Alain de Benoist, philosopher and founder of Nouvelle Droite, spoke about the source of gender ideology in a conversation with IntelligoNews director, Fabio Torriero, associating it with liberal capitalism. I asked the director of the Acton Institute's office in Rome, Kishore Jayabalan, to offer his rebuttal. This sparked conversation about the values of a commercial society and Jayabalan’s caveat: "to attack human liberty because of human folly is not the best way forward."
Moriconi: Today, libertarian culture seems to be the only alternative between two opposing moralisms: Catholic and homosexual. Alain De Benoist, on the other hand, offers a radical critique. According to De Benoist, "economic liberalism (on the right) and cultural and social liberalism (on the left) are destined to coincide. We must dispel the myth of [the cultural revolution of] 1968! It wasn’t 1968 but liberal capitalism that originated the idea of irresponsible and unlimited freedom.” How would you respond to this?
Jayabalan: I do not believe that liberalism proposes an irresponsible and unrestrained freedom, at least if one reads the works of classical liberals, like John Locke and Adam Smith. They proposed a liberalism that is fundamentally moral, but perhaps in a different way from what was the so-called classical or traditional morality of the time. They reformulated moral principles and virtues to support a commercial society, which is quite different from a feudal society that was the alternative economic system at the time.
Cultural and social liberalism is often a critique of economic liberalism and is derived from the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and others.
It is not that the generation of '68 clamored for free markets; on the contrary, the revolution was against the bourgeois liberalism of Locke and Smith and wanted to build a post-modern society, that is, one free from responsibility and natural limits, from the formalities of a liberal society. I would also say that liberalism made distinctions between ‘public’ and ‘private’, between the ‘state’ and ‘civil society’. It is post-modernism which wants to destroy these distinctions and equate the personal and the political.
Moriconi: Capitalism owes its origin an anthropological model, the homo economicus, the idea of man who always seeks to maximize his material interest. From this, one may legitimize selfishness. Therefore, for De Benoist, gender ideology is a direct consequence of such a philosophy applied to human sexual expression.
Jayabalan: Certainly, capitalism has proposed a new model by seeking to change the relationship between the lords and servants of feudal society. Rather than considering tradition as the norm, we experiment with and follow our own material interests, which can also end up benefiting others.
This is why the concepts of innovation and competition are so important. Liberalism has definitely changed how we perceive family relationships and traditional marriage. The ‘nuclear’ family is quite different from the ‘tribal’ family; the nuclear family was not tied to ancestral landholdings and, therefore, people could enjoy personal freedom and social mobility.
On the other hand, liberal marriage is founded on the contractual integrity of the couple, not on a laissez faire form of sexual expression that destroys the concept of marriage, as we can see clearly today. To be liberal means to be responsible for one’s choices, not avoiding the consequences of those choices.
Morocini: How would you reply to this observation: "Today, our moral imagination is dominated by commercial values, not because of ‘leftists’ because of liberal capitalism, which must continually and methodically destroy all that stands in the way of selfishness.”?
Jayabalan: It depends on what you mean by ‘commercial values.’ If a young entrepreneur wants to create a new business, what is stopping him? The [usual] obstacles are government taxes, regulations and bureaucracy, as well as the selfishness of those in power, both politically and economically speaking. The 'progressives' are those who impede liberal and economic progress. Unfortunately many capitalists collaborate with the progressives to prevent competition, as Smith taught us. Ordinary people in present-day Europe lack economic opportunity because the rule of law and concepts like open competition and ‘fair play’ are missing.
Morocini: Systems are in themselves neutral and are not at fault; therefore we cannot place blame on the capitalist system itself. Do you really think systems are neutral? If so, can you give an example?
Jayabalan: Capitalism is neutral in the sense that it is a tool that can be used by people to produce both good and evil. Economists always speak of "exogenous values" that come from outside the market. This is a simplification, however. As a human science, the economy reflects the values of the people who act in the market.
Obviously a commercial society has different values from a feudal society, as I said, and there are moral issues in capitalism that we can and must judge as moral subjects. Take, for example, prostitution and pornography, which are both parts of the sex trade. A moral subject has to distinguish between trading ‘things’ and trading ‘persons’; these are not one and the same.
Social norms guide trade, but commerce fills a moral vacuum. Post-modernism has denied the concept of human nature in favor of existential choice without commitments or responsibilities. Concepts like gender ideology and sexual confusion derive from this.
It is possible that this moral vacuum is a consequence of liberalism in that scientific and technological progress has made the belief in a providential God superfluous. The more serious problem, therefore, would be wanting a Christian society without belief in the Triune God, which seems to me to be the case of Prof. De Benoist. To attack human liberty because of human folly is not the best way forward.
This interview was originally published on the Italian website of IntelligoNews on April 16, 2015; English translation by Istituto Acton, Rome.
