Author Archives: dmhart

Joel Barlow “God save the Guillotine”

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This is another post of my collection of National Anthems which began with the Australian: Australia Day: Girted, Skirted, and Alerted (27 Jan. 2021) and Rewriting and Resinging Australia Day (30 Jan. 2021).

God save the Guillotine
Till England’s King and Queen
Her power shall prove:
Till each appointed knob
Affords a clipping job
Let no vile halter rob
*The Guillotine*

France, let thy trumpet sound –
Tell all the world around
How Capet fell;
And when great George’s poll
Shall in the basket roll,
Let mercy then control
*The Guillotine*

When all the sceptre’d crew
Have paid their Homage, due
*The Guillotine*
Let Freedom’s flag advance
Till all the world, like France
O’er tyrants’ graves shall dance
And PEACE begin.

I came across him in Jonathan Israel’s books on “the radical Enlightenment”. His main political works include the following:

  • A Letter to the National Convention of France on the Defects in the Constitution of 1791 (London, 1792).
  • Advice to the Privileged Orders in the several States of Europe, resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government. Part I (1792) and Part II (1793)
  • A Letter Addressed to the People of Piedmont, on the Advantages of the French Revolution, and the Necessity of Adopting Its Principles in Italy (1792)
  • Two Letters to the Citizens of the United States, and One to General Washington (1799)

As well as a considerable amount of what is regarded as bad political poetry.

His collected works were republished in 1970: Works of Joel Barlow. In Two Volumes. Facsimile Reproductions with an Introduction by William K. Bottorff and Arthur L. Ford (Gainesville, Fla.,: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970).

There a fairly recent biography which I have not been able to read by Richard Buel Jr., Joel Barlow: American Citizen in a Revolutionary World (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).

The Classical Liberal Tradition: A 400 Year History of Ideas and Movements. An Introductory Reading List

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[Delacroix’s “Liberty leading the People on the Barricade” (1830)]

Date: 20 May, 2021
Revised: 22 Apr. 2022

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

An Essential Reference Work

An accessible and very comprehensive introduction to CL /Libertarianism can be found in the Cato Institute’s The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, ed. Ronald Hamowy (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008. A Project of the Cato Institute). It contains dozens of short entries on key individuals, policies, intellectual movements, and ideas and concepts. It is available online free of charge here. The abbreviation EoL is used below for this reference.

I. Begin with an Overview

I suggest you begin with a couple of overviews :

On the state of liberty in the world today, see The Human Freedom Index 2021. A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom. Ian Vásquez, Fred McMahon, Ryan Murphy, and Guillermina Sutter Schneider (Cato Institute and Fraser Institute, 2021). Online – Human Freedom Index: 2021 | Cato Institute and PDF. Note: the Introduction to the volume is well worth reading. Also, that Australia has been dropping in the ranks.

Then browse around the articles in the EoL according to your whims and tastes. I have reorganized the entries into the following categories to make browsing a bit easier (see my webpage with links to the EoL site here:

  • People
  • Ideas
  • Movements and Ideas: both Liberal and Anti-Liberal
  • Historical Events and Documents
  • Policy Issues (specific)
  • Other General Topics of Interest

II. Then Delve into some Primary Sources

You should read some of the original texts for yourself and not just depend on what others have said about them. Here is my personal selection of some of “The Great Books of Liberty”.

I believe that liberalism can be divided into three main types according to how consistent it is in applying the principles of individual liberty, self-ownership, and non-coercion to the areas of social/individual liberty, political liberty, and economic liberty. Thus there is “radical” liberalism, “moderate” liberalism, and “new” or “neo” liberalism (or what I would call partial or inconsistent liberalism). My own preference is the radical liberalism of Frédéric Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, and Gustave de Molinari.

A good sample of classical liberal work is E. K. Bramsted and K. J. Melhuish, Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce (New York: Longman, 1978).

For a broader sampling of classical liberal writing on various topics, see my compilation of 600 Quotations about Liberty and Power: The Collected Quotations from the Online Library of Liberty (2004-2018), the table of contents of which (with links to the full quotes and my commentary) can be found on my website here.

In my view I think that there are 5 important periods in the development of classical liberalism / libertarianism:

  1. its “pre-history” during the classical, medieval, and reformation/renaissance periods when some of the key ideas evolved but they were not brought together into a coherent “worldview”
  2. the 17th century, particularly in England with the emergence of the Levellers and other supporters of Parliament against the growing power of the monarchy, during the Civil Wars and Revolution and then the Exclusion Crisis leading up to the Revolution of 1688
  3. the 18th century Enlightenment in France, Scotland, England, and North America which culminated in the American and French Revolutions and the creation of the first limited, constitutional, “liberal” government in the world
  4. the 19th century during which “classical liberalism” emerged and the most comprehensive liberal reforms (political, economic, and social) were introduced
  5. the decline and “long sleep” of CL during the 1st three quarters of the 20th century before its re-emergence in the 1970s and 1980s with the modern “libertarian” movement in the U.S. and elsewhere.

See below for a more detailed list and description of some of the key figures.

Modern Works on CL Theory

But enough of history! What are modern day CLs and Libertarians saying? See the following recent works to get an idea:

  1. Peter J. Boettke, The Struggle For A Better World (Arlington, Virginia: Mercatus Center, 2021). Online at The Struggle for a Better World | Mercatus Center: F. A. Hayek Program.
  2. Visions of Liberty. Edited by Aaron Ross Power and Paul Matzko (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2020) Online
  3. George F. Will, The Conservative Sensibility (Hachette Books, 2019).
  4. Deirdre McCloskey, Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All (Yale University Press, 2019).
  5. Richard Ebeling, For a New Liberalism (American Institute for Economic Research, 2019).
  6. Eamonn Butler, School of Thought: 101 Classical Liberals (IEA, 2019).
  7. Eric Mack, Libertarianism (Key Concepts in Political Theory. Polity, 2018).
  8. [Brennan] The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism. Edited by: Jason Brennan, Bas van der Vossen, and David Schmidtz (New York : Routledge, 2018).
  9. [Zywicki] Research Handbook on Austrian Law and Economics. Edited by Todd J. Zywicki and Peter J. Boettke (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2017).
  10. [Boettke, Coyne, and Storr] Interdisciplinary Studies of the Market Order. New Applications of Market Process Theory. Edited by Peter J. Boettke, Christopher J. Coyne, and Virgil Henry Storr (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).
  11. Steven Horwitz, Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
  12. Edward P. Stringham, Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life (Oxford University Press, 2015).
  13. Peter T. Leeson, Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-governance Works Better than You Think (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
  14. George H. Smith, The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
  15. Chandran Kukathas, The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

And for an Australian perspective:

Chris Berg, The Libertarian Alternative (Melbourne University Press, 2016).

David Kemp’s trilogy (Melbourne University Press) on the the “moderate” or “compromised” liberalism which emerged in Australia:
1. The Land of Dreams: How Australians Won Their Freedom, 1788–1860 (2018)
2. A Free Country: Australia’s Search for Utopia, 1861-1901 (2019).
3. A Liberal State: How Australians Chose Liberalism over Socialism 1926–1966 (2021)

David Llewellyn , AUSTRALIA FELIX: Jeremy Bentham and Australian colonial democracy (PhD. thesis, University of Melbourne, July 2016).

My own rather pessimistic views can be found in this blog post:

  • “The State of the Libertarian Movement after 50 Years (1970-2020): Some Observations” Reflections on Liberty and Power (25 March, 2021) here.

Some older but still value works include:

  1. Alan Ryan, The Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 2012).
  2. José G. Merquior, Liberalism: Old and New (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991).
  3. Stephen Macedo, Liberal Virtues. Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
  4. Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).
  5. Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Revised edition. (New York: Collier Macmillan, 1978).
  6. David L. Norton, Personal Destinies (Princeton University Press, 1976).
  7. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).

Other Recommended Works

Works by the Great CLs

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), in John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII – Essays on Politics and Society Part I, ed. John M. Robson, Introduction by Alexander Brady (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977).

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.

Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty: A new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy 3 vols. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973-79)

My list of “One Volume Surveys of Classical Liberal Thought”:

First wave:

  • Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen (Ideas presented in an Attempt to determine the Limits of State Activity) (1792, 1854)
  • Benjamin Constant, Principes de politique, applicables à tous les gouvernemens représentatifs (The Principles of Politics which are applicable to all Representative Governments) (1815)
  • Gustave de Molinari, Les Soirées de la rue Saint-lazare (Evenings on Saint Lazarus Street) (1849)
  • Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1851)
  • JS Mill, On Liberty (1859)
  • Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics (1879)
  • Bruce Smith, Liberty and Liberalism (1888)

Second wave (20th century before the modern libertarian movement emerged)

  • Ludwig von Mises, Liberalismus (Liberalism) (1927)
  • Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960)
  • Milton Friedman (with the assistance of Rose D. Friedman), Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago, 1962)

Third wave (which coincided with the emergence of the modern libertarian movement):

  • John Hospers, Libertarianism – A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (Los Angeles: Nash, 1971)
  • David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (1973)
  • Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty (New York: Macmillan, 1973)
  • Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovitch, 1980; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980)

Three Aussie Radical Liberals

William Edward Hearn, Plutology or the Theory of the Efforts to Satisfy Human Wants (Melbourne: George Robertson, 1863; London: Macmillan and Co., 1864). Online.

Bruce Smith, Liberty and Liberalism: A Protest against the growing Tendency toward undue Interference by the State, with Individual Liberty, Private Enterprise and the Rights of Property (1887; reprinted 2005 by the CIS) Bio of Arthur Bruce Smith (1851-1937) and the book online

Bob Howard et al. who wrote the Workers Party Platform (1975) Online.

On CL natural rights theory:

  1. Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1991).
  2. Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics [hereinafter NOL] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), especially chapters 4 and 11; and
  3. Douglas J. Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016).
  4. Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Works on history and the history of ideas:

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Enlarged Edition (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992). 1st ed. 1967. Especially chap. III “Power and Liberty: A Theory of Politics,” pp. 55-93.

Bernard Bailyn, “The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation,” in S. Kurtz and J. Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973), pp. 26–27.

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

Joseph Hamburger, James Mill and the Art of Revolution (Yale: Yale University Press, 1963).

Joseph Hamburger, Intellectuals in Politics: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (Yale: Yale University Press, 1965).

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

Jonathan Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (Princeton University Press, 2014).

Jonathan Israel, The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775-1848 (Princeton University Press, 2017).

Jonathan Israel, The Enlightenment That Failed: Ideas, Revolution, and Democratic Defeat, 1748-1830 (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Robert Kelley, The Transatlantic Persuasion: The Liberal-Democratic Mind in the Age of Gladstone (New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1969).

McCloskey’s “Bourgeois trilogy” on bourgeois virtues, dignity, and equality:

  • Deirdre N. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues : Ethics for an Age of Commerce (University of Chicago Press, 2006).
  • Deirdre N. McCloskey, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
  • Deirdre N. McCloskey, Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Robert Nisbet, “The Social Impact of the Revolution.” In America’s Continuing Revolution: An Act of Conservation (Washington: The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975).

Robert R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: The Challenge (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959).

Robert R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: The Struggle (Princeton University Press, 1964).

[Pocock] Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776. Edited by J.G.A. Pocock (Princeton University Press, 1980).

Murrary N. Rothbard, “Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty” Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought (Spring 1965, no. 1), pp. 4-22;

Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Revised edition. (New York: Collier Macmillan, 1978), “Preface. The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism,” pp. 1-19. Online at Mises Wire.

The Five important Periods in the Development of Classical Liberalism / Libertarianism

[With links to the relevant articles in the EoL and my website.]

The Pre-History of Liberalism: Precursors and Influences

Its “pre-history” during the classical, medieval, and reformation/renaissance periods when some of the key ideas evolved but they were not brought together into a coherent “worldview”:

  • Greek ideas about democracy; the independent self-governing polis; the existence of a higher moral law, and justice
  • Roman ideas about natural law; property law; the problem of the tyrant king/emperor; tyrannicide: Stoicism and Epicurianism; Cicero – Stoicism; Epicureanism; Cicero (106-43 BC); Natural Law
  • Christian ideas about the individual soul; the higher moral law; the early church as a voluntary, self-governing association; the abbey/monastery as an early form of the “firm”; decentralised decision-making and governance; overlapping jurisdictions / legal polycentism
  • the Medieval Period: Magna Carta – Magna Carta; the Free Cities and their Charters; Scholastics – School of Salamanca – Scholastics/School of Salamanca
  • the Renaissance Republicanism; the independent republican city and its citizens; self-governance and political independence from the central power (monarchy, or pope); rule by a pro-trade, commercial oligarchy; opposition to tyrants/tyranny: Classical Republicanism – Republicanism, Classical; The Dutch Republic – Dutch Republic
  • the French Humanist magistrate Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563) EoL who asked why a minority of ruthless “princes” and their allies could plunder and abuse the majority of taxpaying and obedient people without using (too much) violence. His answer was that most people willingly entered a state of “voluntary servitude”. See my Boétie page and my edition of his “Speech on Voluntary Servitude” (c. 1550s) here.

(1) 1640s: the English Civil War and Revolution (proto-liberalism)

The 17th century, particularly in England, we see the emergence of the Levellers and other supporters of Parliament against the growing power of the monarchy, during the Civil Wars and Revolution and then the Exclusion Crisis leading up to the Revolution of 1688.

  • English Common Law: Edward Coke – Common Law;
  • The English Civil Wars/Revolution of the 1640s: the Levellers, John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn, John Milton. One of my favourites from among the emerging “proto-liberals” of the 1640s was the Leveller Richard Overton (1631–1664) who wrote one of the greatest and impassioned defenses of “self-propriety” (self-ownership) ever written, An Arrow against all Tyrants and Tyranny (Oct. 1646) text. See the EoL entry on the Levellers here and my “Leveller Tracts and Pamphlets Project” here. See also English Civil Wars; Milton, John (1608-1674)
  • the Glorious Revolution of 1688: Algernon Sidney, John Locke, Whigs – Glorious Revolution; Sidney, Algernon (1623-1683); Locke, John (1632-1704)
  • the “big name” of 17th century liberals is of course the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) EoL whose Two Treatises of Government (written 1680–1683, published in 1689) was the definitive statement on the right to property and the need for all governments to have the consent of the governed. See Book II, chap. V “Of Property” here.

(2) 1750s-1790s: the American and French Revolutions (early liberalism, the “liberal “ Enlightenment)

The 18th century Enlightenment in France, Scotland, England, and North America which culminated in the American and French Revolutions and the creation of the first limited, constitutional, “liberal” government in the world.

  • in general on the 18thC Enlightenment in Europe and North America – Enlightenment.
  • the French Enlightenment: the possibilities to include here are enormous, but one of my favourites is Voltaire (1694-1778) EoL who waged a one-man war against all forms of intolerance, especially by the Church. His witty overview of the injustices of his own day can be found in his “philosophic tale” Candide (1759) here; and his critique of the Church and church doctrine in his Philosophic Dictionary (1764). Among the many entries, see “Inquisition” and “Intolerance”; and “Toleration” and “Torture” See also my main Voltaire page. See also the entries on Physiocracy; Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat de; Diderot, Denis (1713-1784)
  • the Scottish Enlightenment: it is hard to go past Adam Smith (1723-1790) EoL as the best representative of the Scottish Enlightenment. His critique of government interventionism in the economy (known as “Mercantilism” in his day EoL is unsurpassed (except for perhaps Frédéric Bastiat 75 years later). The section in his Wealth of Nations (1776) on “the invisible hand” is classic – found in Book IV, Chapter II “Of restraints upon the importation from foreign countries of such goods as can be produced at home” here. See also Adam Ferguson, David Hume – Ferguson, Adam (1723-1816); Hume, David (1711-1776).
  • key figures in the English Enlightenment were the 18thC Commonwealthmen, Cato’s Letters, Trenchard and Gordon – Cato’s Letters
  • the American Enlightenment: the American Declaration of Independence (1776) is perhaps the greatest statement of CL political principles ever written. The draft was penned by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). See the EoL entry “Declaration of Independence” and on Jefferson. Although not an American by birth the English born Thomas Paine (1737-1809) EoL was active in England, America, and then France. His two-part Rights of Man (1791, 1792) was and remains a stirring defence of individual liberty against the claims of the state (especially monarchies) and those who opposed natural rights rights (like Edmund Burke). See especially Part II. Chapter I. Of Society and Civilisation here; Chapter II. Of the Origin of the Present Old Governments; and Chapter III. Of the Old and New Systems of Government.
  • The American Revolution: Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison – American Revolution; Paine, Thomas (1737-1809); Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826); Madison, James (1750-1836)
  • The French Revolution: Lafayette, Condorcet, the Girondins, Destutt de Tracy, Madame de Stael – French Revolution; Condorcet, Marquis de (1748-1794); Tracy, Destutt de (1754-1836);

(3) The long 19th century 1815-1914 (classical liberalism)

During the 19th century “classical liberalism” emerged and the most comprehensive liberal reforms (political, economic, and social) were introduced:

  • Classical Liberalism (the French School): Jean-Baptiste Say, Benjamin Constant, Charles Comte, Charles Dunoyer, Frédéric Bastiat, Gustave de Molinari – Say, Jean-Baptiste (1767-1832); Constant, Benjamin (1767-1830); Comte, Charles (1782-1887); Dunoyer, Charles (1786-1862); Bastiat, Frédéric (1801-1850); Molinari, Gustave de (1819-1912). My favorite is the French politician and economist Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was the greatest economic journalist who has ever lived and during his relatively short life he produced some of the wittiest and most profound critiques of tariff protection and socialism ever written by a CL. See his “Petition of the Candlemakers” (1845) ES1.7 at OLL as an example of the former, and The Law (1850) at OLL as an example of the latter. See the EoL entry on Bastiat and my main Bastiat page.
  • Classical Liberalism (the English School): Philosophic Radicals, Utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, Classical Economics, John Stuart Mill – Liberalism, Classical; Philosophic Radicals; Utilitarianism; Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832); Classical Economics; Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873). See in particular the English politician theorists John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) EoL and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) EoL who represent the split which existed within CL between the advocates of utilitarianism and those of natural rights. Both wanted to limit the powers of the state but JSM was much more moderate, while Spencer verged on the anarchistic. See my Mill page (to come) and Spencer page. See Mill’s Chap. IV. “Of the limits to the authority of society over the individual” in On Liberty (1859) here; and Spencer’s Chap. XIX “The Right to Ignore the State” in Social Statics (1851) here.
  • Australian CL: for an Australian flavor we have a professor of economics at the University of Melbourne, William Hearn (1826-1888), who was influenced by Bastiat and the NSW politician Bruce Smith (1851-1937) who had been influenced by Spencer. Neither, unfortunately, are mentioned in the EoL but see my Hearn page and Smith page. See Hearn’s chapter on the proper functions of the state, Chapter XXIII. “Of the Impediments Presented to Industry by Government” in Plutology (1863) here; and Bruce Smith’s chapter IX “Practical Application of the Principles of True Liberalism” in Liberty and Liberalism (1887) here.

Key issues and movements of CL reform in the 19thC:

(4) The post-WW2 Liberal Renaissance and the Rise of “Libertarianism”

There was decline and “long sleep” of CL during the 1st three quarters of the 20th century before its re-emergence in the 1970s and 1980s with the modern “libertarian” movement in the U.S. and elsewhere. Some groups of note include:

The Austrian School (inter-war years): Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek – Economics, Austrian School of; Mises, Ludwig von (1881-1972); Hayek, Friedrich A. (1889-1992).

The Post-World War 2 Liberal Renaissance:

The Austrian School of Economics (2nd generation):

Other Economic Schools:

The modern American Libertarian movement:

The Australia Workers Party (1975): John Singleton and Bob Howard wrote and promoted The Australian “Workers Party Platform” (1975) – the most consistent application of the “non-aggression principle” by any political party ever. Here in HTML and facs. PDF. This is emblazoned at the bottom of every page: “No man or group of men has the right to initiate the use of force, fraud or coercion against another man or group of men”. See the EoL entry on the “Nonaggression Principle”.

From Rosé to a Sick Rose

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During my first bladder operation I was struck by the conversations among the nursing staff and doctors in which my urine was judged according to the colour of wine. My twisted mind of course turned to Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 and his account of the predicament of “The Soldier in White”. I thought my situation was rather similar. [see “Turning Rosé into Chardonnay via a Middleman” (14 Feb. 2021) post

My second operation is fast approaching and my mind has turned to poetry in order to find some solace and comfort. The talk of “rosé” led me to think of William Blake and his poem about a related (at least to my mind) rose of a different colour – a red rose and a “crimson joy”. I have of course had to change the colour.

[Blake’s illustration for “The Sick Rose”]

The Sick Rose (1794)

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

And here is my parody:

The Sick Gland, by David Hart

O gland thou art big
The weakening stream
That flowed in the night
In my wildest dream

Has not found the bowl
Of emptied joy
And its dark yellow tint
Does my life destroy

17th Century Lithotomy

The British Association of Urological Surgeons has a useful website with sections dealing with the history of their profession. They inform me that in the 17th century there were “travelling lithotomists” who specialized in removing bladder stones. The procedure looks a bit grim from this contemporary drawing but it appears that Samuel Pepys survived the ordeal:

[17th Century Lithomotists at work]

Urologically, this was the era of “travelling lithotomists” who toured the country removing bladder stones through incisions in the perineum without any form of anaesthesia (*pictured*).  Lithotomists of this era included Thomas Hollier who, in 1662, operated on the diarist Samuel Pepys to remove his stone. Pepys was one of the lucky ones – few patients survived this procedure and those that did often suffered from incontinence due to sphincter damage and/or a urinary fistula.

The Body might well complain of this (mis)treatment but Andrew Marvell has a poem in which the Soul draws up an equal number of complaints about the Body. I have put the entire poem “A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body” online here). I quote the opening complaint by the Soul and my rewriting of it for the present circumstances:

SOUL
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslav’d so many ways?
With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands
In feet, and manacled in hands;
Here blinded with an eye, and there
Deaf with the drumming of an ear;
A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;
Tortur’d, besides each other part,
In a vain head, and double heart.

My updated version:

SOUL
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslav’d so many ways?
With bolts of bones, and flesh that fetters
Me from head to toe and then to bladder;
Here blinded with an eye, and there
Pained by plumbing at the nether;
A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains
Of tubes, and sacks, and veins;
Tortur’d, besides that nether part,
With throbbing head, and troubled heart (or spelled Hart).

William Shakespeare’s (and Hamlet’s) Existential Dilemma

The last word should always be given to William Shakespeare. He, in the mouth of Macbeth, he makes the choice one faces very clear. Again, the original first then my version. I would have addressed a different body part than a skull as we see Olivier/Hamlet doing in the illustration:

[Laurence Olivier talking to a Skull]

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

My version:

To pee or not to pee, that is the problem:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The stings and pangs of outrageous pain,
Or to take pills against my pee of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to pee
No more, and by pee to say we end
The gut-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a constipation
Devoutly not be wished. Not die – but pee,
To pee, perchance a stream – aye, there’s the nub:
For in that pee of life what streams may come,
When we have shuffled off this hurtful gland,
This gives us pause – to hope to bring
An end to so calamitous a life.

Bastiat’s Anti-socialist Pamphlets, or “Mister Bastiat’s Little Pamphlets”

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One of the most prolific and persuasive critics of socialism in the late 1840s was the economists and free trade campaigner Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850). Between May 1848 and July 1850 he wrote a series of over a dozen anti-socialist pamphlets, or what the Guillaumin publishing firm marketed in their Catalog as the “Petits pamphlets de M. Bastiat” (Mister Bastiat’s Little Pamphlets), which included several for which Bastiat has become justly famous such as “The State” (June and Sept. 1848), “The Law” (July 1850), and “What is Seen and What is Not Seen” (July 1850). The pamphlets sold well for Guillaumin and they were reprinted several times and even marketed as a set which could be purchased for 7 fr. for the complete set of 12. Some originally appeared in journals such as the JDE, while others were written as stand alone pamphlets.

In two of his Election “Manifestos” which he circulated among the voters in his home district of Les Landes during the election campaign in May 1849,1 which he duly won, he identified the particular socialists whose ideas he was attacking in each one of them. Bastiat also wrote other anti-socialist essays and articles which are also included in the list below.

The “Small Pamphlets” included the following titles. The order of publication is provided by his editor Prosper Paillottet in the Oeuvres complètes , vol. 4, p. 274. We have added the price for each pamphlet from an advertisement we found in one of the Guillaumin books {Note_ 1 franc = 100 centimes]. The Paris Chamber of Commerce estimated that average wage per day for an ordinary worker in Paris at the time was about 3 fr. 80 c.,2 so the cost for a worker who purchased the pamphlet Damn Money! and the State for 40 c. was nearly 11% of their daily wage.

Bastiat’s series of anti-socialist pamphlets and articles (the links are to the works in French and to the English translation at the OLL where available):

1847:

  1. even before the February Revolution he had addressed the growing threat of socialism in essays like “Du Communisme,” Libre-Échange (27 juin, 1847) which he published in his free trade magazine. In this he criticized the socialist ideas of Philippe Buchez who edited the workers’ magazine L’Atelier (the Workshop) and became the first President of the Republic [ HTML and facs. PDF ]

1848:

  1. the first article he wrote after the Feb. Revolution was “Funestes illusions” (Disastrous Illusions) JDE (mars, 1848) in which he urged the people to abolish all political and economic privileges and not to replace the old group of “plunderers” with a new group as the socialists were urging them to do [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  2. “Propriété et loi” (Property and Law) (JDE, May 1848) [40c.] – a defence of property rights against the criticism of socialists like Louis Blanc and others [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  3. “Justice et fraternité” (Justice and Fraternity) (JDE, June 1848) – a response to the socialist Pierre Leroux [ HTML and facs.PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  4. “Individualisme et fraternité” (Individualism and Fraternity) (c. June 1848) – an unpublished paper also written to refute the socialist’s claim (esp. by Louis Blanc) that free markets led to ruinous individualism and competition while socialism led to fraternity and brotherhood for the workers. [ HTML ] [English at OLL ] This is a a topic he would return to in several chapters of Economic Harmonies such as chap. X “Concurrence” (Competition) [ HTML ] and XXI “Solidarité” (Solidarity) [ HTML ]
  5. “L’État” (June, Sept. 1848 and early 1849) [40 c.] : there were three versions of this famous essay – the 1st in June before the June Days riots in Paris which was short and written for the ordinary worker in the streets [English at OLL ]; the 2nd longer version was written for a high-brow magazine in Sept. 1848); and the 3rd longest version was written as a pamphlet and gave a detailed critique of Ledru-Rollin’s socialist (Montagnard) party platform. [ HTML and PDF] [English at OLL ].
  6. “Propriété et spoliation” (Property and Plunder) (JDD, July 1848) [40 c.] – a defence of property, especially of land (and the charging of rent), against the criticism of Victor Considerant [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]

1849:

  1. “Protectionnisme et communisme. Lettre à M. Thiers” (Protectionism and Communism. A Letter to M. Thiers) (Jan. 1849) [35 c.]- addressed to the conservative politician Adolphe Thiers and the protectionist Mimerel committee pointing our the similarities between conservative and socialist policies, namely their use of state coercion to give privileges to some members of society at the expence of others [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  2. “Capitale et rente” (Capital and Rent) (Feb. 1849) [35 c.] – in opposition to the criticisms of Proudhon and others on the legitimacy of rent. [ HTML and facs. PDF ]
  3. Maudit l’argent! (Damn Money) (April 1849) – in opposition to socialist misconceptions about money, banking, and debt. [ HTML and facs. PDF ]
  4. “Propriété, Communauté” (Private and Communal/Community Property) (chap. VIII of Harmonies Économiques 1850) (written mid 1849 and published in the first edition of EH in Jan. 1850) – Bastiat attempts to answer the socialist critique of private property by showing that a system based on private property actually increases the amount of “communal” property to the enormous benefit of all members of the community. [ HTML ]
  5. “Le capital” (Capital), Almanach Républicain pour 1849 (1849) – against Proudhon and Blanc HTML.

1850

  1. Baccalauréate et socialisme (The Baccalaureat and Socialism) (early 1850) [60 c.] – written to oppose the teaching of interventionist and statist ideas (“socialism”) in government schools by means of the teaching of the Latin language which was supported by conservatives like Adolphe Thiers [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  2. Gratuité du crédit. Discussion entre M. Fr. Bastiat et M. Proudhon (Free Credit. A Discussion between M. Fr. Bastiat and M. Proudhon) (1850) 1 fr. 75 c.] – an extended debate with Proudhon over the legitimacy of profit, interest and rent. [ HTML and facs. PDF ]
  3. Spoliation et Loi (Plunder and Law) (1850) [40 c.] – written to oppose the ideas of Louis Blanc, the Luxembourg Commission, and the National Workshops program [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  4. La Loi (The Law) (June 1850) [60 c.] – one of the last things Bastiat wrote before his death; a lengthy critique of the ideas of Louis Blanc and the 18th century predecessors of socialist ideas, most notably Rousseau and Robespierre [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  5. “Liberté, Égalité” (Liberty and Equality) (1850) – a draft of a chapter for the Harmonies Économies which was never published. He attempts to explain how the liberal understanding of “equality” differs from that of the socialists’. [ HTML ] [English at OLL ]

In the last months of his life he wrote on more general economic matters which also covered the errors of all kinds of interventionist policies, including of course, socialist intervention:

  1. Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas, ou l’Économie politique en une leçon (What is Seen and What is Not Seen, or Political Economy in One Lesson (1850) [60 c.] – [ HTML and facs. PDF ] [English at OLL ]
  2. his unfinished treatise on economic theory Harmonies Économiques (Economic Harmonies) : the first half published in his lifetime (10 chaps in early 1850) in facs. PDF ; and a partly “completed” posthumous edition in 1851 (with an additional 15 chapters or sketches of chaps, and an outline of a much larger future work on economic “harmony” and “disharmony”) in HTML and facs. PDF
  1. “Statement of Electoral Principles in April 1849” OC7.65 and “Statement of Electoral Principles in 1849. To MM. Tonnelier, etc.,” OC1. English at [CW1, pp. 390-95] [↩]
  2. Chambre de Commerce de Paris [Horace Say], Statistique de l’Industrie a Paris résultant de l’enquête. Faite par la Chambre de commerce pour les années 1847-1848 (Paris: Guillaumin, 1851). “Chap. XXII. 13e Groupe – Imprimerie, Gravure, Papeterie,” pp. 187-94. [↩]

The Socialist Critique of Private Property and Free Markets and the French Political Economists’ Response

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[The cartoonist “Cham” ridicules the plans of the French socialists like Ledru-Rollin who dreams of a new socialist Terror. See, Amédée de Noé, dit Cham, “Ce qu’on appelle des idées nouvelles en 1848” (Paris?: Imp. Aubert & Cie, 1848).]

Before turning to the criticism of socialism by the French political economists it is important to understand what the socialist critique of wage labour, private property, and the free market societies actually was.

During the 1830s and 1840s the basic socialist criticisms of the free market were first expressed at some length and with some coherence, and solutions proposed (usually involving state ownership, regulation of economic activity, and transfer payments to the poor and unemployed) which would remain essentially the same for the next hundred years or so. These criticisms can be summarized as economic, moral/philosophical, and political in nature, and were usually articulated in the various “Manifestos” which were issued by socialist groups, such as Victor Considerant’s “Manifesto” of 1847, Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” of February 1848, and Ledru-Rollin’s “Manifesto for the Mountain Party” of December 1848.

More extensive criticism of the free market can be found in their longer works such as

  1. Louis Blanc, Organisation du travail. Association universelle. Ouvriers (1841) in French HTML and English HTML ; and Le Socialisme. Droit au travail, réponse à M. Thiers (1848)
  2. Victor Considerant, Principes du Socialisme. Manifeste de la Démocratie au XIXe siècle (1847) in French HTML and English HTML ; and Droit de propriété et du droit au travail (1848)
  3. Joseph Proudhon, Qu’est-ce que la propriété? ou Recherches sur le principe du Droit et du Gouvernement (1840) in French HTML and English HTML ; Système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophy de la misère (1846); Le droit au travail et le droit de propriété (1850);


[Proudhon believes “property is theft”]

These criticisms can be summarized as follows:

  1. Economic Criticism
  • the free market and bourgeois society is based upon private property which is unjust; the exclusive ownership of things, especially land, was a form of “theft” against those who did not own property, such as the ordinary worker. Hence Proudhon’s famous dictum “la propriety, c’est le vol” (property is theft)
  • wage labour leads to the “exploitation” of workers because they do not receive the full value of their labour, since some of it is withheld as “profit” by the factory owner
  • wage labour (especially factory work) “alienates” the workers from both the things they create and their full potential (this objection was put forward most forcibly by Karl Marx)
  • profit, interest, and land rent are unjust because they are “unearned” as the factory owner, capitalist or bank, and landowner do not “labour” to produce anything of value (important because most socialists believed that only “labour” produces wealth, hence if one did not “labour” then one inevitably exploited those who did)
  • competition has disastrous consequences for the workers in that they compete for scarce jobs and thus drive down the level of wages, thus becoming poorer and poorer (immiseration) under capitalism
  • there is a tendency towards the formation of monopolies which ruthlessly exploit consumers by charging excess profits and driving their competitors (and their workers) out of business, hence Louis Blanc’s idea that competition was a form of “murder” of workers
  • there are periodic economic crises which adversely affect the poor working class who are least able to survive during periods of unemployment
  • the emergence of international capitalism leads to “free trade”, global competition, and the destruction of national industry
  1. Moral/Philosophical Criticism
  • there is increasing inequality between the wealthy capitalists and the “bourgeoisie” on the one hand, and ordinary working people on the other
  • capitalism is “heartless” as a result of the selfish behaviour of individuals and the drive to get profits
  • there is the destruction of traditional communities as people seek work in the large cities and industrial towns and leave the countryside and smaller towns
  1. Political Criticism
  • the growing power and wealth of the “capitalist class” (the bourgeoisie) within the political system allows them to further their own ends at the expense of the weaker or non-voting working class
  • there is an unequal relationship between employers and labor, especially when it comes to bargaining for wages and conditions
  • the traditional “nuclear family” perpetuates bourgeois thought and behaviour

The political economists gradually realized the threat the socialists posed, both intellectually and increasingly politically after 1845 and addressed them accordingly in an outpouring of books and pamphlets, which unfortunately having been largely forgotten today:

  • Charles Dunoyer, La Liberté du travail (1845): literally on “the liberty of working” as opposed to the socialist notion of “the right to work (or right to a job)” – in French in facs. PDF via this page
  • Adolphe Thiers, De la propriété (1848) – (en français) in HTML and facs. PDF ; and in English with a slightly different title, The Rights of Property: A Refutation of Communism & Socialism (1848) in HTML and facs. PDF
  • Léon Faucher, Du droit au travail (1848)
  • Michel Chevalier, Lettres sur l’Organisation du travail (1848) [in French facs. PDF ] and L’économie politique et le socialisme (1849) [in French facs. PDF ]
  • Frédéric Bastiat’s series of 12 anti-socialist pamphlets (1848-1850) – [these will be discussed in more detail in a future post]
  • Gustave de Molinari, Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare; entretiens sur les lois économiques et défense de la propriété (1849) [ HTML and facs,. PDF in French; draft English trans. at the OLL]
  • Bastiat and Proudhon, Gratuité du crédit (Oct. 1849 – Feb. 1850) – in French [ HTML and facs. PDF ]
  • Dictionnaire de l’économie politique (1852-53): with many articles on socialism and socialist theorists which was designed to be a compendium of criticism of socialist and other forms of interventionism by the state – in French facs. PDF


[Molinari on the other hand believes socialists will inevitably fail because they ignore “economic laws”]

Their rebuttal of socialist criticisms of the free market and their concerns about why socialism would fail in practice were extensive and detailed. The economists argued that the socialists ignored or misunderstood the following problems:

  • the incentive problem: communally organised living and working arrangements destroy incentives for individuals to work hard when all “profits” go to the community to be equally distributed
  • the division of labour problem: people with key skills (managerial, financial, technical, organisational, entrepreneurial) need to be paid for their extra contribution to the productive process
  • the risk problem: all economic activity involves risks (loss, miscalculation, natural disaster) which needs to be rewarded
  • the injustice of expropriation: to create any socialist system of production existing justly owned property has to be confiscated and given to new communally organised groups
  • the individual liberty problem: many socialists modeled their proposed new communal organisations on the army or a government bureaucracy (like the post office); these organisations would be deliberately hierarchical, with command from above, communal eating and sleeping arrangements, and general loss of individual choice and liberty
  • the human nature problem: socialists assumed that human nature is not fixed but malleable, that it is possible to create a” new socialist man” who would not be selfish or acquisitive; the economists believed humans were social but not communist, self-interested (broadly understood) not willing to sacrifice their interests to the community’s; and that people had vastly different tastes, preferences, skills, and interests which would and not be taken into account under socialism
  • the public choice problem – rulers were not disinterested parties but had own agendas
  • the problem of ignoring economic laws – the economy is governed by economic “laws” (such as the law of supply and demand) which cannot be ignored or wished away by well meaning people

What is striking to the modern reader, are the similarities between both the socialist critique of free markets and the economists’ defense of them of the 1840s and those of today. It would seem that we collectively have remembered nothing of them and thus have learned nothing from them. The major differences in my view is the Hayekian notion that free market prices carry vital information about the relative scarcity of goods and services and the changing demands of both consumers and other producers which are all crucial factors in entrepreneurs knowing what to produce, when and where. This idea is only rudimentary at best or completely absent from the political economists’ understanding of the problems faced by socialist production. On the other hand, the modern day socialists have greatly expanded the Malthusian critique of the ability of free markets to feed and clothe the poorest members of society, and applied this to a critique of “capitalism’s” over-exploitation and thus depletion of resources, its pollution of the environment, and the problem of “global warming” (sorry, “climate change”). It would seem that the proposed “Green New Deal” is just another in the long list of attempts by socialists to centrally plan the economy and thus avoid the waste and destruction inherent in free markets.

The socialist challenge in the 1840s was eventually put down by brutal police action in 1849 and many, like Louis Blanc, were imprisoned or sent into exile. However, their ideas were not so easily defeated. Some of their ideas would be taken up by the soon to be (self-)appointed Emperor Napoleon III and imposed from above in what would become a newly invigorated form of French “dirigisme” or “state socialism”. “Socialism proper” (in the form of working class socialist or labour parties) would reemerge in the 1880s and 1890s and would be met again by the French political economists in another round of anti-socialist publishing activity. This will be the topic of a future post.

On Cham’s cartoon see my talk on “Unfortunately, Hardly Anyone Listens to the Economists”: The Battle against Socialism by the French Economists in the 1840s.