REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONALCONFERENCE

THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM JAPAN, FRANCE AND GERMANY
IN GLOBAL CONTEXTDAY II AND DAY III
WEDNESDAY JUNE 8 AND THURSDAY JUNE 9, 2022

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REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM JAPAN, FRANCE AND GERMANY IN
GLOBAL CONTEXTDAY II AND DAY III
Moderators: Gilles Campagnolo, Adrienne Sala(Day Ⅱ)
Franz Waldenberger, Sébastien Lechevalier (Day Ⅲ)
Presenters: Miriam Teschl | Richard Sturn | Naoki Yoshihara | Serge Audier | Tsutomu
Hashimoto | Yufei Zhou | Valérie Charolles | Nikita Dhawan | Shinji Nohara | Franz
Waldenberger | Saori Shibata | Cédric Durand | Yuko Harayama | Joanna J. Bryson |Mario Ionuț Maroșan

Published by
Institut français de recherche sur le Japon à la Maison franco-japonaise
Ebisu 3-9-25|Shibuya|Tokyo|Japan
https://www.mfj.gr.jp/index.php
German Institute for Japanese Studies
Jochi Kioizaka Building 2F|Kioicho 7-1|Chiyoda|Tokyo|Japan
https://www.dijtokyo.org
The Nippon Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA)
Yebisu Garden Place Tower 34F|Ebisu 4-20-3|Shibuya|Tokyo|Japan
https://english.nira.or.jp
Editor: Jonathan Webb, Research Coordinator and Research Fellow, NIRA
Acknowledgments: Chiharu Hagi and Mari Kawamoto assisted in compiling the report.

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CONTENTS
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...5
Day II: Wednesday June 8, 2022
Panel I: Liberalism and Neoliberalism: Concepts, Theories, And Debates I:
Liberalism and Uncertainty Facing Future Developments
Presentation I
Liberalism and Uncertainty
Miriam Teschl, EHESS…………………………………………………..…………....11
Presentation II
Politico-Economic Coevolution and the Vicissitudes of Liberalism
Richard Sturn, University of Graz…………………………………...........................13
Presentation III
Liberalism in the Age of Digital Economy
Naoki Yoshihara University of Massachusetts Amherst ……………..…...……....16
Panel I Discussion, Question & Answer Session…...……………....…………………18
Panel II: Liberalism and Neoliberalism: Concepts, Theories, and Debates II:
Liberalism and Neoliberalism as Basic Sustainable Values
Presentation I
The Genealogical & Terminological Evolution of Neoliberalism
Serge Audier, Sorbonne University…………………………………………….…...22
Presentation II
Liberalism and the Philosophy of Economics - Spontaneous Wellbeing
Tsutomu Hashimoto, Hokkaido University……………………………………......24
Presentation III
Transition of the Dominant Economic Ideology in China in the 21st Century
Yufei Zhou, Teikyo University………………………………………………...……..26
Panel II Discussion, Question & Answer Session…………….…………………..…..28
Panel III: Liberalism and Neoliberalism: Concepts, Theories, and Debates III:
Liberalism and Capitalism in Historical and Philosophical Perspective
Presentation I
The Distinction between Capitalism and Liberalism: An Operational Concept
Valérie Charolles, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, EHESS CNRS….......32
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Presentation II
Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Decolonization
Nikita Dhawan, Technical University Dresden.…………………………………....34
Presentation III
Adam Smith and the Origins of Economic Liberalism
Shinji Nohara, University of Tokyo……………………………………………….....37
Panel III - Discussion, Question & Answer Session……………...…………..………39
Day III: Thursday June 9, 2022
Panel I: Technology and Capitalism
Presentation I
Governance in a Knowledge-Driven Society
Franz Waldenberger, German Institute for Japanese Studies……………………..50
Presentation II
De-skilling and Diminishing Workers Autonomy in the Digital Workplace
Saori Shibata, University of Sheffield……………………………………………….52
Presentation III:Intellectual Monopoly Making in the Digital Age
Cédric Durand, University of Geneva……………………...……………………….54
Panel I Discussion, Question & Answer Session……………………………………..56
Panel II: Technology, Digitalization, and Ethics of Responsibility
Presentation I
The History of Humanity is The History of Technology
Yuko Harayama, Tohoku University………………………………………………..63
Presentation II
Artificial Intelligence: Responsibility and Liberalism
Joanna J. Bryson, Hertie School………………………………………………………65
Presentation III
The Fallacy of Technological Neutrality: A Philosophical Approach
Mario Ionuț Maroșan, Université Laval…………………...………...……………....68
Panel II Discussion, Question & Answer Session…………………………………….70

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INTRODUCTION
THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM IN FRANCE, GERMANY,
AND JAPAN
GILLES CAMPAGNOLO AND ADRIENNE SALAAs the world entered the 21st century, hopes have been curbed and we have been facing
major crises, one after another. Financial crisis and a series of economic breakdowns (withrebounds) have hurt growth badly from the 2008 financial crash up to the present-day.
Moreover, a crisis of life conditions on Earth: climate is in jeopardy, biodiversity is atstake and disease spread (like the COVID pandemic), with their consequences. In thisgloomy picture, old narratives tend to come back while all the technology we mastercannot be redirect old paths towards new destinations. This is true as well regarding ourmental frameworks and ways of understanding the world: not only the course of ourmaterial environment (life that turns more and more digitalized), but ideas and thoughts
are changed. In a nutshell what are we to do with ways of thinking that have shaped ourprevious views on the world.
One such major issue at stake is the rationale of modernization for countries thathave developed over the last two centuries, trusting voluntary exchange and freedom of
trade, on the one hand, civil liberties and the expansion of democracy, on the other hand.
In one word: liberalism. What is its future when we are facing the aforementioned crisis?
The mindset that seems in jeopardy was based upon scientific knowledge and attempts
at clarifying the stakes taken into consideration by thinkers and scientists (both naturalscientists and social scientists): the crisis regarding the ideas based “on liberty” (as John
Stuart Mill framed the issue in his grounding philosophical work in 1859) is thus
epistemological in nature.
Thus, one may point to a second type of crisis that we would like to stress at thestart of this conference since it provides its orientation: it is a global crisis that sparks of acrisis of liberal ideas and ideals. It is a crisis that is as well economic and political innature; it deals with the material world that we live in and with the values that supportit.
Let us be explicit: we shall use the word “liberal” in the way that Europeans havein mind. We understand it to mean pro-liberty, pro-free-trade, for instance – not theAmerican use that relates “liberals” to what Europeans tend to call the “progressive
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camp”. Incidentally, the US-English use is not foreign to us, since it fundamentallyrehashes the meaning that the word had in the mid-nineteenth-century Europe, while a
Spring of Revolutions shook this continent in 1848. The specifics of the notion have
evolved in Europe towards specifically economic debates, while its original meaning wasessentially retained throughout in US-English parlance (but lately evolved to include
issues related to so-called intersectional studies). It is necessary to make things precise
since this conference is held in English: yet contributors debate the future of liberalism interms of economic policies supporting freedom. And we indeed experience a major crisisof such liberal ideas, such as the one that existed in the 1930s – moreover, with a war-likesituation to the fore in both cases.
Now, these two sets of crises – that is to say, 1° the actual threats to the living
environment that imply an epistemological quarry and raise debates about how to deal
with it at the economic level; 2° the crisis of liberal ideas and hopes with issues at stake
factual, theoretical and methodological altogether – both concern the ideal of freedom
and free individuality. And they intertwine to make things more intricate and lead someto despair or wish they could go back to older frames (nationalistic, socialistic, and so on).
Those two sets of crises present both the opportunity to discuss abundantly ideas that
had been put aside while so-called “liberal policies” were buoyantly advocated (thevibrant, but dangerous and false argument that there would be “only one way of rational
thinking”) and they bring uneasiness, together with a fundamental doubt: do, can (andeven will) political liberalism and economic liberalism always go together? Are those two
guarantees for (some, even minimal) equality, especially some level of income equality
guaranteeing a way-of-life where minimal comfort (or even affluence) and the absoluteright to freedom are both implemented in all fields of civil society? Are those twomeanings of liberalism still compatible, for all, or for the many, or even at all? Are they
intrinsically linked at the fundamental conceptual level so that one cannot be foundwithout the other being in stock?
This issue has surfaced each time that “liberalism” (in the sense put forth above
and that runs as the main thread of this conference) has been submitted to a major crisis.
For example, socialistic views can indeed be described as one product resulting from aformer major crisis of liberalism. Each time the latter faces major difficulties, the former
tends to emerge again under a new guise. Hence our Opening Session, where we are glad
to invite Thomas Piketty, who presents himself as an advocate of socialism and aprosecutor of liberalism. It is only if liberalism can overcome impediments and obstacles,
but we may foresee future perspectives for its claim to freedom. Indeed, is there a Futurefor Liberalism today?
6In the 1930s, this issue was already raised. Hence the updated goal of this 3-Day
Conference: to provide listeners, and now readers through this publication, a sort of arena
like that of the so-called Walter Lippman Colloquium, which was held in Paris in 1938,
organized by the French philosopher Louis Rougier in the name of the famous US
publicist Walter Lippman. There gathered some Americans and mostly Europeans,
especially French, German and Austrian thinkers. The aim was to analyze what had gone
so wrong with liberalism, to explain how dark times come to overshadow Europe andthe world. Almost one century later, hard times are back. However, the center of gravityof the world’s economy seems to shift from Europe to Eastern Asia, and it is in anothermajor capital of what may once more called the “free world” that a conference with asomewhat analogous aims can be organized.
The way how to implement policies really depends upon issues that root deep
within a common understanding between diverse civilizations. What may then appear
as divergences is just as important as the essential agreement that signing official
documents illustrates in turn. Treaties like the European Partnership Agreement (EPA)
and the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between the European Union (EU) andJapan portend greater cooperation. International lawyers dealt with these treatises.
Within this conference, they mean less to enter debates that both preceded and followed
negotiations than a scientific debate on notions more generally supporting the validity ofsuch talks on values. Some thinkers oppose the trend and some aim at rebuking its
cogency, and their position has to be assessed as well, as a counterpoint to the convictionthat a future exists for liberal ideas facing present-day crisis.
The initiators of the project, Gilles Campagnolo and Adrienne Sala, acknowledge
such pro and contra positions to better cope with the crisis of liberalism at both an
epistemological and an ideal level. The aim of this 3-Day Conference is to discuss
concepts at the basis of a diversity of forms of liberalism whereas we have come to timesof crisis again. The initiators wish to thank the three institutions (one from eachparticipating country, all three in Tokyo): they made possible to hold the conference
whose proceedings are published in this volume.
Here, economists and philosophers, social thinkers who, for some, contend with
the ideas of liberalism and, for others, support them, deal with fundamental theories andnotions. They put forth the role of technology as a major factor of change in forms ofliberalism adapted and adopted in the present world, and in its near and further future.
For France, Germany and Japan, the list of contributors (all renowned in their field) isfound in this document (with references/ credentials) as well as a summary and (whenthey agreed to) full contents of their presentations. In the view of offering more room for7

expanding EU–Japan cooperation at this scientific level, the conference is meant as thestart of a larger enduring project, whose success (as reckoned by various media andinstitutions related to the event) the initiators intend to carry on in the future.

8THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM
JAPAN, FRANCE AND GERMANY IN GLOBALCONTEXTDAY IIWEDNESDAY JUNE 8, 2022

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DAY II - PANEL I
LIBERALISM AND NEOLIBERALISM:
CONCEPTS, THEORIES, AND DEBATES I
LIBERALISM AND UNCERTAINTY FACING FUTURE
DEVELOPMENTS

PANELISTS
DR MIRIAM TESCHLASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES ENSCIENCES SOCIALES (EHESS)DR RICHARD STURNDIRECTOR OF THE GRAZ SCHUMPETER CENTRE,
UNIVERSITY OF GRAZ

DR NAOKI YOSHIHARAPROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

10DAY II - PANEL I - PRESENTATION ILIBERALISM AND UNCERTAINTYMIRIAM TESCHL
Presentation Summary
In her presentation Miriam Teschl discussed the impact of uncertainty on liberalism inlight of the public policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic in democratic countries.
She argued that the trend toward prolonged restrictions on individual liberties to fightthe pandemic risks eroding freedoms in a way that could represent a move toward moreauthoritarian forms of liberalism. She argued that the principles of liberalism have always
had to be balanced with the challenges presented by uncertainty. More than ever is it
important to find appropriate bottom-up approaches that provide individuals with theinformation they need to make good decisions even under uncertainty.
Uncertainty is a fact of life. It forces us both as individuals and as a collective toconsider not so much what is “best” (because that is difficult to know under conditionsof uncertainty), but what we need and want to know to achieve outcomes we deem
beneficial, while being protected from those that are harmful. In the face of great
uncertainty, such as uncertainty in relation to public health, some restrictions on
individual liberties can be warranted. For example, in the early days of COVID-19, very
little was known about the virus. In such a case, rapid and efficient central coordination
is key and democratically elected governments are good candidates to take the lead in
top-down decision making which may include restrictions on individual liberty. Yet it is
one thing to use restrictions temporarily under very specific circumstances as a way to“buy time” to gather the knowledge necessary to determine an effective policy response(that protects the vulnerable and hampers viral spread), but another to favor general andundifferentiated restrictions as a public policy in itself.
The question of how to handle uncertainty in both policy making and individual
decision making has often been at the heart of debate within liberalism, particularly inview of the types of knowledge available to different actors within the system on which
decisions can be based. Arguably, there can be some tension between the “centralized
knowledge” of policy makers, driven by aggregation and statistics, and the decentralized
knowledge of individuals, based on their unique situations and life experiences.
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The core question therefore is what can we know, and what do we want to know underconditions of uncertainty? The point that we would like to know is whether harm isaccelerating, or benefits decreasing. In the case of Covid 19, harm could be seen as thenumber of cases going up. The only way to objectively measure this is through testing.
Greatly expanding testing facilities provides individuals the opportunity to check theirown health status. Individuals are intimately familiar with their own health and whether
they have reason to suspect that they may have been infected. The aggregatedinformation about tests and their outcomes, can consequently inform public healthpolicies.
To put it differently, in order to maintain liberalism under uncertainty, policies
that give priority to bottom-up information need to be prioritized over top-down
decisions by experts that may severely constrain individual freedom. We must reinforce
the importance and pursuit of knowledge in our democracies so as to maintain aliberalism that is as un-authoritarian as possible.

12DAY II - PANEL I - PRESENTATION II
POLITICO-ECONOMIC COEVOLUTION AND THE
VICISSITUDES OF LIBERALISM
RICHARD STURN
Presentation Summary
Richard Sturn’s presentation proposed a framework for thinking about the evolution ofliberalism over time in response to political and economic change. The model treats theconstitution of a liberal order as a “higher order public good,” a foundational building
block of modern society and the institutional infrastructure required for the existence ofexpedient mechanisms for the provision of first-order public goods. However, the very
provision of that higher-order public good is inevitably exposed to political, economic
and societal transformations that put pressure on the liberal order’s survival and force it
to adapt. The pressure put on the liberal order by the current digital transformation has
led to a critical accountability gap and the rise of illiberal tendencies. The Liberal ordermust adapt by reinvigorating the public sphere, civil society and the public sector as
bulwarks against illiberal tendencies facilitated by digital technologies.
Amidst the upheaval of the digital transformation, unless digital technology isembedded into a constitutional-political architecture that facilitates public input in an
appropriate manner it will be impossible to reinvigorate public accountability. That lackof accountability may lead to a concentration of power that affects the functioning of bothmarkets and democracy.
The liberal order as a structure coevolves with political, legal, societal, economic,
and technological developments, including in particular historically contingent forms of
the public – private divide which belongs to the core of post-feudal statehood andprovided a framework for entrepreneurial capitalism. In this framing, citizens play a keyrole in driving the political processes supporting the liberal order as a higher order public
good and adapting it to changing conditions. The digital transformation has seen theemergence of an accountability paradox for liberalism. While digital technology has thepotential to enable greater accountability, it also provides greater opportunities for theconcentration of power, brings disruptive changes in the media sector, and can erode therelative capabilities of public institutions, giving rise to an attenuation or distortion of13

existing accountability mechanisms.
What follows is an outline of some elements of this conception of a liberalconstitution. As a liberal foundation for an open society, it is the key building block forthe functioning of a modern society in two ways: first, it provides a functional premisefrom which specific mechanisms for first-order public goods are derived; second, it
creates an architecture of private and public choice promoting an innovation-friendly andprivacy-preserving order, minimizing the number and influence of veto-players
obstructing innovation and undue infringements of the spheres of private agency. The
innovative and freedom-enhancing setting of a liberal order, however, is not enhanced
by undue privatization. In eras of massive socio-economic transformation liberalism isoften challenged by problematic trends of privatization, unleashed by powerful economic
actors engaging in transformational rent-seeking and rent-shifting. This goes along withshifting the balance of power in rulemaking away from elected officials and concentrating
it in the hands of factually privileged private actors, creating a deficit of accountability,that is a kind of ‘shadow politics sometimes referred to as neo-feudalism.
The digital transformation is perhaps the most pervasive socio-economictransformation in the history of liberalism and capitalism. It is characterized by pervasive
economies of scale and scope, network effects, and a hitherto unknown degree of private
rulemaking and monopoly. It has the potential to fundamentally undermine the publicprivate architecture which has been at the heart of liberal democracy. It has beenaccompanied by the emergence of privileged private actors and technologies such as
blockchain, which may contribute to marginalizing the public sphere, unless they areembedded in an appropriate legal order with functioning institutions and reasonablenorms.
It is also worth considering the political dimension and context of such
embedment. Authoritarian, totalitarian and populist governments and movements havealready begun adapting these trends of the digital transformation in their own way to try
and mobilize its potential in their favor. Unless the information processing potential of
digital technologies can be harnessed to reinforce political feedback mechanisms withina constitutional political architecture, the accountability deficit outlined in thispresentation may grow even larger, promoted by new forms of surveillance capitalism
and statism driven by those who seek a non-liberal order.
To escape such a fate, it will be necessary to pursue the following actions. The
integration of civil society into the overall project of developing and adapting the liberalorder to reinvigorate it as a “higher-order public good” (in contrast to today where civilsociety’s participation often appears confined to the pursuit of specific issues and14

interests.) The modernization of the public sector and its potential expansion acrosssupranational horizons. The enhancement of state capacities in such a way that
distributive problems such as climate change, and other challenges requiring publicagency can be effectively addressed. Finally, the development of political systems andpublic administration to combat accountability deficits.
Each of these tasks will require enormous effort, indicating the difficult anddemanding path ahead of us. At the moment, it may even seem a task beset by
insurmountable impediments. However, sometimes crisis induces people to think about
the scope and depth of problems, and thus raises the probability for suitable collective
action. While pessimism, fatalism, and nihilism are certainly barriers to change for the
better, liberals from Adam Smith onward always rightly emphasized the importance ofunderstanding the complexity of the challenges we are facing – and the dangers of
simplistic, ready-made “solutions.” What is clear, is that now it is not the time for liberalcomplacency and business as usual.

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DAY II - PANEL I - PRESENTATION III
LIBERALISM IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL ECONOMYNAOKI YOSHIHARA
Presentation Summary
In his presentation Yoshihara approaches the problems liberalism has faced in the digitalera from the vantage point of standard economic theory. He first differentiates between
individual liberty, the idea that individuals should be free to act as long as their freedom
does not encroach on that of others, and economic liberalism, which calls for freecompetition under conditions of private ownership and forms the basis for modern free
trade. He argues that the key problem facing liberalism since the beginning of the digitaltransformation is with economic liberalism, where digitalization has enhanced the returnon, and network effects of, economics of scale, which has intensified inequalities in the
distribution of resources, and this inequality now threatens individual liberty andautonomy. He proposes a settlement to rectify this deficit in which society would
guarantee individuals a “minimal autonomy” that is a baseline of social welfare in theform of a social safety net, which is obtained by accessing the minimal sphere of
production technology and resources.
This presentation approaches the problems liberalism has faced in the digital era
from the vantage point of standard economic theory. It is important to begin with adefinition of individual liberty, perhaps the most famous example being the harm
principle established by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (1859), which argues that there isa private sphere in which society has only an indirect interest, and in which individuals
should have the freedom to do as they please so long as they do not cause harm to, or
encroach upon the freedom of others. Also of relevance is Amartya Sen’s concepts of“minimal liberty,” which further codifies the expectations for individual liberty, and thePareto-Liberal Paradox, which recognizes that the Pareto optimality of social outcomesmay not be guaranteed by societies which respect minimal liberty.
Reviewing the literature on economic liberalism, in more recent times, theproblems of economic liberalism have become of more pressing concern to bothindividual liberty and the public good. Economic liberalism is defined as an economic
system that promotes free competition under the protection of private ownership of
productive assets. Economic liberalism underpins the idea of free trade, in which
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producers, buyers, and sellers are always free to pursue goods elsewhere, under the
expected outcome that such systems increase social welfare. While these ideas aretangentially related to individual liberty, the principles of free trade are actually separate
from and do not rest upon individual liberty.
Importantly, new innovations can lead to the discovery of new assets over which
no private ownership is yet established and does not result in Pareto improvement ofsocial welfare in a perfectly competitive market economy in the long run (the “tragedy ofthe commons”). The digital transformation has so far been an example of this, with anincreasingly unequal distribution of resources causing new forms of economic
domination by the winners that threaten individual autonomy.
Research conducted between Yoshihara and Professor Yongsheng Xu of Georgia
State University suggests that societies should reorient themselves to guarantee a concept
we call “minimal autonomy,” under which governments would ensure individuals haveaccess to the minimum amount of resources necessary to maintain their fundamental
autonomy. In other words, a reformulated social safety net based upon the concept ofensuring individual autonomy. While securing support for such an expansion of thesafety net may be challenging, this is likely necessary for liberalism to continue to flourish
under the conditions created by the digital transformation.

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DAY II - PANEL I - DISCUSSION, QUESTION & ANSWERSESSIONPANELIST DISCUSSION
Abbreviated Summary
Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné kicked off the discussion with a brief set of comments on eachpresenter’s work. Affirming the importance of uncertainty noted by Miriam, hecomments that uncertainty impacts liberalism in a myriad of ways. There are many kindsof uncertainty, and all of them influence both individual and group behavior. Uncertainty
can incentivize herd behavior, in which individuals follow the group rather than facts,
cause coordination problems, make it difficult to ensure that accurate information isdisseminated, fuel disagreement about what constitutes justice and fairness in society,and enable harmful rent seeking activity by private actors. All of these things pose serious
problems for upholding a functioning liberal order.
He also noted the commonality in the work of Sturn and Yoshihara, both of whom
alluded to the tragedy of the commons in their presentations, and how these problems
are manifested by the climate crisis which is exacerbated by the uncertainty mentioned
by Miriam. In a sense, liberalism creates uncertainty, and this relates to the kind of liberalparadox brought up by Yoshihara, where liberty, efficiency and universality often collidewith disastrous results. This can be seen in the rise of identity politics and populism
where people try to restrict the autonomy of others to fit into their own worldview and“solve” the paradox in a way that makes for a fundamentally illiberal result.
Finally, he argues that although none of the presentations touched on it directly,
the problems they speak to are all related to the concept of network externalities, where
scale is necessary for success, but scale can lock in a less than ideal result, that has been
exacerbated by the digital revolution. Essentially each of the presentations is wrestlingwith problems of coordination and questions of how to avoid a bad equilibrium.
Miriam largely agreed with the commentary offered, while Sturn mentioned thatthe challenge of populism brought up in the commentary is not a new challenge and is inessence a recurring theme brought up by the pluralism that liberalism necessitates. He
believes that the answer to populism and “authoritarian liberalism,” lies in finding a more
rigorous method of ensuring public accountability that can accommodate heterogeneity
in a suitable way. He agrees with his research conclusions being related to that of18

Yoshihara’s, in that the unappropriated surpluses of innovation can negatively spill into
the political structure and endanger liberalism.
Yoshihara added that he concurs with the other presentations given in panel one
that private ownership structures can evolve with innovation in ways that conflict withliberalism and this may require regulation. He also believes that the proposed neutralityof liberalism to the values and views of the individuals within it can be problematic when
individuals hold and pursue views that are incompatible with those of liberalism itself.

GENERAL QUESTION AND ANSWER
Question from Joanna J. Bryson
Both presentations dealt with the challenge of crisis management and how liberal,
democratic regimes have at times resorted to what some would term “autocratic
measures.” Particularly in today’s pandemic context where the level of uncertainty ishigh and the need for agility of policy action is urgent, is it really appropriate to label the
pandemic policy innovations as a turn toward autocracy.
Do the presenters not risk conflating two things that are transiently similar; thetemporary restriction of individual liberty in a functioning democracy and restrictions on
individual liberty that are based on the absence of the clear rule of law in autocratic
regimes, but fundamentally different in nature? And does this lack of clarity in language
not run the risk of people being unable to identify the very real differences?

Response from Miriam Teschl
The term “autocratic measures” could perhaps be misunderstood. However, the point of
the presentation was to highlight how the knowledge underpinning pandemic
restrictions has at times become arbitrary and non-transparent and this has perhaps led
restrictions to persist longer than necessary in a fashion that may not be compatible withliberal values. It is important to continue to work to ensure an appropriate tradeoff
between effectiveness and bottom-up decision making in liberal democracies.

Question from Adrienne Sala
The presenters discussed the impact of uncertainty on risk-related policy. In Japan thegovernment developed a disaster risk management system with uncertainty in mind. It
19

is a systematic approach based on decentralization with three levels of coordination:individual, intermediary (local communities, enterprises, families, organizations, etc.)
and public policy. There is a sharing of the responsibility across these different levels:
individual responsibility, collective responsibility and maybe a more general civic
responsibility. One condition, of course, for this system to be efficient is to have access toknowledge.
Based on this example, how does one include in a liberal type of policy facing
uncertainty, the responsibility, the knowledge and the liberalism as a condition tomaintain individual liberties in the face of uncertainty?

Response from Miriam Teschl
This raises an important point about the context of liberalism. What kind of cultural
background, social background, social norms and networks underpin certain liberal
democracies and how these factors interact to create structures of responsibility andknowledge sharing between the individual and societal structures and policy makers.
The level of community coordination and knowledge sharing necessary to pull off thesystem Yoshihara described in Japan is similar to the kind of interdisciplinary discussionthat is needed to safeguard liberalism.

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DAY II - PANEL II
LIBERALISM AND NEOLIBERALISM:
CONCEPTS, THEORIES, AND DEBATES II
LIBERALISM AND NEOLIBERALISM AS BASIC SUSTAINABLE
VALUESPANELISTS
DR SERGE AUDIERASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SORBONNE UNIVERSITY

DR TSUTOMU HASHIMOTO
PROFESSOR, HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITYDR YUFEI ZHOUSENIOR ASSISSTANT PROFESSOR, TEIKYO UNIVERSITY

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DAY II - PANEL II - PRESENTATION I
THE GENEALOGICAL & TERMINOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
OF NEOLIBERALISMSERGE AUDIER
Presentation Summary
Serge Audier’s presentation examines the origins of the term Neoliberalism. Recently, theterm Neoliberalism has come to symbolize the myths of self-regulating markets, and thehuge waves of privatization and deregulation that swept the world in the first decade of
the 21st century. The movements intellectual roots are often traced back to the twocomplementary yet contradictory schools of economic thought, the Austrian School of
Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and the Chicago School of Milton Friedman. The
roots of neoliberalism, however, actually extend back much further to French andGerman thought in the 1930s.
As the world grappled with the Great Depression, widely seen as a major failureof what would come to be termed “classical” liberalism, prominent liberal French andGerman intellectuals came together to attempt to define a new liberalism at the Lippman
colloquium in Paris in 1938, and this can perhaps be considered the intellectual birthplaceof the term neoliberalism. The background is that the old liberal economy had to berevised to resist totalitarianism.
By its very nature then, the word is to some degree, ambiguous. It merely refers
to new kinds of liberalism that differ in important ways from that which came before it.
Given these rather humble beginnings it is no surprise that the etymology of the word
neoliberalism has not been a straight line, but a multitude of theories, ideas, and practices,at times complimentary, but also often at odds with each other.
The primary constant in most neoliberal theories and ideas up through the laterpart of the 20th century is their emphasis on both the continued importance of market
mechanisms as the defining characteristic of economics and the legitimacy of stateintervention in the economy. These theories firmly rejected what might be termed the“misery” of pure “classical laissez-faire” economics, instead proposing that the market
economy was not, as certain classical economists believed, the spontaneous result of thenatural order, but the result of a legal order in which the intervention of the state was a22

precondition.
If principles of this kind of neoliberalism, broadly debated in the 1960s and 1970s,
were to be defined they might be as follows: First the freedom of prices and thesovereignty of the consumer. Second, a legal framework in which economic activity
unfolds (far from being natural and spontaneous, this framework is a reversible creationof the legislature,) what might be termed the institutional market. Finally, a justification
for fiscal reallocation of the national income towards collective and social causes such as
defense, social security, services, education, and scientific research.
However, even at that time, numerous cleavages surfaced between a moreinterventionist group on one side and a more traditionally liberal group on the other. The
role of the state in implementing and ensuring true competition and its ability to satisfy
the needs of the masses, industrial agglomeration and social protection were all fiercely
debated as key issues.
Although obscured by the changing colloquial usage of the word today, thesedebates on the meaning of not only neoliberalism, but liberalism itself, persist into thepresent. It is thus essential if we are to consider the future of liberalism, to engage with
the intellectual debates of the past and define what we mean when we use these terms.

23DAY II - PANEL II - PRESENTATION II
LIBERALISM AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS SPONTANEOUS WELLBEING
TSUTOMU HASHIMOTO
Presentation Summary
Hashimoto’s presentation summarizes his upcoming book, Liberalism and the Philosophyof Economics (2022) his first book written in English, scheduled to release in the Fall of
2022. In the book, Hashimoto examines the concepts of positive and negative liberties,
spontaneity and the philosophy of the economic methodology of the Post-Cold War era.
The book argues that we are now in a state of “Lost-Modernity” that is distinct from theprevious state of post-Modernity. It focuses on how modern states are focused on thewelfare state, that is the welfare of their citizens, yet lack the empirical tools to objectively
evaluate the impact of these policies on people’s lives.
In recent decades, various indicators have been proposed to measure the wealthof a country and the well-being of its people in place of gross domestic product. In 1990,
the United Nations Development Programme created the “Human Development Index”
based on Sen’s capability approach. A variety of indicators have been proposed by actors
including the French and Japanese governments’, but which indicators should be usedand how they should be used to guide national policies is still a source of debate.
According to Hashimoto, traditional normative theories such as liberalism andcommunitarianism have been indifferent to the problem of creating a comparable crosscultural index of human wellbeing. However, modern economic thought must take up
the question of how to measure wellbeing and how wellbeing relates to the concepts of
freedom and societal development. Furthermore, a baseline level of wellbeing is criticalto the exercise of “utility” and “choice”. Well-being is a basic concept for thinking abouthappiness and welfare. These are all concepts he has explored in detail in Hashimoto’s
prior Japanese language works, including ‘The Principles of Freedom: Ideas on the
Welfare State to Come’ published just last year.
The final chapter of Hashimoto’s latest Japanese book, Principles of Freedom,
addresses this topic and was the focus of this presentation. It introduces the concept of
Spontaneous Wellbeing, to combat this lack of an empirically tangible way to measure24human wellbeing and welfare. Spontaneous Wellbeing incorporates the natural
spontaneity of human behavior into a theory of achieving wellbeing. Living a
spontaneous good life is portrayed as an integrated personality consisting of fourcharacteristics: “man of ignorance”, “spontaneous fecundity”, “life with retrospection”,
and “hospitalized life”.

25DAY II - PANEL II - PRESENTATION III
TRANSITION OF THE DOMINANT ECONOMIC IDEOLOGYIN CHINA IN THE 21ST CENTURYYUFEI ZHOU
Presentation Summary
Yufei Zhou presented on the topic of China’s evolving economic ideology in the 21st
century. She first traces the history of China’s economic opening and recent
developments. She points out how China is pioneering a fusion of authoritarianism withmarket economics, modern monetary theory, and a limited amount of economic
liberalism, a kind of state neoliberalism that stands in stark contrast to the liberalinternational order. She outlines the contours of debate within China about risinginequality, and how these debates were eventually coopted into a cultural conservatism,that has merged with economic ideas similar to those of the 19th century German
Economist Friedrich List. She then outlined the key tenants of China’s new strategy:
rebalanced trade, an increased money supply, monetary sovereignty, innovation, and a“whole country system” concentrating national effort. Her presentation raises key
questions about how the rise of China, an illiberal state, as a major power, will affect therules, norms and institutions of the existing liberal international order.
The presentation began by noting the importance of the work being conductedby Hashimoto on the importance of reliable indicators of individual happiness (wellbeing) in evaluating liberal societies. However, one cannot overlook the fact that illiberalstate dominated ideologies are still predominant in many countries, including China, theworld’s second largest economy, and that in those countries, individuals are
overwhelmingly subordinate to the state. The focus thereby is on how the rise of China,
an illiberal state, as a major power, would affect the rules, norms and institutions of theexisting liberal international order.
Looking at recent developments in China’s publicly announced economicplanning, China appears to be shifting its focus away from its previous export-oriented
development strategy and toward a greater reliance on a strengthened domestic market,
and this move toward a new economic framework is having a significant impact on the
global economy. Despite its gradual marketization and integration into the world26

economy since the late 1970s, China was never fully assimilated into the global neoliberalorder. While China borrowed the institutions most necessary for trade and economic
growth, such as private property and a liberalized labor market, it has also continuallydeviated from the political and economic neoliberal order. Its leaders have always soughtto avoid a popular uprising such as in Poland in the 1980’s and are fundamentallycommitted to maintaining a Chinese Communist Party led authoritarianism that uses themarket as a tool in the pursuit of its larger development goals. This fusion of selected
liberal reforms on the one hand, and strict authoritarianism on the other, could perhaps
be termed state neoliberalism, and has silenced any hope for the political transformationof China into a democracy.
In the decades since it began its economic transformation, China has gone frombeing a moderately unequal country in 1990, to one of the most unequal by 2008. This
marked increase in inequality sparked debate in China and while there were various
schools of thought as to the cause, by liberals arguing insufficient commitment toenlightenment ideals, to new leftists, who critiqued modernity and the liberal order as
the source of China’s problems, these debates would eventually find their respective
rhetoric being coopted and merged into a rising cultural conservatism.
Ultimately, what is clear is that since roughly 2012, China has begun to actively
chart a new course. This can be seen in the recent elevation in China of German Economist
Friedrich List (1789 – 1846,) whose ideas about “national economics” seem to be in vogue
as China reconstructs its national strategy. The first part of this new strategy includes: amore balanced trade policy, an increased money supply to boost domestic consumption,
boosting innovation in science and technology to move up the supply chain, and areinvigoration of a “whole country system” that concentrates nationwide effort. A crucial
principal that should guide the current Chinese economic policy is that to benefit fromthe unequal partnership in globalization, it is necessary to promote the ‘Belt and Road’
initiatives not only as geopolitical strategy, but also as a central economic tool for China’s
industrial restructuring.
China is acutely aware of the challenges it still faces in fully catching up to theadvanced economies, and the likelihood of continued friction with the United States. It
sees a new national strategy and “monetary sovereignty,” that is reduced reliance on the
US Doller backed international monetary system, as key to achieving its goals.

27DAY II - PANEL II - DISCUSSION, QUESTION & ANSWERSESSIONPANELIST DISCUSSION
Opening remarks from Bernard Sinclair-Desgange
There is clearly a great degree of diversity in the way that different countries haveincorporated liberalism, capitalism and neoliberal ideas into their societies, economies,
and culture, and how this has impacted the diversity seen at the individual level withincountries. Diversity exists in part because of disparities in the way that knowledge isdispersed, the impossibility of policy makers to be all-knowing, the difficulty inharnessing knowledge dispersed across society, and the general tendency of people tolook out for their own well-being first and foremost.
Over the last two decades economists have increasingly recognized the need tocollaborate with psychologists to better understand and model human behavior in theeconomic sphere. This can be seen in China’s search for a new strategic model, and in
Hashimoto’s research on how individual aspirations impact behavior, and how a baselineof this ill-defined concept of welfare is necessary for them to pursue them.
The question is, how do aspirations interact with specific economic systems andhow do these systems seek to deal with individual aspirations. Furthermore, to what
degree are these aspirations universal vs constructed within the context of specificcultures.

Response from Serge Audier
On the topic of Hayek’s theory of dispersion of knowledge in society, he believed that theconfrontation of different viewpoints would contribute to creating a clear liberalism, yet
this is not always how society functioned, and there have been great conflicts. Most neoliberals would likely agree with the basic idea of a kind of dispersion of knowledge, theself-interested individual, and the sovereignty of the consumer, but these are basic, nonutilitarian aspirations, which manifest differently across different societies and nations.
At issue is the fact that many of these theories were crafted by Germansociologists who shared a cultural and religious background, so the degree to which theideas truly have universal validity may be up for debate.
28

Response from Tsutomu Hashimoto
Bernard mentioned the idea of aspirations. That moment of aspiration is critical to mytheory and its critique of the tenants of libertarian paternalism, through which I
constructed my own alternative theory. When the idea of aspirations is incorporated, thistype of liberalism can be called “liberalism with perfectionism.”
From the perspective of liberalism and communitarianism, there is no goodtheory to explain what kind of index of wellbeing is better than others. But liberalismwith perfectionism, which incorporates the moment of aspiration, can answer what kindof index is better than others.

Response from Yufei Zhou
From the viewpoint of a historian of knowledge, I want to tackle the question of how
economic systems are or should be co-related with individual and collective aspirations.
In the development of China’s economic thought throughout the 20th century,
the individual and collective aspiration was rather state centered. To put it concretely, thecommon prosperity of the state was considered the ultimate goal which goes far beyond
the happiness of the individual. Even among professional economists, people are used tothe mercantilist view that the state should naturally use the economic tools available forthe sake of the masses. Therefore, it was no wonder that they rediscovered Friedrich Listand some other 19th century German economic thinkers to construct an updated versionof economic nationalism. To be sure, this was not unique in the case of China.
Many other late-comer countries, especially non-Western countries have also had
similar experiences in the creation of local economic knowledge. For example, Japan in
the 1930s also experienced a rise of economic nationalism, and many trained economists
even claimed that they needed a specific "Japanese economic science “to explain andguide Japan’s policy making.
So, I think we should sometimes pay attention to the epistemological aspects
within which our aspirations and imaginations are created. And these epistemologicalaspects are often deeply related to political institutions.

Response from Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné
On Yufei’s point about not being an economist, in my opinion, if you want to bring thesocial sciences together, in my view you need to go back to this sort of triangle (pyramid)
29

of, knowledge, calculatedness, and aspiration. Economists tend to insist a lot on thecalculative and simplify the other two a lot. The other social sciences such as
anthropology and sociology insist a lot on representation and how people see things. The
field of aspiration has been something that philosophers have looked at a lot, along with,at times, anthropologists.

Response from Gilles Campagnolo
Bernard brings up a great point about what I believe is necessary for the future ofliberalism. It’s not just about concepts but about bringing together the disparate social
sciences.

GENERAL QUESTION AND ANSWER
Question from Koi Shimamura
French neoliberalism seems to allow more state intervention than American
neoliberalism. If this is the case, then what are the differences between the French kind ofneoliberalism and Keynesianism? Also, what role did the idea of solidarity play in thebirth of French Neoliberalism and the French understanding of the social contract?

Response from Serge AudierFirst about Keynesianism it’s not especially about France, France is an important part ofthe story, but it’s not explicitly French. The relation of liberals to Keynes is very complex,
some could admire Keynes work even where they disagreed, while others hated Keynes’s
work. I would say that the main difference was that they feel that Keynesianism opens
the door to interventionism and inflation, which they saw as problematic, and thus
Keynesianism was seen as a great challenge.
However, another viewpoint is that both Keynesianism and neoliberalism bothderives from and seek to revise liberalism. Anyway, I think French thinkers tend to thinkthat a strong state is a necessity despite its problems and that to counteract these problems
it must be domesticated.
Second regarding solidarism, I think that solidarity was an important part of theformation of a social market economy. However, the solidarism you speak of is ChristianSolidarism which is not the same thing.
30

DAY II - PANEL III
LIBERALISM AND NEOLIBERALISM:
CONCEPTS, THEORIES, AND DEBATES III
LIBERALISM AND CAPITALISM IN HISTORICAL AND
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVEPANELISTSDR VALÉRIE CHAROLLESRESEARCHER, INSTITUT MINES-TÉLÉCOM BUSINESSSCHOOL, EHESS/CNRSDR NIKITA DHAWANPROFESSOR, TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY DRESDENDR SHINJI NOHARAASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

31

DAY II - PANEL III - PRESENTATION I
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CAPITALISM AND
LIBERALISM: AN OPERATIONAL CONCEPTVALÉRIE CHAROLLES
Presentation Summary
Valérie Charolles ‘s presentation focuses on distinguishing liberalism and capitalism.
They are often used interchangeably but have very different meanings (“freedom” versus“capital”) with important implications for governance and policy, as developed in her
first book (Le libéralisme contre le capitalisme [Liberalism against Capitalism], 2006, 2021,
Gallimard, Folio). By comparing Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the prevalenteconomic model, she put forward significant differences. She refers our
misunderstandings to an unclear view of the economic field. Following Wittgenstein, sheargues that a clearer view can disentangle the debate about market economy.
While liberalism is generally accepted to be the form of a market economy, thisis not necessarily equivalent to capitalism as it exists in most countries today. Thismisunderstanding often clouds discussion on “liberalism.” There are four key
characteristics of the capitalist system today that differ from the market economy laid out
in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. First, the accounting standards that form the rulesof the game, the core language of an economic system, have changed. Today, labor is seen
not a value, but as an expense, whereas it is the essential source of wealth and the originof the market society for Smith. Second, is what could be termed “illiberal capital.” For
Smith, competition is the driving force of market economy because it avoids thedominating positions ardently searched for by the manufacturers of his time. The same
behavior can be seen at work today in mergers and acquisitions, de facto monopolies ofdigital giants and oligopolies of large financial players. This came to a head during the
2007-2008 crisis with the "too big to fail" crisis, which is the exact opposite of the liberal
corpus where competition ensures the atomization of players and limits positions of
power. Third, is the “capitalist state,” the absolutist state, interested only in the needs ofthe few, which Adam Smith spoke out against. Smith assigned quite comprehensive
32

functions to the state (regalian functions, education, infrastructures). Rawls' analysis ofthe "capitalist welfare state" in Justice as Fairness argues significant social benefits do notguarantee that the state is oriented towards liberalism. The fourth contradiction is“equilibrium versus accumulation”. For the classics, the horizon of the economy is thatof a long-term equilibrium, a balance in line with Aristotle's definition of virtue. This isfundamentally different from the excessive accumulation of profit and the never-ending
pursuit of growth seen today.
In other words, there is a strong argument for differentiating between liberalism,
as it emerged in the 18th century as a theory, and capitalism as a practice. When referringto the current economic system, the term capitalism is much more appropriate than theterm liberalism, and the confusion of the two terms makes it hard to imagine how best toreform the market in response to modern challenges.
Why are these differences not more readily apparent? It is an enigma for not only
general philosophy, but also for political philosophy: the confusion between liberalism
and capitalism makes it very difficult to conceive an alternative vision of the economic
field and projects humanity into a closed society as defined by Karl Popper: there would
be no other means of practicing the market economy than those we used today. To tackle
this problem, the economical field should be considered not as a whole, a univocal fact,
but should be separated into different strata with a distinction between practices (theactions of economic actors on a daily basis), norms (that which shapes practices), theories,
such as economics (that are meant to account for practices and norms), and discourses,that play a decisive part in the political debate and can have an ideological form.
Interacting with each other, they can carry different orientations that provide ananalytical grid to examine the economic system at work during a period and to rule on
its liberal or capitalist character. In this grid, it is at the level of discourses, the last stratumof economy, that the confusion between liberalism and capitalism lies, so that liberalism
can’t appear as an alternative to capitalism, even if it draws different practices, norms
and theories.
In conclusion, on the operational characteristic of the distinction between
liberalism and capitalism, there are two directions of work. First, the definition of
economic players and second the way they behave, which should stress the “decidable”,
what can be decided efficiently in the economic field. In this way, liberalism andcapitalism diverge significantly. By redefining how economic players and their role in theeconomy are defined economic systems can be reformed in meaningful ways.

33

DAY II - PANEL III - PRESENTATION II
LIBERALISM, NEOLIBERALISM, AND DECOLONIZATIONNIKITA DHAWAN
Presentation Summary
It is not possible to deduce the problems of liberalism’s present, nor envision its future
without first wrestling with its past. Emerging from the enlightenment, which preached
universal values, liberalism has inspired movements and revolutions, but it’s history also
includes its use as a rationale for the invalidation of non-European cultures, societies andnorms, which led to their colonization, domination and exploitation. This legacy lives not
only in the past but persists into the present. The wealthy disingenuously argue that they
are promoting freedom and democracy with social media, despite evidence to thecontrary and while profiting to the tune of billions of dollars. Refugees and migrants
drown on Europe’s doorstep. Yet the ideals of Enlightenment Liberalism also inspire,forming the bedrock of progressive thought and movements for change both today andin the past. The world must work to rescue the enlightenment, understanding thehistorical injustice it enabled, overcoming the harm that persists to this day, and rejecting
the false choice between simply being for or against the Enlightenment.
In Hindi, the word for tomorrow is the same as the word for yesterday. One
cannot debate the future of liberalism without considering its past. Liberalism emerged
from the Enlightenment, which took place at the same time as Europe’s global colonial
expansion, interweaving the lofty ideals we hold dear with the brutal legacy ofcolonialism.
It is important to first note that Liberalism’s troubled past lives on today. Mark
Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk, two of the world’s richest men, champion Facebook andTwitter as bastions of economic and political freedom that protect free speech andpromote democracy. Yet the clear conflict of interest inherent to the idea that one cansimultaneously protect deliberative democracy while making billions of dollars doing so,lays bare the contradictory, exploitative, and neocolonial aspects of both liberal
democracy and neoliberal capitalism.
Of the European Enlightenment’s legacies, the idea that everyone has the right toargue rationally and be heard, and conversely to consider the positions of others is a key
34

principle of liberalism that endures to this day. However, while the enlightenment andliberalism promised to liberate human beings from authoritarianism, religion,
superstition, censorship, and frugality, and to give them a voice in the governance of theirown affairs, reality has often been more complex. Consider the coffee houses often cited
as one of the birthplaces of the enlightenment. Where did the coffee, the sugar, and thetobacco that such establishments were known for come from? They came from European
domination and exploitation of the “third world,” a concept defined by the supposed
universality of Enlightenment ideals which allowed Europe to dismiss non-European
societies and political systems as barbarous, backward and illegitimate, justifying their
domination. For example, John Stuart Mill, a radical advocate of freedom, nonethelessjustified “progressive imperialism” in India by arguing “despotism is a legitimate mainmode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end is their improvement.”
Non-European societies were seen as primitive children, who could only overcome theircivilizational infantilism via European tutelage, conveniently justifying colonizedpeople’s exploitation and denying them the very rights espoused by the enlightenment.
In pursuit of the global spread of liberalism and capitalism, Enlightenment ideals
also fostered a new notion of cosmopolitanism that emphasized the de-territorializationof law and capital and the free movement of people. Writing in 1795, Immanuel Kant
spoke of an emerging global public sphere in which “a violation of rights in one part of
the world is felt everywhere.” However, the unequal nature of this cosmopolitanism andof the Enlightenment’s humanitarian ideas is laid bare by the tragedies of post-colonial
migration, with thousands of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean on Europe’s
doorstep. Ironically, in reminding Europe of its commitment to the ideals of
cosmopolitanism and humanitarianism these postcolonial refugees and migrants are notan aberration but enforcers of Enlightenment principles and agents of decolonizing
Europe.
Despite this very sharp critique of the Enlightenment and its coercive legacies,
the allure and importance of many of its ideals including freedom, secularism,
cosmopolitanism, the rule of law, human rights, justice, and democracy are irreplaceable.
It has inspired revolutions around the world, provided the bedrock for centuries ofprogressive thought, and its core normative principles continue to anchor prominentsocial movements such as Me-Too, Black Lives Matter, and Fridays for Future.
To move forward, the contradictions of the enlightenment must be confronted, sothat people are free from the blackmail of positioning either for or against enlightenment.
The challenge for the post-colonial world is thus, how do you rescue the Enlightenment?
On the one hand, as it was originally formulated in the 18th century, it was a poison for35

much of the non-European world, and even today it has the capacity to harm. Yet, just as
the difference between poison and medicine is often one of dosing, Enlightenment ideals
are also a source of much good in the world when properly applied. Reassessing the
Enlightenment to draw out that good, while filtering out the bad, is what is necessary to
fulfill post-colonial utopias.

36DAY II - PANEL III - PRESENTATION III
ADAM SMITH AND THE ORIGINS OF ECONOMIC
LIBERALISMSHINJI NOHARA
Presentation Summary
Adam Smith, one of the founding fathers of liberalism, believed that economic and social
liberalism are inexorably linked with one another. His writings suggest that people
develop social norms to regulate economic behavior and mitigate the harm caused by the
movement of capital. He believed that for these social norms to take root, and thus for asociety to succeed, it was necessary for the people to accept unconditionally thecommitment to stable social norms. Thus, the answer to the antagonism of the presentday, the angst over the future of liberalism, is to balance the excesses of economic
globalism, by rallying around social norms of global diversity, to empathize with one
another and build stronger institutions to stabilize everyone’s lives.
In Japan, liberalism did not exist before Westernization. It was brought in witheconomic theory and thus in Japan, economic liberalism and social liberalism are to thisday strongly linked. This linkage, however, is compatible with a modern reading ofAdam Smith, regarded as one of the originators of economic liberal thought. Smith
argued that liberty in economic behavior is the basis of the market mechanism and thus
a successful economy. This principle can be expanded to say that economic liberalism
supports the global expansion of free economic activity, otherwise known as free trade.
Smith was also cognizant of the risks to both individuals and nations posed by aworld driven solely by capital unbound in the pursuit of profit. He warned that thewealth of a nation would be precarious in nature, so long as it rested upon easily movable
capital. It was his belief that through economic policy a country could mitigate these risks
and become wealthier. For Smith, countries must welcome economic freedom and foreign
investment to become wealthy. However, they also need to implement social norms thatallow wealth and capital to move while minimizing social harms. In this sense, Smith
regards the evolution of social norms as an essential piece of economic liberalism.
Smith argued that only through the unconditional commitment to stable social
norms could a society pursue progress. Without such commitment, norms become37precarious, and people begin to calculate whether to follow the rules based on how it
benefits them. Smith argued that unconditional commitment was best achieved throughsympathy. By sympathizing with others, people learn empathy which forms the bedrockfrom which a stable, liberal society can emerge.
Adam Smith’s ideas about liberalism are relevant today. As capital moves aroundthe world, so too, do industry, jobs, and livelihoods, making instability inevitable. As theworld becomes more diverse and interconnected, people must learn to sympathize withan ever-larger group of people, that is to say they must come to accept diversity as a social
value. The antagonism felt around the world today is in part caused by the consequencesof economic globalization, which puts each state and company in competition, and brings
instability to people’s lives. Globalization, however, also presents an opportunity tofurther develop the social norm of diversity, allowing individuals to empathize with anever-greater number of people. This can allow the construction of more durable, free, andglobal institutions to buttress the economy and make people happier.

38

DAY II - PANEL II - DISCUSSION, QUESTION & ANSWERSESSIONPANELIST DISCUSSION
Opening Remarks from Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné
I think the points about not confusing liberalism with capitalism are well taken. We knowthat the price system has been evolving since its inception, and that it is subject to failures.
There are problems related to negative externalities and to the provision of public goods
that cannot be solved by the price system.
In the development and deployment of pharmaceuticals, you need agencies tocertify the safety and efficacy of goods, and this is something that government must
provide as the free-market price system cannot be expected to effectively do so.
In the end it comes down to the establishment of institutions people can trust.
Without rules, human society cannot function effectively. To understand why policies,
succeed or fail, it is important to understand the assumptions implicit within them. In
doing so we can understand why policies might at times end in disaster, despite the best
original intentions.

Response from Valérie Charolles
I would like to try and make some links between the presentations. First of all, I fully
agree with Nikita and the idea that one can draw different consequences of theenlightenment. In particular, one can base the concept of freedom to rationality, but also
to free will, and it is very different. In the latter case, the universality of principles does
not imply uniformity of behaviors. I made this point in a book on Human’s Qualities
published in 2016 and I think it can help to better understand liberalism.
Second, with respect to Shinji, I use Adam Smith's liberalism to correct what I
would say are misuses of the term “free market” today. What we call “globalization” isin fact a globalization of capital. Capital is free to go anywhere, but workers are to stay intheir country. It's an unbalanced globalization, which is not truly liberal because one
factor of production is free, and the other is not. That's the reality we are facing today,
and that's one of the reasons why I stress in my work the importance of norms and39

institutions.
To answer Bernard’s question with an example, accounting standards are shapedby a way of thinking that is, simply put, deeply rooted in capitalism: they focus on theviews of shareholders and put aside those of other stakeholders in companies andorganizations, shaping how they operate. To resolve this imbalance, liberalism as a core
concept of the free market economy, is an asset.

Response from Nikita Dhawan
I want to speak quickly on the enlightenment as an economic economizing principle, andto think about John Locke, one of the most important political liberal philosophers.
Locke argued that the indigenous peoples in the Americas were not industrious. He said
there was no difference between the indigenous people in the Americas and the animals
because they are just living off nature. This was one method of the legitimization of taking
land away from the indigenous people. The argument was, they are un-economic, which
is why they are not rational, which is why they deserve to be unfree.
There is a connection between stereotyping and the construction of certain
groups and societies, as un-economic, which legitimizes their exploitation under systems
such as colonialism and capitalism. This goes back to the question of who financed theenlightenment. How there is a very deep connection between the old division of laborand the new division of labor, the appropriation of resources, and the construction ofEurope, as economic, rational, and free.
On a related point, Valérie made a very helpful connection between capital andlabor. I would add to what she said and say it's not the workers moving but the newinternational division of labor, bringing the work to the laborers. I think I can very safely
claim that there is nobody in this virtual space who is not wearing something which has
not been produced in the sweatshops in Bangladesh. The biggest sweatshops are thegarment industries, and these workers are not mobile, they are in Dhaka, mostly, and thework goes to them. Bangladesh has some of the best and most rigorous labor laws in theworld. Yet, these special economic zones that have been constructed by the Bangladeshi
state enables exploitation of these poor laborers. So, we consume our clothes at very cheap
prices, but also very expensive prices when we consider the exploitative nature.
This is just a small piece of the complex relationship between capitalism and labor.

40

Response from Shinji Nohara
I think trust in institutions is very important for liberalism. One area I’m currently
researching is how Adam Smith thought about institutions. Regional institutions such as
churches and communities’ matter for Adam Smith. Especially at the time in which helived, these institutions provided a vital role in binding together society through mutual
assistance.
Even today, such institutions are very important to enable mutual help andmutual trust. Cooperative feeling is not necessarily limited to family members. When wemeet someone regularly, we can learn to trust and work together with them despite
differences such as culture or religion.
Mutual communication is very important. Mutual communication helps people
understand each other. Communication is important to establish institutions, and toenhance the function of those institutions. Small communities and communal activities
are very important places for people to meet and communicate with each other. This kindof communication helps people establish and build trust. So, this trust might make newnorms. These new or revised norms might well enhance communication and help solve
the problems of modern capitalism.

GENERAL QUESTION AND ANSWER
Question from Johanna J. Bryson
The concept of liberal capital that was proposed in these panels will be very useful inthinking about liberalism going forward. However, my question relates to the concept of“too big to fail” which is a major problem for liberalism and was not raised in todays’
presentations.
Do any of the presenters have any thoughts about emerging ideas such as
essential infrastructure, or more traditional ideas such as regulation, that might be used
to address this problem of “too big to fail”?

Answer from Valérie Charolles
The answers given by Adam Smith are interesting. For him, you can refer to the last thirdof The Wealth of Nations, infrastructures necessary to a market economy, being
monopolistic, are to be in the hands of the state (which does not necessarily mean that41

they are operated by the State). It is the exact opposite of the privatization pushundertaken during the past 40 years. Smith was thinking about roads but saws that
infrastructure would grow, so his idea can be applied today to the digital giants, insofar
as they give us access to the digital space.
As for banking and insurance activities, for Smith, they can be handled by stockcompanies because they are routine activities. We wouldn’t say that now. But it reminds
us of the old idea of separating retail and investment banking, once again to prevent
positions of power and dominance.

Answer from Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné
It is certainly wrong, as John Locke said, to assert that some people economize, and some
don't. I mean, everybody economizes and that's an epistemic principle. Speaking ofinstitutional differences across countries, there is a seminal paper in the area ofentrepreneurship from the early 90s by William Baumol called "Entrepreneurship:
Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive”.
The central thesis is that it's not true to say that only some countries haveentrepreneurial people and others are simply not entrepreneurial. It's just that in somecountries, institutions are such that they drive entrepreneurial talent towards activities
that are simply unproductive or that will even be destructive for society as a whole.
That's why I think we always have to be vigilant towards institutions. Not to saythat there are not important differences between cultures and valuable differences
between people, but for diversity to really bear fruit, appropriate institutions are key.

Remarks from Naoki Yoshihara
Do you think that the model of market economy in mainstream economics can capture
the basic features of the capitalist economy? Because you mention that in the constants inthe theory of Adam Smith, institution and the role of community are important topreserve society and the market condition. But I think that in the age of Adam Smith, theworld was faced with the early modern age of market economy, which is not yet
necessarily capitalistic and definitely not yet the age of industrial capitalism.
In contrast, Karl Marx emphasized that through the development of capitalist
accumulation, the functions of community may be decreased or even replaced by markets,
governments, or other actors. So, we need to make a distinction between the model ofcapitalist economy and the model of market economies. In my opinion even the standard,42mainstream economics only focuses on the model of just market economy. That means
mainstream economics cannot capture the capitalist economy. It is related to the issue of
how to differentiate the definition of capitalism and liberalism.

DAY II CLOSING DISCUSSION
Opening Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
In German it is said, you can find something new only when you know what has been
passed. That’s actually the process that we have been showing during today’s threepanels.
Going back to Woodward to find the origins of the concepts and notions ofliberalism and how it can be facing the two crises, that I mentioned yesterday. These
themes appeared again in many of today’s talks, starting with the first one, the epistemiccrisis, and through that, the second crisis, that of ideals of freedom, of individual markets
and of the structure of ownership, which protects the private interest and also the publictrust that is put in these institutions.
The basic sustainable values in this world of uncertainty where liberalism isfacing such crises must take into account the notional distinctions that all of these talks
set forth. The reason is clearly that at the level of the discourse on liberalism, there has
been instrumentalization, there has been confusion, and there has been a lack of
distinction. It has been geo-urbanized, the notion and the practice of what is being called
liberal or neoliberal, the frustration, the discontent, and the rise as a consequence of
illiberal proposals as alternatives, is not only from outside, but also from within liberalism
itself.
The tentative temptation was to come to some authoritarianism. The word put
forth yesterday was “authoritarian liberalism.” How can such a thing be possible? It says
a lot about why there is a crisis. But it also puts us into a position of challenging existingideas, of finding something new in existing ideas, norms, and institutions, to maintaindecentralization, protect individual values, achieve sustainability, and differentiate
between the use, and the reality of the systems of liberalism, capitalism, and evencolonialism upon which the structure of ownership is based.
One criterion that I would like to start the general talk with is to propose how can
we make it palatable, to have more confidence in institutions, to reinforce democratic
process as a defense against more authoritarian and less free systems. How do we keepthat in touch with the defense of the individual as such, the structure of ownership, the43free system of prices, because when you attempt to touch one piece, it can cause paralysis
throughout the system and aggravate crisis.
What do we keep in the inheritance of the values that liberalism andneoliberalism have given us. I would like to ask any of the panelists to what they would
keep and what they would renew, in their view, as conditions for the achievement of asustainable future for liberalism. With that I’d like to open the discussion.

Remarks from Valérie Charolles
To briefly answer this question, which is at the heart of the future of market economies, I
would say we could focus on three main points.
First, the definition of the company: is there only room for shareholders in their
purpose, accounting and governance, or are other stakeholders legitimate, as liberalism
clearly suggests? This would make it possible, for instance, to value labor in company’s
accounts.
Second, the horizon of economy. The one offered by capitalism is accumulation,
when liberalism theorizes an equilibrium that is much more Interesting in view of ourenvironmental concerns. Third, and it is essential at the ontological level, the economy
does not need to cover all the fields of life.

Remarks from Nikita Dhawan
If we examine the Enlightenment norms of justice, whether we're talking about economic
justice, political justice or social-cultural justice; as well as human rights and democracy,
I will agree with Kant that what we need is to foster and to support, intellect, criticalintelligence in citizens. Everybody should be able to be an active citizen and not just a
passive subject. I like to bring in a wonderful line by Antonio Gramsci, the Italiancommunist thinker, who says that “Everybody is an intellectual, but everybody doesn’t
have the function of intellectual in society.”
What is important is to focus on intellectual labor, who gets to perform it. It’s notjust about manual labor, it’s not just exploitation of people’s bodies, but who gets toexercise intellectual labor in the public sphere. That public sphere is not just a given, but
it’s a constantly renegotiated process. Promoting the growth of knowledge andintelligence is key so that we can, in a certain way have a vibrant lively and participatory
democracy. This intellectual labor has to be distributed equally globally. It cannot be justa monopoly of a few transnational elites, and I count myself as one such transnational
44

elite.
I’m not just talking about or critiquing the Europeans; I'm talking about those of
us who have access to the public sphere. A very key term that was given was institutions,but we have to have active citizens who can hold institutions accountable, who can holdstates accountable.

Remarks from Miriam Teschl
Many of those who have already spoken are more specialists, whereas I am more of ageneralist. However, I do very much like the point that Nikita just made about the criticalintelligence of citizens. In that sense, research on how to foster this kind of criticalintelligence is a major element in keeping up with liberalism.
I was just thinking about the recent situation that I had in a Signal group, withsome other mothers in the village, in France, where I'm living, and some of the mothers
put up an old publicity poster from Nestle, about the value of the milk powder formula
for little children. I was immediately responding with the kind of saying, “Oh, my God,
this is really nonsense. Look, where we have come,” and so on, so forth. This was from, I
suppose the 70s or the 80s. The response of many others in this group was immediately
say, “oh, no, you don’t have to see everything as polemical as this is not a problem, it’s
just a reminder of our childhood.”
In that sense, I’m going very much along with this idea of critical intelligence,
because sometimes, especially in recent months, as well, I have noticed that to engage ina discussion, and maybe it was to be critical about certain decisions that have been made,for example, the pandemic management. People have responded very negatively tocritical intelligence.
I just wonder how that is also possible within our liberal democracies, thatsuddenly we have this kind of moral sort of discourse that is also propagated in media
and so on so forth. Then if you are wanting to engage in sort of debate about certain
values or certain priorities that you give, people respond very negatively to that.

Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
To confirm, I believe what you are saying is that if liberalism is to survive, it cannot be
elitist. It has to get back to its critical thought stance, which has been instrumentalized,
and changed in many ways that make it different from what it was in the past.
However, the concentration of power, whether it is economic, whether it is45

political, or whether it is intellectual, is actually a feature of the original set of liberal ideas.
Not only its origins, which have changed so much as to be unrecognizable, to become
something totally different. But some of the original thinkers of liberalism, the basis of
their views was the de-concentration of knowledge, the use of knowledge in society is thefact that it is by definition, dependent on all of us being finite human beings.
What the talk by some of the so-called neo-liberals are being changed into is notnecessarily compatible with that. But that seems to be something that we tend to agree
on this de-concentration.

Remarks from Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné
Following up on that point, we’re back to Hayek. We have to avoid the pretense ofknowledge. For this, we cannot be fully elitist. Just to respect the knowledge and abilityof, as Nikita says, the intellectuality of everyone. Everyone has a say if we want the betterworld.
The second thing I would say is related to the issue of calculatedness. Incentives
matters a lot. When we reflect about the possibility of the good system. In my field inenvironmental economics and sustainability, people are full of very good ideas and how
to improve but who’s going to decide who shall rule, as Popper asked in The Open Society
and Its Enemies. It is a big question, whoever rules has to be checked, incentives matter as
well.

Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
On the idea that liberalism and elitism are associated. As Nikita said when talking abouttransnational elites, the English were elitist in their globalism, in translating their visionof liberalism into globalism. The emergence of differing images of what liberalism was,have made it hard, even when we critique the extreme forms of liberalism, to be heard by
those whose work is actually making all of our modern lives possible.
It is as if work and liberal values are separate. Whereas on the contrary, when wego back to the origins, to Smith and the revolution and the French Revolution, at that time,
people associated them.
So, the issue is not only what the cause of that may be, but what can be done toremedy it? How can it be made curable? Understandable? The elements that we recognize
as belonging to a train of thought that we are not attached to that we're not adhering tobecause it is some kind of ideology that we support while others support something else.
46But because it is about the freedom of each individual, not of the rich, not of the powerful,
not of the intellectuals, but of each and every person.
How can we, whatever the causes of the situation of crises that we are facing are,how can we get out of the crisis? I mean, the parallel with the colloquium, the Walter
Lippmann colloquium in that sense, makes a lot of sense. It was from Paris, and we arefrom Tokyo, but we are actually all over the world now. I'm just putting that on the tableand offering that for tomorrow, but also for now if anyone wants to add on to this.

Remarks from Nikita Dhawan
Let me just continue. I had to think about this in a wonderful essay that Derrida has
written, which responds to Lenin. Lenin wrote this famous essay What is to be Done,
asking, “what is to be done?” And it also kind of connects to Adorno, these are three big
names.
My interpretation is that the answer to this question, what is to be done, should
not be top-down, that it's not think tanks and policymakers who should have a say, towhat is to be done? We need to be very careful not to stage ourselves as problem solversof the world, we are actually the ones who are part of the problem. We need to work a lot
in the area of transnational feminism, and questions of gender justice, and women's
human rights. My response to this question, what is to be done is we need to be better
listeners, most of us get paid to talk. We teach at universities, and we are very happy totalk. But I think if we have to bring together economics, politics, and ethics, we need a
new ethics of listening, we need to be able to listen to those people who do not have avoice. This is not Facebook and Twitter. This is a key supplement to critical intelligence.
We need to sometimes shut up and listen.

47

THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM
JAPAN, FRANCE AND GERMANY IN GLOBALCONTEXTDAY IIITHURSDAY JUNE 9, 2022

48

PANEL ITECHNOLOGY AND CAPITALISM
PANELISTSDR FRANZ WALDENBERGER
DIRECTOR, ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS, GERMANINSTITUTE FOR JAPANESE STUDIESDR SAORI SHIBATAASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELDDR CÉDRIC DURAND
PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA

49

Day III - PANEL I - PRESENTATION IGOVERNANCE IN A KNOWLEDGE DRIVEN SOCIETY
FRANZ WALDENBERGER
Presentation Summary
Franz Waldenberger's presentation explored the implications of a knowledge-driven
society on governance.
Today’s knowledge driven societies differ fundamentally from the ClassicalEconomic Model of Production with important societal and governmental implications.
The Classical Model ‘s three main factors of production, land, labor and capital, do notgive sufficient consideration to knowledge. Kenneth Boulding proposed a better modelin which matter is transformed via energy by applying technical knowledge. Of those
production factors, only technological knowledge experiences sustained growth, withmatter merely transformed and energy reduced.
Technological knowledge is different in that while humans produce it, it is not
limited by individual capacity. Instead, the inherent limitations of each individual brain
creates a division of labor where knowledge is divided across brains and machines; anetwork with far more knowledge than any individual could ever acquire or use.
However, the question then becomes “What does capitalism have to do” withknowledge? Technological knowledge is unique amongst factors of production being
impersonal, standardized, infinitely scalable, and not only non-diminishing, but actuallyable to grow through use via learning effects. Consider transportation andcommunication, where the growth of technological knowledge has created a virtuous
cycle in which market expansion powers learning effects and enables the application of
economies of scale. Market expansion, allows more brains to be connected, further
optimizing the division of labor and generating more technical knowledge. That virtuous
cycle, accelerating since World War II’s end, and at the heart of modern capitalism,
reached a crescendo with the digital revolution, with two critical yet underappreciatedimplications for governance.
The first implication is a series of imbalances resulting from the differential
growth rates of technological and non-technological knowledge. For example, wedeveloped weapons that can destroy the world with little consequent advancement inpreventing conflict or resolving disputes. We develop ever more complex financial
50

instruments yet still experience financial crisis. Clearly, the growth in technicalknowledge has not been matched by complementary growth in societal infrastructure. In
other words, there is now an imbalance due to the fact that societal intelligence has not
kept pace with the development of technological knowledge. Finally, the imbalance has
led to an ecological disequilibrium in which technological knowledge has enabled us totransform the natural environment without regard to consequence, resulting in theemerging climate crisis.
The second implication is the evolution of a new division of labor, in which
production uses ever more knowledge, yet the relative knowledge each individual
possesses is rapidly declining. The consequences of this are profound. Expert knowledge
is increasingly key, yet by its very nature, is ever changing, evolving, incomplete, and up
for debate. This complicates decision making at every level, but has particularly severe
implications for governance and regulation, and markedly increases the risk of
inadequate governance and regulatory capture.
While these problems may seem intractable, they are not unsolvable, andpotential solutions exist. Regulations could be crafted to force innovators to be moretransparent, accountable, and responsible for spillover effects. Knowledge production
could be redirected toward growing society’s capacity to deal with the side effects oftechnological knowledge growth, building stronger social institutions and enhancing
education. Governance could be improved by financing independent researchorganizations that would ensure public knowledge keeps pace with private knowledge,
countering vested interests and helping to avoid regulatory capture. The task ahead isenormous, but recognizing its scale is the first step toward the future of liberalism.

51

DAY III - PANEL I - PRESENTATION II
DE-SKILLING AND DIMINISHING WORKERS AUTONOMY
IN THE DIGITAL WORKPLACESAORI SHIBATA
Presentation Summary
Saori Shibata presented on the impact of digitalization and automation on labor, focusing
on the deskilling of workers and the erosion of their autonomy.
On the issue of digitalization and labor, views range from optimistic,emphasizing emancipation from mundanity to critical, focused on declining jobprospects and wages. This presentation highlights the unexpected outcomes ofautomation and digitalization including the deskilling of workers and the diminishmentof their autonomy.
The deskilling of labor refers to the decline in worker knowledge and skills astechnology breaks down and simplifies tasks. While not a new phenomenon, having
already become evident by the 1940s with the advent of mass production, digitalization
is rapidly accelerating the process. This can be seen most clearly at the margins of the gig
economy, where workers are almost completely detached from the broader context of
their work. However, it is pervasive throughout digital economies with people
performing ever more fragmented tasks, with little insight into how different parts of theprocess fit together within the production process. This kind of digitalization
subordinates workers to new technologies, isolating and alienating them, reducing theirautonomy and creating downward pressure on the labor market, resulting in precarious,
exploitative work.
A study done in China, for example, highlighted how automation did notnecessarily lead to job losses but saw workers move into progressively lower-skilled roles.
This consequently weakened bargaining power of veteran workers who were previously
quite vocal in their demands for social insurance or pay raises.
Such change is happening around the world even in fields considered skilledlabor. A Sushi chef, for example is a skill set that requires years of training to acquire yet
is increasingly able to be automated by robots with the remaining tasks broken down andsimplified so that they can be distributed to relatively unskilled workers.
52

Another example of deskilling is waitstaff. Previously the job involved thecomplex oversight and management of the dining area. Now however, that task can be
moved away from the waiter, who can be outfitted with a digital device, that provides
step by step instructions that they merely follow. These kinds of “optimizations” remove
worker agency and subordinate them to new technologies.
The digital era also provides new metrics through which workers can be“managed,” that further curtails their autonomy and allow their bodies and evenemotions to be governed remotely. This is the realization of Shoshana Zuboff’s idea of
Surveillance Capitalism, in which workers are tracked and analyzed to optimize
outcomes, while new technologies generate convenience for consumers at the expense ofworkers schedules.
One extreme example of these ideas in Japan is Hitachi's newly establishedcompany called Happiness Planet, which is commercializing technology for measuring
the degree of worker happiness. Their solution uses data from smartphones and wearable
devices to measure subtle unconscious movements of the body, which are then converted
into quantified measurements of the user's happiness. While their stated goal is tosignificantly increased productivity through the creation of organizations that better
promote employee happiness, it is questionable whether workers would want to be
subject to such an invasive system.
In conclusion, Digitalization may simplify tasks and help mitigate the challengesof ageing societies. However, it also strips away worker's skills, curtailing humanautonomy. Furthermore, the surveillance, and the control it enables, can reinforce a kindof authoritarian neoliberalism. Digitalization may be productive, but it can also produce
precarious workers and leads to downward pressure on wages and more stressful work.
If liberalism is to survive, we must wrestle with how to maintain the legitimacy of liberal
ideas amidst digitalization.

53

DAY III - PANEL I - PRESENTATION III
INTELLECTUAL MONOPOLY MAKING IN THE DIGITALAGECÉDRIC DURAND
Presentation Summary
Cédric Durand's presentation explored how the monopolization of knowledge in thedigital age through intellectual property stagnates growth, equity, and liberalism itself.
This presentation explores the “Intellectual monopolization,” of knowledge via
intellectual property rights. In 1857 the economist Friedrich List defined knowledge as
the “accumulation of discoveries,” “the intellectual capital of living humanity,” stating“each nation is productive only insofar as it” builds upon that of past generations. Thisview sees the transfer and availability of knowledge as a mutually beneficial precondition
to progress. In 1960, the economist Friedrich Hayek echoed this view stating “knowledge
once achieved becomes gratuitously available for the benefit of all. Through this gift ofknowledge acquired by experiments, progress is made possible. “The achievements of
those who have gone before facilitate the advance of those who follow.”
Knowledge is what economists call an intangible asset; nonrival, non-financial
asset lacking a physical substance, and at least partially appropriable. Examples include
recipes or music passed down within a family. ICT unchained the immense potential ofsuch intangible knowledge, enabling it to be ubiquitous, scalable, and the growth engine
for modern national economies. One way to measure this increasing potentiality ofintangibles is the decreasing cost of computing power vs GDP. From 1850 to 1950,
computational costs remained relatively static, but from 1950 onward they became
radically cheaper each decade. Information systems are now powerful enough to be
everywhere, around the world, all the time.
However, in recent decades the free flow of knowledge has come to be seriously
constrained by intellectual property rights. Seeking control over knowledge can betermed “intellectual monopoly.” The idea is not new, originating before the 19th century“cognitive division of labor” when Charles Babbage observed the tendency of capitalists
to concentrate knowledge through growing differentiation between skilled and unskilledlabor.
54

The rise of intellectual property rights at the turn of the 21st century, however,has led to an “intellectual monopoly capitalism” in which the economy is shaped by legalmonopoly over specific knowledge. Arguably, the full-blown private ownership ofknowledge is a new kind of global monopoly limiting individual liberty and restricting
growth and investment around the world.
The globalization of Intellectual property rights began with 1980s changes to US
law, furthered by the 1995 TRIPS Agreement. Restrictions on knowledge use are now
almost universal in preferential trade agreements.
Following the ICT revolution, Intellectual monopoly is now progressing beyond
intellectual property rights in three key domains. First, through predation in innovation
networks, big tech firms partner with academic and public research institutions tocoauthor research, thereby taking ownership of (monopolizing) the resulting patents.
Second, data collection is concentrated within a handful of firms (Google, Amazon,
Microsoft and Alibaba hold 23% of global data,) providing them with the analyticalcapability to harness data for profit, innovation, and the development of AI. This provides
a massive commercial advantage that can be exercised without even needing to look at
individual user data. Finally, the asymmetric market structure of the global value chain
allows companies controlling R&D, marketing and design, to leverage their position
within the supply chain to maximize their share of profits and minimize the sharerelegated to companies, often in emerging economies countries, on the production side.
In conclusion, the monopolization of knowledge due to ICT has progressedmarkedly in recent decades and continues to evolve in potentially harmful ways,
stagnating growth, investment, equity, and liberalism itself.

55

DAY III - PANEL I - DISCUSSION, QUESTION & ANSWERSESSIONPANELIST DISCUSSION
Question from Saori Shibata
Franz’s presentation was very interesting, particularly regarding the solutions it
proposed. Could some additional clarity be provided on who the primary agents of suchchange should be? The government, social movements, the private sector, or somecombination of the above? Which is best poised to lead these types of solutions?

Answer from Franz Waldenberger
The most prolific agents of change are likely to be non-governmental organizations, andacademics, that is experts who are nominally outside of the industry they seek to change,
who have access to relevant policy makers in government. In both energy and the digitaltransformation, we have seen such outside actors develop independent knowledge(expertise) and then utilize that, often in cooperation with philanthropic organizations,
to work with policy makers to pursue their agenda and improve the policy making
process.
Unfortunately, this is not always easily achievable. The financial sector for
example, has successfully blocked such attempts at reform, despite a large body of
independent scholarship on finance within academia, by utilizing money and the threatof financial collapse to lock out those from outside of the industry from the policy making
and regulatory processes. Nonetheless it is necessary for such non-governmental actors
to continue to pursue reform.

Follow-up question from Saori Shibata
That clarifies a lot, in fact I now believe our presentations have a lot more in common
than I initially thought. I believed Franz was talking about how tech improved
development, when his real point was that the pace of technological development has
outpaced that of relevant social actors. I feel that this is especially true in terms of thelabor market, governing and regulatory institutions, and labor unions, and that much56

needs to be done to rectify the situation.

Follow-up remarks from Cédric DurandI also believe the presentations were highly complementary. I was most interested in theways technological development impacts work organization.
One question I would have relates to the extent to which digital technology in theworkplace (organization) impacts worker autonomy. As Shibata said, I think a lot of
workers are losing their sense of autonomy at work. There is a sense that their own work
is more and more embedded with the algorithm in the sense that they cannot do work
themselves. For example, being an Uber driver is not the same as being a taxi.

Follow-up remarks from Saori Shibata
I agree. As the technology becomes further and further embedded, workers initially don't
realize what's going on and very quickly, without realizing it, can become lost anddisplaced. I think it's quite concerning that some of the gig workers I talked to, they didn't
really think that they were exploited in the platform economy because of the way that it's
very cleverly presented, marketed, to say “this is your chance to make money and be yourown boss” to the people who may have previously felt excluded from the labor market.
This makes people feel positive about it, but the reality is that compensation is quite low.
I think this is a major concern and as a society we need to do more to educate workers sothey can be more aware of these exploitative features of the gig economy.

GENERAL QUESTION AND ANSWER
Question from Speranta Dumitru
Toward the middle of Cédric’s presentation there was a graph that showed a divergence
between the number of publications and the share of patents, supposedly demonstrating
how corporations capture academic research through co-authorship. Could thisdivergence not be a sign that they are not connected because patents are granted before
publication, as society has no interest in granting monopoly rights to something alreadyinvented. Thus, is it not natural for patents to come before academic publication?

57

well as with IBM for the cases of Amazon and Google. Moreover, the three corporations
rely, in part, on the same US universities as most frequent co-authors, with the Universityof California as their top co-author. Microsoft has a more diverse network of privileged
partners, including two Chinese and two European universities.
Table 4. Co-authorship versus co-patenting as evidence of knowledge predation.
Company

Publications (until
2019 included)

Co-authoredpapers% Coauthorship

AmazonMicrosoft
Google824
17,405
6447

719
13622
5305

87.3%
78.3%
82.3%

Applied & granted
patents (until 2017
included)
10,063
76,10925,538% of coowned
patents
0.1%
0.2%
0.3%

Co-authorshipversus coownership
87,257
39,132
27,429Source: Authors’ calculation based on Web of Science and Derwent Innovation.

Question from Harald Kuemmerle
Cédric’s presentation brought up the idea of a “data colonialism” that is both interestingand potentially very relevant in a world of intense competition between the U.S. andChina. In that context, how should the current situation in which there are strong
movements, legislative and otherwise, for data localization in the global south beappraised?
Is this a legitimate attempt at establishing an effective defense against data
extraction by platform giants from the global north or are the states from the global southsetting themselves up for violent extraction from the superpower of the global south, thatis China?

Answer from Cédric DurandThese are two very interesting questions. On Speranta’s question on the work of Lundvall
and Rikap concerning patents and academic publications, and whether it is normal for
corporate patents to come before academic publication, I would like to raise two points.
First, even if we take this proposition at face value (that patents naturally comefirst), there is still a great deal of collaboration at the level of publication and thus a verybroad exchange of ideas. So, it's strange that you have patterns where only private firms
get to monopolize knowledge despite the collaborative contribution made by academia.
Thus, I don’t think this contradicts my central argument that corporations being allowed
to monopolize this work is wrong.
The second point is that it’s not the same kind of knowledge; that is, there areimportant differences between what is published in an academic paper, and what ispatented, particularly at the application level. But, of course, the two are connected. While
the production line is much more specific than academic research which is more generaland less applied, it's still very relevant to stress this discrepancy between collaboration in58

the production of scientific knowledge and monopolization, in terms of patenting of
applied knowledge.
Concerning the second question, it's good that governments from the global
south seek to protect their data and to ask for localization of data. So that's very good,
because it shows a kind of awareness of what's going on and that's a precondition for any
form of sovereignty in the 21st century. However, your question is that just getting thedata stored locally doesn't mean that you have true control. Effective control of data relies
not only on data localization and data storage, but also on how and whether you canprocess and make use of that data.
The ability to make sense of the data is not recognized in the global south except
in China. In this sense, they are still dependent on firms from the global north or from
China to deal with the data, even if it's localized in their own country.
In this sense, their efforts so far can achieve only a partial and incomplete data
sovereignty. If you do not control the means of using your data, that's not your data.
Clearly data sovereignty will be a major point of contention this century.

Comments from Joanna J. Bryson
Franz and Shibata’s talks brought up interesting points regarding the nature oftechnological change and its intersection with labor. In Shibata’s talk there was discussionof Chinese workers being shifted into more menial jobs as technology makes higher
skilled workers somewhat redundant. This is in stark contrast to Germany, where
technological change resulted in 70% of workers getting better jobs, and 30% maderedundant. I think the ways in which political and economic regimes are constructed, thegovernance context, is a critical factor in how technological change impacts workers.

Comments from Saori Shibata
I was surprised to learn today that 70% of workers in Germany whose jobs wereautomated were given better jobs. I guess that could be partially related to the presenceof stronger unions that are active in Germany. As far as I know, that has not been the casehere in Japan. Perhaps one reason for this is how unions address digitalization.
In Japan I haven’t seen much active engagement about how to address thepotential harm or potential new challenges which might be coming from digitalization or
automation. I will be conducting various interviews with unions this summer, so I will
integrate this into my questioning and hopefully develop a better picture of the situation59

here in Japan. But, as far as I know, I don’t think that people generally get better jobs
through digitalization.
As far as I know, increased employment and job opportunities in Japan are
mainly related to the fact that many of the additional positions, tend not to be full-time
regular positions.

Comments by Franz Waldenberger
To add on to what has already been said, I also think the difference between employee
representation in companies and legal obligations by management to consult withworker councils in Germany is potentially a very important differentiator between
Germany and Japan.
I don’t know for sure, but given Japan’s history, for example in the 1980s, when
the printing industry was automated, the highly educated workers who were being
replaced by these automated printing machines were retrained. There is a positive history
in at least one industry, and the question is, maybe today the environment is very
different. You see a lot of non-regular employees and you have the aging workforce andso on and more women entering the market and more foreigners being hired, but all thesepeople are hired not on regular jobs and companies are trying to cut down on training
expense. So that might be the different environment, which explains why current
digitalization has a negative impact on skills in my view.
Regarding the increasing imbalance Joanna mentioned, I may add that it's
important to see that most of the knowledge production in the digital area is commercial.
There is a strong commercial interest behind it, and we have to improve the imbalance,
we have to make sure that some of the funds of the resources are used for non-commercial
applications and that's partially through government funding research and working to
improve public goods to provide public services with the technology.

Question from Clementina Katazo
If the financial industry has too much of an influence on the legislative process, is it
because they are self-regulating or is it because of the success of their lobbying and is thatthen not an issue of governance and therefore something for the political system toaddress?

60

Answer from Franz Waldenberger
Yes, you can see that in the reaction after the world financial crisis, one tendency in thefinancial industry is it's de facto self-regulating. After the crisis, governments felt they
had to do something. But who is advising the government to do the reforms? It's, ofcourse, the financial industry.
When you look at the regulations, they make things much more non-transparent
and complicated, so that the experts can always say, “well, this is complicated. Look atit,” and the media look at it and say, “oh, it's complicated, we don't understand it.” Thus,
nobody takes it up, nobody dares to challenge them. It's a totally protected area and there
needs to be more access, more open discussions about financial regulation. Also, now
with the digitalization of the financial system, I think this is a window of opportunity forsuch discussion.

61

PANEL IITECHNOLOGY, DIGITALIZATION, AND THE
ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITYPANELISTS
DR YUKO HARAYAMAPROFESSOR EMERITUS, TOHOKU UNIVERSITYDR JOANNA J. BRYSONPROFESSOR, HERTIE SCHOOLMR MARIO IONUȚ MAROȘAN
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE, UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL

62

DAY III – PANEL II - PRESENTATION I
THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY IS THE HISTORY OF
TECHNOLOGYYUKO HARAYAMA
Presentation Summary
Yuko Harayama's presentation explored the history of humanity as a story oftechnological development and its impact on society.
Looking back upon the history of humanity it is the history of survival throughtechnological development. At every stage, as humanity progressed from hunter gatherer
to agriculture, to industrial societies, people have worked to develop the means tocomplement or substitute for manpower. As society has become more complex, so too
have the goals of our technological development. In Information Societies, technology
goes beyond being a substitute for manpower and allows people to connect with otherpeople around the world in an instant.
Thus, since the dawn of history, humanity and technology have been in a
symbiotic relationship of continuous evolution through technological development.
Through mutually reinforcing processes technology has the capacity to influence andshape social structures and value systems, and an understanding of this process, and its
propensity for unintended consequences, is key to ensuring the health, safety, andprosperity of humanity.
In 2015, working as a key member of the group that conceptualized “Society 5.0,”
a core idea that emerged was the need to shift from a technologically driven society to amore human centered society; promoting a new kind of scientific innovation that puts
people at the forefront. In looking forward, toward the transition from the informationsociety to its inevitable successor, values of inclusiveness, openness, and sustainability
must be prioritized.
In thinking about the transition to Society 5.0, the tribulations of societal
developments past come to mind. The speed and complexity of technologicaldevelopment and the magnitude of its transformative impact grows every day. The
potential of emerging technologies such as AI, quantum technology, gene editing, andneuroscience may well be unrivaled in human history. As their deployment has already63begun, there can be no delay in building new governmental and societal frameworks toaccompany them, including incentive structures, regulation, governance, and citizen
engagement in their technological development. It is time to move on from structures
such as the division of labor into a more collective, collaborative, and shared future.
Of these new technologies, AI is perhaps the furthest along in its development,
application, and adoption. The Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) initiated in 2020, brought
together 25 member countries and 175 experts from science, industry and civil society
into a multi-stakeholder process laying the groundwork for tackling key issues in AI.
When thinking about AI, it is necessary to consider both the positive and negative
potentialities, and to do this, working groups were formed that collected case studies inmember countries. For the Japan survey, students were employed to survey companies
on the introduction of AI. The results indicated 12 companies are already introducing AI
into their production processes and their services. The results of the survey were
informative not only for the GPAI and the students, but also for the companies themselves,
which were able to identify future areas of interest or concern by working with the project.
The project also resulted in students becoming more cognizant of the impact AI will haveon their future, and the creation of the AI expertise that will be needed for Society 5.0 to
succeed and for them to succeed within it.

64DAY III - PANEL II - PRESENTATION II
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – RESPONSIBILITY AND
LIBERALISMJOANNA J. BRYSON
Presentation Summary
Joanna Bryson's presentation addressed the responsibility for artificial intelligence andits impact on liberalism.
Computation is a systemic transformation of energy; a physical process requiring
time, space, energy, and infrastructure. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a subset ofcomputation mapping context to action, or its constituents. Many mistakenly believe that
there exists an “omniscience algorithm” that could be exploited by companies orcountries. This is impossible as a perfect understanding of the universe would be exactly
as large as the universe itself. All intelligent agents actually perceive only a small a subsetof the universe with just enough information to predict and select “good enough” actions.
In nature, “good enough” is perpetuation; for AI however, it is whatever the designer or
operator chooses. This is important when thinking about maintaining liberalism.
Regulating computing and AI thus has two aspects, accountability, and the massive
transnational physical infrastructure required to make it all work.
On the topic of accountability in November 2021, UNESCO members agreed thatlegal personhood for AI is a bad idea. As AI is intelligence that people build someone
must be responsible for it. However, that leads into ethics, which is both determined by
and a determinate of society, a constantly renegotiated set of equilibria between its
members. Furthermore, human law and justice systems are focused on dissuasion rather
than recompense. Jail sentences for murder dissuade people from killing, making society
safer through prevention, but do not provide equal recompense when murder occurs.
Dissuasion, however, is fundamentally rooted in human sociality – in turn rooted inhuman biology. We cannot expect to dissuade software systems in a similar manner. The
consequences of an overextension of legal personhood can already be seen withcorporations. Shell companies shield those with real efficacy from consequences, withlittle regard for self-preservation. An AI legal person would be the ultimate shellcompany. The answer for AI is thus not personhood, but regulation under product law;65

hold corporations responsible for AI they design, requiring the design of better, moretransparent AI so legal responsibility for unexpected behavior can be easily ascertained.
Moving on to political polarization, violence, and disruption correlate highlywith inequality and GINI coefficients around 50%. Bryson’s latest research indicates thattechnological innovation enables this by reducing the cost of distance, allowing
individuals to project power over a greater space and number of people, necessitating
innovations in governance. For example, antitrust legislation first emerged after the US
Civil War to ensure that entities could not amass more power than a democracy could
regulate, following the innovations of rail and telegraph. Similarly, strong antitrust
regulations were imposed on Japan and Germany after World War II, as powerfulconglomerates were seen as facilitators of the slide into autocracy, expansionism, violence
and war.
According to Bryson’s research however, it's not the inequality itself that leads topolarization, but the precarity of a declining economic context. The unstoppable march
toward the threshold of uncertainty and fear explains why polarization is seen across all
incomes in areas where there's been some kind of economic decline or catastrophe. It canbe seen in Ukraine, where in 2014 the best predictor for areas that would come under
Russian control were those that were economically dilapidated – not the ones with themost Russian ethnicity or language. In the US and UK as well, the best predictor for those
who would vote for Trump or Brexit was inequality. It’s not about being rich or poor, it's
about the breakdown in the social fabric caused by economic dislocation and the resulting
loss of trust. Put simply, trust is a luxury good. If people can't afford a bad outcome, they
may choose a suboptimal outcome over a better but less certain outcome.
Returning to AI, there is concern that Europe doesn't have indigenous AI
capabilities and thus “can’t regulate AI.” However, AI development involves people fromaround the world and relies upon transnational infrastructure to power, host, andmaintain it. While it may be legally domiciled as “American AI,” it is very much atransnational asset and the need to regulate that asset is clear. Just as the advent of
airplanes meant that nations had to defend their airspace, so too must they now defend
their citizen’s privacy and safety in cyberspace. This extends to the so called “bilateralcompetition” between the US and China on AI and computing. This framing isinconsistent with reality, where the United States is by far the biggest player, with global
competition between all other players being broadly multilateral. In fact, Japan filed more
AI related patents than China in 2019 and exceeded the number of patents filed by either
China or the US in 2021. Japan and the EU both compete well with China in terms of AI
market capitalization. If China is competing with anyone on AI, it is Japan.
66

In conclusion, there is much work to be done on ensuring that AI and otheradvanced information technology is integrated into society in a just way that does notexacerbate existing divisions and inequalities or increase political polarization. People
should be wary of transhumanist conceptions of AI, which would bestow upon the world
a new conception of personhood that can be bought, sold and traded. This would
undermine human rights in a way not dissimilar to that which disenfranchised colonialsubjects and women in the past. Furthermore, digital technology requires a newantitrust, as the digital transformation is merely the latest in a series of societal transitions
that require us to build up the capacity of democratic governance to regulate industry.
The rise in political polarization since 1978 is a warning about the dangers of allowing
new technology to exacerbate inequality and if we do not regulate digital technologies
effectively it will only get worse. While this likely means the disaggregation of large
conglomerates into well-regulated transnational utilities, Microsoft, Google Facebook
and others have much to gain. The disaggregation of HP for example lead to a 40%
increase in shareholder value. Regulation thus brings large benefits for both society andtech shareholders.

67DAY III - PANEL II - PRESENTATION III
THE FALLACY OF TECHNOLOGICAL NEUTRALITY: A
PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
MARIO IONUȚ MAROȘAN
Presentation Summary
Mario Ionuț Maroșan's presentation challenged the idea of technological neutrality
within neoliberalism, highlighting four key flaws.
Within neoliberalism, the thesis of the “neutrality of technology” is strongly
embedded despite, at its core, being a very flawed idea. This presentation focuses on
those flaws, breaking them down into four key points.
The classical definition of technology is the totality of things made for a given
purpose. This is not restricted to objects, including methods knowhow, and all means put
in place to achieve the ends at hand. This definition of technology, characterized as arational, neutral, pursuit of the most efficient means to an end can cause serious problems
for ethical judgement. Is the gun industry, which lobbies for expanded access to firearms,
while ensuring they are never held responsible when their “technology” is used for
murder, truly neutral?
Of course not, and this is the first of the four points; that all technology contains
potentialities that are independent of the ends initially pursued. That is although a certain
technology may emerge in response to a specific desire or problem, its application is not
limited to the initially envisioned ends. Gunpowder was initially used for fireworks andother amusement, but its destructive potential, once discovered, has defined warfare eversince. Technology can easily be directed towards uses that were initially unknown andeven undesired. Thus, the harmful effects of technological progress are inseparable fromthe beneficial effects and the price paid is often not of the same nature as the initial
inception.
The second point is human judgment of technology is conditioned by technology
itself. Throughout history, and particularly since the Industrial Revolution, technology
has come to shape our environment and our ethics in ever more profound and allconsuming ways. Judging technology in an impartial way is thus impossible. The
argument that technology is neutral is a logical fallacy engineered by the fact that all68

judgement has been shaped by the application of the technology that came before it.
Technology’s values: efficiency, profitability, performance, progressively impose
themselves on modern societies as priority values. As judgement cannot be disentangledfrom technology, people thus neglect to ask questions such as what could be the sharedpolitical good.
The third point Is that while people often conceptualize technology as something
impacting their individual lives, the reality is that it is a global system. Modern society
and technology are increasingly interdependent and inseparable, an organized system,
whose parts link to each other, obeying a common internal logic. This imposes unseen
constraints that limit the possibility of choice for institutions and individuals. For
example, the vast majority of technology today depends on electricity. Without it,
humans can no longer light, heat, cook, compute, communicate, or commute. In thissystem, interoperability is king and, along with “efficiency” will always be prioritizedover all else. This generates an almost inescapable loop: each time technology generates
a new problem, we seek to escape through technology, causing the loop to repeat itself
ad-nauseum.
The fourth and final point, is that the ends pursued by technology are often vague
or badly formulated. Modern technology is characterized precisely by its lack of purpose.
Technology develops according to its own imperatives according to the logic of progress
without regard for health, preservation of the environment, the common good, or
anything else people say is important. Technology always ends up imposing its own
values: efficiency, profitability, growth, performance, and competition, overriding allothers in their pursuit with little oversight. The consequences could not be more serious:
the Cambridge Analytica scandal, among others, demonstrates the clear and present
dangers of modern technology’s infiltration of the political sphere.
All of this leads to a few key questions: How can the place of technology bethought about in a political context. Is it possible to look at politics through a lens otherthan technology? If so, how might people think about political problems and politicalaction in ways that go beyond technological solutions? The answers to these questions
are not easy, but they hold the keys to our future.

69

DAY III - PANEL II - DISCUSSION, QUESTION ANDANSWER SESSIONQUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
Question from Yuko Harayama
In the conclusion of Joanna’s presentation, she refers to needing new kinds of antitrust
regulations. However, the theme of antitrust is now quite old, and our concerns today arebased more on information and networked societies, which is to say, the context is sodifferent. So, can we still refer to antitrust thinking or do we need to find some new wayof regulating to achieve the goal antitrust used to achieve?
Also, I think we have to look at the changing social organization in terms of thevalue of work, which is completely different. It is no longer just about gaining a basic
salary but as I see it, especially within the Japanese context with the aging society, it isalso about the value we derive from work, the expression of our existence how those
things may change our way of regulating this system. How we can utilize the capacity
provided by new technology to achieve these aims?

Answer from Joanna J. Bryson
Those are both great questions. With respect to antitrust, I think it's still necessary but
probably no longer sufficient. So, from the necessary perspective, you have to see howthat tied into the inequality and the political polarization. There is an enormous problem
with regulatory and the inadequate reinvestment of wealth into infrastructure. As
people’s existence becomes ever more precarious, they no longer feel they can participate
in society which is a huge problem.
So, I think it's absolutely essential that we figure out how to capture more of thevalue that's been fed into these giant puddles of power, these corporations andinstitutions with massive market capitalization and financing. And again, this isn't justabout digital technology, I think we need to be looking across the entire transnational
industrial power structure. If we overfocus on big tech, we’re in trouble because in a way
big tech’s entire business model depends on something like liberal democracy, that is it
depends on people having money in their pocket and being informed and decently70educated. I think they are some of the natural allies that were actually useful when they
flipped during the construction of welfare of the early 20th century, and hopefully we canget them onto our side again.
However, on the other hand, we have to recognize that immense damage can
now also be done by very small organizations. For example, people are worried because
they heard that the Chinese military supposedly has better facial recognition than theAmerican military because large American corporations like Google won't work with theAmerican military. In reality however, Clearview, a small American company that
scrapes openly available data and doesn't care about research ethics just went out andmade a bunch of incredibly powerful, dangerous stuff. Even if they faced some kind of
regulatory enforcement, they could just change the jurisdiction in which they operate to
avoid it. So that’s why I don’t think regulation alone is sufficient, but it’s necessary that
we know how to do it. Then we can get parliaments together to have the capacity forgovernance with global reach. I think this will be an essential part of governance capacityand keeping things going well.
With respect to the value of work, I want to tie that back in also to the early partof my talk. I think, on the one hand, there has been a lot of liberal, left kind of things about
valuing the work of artists, the work of women, the work of all kinds of people whoselabor hasn't traditionally been adequately recognized. I think a major point today in bothsessions, has been about Liberalism and the empowerment of the individual and, ofcourse, that includes having meaningful work.
So, when we're thinking about how we are going to restructure wages, we needto think about the extent to which that labor is contributing to society. But on the other
hand, it isn't sufficient to have everybody only run marathons. It isn't about how hard
you work; it is about how do we maintain some kind of structure and how are we going
to design that if we started intervening more.

Question from Joanna J. Bryson
I would like to ask something to Mario whose presentation I thought was a little bitinternally incoherent. I'm sorry to say, but it sounded at times like you're being a technicaldeterminist when you say that there was no way to control the way technology is runningaway. And then at the same time, you are saying, this shows that we need to work on
governance. So, I was sort of confused about which parts of those are true? I think that
we can look at the diversity of outcomes, including the ones between the EU, the U.S.
Japan and China, and say government does have a role and that we do have capacities to71alter the way we feel.

Answer from Mario Ionuț Maroșan
Apologies, maybe it wasn't very clear because I had to cut some parts of my presentation
in my talk. But to answer briefly, I would say that my main interest is to shift the discourse
and the dialogue away from the technological determinism sphere to the political one. So,
maybe that's why there's a confusion here is because there are two levels, and I'm trying
to shift the discussion to another level. But most of my talk was on the level of thetechnological one but at the end, it was sort of opening for my research what I'm doing
to shift it to the political one.

Question from Carol Lawson
Are vulnerable populations such as people in prison and ex-offenders, being adequately
included in discussions about AI and its impact on society, so that they will be able toparticipate in epistemic communities?

Answer from Joanna J. Bryson
Let me add to that question a little bit because I had a big question. One of my concerns,
I mentioned that I'm not entirely sure what the goals of the Global Partnership for AI are,even though I'm in it. And I thought that Dr. Harayama’s vision of it was beautiful, but
one of the constraints is that we aren't supposed to be normative. We're not supposed tomake any normative recommendations, which I find intractable for an organization that's
supposed to be contributing to the Global Governance of AI. Particularly in the UnitedStates under Trump, when they joined, that became part of the terms and conditions. So,
I'm wondering if the vision is viable.
Then secondly, the way Dr. Harayama described it about doing working groups
to find out what is the future? That too, sounds a little technical determinist to me. I
believe one of the things that was sold as a false bill of sales was that technology is likethe climate that there's a science of it that we can find out exactly what's happening.
Technology is an engineered thing. So, it is much more integral to how we govern and tonormative questions, then even the climate. Of course, we're altering the climate, we areengineering the climate but still there's more of a science question and less of agovernance question for the climate. So, I wish the GPAI would have been modeled more72

on the IAEA, the people in charge of nuclear power than on the climate.

Answer from Yuko Harayama
Regarding the GPAI and vulnerable populations, we do have projects that meet withstakeholders. It has typically included many different categories of people representing
various interests, but it is true that input from ordinary citizens, particularly vulnerable
cohorts, may be lacking. So clearly, we need to work harder to capture different
perspectives. They may not be able to participate in the project as a member, but it is still
important to go and to listen to them. That will open the door. That is my answer to thisquestion.
Basically, we have been studying how to differentiate the work of the GPAI fromother institutions, like the OECD for example, which has to work within the time ofreferences fixed by governments, and is more focused on the political aspects,
government’s orientation, principles and government decisions. So, to differentiate
between the OECD and the GPAI, it was decided that the GPAI would be more practicaland application oriented and not focused on norms or principles in the same way as theOECD. As new groups evolve, it is important to have more freedom to advance with newtechnology and not be imposed by decisions made at the beginning. So, it's up to us reallymake sure that the GPAI will be useful not only for the government but for different
communities, including ordinary citizens. The aim is not to just AI as something that isgiven to us but as something that helps us engineer things.
Because AI is made by humans, we must take care at the design stage to consider
that there are actors with bad intentions and prevent misuse. So, from the beginning, weneed to work together with engineers, developers, and companies using AI to ensure thateveryone benefits and at the same time, analyze that use to further benefit users. So, thisis kind of the spirit of the GPAI, and I hope we can look after how we will be moving
forward together.

Comment from Franz Waldenberger
I want to give Mario some time to think about my question. Yuko Harayama mentionedthat the Japanese approach aims at a human-centered technological progress to achieve
a human-centered digital, virtual world. So, how would this idea of human centered, howwould that fit into your system of thought? Maybe you can give us an answer during thegeneral discussion.
73

GENERAL DISCUSSION
Opening Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
I want to open up the general discussion with a question that is about the logic of thisexpanding knowledge and the expanding into monopolies of intellectual assets ofintangibles. And this expansion being made, whether by private companies or by
governments who are abusing their position upon the individuals.
I would like you to connect that to the basic and historically effective logic of what
liberalism was. If it is about defending individuals as human beings with their finite
dimensions, then that is why information is decentralized. That is why each individual iscalculative of its own information, of what they have, and the resources, material andintellectual information that are available within the environment.
So, liberalism, like capitalism seems to have been transformed into some idea in
the favor of monopolies whereas it is exactly the contrary. Free markets are competitivemarkets. So, of course, there is a parallel between capitalism and liberalism there. Of
course, we then think of various ways that those monopolistic tendencies could be reinedin, which was the case for capitalism with the antitrust laws, we should also do the samefor predating knowledge from universities, or for other resources like oil or gas.
We think of different kinds of solutions, and it seems that they have trouble towork, antitrust, if I understand the system in Joanna's view may be one way to go but inCédric’s view it may not work for reasons such as patents not working like other assets.
So, the question is what made liberal ideas defending the individual, and property at theend of the 18th century possible, and how can it be applied to the issue of intellectual
property. However, the point about defending the individual was to recognize thisproperty to those people who are producing it.
So, the question is we want basically to defend those individual liberties. We don't
want private monopolies, but we also don't want public monopolies. What are the tools,
according to you, that prevent both kinds of monopolies, and which are not against
liberalism but actually are the very essence of what it means to defend liberalism? Whichtools, if any, are going to be most effective, and if there are none, then is there no future
for liberalism in the age of knowledge?

74Remarks from Franz Waldenberger
Tying together both sessions, in the first part, we talked about technology and capitalism.
In the second part we focused on digitalization and ethics. As Gilles pointed out, there
was the question of monopoly in both parts. Looking back at history, we can see that the
antitrust movement in the United States was a reaction to the over-concentration of power
and this led among other things to the dismantling of the Rockefeller Trust. Similarly,
after World War II, the Allied Occupation of Japan tried to dismantle the Zaibatsu, while
in Germany they sought to achieve similar results, and these were helpful to bothcountries’ long-term growth.
The question is do we have the instruments, and do we have the political will or,
let's say, the social support for such action? Or is such action even needed in the firstplace? Maybe we shouldn't work with implicit hypotheses but make everything explicit?

Remarks from Joanna J. Bryson
To go into a little bit more detail on the history side, the geopolitics of the enforcement ofantitrust law on Germany and Japan after World War II was pervasive, and this has
carried over in Europe where the Directorate-General for Competition is the strongest
enforcer in the European Commission. So, it really is something the West was good at,and then the United States begun to diverge, to stop enforcing antitrust. They decided
not to do this anymore, because, I think, they were freaking out about the fact that theirrelative power in terms of GDP was in decline.
So, as the Republican Party led the charge toward dismantling antitrust in the
United States, they became really angry when Europe started saying we're going to banmergers between American companies that America had allowed. That was perceived asa huge assault. Interestingly, the courts in the EU have upheld the American line despite
the Director General still attacking it.
The point is that there's a potential to enforce antitrust, and that eventually, theonly stable solution will be that we'll find a better way to govern. Alternatively, it ispossible that it will destroy our ecosystem so badly that we’ll really go back to governing
tribes or something. But there will continue to be these competitions which is why I wasquite interested in whether there could be an evolution from what is currently apaternalistic happiness index into a better representation of what can we do to makesociety satisfied.
One last thing, I talked a lot about governments. Of course, you can't trust every
75

government, and so I have been interested in the extent to which transnational entities,
NGOs but also corporations might be part of the way that we regulate our governments.
At the same time, government will likely remain the principal legitimate means throughwhich we regulate corporations. So, I think it's very important that we were looking at
both of those kinds of solutions and finding things and trying to keep these things
solutions working.

Remarks from Franz Waldenberger
Actually, I've been working with the German Monopolies Commission for some years
and also did some research on antitrust, and the interesting thing is actually the
extraterritorial application of antitrust law has become a decisive factor in that it has an
impact on the competition within your constituency. So, the merger between General
Electric and Honeywell in the U.S., America said “okay,” but Europe said “no,” because
it restricted competition in Europe, and finally, General Electric and Honeywell gave up.
Of course, Europe is fighting Facebook, Microsoft and all the big giants, butwould Europe do the same if the companies were located in Europe, maybe not. In
Europe, I must say, competition policy is one of the strictest worldwide. In Japan, the Fair
Trade Commission has a low voice, I think.

Remarks from Joanna J. Bryson
The trans-nationalism you describe is another area I want to explore. The first time I heard,“oh, it's okay, AI is a utility, we know how to regulate utilities” was at the Center for
Information Technology Policy in Princeton, and it was a bunch of computer scientists.
They pretend to be interdisciplinary but it's really not. But hearing that you think, “ohgood, okay,” only to later find out that, “no, it’s not good because no one is sure how togovern utilities.” Are there extra obligations for private companies or are they going to
get taken into the state?
Still, recognizing that there is such a thing as a utility has been a step forward. So,again, we're constantly improving our equilibria. That's what governance is about. It's
not that we're going to find one solution. We have to keep trying to do something better,but I absolutely think the problem here is the transnational aspect of it and maybe if wethink hard about how to govern these things in the context of the anarchy that is theinternational system, we’ll actually get our head around a little better what we shouldhave been doing with our national utilities. But it may be that quite a lot of utilities now
76are transnational.

Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
Once more Joanna and Franz, if I understand you well, you tend to trust in our
democratic process and our governments in order to achieve what private companies will
not do. But the idea of liberalism on which our liberal democracies are built is not bytrusting governments, whether they are the kings in Britain or the president in the UnitedStates. The basic idea is that you trust not those in power, whether economic or political,
but those who are not in power. That is the bottom-up approach that was discussed at
length in day 2 regarding digitalization.
I mean, the point should not be that we would be better off trusting ourgovernments because at least they are more democratic than in other countries where
private companies can be small monarchies. The point is that liberal ideas, that is thedefense of the individual, is about not trusting the authorities as such and that out of the
spontaneous interaction between individuals, there will arise new ways to interact
between different agents.

Remarks from Franz Waldenberger
Let me say that even in a liberal society, we need collective action, and the government is
the platform for legitimate collective action. And, of course, it's the platform where you
can change the rules, you can make choices that influence the course of society. So, I don't
see it as a sort of opposition between liberal ideas and government institutions. Ideally
speaking, government is where collective action could be channeled, and the results
implemented.
The idea which Joanna and I have stressed is that we have to have these channels,
keep them open and avoid regulatory capture. So, we have to have good governance ofthe political system to ensure that this is really collective action that aligns with liberal
ideas, liberal systems and liberal laws.

Remarks from Joanna J. Bryson
I just need to be clear that I never said we should trust governments. So, Mario is asking
about my talk, as well as Dr. Harayama was talking about human centeredness and trying
to justify it. Again, we all had only a short time, so I couldn't go all the way back into the77motivations of that. But in this talk, I talked about the fact that we cannot maintain justice
as we have built it so far through any other system other than through the human-centric
system. So, it's not only that we have obligations to other humans, it is also the only
coherent system that all of our values can be placed on.
Thus, in terms of the phenomenological – in terms of autonomy, it doesn't makesense that AI systems, which are designed and created via our intention, would somehow
exempt their creators of their obligations to other people, to society, just because they say,
“I'm going to insert a random number generator into it.” No one wants fully autonomous
AI weapon systems. Russia threatens to have them, but they know they would kill theirown soldiers first. There would be more friendly fire than anything else.
Also phenomenologically speaking, we have more in common with fruit flies
than we will ever have with machines. I mean, it isn't that we're building things out of
metal and silicon, we built in some ways a much more complete system. So, you can see
every single spectrum of color or whatever with a camera, and yet the way that we
experience it and feel it are concerned about the suffering of the unrealized self of themachine. It's entirely misplaced.
So, anyway, that was why the two slides on transhumanism were there. I thought
nobody else was bringing it up here, and I sort of decided to bring it up but that is exactly
why, and I can give you a paper on that too. It's literally called Patiency is not a virtue(Bryson, 2018).

Remarks from Mario Ionuț Maroșan
I don't know much about the metaphysical tradition of Japan. I know more about
European metaphysical tradition. So, I can’t say much but the whole contradiction or thetension in my talk, I think the way I considered it was because of essentially trying toescape the metaphysic of subjectivity meaning that our will as humans will solve theproblems that our will as humans created in the first place.
So, there's the tension from this kind of individualistic definition of wealth to apolitical one, political as understanding meaning the dialogical reasons. This is the
dialogical turn. So, here's what's interesting, my colleague said as well is this conceptionof politics or something flexible, something continually adapting to new solution, newdiscussion, so that was kind of the one I can answer to the question.

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Remarks from Adrienne Sala
Franz, you asked the question about how technology and societal intelligence can becompatible with the idea of freedom, and this critical analysis of technology because thelast two days presentations such as one of Naoki Yoshihara yesterday who highlighted
the unequal access to technology and productive means, reducing the autonomy ofindividuals and individual liberties. And the imbalance of technological knowledge also
highlighted by Franz reminded me about Nikita Dhawan yesterday who mentioned thecontradiction of the legacy of enlightenment and liberalism as Joanna Bryson, you alsomentioned, and Nikita Dhawan referenced about transhumanism and the contradiction
with liberalism.
So, many presentations from yesterday and today seem to raise different issues
around different technologies. Technology seems to enhance all the capitalism issues asalso Shibata Saori mentioned in her presentation, a kind of a crisis of liberalism seems tobe also highlighted by the different presentations. Yesterday we finished on the notion ofdecentralization first and then on de-concentration of power and knowledge as acondition of liberalism. And it seems that technology can help the de-concentration of
power and knowledge as well as hurt it. So, in other words, it seems that technology canbe a condition of liberalism as well as a restriction of it.
So, you all mentioned this duality in your presentation in different ways, but I
would like to hear about how you relate this duality to the question and to the issue ofrights and the law, and does technology reshape a kind of a new social compromise? And
if yes, in which way? So, it's a broad question, and it would be great to hear Saori Shibata
on this question. Thank you.

Remarks from Saori Shibata
In technologies, there are certain kinds of benefits to humans, liberalism and individual
rights as well as the potential for damage to those things, and for that potential harm tooutweigh the potential benefits. The current form of technologies introduced, utilized,
adopted and integrated into the workplace seem to enhance the capitalist nature causinga kind of flexibilization or alienation.
I believe that eventually this leads to a sort of crisis of liberalism as power tilts
towards larger tech companies or platforms. We call them platform companies as they
leverage knowledge, through highly skilled workers and management who can have evermore new information, new knowledge, new machines, new devices which can have79

more power over labor and sometimes that power could be direct power, but it could also
be indirect power that the workers might not even notice.
Everybody wants to be happily working. And if there are things that can increase
my happiness, then some people might think that's a good thing, that's a kind of liberal,
progressive way of working. But at the same time, I am more concerned about how
those new things are used, this new information, new data, new intelligence gathered
through these kinds of new mechanism, new system, new strategy.
Even outside of the workplace, you might be requested to wear digital devices
because they want to measure your health outside of work, and then it's increasingly kindof a more and more intense surveillance mechanism. As far as I can tell, this tech is a bit
more kind of enhanced in its tendency to enhance a kind of authoritarian nature ofcapitalism, a more authoritarian neoliberalism in which this kind of use of technology isincreasingly justified and legitimized and then certain kinds of a more neoclassicaleconomics ways of running the market will be more justified resulting in an
overemphasis on productivity.

Remarks from Yuko Harayama
I follow Shibata-san’s point of view here. The question of this duality is critical, and weare facing this every day because technology is an enabler by definition. But with inherent
duality within (or triality and beyond) because of so many faces of technology, and withgood intention by engineer to create new technology, we always have a similar way ofusing by exploring in different way, and this is depending on the socioeconomic context,
and it is really a game of a never-ending story.
That's why some may capture economic value with technology, and some may
improve their way of life, while others may misuse technology and capturing a negative
societal impact. Look at military use of technology. By definition, they have a tradition totalk about duality. But now we have in different fields, this kind of duality that we must
deal with. So, we need to have multi-stakeholder debates or a discussion sphere to talkabout that and not just leave it to the government or the companies to deal with because
it concerns everyone.
Regarding the existing law and regulation system, it is based on the past
technology. It’s difficult to modify existing laws because it is by design as a precaution
and it was good at the time, but for new technology coming in, the speed is not sufficient.
So, we have to be really innovative in the way to regulate new technology because wehave to adapt with advancement in technology as well as the use of that technology. So,
80this raises a new question, how to express our democracy in this context and how to set
up a regulatory framework within. And this is directly linked to the freedom we have torespect, and we have to keep at the heart of the society.

Remarks from Franz Waldenberger
I would like to add something here. We haven't mentioned him directly but Yuval
Harari’s idea about technology, ideology and society. His narrative relates very much tothe fact that technology shapes society very fundamentally because technology gives us
power over nature, over the way even we regulate our relationships and that means wecreate narratives which legitimize that power, and these go together with changes in thesocial political structure. And now with AI and other things, he emphasizes that the newtechnologies basically undermine the ideology of liberalism.
According to him they undermine the three assumptions liberalism is based on.
The first is that there is an individual, a well-defined individual with well-defined
preferences, and neuroscience, among other advances, show us that this is a fiction. The
other thing is that this individual knows best what is best for it and, again, this issomething that AI is refuting, digital agents might in the future know better what is goodfor us. And I think the third assumption is free will. These assumptions of liberalism arequestioned by new technology.
So, his big question is “what could be the new narrative,” what is our new
narrative that helps us legitimize the potential of this new technology while at the sametime, preserving what we think is ethically important and good for our society. Of course,that might also change over time but that's a really frightening perspective. He’s saying
technology will change our values, will change the way we look at ourselves and society,and we cannot predict what's going to happen. And that’s a bit frightening. So, maybe
that's something that you have some thoughts about.

Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
On that point of the three assumptions (of liberalism), one main thing to say is that thoseare “regulating ideals,” in the way Kant used the term. Of course, the individual as one
entity has always been difficult to define, not only because of AI, but because ofpsychoanalysis, and because of religion before that. I mean, the soul as it was understoodin Ancient Greece, and the soul of the Christian Middle Ages is not the same. And so, theconception of the individual as such has changed over time. The same is true of the81knowledge that he may have or what he may say and same thing for the will that may
express and the ways in which he expresses. So, those are not assumptions that form solid
basic foundations, those are instead assumptions that are regulating ideals, i.e., you haveto take them as the idea towards which you need to think, strive, and orientate public
policy and law.
So, in essence, those are things that we must try to achieve, not things that are agiven and, therefore, they can and do change. Whatever we're doing it’s constantly
changing, but if there is sense in liberalism and if there is a future in it, it is by reassessing
the need to think of its principles as the first values before the rest. In that sense, there's
technology that allows people without our knowledge, people in the street, in their small
houses where there is nothing, to have a computer and to take part in public discourse if
they desire, and this provides freedom to them in some way. Even if they say it is“bullshit,” even if there is fake news.
The point of liberalism is that from private vices at some point, there will bebenefits for all. Just because we are more knowledgeable does not mean we are more
entitled to speak than other people. Everyone is entitled to a voice under liberalism. So, I
think that as long as we don't look at those three assumptions as foundations but asregulating ideas it makes more sense.

Remarks from Joanna J. Bryson
Coming back to the question that Franz just asked, I think that you're right; with AI, wehave the capacity to know more about ourselves, but at the same time someone else,
including governments or corporations may know more about us than we do. How wedeal with this comes back to human rights needing to be at the core, and this is especiallyrelevant as the AI, has increasingly been kind of chipping away at the traditional ways,
the proxies that we use to understand ourselves. I know it sounds really reductionist, but
I think that's one of the reasons that some people favor transhumanism. But I don't think
we have a choice as humans but to structure our society to make sure that we preserve
humans, and none of our values make a lot of sense without doing it that way.
So, let me go back a little bit of a way to answer some of the questions. When
we're talking about: is there a necessary way it's going to go? This goes back to that
dualism question. I really feel like AI is not ever going to be “over”. It's the new paper,
everything that we do, we're writing down in AI, and so the really interesting question is
can we come up with structures and regulatory mechanisms to defend ourselves? So, forexample, we will, probably, never go back to the point of privacy by anonymity, if people82don't know anything about you it’s because they can't be bothered to find out.
Now we have to defend our privacy through different means, throughmechanisms like encryption and crafting new laws (that protect personal information.) I
think probably corporations know way more about us than they're allowed to express,
and so they aren’t going to express it until they really want to for some reason, butbasically, the idea is similar to international relations in that we should seek to make thecosts of behaving illegally very high.
My hope is that we can create these webs within which we can constructmeaningful lives and through the kind collaborations you're talking about that we canachieve power. My fear is that there may be something actually fundamentally
destabilizing about where we are right now, and there's two things. One, I mentioned
before was the digital. It's great and wonderful from a liberal perspective, that it reduces
entry barriers so much but that may also be taking away friction that was actuallynecessary and may just totally destabilize societal structures. So that might be a problem
and eventually, it may turn out that we do just wind up stripping all the digital out of
our lives, but an awful lot of bad things would need to happen before that if that is true.
I mean, for example, right now I don’t know any other way we’re going to solve
the kind of climate crisis we’ve created and the sustainability crisis longer term without
using AI tools and some of these other strategies. But at the same time, I mentioned before
that I have deep concerns that the United States is already less free than Europe andordinary people don't even know it. Guy Standing says this loss of freedom is also trueof the British but that the poor British are much more aware of their lack of autonomy
than they used to be, more aware than the rich British are because the poor saw in the
London riots a few years ago, how people were being picked up by security cameras andthen thrown in jail. And Standing says, that's why there's fewer protests and moresuicides. On the other hand, we've been through really horrible oppression before, andmany people are right now living through horrible oppressive regimes. And I tend to
think that we will come up with better solutions, safer solutions in the long run but that's
just my hope.

Remarks from Franz Waldenberger
So, you're echoing what Lisa Herzog on the first day mentioned that we have to be
optimistic, we have to be, it's a moral obligation.

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Remarks from Joanna J. Bryson
Yes, there's two parts to it. First, it is normal for consciousness to focus on the problems
and to work on them, but it is one of the means through which we disempower ourselvesto keep poking holes in our reality and not seeing what's good. Having lived throughboth BREXIT and Trump, the number of people who would stand in the middle of a clean,safe street and say, the government has done nothing for me, and sincerely believe it, istruly problematic. So that's why I worry that too much pessimism is not only not useful
but it's actually destructive. It's one of the means by which we dismantle the rule of law
that we've built up.
Second, one of the things I wanted to say is that law is hard to write. It is super
hard to write, and technology is super easy to build, and that's why if you look at theOECD principles, if you look at the British principles that preceded them, it says that weneed to build technology as much as is practical to not require changes to the rule of law
and that is a completely sensible imposition. That's why I said things like that we should
just require people to keep track of how they develop the software.

Closing Remarks from Gilles Campagnolo
Thank you everyone. While this conference was nominally about France, Germany, Japan,
we have had the opportunity to hear from people from many more countries represented
among both the contributors as well as the audience. While the question of what the
future of liberalism will look like remains, we hopefully now have some elements of ananswer, and have understood pieces we may not have understood before.

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