[Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)]

[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]

Since so many contemporary CL/Ls quote Hayek’s 1949 appeal for the rediscovery of a liberal utopia to guide and motivate liberals in their intellectual struggle against fascism, socialism, and other forms of government interventionism I thought it would be useful to put online two lengthy quotations from his work where he discusses this in more detail.

1. F.A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism,” The University of Chicago Law Review (Spring 1949), pp. 417-420; reprinted in Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp. 178-194. Quotation on pp. 193-94.
2. A section in LLL1 entitled “Spurious realism and the required courage to consider utopia”, LLL vol. 1 Rules and Order (1973), Chap. 3 Principles and Expediency, pp. 62-65.

“The Intellectuals and Socialism” (1949)

(Section) VII

It may be that as a free society as we have known it carries in itself the forces of its own destruction, that once freedom has been achieved it is taken for granted and ceases to be valued, and that the free growth of ideas which is the essence of a free society will bring about the destruction of the foundations on which it depends. There can be little doubt that in countries like the United States the ideal of freedom today has less real appeal for the young than it has in countries where they have learned what its loss means. On the other hand, there is every sign that in Germany and elsewhere, to the young men who have never known a free society, the task of constructing one can become as exciting and fascinating as any socialist scheme which has appeared during the last hundred years. It is an extraordinary fact, though one which many visitors have experienced, that in speaking to German students about the principles of a liberal society one finds a more responsive and even enthusiastic audience than one can hope to find in any of the Western democracies. [193] In Britain also there is already appearing among the young a new interest in the principles of true liberalism which certainly did not exist a few years ago.

Does this mean that freedom is valued only when it is lost, that the world must everywhere go through a dark phase of socialist totalitarianism before the forces of freedom can gather strength anew? It may be so, but I hope it need not be. Yet, so long as the people who over longer periods determine public opinion continue to be attracted by the ideals of socialism, the trend will continue. If we are to avoid such a development, we must be able to offer a new liberal program which appeals to the imagination. We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a program which seems neither a mere defense of things as they are nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty (including the trade unions), which is not too severely practical, and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible. We need intellectual leaders who are willing to work for an ideal, however small may be the prospects of its early realization. They must be men who are willing to stick to principles and to fight for their full realization, however remote. The practical compromises they must leave to the politicians. Free trade and freedom of opportunity are ideals which still may arouse the imaginations of large numbers, but a mere “reasonable freedom of trade” or a mere “relaxation of controls” is neither intellectually respectable nor likely to inspire any enthusiasm.

The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost. The intellectual revival of liberalism is already underway in many parts of the world. Will it be in time? [194]

“Spurious realism and the required courage to consider utopia” (1973)

With respect to policy, the methodological insight that in the case [62] of complex spontaneous orders we will never be able to determine more than the general principles on which they operate or to predict the particular changes that any event in the environment will bring about, has far-reaching consequences. It means that where we rely on spontaneous ordering forces we shall often not be able to foresee the particular changes by which the necessary adaptation to altered external circumstances will be brought about, and sometimes perhaps not even be able to conceive in what manner the restoration of a disturbed ‘equilibrium’ or ‘balance’ can be accomplished. This ignorance of how the mechanism of the spontaneous order vvill solve such a ‘problem’ which we know must be solved somehow if the overall order is not to disintegrate, often produces a panic-like alarm and the demand for government action for the restoration of the disturbed balance.

Often it is even the acquisition of a partial insight into the character of the spontaneous overall order that becomes the cause of the demands for deliberate control. So long as the balance of trade, or the correspondence of supply and demand of any particular commodity, adjusted itself spontaneously after any disturbance, men rarely asked themselves how this happened. But, once they became aware of the necessity of such constant readjustments, they felt that somebody must be made responsible for deliberately bringing them about. The economist, from the very nature of his schematic picture of the spontaneous order, could counter such apprehension only by the confident assertion that the required new balance would establish itself somehow if we did not interfere with the spontaneous forces; but, as he is usually unable to predict precisely how this would happen, his assertions were not very convincing.

Yet when it is possible to foresee how the spontaneous forces are likely to restore the disturbed balance, the situation becomes even worse. The necessity of adaptation to unforeseen events will always mean that someone is going to be hurt, that someone’s expectations will be disappointed or his efforts frustrated. This leads to the demand that the required adjustment be brought about by deliberate guidance, which in practice must mean that authority is to decide who is to be hurt. The effect of this is often that necessary adjustments will be prevented whenever they can be foreseen.

What helpful insight science can provide for the guidance of policy consists in an understanding of the general nature of the spontaneous order, and not in any knowledge of the particulars of [63] a concrete situation, which it does not and cannot possess. The true appreciation of what science has to contribute to the solution of our political tasks, which in the nineteenth century was fairly general, has been obscured by the new tendency derived from a now fashionable misconception of the nature of scientific method: the belief that science consists of a collection of particular observed facts, which is erroneous so far as science in general is concerned, but doubly misleading where we have to deal with the parts of a complex spontaneous order. Since all the events in any part of such an order are interdependent, and an abstract order of this sort has no recurrent concrete parts which can be identified by individual attributes, it is necessarily vain to try to discover by observation regularities in any of its parts. The only theory which in this field can lay claim to scientific status is the theory of the order as a whole; and such a theory (although it has, of course, to be tested on the facts) can never be achieved inductively by observation but only through constructing mental models made up from the observable elements.

The myopic view of science that concentrates on the study of particular facts because they alone are empirically observable, and advocates even pride themselves on not being guided by such a conception of the overall order as can be obtained only by what they call ‘abstract speculation’, by no means increases our power of shaping a desirable order, but in fact deprives us of all effective guidance for successful action. The spurious ‘realism’ which deceives itself in believing that it can dispense with any guiding conception of the nature of the overall order, and confines itself to an examination of particular ‘techniques’ for achieving particular results, is in reality highly unrealistic. Especially when this attitude leads, as it frequently does, to a judgment of the advisability of particular measures by consideration of the ‘practicability’ in the given political climate of opinion, it often tends merely to drive us further into an impasse. Such must be the ultimate results of successive measures which all tend to destroy the overall order that their advocates at the same time tacitly assume to exist.

It is not to be denied that to some extent the guiding model of the overall order will always be an utopia, something to which the existing situation will be only a distant approximation and which many people will regard as wholly impractical. Yet it is only by constantly holding up the guiding conception of an internally consistent model which could be realized by the consistent application [64] of the same principles, that anything like an effective framework for a functioning spontaneous order will be achieved. Adam Smith thought that ‘to expect, indeed, that freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain is as absurd as to expect an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it.’ [FN14] Yet seventy year later, largely as a result of his work, it was achieved.

Utopia, like ideology, is a bad word today; and it is true that most utopias aim at radically redesigning society and suffer from internal contradictions which make their realization impossible. But an ideal picture of a society which may not be wholly achievable, or a guiding conception of the overall order to be aimed at, is nevertheless not only the indispensable precondition of any rational policy, but also the chief contribution that science can make to the solution of the problems of practical policy.

[The Chimera on a red-figure Apulian plate, c. 350–340 BC (Musée du Louvre)]

[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]

In a rather unfair and perhaps perverse result of its success over the past 250 years, the impressive success of CL ideas and organised movements (Richard Ebeling’s five “crusades” of CL) has led to its gradual attenuation or even disappearance as a separate movement. Since so many of its core beliefs have been taken up by other political ideologies it seems to no longer have a raison d’être or its own mouthpiece, with the possible exception of the modern American Libertarian Party (founded 1971).

Left wing ideologies like socialism, social democracy, Fabian Socialism, Australian and British “Laborism”, American “Progressivism” or the Democrat Party, as well as right wing “conservatism” in the form of the American Republican Party, the British Conservative Party, the Australian “Liberal” Party have all adopted what were once CL ideas about the rule of law, democratic elections, constitutionalism, individual rights, legal equality (women, gays), the greater efficiency and productiveness of free markets. They have incorporated CL ideas into their platforms which in my view makes them a kind of political “hybrid” (or “bastard” or “illegitimate child” if you are feeling churlish) of two very different political traditions. Their other ideological “parent” are various forms of statism, socialism, interventionism, and economic planning (“non-comprehensive planning” in Don Lavoie’s terminology)

This “ideological hybridisation” has given rise to what one might call LINOs and SINOs: liberals and liberal parties which are “Liberal In Name Only” and their socialist counterparts which are “Socialist In Name Only”.

LINO parties would say they have corrected the problems and weaknesses of CL and created a better kind of politics and governance, that they have “moved beyond” the limitations of the CL tradition and that this is a good thing. In other words, they have combined the best parts of socialism and interventionism (government guidance/direction), and the best parts of liberalism. SINOs would say they have done the same thing by finding a “Third Way” (Tony Blair and BIll Clinton) between the two ideologies.

Radical Liberals (and Libertarians) would, on the contrary, say that any “Third Way” between liberalism and socialism will fatally compromise core CL principles, and that the logical inconsistencies are unsustainable in the long run. In fact, they argue that this combination is fatally contradictory because the amalgamation of these ideas from totally different traditions is not stable, that there is an inbuilt and thus unavoidable tendency of the state to constantly expand its powers, and that there is always the problem of the “capture” of state institutions by those who work in it and those whom they regulate.

The idea that there can be a “Goldilocks” mixture (not too liberal and not too socialist) of different aspects of CLT and socialism (government regulation and interventionism) and that one can “mix and match” the different possible combinations to suit national, geographic, or religious differences/requirements/needs, is a false hope – “Utopian if you will.

Thus , on the “smorgasbord” table of political ideologies and policies the LINOs and SINOs can choose from the following plates. On the left hand side of the table one can select from the following

• a little bit of government ownership and administration of economic activity (“socialism”) – roads, public transport, electricity supply, water, money and banking??, education, health/hospitals, national broadcaster (radio, TV)
• a little bit of government “interventionism” (regulation of private economic activity) – health and safety, anti-trust/anti-monopoly, environmental regulation
• a little bit of redistribution – in fact a lot of it, in the welfare state

On the right hand side of the table one can choose from:

• a little bit of “political liberty” – a lot of “democracy in fact, limited freedom of speech (film censorship), the rule of law (much of the time but not always)
• a little bit of “economic liberty” – free markets and freely determined prices – but not too much

However, these “hybrid” (or “bastard”) political traditions do not acknowledge the inherent, inevitable, and fatal problems of government interventionism of all kinds which have been repeatedly pointed out by CL/Ls for over a century. These include the following:

• “the interventionist dynamic”(Mises) – one intervention causes problems which can only be rectified by introducing more interventions or abolishing the original intervention
• the public choice problem (Tullock and Buchanan) of politicians and bureaucrats pursuing their own self-interest at the expence of the general public
• the “government failure” problem vs. the much exaggerated “market failure” problem
• the knowledge problem (Hayek) – the false belief that governments/bureaucrats have access to “better” information than private sector actors and can thus “plan” better
• the “moral hazard” problem
• people begin to believe that they have a “right” to be looked after by the state at other peoples’ expence; the erosion of the ethic of self-help, independence, and being responsible for one’s own actions
• politics attracts a certain kind of people who want to rule/control others; Hayek’s notion of “the worst” who get on top
• the benefits which politicians can dispense attract a certain kind of business “predator” who wants privileges for themselves and handicaps for their competitors
• the “double standards” problem – that normal accepted moral standards of behaviour (do not use use violence against others, do not kill, do not take other people’s property without their permission) do not apply to politicians and bureaucrats

CLs think these problems are insoluble and cannot be ignored in the long term without there being serious consequences. This makes “hybrid” political parties univiable in the long run.

[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]

One of the most radical visions of the future written by a radical liberal was that by the Belgian-French political economist Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912)). His conception of “the political and economic organisation of the society of the future” (the title of a book he wrote in 1899) [English HTML and Fr. HTML] was of radically decentralised organisations which would provide “government or security services” to “customers of security.” These would be provided by local municipal bodies, or by “proprietary communities” which would provide them for their members, or by private companies (probably insurance companies) which would charge their customers premiums to protect their life, liberty, and property.

He first put this idea forward in February 1849 in an article “La production de la sécurité” [Fr. HTML and facs. PDF; – English HTML] and later that year in a chapter of his book Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare [whole book in Fr. HTML and facs. PDF; my revised trans. of chap. 11 English HTML], and then in much more detail in chapter X of his book L’évolution politique et la Révolution (Political Evolution and the Revolution) (1884) on “Les gouvernements de l’avenir” (Governments of the Future”.

This latter chapter has never been translated into English. Earlier this year I put online an HTML edition of of the entire book [Fr. HTML ] and facs. PDF] and its companion volume L’évolution économique du XIXe siècle: théorie du progrès (Economic Evolution in the 19th Century: A Theory of Progress) (1880) [Fr. [ HTML ] and [ facs. PDF ].].

I began doing a translation of this important chapter back in the summer of 1981 (northern hemisphere) when I was a graduate student at Stanford University but I never finished it unfortunately. I recently found my hand-written draft and scanned it.

It is 101 pages long and is a translation of the first 50 or so pages of the French original, pp. 351-399. I did not complete the rest, pp. 400-423, as the demands of graduate school increased and I put it aside. I have put it online for anyone who might be interested. [facs. PDF of my partial trans. and also just chap. X in French HTML and facs. PDF].

Two years before, when I was writing my Honours thesis at Macquarie University on Molinari, I included a translation of chap. 11 of Les Soirées as an appendix, which later appeared when the thesis was published as a series of articles in the Journal of Libertarian Studies (1981-82). I returned to Les Soirées as the editor and co-translator of the book which Liberty Fund planned to publish. The manuscript is finished but the project has been shelved as far as I can tell by the new regime. A draft (2016) of the translation is on the OLL website but I have no idea how long it will remain there or what will happen to it.

At the ripe old age of 80 he summarised his views of what the future might look like if his radical liberal reforms were to be introduced, in a book, Esquisse de l’organisation politique et économique de la Société future (A Sketch of the Political and Social Organisation of Society in the Future) (1899) [French HTML and facs. PDF] which was one of the very few of his many books to be translated into English – The Society of Tomorrow: A Forecast of its Political and Economic Organization (1904) [English HTML and facs. PDF].

Around the same time as his book “A Sketch of Society in the Future” appeared, in which he depicted what a society might look like if it continued to progress down the path of political liberty and competition in all things, he wrote a pair of articles to mark the turn of the century – one looking over the achievements of liberal reforms and their setbacks during the 19th century; and another looking into the rather bleak prospects of the coming 20th century. [“Le XIXe siècle”, Journal des Économistes, Janvier 1901, pp. 5-19 [facs. PDF and HTML] and “Le XXe siècle”, JDE, Janvier 1902, pp. 5-14 [facs. PDF and HTML].] He saw the future as one of the continued rise of socialism, protectionism, imperialism, war, and economic devastation, until such time, perhaps 70 or so years into the future, when people had come to their senses, realised the very great things a free society would allow people to achieve, and so resume the great liberal reform movement which had started in the late 18thC.

Further Reading

For a more detailed discussion of the development of Molinari’s ideas on what is now called “anarcho-capitalism” over the 50 years between 1849 and 1899, see my paper given at the Libertarian Scholars Conference in 2019 in NYC “Was Molinari a true Anarcho-Capitalist?: An Intellectual History of the Private and Competitive Production of Security” HTML.

On Molinari’s pessimistic views of the coming 20th century see a paper I gave at the Australian Historical Association 2000 Conference on “Futures in the Past” held at the University of Adelaide in 2000 to mark the turn of the new millennium: “Gustave de Molinari and the Future of Liberty: ‘Fin de Siècle, Fin de la Liberté’?”. HTML

On other CL visions of the future see this post: “Classical Liberal Visions of the Future I” (27 August, 2021).

[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]

Part 1: Introduction

We have noted elsewhere Hayek’s nearly despairing plea in 1949 for CLs to rediscover their “utopian vision” of what a free society might look like in order to inspire a new generation of young CLs to carry on the struggle for liberty. The socialists and Marxists have had their utopian visions of what a socialist society would look like (all of them terribly naive and many of them absurd in my view) and this I think has been a contributing factor in furthering the socialist cause ever since the 1820s and 1830s when “utopian socialists” like Charles Fourier and Saint-Simon first appeared in France. And when Hayek was writing this essay the proof that socialist, communist, and fascist ideologies could and had inspired a couple of generations of fanatical followers to put their lives at risk in order to build a “New Germany” or a “Workers Paradise on Earth”, was still very fresh in his mind.

It is clear that CLs once had such a utopian vision but seemed to have lost it somewhere along way in the transition from “radical liberalism” to the “new liberalism” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The radical liberals who “fought on the barricades” for liberty in 1647 in England (the Levellers), in 1775-76 in the North American colonies, in the streets of Paris in the first phase of the French Revolution in 1789-93 and again in 1848 (Bastiat, Molinari), had such a vision which inspired them to risk their lives for the cause they deeply believed in. It is hard to imagine any “moderate liberal” taking to the streets for a 5% cut in the size of the budget and of course they never have.

The American philosopher Robert Nozick (1938-2002) asked this very question in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) in the concluding chapter 10 “A Framework for Utopia” where he states:

No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified. But doesn’t the idea, or ideal, of the minimal state lack luster? Can it thrill the heart or inspire people to struggle or sacrifice? Would anyone man barricades under its banner? It seems pale and feeble in comparison with, to pick the polar extreme, the hopes and dreams of utopian theorists. Whatever its virtues, it appears clear that the minimal state is no utopia. [p. 297.]

In this passage Nozick quotes the mocking words of J. R. Lucas’s The Principles of Politics (1966) about how no one would want to die in order to create something as boring as a “limited government” and if it did exist, no one would bother lifting a finger to defend it:

A state which was really morally neutral, which was indifferent to all values, other than that of maintaining law and order, would not command enough allegiance to survive at all. A soldier may sacrifice his life for Queen and Country, but hardly for the Minimum State. A policeman, believing in Natural Law and immutable right and wrong, may tackle an armed desperado but not if he regards himself as an employee of a Mutual Protection and Assurance Society, constructed from the cautious contracts of prudent individuals. Some ideals are necessary to inspire those without whose free co-operation that State would not survive.

Nozick’s solution to this problem is to admit that limited government in itself is boring as an ideal and not likely to inspire anybody to get out of their study chair (let alone their favourite TV viewing chair) to go to the barricades to defend it from its enemies. However, what it does do is to inspire people indirectly by providing a “framework” in which other utopias can be realised and which themselves inspire and motivate people to take action (see pp. 333-340). It is a clever argument, as many of Nozick’s are, but ultimately it is still not very satisfying and would probably not assuage Hayek’s deep angst that CL had become a “vision-free” political ideology and was thus doomed to failure in competition with ideologies which do passionately inspire their adherents, such as the socialists of his and our day and the environmentalists today.

I want to briefly discuss here the vision of a future society some CLs had in the 17th through the 19th centuries (and in doing so contrast them with socialist visions from the same period), and in a later post what some modern day CL/Ls think about the matter.

Some Visions of the Future Society

In the West, we have two important sources for much of our thinking about utopias and dystopias. There is the Christian Bible with its utopian visions of the idyllic Garden of Eden and the ultimate reward for the faithful of Heaven. Then of course, there is the dystopia of Hell for the wicked and sinful. The second key example is the classic vision of a “utopia” (which defines the genre) is Thomas More’s book De optimo rei publicae deque nova insula Utopia (Of a republic’s best state and of the new island Utopia) (1516).

In these stories one’s vision of the future depends upon one’s attitudes towards the following:

• human nature: will it stay the same or must it be changed?
• social and economic institutions: will they be similar to those which exist today or will new ones replace them?
• the supply of resources: are resources such as time and natural materials limited or do they exist in abundance, and is much effort required to acquire them?
• the role of the State and other coercive institutions: can people run their own lives harmoniously or do they need guidance and control by a lord, master, king, or technocratic elite?
• the role of science and technology: should one be optimistic or pessimistic about their impact?

CLs and Socialists have very different assumptions/conclusions about these variables which I summarise as follows:

Classical Liberals:

• human nature: it stays the same, CLs believe that there is an unchanging “human nature” which is observable and understandable
• social and economic institutions: these remain pretty much the same, although they can be improved with some modification/reforms; there is a vigorous defence of private property
• the supply of resources: these will always remain limited in supply, they can be used to satisfy many often conflicting demands which have to be prioritised, and they are costly to acquire
• the role of the State and other coercive institutions: these will be much reduced, even eliminated in some cases
• science and technology: CLs had mostly optimistic views about their impact and their capacity to allow human progress

Socialists:

• human nature: human nature has to change as it is self-centred even selfish and this can be done usually through a gradual evolution or more quickly by force (state coercion); the result will be a “new socialist man” more suited to living in a socialist society; socialists assume that human nature is ultimately malleable and not unchanging
• social and economic institutions: these need to be radically transformed especially the ownership of property and the making of profits; they identify the key relationships which need to be abolished (wage labour, exploitation, money transactions, private property, the family), and argue for some completely new institutions which need to be created (planning bureaucracies), and new habits and discipline introduced via communal living, public schools, and conscription into army
• the supply of resources: a common theme in socialist writing is that the scarcity of resources is a problem caused by capitalism, private property, and selfish behaviour; in a new socialist world there would be no exploitation or profits and hence there would be abundance for all
• the role of the State and other coercive institutions: there will be “rational planners” of all things, Big Brother is always a wise ruler, and a managerial elite run everything efficiently
• science and technology: socialists could be optimistic (19thC) or pessimistic (late 20thC) about their impact

Side note: It should be pointed out that before there were explicitly socialist visions of the future the two classic utopian visions (that of the Christian bible and that of Thomas More) had no place for private property, there was an abundance of goods which were nearly costless to acquire, and these goods could be acquired at very low cost . For example, Adam and Eve could just pick the fruit in the Garden of Eden with minimal effort; most of the labour in Utopia was done by the slave class.

I have discussed socialist visions of a future society elsewhere so I will not deal with it again here. [See “Competing Visions of the Future: Socialist and Classical Liberal” especially the section on “Socialist Visions of the Future”.] Instead I will briefly mention some interesting CL visions of what a future free society might look like and how it would function.

CL/Libertarian Visions of the Future

It is interesting that CL/Ls seemed more inclined to write dystopian visions of a future filled with descriptions of state oppression and socialist tyranny than to write glowing portraits of a happy and prosperous future society based on private property and unfettered free markets. I think that the Lucas and Nozick view that such descriptions would be boring to say the least since an important feature of good film or fiction is the existence of conflict and how individuals attempt to resolve that conflict, if they can. In a completely free, peaceful, and prosperous liberal society the amount of conflict would be much reduced (though never eliminated).

In spite of this weakness, there are several very powerful statements by CLs about what they envision a future free society might look like. See the following pre-20thC examples:

• the concluding section of Voltaire’s “philosophic tale” Candide (1759) about how people can get along with each other if they focus on “tending one’s own garden” (il faut cultiver notre jardin) online
• Condorcet on the future progress of mankind towards full liberty and political equality in the “10th Epoch” of his Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind (1794-5) online
• Richard Cobden’s “I have a dream” speech about a world in which free trade has become the governing principle in all things (1846)
• Frédéric Bastiat’s utopian visions of economic dictators who refuse to exercise their political powers and cut the size of the state to the bare bones instead:
  • in his “economic sophism” “L’utopiste” (The Utopian) (January 1847) about a radical liberal politician who dreams of being able to form a new government with the power and authority to enact his dream slate of policies in order to reform France, namely drastically cutting expenditure on everything;
  • “Barataria” (c. 1848) in which two characters from Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote discuss what policies Sancho should impose on the citizens of an island which he controls as the dictator; his decision is to let the people ”do as they please”
  • his introduction to his treatise Economic Harmonies directed towards the young students who might read it and whom he hopes to inspire with his rousing words about freedom and social harmony
• Gustave de Molinari pursues his “radical hypothesis” to its logical conclusion where there is “competition in all things” and “entrepreneurs and markets for everything”:
  • his (or “The Economist’s”) conclusion to Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare (1849) which I have called his “Spartacus speech” where he gives the reader a rousing speech in favor of individual liberty and reminds them of those who were oppressed in the past and their struggles for liberty [See in my anthology of his writings]
  • his “Credo” or statement of his liberal principles (1861) in which states his fervent desire for “la Liberté et la Paix: (liberty and peace)
  • the chapter on “Les gouvernements de l’avenir” (Governments of the Future) in L’Évolution politique net la Révolution (1884) where he argues that governments will be run like private companies which compete for willing customers and thus creating “free trade in government”. [See here.]
  • and his book The Society of Tomorrow (1899) where he summarises his “utopian” views about competing governments
  • the essay “Où est l’utopie ?” (1904) where he argues that utopia lies in a society which has become “un seul et vaste marché” (a single huge market) in which everything is provided by voluntary exchange
• Herbert Spencer’s vision of a fully free “industrial society” of the future in “Political Retrospect and Prospect” (vol. 2, chap. XIX. ) and “The Near Future” (vol. 3, chap. XXIII in The Principles of Sociology (1876) in which private associations would gradually replace all political ones and centralised government would give way to radically localised municipal governments (if there were any need for such government).

Along with these 20thC examples:

• Henry Hazlitt’s novel Time will run Back (1951) in which central planners face a crisis and gradually figure out that the only way to solve the economic problems caused by planning is to allow free markets and the pricing system to function again. [Online at Mises.org Time Will Run Back | Mises Institute.]
• Ayn Rand’s utopia of a nearly anarchist refuge of “Galt’s Gulch” as an escape within the broader dystopian statist world in Atlas Shrugged (1957)

[See the more extended discussion with extensive quotes in the section on “CL/Libertarian Visions of the Future” in Competing Visions of the Future.]

Conclusion

Let me conclude with a quotation from what I have called Richard Cobden’s “I have a dream” speech about a world in which free trade is the governing principle (1846). On the eve of victory for the free trade Anti-Corn Law League, the British Member of Parliament Richard Cobden (1804-1865) gave a speech in Manchester on January 15, 1846 in which he outlined his dream of a future world where the principles of free trade “in everything” was the governing principle. In this speech on the eve of victory in the House of Commons (15 January, 1846 – the repeal came on 27 January 1846) Cobden was at pains to show that his motives had never been personal or pecuniary but were based on deeply held moral and economic principles that were above the specific place and time of his campaign. At the very end of the speech Cobden gave what is in effect his version of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech in which he outlined what his vision of the world would look like 1,000 years hence when “the Free-Trade principle” he advocated had become universal. Cobden sincerely believed that this would result in “the greatest revolution that ever happened in the world’s history”.

But I have been accused of looking too much to material interests. Nevertheless I can say that I have taken as large and great a view of the effects of this mighty principle (free trade) as ever did any man who dreamt over it in his own study. I believe that the physical gain will be the smallest gain to humanity from the success of this principle. I look farther; I see in the Free-trade principle that which shall act on the moral world as the principle of gravitation in the universe,—drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace. I have looked even farther. I have speculated, and probably dreamt, in the dim future—ay, a thousand years hence—I have speculated on what the effect of the triumph of this principle may be. I believe that the effect will be to change the face of the world, so as to introduce a system of government entirely distinct from that which now prevails. I believe that the desire and the motive for large and mighty empires; for gigantic armies and great navies—for those materials which are used for the destruction of life and the desolation of the rewards of labour—will die away; I believe that such things will cease to be necessary, or to be used, when man becomes one family, and freely exchanges the fruits of his labour with his brother man. I believe that, if we could be allowed to reappear on this sublunary scene, we should see, at a far distant period, the governing system of this world revert to something like the municipal system; and I believe that the speculative philosopher of a thousand years hence will date the greatest revolution that ever happened in the world’s history from the triumph of the principle which we have met here to advocate. I believe these things: but, whatever may have been my dreams and speculations, I have never obtruded them upon others. I have never acted upon personal or interested motives in this question; I seek no alliance with parties or favour from parties, and I will take none—but, having the feeling I have of the sacredness of the principle, I say that I can never agree to tamper with it. I, at least, will never be suspected of doing otherwise than pursuing it disinterestedly, honestly, and resolutely.

Source: Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P., ed. by John Bright and J.E. Thorold Rogers with a Preface and Appreciation by J.E. Thorold Rogers and an Appreciation by Goldwin Smith (London: T.Fisher Unwin, 1908). 2 volumes in 1. Vol. 1 Free Trade and Finance.

[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]

There are numerous similarities as well as considerable differences which separate modern day CL/L (classical liberals and libertarians) similarities from their intellectual forebears – the radical and moderate liberals of the 19th century.

The Similarities

Like the CLs of the 19th century, modern day CL/Ls are also split into two camps, the “radical” libertarians (such as Murray Rothbard and his many followers who call themselves “anarcho-capitalists) and the “moderate” libertarians who support the idea of a strictly limited state (such as the novelist Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick).

[See “Anarcho-Capitalism” EoL, Brian Doherty, “Rothbard, Murray (1926-1995)” EoL, “Rand, Ayn (1905-1982)” EoL, Ronald Hamowy, “Hayek, Friedrich A. (1889-1992)” EoL, “Friedman, Milton (1912-2006)” EoL, Ellen Frankel Paul, “Nozick, Robert (1938-2002)” EoL.]

In addition, CL/Ls are also divided by what they consider to be the ultimate foundation upon which the case for liberalism stands, i.e. the supporters of “natural rights” and those who are “utilitarians” (or “consequentialists”).

These differences among modern day CL/L may remain a rift within the liberal tradition which is ultimately unsolvable. It will not become a problem which needs to be resolved until the happy day comes when the state has been so reduced in size and scope that its final size needs to be decided. In the meantime, the two camps can live together very amicably since they share so much else in common.

The Differences

The differences which separate modern day CL/Ls from their classical forebears are much more numerous and extensive, and result to a large extent from the advances in economic theory which have been made in the intervening period, especially the insights provided by the Austrian and Public Choice schools of economic thought. Overall, I would argue that modern economic theory (public choice, Austrian) provides a much better foundation upon which to build the case for economic freedom and the liberal “system of natural liberty” (Adam Smith, WoN, Bk. IV, chap. IX).

Both groups have different reasons to be optimistic or pessimistic about the productive power which free markets and free individuals can unleash, the power of the state and various vested interest groups to retard or impede this development, and thus affect the overall prospects for liberty.

Modern CL/Ls also have the historical example of massive government intervention in the economy during the 20th century to draw upon to make it certain beyond any doubt how destructive the state was and could be again. The moderate liberal John Stuart Mill could in the mid-19th century perhaps reasonably make the claim (Bastiat thought not) that the final word could not be uttered on the “practicability” of socialism as nowhere had it been tried in full. (Strangely, this argument is still made today by supporters of socialism.)

§ 3. Whatever may be the merits or defects of these various schemes, they cannot be truly said to be impracticable. … The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property and equal distribution of the produce, that each person would be incessantly occupied in evading his fair share of the work, points, undoubtedly, to a real difficulty. But those who urge this objection, forget to how great an extent the same difficulty exists under the system on which nine-tenths of the business of society is now conducted. …

If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a consequence, that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life; if this or Communism were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance. But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best, with the regime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country; and less so, perhaps, in this country than in some others. The social arrangements of modern Europe commenced from a distribution of property which was the result, not of just partition, or acquisition by industry, but of conquest and violence: and notwithstanding what industry has been doing for many centuries to modify the work of force, the system still retains many and large traces of its origin. The laws of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which the justification of private property rests. They have made property of things which never ought to be property, and absolute property where only a qualified property ought to exist. They have not held the balance fairly between human beings, but have heaped impediments upon some, to give advantage to others; they have purposely fostered inequalities, and prevented all from starting fair in the race. That all should indeed start on perfectly equal terms, is inconsistent with any law of private property: but if as much pains as has been taken to aggravate the inequality of chances arising from the natural working of the principle, had been taken to temper that inequality by every means not subversive of the principle itself; if the tendency of legislation had been to favour the diffusion, instead of the concentration of wealth—to encourage the subdivision of the large masses, instead of striving to keep them together; the principle of individual property would have been found to have no necessary connexion with the physical and social evils which almost all Socialist writers assume to be inseparable from it.

Private property, in every defence made of it, is supposed to mean, the guarantee to individuals of the fruits of their own labour and abstinence. The guarantee to them of the fruits of the labour and abstinence of others, transmitted to them without any merit or exertion of their own, is not of the essence of the institution, but a mere incidental consequence, which, when it reaches a certain height, does not promote, but conflicts with, the ends which render private property legitimate. To judge of the final destination of the institution of property, we must suppose everything rectified, which causes the institution to work in a manner opposed to that equitable principle, of proportion between remuneration and exertion, on which in every vindication of it that will bear the light, it is assumed to be grounded. … but a mere question of comparative advantages, which futurity must determine. We are too ignorant either of what individual agency in its best form, or Socialism in its best form, can accomplish, to be qualified to decide which of the two will be the ultimate form of human society.

[PPE, Bk. II. Distribution, chap. I “Of Property”.]

Socialism was still in his view an attractive possibility which needed to be tested before it could be disregarded, in spite of the obvious failures of the National Workshops of Louis Blanc during the first year of the Second Republic after the 1848 February Revolution, and all of Frédéric Bastiat’s prescient warnings and criticisms.

Below is my list of some of the major differences between 19th century liberalism, in no particular order:

1. The Cause of Business Cycles
2. The Impossibility of Rational Planning under Socialism
3. The Unwarranted Fears of the Malthusians
4. The Destructive Power of Modern Warfare and the Willingness of People to engage in it
5. The Dynamic Nature of Interventionism
6. The Enduring Appeal of the Socialist Vision/Ideal
7. The Inclusion of more Groups within the “Sphere of Liberty”
8. The Rejection of Empire as a Force for Liberty

The Cause of Business Cycles

19thC CLs did not have a good theoretical understanding of the nature and cause of business cycles (although some came close) and this made them vulnerable to the socialist criticism that they were inherent in the “capitalist” system and something only a complete change to a socialist economic system would remove. The hardships caused by periodic downturns in the economy and the resulting unemployment hurt the poorest members of society the most. Exposing this suffering was a major reason for support by intellectuals of the Marxist critique of “capitalism” and its supposed self-destructive tendencies. Even non-Marxists thought that periodic recessions could only be fixed by state regulation of banks and the money supply. It would not be until the work of the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek in the 1930s and 1940s that a robust liberal theory of the business cycle would be developed.

[See, Lawrence White, “Money and Banking” EoL. and Austrian Theory Of Banking” EoL.]

The Impossibility of Rational Planning under Socialism :

It was an article of faith for socialist critics of “capitalism” that the profit-driven free market was chaotic, irrational, unplanned, based on selfish motives, and destructive of human well-being, and that this could only be fixed by the rational planning of far-seeing and disinterested government bureaucrats and politicians who would always act in the public’s (or the working class’s) interest and thus create “order” out of the chaos of the market.

Socialists were so certain that this would be the case that they thought it not worth their while to specify in advance how exactly government planners would do this. Marx dismissed this problem completely, assuming that capitalism would solve the problem of economic organisation and planning which the socialists, after the revolution, would simply take over and turn to their own needs (but without the waste of “profit” and the selfish behaviour of the capitalist class). Lenin did not give this problem a thought until the very eve of the Bolshevik’s coming to power and his answer in The State and Revolution (1917) was naive beyond belief. He, like Marx assumed that the problems of economic planning and organisation had already been solved, not just by large profit-making capitalist enterprises but also by government-run bodies like the Post Office and the national railways, with the added more recent example of the munitions industries oragnised and run during the First World War under instruction from Generals Ludendorff and Hindenberg (known as “Kriegssozialismus” (war socialism)).

Ludwig von Mises realised immediately (1920) that without free market prices to tell business owners and factory managers what products were most urgently demanded by consumers , what raw materials and machinery were readily available to make these wanted goods, what the cost of substitute raw materials were, what were the best combinations of raw materials, capital goods, and labour to make these goods, and most importantly, what the rate of interest was in order to judge how much they might need to borrow and how long they had to repay the loans, all the while assuming the risk entrepreneurs regularly took in getting things to market and covering their costs (with a bit left over as “profit”). Mises’ work on the “calculation debate” (in an article in 1920 and a book in 1922) showed exactly why socialism (and any other attempt at central planning of the economy by the government for that matter) was doomed to failure.

Hayek would later add the important twist that central planners had a “problem of knowledge” in that it was impossible for central planners to have all the knowledge required to make rational decisions about what and how to produce goods and services as they lacked “local knowledge” that was widely dispersed, known only to those “on the ground” as it were, and constantly changing as a result of changing consumer demand or simply because of the weather.

[See, Israel Kirzner, “Socialist Calculation Debate” EoL).]

The Unwarranted Fears of the Malthusians

If it was an article of faith among socialists that only the government could rationally plan economic activity, it was equally an article of faith among the (liberal) classical economists that Thomas Malthus’s fears that population growth (especially by the uneducated and irresponsible working class) would outstrip the ability of farmers to increase production sufficiently to feed them all. [There was also the corollary, that an ever increasing number of unskilled workers competing for a limited number of jobs in the factories would inevitably drive down wages to starvation levels (Marx’s idea of “the immiseration of the workers” thesis).] Whether from the “iron law” of geometric population growth or the “race to the bottom” of wage rates, the economists almost universally believed that the “Malthusian trap” painted a very bleak prospect for the fate of the average worker under capitalism.

Only a handful of the political economists were “optimists” who rejected this pessimistic view, most notably Frédéric Bastiat. He pointed out (in a couple of articles and then in a chapter in Economic Harmonies (1850-51) that nobody could predict how great the productive forces of the free market and free trade could be be once their shackles had been removed; or how ingenious scientific advances could increase the power of nature manyfold; or how ordinary people could plan their lives to suit their personal needs and limited circumstances. He argued that people were capable of rational thought, made plans to achieve their goals, and did not behave (i.e. “breed”) like so many non-sentient plants and dumb animals.

Modern CL/Ls are no longer as persuaded by Malthus as their 19thC counterparts had been. Bastiat’s optimistic analysis of the productive powers of the free market and modern science (a.k.a. “progress”) were taken up in the 20th century by economists like Julian Simon (1932-1998) in his book The Ultimate Resource (1981) which was a devastating demolition of modern-day Malthusians like Paul Ehrlich and others in the environmentalist movement who have repeatedly predicted (falsely) that the world was “running out” of key resources (Malthus’ prediction was that the world would soon runout of food).

[See Donald Boudreaux, “Simon, Julian (1932-1998)” EoL.]

Another reason why modern CL/Ls are more optimistic is that they can see in hindsight what Deidre McCloskey has called “The Great Enrichment”, that astonishing explosion in wealth creation which the industrial revolution and the creation of liberal societies in western societies have made possible since the late 18thC, and which has benefitted all social and economic classes. 19thC liberals thought this might happen but the evidence that it would had not yet appeared to convince many (socialist) critics of “capitalism.”

The other side of the coin of the “Great Enrichment” is that 19thC liberals had no conception of how profligate modern states would become when they got their hands on all this wealth created by the market, how they could build vast systems of wealth redistribution (“welfare states”), and how thereby they could create a new, very large “dependent class” of welfare recipients and bureaucratic administrators of this system who would naturally vote for its continuation (and even expansion) at election time. Adam Smith realised that “there was a lot of ruin in a country”, by which he meant that wasteful and destructive governments might continue in power for a long time before they had depleted the resources of a country sufficiently to cause the system to collapse or the taxpayers to revolt. 19thC liberals would be astonished at how long the modern welfare state has been able to survive given the amount of wealth they withdraw from society and the impediments they place in the path of wealth creation.

The Destructive Power of Modern Warfare and the Willingness of People to engage in it

The same might be said about 19thC liberals’ optimistic hope that

1. globalisation and free trade would create groups which had a vested interest in maintaining the peace between nations (the idea behind Norman Angell, pamphlet Europe’s Optical Illusion (1909) and book The Great Illusion (1910),
2. that the even then apparent increases in the destructive power of weaponry would encourage people to pull back from the brink of starting another war (this was Alfred Nobel’s idea which was shared by many). This was the thinking behind the effort of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia’s to hold a peace conference at which these issues could be discussed and thereby frighten politicians into ending the arms race and other possible causes of a future war (the Hague Convention of 1899). It was also demonstrated pretty conclusively with much technical detail by the Polish banker and railway financier Jean de Bloch (1836-1901) in his 6 volume work on The Future of War (1899) who made some remarkably prescient predictions about the destructiveness of the next war, which were borne out only 15 years later.

Both assumptions proved to be incorrect during the course of the 20th century. Events showed that countries not only had access to the wealth to engage in total war (or would borrow what they couldn’t raise in taxes or fund via inflation) but also could motivate their citizenry to participate in the fighting or endure the hardships of the home front, and kill each other in the tens of millions.

The latter point is somewhat ironic as some moderate liberals (like Richard Cobden who was radical on everything else) thought one of the few functions of the state should be to provide public education for all of its citizens. As more and more states did this (even going beyond primary and secondary levels and into higher education (the university sector)) it was able to create a body of citizens who were inculcated with the ideology of the state and nation who were more than willing to make any and all sacrifices to enable the state to carry out its wars against other states – volunteering for the army, accepting conscription when it was imposed, paying the taxes, working in the war factories, marching in the parades on their respective national days, fighting for King and Empire, and so on. These ideologies justifying the power of the state took many different forms: nationalism, socialism, fascism, communism, imperialism, ethnicity and language, or things like “the American (or Australian) way of life”. As the historian Eugen Weber put it nicely in his 1976 book, the state education system in France turned “peasants into Frenchmen” just in time for them to go off to war in 1914 to kill other Europeans who had until recently also been “peasants.” [See, Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford U.P. 1976).]

[See Robert Higgs, “Peace and Pacifism” EoL and “War” EoL and Jason Kuznicki, “Nationalism” EoL.]

The Dynamic Nature of Interventionism

As the nature of government intervention changed over the course of the 20thC and since most governments did not follow the Bolshevik Party down the road to full-throated central planning, Ludwig von Mises developed a more general theory of “interventionism” to describe these other intermediate or less extreme forms. One of the most arresting aspects of this theory is the idea that interventionism has its own “dynamic”. By this Mises meant that the policies of a government which “intervenes” in any way in the operation of the free market creates problems or “consequences” which need to be solved, either by removing the original intervention which caused the problem in the first place, or by adding another intervention to avoid this. This system created by the first intervention in other words is not stable but “dynamic.” The classic example of this interventionist dynamic is “rent control”. A government decides that rents in a city are “too high” and thus make housing unaffordable for poor renters, so price controls are introduced. This leads slowly to less rental units coming onto the market as they are less profitable for building owners, or owners cut costs by doing less maintenance thus reducing the overall quality of the stock of rental housing. This makes the problem of high rents or too few rental units worse, so one common solution is for the government to double down and start building “affordable housing” or forcing apartment builders to set aside some units for low renters. Thus we see the dynamic of the first intervention leading to further interventions come into effect. Multiply this by a factor of 100 and one soon will get the modern interventionist, regulatory state with which we are all familiar.

This poses a serious problem for those “new liberals” who think that governments can expand their powers into new areas (and thus no longer remain “limited”) such as health, education, and welfare without causing serious longterm problems as a result, and for this new expanded system of government activity to remain stable over time. If Mises’ theory of the dynamic of interventionism is true then the steady expansion of government during the course of the 20thC was inevitable, given the refusal of these new liberals to reverse their course and return to the more limited form of government moderate liberals demanded.

One might also ask these moderate liberals, given Hayek’s problem of knowledge, Mises’ economic calculation under socialism problem, and Mises’ interventionist dynamic, how liberals can rationally and efficiently supply police and defense services since they would also suffer here all the same problems any socialist would face in attempting to provide every other good or service. How much police protection is the “right” amount; does the amount provided satisfy the actual demands of the public (if so, how does the government know this?); would less costly (or more costly) alternatives be better (or worse), and again how would the government know this? These are insoluble problems for the moderate liberal just as they are for the new liberal (or the socialist) only much more so.

The Enduring Appeal of the Socialist Vision/Ideal

19thC liberals severely underestimated the enduring appeal of the socialist vision, especially to young people. As mentioned above, the appeal of socialism was hard to refute since it had never been put into practice and all its economic contradictions revealed. JS Mill was correct to argue that the real test would not be between the ideal of socialism (socialism “at its best”) and the ideal of liberalism, but between “actually existing” liberalism (or capitalism) and actually existing socialism. This was impossible to do in the 19thC but not in the 20thC. There are now so many catastrophic failures of “actually existing” socialism (or communism) and weak and sclerotic, slow growth “socialism” (or welfare statism) for liberals to draw upon, that the game is now over. Or at least it should be.

[See “Communism” EoL and “Socialism” EoL.]

I have written elsewhere on the “zombie” like qualities of socialism and the continued interest shown in it by a younger generation as numerous surveys of public opinion and articles in places like the NYT in 2017 (the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution) and 2018 (the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx have clearly shown.

The appeal of socialism grew rapidly in the late 19thC and it would not be wrong to say that liberals gradually lost the intellectual battle for young minds. The reasons for this are not clear. It is possible that:

1. classical liberals stopped articulating what their vision of a free society would look like, or
2. they did not adapt their vision to fit the new conditions of the rapidly urbanising and industrialising world and it lost its appeal,
3. they grew complacent and set in their ways (i.e. “conservative”) and did not complete the liberal revolutions which had begun in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; those who had been left out of this liberalisation therefore turned to other political ideologies for their vision
4. they were wrong and young people were right to look elsewhere for inspiration

This loss of appeal of the liberal vision got steadily worse during the first half of the 20thC to the point where Hayek commented rather sadly in his 1949 essay “The Intellectuals and Socialism” that the liberal cause would weaken and eventually disappear unless it could make the ideal of a liberal utopia appealing to the next generation of young intellectuals.

Does this mean that freedom is valued only when it is lost, that the world must everywhere go through a dark phase of socialist totalitarianism before the forces of freedom can gather strength anew? It may be so, but I hope it need not be. Yet, so long as the people who over longer periods determine public opinion continue to be attracted by the ideals of socialism, the trend will continue. If we are to avoid such a development, we must be able to offer a new liberal program which appeals to the imagination. We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a program which seems neither a mere defense of things as they are nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty (including the trade unions), which is not too severely practical, and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible. We need intellectual leaders who are willing to work for an ideal, however small may be the prospects of its early realization. They must be men who are willing to stick to principles and to fight for their full realization, however remote. The practical compromises they must leave to the politicians. Free trade and freedom of opportunity are ideals which still may arouse the imaginations of large numbers, but a mere “reasonable freedom of trade” or a mere “relaxation of controls” is neither intellectually respectable nor likely to inspire any enthusiasm.

The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost. The intellectual revival of liberalism is already underway in many parts of the world. Will it be in time?

[F.A. Hayek , “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, The University of Chicago Law Review (Spring 1949).]

I will say more about the “liberal vision” in a future post.

The Inclusion of more Groups within the “Sphere of Liberty”

20thC libertarians have made an explicit effort to include more marginalised and discriminated against groups under the umbrella of the liberal ideal. One of their main arguments is that it has been the state itself, or rather the people who have assess to state power and use it for their own purposes, which has excluded these groups and that a truly universal understanding of individual liberty, self-ownership, voluntary associations between individuals, and the non-aggression principle make it imperative to extend to them (or rather recognise their already existing rights) all rights to life liberty, and property enjoyed by others. The first step then is to remove any impediments or handicaps imposed by the state on people going about their peaceful business, entering into any voluntary association with others, and enjoying the full and equal protection under the law of their rights to life, liberty, and property. The CL/L approach is thus a “negative” one, i.e. removing legal obstacles and impediments to people exercising the liberties, but it seems that many people are impatient with this approach and prefer to pursue a more “positive” approach whereby an activitist and interventionaist state uses coercion to “compensate” those who have been marginalised and discriminated against.

It is interesting to think about about how excluded groups have read declarations about “universal” rights which were written by people (usually powerful, property owning men). It was obviously not the intention of those feudal English barons or slave-owning American men who wrote and approved the Magna Carta and the American constitution respectively, to grant similar rights to their serfs or their slaves or their wives, but their solemn declarations could and would be read that way by others, who could legitimately argue that “all” means “all”, as Frederick Douglass did so eloquently in his 5th of July Oration of 1852.

The Rejection of Empire as a Force for Liberty

There were numerous French and English liberals in the 19thC who were diehard supporters of their nations’ respective Empires or colonial possessions. [Paul Leroy-Beaulieu is a good example of the French.] Central to this view was that the inhabitants of the colonies were “backward” or “primitive” and that they could be “advanced” or “civilised” by their colonial masters who would bring them the rule of law, education, railways, and the Christian religion – “la mission civilisatrice” and its corollary “the missionary position”. This view has been largely rejected by modern liberals for good reason, except for a few like Niall Ferguson. I will not go into details here, except to mention in passing the great line from Monty Python’s film “Life of Brian” (1979) which has an element of truth to it – “what did the Romans ever do for us?” Unfortunately they left out the next question which should be asked – “what did the Romans do to us?”

[See Stephen Davies, “Imperialism” EoL.]