Habermas makes a great argument in "Legitimation Crisis" (which I plan to post about later) that universalist ethics (specifically in the form of "universalist utilitarianism" which leads to bourgeois individualism via formal law) stems from the universality of economic exchange.
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Replying to @simpolism @metapotat
& that this particular form of moral unreflectiveness about universalism is essential to the state for retaining mass political legitimacy and furthering economic goals.
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Replying to @simpolism
hmm, so that the state is co-opting the universality & legitimacy of exchange, and the institutions which support it, in order to grant legitimacy to other institutions and state organs?
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Replying to @metapotat @simpolism
e.g. basic private property laws feel natural to us, so we swallow state enforcement. but when people rebel against, e.g., the state granting monopolies or enforcing their preferred moral codes, the state and it's supporters can complain about 'respect for the rule of law'
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Replying to @metapotat
it's sort of the other way around, according to Habermas, in that the entire function of the state is to preserve the "unequal" distribution of wealth while also granting enough handouts to maintain legitimate. this is only a rough summary of his argument thoo
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Replying to @simpolism @metapotat
also I feel this will be discussed in more detail later in the book, so I gotta keep reading before I can give a satisfying answer
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Replying to @simpolism
the institutional econ guys talk about something related to this, especially Acemoglu & Robinson, and North & Weingast. that gov'ts gain legitimacy with handouts to the supporting coalition.
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Replying to @metapotat @simpolism
but as the supporting coalition becomes larger and more undifferentiated, the handouts start looking more and more like public goods that all sides benefit from: police, roads, infrastructure, etc.
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Replying to @metapotat @simpolism
they aren't thinking about universalism per se, just precursors to the modern state and econ development, but it all seems tied up together
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Replying to @metapotat
Yes! Habermas would call this the effective exercise of state "rationality", i.e. investing correctly as so to avoid crises, and that the failure of rationality is what leads to a legitimacy crisis (as what we're seeing today), which calls into question the state as a whole.
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hmm, how Habermas connects everything back to universalism is unclear to me. is it just an orthogonal phenomenon that gives the state another source of legitimacy? or is it tied in with these dynamics?
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Replying to @metapotat
Universalism is a "component of cultural tradition" of bourgeois worldviews that both aligns with and chafes against the needs for state maintenance of global capitalistic exchange, a "residue" of (pre?) enlightenment thinking. It's not orthogonal, but not causally linked either.
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