Liberalism: from
Philosophy to Politics
In
researching this article I decided to look for liberal philosophers, and in
Wikipedia some 80 are listed, but I have picked out some dozen to illustrate
the development of ‘liberalism’ a word that first appeared in the 1810s.
Let us first look at
the Chinese thinker Lao-Tze (6th century BC), founder of Taoist
philosophy. In general, he did not think people deserved or needed freedom: he
thought it counter-productive to do otherwise.
Thus his economic views were
not by implication laissez-faire, since his maxim ‘wei wu wei’, do without
doing implied an objective.
Aristotle is noted
for his work Hê politikê, in which
happiness is his main objective. He
believed that oligarchy was a ‘good thing’ but too profit-motivated, and
democracy was a ‘bad thing’, serving only the poor, and that meritocracy was
the best thing only not feasible.
Therefore the best solution was a compromise, the ‘polity’ combining
democracy and oligarchy. Some economic points: (i) note the parallel
between oligarchy and modern-day oligopoly, and (ii) Aristotle was a firm
believer in private property, thinking it more effective than property-less
examples among the ‘barbarians’.
Niccolò Machiavelli
(Florence, 1469–1527), the ‘realist’ political philosopher, has been seen by
later generations as a cold schemer, who worked in the environment of the many
Italian states, principalities and republics, which latter he preferred,
despite the name of his most famous work, Il Principe, The Prince. In general,
he argued that that liberty was a central good that government should
protect. In this he conflicted with
those who believe freedom requires small government.
.
Thomas Hobbes
(England, 1588–1679) has been identified by Leo Strauss as the ‘father of
liberalism’, but his principle theme was that government was motivated by
‘interest’, an important term which transcends politic and economic. But he believed that only strong government
could restrain unchecked interest.
Before turning to
Locke, we should look at Baruch Spinoza (Netherlands, 1632–1677), a Jew with complete commitment to
determinism, for whom freedom could only be the freedom to say ‘yes’. We must note this issue, since other
philosophers discussed here have not notably addressed it.
John Locke (England,
1632–1704) believed in “man’s” ‘natural rights’, which he considered to be
life, liberty and ‘estate’ (property) as well as tolerance. In economic
terms , his theory or property was based on actions rather than inheritance.
John Locke died in
1704, some 70 years before Adam Smith’s Wealth
of Nations (1776). But we must take
Smith together with Anders Chydenius (Finland (then a part of the Swedish
realm), 1729–1803) a Finnish priest representing the clergy in Sweden’s
four-estate parliament, whose main output was in 1766, ten years earlier. He advocated complete economic and individual
freedom, which included workers’ rights of mobility, choosing their employer,
freedom of speech and trade. And abolition of wage and price controls. He helped draft Sweden’s 1766 Constitutional
Law on the Freedom of Printing, which is the forerunner of many natons’ freedom
of information laws. Along with Adam
Smith he had a concept similar to the ‘invisible hand’.
Adam Smith (Great
Britain, 1723–1790) was indeed the founder of economic liberalism, though we
see its seed with a number of thinkers before him. His economic liberalism included the
abolition of slavery, but he outlined the idea that finite resources will be
put to ultimately their most efficient use if people were allowed to get on
with it and act in their self-interest.
Smith does of course have his critics and disciples, notably Mrs
Thatcher with her apparent tenet that greed is good.
We can take together
Jeremy Bentham (United Kingdom, 1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (United
Kingdom, 1806–1873). Bentham is known as
an early utilitarian, and his individual freedoms were far-ranging and well
ahead of his time. They included
equality for women, abolition of slavery and separation of church and
state. His economic liberties included
free prices, free trade and no restrictions on interest, and the end of
colonialism. But he was an
interventionist regarding control of monopolies, pensions and health insurance.
Mills’ liberalism
coincided with the shift from Whigs to Liberals round 1868, and most of the
period of Gladstone’s first of four Liberal Governments. He is said to be an early champion of the
latter. He believed in the pursuit of
happiness as the ‘highest normative principle’ rather than a right. In this regard he was a utilitarian and has
been considered the founder of ‘Social Liberalism’: he accepted state intervention
if there were sufficient utilitarian grounds.
We thus see a marriage of utilitarianism and a concept of social
liberalism.
Thorstein Veblen
(1857–1926) was born roughly at the start of Mills’ last 15 years. He was influential to those in America who
saw liberalism as seeking a rational basis for the economy above competition
and seeking of monopoly power. His
central argument was that individuals required non-economic time to become
educated individuals.
Veblan died in 1926,
when Friedrich Hayek (Austria/United Kingdom/United States/Germany, 1899–1992)
was starting to develop the philosophies of neo-liberalism, in which the market
supplant any concept of social justice.
Neo-liberalism states that the states role is to ploice the free working
of the market. He did in fact predict the
Greta Depression, but strongly opposed the views of John Maynard Keynes
(Britain, 1883–1946). Apparently the two
became friends as air-raid wardens during WWII.
It was of course the conflicting views of Hayek and Keynes that revealed
the conflict between economic and social liberalism.
I could say more
about Milton Friedman (United States, 1912–2006, economist) and Noam Chomsky
(United States, 1928– , linguist), but I shall conclude with the ideas of
Isaiah Berlin (Latvia/United Kingdom, 1909–1997). He is famous for distinguishing two concepts
of liberty 'positive' and 'negative' liberty which he saw as mutually opposing
concepts. Positive liberty arouse
through state power to ‘liberate’ humankind from its worst aspects and was in
danger of sliding into totalitarianism.
On the other hand, negative liberty required that individuals were given
maximal freedom from external constraints, as long as the like rights of others
were not violated.
I stress this
dichotomy because in my own arguments I have used a similar but different
dichotomy: freedom from and freedom to.
Strangely freedom-to corresponds almost exactly to negative liberty,
without the emphasis on the external. To
my mind this is the essence of Social Liberalism: the freedom to do as one wishes
provided that other people’s like freedom is not violated. To my mind this is part of single-person
ethics if one wishes to consider ethics in axiomatic terms. Freedom-from is generally emphasised by
neo-liberals, for who freedom-to is less important. Freedom-from is in fact in conflict with
positive liberty.
If we take the step from philosophers, to my
mind, the Whigs and Liberal successors differed from Conservatives in the way
they managed imperialism. Unlike Bentham
they were in favour of colonialism. But
liberals knew when to advance and when to retreat. But conservatives do not really know how to
advance, but cling on to what they have
got, even when wisdom counsels retreat.
To my mind part of their motivation lies in the libs having a stronger
capital base.
The European liberals are on the advance,
mainly in partnership with the Christian Democrats, while British Tories are
resisting retreat. So I believe are the Americans, with all their machinations
in Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere.
LibDems are a different animal altogether:
they are civic liberals, ambiguous between the economic and the social. People
usually talk of a dichotomy between economic and social liberalism, but much of
what is called social liberalism is really civic.
I have finished by turning from philosophers
to politicians. Many philosophers are also politicians. like Thomas Jefferson
and the Finn Chydenius. Many too were close to politicians, like Machiavelli,
Keynes and Friedmann.
In this paper, social liberalism is something
that is rearing its head: John Stuart Mill and Chomsky are names which might be
associated with social liberalism, but this requires a closer examination at
some later stage.
Martin Prior
The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 50 'Open Topic'
