On Liberty and Peace - Part 2: Peace by Matt Edge

Author:Matt Edge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political philosophy, liberty, globalisation, globalization, perpetual peace, freedom, equality, society, cooperation, democracy
ISBN: 9781845407070
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2016
Published: 2016-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

The objection is misleading because egalitarian equal liberty does offer such an incentive to the Swedish builder (for example). Indeed, this is what is on the table to you (and everyone else) here and now - equal treatment, through equal liberty. Unless you are among the very rich under global capitalism, and are able to afford to buy whatever choices and opportunities you desire, you will do better in terms of individual liberty, regarding the choices and options available to you, under egalitarian communism, than under the present system.

Perhaps the Swedish builder is unncessary. Perhaps there are enough labour-hours in Somalia to fulfil the necessary tasks, and the global division of labour supports in other ways (the provision of foods, amenities and the like). The building blocks of equality begin to be put in place, whilst the system of equal natural liberty takes shape over time. And we are under no illusions, it will take time. Further, what I am describing here are, of course, completely altered social arrangements based on smashing assumptions we often take as basic to our thought (such as the abolition of money), and this, to be sure, requires both effort and will on your (and everyone else’s) part as well, as I emphasised in Liberty.

Now, the worry about the division of labour also does not materialse. The nature of humanity is that one human has skills and interests in one thing, another in another. One likes working indoors, one outdoors, one on manual tasks, one on logistical, one on emotional, one on artistic, and so on and so on. This is no different under egalitarian equal liberty and it need not be - the difference is that rewards are equal, unlike under global capitalism. But the idea that all, or most, of humanity wishes to do the same, or similar, tasks is clearly absurd, and stands contrary to all intuition in terms of building societies based upon the principle of individual freedom. Imagine what job you would truly love to do in a genuinely cooperative society? Some may wish to continue doing the task they currently enjoy, others to change dramatically, others to perform more than one task, and so on and so on. You hear the idea expressed frequently that, under capitalism, individuals do not wish to do the job they currently do, but that they do it because of the rewards it brings. But if the same rewards were available under a different system, then why do it, when, under the different system, you could do something you genuinely enjoyed, yet with the same rewards? Again, the benefits of a system of equal natural liberty begin to show themselves.

Clearly vital to such a system is a theory of education or training. Key to this, under egalitarian equal liberty, is Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner was rightly critical of societies (such as ours) which measure intelligence according to IQ tests. [41] Gardner instead suggests that human intelligence can, and should, be considered

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