Liberal Europe 1815-1914

Liberal Europe and Social Change, 1815-1914:
Course Reading Guide (1987)


The Course textbook: Theodore Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe (1983)

This is part of a collection of material on the history of the classical liberal tradition.

Source

I gave this year long course at the University of Adelaide between the years of 1987 and 1996 before it was terminated in a restructuring of the Arts Faculty. Among my files I found the course guides for the academic years 1987-88, this one in HTML and this one in facs. PDF. Back then we printed off the guides using a dot-matrix printer (hence the poor qulaity) and images were inserted literally by cutting and pasting pieces of paper. I also found my extensive lecture notes which I ussed in a slightly shortened semester length version of the course which I gave in 1990.

Please forgive the loss of some formatting due to the difficult conversion from one application to another.

Aim of the Course
Textbooks
1. Introduction - What is Liberalism? 1
2. What is Liberalism? - Continued 2
3. The Intellectual Origins of 19th Century Liberalism 3
4. Individualism and Liberty 5
5. Utilitarianism Vs. Natural Rights 8
6. Property and Contract 10
7. The Free Market and Social Harmony 13
8. Limited Vs. No Goverment 15
9. Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law 17
10. Democracy and Electoral Reform 19
11. Centralisation 21
12. Freedom of Speech 23
13. The National Question 25
14. Liberal Politics 26
15. War and Peace 29
16. Colonialism and Imperialism 31
17. Classical Political Economy and Laissez-faire 34
18. Free Trade and Protection 36
19. Manufacturing and the Machinery Question 40
20. The Condition of Women 42
21. The Abolition of Slavery and Serfdom 45
22. Population Growth and Malthusianism 48
23. The Social Question. Poverty and Progress 51
24. Critics of Socialism 54
25. Politics in the Novel 58
26. The New Class Society 62

AIM OF THE COURSE

The course will cover the ideas and the policies which made the nineteenth century the heyday of liberalism in Europe. The approach of the course is a thematic one and in the weekly tutorials we will deal with a theme based upon a classic text or a debate which involved liberals and their opponents. Topics will include individual liberty, private property, the free market, freedom of speech, electoral reform, constitutionalism, the rule of law, free trade, laissez-faire, limited government, the opposition to war, feminism, slavery and socialism. The main focus will be on British, French and German liberalism but I will not hesitate to compare Western European liberalism with developments in other countries when appropriate.

TEXTBOOKS

There are two essential textbooks which will be used throughout the course. They are:

Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce,ed. E.K. Bramsted and K.J. Melhuish (London: Longman, 1975). This is an essential collection of primary sources which will be used often in tutorials. Unfortunately, it is now out of print and the bookshop only has a handful of copies. However the library has multiple copies which you can easily use.
Theodore S. Hamerow,The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century(Chapel Hill: Univeristy of North Carolina Press, 1983). This is a good interpretive history of nineteenth-century Europe which will provide essential political and economic background to the ideas covered in the course. It also skillfully weaves intellectual and social history together. Unfortunately it is only available in hardback at a horrendous price. Once again the library has multiple copies.

Two other books you might consider purchasing are

Anthony Arblaster,The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), which is strong on literature but weak on economic liberalism, and
John Gray,Liberalism(Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986). It is an excellent short treatment.

In addition to the above mentioned texts we will be studying many important nineteenth century works in some detail. I have asked the book store to stock the following works:

John Stuart Mill,On Liberty, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).
Thomas Hodgskin,The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted(Clifton, New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973).
Benjamin Constant,Political Writings, ed. Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Herbert Spencer,Social Statics: The Conditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the First of them developed(1851) (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1970).
John Stuart Mill,Principles of Political Economy,ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970).
Frédéric Bastiat,Economic Harmonies,George B. de Huszar ed. (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1979).
James Mill,Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press and Law of Nations(1825) (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967).
John Stuart Mill,Considerations on Representative Government(any edition).
Richard Cobden,Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P., ed. John Bright and James E. Thorold Rogers (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1970).
John Stuart Mill,The Subjection of Women(1869) and Harriet Taylor,The Enfranchisement of Women, ed. Kate Soper (London: Virago Press, 1983).
Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).
A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation, ed. Thomas Mackay (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981).
Fabian Essays in Socialism, by eminent Oxford Professors and English Economists,ed. George Bernard Shaw (1889) (Boston: Brown, 1894).
Stendhal,Scarlet and Black: A Chronicle of the 19th Century, trans. Margaret R.B. Shaw (1830) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1953, 1977).

1. Introduction - What is Liberalism?↩

For the next two weeks we will be doing some essential background reading before we begin studying 19th century liberalism in earnest. This week we will be attempting to define liberalism both as a political philosophy and as an historical movement. Keep in mind the following questions as you do the reading:

What do you understand by the term liberalism?
Is there a set of basic ideas which defines a liberal in spite of differences of opinion which liberals might have with each other?
To what extent was 19th century liberalism radical, reformist, conservative? or even "heretical" as Salvadori argues?
What kind of people were liberals in the 19th century? did they all come from a particular class (e.g. the middle or bourgeois class or was there widespread support for liberal ideas from all or many classes of people?
Are the liberal traditions which developed in England, France and America quite different kinds of liberalism or do they have more in common than differences?

You may not be able to answer these questions until you have done a lot more reading in the course. Nevertheless I would like you to begin thinking about them from the beginning of the course.

Key Reading

Begin reading the introductory section of Bramsted and Melhuish.

Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce, ed. E.K. Bramsted and K.J. Melhuish (London: Longman, 1978, "General Introduction: Major Strands of Liberalism," pp. 1-102.

2. What is Liberalism? - Continued↩

This week we will discuss the various ways in which historians have defined the nature of liberalism. Arblaster believes liberalism is a temperament or cultural attitude; Ruggiero and Salvadori believe it is a method of solving problems, in particular the problem of government; many Marxists believe it is the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie; Dunn and Berlin believe liberalism can best be explained negatively, as opposition to excessive state power; Gray believes liberalism is a coherent body of principles based upon the idea of individual freedom.

We will concentrate on two important and influential interpretations of the liberal tradition - Gray and Berlin. Gray, like many 19th century liberals, believes that liberalism is a coherent philosophy based upon the principles of the moral primacy of the individual in relation to the state or society, the moral equality of individuals, the universal nature of liberal principles, and the idea of progress.

Berlin discusses the important distinction between "positive" and "negative" liberty which concerned many 19th century liberals. In many respects one could argue that during the course of the 19th century the nature of liberalism changed from a defense of "negative" liberty (i.e. hostility to all state activity typified by the radical liberal Herbert Spencer to a defense of "positive" liberty which tolerated much greater state intervention especially in the area of welfare (advocated by the so-called New Liberalism in the late 19th century). It is therefore very important to understand this fundamental distinction between the two different kinds of liberty.

Tutorial Questions

Discuss the following attempts to explain the nature of liberalism : as temperament, a method of government, class ideology, negative opposition to state power, or a theory of individual freedom. Are they an adequate explanation of what liberalism is in your view?
Discuss the distinction between positive and negative freedom.
Is it true to say that the difference between 19th and 20th century liberals is that the former espoused a theory of "negative" liberty whilst the latter espouse a "positive" theory?

Key Reading

John Gray, Liberalism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986, Introduction and Part Two, pp. ix-xi, 45-89.

Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty," in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 118-72.

3. The Intellectual Origins of 19th Century Liberalism↩

The liberalism which developed in the 19th century was the product of many different currents of thought which emerged over a period of at least two hundred years. We will attempt (in only one week! to get a feeling for the diverse origins of 19th century liberalism, which range from the Levellers of the English Civil War, to the Scottish Enlightenment, and the American and French Revolutions.

Because of the diverse origins of liberal ideas it is not surprising that conflicting currents often emerged within 19th century liberalism. For example, one conflict which plagued 19th century liberals concerned the importance of democracy. Those who drew upon the radical liberal traditions of the American and French revolutions of the 18th century advocated democratic rights (especially for the working class and for women whilst those who followed the non-revolutionary English tradition were often hostile to the idea of giving the vote to "the mob".

Siedentop and Hayek have developed the view that there are "two traditions" (a French or Continental and a British tradition within liberalism in order to account for the quite marked differences within 19th century liberalism. Their view is interesting but fails to take into account other important differences which appear within liberalism, in particular the democratic Anglo-American tradition, nationalist German liberalism as well as British "working class" radical liberalism in the first half of the century.

Tutorial Questions

If you have selected this week's topic to write your tutorial paper on choose one of the the following questions. For those not doing the paper the questions should provide a framework for your week's work. Keep them in mind as you do the reading. The required reading should give you enough information to answer most questions. However some questions will require more specific reading which is provided in the recommended reading.

Discuss Siedentop's and Hayek's theory of the two traditions. Is it an adequate explanation of the different currents within 19th century liberalism? Does it in fact explain anything?
Is it legitimate to use the term "liberal" (first used in the 19th century to describe 18th century political philosophers such as Smith, Turgot, Montesquieu, or Jefferson?
Why is Britain so important in the development of liberal theory?
What does 19th century liberalism owe to the political thought of the Enlightenment?

Key Reading

Both Gray and Bramsted and Melhuish give rather compact accounts of the ideological origins of 19th century liberalism. Gray goes further back in time (to the 17th century than Bramsted and Melhuish, who concentrate on the 18th century. Use either one to get an overview of the liberal tradition before the 19th century.

John Gray, Liberalism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986, "Part One: Historical," pp. 1-25.

"Section A. The Roots of Liberalism - The Eighteenth Century," in Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce, ed. E.K. Bramsted and K.J. Melhuish (London: Longman, 1978, pp. 105-172. Those who are interested may like to read some of the extracts of pre-19th century liberals in this collection pp. 173-240.

4. Individualism and Liberty↩

For the next couple of weeks we will be examining two issues of great philosophical importance to liberalism, viz. individualism and the debate between utilitarians and supporters of natural rights.

The importance of the individual, as opposed to collectivities such as class or nation, is one of the distinguishing characteristics of western liberalism and is one of the foundation stones of 19th century liberalism. Most liberal political ideas (e.g. the rule of law or free trade were an extension of the philosophical idea of the free and morally autonomous individual . This week we will examine the history of the idea of individualism and the theories of its greatest advocates - Wilhelm von Humboldt, Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill. Lukes provides the best short treatment of individualism with short chapters on French, German, American and English individualism and a discussion of the basic philosophical components of individualism. The first individualist we will look at, Wilhelm von Humboldt, actually wrote his very individualistic essay on The Limits of State Action in 1791-2 but it wasn't published until 1852, just in time to influence John Stuart Mill's On Liberty which was written in 1859.

Herbert Spencer is probably the most radical and consistent liberal individualist of the 19th century. His individualism is based upon a curious combination of natural rights and evolutionism, the latter becoming stronger as he got older. His first book Social Statics (1851 and the Principles of Ethics (1892 are important statements of the of the individualist position. However, not all liberals were as extreme in their individualism as Humboldt and Mill. There were reservations about the potentially divisive and anti-social implications of extreme individualism expressed by Alexis de Tocqueville. Although Tocqueville was himself a committed liberal he was worried that the combination of radical social individualism and democracy in America would pose problems of social disintegration.

A similar view leads Hayek to the conclusion that there is a "true" and a "false" conception of liberal individualism. Hayek continues his analysis of the two liberal traditions and applies it to the question of individualism. Hayek warns against the dangers of the excessively rationalistic "false" individualism of the French and some English radicals like Mill and Spencer. He prefers the pragmatic anti-rationalistic "true" individualism of the English. You should ask yourself whether you think Hayek's distinction between true and false individualism is valid.

Tutorial Questions

How was the concept "Individualism" transformed from a term of abuse into one with positive connotations?
What is the relationship between individualism and liberty in Mill's On Liberty? in Tocqueville's Democracy in America? in Humboldt's Limits? Examine one of these thinkers in your answer.
How successful is Spencer in reconciling "egoism" and "altruism" in The Principles of Ethics?
Why did Tocqueville regard individualism as a threat to liberty and how did he believe the Americans had solved the problem?
What is unique about American individualism and how does it differ from continental interpretations?
Discuss Hayek's distinction between "true" and "false" individualism, with particular reference to his criticism of Mill and Humboldt.

Key Reading

Steven Lukes, Key Concepts in the Social Sciences: Individualism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973). Part One: "The Semantic History of 'Individualism'," pp. 3-42, Part Two: "The Basic Ideas of Individualism," chapters 7-15, pp. 43-106.

Wilhelm von Humboldt, "Of the Individual Man and the Highest Ends of His Existence," in The Limits to State Action, ed. J. W. Burrow (Cambridge University Press, 1969, pp;. 16-21. An extract from this can be found in Melhuish and Bramsted, Western Liberalism, "Aesthetic Individualism," pp. 271-78 and 340-52.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984). Read Chapter One "Introductory" pp. 59-74 and Chapter Three "Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being" pp. 119-140. A good discussion of Mill's essay on individual liberty can be found in Gertrude Himmelfarb's introduction which I suggest you read this before you begin reading the text itself.

5. Utilitarianism Vs. Natural Rights↩

The issue we will discuss this week is one that split the liberal movement in the 19th century right down the middle. This was over the very foundation of individual liberty. Should individuals be free because it is useful in some way to society that they be free? Or should individuals be free because they have a right (based upon their nature as human beings to be free? The answers liberals gave to this problem of the foundation of individual liberty were fundamentally of two kinds.

One group of liberals, building upon the liberal natural rights tradition of the 18th century, argued that, by using reason, one could discover the basic principles which made social life possible. From these principles one had to conclude that individuals had a claim by right to such things as property and individual liberty. This version of liberalism was quite popular in the early part of the century, especially on the Continent and in religious circles. Two quite radical representatives of this school are Thomas Hodgskin and Herbert Spencer. As you do the reading ask youself why utilitarianism became the dominant form of liberalism in the 19th century? Why was the Spencerian version of liberalism, based upon natural law, much less popular as the century progressed? Spencer first developed his ideas in Social Statics (1851 and expanded them considerably in The Principles of Ethics (1892). If you are interested in Spencer's thought I suggest you read some chapters from the latter work as they include discussion of Bentham and Mill. How well does Spencer answer their criticisms?

The other group, known as utilitarians, based their liberalism on the principle of "utility", also known as the principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". The best known representatives of this school are Jeremy Bentham, James Mill and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism was partly a reaction against the natural law tradition as embodied in the two most famous declarations of rights which appeared in the American and French Revolutions. Bramsted and Melhuish have a short discussion of the natural law tradition as well as reprints of the declarations. They also provide a convenient selection of extracts by the major utilitarians. The foundation of the utilitarian philosophy was laid by Bentham in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation first published in 1789. Unfortunately the extract from this work in Bramsted and Melhuish is too short to be very useful. It is better to read the complete version of the first two chapters.

Bentham was outraged by the events of the French Revolution, especially the claims for natural rights expressed in the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen" of 1789. Read the reprint of the declaration in Bramsted and Melhuish before reading Bentham's extraordinary attack on it. It is a brilliant piece of political polemic. How telling Bentham's arguments are is something we will discuss in the tutorial. Once again, the extract in Bramsted and Melhuish is too short. I will provide you with a photocopy of the original.

John Stuart Mill modified somewhat the utilitarianism he learnt from Bentham and his father James Mill. His version can be found in the essay "Utilitarianism" published in 1861 and it was his version of utilitarianism which came to dominant liberalism in the late 19th century.

Tutorial Questions

To what extent is Bentham's critique of natural rights an overreaction to the excesses of the French Revolution and to what extent is it a fundamental philosophical difference of opinion?
Did Spencer adequately answer utilitarian criticisms of natural rights?
Assess John Stuart Mill's attempt to incorporate the idea of justice into the philosophy of utilitarianism.

Key Reading

"The Doctrine of the Rights of Man," in Bramsted and Melhuish, Western Liberalism, pp. 146-62. Also documents 12-15 on Rights of Man, pp. 224-35.

"The Utilitarian Approach to Government: Introduction," in Bramsted and Melhuish, Western Liberalism, pp. 243-49. Also documents 17-22 on utilitarianism, pp. 294-309.

Jeremy Bentham, "Anarchical Fallacies" in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843, vol. 2, pp. 491-534.

Texts

Herbert Spencer, The Priciples of Ethics, 2 vols (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892). Volume 1, chapters 9-10, "Criticisms and Explanations" and "The Relativity of Pains and Pleasures" pp. 150-86; Volume 2, part IV, "The Ethics of Social Life: Justice," chapters 3-9.

Utilitarianism, ed. Alan Ryan (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1987).

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed. J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart (London: Methuen, 1982). Introduction by Hart pp. xxxii-lxix and chapter 1, "Of the Principle of Utility," pp. 11-16 and chpater 2, "Of Principles adverse to that of Utility," pp. 17-33.

John Stuart Mill, "Utilitarianism" in Utilitarianism, On Liberty, Essay on Bentham, ed. Mary Warnock (London: Collins, 1962 pp. 251-321, in particular, Chapter 5 "On the Connection between Justice and Utility," pp. 296-321.

Utilitarian Logic and Politics: James Mill's "Essay on Government", Macaulay's Critique and the ensuing Debate, ed. Jack Lively and John Rees (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: The Conditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the First of them developed (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1970). Part 1 and Part 2, chapters 4-7.

Thomas Hodgskin, The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (Clifton, New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973. Ist edition 1832).

Secondary Works

H.L.A. Hart, Essays on Bentham: Studies in Jurisprudence and Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). Chapter 4, "Natural Rights: Bentham and John Stuart Mill", pp. 79-104.

John Gray, Mill on Liberty: A Defence (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983, pp. 154-67.

J.H. Burns, "Bentham's Critique of Political Fallacies," in Jeremy Bentham: Ten Critical Essays, ed. B. Parekh.

Shirley Robin Letwin, The Pursuit of Certainty. David Hume. Jeremy Bentham. John Stuart Mill. Beatrice Webb (Cambridge University Press, 1965). Parts 2 and 3.

William Thomas, The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice 1817-1841 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).

Elie Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, trans. Mary Morris (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1960). Part II, chapter 1 "The Political Problem," pp. 155-81.

Douglas G. Long, Bentham on Liberty. Jeremy Bentham's Idea of Liberty in Relation to his Utilitarianism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.

D.G. Ritchie, Natural Rights: A Criticism of Some Political and Ethical Conceptions (London: Allen and Unwin, 1894).

Benjamin Fletcher Wright, Jr., American Interpretations of Natural Law: A Study in the History of Political Thought (New York: Russell and Russell, 1962).

Alfred F. Chalk, "Natural Law and the Rise of Economic Individualism in England," Journal of Political Economy, 1951, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 332-347.

6. Property and Contract↩

For the past two weeks we have been discussing two central components of 19th century liberalism: individualism and utilitarianism. For the next four weeks we will be discussing property, the supposed harmony of the free market, the idea of limited government and the rule of law (or constitutionalism).

The belief in the value of private property is basic to all liberals. This week we will examine how various liberals defended their belief in property - from the philosophical approach of Mill and Spencer to the polemics of Hodgskin and Bastiat. The defence of property became an issue in the 1840s because of the rise of socialist ideas in general and the events of the 1848 Revolution in particular. For example, one of the most formidable critics of property was the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who wrote an important and provocative book called What is Property? (1840). His answer, which infuriated liberals, was that "property is theft." It was against socialists like Proudhon that the French writer and politician Frédéric Bastiat wrote his polemics in favour of property rights and the free market.

Since Bastiat and Proudhon wrote on property during or soon after the 1848 revolutions it is important to have some knowledge of the events of the revolution in Paris. I suggest you read Agulhon or Magraw for the necessary background material.

Tutorial Questions

If you have selected this week's topic to write your tutorial paper on choose one of the following questions. For those not doing the paper the questions should provide a framework for your week's work. Keep them in mind as you do the reading. The required reading should give you enough information to answer most questions. However some questions will require more specific reading which is provided in the recommended reading.

Assess Bastiat's claim that his theory of property has radical democratic implications.
The heart of Bastiat's dispute with socialists such as Proudhon and Considérant is whether or not ownership is exploitative. Discuss what Bastiat and one of his socialist opponents meant by exploitation and plunder.
How could John Stuart Mill believe in private property and yet still be sympathetic to various forms of socialism?
Is the distiction between natural and artificial rights to property a valid one? Discuss this distinction in the work of Hodgskin and Spencer.
Why did both Mill and Spencer have reservations about the exclusive private ownership of land?

Key Reading

Begin with some introductory chapters on Bastiat's life and work which can be found in Russell and Roche, then attempt the chapters by Bastiat.

Dean Russell, Frederic Bastiat: Ideas and Influence (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1969). "Bastiat's Economic Background" and "Economic and Social Harmonies" pp. 16-40.

George Charles Roche III, Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone (New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1971). "Revolution: June 1848", "Last Days", and "Bastiat and the Social Architects" pp. 106-64.

Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, George B. de Huszar ed. (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1979). Chapter 8, "Private Property and Common Wealth" pp. 199-235.

Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy, George B. de Huszar ed. (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1975). Chapter 3, "Property and Law" pp. 97-115; chapter 6, "Property and Plunder" pp. 152-93.

Léon Faucher, "Property," and L. Wolowski and Emile Levasseur, "Note to Property" in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Merrill, 1888, vol. 3, pp. 391-95.

Texts

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? An Iquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, trans. B.R. Tucker (New York: Dover, 1970). Proudhon's most famous work is long and a bit verbose. You really need to browse through it to get a flavour of his polemical style and his arguments. Try the "First Memoir", chapter 3 "Labor as the Efficient Cause of the Domain of Property" pp. 84-150.

Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48, ed. Paul E. Corcoran (London: Macmillan, 1983.

Engels, Selected Writings, ed. W.O. Henderson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967). "Private Property and Competition," pp. 163-69.

Karl Marx, çI[Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft, trans. Martin Nicolaus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, pp. 491-98.

Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976).

Secondary Works

Maurice Agulhon, The Republican Experiment, 1848-1852, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge University Press, 1983). Chapters 1, 2, and 4.

Revolution and Reaction: 1848 and the Second French Republic, ed. Roger Price (London: Croom Helm, 1975, "Introduction," pp. 1-72. This is particularly strong on social and economic issues.

Roger Magraw, France 1815-1914: The Bourgeois Century (Oxford: Fontana Paperbacks, 1983, "Part Two: The Challenge from Below" pp. 89-155.

George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. His Life and Work (New York: Schocken Books, 1972). Part II: "The Critic of Property" pp. 36-70.

William H. Sewell, Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Régime to 1848 (Cambridge University Press, 1980).

G.D.H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought. Volume One: The Forerunners, 1789-1850 (London: Macmillan, 1953).

George Lichtheim, The Origins of Socialism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969, "Part One: Heirs of the French Revolution," pp. 17-98.

Histoire générale du socialisme, 4 vols., ed. Jacques Droz (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1972).

Frank E. Manuel, The Prophets of Paris: Turgot, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Comte (New York: Harper, 1965).

Donald Cope McKay, The National Workshops: A Study in the French Revolution of 1848 (Harvard University Press, 1933).

David McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx: An Introduction (New York: Harper, 1974).

David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (New York: Harper, 1977).

Texts

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, "Appendix: Of Property", pp. 349-88.

Thomas Hodgskin, The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (Clifton, New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973. Ist edition 1832).

Karl von Rotteck, "Eigentum", and Carl Theodor Welcker, "Eigentum," in Der europäische Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert, Lothar Gall and Rainer Koch eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1981).

Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, ed. Tibor Machan (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1978). Volume II, part IV: "The Ethics of Social Life: Justice," Chapters 11-15, "The Rights to the Uses of Natural Media, the Right of Property, the Right of Incorporeal Property, the Rights of Gift and Bequest, the Rights of Free Exchange and Free Contract."

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Part IV: Demands from Below," in Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1968).

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1970). Part II.

Secondary Works

Donald R. Kelley and Bonnie G. Smith, "What was Property? Legal Dimensions of the Social Question in France (1789-1848," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1984, vol. 128, no. 3, pp. 200-230.

Donald R. Kelley, "The Question of Property," in Historians and the Law in Postrevolutionary France (Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 127-38.

Seymour Drescher, "Social Revolution and Class Conflict," in Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernization (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968).

Alan Ryan, Property and Political Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. Chapter 4, "The Utilitarians: Security and Equality," pp. 91-117; chapter 6, "Mill and Marx and Socialism," pp. 142-74.

John Gray, "John Stuart Mill on the Theory of Property," in Theories of Property: Aristotle to the Present, ed. Anthony Parel and Thomas Flanagan (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1979).

P.S. Atiyah, The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, 1985). "Part II: The Age of Freedom of Contract , 1770-1870".

Lawrence C. Becker, Property Rights: Philosophic Foundations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977).

7. The Free Market and Social Harmony↩

Accordinig to liberals, it follows from the principle of property rights that individuals can exchange their property with others, thus giving rise to the idea of the free market. In the 19th century liberals had to struggle hard to create the conditions necessary for the development of markets. This involved the removal of barriers to internal and external trade, the commercialisation of agriculture, the creation of a legal framework for the formation of limited liability, joint-stock companies and the reduction of taxes and other state charges. This week we will examine the liberal theory of the free market as understood by the influential French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, the giant of classical economics John Stuart Mill and the French politician Frédéric Bastiat. Bastiat in particular is worth reading because of his popular and polemical style.

Two ideas which are of particular importance in the development of "economic liberalism" are Say's "Law of Markets" and Bastiat's idea of the "harmony" of the free market which he put forward in his last book Economic Harmonies (1850). Economic recessions were (and still are a serious problem for supporters of the free market. Say developed a theory of markets in order to explain why they occured. Say's law states that an economic recession caused by generalised over-production is unlikely in a free market because the production of new goods and services itself creates a demand for them. Thus, according to Say, one could not blame the market for recessions but instead one needed to look elsewhere for the source of the problem. The Treatise on Political Economy (1803 by Say is an important with intersting discussions of the division of labour, Say's Law and entrepreneurs (or "adventurers" as the 19th century American translator charmingly calls them). It is worth making the effort to read Say because his ideas were so influential. The Treatise was the most important economic textbook in France and America until it was superceded by Mill's Principles of Political Economy (1848). If you want to try Say I suggest you begin with the two short biographical essays on Say in Rechtenwald before tackling the Treatise).

Bastiat, concerned about criticism of "exploitation" and class conflict thought that the free market is essentially harmonious as long as the government did not interfere by favouring one party at the expense of another, for example by introducing legislation to create tariffs or subsidies for industry. Bastiat thought that the main "disturbing factors" in the economy were the result of government regulation and intervention.

Say's law of markets and Bastiat's idea of market harmony were important in creating an "optimistic" school within political economy. The optimists defended the market against the criticism of "pessimists" like Thomas Malthus (who feared the relentless pressure of population growth, Simonde de Sismondi (who was critical of periodic economic crises and the growth of factory labour and of course socialist and Marxist political economists who opposed the "disharmony" and "exploitation" of the market.

Tutorial Questions

What did Bastiat mean by harmony and why did he think that the free market could provide it?
What is "natural" about the order of the free market? Discuss Bastiat's views on this issue.
Discuss the contributions made by either Mill or Say to the science of economics.
What is the role of competition in liberal economic thought and why did socialist political economists believe it was disruptive and unfair?
Why were liberal economists optimistic about the future?

Key Reading

Bramsted and Melhuish will get you started on the complex subject of liberal political economy: Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, "Economic Liberalism," pp. 250-68 and documents 23-30 pp. 310-34.

Hamerow gives a good introduction to 19th century economic history in the sections on "The Economic Framework" and "The Social System." I suggest you begin with the first 2 chapters, "The Rise of Industrialism" and "The Transformation of Agriculture" pp. 1-58: Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983).

Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, chapter 1, "Natural and Artificial Order", pp. 1-19; chapter 4, "Exchange", pp. 59-98; chapter 7, "Capital", pp. 174-98.

Texts

Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth, trans. C.R. Princep and Clement C. Biddle (Philadelphia: Grigg and Elliott, 1832). Book One: "Of the Production of Wealth", chapter VIII "Of the Advantages and Disadvantages resulting from the Divsion of Labour; and of the Extent to which it may be carried" pp. 32-40; chapter XV "Of the Vent or Demand for Products" pp. 76-85; Book Two: "Of the Distribution of Wealth", chapter VII "Of the Revenue of Industry" pp. 278-98.

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, ed. W.J. Ashley (London: Longmans, Green, 1920). Book I: "Production", chapter VIII, "Of Co-operation, or the Combination of Labour" pp. 116-31; chapter IX, "Of Production on a Large, and Production on a Small Scale" pp. 132-54; Book IV: "Influence of the Progress of Society on Production and Distribution", chapter I, "General Characteristics of a Progressive State of Wealth" pp. 695-99; chapter II, "Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population on Values and Prices" pp. 700-9. The chapters from Book IV can also be found in Donald Winch's Penguin edition of the Principles, pp. 55-71. Winch's introduction is quite interesting.

Secondary Works

"Jean-Baptiste Say 1767-1832" in Political Economy: A Historical Perspective, ed. Horst Claus Rechtenwald (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1973 pp. 100-18.

Donald Winch, "The Emergence of Economics as a Science 1750-1870", in The Fontana Economic History of Europe. Volume 3: The Industrial Revolution, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla (London: Collins-Fontana, 1973, pp. 507-66.

D.P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).

Thomas Sowell, Classical Economics Reconsidered (Princeton University Press, 1977).

Mark Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect (Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Mark Blaug, Ricardian Economics: A Historical Study (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958).

Charles Gide and Charles Rist, A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the present Day, trans. R. Richards (London: George and Harrap, 1961).

Robert B. Ekelund, Jr. and Robert F. Hébert, A History of Economic Theory and Method (Tokyo: McGraw Hill, 1983).

William D. Grampp, The Manchester School of Economics (Stanford University Press, 1960).

William D. Grampp, Economic Liberalism. Volume 2: The Classical View (New York: Random House, 1965).

Pedro Schwartz, The New Political Economy of J.S. Mill (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972).

J. A. Schumpeter, A History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

Rudolf Walter, "Economic Liberalism," Economy and Society, 1984, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 178-207.

Socialist Political Economy

The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism, ed. M.C. Howard and J.E. King (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976).

Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48, ed. Paul E. Corcoran (London: Macmillan, 1983.

The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction, ed. J. Beecher and R. Bienvenu (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971). Section II: "Commerce, Industry and Work in Civilization", pp. 103-150.

8. Limited Vs. No Goverment↩

Liberals were convinced that the size and power of the government had to be drastically reduced in order for the individual to be completely free. The exact functions of the government were disputed. Some, like Bastiat and Humboldt, argued for a severely limited state whose functions would be restricted to police, external defense and some public works. Most classical economists, for example John Stuart Mill, were not as doctrinaire as Bastiat and supported a range of other government functions which included extensive factory legislation, sanitary laws, public education and some welfare measures. Opposed to them all were the liberals who were almost anarchists in their distrust of the state. Thses included Gustave de Molinari in France and Herbert Spencer and Auberon Herbert in Britain. The French economist and journalist Gustave de Molinari is the most extreme advocate of liberal anarchism. He believed that all functions of the government could be handled by the free market, including those of police and military defense, by private companies, voluntary associations and insurance companies.

This week I would like you to thnk about the various reasons which liberals put forward in support of or in opposition to the power of the state. Also think about the practicality and the justice of the more extreme claims by Spencer and Molinari.

Tutorial Questions

Explain why either Bastiat, Spencer or Molinari was so hostile to the state. What functions did they permit the state to exercise and why.
Is it possible to combine in a consistent way liberalism and anarchism as Spencer and Molinari seem to have done?
In "The Law" Bastiat argues that most activity by the state is "legal plunder". What did Bastiat mean by plunder and how did he plan to eliminate it?
Why did the so-called "New Liberals" later in the 19th century reject so completely the anti-statism of Bastiat, Spencer andthe other radical liberals?
Where did John Stuart Mill's sympathies ultimately lie, with the liberal anti-statists or the socialists?

Key Reading

As usual Bramsted and Melhuish is the place to start: Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, Part D, Section 3, "The Limitations and the Scope of the State: Introduction", pp. 583-98 and documents 105-110, pp. 634-69.

For important background on the functions of government in the 19th century see Hamerow: Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe, chapter 10, "The Functions of Government", pp. 258-309.

For the radical liberal arguments in favour of anarchism, see Spencer and Molinari: Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: The Conditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the first of them developed (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1970). Part III, chapters XIX, XXI and XXII, pp. 185-94, 224-45, 245-65. Take special note of chapter XIX, "The Right to Ignore the State", pp. 185-94 which Spencer left out in later editions of Social Statics).

Gustave de Molinari, The Production of Security, trans. J. Huston McCulloch (New York: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1977, pp. 1-15.

Texts

Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy, chapter 2, "The Law", pp. 51-96; chapter 5, "The State", pp. 140-51. These essays are eloquent defences of limited government.

Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, chapter 17, "Private and Public Services", pp. 443-65.

Herbert Spencer, "The Proper Sphere of Government," (1843 in The Man versus the State: With Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981, pp. 181-263.

Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wromng of Compulsion by the State and other Essays, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981).

James Mill, Essay on Government (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967).

James Mill, Selected Economic Writings, ed. Doanld Winch (Edinburgh: Oliver and Byrd, 1966).

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, Book 5 "On the Influence of Government."

L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism, ed. Alan P. Grimes (Oxford University Press, 1971).

Secondary Works

Barry Supple, "The State and the Industrial Revolution 1700-1914" in The Fontana Economic History of Europe. Volume 3: The Industrial Revolution, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla (London: Collins-Fontana, 1973, pp. 301-57.

W.H. Greenleaf, The British Political Tradition. Volume 2: The Ideological Heritage (London: Methuen, 1983, chapter 3 "Cobden and Spencer versus the State", pp. 30-102.

Michael Freeden, The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social reform (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986).

Oliver MacDonagh, Early Victorian Government 1830-1870 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977).

David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978, chapter 6, "The Limits of State Intervention", pp. 135-64.

D.G. Ritchie, The Principles of State Interference: Four Essays of the Political Philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill and Thomas H. Green (London: S. Sonnenschein, 1891).

J.D.Y. Peel, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London: Heinemann, 1971, "Anti-Politics of the 1840s" pp. 56-81.

Henri Michel, L'idée de l'état: Essai critique sur l'histoire des théories sociales et politiques en France depuis la Révolution (Paris, 1896).

Sydney Checkland, British Public Policy 1776-1939: An Economic, Social and Political Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

9. Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law↩

One of the great political legacies of the 18th century Enlightenment was the impulse to strictly define and thus limit the power of the state by means of a constitution. The best and most successful example of a functioning constitution was the American Constitution of 1787 and the Bill of Rights of 1791. A counter-example of failed constitutions and declarations of rights is provided by France during the revolutionary period.

This week we will examine the theory and practice of constitutional government in England, France and Germany during the 19th century. In France there was much intitial hope that the constitutional Charter of 1814 would be the beginning of constitutional government. This hope was short lived as the restored Bourbon monarchy reverted to its traditional authoritatarian practices. Later, the Belgian constitution became highly regarded as a model liberal constitution. However, many European liberals sought a foreign model for their ideal government. There was a difference of opinion over the suitability of foreign models of constitutional liberal government. Those wanting to retain the monarchy but limit its powers with a constitution, like Benjamin Constant in Principes de politique (1815 and François Guizot, favoured the British model. More democratic liberals wanted to base their idea of a limited government on the republican United States of America. This was particularly true for German democratic liberals like Robert von Mohl, Karl Rotteck and Friedrich Murhard.

An important aspect of the constitutional limitation of state power is the idea of "the rule of law" or Rechtsstaat as the German liberals called it. By the phrase "the rule of law" is commonly meant the idea that the state must abide by predetermined rules in its relationship with its citizens rather than operate secretly, arbitrarily and unaccountably as authoriatarian regimes do. One of the most widely read defenders of the rule of law and constitutional government was the British jurist A.V. Dicey whose Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (first edition 1885 is still used by law students. An important modern advocate of the rule of law is Hayek who gives a sophisticated historical account of the English contribution, the importance of the American experiment in constitutionalism, and the German version of the Rechtsstaat).

Not all liberals had Dicey's faith the the supremacy of parliament and the rule of law. The radical liberal individualist Herbert Spencer rejected Dicey's argument about the supremacy of parliament, which Spencer thought could and did violate the rights of individuals with impunity. Spencer thought this only replaced one superstition, the divine right of kings, with another, the divine right of parliament. However most liberals supported the idea of constitutional limits to state power and Spencer's view was very much a minority one.

Tutorial Questions

What did Constant mean by constitutional government and why did he believe that it would best protect the freedom of individuals?
Was it fair and reasonable for Continental liberals to compare their own governments with the "model" of Great Britain? Base your answer either on Constant or the German liberals discussed by McClelland.
What did Dicey mean by the "rule of law" and why did he think it existed in England but not on the Continent?
Does Spencer's attack on the supremacy of parliament destroy the foundation stone of liberal constitutionalism?
What is the Rechtsstaat? Did it ever exist in Germany?

Key Reading

A very brief introduction to constitutional theory and history can be found in Bramsted and Melhuish: Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, Section C: "Major Aspects of Continental Liberalism, Part 1: The Constitutional State: Introduction," pp. 387-93; Documents 45-57, pp. 431-69.

Eugene N. Anderson and Pauline R. Anderson, Political Institutions and Social Change in Continental Europe in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).

You might find it interesting to read some of the actual constitutions which France had during the 19th century and to compare the reality of French politics with the theory you will read: The Constitutions and Other Select Documents illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, ed. Frank Maloy Anderson (New York: Russell and Russell, 1967, the Constitutions of 1814, 1830, 1848, 1852, 1875, pp. 457-65, 507-13, 522-37, 543-49, 633-40.

The liberal Belgian Constitution of 1831 can be found in Constitutions of Nations, ed. Amos J. Peaslee (Concord, N.H.: Rumford, 1950 vol. 1, pp. 123-43.

A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (first edition 1885 (London: Macmillan,1967, "The True Nature of Constitutional Law," pp. 1-35; chapter IV: "The Rule of Law: Its Nature and General Applications," pp. 183-205.

Texts

Benjamin Constant, "Principes de Politique," De la liberté chez les modernes. Écrits politiques, ed. Marcel Gauchet (Paris: Livre de poche, 1980, pp. 265-490.

Benjamin Constant, Cours de politique constitutionelle 2 vols (Genève: Droz, 1980, ed. Etienne Hofmann.

Herbert Spencer, "The Great Political Superstition," in The Man Versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981, pp. 123-166.

Der europäische Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert: Texte zu seiner Entwicklung, ed. Lothar Gall and Rainer Koch (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein Materialien, 1981, vol. 1, Part 2: "Prinzipien der Staatsverfassung (I," pp. 239-333; vol. 2, Part 2: "Prinzipien der Staatsverfassung (II," pp. 3-125. Articles by Humboldt, Dahlmann, Welcker, and Mohl.

The Liberal Tradition in European Thought, ed. David Sidorsky (New York: Capricorn Books, 1971, "Constitutionalism and Democracy," pp. 113-218.

Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867, ed. R.H.S. Crossman (London: Fontana, 1963).

François Guizot, "History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe," Historical Essays and Lectures, ed. Stanley Mellon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972, pp. 18-91.

England

Richard A. Cosgrove, The Rule of Law: Albert Venn Dicey, Victorian Jurist (London: Macmillan, 1980, chapters 4-5, pp. 66-113.

Germany

Theodore S. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815-1871 (Princeton University Press, 1970, chapters 4, 7, 9, 10, pp. 56-74, 117-36, 156-95.

Charles E. McClelland, The German Historians and England: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Views (Cambridge University Press, 1971, chapters 4-5, pp. 47-90.

Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, trans. R.G. Collingwood (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967, German Liberalism: "The Juridical Conception of the State," pp. 251-64.

James J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1982, chapters 9-10, "'Turning the Corner': Liberalism and the Bismarckian State," "The Challenge of Democratization," pp. 123-58.

Leonard Krieger, The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition (University of Chicago Press, 1972, "The Docrine of the Rechtsstaat," pp. 252-61.

France

Theodore Zeldin, "English Ideals in French POlitics during the Nineteenth Century," The Historical Journal, 1959, vol. II, no. 1, pp. 40-58.

Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times: From the Enlightenment to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981, chapters 9-12, 18-19, pp. 99-154, 221-62.

Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, trans. R.G. Collingwood (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967, French Liberalism: "Constitutionalism," pp. 158-76.

Guy Howard Dodge, Benjamin Constant's Philosophy of Liberalism: A Study in Politics and Religion (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980, chapter IV "Constitutionalism", pp. 80-121.

Stephen Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984, chapter 5, "Constitutional Design," pp. 128-55.

America

The Constitution Reconsidered, ed. Conyers Read (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968).

Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment (Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, 1978).

R.R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution. Volume One: The Challenge (Princeton University Press, 1974).

rson, Political Institutions and Social Change in Continental Europe in the Nineteenth Ce

10. Democracy and Electoral Reform↩

The transition from oligarchic régimes totally dominated by aristocratic, landed élites to régimes in which firstly the middle classes and then progressively the working classes came to exercise some political influence is one of the most dramatic changes which took place in the 19th century. This process came about largely because of the expansion in the numbers of those entitled to vote, although the right to vote did not always guarantee that the influence of the traditional élites would be diminished.

Liberals were deeply divided on the question of the legitimacy of democracy and universal (manhood suffrage. Opinion ranged from James Mill, who saw democracy as the great weapon in the battle against the "sinister interests" of the aristocracy, to Herbert Spencer, who considered democracy to be just another "political superstition" like the divine right of kings.

Tutorial Questions

Why did liberals have reservations about unrestricted democracy? Were their fears justified? Discuss either J.S. Mill, Spencer, Tocqueville.
What is the connection between education and democracy in liberal thought? Discuss James and J.S. Mill.
What is the role of democracy and representative government in the historical formation of 19th century society? Discuss either Guizot, Lecky or Acton.
How applicable were Tocqueville's observations about democracy in America to European society?
How did James Mill plan to use democracy in the struggle against the "sinister interests" of the aristocracy?
Why did Spencer think democracy was a new "political superstition"? What weaknesses did he see in the system of representative government?

Key Reading

The process of democratisation and the change (or lack of change in political power which it brought about is discussed in Hamerow and Anderson. Read one of the following:

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Chapter 11 "The Enfranchisement of the Masses," pp. 285-309; chapter 12 "The Nature of Authority," pp. 310-334.

Eugene N. Anderson and Pauline R. Anderson, Political Institutions and Social Change in Continental Europe in the Nineteenth Century (University of California Press, 1967). Chapters on "Suffrage," "Political Parties," "Representation," pp. 307-93.

To appreciate the diversity of liberal opinion, begin with the selection of extracts in:

Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce, ed. E.K. Bramsted and K.J. Melhuish (London: Longman, 1978). "Liberty and Democracy," pp. 569-82, 605-32.

One of the most influential essays on the need for democratic reform in England is James Mill's "Essay on Government." Read this essay and then try one of Herbert Spencer's rather cynical anti-democratic essays. Spencer thought that the democrats' faith in the legitimacy of parliament was a "great political superstition."

James Mill, "Government" in Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press and Law of Nations (1825 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967). Also reprinrted in Utilitarian Logic and Politics, ed. Jack Lively and John Rees (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). "Essay on Government," pp. 53-97.

Herbert Spencer, "The Great Political Superstition" (1884 and "Representative Government - What is it Good For?" (1857 in The Man Versus the State: With Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981, pp. 123-66, 331-82.

Texts

The following is a variety of opinions ranging from strong support for democracy, qualified support, and strong opposition.

François Guizot, Historical Essays and Lectures, ed. Stanley Mellon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). "History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe," pp. 318-91. Also Guizot's Democracy in Modern Communities (London: C. and H. Senior, 1838, which can be found in the rare book room.

Alexis de Tocqueville, On Democracy, Revolution and Society, ed. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (University of Chicago Press, 1980). Chapters 1-4, 10, pp. 47-162, 348-79.

Lord Acton, Essays in the History of Liberty, ed. J. Rufus Fears (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985). "Sir Erskine May's Democracy in Europe," pp. 54-85.

William E.H. Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, ed. William Murchison (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1980).

Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981). "The Sins of the Legislators," "The Great Political Superstition," pp. 71-166.

James Mill, Utilitarian Logic and Politics, ed. Jack Lively and John Rees (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). "Essay on Government," pp. 53-97.

John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (any edition and "Democracy and Government" and "M. de Tocqueville on Democracy in America" in John Stuart Mill on Politics and Society, ed. Geraint L. Williams (Harvester Press, 1976, pp. 179-247.

Henry Sumner Maine, "The Prospects of Popular Government" and "Nature of Democracy," in Popular Government: Four Essays (London: John Murray, 1886, pp. 1-126.

Secondary Sources

Douglas Johnson, Guizot: Aspects of French History 1787-1874 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).

Jack Lively, The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).

Seymour Drescher, Tocqueville and England (Harvard University Press, 1964).

Derek Fraser, "The Agitation for Parliamentary Reform, " in Popular Movements c. 1830-1850, ed. J.T. Ward (London: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 31-53.

Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1962).

J.J. Auchmuty, Lecky: A Biographical and Critical Essay (Dublin, 1945).

David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978).

Joseph Hamburger, Intellectuals in Politics: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (Yale University Press, 1966).

Joseph Hamburger, "James MIll on Universal Suffrage and the Middle Class," Journal of Politics, 1962, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 167-90.

Paul Adelman, Victorian Radicalism: The Middle-Class Experience, 1830-1914 (London: Longman, 1984).

William Thomas, The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice, 1817-1841 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, "James Mill's Science of Politics," pp. 95-146.

J.H. Burns, "J.S. Mill and Democracy 1829-1861," Political Studies, June and October 1957, vol. 5, pp. 158-75, 281-94.

John M. Robson, The Improvement of Mankind: The Social and Political Thought of J.S. Mill (London, 1968).

W.H. Burston, James Mill on Philosophy and Education (London, 1973).

Carol Rose, "The Issue of Parliamentary Suffrage at the Frankfurt Parliament," Central European History, 1972.

11. Centralisation↩

Today we take the existence of a centralised nation state for granted but the creation of a centralised monopoly of police, defense, justice and legislative authority is of relatively recent origin. The process began in the 16th and 17th centuries and for many European countries it was still taking place well into the 19th century. The main obstacles to centralisation of political authority were regional élites who were reluctant to give up their powers of police, taxation and law-making. Many liberals viewed the creation of a central political authority with some trepidation. By crushing the power of regional and local élites and institutions the state was removing one of the most effective checks to irresponsable political power. This concern was shared by the anarchist Proudhon whose solution to the problem of excessive central power was federalism along the lines of the Swiss or American system.

Tutorial Questions

Why did liberals fear the process of political centralisation? What was their solution to it? Answer with respect to either Tocqueville, Mill or Toulmin Smith.
How effective is a federal system in reconciling local autonomy and the need for national policies? Discuss the thought of Tocqueville or Proudhon.

Key Reading

France is the classic example of a highly centralised power which had its origins in the absolute monarchy of the ancien régime and continued, in spite of the French Revolution, under Napoleon. The process of centralisation of power was less successful in Britain and much delayed in the German states. The United States of America provided European liberals, in particular Alexis de Tocqueville, with a model of a decentralised political system. The required reading deals with Tocqueville's attitudes towards centralisation of power.

Begin with a brief discussion of French centralisation in:

Theodore Zeldin, "Bonapartism," in France 1848-1945: Politics and Anger (Oxford University Press, 1979, in particular the section on "Centralisation" pp. 157-180.

Alexis de Tocqueville's opposition to centralised political power can be found in:

Alexis de Tocqueville, On Democracy, Revolution and Society, ed. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (University of Chicago Press, 1980). Chapters 1-4, 10, pp. 47-162, 348-79.

A good discussion of Tocqueville's views can be found in:

Jack Lively, The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962, "Centralisation," pp. 127-82.

An interesting discussion from a French liberal political economist on the dangers of centralised powere is:

Charles Coquelin, "Centralisation," Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, ed. Coquelin et Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 1, pp. 291-300. A partial translation can be found in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1899, vol. 1, pp. 368-373.

Texts

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols (1835, 1840, ed. J.P. Mayer (Garden City, New York: Doubelday, 1969).

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Rapport... sur l'ouvrage de M. Cherbuliez, intulé: 'De la Démocratie en Suisse (1848," in Ouevres, Papiers et Correspondances, ed. J.P. Mayer (Paris: Gallimard, tome 1, vol. 2, pp. 351-67. Translated in Democracy in America, ed. J.P. Mayer (Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday, 1969, "Appendix II. Report on Cherbuliez's Book," pp. 736-49. Charles Coquelin, "Centralisation," Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, ed. Coquelin et Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 1, pp. 291-300. A partial translation can be found in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1899, vol. 1, pp. 368-373.

Charles Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail (1845).

Charles Dunoyer, "Du système de la centralisation, de sa nature, de son influence, de ses limites et des réductions utiles qu'il est destiné à subir," Journal des Économistes, 1842, vol. 1, pp. 353-89.

John Stuart Mill, "Centralisation," Edinburgh Review, April 1862, vol. CXV, pp. 323-58.

Mill's view of Tocqueville can be found in the following reviews: "Democracy in America," Dissertations and Discussions, vol. 2, pp, 1-82; "M. de Tocqueville on Democracy in America" in John Stuart Mill on Politics and Society, ed. Geraint L. Williams (Harvester Press, 1976, pp. 186-247.

Joshua Toulmin Smith, Local Self-Government and Centralisation (London: Chapman, 1851).

E.A. Freeman, History of Federal Government (London: Macmillan, 1863).

The reaction to political centralisation by liberals and anarchists is suprisingly similar. Proudhon's work is particularly interesting: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Principle of Federation (1863, ed. Richard Vernon (University of Toronto Press, 1979).

Secondary Works

Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914 (Stanford University Press, 1976). "Part 2. The Agencies of Change," pp. 195-374

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Social Foundations of German Unification, 1858-1871, 2 vols (Princeton University Press, 1969-72).

The Victorian Revolution: Government and Society in Victoria's Britain, ed. Peter Stansky (New York: Franklin Watts, 1973). Articles by Macdonagh and Parris, pp. 5-57.

Studies in the Growth of Nineteenth Century Government, ed. Gillian Sutherland (1972).

Henry Parris, Constitutional Bureaucracy: The Development of British Central Administration since the 18th Century (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969).

Elie Halévy, A History of the English People in the 19th Century. Volume Three: The Triumph of Reform, 1830-1841, trans. E.I Watkin (London: Ernest Benn, 1950). "The Beginnings of Administrative Centralisation," pp. 98-129.

Vernon's introduction to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Principle of Federation, ed. Richard Vernon (University of Toronto Press, 1979).

George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: His Life and Work (New York: Schocken Books, 1972 pp. 245-280.

Bernard Voyenne, Histoire de l'idée fédéraliste. Tome 2: Le fédéralisme de P.J. Proudhon (Paris: Presses d'Europe, 1973).

Seymour Drescher, Tocqueville and England (Harvard University Press, 1964 "England 1835 - Centralisation and Liberty," pp. 74-104.

G. Pierson, Tocqueville in America (Garden City, New York: Doubelday, 1959).

André Jardin, "Tocqueville et la décentralisation," in La Décentralisation (VIe colloque d'histoire, Aix-en-Provence, 1961. Publication des Annales de la Faculté des Lettres).

Jean-Claude Lamberti, Tocqueville et les deux démocraties (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983).

Iris Wessel Muller, John Stuart Mill and French Thought (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956, "The Influence of Alexis de Tocqueville," pp. 134-69.

W.H. Greenleaf, The British Political Tradition. Volume Two: The Ideological Heritage (London: Methuen, 1983, "The Libertarian Strand," pp. 263-87.

Rupert Emerson, State and Sovereignty in Modern Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928, "Federalism," pp. 92-125.

Federalism: History and Current Significance of a Form of Government, ed. J.C. Boogman and G.N. van der Plaat (The Hague: Matinus Nijhoff, 1980). Articles in French, German and English on Swiss, French, American and German federalism.

Rudolf Rocker, ber das Wesen des Föderalismus in Gegensatz zum Zentralismus (Berlin, 1923).

Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, trans. Ray E. Chase (St. Paul, Minnesota: Michael E. Coughlin, 1978).

12. Freedom of Speech↩

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were important to liberals for reasons of principle, as an aspect of the liberty of the individual, as well as for reasons of practical politics. Many liberals believed that freedom of speech was an important check on the misuse of government power by exposing government action to critical examination by the educated classes. It was also important as a device for the political education of the middle and lower classes. Democracy could only be made to work if the newly enfranchised or soon to be enfranchised groups were able to follow parliamentary debates in newspapers and read and discuss the political literature published by different groups of lobbyists, parties and other organisations. Unfortunately for much of the 19th century censorship existed in various forms and was a constant source of irritation to liberal and other political reformers.

Tutorial Questions

To what extent is the liberal defense of free speech and a free press based on principle and to what extent is it practical? Discuss with respect to James or John Stuart Mill.
How successful was censorship in suppressing reformist ideas in England, France or Germany.

Key Reading

Begin with a discussion of the extent of censorship and the struggles to remove it in either Anderson or Goldstein:

Eugene N. Anderson and Pauline R. Anderson, Political Institutions and Social Change in Continental Europe in the Nineteenth Century (University of California Press, 1967). Chapter on "Civil Rights."

Robert Justin Golstein, Political Repression in 19th Century Europe (London: Croom Helm, 1983). Chapter 2, pp. 34-79.

A variety of responses by liberals to censorship can be found in Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, "Freedom of speech, of the press, and of association," pp. 397-406, 492-511.

Two of the most influential attacks on censorship are by James and John Stuart Mill. Read the following essays:

James Mill, "The Liberty of the Press" in Essays on Government (New York: Augustus M. Kelley).

John Stuart Mill, Chapter 2 "On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion," pp. 75-118, in On Liberty, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).

Gertrude Himmelfarb also has a good discussion of J.S. Mill's views on freedom of speech in:

Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, "Liberty of Thought and Discussion," pp. 23-56.

Texts

John Stuart Mill, "Law of Libel and Liberty of the Press," (1825 in Collected Works, ed. John M. Robson (University of Toronto Press, 1984, vol. XXI, pp. 1-34.

A.V. Dicey, "Chapter VI: The Right to Freedom of Discussion," in Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885 (London: Macmillan, 1967, pp. 238-69.

Benjamin Constant, "De la liberté de la pensée," in Les 'Principes de politique' de Benjamin Constant, vol. 2, ed. Étienne Hofmann (Genève: Droz, 1980 pp. 125-54.

Wilhelm von Humboldt, "ber Pressefreiheit" (1816 in Schriften zur Politik und zum Bildungswesen. Volume 4: Werke, ed. Andreas Flitner und Klaus Giel (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta, 1964, pp. 338-46.

Secondary Works

Frede Castberg, Freedom of Speech in the West: A Comparative Study of Public Law in France, the United States and Germany (Oslo University Press, 1960). France pp. 9-23; Germany pp. 297-318.

Irene Collins, The Government and the Newspaper Press in France, 1814-1888 (Oxford University Press, 1959).

W.H. Wickwar, The Struggle for the Freedom of the Press, 1819-1832 (1928).

As newspapers and journals became popular a new profession, that of the fulltime journalist, came into existence. O'Boyle discusses their activities in the period of their formation. Lenore O'Boyle, "The Image of the Journalist in France, Germany and England, 1815-1848," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1968, vol. X, no. 3, pp. 290-317.

Histoire générale de la presse française, ed. Claude Bellanger et al. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1969).

13. The National Question↩

For nations like Britain and France which had already developed national and centralised governments in the 17th and 18th centuries there was no "national question" in the 19th century. There was however a growing feeling of identification with and support for the nation which was used to justify certain government policies, particularly in foreign and colonial policy. The situation was quite different in the numerous German states and in Italy. Groups which were closely linked culturally or linguistically were divided into a multitude of small principalities or states, or were occupied by foreign powers. In Germany and Italy the movement for liberal reforms became mixed up with the movement for national unification. In fact liberalism was often replaced by nationalism as the most powerful movement for reform. The difficult relationship between liberalism and nationalism is mostly clearly seen in Germany.

Tutorial Questions

Were German liberals able to reconcile their liberalism and their nationalism?
Why was national unification such a problem for German liberals?
How was Bismarck able to use the liberals' disagreement over the importance of national unification to his own advantage?
Why did Lord Acton believe that the "theory of nationality," as he called it, was a retrograde step and "the greatest adversary of the rights of nationality?"
What is the relationship between liberty and nationality in the writings of Mazzini?
Why did Lafayette believe that the liberties of the French were related to the Polish struggle for national independence?
How did Guizot use history to develop a feeling of nationalism in France?

Key Reading

A good introduction to liberal ideas on nationality and nationalism can be found in Hayes.

Carlton J.H. Hayes, The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1949). Chapter 5 "Liberal Nationalism," pp. 120-63.

Bramsted and Melhuish have a useful collection of documents on the conflict between liberalism and nationalism amongst German liberals.

Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, "Freedom, Power and the Nation State: Germany 1814-1881," pp. 418-27, 535-65.

Texts

W.M. Simon, Germany in the Age of Bismarck (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973). "Introduction: The Age of Bismarck," pp. 13-96; "The Liberal's Struggle with Bismarck and their Consciences," pp. 104-22.

Lord Acton, Essays in the History of Liberty, ed. J. Rufus Fears (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985). "Nationality," pp. 409-33.

François Guizot, Historical Essays and Lectures, ed. Stanley Mellon (University of Chicago Press, 1972). "The History of Civilization in France," pp. 266-394.

Guiseppe Mazzini, The Duties of Man and Other Essays (London: Dent, 1924).

Secondary Works

James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York, 1980).

Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1962).

G.E. Fasnacht, Acton's Political Philosophy: An Analysis (London: Hollis and Carter, 1952, "Nationality and Power," pp. 126-39.

James J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1982). "Conclusion: Liberalism, Nationalism, and the German Question," pp. 272-83.

Leonard Krieger, The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition from the Reformation to 1871 (University of Chicago Press, 1972). Chapter 5 "National Liberation 1813-1815," pp. 174-215, and various references to nationalism in the rest of the book.

European Political History, 1815-1870. Aspects of Liberalism, ed. Eugene C. Black (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1967). Lewis B. Namier, "Nationality and Liberty," pp. 128-54; Franz Schnabel, "The Bismarck Problem," pp. 200-29.

G.R. Mork, "Bismarck and the Capitulation of German Liberalism," Journal of Modern History, 1971, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 59-75.

Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, trans. R.G. Collingwood (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967). "Freedom and Nationality," pp. 407-16.

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Social Foundations of German Unification, 1858-1871, 2 vols (Princeton University Press, 1969-72).

Erich Eyck, Bismarck and the German Empire (New York: W.W. Norton).

George L. Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses. Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (New York: 1975).

Andrew Lees, Revolution and Reflection: Intellectual Change in Germany during the 1850s (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974, "Chapter IV: Political Hopes and Fears", pp. 104-137.

Stanley Mellon, The Political Uses of History: A Study of Historians in the French Restoration (Stanford University Press, 1958).

Lloyd S. Kramer, "The Rights of Man: Lafayette and the Polish National Revolution, 1830-1834," French Historical Studies, 1986, vol. XIV, no. 4, pp. 521-46.

Douglas Johnson, Guizot: Aspects of French History 1787-1874 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).

Richard Hinton Thomas, Liberalism, Nationalism and the German Intellectuals, 1822-1847: An Analysis of the Academic Scietific Conferences of the Period (Cambridge, 1951).

John R. Rath, "The Viennese Liberals of 1848 and the Nationality Problem," Journal of Central European Affairs, 1955-56, vol. 15, pp. 227-39.

The Unification of Italy, 1859-1861: Cavour, Mazzini or Garibaldi (New York: Holt, 1965).

John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester University Press, 1982).

Louis L. Snyder, Roots of German Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978).

14. Liberal Politics↩

Gradually liberal reformers, who had originally sought reform from within the state bureaucracy or by influencing the existing political parties, created new and independent political parties which were explicitly liberal. I suggest you ask yourselves the following questions as you do the reading:

how were these parties organised
which social groups did they represent
how successful were they in bringing about liberal reforms
what issues did they become involved in
did they "sell-out" liberal principles once they they reached office
and were they the best means liberals could use to bring about change This week we will be discussing some of the more famous and successful liberal politicians such as Alexis de Tocqueville and François Guizot in France, and John Stuart Mill, John Bright, William Gladstone and John Morely in Great Britain.

Tutorial Questions

What was Mill's strategy for the "Reform Party" and was he able to carry it out in Parliament?
Choose one of the following liberal politicians and discuss their social background, whom they represented in politics, what issues they became involved in when in office and how successfully they advanced the cause of liberal reform: Tocqueville, Thiers, Guizot, J.S. Mill, Bright, Gladstone, or Morley.
Why was the organised liberal movement in Germany split into so many different political parties? Does this account for their ineffectiveness against Bismarck?

Key Reading

A good introduction to the history and function of political parties in the 19th century is:

I chosen to concentrate this week on the activities of the French liberal politician Alexis de Tocqueville. Begin with the introductory work by Mayer: J.P. Mayer, Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biographical Study in Political Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960, especially the chapter on "Politics: Venture and Dilemma," pp. 39-64.

Then read some of Tocqueville's letters written when he was a deputy to get a feeling for what issues he was interested in and what he was trying to achieve in politics. If you have time you might like to read his impressions of the 1848 Revolution and the Second Empire.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. James Toupin and Roger Boesche (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, Section Three "The Politics of the July Monarchy (1839-1847," pp. 134-94.

A good account of the difficult position Tocqueville and other liberal politicians were in during the July Monarchy, treading a middle path between conservative reaction and popular democracy, see Starzinger:

Vincent Starzinger, Middlingness: Juste Milieu Political Theory in France and England, 1815-48 (1965).

15. War and Peace↩

In many ways the 19th century was less violent than both the 18th and the 20th centuries. There were extended periods of peace which coincided with periods of dramatic economic development and prosperity. A result of this prosperity was faith in unlimited economic and moral progress which many liberals believed would make war increasingly unprofitable and unecessary. At the same time industrial and technological developments increased the destructiveness of any future war beyond the comprehension of most 19th century people. Although the major European powers were less often at war with each other in the 19th century they continued to be brutal towards the less developed people they encounted in their colonies and the rivalry which existed between the European powers over colonial and imperial possessions sowed the seeds for future conflict. Liberals were acutely aware of the dangers which this imperial rivalry and the wars which resulted from it posed for the continuation of liberal reforms. For many liberals the demands of the military were impossible to reconcile with small and cheap government. Not to mention the moral questions which war and imperalism raised.

Tutorial Questions

Why did Bastiat believe that wars were always waged in the interest of the few at the expense of the many?
What is the relationship between Bastiat's distinction between "plunder" and "production" and his opposition to war?
Why did Cobden and Bright oppose increases in the budget for naval and army expenditure?
Discuss Cobden or Bright's attitude to the Crimean War (against Russia?
What was Passy's role in the organised peace movement of the late 19th century?
How did James Mill expect international law to reduce the risk of war?
What reasons did Morley give for opposing the declaration of war against Germany in August 1914? Why was he the only liberal to resign from parliament over this issue?
How did Spencer distinguish between the industrial and the militant type of societies? What kind of society did Spencer believe existed in Britain towards the end of his life?
What did Constant mean by "the spirit of conquest"?
What was "The Great Illusion" criticised by Norman Angell?

Key Reading

Hamerow discusses the technological changes which increased the destructiveness of war as well as the imperial rivalries which made the possibility of war greater.

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Chapter 14 "The System of Warfare," pp. 363-388.

The response of liberals to war was to denounce it and to stress the essentially pacific nature of free trade and the industrial system. Bramsted and Melhuish have a small selection of documents which illustrate this aspect of liberal thought.

Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, "The Belief in International Harmony," pp. 278-87, 352-83.

Although liberals opposed war on moral grounds they also had economic reasons for opposing it as well. Silberner's book is excellent on the economic dimension of opposition to war.

Edmund Silberner, The Problem of War in Nineteenth Century Economic Thought, trans. Alexander H. Krappe (Princeton University Press, 1946). On James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Babtiste Say, Frédéric Bastiat and Gustave de Molinari.

Read the section on the French economists Say, Bastiat and Molinari as well as the following chapters by Bastiat. Frédéric Bastiat left his chapter on "War" in Economic Harmonies incomplete at his death but when you combine this fragment with his other writings on plunder his views become clearer.

Bastiat, "War," Economic Harmonies, ed. George B. de Huszar (Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Freedom, 1964, pp. 475-86; and "The Physiology of Plunder" in Economic Sophisms trans. Arthur Goddard (Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Freedom, 1964, pp. 129-46 and "Property and Plunder" in Selected Essays on Political Economy, ed. George B. de Huszar (Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Freedom, 1964, pp. 152-193.

Texts

Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by John Bright, M.P., ed. James E. Thorold Rogers (London, 1883).

Richard Cobden, The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, 2 vols, ed. Naomi Churgin Miller (New York: Garland Publishing, 1973; and Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P., ed. John Bright and James E. Thorold Rogers (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1970, vol. 2.

Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School, ed. Francis W. Hirst (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968, Part 3, "Wars and Armaments."

Frédéric Passy, "The Future of Arbitration," in Instead of Violence: Writings by the great Advocates of Peace and Nonviolence throughout History, ed. Arthur and Lila Weinberg (Boston: Beacon, 1971).

James Mill, "Law of Nations," in James Mill, Essays on Government (New York: Augustus M. Kelley).

John Viscount Morley, Memorandum on Resignation. August 1914 (London: Macmillan, 1928, ed. Guy Morley.

Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ed. Stanislav Andreski (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1969). "The Militant Type of Society," "The Industrial Type of Society," pp. 499-571. And "Re-Barbarisation," and "Regimentation," pp. 122-41 in Facts and Comments (London: Williams and Norgate, 1902).

Benjamin Constant, De l'esprit de conqu/te et de l'usurpation dans leurs rapports avec la civilsation européenne (1814, in De la liberté chez les modernes: Écrits politiques, ed. Marcel Gauchet (Paris: Le livre de poche, 1980, pp. 107-261.

Norman Angell, The Great Illusion (1910).

Secondary Works

William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (University of Chicago Press, 1982). Chapters 6-8, pp. 185-306.

Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare: The Modern History of the International Law of Armed Conflicts (London: Methuen, 1983). Chapter 3, pp. 128-215.

Herman Ausubel, John Bright: Victorian Reformer (New York: John Wiley, 1966).

J.A. Hobson, Richard Cobden: The International Man (London: Ernest Benn, 1968).

John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: Fisher Unwin, 1903).

"Excursus: The Peace Movement in France," pp. 327-83 in Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without War: The Peace Movement and German Society, 1892-1914 (Princeton University Press, 1975).

A.C.F. Beales, The History of Peace: A Short Account of the Organised Movements for International Peace (New York: The Dial Press, 1931).

"Bentham and Mill," pp. 81-91 in F.H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations between States (Cambridge University Press, 1963).

D.A. Hamer, John Morley: Liberal Intellectual in Politics (Oxford University Press, 1968).

David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978). "'Militant' and 'Industrial' Society," pp. 243-56.

Guy H. Dodge, Benjamin Constant's Philosophy of Liberalism: A Study in Politics and Religion (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). Chapter 2 "Conquest, Dictatorship, and Ancient Liberty," pp. 18-51.

Donald Read, Cobden and Bright: A Victorian Political Partnership (London: Edward Arnold, 1967 Keith Roberts, John Bright (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979).

Olive Anderson, A Liberal State at War: English Politics and Economics during the Crimean War (London: St Martin's Press, 1967).

Howard Weinroth, "Norman Angell and The Great Illusion: An Episode in Pre-1914 Pacifism," The Historical Journal, 1974, vol. XVII, no. 3, pp. 551-74.

16. Colonialism and Imperialism↩

In many respects this week's reading is a continuation of last week's on war and peace. The important question to focus on is whether it is possible to have peaceful trade with and settlement of colonies without at the same time engaging in a policy of "imperialism", with all that it connotes. Liberals believed that imperialism and protective tariffs went hand-in-hand whilst free trade was the antithesis of imperialism. We will examine the important arguments put forward by Semmel and others that free trade created a form of imperialism as well as the liberals' denials.

Tutorial Questions

Discuss the views of one of the following individuals on colonies and imperialism: Cobden, Bright, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Spencer, Tocqueville.
Is there an "imperialism of free trade?" Discuss the debate between Gallagher and Robinson, Semmel, Platt and Macdonaugh?
What is Hobson's theory of imperialism and how does it differ from earlier liberal theories?
How did the classical economists justify colonization?

Key Reading

It is important to understand the nature of European imperialism before turning to what liberals and their critics thought about it. Begin with Hamerow for background information before attempting Semmel's book:

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Chapter 15 "The Zenith of Imperialism," pp. 389-415.

Semmel raises the following important questions: did Britain's free trade policy create a new kind of imperialism and did advocates of free trade plan to use trade as a mechanism for imperial control? Macdonaugh disagrees.

Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy, the Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 1970). Chapter 6 "Parliament, political economy, and the Workshop of the World" pp 130-157; chapter 7 "Cobdenism and the 'dismal science' pp. 158-176, chapter 9 "Classical political economy, the Empire of Free Trade, and Imperialism, pp. 203-229.

O. Macdonaugh, "The Anti-Imperialism of Free Trade," Economic History Review, 1962, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 489-501.

A very useful collection of extracts on the question of imperialism (by both critics and supporters of empire can be found in Fieldhouse:

The Theory of Capitalist Imperialism, ed. D.K. Fieldhouse (London: Longman, Green, 1967).

As the leader of the Free Trade movement in Britain Richard Cobden played an important role in the debate about colonies and empire. Read his first major piece on "England, Ireland, and America" (1835 especially the section on "England" in Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School (1903, ed Francis W. Hirst (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968, pp. 3-34.

Texts

Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by John Bright, M.P., ed. James E. Thorold Rogers (London, 1883).

Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School, ed. Francis W. Hirst (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968, "Colonial and Fiscal Policy."

John Stuart Mill, "A Few Words on Non-Intervention (1859," in Essays on Equality, Law, and Education: Volume 21, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. John M. Robson (University of Toronto Press, 1984, pp. 111-24.

James Mill, Selected Economic Writings, ed. Donald Winch (University of Chicago Press and the article "Colonies" in Essays on Government (New York: Augustus M. Kelley).

Herbert Spencer, "Imperialism and Slavery," in Facts and Comments (London: Williams and Norgate, 1902, pp. 112-121.

J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, ed. Philip Siegelman (University of Michigan Press, 1972).

The Theory of Capitalist Imperialism, ed. D.K. Fieldhouse (London: Longman, Green, 1967).

Alexis de Tocqueville, Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Roger Boesche (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, pp. 360-65; Democracy in America, ed. J.P. Mayer (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969, Chapter 2 "Concerning their point of departure...," pp. 31-49; "Abolition of Slavery," in Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968, pp. 98-173.

"Anticolonialistes libéraux," in L'anticolonialisme en France de 1871-1914, ed. Charles-Robert Ageron (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973, pp. 45-53.

Secondary Works

D.K. Fieldhouse, Economics and Empire 1830-1914 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976).

D.K. Fieldhouse, The Colonial Empires from the Eighteenth Century (New York: Dell, 1966). "Part 2: The Colonial Empires after 1815)."

J.D.Y. Peel, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London: Heinemann, 1971, pp. "History's Revenge," 224-48.

David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978).

Ian Bradley, The Optimists: Themes and Personalities in Victorian Liberalism (London: Faber and Faber, 1980). "Non-Intervention and Self-Determination," pp. 123-48.

J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, "The Imperialism of Free Trade," Economic History Review, 1953, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-15.

D.C.M. Platt, "The Imperialism of Free Trade: Some Reservations," Economic History Review, 1968, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 296-306.

D.C.M. Platt, "Further Objections to an 'Imperialism of Free Trade'," Economic History Review, 1973, vol. 26, pp. 77-91.

D.N. Winch, "Classical Economics and the Case for Colonization," Economica, 1963, vol. 30, no. 120, pp. 387-99.

D.N. Winch, Classical Political Economy and Colonies (Harvard University Press, 1965).

P.J. Cain, "J.A. Hobson, Cobdenism, and the Radical Theory of Economic Imperialism, 1898-1914," Economic History Review, 1978, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 565-84.

Michael Freeden, "J.A. Hobson as a New Liberal Theorist: Some Aspects of his Social Thought until 1914," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1973, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 421-43.

Henri Baudet, "Alexis de Tocqueville et la pensée coloniale du XIXe siècle," in Alexis de Tocqueville: Livre du Centenaire, 1859-1959 (Paris, 1960, pp. 121-131.

Sally Gerschman, "Alexis de Tocqueville and Slavery," French Historical Studies, 1976, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 467-83.

André Jardin, "Tocqueville et l'Algérie," Revue des travaux de l'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 1962, no. 115, pp. 61-74.

Mary Lawlor, Alexis de Tocqueville in the Chamber of Deputies: His Views on Foreign and Colonial Policy (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1959).

André Martel, "Tocqueville et les problèmes coloniaux de la Monarchie de Juillet," Revue d'histoire économique et sociale, 1954, vol. 32, pp. 367-88.

Seymour Drescher, Tocqueville and England (Harvard University Press, 1964).

Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, ed. Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe (New York: Longman, 1983).

Winfried Baumgart, Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880-1914 (Oxford University Press, 1982).

H.V. Emy, Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics 1892-1914 (Cambridsge University Press, 1973).

H.C.G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists: The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Elite (Oxford, 1973).

The Robinson Gallagher Controversy, ed. W.R. Louis (New York, 1976).

C.C. Wrigley, "Neo-Mercantile Policies and the New Imperialism," The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India, ed. Clive Dewey and A.G. Hopkins (London: 1978, pp. 20-34.

Bernard Porter, Critics of Empire: British Radicals Attitudes to Colonialism in Africa 1895-1914 (London: Macmillan, 1968).

17. Classical Political Economy and Laissez-faire↩

This week we will be examining the claim that the 19th century was a period a laissez-faire in economic policy, i.e. that the government adopted a general policy of non-interference in economic matters. This view was expressed by both opponents and supporters of liberalism, in particular by the historian A.V. Dicey who saw the period of "Benthamism" in Great Britain as essentially laissez-faire. Historians have radically altered this view by describing the extensive way in which governments did in fact interfere in the economy in areas such as factory acts, poor laws, labour regulation, monetary policy, railway legislation, etc. Many classical political economists supported selected government intervention in the economy - the few who advocated true laissez-faire policies, such as Jean-Baptiste Say, Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, were only a minority.

Tutorial Questions

To what extent were the following liberals advocates of true laissez-faire policies? Martineau, Spencer, Mackay, Say. Answer with respect to one of them.
What reservations did either Cairnes or Mill have about laissez-faire policies? What role did they see for government intervention in the economy?
Is Dicey's account of "Benthamism" as essentially laissez-faire an accurate one?
How do older historical works, such as Cunningham's, which describe Victorian economic policy as laissez-faire compare with modern accounts like Checkland's? How do you explain this change in interpretation?

Key Reading

Begin with the collection of extracts in Bramsted and Melhuish which gives a good indication of the diversity of views on economic policy. Western Liberalism, ed. Bramsted and Melhuish, "Economic Liberalism," pp. 250-68, 310-33.

The complex debate about the extent to which the classical political economsts believed in laissez-faire is introduced by Coats.

The Classical Economists and Economic Policy, ed. A.W. Coats (London: Methuen, 1971). "Editor's Introduction, pp. 1-32.

The true laissez-faire advocates tended to be the popularisers like Harriet Martineau, Thomas Hodgskin and Herbert Spencer as Scott Gordon argues in:

H. Scott Gordon, "The Ideology of Laissez-Faire," in The Classical Economists and Economic Policy, ed. A.W. Coats (London: Methuen, 1971, pp. 180-205.

And H. Scott Gordon, "The London Economist and the High Tide of Laissez-Faire," Journal of Political Economy, 1955, vol. 63, no. 6, pp. 461-88.

So you can judge for yourself, I suggest you read something by John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer.

Mill's reservations about a policy of strict laissez-faire can be found in John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, Book V "On the Influence of Government", section I "Of the Functions of Government in General", pp. 145-52 and section XI "Of the Grounds and Limits of the Laisser-Faire or Nonn-Interference Principle", pp. 304-46.

In comparison to Mill one should read the strict laissez-faire views of Herbert Spencer in Social Statics (1851 (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1970, especially chapter XXII "The Limit of State Duty" pp. 245-65 and chapter XXIII "The Regulation of Commerce" pp. 265-72.

Texts

A.V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relationship Between Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century (1905 (London: Macmillan, 1920). Lectures 4 and 6, pp. 62-69, 126-210.

W. Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times. Part 2: Laissez-faire (1903).

Harriet Martineau, Illustrations of Political Economy (London: C. Fox, 1832 4 vols.

Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State: With Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981).

Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1978). Volume 2: Part IV, chapters 15-16, 26-29; Part V, chapters 1-3.

A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation, ed. Thomas Mackay (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981).

John Elliot Cairnes, "Political Economy and Laissez-Faire" and "Bastiat," in Essays in Political Economy (London: Macmillan, 1873).

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, Book V, sections I, VIII-XI, pp. 145-52, 239-346. Other relevant sections which can be found in any complete edition of the Principles are Book II, chapters 1-2, 112-13; Book IV, chapters 2, 7.

Jean-Baptiste Say, Treatise of Political Economy, ed. Clement C. Biddle (Philadelphia: Grigg and Elliott, 1832, Book III, chapter 6, pp. 373-405.

Secondary Works

Social Policy 1830-1914: Individualism, Collectivism and the Origins of the Welfare State, ed. Eric J. Evans (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978). Chapter 1: "State Intervention: The Tempering of Individualism," pp. 19-42.

Arthur J. Taylor, Laissez-faire and State Invervention in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London: Macmillan, 1972).

Rudolf Walter, "Economic Liberalism," Economy and Society, 1984, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 178-207.

Lionel Robbins, The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy (London: Macmillan, 1953).

Sydney Checkland, British Public Policy 1777-1939: An Economic, Social and Political Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1983). Parts 2 and 3, pp. 61-159.

Ellen Frankel Paul, Moral Revolution and Economic Science: The Demise of Laissez-Faire in Nineteenth Century British Political Economy (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979).

Pedro Schwartz, The New Political Economy of J.S. Mill (Durham, North Carolina Press: Duke University Press, 1972).

Mark Francis, "Herbert Spencer and the Myth of Laissez-Faire," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1978, pp. 317-28.

R.K. Webb, Harriet Martineau (1960).

Bartlett J. Brebner, "Laissez-faire and State Intervention in Nineteenth-Century Britain," Journal of Economic History, 1948, vol. 8.

H. Scott Gordon, "The London Economist and the High Tide of Laissez-Faire," Journal of Political Economy, 1955, vol. 63, no. 6, pp. 461-88.

Colin J. Holmes, "Laissez-faire in Theory and Practice: Britain, 1800-1875," Journal of European Economic History, 1976, vol. 5.

Revolution of Evolution: British Government in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Valerie Cromwell (London: Longman, 1977).

D.P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). Chapter 10, "The Policy Prescriptions of Classical Economics," pp. 272-92.

H. Scott Gordon, "Laissez-faire," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968, vol. 8, pp. 546-49.

Jacob Viner, "The Intellectual History of Laissez-faire," Journal of Law and Economics, 1960, vol. 3, pp.. 49-69.

Jacob Viner, "Bentham and J.S. Mill: The Utilitarian Background," in The Long View and the Short (Glencoe, Illinois: 1958, pp. 30-31.

Pedro Schwartz, "John Stuart Mill and Laissez-faire: London Water," Economica, 1966, vol. 33, pp. 71-83.

J.M. Keynes, "The End of Laissez-faire" (1926 in Essays in Persuasion (New York: W.W. Norton, 1963, pp. 312-22.

G.D.H. Cole, "Laissez-faire," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. IX-X (New York: Macmillan, 1933, pp. 15-20.

Warren J. Samuels, The Classical Theory of Economic Policy (New York: World Publishing Co.).

H. Perkins, "Individualism vs Collectivism in 19th Century Britain: A False Antithesis," Journal of British Studies, 1977, vol. 17.

Donald G. Rohr, The Origins of Social Liberalism in Germany (University of Chicago Press). "The Argument for Free Enterprise," pp. 78-166.

Rainer Koch, "'Industriesystem' oder 'bürgerliche Gesellschaft'. Der frühe deutsche Liberalismus und das Laissez-faire-Prinzip," Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 1978, vol. 10, pp. 605-28.

18. Free Trade and Protection↩

One of the great successes for liberal economic reformers was the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain in 1846, which ushered in a period of deregulation across western Europe. It also revealed for the first time the newly acquired power of the middle class which was able to organise an effective popular campaign to end the most important element in the protection of agriculture. The Anti-Corn Law agitation was not only the result of the spread of the new liberal political economy but also a example of class conflict between the emerging middle class and the traditional aristocratic farm owners who benefited from the Corn Law restrictions. It is important to keep these two apsects of the Anti-Corn Law agitation in mind when you do the reading for this week. The success of free trade was only short-lived. Later in the century powerful groups, particularly in Germany, were able to have protection reintroduced. This was partly because of naked self-interest and partly due to the nationalistic ideas of theorists like the influential German economist Friedrich List.

In the tutorial we will be examining ideas and political activity of two leading figures in the movement for free trade in the 1840s: Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League in Britain and Frédéric Bastiat in France.

Tutorial Questions

What arguments did Cobden and Bright put forward in favour of free trade? To what extent were these arguments based upon economic theory and to what extent were they inspired by considerations of class?
As a political movement why was the Anti-Corn Law League successful?
Did Bastiat really have the interests of consumers at heart (as he claimed in his campaign against tariffs?
Are the essays and stories in Bastiat's Economic Sophisms anything more than propaganda?
Why did Friedrich List oppose free trade?
What interests opposed free trade and what interests supported free trade in France or Germany during the 19th century? How did these opposing groups justify their positions?
What arguments did the classical political economists put forward in favour of free trade? Answer with respect to one of the following: James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hodgskin, Jean-Baptiste Say, Gustave de Molinari.

Key Reading

A good introduction to the very large literature on the Anti-Corn Law League is by Chaloner:

W.H. Chaloner, "The Agitation Against the Corn-Laws," in Popular Movements c. 1830-1850, ed. J.T. Ward (London: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 135-51.

Read the selection of extracts in one of the following collections:

Free Trade: Theory and Practice from Adam Smith to Keynes, ed. Norman McCord (Newton Abbot, Devon: David and Charles, 1970). Part Two "The Victory of Free Trade - The Corn Laws and the League," pp. 61-97 and Part Three "The Zenith of Free Trade," pp. 99- 127.

Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School, ed. Francis W. Hirst (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968, "Part II: The Corn Laws and Free Trade," pp. 117-238.

The success of the Anti-Corn Law Leaugue spread to France where it was taken up by Bastiat. Russell provides a useful introduction to the French Free Trade movement.

Dean Russell, Frédéric Bastiat: Ideas and Influence (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1965, chapters 4-8, pp. 41-105.

Bastiat's propaganda in favour of free trade is very readable and is sometimes quite clever. Try the following essays:

Frédéic Bastiat, "What is Seen and What is not Seen" pp. 1-50 in Selected Essays on Political Economy, ed. George B. de Huszar (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1975).

And the amusing essays in Economic Sophisms trans. Arthur Goddard (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1964: "A Petition from the Manufacturers of Candles..." pp. 56-62; "Protectionism, or the Three Alderman" pp. 230-41; "Something Else" pp. 242-50; "Little Arsenal of the Freetrader" pp. 251-57; "The Right Hand and the Left" pp. 258-65.

The attitude of the French liberal political economists is summed up in the encyclopaedia article by Molinari in 1852:

Gustave de Molinari, "Liberté du Commerce - Liberté des Échanges," in Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, ed. Coquelin et Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 2, pp. 49-63. A partial translation can be found in the entry "Protection," in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1899, vol. 3, pp. 413-423.

Texts

Richard Cobden, Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P., ed. John Bright and James E. Thorold Rogers (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1970, vol. 1, "Free Trade," pp. 1-232.

Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School, ed. Francis W. Hirst (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968, Part 2: "The Corn Laws and Free Trade," pp. 117-285.

Frédéic Bastiat, "What is Seen and What is not Seen" pp. 1-50; "Protection and Communism: To M. Thiers" pp. 194-228; "The Balance of Trade" pp. 321-24 in Selected Essays on Political Economy, ed. George B. de Huszar (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1975).

And the amusing essays in Economic Sophisms trans. Arthur Goddard (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1964: "A Petition from the Manufacturers of Candles..." pp. 56-62; "Does Protectionism Raise Wage Rates?" pp. 74-79; "Theory and Practice" pp. 80-85; "Protectionism, or the Three Alderman" pp. 230-41; "Something Else" pp. 242-50; "Little Arsenal of the Freetrader" pp. 251-57; "The Right Hand and the Left" pp. 258-65.

James Mill, Selected Economic Writings, ed. Donald Winch (University of Chicago Press). "An Essay of the Impolicy of a Bounty on the Exportation of Grain" and "Commerce Defended."

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, Book V, section IV: "Of Taxes on Commodities," pp. 190-212.

Thomas Hodgskin, "A Lecture on Free Trade in Connection with the Corn Laws," (1843 in Popular Political Economy (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966).

Friedrich List, The Natural System of Political Economy (1837, ed. W.O. Henderson (London: Frank Cass, 1983 and The National System of Political Economy: International Commerce, Commercial Policy, and the German Customs Union (1841).

Jean-Baptiste Say, Treatise of Political Economy, ed. Clement C. Biddle (Philadelphia: Grigg and Elliott, 1832, Book I, chapter 17, "Of Regulations affecting the Corn Trade," pp. 134-144.

Secondary Works

Europe Documents of European Economic History, ed. S. Pollard and C. Holmes (London: Edward Arnold, 1968). Volume 1, chapter 12, "Commercial Policy," pp. 364-404. Volume 2, chapter 3, "European Trade, Investment and Imperialism," pp. 139-218.

Sidney Pollard, Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of Europe 1760-1970 (Oxford University Press, 1981). Chapter 7: "The Rise of Neo-Mercantilism 1870s to 1914," pp. 252-77.

P. Bairoch, "Free Trade and European Economic Development in the Nineteenth Century," European Economic Review, 1972.

The Anti-Corn Law League

Britain English Historical Documents 1833-1874, ed. G.M. Young and W.D. Handcock (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1956). Part 5: "Chartism and Free Trade," pp. 401-93.

Norman McCord, The Anti-Corn Law League 1838-1846 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968). "Introduction" and chapters 1, 7, 8 and "Epilogue."

Paul Adelman, Victorian Radicalism: The Middle-Class Experience 1830-1914 (London: Longman, 1984). "Radicalism and the Anti-Corn Law League," pp. 11-28.

Nicholas C. Edsall, Richard Cobden: Independent Radical (Cambridge University Press, 1986).

Wendy Hinde, Richard Cobden: A Victorian Crusader (Yale University Press).

S. Fairlee, "The Corn Laws and British Wheat Production, 1829-76," Economic History Review, 1969, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 88-116.

Class and Conflict in Nineteenth Century England 1815-1850, ed. P. Hollis (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973).

G. Kitson Clark, "The Repeal of the Corn Laws and the Politics of the Forties," Economic History Review, 1951, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-13.

M. Lawson-Tancred, "The Anti-Corn Law League and the Corn Law Crisis of 1846," Historical Journal, 1960, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 162-83.

W. Vamplew, "The Production of the English Cereal Producers: The Corn Laws Re-assessed," çEconomic History Review, 1980, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 382-95.

George Armitage-Smith, The Free-trade Movement and its Results (1903 (Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1969).

W. Cunningham, The Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement (1904).

Boyd Hilton, Corn, Cash and Commerce: The Economic Policies of the Tory Governments 1815-1830 (Oxford University Press, 1977).

Lucy Brown, "The Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League," in Chartist Studies, ed. Asa Briggs (London: Macmillan, 1967, pp. 342-71.

Donald Read, Cobden and Bright: A Victorian Political Partnership (London: Edward Arnold, 1967 Keith Robbins, "John Bright and the Middle-Class in Politics," in The Middle Class in Politics, ed. John Garrard et al. (1978).

Herman Ausubel, John Bright: Victorian Reformer (New York: John Wiley, 1966).

J.A. Hobson, Richard Cobden: The International Man (London: Ernest Benn, 1968).

John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: Fisher Unwin, 1903).

Keith Roberts, John Bright (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979).

Norman McCord, "Cobden and Bright in Politics 1846-1857," in Ideas and Institutions of Victorian England, ed. Robert Robson (1967).

G.K. Clark, "The Repeal of the Corn-Laws and the Politics of the Forties," Economic History Review, 1951, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-13.

C.R. Fay, "The Significance of the Corn Laws in English History," Economic History Review, 1928, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 314-18.

C.R. Fay, The Corn Laws and Social England (Cambridge University Press, 1932).

C.R. Fay, "The Movement towards Free Trade, 1820-1853," in Cambridge History of the British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 1940, vol. 2, pp. 388-414.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith, The Protectionist Case in the 1840s (Oxford: Blackwell, 1933).

H.D. Jordan, "The Political Methods of the Anti-Corn Law League," Political Science Quarterly, 1927, vol. 42, pp. 58--75.

D.P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). Chapter 7, "International Trade," pp. 170-205.

Pedro Schwartz, The New Political Economy of J.S. Mill (Durham, North Carolina Press: Duke University Press, 1972).

Lucy Brown, The Board of Trade and the Free-Trade Movement 1830-1842 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958).

France

Michael Stephen Smith, Tariff Reform in France 1860-1900: The Politics of Economic Interest (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1980).

Michael S. Smith, "Free Trade versus Protection in the Early Third Republic: Economic Interests, Tariff Policy, and the Making of the Republican Synthesis," French Historical Studies, 1977, vol. 10, pp. 293-314.

Arthur Louis Dunham, The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce and the Progress of the Industrial Revolution in France (Ann Arbor, 1930).

Gordon Wright, "The Origins of Napoleon III's Free Trade," Economic History Review, 1938, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 47-64.

Marcel Rist, "A French Experiment with Free Trade: The Treaty of 1860," in Essays in French Economic History, ed. Rondo Cameron (Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, 1970, pp. 286-314.

Germany

Joseph Garnier, "List," in Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, ed. Coquelin et Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 2, pp. 76-82. A partial translation can be found in the entry "List and His System," in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1899, vol. 2.

Louis L. Snyder, Roots of German Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978). "Economic Nationalism: Friedrich List, Germany's Handicapped Colbert", pp. 1-34.

I.N. Lambi, Free Trade and Protection in Germany 1868-1879 (Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftgeschichte, Supplement 44, 1963).

Ivo N. Lambi, "The Protectionist Interests of the German Iron and Steel Industry, 1873-1979," Journal of Economic History, 1962, vol. 22, pp. 59-70.

Ivo N. Lambi, "The Agrarian Industrial Front in Bismarckian Politics 1873-1879," Journal of Central European Affairs, 1961, vol. 20,, no. 4, pp. 378-96.

Donald G. Rohr, The Origins of Social Liberalism in Germany (University of Chicago Press). "The Argument for Free Enterprise," pp. 78-166.

Georg Jahn, "Freihandelslehre und Freihandelsbewegung," Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, ed. L. Ester et al., (Jena: Fischer, 1927, 4th edition, vol. 4, pp. 354-71.

W.O. Henderson, The Rise of German Industrial Power, 1834-1914 (London: Temple Smith, 1975).

W.O. Henderson, The Zollverein (London: Frank Cass, 1984).

W.O. Henderson, Friedrich List. Economist and Visionary (London: Frank Cass, 1983).

Margaret E. Hirst, Life of Friedrich List (1909).

W.O. Henderson, Britain and Industrial Europe 1750-1870: Studies in British Influence on the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe (Leicester University Press, 1965). "Prince Smith and Free Trade in Germany," pp. 167-78.

Arnold H. Price, The Evolution of the Zollverein (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1949).

James C. Hunt, "Peasants, Grain Tariffs and Meat Quotas: Imperial German Protectionism Re-examined," Central European History, 1974, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 311-31.

Louis L. Snyder, Roots of German Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978). "Clashing Economic Nationalisms: The Battle between German and American Pork, 1879-1891," pp. 92-111.

Volker Hentschel, Die deutschen Freihändler und das volkswirtschaftliche Kongre~ 1858 bis 1885 (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1975).

Georg Mayer, Die Freihandelslehre in Deutschland: Ein Beitrag zur Gesellschaftslehre des wirtschaftlichen Liberalismsus (Jena, 1927).

B.J. Wendt, "Freihandel und Friedenssicherung. Zur Bedeutung des Cobden-Vertrages von 1860 zwischen England und Frankreich," Vierteljahresschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 1974, vol. 61.

19. Manufacturing and the Machinery Question↩

The introduction of machinery and steam power into factories dramatically increased the productivity of human labour and promised to usher in a new era of cheap massed-produced consumer goods. On the positive side, the increased productivity of machinery-based manufacturing lowered the price of many items such as textiles and household metal goods, thus making them affordable to many more people. It also made it possible for relatively unskilled women and children who had been excluded from entering apprenticeships to get paid for their labour in the factories. On the negative side some sectors of the economy were made redundant by the new methods of production. This is especially true for the handloom weavers who were almost entirely replaced by mechanisation in a short period. Also the new factories created severe problems in working and living conditions which attracted much attention by reformers and critics of the "factory system." The result in England was the reform legislation in the 1830s known as the factory acts.

The reaction to machinery and the factory system ranged from the euphoria of Andrew Ure and Charles Babbage to the harsh criticism of Friedrich Engels, with the Swiss historian and economist Simonde de Sismondi taking a middle position of uneasy acceptance.

Tutorial Questions

Discuss Maxine Berg's theory that "the machinery question" was perhaps the most important influence on the development of political economy in the first half of the 19th cenmtury.
What were the attitudes of the classical political economists (Nassau Senior, Robert Torrens, J. R. McCulloch, J.S. Mill to factory legislation.
Were the objections of Engels or Sismondi to the factory system objections to temporary difficulties which would gradually be overcome or objections to the system itself? In the case of Engels, how accurate was his assessment of the English factory system?
An historian has called Andrew Ure and Charles Babbage poets of the machine age, but behind their "poetry" is a sophisticated new means for the control of labour. Is this true?

Key Reading

It is interesting to compare two quite different responses to the so-called "machinery question. Begin your reading with the extract from one of the more outspoken "apologists" of the factory system, Charles Babbage:

Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835 (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1963).

A critical response was made by the Swiss liberal economist Sismondi who was later to influence Karl Marx. Although Sismondi was basically a liberal in his political and economic beliefs he had reservations about the benefits of manufacturing to the vast bulk of working people. His criticisms came very early in the history of manufacturing and became the basis for much later socialist criticism such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.

J.C.L. Simonde de Sismondi, "On the Conditions of the Work People in Manufactures," in Political Economy and the Philosophy of Government, ed. M. Mignet (1847 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966).

The critical response to the conditions of work in the factories led to a movement to regulate hours of work, the employment of women and children, and health and safety in the factories. A useful overview is provided by the article by Ward; Blaug discusses the different reactions of the liberal political economists; and Hutt responds to the man y critics of the factory system with a more optimistics assessment of the conditions and opportunities faced by those who worked there.

J.T. Ward, "The Factory Movement," in Popular Movements c. 1830-1850, ed. J.T. Ward (London: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 54-77.

Mark Blaug, "The Classical Economists and the Factory Acts: A Re-examination," in The Classical Economists and Economic Policy, ed. A.W. Coats (London: Macmillan, 1971, pp.104-122.

W.H. Hutt, "The Factory System of the Early 19th Century," in Capitalism and the Historians, ed. F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 1963, pp. 156-184.

Good introductions to the economic and technological changes taking place in the industrial revolution are:

David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 1981). Chapter 2 and 3.

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Part One.

Texts

Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures (1835 (London: Cass, 1967).

Nassau Senior, "Letters on the Factory Acts," in Selected Writings on Economics (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966).

Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, ed. W.O. Henderson and W.H. Chaloner (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958).

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (1848, ed. D. Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970).

J.C.L. Simonde de Sismondi, "On the Conditions of the Work People in Manufactures," in Political Economy and the Philosophy of Government, ed. M. Mignet (1847 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966).

J.C.L. Simonde de Sismondi, Nouveaux principes d'économie politique, 3rd ed. (Genève: Jeheter, 1951-53).

The Factory System, 2 vols. ed. J.T. Ward (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1970).

Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835 (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1963).

Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48, ed. Paul Corcoran (London: Macmillan).

Secondary Works

Maxine Berg, The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy, 1815-1848 (Cambridge University Press, 1980).

The Long Debate on POVERTY: Eight Essays on Industrialisation and the 'Condition of England', ed. R.M. Hartwell et al. (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 1972).

W.O. Henderson, The Life of Friedrich Engels 2 vols (London: Cass, 1976).

Steven Marcus, Engels, Manchester and the Working Class (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978).

The Long Debate on POVERTY: Eight Essays on Industrialisation and the 'Condition of England', ed. R.M. Hartwell et al. (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 1972). Includes an essay on Engels which is critical of his use of sources.

Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies of Management in the Course of Industrialization (New York: Harper and Row, 1963).

Peter N. Stearns, Paths to Authority: The Middle Classes and the Industrial Labor Force in France, 1820-1848 (Urbana, Illinois, 1973).

Louis Gueneau, "La législation restrictive du travail des enfants," Revue d'histoire économique et sociale, 1927, vol. 15, pp. 420-503.

Jean R. Salis, Sismondi, 1773-1842 (Genève: Slatkine, 1973).

M.L. Tuan, Simonde de Sismondi as an Economist (New York: AMS, 1968).

E.P. Thompson, "Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism," Past and Present, 1975, no. 90.

20. The Condition of Women↩

Interest in the political and social position of women really began because of the ideas of equality generated by the French Revolution. After a false start the "women's movement" developed in earnest during the 19th century with agitation for an end to legal discrimination and the right to participate in the political system.

Most liberals were either hostile to or uninterested in the condition of women. This was due to two factors: their narrow attitude towards democracy which made them most reluctant to extend the right to vote to anyone but the educated and the prosperous; and their traditional patriarchal views about the place of women in the family and the capacity of women to be educated and to participate fully in the economy. Only a minority of radical liberals took up the cause of women's political and economic rights. One of these more progressive liberals was John Stuart Mill whose book The Subjection of Women (1869 is in many ways still one of the most important books on the rights of women.

Tutorial Questions

What reforms did Mill advocate in order to improve the political and social position of women in Victorian England? Would these reforms adequately solve the problems women faced?
What was the relationship between Mill and Harriet Taylor? To what extent did she influence Mill's feminism?
What were the legal, political and economic disadvantages which women suffered under in the 19th century and how did they agitate for reform? Choose either the case of England, France or Germany.
Discuss the objections which opponents of women's suffrage put forward.
What criticisms did Harriet Martineau make of the position of women in Britain and America? What role did she beleive women should have in society? çEnd(Enumerate

Key Reading

For background on the political and social position of women in the period from the French Revolution to just before the appearance of Mill's book see Rendall's comparative study. Alternatively, for a useful collection of essays on various aspects of the women's movement in nineteenth century Britain, see the volume edited by her:

Jane Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France and the United States, 1780-1860 (London: Macmillan, 1985).

Equal or Different: Women's Politics 1800-1914, ed. Jane Rendall (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

The key text is Mill's work which is available in many editions.

John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869 and Harriet Taylor, The Enfranchisement of Women, ed. Kate Soper (London: Virago Press, 1983).

Texts

The particular difficulties which Mill faced in promoting his ideas in Victorian England can be understood by sampling the attitudes of his opponents. The depth of the hostility towards politically and economically active women was and still is immense: Free and Enobled: Source Readings in the Development of Victorian Feminism, ed. Bauer and Ritt (Pergamon Press, 1979).

John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869 and Harriet Taylor, The Enfranchisement of Women, ed. Kate Soper (London: Virago Press, 1983).

John Stuart Mill, "On Marriage," "Statement on Marriage," "The Subjection of Women," "The Contagious Diseases Acts," and "Appendix A,B,C" in Collected Works vol. 21, ed. J.M. Robson (University of Toronto Press).

Herbert Spencer, "Marriage" and "Parenthood" in vol. 1; "Rights of Women" in vol. 2 of Principles of Ethics, ed. Tibor Machan (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1978).

Stendhal, Love, ed. Jean Stewart and B.C.J.G. Knight (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975).

Harriet Martineau, Autobiography (1879, ed. Gaby Weiner (London: Virago, 1983).

Harriet Martineau, Society in America (1837, ed. Seymour Martin Lipset (New York: Doubleday, 1962). On the situation of women in America.

Harriet Martineau, "Female Industry," Edinburgh Review, vol. CIX, April 1859, pp. 293-336.

Le grief des femmes: anthologie des textes féministes 2 vols, ed. Maité Albistur et Daniel Armogathe (Paris: Hier et Demain, 1978).

Secondary Works

General

J.W. Scott and L. Tilly, "Women's Work and the Family in Nineteenth Century Europe," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1975, pp. 36-64.

Richard J. Evans, The Feminists: Women's Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840-1920 (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).

Susan Muller Okin, Women in Western Political Thought (London: Virago Press, 1980).

France

Theodore Zeldin, "Marriage and Morals" and "Women" in France 1848-1945: Ambition and Love (Oxford University Press, 1979). Patrick Kay Bidelman, 'Pariahs Stand Up'. The Founding of the Liberal Feminist Movement in France, 1858-1889 (Westport, Connecticut, 1982).

Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the 19th Century (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984).

Patrick Kay Bidelman, "The Politics of French Feminism: Léon Richer and the Ligue Française pour les Droits des Femmes, 1882-1892," Historical Reflexions, 1976, no. 3, pp. 93-120.

H.D. Lewis, "The legal Status of Women in Nineteenth-Century France," Journal of European Studies, 1980, vol. 10, pp. 178-88.

Bonnie G. Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton University Press, 1981).

England

Patricia Hughes, "The Reality versus the Ideal: J.S. Mill's Treatment of Women, Workers, and Private Property," Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1979, vol. XII, no. 3, 523-54.

Julia Annas, "Mill and the Subjection of Women," Philosophy, 1977, vol. 52.

Barbara Caine, "John Stuart Mill and the English Women's Movement," Historical Studies, 1978, vol. 18, pp. 52-67.

Leslie Goldstein, "Mill, Marx and Women's Liberation," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1980, vol. 18, pp. 319-34.

F.A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Their Correspondence and Subsequent Marriage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951).

Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, ed. Martha Vicinus (London: Methuen, 1980).

David Morgan, Suffragists and Liberals: The Politics of the Woman's Movement in Britain (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975).

Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres: The Opposition to Women's Suffrage in Britain (London: Croom Helm, 1978).

Brian Harrison, "Women's Suffrage at Westminster 1866-1928," in High and Low Politics in Modern Britain: Ten Case Studies, ed. Michael Bentley and John Stevenson (Oxford University Press, 1983).

Lee Holcombe, Wives and Property: Reform of the Married Women's Property Law in Nineteenth Century England (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983).

Constance Rover, Women's Suffrage and Party Politics in Britain, 1866-1914 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).

Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State (Cambridge University Press, 1982).

Victorian Women: A Documentary Account of Women's Lives in 19th Century England, France, and the United States, ed. E.O. Ellerstein et al. (Stanford University Press, 1981).

R.K. Webb, Harriet Martineau: A Radical Victorian (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960).

Valerie Kossew Pichanick, Harriet Martineau: The Woman and her Work 1802-76 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980).

Vera Wheatley, The Life and Works of Harriet Martineau (London: Secker and Warburg, 1957).

Germany

German Women in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History, ed. John C. Fout (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984).

Richard J. Evans, "Liberalism and Society: The Feminist Movement and Social Change," in Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany, ed. Richard J. Evans (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1978).

Amy Hacket, "Feminism and Liberalism in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1918," in Liberating Women's History: Theoretical and Critical Essays, ed. Berenice A. Carroll (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976).

Amy Hackett, "The German Women's Movement and Suffrage, 1890-1918: A Study of National Feminism," in Modern European Social History, ed. Robert J. Bezucha (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1976).

21. The Abolition of Slavery and Serfdom↩

One of the most glaring problems faced by liberal reformers in the 19th century was the existence of slavery in the colonies and in the southern states of the United States of America and the existence of serfdom in Eastern Europe. The French Revolution had abolished serfdom permanently in France but only partially or temporarily in the occupied German territories. Of course, in the rest of Europe the status of the serfs remained unchanged in spite of the efforts of some "enlightened despots" in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to ameliorate their condition. It was not until well into the 19th century that the more conservative German, Russian, and Hungarian states and territories began to liberate the serfs under the influence of liberal ideas concerning the inefficiency and injustice of compulsory serf labour. The abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861 is the best example of this process of liberalisation from above.

The problem of slavery was of greater concern to Western European liberals since they lived in countries which either retained slavery in their colonies, allowed merchants to engage in the lucrative slave trade itself, or traded extensively with the cotton and tobacco growing southern states of America. The agitation against slavery began with opposition to the slave trade and slowly developed into a movement for outright abolition in the colonies. England was the pioneer in both these movements against slavery so it is important to understand the British anti-slavery movement with its strong evangelical religious component.

Since Germany had no colonies slavery was not an issue although the persitence of serfdom in some German states was a problem for liberals and other reformers. France on the other hand had abolished slavery in its colonies during the revolution but had seen Napoleon reintroduce it. Under the pressure of England during the 1830s and 1840s France gradually was forced to confront first the problem of the slave trade and finally the existence of slavery in its colonies. Slavery was eventually abolished in France during the 1848 revolution. Alexis de Tocqueville was very active in the Chamber of Deputies at this time in various unsuccessful attempts to end or ameliorate slavery and his efforts deserve serious study.

The problem of slavery and serfdom raised important issues for liberals about the efficiency of forced labour, the nature of property rights, the tactics of agitating for fundamental reform within a society with very strong vested interests, the nature of those vested interests (the landowners, the plantation owners in the colonies, the manufacturers who bought American cotton which dominated the political system, and whether or not the industrial revolution would gradually make slavery uneconomic.

This week we will concentrate on the contribution of Alexis de Tocqueville to the abolition of slavery in the French colonies.

Tutorial Questions

How did Tocqueville plan to abolish slavery in the French colonies? To what extent was this a "political" solution to the problem of compensation?
Tocqueville, Beaumont, Cairnes and Martineau all wrote on the nature of slavery in America. Select at least one of these writers and discuss their attitude to the institution of slavery and its social and economic consequences.
Discuss the tactics of the British abolitionists in their crusade against slavery.
Discuss the parallels which many radicals drew between slavery in the colonies and the condition of labourers in the factories in the metropole? (Fladeland's book is the best place to begin reading).
To what extent was the movement to emancipate the serfs in Eastern Europe a result of the ideology of liberal reform or the self-interest of the landowners?
What economic objections did John Stuart Mill have to slavery and serdom?
How did women contribute to the struggle against slavery?

Key Reading

The difficulties faced by Alexis de Tocqueville in his efforts to eliminate slavery make an interesting case study. Drescher has done much to rediscover this aspect of Tocqueville's thought. Begin with his chapter on "The Abolition of Slavery" before turning to Tocqueville's articles. Gerschman has some interesting comments on the tactics used by Tocqueville:

Seymour Drescher, "The Abolition of Slavery," Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernization (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968, pp. 151-95.

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Part 3: Abolition of Slavery," (1839, 1843 in Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper and Row, 1968, pp. 98-173.

Sally Gershman, "Alexis de Tocqueville and Slavery," French Historical Studies, 1976, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 467-83.

Texts

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Part 3: Abolition of Slavery," in Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper and Row, 1968, pp. 98-173.

Gustave de Beaumont, Marie, or Slavery in the United States: A Novel of Jacksonian America (1835, ed. Alvis L. Tinnin (Stanford University Press, 1958). In particular Appendix A, "Note on the Social and Political Condition of the Negro Slaves and of Free People of Color," pp. 189-216.

John Elliot Cairnes, The Slave Power, Its Character, Career and Probable Designs (1862 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968).

Politics and the Public Conscience: Slave Emancipation and the Abolitionist Movement in Britain, ed. Edith F. Hurwitz (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973). This collection also includes some discussion of the role of women in the abolitionist movement.

John Stuart Mill, Book II, Chapters 5-10, "Of Slavery," "Of Peasant Proprietors," "Of Metayers," "Of Cottiers," and "Means of Abolishing Cottier Tenancy," Principles of Political Economy (1848). Also Mill's articles on slavery and the American Civil War, "The Negro Question" (1850, "The Contest in America" (1862,and especially his review of Cairnes' book "The Slave Power" (1862 in Collected Works. Volume 21: Essays on Equality, Law and Education, ed. Stefan Collini (University of Toronto Press, 1984).

Harriet Martineau, Society in America (1837, ed. Seymour Martin Lipset (New York: Doubleday, 1962; Retrospect of Western Travel (1838; How to Observe (1838).

Harriet Martineau, The Martyr Age of the United States of America (1840).

Harriet Martineau, "Demerara," in Illustrations of Political Economy, vol. II (1834).

Gustave de Molinari, "Esclavage," in Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, eds. Charles Coquelin and Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 2, pp. 712-31. Contains a good bibliography of material from the first half of the 19th century.

Charles Comte, Traité de législation, ou exposition des lois générales suivant lesquelles les peuples prospèrent, dépérissent, ou restent stationnaires (1826 (Bruxelles: Hauman, Cattoir, 1837, 3rd edition). Books 4 and 5 deal with the economic and social consequences of slavery.

Simonde de Sismondi, De l'intér/t de la France à l'égard de la traite des nègres, 3rd edn, augmentée des Nouvelles réflexions sur la traite... (Genève, 1814; De la condition dans laquelle il convient de placer les nègres en les affranchissant (1833; "Des effets de l'esclavage sur la race humaine," in Études sur l'économie politique (1837).

H. Grégoire, De la traite et de l'esclavage des noirs et des blancs par un ami des hommes de toutes les couleurs (Paris, 1815).

Germaine de Staël, "Préface pour la traduction d'un ouvrage de M. Wilberforce sur la traite des nègres" (1814 and "Appel aux souverains réunis à Paris pour en obtenir l'abolition de la traite des noirs" (1814 in Oeuvrs complètes (Paris, 1820, vol. 17, pp. 369-75, 376-82. And her novel about a freed black, Mirza, ou lettre d'un voyageur in Oeuvre complètes, vol. 2.

Friedrich Murhard, "Sclaverei," in Staats-Lexikon oder Encyklopädie der Staatswissenschaften, ed. Carl von Rotteck und Carl Welcker (Altona, 1843, vol. 14, pp. 420-449.

Secondary Works

General

David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Penguin, 1970).

David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1975).

David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (Oxford University Press, 1984).

Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1983).

France

Mary Lawlor, "The Right of Search" and "Slavery in the French Colonies" in Alexis de Tocqueville in the Chamber of Deputies: His Views on Foreign and Colonial Policy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1959, pp. 67-130.

Sally Gershman, "Alexis de Tocqueville and Slavery," French Historical Studies, 1976, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 467-83.

William B. Cohen, The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530-1880 (Indiana University Press, 1980).

Seymour Drescher, "The Abolition of Slavery," Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernization (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968, pp. 151-95.

Serge Daget, "L'abolition de la traite des noirs en France de 1814 à 1831," Cahiers d'études africaines, 1971, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 14-58.

Yvan Debbasch, "Poésie et traite: L'opinion française sur le commerce négrier au début du XIXe siècle," Revue d'histoire d'outre-mer, 1961, vol. 48, pp. 311-52.

Ruth F. Necheles, The Abbé Grégoire, 1787-1831 (Westport, Connecticut, 1971).

Lawrence C. Jennings, "France, Great Britain and the Repression of the Slave Trade, 1841-1845," French Historical Studies, 1977, vol. 10, pp. 101-25.

Lawrence C. Jennings, "The French Press and Great Britain's Campaign against the Slave Trade, 1830-1848," Revue française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, 1980, vol. 67, no. 246-247, pp. 5-24.

Serge Daget, "A Model of the French Abolitionist Movement and its Variations," in Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform: Essays in Memory of Roger Anstey, ed. Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher (Folkstone: William Dawson, 1980, pp. 64-79.

Gaston Martin, Histoire de l'esclavage dans les colonies françaises (Paris, 1948).

Barbara Karsky, "Les libéraux français et l'émancipation des esclaves aux États-Unis, 1852-1870," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1974, vol. 21, pp. 575-90.

Alfred Berchtold, "Sismondi et le groupe de Coppet face à l'esclavage et au colonialisme," in Sismondi européen: Actes de Colloque international tenu à Genève les 14 et 15 septembre 1973, ed. Sven Stelling-Michaud (Genève: Slatkine, 1976, pp. 169-98.

Britain

Politics and the Public Conscience: Slave Emancipation and the Abolitionist Movement in Britain, ed. Edith F. Hurwitz (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973).

Adelaide Weinberg, John Elliot Cairnes and the American Civil War: A Study in Anglo-American Relations (London: Kingswood Press, 1968). Chapter 2 "The Slave Power," pp. 19-46.

Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform: Essays in Memory of Roger Anstey, ed. Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher (Folkstone: William Dawson, 1980).

Betty Fladeland, Abolitionists and Working Class Problems in the Age of Industrialization (London: Macmillan, 1984). Especially the chapter on Harriet Martineau.

Slavery and British Society 1776-1846, ed. James Walvin (London: Macmillan, 1982).

Howard Temperley, British Anti-Slavery, 1823-1870 (London: Longman, 1972).

Louis Billington and Rosamund Billington, "'A Burning Zeal for Righteousness': Women in the British Anti-Slavery Movement, 1820-1860," in Equal or Different: Women's Politics 1800-1914, ed. Jane Rendall (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 82-111.

Germany

Rainer Koch, "Liberalismus, Konservatismus und das Problem der Negersklaverei: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des politischen Denkens in Deutschland in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts," Historishe Zeitschrift, 1976, vol. 222, pp. 529-77.

Serfdom in Eastern Europe

Sidney Pollard, "Agriculture: Emancipation, Markets and Dynamics," in Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970 (Oxford University Press, 1981, pp. 192-200.

B.H. Slicher van Bath, "Agriculture in the Vital Revolution," Cambridge Economic History of Europe (1966, vol. 5, pp. 42-123.

Marc Bloch, French Rural History: An Essay on its Basic Characteristics, trans. J. Sondheimer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).

Jerome Blum, "The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe," American Historical Review, 1957, vol. 62, pp. 807-36.

Jerome Blum, "The Internal Structure and Polity of the European Village Community from the 15th to the 19th Century," Journal of Modern History, 1971, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 541-76.

Jerome Blum, The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe (Princeton University Press, 1978).

Werner Conze, "The Effects of Nineteenth-Century Liberal Agrarian Reforms on Social Structure in Central Europe," in Essays in European Economic History 1789-1914, ed. F. Crouzet et al. (1969).

Alexander Gerschenkron, "Agrarian Policies and Industrialization in Russia 1861-1917," Cambridge Economic History of Europe (1966, vol. 6, part 2, pp. 706-800.

Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries, ed. J.W. Probyn (1881).

G.F. Knapp, "Die Bauenbefreiung in den östlichen Provinzen des preussischen Staates," Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften (Jena: Fischer, 1909, vol. 2.

Essays on Russian Liberalism, ed. Charles E. Timberlake (University of Missouri Press, 1972).

Viktor Leontovitsch, Geschichte des Liberalismus in Russland (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klosterman).

22. Population Growth and Malthusianism↩

Liberals were slow to see that the same forces which so greatly increased the output of factories could be applied also to agriculture and farming, thus solving the traditional tension between population growth and food supply. Free trade and new techniques in farming and transportation enabled regional specialisation to develop in Eastern Europe, North America, Australia and Argentina to supply the European market with food thereby ending their dependency on local production.

But before the agricultural revolution became evident the rather pessimistic and harsh theories of Thomas Malthus dominated the thinking about population growth. Malthus believed that population growth always "tended" to increase faster than the capacity of agricultural production to keep up with it. Although many "optimists" such as Godwin and Place objected to Malthus' views the classical political economists adopted various versions of his ideas. This is one reason why the classical school had a reputation for harshness and severity based upon their uncompromising belief that poverty was largely a result of the working class not limiting the size of their families. That information concerning methods of contraception was censored by governments is an issue that only a few radicals such as Place, Spencer, and Mill took up.

Tutorial Questions

To what extent did Malthus moderate his views in successive editions of the Principle of Population? Was he as harsh as his critics claimed?
To what extent was Malthus' theory of population a consequence of the particular difficulties of the period in which it was written (the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars or did he accuratley describe the relationship between population and food production in pre-industrial society?
What were the objections which optimists like Godwin and Place made to Malthus' ideas?
How and why did the classical political economists adopt Malthusian ideas to oppose welfare for the poor?
What were Marx and Engels' attitudes towards population growth and how did they differ from the classical political economists?
Why was there such opposition to birth control in the 19th century?

Key Reading

Begin with a general account of population growth before turning to Malthus famous work on The Principle of Population (1st edition 1798, second edition 1803). Select one of the following:

Theodore S. Hamerow, "The Demographic Revolution" and "The Process of Urbanization," in The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983, pp. 59-117.

André Armengaud, "Population in Europe 1700-1914," in The Fontana Economic History of Europe. Volume 3: The Industrial Revolution, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla (London: Collins, 1973, pp. 22-73.

It is not necessary to read all of Malthus' book since a great deal of it is concerned with historical studies of population to illustrate his theory. Read the editor's introduction, pp. 7-62; chapters 1 and 2 of the "Essay" (1798, 1803, pp. 67-80; and "A Summary View," (1830 pp. 223-72:

Thomas R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population and A Summary View of the Principle of Population (1798, 1803, 1830, ed. Antony Flew (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982).

To see how Malthus' ideas had become transformed into an orthodoxy in France half a century later see the article by Joseph Garnier:

Joseph Garnier, "Population" and "Malthus," Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, eds. Charles Coquelin and Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 2, pp. 126-29, 382-402; translated in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1899, vol. 3, pp. 284-299; vol. 2, pp. 808-10.

Texts

Thomas R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population and A Summary View of the Principle of Population, ed. Antony Flew (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982). Editor's introduction, pp. 7-62; chapters 1 and 2 of the "Essay", pp. 67-80; and "A Summary View," pp. 223-72.

The objections of the anarchist William Godwin is a good antidote to the pessimism of Malthus: William Godwin, Of Population. An Enquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, being an Answer to Mr. Malthus's Essay on that Subject (1820 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964).

Francis Place, Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population: including an Examination of the proposed Remedies of Mr. Malthus, and a reply to the Objections of Mr. Godwin and others (1822, ed. Norman E. Himes (London: Allen and Unwin, 1930).

Nassau Senior, "Part V: The Pressure of Population on the Means of Subsistence," in Industrial Efficiency and Social Economy, ed. S. Leon Levy (London: P.S. King and Son, 1928, pp. 285-363.

Gustave de Molinari, "Introduction," Malthus: Essai sur le principe de population (Paris: Guillaumin, pp. i-xlix.

Joseph Garnier, Du principe de population (Paris: Guillaumin, 1857).

Marx and Engels on the Population Bomb, ed. Ronald L. Meek (Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971).

Secondary Works

William Petersen, Malthus (Harvard University Press, 1979).

Patricia James, Population Malthus: His LIfe and Times (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979).

Population in Industrialization, ed. M. Drake (London: Methuen, 1969).

Marion Bowley, "Population and Rent," in Nassau Senior and Classical Economics (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1937, pp. 117-26.

Kenneth Smith, The Malthusian Controversy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951).

Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (London: Faber and Faber, 1985). Chapters 4 and 5, pp. 100-44.

James Bonar, Malthus and His Work (1885 (London: Frank Cass, 1966).

E.P. Hutchinson, The Population Debate: The Development of Conflicting Theories up to 1900 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967).

Peter Fryer, The Birth Controllers (London: Secker and Warburg, 1965).

Malthus Past and Present, ed. J. Dup<chier et al. (London: Academic Press, 1983). Important essays on Malthus' theory and its relationship with religion and socialism.

D.E. Bland, "Population and Liberalism, 1770-1817," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1973, vol. 34, pp. 113-20.

Peter J. Bowles, "Malthus, Darwin, and the Concept of Struggle," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1976, vol. 37, pp. 631-50.

Edwin Cannan, "The Malthusian Anti-Socialist Argument," Economic Review, 1892, vol. 2, pp. 72-87.

F. D'Arcy, "The Malthusian League and the Resistance to Birth Control Propaganda in Late Victorian Britain," Population Studies, 1977, vol. 31, pp. 429-448.

Samuel Hollander, "Malthus and the Post-Napoleonic Depression," History of Political Economy, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 306-35.

Angus McLaren, "Sex and Socialism: The Opposition of the French Left to Birth Control in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1976, vol. 37, pp. 475-92.

Robert M. Young, "Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Content of Bioogical and Social Theory," Past and Present, 1969, no. 43.

William L. Langer, "The Origins of the Birth Control Movement in England in the Early NIneteenth Century," Journal of Interdiscipinary History, 1975.

James P. Huzel, "Malthus, the Poor Law, and Population in Early Nineteenth Century England," Economic History Review, 1969, pp. 430-51.

Harold H. Boner, Hungry Generations: The Ninteteenth Century Cases Against Malthusianism (New York, 1953).

D.E.C. Eversley, Social Theories of Fertility and the Malthusian Debate (Oxford, 1959).

John M. Pullen, "Malthus' Theological Ideas and their Influence on his Principle of Population," History of Political Economy, 1981.

Geoffrey Gilbert, "Economic Growth and the Poor in Malthus' Essay on Population," History of Political Economy, 1980.

23. The Social Question. Poverty and Progress↩

It is a curious fact that poverty, after having been nearly invisible for centuries, was suddenly "discovered" in the 1830s and 1840s. There are differing explanations for this sudden interest in what was called "the social question." The optimistic school (represented by Hartwell and Himmelfarb says that although the standard of living was being increased by industrialisation poverty was becoming more visisble. This is because of the new attitude of humanitarianism which was emerging as well as from the concentration of poverty in the new industrial towns and cities. The pessimists argue that the average standard of living might have been increasing but that the new prosperity was far from being equally distributed. The debate between Hartwell (a conservative and Hobsbawm (a Marxist is an interesting example of how one's ideological attitude can influence the way in which one views the past.

Many liberals were concerned about the situation of the urban and industrial poor and endeavoured to pass legislation or reform existing legislation to assist them (but not too much!). Nassau Senior's work on the "Poor Law Report" (1834 in England and Tocqueville's work on pauperism (1835 and prison reform (1844 are good examples of how much or how little liberals were willing to accept government welfare measures. There was always a radical fringe (Herbert Spencer, Samuel Smiles, Thomas Mackay which objected to even these moderate proposals.

Tutorial Questions

Why did Tocqueville and Beaumont believe that prison reform was an important part of any solution of the social question?
Is it possible to resolve the disagreement between the optimists (Hutt, Hartwell, Himmelfarb and the pessimists (Hobsbawm on the standard of living of British workers in the 19th century?
What was the Poor Law and why did many classical political economists support this kind of state interference in the economy?
Discuss the arguments used by opponents of the Poor Law and other forms of state charity.
What was the reaction of liberals to the social question in Germany?
Why did many Frenchmen believe that the working classes were dangerous classes?

Key Reading

Hamerow is a good introduction to the problem:

Theodore S. Hamerow, "The Standard of Living" and "The Emergence of the Labor Question," in The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983, pp. 121-47, 205-30.

Tocqueville's attitude to the problem of poverty can be found in the extracts in Drescher. Begin with Drescher's chapters in Dilemmas of Democracy before reading Tocqueville:

Seymour Drescher, "The Residue of Dependency and the Notables" and "The War on Poverty: Prison Reform" in Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernization (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968, pp. 88-123, 124-150.

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Part I: Poverty and Industry" and "Part II: Crime and Reformation" in Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper, 1968, pp. 1-59, 60-97.

Texts

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Part I: Poverty and Industry" and "Part II: Crime and Reformation" in Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, ed. Seymour Drescher (New York: Harper, 1968, pp. 1-59, 60-97.

Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France (1833, ed. Thorsten Sellin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964).

The Poor Law Report of 1834, ed. S.G. and E.O.A. Checkland (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974).

Nassau Senior, Statement of the Provision for the Poor and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe (London, 1835).

Poverty in the Victorian Age: Debates on the Issue from 19th Century Critical Journals, 4 vols, ed. A.W. Coats (Farnborough: Gregg International Press, 1973). In particular the article by Florence Nightingale, "A Note on Pauperism," (1866, vol. 2, pp. 281-90.

John Stuart Mill, "On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes," Book IV, chapter vii, in Principles of Political Economy (1848, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, pp. 118-43; and the essays "The Claims of Labour" (1845 "Thornton on Labour and its Claims" (1869 in Essays on Economics and Society: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. IV, ed. J.M. Robson (University of Toronto Press, 1975, pp. 363-89, 631-68.

Thomas Mackay, Public Relief of the Poor (London: John Murray, 1901).

Thomas Mackay, The State and Charity (London: Macmillan, 1898).

Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845, ed. W.O. Henderson and W.H. Chaloner (Blackwell, 1958).

"The Social Problem," in Germany in the Age of Bismarck, ed. W.M. Simon (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973, pp. 174-215.

Articles "Bienfaisance, Concurrence, Droit au travail, Émigration, Ouvriers, Paupérisme, Rente, Salaire," in Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, eds. Charles Coquelin and Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852).

Harriet Martineau, Poor Laws and Paupers (Charles Fox, 1833). Recommended

Secondary Works

France

Seymour Drescher, "The Residue of Dependency and the Notables," "The War on Poverty: Prison Reform" and "Social Revolution and Class Conflict" in Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernization (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968, pp. 88-123, 124-150, 196-250.

George Wilson Pierson, Tocqueville in America, abridged by Dudley C. Hunt (New York: Doubelday, 1959).

William Coleman, Death is a Social Disease: Public Health and Political Economy in Early Industrial France (University of Wisconsin Press, 1982).

Louis Chevalier, Laboring Classes and Dangerous Classes in Paris during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, trans. Frank Jellinek (New York, 1973).

William H. Sewell, Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (Cambridge University Press, 1980). Chapter 10.

Theodore Zeldin, "Workers," in France 1848-1945: Ambition and Love (Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 198-282.

Peter Stearns, Paths to Authority: The Middle Classes and the Industrial Labor Force in France, 1820-1848 (Urbana, Illinois, 1973).

Émile Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France de 1789 (Paris, 1903-4).

E. Dolléans and G. Dehove, Histoire du travail en France: Mouvement ouvrier et législation sociale (Paris, 1953-5).

H. Rigaudias-Weiss, Les enqu/tes ouvrières en France entre 1830 et 1848 (New York, 1975).

J. Rougerie, "Remarques sur l'histoire des salaires à Paris au XIXe siècle," Le mouvement sociale, 1968, vol. 63, pp. 1-108.

Georges Weill, Histoire du mouvement sociale en France 1852-1902 (Paris, 1904).

England

The question whether or not the standard of living was improving or declining with industrialisation is an old one. A useful introduction to the debate from an optimistic perspective can be found in either of the following: The Long Debate on POVERTY: Eight Essays on Industrialisation and 'the Condition of England', ed. Arthur Seldon (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1972. Essays by Hartwell, McCord, Coats.

R.M. Hartwell, "Part Three: Social and Economic Consequences," in The Industrial Revolution and Economc Growth London: Methuen, 1971, pp. 313-408.

Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).

Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (London: Faber and Faber, 1985).

E.J. Hobsbawm, "The British Standard of Living, 1790-1850," Economic History Review, 1957.

E.J. Hobsbawm, "The Standard of Living during the Industrial Revolution: A Discussion," Economic History Review, 1963, vol. 16, no. 1.

Lionel Robbins, "The Condition of the People," in The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy (London: Macmillan, 1953).

Marion Bowley, "The Poor Law Problem," in Nassau Senior and Classical Economics (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1937, pp. 282-334.

T.S. Ashton, "The Standard of Life of the Workers of England 1790-1830," Capitalism and the Historians, ed. F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 1974, pp. 123-55.

M.E. Rose, "The Anti-Poor Law Agitation," in Popular Movements c. 1830-1850, ed. J.T. Ward (London: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 78-92.

A.W. Coats, "The Classical Economists and the Labourer," in The Classical Economists and Economic Policy, ed. A.W. Coats (London: Methuen, 1971, pp. 144-79.

Pedro Schwartz, The New Political Economy of John Stuart Mill (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972).

Samuel Hollander, The Economics of John Stuart Mill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985).

On Friederick Engels and Britain see the reading on Manufacturing in week one.

Germany

Theodore S. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution and Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815-1871 (Princeton University Press, 1958).

Andrew Lees, "Conflicting Answers to the Social Questions," Revolution and Reflection: Intellectual Change in Germany during the 1850's (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974, pp. 138-83.

Donald G. Rohr, The Origins of Social Liberalism in Germany (University of Chicago Press, 1963).

James J. Sheehan, The Career of Lujo Brentano: A Study of Liberalism and Social Reform in Imperial Germany (University of Chicago Press, 1966).

Werner Conze, "Vom 'Pöbel' zum 'Proletariat', sozialgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen für den Sozialismus in Deutschland," Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 1954, vol. 41, pp. 333-64.

Albert Müssiggang, Die soziale Frage in der historischen Schule der deutschen Nationalökonomie (Tübingen, 1968).

William O. Shanahan, German Protestants Face the Social Question (Notre Dame: Indiana University Press, 1954).

24. Critics of Socialism↩

Towards the end of the 19th century liberals became increadingly concerned at the growth in influence of organised labour and socialist ideas in general. The danger appeared to some radical liberals to be coming from two sides. On the one hand, the liberal parties themselves began to adopt certain policies in support of a limited welfare state. Some liberals reworked liberal theory into what they called "New Liberalism" which largely abandoned the early 19th century liberal hostility towards state regulation of the economy and advocated sweeping welfare measures to solve the "social question." On the other hand, the organisation of labour parties and socialist parties proper meant that liberals were under attack from another direction and that whatever support they had come to expect from the working class was now being directed to the new working class parties.

The reaction of liberals to these changed circumstances was inevitably mixed. Some liberals adopted the more interventionist "new" liberalism without too much difficulty. Others, such as the "Liberty and Property Defence League" in England, sought a home in the Conservative Party or on the fringes of conservative circles. Some like John Morley continued to battle on within the Liberal party in spite of their increasing isolation from the main stream of New Liberalism. Whatever their reaction to the growth of socialism they agreed that the more extreme aspects of socialist thought had to be countered by a campaign of anti-socialist propaganda. The British liberals were particularly worried that the non-revolutionary Fabian socialists posed a special threat.

Tutorial Questions

Discuss the critique of Fabian socialism made by memebers of the "Liberty and Property Defense league" in A Plea for Liberty).
Are Bellamy's and Richter's utopian novels effective as political propaganda? Are their visions of a socialist future realistic and persuasive?
What was John Stuart Mill's attitude towards socialism and how did it change over his lifetime?
In The Man versus The State Herbert Spencer described socialism as "the coming slavery." What were his objections to socialism and why did he think it would enslave the individual?
To what extent was the "New Liberalism" of Hobhouse, Green and Hobson a form of "socialism within liberalism"?
Take any one of the anti-socialist writers listed below and discuss what were their main objections to socialism, what did they fear most about a socialist future, and whether or not their criticism was telling.

Key Reading

You can choose to read either the debate between the Fabians and the radical individualist supporters of the "Liberty and Property Defence League" (now regarded as "conservatives" in the changed political climate of the late 19th century or two very different conceptions of a possible socialist future in the form of a socialist utopia by the American writer and journalist Edward Bellamy and the socialist dystopia (the opposite of a utopia by the German radical liberal parliamentarian Eugen Richter.

Once more the mid-century encyclopaedia article from the Dictionnaire de l'économie politique gives a useful summary of liberal hostility towards socialism written while the events of the 1848 Revolution were still fresh in their minds.

Louis Reybaud, "Socialiste, socialisme," Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, ed. Coquelin and Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 2, pp. 629-641. Contains an extensive bibliography. Other articles of interest include "Ateliers nationaux, Communisme, Fourierisme, Propriété." A translation of Reybaud's article is in Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy and of the Political History of the United States, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1899, vol. 3, pp. 745-753.

1. The Debate between Fabian Socialists and Liberals

Key Reading

Begin with the famous collection of Fabian essays edited by George Bernard Shaw and then read the collection edited in response to it by Thoams Mackay. Browse around in both collections and choose a handful of the more interesting essays.

Fabian Essays in Socialism, by eminent Oxford Professors and English Economists, ed. George Bernard Shaw (1889 (Boston: Brown, 1894).

A Plea for Liberty: An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation, consisting of an Introduction by Herbert Spencer and Essays by various Writers, ed. Thomas Mackay (1891 (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981).

Key Reading

Begin with Bellamy's vision of a future socialist America and then read Richter's criticism. Interestingly, in Richter's view America and Switzerland are the only countries not to go socialist after the revolution.

Eugen Richter, Pictures of the Socialist Future (1891, trans. H. Wright, introduction by Thomas Mackay (London: Sonnenschein, 1907).

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887, ed. Cecilia Tichi (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).

Texts

Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981). Read "The Man Versus the State" (1884, pp. 1-177.

Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology 3 vols (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898). Volume 3, chapter 22 "Socialism," pp. 575-589.

A Policy of Free Exchange: Essays by Various Writers on the Economic and Social Aspects of Free Exchange and Kindred Subjects, ed. Thomas Mackay (London: Murray, 1894). This is the sequel to A Plea for Liberty).

Thomas Mackay, Dangers of Democracy: Studies in the Economic Questions of the Day (London: Murray, 1913).

Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State and other Essays, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1978). Herbert debated two prominent socialists of his day, E. Belfort Bax and J.A. Hobson, and his anti-socialist essays can be found in this collection: "Salvation by Force" and "Lost in the Region of Phrases."

Auberon Herbert, A Politician in Trouble about his Soul (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884).

Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," The Fortnightly Review (February 1891 in De Profundis and other Writings, ed. Hesketh Pearson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979, pp. 17-53.

Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State (1913, ed. Robert Nisbet (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1977).

Essays in Liberalism, by Six Oxford Men, ed. Hilaire Belloc (London: Cassell, 1897).

Vte Combes de Lestrade's critical comments in the French edition of Edward Bellamy, Seul de son siècle en l'an 2,000. Traduction et discussion du roman communiste "Looking Backward", ed. Vte Combes de Lestrade (Paris: Guillaumin, 1891). This translation was published by the leading liberal publishing house Guillaumin which published numerous liberal and anti-socialist works.

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, The Exploitation Theory of Social-Communism: The Idea that all unearned Income (Rent, Interest and Profit involves Economic Injustice (South Holland, Illinois: Libertarian Press, 1975). This book also goes under the badly translated title of Karl Marx and the Close of his System: A Criticism, trans. A.M. McDonald (London: Unwin, 1898).

Eugen Richter, Sozialdemokratische Zukunftbilder - Frei nch Bebel (1891, Pictures of the Socialist Future, trans. H. Wright, introduction by Thomas Mackay (London: Sonnenschein, 1907).

Albert Schäffle, Socialism: Its Nature, its Danger and its Remedies Considered (London: King, 1874).

Albert Schäffle, The Quintessence of Socialism (London: Sonnenschein, 1894).

Albert Schäffle, The Imposibility of Social Democracy: Being a Supplement to the Quintessence of Socialism (London: Sonnenschein, 1892).

Lorenz von Stein, The History of the Social Movement in France, 1789-1850, trans. Kaethe Mengelberg (Totowa, New Jersey: Bedminster Press, 1964).

The Case Against Socialism: A Handbook for Speakers and Candidates, published by the London Municipal Society (London: George Allen and Sons, 1909).

John Rae, Contemporary Socialism (London: Isbister, 1884).

John Stuart Mill, "Of Property," Book II, chapter i, in Principles of Political Economy, ed. Donald Winch (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, pp. 349-67; and the essays "Newman's Political Economy" (1851 "Chapters on Socialism" (1879 in Essays on Economics and Society: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. IV, ed. J.M. Robson (University of Toronto Press, 1975, pp. 439-57, 703-53.

Louis Reybaud, Études sur les reformateurs ou socialistes modernes, 2 vols. (Paris: Guillaumin, 1848).

Henri Baudrillart, "Communisme," Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, ed. Coquelin and Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852, vol. 1, pp. 421-27.

Eugène d'Eichtal, "Socialisme," pp. 815-60; Urbain Guérin, "Socialisme chrétien," pp. 860-67; Ludwig Bamberger, "Socialisme d'état," pp. 867-82 in Nouveau dictionnaire d'économie politique, ed. Léon Say et Joseph Chailley (Paris: Guillaumin, 1891, vol. 2.

Yves Guyot, The Tyranny of Socialism, ed. J.H. Levy (London: Sonnenschein, 1894).

Yves Guyot, Where and Why Public Ownership has Failed, trans. H.F. Baker (New York: Macmillan, 1914).

Yves Guyot, Les Principes de 89 et le Socialisme (Paris: Delagrave).

Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, Collectivism: A Study of Some of the Leading Social Questions of the Day, trans. Sir Arthur Clay (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1908).

Vilfredo Pareto, Libre échangisme, Protectionnisme et Socialisme in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 4, ed. Giovanni Busino (Genève: Droz, 1965 as part of the series Travaux de droit, d'économie, de sociologie et de sciences politques, 1965, vol. 37.

Vilfredo Pareto, Les systèmes socialistes (Paris: Giard et Brière, 1902, reprinted in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 5, ed. Giovanni Busino (Genève: Droz, 1965 as part of the series Travaux de droit, d'économie, de sociologie et de sciences politques, 1965, vol. 38.

A.V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation Between Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1905). Lectures 7 and 8, "The Growth of Collectivism" and "Period of Collectivism", pp. 211-302.

New Liberalism

L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (London, 1911).

T.H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1895).

Michael Freeden, New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

Michael Freeden, "J.A. Hobson as a New Liberal Theorist: Some Aspects of his Social Thought until 1914," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1973, vol. 34, pp. 421-43.

Stefan Collini, Liberalism and Sociology: L.T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England 1880-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Socialist Works

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887, ed. Cecilia Tichi (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).

Fabian Essays in Socialism, by Eminent Oxford Professors and English Economists, ed. George Bernard Shaw (1889 (Boston: Brown, 1894).

August Bebel, Women Under Socialism (New York: Schocken, 1971).

French Utopians: An Anthology of Ideal Societies, ed. Frank.E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel (New York: Free Press, 1966).

Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48, ed. Paul Corcoran (London: Macmillan).

Secondary Works

W.H. Greenleaf, The British Political Tradition. Volume 2: The Ideological Heritage (London: Methuen, 1983). Chapter 4 "The Transition to Collectivism." Includes a discussion of Mill and Green.

G.D.H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought, 5 vols (London: Macmillan, 1953-).

Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition: Moses to Lenin (London: Longman's, 1963).

George Lichtheim, A Short History of Socialism (London, 1970).

Histoire générale du socialisme, 4 vols., ed. Jacques Droz (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1972-78).

Giovanni Busino, "Vilfredo Pareto et les socialismes," in Pareto, Croce: les socialismes et la sociologie (Genève: Droz, 1983 as part of the series Travaux de droit, d'économie, de sociologie et de sciences politques, 1983, vol. 138.

A.M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics 1884-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 1966).

John P. McCarthy, Hilaire Belloc: Edwardian Radical (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1978).

E. Bristow, "The Liberty and Property Defence League and Individualism," Historical Journal, 1975, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 761-89.

Essays in Anti-Labour History, ed. K.D. Brown (London: Macmillan, 1974).

S. Hutchinson Harris, Auberon Herbert: Crusader for Liberty (London: Williams and Northgate, 1943).

H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: The Reorientation of European Social Thought, 1890-1930). On Pareto.

David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978).

Ian Bradley, "The Waning of Optimism," The Optimists: Themes and Personalities in Victorian Liberlaism (London: Faber and Faber, 1980, pp. 222-60.

The Marginal Revolution in Economics: Interpretation and Evaluation, ed. R.D. Collison Black et al. (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1973).

William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848-1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).

Pedro Schwartz, The New Political Economy of John Stuart Mill (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1972).

Samuel Hollander, The Economics of John Stuart Mill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985).

Lionel Robbins, The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy (London: Macmillan, 1953).

D.L. Losman, "John Stuart Mill on Alternative Economic Systems," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1971, vol. 30, pp. 85-104.

J.M. Winter, Socialism and the Challenge of War: Ideas and Politics in Britain 1912-18 (London, 1974).

Elie Halévy, The Era of Tyrannies: Essays on Socialism and War, trans. R.K. Webb (London: Allen Lane, 1967).

L.S. Feuer, "John Stuart Mill and Marxian Socialism," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1949, vol. X, pp. 297-303.

Gregory Claeys, "Justice, Independence, and Industrial Democracy: The development of John Stuart Mill's Views on Socialism," Journal of Politics, 1987, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 122-47.

25. Politics in the Novel↩

Many 19th century novelists provide interesting insights into the nature of political, social and economic relationships in their respective societies. They can be either critics of the abuses, injustices and pretensions of the societies in which they live or they can be interpreters and chroniclers of the forces at work in changing European society. I have chosen a selection of authors to illustrate this phenomenon and I hope their insights into European society will give you another dimension to the mainly political and economic material we have looked at during the year.

Alessandro Manzoni set his historical novel in the 17th century in order to criticise the legal and religious system of the ancien régime from an Enlightened and liberal perspective. Stendhal describes the activities of the leading social groups in France during the reign of Charles X (1824-1830 when France was approaching the bourgeois revolution of 1830. George Eliot describes the tensions in England on the eve of the 1832 Reform Bill just as it was on the verge of undergoing rapid political and economic change. Theodor Fontane was a disillusioned liberal of the 1848 revolution era who gradually became more conservative as he grew older. In his novels he chronicled and criticised the life of the Prussian bureaucratic and military elite as Germany experienced its greatest period of political and economic expansion. Jules Verne is more difficult to categorise but his faith in science and technology, wise rule by a scientific and technological elite and his belief in the right of strong individuals to withdraw from unjust society suggest that he is close to the anarchistic liberalism of Herbert Spencer and Gustave de Molinari.

Keep in mind when you read the novels that we are primarily interested in the political and social opinions of the authors and their interpretation of European society rather than in the literary techniques they use. Thus it is vital that you do some background reading in order to understand the context in which the novel was written. Just reading the novel is not at all sufficient to do this subject justice.

Tutorial Question

Choose one the novels listed below and describe the political and social views of the author as reflected in their writing.

Key Reading

Texts

Choose one of the following novels which are listed in chronological order:

Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed (1827, trans. Bruce Penman (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986).
Stendhal, The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the 19th Century (1830 (Harmondsworth: Penguin).
George Eliot, Felix Holt, The Radical (1866, ed. Peter Coveney (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).
Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870, The Mysterious Island (1874-75 (both available in many editions, or The Survivors of the 'Jonathan' (1909, trans. I.O. Evans (London: Arco, 1962).
Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest (1895, ed. Douglas Parmée (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985).

Secondary Works

Manzoni

Archibald Colquhoun, Manzoni and His Times: A Biography of the Author of 'The Betrothed' (London: J.M. Dent, 1954).

France

César Grana, Modernity and its Discontents: French Society and the French Man of Letters in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1976).

The French Romantics, 2 vols., ed. D.G. Charlton (Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Priscilla P. Clark, The Battle of the Bourgeois. The Novel in France, 1789-1848 (Paris, 1973).

La société française 1815-1914 vue par les romanciers, ed. P. Guiral et al. (Paris: A. Colin, 1969).

A.J. George, The Development of French Romanticism: The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Literature (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1955).

B. Weinberg, French Realism: The Critical Reaction 1830-1870 (Oxford University Press, 1937).

D.O. Evans, Social Romanticism in France, 1830-1840 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951).

L.R. Furst, Romanticism in Perspective: A Comparative Study of the Romantic Movements in England, France and Germany (London: Macmillan,, 1979).

F.W.J. Hemmings, Culture and Society in France 1848-1898: Discontents and Philistines (New York: Scribners, 1971).

Collection littérature française. Volume 7: De Chateaubriand à Baudelaire, 1820-1869, (Paris: Arthaud).

Collection littérature française. Volume 8: De Zola à Guillaume Apollinaire, ed. Daniel Leuwers et al. (Paris: Arthaud).

Stendhal

Stendhal, Red and Black: A New Translation, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism, ed. Robert M. Adams (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969).

Stendhal, D'un nouveau complot contre les industriels, ed. P. Chartier et al. (Paris: Flammarion, 1972).

Stendhal, Selected Journalism from the English Reviews, ed. Geoffrey Strickland (London: Calder, 1959).

Stendhal, Lettres de Paris par le petit fils de Grimm. Chronique 1825-1829, 2 vols, ed. José-Luis Diaz (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1983).

Fernand Rudé, Stendhal et la pensée sociale de son temps (Brionne: Gérard Montfort, 1983).

Geoffrey Strickland, Stendhal: The Education of a Novelist (Cambridge University Press, 1974).

Gita May, Stendhal and the Age of Napoleon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).

Robert Alter, Stendhal: A Biography (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980).

Henri Martineau, Le coeur de Stendhal: Histoire de sa vie et de ses sentiments, 2 vols., (Paris: Albin Miche, 1953-54).

Manuel Brussaly, The Political Ideas of Stendhal (New York: Russell and Russell, 1933).

Stendhal, le Saint-Simonisme et les Industriels. Actes du XIIe congrès international Stendhalien. Bruxelles 23-25 mai 1977, ed. O. Schellekens (Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles).

Henri-François Imbert, Les Métamorphoses de la liberté ou Stendhal devant la Restauration et le Risorgimento (José Corti, 1967).

Victor del Litto, La vie intellectuelle de Stendhal (Presses Universitaires de France, 1959).

Jules Verne

Jules Verne, extracts ed. Armand Goupil (Paris: Larousse, 1975).

Jean Chesneaux, The Political and Social Ideas of Jules Verne, trans. Thomas Wikeley (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972).

Jean Jules-Verne, Jules Verne: A Biography, trans. Roger Greaves (London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1976).

Jules Verne et les sciences humaines, ed. François Raymond et Simone Vierne (Paris: Union générale d'éditions, 1979).

Jules Verne: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, ed. Edward J. Gallagher et al. (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980).

England

Victorian Literature: Selected Essays, ed. Robert O. Preyer (New York: Harper and Row, 1967).

Ivan Melada, The Captain of Industry in English Fiction 1821-1871 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1970).

William O. Aydelotte, "The England of Marx and Mill as reflected in Fiction," Journal of Economic History, 1948, supplement 8, pp. 42-58.

Raymond Williams, "The Industrial Novels," in Culture and Society: 1780-1950 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1958).

W.H. Chaloner, "Mrs Trollope and the Early Factory System," Victorian Studies, 1960, no. 4.

Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind (New Haven, 1957).

Norman Russell, The Novelist and Mammon: Literary Response to the World of Commerce in the 19th Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

James M. Brown, Dickens: Novelist in the Market Place (1982).

L. Cazamian, The Social Novel in England: Dickens, Disraeli, Mrs Gaskell, Kingsley, trans. M. Fido (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973).

J.M. Jefferson, "Industrialisation and Poverty: In Fact and Fiction," in The Long Debate on POVERTY: Eight Essays on Industrialisation and 'the condition of England', ed. Arthur Seldon (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1972.

George Eliot

T.R. Wright, The Religion of Humanity: The Impact of Comtean Positivism on Victorian Britain (Cambridge University Press, 1986).

G.S. Haight, George Eliot: A Biography (Oxford University Press, 1968).

Claude T. Bissell, "Social Analysis in the Novels of George Eliot," in Victorian Literature: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Austin Wright (Oxford University Press, 1961).

W.F.T. Myers, "Politics and Personality in Felix Holt," Renaissance and Modern Studies, 1966, vol. 10, pp. 5-33.

U.C. Knoepflmacher, Religious Humanism and the Victorian Novel: George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Samuel Butler (Princeton University Press, 1965).

Miriam Allott, "George Eliot in the 1860s," Victorian Studies, 1961, vol. 5, pp. 93-108.

Joseph L. Blotner, The Political Novel (Garden City, New York: Doubelday, 1955).

C.B. Cox, "George Eliot: The Conservative-Reformer," in The Free Spirit: A Study of Liberal Humanism in the Novels of George Eliot, Henry James, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Angus Wilson (Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 13-37.

Walter F. Wright, "George Eliot as Industrial Reformer," Publications of the Modern Language Association, 1941, vol. 56, pp. 1107-15.

Morris Edmund Speare, "George Eliot and Radicalism," The Political Novel: Its Development in England and in America (Oxford University Press, 1925, pp. 221-36.

David R. Carroll, "Felix Holt: Society as Protagonist," in George Eliot: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. George R. Creeger (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prenticve-Hall, 1970).

Fred C. Thompson, "Politics and Society in Felix Holt," The Classic British Novel, ed. Howard M. Harper Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1972).

T.R. Wright, "George Eliot and Positivism: A Reassessment," Modern Language Review, 1981, vol. 76, pp. 257-72.

Germany

Ernest K. Bramsted, Aristocracy and the Middle Classes in Germany: Social Types in German Literature 1830-1900 (University of Chicago Press, 1964).

Theodor Fontane

Joachim Remak, The Gentle Critic: Theodor Fontane and German Politics 1848-1898 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1964).

Renny Harrigan, "The Limits of Emancipation: A Study of Fontane's Lower Class Women," Monatshefte, 1978, no. 70, pp. 117-28.

Arthur Davis, "Fontane and the German Revolution of 1848," Modern Language Notes, 1935, 50, pp. 1-9.

Arthur Davis, "Fontane as a Prophet of German Political Life," Modern Language Notes, 1933, 48, pp. 449-52.

Arthur Davis, "Theodor Fontane's Relation to German Conservative Forces during the Period 1849-1870," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 1936, vol. 35, pp. 259-70.

Kenneth Attwood, Fontane und das Preu~tum (berlin: Haude und Spenersche, 1970).

Walter Müller-Seidel, Theodor Fontane: Soziale Romankunst in Deutschland (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1975).

26. The New Class Society↩

From about the 1870s onwards liberals looked on with dismay as their hopes for a deregulated and free (in the negative sense society disappeared under the onslaught of socialism from one side and a reinvigorated traditional elite on the other. We have already looked at the liberal response to socialism and this week we will be examining the reaction of liberals like Vilfredo Pareto, Herbert Spencer, and Max Weber to the "persistence" of traditional landed, bureaucratic and military elites.

In spite of an expanded franchise traditional elites were able to manipulate government in such a way as to preserve their positions in key sectors of the state such as the cabinet, the higher civil service, the foreign office, the army and as peers in the upper houses. In stead of replacing the traditional elite the new wealthy bourgeois class of industrialists, merchants, and bankers fell over themselves to be admitted into the ranks of traditional society. They willingly accepted government honours, purchased country estates, married into old families, and generally accepted the political and cultural leadership of the traditional elites. This process is well documented by Arno Mayer in The Persistence of the Old Regime which is the main reading for this week.

Liberals responded to this "betrayal" by the higher bourgeoisie by developing somewhat pessimistic theories which argued that class society (in other words, rule by an elite was inevitable and perhaps even a permanent feature of all societies, whether traditional or industrial. For example, Spencer believed that a "new Toryism" was in the process of being formed; Pareto believed that society functioned by a continuous process of "circulation" of elites whereby traditional elites absorbed or were gradually replaced by a new rising elite; Weber developed a sophisticated sociological theory to explain the formation of "rational" bureaucracy and new forms of authority.

The hope of early 19th century liberals that politics could be separated from economics and that no one class would monopolise political power for their own "sinister" purposes (as James Mill would have put it was abandoned and replaced with growing hopelessness and fear of the future. It appeared that free trade, free markets, peace and minimal government was in the process of being replaced by protection, a regulated and cartellised economy, an arms race with the increasing threat of a world war, and the expansion of bureaucracy and government activity in general.

Tutorial Questions

Discuss Mayer's theory that traditional elites in the late 19th century "persisted" in power instead of being replaced by the new bourgeois elite. Is he correct in your view?
How did either Spencer, Pareto, Mosca, Michels or Weber respond to the creation of new kinds of political power and the rise of new political classes?

Key Reading

The new opportunities for economic advancement opened up by the industrial system were not always matched by similar opportunities for advancement from one social class to another, especially into the upper social class which provided the personnel for the highest reaches of the government, civil service and army. Hamerow gives a balanced account of this problem.

Theodore S. Hamerow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Chapter 7 "Economic Opportunity and Class Mobility," pp. 175-204.

Arno Mayer provides a stronger version of Hamerow's argument about limited social mobility at the highest level of society. Mayer's book is vitally important since he provides the most developed argument for the "capture" of the bourgeoisie by the traditional elites:

Arno J. Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981). The entire book is full of interesting and quite controversial insights. However, the introduction and chapter 2 "The Ruling Classes: The Bourgeoisie Defers" is enough to give you the gist of his argument, pp. 3-15 and 79-127.

The reaction of liberals and conservatives to the growing bureaucratisation, militarisation, and politicisation of society was rather complex. Some rejected the course which modern society was taking, whilst others grudgingly accepted the inevitable. The Italian liberal Vilfredo Pareto developed a rather pessimistic theory of the universal existence of political elites which changed in composition either by peaceful "circulation" or by violent revolutionary replacement of and old and decadent elite by a new and more vigorous one.

Read the extract from Pareto:

Vilfredo Pareto, The Circulation of the Elites: An Application of Theoretical Sociology (1901, ed. Hans L. Zetterberg (Totowa, New Jersey: Bedminster Press, 1968).

Texts

Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State (1884 in The Man Versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom, ed. Eric Mack (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981).

Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology 3 vols (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898). Volume 3, chapter 22 "Socialism," pp. 575-589 and chapter 23 "The Near Future," pp. 590-607, chapter 24 "Conclusion" pp. 608-11.

Herbert Spencer, Facts and Comments (London: Williams and Norgate, 1902). "Re-Barbarization," pp. 122-33; "Regimentation," pp. 134-41.

Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H.H. Girth and C. Wright Mills (Kegan Paul, 1948). Sections on bureaucracy, domination and authority.

Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class: Elementi di scienza politica (1896, ed. Arthur Livingston (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939).

Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (1915, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (New York: Dover, 1959 or First Lectures in Political Sociology, ed. Alfred de Grazia (New York: Harper and Row, 1965).

Gustave de Molinari, Ultima Verba: Mon dernier ouvrage (Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière, 1911).

Secondary Works

The Theory of Elites

T.B. Bottomore, Elites and Society (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1966).

Pareto and Mosca, ed. James H. Meisel ((New York: Prentice-Hall, 1965).

James H. Meisel, The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano Mosca and the Elite (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958).

Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (London: Methuen, 1977).

H. Stuart Hughes, "Gaetano Mosca and the Political Lessons from History," in Teachers of History: Essays in Honor of Laurence Bradford Packard, ed. H. Stuart Hughes (Cornell University Press, pp. 146-67.

H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: The Reorientation of European Social Thought, 1890-1930). On Pareto.

David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978).

Also on Spencer see: David Nicholls, "Positive Liberty, 1880-1914," American Political Science Review, 1962, vol. 56, pp. 114-28; H.J. McCloskey, "The Problem of Liberalism," Review of Metaphysics, 1965, vol. 19, pp. 248-75.

S.E. Finer, "Pareto and Pluto-Democracy: The Retreat to Galapagos," American Political Science Review, 1968, vol. 62, pp. 440-50.

David Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974).

Wolfgang Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics, 1890-1920 (1959).

The History of Elites

European Landed Elites in the Nineteenth Century, ed. David Spring (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1966).

England

Sydney Checkland, "Part IV: Industrial Maturity and the Ending of Pre-eminence, 1874-1914," British Public Policy 1776-1939: An Economic, Social and Political Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 163-258.

The English Ruling Class, ed. W.L. Guttsman (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969).

George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (London: Granada, 1983).

J. Cornford, "The Transformation of Conservatism in the Late Nineteenth Century," Victorian Studies, 1963, vol. 7.

F.M.L. Thompson, British Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963).

Martin J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850-1980 (Cambridge University Pres, 1982).

G. Kitson Clark, "The Nobility and Gentry - Old Style" and "The New Politics and the New Gentry," in The Making of Victorian England (London: Methuen, 1966, pp. 206-74.

W.H. Greenleaf, The British Political Tradition (London: Methuen, 1985).

Elites and Power in British Society, ed. Philip Stanworth and Anthony Giddens (Cambridge University Press, 1974).

Germany

Lamar Cecil, "The Creation of Nobles in Prussia, 1871-1918," American Historical review, 1970, vol. 75, pp. 757-95.

James J. Sheehan, "Conflict and Cohesion among German Elites in the 19th Century" and John C. Röhl, "Higher Civil Servants in Germany, 1890-1900," in Imperial Germany, ed. James J. Sheehan (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976).

Gordon Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1956).

Martin Kitchen, The German Officer Corps, 1890-1914 (Oxford, 1968).

Hans Rosenberg, "Die Pseudodemokratisierung der Rittergutsbesitzerklasse," and F. Zunkel, "Industriebürgertum in Westdeutschland," in Moderne Deutsche Sozialgeschichte, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Cologne: Kiepenheuer and Witsch, 1966).

J. Gillis, "Aristocracy and Bureaucracy in 19th Century Prussia," Past and Present, 1968, vol. 41.

Walter Struve, Elites against Democracy: Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890-1933 (Princeton University Press, 1973).

France

Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford University Press, 1976).

Theodore Zeldin, France, 1848-1945: Politics and Anger (Oxford University Press, 1979).

F. Ridley and J. Blondel, Public Administration in France (London, 1964).

Michael Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago, 1964).

Henry Peiter, "Instituitions and Attitudes: The Consolidation of the Business Community in Bourgeois France, 1880-1914," Journal of Social History, 1976, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 510-25.

Adeline Daumard, Les bourgeois de Paris au XIXe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1970).

Felix Ponteil, Les classes bourgeoises et l'avènement de la démocratie, 1815-1914 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1968).

Christophe Charle, Les hauts fonctionnaires en France au XIXe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1980).

Raoul Girardet, La société militaire dans la France contemporaine, 1815-1939 (Paris: Plon, 1953).

The Right in France 1890-1919, ed. David Shapiro (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1962).

Liberal Europe and Social Change, 1815-1914: Course Reading Guide (1987)

Source

Table of Contents

AIM OF THE COURSE

TEXTBOOKS

1. Introduction - What is Liberalism?↩

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

2. What is Liberalism? - Continued↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

3. The Intellectual Origins of 19th Century Liberalism↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

4. Individualism and Liberty↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

5. Utilitarianism Vs. Natural Rights↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

6. Property and Contract↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

Texts

Secondary Works

7. The Free Market and Social Harmony↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

8. Limited Vs. No Goverment↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

9. Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

10. Democracy and Electoral Reform↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

11. Centralisation↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

12. Freedom of Speech↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

13. The National Question↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

Texts

Secondary Works

14. Liberal Politics↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Recommended Reading

15. War and Peace↩

Tutorial Questions

Key Reading

Liberal Europe and Social Change, 1815-1914:
Course Reading Guide (1987)