Liberalism, or “Machine Society”

The philosopher Jean-Claude Michéa is a resolved adversary of liberalism. His previous work, impasse Adam Smith, was already in this vein. The central thesis was very clear: if the left as we know it in France has suffered so many failures throughout the XX^e A century, it is because it is much more the daughter of the Enlightenment – and therefore of liberalism – than that of workers’ socialism of origins. By kissing the party of reason and progress, it would indeed have pact in utero With liberal mechanics, this “ social physics of interest Who leads to representing the individual through the philosophical fiction of the rational actor and calculator. This is why the “ Historical compromise “Between socialist hopes and liberal values had to lead it to the betrayal of socialism” moral And conservative who had marked the first days of the workers’ movement. He was indeed carrying, according to Michéa, of the defense of some “ forms of community existence “That liberal individualism breaks and tramples by carrying out” disintegration of humanity in monadies ».

The author thus suggested returning to “ A radical criticism of the economic representation of the world “, And advocated a return to the sources of the workers’ movement to find the ferments of a new democratic civility. To the liberal atomization of communities and to the cold rationalization of exchanges via the force of interest, Michéa opposed a conception of the exchange placed under the sign of the relationship and fertilized by reciprocity. However, this conception is, still according to the author, inseparable from a form of community existence which gives mutual trust a fundamental role, even though the market would encourage rational deception.

This is whereImpasse Adam Smith involved the concept of “ Common Decency “, Borrowed from Orwell to designate this” intuitive feeling of things that should not be done ” And “ These benevolent ways to be and behave ». According to Michéa, this “ Common Decency “Constitutes” the essential starting point of any socialist criticism in the original sense of the term ; that is to say in the sense that this word had received historically (…) in the practical struggles of the workers of XIX^e century against the disassociation of humanity (P. 97). There “ Common Decency Was thus described as the lost treasure of workers’ socialism, the first suffering of which proceeded from the destruction of all its community supports.

We find in The Empire of the slightest evil Most of the lines of force mentioned above, as well as the accents characteristic of this conservative socialism which considers the right and the left as we know them as the two sides of the same liberal Janus. But the central axis of this last test is different and seems to respond to one of the criticisms to which Impasse Adam Smith Lend the flank: Michéa stigmatized there in particular the paradigm of merchant utilitarianism, but also condemned liberalism as a whole, without always convincingly justifying this rise in generality. The Empire of the slightest evil is precisely crossed by the desire to demonstrate the deep philosophical unity of different liberal traditions (economic, political and cultural). This new essay therefore intends to lay the foundations for a radical and unified criticism of “ liberal system ».

How exactly is the “ unit substance »Of this system ? She lies, according to Michéa, in the search for “ lesser evil ». A “ lesser evil “Which could only be reached by impersonal and rational mechanisms, only capable of neutralizing the confrontation of the various conceptions of good and” to generate the necessary order and political harmony by themselves, without anyone there is never to appeal to the virtue of the subjects (P. 33). This “ Process without subject “Is here identified with” the utopia of a rational society, placing the very foundation of its peaceful existence in the sole dynamics of the impersonal structures of the market and the law “(Ibid.). From a political point of view, it is a question of setting up a “ State that would prohibit any judgment on morality and good life “(P. 54): an authority that remains within its limits, which is limited to being fair and which does not inquire about making men happy despite themselves. From an economic point of view, it is a question of relying in the invisible hand of the market which will be able to harmonize the interests of everyone as well as without constraining anyone. According to Michéa, this is the model of “ self -regulated balance “Which dominates in both cases to organize the imaginary and the procedures of this” company-machine (P. 95).

Michéa underlines that this system soaked in the frozen waters of science and reason regularly dresses with more presentable, even more lyrical justifications. The author attacks tolerance in particular. Very logically, he wants to see there, not the mark of this ecumenical humanism so often claimed on the left, but that of the strictest political realism. The liberal promotion of tolerance would consist less in singing the virtues of reciprocal recognition than “ neutralize the action of different morals, philosophies or religions (P. 80). Far from signifying an opening to others, it would work on the contrary as a noding of singularities, identities and convictions. In this sense, it would be one of the most accomplished forms of this “ political wisdom “Who chooses” take place in purely technical management of ‘necessity’ (P. 80). The current apology for “ crossbreeding », In particular in the ranks of the left, it would be according to Michéa only the contemporary face of this cold modus vivendi.

Under this criticism are guessed the distinctive features of a “ desperate anthropology (P. 197). Is that “ The imaginary institution of modern societies proceeds, above all, of a radical distrust of the moral capacities of human beings and, consequently, to their ability to live together without harming reciprocally (P. 91). “” The concepts of checks and balances and self -regulatory mechanism, which organize all the ideological constructions of liberalism, must first be understood as the philosophical materialization of this original distrust (…) (P. 94). This is why the liberal program, according to Michéa, merges with a practical company “ ethical purification (P. 105). The society of the least evil can thus whiten and innocent in the name of its axiological neutrality all kinds of practices reproved by the “ Common Decency ” of the “ ordinary people “, Like prostitution or certain violence against oneself. By condemning them, would it not reopen the Pandora’s box of moral battles, this “ Worse worlds “, One might say, against which she built ?

But it is precisely on the anthropological side of the reflection that reasoning encounters its main difficulties. Michéa indeed says consecutively that liberalism is penetrated with distrust and pessimism, and that it needs, to operate its self -regulating processes, of mutual trust between the subjects. “” The simple practical possibility of establishing economic exchanges and legal contracts (…) supposes, between individuals who decide to favor these particular relationships, a certain degree of prior confidence and, consequently, the minimum existence, among the various partners, of Psychological and cultural provisions for loyalty (P. 136). This apparent paradox can be resolved without leaving the logic followed by Michéa. By affirming, for example, that liberalism is not aware of the anthropological resources on which it rests and that it contributes to rarefy. He would thus destroy without knowing it all a humus of “ primary sociality “Which he nevertheless has a vital need to grow and prosper. We understand here that the “ company-machine Is an anthropological impasse and that it is easy to oppose the infinite register of concrete social experiences.

This research of “ unitary substance of liberalism »Care, however, in reconciling the two faces of the liberal man who dominate in this work: theHomo Economicus rational calculation, entirely governed by an axiomatic of pure interest, andHomo juricicus of the free will, limited only by the freedom of others. This tension appears to be particularly lively when Michéa passes as a contradiction of unified liberalism which could well be only a difference in nature between economic liberalism and political liberalism. This contradiction is summed up as follows (see in particular p. 96): on the one hand, the liberal state erects free will in intangible dogma (“ It is up to us to take care of being happy ») And promises to refrain from any interference in the sphere of good, but, on the other, liberal governments keep intervening to ask men to change their habits and mentalities in order to adapt to the modern economic world, and to install the conditions of leave. In short, liberalism calls for abstention by a scrupulous respect for the free will of individuals, and the intervention to correct … the free will of individuals and allow the logic of interest to be deployed. Is it a contradiction of liberalism, as Michéa suggests, or a contradiction of the liberalisms ? The first hypothesis supposes, in unified liberal theory, a form of necessary convergence between free will and individual interest, convergence ultimately taken in default by the political experience of resistance to the “ modernity ». On the contrary, the second hypothesis requires recognizing that interest only covers very imperfectly the spectrum of free will, and that the regime of merchant utilitarianism can be freely refused. It is also from the bosom of liberal democracies that the welfare state was born as we know it. They are the ones who made it possible that the market games only are limited, corrected or compensated. And it is perhaps to their political liberalism that economic liberalism may need to do violence if it wanted to extend its empire even more.