Opinion (Vardan Baghdasaryan, PhD Historical Sciences, professor, Head of the department of history and political science at the Russian State University of Tourism and Service): “Liberalism is a great utopia. As a system, it never existed anywhere, and in principle, it could not exist. A person cannot exist outside of society. Yet, social life always imposes certain constraints, taboos. …
“Liberalism proclaims exactly the opposite program – removing the taboo. Liberalism developed as an ideology of removing social shackles – of religion, the state, the nation, family. Liberalism always existed in a paradoxical combination: freedom of some implied a lack of freedom for others. …
“The ancient Greeks put forward the idea of freedom while slavery prospered. Freedom did not extend to slaves.
“In the Middle Ages, slavery persisted. The most prosperous, free trading posts Genoa and Venice were the leading centers of slavery and the slave trade. Venetian slave trade was carried out throughout the Mediterranean. Not being a Venetian citizen, a slave was not a human being.
“The new time is characterized by the development of the idea of political freedom. But at the same time, the establishment of world colonialism takes place. During the period of colonial expansion, more than 80 million slaves were shipped from Africa. It is significant that among slaveholders there were many theorists of liberalism. The founding fathers of the United States – Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were owners of slave plantations. The value of freedom was wonderfully combined in their perception with non-freedom. The term “man” was still selective. The paradox of Russian liberals, serf-owners, had the same basis.
“Only in the 19th century, was a ban on slavery introduced. But colonialist learned how to use the mechanisms of exploitation through indirect coercion. Direct physical slavery was replaced by economic slavery. The freedom of resource owners is still combined with the lack of freedom of others, who are now formally free.
“Liberalism today is a variant of neo-colonialism; it is the mechanism of non-violent economic slavery. …
“Fascism and liberalism are related phenomena; they are two variants of Western expansion in the world. Fascism is condemned. It is time to condemn liberal utopia.”
My Comment: Our natural egoism only changes its signs, but its essence and thus the socio-economic formation, exploitation, remains at all times the same. We are facing either the return to barbarism or universal integration of equal citizens through correcting human nature by means of integral education.