Essays 2010-2020

Contents: Essays 2010-2020

1. Idealism v Materialism
2. Freedom of Speech
3. Managing Globalisation: Third Way Scenario
4. Atma Singh's Twenty Theses on Globalisation
5. Strategic Thinking in the Modern World: The Rational Design Theory in the Philosophy of Hegel
6. Teleological Perspective - of God

Idealism v. Materialism

There is still a debate to be had on the merits of the philosophy of materialism and idealism.

It is assumed that science and economics have proved the victory of materialism over idealism. School after school of modern thinking has followed materialism. Hume and Locke and Empiricism, James Bentham and John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism, Marxism and its dialectical materialism, Wittgenstein and logical positivism, logicism of Bertrand Russell, FA Hayek and Austrian school in economics, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Pragmatism of William James and John Dewey and so on.

Idealism as a philosophy came under heavy attack in the West at the turn of the 20th century. "Although their attack was so influential that even more than 100 years later, any acknowledgment of idealistic tendencies is viewed in the English-speaking world with reservation, it is by no means obvious that they actually thought they had disproved idealism." (Guyer, Paul; Horstmann, Rolf-Peter, "Idealism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/idealism/>.

The idealist schools are very few and tend to be about personal choices or life choices. Existentialism of Kierkegaard and phenomenology of Husserl schools are the two most prominent ones which have persisted in the 20th century. There are many existential philosophers of the 20th Century.

I think a fundamental review is needed for the sake of the 21st century. This piece seeks to start the discussion. It is neither a technical philosophical piece nor a piece of speculation. I do not venture to go into philosophy in this piece, but I merely make an argument based on evidence and logic.

Human Mind

I start my view of this issue from the importance of the human mind - in civilisation and progress. Ideas as central to idealism. This sees ideas as a creative process within the human mind using a range of technical tools. The mind thinks. Ideas have in essence created civilisation and progress. The material world exists almost as a tabula rasa (raw unrefined state). It is lifeless in a passive sense of lacking in deliberative consciousness and creativity. The processes it is subject to are material ones - of an organic nature subject to the laws of nature. All fields of knowledge are the consequences of human ideas even mathematics and sciences. The very philosophy of materialism is a product of the mind. Arts and culture are products of human civilisation. Society and its economy are products of human ideas. Rural and urban infrastructures are the products of human consciousness in different fields.

For instance, the domestication of animals for agricultural produce was a human idea in the history of agriculture and a step in the civilisation of human beings. So even in terms of the very first ideas in the human mind occupies a central place in human civilisation.

Everything Material is Clarified by a Human Concept

Everything material does not simply exist. It is brought to life by human concepts in different fields. Human concepts give clarity to reality. Language gives us many tools of understanding material reality. The example of the "tree" given below. Even the existence of different words for different material objects in different languages shows this. Numbers are also human concepts. They let us understand and create logical processes for numbers.

Mathematical concepts are human ideas expressed in numbers and relationships of numbers. The very notion of numbers is a human idea. Mathematical processes apply abstract logic to numbers. Even basic numbering systems vary across countries and cultures. Lakh 100,000 is a key in the Indian sub-continent numbering system. It is not in the West, which has million 1,000,000 as a key. 60 (soixante) becomes a departure in French numbering system as does 80 (quartre-vinqt), so that 70 is 60 [+] 10, 80 is 4X20 and 90 is 4[X]20 [+] 10. Zero 0 was invented in India as a tool in the numbering system and now is a fundamental part of it.

Modern conceptual mathematics can be the very basis of scientific theories (e.g. of the universe) and subsequently investigated by reviewing existing evidence and then conducting new experiments to gather further evidence.

Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem of 1931 highlighted the impossibility of constructing a complete mathematical system. Even mathematical logic is not perfect. He uses the liar paradox "This sentence is false" [an analysis of the liar sentence shows that it cannot be true (for then, as it asserts, it is false), nor can it be false (for then, it is true) ] as an illustration of the problems of mathematical logic.

The interaction between theory and practice in science through experiment and then application is a conceptual process. The exponential growth in scientific knowledge is a product of this conceptual dialectical process - each addition multiplies the knowledge acquired in a constant process of reviewing existing ideas and evidence and thinking new ideas and gathering evidence for them. The 21st century is an era of very rapid developments in science. Exponential growth in technology and science is part of our era. Our ability to rapidly carry out experiments and use this knowledge in practical applications in many areas (such as medicine or industry) shows the tremendous progress of science. Conceptual thinking has progressed; but this is more debatable. It may be the case that the conceptual thinking is not new, but technical improvements and progress on existing conceptual ideas and theories.

Even the "real material" experiments to gather evidence are subject to methodological conceptual issues such as control, valid comparisons of like with like, any potential bias in the process, etc. They are issues of the human mind.

Materialism as 'reality as objective' is in one sense of its being independent from simple control of the mind; but it is not necessarily independent of human decisions or human conceptions which are constantly applied to such "reality".

For instance, a tree exists not simply as a concept or even as visual sensation in the mind; but it is truly independent. However, human decisions can impact on the tree - even by planting trees and cutting them down as well as by conceptual processes such as recasting it from its raw form into designed products such as furniture etc. The tree can impact on humans in its biological form by its organic processes. But it cannot make decisions. It is passive in that sense.

A crude materialist view would see the tree in its "raw" state, but devoid of the human mind involved in the process of change to the raw tree - in economics or in artistic cultural usages from its original to new forms and purposes.

Marxism and Failure of Materialist Philosophy

One of the defects of Marxist materialism is to see economics in this way - of passive material reality. It sees the tree and not the application of human ideas to the tree as the key. The nature of capitalism has been subject to intense debate with both the Marxist and Monetarist schools having a "scientific" view of capitalism. There is a technical reading of capitalism and even a mathematical one with models constructed to show patterns of its workings as a system.

Marxism as a theory of Karl Marx was a product of the human mind. Marx did not just borrow ideas from German Idealism of Hegel, but he also borrowed them from English economics and French socialism. He used these ideas to create a theory himself - of capitalism, history and society. His theories of dialectical materialism, the materialist conception of history and the class struggle were conceptual ideas. He also put forward the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a conception in the class struggle thesis - an idea which would dominate 20th century communism.

I argue that the defect of Marx was making materialism as central to those ideas and then giving it an extra twist by making the dictatorship of the proletariat the governance side of communism. This meant Marxism was bound to fail. Marx was an able intellectual, but he destroyed the great ideas of the idealist Hegel by turning them into crude materialist analysis. His theory of the class struggle rested on a crude view of economics with surplus labour of an individual being taken by capitalists in an act of "exploitation", his materialist conception of history combined Hegel's views (Lectures on the Philosophy of History) with crude economics and his dialectical materialism (took away God, Freedom and the Individual and replaced them by machines, classes and dictators). The genius of Hegel was wasted in his philosophy. Leadership plays the critical part in my view of every facet of human activity in history including economics. Human agency was given a secondary place and religion replaced altogether by Marx. He saw anonymous material forces determining history and sidelined the leaders of it. Different ideas are seen as an anathema to Marxist regimes. This is a wrong reading of history - in a fatal sense.

Marxist ideas were put into practice in Communist countries like the Soviet empire, Maoist China and several other places. Horrors of human and economic failure were inflicted by Communist regimes by destroying individuals thinking for themselves. The crash of Communist economics in the Soviet Union, the successful capitalist reform of China away from Maoist economics as well as the brutal collapse of Venezuela as a democratic socialist economy shows that this issue of human ideas is not mere academic debate.

Marxism was turned into crude materialist and highly repressive ideological practice on a giant scale - and failed in the real world. The working class and the poor suffered on a giant scale with starvation and shortages. Repression killed millions in many communist countries - in what appeared to be grand social and economic experiments based on the faulty thesis of materialism - with different emphasis such as industry or agriculture, urban or rural by the Stalinist and Maoist schools. Communist countries had corrupt elites in the same fashion - as the worst ruling classes described by Marx.

Venezuela today offers us a living example of the terrible failures of Marxism. The family of Hugo Chavez are billionaires; whilst the people are starving in brutal ways. Meanwhile capitalism even in the 19th century had turned towards democracy and outlawed the worst abuses of workers by law after law. Professor Amartya Sen famously argued that famines were reduced in democracies due to the free expression of outrage and political pressures in democracies.

Today, workers in the West are "middle classes" by and large and own many things themselves like houses and cars. There are many small businesses and professionals, who are not exploited in any meaningful way. Capitalism has not rejected free ideas in different fields such as science, arts or philosophy. Freedom of ideas is still a key feature of capitalism. This gives it an edge and ability to develop solutions to different issues. The mind is active in capitalist societies. The contrast with the appalling life under Communism is stark.

Marxism claims to be scientific and materialism to give it a fashionable credibility - which appeals to the Bertrand Russell era of 'mathematical, logical and abstract rationalist' materialist philosophy. Its atheism appeals to this mind. But these are crude instruments in human affairs. The logic, mathematics and rationalism of Marxism is flawed - with experience showing it. But even more than this is the critical failure of Marxism to respect the energy of different ideas and freedom in political debates.

Western Marxism in Universities

Marxism of the Soviet bloc was in contrast to the ideas by Marxists in the West with many different schools and theorists in the C20th such as the Marcuse and the Frankfurt School, Gramsci in Italy and Althusser in France. Materialist or Idealist "philosophy" is a product of ideas. Some leaned towards materialism like Althusser (attempting to explain the different layers of a capitalist mode of production by clearer concepts) and some towards idealism like Gramsci (with his idea of hegemony being an idea of capturing dominance of ideas in capitalist countries by the communists).

One of the reasons that Marxism continues to appeal is that his theory is seen as a theory separate from its application to economies, societies or C20th history. The left clings to a romantic and utopian ideal of Marxism - and disregards its experimental application in real world economies and societies with disastrous consequences for many hundreds of millions of people - and hopes it can work in some place in the future.

Ironically, the idealism of Marxism persists in the Ivory Tower of the universities of the West and democracies around the world. they do so without a critical appraisal of the facts so far. The materialist failures of communist economics are disregarded by the very Marxists of the 21st century who expound his materialism.

Marxism is back in the West. This Marxism is based on its creativity - gained from the rich idealist methodologies of Hegel in my view which can be applied in academia in a creative way. It is Hegel who is the academic genius - and not the able intellectual Marx who merely copied and plagiarised great ideas from Hegel. Today Marxism is not contributing to academic freedom, but the 'dumbing down' of academia in the West and broader democracies. Intersectionality as a theory of oppression is a highly crude materialist theory based on Marxism ideas in the modern world. Crudeness of materialism and dictatorial thinking is part of it even now.

Monetarism and Materialism

In terms of capitalism, Monetarism as a theory (FA Hayek and the Austrian School is an example of pure capitalist economics of perfect competition) has been proved to be more successful technically than Marxism and is probably the only serious economic system in the world; but this does not mean that no critique or criticism can be made of it.

Capitalists systems have undoubtedly succeeded on a grand scale, but there is now a very serious danger of laziness. Competition with Communism may have spurred success. One of my criticism is that the Monetarist school lacks imagination in policy matters. Adam Smith had a wider philosophical outlook.

Whereas the left have been innovating in economics (without acknowledging their historical failures in any serious way), the Monetarist right has been incredibly lazy in economic thinking with very few serious innovations in policy matters apart from the technical side of the free markets and even then the policy side of the technical work lacks imagination. So the left still drives the economic debate. 'The market does not work because the state interferes with it' is its only serious proposition. It probably has a lot of merit in it, but so what?

Monetarism fails to address key issues such as:

• the importance of the link between democracy and capitalism;
• between the quality of goods (like food) and capitalist production of agriculture based on raw market positions;
• the control over scientific innovation by private companies and social consequences such as Artificial Intelligence;
• the use of censorship by private social communication companies using blacklisting and other methods to impact on free speech in democracies, etc.

Within the economic field, there are so many important issues about social side of production (working multiple low paid jobs with lesser employment security, demoralisation and demotivation of the working classes at work in many parts of the West, etc) as well as the distribution of resources (like average wages stagnated for the working classes for many years, new home ownership has become almost impossible for ordinary young people of the new generations in the 21st century in the West etc) in society.

Ironically, the Victorian Age had more lively debates than happen on the right wing of politics today. Even the technical debates - about the management of business cycles, for instance, with different policy instruments such as quantitative easing - are too closed and have too many closed minds. So capitalism has a bad reputation, despite the West winning the Cold War and Communism collapsing. The West is in an ideological crisis. Capitalism has a crisis of legitimacy.

Major political parties such as the Labour Party in the UK and the Democrats in the USA have moved to the left in decisive ways. The answers to capitalism may not be easy, but there should be a requirement to think about in very imaginative ways - without having to simply give in to the anti-capitalist left. There is a lazy view of globalisation without open thinking based on different views. This pushes the pro-capitalist globalisation politics into dangerous dead-ends. Consensus thinking based on listening to populations and strategic thinking to push for creative solutions to complex issues matters. Principles of freedom of speech or democracy cannot be simply ignored - without eruptions in the political system. Globalisation has been mismanaged with poor strategic thinking by its zealot advocates.

Principles matter in policy; not just mathematical genius of technocrats or raw material ambitions of capitalist entrepreneurs. Ideas matter.

Ideas, Imagination and Monetarism

The conceptual scheme of the Monetarists may be faulty. Capitalism as raw consumerism may be entirely wrong. Materialism as a lifestyle may be shallow. How society is organised matters.

Capitalism as greed may be the wrong model for the critics and exponents of capitalism. Imagination may allow us to see capitalism at different levels. At a Monetarist conceptual level, "capitalism is a system of deploying capital" for the maximum accumulation by growth of products and services. Capitalism can also be CAPITAL (in its widest fundamental use of the concept) as investment for the future. Capitalism can have a focus on investment in society and not just the free market. This does not mean abandoning freedom and handing all power to the state. On the contrary, the socialist state destroys more than it builds. CAPITAL can be "permanent" prosperity for people rooted in building on real foundations of continued prosperity. For instance, home ownership based on generational benefit and not short term. In India, people built their homes as family property for generations and not for a temporary period. It is not beyond imagination to create such foundations for modern capitalism to give people security. Capitalism can also be designed to enhance human relationships rather than create just shallow consumerism in everything. This is a long term strategic view of capitalism.

My view of mature capitalist societies like the West having slow rates of growth as a general rule is based on evidence. This has profound implications for how such societies are governed with new strategic goals. Quality of life matters. Not a simple struggle to create new urban jungles with wealth as the only indicator of success. Family relationships matter.

The materialist view of capitalism is faulty. This is not to decry the real benefits of capitalism for material well-being as positive gigantic human achievements. There have been true technical achievements in capitalist economics. Monetarists deserves a lot of respect for their systematic development of their theory and policy ideas. Lots of global banks have used them in highly successful technical interventions - ironically. The last bailout by "quantitative easing" by central banks to address the 2008 banking crash failed to address working and middle class issues - and they suffered in the West.

Technocrats and capitalist entrepreneurs have to offer imaginations to help human beings rather than just make money. Human beings to go backwards in advanced economies because poor thinking by Monetarists and a lack of sustainable economic capitalist models in developing economies.

Since 2000, Monetarists have been failing in serious ways. The future challenges are vast. Serious strategic ideas and imagination - and not mere mathematical and technocratic answers to capitalist problems are needed.

Science, Materialism and Idealism

Science has given us knowledge to know things and to know of imperfections. Scientific knowledge is seen to be factual and objective. But knowledge is a process of "accumulation".

Understanding has expanded by knowledge of principles and their application. Knowledge has expanded knowledge. There is a dialectical process - of the sort proposed by Kant and Hegel. - of one theoretical solution leading to new problems being identified and the search for solutions to the new problems etc. Good theories are proven by experiments to garner the facts and then they are applied in the real world in different ways. Bad theories fall by the wayside. They are discarded. Sometimes, they come back. Newton theories of physics did not become invalid per se, but only in a relative sense (to use a pun). It is still a sub-set of the new set of 'The General Theory of Relativity' of Albert Einstein and valid in specific ways (gravity operates on earth); whereas the Ptolemaic Geocentric 'Theory of the Flat Earth' is proven to be fully invalid after the Copernicus Revolution (although it is the new fashion in economic and management speak).

Scientific knowledge is itself subject to doubts about idealism and materialism. The theory of incompleteness is a right way to see science. The accumulation of knowledge and its application by scientific methods is a process. One discovery leads to another. One theory gives way to another. The notion of a complete or final science (today) is a poor way of thinking. That is not to ignore the vast evidence for current views and theories. They are part of the reality.

But it is even then only the reality of today. The future may produce immense changes to theories and our knowledge in different fields. I offer two examples of scientists asking questions about the independence of scientific knowledge from the human mind:

• French theoretical physicist best known for his work on the nature of reality, wrote a paper titled The Quantum Theory and Reality. According to the paper: "The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."
• Sir James Jeans, the English physicist, astronomer and mathematician, writes about the physical world in the following terms in 'The Universe Around Us': "Finite picture whose dimensions are a certain amount of space and a certain amount of time; the protons and electrons are the streaks of paint which define the picture against its space-time background. Traveling as far back in time as we can, brings us not to the creation of the picture, but to its edge; the creation of the picture lies as much outside the picture as the artist is outside his canvas. On this view, discussing the creation of the universe in terms of time and space is like trying to discover the artist and the action of painting, by going to the edge of the canvas. This brings us very near to those philosophical systems which regard the universe as a thought in the mind of its Creator, thereby reducing all discussion of material creation to futility."

There are many other views of similar nature by scientists in different fields about the true nature of the universe.

God, Materialism and Idealism

In Indian philosophy the concept of illusion and truth is a fundamental contrast. Materialism is an illusion, according to it. In the human mind, there is a quest for truth. This truth is ultimately the search for God by the human being through the fulfillment of his soul, according to this philosophy.

God is the only truth in Indian philosophy. It is the Universal Soul (Brahma) and the human being and all life has an individual Soul (Atma). The human body is subject to life and death. It is temporary. The Soul is eternal. All material things and realities are subject to life and death.

Hegel expounds a theory, 'The Science of Logic' of human consciousness and its relationship to God. He wanted to create THE philosophical system of all philosophies and fields of knowledge. He based it on God and the human mind - and its application to the real [material] world. Hegel argues that finite qualities are not fully "real" because they depend on other finite qualities to determine them. Qualitative infinity, on the other hand, would be more self-determining and hence more fully real. Similarly finite natural things are less "real"—because they are less self-determining—than spiritual things like morally responsible people, ethical communities and God. So any doctrine, such as materialism, that asserts that finite qualities or natural objects are fully real is mistaken. This is similar to Indian philosophy on the issue of finite and infinite qualities.

Einstein is one of many scientists who acknowledged God. In 1940, famously said:" Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind". (Science, Religion and Philosophy). He went on to assert his specific view of God: "I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." In addition he said: "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details." He did not believe in a personal God. So I call his the Design of the Universe Conception of God based on a 'Design Theory' of God from Baruch Spinoza. But he rejected the fashionable atheism of the materialist schools. He espoused an idealist dimension to this: "The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."(The Merging of Spirit and Science)

Carl Jung, one of the greatest psychologists and psychoanalysts, responded to the question of whether God existed by saying: "I know". “It is only through the psyche that we can establish that God acts upon us, but we are unable to distinguish whether these actions emanate from God or from the unconscious. We cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are border-line concepts for transcendental contents. But empirically it can be established, with a sufficient degree of probability, that there is in the unconscious an archetype of wholeness. Strictly speaking, the God-image does not coincide with the unconscious as such, but with this special content of it, namely the archetype of the Self.” “God is reality itself.” “God is a psychic fact of immediate experience, otherwise there would never have been any talk of God. The fact is valid in itself, requiring no non-psychological proof and inaccessible to any form of non-psychological criticism. It can be the most immediate and hence the most real of experiences, which can be neither ridiculed nor disproved.” “All modern people feel alone in the world of the psyche because they assume that there is nothing there that they have not made up. This is the very best demonstration of our God-almighty-ness, which simply comes from the fact that we think we have invented everything physical – that nothing would be done if we did not do it; for that is our basic idea and it is an extraordinary assumption. Then one is all alone in one’s psyche, exactly like the Creator before the creation. But through a certain training, something suddenly happens which one has not created, something objective, and then one is no longer alone. That is the object of certain initiations, to train people to experience something which is not their intention, something strange, something objective with which they cannot identify." “This experience of the objective fact is all-important, because it denotes the presence of something which is not I, yet is still physical. Such an experience can reach a climax where it becomes an experience of God.” (The Visions Seminars, Answers to Job, Jung Letter Vol. 2 and the December 1961 issue of Good Housekeeping).

Materialism in itself (even at it most culturally refined and humanistic level of profound) does not address the yearning for the spiritual in mankind. The idealist mindsets and logical reasoning based on the existence of God has been a part of philosophy since the earliest days. It is valid thinking and should be seen as a part of philosophical reasoning. The barriers to it in academic world are based on choosing the notions of infallibility of their materialist view of the world. They are far from infallible in my view. Free debate and discussion is the only way forward.

Individual, Group and Idealism

The individual has been acknowledged as the most important constituent in the modern world by right wing politics. Individual freedom of the West was the anthem of the fight against communism.

I agree with this in very profound ways. Individual responsibility and free will are central ideas. Individual freedom flows from these rather "liberal ideas". But I want to emphasise the importance of the mind in everyday life and decisions by individuals. They can range from very serious issues about marriage partners to trivial issues about what to eat or not to eat. Everyday individuals think about so many things. Many of these decisions shape their lives and determine them.

As the saying goes - even choosing not to do something is a decision - a passive default decision. Existential philosophy makes this a central part of the human dilemma. Soren Kierkegaard is an example of this philosophy. In modern times, many existentialist philosophers produced enormous works of philosophy and literature based on existential human dilemma. This states that the individual has to make choices on the basis of imperfect information about their lives. They have to take a gamble with their lives. They can moan if they acquiesce in other people's decisions, but they had the power to refuse or even protest/rebel (if they did not have the power to overturn it immediately). Regret is the worst position. "Crying over spilt milk."

Even the most passive person makes lots of decision. The active ones live by the big decisions they make. We must think and decide to live:

• “I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.” according to Umberto Eco in 'Foucault's Pendulum'
• “Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?” according to Betty Friedan in 'The Feminine Mystique'.
• “Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.” according to Simone De Beauvoir in The 'Ethics of Ambiguity'.

This not mean that society is an evil or community does not matter. The family is a bedrock of social stability and emotional wealth. Designing modern policy for communities as well as individuals is important. Monetarist thinking can be wrong on this issue. Society is a wealth - not in a Marxist sense, but in a community and human sense. Encouraging society - like being good to the elderly and frail through a sense of community - is a positive thing. The nation and civilisation are also vital roots for modern citizenship. This inheritance is not an infringement to our individual personalities, but they are products of human consciousness and freedom to create. But thinking is always necessary for every new generation as well as every individual born in whichever family, society, nation or civilisation. The human mind is central to the wealth of the world at individual and group levels.

I believe in the fundamental view that the space for individual human beings to be free and flourish is really key to freedom for humanity. Even emotional ideas of regret and joy are part of our ability to think. Who can say they lived a day without thinking about anything. The human brain is designed to think. Our free will has built our lives and ultimately individuals have lived lives. Great ones may have shaped the world with their ideas; but human beings shape people around them as well as act on material things around them. Even great people have been shaped by their parents, siblings or friends and teachers.

There is a complete under-estimation of the extent to which humans have shaped the world through ideas. I have not even explored the concept of leadership - which I believe is the dominant role of ideas in the world. That is for another time. I have enough evidence and logic here to make my argument.

The whole corpus of human knowledge is based to the overwhelming dominance of human ideas: from the very basic to the most complex. Human civilisation is based on human ideas. Nature has been shaped by science through human ideas. Language has been created and changed for human communication. Every field of knowledge has been created by humans through ideas. The notion that reality exists as a passive material thing is so out of touch with the extent to which it is changed. Human have shaped it so much by the most gigantic application of human ideas. The notion of materialism is a very limited concept and it is a deeply flawed way of thinking.

I will not examine the concept of leadership in different fields of knowledge and human activity in this piece, but leadership is based on the dynamic ideas and abilities of human individuals shaping societies and fields of knowledge. The human mind of leaders matters to the world as well as in specific nations and groups.

Conclusion

This piece is not a philosophical argument. It is a debating piece based on logical argument and evidence. I will write a philosophical argument for idealism in another piece. But I have set forward an initial argument in this piece.

However in this conclusion, I want to acknowledge that idealism is not perfect although I believe it is overwhelmingly true as a philosophical position in contrast to materialism.

My criticism of idealism is that the importance of evidence and reality can limit the application of principles and theories in human relationships and in the world. The gift of human beings is wasted if it is not applied. Actions and results matter.

My criticism of materialism is that it totally denies the urge for transcendence into a spiritual realm by human beings in terms a belief in God, sidelines the importance of human agency and stifles imagination by underestimating the power of ideas in all fields of knowledge.

Human beings are central players in the shaping of the universe. Human ideas drive the world everyday and at decisive moments of historical achievement. Ideas above all shape and change the world in powerful ways.

As Victor Hugo said: “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” Long live idealism.

Copyright Atma Singh 2019

Freedom of Speech

I want to champion John Stuart Mill views on freedom of speech contained in his famous book, 'On Liberty'. This has become an important issue of our times and to me personally as a thinker.

I write this because I think.

To think is to be free.

Thinking in boxes is like living in a prison.

Thinking may involve exploring the most unusual or extreme views - or views never considered. Breaking the horizons of existing thought is part of thinking.

Thinking also requires the freedom to express your views in public spaces - without forcing anyone to accept our view.

We are sadly living in an age of censorship and age of appeasement to censorship.

For instance:

In the modern world political correctness censorship has been subject to criticism about the factual and scientific validity of many of its assumptions as well as general principle of censoring views which do not fit into a specific ideology. Heresy of disagreeing with political correctness is punished by crowd hysteria, blacklisting and criminal penalties.

Offending people even on sensitive issues is being protected by the state from words and speech rather than providing everyone an opportunity with freedom of speech. If someone offends me, then I can offend them back or answer them back.

Censorship is always a danger to democracies.

The whole presumption of censorship has to be defeated and rooted out of democracies. Restoring freedom of speech is a fight to save democracies for the censorship principle is the death of democracies.

Censorship is "the earth is flat" mindset. It is to fall into the world of following orthodoxy - however false. You cannot say the emperor has no clothes whereas a child can see this truth.

A different view is not permitted when censorship is adopted as a principle in a society because it challenges the orthodoxy. Blacklisting or criminal penalties for different views is a sign of a totalitarian society.

We need to return to the fundamental principles of democracies. Freedom of speech is an absolute right in democracies. Everyone in a democracy has a duty to uphold freedom of speech. The law must always favour this. Those who uphold the law must always stand in favour of freedom of speech.

Socrates was killed for asking questions. For centuries, people were persecuted for questioning the view that the earth is flat. Dissenting views were harshly punished in the former Communist Soviet Union and in the Nazi Germany under Hitler including with the death penalty.

Freedom of speech is not a marginal or incidental issue in democracies. It is the very oxygen of democracies.

I am passionate about it. Like no other issue. I am even willing to campaign to uphold freedom of speech and even to back people's freedom of speech rights, with whose views or opinions I strongly disagree, to uphold it.

John Stuart Mill Quotations on Freedom of Speech

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think…”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“A person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture—is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character…”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their character.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“[For people] to refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally found person to rediscover it, until some of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Copyright Atma Singh 2019

Managing Globalisation: Third Way Scenario

I want to explore the idea that globalisation has lost it way due to the wrong road it has taken and pose the idea that it could have taken a different road. I want to use the theoretical tools of the Third Way political school to imagine (very easily based on policies adopted in the past by Democratic Presidents) a scenario of managing globalisation in a different way.

Ironically, I believe that the case for a "compassionate capitalism" favoured the centrist approach to managing globalisation rather than a blind free market one adopted by bodies such as the International Monetary Fund IMF) or reserve banks across the world. IMF adopted the framework of Structural Adjustment Policy (SAPs) to manage debt default issues. Reserve banks also adopted harsh measures to save economies after recessions with a focus on managing inflation as a priority in the late 20th century.

But it favours the right on law and order, security, immigration and border control and on social security and state control of the economy.

Theory of the Third Way

The basic theory of the Third Way is a post-Cold War thesis. Communism and Socialism has failed. Capitalism has succeeded. Therefore, a compassionate form of capitalism must be adopted by the left parties to become centrist and move away from state dependence and socialism.

It core concept is "Triangulation". This is that some policies from the right and some policies from the left can be merged to create a new centrist politics. This theory translated into politics became an election winner for left parties as they turned towards the centre and won landslides in many elections.

Here is a good description of the way the Third Way theory has been adopted.

"Obama resembles such Presidents as Nixon and Clinton in the following respect. They are what the political scientist Stephen Skowronek calls practitioners of “third way” politics (Tony Blair was another), who undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance. Think of Nixon’s economic policies, which were a continuation of Johnson’s “Great Society”; Clinton’s welfare reform and support of capital punishment; and Obama’s pragmatic centrism, reflected in his embrace, albeit very recent, of entitlements reform. The resemblance between Nixon and Obama is, surprising as this may seem, particularly close. Nixon was a bête noir of the Left and Obama is a bête noir of the Right, in both cases based on their activities before they became President (Nixon’s red-baiting, Obama’s community organizing). But Nixon as President was, and Obama is (or is willing to be, under political pressure), a centrist President." (Becker-Posner, The Federal Deficit Mess, 2011 ).

[ Additional Note: Obama went extreme left in the last two years of his Presidency (2014-2016) with attacks on law enforcement in favour of the anti-police extremism of Black Lives Matter movement after Ferguson and his policy on vast diplomatic and economic concessions to Iran in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal (officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPoA), such as "unfreezing" $150 billion of sanctioned money to Iran as part of the overall Deal economic package as well as $1.7billion in actual cash. This went against the wishes of Israel, USA's closet Middle East ally and even the majority in the Congress (but without a two-thirds majority to override the Presidential veto because the majority of the Democrats in Congress backed the President, despite many Democrats opposed to the policy and nearly all Republicans opposed to it). He had been a pragmatic centrist before this period albeit reluctantly. Backing law enforcement in public has been "a sacred" political consensus in democracies amongst leaders. Bill Clinton had conducted a policy of "triangulations" in foreign policy matters. So the North and South Koreans involved in USA discussions about North Korea and Israel and Palestinians involved in USA talks about Middle East peace etc. Many USA Presidents had backed the USA allies and only punished the enemies of those allies rather than tried the leftist policy of "Peace" which they considered was an illusion with such enemies. Whilst Bill Clinton was left wing in his foreign policy, Obama was extreme left. The Third Way was killed off to favour the Radical Left Way in the Iran Nuclear Deal. But Obama was a Third Way politician for most of his Presidency. It also offers a clear reason why he was a Two-Term President.]

Globalisation Gone Wrong

Globalisation has lost ground in recent years.

The rise of nationalism and nationalist parties is a very real political phenomenon in democracies. The majority of the largest democracies in the world have a form of nationalist government in the last decade:

• President Trump in USA
• Prime Minister Modi in India
• Prime Minister Abe in Japan
• Prime Minister Johnson in UK
• President Bolsonaro in Brazil
• Salvini in the Italian Coalition government as Home Minister
• President Duda in Poland
• Prime Minister Orban in Hungary
• Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, etc.

USA, Japan, India, UK, Brazil and Italy are six of the biggest economies in the world (with only Germany, France and Canada not having nationalist governments and of course China is not a democracy). So this is not a small or marginal political and strategic matter. Poland and Hungary are major countries in Central and Eastern Europe region and members of the European Union. Israel is an important country in the Middle East in terms of democracy, status as the only Jewish nation and its military hardware including nuclear weapons.

So nationalism is a world-wide political phenomenon.

It is based on a criticism of global institutions and of globalisation as a process.

• President Trump articulated this in his speeches to the United Nations and in his Warsaw Speech. His slogan is "Nationalism - Not Globalism" even if he has not directly phrased it in this way. His main domestic policy has been to build a border wall in the south to stop illegal immigration and an America First economic policy. In terms, of global policy President Trump favours tariffs to ensure USA equity in trade policy and wants financial burden-sharing with democracies protected by the USA military umbrella.
• Prime Minister Modi of India has expressed his politics of reclaiming India as a Hindu nation by creating unity based on respect for the Hindu character of India.
• Prime Minister Abe has asserted the right of Japan to renew its military defence in Asia against the threat of China by moving away from its pacifist Constitution.
• Prime Minister Johnson wants to implement the UK policy of leaving the European Union after the UK Referendum voted to leave in 2016 called 'Brexit'.
• President Bolsonaro wants a restoration of a conservative and Christian social agenda in Brazil as well as a strong law and order agenda against the liberal policy of previous left administrations.
• In Europe, President Duda, Prime Minister Orban and Salvini of Italy want very strong immigration controls to stop all illegal immigration as well as favouring a Christian religious and social agenda to varying degrees against the agenda of the European Union of welcoming "illegal immigration".
• Prime Minister Netanyahu has explicitly affirmed the Jewish character of the Israel State, his opposition to the Iran acquiring nuclear weapons or expanding in the region and his opposition to the UN targeting Israel unfairly in its resolutions.

Like the Third Way politics of the left, this nationalism is varied in different countries. It is opposed to globalisation in different ways. The political phenomenon is not coherent at a global level. I would even say it is defensive and reactive in character making it, although I think this is beginning to change as it acquires political power.

However, I will argue that globalisation has been badly managed on a strategic level. Nationalism points to some of the failures in managing this process. The nationalust criticisms should be treated seriously. There is a failure at many levels. A Third Way Scenario to address globalisation policy issues can reveal the problems in managing globalisation at the level of political and economic leadership. This is based on a triangulation strategy idea - when the ideas of the right are adopted by the left and liberals to explore a different way of seeing issues. This process can also be adopted by the right or nationalists to see how globalisation can be managed differently or more effectively.

Immigration Policy and Third Way Scenario

Immigration can sum up the character of nationalism as a repository for championing the cause of the public and the failure of the left to apply Third Way strategic and policy thinking on this subject.

There are many sides to the immigration issue for the right. The left is reluctant to discuss these. They consider it "racism" to discuss immigration. For many on the right, it is an obsession. This enables the right to dominate this issue.

• One of the biggest in recent times is the subterranean issue of demographics. Immigration can change the demographics of a country. There is a debate about the colour or country origin of the immigrant. But this is also present.
• There can be a religious dimension to this. Muslim immigration is a big source of controversy in Europe. Europe has a Western freedom culture and Muslim immigration is seen as a threat to it. There is also a threat of Islam replacing Christianity as the dominant religion of Europe over an extended period of time.
• This issue is not confined to the West. For instance, illegal immigration is an issue in India too. In Israel, there is an immigration and crime debate.
• But some trade unions see it as a problem as it has an impact on the working class in terms of wage levels, but they belong to left wing parties where this issue is not open to discussion.
• Then there is a major issue of law and order. Illegal immigration is seen as an abuse of laws. It creates a sense of 'outlaws' being given favourable treatment over the citizens being asked to obey the law as part of the grievances of people.
• The allocation of limited public resources to immigrants becomes a very explosive issue. For instance, giving housing allocation priority to immigrants is seen as discrimination against existing citizens.
• Then there are major issues of immigrant integration. So immigrant crime becomes a big issue for the right. There are language issues. There are issues of loyalty to the host country and abuse of immigration status.

Illegal immigration has raised this issue into a 'political fire'. Most of Western nationalism has mushroomed on this issue, although in different ways. The nationalists can easily propose 'legal immigration' as an alternative to the liberal chaos of 'illegal immigration'. This dilutes the charges of 'racism' made by liberals and left. It also plays to the law and order argument. Then the policy of 'normalisation' or 'protection' of illegal immigration has also become a weakness for the liberals and left. In USA, 'Sanctuary City' status is operated on the basis that illegal immigrants are protected in those areas. In the European Union, illegal immigrants are 'normalised' by different legal mechanisms.

Let me illustrate it by the debate on immigration in the USA.

President Bill Clinton and Obama both had a serious immigration policy (before the extreme left turn of Obama after 2014). President Bush had a similar policy. Instead of moving this towards the right in a triangulation policy, the Democrats moved to towards the extreme left policy. Obama made this mistake in his phase after 2014 and would have lost a Presidential election based on an extreme left phase and immigration policy, in my opinion. Today Democrats have embraced the whole of the extreme left agenda on this subject and consider opposing illegal immigration as 'racist' most of the time. They also consider immigration law policy enforcement as a form of 'oppression' and 'evil' by describing normal illegal immigration facilities as "concentration" camps - which existed under the Obama administration. There are very good electoral and policy reasons for moving to the right on immigration. Today, Democrats believe that 'illegal immigrants' (classed by them as 'undocumented') can offer them a new layer of supporters. This is dangerous thinking. It can backfire in spectacular ways. It can be seen as demographic engineering of elections on a large scale based on endorsing illegal behaviour and questions the very basis of a rule-based democracy. 'Electoral Districting' is a highly contentious issue in America and 'gerrymandering' is seen as a highly bad electoral practice. 'Demographic gerrymandering' by 'illegal immigration' is even more contentious. The Democrats are also seeing a move of the whole party towards the extreme left by this process. Even for the last Presidential elections, it was already burdened by Bernie Sanders as an explicitly 'Socialist' candidate who got 46% of the delegates in the Democratic Primary in 2016. Hillary Clinton was seen as a soft left campaign rather than a centrist or Third Way based on a cosmopolitan 'rainbow coalition' rather than an American-centric campaigned aimed at Middle America. Bill Clinton was ignored in his criticism that it should be more centrist and explicitly include the concerns of the white working class in it. On immigration, her positions shifted towards the left. She was softer than President Bill Clinton as a First Lady and Senator and she moved even further left as a Presidential candidate even apologising for using the term illegal immigrant.(Summary of Hillary Clinton views on immigration ). Her attacks on Trump on immigration simply did not work. The official Edison Exit Polling showed that such attacks did not play with minorities (with nearly a third of Hispanic and Asian Americans voting for Trump) whilst his vote amongst the white non-college educated voters was boosted. Her policy can be characterised as 'left' or even 'extreme left', although it seems quite moderate by the extremism of the current Democrats policy. To win, she need to move towards the right on immigration. She proposed a fence rather than a wall. She could have proposed a taller wall than Trump. That would have been a body blow to his campaign. The American worker losing to globalisation and outsourcing of jobs abroad would have taken her seriously. Ironically, the American left had been a champion of the American worker (even on globalisation in terms of the trade unions) and this ground was ceded to President Trump. Hillary Clinton could have moved the Democrats towards the right on immigration by a 'triangulation' strategy - by ditching any form of illegal immigration and embracing the Trump idea of the wall - like Bill Clinton moved them to the right on welfare dependency and embrace 'workfare' or Tony Blair moved the Labour Party to reject nationalisation and accept 'private-public partnerships' in the public sector.

Triangulation was carried on immigration in America or Europe in the past few years.

So in Europe, the consequences of 'illegal immigration' has been a slower form of the rise of nationalism, but public opinion is not in synchronicity with 'liberal' views on immigration.

The Italian League Party of Salvini has become successful on the basis of tackling continued illegal immigration with an approach to actively stop it in the Mediterranean by boats.

UK voted to Leave in the 2016 Referendum on EU membership. "Polling suggests discontent with the scale of migration to the UK has been the biggest factor pushing Britons to vote out, with the contest turning into a referendum on whether people are happy to accept free movement in return for free trade." according to Rowena Mason of The Guardian newspaper. "This was a referendum about immigration disguised as a referendum about the European Union." in Phillip Collins view in The Times. Opinion polls can vary, but there is huge evidence of this link. So the EU has potentially suffered one of the biggest economies and powers in Europe leaving its project of the European Union. So poor policy management can produce serious blows to the notion of globalisation as necessary or inevitable.

Mass immigration and especially mass illegal immigration is a bedrock for the rise of the nationalists in Europe. Instead of addressing this issue, there has been a move away from it towards a very rigid defence of illegal immigration by 'liberal' views. I would argue that a Triangulation policy and Third Way scenario can be constructed on immigration in Europe. This may save the European Union from disintegrating completely as a project.

'Free Markets and People' Policy Third Way Scenario

Liberal capitalism comes in many forms. The theory of the free market schools (such as the Austrian school) has been to push for almost complete removal of the state and the absolute laisser-faire approach to enable capitalism to work to produce its miraculous growth and enrich human development of free individuals. It borders on anarchy and can border on callousness when humans are suffering.

There is a criticism of the free market school based on an idea that people come first. The left have a slogan 'People Before Profits'. This is false in my view. But a form of 'People and Profits' can be adopted.

A theory of the state is needed in order to critically think about free market school of liberalism. This sees the state as a source of safety for people to protect them from violence by terrible people. It sees the state as a source for broad progress in society to ensure that people are not treated in 'evil ways' by the rich. The state can also be a protector of broad liberties for people.

The liberal economic view got it right about the failure of state-led economic policy. So the Soviet Union collapsed due to the mechanism of the state allocating resources for production and distribution. Central planning failed to take into account the needs of people as consumers as well as the failure to see that the market is a great source of investment decisions. Political and bureaucratic power as the dominant source of economic decision-making does not produce efficiency nor effective results. Personal responsibility and incentives do matter in such decisions. The consequences of failure matter.

Empirically, the evidence for the failure of communism and socialism exists around the world. The Soviet Bloc collapsed due to it. China and India ditched full state control. The West ditched nationalisation as a mechanism to run industry or major economic sectors towards a much more emphasis on the free market role in the economy. It ditched the Keynesian state control mechanism to 'pump-prime' the economy. The public sector in the West has been moving towards a broad 'public-private sector' model in some aspects of its finances since the end of the Cold War. Venezuela's collapse as an oil-rich economy illustrates the failure of 'Democratic Socialism' with a state control of industry policy. The starvation in Venezuela illustrates the clear and total failure of this model in a dramatic sad way.

The left and liberal parties moving towards socialism shows a failure by the Third Way advocates to come up with a new Third Way to address the consequences of free market capitalism in a serious way. Bernie Sanders as a major force in the Democratic Party in USA and the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Marxist leader of the Labour Party shows a failure of the Third Way. This is ironic. Third Way leaders failed to connect with the working classes. They turned to a new model of politics based on a 'rainbow alliance' (sections of society defined as oppressed) based on excluding the working class - both in terms of their populist views and economically by an emphasis on free markets.

It also shows a failure of conservatives favouring 'a liberal free market' model to demonstrate the adequate workings of capitalism to benefit 'ordinary' people. Globalisation intensified the disparities between the rich and the poor in a RELATIVE ways and even in absolute way in limited number of cases. The rich got spectacularly rich out of globalisation. Many of the globalisation policies encouraged their wealth. Immigration (legal and illegal) has been used as a way to batten the working classes in the West relatively. Social mobility has been badly hampered by poor policies on the economy in a strategic way.

This is delicate process of a management. Free capitalism "libertarianism"can turn into a Hobbesian nightmare of a state of economic nature where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" (in his phrase used by Hobbes in the 'Leviathan'). The romantic notion that the free market delivers for all and all the time is simply false. Early capitalism in the UK saw children working in the mines. Even today, raw capitalism has such a side in many developing countries. The state has also a need to play a role in the security and safety of its people. In the UK, cuts to policing numbers led to the rise in crime and many people lost their lives to such crime. The small state thesis of free market Treasury leaders can be wrong - if the safety and security of the realm is put at stake. Equally, capitalism is subject to business cycles including the expansionary and the recessionary cycles. These can be very serious when capitalism is on the verge of collapse. Like the recent 2008 recession after a banking collapse when banks were badly led and managed. Even greed is a real factor in bad leadership of capitalism. So in a technical and moral sense, capitalism cannot be fully laisser-faire. In some idealistic time in the future maybe it can. Even F A Hayek admitted the need for a free market economy to have a state with functions such as the police. But today it requires a delicate balance is required.

The criticism that globalisation has become an elite sport is easily arguable and borne out by huge evidence. What is unusual is that the left who used to make this argument is discredited (although the extreme left still make it and are growing in left parties due to it, but they would revert to socialist or even communist answers) and the right nationalists are taking these issues. In addition, they are expressing the voice of the disenfranchised working classes in the West and the disenfranchised masses outside of the West such as in India and Brazil.

"At a time when the concentration of wealth and income in the hands of a few has resurfaced as a central political issue, Piketty doesn’t just offer invaluable documentation of what is happening, with unmatched historical depth. He also offers what amounts to a unified field theory of inequality, one that integrates economic growth, the distribution of income between capital and labor, and the distribution of wealth and income among individuals into a single frame. ... Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an extremely important book on all fronts. Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we’ll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to." according to the left wing Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman. So the left wing Piketty has offered real serious data on the elitism of capitalism in the 21st century. The fortune of Amazon boss Zeff Bezos or Microsoft founder Bill Gates is truly astronomical. The picture is the same in many countries. There is a very rich powerful elite of dollar billionaires and even millionaires across the globe. In contrast, the poverty of the working class and the very poor in the world (not just the West) has witnessed very marginal relative improvement or even not improved. Many people in the West live hand to mouth with no or hardly any savings. Many people in the third world still struggle with basic struggle for life and basic amenities.

On the other side, the IMF has shown data showing that the world has benefited from capitalism by a giant reduction of poverty. I use life expectancy figures between 1900 and 2000 to show that capitalism has indeed performed a miracle as an economic system. Life expectancy has doubled, trebled and even quadrupled amongst some groups across different nations with the poorest benefiting the most. Broad infrastructure has improved and communications have improved.

However, the world is still divided amongst the have and have-nots. Distribution and opportunities are still very big issues. Even basic access to civilised life is an issue. So the globalisation argument of the free market can fail to improve the situation for many people or even make it worse. Immigration in the West plunged many working class people into the arena of bad jobs and inability to save enough to buy their own houses - by offering poor quality jobs at lower wages and a massive increase in housing prices by middle class/rich and overseas demand. Access to education for many people in the West did not provide a vehicle to economic or housing security. In the third world, even in rapidly developing economies such as India and also China (but better hidden there), middle class wealth exploded whilst the poor and rural only improved marginally and in many cases through vast corruption by elites saw their promised rescue from poverty evaporate or did not materialise at all.

Ironically, this can be a case for a social-democrat type agenda in the West as well as an old-fashioned poverty alleviation agenda in Developing Countries. Job and housing security in the West as well as security against poverty are real issues. Managing globalisation requires these issues are addressed. The problem for the Third Way school is that they forgot triangulation and the working class in the West. They embraced capitalism uncritically. So they end up giving ground to the socialists on extreme left policies, but not on globalisation. They are seeing the socialists come back on the left - with a vengeance borne out of ignorance of the terrible days of socialist states. In the Developing world, liberals have become champions of globalisation (travel, outsourcing, liberal etc), but they have forgotten the poor in their own countries exist. Third Way policies could have offered them an opportunity to tackle poverty, but they concentrated on free market economic growth.

The nationalists opposed immigration and were highly critical of globalisation. They saw the failures of globalisation. But they have not returned to socialism as state control. Instead, they offer a cultural and religious nationalism as the new ideology. Uniting the people through different policies is a key part of their thinking. Within this, they have adopted and stolen the Third Way thinking of the left. They have offered a new electoral bargain with winning political platforms.

In the West, they want to address economic insecurity by taking a hard-line on immigration or addressing working class opportunities. Trump pushed a manufacturing revival policy as part of this to appeal to working class voters and as part of the agenda to revive the American economy above any economic globalisation policy. He has de-regulated the energy sector to boost jobs and revive the economy in a successful way. He has also incidentally boosted American defence and law enforcement policies. He has also carried out a specific triangulation policy on managing global conflicts through dialogue and economic sanctions rather than the use of American troops or even American military warfare equipment. Boris Johnson has pushed for an increase in police numbers to tackle crime and a regional policy to boost employment and economic growth in the poorer areas. In India, Narendra Modi has pushed for direct access to government programmes for the poor to eliminate corruption - by direct banks accounts for the poor through computerised identity and ensuring the benefits are delivered to the poor directly. Tackling corruption is a major part of his reform programme. In some cases, economic growth has taken a secondary priority to distribution. This is creating a very serious platform for conservative and nationalist politicians to win elections. The political gut instinct for nationalism is turning into a powerful strategic political framework to win power and carry out effective popular policy agendas.

In a broad way, there has to be a consensus in the process of the free market that everyone will benefit in significant ways. A globalisation which only benefits a few thousand of the richest or even a few hundred million middle classes is not effective in a world of seven billion people. The free market policy has weaknesses as well as many structural strengths. The weaknesses matter. Liberal advocates of free markets can get things badly wrong. Even liberalism in a generic sense of modern enlightened values can be wrong on specific issues or even mistake serious grievances as popular prejudices. Democracies offer free debate and discussion with open minds to discuss such issues and no public policy issue should be off the table.

There has been a failure of the liberals to manage globalisation. Post-rationalism as electoral blocs in a new cynicism. But there is a serious strategic failure. The consensus on globalisation is destroyed. It needs rebuilding again. Smart liberals can do it - but they will have to fight in the centre ground in serious democratic politics. They might have to adopt different policies to show they are serious about solving real problems with globalisation.

The expansion of global trade will have be done in a managed way to respect the needs of the people. Free trade cannot be used as an instrument to hurt local people economically or it will lose credibility around the world. I would argue that over a hundred year period, free trade will become the norm in democracies - but the transitional period will require ways to ensure ordinary people do not suffer economically. There is a lot of work need to be done to ensure that the policy anchors of globalisation help people securing a better future - with a sense of security and growth in their lives.

Conclusion

In this short examination I have used two policy areas to illustrate 'Third Way Scenario' to question the policy choices made in globalisation. I hope I have started the process of questioning the existing strategies of globalisation - without prejudice to the outcome of the process of questioning.

My view is that globalisation has been poorly managed and has lacked strategic leadership. The nationalists oppose globalisation as an ideology (and in policy terms some or many of its aspects). I believe in taking those views very seriously.

Equally, I think they can be wrong in some or many aspects of their criticism of globalisation policies. The notion of being uncritically for or against globalisation policies at a political and economic level is over. Many of the schools of globalisation need tough questions about their existing theories, models and data set examinations.

A renewed strategic thinking is required on globalisation.Only then can we have a globalisation leadership which is capable of managing the process effectively.

Copyright Atma Singh 2019

Atma Singh's Twenty Theses on Globalisation

I have formulated the following Twenty Theses on Globalisation to give a summary of my views on this subject:

1. Globalisation has worked incredibly well for economies and human beings, but not perfectly. Globalisation and capitalism on a strategic level has led to dramatic positive changes.

Life expectancy success sums up all the human development indicators for the success of globalisation and capitalism - by far the best overall human indicator. Life expectancy has doubled from 1900 to 2000 in most places and even trebled and quadrupled in some countries.

(Source: UN Population figures & added data from others: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#life-expectancy-has-improved-globally).

USA life expectancy doubled. South Korean life expectancy trebled. India's life expectancy quadrupled. Even the activist development magazine New Internationalist acknowledges this (Source: https://newint.org/features/1999/01/01/humandevelopment/).

World population increased from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.3 billion in 2000. This impacts on growth and use of resources. But it is a sign of improved health care and access to economic resources.

In economic terms, it has been a resounding success. Between 1900 and 2000, the world economy has expanded 19-fold with an average growth of 3% in GDP, according to World Economic Outlook produced by the IMF May 2000.

(file:///C:/Users/net%2047-20/Downloads/_chapter5pdf.pdf).

This does not mean that the human and economic success is perfect, but it is the biggest in human history. There are still gigantic issues. But we have to start by welcoming this success to deal with the current issues.

2. World economy and human beings are much better off in recent times - since 1990 and the start of the C21st. Glass is more than half full. Critics are jealous of progress.

Absolute poverty declined from 36% to 10% between 1990 and 2015 based on income below $1.90. (Source: http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-and-shared-prosperity).

More than half the world has access to mobile phones now. Nearly all the population of China and India has access to a mobile phone. This is true of all continents. Only do closed regimes such as North Korea have very few people with access to a mobile phone. (Source: file:///C:/Users/net%2047-20/Downloads/ICTFactsFigures2015.pdf)

3. Absolute poverty has dramatically declined with globalisation. IMF figures show this. (Source: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty ).

But the critics of globalisation move the goalposts to show relative poverty has not decreased. This is not justified as a method of measuring poverty. Instead of extreme poverty being defined as less than $1.90 dollar a day, now the World Bank is defining it as below $5.50 to redefine the objectives as "shared prosperity". This shows bigger ambitions for the world in tackling poverty and building on its impressively successful record. But the change cannot be used to indict the failures of globalisation or capitalism. This is a critical issue in judging globalisation.

Left critics move the goalpost because the evidence is overwhelmingly against them. The return of socialism in the West on a mass scale is based on these false claims of the failure of capitalism and globalisation to tackle poverty in the world.

4. It is possible for the rich to become relatively even richer than the poor or average citizens in globalisation. The size of the world economy and consumer markets are key factors which determine this. The ongoing expansion of China and India from late C20th has already made a dramatic difference to the size of the world consumer market. This led to the increase of global billionaires. The sheer size of the population of China and India of nearly three billion now has vast implication for the size of the global market for goods and services in the world.

Decline in the number and wealth of billionaires can also happen for the rich when economies decline - as a matter of fact rather than as a moral statement. Forbes magazine has provided a study of the world's billionaires and it follows their fortunes.

(Source: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#5a384275251c)

5. A focus on the size of the global middle class is the important indicator of its success - not a focus on the very poor or very rich. The size and wealth of the global middle class is understated. It covers all continents - although it is very dominant in the West, very sizeable in Asia and Latin America and even substantial in Africa.

(Source: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/global_20170228_global-middle-class.pdf)

6. Left critics of globalisation ignore the dramatic progress in the Asian continent and focus only on Africa to sustain their criticism of globalisation and capitalism. Asia adopted capitalism for its success. Africa may have to follow this to succeed. This is not to minimise the issues in the process.

7. Right criticism of globalisation is based on national sovereignty rights being eroded or damaged by globalisation to make decisions in democracies. This is a democratic deficit plus argument. This argument is a very serious one. Capitalism and democracy have been linked for over a century. The erosion of this twin track approach is becoming a major issue and a strategic mistake in my view.

8. China and India economic take-off is the biggest development in the world. They both have populations of over 1 billion each (approaching 1.5 billion each now). This is a turning point in the history of the world economy. The majority of the human race live in countries with developed economies for the first time ever. For the last four decades, this has been the most dramatic change in world history and in modern times. Nearly a third of the world's population saw economic take-off and early stages of becoming fully developed economies. Japan was considered "an honorary white nation" because Asia generally was poor. But this is becoming less true. The Asian economic revolution is nearly complete.

9. West and Asia are now world economic centres with many world class economies. We have a real multi-polar world in this sense in the C21st. This is a major change from the last two hundred years when the West dominated the world as the sole economically developed global region.

10. West is not facing an inevitable decline, but Asia as a continent is a reality on the world economic scene. West resurgence based on economic growth policies (such as tax cuts) is still possible.

Pessimism and inevitability are not valid. But the economic resurgence of the West is a valid debate.

Nationalism in the West is a response to the relative decline of the West and the danger of the decline of the West in relation to its new competitors.

Global elites have got the wrong strategic position on this issue of nationalism in the West. It is a valid form of political and intellectual thinking.

11. Megalithic institutional structures for globalisation are faulty alongside megalithic free trade treaties. They have failed or are in the middle of failing. The approach is a wrong one. European Federalism is not the right model. Neither are megalithic free trade agreements like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Capitalism as a model is threatened by failing to manage the process of globalisation in an evolutionary way. Revolutionary capitalism may not work in a period when capitalism is the norm in the world. Policy needs discussion. Blind globalisation erodes trust in capitalism.

12. Globalisation has been badly managed as a process by international institutions on an economic and democratic level. Force rather than consensus has been used.

IMF used shock therapy in many crises like the Asian economic crises in the 1997. EU used it against Greece.

EU overturned democratic votes against closer union and proceeded to overturn them or ignore them. Consensus is the only serious policy.

In the USA, trust in capitalism has been badly eroded based on criticism of globalisation with almost half of the younger generation favouring socialism, despite the overwhelming evidence of the failure of socialist economic policies in the post-WW2 period in the developed and developing world and in addition the total collapse of communist economic policy.

13. Liberal humanitarian intervention - war - in the age of globalisation has been a big fail. Iraq War and other interventions were badly managed and were wrong policy perspectives. National sovereignty is an important underlying issue. Erosion of this creates a major backlash. The West saw millions of people in the streets in protest against the Iraq War. Political parties like the UK Labour Party and the USA Democrat Party were radically changed as a result of reaction to this issue.

14. History has not ended, as Francis Fukuyama famously said after the end of the Cold War. Liberal democracy has not become a global norm. What exists in the West does not automatically exist in the rest of the world.

Democracy and freedom still need to become realities in many parts of the world. in other places, they are not embedded as historical norms. A focus on the West alone has been a giant mistake.

Cold War was won, but it is being reinstated by new players and ideologies. Marxism and Islamism are major ideologies in the West now. They were major global ideologies on the global stage even after the end of the Cold War. China is not a democratic or free country. It is a Communist Party ruled state. Saudi Arabia or Iran are not democracies or free societies. They have Islamic religious regimes with social and political repression. This does not mean that they need demeaning, but this is the truth of its reality in terms of its ruling class. This characterisation of a regime as not democratic does not automatically imply a security threat. It is important to separate these two issues.

The danger in the world is that trade overtakes the need for clarity on this issue. Western values associated capitalism with freedom and democracy and were right in my view. Democracy and freedom cannot be imposed (by war or other means), but they can be actively championed and advocated as a vision of a good world in contrast to the world of human and political repression in the world. Values have to matter to capitalism for it to command consensus and support.

15. There is a valid cultural argument against globalisation - based on a broad civilisational/religious heritage argument as well as an argument for nationalism and national cultures.

Nationalism can lead to true cultural diversity on a global stage based on different civilisational and religious heritage models in different nations. A secular nationalism is seen as a globalisation ideology today.

The left have an ideological globalisation they wish to impose on the world in its new triple anchors of ideology: Political Correctness (PC) model of liberalism in partnership with Islamism and new extreme left/Marxism ideologies.

The conservatives are split between nationalism and globalist PC liberalism. This is defining the modern intellectual and political debates.

16. There is a global cosmopolitan elite based on the new world middle class in different countries.

Trade, travel and communication makes it a global elite. Chinese and Indian middle classes do a "global tour" of the West as a new fashion. Global trade requires diversity awareness of different cultures. English is a new cosmopolitan language used in communication, trade and cultural language with new technologies making this easier.

17. Global elites can be out of touch.

The World Economic Forum is a gathering of world elites, but it can be blinded by orthodoxies and fashions. Arrogance can come in the form of liberal snobbery.

Political correctness as a closed ideology makes it more likely. This is a giant problem.

Opinion polls have shown the enormous gap between the views of elites and ordinary people. Media and political class predictions on elections have been highly wrong due to this gap.

Elite bubbles can destroy credibility and support for their institutions and professions.

18. Freedom of ideas matter in the age of globalisation - not only in science and technology, but in all spheres including political opinion and cultural creativity.

An ideological clampdown on freedom of speech and expression is a dangerous dead-end for liberal advocates of globalisation. Facebook and Twitter clampdown on nationalist or conservative writers and groups even applied on a piecemeal basis is truly dangerous for freedom in the West.

19. Globalisation does not have to be imperialist. In the C19th, it was - by the West. Today globalisation can be based on co-operation based on common interests of nations.

The term imperialist should be confined to territorial domination, conqest or expansion. The use of 'neo-imperialism' term (in late C20th) was laziness in concept and profoundly wrong. Imperialism came from the West, but it can come from other places.

China is being assertive and aggressive in its global relations. For instance, it seeks access to strategic bases around the world.

Iran has become an expansionist power in the Middle East. There can be new geographical sources of imperialism in the world.

There is nothing automatic about the West being imperialist. History has seen imperialist powers from different parts of the globe for many centuries prior to Western imperialism.

America has not been a territorial imperialist power; although it has been dominant and even a hegemonic power on a military, economic and even cultural level since WW2.

20. The debate between nationalist and globalist (traditional/modern, conservative/liberal etc) are valid ones in the world.

In some cases, one side has merit and in other cases, the other. No monopoly of truth or morality rests with one side or the other. Assumptions of absolute certainty are false. A new hybrid is likely to emerge.

Democracy, human and economic success - all matter for a good future.

Democracy provides the freedom of speech to debate globalisation and nationalism - and elections to enable the public to choose governments to represent them. Capitalism provides the economic model for the growth of economies to create economic success. Human development offers the vision to tackle poverty and human suffering using different policies and strategies. These three are inextricable.

My conclusion: Capitalism and democracy advances humanity. That is the best way to create serious and strategic globalisation.

Copyright Atma Singh 2019

Strategic Thinking in the Modern World: The Rational Design Theory in the Philosophy of Hegel

The famous German Idealist Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) offers a fascinating philosophical theory ('system') to explain everything - based on Reason as the guiding force of it.

In my view, the world lacks a clear and logically coherent modern philosophy. So the analytical models used are deeply flawed and as a consequence strategic thinking is not robust and lacks solid frameworks. We have prejudice and whims being used to disguise abstract thinking with its deconstructionist reasoning considered as serious philosophy and a weak empiricism with facts not robustly located in their contexts or validated for their seriousness.

I believe a need to address this. So I want to argue the case for Hegel's rationalism in the modern world based on his philosophy of idealism. This essay is not a philosophical presentation of Hegel's ideas nor a finished conceptual model about explaining the modern world. It is a contribution to strategic thinking by looking at one form of thinking - teleological thinking - of Hegel. Strategic thinking involves thinking about the 'big picture'. Hegel is one of the philosophers - who definitely did this by his ambitious exploration of philosophy.

However, this essay is the start of a serious exploration of Hegel's philosophical ideas and their relevance to the modern world by a focus on his rational design theory (teleological theory). Hegel does not use the explicit phrase of 'the rational design theory'. This is my summary of a fundamental dimension to Hegel's philosophy - everything is driven by rationalism and by a teleological view of God as the designer of all in the universe with processes which culminate in completed Reason - logical ends.

In line with such a conception, Hegel sometimes referred to the task of philosophy as that of recognising the concept (Der Begriff) in the mere representations (Vorstellungen) of everyday life. The notion of 'Phenomenon' is of something that is a concept and an empirical reality to Hegel. His teleology is not only a design theory of everything, but something which can be shown by empirical evidence.

I want to show that a teleological view is feasible at a theoretical, empirical and institutional level by exploring the notion of rationalism in religion in terms of a specific domain of knowledge, economic development as a rational process and examining institutional development in democracies as a rational process. This helps in our understanding of Hegel's rationalism as Reason with a capital R as a teleological rationalism. I also examine Hegel's thinking as a view of completed logic as a form of 'perfection' reflecting God as well as the process of reaching these goals being moral in its development by the use of Reason in them.

I want to introduce Hegel's philosophy by outlining its central concepts:

1. Universal and particular - with the universal as analogous to a universal set in mathematics with particular as component sets, sub-sets or micro-sets within it. So God is the Universal and a man is a particular (with many intermediary categories such as family, civic community, state; God has Absolute Freedom, where man has Freedom in an individual and limited sense dictated by finite biological, material and social circumstances as well as knowledge and conceptual tools with spatial and temporal limits etc);
2. Conceptual tools as examination of not a mathematical abstract Rationality; but also a Rationality within all Phenomenon (from God, natural world, human being or state; of institutions as expressions of an Idea as a Phenomenon such as Art Galleries for arts, Church for religion, Courts for law, Parliaments for laws etc);
3. Development processes as rational - driven by Reason - so it is possible to analyse and map these processes through philosophical examination to develop concepts to capture them. These processes are typically presented as triads by Hegel such as 'Being-Nothingness-Becoming' as philosophical concepts. The 'dialectic' of 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' triad was used by Marx and popularly attributed to Hegel. However, Hegel used the 'dialectic' as a concept often, but not explicitly in this form.
4. Development processes have end goals as philosophical processes with 'phenomenon' reaching their rational finished level. It can be explained by mathematical formulae like 2+2=4 or the more complicated e=mc2. However, this is applied to 'phenomenon' (natural, social, human etc like physical sciences as examining natural phenomenon, family as a phenomenon within social organisation or leadership as a dimension of human phenomenon).
5. Hegel as a philosopher places a central importance on 'Spirit' ('Geist' translated sometimes as mind) as a 'life-force' within phenomenon, as representing the essence or spiritual soul. Hegel used the term 'Holy Ghost' (der Heilige Geist as a modern German rendition of it) in a religious sense. But he also uses it in a broader sense of an essence of a phenomenon such as Weltgeist (world-spirit), Volkgeist (national spirit) or Zeitgeist (spirit of the age).
6. Hegel saw philosophy as the ultimate knowledge. The process of conceptual clarity can lead to exact philosophical capture of a 'phenomenon'. The capture of all key phenomenon in philosophy leads to a 'complete' system. Hegel believed he had provided the ultimate system of philosophy to conceptually explain all key phenomenon in a rational way. This can be in terms of it as a system, its concepts or its methodological processes. It does not require every detail or concept to be valid for this claim to be substantiated.

One does not have to agree with the specific conclusions of Hegel, his interpretation of empirical information or his views on specific topics to apply his methodology. His environment may have coloured his views or conclusions. The meaning of concepts can also change over time. But I think as a methodology it can be applied to discuss philosophy in different eras, fields and cultures.

Hegel's context as a German philosopher living in historically important times (after the French Revolution and even seeing Napoleon on horseback in Jena) mattered in many significant ways in his ideas. Germany embodied Protestantism as a religious doctrine and philosophy with Martin Luther as a German founder of it. Germany also had a Constitutional Monarchy during Frederick William III King of Prussia, so this influenced Hegel's political and legal philosophy. Germany also had the German Philosophical School of Idealism, which was a bedrock to his own philosophy with a high number of very influential philosophers such as Kant, Schelling, Fichte etc.

I want to explore three area: Theological Knowledge and Rational Design, Economic Theory and Rational Design, Institutions in Democracies and Rational Design. I want to put forward a case for a teleological design by examining the application of rational thinking in religion as a form of knowledge. Then I want to examine economic theory to explain empirical data. So this is a conceptual or theoretical exercise to explore the potential teleological design offered by empirical data. Finally, I want to examine Democracy as a concept (within a Hegelian view of the State) and specific institutions in democracies to show how ideas as Reason created them.

1. Theological Knowledge and Rational Design

Hegel has a rational metaphysical-theological philosophy of God combined with a rational-empirical philosophy of the state, history, nature and different fields to constitute a complete philosophy. God is the universal set of reason in the universe - Absolute Reason. The world has different sets of Reason unfolding in diverse processes leading to end processes, according to Hegel's view.

"We have next to notice the rise of this idea — that Reason directs the World — in connection with a further application of it, well known to us — in the form, viz., of the religious truth, that the world is not abandoned to chance and external contingent causes, but that a Providence controls it." (Hegel, 'The Philosophy of History'. Translated by J Sibree MA original 1857, 2001 edition by Batoche Books Kitchener Ontario, Canada, referenced as 'The Philosophy of History' henceforward)('The Philosophy of History' p26).

Hegel identifies Reason as "Divine Wisdom". "On the one hand, the ultimate design of the World must be perceived; and, on the other hand, the fact that this design has been actually realized in it, and that evil has not been able permanently to assert a competing position." (Philosophy of History).

God is the Absolute Truth. So all Truth and everything flows from God. "The result of philosophic examination is that God is the absolute truth, the universal in and for itself, embracing all things and in which all things subsist. And in regard to this assertion, we may appeal in the first place to the religious consciousness, and to its conviction that God is the absolute truth whence all things proceed, whither they all return, upon which all things depend and in respect of which nothing can possess a true and absolute independence." (Hegel's Philosophy of Religion Volume 1 Introduction II God the Universal).

So history has been designed by God and is not accidental. This is the clear teleological view of Hegel.

The Design Theory is used, in well-known intellectual ideas, as 'proof' of the existence of God by reference to Design in Natural Sciences - from using macroscopic astronomy to show design exists in the universe or using microscopic atomic science to show that the fundamentals of all matter has a Design. This Design, it is argued, provides empirical proof for the existence of God.Many skeptics acknowledge that God may exist due to the existence of such design. Equally, many scientists accept this evidence as proof of the existence of God. Einstein being the most famous. Even the Darwinian Theory of the Origins of Species can be used as an argument and empirical evidence to prove the existence of God by reference to Design Theory proven in Natural Sciences.

However, Hegel's teleological view extends to beyond Natural Sciences to every sphere of existence and activity including human activity. So it extends to History, State, Law, Arts, etc. etc. This is a teleological process in a logical (Rational) sense as well as an empirical sense. Thinking as a process (philosophy) plays a fundamental role in this teleology. The role of the individual is specific within this overall design.The role of the state is also specific process in this rational design as expressing 'the Totality of People' - not a sum of single individuals. Everything is part of God's rational design. Hegel is a theological philosopher in this sense. But he is a professional philosopher and not a professional theologian.

I examine the state (below) in reference to Democracies and its institutions in terms of Hegelian philosophy in terms of logic and empirically as an Idea. I have also examined the economic process in a rational design theory in terms of concepts and empirical evidence - as an area not addressed by Hegel using the Design Theory. The business cycle may happen in a triad form of a dialectical process - a thesis, antithesis and synthesis form in the economy. Capitalism may also represent a perfect system of the economy with empirical data showing its success ( in addition with its inner drivers being 'gifts of God' like "creativity" through entrepreneurship in leadership and business products, innovation through 'scientific and technological discovery' as key lifters and renewal of economies and effective use of capital to maximise growth).

For Hegel reason is the key to understanding the world in a logical way. There is reason in everything. The role of philosophy is to understand the reason in everything by exploring different areas. His teleology rests upon a logical process by an end point - which is the highest point of logic, of Reason.

Hegel has a broader view - which I term the set and sub-set view - to show the relationship of God with Man. His concepts and empirical theory are based on this relationship.

This is based on his theory of consciousness in man as a developmental process. In this theory, God has Absolute Consciousness and Freedom, whilst Man in contrast has finite Consciousness and Freedom which is developed. But finite Consciousness and Freedom in Man is a sub-set/micro-set of God's Absolute Consciousness and Freedom in a specific way. To see it in another way. God is the original and sum of the Soul as Universal Soul, whilst Man is a Soul.

"Though Hegel’s conception doesn’t reduce God to us or to the world, it does avoid the mistake that Hegel identified in conventional conceptions of God as a separate being. By locating God in a process, of sorts, that includes us, the world, and nature, Hegel’s conception avoids identifying God as something that isn’t us or the world or nature, and thus it avoids limiting God in the way that conventional conceptions do." (Hegel's God by Robert Wallace Philosophy Now)

Hegel's philosophy is anchored on God as Absolute and man as relative, God as Infinite and man as finite, etc. This can be seen in the idea of God as a Universal Soul and man as a particular Soul, universal set, set, subset and even micro-set. The Particular Soul is part of the Universal Soul. However, the Soul of man has a journey in the human body in its finite particular and relative form, but its essence flows from the Universal, Absolute and Infinite Soul of God. The Indian theological concepts of 'Parmatma' (Pervasive Soul) and 'Atma (Soul)' is also a useful way of thinking. This is revealed in the philosophical view of Shiva in these specific Indian traditions. Shiva is All and in all, the creator, preserver, destroyer, revealer and concealer of all that is. Shiva is the primal soul, the pure consciousness and Absolute Reality. Shiva means nothingness. The word shivoham means the consciousness of one individual, the lord says that he is omnipotent, omnipresent, as he is present in the form of one's consciousness. So the universal consciousness of God exists in the individual as one's own consciousness. This is very close to Hegel's view - although he based it on the his own Christian Protestant philosophical tradition. There is a metaphysical-theological logic in this theory. It is a form of rationalism.

Metaphysical thinking is rejected by many modern philosophers in favour of Empiricism, Utilitarianism, Objectivism, Logical Positivism etc as philosophies. There is a notion that metaphysical rationalism in theology is meaningless in the modern world. I want to explore how this can be wrong. For Hegel, theology has to be rational in key dimensions to show how God manifests Design as teleological purpose in the universe.

As an aside, this does not preclude the notion of God as acting in a random way. For instance, the notion of Grace can be seen as a random act of God (when God blesses/saves a person irrespective of the deeds done by an individual) and it is a major part of theological thinking.

"It’s well known that various liberal theologians during the last century and a half have wanted to produce a conception of God that could satisfy people’s spiritual longings without conflicting with Darwinian evolution and other well-established scientific discoveries. What’s not well known is that Hegel already did this, with remarkable power and subtlety, in response to the great modern skeptics, Hume and Kant." (Hegel's God by Robert Wallace in Philosophy Now)

Metaphysical rationalism has utility in the modern world - from the viewpoint of empirical politics where religion plays an increasing role in political and public affairs in the 21st century. Theological debates are by no means irrelevant. Today religious nationalism plays a major part in modern politics. So a metaphysical-theological rationalism is vital to understand and make judgements upon religious questions in the modern world.

Even in the liberal era of the 1960s, notions of liberal religious outlooks were heavily influenced by debates on the philosophical nature of religious debates. They influenced many movements including the USA civil rights movement, etc. But at that time, religions were moving towards liberal and left wing conclusions, so the rational nature of religion was seen as compatible with the broad liberal and left family with its secular politics and philosophical thinking.

Metaphysical thinking can be developed to enhance our understanding of theological debates. The first part of this is to discover the notion of theological logic - that is, beyond a simple view of religion as 'Absolute Scripture' beyond rational debate or discussion as many religious people do. But religious scholars use different forms of logic and rationality in their metaphysical thinking. Rational schools have existed in religions to justify religious beliefs by reference to logical arguments. A rational framework of theology can be created.

For instance, Augustinian philosophy in the West has had discussions on the use of logical thinking to discuss religious questions for centuries. So this is not a new notion. But not being new does not mean it does not have current relevance. In fact, I consider it an important process. There is a need to consider the application of logic in the separate and specific field of theology. "If God is x , then y follows" can be done in a logical and coherent way. More complicated logical equations can feature in discussion of theology in a rational way. Randomness is not necessarily a viable way. The theory of Providential Justice is one in which ideas about God being "Just" can be debated rationally across the world. To debate and think logically does not mean answers to all questions, but the process of logical exploration can bring a fruitful piece of philosophical thinking in this important subject area in the modern world. For Hegel, rational thinking about theology is fundamental to his philosophy of reconciling thinking and belief in God:

"To think of God is to rise above the things of sense, exterior and individual, above simple feeling into the region of pure being; being at unity with itself - that is to say, into the pure region of the universal. And this region is thought.

Such is the substratum for this content considered on the subjective side. Here the content is that Being in which is no difference, no schism; Being which abides in itself, the universal; and thought is the form for which this universal is.

Thus we have a difference between thought and the universal which we have called God. It is a difference which in the first place belongs only to our reflection, and is by no means to be found in the content on its own account. There is the result to which philosophy comes - a result already comprised in religion as under the form of faith - to wit, that God is the sole veritable reality, the Being without, which no other reality would exist." (Hegel's Philosophy of Religion Vol 1 Introduction III God Exists For Thought).

Epistemology as the science of knowledge is important in establishing the validity of metaphysical and empirical thinking in different disciplines. There is a false modern notion that empirical evidence exists in isolation from metaphysical thinking. But logic is a form of metaphysical thinking. To phrase it in modern terms, it is theoretical or mathematical thinking with rules of logic applied in specific ways.

At the same time, it is possible to subject science to rational scrutiny through metaphysical philosophy. Scientific philosophy of the type provided by Karl Popper Scientific Tests offer the application of logical consistency in scientific principles and methodologies. The notion that scientific knowledge is absolute is flawed. This is because new scientific discoveries can invalidate the old certainties. There are also many other areas where science is heavily influenced by speculation rather than certainty. The difference between Newton's Law of Gravity and Einstein's Theory of Relativity - where the theory of relativity supersedes the previous law (and the "law" is less certain than the theory in modern science of the "theory").

Hegel looks at philosophy as not merely logical speculation, but also as a process of "reality". His famous theory of the "dialectical" nature of history (known as historicism in many philosophical circles) is world famous. So Hegel has a deductive and inductive logic - from the theory to the evidence and from the evidence to theory. This is notion of looking at the conceptual nature of 'Phenomenon' in his 'Phenomenonology of the Mind' - in an inductive rationalism. Scientific theories can be deductive based on a paper logical system and then evidence is used to show it is true in reality.

Hegel's philosophy is based on a deductive rational view of God as 'Absolute' from which all else flows. This philosophical idea is not specific to one religion. It can be used for metaphysical-theological rationalism in different religions.

Hegel posits a design theory of development (or journey) of man. This journey happens in history. This journey happens in different domains. He calls it the journey of Freedom and the journey of Reason. The process of the journey is through human Consciousness. So it is an Idealistic journey. The mind shapes the material world through consciousness and will.

The Absolute and the relative interact. The Infinite and the finite interact. The Universal and the particular interact. This is the process for everything.

However, the process for the interaction is not from a blank slate - tabula rasa - as an abstract theory would posit. The process is incremental. Even in the mind, the past shapes the present and the future. Rational design shapes different different fields of knowledge in different ways.

Carl Jung, the famous Austrian founder of his school of psychoanalysis, offers a modern theory and practice of psychoanalysis, based on his analysis of empirical data of the subconscious, which states that historical memories do not disappear in the minds (psyche) of different generations. There is no tabula rasa in the subconsciousness was a key part of his theory and empirical psychological data. Hegel did not delve into the subconsciousness as such, but his view was based on the incremental evolution of consciousness. Hegel has influenced many of the 'psychological' schools of philosophy - the schools of ontology based on Being. Psychology as a very modern discipline is very heavily devoted as a subject to the examination of the nature of consciousness and sub-conscious.

Epistemology in different fields is complex and, empirically, has particular patterns of evolution and development in history. Rationalism is not the same in different fields. The balance between logic-speculative philosophy and application of theory by the use of empirical data varies hugely. But Hegel argues that design exists in all fields of knowledge.

To sum up: valid knowledge can be vary in different domains/subject areas and methods to acquire valid knowledge can vary. Uniformity in epistemology across different subjects does not exist.

Theological knowledge and rationalism likewise has a specific balance.(Epistemology of Empiricism and Rationalism). The weighting is different from natural sciences. Discussion about God is very heavily weighted towards the metaphysical based on the rules of metaphysical rationalism. This is not area based on evidence, although scriptures maybe used as texts for this discussion. St Augustine imagined 'The City of God' different from the earthly material world to examine the world of theology. A form of rationalism was used to formulate theological doctrines.

Today, the world of religion plays a more prominent role in public policy. But public policy is heavily guided by empirical evidence. A policy maker criticising a specific policy of a religious group may not necessarily be considered valid without an ability to critically think about theology in a rational way based an appreciation of metaphysical rationalism.

We can examine two examples which are subjects of debate in the USA. It is the country with the largest Christian population of any nation in the world. So Christian issues are major political issues and public policy debates.

I want to examine two issues in a very basic way to illustrate my point: the first debate is 'Pro-Life' v 'Abortion' and the second, 'Creationism' v. 'Darwin's Theory of Origins'.

Lets look at the first debate. The question of when a baby is formed is one of biology and natural science. This is one clear dimension of rational debate based on medical science. Is a viable heart the critical question? Is it the formation of specific limbs or organs? Etc. Criteria can be debated and established. Data and evidence about the criteria can be established. Then a biological-scientific decision taken on this subject. The biology favours the rationalism of the religious side - if it has a focus on medical science of when 'life starts'. So the religious side is not always irrational in debates by a focus on medical science. The notion of the woman having "control of her body" is a philosophical debate on "rights" with a complex set of ethical issues based on propositions on who can control decisions about an individual's body. The women's liberation movement asserted that it was the woman herself - and not the state nor the church. This assertion rested on views about the role of individual freedom in the modern world. But it can be argued that the woman is not solely responsible for any "reproductive" process. The male embryo is also part of the process and thus a man is involved (even through an anonymous agency such as sperm banks). So the rights of two individuals come into play. It is possible to argue that the right's of the woman as host for the birth process of the baby makes her the natural individual in charge of the process. Different viewpoints can be logically valid, but they are not empirical medical science. Then we have a wider ethical debate with a proposition about sanctity of life based on the universal principle that 'killing babies is evil' as a key moral principle, so the need to define "a baby" becomes important. Both scientific and ethical/metaphysical questions are involved in this debate. The religious ironically is based on medical science, whilst the secular is based on a complex metaphysical view about the rights of a woman over her own body.

Now lets look at the second debate. The Bible story of Creation in Genesis 1. This story says that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The sequencing is darkness and light (day and night) on day 1; water and sky as separate entities on day 2 creating seasons, days and years; earth and seas on day 3 with vegetation; sun, moon and stars on day 4; living creatures on day 5 in the sky with winged birds and in seas; living creatures on earth on day 6 with animals and then man and woman (Adam and Eve), and, then God rested on day 7 blessing his creation and making it holy. It is possible to argue that this is not a literal idea, but it is broad idea about God as Creator. The specifics and the timetable are not meant to be taken literally. They are meant as broad categories. It is a metaphysical presentation and not meant to be taken literally or as a scientific fact. It's a poetic or literary formulation rather than a rational-scientific presentation. The notion of days is not a reference to the 24 hour clock notion at all. These are days from the viewpoint of the Creator rather than the current view of time. The sun is now understood to be a star. Knowledge of spatial cosmos as well as knowledge of the development of nature on earth refutes the notion of this as a literal or scientific-rational presentation. So it is a metaphorical view of Creation - not a literal one. This can shock religious communities who see scriptures only in a literal absolute sense and cannot accept the metaphorical sense of religious scriptures. But the metaphorical sense can be a valid form of the metaphysical-transcendental religious. The rational can be reconciled to the religious by seeing scriptures as literary and poetical at times and not factual or evidential. At a level of theological-rationalism, it can be argued that God is not subject to the laws of the material world and thus the normal laws of the world do not apply. So the poetic and literary sense is a valid form of understanding of God and aspects or whole of scriptures can be interpreted in this sense with specific purposes separate from the study of science or the material world. So the scientific advances of Darwin's origins of the species and the Copernicus Revolution on the cosmos are valid and not irreconcilable with the notion of God and Creation.

Its possible to debate any public issues in relation to any religion in this way. A rational view of religious public policy or broader issues is possible. I believe that religions should be subject to rational debates. Religions need reform. This does not mean jettisoning the positive or fundamentals of transcendental metaphysics as within the realm of 'freedom of belief'. But a metaphysical-theological rationalism can be a means to do this in a sound and positive way. Hegel offers a rational view of God based on metaphysical logic. This rationalism is not necessarily the view of theologians, but I think it is valid one reconciling the Logic of Metaphysics with the Logic of Science.

The rational can be logical or scientific or both. The logic of religion and the logic of science are vastly different, but they can be valid and reconciled in a system of knowledge - epistemology - of everything. This is how Hegel saw his philosophy. He developed a logic for every field of knowledge and reconciled it to construct a total/whole system of philosophy. His system had a scientific test side to it. His philosophy was not just about logic, but it was also about reality or phenomenology.

The logic and complexity of everything was to be explained by philosophy. A rational debate could be held about everything. Truth could be established about everything. This requires conceptual exploration to create the conceptual tools to explain everything in the universe.

2. Economic Development and Rational Design Theory

I am interested in looking at economic history specifically the concept of the business cycles using Hegel as a reference point. His concept of Aufhebung (sifting upwards or lifting upwards) is important to my own view of the operations of capitalism. Previously I have called it "progressive capitalism", but this term has an ideological load which I think can be misleading. I use progress in a non-political way. A term "incremental evolution" may convey this sense better.

Let me look at capitalism in a Hegelian rational design theory. Is capitalism "the end of history" as the final form of successful economic organisation? It is possible to posit that capitalism is a specific form of free economic relations based on contracts freely entered by people. It is a product of a free States - created after the overthrow of absolutist states. For instance, UK, USA and France had all carried out an overthrow of absolute power of the monarchy through the English, American and French Revolutions before the capitalism started its revolutionary functioning in the C19th.

Here it is possible to argue that there is a 'Protestant' (word used as a generic term) Work Ethic identified by the sociologist Max Weber combined with the creative 'geist' (energetic mind) of the entrepreneur and the concept of savings as 'delayed gratification' used for investment as 'capital. It can also be argued that capitalism is a structural instrument for the elimination of poverty, which can also be shown in data. Business taxation can be seen in religious terms as a type of a 'tithe' in which businesses contribute to the social good through sharing the fruits of their industry. Capitalism is driven by merit (in equal opportunities) and not by privilege, based on judging by results and not by position or prejudice. This create 'a moral framework for capitalism'. So capitalism can be part of God's design. This is separate from the greed, individual extravagance, vanity of ostentation or exploitation as negative business practices.

I want to look at the business cycle as a dimension of this rational design theory. Let me outline it very broadly. Capitalism sees economies in a growth phase when it deploys all aspects of capital to create growth (thesis), then it goes into a recessionary phase (antithesis) in which obstacles to further growth pull back capital and this has to be overcome by renewal especially by scientific-technological as well as product and human resource to create a new growth phase on a higher level (synthesis). At this level of theory, it does not have be totally verifiable by empirical data. The issue is whether this is broadly true. Empirical data can be used to refine the actually theory and understanding of the process. Let me examine it in more detail.

A Marxist introduced to me to this subject many decades ago. The work of Ernest Mandel on the 'Long Waves of Capitalist Development' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1980) provoked my interest in this field. I do not share the Marxist view of economics. Ironically, I think the theory of Long Waves of Capitalist Development can end up proving that Marxism is fundamentally flawed. In a crude way, it assumes that business cycles show the failures of capitalism in an inherent way and that the business cycles can produces long depressive waves which will lead to a crisis of such proportions that capitalism will crash as an economic system. My logical proposition is that it is not capitalism, but Marxist economics which has failed in practice. In fact, capitalism as an economic system has delivered spectacular success at all levels to enrich the planet. But the theoretical underpinnings of this success are flawed. In working to explain my view of capitalism and why it has succeeded, Hegel provides an impressive array of conceptual tools and a full philosophy.

I used two theories to explain my view of capitalism. First. The theory of business cycles. Second. The theory of economic stages. W.W. Rostow started his exploration of economic stages .(Rostow, W. W. 1960. " The Five Stages of Economic Growth" The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 4–16).

The business cycles of capitalism exist. There is abundance evidence to the existence of such cycles. There are short term cycles as well as long term business cycles. People are familiar with recessions and depressions.

There is a globally agreed criteria for a recession now. People are familiar with ideas of an economic depression like USA and Germany in the 1930s or more recently South East Asia in 00s (after 1997 economic crisis) or even the more recent and more complex USA and West after 2008 financial economic crash (with an economic depression for the working classes which was hidden from view until the populist politics brought it to the surface).

The notion of different economic stages are also understood. For instance, the English Industrial Revolution is understood broadly as a process of moving away from an a dominantly agricultural society towards a dominantly industrial society. Recently in the 21st century, the technological revolution has rightly received huge attention. There is also an understanding of the move from 'Third World' country to 'Developing' countries like South East Asia or China, although this again is not as explicitly understood as the trend from agricultural to industrial societies. I am interested in the topic of economic take-off process in the modern world. Asia provides a fascinating subject matter in this field. My book 'An Asian Century Manifesto: Global Political Economy of the 21st Century' (2008) explored this subject in a strategic way. (Text Version of An Asian Century Manifesto: Global Political Economy of the 21st Century).

Both of these fields require conceptual robustness now. They also warrant exploration in terms of empirical scientific evidence.

There are defects in the Marxist and Free Market schools in their concepts and therefore data on these two subjects. There is a vast amount of evidence of global poverty reduction data in very significant ways. (Poverty Reduction in the C21st Century Yale Article). This is not adequately explained by the Marxists at all. World poverty was drastically reduced by globalisation. The stock Marxist answer is that inequality increased - by which they mean relative inequality increased - and does not refute the evidence of the dramatic decline in absolute global poverty. Marxists are experts in inequality data. The Free Market school (likes the Mises Austrian free market school Mises Institute) denies the damage done by capitalist crises and harsh policies to solve these crises (like the International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Policies - SAPS - or even the recent Quantitative Easing - QE - policies to rescue the financial capitalist sector) on the poor and working classes. They see the world of capitalism as a technical field of free markets.

But I believe both are conceptually weak. Marxists are weak in their explanation of the failure of socialist economies (like the collapse of the Soviet bloc economies or Venezuela specifically the explosion of poverty in these economies in terms of access to consumer goods or even food as well as the broader macro-economic collapse of these economies) as well as the broad success of capitalism in reducing world poverty and create a vast increase in global economic wealth. The failure of the Keynesian economic model is part of the problem - like the failure of socialist economic policy under the post-war UK governments - like the failures of the 1970s. I was familiar with many of the leading Keynesian economists (I met the doyenne of Keynesian economics Professor Joan Robinson in Cambridge University and stayed in the Westminster flat of Joel Barnett UK Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Harold Wilson government in the 1970s) and, sadly, their humanity did not prevent them from failing in their economic recipe. There were conceptual failures in the Keynesian model in terms of incentives for investment and productivity of labour. State control over industry and wages - even with a free market mix - proved to be a disaster. The conceptual failure of the Free Market school is in terms of the long term model of capitalism within advanced Western economies with an inclusive model of growth after economic crashes and security for the workers in an advanced capitalist economy. There is no serious vision of a society in harmony with economic success. One aspect of this is the failure to appreciate the marriage of democracy and capitalism. This can be ignored by the Free Market school. Whilst, this school pointed to the success of the global capitalism in reducing global poverty; it could not see the poverty issues in the West like the decline in wages or housing problems from 2008-2018. The conceptual failure is see unlimited economic growth in the Western advanced economies. This is a confusion with its sectoral advances and revolutions like the scientific revolutions in technology, biology, robotics etc. with advances in the overall economy.

There is a possibility that there is a fundamental issue in terms of the stages of economic development in capitalism.

I have seen a correlation between the economic take-off of economies and very high rates of economic growth. China grew at the rate of over 10% per annum GDP increases for decades. UK, USA, Japan, south east Asia 'tiger' economies showed very high economic growth rates during their economic take-offs.

But mature economies may see the opposite: small or nearly zero growth rates. Japan has shown the possibility that "mature" capitalist economies might face slow rates of economic growth or even decades of almost zero growth. Its 'Lost Decade' show this possibility. Broadly impacting the entire Japanese economy, over the period of 1995 to 2007, GDP fell from $5.33 trillion to $4.36 trillion in nominal terms, real wages fell around 5%, while the country experienced a stagnant price level. While there is some debate on the extent and measurement of Japan's setbacks, the economic effect of the Lost Decade is well established and Japanese policymakers continue to grapple with its consequences. Europe and USA have very small economic growth rates as mature economies. Growth rates between 1% and 2% maybe the norm with 3% being seen as high growth and anything above it as being spectacular. I do not think low economic growth rate is automatically inevitable, but I do think this possibility should be configured into economic models and scenarios as a conceptual tool.

Equally, technological and scientific exponential innovation ("revolutions") may not help propel advanced Western economies into new bursts of economic growth in the countries. In fact, this may help companies to become bigger players or monopolies on the global stage. The individual entrepreneurs may become mega-rich. Bill Gates of Microsoft or Jeff Bezos of Amazons are examples. So the rich of the USA benefit from technological and scientific innovations by making their products globally the most competitive; but they do not yield national employment or wealth to spur national economic growth in the USA in a dramatic way. Technological and scientific exponential breakthroughs do not match economic breakthroughs at national levels.

I am not drawing empirical or conceptual conclusions here. I am discussing the utility of business cycles and stages of economic growth as strategic ideas to grasp the actual dynamics of the modern world economy. The specific cycles or stages would need to be established by examining empirical data. The concept of aufhebung (increments of positive change gained by evolutionary capitalism) - increase of wealth, improved living standards and reductions in poverty - by capitalism would need to be fully worked out by reference to empirical data (when and how does it happen in practice).

The world of economics is abundant with data and evidence. Yet it can have flaws in conception. Rational exploration requires a scrutiny of the weaknesses of the concepts and the need to seek robust concepts - which are logical and not flawed in major or fundamental ways. The mathematical genius of economics can be let down by poor conceptual thinking by major schools of economics.

I remember looking at the wonderful economic equations of economists in the Soviet Bloc. They offered a Marxist conceptual framework in all the glory of abstract thinking without the inputs of free people saying to the Soviet emperors that you are naked and your shops have not got adequate bread or fruit for the people. I also saw the International Monetary Fund apply its abstract solutions of economic shock therapy and throwing millions into unemployment to solve issues of macro-economic national debts. 'The Masters of the Universe' solution was no solution for the people of the countries having their economic lives destroyed by sudden unemployment and the removal of safety nets pushed onto national governments by the fanatical advocates of the Free Market. No country has fully recovered from the IMF recipes. Maybe they were wrong and flawed in fundamental ways as policy thinking.

In the field of economics, asking questions and not accepting inadequate answers is healthy. So exploring is necessary. Describing is not enough. Repeating failed formulae is not acceptable. Solutions are not always easily found. Partial solutions abound. Failed policy solutions about. Both conceptual and data rigour is important. Rationalism is not repeating empty logic devoid of facts or facts devoid of logic. Concepts matter. I have not explored the invaluable conceptual repertory of Hegel - some of which Marx uses, existentialists used to explore 'Crowd' behaviour (like Sartre which can be applied to consumer behaviour) or ontological explorations of human personality (which can be used to explore leadership in the economic field) etc. I have explored the conceptual world of economic theory. This in itself is capable of yielding incredible possibilities as I have sought to demonstrate using my own fields of exploration. But Hegel laid down ways in which complex phenomenon could be explored using philosophical ideas as tools to guide this process to make it a rational one.

Hegel lays emphasis on 'Freedom' as the driver of the creative process in his rational design theory. The 'Spirit' (Mind) expands its consciousness by Reason. So both the technical and creative side of capitalism can be explained by a complex rational design theory.

3. Institutions in Democracies and Rational Design Theory

The rational design theory of Hegel can be used to examine of how God can create the State as an ethical institution and how Democracy may be 'The End of History' as the final stage in the essential logical design of the State.

Francis Fukuyama

Democracy is not an easy thing. Francis Fukuyama proclaimed 'The End of History' after the end of the Cold War in 1989, using a Hegelian turn of phrase. This was a valid use of Hegel in strategic thinking. But Francis Fukuyama was badly wrong on many levels. I issued a response.

I want to quote from my own essay 'Five Strategic Mistakes' of the neo-conservatives (Is it really the End of History? Has democracy finally won?):

"Progress in a political system is found in a pluralist democracy. The biggest event in this respect was the defeat of communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union in 1989 and 1991. During the Second World War, Nazi and fascist dictatorship was defeated across Europe as well as their Japanese military allies in the East. Democracy triumphed twice in decisive ways.

Francis Fukuyama, the international political economy expert, described this as ‘End of History’ (in the famous book of the title) stating that liberal democracy had triumphed on a global stage. However, this made an assumption that democracy in developed or Western countries was the only democracy that mattered. This was a strategically mistaken characterization. Democracy only triumphed in the West and developed countries.

Ironically, communist dictatorship also survived in China, North Korea and a few other places. The mistake was not to take seriously the blow to democracy in the defeat of the Tiananmen Square Democracy Movement of China – in a very close run thing, I would argue with top Chinese leaders equivocal about it and the hardliners finally winning the argument for dictatorship through using military crackdown against peaceful protesters. Equally, the threat of ‘Islamic fascism’ was also a real. This is the form of third world religious dictatorship in the name of a religious, which is far removed from progressive or renaissance pluralist Islam with scientific ideas and ideas of multi-faith/secular states. Third world dictatorships were still alive across the world (e.g. Burma, Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela, Hamas regime in Gaza, etc). Today, these dictatorships use the rhetoric of ‘anti-imperialism’ as a way to obtain support across the world including in the Western left/liberal circles. However, the main attack by these dictatorships is on democracy in the West and specifically democracy in developing and emerging economies. There is a very serious battle going on in the world. Anti-imperialism is used to sap away the support from democracy. The battle has not been won. It is being fought.

Terrorism is also a modern form of attack on democracy in the West.

So democracy has not won its final battle. To believe this is a false sense of triumphalism. It belittles the challenges faced by democrats across the world specifically in the developing and emerging world."

I believe this section of my Five Strategic Mistakes is fundamentally right. Although my view has changed on some aspects, it is fairly right on this. I under-estimated the threat to democracy in the world. I also under-estimated the threat to democracy in the West. At the time, I did not grasp the threat to democracy from within democracies. My view was basically one based on globalisation and liberalism.

End of History as a Concept

But first let us explore the first wonderful point which is 'The End of History' in a true Hegelian sense): Democracy as Reason. The concept of democracy is vested with unique qualities. Democracy like Freedom is not only an end, but it is also the means. The State is a final culmination of the rational orgnisational process, but Democracy is the final culmination in a process of Sovereignty of the People. It is also the final culmination in the process of Political Freedom. Hegel saw the importance of a constitutional process to a Rational State. But Democracy inserts the fundamental importance of the Sovereignty of the People and Political Freedom in a State. Democracies are based on the Rule of Law - all are subject to laws.

Hegel comes to the rescue in this field to explain the development process of the state (and from which I can make rational logical deductions about Democracy as he only arrived at the point of believing in an enlightened constitutional monarchy as an ultimate stage of the Rational-Ethical State) as an ethical entity.

At its most critical point, democracies require elections to enable people to freely choose the government they want. But elections cannot be a one-off event, they are a means. Elections have to be a permanent feature of democracies. So once a democracy with free elections, it must always be a democracy with free elections to be called "a democracy". They are a final stage in political evolution. 'The End of History' in terms of state governance in fundamental terms. So some concepts can express the finality of a logical Rationality. All the people choosing the government is culmination of a process where individuals ruled absolutely, to when groups ruled (like nobles, army, clerics etc) to when all people rule. There may be sub-processes in this and technical issues. But the fundamental principle of all people voting for their government of their own free choice is the key finality in terms of principles and that is called 'democracy'.

He sees the State "as representing God" (he is a religious philosopher, so all phenomenon ultimately represents God) in the culmination of an organic social organisational process with civic community as intermediary and the family as the first stage as prior stages to this process."The state is the march of God in the world; its ground or cause is the power of reason realizing itself as will. When thinking of the idea of the state, we must not have in our mind any particular state, or particular institution, but must rather contemplate the idea, this actual God, by itself." (Philosophy of Right p98 'Philosophy of Right' 2001 edition Katoche Books Ontario Canada, English Translation by S W Dyde 1896). So the State is the universal set, civic community as sets and family as sub-sets and individuals as micro-sets is another way of looking at it. So the State is the ultimate form of social organisation in his view. There is no superior social organisation stage because it is the final and most universal form for social organisation. The state is the Sovereign power in this sense.

The functions of the State to protect people from the anarchy of the jungle (or Hobbesian life in nature) are fundamental functions. Order is a raison d'etre of the State. "Often it is imagined that force holds the state together, but the binding cord is nothing else than the deep-seated feeling of order, which is possessed by all." (p205 Philosophy of Right). "If any one goes safe through the streets at night, it does not occur to him that it could be otherwise. The habit of feeling secure has become a second nature, and we do not reflect that it is first brought about by the agency of special institutions." (p204 Philosophy of Right). This is a key point. Often law and order is taken lightly because it is taken for granted. Everyday law and order matters. Safety of human beings from the law of the jungle when the individual has to rely upon themselves alone for protection against another person is eliminated by the State. Order can be seen as a force of repressive violence, but Hegel sees it in a softer way.

For Hegel, the State is "a state of civilisation" in my conception of Hegel's philosophy. It is civilisation in the form of order in the sense of the best form of reasoned laws and reasoned human behaviour as a collective body. It is not a natural state of nature emotional bond of blood relationships (like the family) or a partial and specialised form of a special interest body representing a particular section of society (like a business, trade union or professional body). It is designed to think about issues impacting all people in the body politics in a rational way form. This is why it is the highest form of social organisation. To live in a state is to live in a civilisation.

To live in nature is Hobbesian horrors and chaos, in Hegel's view of emotional living without reason. It is not a romantic state of nature, as Rousseau imagined it, in his 'Emile', where nature is seen as closet to God and so a perfect state. Perfection is by reason in Hegel. Order is created on so many levels in a State by reason and logic applied to society. In modern society, from traffic signs to direct traffic (technical laws) to corporate commercial laws to prevent fraud (an ethical and utilitarian regulation to create clear standards in the market place), to an order in bureaucracies with administrative laws and structures (a procedural process clarity, as a legal ethical system of fairness and an efficiency in an operational sense) to personal laws to stop violence against other people in normal life (an ethical system as well as socialising human behaviour in a civilised society).

This gives the state an ethical dimension. The rule of law - as the universal application of rules to everybody - makes the State an explicit entity in terms of its function. This is civilisation by living according to explicit laws and not by arbitrary power. It is a rules-based order. It is morality-based order is the broadest sense of the word morality as conduct not harming others.

Critics of Hegel see his view as a form of totalitarianism. This is unfair. He draws distinction between tyrannical and constitutional monarchies to show that he is not ignorant of such distinctions between tyranny and constitutional rule. The purpose of order is not to curtail freedom, rationality or creativity. Equally, he accepts that the individual, family and civic community must act freely - within the state. For instance: "In the Platonic state subjective freedom has not as yet any place, since in it the rulers assigned to individuals their occupations.In many oriental states occupation depends upon birth. But subjective freedom, which must be respected, demands free choice for individuals."(p202 Philosophy of Right). Again. "The state is the embodiment of concrete freedom. In this concrete freedom, personal individuality and its particular interests, as found in the family and civic community, have their complete development. In this concrete freedom, too, the rights of personal individuality receive adequate recognition". This is much closer to John Locke view of the State than it might be assumed.

Constitutional Democracies

Constitutional law is a fundamental framework for modern democracies. This is distinct from absolute rule by an individual, political party or a religion. Constitutional law flows from the notion that laws define state powers and courts decide upon laws. The laws are applicable universally. In a constitutional government, the government operates under the rule of law. The principles of laws are normative - general rules. So Moses said in his 'Ten Commandments': 'Thou shalt not kill' is one of the Commandments of God. As a normative principle, it can be assumed that killing is against moral principles. Murder as intentional killing is considered a crime. But even the state taking away human life must be subjected to the laws. This is due to modern constitutional law. A normative principle can have exceptions in specific circumstances. So even killing a person in self-defence may be considered acceptable. The use of military power and war as an instrument of defence against aggression may be justified. One can have different views on normative principles and laws, but as a rule they are universally applicable. That is how constitutional law is formed. It is against the notion of random or arbitrary decisions. It is logical reason incorporated into a universal law adopted by a state. This is a basic summary of a philosophical view of law.

Hegel was thinking about the state from first principles as a process. A State cannot simply say: "dont' obey the laws". In fact, the purpose of the State is to make the citizens obey the laws - the rule of law principle. The laws have to be enforced to retain order in society. But the process of making the laws can involve individuals, families and civic community acting subjectively (from their own specific interests and viewpoints) as well as seeking the best for society (nation) as a whole. Hegel's system saw the State as the ultimate form of organisational development as a rational process. This does not mean that the rational is not needed in the State. Arbitrary state actions are irrational. Freedom to think for the individual is a central part of the Hegel system. The individual is endowed with this specific, limited (so human constraint can be material or at the level of knowledge or conceptual etc) but real Freedom as part of the Absolute Freedom of God in Hegel's system as a core part of the whole system of development.

He shows that States as centres of political power are built in an instrumental way. They are active processes in which the human mind as reason translated into human will plays the dominant role. So I would argue that Democracies are founded in processes and consciously. They embody the Freedom Idea in real settings. Historical examples can demonstrate this point about Democracies very easily, so I have given several examples of Democracies and their creation to show this.

Hegel also develops the idea of institutions by explaining their origins in the processes of Reason as phenomenon in history. Arts, Religion, etc are institutions to him. They are not abstract categories or theories. The content and form matters. Church of England is a better way to understand the Christian religion in England than an abstract idea of Christianity. But the Idea created the Church of England even as an instrument of the Monarchy at its origins. It is worth exploring them to explore the nature of modern democracies and their current institutions. Broadly ideas are not abstractions (like our notions of 'paper' or 'ivory tower thinking' ideas), they acquire reality in specific phenomenon. One way of understanding this is in the form of an institution as a living organism for an idea. Parliament can represent democracy as an idea in the real world as a living organisational organism within a state. So a philosophical system must understand this real specific example and its core concepts to understand democracy as a process as well as an idea. "In line with such a conception, Hegel sometimes referred to the task of philosophy as that of recognising the concept (Der Begriff) in the mere representations (Vorstellungen) of everyday life." (Redding, Paul, "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Paul Redding on Hegel.

For those who think that Hegel is outdated in his idea of the constitutional monarchy as the perfect form of government. I want to point out the following factual situation in modern times. In the present era, there are many constitutional monarchies - UK, Japan, Thailand, Denmark, Spain, etc. Real power lies in the elected part of the Constitution to make them Democracies. It's possible to debate the power of the monarchy and even whether they undermine democracy in some ways, but here we are into the debate of substance of power and symbolism. Abstract reasoning looks at the symbolism of power of the monarchy. It seeks to find ways to argue that the monarchy is not a symbolic power, but it is a real power in these constitutional monarchies. This can be explored in many ways. Who has control over the national budgets? Who has command of the legislatures and executive branches of government? The debate is not black and white. The monarchy can have power over the armed forces as Head of the State in some places (Thailand and UK are two examples). The unelected Presidents appointed by legislatures can also have this power in constitutional republics like in India. So it is not only the monarchies with such powers and not all monarchies have this power. However, freedom is real in democracies and elections are real in democracies. The critics of modern democracies point to the abstract symbolic side of such democracies to deny the substance of power in democracies based on free elections.

The opposite of democracies are dictatorships. There are difference types of dictatorships - governed by party elites like Communist Party dictatorships in places like China and Cuba; by absolute monarchies like in Saudi Arabia and Brunei, and by religious clerical like the Ayatollahs in Iran. Both freedom and elections are criteria for judging dictatorships. Nominal elections are not enough, if there is no freedom of speech and opposition parties. Many Communist governments called themselves 'People's Democracies'. Yet they would not permit opposition parties and free speech. Here also the abstract examination argues that these places are 'democracies' in a sort of technical legal point devoid of substance and reality of freedom and free elections. The brutal crushing of dissent is an indication of the shallow nature of such claims. Soviet tanks in Hungary and Czechoslavakia and the crushing of the Tiananmen Square 'Democracy' movement showed that the democratic claims did not rest on freedom of speech or free elections.

Hegel argues that rationalism cannot be divorced from a phenomenon - even one which is an idealistic one. So democracy and freedom are not paper entities. They exist in real events and instances. Elections are very easy to see. Freedom of speech is more difficult to see. It is a tool to be used. If it not available as a tool, it cannot be used. If it is used frequently, then it exists. So freedom of speech is alive when it active. It's prevention is the killing of freedom of speech. So the processes of democracy and freedom matter - and they have to be alive to exist.

We are familiar with processes of the killing of democracy and freedom of speech in history. In South and Central America, there were many coups during the 1970s and 1980s. In Pakistan, there have been frequent coups in its history. In Nigeria, military coups have occurred. In Iraq, the Baath Party under Saddam Hussein became a dictatorship and Saddam Hussein became a dictator. In Zimbabwe, a similar process happened with Robert Mugabe and his ZANU -PF party. So these are coup methods in 'Third World' countries. In Europe, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and others also killed democracy by establishing dictatorships - in which elections were ended in those countries.

The process since WW2 has seen many dictatorships being replaced by democracies. Europe and South and Central America have democracies as a norm now. Asia mostly has democracies with some exceptions such as Communist countries. Middle East has mostly dictatorships (both monarchies and republics) with Israel being one of the few exceptions.

In democracies, there have been suspensions of democracies for short periods (both justified and not justified). States of Emergency have included the suspension of elected legislators and governments. In India, democracy was suspended between 1975-1977 in an unjustified way for purely electoral advantage and the courts restored democracy after huge protests. Free elections as a norm is a key criteria for democracies.

There are arguments about the feasibility of democracies in 'Third World' countries. It is argued that democracy is only useful for rich nations. Poor nations cannot function as democracies. This argument may highlight the precarious nature of democracies in poor countries. However, the contrast between India and China shows that this is not necessarily the case. Rich Arab monarchies and poor African democracies also demonstrate evidence opposite to this proposition. The stability of democracy in the rich advanced West and Japan may be seen as evidence to validate the proposition.

Democracies created by Reason: Historical Examples

Historically, the process of the formation of democracies is complicated. However, Hegel's view on the use of Reason (Philosophy) in the formation of democracy is very important. Intentional consequences are different from accidental consequences in history. So to argue that the Greeks with their citizens participating in democratic forums (like city Parliaments) to make decisions was an important milestone in modern democracies is a valid point. The philosophical milieu was important to the foundation of Western civilisation as a whole. Equally, the notion of the Roman citizen was equally important. Both were imperfect. The scale was small with Athens as a very small city state. Rome was an empire of many millions, but Rome was still a city with the estimate of the population of the whole of the Roman Empire between 4 and 5 million counting women and children too.

As an aside, I do not subscribe to Hegel's thesis of scheme of historical period in terms of Asia. He is fundamentally mistaken on this. Ancient Asia was very advanced in terms of philosophy and economics. Both India and China were sophisticated ancient civilisations. Ancient China was similar to Ancient Rome and Ancient India to Ancient Greece, but they were on a bigger scale. The philosophy of Hinduism is very sophisticated indeed and probably more sophisticated than Ancient Greece. The many schools of Hinduism in Ancient India produced a highly robust philosophy. India's village government of the Panchayat has lasted many thousands of years and exists today. Equally, Confuscianism was a form of humanism thousands of years before the European Renaissance - based on merit and examination as a basis for selection for officials. Ancient India had a highly sophisticated form of musical ragas. Chinese arts are highly sophisticated. His understanding is too basic and not sufficiently informed. This got passed onto Marxism and its crude view of Indian and Chinese civilisations.

It was imperialism which impacted very negatively on the development of India and China as well as periods of internal crisis - but those did not disrupt the intellectual and cultural genius of the civilisations in the way in which imperialism did.

The Renaissance added the philosophical ideas of treating all human beings in a compassionate way as human beings (humanism), freedom in artistic expression and the use of reason in science. This led to the foundation of Protestant religion as a religion with the idea of direct human access to God (through Grace - without the need for the intermediary of the Church), then the Enlightenment and the Democratic Revolutions of the English, American and French Revolutions to create "representatives" to represent all citizens. The conceptual base of democratic states was laid in terms of logic and practical constitutions. The West became the embodiment of states being based on citizens. The franchise of it was limited in various ways, but the key idea of citizens electing their governments became embedded in the West.

There is an argument that the existence of European Empires stopped the emergence of democracies in the colonies. The West became democratic by de-investing resources from the colonies and ploughing them into the West. This created the economic basis for mass democracy in the West during the 19th and 20th centuries. The evidence would support this. However, we have wealthy nations today - like China or Saudi Arabia and Gulf States - where there is vast wealth, but the democracy does not exist. The West is not just democratic due to wealth, but Hegel offers the possibility to explain this through the importance of philosophy of ideas. The de-colonialisation process produced many democracies in former parts of the British Empire (like India, Nigeria, Caribbean, Singapore, Hong Kong etc). Modern phases have broadened the franchise of the democracies - by broadening ideas of the citizen (by abolishing slavery as an example) or by enabling citizens to vote by removing disqualifications (such as property ownership or gender disqualification etc).

I believe the West has been unfairly criticised by looking at its past. The achievements of Western democracy are real. Deconstruction has become a negative process. Hegel shows that the process has not been negative at all. The journey of Reason and Freedom in the field of Ideas and their realisation and the Spirit of its peoples have informed the achievements of the West - which has led to the creation of its democracy. The dialectical has been real.

Hegel has a theory of institutions. This is really important to understand how they are products of reason. Institutions do not fall out of air. Neither did democracy nor freedom. The process of its creation is replete with the Hegelian process of the dialectic - with internal contradictions of phenomenon being played out and eventually solved.

Hegel wrote in the Introduction 'Philosophy of History' "The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process." (p26) and "But to explain History is to depict the passions of mankind, the genius, the active powers, that play their part on the great stage; and the providentially determined process which these exhibit, constitutes what is generally called the “plan” of Providence." (p27)

Democracy and Freedom are rational processes - and the institutions of democracy have a profound meaning with specific historical origins which are vital to unleashing the conceptions which founded them. Democracy was not written as a book and the next day it was created. It is process involving the failures of other systems (such as absolutism and totalitarianism - in ancient and modern times). Individuals helped to create democracies and their institutions.

In USA, the 'Constitution' is the work of 'The Founders' of the American 'Republic'. The Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court is the work of Montesqieu in his book, 'The Spirit of the Laws' written in 1748, turned into institutions of the American government. "In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law...By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other, simply, the executive power of the state." Of course, the USA became a Republic by waging the War of Independence as a colony of the British and carrying out the American Revolution of 1776 - a decade prior to the French Revolution. The arbitrary power (of the previous rule by the British monarchy) was to be checked by the creation of these three branches of the American government in a new 'Separation of Powers' Idea. The book became the law. The Idea turned into Reality.

America has two Ideas guiding it. One is the Idea of Freedom. America is the 'Land of the Free'. The second is the Idea of 'Manifest Destiny of America'.

In France, the revolt against the arbitrary monarchy of Louis XVI happened in 1789 by the storming of the Bastille by the 'Sans Culotte'. This resulted in the 'Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen' and the abolition of feudalism. France was proclaimed a Republic in 1792 and the monarch was executed in 1793. France today is a Republic with an executive President, legislative National Assembly and a nominal Senate with a written Napoleonic Code of Laws.

France was very strongly influenced by the Enlightenment. So the Idea of a Citizen loyal to the State of Rousseau became a Reality in the strong 'Napoleonic' State at a National and Departmental level and even at the level of the local Commune. The anti-clericalism of Voltaire became imbued in the idea of 'The Separation of the Church and State' with France abolishing any official religion and making Secularism a key feature of its state. The French Presidency is a powerful position - almost a 'Napleonic' type of a powerful 'semi-monarchy'. A weak Presidency is almost a contradiction to the spirit of this position.

In the UK, the process was more complicated. The Magna Carta (Charter of Rights) of 1215 is the foundation of British freedom. It gives a conception of 'Free Men' having 'Liberties as well as 'Free Church'':

"TO ALL FREE MEN OF OUR KINGDOM we have also granted, for us and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs...".

The process began with the freedom of Nobles no less from the arbitrary 'Absolute' powers of the King. This was freedom from the monarchy and then became freedom from the Roman Catholic Pontiff in Rome with the establishment of the Church of England under Henry VIII in 1534. This process in one way culminated in the English Revolution and the execution of the British monarch Charles 1 in 1649 under Oliver Cromwell and then the institution of Parliamentary Sovereignty in 1688 under the Glorious Revolution. 'Freedom of the Men' and 'Freedom of Religion' became Ideas turned into Reality in the UK through institutions in a complex weaving of British history.

In UK, the Idea of Freedom guided the institutional developments by creating the powers of Parliament. So today it has a Constitutional Monarchy as a nominal Head of the State. House of Commons as the elected legislature and the House of Lords as a revising upper house. There is an official Church of England.

The role of ordinary people in British democracy is much more recent. It is a very urban idea. The Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 broadened the franchise for elections to the Parliament to common people came during the English Industrial Revolution. This was further extended to women in 1918 Representation of People Act. So this notion of democracy as the common people entitled to franchise is a more recent development in the UK.

The traditional is still an important idea is British democracy. The ceremonial is still a powerful cultural continuity of the institutions of the UK. The Monarchy and the House of Lords are largely ceremonial bodies with influence - but they are not centres of power. The lack of a codified written Constitution - like the USA - symbolises a wider institutional layer of informal structures. Real power lies with the House of Commons and its Party System - and the Prime Minister with the Cabinet is the real executive political power in the country. The UK Civil Service is still a powerful formal bureaucracy by maintaining a non-partisan approach. UK embodies the idea of compromise in its institutional structures. 'The Idea of Pragmatism' dominates the UK combinations and evolutionary processes. The 'Big UK Idea' of 'Utilitarianism' (expressed in modern terms as transactional thinking) by Jeremy Bentham and his pupil John Stuart Mill influenced 19th century liberalism is very American; but the Conservative thinking of Edmund Burke and the Labour Fabian thinking of Sidney and Beatrice Webb is evolutionary and organic. It is not revolutionary in the American or French sense. So UK is still a constitutional monarchy and not a republic like America or France. UK still has an established official religion expressed in the institution of the Church of England - unlike France or America. The last big idea in the UK was the British Empire when Queen Victoria was crowned Empress during the 19th century. This came to an end after WW2 with a giant decolonialisation process. The countries of the former Empire still come together as the Commonwealth with the British Monarchy at its Head. UK political debates still highlight the conflict between the traditional and the modern - with the traditional often winning the debates about reforming traditional institutions in any radical way - like abolishing the House of Lords as the upper house.

In India, a Republic was created in 1950 with a written Constitution after Independence in 1947, with a President and two Houses (Lower and Upper - Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and a Supreme Court. India's government structure is based on the American model, but the real power lies in the Lower House with a Party System and the executive power in the Prime Minister and his Cabinet similar to the Westminster UK model. India also has a real federal structure, like the USA, reflecting the size and diversity of the country.

The Idea in India is one of 'National Unity'. This is a nationalist idea borne of freedom from colonalism. This has manifested itself in the dominance of the Congress Party as a Party of National Unity. Today this idea is embodied in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as an emerging Party of National Unity. Hegel understood the idea of consciousness in the state. This consciousness is one of nationalism in India. The Congress Party expressed a secular national. The BJP expresses a religious/civilisational nationalism. The institutions in India express this Idea in different ways. The Military is a major institution protecting the country from external threats and para-military forces protect the country from internal threats of fragmentation. India's military forces are not considered an antipathy to democracy in this sense - at all. The Indian Civil Service is selected on merit based on achievements in competitive examinations. This Civil Service is a body representing the National Government at all levels including the local district level. India also has the ancient Panchayat village level government, which works very effectively in a democratic way to solve local problems with District level officials or settle local informal disputes.

Equally, there is a culture based on 'Heroes/Heroines' of the 'National Independence Movement' which are integral to the national culture of India. The second feature of Indian culture is its 'indigenous' culture - a sense of Indian civilisation and its cultural inheritance separate from 'imperialist culture', which can also mean Hinduvta ('Hinduness') as a 'National Hindu Consciousness'. At its most universal soft form, this can mean the promotion of 'Yoga' as an ancient form of exercise. It can also take sectarian religious forms (although this is subject to debate depending upon the ideological position of the analyst or commentator - and I would say it is similar to the Christian Evangelical lobby in the USA). India has a major culture of 'Nationalism' - which is very distinct from that of the West.

My own viewpoint is that India was subject to major outside rule for almost one thousand years - for more than 500 years according to conservative estimates. This consciously and unconsciously is a deep part of the Indian pysche. Most Indian commentators agree my type of chronology. Basic knowledge of Indian history commonly places the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1000 AD as the start of these invasions (Invasions of India for Historical Debate). India was ruled by two major Empires - the Mughul and the British. This can be crudely put as 'Muslim' and 'Christian' Empires. This is part of the viewpoint in India culturally and politically.

V S Naipaul, the famous Indian author, expresses it in the following way: “In India, unlike Iran, there never was a complete Islamic conquest. Although the Muslims ruled much of North India from 1200A.D. to 1700A.D. in the 18th century, the Marathas and the Sikhs destroyed Muslim power, and created their own empires, before the advent of the British….The British introduced the New Learning of Europe, to which the Hindus were more receptive than the Muslims. This caused the beginning of the intellectual distance between the two communities. This distance has grown with independence….Muslim insecurity led to the call for the creation of Pakistan. It went at the same time with an idea of old glory, of the invaders sweeping down from the northwest and looting the temples of Hindustan and imposing faith on the infidel. The fantasy still lives: and for the Muslim converts of the subcontinent it is the start of their neurosis, because in this fantasy the convert forgets who or what he is and becomes the violator.”(From Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples).

But I would argue that it is more complex than as a simple religious dimension and the rulers had a 'secular' dimension (for good and ill). On a broader analysis, I think it is true to argue that Indian culture and religion was belittled and smeared in a historical way and therefore the rehabilitation of Indian culture and religion is important. Mahatma Gandhi did this by an indigenous 'Hindu' philosophy for the Indian Independence Movement - even with its narrow political and religious viewpoint of pacifism by accommodation to the ideas of the Caliphate (leading to the partition of British India into a Muslim state of Pakistan) and accommodation to the Socialism of Nehru. Then Nehru as a first Prime Minister of India accommodated to the Socialist ideas of nationalisation of industry, state planning of the economy, state control of trade as well as a secularism. He also wrote the book 'The Discovery of India' as a tribute to the rich cultural heritage of India in 1946. There is an overlap between the religious and cultural in Indian civilisation. The BJP governments of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi have pushed the religious Hindu heritage of India. Separate from the ideological political side, I think this is a valid position. Hinduism is a key component of Indian civilisation and its immensely rich. For instance, the philosophical ideas and schools of Hinduism match and possibly exceed the rich variety of Greek philosophical thought and debates. The Western view of Hinduism as evil castes and nothing else is a woeful misunderstanding of Indian civilisation. There is a cultural side of religion too. For instance, the excellence of ancient Indian architecture can be seen in Hindu Temples. Ancient India also contributed to all fields of knowledge - from the contribution of zero to mathematics to the invention of chess to the construction of sewage system in early cities to contributions in statehood etc.

'National Unity Consciousness' is a powerful process precisely because it was suppressed or distorted for almost a thousand years. In the West, the idea of a thousand years of being ruled by outsiders is hard to comprehend. But this is a very strong idea with a powerful appeal in Indian consciousness. The specific form of 'National Unity Consciousness' can vary. But it has been understood in India that it is a very diverse nation and, therefore, 'National Unity Consciousness' is a process accepted by different parts of the political spectrum in India to a very powerful degree of underlying consensus. It shapes and underlines all the institutional structures of India. Secular and Religious Nationalism in India is different; but in my view it is not fundamentally different as it is portrayed in the media or analysts. In fact, it is common denominator in Indian politics. Bollywood and regional Indian cinemas have a strong patriotic, civilisational and religious themes in their productions. Indian music is also very religious and civilisational and patriotic too.

I don't want to discuss the corruption within Indian government institutions. It was part of the business culture under the Socialist State of license raj - where permission had to be obtained for every business activity internally and externally. Corruption is pervasive across government at all levels in India with rare exceptions. This has probably sapped vast levels of resources and government programmes often belie vast failure of implementation with the majority of resources going into corruption. But this leads me to the next important aspect of the institutions of democracy to implement the idea of the "Rule of Law".

In democracies, laws and Constitutions (where they exist as foundations of the principles of laws) are the basis of the activity by all including the government. Arbitrary power is abolished in democracies, although some powers are vested in specific institutions like security or war powers to protect the nation in terms of emergency. The President in USA can declare a 'State of Emergency' (mostly used in cases of natural disasters). In UK, the formal powers of war are vested in the Crown prerogative powers, although the Prime Minister takes the actual decisions with the Cabinet and recently the elected House of Commons has been consulted on military actions. Today, the rule of law applies to most functions of the state in democracies. The criminal justice system and scrutiny of government plays an extensive role in modern democracies in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld as a real principle.

However, the recent threat to the rule of law comes from anarchy and subversion of this function in my view. So the argument that the laws of the country should be broken and it is right "moral" to break them is made very heavily by the left side of the political spectrum. The current immigration laws has been the arena for such an argument in the USA by upholding "illegal immigration" as valid by some politicians and activist groups and creating a revolt against law enforcement agencies carrying out their duties to implement rules in this field by the creation of the institution of "Sanctuary Cities" (where law enforcement is officially impeded by local bodies and even subject to punishment). In Europe, illegal immigration is often not enforced at the external borders of the European Union (EU) although this is subject to debate within the EU countries. There is also a broader argument going on to question the institutions of democratic states across democracies such as in USA, EU and India. Hegel provides a method to examine the origins of the Rationalism of Institutions and Laws as well as broader principles of Democratic States.

It is worth conducting a more detained and comprehensive examination of modern institutions in democracies using a Hegelian methodology. But I hope this quick survey will illustrate how institutions are based on Reason as ideas within specific historical contexts.

Conclusion

Hegel offers a system-analysis of the world using philosophy using a teleological rational design theory.

I have explored several issues to show how the rational design theory within Hegel's 'comprehensive' rational philosophy can be used to explain the worth of his philosophy in the modern world.

Equally, I have explored specific subjects in strategic thinking in the modern world using Hegel - from philosophy itself to economics and government by understanding the rational design theory in his philosophy to show the use of empirical evidence to support his broad theory.

Copyright 2019 Atma Singh

Teleological Perspective - of God

I want to develop a theory of the Rational Logic - of God – in this short essay.

There is a teleological view of God. This states that there is a purpose and goal in everything - determined by God - for the purpose of this argument.

GWF Hegel argued a teleological view – but based on an idealistic dialectical process. This argued that rationalism (Reason) existed in everything and in every facet of human activity. Hegel believed in God as the Absolute Reason in this.

Teleological View

I have argued in a previous essay that it is possible to construct a theory for a teleological view based on modern empirical knowledge (in theology with a design theory of God, in economics with a business cycle theory of capitalist progress, in politics with a democratic theory of the state as an end development product of progress, in nature with an evolution theory based on a form of Darwinian origin of the Species, in psychology with a Jungian theory of consciousness and subconsciousness etc).

The purpose of human consciousness is progress for human beings - using the gifts of God in the field of rational and logical thinking backed by empirical evidence. God is the Hidden Hand of History in all fields. There is a Grand Plan. This plan is revealed by rationalism (Reason according to Hegel) through theory and empirical evidence. It is a plan in which humans play a role with Rationalism accounting for human progress-using this amazing gift of God. Hence man is a piece of the Jigsaw in God’s Plan and man is a player as being endowed with Rationalism to shape progress.

GWF Hegel showed that dialectical processes are part of the complexity of Rationalism. That development is not unilinear straight line of upward progress. But there is a complex process based in the development of thinking with propositions being challenged and through this developed and altered into new better propositions (in terms of basic thinking - to very complex processes on a universal scale). So human consciousness is neither a blank slate nor a finished product. It undergoes development processes.

God is the Absolute in this process. One way of seeing it in conformity with a lot of theological thinking is of God as the Universal Soul and man as an individual physical entity with an Individual Soul. Using a mathematical viewpoint, God is the universal set and a specific man is micro-set within this with categories such as the material realm and the spiritual realm as sets etc. Hence the relationship between the general and the specific can be explained in a logical way.

Logical Ends in a Teleological View

Hegel argues that there are final stages of logical development in processes in different aspects of phenomenon. Hence Reason creates ‘end-points’ of logic.

The purpose of a logical development is achieved. The goal of reason is reached. This might seem a strange view in a world where development is seen as a never-ending process. But it is not the same as everything ending in terms of development. Within this general and global domain its logical ‘end-point’ can be reached without halting discrete developments within it. For instance, the establishment of democracy in the West has not halted political and policy developments on specific issues.

I argue that it is possible to establish such rational ‘end-point’ stages in the modern world:

· Civilisation is a logical end of the progress of state order (in a view similar to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right);

· Democracy is a logical end of the progress of political regimes (so that elections once established as a system of government become a means for deciding who governs in particular circumstances);

· Capitalism is the logical end of progress in economic systems (with even the business cycle of ups and downs, real economic progress is expanded by it);

· Human consciousness is the logical end of the progress of a living species (with reason used to make decisions consciously and shape the environment and the world through science, arts, etc.);

· Consciousness of the subconscious in shaping human behaviour and emotions is the logical end in psychology - as a key principle of control over the functioning of the human mind (with an understanding of how the subconscious shapes the specific behaviour and emotions of particular individuals used in practical psychology);

· etc.

I want to look at the domain of natural science in a brief way to show that rational thinking is used. I do not want to go into the complex field of epistemology here, but I want to show that teleological thinking can apply here.

• Mathematics can be a form of rational exercises in pure abstract logical thinking. Of course, mathematical thinking can be applied in different situations from the simple formulae to its highly complex ones.
• In science, there are logical 'end-points' of a different kind to its rational thinking. It is not theory, but it can be products. Science uses theory and empirical evidence to create practical applications for the theory. The steam engine was created by scientific discovery and innovation applied to create products run by the steam engine - from transport to industrial machinery. Similarly, the internet was created by scientific discovery. This has created an immense range of modern products from the search engine to social media to different applications for specific purposes etc. The role of the discovery of the human genome in medical science is revolutionary. Disease cause is more rapidly identified and treatments are established in very quick time. Human beings create scientific discovery and products from this to show the power of human consciousness in shaping nature by using rational thinking. They benefit from these discoveries and products.
• The business world has products created by science and consumer demand. Even products such as financial products are subject to rational thinking. Mathematics has been extensively used in the financial world in the 21st century to create financial products based on high-level risk calculations . Consumer goods demonstrate the power of human consciousness. The benefits of such goods to human beings is immense. Travel has changed so dramatically in the last two hundred years. Household products have transformed the home in the last two hundred years. Business metrics (measurements) have been totally revolutionised. Business performance can be measured in almost every sphere.

Hence, it is possible to argue that there are logical ‘end-points’ in different domains of human activity. Equally, it can be argued that this progress has a spiritual dimension. Progress is ‘divine’ process. Hence the logical ‘end-points’ of progress are spiritual landmark in human achievement – by their ethical dimension of human good.

This logic of God would show that human affairs fit in the Grand Scheme of God. This is an idea based on Hegel’s philosophy of Reason and Freedom as end for human consciousness (as well as the means). God’s Rationalism and Freedom is Absolute. Humans are micro-sets of this. Individual human Rationalism and Freedom is relative and finite. Human knowledge is finite (Godel’s Thesis in mathematics). But it creates progress by its Reason and Freedom – as key attributes of God within man.

Rationalism and Existence of God

Theology can put forward different propositions. A debate about rationalism and irrationalism can be discussed in theology and even about propositions relating to God.

There is a teleological rational argument about the existence of God – based on the famous Design Theory of the Universe. There is also a “Faith” argument about the existence of God based on personal belief. This is not dependent on external validation. The analogy in this personal belief is analogous to the view of “love”. Love does not require external validation. It is a personal relationship. It is subjective faith - and not reliant on external proof or evidence of God. It is also possible to argue that “miracles” and other supranatural proofs of God are not a rational proof of God.

I do not want to discuss theological questions here. I am not discussing the vast range of theological concepts and their validity here. I only want to show that rational proof for God is not the only one that is accepted in theology in terms of the existence of God. Equally, the relationship of God and man may be subject to complex debates within theology. I want to show the logic of a relationship based on consistency of logic using an analogy in mathematical terms (set/sub-set). This creates a basis for the exploration of the subject matter of Rationality and a teleological view of God.

It is possible to argue that theology should be rational and not use ‘scripture’ in any irrational way in terms of content or process. This means that theology can be subjected to empirical evidence as well as logical scrutiny. So transcendental debates can be subjected to logic and views of theology on human conduct can be subjected to empirical evidence based on rationalism. This would not preclude the freedom to hold views on faith or personal beliefs.

Freedom of different beliefs is a fundamental part of understanding that human knowledge is limited and imperfect. Fashionable views of the conclusions of rational thinking can change over time. Ptolemic and Copernican view of the earth were both logical, but the empirical evidence proved the more complex view as the valid one. Equally, Newton’s laws of science were logical and backed by empirical evidence – but they were superseded by Einstein’s more complex views – first as theory and then by empirical evidence. I make a general point that Rationalism can be simplistic logic and complexity can be reduced in conceptual ways. Empirical evidence can be misleading by seeing a discrete part and viewing it as a final conclusion on a subject (when it may not be and an open mind is always useful as a matter of principle). Even in human affairs, logic and empirical evidence as a conclusion with a definite finality can be subject to change. For instance, Marxism as a legitimate economic philosophy practised in many countries was subject to general doubt after the fall of the Soviet Union bloc. Globalisation has been subject to question in politics, but it was seen as inevitable and therefore without any serious question only a few years ago in most of the political world.

Conclusion

I have set out some theoretical ideas in order to explore the teleological view in terms of philosophy and empirical evidence. Teleological views can be inductive and deductive. Concepts can be subject to empirical evidence. On the other hand, empirical evidence can be subject to conceptual thought. I have put forward initial ideas for this here based on a teleological view of God. There is scope for further theoretical discussion - and a much larger detailed examination of this subject with empirical evidence and philosophical exploration. I want to explore both in future writings.

Copyright Atma Singh 2019