Development and Politics – What Distinguishes One from the Other

In June this year I was attending a global media forum in Bonn, Germany. The workshops were organized by Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle and was dedicated to the problems of human rights and journalism worldwide. I certainly had not expected academically relevant discussions during the workshops but one of the topics drew a particular attention. It was related to the democracy vs. autocracy dilemma, one side arguing about positive effects of democracy on country’s development and other side opting for authoritarianism. I, myself found the whole discussion profoundly off the track and still cannot gather who wins or loses in this argument.

First and foremost, we have to summon back a fact/value distinction and remind ourselves that the line separating these two is both very tentative and necessary. I am not in any way vouching for a total “normative” approach as you have might already guessed from my below posted insights on Laclau’s philosophy, but nonetheless, I still feel a need for a certain degree of distinction between those two. Obviously, it won’t be a return to an old empiricist ‘doxa’ which unequivocally separated empirical reality from the normative judgement and  on the other hand, it won’t unconditionally embrace the normative, subjective solipsism. What I am arguing for is a middle ground, but not in any sense “Kantian criticism” . Kant ontologically (not rhetorically) separated the realms of moral and science from each other and left virtually no possibility for overlapping between these two realms. I will try to (briefly) elaborate my position further without any recourse to Kant whatsoever.

It’s for certain that both “facts” and “values” depend on human conventions. We take things for granted precisely because they are already implicitly negotiated between us, not because they are metaphysically or empirically true. And still, this ‘quasi transcendentalism’ should not force us into believing in total relativism (giving up any claim to true judgement). This is what Zizek argues throughout his entire career as a searing cultural critic and leftist theoretician, but what he misses out along with Laclau, is a very strong position of science (“facts”) in weakening relativism. Laclau is right in exposing the limitations of base/superstructure model. He is also right to suggest that opening of one of the realms will be forever prevented by the total closure of the other. But why should this opening or closing be total? He never asks this question unlike Zizek who still holds a certain support for science.

Science does not have a pretension on absolute truth, it has approximate “truths” based on the shared belief in mutually experienced reality. A spiritual séance can also be considered a form of scientific observation were it open to public space (for example, experienced by the millions, not only by the limited number of people sitting in a dark room). Scientists does not tell that they have an absolute truth, they are just trying to convince people that their version of shared reality is better than the rival versions of religion and New Age esoterism.

Once agreed on science’s relative value, we have to go back to the question of fact/value distinction and admit that “facts” exist not in an objective way but in a conventional, “approximate” way. If we believe in science, we agree with scientific facts, or in case we don’t believe them,  we can freely continue believing in New Age religions.

Once agreed on the definition of “facts”. Now let’s discuss what really distinguishes values from facts if they are both founded on human conviction not on empirical or metaphysical truths. I believe that the distinction between those two is  rhetorical and methodological.

We distinguish statements containing facts from value judgement by formally acknowledging our neutral attitude towards the former and subjective attitude toward the latter. In the case of development vs. politics dilemma, I feel that it’s not still clarified enough what normative value the word “development” carries. Apparently, the word has to do with an European/Western understanding of prosperity and wellbeing. One cannot be misled by the fact that the word also draws its legitimacy and appeal from the East Asian capitalist success stories (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, etc.). It’s clear when we say “development” we assign a certain positive value to urbanization, industrialization, capital accumulation in any form (leaving out the question of distribution and justice). Even though it seems that the word does not directly touch the issues of justice and hence, politics, of course it is still clearly misguided to deem it politically neutral. On the contrary, it’s more relevant now than ever when the governments of third world countries invoke the magic term to justify some of their brute policies.

Asking a question what path of development is better authoritarianism or liberal democracy equals to saying: What is better – to be arbitrarily put in prison, being tortured, kidnapped, financially undercut, expelled (all the things that authoritarianism does), or keep silent for a while and then enjoy the material prosperity or even freedom? I think I needn’t go further to convince you of the apparent stupidity of the question.

Then in what context is it relevant to talk about development? In the context of facts, of course, or if we all make a consensus that the moral value of development is fully justified (which will be ridiculous, given the authoritarian practices some development-oriented third world governments resort). Let’s discuss the first possibility further because it concerns us more in the context of fact/value distinction. “Development” (let’s imagine that we’ve come up to a more neutral word pertaining to the the same socioeconomic processes) is concerned with accumulating the wealth and improving human living conditions. Even if we don’t agree with particular form of governance and authoritarian power relations in the society, we still can talk about that in the economic terms the society made some progress and overcame destitute to a certain extent. We should agree as well that this does not in any way mean that the process has a definite positive value given the fact that it sacrifices material resources and human lives in its path (and of course, it is not inherently right).

If the affluent society lacks the standards of justice that we normally believe in, it’s still hard to call it “developed”. If, say, women in an affluent Arab country have significantly low symbolic and material power and they are treated as secondary citizens of the society, it will be utterly preposterous to assign the status of “developed” to the given society. Either we should start to treat the word “development” more carefully, avoiding any positive normative references, or have to omit the word from our vocabulary altogether.

On the one hand, it will be irrelevant to ignore the material and social changes undergone by societies (we can describe them by neutral scientific methods) and on the other hand, it is clearly unjustified to assign a definite positive value to these processes  and leaving out important events that accompany them.

Science serves to describe the societal reality and it does not lose relevance in today’s world. The problem arises when we try to mingle neutral science with normative judgement and end up in awkward arguments like the one you may witness if you discuss democracy vs. authoritarianism dilemma seriously. Science does not have a positive normative value – it does not tell you the truth. It tells you about likelihoods and possibilities (for instance, which policy will lead to what direction, etc.) which are worth to take into account. All the rest is decided by politics which exclusively determines our conceptions of justice and freedom. The decision should  be made by the people, not by the experts and scientists.