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

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

I thought it might be interesting when discussing the different kinds of “liberalism” to borrow from the common practice of distinguishing between the different types of socialism which have appeared over the past 100 years or so, namely utopian socialism, democratic socialism, revolutionary socialism, and state socialism. I think there are some striking parallels:

• utopian socialism: believers form voluntary communities to put socialist ideas into practice; they exist within the broader society; the idea is to show that socialist ways of organising life and work are “better” than the free market (wages, free market prices, profits); examples include Charles Fourier, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and Victor Considerant. Karl Marx was scathing in his criticism of “utopian socialism” and as a contrast regarded his own form of revolutionary socialism as the true “scientific socialism.”
• democratic socialism: socialist party is formed in order to get votes at elections; when a majority of votes are received the socialist program will be enacted piecemeal though parliament; it may take decades to enact the complete socialist program; examples are the Labour Party in England and the Labor Party in Australia (inspired by the ideas of late 19thC “Fabian socialism”), the Social Democratic Party in Germany, and the Socialist Party in France and elsewhere. This form of socialism might also be described as “bottom up” socialism as the driving force behind it comes from organisations of ordinary workers and people in the form of trade unions or mass political parties.
• revolutionary socialism: the socialist party seizes power in a coup d’état or revolution and uses violence to destroy the old system and remove “capitalists” from positions of power and ownership; replaced initially by workers cooperatives (soviets) to run factories; when these fail they are replaced by party appointed managers who then carry out “Five Year Plans” (central planning) set by the party leadership (state capitalism); examples are the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Chinese Communist Party
• state socialism: the state sets economic goals, determines how production is to be carried (and by whom), and what industries get investment for expansion and continued production; attempts to abolish or strictly regulate how much profit can be made; SS can be established by revolution (Russian Bolshevik model), in wartime (Kriegssozialismus – Germany in WW1). This form of socialism might also be described as “top down” socialism as the driving force behind it comes from established political and military elites in order to stave off the threat from below of socialist or labor parties, or to organise the economy in order to fight a long war.

The “liberal” version of these kinds of regimes are / would be utopian liberalism, democratic liberalism, revolutionary liberalism, state liberalism:

• utopian liberalism: believers create experimental, voluntary communities in order to show that ‘freedom works”; Ayn Rand’s “Galt’s Gulch” fantasy / ideal; the “free state” movement where CLs/L move to a small state, get elected to state and local government and enact CL policies (or cutting back on existing taxation, legislation and regulation), possibly with intention of eventually seceding from the larger political unit (the nation state); see Anthony Comegna, “A History of Libertarian Utopianism”, in Visions of Liberty. Edited by Aaron Ross Power and Paul Matzko (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2020), pp. 319-28 – online; Kingsley Widmer “Utopia and Liberty: A Bibliographical Essay” Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought , vol. IV, no. 4, Winter 1981 – Online; Mikayla Novak, “Conceptions of utopia in modern liberal thought: Is there a liberal utopia?” Utopian Studies (forthcoming); Alan Clardy. “Galt’s Gulch: Ayn Rand’s Utopian Delusion.” Utopian Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, Penn State University Press, 2012, pp. 238–62.
• democratic liberalism (also “reformist liberalism”): a CL or L party is formed with a platform of policies which it would like to see enacted (the most radical in my view was the Workers Party platform of 1975); candidates stand for election and attempt to get their policies enacted by parliament; then “rollback” the state over time; the model is the Benthamite / Millian Reform Party of the 1830s, the English Liberal Party (1859) especially during the PM of William Gladstone; modern attempts are the American Libertarian Party (1969??) and the Australian Workers Party. See Joseph Hamburger, James Mill and the Art of Revolution (Yale: Yale University Press, 1963) and Intellectuals in Politics: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (Yale: Yale University Press, 1965); Robert Kelley, The Transatlantic Persuasion: The Liberal-Democratic Mind in the Age of Gladstone (New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1969).
• revolutionary liberalism: CLs fight a revolution against an oppressive state, win power and enact a new Constitution with limited powers granted to the state; model is the American Revolution and perhaps the first stage of French Revolution (before the Jacobin seizure of power), also some CLs who were active participants in the European-wide 1848 Revolutions. See the literature on the American and French (or “transatlantic” revolutions) as liberal revolutions: 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; 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); Jonathan Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (Princeton University Press, 2014), The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775-1848 (Princeton University Press, 2017), and The Enlightenment That Failed: Ideas, Revolution, and Democratic Defeat, 1748-1830 (Oxford University Press, 2019).
• state liberalism: another word to describe the “new liberalism” of the late 19thC and today’s “neoliberalism” where the state is seen not as the enemy of liberty but the means by which an expanded notion of liberty can be put into place; state regulation of “excesses” of free market / capitalism, “safety net” welfare state, compulsory state funded education, considerable regulation of private life (“nanny state”); examples include the Australian Liberal Party 1945, the American Democratic Party, most of the centre left/right political parties in Europe and Australia.

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

Introduction

Having a single utopian vision is the hallmark of the statist or the socialist and it is a vision which they want to impose on others by force if necessary. Only in this way can all the errors and injustices of the old arrangements of society be destroyed and the new, rationally planned, and just arrangements of the new society be created.

The CL/L rejects this idea on two grounds:

1. force is used on non-consenting individuals – hence it is immoral and unjust
2. their schemes will not work because they ignore fundamental principles about human nature (that individuals are selfish or at least self-interested) and they violate important laws or principles of economics (such as the ever present problem of scarcity, opportunity costs, and incentives) – hence it is impractical and unworkable for groups larger than the family or the tribe (as Hayek argues in Law, Legislation and Liberty (1973-79)

This poses a dilemma for the CL/L, which is that, given the facts of human diversity and the complexity of modern societies it would appear that there can be no one, universally agreed upon vision of a free, peaceful, and prosperous future society. How then can the CL/L accommodate different people pursuing their own different visions of the “good life”? Here I would like to discuss four interesting answers to this problem which have been given:

• John Stuart Mill’s idea that people, if free to do so, would undertake “experiments in living” which would both satisfy their own desire to live in a way they thought best for themselves, and provide, through a process of trial and error, examples for others to observe and take up if they were so inclined
• Robert Nozick’s idea of competing utopias in a “framework for utopias” (1974)
• Friedrich Hayek’s idea of a “utopian” vision of a legal “framework” within which a large number of associations and organisations which would make up what he calls “The Great Society”
• Chandran Kukathas – idea of the “liberal archipelago” of multiple jurisdictions (some liberal, some not) in a sea of mutual toleration (2003)

Sources:

• John Stuart Mill, CHAPTER III: “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” in On Liberty (1859)
• Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), “Chap. 10. A Framework for Utopia,” pp. 297-334.
• Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty: A new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy 3 vols. (1973-79)
• Chandran Kukathas, The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Chap. 1 “The Liberal Archipelago,” pp. 19-40.

JS Mill’s idea of “experiments in living” (1859)

[John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)]

In his great book On Liberty (1859) JSM (1806-1873) envisaged a free society in which individuals could engage in “different experiments of living” in an attempt to discover which one worked best and which one best suited their particular needs and interests. He likened the process to that of free speech in which different ideas could be tested in free argument and open debate and those that were found wanting could be ignored, and those that proved their truth or usefulness would remain and be used by others. He believed that there should be many instances of “the trial of new and original experiments in living” and that these so-called “experimentalists” be completely free to do this, so long as they did so at their own cost and did not impose their choice on others against their will. In other words, the way one lived one’s live also operated in a competitive, free market and one could attract adherents to your way of living if your living experiment proved itself like any other good for sale in the market place.

The famous passage from CHAPTER III: “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” in On Liberty (1859):

The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men’s modes of action, not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.

Source: 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).

What JSM was doing here was to take the decades old socialist idea of setting up experimental socialist communities with the twist that, instead of moving to Texas or Indiana to set up these social and economic experiments, and thus cutting themselves off from the broader community and economy, individuals would do this within existing societies, in competition perhaps with traditional ways of arranging one’s affairs, and thus attracting more “adherents” if they were successful, or ultimately failing to attract new members or supporters if they were not. He thought, whatever the outcome, society would be better off because it (or rather some of its members) had the choice to try something new and different. Or not, as the case may be.

Robert Nozick’s Framework for Utopias (1975)

[Robert Nozick (1938-2002)]

116 years after Mill the American philosopher Robert Nozick (1938-2002) argued for something similar in his path-breaking book Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). He begins by posing the question whether or not CL/L have a utopian vision of the society in which they would like to live, and if so, is it a vision that anybody would be willing to “go to the barricades” (and thus possibly risk death) in order to defend or to bring into existence. Sadly he has to admit, that the vision of the moderate liberals of a society ruled by a limited government “lacks luster”, i.e is boring and not likely to inspire any passionate and risk-taking visionaries:

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

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

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

Nozick’s solution to this problem is to admit that limited government in itself is boring as an ideal and not likely to inspire anybody to get out of their study chair (his was at Harvard), let alone their favourite TV viewing chair, to go to the barricades to defend it from its enemies. However, what it does do is to inspire people indirectly by providing a “framework” in which other utopias can be realised and which themselves inspire and motivate people to take action (see pp. 333-340). He describes this “framework” as follows:

a wide and diverse range of communities which people can enter if they are admitted, leave if they wish to, shape according to their wishes; a society in which utopian experimentation can be tried, different styles of life can be lived, and alternative visions of the good can be individually or jointly pursued. The details and some of the virtues of such an arrangement, which we shall call the framework, will emerge as we proceed. (p. 307)

Given human nature, he believed that there would be “many communities trying out different patterns” or “experiments in living” and that there would be “filtering process” which would weed out poorly functioning communities (they would fail, people would leave or “exit”) and leave standing only those that performed well in satisfying the needs of their members. Those that could keep their members or attract new ones would flourish and those that did not would stagnate or be wound up.

What makes Nozick’s argument more interesting and richer than JSM’s is his idea that what he is proposing is not just “a bunch of hippy communes” (not his expression) but what he calls a “meta-utopia”, a utopia which consists of the many individual utopias which have been established by the committed individuals who created them:

The conclusion to draw is that there will not be one kind of community existing and one kind of life led in utopia. Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives under different institutions. Some kinds of communities will be more attractive to most than others; communities will wax and wane. People will leave some for others or spend their whole lives in one. Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his own utopian vision upon others. The utopian society is the society of utopianism. (Some of course may be content where they are. Not everyone will be joining special experimental communities, and many who abstain at first will join the communities later, after it is clear how they actually are working out.) Half of the truth I wish to put forth is that utopia is meta-utopia: the environment in which utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular utopian visions are to be realized stably. (pp. 311-12)

He goes further. The utopia is not the fact that a framework for multiple utopias has been created, but what come out of that framework over a long period of time, say “150 years”. What kind of societies will be produced by this kind of society cannot be known in advance but he is convinced that “what grows spontaneously from the individual choices of many people over a long period of time” is what will be the most interesting thing.

Utopia is not just a society in which the framework is realized. For who could believe that ten minutes after the framework was established, we would have utopia? Things would be no different than now. It is what grows spontaneously from the individual choices of many people over a long period of time that will be worth speaking eloquently about. (Not that any particular stage of the process is an end state which all our desires are aimed at. The utopian process is substituted for the utopian end state of other static theories of utopias.) Many communities will achieve many different characters. Only a fool, or a prophet, would try to prophesy the range and limits and characters of the communities after, for example, 150 years of the operation of this framework. (p. 332)

Nozick’s final argument is that it is the “minimal state” (his expression for limited government) which makes this “framework for utopias” possible by protecting individual property rights, maintaining the rule of law, and keeping coercion to a minimum. This is why, to return to a quote at the beginning, Nozick would “go to the barricades” to defend the ideal of limited government:

The framework for utopia that we have described is equivalent to the minimal state. …

This morally favored state (the minimal state), the only morally legitimate state, the only morally tolerable one, we now see is the one that best realizes the utopian aspirations of untold dreamers and visionaries. It preserves what we all can keep from the utopian tradition and opens the rest of that tradition to our individual aspirations. Recall now the question with which this chapter began. Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision?

The minimal state treats us as inviolate individuals, who may not be used in certain ways by others as means or tools or instruments or resources; it treats us as persons having individual rights with the dignity this constitutes. Treating us with respect by respecting our rights, it allows us, individually or with whom we choose, to choose our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, insofar as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity. How dare any state or group of individuals do more. Or less. (pp. 333-34)

It is a clever argument, as many of Nozick’s are, but ultimately it is still not very satisfying and would probably not assuage Hayek’s deep angst that CL had become a “vision-free” political ideology and was thus doomed to failure in competition with ideologies which do passionately inspire their adherents, such as the socialists of his and our day and the environmentalists today. Afterall, it is the individual utopias within the broader liberal society which inspire people, not the liberal society itself, which is what I think Hayek thought needed to be inspirational if it were to attract adherents.

Friedrich Hayek’s “Great Society” as a Framework of spontaneous orders

[Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)]

Hayek on the Framework of a Liberal Society

In the “consolidated” Preface of the 1982 edition of LLL which combined all three volumes into one, Hayek acknowledges the existence of Nozick’s book ASU but confesses that he did not want to delay publication of volumes 2 and 3 of LLL any further (as he was getting older) in order to read it carefully and do it the justice it deserved in a lengthy and considered response. I also think FAH was unwilling to shift gears intellectually, which is what he would have to do in order to properly engage with Nozick, as Nozick based his defence of CL/L on a very different notion of coercion than the one FAH used. The details of this important difference cannot be discussed here, but Nozick was working within the radical liberal intellectual framework development by MNR which saw the actions of the state as inherently coercive and hence rights violating, while FAH did not and so thought the powers of the state should be much more extensive. Rothbard’s supporters, like Ronald Hamowy, had criticised Hayek’s earlier book The Constitution of Liberty (1960) precisely on this point (to which FAH had replied) and Nozick had built upon that interpretation of coercion in ASU (1974). Hayek couldn’t or wouldn’t change his theory of coercion and continued to argue for a very extensive role for the state in LLL vol3. The Political Order of a Free People (1979) which placed him very much within the “neo-liberal” or “Ordo liberal” camp and not the radical liberal (or libertarian) camp of critics like Hamowy, Rothbard, and Nozick.

In spite of this reluctance, FAH had developed a similar idea of a “framework” within which a liberal order might emerge “spontaneously” as well as continuing to advocate the need for an articulated “utopian” vision to guide or inspire the emergence of this order. In the first volume of Law, Legislation and Liberty “Rules and Order” (1973) he calls the larger, overall, “more comprehensive spontaneous order” within which smaller organisations and spontaneous orders exist “The Great Society” – a kind of “orders within orders” or a “meta-order” as it were:

That the two kinds of order will regularly coexist in every society of any degree of complexity does not mean, however, that we can combine them in any manner we like. What in fact we find in all free societies is that, although groups of men will join in organizations for the achievement of some particular ends, the co-ordination of the activities of all these separate organizations, as well as of the separate individuals, is brought about by the forces making for a spontaneous order. The family, the farm, the plant, the firm, the corporation and the various associations, and all the public institutions including government, are organizations which in turn are integrated into a more comprehensive spontaneous order. It is [47] advisable to reserve the term ‘society’ for this spontaneous overall order so that we may distinguish it from all the organized smaller groups which will exist within it, as well as from such smaller and more or less isolated groups as the horde, the tribe, or the clan, whose members will at least in some respects act under a central direction for common purposes. In some instances it will be the same group which at times, as when engaged in most of its daily routine, will operate as a spontaneous order maintained by the observation of conventional rules without the necessity of commands, while at other times, as when hunting, migrating, or fighting, it will be acting as an organization under the directing will of a chief.

The spontaneous order which we call a society also need not have such sharp boundaries as an organization will usually possess. There will often be a nucleus, or several nuclei, of more closely related individuals occupying a central position in a more loosely connected but more extensive order. Such particular societies within the Great Society may arise as the result of spatial proximity, or of some other special circumstances which produce closer relations among their members. And different partial societies of this sort will often overlap and every individual may, in addition to being a member of the Great Society, be a member of numerous other spontaneous sub-orders or partial societies of this sort as weIl as of various organizations existing within the comprehensive Great Society.

The glue which holds these organisations and smaller spontaneous orders together is voluntary exchange and commerce. “Economic relations” bring together in a peaceful manner people with different needs, tastes, skills, purposes, and most importantly for Hayek “knowledge” who can exchange with each other in mutually beneficial ways. Critics of the market disdainfully called this “the cash nexus”. Hayek renamed it “the economic nexus”, although it also brought under its umbrella many relations of a non-economic nature as well. As he stated in LLL2 “The Mirage of Social Justice” (1976) in the section entitled “Though not a single economy, the Great Society is still held together mainly by what vulgarly are called economic relations”:

The suggestion that in this wide sense the only ties which hold the whole of a Great Society together are purely ‘economic’ (more precisely ‘catallactic’) arouse great emotional resistance. Yet the fact can hardly be denied; nor the fact that, in a society of the dimensions and complexity of a modern country or of the world, it can hardly be otherwise. Most people are still reluctant to accept the fact that it should be the disdained ‘cash-nexus’ which holds the Great Society together, that the great ideal of the unity of mankind should in the last resort depend on the relations between the parts being governed by the striving for the better satisfaction of their material needs.

It is of course true that within the overall framework of the Great Society there exist numerous networks of other relations that are in no sense economic. But this does not alter the fact that it is the market order which makes peaceful reconciliation of the divergent purposes possible-and possible by a process which redounds to the benefit of all. That interdependence of all men, which is now in everybody’s mouth and which tends to make all mankind One World, not only is the effect of the market order but could not have been brought about by any other means. …

The benefits from the knowledge which others possess, including all the advances of science, reach us through channels provided and directed by the market mechanism. Even the degree to which we can participate in the aesthetic or moral strivings of men in other parts of the world we owe to the economic nexus. It is true that on the whole this dependence of every man on the actions of so many others is not a physical but what we call an economic fact. It is therefore a misunderstanding, caused by the misleading terms used, if the economists are sometimes accused of ‘pan-economism’, a tendency to see everything from the economic angle, or, worse, wanting to make ‘economic purposes’ prevail over all others. 13 The truth is that catallactics is the science which describes the only overall order that comprehends nearly all mankind, and that the economist is therefore entitled to insist that conduciveness to that order be accepted as a standard by which all particular institutions are judged.

It is, however, a misunderstanding to represent this as an effort to make ‘economic ends’ prevail over others. There are, in the last resort, no economic ends. The economic efforts of the individuals as well as the services which the market order renders to them, consist in an allocation of means for the competing ultimate purposes which are always non-economic. The task of all economic activity is to reconcile the competing ends by deciding for which of them the limited means are to be used. The market order reconciles the claims of the different non-economic ends by the only known process that benefits all-without, however, assuring that the more important comes before the less important, for the simple reason that there can exist in such a system no single ordering of needs. What it tends to bring about is merely a state of affairs in which no need is served at the cost of withdrawing a greater amount of means from the use for other needs than is necessary to satisfy it. The market is the only known method by which this can be achieved without an agreement on the relative importance of the different ultimate ends, and solely on the basis of a principle of reciprocity through which the opportunities of any person are likely to be greater than they would otherwise be.

Hayek on the need to have a vision of a “liberal utopia”

I have put online the two long quotes where Hayek discusses the need to have a vision of the “liberal utopia” is mind in order to give its advocates some focus and direction in their efforts to create a free society – “Hayek on a Liberal Utopia” (11 Sept. 2021)

Chandran Kukathas and the “Liberal Archipelago” (2003)

The Malaysian-Australian political philosopher Chandran Kukathas has put forward a novel way of looking at the problem of how communities with very different notions of justice and liberty (which are the result of their different ethnic and cultural differences) can co-exist in some reasonably free and mutually beneficial manner.

He states the thesis of his book The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (2003) on p. 4:

(T)he fundamental principle describing a free society is the principle of freedom of association. A first corollary of this is the principle of freedom of dissociation. A second corollary is the principle of mutual toleration of associations. Indeed, a society is free to the extent that it is prepared to tolerate in its midst associations which differ or dissent from its standards or its practices.

Whereas Nozick talks about a free society being a “framework” of competing utopias, Kukathas sees it as an “association of associations” or a “society of societies” (p. 22)

After discussing different metaphors which political theorists have traditionally used to describe political society, such as the “body politic” or “the ship of state”, he prefers to describe the ideal political society using a geographical metaphor, i.e. as an “archipelago” which he describes as follows:

The metaphor offered here to supplant those already describes is one which pictures society as an archipelago: an area of sea containing many small islands. The islands in question, here, are different communities or, better still, jurisdictions, operating in a sea of mutual toleration. (p. 22)

Some of the characteristics of his vision of a liberal society include the following:

• people must be prepared to “live and let live” (p. 30) or tolerate each other’s differences
• accept the fact that there are multiple authorities and jurisdictions where no one is above the other (p. 22)
• that the legitimacy of an authority “rests on the acquiescence of its subjects” (p. 25)
• that such a society will consist of “a mixture of liberal, less liberal, and thoroughly illiberal societies” (p. 27)
• the societies must allow individuals to exercise their right of exit if they find that society objectionable (p. 259)

Kukathas concludes with a description of his vision of the liberal state which emerges from his theory:

The state that emerges out of this understanding is a liberal state of a particular kind. It is one that is not guided by any larger purpose or common vision, or shaped by a particular conception of justice. It is a state made up of diverse parts, some of which might be made in the image of the whole — tolerant and liberal – while others are virtually its antithesis – sectarian and inward-looking. It is not, however, a state which evinces a strong social unity liberalism of the archipelago of discrete and separate, though also sometimes overlapping and interacting communities, jurisdictions, and associations. And in this picture, the state is only one community, jurisdiction, or association among many. It might contain many smaller bodies, but it does not subsume them. It does not make up a body politic. It comes out of the sea, but is no Leviathan, being neither terrible, nor all powerful, nor eternal. And in a matter of generations, it will be gone – broken up and reconstituted in some other configuration yet to be imagined.

The liberal archipelago is a realm of mutual toleration, in which multiple authorities coexist. To the extent that authority is not devolved entirely to smaller units, but is also exercised by agencies that govern across jurisdictions and subsume a number of associations, that authority is limited in its scope and constrained in its power. This is the ideal the framers of the American Constitution had in mind when they devised a new system of government. (p. 266)

My take on this is that the “archipelago” is “lumpy” in that some political “islands” may be very unliberal, for example those run by religious zealots who severely punish homosexuality, drug use, and blasphemy, or those socially conservative traditional societies which make it legally difficult or socially unacceptable for women to seek careers outside the home or own property or seek a divorce. Yet the archipelago itself is “liberal” in that the different political islands have developed a system of “live and let live” between them as this reduces conflict and allows some mutually beneficial trade between them. A “true liberal” might hope that those political “islands of liberty” where extensive individual and social liberty prevail will gradually expand over time and that those political “islands of oppression” will reduce in size, either as people vote with their feet and move to freer political islands or the “climate of opinion” within them changes in a more liberal direction.

Some Questions and Discussion Topics to Consider

Hayek’s Terminology

FAH used a special set of terms in his theory which can get confusing for the reader. Here is a list of some of them (see the detailed table of contents of the three volume Law , Legislation and Liberty for an overview):

• Law: “nomos (the law of liberty”) and “thesis” (the law of legislation)
• Orders: “taxis” (exogenously created or imposed order) and “kosmos” (endogenously evolved or grown/spontaneous order)
• “Orders” and “Organisations”
• “The Great Society” and traditional tribal societies
• the “Open Society” and the “Closed Society”
• the “Market Order” or “Catallaxy”
• “Law”, “Legislation,” and “Rules”
• “Constructivism”, “Constructivist Rationalism” vs. “Evolutionary Rationalism”
• Democracy and “Demarchy”

The Problem of Definition of “Liberal”

We need to sort out a problem of definition because for Americans the terms “liberal” and “conservative” means something very different to you than it does for FAH who comes from a European and English background

• liberal – a “liberal” to an American would be a socialist or a social democrat to a Brit or European; FAH means by “liberal” a supporter of limited government, free markets, and toleration of different beliefs and behaviour; this is somewhat like an American “conservative” (although they are weak on the first two and usually opposed to the third)
• conservative – in the European sense this traditionally meant someone who supported the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the established church; in the modern era someone like Margaret Thatcher could lead the Conservative Party in the late 1970s and 1908s with a program of deregulation, reducing the size of government, and cutting taxes (so again, a bit like an American “Conservative”)
• note that FAH wrote an appendix to the Constitution of Liberty (1960) entitled “Why I am not a Conservative”; this leaves open the question of what were FAH political views – is he a “classical liberal”, a “liberal conservative”, a “new liberal” (neo-liberal – his membership in the Mont Pelerin Society), or an “Ordo liberal” (Walter Eucken Institut, Freiburg)

Some questions which we should be asking ourselves:

Laws and Rules

1. what does Hayek mean by “law” (“nomos the law of liberty”) and how is “law” different from “legislation” (thesis the law of legislation)?
2. what does he mean by “rules” (and “abstract rules”) and how are they “selected” (by whom)?
3. where do laws, rules, and legislation come from? why does FAH prefer “abstract rules” rather than “principles”? how can “rules” be “improved”? [See quote 1 below LLL1 45-46]
4. what does he mean by “the rule of law”? where does he think law comes from? how does it change over time?
5. what role did he think the English common law could play in the evolution of law and legal institutions (LLL1 84)? other “steps in the evolution of law which ultimately made an open society possible” (LLL1, p. 82) were ius gentium the law merchant, practices of the ports and fairs
6. what does he think the role of “judges” have been historically and should be in a free society?
7. what should be the role of “legislators”?
8. important for FAH is the role of judges in preventing harm to the “expectations” of others (LLL1 pp. 101 Fff.) why does he emphasise protecting people’s expectations over protecting the property of individuals, or preventing coercion?

Orders and Orders within Orders

1. what does FAH mean by the term “order”, what kinds of things exhibit “order” and how does he think these “orders” arise and change over time?
2. what is the difference in his theory between an “imposed order” (“taxis” – exogenously created or imposed order (p. 36) and a “spontaneous order” (“kosmos” – endogenously evolved or grown/spontaneous order) ; what arrangements does FAH think should be allowed to develop “spontaneously” and what ones should not (i.e. that legislators should “plan” or impose an “order”?
3. what is the difference between an “order” and an “organisation” in FAH’s view?
4. what does role does FAH believe “reason” should play in the way people “plan” their affairs or structure their society? what role for “custom” and “tradition”? what is the relationship between “reason” and “custom/tradition”?
5. where does “knowledge” come from and how can people best act upon this knowledge of the world around them? in planning their own lives and/or that of society in general?
6. what does FAH mean by the term the “Great Society”? how is it structured and ordered? [See Quote 2 “Orders within Orders” (LLL1 46-47)] How does it differ from Karl Popper’s idea of “the Open Society”?
7. how does this differ from “tribal society”? how does FAH resolve the problem of adapting the beliefs and practices humans developed in a small tribal society to those required to live in a “Great Society”? in his view “socialism” is more suited to human nature than “liberalism”
8. what is the connection between the transmission of socially useful knowledge and the evolution of traditional beliefs, practices, and institutions?
9. are all evolved traditions and customs socially useful and do they promote the development of a free society?
10. what is a “liberal” to do if/when evolved traditions, beliefs, and customs “customs, habits or practices” LLL1, p. 11) harm/retard prosperity and liberty and “need correction by legislation” [See quote 4 on “Why grown law requires correction by legislation” LLL1 pp. 88-89).] ? E.g. slavery of one kind or another seems to be a universal practice (as does the rise to power of a warrior elite, and the gender-based division of labour); did this evolve because it was ”useful” to society (or just slave owners)? how would FAH suggest getting rid of the “injustice” (or economic inefficiency) of slavery?

The Function of Government and the Need to Limit its Powers

1. where does FAH think “rights” come from? what is his view of “natural rights”?
2. what does FAH think the proper role of government should be? [See Quote 3 – the Special “organisation” known as the “government” (LLL1 47-48)] what functions should it have in “emergency” situations? how does the government overcome “the problem of knowledge” in these emergency situations? what kind of CL does this make him (radical, moderate, new/neo (Ordo))
3. how does FAH think the power of government can be limited? and kept limited over time? [See LLL3 for details.]
4. are the constitutional proposals he puts forward to limit the power of government feasible/workable? ever likely to be be attempted/put into practice
5. what does FAH mean by “liberty”? what does FAH mean by “coercion”? how much liberty should be people be allowed to have? how is liberty infringed? who should have the power to coerce others? how much coercion is needed to make a society function (properly)?

Some Other Matters of Interest

1. why does FAH reject the idea of “social justice” (LLL2)? what kind of justice did FAH advocate?
2. what did FAH think about “democracy” and what dangers did he think it posed for liberty and free institutions? how could these dangers be mitigated or avoided?
3. why did FAH think CLs needed a “utopian” vision of the society they wanted to live in?
4. where did FAH get his ideas from? (Smith, Ferguson, Hume) why didn’t he mention Jefferson and the American Constitution as an example? why does he dislike the French liberals so much?
5. how have other scholars made use of / taken further FAH’s ideas about socialism, money, Keynesian monetary policy, constitutionalism and limited government, the evolution of societies, spontaneous orders? how have these scholars applied FAH’s insights? how have they changed or rejected them?
6. how “radical” a liberal was FAH? he is frustrating at times because the libertarian or the “anarchist” within him sometimes pops through the conservative veneer [See Quote 5 Chap. 6 “Thesis: The Law of Legislation” (LLL1 131) and Quote 6 Chap. 6 “Thesis: The Law of Legislation” (LLL1 140).]
7. At other times he seems to be quite naive about the nature of political power, the types of people who are able to rise to the top, and what they do with that power; also the capacity of legislators, and those who work for the government to be disinterested “public servants”

A Concluding Question

1. in what new directions can FAH’s ideas/theories about spontaneous orders be taken?

Some Key Quotes

Quotation 1: On how rules are “selected” and “altered”

Quote 1 – LLL1 “Kosmos and Taxis” 45-46. Section: Spontaneous orders result from their elements obeying certain rules of conduct (pp. 43 ff.)

The question which is of central importance as much for social theory as for social policy is thus what properties the rules must possess so that the separate actions of the individuals will produce an overall order. Some such rules all individuals of a society will obey because of the similar manner in which their environment represents itself to their minds. Others they wiII foIlow spontaneously because they will be part of their common cultural tradition. But there will be still others which they may have to be made to obey, since, although it would be in the interest of each to disregard them, the overall order on which the success of their actions depends will arise only if these rules are generally followed.

In a modern society based on exchange, one of the chief regularities in individual behaviour will result from the similarity of situations in which most individuals find themselves in working to earn an income; which means that they will normally prefer a larger return from their efforts to a smaller one, and often that they will increase their efforts in a particular direction if the prospects of return improve. This is a rule that will be followed at least with sufficient frequency to impress upon such a society an order of a certain kind. But the fact that most people will follow this rule will still leave the character of the resulting order very indeterminate, and by itself certainly would not be sufficient to give it a beneficial character. For the resulting order to be beneficial people must also observe some conventional rules, that is, rules which do not simply follow from their desires and their insight into relations of cause and effect, but which are normative and tell them what they ought to or ought not to do.

We shall later have to consider more fully the precise relation between the various kinds of rules which the people in fact obey and the resulting order of actions. Our main interest will then be those rules which, because we can deliberately alter them, become the chief instrument whereby we can affect the resulting order, namely the rules of law. At the moment our concern must be to make clear that **while the rules on which a spontaneous order rests, may also be of spontaneous origin, this need not always be the case**. Although undoubtedly an order originally formed itself spontaneously because the individuals followed rules which had not been deliberately made but had arisen spontaneously, **people gradually learned to improve those rules**; and it is at least conceivable that the formation of a spontaneous order relies entirely on rules that were deliberately made. **The spontaneous character of the resulting order** [46] must therefore be distinguished from **the spontaneous origin of the rules on which it rests**, and it is possible that an order which would still have to be described as spontaneous rests on **rules which are entirely the result of deliberate design**. In the kind of society with which we are familiar, of course, only some of the rules which people in fact observe, namely some of the rules of law (but never all, even of these) will be the product of deliberate design, while most of the rules of morals and custom will be spontaneous growths.

That even an order which rests on **made rules** may be spontaneous in character is shown by the fact that its particular manifestation will always depend on many circumstances which the designer of these rules did not and could not know. The particular content of the order will depend on the concrete circumstances known only to the individuals who obey the rules and apply them to facts known only to them. It will be through the knowledge of these individuals both of the rules and of the particular facts that both will determine the resulting order.

Quotation 2: Orders within Orders

LLL1, Kosmos and Taxis pp. 46-47. Section: The spontaneous order of society is made up of individuals and organizations

In any group of men of more than the smallest size, collaboration will always rest both on spontaneous order as well as on deliberate organization. There is no doubt that for many limited tasks organization is the most powerful method of effective co-ordination because it enables us to adapt the resulting order much more fully to our wishes, while where, because of the complexity of the circumstances to be taken into account, we must rely on the forces making for a spontaneous order, our power over the particular contents of this order is necessarily restricted.

That the two kinds of order will regularly coexist in every society of any degree of complexity does not mean, however, that we can combine them in any manner we like. What in fact we find in all free societies is that, although groups of men will join in organizations for the achievement of some particular ends, the co-ordination of the activities of all these separate organizations, as well as of the separate individuals, is brought about by the forces making for a spontaneous order. The family, the farm, the plant, the firm, the corporation and the various associations, and all the public institutions including government, are organizations which in turn are integrated into **a more comprehensive spontaneous order**. It is [47] advisable to reserve the term ‘society’ for **this spontaneous overall order** so that we may distinguish it from all the organized smaller groups which will exist within it, as well as from such smaller and more or less isolated groups as the horde, the tribe, or the clan, whose members will at least in some respects act under a central direction for common purposes. In some instances it will be the same group which at times, as when engaged in most of its daily routine, will operate as a spontaneous order maintained by the observation of conventional rules without the necessity of commands, while at other times, as when hunting, migrating, or fighting, it will be acting as an organization under the directing will of a chief.

The spontaneous order which we call a society also need not have such sharp boundaries as an organization will usually possess. There will often be a nucleus, or several nuclei, of more closely related individuals occupying a central position in a more loosely connected but more extensive order. Such **particular societies within the Great Society** may arise as the result of spatial proximity, or of some other special circumstances which produce closer relations among their members. And different **partial societies** of this sort will often overlap and every individual may, in addition to being a member of the Great Society, be a member of **numerous other spontaneous sub-orders or partial societies** of this sort as weIl as of **various organizations existing within the comprehensive Great Society**.

Quotation 3: the Special “organisation” known as the “government

LLL1 47-48

Of the **organizations existing within the Great Society** one which regularly occupies a very special position will be that which we call government. Although it is conceivable that the spontaneous order which we call **society may exist without government**, if the minimum of rules required for the formation of such an order is observed without an organized apparatus for their enforcement, in most circumstances the organization which we call government becomes indispensable in order to assure that those rules are obeyed.

This particular function of government is somewhat like that of a maintenance squad of a factory, its object being not to produce any particular services or products to be consumed by the citizens, but rather to see that the mechanism which regulates the production of those goods and services is kept in working order. The purposes for which this machinery is currently being used will be determined by those who operate its parts and in the last resort by **those who buy its products**.
[47]

The same organization that is charged with keeping in order an operating structure which the individuals will use for their own purposes, will, however, in addition to the task of enforcing the rules on which that order rests, usually be expected also to **render other services** which the spontaneous order cannot produce adequately.

These two distinct functions of government are usually not clearly separated; yet, as we shall see, the distinction between the **coercive functions** in which government enforces rules of conduct, and its **service functions** in which it need merely administer resources placed at its disposal, is of fundamental importance. In the second it is one organization among many and like the others part of a spontaneous overall order, while in the first it provides an **essential condition for the preservation of that overall order**.

In English it is possible, and has long been usual, to discuss these two types of order in terms of the distinction between ‘society’ and ‘government’. There is no need in the discussion of these problems, so long as only one country is concerned, to bring in the metaphysically charged term ‘state’. It is largely under the influence of continental and particularly Hegelian thought that in the course of the last hundred years the practice of speaking of the ‘state’ (preferably with a capital ’S’), where ‘government’ is more appropriate and precise, has come to be widely adopted. That which acts, or pursues a policy, is however always the organization of government; and it does not make for clarity to drag in the term ‘state’ where ‘government’ is quite sufficient. It becomes particularly misleading when ‘the state’ rather than ‘government’ is contrasted with ‘society’ to indicate that **the first is an organization and the second a spontaneous order**.

Quotation 4: Why grown law requires correction by legislation

Chap. IV The Changing Concept of Law. Section “Why grown law requires correction by legislation” LLL1 pp. 88-89.

*Why grown law requires correction by legislation*

The fact that all law arising out of the endeavour to articulate rules of conduct will of necessity possess some desirable properties not necessarily possessed by the commands of a legislator does not mean that in other respects such **law may not develop in very undesirable directions**, and that when this happens correction by deliberate legislation may not be the only practicable way out. For a variety of reasons the spontaneous process of growth may lead into **an impasse from which it cannot extricate itself by its own forces** or which it will at least not correct quickly enough. The development of case-law is in some respects a sort of one-way street: when it has already moved a considerable distance in one direction, it often cannot retrace its steps when some implications of earlier decisions are seen to be clearly undesirable. The fact that law that has evolved in this way has certain desirable properties does not prove that it will always be good law or even that some of its rules may not be very bad. It therefore does not mean that we can altogether dispense with legislation. 35

There are several other reasons for this. One is that the process of judicial development of law is of necessity gradual and may prove too slow to bring about the desirable rapid adaptation of the law to wholly new circumstances. Perhaps the most important, however, is that it is not only difficult but also undesirable for judicial decisions to reverse a development, which has already taken place and is then seen to have undesirable consequences or to be downright wrong. The judge is not performing his function if he disappoints reasonable expectations created by earlier decisions. Although the judge can develop the law by deciding issues which are genuinely doubtful, he cannot really alter it, or can do so at most only very gradually where a rule has become firmly established; although he may clearly recognize that another rule would be better, or more [88] just, it would evidently be unjust to apply it to transactions which had taken place when a different rule was regarded as valid. In such situations it is desirable that the new rule should become known before it is enforced; and this can be effected only by promulgating a new rule which is to be applied only in the future. Where a real change in the law is required, the new law can properly fulfil the proper function of all law, namely that of guiding expectations, only if it becomes known before it is applied.

**The necessity of such radical changes of particular rules** may be due to various causes. It may be due simply to the recognition that some past development was based on error or that it produced consequences later recognized as unjust. But the most frequent cause is probably that the development of the **law has lain in the hands of members of a particular class** whose traditional views made them regard as just what could not meet the more general requirements of justice. There can be do doubt that in such fields as the law on the relations between master and servant,36 landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor, and in modern times between organized business and its customers, **the rules have been shaped largely by the views of one of the parties and their particular interests**-especially where, as used to be true in the first two of the instances given, it was one of the groups concerned which almost exclusively supplied the judges. This, as we shall see, does not mean that, as has been asserted, ‘justice is an irrational ideal’ and that ‘from the point of rational cognition there are only interests of human beings and hence conflicts of interests’, 37 at least when by interests we do not mean only particular aims but long-term chances which different rules offer to the different members of society. It is even less true that, as would follow from those assertions, a recognized bias of some rule in favour of a particular group can be corrected only by biasing it instead in favour of another. But such occasions when it is recognized that some hereto accepted rules are unjust in the light of **more general principles of justice** may well require the revision not only of single rules but of whole sections of the established system of case law. This is more than can be accomplished by decisions of particular cases in the light of existing precedents.

Quotation 5: The “Radical” Hayek I

Chap. 6 “Thesis: The Law of Legislation” (LLL1 131)

It will be useful at this point briefly to interrupt our main argument to consider a certain ambiguity of the concept of ‘government’. Although the term covers a wide range of activities which in any orderly society are necessary or desirable, it also carries **certain overtones that are inimical to the ideal of freedom under the law**. There are, as we have seen, two distinct tasks included under it which must be distinguished: the enforcement of the universal rules of just conduct on the one hand, and, on the other, the direction of the organization built up to provide various services for the citizens at large.

It is in connection with the second group of activities that the term ‘government’ (and still more the verb ‘governing’) carries misleading connotations. The unquestioned need for a government that enforces the law and directs **an organization providing many other services** does not mean, in ordinary times, that the private citizen need be governed in the sense in which the government directs the personal and material resources entrusted to it for rendering services. It is usual today to speak of a government ‘running a country’ as if the whole society were an organization managed by it. Yet what really depends on it are chiefly certain conditions for the smooth running of those services that the countless individuals and organizations render to each other. **These spontaneously ordered activities of the members of society certainly could and would go on even if all the activities peculiar to government temporarily ceased**. Of course, in modern times government has in many countries taken over the direction of so many essential services, especially in the field of transport and communication, that the economic life would soon be paralysed if all government- directed services ceased. **But this is so not because these services can be provided only by government, but because government has assumed the exclusive right to provide them**.

Quotation 6: The “Radical” Hayek II

Chap. 6 “Thesis: The Law of Legislation” (LLL1 140)

When we speak of administrative measures, we generally mean the direction of particular resources towards the rendering of certain services to determinable groups of people. The establishment of a system of schools or health services, financial or other assistance to particular trades or professions, or the use of such instruments as government possesses through its monopoly of the issue of money, are in this sense measures of policy. It is evident that in connection with such measures the distinction between providing facilities to be used by unknown persons for unknown purposes, and providing facilities in the expectation that they will help particular groups, becomes a matter of degree, with many intermediate positions between the two extreme types. **No doubt if government became the exclusive provider of many essential services, it could, by determining the character of these services and the conditions on which they are rendered, exercise great influence on the material content of the order of the market**. For this reason it is important that the size of this ‘public sector’ be limited and the government do not so co-ordinate its various services that their effects on particular people become predictable. We shall later see that **it is also important for this reason that government have no exclusive right to the rendering of any service other than the enforcement of rules of just conduct, and thus should not be in a position to prevent other agencies from offering services of the same kind when possibilities appear of providing through the market what perhaps in the past has been impossible thus to provide**.

[Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)]

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

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

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

“The Intellectuals and Socialism” (1949)

(Section) VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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