Note: This post is a continuation of an earlier one on the scandalous neglect of classical liberal sociology (especially classical liberal class analysis). See “The Scandalous Neglect of Classical Liberal Sociology” (30 May, 2021).

Note 2: A longer version of this was written for my website (with lengthy quotes).

The writings of the economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) had a profound impact on the thinking of Charles Comte (1782-1837) and Charles Dunoyer (1786-1862) in the years 1814 to 1817. We can trace this impact in the essays they wrote for their journals Le Censeur (July 1814 – Sept. 1815) and Le Censeur européen (Jan. 1817 – Apr. 1819).¹

Comte and Dunoyer were trained as lawyers and their earliest forays into politics showed them to be fairly standard defenders of “political liberalism” such as freedom of speech and association, constitutional limits on state power, and opposition to “despotism” whether monarchical or imperial (i.e. Napoleonic) in form. In the pages of their journals we can see their intellectual transformation during this period into advocates of a new kind of “social” and “economic” liberalism. This transition occurred under the influence of their reading of the sociologist Saint-Simon, the historian Augustin Thierry (who later became an editorial assistant to Comte and Dunoyer), the royalist historian of the French monarchy and aristocracy, Montlosier, the liberal political theorist Benjamin Constant, and then most importantly the industrialist and political economist Jean-Baptiste Say, which we can trace in their book reviews.

Say’s economic theory in particular provided them with a much larger framework for their liberalism which would now include a theory of the antagonism or struggle (la lutte) between the productive “industrial” class and the unproductive parasitical “ruling” class, as well as a new “industrialist” theory of history which explained how societies moved through different stages based upon their very different “means of production” and the different forms the conflict between the “industrial” and the “ruling” class took in these different stages of economic development. Among these stages, they were particularly interested in slavery, which they regarded as the archetypal form of class rule and exploitation, and the newest form of rule and exploitation by a bureaucratic class of government officials which had appeared under Napoleon and which seemed to be kind of class rule which wold govern France in the near future.

That these two liberals developed quite sophisticated ideas about class conflict and the transition of societies from one economic stage to another some thirty years before Marx did is striking and needs to be better known and appreciated by scholars.

What made their form of liberalism unique, as well as those other French liberals who followed in their footsteps (such as Bastiat and Molinari), was this combination of political liberalism (limited government and rule of law), economic liberalism (free markets and laissez-faire policies), and social (or sociological) liberalism (class analysis, the evolution of societies thorough economic stages). The combination of these three different dimensions to their liberal theory made their version of liberalism a very radical, rich, and interesting one, one which I believe sets them above their contemporary English counterparts.²

In fact, what Say’s economic ideas did was to show them the interconnectedness of the political, the social, and the moral worlds in a way which even the ideas of Adam Smith did not, at least as explicitly. (They do if you view his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and the Wealth of Nations (1776) together, which at the time was not usually done.) We can see this very clearly in the first review of his Treatise which was supposed to appear in September 1815 which was confiscated by the police.

The first of Say’s works to be reviewed (the author signed as “X” and was probably Comte) was his official report for the French government on the economic impact of the wars on the English economy, De l’Angleterre et des Anglais (On England and the English) in volume 6 of Le Censeur (1 June, 1815). The reviewer thought that Say’s ideas were so important that the journal would soon publish a review of Say’s Treatise. [See the bibliography of Say’s works here ; and Say, De l’Angleterre et les Anglais (Paris: Arthus Bertrad, 1815). [ facs. PDF ] Comte and Dunoyer were still asserting the seminal importance of Say’s work in 1819-20 when their journal became a daily news paper, also called
Le Censeur européen. By then a fourth edition of Say’s Treatise had been published which they were describing as “without contradiction one of the most important books which have been published since the beginning of the 19th century. [Le Censeur européen, 14 October, 1819, quoted in Harpaz, pp. 128-29, fn 5.]

Next to be reviewed, also by Comte, was Say’s major Treatise on Political Economy, the 1st edition of which was published in 1803 (but not reviewed in C or CE), the 2nd edition of which appeared in 1815 and reviewed in volume 7 of Le Censeur which should have appeared in September 1815. However, that issue of their magazine was seized by the police and the journal was forced to close for a period of 15 months while the two lawyers hid from the police and battled the censors in the courts. Some copies of this issue were saved so we have access to it. [See the review by Comte, CR “Traité d’économie politique, ou simple exposition de la manière dont se forment, se distribuent et se consomment les richesses, par M. J.B. Say” (C, T.7, 6 Sept. 1815), pp. 43-77) in HTML (to come) and facs. PDF; and Say’s Traité: the facs. PDF of the 3rd ed. [vol.1 and vol.2 ] and the HTML and facs. PDF of the 6th ed. of 1841; and the rather old (1821) English trans. of the 4th ed. of 1819 by Princeps in HTML and facs. PDF – vol.1 and vol.2.]

As he stated on the opening page:

A l’affût comme nous le sommes de toutes les idées, de tous les ouvrages qui peuvent exercer une influence favorable sur le sort [44] de la nation, le *Traité d’économie politique* de M. Say ne pouvait nous échapper. Nous l’avons lu avec l’attention qu’il mérite, et nous pouvons affirmer que nous connaissons peu de livres qui renferment autant de notions saines, autant de vues immédiatement applicables et utiles. Nous le déclarons, cet ouvrage nous paraît avoir complètement tire l’économie politique de l’empire des opinions systématiques. Il fait apercevoir, il vous oblige d’observer des faits qui arrivent journellement, et qui n’en sont pas mieux connus pour cela; il montre la relation de ces faits entr’eux, celle qu’ils ont avec leurs causes, avec leurs résultats; et ces faits sont les plus intéressans pour l’homme, puisque ce sont ceux qui ont rapport à sa fortune, à son existence, aux biens qui peuvent la rendre douce …

As we are on the lookout for all those ideas and all those works which can have a favourable influence on the fate of the nation, M. Say’s *Treatise on Political Economy* could not escape our attention. We have read it with the attention it deserves and we can assure the reader that we know of very few books which contain as many good ideas, as many opinions which are immediately practicable and useful. We believe that this work appears to us to have completely established (the science/discipline) of political economy upon the foundation of systematic thinking. It makes us see things (les faits), it forces us to observe things which happen every day, things that are not well understood even though they do happen every day; it shows us the interconnectedness of (these) things, (the connection) they have to their causes and to their consequences; and these things (faits) are the most interesting things for mankind because they have a connection to our wealth, our very existence, and the goods which can make (our) lives better (douce) …

As he quotes passage after passage from Say we can see him thinking through the implications of some of Say’s most important ideas, especially that all activities which create a value of some kind thereby create wealth, not just agriculture (the 18thC Physiocratic notion) but also commerce and “industry” very broadly defined; that both parties to a voluntary exchange benefit from that exchange; and that so much of what the government does either destroys wealth, prevents wealth from being created, or transfers wealth from one group to another.

Comte and Dunoyer reopened in January 1817 with a new title Le Censeur européen and another review by Comte of Say’s Treatise, this time of the revised 3rd edition which had appeared in the interim. Part 1 of the review appeared in volume 1 (Jan. 1817) and Part 2 in the following issue Volume 2 ( March, 1817). [See, Comte, CR “Traité d’économie politique, ou simple exposition de la manière dont se forment, se distribuent et se consomment les richesses, 3e. édit., par M. Jean-Baptiste Say,” (CE T.1, 19 December 1816, p. 159-227) in HTML (to come) and facs. PDF; and [CC?], CR “Traité d’économie politique, ou simple exposition de la manière dont se forment, se distribuent et se consomment les richesses, 3e. édit., par M. Jean-Baptiste Say,” (CE, T.2, 27 March 1817), pp. 169-221, in HTML and facs. PDF.]

One line of Say’s thought which struck them was the idea that political economy in Say’s hands had become a true science for the first time (even beating out Adam Smith) and that he had revealed “les lois constantes et invariables” (the constant and unchanging laws) which governed not only the economic world but the much broader social and political world. So much of the world’s problems could be attributed to theorists and politicians trying to run the world according to “les règles de conduite” (rules of conduct) which they had spun out of their imaginations instead of following economic laws which could be discovered by empirical observation of how people behaved in the real world.

As examples of policies pursued by governments which violated these unbreakable economic laws the reviewer singles out excessive government expenditure and the massive taxation and the issuing of paper money required to fund these policies, the policy of pursuing a “favourable” balance of trade by using tariffs and subsidies to “protect” domestic producers, and (in the previous review article) the idea that the possession of colonies would increase national prosperity. Added to these problems there was also the problems caused by ignorance of what activities truly created wealth as people were mislead by “false systems” of economic thought, such as the greater productivity made possible by the use of machines, the contribution to wealth generation made by manufacturing industry in general, and the important role played by “la classes des entrepreneurs” (the class of entrepreneurs) in bringing all these improvement about.

Only the teaching of a more scientific approach to political economy would disabuse people of these false economic ideas. The reviewer bemoaned the fact that the teaching of economics in France was far behind that of other countries such as Germany, Britain, Russia, and even Spain. It should be noted that J.B. Say would eventually be allowed to give lectures at the private Athénée in Paris (1816-1819) and then made a professor of political economy at the prestigious Collège de France in 1831 where he taught briefly before his death the following year.

In the second part of the review of the 3rd edition of Say’s Treatise (March 1817) the reviewer discussed Say’s ideas about the nature of consumption, especially the difference between “productive” and “unproductive” consumption, and how this idea could be applied to government expenditure and “consumption”. The radical implication of Say’s ideas was that most (perhaps all) government expenditure was “unproductive” and thus a drain on wealth creation by the “productive and industrious class” with important flow on effects on the broader society or “civilisation” as he termed it. Thus, rather than facilitating the creation of wealth by others, or engaging in the production of wealth itself, the government became instead “un gouvernement dissipateur” (a wasteful government) [p. 196] or resembled “un voleur” (a thief) [p. 199].

The reviewer then turned to discussing Say’s ideas which added to the traditional “le doux commerce” (the softening effect of commerce) thesis by including far more than just commerce in his analysis of the impact of economics on culture, or as it was termed at that time “la morale” (morality) and “la civilisation”. What was important here were the ideas of the mutually beneficial nature of exchange, the cooperation brought about by the division of labour, and how these brought people closer together instead of encouraging them to think of each other as potential enemies.

A review, this time by Dunoyer, of a third work by Say, Petit volume contenant quelques aperçus des hommes et de la société (A Small Volume containing some Thoughts on Mankind and Society) , was published also in two parts, in volume 6 (Sept., 1817) [PDF] and volume 7 (March, 1818) [PDF]. The first “review” was quite short and consisted mostly of short quotes from the book. The actual review would come in the following edition of the journal as the first edition of the book had sold out and a second revised edition would be available very soon.

Dunoyer was very taken with Say’s book, considering it to be filled with astute insights, provocative ideas, and expressed in a manner which would encourage the reader to explore more of the discipline of political economy. He also used the review as an opportunity for him to express himself very frankly about what he thought the proper function of governments should be (very little other than protecting the life, liberty and property of its citizens), how best to go about changing the current system of corruption and exploitation (enlightening the “dupes” who allowed themselves to be deceived by conniving politicians and their hangers-on), and the role of a free press in “tearing off the mask” of those who ruled and exposing them in their complete political “nakedness” for all to see. I provide here three lengthy quotes from the review which illustrate the quite remarkable and explicit views expressed by Dunoyer in this piece. Perhaps he thought the censors would not read a review of a book like this and he could be more open and forthright in expressing his views.

After carefully reviewing Say’s books in their journal Comte and Dunoyer then applied what they had learned from him in a series of original and path-breaking articles of their own in which they developed their ideas on class conflict and the economic progression of societies in much greater detail. These essays are included in my Anthology of their writings and they would provide the foundation for the much more extensive and detailed development of their “industrialist theory of history” in the multi-volume books they would publish over the next 20 (Comte) or 30 (Dunoyer) years.

These important essays were the following and are available online:³

• Comte, “Considerations sur l’état moral de la nation française, et sur les causes de l’instabilité de ses institutions” (Thoughts on the Moral State of the French Nation and on the Causes of the Instability of its Institutions) (CE, T.1, Jan. 1817. pp. 1-92) – HTML and facs. PDF.
• Comte, “De l’organisation sociale considérée dans ses rapports avec les moyens de subsistance des peuples” (On Social Organisation and its Connection with the Way the People earn their Living) (CE, T2, Mar. 1817, pp. 1-66.) – HTML and facs. PDF.]
• Dunoyer, “Considérations sur l’état présent de l’Europe, sur les dangers de cet état, et sur les moyens d’en sortir” (Thoughts on the Present State of Europe, the Dangers it faces, and the Means of Escaping them) (CE, T1, Mar. 1817, pp. 1-92.) – HTML and facs. PDF.]
• Comte, “De la multiplication des pauvres, des gens à places, et des gens à pensions” (On the Increase in Numbers of the Poor, People with Government Jobs, and People who live off Government Pensions) (CE, T7, Mar. 1818, pp. 1-79.) – HTML and facs. PDF.]
• Dunoyer, “De l’influence qu’exercent sur le gouvernement les salaires attachés à l’exercice des fonctions publiques” (On the Influence exerted on the Government by those who earn Salaries by carrying out Public Functions) (CE, T11, Feb. 1819, pp. 75-118.) – HTML and facs. PDF.]

I will discuss these articles in more detail in future post.

These articles in turn provided the foundation for the much more detailed elaboration of these ideas in a series of multi-volume books which the two wrote over the coming decades. Comte completed 2 works before he died in 1837:⁴

1. Traité de législation, ou exposition des lois générales suivant lesquelles les peuples prospèrent, dépérissent ou restent stationnaire (A Treatise on Legislation, or a Discussion of the General Laws which enable Nations to prosper, decline, or remain in a stationary state, 4 vols. (1827) – HTML (to come) and facs. PDF of vol.1; vol.2; vol.3; and vol.4.
2. Traité de la propriété (A Treatise on Property), 2 vols. (1834)- HTML (to come) and facs. PDF of vol.1 and vol.2.

And Charles Dunoyer 3 works which were really a series of expanded versions of the same initial concept:⁵

1. L’Industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (Industry and Morality considered in their Relationship with Liberty) (1825)- HTML (to come) and facs. PDF.
2. Nouveau traité d’économie sociale, ou simple exposition des causes sous l’influence desquelles les hommes parviennent à user de leurs forces avec le plus de LIBERTÉ, c’est-à-dire avec le plus FACILITÉ et de PUISSANCE (A New Treatise on Social Economy, or a simple description of the causes under whose influence mankind becomes able to use their powers with the greatest amount of Liberty, that is to say with the greatest ease and power) 2 vols. (1830)- HTML (to come) and facs. PDF of vol.1 and vol.2.
3. De la liberté du travail, ou simple exposé des conditions dans lesquelles les force humaines s’exercent avec le plus de puissance (On the Liberty of Working, or a simple discussion of the conditions under which human energy can be exercised with the greatest power) (1845) – HTML (to come) and facs. PDF of vol.1; vol.2; and vol.3.

It is my intention to put these important works online in HTML so scholars can make better use of them. They have been online in facs. PDF format for over 10 years now as they (along with the works of Bastiat and Molinari) have been the core of my online library since its inception.

Bibliography

Comte, Charles, Traité de législation, ou exposition des lois générales suivant lesquelles les peuples prospèrent, dépérissent ou restent stationnaire, 4 vols. (Paris: A. Sautelet et Cie, 1827).

Comte, Charles, Traité de la propriété, 2 vols. (Paris: Chamerot, Ducollet, 1834).

Dunoyer, Charles, L’Industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (Paris: A. Sautelet et Cie, 1825).

Dunoyer, Charles, Nouveau traité d’économie sociale, ou simple exposition des causes sous l’influence desquelles les hommes parviennent à user de leurs forces avec le plus de LIBERTÉ, c’est-à-dire avec le plus FACILITÉ et de PUISSANCE (Paris: Sautelet et Mesnier, 1830), 2 vols.

Dunoyer, Charles, De la liberté du travail, ou simple exposé des conditions dans lesquelles les force humaines s’exercent avec le plus de puissance (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845).

Endnotes

1. On the history of these journals see the three articles by Éphraïm Harpaz, “Le Censeur, Histoire d’un journal libéral,” Revue des sciences humaines, Octobre-Décembre 1958, 92, pp. 483-511; “Le Censeur européen, histoire d’un journal industrialiste,” Revue d’histoire économique et sociale, 1959, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 185-218 and vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 328-57; and “Le Censeur européen: histoire d’un journal quotidien,” Revue des sciences humaines, 1964, pp. 113-116, pp. 137-259; which have been republished together in a book: Le Censeur. Le Censeur européen. Histoire d’un Journal libéral et industrialiste (Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 2000). [↩]
2. On Comte’s and Dunoyer’s “industrialist theory of history” see my unpublished PhD “Class Analysis, Slavery and the Industrialist Theory of History in French Liberal Thought, 1814-1830: The Radical Liberalism of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer” (Cambridge, 1994) online here. [↩]
3. On some of these articles see Mark Weinburg, “The Social Analysis of Three Early 19th Century French Liberals: Say, Comte, and Dunoyer,” Journal of Libertarian Studies, 1978, vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 45-63. Online. [↩]
4. See the bibliography on Charles Comte for a complete list of his works. [↩]
5. See the bibliography on Charles Dunoyer for a more complete list of his works. [↩]

Created: 24 Oct. 2021 (with 25 posts)
Updated: 28 Apr. 2022 (31 posts)

[Eugène Delacroix, “Liberty leading the People on the Barricade” (1830)]

A Brief Overview

1. “The History of Classical Liberalism in 1,730 words (and one picture)” (11 Aug. 2021) here. [Revised 12 Apr. 2022.]
2. “The Classical Liberal Tradition – A 400 Year History Of Ideas And Movements: Lecture/Seminar Outline” (22 Apr. 2022) here
3. “Liberty as the Sum of All Freedoms” (26 April, 2022) here. This is an updated version of “The Key Ideas of Classical Liberalism: Foundations, Processes, Liberties” (23 June, 2015) here
4. “Twelve Key Concepts of Liberty” (25 Apr. 2022) here

Recommended Reading

1. “The Classical Liberal Tradition: A 400 Year History of Ideas and Movements. An Introductory Reading List” (20 May, 2021) here [Updated: 22 Apr. 2022]
2. “One Volume Surveys of Classical Liberal Thought” (11 Jan. 2021) here
3. “600 Quotations about Liberty and Power” (28 Apr. 2022) here

A List of Posts on this Topic

The Many Faces of Liberalism:

1. “The Multi-Dimensionality of Classical Liberalism” (19 April, 2022) here
2. “Plotting Liberty: The Multi-Dimensionality of Classical Liberalism and the Need for a New ‘Left-Right’ Political Spectrum” Reflections on Liberty and Power (17 April, 2022) here
3. “ ‘Hyphenated’ Liberalism and the Problem of Definition” (9 Aug. 2021) here
4. “Hyphenated Liberalism Part II: Utopian, Democratic, Revolutionary, and State Liberalism” (12 Oct. 2021) here
5. “The Conservative and Revolutionary Faces of Classical Liberalism” (11 Aug. 2021) here
6. “How Modern Day CL/Libertarians Differ From “Classical” Classical Liberals” (24 Aug. 2021) here
7. “The Incoherence and Contradictions inherent in Modern Liberal Parties (and one in particular)” (21 Oct. 2021) here
8. “The Myth of a liberal ‘Australian Way of Life’” (20 June 2021) here
9. “On the (im)Possibility of finding a “Third Way” between Liberalism and Socialism” (19 Apr. 2022) here

Classical Liberals on the Role and Power of the State:

1. “The Spectrum of State Power: or a New Way of Looking at the Political Spectrum” (10 Aug., 2021) here. [Updated: 25 Apr. 2022.]
2. “Classical Liberals on the Size and Functions of the State” (10 Aug. 2021) here. [Updated: 25 Apr. 2022.]

What CLs were FOR and AGAINST:

1. “What Classical Liberals were Against” (12 Aug. 2021) here
2. “What Classical Liberals were For” (13 Aug. 2021) here
3. “What CLs were For – Part 2: Ends and Means” (19 Oct., 2021) here

CL Visions of the Future Free Society:

1. “Classical Liberal Visions of the Future I” (27 August, 2021) here
2. “Classical Liberal Visions of the Future II: The Contribution of Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912)” (29 Aug. 2021) here
3. “Classical Liberal Visions of the Future III: Liberal Experiments, Frameworks, and Archipelagos” (11 Oct. 2021) here
4. “Hayek on a Liberal Utopia” (11 Sept. 2021) here

CL Movements and Crusades for Liberty:

1. “Classical Liberal Movements: A Four Hundred Year History” (17 Aug. 2021) here
2. “Classical Liberalism as a Revolutionary Ideology of Emancipation” (13 Oct. 2021) here
3. “Classical Liberalism as the Philosophy of Emancipation II: The “True Radical Liberalism” of Peter Boettke” (17 Oct. 2021) here

CL’s Successes and Failures:

1. “The Success of Liberal Ideas has led to the Decline of Radical Liberal Parties” (6 Sept. 2021) here
2. “A Balance Sheet of the Success and Failures of Classical Liberalism” (21 Apr. 2022) here

Revised: 28 Apr. 2022

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

In his survey of the history of liberalism, The Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 2012), the Oxford political philosopher and scholar of the thought of J.S. Mill, Alan Ryan, observed that everything that liberals have believed in its long history have been “contested”.

For example, even as something as fundamental as their attitude to the state has split liberals into at least three camps: those radical liberals who believed that the state was an “unnecessary evil” which could largely be dispensed with, those moderate liberals who believed that it was a “necessary evil” which had to be restrained by strict constitutional limits to its powers, and those new liberals who thought (or rather still think) that the state is a good friend to liberty and that it is essential in order to achieve liberal goals (so long as the right people and the right party get elected), and that its powers must be constantly increased so long as these goals have not yet been achieved (what then happens to the state is never explained).

He also notes the rather bizarre distinction that historians of liberalism now have to make between two new kinds of hyphenated liberalism which have emerged, namely what he calls “pro-capitalist liberalism” and “anti-capitalist liberalism” (I think a better phrasing might be “market liberalism” vs. “anti-market liberalism” or perhaps “state liberalism”). So Ryan naturally asks whether a political concept like “liberalism” or “socialism” can have any meaning if it no longer has a “core” set of beliefs which define it in comparison with other political beliefs and which are “uncontested” by its adherents. [See my post on what I think have traditionally been the “core beliefs” of CLs “What Classical Liberals were For” (13 Aug. 2021) here.] As he says on p. 23:

Unless some substantial portion of the meaning of a concept is uncontested, it is hard to see how the concept could be identified in the first place. There must be a central uncontested core of meaning to terms like “liberty” if arguments about the contested penumbra are to make sense.

That modern day liberals could think it possible to still call themselves a “liberal” if they no longer believe in free markets and the “capitalist system” leads him to the sad conclusion that liberalism is no longer “intellectually rigorous” and that it has become “awkward and intellectually insecure”. One might say the same thing about social democratic parties like the Australian Labor Party which once explicitly called for a key socialist policy of state ownership of important industries and which has its electoral roots in the organised trade union movement, but which has now embraced key aspects of “neo-liberal” economic policy. As Ryan states on p. 42:

The liberalism that has triumphed, then, is not an intellectually rigorous system, manifested in its only possible institutional form. It is an awkward and intellectually insecure system, committed to democracy tempered by the rule of law, to a private-enterprise economy supervised and controlled by government, and to equal opportunity so far as it can be maintained without too much interference with the liberty of employers, schools, and families. It by no means embraces laissez-faire with the same fervor that Marxism brought to its attack on property and its passion for rational, central control of economic activity … Moreover, the inhabitants of liberal democracies are deeply, and properly, conscious of the shortcomings of their societies and certainly feel their “success” is an equivocal one.

A similar point has been made by the political economist Peter Boettke who developed two “tests” in order to assess the coherence and viability of different economic systems, but which I believe can also be applied to the ideas and policies of political parties. The tests Boettke developed were the “coherence test” and the “vulnerability test” which he explained as follows:

In my work in comparative economic systems, I tend to stress some methodological ground rules that I argue must be followed. First, one cannot compare the ideal theory of one system with the working reality of another system. To do so is an unfair comparison. Instead, one must compare theory with theory, reality with reality, or theory of a system with the reality of that system. Second, in assessing social systems, there are two critical tests: a coherence test and a vulnerability test. The coherence test refers to a strict logical analysis of chosen means to given ends. If, on the one hand, means chosen can be demonstrated to be incoherent with respect to ends sought due to knowledge problems, then that system must be eliminated from the menu of options. If, on the other hand, the chosen means could—if all the actors were richly informed—achieve the desired ends, but the incentives in the system were such that opportunistic behavior would undermine the achievement of those goals, then the system would be possible but impractical due to vulnerabilities. Political economy and social philosophy work together and strive to weed out the incoherent and the vulnerable, and leave only those social systems of exchange and production that are logically coherent and robust against opportunism. [Struggle, Introduction, FN6]

When one applies Boettke’s “coherence test” to the Australian Liberal Party it is clear that it is ideologically “incoherent” (or has incompatible beliefs) when it comes to the specific goals or ends liberals have traditionally wanted to achieve and the goals (or policies) it now advocates and has put into practice over the years (some are “liberal” but many are not). The party is also incoherent with respect to the means by which it wishes to achieve these liberal goals (using “illiberal means” to achieve liberal ends). [See my post on “What CLs were For – Part 2: Ends and Means” (19 Oct., 2021) here.]

[Note: Of course, if one’s goal is to regulate and control every aspect of a person’s life and to centrally plan large sectors of the economy (such as energy production) then the use of the coercive powers of the state to do this is perfectly “coherent,” consistent, and logical.]

One only has to contrast the platitudinous but still mostly liberal ideas as expressed on the Liberal Party’s website page called “Our Beliefs” – Our Beliefs | Liberal Party of Australia with the actual proposed policies which are interventionist and regulatory to a very large extent or straight out of the “Welfare State” playbook – Our Plan | Liberal Party of Australia.

A key point here is to note how much of the idea of “central planning” of the economy modern liberals are prepared to adopt as their own. The Liberal Party is quite explicit about this as they detail in the section called “Our Plan” where they reveal their attitude towards government planning in preference to “allowing” free people to engage in free trade with each to build “spontaneous orders” (which they should have by “right” not by “permission” from the government). Thus these modern liberals:

• reject a fundamental liberal concept that free people going about their business create “spontaneous orders” (Hayek) of an economic, legal, and social nature which are “better” (in both a material and moral sense) than anything government planners can provide
• believe that attempts by politicians and bureaucratic “planners” to improve upon this order by means of “legislation” or regulations are an improvement on the “chaos” of the market; yet true liberals believe that these attempts are doomed to failure in the material sense of creating disorder and lowering the standard of living of the people
• reject the long-standing liberal view that the government and its bureaucratic planners should stand aside and allow free people to go about their business because the “orders” they create by their actions will be morally justified (not violating their rights to LLP) and will produce much greater prosperity for all.

There are several specific examples of how the Liberal Party wants the government to “centrally plan” key sectors of the economy such as infrastructure, energy, and broadband which are in glaring contradiction to some of principles declared in “Our Beliefs”. But the most glaring example of “illiberal” policy, or “the means” to achieve their goals, would have to be their whole-hearted embrace of Keynesian economic policies which are really only a watered down version of “central planning” adopted by most western states in the post-WW2 period in the face of the catastrophic failure of fully-fledge economic planning being undertaking in the Communist countries. The realisation was that, if attempts to centrally plan ALL sectors of the economy would inevitably fail (as Hayek and Mises argued) then the next best way to “plan” an economy would be to control the money supply and interest rates upon which nearly everything else in the economy depended. Tinkering with these things has been the hallmark of government policy ever since – whether the government is run by Liberal or Labor. This runs counter to every CL idea of what a government should do when it is in power, namely to balance the budget, impose very low taxes, rely on “sound money” (which at the time was based upon gold and/or silver not paper or electrons), and to leave individuals and firms free to “go about their business” unmolested by interfering politicians and bureaucrats. The inappropriately named section of their website, called “Our Plan”, shows just how far down the planning road, or “the road to serfdom” in Hayeks phrase, the Liberal Party has gone.

In addition, as an historian, I am struck by the fact that, since its very founding in 1944 the Liberal Party was a staunch defender of one of the 19thC liberals’ most hated economic policies, namely tariff protection and subsidies to favoured industries. Need one remind the reader that it took the coming to power of a “socialist” Labor Party” in 1972 to begin dismantling Australia’s odious and profoundly “illiberal” system of protection.

To jump forward to the present, one has the example of Liberal governments’ (both state and Federal) attempting to centrally plan the economy as part of its program of “lockdown socialism”, whereby politicians determined what sectors of the economy are “essential” and which ones are not (thus forcing them to close or severely curtail their business activity); with whom individuals could associate with, where individuals could travel; and what they had to wear in public. Contrast this with the opening line of their statement of “Our Beliefs” :

We believe: In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative.

Of course, “rights” in Australia were never “inalienable” as they were granted as “privileges” of the Crown and then Parliament which could and recently have been rescinded at will, without public discussion, and at a moment’s notice. The people who opposed this and tried to defend their “inalienable rights” were thrown to the ground and beaten by the police or fined huge amounts of money.

Then, when one applies Boettke’s “vulnerability test” to the economic and political system which the Liberal (and Labor) Parties have jointly built, run, and expanded over the past 60 or 70 years one would have to conclude that the Liberal Party has created a system which is highly vulnerable to several threats to liberal values and liberal political practices. They have created a system which is highly vulnerable to take-over by powerful private vested interests to use for their own selfish interests (“private predation” in Boettke’s terminology, or “la spoliation légale” (legal plunder) in Frédéric Bastiat’s) as well as by the politicians and bureaucrats who run the system who use it to advance their own power and careers to create a professional and permanent class of people engaged in “public predation” (“la spoliation gouvernementale” or plunder by government (Bastiat again))

However in the Australian Liberal Party’s defence, one should add that this is true for all the so-called “liberal democracies” (whether centre-right or centre-left, or just plain social democratic) which have emerged in the post-WW2 period, so it is not unique to the Australian Liberal Party.

If one believes in the liberal ends of small, limited, and responsible government, low taxes (and no taxes on the poor, especially indirect taxes), minimal to no regulation of private business activity (especially on the freedom to start a business), free trade and free markets (both internationally and domestically), then one would have to conclude that the Liberal-Labor political duopoly has created a system with institutions which have perverse incentives which have created multitudinous opportunities for “predation”, both private and public, and has prevented the full development of a true “liberal state” (which in my view would be a “minimal” or “ultra-minimal” state at a minimum (if you will pardon the pun), or a “fully privatised” or voluntary state. [See, Classical Liberals on the Size and Functions of the State (10 Aug., 2021)]

For example, the “liberal” political system has created

• a permanent class of professional politicians: there are an increasing number of people who are active politically at university (studying law in many cases) in the “Young Liberals” (perhaps better called the politically “Ambitious Liberals”), then become “aids” to politicians already in Canberra or work for lobbyists or other groups seeking benefits from the state, who then get pre-selected in a safe seat and then move to Canberra as a fully fledged member of the “political class”.
• a growing “dependent class” of people who live off taxpayers’ money distributed by the state. These can be businesses which seek and get government contracts for “public works”, or “defence”, or to supply various government services (computing and surveillance); or they can be the sick, the old, and the poor who have grown up expecting the state (or rather the taxpayers) to take care of them in their old age (the pension), when they are sick (Medicare), or when they are unemployed (the “dole” and now “Job Keeper”). The danger faced by ”liberal democracies” is that the time is fast approaching when the number of people in the “dependent class” will be greater than the number of taxpayers. The “dependent class” has the very strong incentive to vote for parties which will protect their “benefits” from cuts, or will increase them at politically opportune times (just before elections).
• unresponsive bureaucracies which provide a huge number of “services” to the public but who have no institutional incentive to provide this service efficiently, cheaply, or quickly because their organisation does not experience “losses” when they do not service their customers adequately (as do for-profit organisations). In the absence of free market prices and profits and loses, the result of poor service is queueing, poor service, or even no service at all. There is of course also no private alternatives (the competition) to the government monopoly provider.
• a general society wide belief that in times of crisis or emergency “the government ought to do something”, even if that “something” causes further harm (price controls to prevent “gouging”, society-wide lockdowns to prevent the “spread” of a disease) or is needed because of previous government policy failures (bans on ongoing forest and bush management leading to the build up of tinder which will cause larger and more destructive fires in the future). In a truly liberal society the opposite would be the case. People in the first instance would either offer their own services or money to help others, or they would organise others in a group to do so).
• a self-perpetuating cycle of “government failures” which inevitably lead to calls for further government interventions to solve the problems it caused in the first place. There are many examples of this one could mention (see above on bush fires) but the largest and most systemic example is that of the government control of the money supply and interest rates. Australia has had better money supply and interest rate polices than most other “liberal democracies” so it has gone for many years without an official “recession” until the current lockdown induced recession. Australia may have escaped temporarily from the boom-bust cycle of inflation and recession because of the demand for the resources it sells for the booming economies of China and India. However, when the credit bubble in China bursts the similar inflation weaknesses in the Australian economy will soon be exposed. I am using the term “inflation” in the Austrian sense, i.e. not just observable rises in the prices of goods and services but the expansion of the money supply caused by government increasing the stock of money and manipulating the interest rate for loans. This causes “malinvestments” to be made by investors and companies which will prove to be unprofitable when the interest rates return to a more “normal”, market determined rate. The cycle I mention above means that, when the inevitable recession occurs to flag the existence of and then liquidate these malinvestments, there is a widespread demand for the government to “ease” the money supply, to provide “liquidity” to the markets, and to prevent business “failures”, which the government inevitable responds to by beginning the cycle of monetary expansion and inflation all over again.

Thus, it is for the above reasons that I think of the Australian Liberal Party as a “LINO”, liberal in name only, having long abandoned most of the core liberal ideals (except as empty rhetoric), willing to use non-liberal methods to enact its policies (the use of state coercion and regulation, even “planning” of some economic sectors), and creating political institutions which have perverse, illiberal incentives which all create pressure to constantly expand the size and scope of government. In the latter, it has been proven to be most successful, to the detriment of real liberty and real liberalism, and the large and ever-growing Liberal State unfortunately seems to be very long lasting, given the right care, as the manufacturer promised.

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

Liberal Ends require Liberal Means to build Liberal Institutions

Introduction

Here are some further thoughts to add to my earlier post on “What Classical Liberals were For” (13 Aug. 2021). They have been stimulated and enriched by my reading of some essays by Richard Ebeling, Peter Boettke, and Stephen Macedo.

• Richard Ebeling, For a New Liberalism (American Institute for Economic Research, 2019).
• Richard M. Ebeling, “The Beautiful Philosophy of Liberalism” The Future of Freedom Foundation (July 10, 2018) online
• Peter J. Boettke, The Struggle For A Better World (Arlington, Virginia: Mercatus Center, 2021).
• Peter J. Boettke and Rosolino A. Candela, “Liberal Libertarianism,” in The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism. Edited by: Jason Brennan, Bas van der Vossen, and David Schmidtz (New York : Routledge, 2018), pp. 92-107.
• Peter J. Boettke, “True Liberalism Is About Human Compassion.” Foundation for Economic Education (November 10, 2017). online.
• Stephen Macedo, Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), chap. 7 “The Liberal Virtues,” pp. 254-85.

I believe that there is an important connection between the ideas people hold about the ends and goals they want to pursue and the best and appropriate means to achieve these ends on the one hand, and the institutions which provide the necessary framework which makes it possible for people with very different ends to “live together and pursue productive specialization and peaceful social cooperation” (Boettke, “True Liberalism”), on the other hand.

My discussion below will thus focus on what CLs have thought about liberal ends (ideas or principles), means (what I earlier called “processes”), and the institutions which makes the realisation of these ends possible.

Liberal Ends

The over-arching goal or end for radical liberals is human flourishing, or as Thomas Jefferson beautifully phrased it in the American Declaration of Independence (1776) as “the pursuit of happiness”. The “flourishing” intended in these sentiments is both that of the individual (or the Greek notion of “eudaimonia”) as well as the communities in which they live. [See David L. Norton, Personal Destinies (Princeton University Press, 1976).] Boettke clearly sees the connection between the two, the individual and the social, how individual flourishing promotes social flourishing (or the “public good), in this paragraph:

The common good is defined by a framework of general and universally applicable rules that exhibit neither discrimination nor dominion over individuals before the law. Given, as we said previously, following Norton, that individuals represent a composite of human potentialities, individuals can only flourish and actualize their own unique personhood in a context of voluntary social interaction. The common good of a liberal political order, which is to secure the right to liberty, allows for the possibility of a self-discovery process in consequent sociality with others to emerge. The creative powers of a free society are unleashed when individuals are at liberty to realize their own self-worth and uniqueness through their own effort and active pursuit in sociality with others. Consequent sociality emerges out of human action but not of human design from this self discovery process … [Liberal Libertarianism, p. 98 .]

This ultimate end of individual and societal “flourishing” is made possible by a set of second or contributory ends, namely:

• liberty
• prosperity
• peace
• justice

It should be noted that the end of achieving “liberal justice” which was so strong and “hot” among the radical liberals of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries faded as the 19thC progressed as it was replaced by the more luke-warm notion of utilitarianism, or the idea that a liberal government should pursue the goal of “the greatest good of the greatest number”, a goal which might mean the violation of the rights of a few, and hence an act of injustice, for the “benefit” of the many (as calculated by the government). The importance of the idea of “liberal justice” is something that is central to Macedo’s conception of a liberal society as stated in his book on Liberal Virtues (1990).

Some Liberal Means to achieve Liberal Ends

If increasing numbers of “moderate” and late 19thC “new” or “modern” liberals were willing to sacrifice liberal justice on the altar of “utility” or “expediency”, they were flying in the face of the older school of liberals who thought that liberal ends could and should only be reached by “liberal means”. However, logical consistency and ideological coherence was less important to these “liberals” (or rather “LINOs” who were “liberal in name only as time passed) who were forced by the necessity of getting re-elected to office to pander to the demands of an increasingly illiberal electorate and intelligentsia.

A “true radical liberal” (Boettke’s term) believes that a “free society” of “free individuals” would be achieved by a combination of the following four “means” (in order going from the individual to the global):

• individuals as individuals “living liberally” – i.e. having a “liberal character”, a “liberal mind”, or living according to “liberal virtues”
• individuals interacting with other people in a “liberal manner”, acting in a “just manner” towards others, showing mutual respect, and toleration of each other’s different beliefs and behavior, adopting a “live and let live” (laissez vivre) attitude
• societies being structured in a “liberal” manner and having “liberal institutions” which protect these values by institutionalising them
• multiple societies (some liberal, some less liberal, perhaps some not liberal at all) which comprise Hayek’s “Great Society” having ways to live with, alongside or “against each other” peaceably and for mutual benefit (Kukathas’s “liberal archipelago”); the idea is that of societies “rubbing together” because they have different values but not resorting to violence because they see the value of peaceful co-existence with each other.

Another way of thinking about the “means” by which true liberals can achieve these higher ends is to divide it into three kinds: the “personal means”, the “social and economic means”, and the “political means”. I have borrowed this way of distinguishing between them from Oppenheimer’s distinction between the “political” and the “economic means of acquiring wealth”.

The Personal Means of Achieving a Liberal Society

The “personal means” to achieve these goals begins with each person attempting to live by certain “liberal virtues” , i.e. by “living liberally” oneself. As Boettke has expressed it, having a “true liberal mind-set” (Reconstruction, p. 261) and being “liberal in thought, in word, and in deed” (Reconstruction, p. 279). These “liberal values” include the following:

• becoming an autonomous, self-governing, and responsible individual
• showing “liberality” in the way one thinks (this is a 18thC notion about having an openness to new ideas, being generous towards others)
• being cosmopolitanism in one’s interests, and open-minded when confronted by new, different, and perhaps challenging ideas and behaviour
• being tolerant towards others who think and behave differently
• being sociable, willing to engage and associate with others, both for its own sake as well as for mutual benefit
• being compassionate and showing sympathy for others
• wanting to see “liberal justice” done and made available to everybody regardless of their race, wealth, status, or social background
• taking responsibility for own’s own actions, in other words being a “free and responsible” individual

The Social and Economic Means

The “social and economic means” to achieve the above liberal ends include putting into practice and living by the following principles or key ideas of CL (see my earlier post on “What Classical Liberals were For” (13 Aug. 2021) ). These should be considered to be the essential “rules of the game” for interacting with others in a society:

1. recognising each person’s rights to life, liberty, and property (grounded by the idea of natural rights or utility)
2. the non-aggression principle (NAP)
3. private property and contract
4. voluntary cooperation with others
5. free markets
6. toleration of other people’s ideas and (non-violent) behaviour
7. freedom of speech and association
8. free movement of people, goods, & ideas
9. peaceful coexistence with others (whether one’s immediate neighbour or the “neighbouring” state)
10. the rule of (just) law
11. the consent of “the governed”
12. limited government (by a constitution and/or a bill of rights)
13. the arbitration of disputes (both domestic and foreign)

Political Means

In additional to the personal and the social/economic means, there are also the “political means” by which these liberal ends can be realised.

I have talked earlier about the importance of the “liberal revolutions” and the “crusades for liberty” in which CLs have been active for over 400 years. The emancipation of individuals and societies was achieved by both liberal revolution (the English, American, and French) and by piece-meal incremental reforms (like some the “crusades” discussed by Ebeling). [See “Classical Liberalism as a Revolutionary Ideology of Emancipation” (13 Oct. 2021) online.]

I would add here that perhaps the first “emancipation” is the one that each individual has to achieve for themselves, a kind of internal or “self-emancipation” whereby an individual frees their own mind from the bonds of dogma, superstition, intolerance, bigotry, hatred, and the desire to dominate others – or as “En Vogue” said in their 1992 song “Free your mind and the rest will follow”. [See “Free Your Mind (song)” Wikipedia.]

Once individual or societal emancipation has been achieved, or at least partially achieved, one needs a variety of “liberal institutions” or “orders” (Hayek’s phrase) which arise spontaneously and can maintain these reforms and practices over the longer period and allow for their growth, development, and evolution over time

Liberal Institutions to achieve Liberal Ends

Institutions make it possible for all of the above mentioned ends and means to work in practice. They have arisen spontaneously (in many cases) over a period of several centuries and provide the historical setting within which productive cooperation can take place and be maximised, and which places limits on the destructive and plundering actions of both private individuals and public officials.

As David Hume, Adam Smith, and other CL theorists have argued, for liberal institutions to function properly we do not have to assume or predicate upon a change in the nature of human beings, as do many socialist theorists who base the proper functioning of a socialist society on the emergence of a “new socialist man”. Human beings do not have to become “angels” for markets and a free society to “work”. In fact, especially in the case of political institutions, we should heed Hume advice and assume that all men are “knaves” and will abuse their position of power if given a chance.

As Boettke states in “True Liberalism” what we need for a free society to function is “a set of institutions where bad men (and women) could do least harm if they were to assume positions of power” (i.e., to engage in public predation). And I would add to that that we need “a set of institutions which will encourage (incentivise) bad or selfish men and women to do the most good for others” (and thus avoid the temptation to engage in “private predation”).

I have divided my discussion of “liberal institutions” into five main groups:

1. the overall framework or what Hayek called “The Great Society”
2. legal institutions
3. political institutions
4. economic institutions, and
5. social (or private) institutions

All these institutions require certain “rules of the game” (Buchanan) or “the social rules of engagement” (Boettke) in order to provide some certainty and predicability in “how the game is played” (Hayek). These “rules” make it possible to resolve conflicts and enable cooperation among disparate individuals and groups of individuals without having to resort to the costly and destructive (and in my view immoral) use of force. Furthermore, these “rules of governance” can emerge in two ways, either endogenously and spontaneously through evolution and voluntary cooperation (or what Hayek called “spontaneous orders”), or exogenously by individual creation (what Hayek terms “organisations”) which can be done non-coercively or coercively depending on the circumstances.

I have discussed the overall “framework” (Nozick) or meta-order which Hayek has called “The Great Society”, within which other orders and organisations can flourish and operate freely, in another post: “Classical Liberal Visions of the Future III: Liberal Experiments, Frameworks, and Archipelagos” (11 Oct. 2021) online.

Concerning the other kinds of institutions I will just briefly list some of their key aspects:

Legal institutions:

• the rule of law (common law);
• freedom of contract (exchange of property),
• tort law (compensation for harm and injury),
• arbitration (private) of disputes;
• endogenous and spontaneous emergence/evolution of “the rules of the game” “the rules of governance”

Political institutions:

• constitutional limits on state power,
• freedom of speech and association,
• free and open elections (democracy),
• local governance (to the greatest degree possible)

Economic institutions:

• spontaneous endogenously generated orders,
• free and open markets (price setting and listing),
• exchanges (stock, commodities),
• the division of labour,
• corporations and partnerships

Social institutions:

• also known as civil society (freedom of association)
• there are myriads of private associations, organisations , clubs, societies, churches, unions, co-operatives (with the right to include or exclude whomever they wish as members);
• local communities and neighbourhoods

Let me finish with some quotes from the authors listed at the start of this post: two from Macedo’s book on Liberal Virtues (1990) and Peter Boettke’s The Struggle For A Better World (2021).

Macedo nicely summarizes the CL idea of how “liberal citizens” combine their notion of individual autonomy with a liberal “public life”:

[*Liberal Virtues*, pp. 273-4]: Much of liberal politics will be informed by public moral principles; liberal citizens often recognize the authority of good reasons publicly given and defended; liberal political life should often have an elevating and educating effect.

We should also remember that liberal citizens will not learn justice only, or even mainly, from political participation as it is usually conceived of (voting, discussing candidates and politi­cal issues, campaigning, and so forth). From early on and throughout their lives, liberal citizens learn and apply public norms in their interaction with others, children learn respect for rules and fair play from their parents and from childhood games. They criticize, discuss, listen to others, and take votes, they follow, debate, change, and help enforce rules, at home, in school, at work, in games, and with their friends. They gradually learn to restrain their impulses, to respect others as equals, and to direct and apply their energies with diligence. They learn to make judgments for themselves and hopefully acquire a measure of individuality and autonomy. They learn something about due process, and fairness, and respect for those who are different; they develop judicial, legislative, and executive virtues. All of this takes place without political control, though it is all importantly influenced by our political practices. It would be wrong, therefore, to view participation in campaigns and elections as the sole or even primary font of public virtue: private life goes a long way in helping to prepare us for our public duties.

And:

[*Liberal Virtues*, p. 274}: If liberal autonomy and the practice of liberal politics emphasize activity, initiative, and moral duty, we can expect further effects on the character of liberal citizens. Like the democratic citizens Tocqueville observed, liberals will be willing to take initiatives on their own. And since nothing in the emphasis on individuality and choice would justify the supposition that liberal citizens will pursue self-gratification as a primary end, we should expect liberal citizens to be prepared to combine in voluntary associations for common ends both altruistic and otherwise. Autonomous liberal subjects will prize not isolated activity but the liberty to choose how to be associated, with whom, in what manner, and for what purposes. The public life of liberal subjects will not be con­fined to their political relationships, as critics of liberalism sometimes wrongly assume, but will include participation in the host of clubs and associations that do exist and flourish in liberal societies: the ubiquitous Kiwanis and Rotary, Cham­bers of Commerce, churches, environmental lobbies, retire­ment clubs, Masons, Elks, and Lions.

While, Peter Boettke reminds us that the ultimate end to is to have a society in which individuals and the communities in which they live can flourish and prosper and for all people to enjoy the benefits of “liberal justice”:

[Boettke, Intro to *Struggle*]: However imperfect that (liberal emancipation) project has been pursued in our problematic past— and it has indeed been imperfectly pursued—the struggle remains to understand and pursue a coherent and consistent vision of a society of free and responsible individuals, who can prosper through the voluntary participation in a market society, and live and be actively engaged in caring communities with their family and friends. Humane liberalism, cosmopolitan liberalism, true radical liberalism— this should be the promise of the liberal society to everyone regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. People are people, and liberalism is liberal. We are, after all, one another’s dignified equals. Open and tolerant, peaceful and prosperous, and dynamic and evolving—these are the hallmarks of a humane liberal economic, political, and social arrangement of human affairs.

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

This year Peter Boettke from George Mason University and the Mercatus Center has published a collection of his talks and papers on The Struggle For A Better World (Arlington, Virginia: Mercatus Center, 2021). See the table of contents here and available online as a PDF. See below for a list of Boettke’s works discussed here.

A central theme of these papers is firstly,

1. that from the very beginning the “liberal project” has been “an emancipation project” which has had to “struggle” for victory against very powerful entrenched interests over a period of several centuries;
2. secondly, that this project was left incomplete at the end of the 19thC when the liberal movement began to fade out as an intellectual and political force;
3. and thirdly, that it is the task and the duty of modern-day “true radical liberals”, like himself and his students, to complete the “liberal emancipation project” by reformulating liberal ideals to suit the changed conditions of the 21st century and showing how these ideals and the policies which they inspire can improve the lives of those who have yet to be “emancipated”.

[See the discussion of Richard Ebeling’s idea on the “Five Classical Liberal Crusades” for liberty in “Classical Liberalism as a Revolutionary Ideology of Emancipation” (13 Oct. 2021) online.]

What I want to do in this post is to summarize Peter Boettke’s views on “the liberal emancipation project” and to supply some thoughts of my own to add to those I have expressed in Part I.

The Liberal Project is an Emancipation Project

In my post on “What CL were Against” (12 Aug. 2021) I summarised my thoughts by saying that until the modern era CLs or rather “proto-liberals” identified as their main opponents “Throne” (the monarchy) and “Altar” (the established church). Boettke goes a few steps further, of which I very much approve, by adding four more, namely the Sword (the military), Slavery (one form of coerced labour), the Plough (symbolising two things: the other form of coerced labour, i.e. serfdom, and the traditional very low productivity of peasant agriculture), and Mercantile interests (the vested interests in the manufacturing and trading industries who were able to secure monopoly privileges, subsidies, and tariff protection for their goods from the state). His description of the long and hard “struggle” for emancipation from these impositions on people’s lives, liberties, and properties is worth quoting at length (from the Introduction to The Struggle For A Better World (2021):

The liberal project, I have argued repeatedly throughout my career, was born as an *emancipation project* — freeing individuals from subjugation by the Crown, from the dogma of the Altar, from the violence and oppression of the Sword, from the bondage of Slavery, from the miserable poverty of the Plough and from the special privileges granted to the Mercantile Interests.

We learn from the history of the struggle of the wars for religious toleration, from the long struggle for constitutionally limited democratic government and the rule of law, from the long process of economic development that delivered humanity from crushing poverty and improved the material conditions of billions who were able to live longer and more satisfying lives. Along the way, hard-fought battles for the abolition of slavery, for suffrage for women, for the right of individuals to love whom they want and as they want, had to be won. All of that did happen over the course of history. In fact, it might be impossible to understand the development of the disciplines of economics and political economy without understanding that it evolved simultaneously with the political institutions of liberalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that it must continually evolve in the context of 20th- and 21st-century understanding of liberal cosmopolitanism.

There are a couple of things to note from his account. Firstly, although he doesn’t used the phrase “crusades for liberty” as Ebeling does, his list is quite similar but with the addition of the right to live with or marry someone of the same sex which was very much a late 20th and early 21st century “crusade”.

Secondly, these “emancipations” had to be fought for by specific individuals, at specific historical moments, and these individuals had certain ideas about liberty and justice in their minds which provided them with the motivation to engage in these “struggles.” Boettke is correct to link the development of the disciplines of liberal political theory and liberal political economy with these more practical political movements, which one could say were the application or implementation of these ideas into practice. Thus there is an important interconnection between “Theorie und Praxis” (theory and practice) or as Ludwig von Mises put it, between ideas and human action.

And thirdly, that this liberal project of emancipation is not finished, both in the sense that it was not completed satisfactorily at the time and that there is a great need for several “new emancipations” in the present given the fact that societies have changed so much in the interim. Boettke goes on to say:

However imperfect that project has been pursued in our problematic past— and it has indeed been imperfectly pursued—the struggle remains to understand and pursue a coherent and consistent vision of a society of free and responsible individuals, who can prosper through the voluntary participation in a market society, and live and be actively engaged in caring communities with their family and friends. Humane liberalism, cosmopolitan liberalism, true radical liberalism— this should be the promise of the liberal society to everyone regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. People are people, and liberalism is liberal. We are, after all, one another’s dignified equals. Open and tolerant, peaceful and prosperous, and dynamic and evolving—these are the hallmarks of a humane liberal economic, political, and social arrangement of human affairs.

The Liberal Agenda of Liberty, Prosperity, Peace, AND Justice

The reason for the weakening and then cessation of the classical liberal emancipation movement in the 19thC, even after so much good had already been achieved, was due Boettke argues to a missing element in the “classical liberal” vision of a free society which tended to focus on “liberty, prosperity, and peace”. That missing element was something that “radical liberals” had in abundance in the late 18th and early 19thC and which which the “moderate liberals” (my term not his) of mid-century had largely lost was a passion for “justice”. This was the conviction that government issued privileges to certain groups, high taxes, multitudinous regulations and interventions in the free market, restrictions on what occupations people could or could not enter, were of course costly and inefficient, but the most important factor to the radicals was that they were morally wrong and unjust, that they violated the natural rights to life, liberty, and property that all individuals had by right, caused uncountable hardship and suffering to ordinary working people, and that therefore they had to be abolished immediately. This fervour, this anger, this impatience to see the right and just thing done, and done for all people not just a select few, was palpable in the thoughts and words of radicals like Thomas Paine, Richard Cobden, and Frédéric Bastiat, but it seemed to peter out in the classical liberal movement as the century wore on.

Boettke discusses this missing component in the CL vision in his essay “Fearing Freedom: The Intellectual and Spiritual Challenge to Liberalism” (2014) (reprinted as chap. 12 in The Struggle for a Better World):

As long as the state provides the appropriate laws and institutions—the rules of the game and their enforcement individuals can be left alone to pursue their own projects while realizing the values of liberty, prosperity, and peace through mutually beneficial exchange with one another. The classical-liberal ideal was never fully realized because although the intellectual vision captured the essential role of the state in providing the required infrastructure, there was a lack of attention to the distinction between the political structure and political intervention into the socioeconomic game. As a result, the structural constraints required to limit the negative consequences of politicized interventions were not established. Within a few generations, the classical-liberal ideal failed to inspire.

… critical to the failure to continually inspire was that the classical-liberal list of liberty, prosperity, and peace was incomplete because it omitted justice. The injustice of capitalist distribution inspired instead the socialist vision. The idea of justice, in both its Aristotelian senses of commutative justice and distributive justice, captures the intellectual imagination. The classical-liberal vision is one consistent with commutative justice (equity in the process), but its relationship to distributive justice (equity in outcomes) has always been dubious at best. …

Political machinations that undermine the generality of the rules and instead yield benefits to some at the expense of others must be constantly identified and resisted in a renewed defense of the justice of the classical-liberal order. Only by so doing will the twenty-first-century political economist complete his eighteenth century counterparts’ program and demonstrate the logical affinity between liberty, prosperity, peace, and justice.

Correcting the Intellectual Errors and Political Mistakes of the Past

In addition to the gradual attenuation of the liberal regard for “justice” for all people, the new “liberal state” which emerged in the 19thC in Britain, the US, in France, and elsewhere, faced a number of significant problems which made it very difficult for even well-meaning liberal reformers. These problems were caused by several theoretical and political errors on their part, which it is hoped 21stC radical liberals now better understand and can steps to avoid making in the future. They include:

1. their misplaced hopes for democracy
2. their faith in the benevolence and omniscience of the state and its officials
3. the “presumption of state intervention” replaced “the presumption of liberty” to solve problems
4. that “market failure” was more of a problem than “government failure”
5. their belief that those who “make the rules of the game” should also “referee the game”, and even “play in the game”

For example, it was assumed that democracy itself was enough to bring about the emancipation of those whose rights were being systematically violated by previous state actions and entrenched and powerful vested interest. It was assumed that if only the “right people” got elected and introduced liberal reforms, and if the bureaucrats who administered the reform policies were impartial, fair-minded, and disinterested (as Bentham and James Mill expected them to be), then the liberal reform process would be successful. Without the proper institutional reforms to limit the self-interested behaviour on the part of politicians and bureaucrats who “ran” the state on the one hand (the problem of “public predation”), and the desire and ability of profit-seeking businessmen, industrialists, and financiers who most benefited from the “capitalist system” on the other hand (the problem of “private predation”), then the liberal state would fall victim to the same problems that plague all political systems – the rise to power of venal and corrupt politicians, self-interested bureaucrats, and a legislature which was ripe for the picking by vested interests seeking political rents for a price (what Bentham and Mill called “the sinister interests”).

The work of economists in the tradition of Hayek, Buchanan, and Rothbard have provided modern radical liberals with a much more clear-sighted, realistic, perhaps even cynical view of how politics actually works and thus one might hope that they will not make the same mistakes as their intellectual forebears in the 19thC. As Boettke and Candela observe about the three different forms of liberalism under discussion – radical liberalism, classical liberalism, and modern liberalism:

All three forms of liberalism, we contend, share similar goals, namely to achieve peaceful cooperation among diverse individuals and groups, to eliminate wretched poverty, and to free individuals from the tyranny of others over their lives. In our rendering, the radical liberal is essentially an updated classical liberal who, on the basis of social science and history, is more pessimistic about the constitutional project to constrain public predation and more optimistic about mediating institutions of civil society to ward off private predation. [Boettke and Candela, “Liberal Libertarianism” (2018), Note 3, p. 105.]

Rethinking a “True Radical Liberal” Vision

Given this failure on the part of 19thC liberal states to fully realise their emancipation agenda, liberals in the 21stC according to Boettke need to rethink their vision of what a free society would look like, making sure that they reinstate the notion of justice to its proper place, and how best to place limits on the political structure to make sure it cannot engage in predation itself (public predation) or encourage or enable others to engage in the predation of others (private predation). Boettke is confident that modern “true radical liberals” can develop a “vision of a society that exhibits neither discrimination nor dominion” and that:

Such a society can be made possible only through the establishment of an institutional structure that constrains ordinary politics while also providing the appropriate rules that enable the invisible hand of the market to operate. … (T)wenty-first century political economists must be unwilling to treat rules and their enforcement as given and instead must focus their intellectual attention on the emergence and establishment of the rules of the game themselves. We can see how institutions transform situations of conflict into opportunities for realizing the gains of social cooperation by witnessing how groups across a variety of countries and cultures engage in bottom-up constitution making to solve their societal problems. We can learn to live better together and establish a social order that simultaneously achieves liberty, prosperity, peace, and justice. Such a vision of the “good society” can and must inspire the citizenry not only with the scientific demonstration of the efficacy of freedom, but also with the aesthetic beauty and spiritual meaningfulness of the extensive social cooperation that are possible among free individuals.

The Contribution Liberal Historians can make to this Project

As an historian I would add that 21stC liberal historians also have an important role to play in re-invigorating the classical liberal vision of a free society which would be an important complement to the activities of the political economists. This would include research in the following areas:

1. “market failure”: showing with historical examples that many (most? all?) of the failures attributed to “capitalism” and the free market system (the boom bust cycle, inflation, the tendency toward the formation of monopolies, the growth of inequality, environmental degradation) are not an inherent part of the free market system but the result of government interventions which prevent the market system from operating efficiently and justly.
2. “government failure”: debunking the commonly held view that the government is made up of a group of well-meaning, disinterested people who “are here to help”; that governments have access to more and better information that other people and are thus in a better position to make plans about the future direction the economy and the society should be moving in; that the government can identify “market failures” and have the means and the will to rectify them
3. “the ruling elite”: identifying those individuals and groups (the “vested interests”, the ruling class) who actively seek and get benefits paid for at taxpayer and consumer expence; showing how over time they have become entrenched and very powerful, and how they defend their interests
4. “the great emancipation”: documenting in detail how the “great emancipation” was inspired by classical liberal ideas; who took action to campaign for and bring about these emancipations of serfs, slaves, ordinary working people, women; the opposition they faced and the difficulties they had to overcome; assessing the successes and failures of these movements
5. “the CL tradition”: providing an intellectual history of the origin of the key ideas which make up the ideology of “liberalism”, its sources in the ancient world, its evolution during the medieval period, its emergence in the 17thC in a recognisably modern form, the enormous impact these ideas had in the “era of revolutions” (America and France), the setbacks and failures it experienced and the reasons for this
6. “spontaneous orders”: studies of historical examples of how, when, and why spontaneous orders have emerged, especially endogenously generated legal rules and norms
7. “the state”: histories of how the state arose, who controlled and ran them, how its major institutions emerged and evolved over time (the army, the courts, the bureaucracies, taxation, prisons, central banks, etc), the social and economic crises they caused and how they attempted to solve them, their relationships with other states

My hope is that the theory provided by the new radical liberal political economists and the political philosophers (something I have not written about yet but which deserves its own post) will join with the empirical work of the historians to build a more inspiring and attractive vision of a truly radical liberal society which is based upon the principles of liberty, prosperity, peace, and justice, firmly anchored in the admirable achievements of the emancipations it has already inspired and achieved in the past, and willing and able to seek the much needed emancipations of other oppressed and neglected groups in the future.

Bibliography of Works mentioned above

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. It contains:

• Introduction. “Economic and Political Liberalism: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”
• chap. 1 “The Battle of Ideas: Economics and the Struggle for a Better World” – Speech given as the 12th Sir Ronald Trotter Lecture at the New Zealand Business Roundtable in Wellington, New Zealand, 2006. Published in 2007.
• chap. 3 “Liberty vs. Power in Economic Policy in the 20th and 21st Centuries” – – originally published as “Liberty vs. Power in Economic Policy in the 20th and 21st Centuries” in the Journal of Private Enterprise 22, no.2 (Spring 2007): 7–36. This speech was first delivered as a Plenary Lecture at the 2006 Association of Private Enterprise Education meetings in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Chap. 12 “Fearing Freedom: The Intellectual and Spiritual Challenge to Liberalism” – Published in The Independent Review 18, no. 3 (2013/14): 343–58.
• Chap. 13 “Rebuilding the Liberal Project” – “Edited version of a paper presented at the special meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Stockholm, November 3–5, 2017. Originally published in Centre for Independent Studies’ Policy Magazine 33, no. 4 (2017): 25–35.”
• Chap. 16 “Pessimistically Optimistic about the Future” – Originally published in The Independent Review 20, no. 3 (2016): 343–46.
• Conclusion. “Liberalism, Socialism, and Our Future”

Peter J. Boettke and Rosolino A. Candela, “Liberal Libertarianism,” in The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism. Edited by: Jason Brennan, Bas van der Vossen, and David Schmidtz (New York : Routledge, 2018), pp. 92-107.

Peter Boettke, “The Reconstruction of the Liberal Project,” in F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy and Social Philosophy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 257-81.