INDIVIDUAL AND PERSON Vincenzo Accattatis April 2011 Translated by Hall Powell According to Canadian political scientist Crawford Brough Macpherson the difficulty of liberal-democratic theorization has its roots in possessive individualism within an economic context (1) in the divided individual who as sole proprietor of his or her skills wants invariably to increase wealth at the expense of other individuals—and public authority (judges, regulators…) charged with restraining unbridled exploitation by one individual over the other. Individual and personal liberty, individual liberty and property: in Hobbesian theory like Smith, Locke, Hume, and Bentham, property and freedom, ownership and the State, are tightly connected (2). There is an individual with property and one without; the State is a function of the possessor (functions for the possessor; liberty “is a function of the property-owning elite”(3). The king and judiciary are there to support the peaceful enjoyment by owners of their possessions, distinctly favoring their industry; the poor must work to earn a living and if they don’t want to earn a low salary, the must be forced to do so by the law (economic law quickly intervenes), while idlers and vagabonds should not be fed, but punished, because hunger is the best incentive to work (4). Thus, there is the contractual order conceived by Hobbes and Locke (5) as a way of “treating” the unemployed with an obligation to work, the workhouses (6). The State and Judiciary are composed within this context. Locke’s constitutionalism resolves (consecrates) the right of owners to expand their riches ad infinitum (7). “Discipline” is defined as fundamental valor: to surveil, discipline and punish, accustoming the poor to this virtue: Locke never harbored the idea that the poor are persons (8). Do the poor have the right to Revolution? No, according to Locke. In the Western world, the concept of personal identity is intertwined with individual identity for the obvious reason that the concept of individual identity is central to the market in an industrial State. The concept of personal identity stands in contradistinction to individual identity, but in a “civilized” liberal-democratic State that has experienced Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism – whereas, in the totalitarian State – personal identity has a value that is absolute; it must. However, for many, in Europe today, this isn’t so. “There’s no such thing as society, but only individuals” (Margaret Thatcher). Only individuals? In what sense could that be possible (9)? Individuals and society, possessive individualism. “I” write with an upper case letter and “state” written with the lower caps; in France, Germany, and Italy, however, “State” is written with a capital letter; Fascism wrote it with the hyper uppercase letter. In Europe, and more in general, in the Western world, cultural differences certainly exist and are evident: “the state isn’t the solution, it’s the problem” (Ronald Reagan). The State can become a fascist State, Nazi, Stalinist, but the defects of the “I” in upper case are evident. It is more precisely, possessive individualism. Individual, Dignity, Rights “The idea that a human being has a value in him/herself is a concept tied to every great religion” (10), and Thatcher, a cultivated person, knows it well. She who says “eternal human spirit” means “person.” Thatcher refers to the UN Charter which conflates the “individual” with “human being,” but does not mention the contradiction. We are reminded of Article 23 in the Declaration of Human Rights which corresponds to rules in the Italian Constitution (11). These are human rights, yet Thatcher protected Gustavo Pinochet because he offered Great Britain “vital support” during the Falklands War. The favors he offered, Thatcher explained, had to be returned: “if you have a reputation for exacting favors and not returning them, the favors dry up.” Under his leadership, “Chile became a free and prosperous country” (12). Human rights, the right to work, implementation, minimum or maximum State power, form “on paper” and “in hearts” (13). We know which Constitution rests in the heart of Thatcher: “free-enterprise capitalism” (14). The Person Value in the Constitutions, in the Treaties, in the Hearts The value of a human being lives in the Constitutions and in international treaties, but always mixed with the concept of the individual, thus it is important to be clear: it is the latter that has to provide room for the concept of person, not the contrary. Civilization moves precisely in this direction: the State, the free market, competiveness should not overwhelm the person, and should be functional for the emancipation and development of the people. The Italian Constitution is focused in precisely this way (15), as it was the French Constitution of the Fourth Republic: in the aftermath of victory wrested by free men from regimes that had attempted to enslave and degrade human beings, the French people proclaim again that every human being, with no distinction as to race, religion or faith, has sacred and inalienable rights. It solemnly reaffirms the right and freedoms of man and of citizen consecrated under the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic reaffirms:
Thus, reiterating the value of the human being, there is no discord between the Fourth and Fifth Republic. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, states:
The spirit of brotherhood and person are one and the same. The European Union “places the individual at the heart of its activities” (in the Preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights). But here we are in the presence of an ought-to being, and not a being, since the two European Treaties emerging from the Treaty of Lisbon, Tue and Tfue, take into consideration primarily the entrepreneurial-individual, the worker-individual, the factors of production. Economism is at the heart of both European treaties, but in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, this contrast exploded: the British recognized this and tried to push back the other countries in the European Union by introducing exemptions and interpretative norms in the Charter itself. The two existing European treaties are liberal treaties, with a major contrast: the Charter, which various European countries are seeking to expand while other countries – with Great Britain in the lead – are trying to reabsorb it. The value of the human being is not a liberal (secular) value in the way Thatcher meant it. Liberal secular values of straightforward English culture are instead the “four freedoms”: free movement of capital, of goods, of services and workforce. European treaties marginalize the value of human beings, yet they should make that value central. The task for the Italian Republic and the European Union is to “remove the obstacles”: this is the goal. The battle for anti-totalitarian civilization is situated here: “the foundations of twentieth-century democracy have still to be laid” (E.H. Carr); “for a fleeting moment we have an opportunity to make an epoch – to open a Golden Age for all mankind” (C. Streit, “Union Now”) the reexamination of values and heroic effort that could have saved democracy from war if they had been established at the opportune moment, are intervening and will continue amidst the ruin of war (J. Maritain, “Christianisme et democratie,” 1943) (16). Democracy, but what kind? Democracy by force (of arms), exported to other countries like Iraq? The value of a human being is never metaphysical, even when connected to metaphysics (the trinity of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). It is solely a question of overcoming possessive individualism and rejecting the logic of totalitarianism and authoritarianism (17). Human rights, the rights of man, but understood in a truly universal way, not in the ideological-imperialist-colonial sense, the tragic tradition of western culture must be abandoned. Individuals, cultural economy, utilitarianism (Locke, Smith, Hume, Bentham) typify the Industrial State. People: community-religious-Christian tradition. Human rights in a real sense—human rights as ideology. Opposing traditions: imperialism and the rights of man, imperialism and human beings. The State cannot, must not, encompass the human being, crush, gas, or burn him in crematory ovens; nor can one treat a human being like a beast (and one must also show respect even for animals—there’s a precise rule for this). All men are “Sons of God”: this is a central concept, expressed in the American Declaration of Independence. Utilitarianism and economism must serve the human being, otherwise one risks a return to the logic of the crematoria (18).
1) Cfr. C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1985, p. 1. |