Revolutionary Democracy Vs. Liberal Democracy:

A Belated Reply to Yosyas Kifleyesus’s Article

Adal Isaw

adalisaw@yahoo.com

June 13, 2010

It’s heartwarming to have a trickle down version of an ideological debate on Aiga Forum, especially when it seriously concerns our beloved country—Ethiopia. Civilly done, debates of the various kinds benefit a country such us ours to have a well-informed citizenry. Well-informed citizenry in turn facilitates for a knowledge-based vote to adjudicate a democratic contest between acutely differing political parties. The party that wins the heart, mind and interest of a well-informed citizenry in turn becomes the dependable bastion of a country that the well-informed citizenry calls home. And this kind of democratic and knowledge nourishing process should be encouraged, for all the time to come and for the good of Ethiopia’s economic, political and social life.

Not all ideological debates are premised on substantive points of contentions. Some ideological debates may tend to employ ad hominem—the kind that attack the person or the political party that’s making the argument. Some debates go off on a tangent guided by conspiracy theory, to question the opponent’s motive instead of focusing on the argument being made. And some debates on political ideology are simply out of touch, and there are even some more with many more defining characteristics.

Great ideological debates are born to be raised by those debaters or political parties who have done their homework thoroughly. Many more qualities may be afforded to debaters, but for the purpose of this piece, great debaters are made from great readers, listeners, and those who tolerate ideological viewpoints completely contrary to theirs. Tolerating viewpoints other than ours induces in us the positive capacity contrary to that which induces hate and resentment. In other words, truthfully tolerating viewpoints other than ours brings sanity to our thinking and civility to the way how we argue against ideas that we think are utterly flawed. Hate, resentment and a complete doubt in the sincerity of those who hold views other than ours inevitably kill the spirit of great debates even before its inception.

With this in mind, I welcome Kifleyesus’s scribbled debate on Aiga Forum, titled, “Bashing Liberalism: Can “Revolutionary Democracy” Be Democratic Without Espousing Liberalism?” For the purpose of clarity, I find it imperative to quote Kifleyesus’s introductory statement and his core argument. His introductory paragraph goes as follows: “I have been following the recent debates in the run up to the 2010 elections in Ethiopia. It is sad to observe that most, if not all, opposition politicians seem to be unable to defend “liberalism” from the ideological attacks of EPRDF politicians. Their inability was most visible when Lidetu Ayalew, the usually witty and gifted orator, could not respond well to Bereket Simon’s characterization of the EDP’s (and other opposition parties’) views on liberalism as an invitation to western domination. What is even more saddening is that the EPRDF and its acolytes including one Adal Isaw attack liberalism as a recipe for disaster in the Ethiopian context”

Now let’s read Kifleyesus’s core argument, bearing in mind the content of his introductory paragraph, and, his core argument goes as follows: “The attack on liberalism is based on confusing two terms: liberalism and neo-liberalism. I do not think that the EPRDF or its supporters [are] unaware of the distinction between these two terms. Adal Isaw’s piece on Aigaforum.com clearly shows that he is aware of the historical and philosophical roots of liberalism as his references to Hobbes and Locke testify. The simple explanation of the confusion is thus that there is a deliberate attempt to befuddle the debate and push an agenda that the EPRDF is not comfortable to pursue publicly.”

Kifleyesus’s piece shows that he failed to do his homework thoroughly, since he never made the concerted effort to refute the major points that a revolutionary democrat raises to criticize liberalism. He didn’t defend the excessive and superfluous individualism, which is being espoused by Ethiopian liberals in relation to the greater issue of economic and political development of Ethiopia. In addition, his defense of liberalism might have benefited a bit more or less, had he read my article thoroughly between the lines. Instead, what Kifleyesus did in his piece is to let his readers know, first and foremost, how saddening it was to hear and read EPRDF, Bereket Simon and the “acolyte” Adal Isaw bashing and attacking liberalism. Kifleyesus didn’t even spare “…the usually witty and gifted orator…” Ato. Lidetu Ayalew, “…for his inability [to] respond well to Bereket Simon’s characterization of…liberalism…”

The fact that Kifleyesus is lashing out on Ato. Lidetu Ayalew and “opposition politicians for their inability to defend liberalism” is tacitly telling a smile-inducing story about Kifleyesus himself. Kifleyesus is spelling to his readers that he would have done a better job of defending liberalism had he been the one in attendance during the debate back home in Ethiopia. But the mere fact is, after his sad-riddled narrative of a paragraph or two, and after he gave his readers the allusion that he would have been best suited to refute EPRDF, Bereket Simon and Adal Isaw’s “attack on liberalism,” Kifleyesus completely failed, as I have mentioned earlier, to even touch let alone address the specific credos of liberalism that EPRDF, Bereket Simon and this writer criticized.

What are the main points in his core argument that Kifleyesus raises in hope to deflect legitimate and very strong criticisms of liberalism? One of his core points of argument asserts that “…the attack on liberalism is based on confusing two terms: liberalism and neo-liberalism.” Kifleyesus goes in detail to inform his readers the difference between liberalism and neo-liberalism, and in between, he completely overlooks that the difference if any is not ideological. In fact, the two words finally end up confusing Kifleyesus and here is how.

Neo-liberalism is mainly a re-invented or rehashed grandiose economic movement of liberalism. Irrespective of its huge reach, neo-liberalism is nonetheless one of the inborn varieties that liberalism has given birth under its own self-induced economic and political labor. Kifleyesus should have read my article thoroughly before making semantics part of the gist of his defense of liberalism. In my piece, “Revolutionary Democracy: A Fitting Worldview for Economic & Political development of Ethiopia,” I have stated clearly that “…liberalism comes with many daunting problems and it has been revised to a degree so that the problems that it keeps creating are ameliorated now and then through major policy implementations.”

Neo-liberalism is a major policy implementation and depending on the countries it is taking hold, it is either thoroughly an economic movement as in Britain under Margret Thatcher, or an economic and social movement as in America under Ronald Regan. And its ideology is liberalism of the kind that John Locke and Adam Smith espoused. But most importantly, neo-liberalism is a well-known tool of our modern times, used by the Western powers to swindle a great deal of resources from their own people and also from people in “under developed” and “developing” countries. How do they do it? By simply prescribing a major set of unfair and controlling micro-economic policy changes, surnamed liberalization.

Privatization of the economy; deregulation of the market; downsizing of the public sector; selling state owned enterprise; letting the market determine the price of goods and services including essential utilities; reducing government spending on social services and shrinking the size of government agencies, and dwindling the number of people employed by government agencies, are major policy prescription in the name of liberalizing the economic sector of a country, “to guarantee the rights and freedoms of the individual by limiting the powers of government.” Kifleyesus is assuming that all these economic and political courses of action of neo-liberalism are done in an ideological vacuum, and he’s absolutely wrong.

Neo-liberalism uses the ideological arguments of both Locke and Smith to restructure the political and economic fabric of a society into what classical liberal worldview espouses. Deregulating the market; letting the market determine the price of goods and services including essential utilities, are courses of actions tantamount to letting “The Invisible Hand” run the economy (Adam Smith). Meanwhile, privatizing the economy; selling state owned enterprise; downsizing the public sector and shrinking the size of government agencies are actions born out of the womb of a liberal ideology, to limit the power of government in favor of the individual rights of those it has been created to serve (John Locke). Therefore, to claim disparateness between liberalism and neo-liberalism is to attempt to sell a real bird with no wings. Metaphorically speaking, neo-liberalism is one wing among variety of wings of the bird that I call liberalism. And this specific wing has helped liberalism to crash-land in many places of our world, allowing us to observe meticulously what to buy and what not to buy in the open market of ideologies.

Tightly coupled with individualism and the absolute right to property, neo-liberalism in general comes as a measurable quantity of major policy undertaking. Individualism and the absolute right to property, two of liberalism’s credos that we revolutionary democrats criticize with cogency, are adhered with similar passion and authenticity by modern day neo-liberals, for example, the late Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher of England. In fact, Neo-liberalism is sometimes called Thatcherism, and Thatcher, following the ideological footstep of her countryman—John Locke, is a known opponent of anything social and communal.

Kifleyesus knows this to be the case, but he would anyway like to theorize that the apparent “confusion” of these two words came from “…a deliberate attempt to befuddle the debate and push an agenda that the EPRDF is not comfortable to pursue publicly.” This line of argument is what I called earlier the kind that attacks the assumed characteristic of the person or the political party that’s making the argument. This part of Kifleyesus argument is not at all intended to intelligently refute the argument that EPRDF and or this writer are making. It simply is an argument that goes tangent guided by conspiracy theory, to bring to light an utterly unfounded intent of EPRDF and its “acolytes.”

Furthermore, a careful reading of my piece would have answered Kifleyesus primary question that whether “...Revolutionary Democracy [can] Be Democratic Without Espousing Liberalism?” As I have pointed in my article, the alternative worldview being expressed by revolutionary democrats is not at all against most of the tenets that liberal democracy and its market system have to offer. Revolutionary democracy believes in the free association of individuals, and the coming to life of more than 90 disparate Ethiopian political parties attests to this fact that it is so. Revolutionary democracy propagates for free but reasonably restrained, revolutionized and modern efficient market system, and the advent of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange proves that it the case. Most importantly, revolutionary democracy believes in democracy—“government of the people, by the people, for the people,” convinced in the ability of nations and nationalities of Ethiopia to self-govern themselves as they see it fit. For this reason, it is revolutionary democracy that has given in practice the real, true and essential meaning of what democracy is; it can be cogently argued.

The major argument in my piece in part is based against a liberal ideology that favors the unfair and controlling economic and political interest of the Western world. And this ideology has an overreaching contemporary tool called neo-liberalism—with a pinpointed goal to remove all “barriers” to commerce and to privatize all available services and resources including water. This grandiose plan of economic globalization is welcomed by Ethiopian liberals who seem to know less that the whole scheme unfairly benefits the developed Western powers more so than any other country including ours.

Now that we have established the hand in glove nature of neo-liberalism and liberalism, a concerned and well-informed Ethiopian will recognize, that the arduous work to build a middle-income democratic Ethiopia will be nearly impossible; one, if and when it is based on a liberal worldview that favors the unfair and controlling economic and political interest of the Western world; and two, if and when it is based on economic and political philosophy that exaggerates the inalienable rights of a self-seeking individual to wealth.

The wealth that our beloved Ethiopia accrues is produced through social interdependence and common efforts. Let alone how we Ethiopians farm, manufacture, buy, own, sell and consume, even the way how we ideologically agree and disagree with each other are part of our social existence. Therefore, to isolate property and the ownership right that is ascribed to it in a fashion that stresses, exaggerates, and dramatizes the right of a single individual will be a wildly improbable faulty doctrine to follow. Because the “I” and “mine” culture and ideology will make some among us to view ownership rights as unrelated to social life. And such a path for sure will encourage contemporary and future Ethiopian entrepreneurs to consider their property as their own absolute wealth, produced and acquired in some fictional private space they have created behind the Ethiopian society. This is precisely part of the liberal credo that we revolutionary democrats criticize, to build a middle-income democratic society premised on a cohesive communal ethos.