decide on economic and social conduct. The contrast is significant if looked at carefully.
Lands were not forcibly acquired by the rulers but were bought at market price. We have many copper plate inscriptions those records such transactions. The right to property was acknowledged by the government. In short, the people were capable enough to make their own economic decisions. Though we have scattered information on the economic and social affairs of the pre-medieval era, they are enough to indicate the economic and social freedom people enjoyed. It reflects in the literature right from Hal Satvahana’s Gatha Saptashati to various plays and poetry till post-Gupta era. The literature mirrors the social conditions and aspirations of the individuals that were far better than medieval era when the political and religious tyranny begun to plague social fabric of India. Rather the decision making on behalf of the people by the new creed of feudal lords made people hapless. The rulers and religious bosses added to the difficulties by withdrawing their right to decide on economic and social conduct. The contrast is significant if looked at carefully.
So, it is incorrect assumption that the individuals are incapable of making social and economic decisions. The every individual knows to differentiate between good and bad. In his primordial nomadic past also he knew his social obligations without someone forcing upon him. The foundation of the criticism is the lack of confidence in the human being. Just because there are few bad elements in the society, under the pretext of controlling them, the socialists and others want to control the entire society thus depriving the individuals of using their own wisdom in taking the decisions related to his and societies well-being.
This makes no society better. It obstructs free thinking, expressions, and efforts to achieve economic goals. If free, individual becomes more responsible. In the society loaded with restrictions, individuals and so the society tends to become corrupt, lazy and irresponsible to social obligations. The public property always is attacked first in any agitation. The sense of collective ownership, when governed by few, is impossible to occur. Human tendency is the people do not like paying indirectly to any public work. There cannot be a sense of emotional attachment towards such activities that might have been introduced by the government for public good and their interest. The free society can take far better care of it.
It is not about capitalism. It is about making the human being free from the external political forces that force the human being to roam in an artificial restrictive campus. That restricts human capability to explore not only knowledge but the life of his choice. Economic gains are just outcome of the freedom, but considering them the foremost objective of the liberals is an imagined accusation of the leftist wing. Liberals are far more humanists than others. The every individual is a liberal by nature but the system makes him the slave and forces him to jump in a bottomless crevasse of tyrant system.
Let us not let this happen!
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