{"id":1064,"date":"2021-05-30T07:18:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-29T20:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2026-06-27T13:37:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:37:29","slug":"the-scandalous-neglect-of-classical-liberal-sociology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidmhart.com\/wordpress\/the-scandalous-neglect-of-classical-liberal-sociology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Scandalous Neglect of Classical Liberal Sociology"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Histories of the discipline of sociology usually give short shrift to the classical liberal tradition. ((See for example the massive and comprehensive (weighing in at 5 vols. and over 5,000 pages) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer<\/em> (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Second Edition. Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg editors.<\/em> (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006); and the International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology. Edited by Jens Beckert and Milan Zafirovski<\/em> (London and New York: Routledge, 2006, 2011).)) Sometimes Alexis de Tocqueville gets a mention; Herbert Spencer is dismissed as an anachronism who is barely worth reading anymore; some technical aspects of Pareto\u2019s thought is readily discussed but his \u201cfascist\u201d turn in the 1920s is a cause for worry and a reason to dismiss much of the rest of his work; and of course Max Weber is seen as a pivotal figure in the development of the modern discipline.<\/p>\n

However, most of the space in these histories (including dictionaries and encyclopedias like those by Blackwell, Princeton, and Routledge) is devoted to socialist and other statist-inspired authors whose intellectual lineage goes back to Auguste Comte and Karl Marx. This is to get everything backwards in my view, as these \u201csocialist sociologists\u201d came after a lot of significant work in establishing the foundations of the disciple were laid by \u201cliberal sociologists\u201d. I have tried to show this alternative lineage in my anthology of classical liberal class analysis (CLCA) entitled \u201cPlunderers, Parasites, and Plutocrats: An Anthology of Classical Liberal Writing on Class Analysis from Bo\u00e9tie to Buchanan\u201d<\/a> and in a monograph, a shortened version of which is destined to appeared as a chapter on \u201cClass\u201d for the Routledge Companion to Libertarianism<\/em> ed. Matt Zwolinski (forthcoming). In that work I sketch out a distinguished line of thinkers stretching back to the Levellers in the 1640s who should be included in any good history of sociological analysis, especially one that is interested in the emergence of institutions like private property, voluntary association, trade between individuals, the emergence of markets and other complex economic institutions, the emergence of the state, slavery and serfdom and others forms of exploitation, war, and so on.<\/p>\n

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The sticking point for the mainstream approach to the study of sociology is that they cannot get the idea into their heads that voluntary market relations, especially the payment of wages, are NOT necessarily an exploitative relationship, as well as the idea that every action of the state and its officers IS coercive in nature and this has a profound impact on the way people think, behave, and organise themselves.<\/p>\n

I have endeavored to rectify this situation by putting online in HTML and facs. PDF formats some of the best work to be found in this classical liberal sociology so it can act as a counterweight to this massive disproportion in the traditional literature. Over the past few months I have worked on the following individuals, especially the \u201cthree greats\u201d – Gustave de Molinari, Herbert Spencer, and William Graham Sumner.<\/p>\n

A Survey of the Some CL Sociologists who wrote on Class Analysis<\/h2>\n

See my draft of a monograph on \u201cLibertarian Class Analysis: An Historical Survey\u201d (Sept. 2020)<\/a> and a shorter version of this \u201cAn Introduction to Classical Liberal\/Libertarian Class Analysis\u201d ( Oct. 2020)<\/a>. Also the anthology I helped put together on \u201cthe alternative tradition\u201d of thinking about class: Social Class and State Power: Exploring an Alternative Radical Tradition<\/em>, ed. David M. Hart, Gary Chartier, Ross Miller Kenyon, and Roderick T. Long (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).<\/p>\n

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), James Mill (1777-1836) and \u201cthe sinister interests\u201d<\/h2>\n

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[James Mill (1770-1836)]<\/p>\n

Jermey Bentham and James Mill were pioneering early 19th century political sociologists with their analysis of the \u201csinister interests\u201d who ran the state for their own private benefit and not that of the \u201cgeneral interest.<\/p>\n

See my short discussion of \u201cJames Mill and Jeremy Bentham on Class\u201d<\/a> and an anthology of James Mill\u2019s writings on politics \u201cThe Political Writings of James Mill: Essays and Reviews on Politics and Society, 1815-1836\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Charles Comte (1782-1837) and Charles Dunoyer (1786-1862) on the evolution of law, property, markets, and \u201cindustrial\u201d societies<\/h2>\n


\n[Charles Dunoyer (1786-1862)]<\/p>\n

Except for a very few historians and sociologists (the most notable being the Canadian sociologist Robert Leroux) the work of Comte and Dunoyer have been largely forgotten in spite of the great work they did in the late Empire and early Restoration period. I began gathering some of their most interesting essays which they published into journals, Le Censeur<\/em> (1814-1815) and Le Censeur europ\u00e9en<\/em> (1817-1819) as part of my bicentennial celebrations of the work. They wrote on the impact of war on economic and political development, the emergence of a new class of productive workers they called \u201cles industrieux\u201d, the nature of dictatorships, and a theory of historical development which they called the \u201cindustrial theory of history\u201d.<\/p>\n

A future project is to put online their most important work in HTML. It is a scandal that none of their work has been republished in French, let alone translated into English.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: I wrote my PhD on them several decades ago.<\/p>\n

I have all their work online but only in facs. PDF format:<\/p>\n