Against the claim that an aim like this can be formulated sufficiently clearly and definitely, many objections have been raised. It has been said that once it is recognized that freedom must be limited, the whole principle of freedom breaks down, and the question what limitations are necessary and what are wanton cannot be decided rationally, but only by authority. But this objection is due to a muddle. It mixes up the fundamental question of what we want from a state with certain important technological difficulties in the way of the realization of our aims. It is certainly difficult to determine exactly the degree of freedom that can be left to the citizens without endangering that freedom whose protection is the task of the state. But that something like an approximate determination of that degree is possible is proved by experience, i.e. by the existence of democratic states. In fact, this process of approximate determination is one of the main tasks of legislation in democracies. It is a difficult process, but its difficulties are certainly not such as to force upon us a change in our fundamental demands. These are, stated very briefly, that the state should be considered as a society for the prevention of crime, i.e. of aggression. And the whole objection that it is hard to know where freedom ends and crime begins is answered, in principle, by the famous story of the hooligan who protested that, being a free citizen, he could move his fist in any direction he liked; whereupon the judge wisely replied: ‘The freedom of the movement of your fists is limited by the position of your neighbour’s nose.’
The view of the state which I have sketched here may be called ‘protectionism’. The term ‘protectionism’ has often been used to describe tendencies which are opposed to freedom. Thus the economist means by protectionism the policy of protecting certain industrial interests against competition; and the moralist means by it the demand that officers of the state shall establish a moral tutelage over the population. Although the political theory which I call protectionism is not connected with any of these tendencies, and although it is fundamentally a liberal theory, I think that the name may be used to indicate that, though liberal, it has nothing to do with the policy of strict non-intervention (often, but not quite correctly, called ‘ laissez-faire’). Liberalism and state-interference are not opposed to each other. On the contrary, any kind of freedom is clearly impossible unless it is guaranteed by the state. A certain amount of state control in education, for instance, is necessary, if the young are to be protected from a neglect which would make them unable to defend their freedom, and the state should see that all educational facilities are available to everybody. But too much state control in educational matters is a fatal danger to freedom, since it must lead to indoctrination. As already indicated, the important and difficult question of the limitations of freedom cannot be solved by a cut and dried formula. And the fact that there will always be borderline cases must be welcomed, for without the stimulus of political problems and political struggles of this kind, the citizens’ readiness to fight for their freedom would soon disappear, and with it, their freedom. (Viewed in this light, the alleged clash between freedom and security, that is, a security guaranteed by the state, turns out to be a chimera. For there is no freedom if it is not secured by the state; and conversely, only a state which is controlled by free citizens can offer them any reasonable security at all.)--Popper (1945) The Open Society & Its Enemies, 105-106
I had two motives to return to Popper. First, I wanted to use Popper's fanatically uncharitable reading of Plato (and Aristotle) to oppose Callard's literal reading and show how important and vital it is to "entangle those authors in contemporary power struggles." Second, and more important, to remind myself what Popper had to say about what he calls the "perennial revolt against freedom" (178) and "the significance of the perennial fight against" totalitarianism (xli). But I got distracted by the paragraphs above, which are a kind of lengthy aside in his diagnosis of Plato's totalitarianism, and so, if I comment on these two issues at all, it will be obliquely and indirectly (I return to this some other time).
Not unlike other liberal readers of Lippmann's (1938) The Good Society -- Popper calls it a "most admirable book" in his first footnote (513) --, not the least the ORDOs, Popper rejects nineteenth century liberalism. The direct context of the passage is his defense of the idea that one can be a "social technologist" and "approach political problems rationally." (105; I don't mean to deny that Popper is a critic of certain other forms of social engineering.) The new form of liberalism will be one that presupposes state activity to achieve liberal ends constrained, as the first paragraph of the quoted passage shows, by the harm principle.
But what caught my eye was Popper's claim that a free society requires creative turbulence conducive to freedom. This is an idea that is (recall) prominent in Machiavelli (who is strikingly absent in Popper's learned argument). Now, unlike Machiavelli, Popper does not claim such turbulence leads to the development of better institutions. But he does think that permanent political agonism is conducive to freedom.
The underlying idea seems to be that in a tranquil and consensual (and for Popper these seem near synonyms) polity, citizens would lose the habit of vigilance. Whereas in a state in which political challenges do not have the appearance of being permanent solved, political talents and mobilization are exercised. In particular, the citizens' capacity to resist the government's attempts to remove their freedoms and rights will then be contested.
It is important to see that Popper's position is not Arendtian. He does not seem to think that political agonism is the highest or best form of life. Nor is he attracted to republican theories of non-domination.
I mentioned Lippmann above, because he inherits from Lippmann the idea that politics is the working out, in the "spirit of adaptation," of differences of interests and resolving of social problems that arise from changing circumstances and the development of new technologies. But whereas Lippmann demands from legislators a juridical impartiality that is not to be expected given their incentives (and the imperfection of human nature), Popper expects a never ending "process of approximate determination." Almost alone of the great liberals who had to confront the collapse liberalism before the Allied victory, Popper discerns that one cannot eliminate politics by some decision rule, a science of politics, or elite rule, or replacing politics by the market (or some combination thereof).
And while Popper rejects the political theory of Heraclitus’ and Empedocles' emphatically, he retains the idea that political life is one of open-ended strife. But here the strife is in the service of a system that ought to be ruled by the prevention of mutual harm. And by implication, what counts as harm is in some sense constantly contestable and contested. There is no neutral place where we have the luxury to treat each other as aliens. And while this sounds like a recipe for disaster, or a politics ground in Nietzschean will to power, Popper takes the fact that somewhat liberal states have existed as evidence for its evident possibility.
Some other time I return to Popper's analysis of the sociological preconditions of the maintenance of freedom (and also explore some of its limitations). But here I close with a thought. There are plenty of sociological and argumentative reasons for the a peculiar fact that Popper's reputation is at a nadir among (political) philosophers today.* Even so revisiting him is to encounter the rare, adult appreciation of the political challenges of maintaining a liberal political life while being sympathetic to liberal ideals (in addition to the harm principle, he emphasizes the rule of law, and equal benefit from the law).+
There is also a good intellectual reason why his political philosophy has faded. His is also a demanding, perhaps too demanding, almost existentialist form of liberalism (hence my nod to Arendt). The politics of freedom is not an intellectual game; there is no refuge from its demands. There are no slogans -- free speech, human rights, etc.-- that can circumvent the demands of judgment. "Personal responsibility" is a phrase that is repeated repetitively throughout the Open Society. For Popper this includes (but is not exhausted by) a willingness to judge others for the uptake of their ideas, and, reciprocally, a demand to be held accountable for them by other persons.
*Rawls is aware of the material I am discussing because he cites Popper's criticism of Plato's treatment of the contract tradition, which is in same chapter.
+Judith Shklar is the obvious other, adult twentieth century liberal who comes to mind, but recall my criticism of her attitude toward political life.
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