Theme Paper for LI 75th anniversary congress, Sofia, 2022 

RECONSTRUCTING A LIBERAL WORLD ORDER 

By Sir Graham Watson 

Introduction 

In the Liberal International’s 75th year, Liberalism seems everywhere on the back foot. The world’s most populous country, the People’s Republic of China, remains a pole of illiberality, governed by despots. Africa hosts 40 of the world’s 59 authoritarian governments1. Here in Sofia, Bulgaria, where Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha led a Liberal government to office twenty one years ago to restore order amidst the chaos which followed the fall of Soviet Communism, a new government is again having to fight abuse of power and corruption which have returned to plague society. In neighbouring Hungary, in The Philippines, in Nicaragua and elsewhere, human freedoms are denied and human dignity disparaged by governments elected democratically but destroying democracy. Even in Canada, among the world’s best examples of a Liberal Democracy, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party will not associate his party’s name with the body which represents international Liberalism. Fortunately, many individual members of his party continue to do so and we welcome here the Canadian Group of LI. 

Yet despite the contagion of illiberal ideas, Liberalism continues also to spread and take root. Investment in education has been crucial and remains essential to the spread of enlightenment. The global adult literacy rate is now 86%; the number of non-literate adults continues to fall. Awareness of discrimination against women and action to correct it are growing, though it is too often left to courageous women themselves to lead the fight. If the history of human progress is the history of a succession of battles against prejudice of all kinds, those battles are now being waged more widely than ever before, with the support of recently established global institutions – public and private – which draw their ideas from a Liberal conception of society2. Liberal International is proud to be a leading force in this work. 

Despite the resurgence of intolerance based on ethnic, religious or other affiliation, and what has been termed a retreat from globalisation, humankind’s sense of global community remains potent. Even in countries wracked by conflict such as Syria or Afghanistan, the idea that human history becomes increasingly a race between education and catastrophe continues to spread. Herein lies the soil in which our ideas will flourish. 

The challenges to Liberals become more urgent as the threats to human civilisation multiply. Climate change threatens to render our planet uninhabitable; the spread of nuclear weapons continues to pose an unacceptable danger; internationally-organised crime undermines law and order in many countries; the development of artificial intelligence, with its capacity for huge scientific advance, poses new challenges to privacy and could yet engulf us.  

Climate and energy 

The latest report from the UN Panel on Climate Change provides worrying new evidence of the damage caused by human behaviour. The chance of exceeding a rise in average global temperature of 1.5*C within the next five years is now estimated to be almost 50%3. Too little has been done since the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement of 2015 to take the action necessary to deal with this challenge. While wealthier countries should be leading by example, Europe’s recent rapid move to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas came primarily in response to the invasion of Ukraine:  progress in the deployment of sustainable sources of energy still sits alongside greater reliance on coal, the growing use of shale gas -as in North America – and the extension of the lifespans of older, more hazardous nuclear reactors; and energy poverty still blights the lives of many citizens. 

The capacity of renewable energy sources to meet our energy needs remains, however. 22 African nations now use RES to produce more than half of their electricity needs. Installed generation capacity elsewhere continues to rise. Yet the investment required to expand generation at a speed which would meet the challenge is still lacking. Moreover, electricity from renewable energy is often wasted, unable to reach consumer markets because of limited transmission capacity or trading barriers. 

Efforts to cut energy usage have had a limited impact thus far. Promotion of means of land transport other than the private automobile is insufficient, as is thermal insulation of housing stock.

Perhaps the greatest emergency related to anthropological climate change is the reduction in the water throughput of our rivers, hitting our ability to grow food crops, as seen this year in France, India and the USA which were called on to make up for grain shortages from Ukraine but unable to do so. 276 million people are facing hunger this year, according to the WFP; combatting this is an urgent task for Liberals, as is preparing the planet for the spread of infectious diseases which climate change will facilitate. 

The longer we continue to emit greenhouse gases, the greater the damage we will do to our natural habitat. We have the knowledge and the opportunity to harvest more than enough energy from RES to provide for our current and predicted future needs, but investment is urgently needed not only in generating capacity but also in energy transmission networks. Similarly, we can feed all the world’s people with greater investment in agriculture, for example in water management techniques. Too often lacking is the political will and the recognition of the urgency of the challenges we face. 

Armed conflict 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reminds us that armed conflict is the most destructive form of behaviour to a Liberal society. Murder of unarmed civilians, rape, torture and other forms of maltreatment; destruction of homes and livelihoods; obliteration of public infrastructure; all are costly in financial, physical and psychological terms. Thermobaric ordinance has already been deployed illegally in Ukraine, as it has in Syria and elsewhere. The danger of escalation to Russia’s use of chemical or even nuclear weapons, which Ukraine has forsaken, remains ever present. 

A side-effect of the invasion of Ukraine is the disastrous reduction of grain available on world markets and the consequent rise in its price. Some has been stolen and is being auctioned; yet more cannot reach its markets due to a naval blockade. Greater efforts are urgently needed to prevent a growing risk of famine. 

Russia’s attack on Ukraine crystallises the battle between closed and open societies and has united Liberals in their determination that Russia cannot be allowed to prevail.

Armed conflict continues elsewhere too and its peaceful resolution remains a high priority for Liberals. Conflict has returned to Afghanistan after a hasty pullout of international troops and nation-building personnel last year. Much of the progress of recent years, such as the education of girls, is at risk.

New efforts are needed to identify and dismantle the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. They should be led by the USA, the only country thus far to have used them in conflict. 

Human health 

While much progress continues to be made against eradicable disease, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused or accelerated millions of cases of death. Long covid threatens to remain a problem for years to come. The social and economic cost of the pandemic will be huge. Information about outbreaks of such disease is still not readily shared between nations, despite the best efforts of the World Health Organisation, thus worsening the impact of transmission. While co-operation between scientists in developing a vaccine was impressive, refusal to share proprietary information and lack of will to make vaccine doses available to the poorest countries has intensified human suffering. The virus continues to mutate. 

Urgent efforts continue to be necessary to tackle the spread of Covid 19 without impinging unduly on human freedom. Assistance to poorer countries should be a major plank in development aid programmes. Neither the US nor the Chinese models are satisfactory to Liberals. While vaccination should not be compulsory, all efforts should be made to encourage citizens to seek vaccination. The requirement to wear a face mask on public transport and in areas of concentrated human presence is not unreasonable, nor is the temporary restriction on mobility for those known to be carrying the disease.  

International crime 

Internationally-organised criminal syndicates continue to profit from the trade in illicit drugs, fissile nuclear materials, arms and the trafficking of people. Efforts to combat and eliminate such criminal activity – for example in fighting money laundering – have improved but remain hamstrung by considerations of national sovereignty and unwillingness to share data.  

The Financial Action Task Force established by the G7 in 1989 has served humankind well, as has Interpol’s Global Task Force on Human Trafficking. But criminal gangs have shown themselves sometimes to be more powerful than some national governments. Continued vigilance and the development of supranational tools to protect citizens remain essential to the creation and sustenance of a liberal world order.  

AI 

Alan Turing, who designed the first modern computer, predicted in 1951 that machines would one day take control and dominate their inventors. The recent development of AI has vast potential and unstoppable momentum. As Stuart Russell has pointed out4, the current drive to develop general purpose AI raises the risk of humans becoming ‘the equivalent of livestock on computer-controlled livestock farms’. Protections against the abuse of personal data are generally insufficient. The right of human beings to possess and use their own data must be established. 

The power of AI in algorithms is now well known: the use of algorithms to interfere in democratic elections has already been observed in the UK, the USA and elsewhere5. As George Soros pointed out recently, AI is particularly good at producing instruments of control that help repressive regimes and endanger open societies. COVID-19 also helped legitimise such instruments of control, because they are useful in dealing with the pandemic.  

While human level general purpose AI is not imminent, the point at which machines make better decisions than humans is not far off. It may permit huge potential advances in health, education and science; but it has also allowed military drones with minds of their own to hunt down and kill people. Urgent questions are posed relating to real understanding of language, integration of learning with knowledge, long range thinking at multiple levels of abstraction and cumulative discovery of concepts and theories. 

As we know from the fables of King Midas or The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, when objectives are specified incorrectly or imprecisely they can have disastrous unintended consequences. The optimal robot defers to human beings, asks permission, and allows itself to be switched off: many machines in use do not abide by these guidelines. 

Liberalism’s response 

Few national leaders in the world’s strongest countries have the courage to argue forcefully for international liberalism in the way chosen by Emmanuel Macron in his televised debate with opponent Marine Le Pen on 20 April of this year. Reminding us of the role of luminaries such as Benjamin Constant and the Marquis de Lafayette in similar circumstances 200 years ago, President Macron defended universal principles of Liberalism against the politics of resentment and selfishness. In the private sector, George Soros has shown similar courage. This approach is essential if we are to defend our moral principles against the charge that Liberalism has been captured by neo-Conservative forces.  

It will not succeed however unless backed by policies derived from Liberalism’s ideas of compassion, generosity, openness and goodwill to all humankind. These must include a renewed focus on moral education, though Liberals insist on the separation of church and state and on opposing the political abuse of religion. Liberalism is founded on the principle of equality of opportunity and participation in society to uphold the rule of law to the benefit of all. It predisposes what Gladstone called trust in the people, qualified by prudence. It condemns intolerance or discrimination. Such principles, applied today, face major challenges from the abuse of power by governments, large corporations or those who radicalise religious or ethnic groups. Growing inequalities in wealth and the social and environmental devastation they cause too often go unchecked by civil society acting through the State. The collapse of free trade in the light of demands for protectionism is shocking. The idea of ‘illiberal democracy’ is a contradiction in terms. 

Left to its own devices, the free market runs riot. As Adam Smith taught us in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, the unregulated free market takes no prisoners and kills competition where it can. We must recognise that free trade is not a panacea: an effective framework to police it is needed. Indeed, until Liberals recognise the inherent imbalance of power implicit in world trade, as pointed out by Yash Tandon6 and others, and the corrosive effect of growing inequalities in private wealth, we will not regain the trust and participation of the many which is essential to the success of Liberal Democracy. 

The dilemma described by American philosopher E O Wilson is instructive: humankind has palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology. While little can be done about the first of these beyond the liberal insistence on moral education, reform of institutions and greater caution in the development and deployment of technology can assist greatly.  

In many countries, public debt is now at levels which threaten to become a form of intergenerational theft. In tackling this, Liberals must remember that taxes are the subscription charge we pay to live in a civilised society. Liberals should welcome moves such as that to establish a minimum taxation rate on the profits of multinational companies wherever they operate. Similarly, they should not be afraid to experiment with the idea of a wealth tax on those who move private assets beyond national frontiers. Just as Liberals pioneered the ideas of the welfare state a century ago, so we must remain open to new ideas such as a universal basic income, which may assist in providing greater equality of opportunity. 

Liberalism is not a lost cause. It has the power to rebound from current challenges stronger than ever. Vigilance and firmness from its current guardians are required.