Is Elon Musk a Hegelian?

 

Just the other day, in response to a question from an interviewer, Elon Musk said this (essentially anyhow, I've cleaned it up a bit for him):

If you took the people of Italy and teleported them to the United States, the land where they came from would still be Italy. But if, after all the Italians had been teleported to the U.S., you teleported a bunch of people to Italy from some other part of the world, then the geographic region where those immigrants landed would no longer be Italy. It would be that other country from which those people had come. A country is its people not its geography.

If you remove the unecessarily nerdy "teleport" business, this remark is bound to remind some people of Hegel's views regarding Volksgeist or national spirit. On the orthodox interpretation of the Hegelian conception, what makes a nation is basically a matter of its cutural and religious traditions. That Italy is currently located somewhere in Europe is just a historical accident: what makes that place Italy is essentially a matter of language, religion, ethical views, public law, cuisine, arts, fashion, etc. According to Peter Wolsing, such a view "recognizes no higher ranking international right, nor does it defer to ideals of universal human rights [since] universal right is necessarily rooted in a particular nation state."* 

As Hannah Arendt wrote in her Origins of Totalitarianism, "The practical outcome of this [Hegelian conception] was that from then on human rights were protected and enforced only as national rights and the very institution of a state, whose supreme task was to protect and guarantee man his rights as man, as citizen and national, lost its legal, rational appearance and could be interpreted by the romantics as the nebulous representative of a 'national soul' which through the very fact of its existence was supposed to be beyond or above the law."

Aside from the dire political perils, one may wonder what Musk would consider to be the effect of a migration of only a portion of the population  in one direction or another.What happens if only half of Italy leaves and is replaced by immigrants? Or, again, consider the results of the population of (European-based) Italy moving to a previously emptied out portion of a federally organized polity like the U.S. Suppose, for example, that 50,000 Italians moved en masse to a completely decimated Rhode Island and so had become the only people living in that area. Would that mean that an "American Italy" now exists in the midst of the states that had formerly comprised New England? Would those Italian citizens therefore not be subject to U.S. laws...or would that just be a matter of which group has sufficient power to subdue the others (the non-Italians or non-Americans) and enforce what laws it wishes within this region's borders?** It certainly calls for an extremely Schmittian analysis.

In sum, Musk's offhand remarks are not simply the expression of a dangerous vision, one long associated with 19th Century romanticism, 20th Century Nazi ideology, and current justifications for geoncide, they can also be seen to be incoherent when looked at closely. As I discuss in my book, there are numerous reasons for concluding that polities need to be understood to be essentially territorial/geographical or nothing sensible is likely to be drawn from the world of politics and law.

* From "Hegal on Ethical Life and the Modern State." It is important to note, however, that Wolsing himself thinks that Hegel's position is more liberal than a strict focus on Volksgeist suggests because of his conception of a historical world spirit--the "higher universal law of history." I want to stress that I am not a Hegel scholar; I here just report a long orthodox interpretation of Hegel's influence on later political positions. For a detailed, discussion of many of the relevant issues involved here, I recommend Istvan Hont's classic paper "The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Mankind: nation state and nationalism in historical perspective."

** It's also easy to see how this conception might invite the dreaded sorities paradox to swallow up the entire issue.

Przeworski on What Makes for Democratic Polities and Policies

 

 In a recent paper in the Journal of Democracy, Adam Przeworski asks "Who decides what is democratic?" As someone who has spent many years pondering the nature and requirements of self-government, perhaps I may be excused for having the initial inclination to answer, "Hey, I'll do it!"  But, in reality, this is a trick question–even though it’s not clear that Przeworski has entirely understood this himself. For whether a polity, the assumption of governmental power by an official, or the enactment of some policy is democratic (or has been democraticaly accomplished) requires that a crucial distinction be made–and it isn’t quite the distinction between “maximalist” and “minimalist” democracy that he outlines in this paper. The more basic ambiguity is between (i) The consensus regarding whether the polity (or promotion or enactment) has characteristics sufficient for its classification as “basically democratic” among ranking organizations, media outlets, NGOs, scholars, etc. around the world; and (ii) A determination of whether the polity, promotion or enactment is consistent with all the principles required for authentic self-government.

It should be clear that (i) and (ii) need not always have the same answer. For example, it is commonly said these days that Americans are now in danger of “losing their democracy,” and, of course, the U.S. was generally deemed a democracy before blacks or women were allowed to vote. So, it should be obvious that assessments of that type involve type  (i) only. What I mean is that most of us will now agree that before universal adult suffrage, the U.S. was not authentically democratic; and I hope many will agree with me that, with its Electoral College, Senate, gerrymandered districts, Filibuster rule, etc. it has always been and remains a considerable distance from meeting the criteria for legitimate self-government. [This matter is discussed in substantial detail in my book, as well as in a critique of epistemic democracy that is forthcoming in the journal Prolegomena. Indeed, regular readers of this blog are bound to know that this is something of an obsession with me.] Nevertheless, I can concede that some U.S. elections and the passages of some state laws--(maybe only in Nebraska!) may have been democratically produced, even pursuant to (ii).  

 

Przeworski seems to me to have been right to distinguish outcomes from procedures in his paper. However, while such demarcation is essential to his minimal/maximal distinction, it ought to be seen to have nothing much to do with answering either of what I claim to be the more basic questions involving (i) and (ii). I suspect he would go quite as far as I do on that matter, but he does believe that violating  “norms of universalism, equality, or freedom which many see as essential to democracy” can happen pursuant to apparently democratic procedures.

 

In my view, figuring out precisely what authentic democracy requires is key here: some disturbing outcomes may be democratic, others cannot be, regardless of the apparent purity of the procedures utilized. But answers aren't necessarily a matter of the outcomes in any case: the procedures themselves are disqualified if, e.g., political speech or association rights haven't been guaranteed in advance.   

 

With respect to the strictly procedural aspects, Przeworski makes “judges” the guardians. That seems confused to me, since courts should be expected to follow/interpret the basic laws of their jurisdictions, and there is no reason to suppose that these must be consistent with the characteristics required pursuant to either (i) or (ii).  On the other hand, I believe that he is right when he says that democracy is “just a terrain on which somewhat equal and somewhat free people struggle for the realization of conflicting ideals, values, and interests.”