Category: society

A society on pillars

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Identity groups building society

Dutch society long centred around identity groups based on religion or ideology. The Dutch call it pillarisation. A pillar is vertical, so it encompasses several social classes. Social life was within your identity group, and you had few contacts with outsiders. These pillars had sports clubs, political parties, unions, newspapers, and broadcasters. Roman Catholics and Protestants also had schools and hospitals.

The pillars of Dutch society were Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Socialist, with each about 30% of the population. The Protestants themselves consisted of smaller groups that had their specific views on the Bible. The remaining 10% of the Dutch were liberal. The liberals were less organised and opposed pillarisation, but they also had political parties, newspapers and broadcasters.

Strong communities are close-knit, have shared norms and values based on ideology or religion, and come with social obligations. The pillar organisations focused exclusively on their communities. Similar arrangements existed in other countries. In the Netherlands, none of these groups dominated society. And the shared Dutch identity and the state made these relationships cooperative. In other words, Dutch society was built on pillars.

The Dutch were famous for their tolerance, which was at times close to indifference. The identity groups accepted each other and minded their own affairs. After 1800, there was no civil war in the Netherlands, nor was there a threat of one at any time. Leadership played a significant role. The leaders of the pillars were willing to compromise, and the members merely followed their leaders, guaranteeing peaceful relationships within society for two centuries.

Still, identity issues dominated Dutch politics from time to time. On 11 November 1925, the cabinet fell when the Catholic ministers resigned after Parliament accepted an amendment introduced by a small Protestant fraction to eliminate the funding for the Dutch envoy with the Vatican. A Protestant government fraction supported the amendment.

None of the identity groups on its own was able to dominate society. Instead, they had to make deals with each other. On religious issues, Roman Catholics and Protestants found each other. For instance, they arranged that schools and hospitals could have a religious identity and that the state would fund them like public schools and hospitals. The Socialists made deals on working conditions and social benefits with Catholics and Protestants.

Pillarisation in the Netherlands began to take shape at the close of the nineteenth century. One could say that Dutch society was built upon the pillars. They allowed groups with different views and cultures to coexist peacefully and gradually integrate. From the 1960s onwards, the pillars began to lose their meaning, and the Dutch became one nation. Pillarisation can be helpful if you believe in a shared destiny, for instance, the nation-state, but have different backgrounds that prevent integration in the short term. In this sense, it works like multiculturalism.

Pillarisation can be helpful if people believe in a shared destiny, for instance, the nation-state, but do not share a common background. In that case, everyone can live and work together with the people they feel comfortable with. Cultural and religious differences may subside over time. But as long as these identities remain distinct, people can organise themselves accordingly via pillars, and in doing so, avoid conflict.

Latest update: 19 May 2023

The assembly of the canton Glarus

Swiss democracy

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Quality of government

The ideal of a democracy is that the people determine what their government does. Usually, citizens elect politicians every few years. These politicians then make the decisions. Quite often, these decisions differ from what their citizens wish. The reasons may include lobbying, deal-making, party politics, and political games. Leaders may also earnestly believe that going against the will of their people is for the best. Unburdened by responsibilities, citizens may have unrealistic desires.

Democracy doesn’t guarantee high-quality decisions, so there have always been pundits questioning the merits of democracy. No form of government guarantees high-quality choices. It is helpful to distinguish between the quality of the government and its decisions and the quality of democracy. Improving governance is far more complex than improving democracy, which is relatively straightforward, and the subject of this section, which can remain relatively brief for that reason.

In a well-functioning democracy, the government acts following the will of the citizens. In this respect, one political system stands out: the Swiss system. The great thing about it is that it is a proven concept rather than a figment of a political philosopher. In Swiss democracy, authority operates from the bottom up. It is a design flaw, as the world is interconnected, so our choices have consequences for people in other parts of the world. That is why, in most states, including democracies, authority operates top-down.

Features

The Swiss political system features a unique combination of representative and direct democracy. The government and parliament administer the country’s daily affairs, but if citizens feel the desire to take matters into their own hands, they can demand a referendum. The government must respect its outcome.1 Switzerland has the following referendum types:

  • mandatory referendums on changes in the federal constitution
  • optional referendums on federal laws when a specified number of citizens ask for it
  • Similar rules exist on the state and municipal levels.

Switzerland has 26 cantons, which are akin to member states, and over 2,000 municipalities that enjoy a significant degree of autonomy. The Swiss constitution promotes making decisions at the lowest possible level and delegating power to a higher level only if deemed beneficial.

The Swiss elect their National Council every four years. It has proportional representation. Citizens can vote for a political party, as well as for specific persons on the party’s candidate list. The Swiss can cast multiple votes, often one for each available seat in their constituency, allowing them to vote for several candidates and parties.

Switzerland also has a Council of States. All the Cantons have seats, for which there are also elections. Most have two, and a few smaller Cantons have one. Decisions require a majority on the national level in the National Council as well as among the Cantons in the Council of States. The Swiss citizens can overturn these decisions in referendums.

The seven-member Federal Council, elected by the National Council and Council of States together, handles the daily affairs of government. All the major political parties have seats in it. The Federal Council aims for consensus but may revert to voting if it is impossible to reach an agreement. Referendums ensure that this hardly happens.

Evaluation

Referendums have the following consequences:

  • The combination of representatives and referendums keeps citizens in control while unburdening them of daily government affairs. They don’t have to vote on every single matter, but can vote on an issue if they feel it is necessary.
  • Referendums are yes-or-no questions. Before crafting laws, the government consults with various interest groups and considers their concerns. That prevents laws from being voted out in referendums.
  • Whatever choices are made, they are the citizens’ choices. It can breed a sense of responsibility as citizens live with the consequences of their choices. If things go wrong, they can’t blame their politicians.
  • There are fewer political games, coalitions, and deals, as citizens can vote out laws they disagree with. It also promotes stability and cooperation. The largest political parties are in government and aim for consensus.

The distribution of power has the following consequences:

  • There is no single decision maker with a lot of power, such as the President in the United States. The Federal Council performs the daily task of governing, and the largest political parties all have seats in it.
  • Proportional representation in parliament enables multiple political parties that align with the preferences of voters. Small shifts in voter preferences have a minimal impact on the political landscape.
  • The Swiss National Council represents the federation, while the Council of States represents the Cantons. A decision requires a majority in both. This provision aims to safeguard the interests of the rural cantons with smaller populations.

Considerations

Switzerland doesn’t have a Constitutional Court or a House of Parliament to ensure that the Constitution and human rights are respected. Switzerland is bound by the treaties it signed. The Swiss political system is one of the most democratic, but it tends to be conservative. Women received the right to vote only in 1971, as only men could vote.

The Swiss political system is one of the most democratic in the world. And it has safeguards that provide political stability. As referendums are yes-or-no questions, laws require careful crafting and consideration of the concerns of citizens. There are several theories about democracy, but the Swiss political system has proven to work.

In the Swiss political system, authority is decentralised. Delegation of responsibilities is bottom-up. It works from lower levels to higher ones. Most states have a top-down delegation. It flows from the higher levels to the lower ones. That is preferable as decisions in one district can affect other districts as well.

It is also the case at the global level. Switzerland is sovereign. It has been a freeloading country as Swiss banks have been a haven for criminals, tax evaders and dictators from other countries. Had the people of those countries had a say in this matter, that would not have happened. In a global democracy, every world citizen has an equal say.

Latest revision: 11 July 2025

Featured image: The assembly of the canton Glarus. Democracy International (2014). [copyright info]

1. Switzerland’s Direct Democracy. http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/ [link]

US Declaration Of Independence

What a social order needs to be

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Humans imagine that they have rights and obligations and belong to social classes. This is what is meant with social order. There has been a variety of rights and obligations and social classes throughout history.1 Societies usually have a ruling class who invents the social order and benefits the most from it. A social order needs some kind justification to convince everyone to accept the rules that come with it. That is where religion comes in. You can compare the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian law from 1750 BC, with the United States Declaration of Independence from 1776 AD.

The Code of Hammurabi declares that the Babylonian social order is based on universal and eternal principles of justice dictated by the gods. It divides people into three classes, nobility, ordinary people and slaves. The code then sets out all kinds of laws and punishments for transgressions. The United States Declaration of Independence begins with the following words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

On closer inspection 3,500 years didn’t make a lot of difference. The eternal principles are replaced by self-evident truths but the order still needed divine support. There is no mentioning of classes. All men are created equal. But the devil is in the detail. Women and slaves did not have these unalienable rights when the constitution was written. Only nobility was done away with as businesspeople were the new ruling class. In the 200 years that followed slavery was abolished and women received equal rights before the law, but businesspeople are still the ruling class.

Saying that people are equal and have equal rights is problematic. People are not equal in their abilities as well as their opportunities. For example, we can imagine the right to live but we all die. Some people die young while others live very long. Many people are poor and have no access to good education. Some are rich and can go to the best universities. Still, we imagine that people have equal rights, just like the Babylonians imagined that people are divided into classes.

Social orders are the result of history, economics, and politics. Ideas are at the basis of them. Equality is a revolutionary and modern idea that has gained ground during the last centuries. It has affected political orders on every corner of the globe. Even the worst dictators now say in public that all people are equal.

A social order is also a collective imagination. A social order doesn’t exist in reality as such, but only in the minds of people. If people agree on a social order, whether it is a division into classes or the notion that everyone is created equal, it can be stable. Social orders bring peace and stability and that is the most compelling reason to have them. If people agree on a social order they can cooperate more easily as the order settles many matters that would have to be negotiated otherwise. A reason why certain social orders prevail over others is because they create more powerful societies.

Featured image: United States Declaration of Indepence

1. Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvil Secker.

The state of human nature

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Social animals

In philosophy, the state of nature is about human nature and our natural way of life. We are social animals who operate in groups. What makes us unique is that we can collaborate flexibly on any scale. We employ language and shared imaginations like corporations, nation-states, money and religions. They help us collaborate. In this way, we created an imaginary world, civilisation. We can program ourselves to a significant degree and have different cultures. So, what is our natural way of living? That is hard to tell, but we can say a few things.

We help our family and friends but can also cooperate with strangers. It is not something we learn. It is natural human behaviour. Other social animals also do it, including chimpanzees, our closest relatives. Chimpanzees live in small troops of a few dozen individuals. Like us, they have close friendships, work together with reliable congeners and avoid unreliable ones. They have social rules, may cheat and probably can feel guilty. Like human males, chimpanzee males can be violent and kill each other.

Like human leaders, chimpanzee alpha males acquire their status by building coalitions and gaining support. Others show their submission to the alpha male. He strives to maintain social harmony within his troop, like a king maintaining peaceful relations between his subjects. He takes coveted pieces of food like the government takes taxes. Alpha males gain their position by building a coalition of supporters. Usually, a chimpanzee band has several alliances.

Coalition members in a chimpanzee band build and maintain their ties through intimate daily contact. They hug, touch, kiss, groom and take fleas from each other’s furs. Like humans, they do each other mutual favours. The coalitions in a chimpanzee band have good relations to protect themselves against outside enemies. Within the group, there are friendships and more distant, colder relationships.

There is a limit to the size of a group of chimpanzees. To function as a chimpanzee band, all members must know each other intimately. They must remember how others acted in the past to guess what they will do. Unlike humans, they have no language to share social information. Humans gossip to share information about others. Thus, we can learn someone is unreliable without being cheated upon ourselves. That allows us to collaborate in more sophisticated ways in larger groups.

Chimpanzee groups with more than a few dozen individuals are unstable. Its members do not know each other well enough to establish a hierarchy. Separate groups of chimpanzees seldom cooperate and compete for territory and food. There have been cases of prolonged warfare between groups of chimpanzees, including a few instances of genocide. Early humans lived similar lives but could live in larger and more stable bands of up to 150 individuals. The size of a group with which we can closely cooperate is one of our natural limits. We have overcome that limit with shared imaginations, which might be unnatural and a source of many troubles we have today.

Shared imaginations

We think in terms of cause and effect. We believe clouds cause rainfall. Our imagination also allows us to attribute causes to imaginary things. If the harvest fails, we can think the gods are angry. To deal with that, we can start a ritual like sacrificing a goat in the planting season to please the gods. Rituals also have another role. They bond a community and can outlive the beliefs that created them and lose their meaning. Many atheists still celebrate Christmas and think of eating turkey rather than the birth of Jesus.

Large groups face difficulties acting as a collective. Distinguishing between the contributions of individual members becomes challenging, so cheating and opportunistic behaviour are more common. Money, states, and belief systems like religions and ideologies help us deal with that. Money can keep track of our contributions and usages. States enforce cooperation. Religions and ideologies help us collaborate, for instance, by promising rewards in the afterlife or telling inspiring tales of worker solidarity.

For that, we share our imaginations. We imagine laws, money, property, corporations and nation-states. We think a euro banknote has value, even though it is just a piece of paper. And that is why we can use it for payment. If we believe the banknote is worthless, we cannot accept it or use it for payment. We imagine a law exists and, therefore, it works. Without these shared imaginations, our societies would stop functioning. Our cooperation also requires an inspiring story like a myth about the founders, a religion or an ideology.

Stories are the basis of our large-scale cooperation. We change how we cooperate and build societies by changing the stories. In 1789, the French population switched from the story of the divine right of kings to the sovereignty of the people. That changed the organisation of French society from feudal to modern, an advantage that Napoleon could subsequently exploit on the battlefield. Intelligent animals like monkeys can learn new behaviour but cannot change their organisation because they lack the stories to do so.

Norms and values

We invent rules and follow them. That is also in our nature. The rules differ per group, but all groups have rules. Norms are shared rules and expectations about the behaviour in a group or society. They maintain the social order, define cultural values, and shape social interactions. Norms can be laws, folkways, mores, taboos. Values are beliefs about what is important to us and society. Values can be honesty, respect, fairness and kindness. Norms and values thus reflect our rules.

Our rule-following behaviour is ingrained in our nature and comes with emotions like anger, shame and pride. If we have rules, we can spend less time negotiating about who does what and who gets what. It allows us to cooperate more efficiently and effectively. It also limits our freedom. We cling to our norms and values. Rules make societies stable. But they cause trouble if they have outlived their usefulness and block much-needed change.

Most of our communication is gossip. We need the group to survive. To survive, we must understand what is happening in our group. We talk about other people in our group, for instance, who is cheating or breaking agreements and what we should do about it. Groups enforce their rules by pressuring or ostracising those who do not conform to them. Being evicted from your group is particularly traumatic as it can lead to death.

Our inclination to attach value to mental models and theories promotes social stability. It also makes societies conservative regarding ideas and rules. Rules and institutions emerged to meet a specific challenge and become a burden once they have outlived their usefulness. Social change is often not a process of small steps but of long periods of standstill alternated with sudden dramatic changes.

Violence is often crucial for change. The fear of violent death can motivate us to do things we would not do out of self-interest alone. Those who benefit from the current arrangement hold off changes, so violence or the threat of violence can end the stalemate. That happened in the French Revolution. The human desire for recognition means politics is seldom about mere self-interest. We also judge leaders and the rules in society with our norms and values.

The struggle for recognition

Societies require individual members to play particular roles. Each role has a status and norms based on the values and beliefs of the culture of that society. Socialisation is learning your role in society and the norms and values that come with it. Groups of humans, including societies, have social hierarchies with statuses attached to the roles people play. In organised societies, status differences are more pronounced than in small groups. That is called stratification.

An individual or a group can recognise another person’s or group’s status, including this person’s or group’s beliefs and customs. The struggle for recognition differs from the struggle for material goods. All parties can gain from an economic transaction. You can exchange your fish for bread if you want bread more if someone else has bread and desires fish. But humans imagine social hierarchies. The recognition of one person, group or nation thus comes at the expense of others.

We aspire to social status, and some compete for leadership. Chimpanzee males compete for the status of the alpha male but also cooperate to defeat an enemy. We not only desire recognition for ourselves. We also seek respect for our beliefs and the groups we belong to. Much of our struggle concerns respect for groups such as women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals. There is an economic aspect, such as equal pay for women, but it is primarily about recognition. Pay is also a token of respect.

You cannot enforce recognition. Others must feel you deserve it. Leadership comes from a group acknowledging that a specific person has exceptional courage or wisdom or is impartial in conflicts and a desire from a community to have a leader. Once a society develops, we transfer our recognition to political institutions like parliaments and courts rather than individual leaders. In both cases, the political order requires legitimacy to make people accept the order and adhere to the rules.

Changing our environment

We change our environment. So, if we have a natural environment, we can make it unnatural. The first humans lived as hunter-gatherers in small groups of a few dozen individuals. Everyone in the group knew each other. If that is our natural way of living, city life would be unnatural. Our mental makeup emerged from evolution, so living in large cities could produce psychological problems like stress and alienation. The biblical vision of the state of nature is Eden, where people lived in harmony with nature.

But what does that mean? In the last 400,000 years, humans have become the top predators. That had enormous consequences for what we can eat and do. And it had psychological and social effects. Humans did not evolve but suddenly rose to their new position. Many historical calamities and things about how humans behave towards others and the environment, from the deadly wars to how people treat the ecosystem around them, result from this fast change that our evolution could not match.

Humans like Neanderthals, and later the modern humans, Homo Sapiens, began using fire. It gave them light, warmth, and an effective weapon against dangerous animals like lions and bears. That changed the balance of power between the animal species. The humans came out on top. Humans also used fire to change their environment. They started burning down forests and collected dead animals cooked in the fire to eat them. And cooking allowed them to eat more sorts of food.

The Agricultural Revolution was another dramatic change in human lifestyle. To feed more people, humans began to grow crops and herd animals. With agriculture, more people could survive, but it created new problems. Hunter-gatherers could move on in the case of conflict, but farmers had to protect their land and cattle against thieves and invaders. And so there were more intense conflicts, and people began to organise themselves for larger-scale wars in tribes and states.

Latest revision: 23 December 2023

Featured image: cover of The Origins of Political Order

From: The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution of Francis Fukuyama.

Liberal democracy

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A definition

Democracies are often called liberal democracies. So what is a liberal democracy and why might it be the best way of government? There are no easy answers to these questions nor is there agreement on these matters. Liberalism emphasises the value of individuals while democracy is rule by majority. These two principles can be at odds.

Liberal democracies have elections between multiple political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life, an open society, a market economy with private property, the protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for everyone.1

Liberals believe that individuals and social groups have conflicts of interest. The social order must deal with these conflicts and resolve them in a peaceful manner. To achieve such a feat, all parties must be reasonable and there should be a balance of powers. No party should be able to force its will upon others.2 It is an important reason why liberals stress the importance of individual rights.

Democracy means that government decisions require the consent of the majority of the citizens. In most cases the citizens elect a parliament that does the decision making for them. Sometimes citizens can vote for individual proposals in referendums. In reality many democratic countries aren’t fully democratic because not all government decisions are supported by a majority of the citizens.

Principles

Liberal democracy is based on a social contract, which is an agreement amongst the members of society to cooperate for mutual benefits. For instance, labourers may accept capitalism if they get a share of prosperity. That deal turned out to be more attractive than state ownership of the means of production.

Liberalism has two principles that can be at odds, namely non-interference with people’s lives and realising everyone’s potential. In this vein there are two branches of liberalism:

  • Economic liberalism promotes freedom of the markets as well as free trade and claims that the state should be of minimal size and not interfere with people’s lives.
  • Social liberalism claims that the state should help to realise the potential of people by promoting their freedom to make choices, which includes ending poverty.

Each liberal democracy more or less embraces these values. Liberal democracies come with a market economy and respect for the rights of individual citizens. Governments interfere with the lives of people and try to promote their happiness and to realise their potential. The conflicting nature of both principles makes liberal democracies differ with regard to freedom of markets and government interference.

In the United States liberalism has a different meaning. There it is another word for social liberalism or democratic socialism. In Europe the definition of liberalism is broader and this is also the definition used here. In the 17th century liberal ideas began to emerge in what is called the European Enlightenment. Around the year 1700 the philosopher John Locke came up with the following basic principles for a liberal state:

  • a social contract in which citizens accept the authority of the state in exchange for the protection of their rights and property and maintaining the social order;
  • consent of the governed, which means that state power is only justified when the people agree;
  • separation of church and state, which means that the state doesn’t favour a specific religion and does not require a religious justification.3

Is it the best form of government?

Liberal democracy is part of the European cultural heritage. Proponents claim that it is the best form of government. These universalist claims are sometimes contested on the ground that they are a form of western cultural imperialism. Another argument is that there is no guarantee that liberal democracy leads to better decisions. From a religious perspective people argue that our Creator may prefer a different kind of social order and government, possibly even a theocracy.

The argument in favour of the universalist claims is that liberal democracy emerged out of a historical process that took centuries in which rational arguments played a decisive role. The European Enlightenment challenged existing practices in government on the basis of reason. Ideas that emerged out of the European Enlightenment were tried out in different ways and refined further. Europeans also invested heavily in educating their citizens. This produced a culture of reason and compromise as well as a massive body of practical experience and best practises.

There is also no guarantee that other forms of government lead to better decisions. In an open society better information can be available so well-educated citizens in a culture of reason and compromise may make better decisions. There are a few democracies that live up to these expectations so it can work out that way. And we may not be able to determine what kind of order God desires. If our Creator is all-powerful then the emergence and spread of liberal democracy may not be God’s plan.

One of the biggest problems facing liberal democracy is high expectations. Liberal democracy itself does not guarantee a reliable government that is both efficient and effective nor does it ensure a flourishing economy. This has led to disappointments. A failed and corrupt government can’t simply be turned into a success by allowing elections. Liberal democracy works best with a well-educated population in a culture of reason and compromise that doesn’t allow for corruption and abuse of power.

On the moral front there are a few issues too. Liberal democracy promises equal treatment for all people. In reality people aren’t treated equal nor do they have equal opportunities. There is discrimination based on ethnicity, gender or sexual preferences. And poor people have fewer opportunities than rich people. Still, the goal of equal treatment and equal opportunities can be something to strive for. It may be better to aim for such goals and fail from time to time than not having these goals at all.

If liberalism promotes tolerance then how to deal to intolerant people? Should their intolerance be tolerated? If people do not accept liberal values, should they be educated or should these values be imposed? And are free markets the best way of organising the economy or is government involvement advised? If the economy is served by stability, should dissent that causes instability be suppressed? An excessive or unnecessary use of force can undermine the foundation of liberal democracy as liberal democracy is based on reason and convincing people by argument. And indeed it is possible that liberal democracy can be overturned.

History

The preconditions for liberalism had already emerged in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. There was a larger degree of individualism than elsewhere. Liberalism itself emerged during the sixteenth century. At the time Europe was ravaged by devastating religious wars. After several decades of warfare Europeans grew tired of the conflict and began to tolerate religious differences. Some catholic countries accepted protestant minorities while many protestant countries accepted catholic minorities. Germany was almost equally divided. At the time Germany consisted of small states that had either protestant or catholic rulers.

This religious tolerance was at first more or less an uneasy truce. No party had been able to gain the upper hand. Religious minorities at first didn’t receive equal rights. They were only tolerated. Over time the case for religious tolerance became more widely accepted. It was based on two major arguments.

  • The argument of ignorance which states that only God knows who is on the right path and who is doomed so humans shouldn’t judge others.
  • The argument of perversity which states that cruelty is at odds with Christian values and that religious persecution strengthens the resolve of the persecuted.1

The concept of tolerance expanded into a general concern for the rights of individual citizens. In the 17th century liberal ideas were spreading. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England limited the power of the king. The rights of individuals were written down in the Bill of Rights. Parliament became the most powerful political institution based on the principle of consent of the governed. The 1776 Declaration of Independence of the United States was based on liberal principles too. It states that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.2

The founding fathers of the United States were also early liberals. The United States Constitution reflects this view. The aim of the United States Constitution is, amongst others, to safeguard the rights of individuals against the state. A large group of Americans believe that individual rights should prevail against democratically elected governments. The widespread support for gun ownership in the United States comes from a distrust of the state as a protector of life, liberty and possessions.

Democracy had not been a seriously considered since classical antiquity. It was believed that democracies are inherently unstable and chaotic due to the changing whims of the people.1 The violence during the French Revolution supported these views. It began as a popular uprising incited by liberal ideas but it soon turned into chaos and bloodshed. Order was restored by a despot ruler named Napoleon Bonaparte who did much to spread liberal reforms throughout Europe by ending the feudal system, emancipating religious minorities and imposing a liberal code of law. The spread of liberal ideas proved to be lasting and democracy was to follow a century later.

The Industrial Revolution started a period of accelerated and constant change that was disastrous for many who found themselves on the losing side. The ruling class changed. Nobility was replaced by a new elite of business people. The position of craftsmen was undermined by factories. And workers in factories laboured under miserable conditions for low wages. There were three major ways of confronting these changes:

  • Conservatives tried to hold on the old order of community, religion and nobility.
  • Socialists tried to overturn the elite of business people by giving power to workers.
  • Liberals tried to manage the change, thereby implicitly supporting the order in which business people were the ruling class.

Liberalism often coincides with the interests of business people. They have possessions and some are rich. They feared that the poor might vote for handing over their possessions to the poor. Socialism became the embodiment of this fear. Liberals were at first inclined to limit the right to vote to people who pay taxes because this excluded poor people from voting. When the threat of socialism became subdued and socialists were willing to compromise, liberals came to accept democracy based on the principle of one person one vote.

In the 19th century European countries held vast colonial empires. These colonies were kept for profit. It was generally believed that the people in these colonies had to be educated before they would be able to govern themselves. The colonial era helped to modernise these countries and most Europeans at the time believed that the oppression and the economic exploitation were justified on these grounds. There were only a few dissenters, for instance the Dutch writer Multatuli.

Liberal democracy faced a few major crises like World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. World War I demonstrated that liberal democracy and free trade weren’t a guarantee for peace and stability. The Great Depression once again challenged liberal democracy as the Soviet Union remained unaffected while Nazi Germany was able to recover and achieve full employment while other countries were still struggling. And during World War II Nazi Germany overran most democratic countries in Europe.

After World War II the European colonies became independent. The Soviet Union came to dominate Eastern Europe and China became a communist country. The United States became the protector of liberal democracy but also a number of dictatorships. This era is called the Cold War and it lasted until the Soviet Union dismantled itself after allowing the peoples of Eastern Europe to make their own choices. Major challengers of liberal democracy nowadays are the one-party system in China and political Islam.

The citizens of Hong Kong and Taiwan don’t like to lose their freedoms. Chinese too probably prefer freedom if they have a choice. And the Islamic State has shown Muslims all around the globe that political Islam can easily turn into a reign of terror. The foundations of liberal democracy may be strong, but a collapse of the global economy may turn be a more serious threat to liberal democracy than the alternatives. Reason can easily disappear once people become fearful of the future.

Reasons for success and limitations

The success of liberal democracy is therefore not a historical necessity. Liberal democracy might never have been invented or dictatorships could have gained the upper hand. That didn’t happen. Communist and fascist dictatorships came and went. Perhaps liberal democracy is a temporary phenomenon but we can’t know that now. Only the future can tell. There are a number of causes that might explain the strength of liberal democracy.

  • Liberal democracy is based on the consent of the governed so it is has the consent of the governed by default while other forms of government do not.
  • Science greatly contributes to the success of states and science is best served with an open debate that liberal democracy provides.
  • The economy greatly contributes to the success of states and the economy is best served with individual rights that liberal democracy provides.

A despot ruler or a ruling party in a one-party system might have the consent of its subjects, but if not, only force remains for the ruler or the party to maintain power. Liberal democracies usually resolve such issues peacefully through elections, making liberal democracy more stable by default. Intellectual freedom is helpful to science while economic freedom is helpful for the economy, so liberal democracy can be a potent force. Only when leadership is required, liberal democracy might not always be adequate.

Liberalism has no higher moral value than the individual, which is peculiar because the individual human is an insignificant part of this universe. And individualism may be at odds with human nature as humans are social animals. Humans are not atomic beings that choose to cooperate for mutual benefit like liberalism supposes. Cooperation is part of human nature and not a choice individuals deliberately make.

It is the success in cooperation that makes a society win out. Liberalism gives a framework for living together in peace as long as all major parties are reasonable and willing to compromise. This makes larger scale cooperation possible and that can make a society successful. For instance, the United States integrated people from different cultural backgrounds, which contributed to the success of the United States as a nation.

It is said that history is written by the victors. Strength may be the reason why liberal democracy prevailed. Liberal philosophers have tried to provide a moral justification for liberal democracy or they may have opposed it or they may have tried to improve it. Liberal democracy emerged out of thought and action, experiment and failure, and it was a process that took centuries. Philosophers like Locke contributed to its success as they set out the goals people could strife for.

Apart from individualism, liberal societies lack a higher purpose. From a scientific viewpoint there is no higher purpose to this universe. The moral codes humans live by are not more than an agreement. Only when this universe is created for a purpose there is a reason for our existence. But moral individualism can be dangerous. The challenges humanity is currently facing, most notably living within the limits of this planet, most likely requires making individuals subject to a higher causes like the survival of humanity and caring for the planet.

1. Liberal democracy. Wikipedia.
2. Liberalism: The Life of an Idea. Edmund Fawcett (2015). Princeton University Press.
3. History of liberalism. Wikipedia.