Pol Pot: image and ethics

Is there a third way between political idealism and liberalism?

Liberals and neo-liberals say: either you accept the free market, or you get Pol Pot and the Killing Fields. Liberals and neo-liberals are right. There is a point, at which you must choose either free-market liberalism, or Pol Pot. Which is worse: one homeless person freezes to death in a free-market city, or Pol Pot murders two million people? I will show, that you can not avoid this sort of unpleasant choice, and give my own answer. But first, two other points about Pol Pot.

The first is a warning, about the inconsistency of propaganda. The TV tells you that Pol Pot was evil, because he drove the population from the city to the land. But the TV told you that Ceaucescu was evil, because he drove the population from the land to the cities. Intellectuals tell you the Soviet system, forced the urbanisation of rural Latvia or Estonia. Yet the Stalinist Hoxha kept the urban population of Albania stable, for 30 years: only when communism collapsed, were the peasants allowed to move to Tirana. At least Hoxha was consistently opposed by the West. That can not be said of Pol Pot, who had indirect US support (against Vietnam). The demonic image came later. So I will try to look through the inconsistent propaganda, to see exactly what Pol Pot is supposed to symbolise.

The second point: at least the image of Pol Pot has a clear function. He is the negative example, for the anti-utopianism of European liberalism. In the simplest version: "if people try to impose an ideal, then you get the Killing Fields of Cambodia". For liberal suspicion of planning, of state power, of ideals, of utopias, of grand projects - for all this, Pol Pot is the Dreadful Warning. (In a modest way, the DDR plays the same role in German political discourse). All liberals are utilitarians: they promise to save us all from certain horrors. Liberalism needs a pile of skulls. See, Pol Pot. See, skulls.

So now the unpleasant questions. Pol Pot, Stalin, the Gulag, the Stasi, and the Berlin Wall, have become negative legitimisers of liberal-democratic societies. (Although, even together, they can not match the ultimate negative symbol in modern history, Auschwitz). I think it is stupid to ignore this political fact. A large part of the European population believes, that limiting liberal free-market society, is morally equivalent to the actions of Pol Pot. The political answer to this is, to examine the moral logic. And the unpleasant truth is, that in logic they are right.

Suppose I was given this choice of alternative futures.... Either, I will live in misery for 10 years, homeless, and then freeze to death on the street. Or, I will not freeze to death, but the other inhabitants of the Netherlands will be subjected to a Pol Pot dictatorship. They will be driven from the cities, 5 million will starve, and hundreds of thousands will be tortured and shot. Would I choose hunger and torture for millions, to save my own life? Yes, of course. And not only that. Suppose it was not even my own life. Suppose someone else would become homeless, and freeze to death. Would I choose the death and torture of millions, to save this one homeless person? Yes. And not only that. Even if I would not freeze to death, even if the alternative future was only to be homeless, then I would choose the regime. And not only that: even to prevent others becoming homeless, I would choose "Pol Pot". And there are homeless people in Europe: the choice is real.

So who am I to complain about Pol Pot? I believe: I should not be homeless on the streets of a European city. I believe: there should be no homeless people on the streets of European cities. For this ideal, I will accept death and torture, in the alternative futures presented. It is useless to ask if they are the only alternative. The point is, again: many in Europe believe, that they are the alternatives. And logically, they can formulate a question, so that there is indeed no alternative.

The honest liberal admits, that some people are disadvantaged in the free market: even that some will die. The honest liberal then asks me: are you prepared to sacrifice your life, in the free market, for the common good of the nation? Or even simply sacrifice the ideal, that homeless people should not freeze to death? Concrete questions, not a choice of hypothetical futures. In effect, the liberal asks, if I am a utilitarian: and to such questions there is only a yes-or-no answer. I am not a utilitarian. I am not prepared to make those sacrifices, not for myself, not for others.

So it is useless to seek a "third way", between Pol Pot, and the NATO free-market nation states. There is no third way between liberalism and ideals. All forms of liberalism limit the implementation of ideals: by political process, by discourse, by market forces. If you accept that people may implement their ideals, then you have no argument against Pol Pot. All he did was implement his ideals. Liberals are right: if society accepts ideals, then there is a danger of mass killings.

The only certain way, to avoid negative effects of ideals, is prohibition: to have no ideals except anti-idealism, no utopias except a utopia-free world, and no values except the absence of value. In other words, a perfect liberal society: only process, only flow, only interaction. You can ask moral questions, about such societies. Is it morally acceptable to ask some people to sacrifice themselves in the free market, for the good of others? Is it morally acceptable to sacrifice ideals, for the common good of the nation?

But you can not avoid the choice. Such a society itself, is an absolute and exclusive category: you are either for or against it. It is absolutely true, that in a perfectly liberal world, there would be no Killing Fields. People might be killed, but not for ideological reasons. Mostly, they would die by market forces (at the equilibrium point, where medical costs exceed their income). Tony Blair or Gerhard Schröder can not avoid this absolute category: they can not rescue you from the unpleasant choice. Remember, liberal society was designed to stop Pol Pot, long before Pol Pot was born. Classic liberal theory was a reaction to the wars of religion in Europe. Even now, John Rawls still sees internal stability as the goal of political liberalism, and fanaticism as its enemy. Ask Blair or Schröder if society should be designed to stop Pol Pot: and they will say yes. They too, are utilitarians.

So do you have the Pol Pot morality: selfish idealism?

Or do you want to avoid Pol Pot? Then you will abandon ideals, at the point where their implementation conflicts with liberal society. In other words, you will treat ideals as personal preferences, not as principles. You will accept that they are subject to the common good of the nation. You will accept that, even if you do not want homeless people to freeze to death, that this is merely a personal preference. You can hope that liberal society will meet this personal preference: but there is no guarantee. You will not attempt to interfere in the liberal process.

In other words, you will accept that, possibly, sometimes, some other people must freeze for the common good. So that we are all saved from Pol Pot. That is sad. But it is not often, and there are not many of them, certainly not two million. And they are not tortured before they freeze, like many victims of the Khmer Rouge. And besides, often they are alcoholics or drug addicts. And in bad health, and unemployed. And they do not have a great contribution to make, to the New Britain, or Standort Deutschland. Or even to the new emergent market of Cambodia. So probably you will not lose any sleep over them.