chapotraphouse

A central idea in Domenico Losurdo’s masterpiece Liberalism: A Counter-History is that liberalism was, from its very beginnings, an ideology that sought to justify slavery. Hagiographers of the Founding Fathers and American independence love to portray it as a triumph of “freedom-loving peoples.” According to this story, slavery was merely a lingering imperfection, a backwards holdover righteously stamped out by the Civil War early in the nation’s history, and whatever regrettable byproducts of slavery that remain don’t fundamentally challenge the identification of liberalism and Western democracy with “freedom” as such. Losurdo argues, however, that liberalism is better understood as an ideology produced to satisfy the need felt by capitalists (business owners, entrepreneurs, etc.) to justify their rebellion against the monarchy while simultaneously justifying colonialism, Manifest Destiny, the genocide of indigenous people, chattel slavery, and the active suppression of workers’ rights.

from Really Existing Fascism