An Introduction to Classical Liberal Class Analysis

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An Introduction to Classical Liberal/Libertarian Class Analysis
In my long monograph on Libertarian Class analysis (Blog post and main paper) I have sections which deal with some of the themes which were common to most if not all CLs who wrote on class, as well as a chronological analysis of some of the key thinkers going back to the Levellers of the 1640s.

In this much shorter version I have dispensed with discussing in detail the work of five key figures from the heyday of CLCA (Bastiat, Spencer, Molinari, Sumner, and Pareto) and focussed more on the following key themes:

  1. the central role played by state coercion in creating “class” (understood in its political sense)
  2. the idea that there are two mutually exclusive ways in which wealth can be acquired, “the economic means” (by producing things oneself or by voluntary trade with others) and “the political means” (by the use of force to acquire things other people have produced) (to use Franz Oppenheimer’s terminology)
  3. that those who use “the economic means” to acquire wealth constitute one class which has been variously described as the “productive” or “industrious “ class”, “la classe spoliée” (the plundered class), or more generally as “the ruling class”; and that those who use “the political means” constitute an “unproductive” class, “la classe spoliatrice” (the plundering class), or more generally “the ruled”
  4. that there has been an antagonistic relationship between these two classes which has manifested itself over the centuries as a “class struggle”
  5. that this class struggle and system of exploitation has interested CL historians and political economists in three paradigmatic forms: the conquering class vs. the conquered class; the slave owning class vs. the slaves; and the tax-receivers of consumers vs. the tax payers (with perhaps today a new form of “the regulators” vs. “those who are regulated”)
  6. that societies have evolved over time through stages each with its own particular means of producing wealth and with its own particular types of “ruling class” which extracts this wealth from the producing class

Read a draft of it here: An Introduction to Classical Liberal/Libertarian Class Analysis

Molinari’s articles in the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique (1852-53)

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A Selection of his Articles from the DEP (1852-53)
While he was writing his book Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare over the summer of 1849 Molinari was also working on 30 articles which would appear in the most important publication the Guillaumin publishing firm had undertaken up to that time, namely the Dictionnaire de l’Économie Politique (Dictionary of Political Economy). It was a key part of the Guillaumin firm’s strategy to counter the growing support for socialist ideas revealed by the success of socialist groups like the Montagnards during the 1848 Revolution, and the continuing support for interventionist and protectionist policies by Napoleon’s government during the Second Republic.

To counter these ideas among the general public Guillaumin published works like Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms (1846, 1848) and turned into cheap pamphlets several of his articles written for journals like Le Journal des débats (“The State”) and the Journal des Économistes (“Plunder and Law”) or which they commissioned as stand alone pamphlets like The Law (July 1850). Guillaumin also commissioned younger economists like Molinari to turn their hand to writing for a popular audience like his book Les Soirées.

To counter the false ideas held by the political and intellectual elites which governed France the Guillaumin undertook the massive DEP project in which Molinari played an important role, being a kid of de facto co-editor of the project under Charles Coquelin (who died before the project was completed). The purpose was to assemble a compendium of the state of knowledge of liberal political economy with hundreds of articles written by leading economists on key topics, biographies of important historical figures, annotated bibliographies of the most important books in the field, and tables of economic and political statistics.

The DEP project was most likely conceived in late 1848 or early 1849, was announced in the Guillaumin catalog of May 1849 as being “in preparation,” was made available in subscription form in August 1849, and the first volume of which was printed in book form in early to mid-1852. The end result was a two volume, nearly 2,000 page, double-columned, nearly 2 million word encyclopedia of political economy which appeared in 1852-53.

Molinari was a major contributor to the Project, writing 25 principle articles and five biographical articles. In the acknowledgements he was mentioned as one of the five key collaborators on the project. Other economists who made significant contributors to the project were the main editor Coquelin, who died suddenly in August 1852 before he could start work on volume 2 and who wrote 70 principle articles, Horace Say (29), Joseph Garnier (28), Ambroise Clément (22), and Courcelle-Seneuil (21). Maurice Block wrote most of the biographical entries and Bastiat contributed three which appeared posthumously. Molinari’s articles were the following (those in bold have been translated into English):

Biographical Articles (5):

  1. “Necker,” T. 2, pp. 272-74.
  2. “Peel (Robert),” T. 2, pp. 351-54.
  3. “Saint-Pierre (abbé de),” T. 2, pp. 565-66.
  4. “Sully (duc de),” T. 2, pp. 684-85.

Principle Articles (24):

  1. “Beaux-arts” (Fine Arts) , T. 1, pp. 149-57.
  2. “Céréales” (Grain), T. 1, pp. 301-26.
  3. “Civilisation” (Civilization) , T. 1, pp. 370-77.
  4. “Colonies,” T. 1, pp. 393-403.
  5. “Colonies agricoles” (Agricultural Colonies), T. 1, pp. 403-5.
  6. “Colonies militaires” (Military Colonies), T. 1, p. 405.
  7. “Émigration” (Emigration), T. 1, pp. 675-83.
  8. “Esclavage” (Slavery), T. 1, pp. 712-31.
  9. “Liberté des échanges (Associations pour la)” (Free Trade Associations), T. 2, p. 45-49.
  10. “Liberté du commerce, liberté des échanges” (Freedom of Commerce. Free Trade) , T. 2, pp. 49-63.
  11. “Mode” (Fashion) , T. 2, pp. 193-96.
  12. “Monuments publics” (Public Monuments), T. 2, pp. 237-8.
  13. “Nations” (Nations) , T. 2, pp. 259-62.
  14. “Noblesse” (The Nobility) , T2, pp. 275-81
  15. “Paix, Guerre” (Peace. War), T. 2, pp. 307-14.
  16. “Paix (Société et Congrès de la Paix)” (The Society and Congress for Peace), T. 2, pp. 314-15.
  17. “Propriété littéraire et artistique” (Literary and Artistic Property), T. 2, pp. 473-78
  18. “Servage” (Serfdom), T. 2, pp. 610-13
  19. “Tarifs de douane” (Customs Tariffs), T. 2, pp. 712-16.
  20. “Théâtres” (Theaters), T. 2, pp. 731-33.
  21. “Travail” (Labor), vol. 2, pp. 761-64.
  22. “Union douanière” (Customs Union), vol. 2, p. 788-89.
  23. “Usure” (Usury), vol. 2, pp. 790-95.
  24. “Villes” (Towns) , T. 2, pp. 833-38.
  25. “Voyages” (Travel), T. 2, pp. 858-60.

The seven articles in bold were translated into English for Lalor’s Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy (1881) (see below for details), and are available online here. All thirty in French are available here with an introduction in English.

The topics he focused on were two that were dear to his heart and on which he had already written, namely free trade and slavery. Concerning free trade, he wrote the articles on Grain, Free Trade Associations, Freedom of Commerce. Free Trade, Customs Tariffs, and Customs Union. Concerning slavery, he wrote the articles on Slavery and Serfdom. On more specialised topics on which he would also write in Les Soirées , we should note those on Fine Arts, Literary and Artistic Property, Theaters, Labor, and Usury. Another group of topics that deserve special mention are those to which one normally would not expect to see economic analysis applied, such as Emigration, Fashion, Fine Arts, Public Monuments, and Travel. The latter suggest that Molinari had an innovative way of thinking about all manner of social and cultural problems and using economic analysis to deepen our understanding of them in new and interesting ways. Among these one would include the formation of cities and towns and his growing interest in class analysis

Thirty years after the appearance of the DEP the American political scientist and economist John Joseph Lalor (1840-1899) attempted to do something similar for the English-speaking world with his Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States (first ed. 1881-84, second edition 1899). In addition to his own formidable list of American authors he included translations of one hundred articles from the DEP including many by Bastiat, Henri Baudrillart, Michel Chevalier, Cherbuliez, Ambroise Clément, Charles Coquelin, Léon Faucher, Joseph Garnier, J.E. Horn, Louis Leclerc, H. Passy, members of the Say family, Courcelle-Seneuil, and of course Molinari. This constituted a veritable “who’s who” of the economists in the Guillaumin network. Just as America was moving further into the protectionist camp, Lalor and his colleagues were translating some of the hardest of hard-core French free trade advocates, such as Molinari’s “Freedom of Commerce. Free Trade,” and offering it to American readers. The impact of this infusion of French political economy into America seems to have been minimal if anything, but it was a remarkably undertaking.

See the list of all the articles from the DEP which were translated and published in Lalor’s Cyclopedia.

A History of Libertarian Class Analysis

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Libertarian Class Analysis: An Historical Survey

(M)en placed in society … are divided into two classes, *Ceux qui pillent,—et Ceux qui sont pillés* (those who pillage and those who are pillaged); and we must consider with some care what this division, the correctness of which has not been disputed, implies.
The first class, *Ceux qui pillent*, are the small number. They are the ruling Few. The second class, *Ceux qui sont pillés*, are the great number. They are the subject Many.

James Mill, “The State of the Nation,” *The London Review,* (1835).

This monograph is a continuation of a project I have been working on for many years, most recently for example the anthology of texts I co-edited: Social Class and State Power: Exploring an Alternative Radical Tradition, ed. David M. Hart, Gary Chartier, Ross Miller Kenyon, and Roderick T. Long (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and a paper I gave at the Libertarian Scholars Conference on “Plunderers, Parasites, and Plutocrats: Some Reflections on the Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall of Classical Liberal Class Analysis” – paper.

My hope is to write a book on the history of classical liberal (libertarian) thinking about the nature of state power and the groups of people (“classes”) who win or lose out by having access to this power.

The approach I have taken is to show, firstly the persistence of thinking about class by proto-liberals, classical liberals (CL), radical individualists, and modern day libertarians over several centuries. I believe such thinking is a core component of the broader CL tradition which has for too long been downplayed or outright ignored.

Secondly, to let these thinkers speak in their own words I have quoted the original language alongside my own translation in most cases. This is also to demonstrate the considerable diversity of terms used to describe the class of the exploited and the exploited and what the former does to the latter. Thus I precede each section on a particular thinker with a list of the terms and language they used in their theory of class. This diversity of language is both a plus and a minus for the CL tradition – a plus because it shows the creativity of these thinkers in coming up with often hard-hitting and amusing epithets (often referring to some predatory animal!); and a minus because it meant that to a large degree these CLs did not speak with a common voice in making their case against the exploitation of one class of people by another.

The table of contents of this draft version of the monograph is the following:

Introduction: Two Competing Traditions of thinking about Class – CL and Marxist

Some Common Theoretical Aspects of Classical Liberal Class Analysis
The Central Role played by Organised Coercion
The Shared Structural Framework for CLCA
The Diversity of Terminology about Class
The Rulers vs. the Ruled
The Unproductive vs. the Productive
The Evolution of Class Society
The End of Class Rule?

The History of CLCA (I): Some Different Perspectives on Class
The View from Below
Slaves vs. Slave-owners
Tax-payers vs Tax-receivers/consumers
The “Industrious Classes”

The History of CLCA (II) – Before WW2

The Pre-history of CLCA
Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563)
Levellers Richard Overton (1631–1664) and William Walwyn (1600–1681)
18th Century Commonwealthmen: John Trenchard (1662–1723) and Thomas Gordon (1692–1750)

The Enlightenment
Adam Smith (1723–1790)
Adam Ferguson (1723–1797)
Turgot (1727–1781)
John Millar (1735–1801)

English Radicals and Republicans

American Radicals and Republicans

The Philosophic Radicals and the Benthamites
William Cobbett (1763–1835)
John Wade (1788–1875)
Jeremey Bentham (1748–1832)
James Mill (1773–1836)

The Classical Political Economists: The English School
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
Richard Cobden (1804–1869)

The French Political Economists and the Paris School
Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832)
Benjamin Constant (1767–1830)
Charles Comte (1782–1837), Charles Dunoyer (1786–1862), and Augustin Thierry (1795–1856)
Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850)
Ambroise Clément (1805–86)
Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912)

The Sociological School
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912)
William Graham Sumner (1840–1910)
Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923)

The History of CLCA (III) – The Post-WW2 Renaissance of CLCA
Ludwig von Mises, Murray N. Rothbard, and the Circle Bastiat
Post-Circle Bastiat – the Libertarian Scholars Conferences
Other Works on CLCA by CLs and Libertarians

Other Approaches similar to CLCA
Public Choice and Rent-Seeking
Rational Choice and Predatory Rulers
Mancur Olson and State Banditry
Angelo Codevilla on the Ruling Class vs. the Country Class

Marxists who are “Bringing the State Back In”

Mises on Economic Calculation under Socialism

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“ A Parallel Edition of Ludwig von Mises on Economic Calculation under Socialism (1920) “ with versions of the article in German (facs. PDF and HTML), the Adler English translation, his expansion of his argument into the book Die Gemeinwirtschaft (Socialism) (1922) also in German and English.

2020 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ludwig von Mises’ seminal essay on the inevitable problems faced by socialist central planners in trying to organise a “socialist” economic system. From the mid-19th century onwards classical liberals had pointed out the many serious problems which they thought would hamper socialists from creating a “rationally planned” and well-organised socialist system of production which would not be based on the private ownership of property and the profit system which existed in a free market in the “capitalist system” of production.

However, it would not be until 1920 when Ludwig von Mises, observing the actual efforts of the new Bolshevik communist government in Russia which had come to power in the revolution of 1917, asked the most penetrating question of how socialist central planners could do anything economically rational in an economic system in which there were no prices for goods, labour, raw materials, expertise, or most importantly for capital. He began this investigation in this essay of 1920, and deepened it into a book-length work Die Gemeinshaft (Socialism) (1922, revised ed. 1932), and later, in 1949, in a section of his treatise Human Action, Vol. 3, Part 5 “Social Cooperation without a Market”, especially chapters 25 and 26: 25. “The Imaginary Construction of a Socialist Society” and 26. “The Impossibility of Economic Calculation Under Socialism”). [Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, in 4 vols., ed. Bettina Bien Greaves (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007). Vol. 3. OLL.

We present here his original 1920 essay in a parallel edition showing the German and English translation side by side so readers can see for themselves this important essay which, had economists and politicians taken more seriously in the 1920s and 1930s, might have saved the Russian people from the catastrophe which was central planning.

Gustave de Molinari and the Story of the Monopolist Grocer

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Let us follow our hypothesis to the end. To the extent that the progress of competitive industries makes the lack of improvement of monopolized commerce more noticeable and more damaging, consumers will complain more about this monopoly. However, if it is protected by some ancient superstition, if everybody is convinced that it is the nature of the grocery business that it be exercised as a monopoly, then the complaints will be limited …

As part of my ongoing celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gustave die Molinari (1819-1912) I have written another short essay on his radical proposal to open up all public goods, including the provision of police and defense services, or what he called “la production de la sécurité” (the production of security), to competition on the free market. It also contains a new translation of one of the stories he liked to tell about “the monopolist grocery” who, for rhetorical purposes, was Molinari’s stand-in for the state monopoly security service, or “dis-service” as he would have called it.

His idea was that, if he could get people to agree that having a grocer with a monopoly provide an essential service like food which inevitably resulted in high prices, poor service, lack of choice, and high profits for the monopolist on the grounds of sound economic thinking then, by a matter of logic, these same people should be in favour of the competitive, private provision of security, for exactly the same reasons.

He made these arguments in a journal article in an academic journal in February 1849, in a book aimed at a popular audience in September 1849, and then in his economic treatise published in 1855. The latter had a 50 page chapter which dealt with the economics of public goods and his arguments for why governments inevitably failed to provide them satisfactorily and indeed could never do so for good economic reasons. Needless to say, he was not successful in persuading his colleagues in the Political Economy Society or anyone else for that matter. They all continued steadfastly to believe in what Molinari called “this ancient superstition” that the government monopoly of the use of violence in a given geographical area was both necessary and sanctioned by God.

In spite of this setback in convincing the economic fraternity of the soundness of his ideas, Molinari continued to apply economic ideas in a most original way to the study of the state, its administrative organisation, and its historical evolution for the next 40 years in what ended up being a formidable body of work. By the time he died in 1912 at the age of 92 he had written 44 books and more than 240 articles that we now about.

Not deterred by the failure of his story about the monopolist grocer to persuade anybody (until the 1970s when he was rediscovered in America by Rothbard and his Circle Bastiat in NYC) he changed tack and now referred in his work to “our hypothesis” which was his rather coy way to make the same argument sound a bit less threatening.

I have a sizable and growing collection of Molinari’s books and articles on my website, and the Institut Coppet in Paris is republishing his collected works as we speak. Good luck to them! He wrote a lot.

See the following for further reading:

The draft translation of his 1849 book Evenings on Saint Lazarus Street and the important Soirée no. 11

My translation of his pathbreaking essay from February 1849 on “The Production of Security”

A paper I wrote on the history of the evolution of his thinking on this subject: ”Was Molinari a true Anarcho-Capitalist?: An Intellectual History of the Private and Competitive Production of Security,” a paper at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, NYC (Sept. 2019).

My most recent paper: “Gustave de Molinari and the Story of the Monopolist Grocer”.

The Institut Coppet’s announcement of their Oeuvres complètes de Molinari (Complete Works of Molinari).