I recently entered an essay competition where the topic was "Does Liberty Lead to Decadence?"

Sadly I didn't win, but I've pasted my effort in here as I was quite proud of it.  It's 2000 words so it will be a long entry!

"Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts." - Ernest Hemingway

The concept of liberty applies to societies rather than individuals in isolation or even communities within a sovereign state. It means that a society or an is free from excessive interference both from the government but also other organisations and individuals.  Broadly it applies to social interactions and economic activities, but does have other facets.  Liberty is supported by a legal framework that includes property rights for individuals, universal suffrage and transparency of government.  The concept of liberty in reality is not an absolute, but generally relative to other societies at the time.  Essentially liberty means that all members of a society enjoy the freedom to make their own choices about their lives and their property with little restriction.

Decadence is, for all intents and purposes, a moral judgment, often used to condemn those that have an opposing way of life, particularly if the individual or society in question engages in frivolous or undesirable behaviours.  It implies moral corruption and degenerate conduct.  It is also associated with vast social inequality.  It is quite hard to evaluate any particular society or even person in terms of decadence with any degree of objectivity, as what is undesirable or degenerate is actually particular to the point of view of the one making the judgement.

Hence to assess if liberty leads to decadence it must be established that in all or most cases the freedom of choice and undue interference from external parties in society or the market leads to frivolous, degenerate or corrupt social and economic practices.

Rather than immediately seeing if societies that embrace liberty are decadent it is valuable to look at the underlying ideas as to why people and societies are called decadent.  Today and for much of the past 90 years since the Russian Revolution, Australia is considered part of the decadent West.  Although the claim by Lenin that the West is decadent, in decline and capitalism will fail is now very much empty rhetoric given the fall of the Communist regime.  The criticism continues to live on in the present through radical Islamic understanding of the outside world[1].  The description of liberty and capitalism (which can be considered a form of economic liberty, synonymous with the free market) is described as decadent only by those who are looking for a binary opposite for the rhetoric of more authoritarian societies.  It is not practical to go into a full definition of binary opposites as expounded by Ferdinand de Saussure or différance which has been written about extensively by Jaques Derrida, however the concept of the binary opposite – defining a concept by what it is not – is a particularly useful one in this case.  To quote Derrida, “différance is the name we might give to the "active," moving discord of different forces, and of differences of forces, that Nietzsche sets up against the entire system of metaphysical grammar, wherever this system governs culture, philosophy, and science[2].”

Countries like the United States of America and Australia are labelled as decadent by Communists and Socialists because they want to create a stark contrast, appearing to treat each member as equal, efficient and functioning for the advancement of the whole society.  Radical Islam is quite political in the ends it seeks but uses religious discourses rather than political arguments.  Decadent refers to the fact that the West is generally more affluent than most Islamic countries and that it is morally permissive.  Australia does not discriminate against homosexuals, supports single unmarried women and does not restrict access to alcohol or pornography.  Religious ends are not the concern of the government – in fact France, for example, is committed to being secular[3] – instead pluralism, social and economic freedom are the primary ends. These things are degenerate and decadent, as opposed to Islam, which by contrast submits to the way of Allah and is morally upright.  As is shown, more liberal societies provide convenient contrasts for more restrictive societies to not only demonstrate that they have the moral high ground, but that they are in discord to the society making the judgement.  However the difference comes about purely because of discourse and social constructions, not because there is anything fundamental about liberty implying decadence, any more than having a beard implies an affinity with Osama bin Laden.

Decadence often linked to great social inequality in a society, where the gulf between the wealthy and the poor is insurmountably wide and mechanisms exist to protect this gap.  Corruption of the market such as cartels, monopolies and manipulation of prices in the market place are often perceived to be the vehicles to protect the market of organisations that are linked to economic inequality.  “Decadent societies are often prosperous but usually have severe social and economic inequality, to such a degree that the upper class becomes either complacent or greedy, while the lower classes become hopeless and apathetic[4].”  Logically, these concepts are not ones that are in the spirit of the free market and countries like Australia and the United States have a system of laws in place to uphold this commitment to competition and market mechanisms.  Whilst the extreme argument is that these laws themselves represent government interference in society, not having them provides a mechanism for other agents wishing to exert undue interference in the market place – it is not just government that interferes with liberty and the law supports this. 

One organisation that springs to mind in manipulating prices through manipulating supply to maintain market position is OPEC.  Until very recently global oil prices in the market rose rapidly and to highs never before imagined.  On more than one occasion when prices, were set to go down based on demand, OPEC announced that they would reduce output[5].  This is an action that represents corruption and decadence in the market.  It highlights that OPEC does not embrace the free market and aims to manipulate prices to their own ends.  Upon closer examination, it is quite clear why the organisation wants to control the market – OPEC countries are amongst the least free in the world (see Table 1.0).  It is possible to speculate at this point that the reason these countries work together to manipulate the market is because they are less free and potentially believe that market manipulation, government intervention and extensive legislation is needed to provide an equal footing for all players in the market and protect the interests of the otherwise disadvantaged, however extensive analysis of the market and government of all 13 countries would be needed to establish this, which is not the intention of this paper.  However almost 50 years of working together to control the market has not actually resulted in wealthier or more modernised countries for many of the member states of OPEC – in fact their members in Asia and South America still have some of the most economically disadvantaged people in the world.  And as for the member states in the Middle East, Francis Fukushima notes, “Islam is the one major world culture that arguably does have some very basic problems with modernity. For all the sophistication of Muslim societies, they can boast only one working democracy (Turkey), and have not seen any economic breakthroughs like Korea or Singapore.”  Hence this goes to show that the corruption and decadence that is perceived to go hand in hand with liberal economies and supposed to create social inequity, comes not from liberty, but attempts to command and unduly influence the market.

Table 1.0

Sources: http://www.opec.org/library/FAQs/aboutOPEC/q3.htm http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=351&ana_page=341&year=2008

Social patterns also need to be gauged as part of an assessment of decadence in liberal societies.  As covered before, behaviour that can be labelled as socially degenerate is impossible to argue objectively.  What is and is not acceptable between individual members of a society is governed by moral codes that are not universal and often in pluralistic societies these codes are conflicting.  In this instance the law can not be relied upon as a measure of what is acceptable and unacceptable because complex social norms govern the behaviour of individuals in most societies, just as much as legal requirements.  In some instances socially normal behaviour can operate without government interference.  For example, it is a summary offence in Queensland to be drunk and disorderly in public[6], however travelling along Anne St in Fortitude Valley on any given Friday or Saturday night would clearly leave an observer convinced otherwise.  A liberal society does not provide any clear enforcement of moral, social behaviour patterns by the government and in isolation, that is enough to say that an individual can engage in whatever behaviour they choose, regardless of how wonton and corrupt.  They may be free to pursue a life guided solely by hedonism, lack of respect for other individuals in society and complete moral depravity, however they may also choose not to do so.  Liberty presents a choice, but it does not enforce, require or even imply moral corruption or even a lack of discipline.  Because of this choice, it can not be said to categorically lead to decadence.  Liberty may be used to pursue intellectual or market goals with discipline, it may even be used to practice a strict moral code without interference by the government or other codes of conduct.  One of the greatest examples of this is the men and women who left England on the Mayflower to establish a colonies in America.  Freedom was a guiding principle for the society[7] they established as the group consisted of Puritans, who were persecuted and socially excluded in England at the time[8].  Puritanism is a strict adherence to Christian codes of behaviour, which could be called anything but decadence.  Also day to day realities such as the need to interact with other members of society, the need to hold a job in order to survive and the basic inability of an individual to provide for all of their needs in isolation, means that social norms can not be drastically deviated from even in a liberal society.  On the other hand, authoritarian societies (the binary opposite of liberal societies) can actually be used to enforce corrupt undisciplined behaviour.  Sharia LawCounter Stats

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