Classical-Liberal

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Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism and laissez-faire liberalism, or, in much of the world, simply called liberalism) is a doctrine stressing the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitations of government, free markets, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of Adam Smith, John Locke, John Stuart Mill and others. As such, it is seen as the fusion of economic liberalism with political liberalism. The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that laissez-faire economics will bring about a spontaneous order or invisible hand that benefits the society.

The qualification classical was applied in retrospect to distinguish early nineteenth-century liberalism from evolutions in liberal thought during the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially the "new liberalism" associated with Thomas Hill Green, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and Franklin D. Roosevelt, which grants a more interventionist role for the state and establishing “positive rights” such as a right to a decent living. Classical liberalism is not to be confused with the ideology that is commonly called "liberalism" today in the United States.

Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises are credited with a revival of classical liberalism in the 20th century after it fell out of favor beginning in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century.

Original entry:

2007-10-12 — The Concept of Liberalism

This blogger espouses liberalism. But in 21st century America, the concept has almost been destroyed. The word liberal was stolen and perverted. It now stands for politicians being liberal with your money, for coerced equality, common ownership, favoring of the undeserving, redistribution, liberalism stands for statism and socialism. I aim to take it back. It is awkward to call this philosophy "classical liberalism." It sounds reactionary and conservative. But until those who espouse true liberalism have recaptured the word, classical liberalism must be used to distance ourselves from the corrupt American liberals.

Classical liberalism is radical. It stands for a social order that has not been fully tried, although the original conditions of the United States came close.

Definitions

(from Webster's Dictionary):

Liberty: freedom from arbitrary or despotic control

Liberal: not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms

Liberalism: a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition

Ludwig von Mises said it well:

"First, I employ the term 'liberal' in the sense attached to it every-where in the nineteenth century and still today in the countries of continental Europe. This usage is imperative because there is simply no other term available to signify the great political and intellectual movement that substituted free enterprise and the market economy for the precapitalistic methods of production; constitutional representative government for the absolutism of kings or oligarchies; and freedom of all individuals f[rom] slavery, serfdom, and other forms of bondage."

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action,
Foreword to the second edition.

True liberalism is:

• A market economy
• Constitutional representative government
• Individual freedom from slavery of any kind: liberty under the the rule of law
• Respect for the rights of first possession, freedom of contract, restitution, self-defense and several property.
• Individualism, society is a derivative.
• Self-ownership. Individuals own themselves and the product of their intelligence and effort. They have ownership of what they found first, that no one else has posted a first claim to, and ownership of everything gotten by legal exchanges.
• Full right to enter into contracts or to refrain from so doing.
• Restitution rather than punishment and fines paid to the state. When someone infringes on one's liberty they should make restitution, compensating for the damage, rather than being punished.
• Having the freedom to do what one wills as long as the actions do not physically harm any other human.
• Prohibiting the initiation of force or fraud. If an opposite concept helps define liberty it is coercion. Against these threats, every person has full right of self-defense.
• The pursuit of happiness, which so many prize, is held to be impossible without several property, or dispersed rather than common property.

Natural Rights

At the heart of liberalism is the concept of natural rights. Natural rights are claims to be allowed to do what one wants with the resources one has as long as they do no physical harm to others, and these rights imply the duty of others to allow this, not to interfere. Natural rights are negative rights, they are claims to be allowed to be oneself, to tend to one's life's projects. They are not positive rights such as a right to a decent home or job.

Human beings are selves, which must be treated as ends in themselves, and never merely as means. A human being owns herself or himself. Human beings have property in themselves. And what human beings create by their minds and hands are their property also. This forms the foundation from which specific rights are derived. A specific description of the rights claimed by liberalism is discussed later.

Rights denote liberties, not license. If someone complains (facetiously or otherwise) that liberalism is self-contradictory since he is not allowed his freedom to steal or rape, he is not talking about liberalism. You are free to place your knife anywhere but not it my chest. You can swing your fists all around you, but it cannot connect with my nose.

Liberty

Liberty is usually synonymous with freedom. But liberalism prefers the word liberty, since freedom is used to denote a wider and inconsistent set of values. One can be set free from jail or a trap; one can be free of disease; free from hunger; free from one's spouse; free of debt; released from captors; something can be free of charge, unencumbered by debt, or one can feel free as a bird.

The liberty that is promoted here is not to be confused with an inner freedom (from bad judgment, or fear or worries, or freedom to have peace of mind) or with civil liberties which are political liberties (which are not inherent in human nature or required by it, but which are defined groups of people forming a government, and which make living in society convenient and workable).

Some people feel freedom means the absence of all evils and the possession of all good things. It connotes positive rights at times, such as a freedom from want, from hunger, from poverty. See F.D. Roosevelt's “Second Bill of Rights.” It connotes power to satisfy one's wishes, power over natural forces and an absence of obligations. Equal opportunity is to some not equality unless everyone has the effective power to be equally likely to get the job of their wishes, regardless of merit.

The liberty that liberalism espouses implies rights that are compossible: they are those rights and liberties that can co-exist and be possessed equally by everyone. A liberal economy does not mean an economy with no holds barred, without rules, or a laissez faire world. A truly liberal economy must be compatible with the rule of law.

The History of Liberalism

What goes by the name of liberalism has not always been a consistent, unchanging program or philosophy. People have misappropriated the name for other philosophies and political movements. Also, various extreme conditions of society have produced distortions, introducing contradictions which were aimed at correcting social ills. During times of widespread economic misfortune liberalism has sometimes brought in elements foreign to its essence, such as social welfare. Defensive wars have led liberals to comply with temporary restrictions on freedoms. Liberals who are alert when the war is over will insist on a proper but gradual return to strict respect for the original rights and liberties.

The ultimate goal of liberalism, however, stays stable, with its adherence to rationality and healthy neutrality about the evil or good in people.

See Encyclopedia dot com

Many forces of history or cultural, economic and other forces have contributed to the creation of liberalism. There were seeds of liberalism in Greek and Roman times, with their democratic and republican forms of government recognizing limited freedom of their citizens. Citizenship in those times unfortunately was not granted to women and slaves. These values saw resurgence in the Italian Renaissance, but did not become dominant in forming society in general until the Enlightenment. During that time and following it liberalism dominated in Germany, Britain, France and America. The writings of such men as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and John Locke mark the height of such thinking. John Locke wrote the foundation work, The Second Treatise on Government, thought to be the most comprehensive definition and principles of liberalism for over a century.

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was characterized by a belief in the perfection of the natural order and a belief that natural laws should govern society. Logically it was reasoned that if the natural order is conducive to perfection, then society should operate freely without interference from government.

The classic works of liberalism include J. Locke, Second Treatise on Government (1689); J. S. Mill, On Representative Government (1862); G. L. Cheery, Early English liberalism (1962).

The original meaning of the term "liberal" refers to a tradition, a political philosophy, originally founded on the Enlightenment tradition, which tries to circumscribe the limits of political power, and to define and support individual rights. This is often called classical liberalism, which holds the position that the economy needs a strong government to restrain and control it.

The original Enlightenment liberals were outsiders proposing a new order, but beginning in the late 19th century, liberals began coming to power in various countries. This brings a new usage: the term "liberalism" significantly evolves from classical liberalism and has taken on different meanings in various countries. The liberalism of the liberal parties and modern liberal thinkers is what we call political liberalism: its ideological contents depend on the geographical context. 

The Name of Liberalism has been Misappropriated

Liberalism as propounded here needs to be qualified as classical liberalism. The reason for this is that the term "liberal" has essentially been stolen by a movement whose main contributors were the British Idealist T. H. Green, the New Liberal, L. T. Hobhouse, William James' pragmatism, John Dewey's anti-individualism, the Progressive movement and the New Deal proponents of welfare statism and their followers.

Stanford University.

One of the main reasons for this use of the label was the fear in the New Deal movement of being labeled socialist. They knew they needed a new label, but instead of creating one, they resorted to theft. It is not being asserted here that the New Deal proposed state ownership of the means of production or total control thereof by the state. However, there exist in the world many groups of socialists who do not maintain that ownership or control position, and have had platforms very close to that of the New Deal. They practice some state control and varying degrees of interventionism.

Both classical and modern (social democrat) liberals agree that the government has a strict duty towards impartiality and hence to treating people equally, and that it should also be neutral in its evaluation of what the good life is.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

However, only the liberals in the sense of classical liberalism hold consistently that the neutrality in evaluating of what the good life is, and that it is truly for each person to decide and to do something about. The classical liberals insist that a counting of noses as to what the good life is cannot empower government to redistribute income or wealth to satisfy a preconceived pattern.

When it comes to the economic aspects of life the typical modern "liberal" politician is usually liberal with your money. And don't count on getting your choice of benefits yourself from that money. It will instead go for whatever mix of causes the majority and lobbyists want.

The economic or financial aspect of life, they think, is only a minor and secondary part of your life. Taking your money does not interfere with your higher or spiritual life. But the economic area is in fact an integral part of your life. Everything that you want as part of the good life takes resources. Money is but a medium of exchange and the most convenient way to store the resources you have acquired, the stored reward for your cleverness and labor that you plan to use for the good life in the future. Taking your money is taking part of your life. This is not liberal, no matter how noble the cause that the money is spent on. But note that the excuse for taking your money is that it is what the poor need. The money is not supposed to be the primary thing in your life, but it is the main thing lacking in other people's lives!

There is a reason why the Lockean summary of human rights had two common expressions: 1) Life, Liberty and Property and 2) Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The meanings are identical. Pursuing happiness requires means, in which you have to have ownership. Happiness would be hard to achieve or would be rather ephemeral if you could not own things, if you could not hold and use property.

A more complete and detailed history of liberalism will have to wait for a future posting.

The Goal of this Website

The goal of this website is to continue clarifying and defending liberalism, understood in the classical sense. To accomplish this, articles will be added from time to time which contrast this with the so-called liberalism of John Dewey, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton as well as philosophers and economists of the Left.

While it is the contention of this writer that liberalism is practical, and that consequentialist grounds exist for promoting this philosophy, it needs solid grounding in an ethical philosophy which is objective and not utilitarian. It must be rooted in the reality of what it means to be human, what human life requires. As it is expounded here it will at times sound teleological or eudaemonistic. It will have an Aristotelian ring to it. And it will draw upon the thinking of Ayn Rand.

Classical liberalism as previously formulated was not a complete philosophy. Its politics and economics lacked a proper foundation. For the future, this foundation will be identified as Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

American history and its capitalist environment will be the focus at other times, with retellings of how emergency situations were used to involve the USA in wars which were in turn used to increase the power of the federal government and to move this country ever farther from its original Liberal position. Economics will be the topic at times, which will focus attention on mostly on the ways people interact for exchanges of mutual benefit. And there will be articles about philosophy and politics, where this writer would sound like an Objectivist.

To Promote Liberty, We Must Listen, We Must Think, We Must Not Entertain Illusions

Many mistakes can be made while presenting liberalism to the public, and illusions can develop which will eventually weaken the case we can make for liberalism or the reception of the message. Among such mistakes and illusions are:

• to hypnotize yourself with a rosy picture – giving others the impression you're dreaming (picturing a Liberal society as one where ALL of society's problems will be solved)
• to forget that most leaders and educators in our society are antagonistic
• to place too great an emphasis on just a few facets of liberalism
• to neglect to actually ask listeners to join the cause
• to make an overly brash or “in-your-face” depiction of liberalism
• to use a tone of condemnation in describing the opposition
• to attack other Liberals or Libertarians for minor disagreements
• to assume that people always act in their own interests
• to simplistically paint all government actions as ineffective, overly costly or evil
• to simplistically paint all private and business activities as good, benign, effective or most beneficial
• to assume that for the cause to win requires use of the traditional political system
• to uncritically share any assumptions with collectivists or totalitarians

My Odissey to Objectivism

2008-08-01

I realize now that I was wrong in trying not to influence my family to adopt Objectivism. I rarely argued for it with anyone. I now also believe it was due to not being fully convinced of it myself. I did not regard myself as a good example of it. There were parts that I did not understand and parts with which I disagreed.

I was reluctant to practice it in the work-place. Thus, not being inclined to a split person, I did not practice it at all. Objectivism was to me a truth internally, a candle kept under a bushel, beautiful but useless.

Of course, much of Objectivist philosophy deals with things so abstract that it does not easily fit in ordinary conversation, but parts do, such as the ethics. But the person who really expresses it, acts on it, lives it, shows or demonstrates it, rather than talk it. I was rationally self-interested, but I had my flaws, my habits that would contradict an integrated holder of Objectivism.

To the extent that I actually supported the libertarian cause, I suppose I may have advocated laissez faire capitalism and was against initiation of coercion, and that is part of Ayn Rand's philosophy. However, as I am now discovering, that is but a fragment of the whole. Held alone, it is, however, too easily compromised, vulnerable to being undermined when cut off from its foundation.

Laissez faire capitalism is not really promoted unless one fully accepts Objectivism. It is not defended properly unless one fully grasps existence in a non-contradictory way (metaphysics), holds to the certainty that your consciousness creates (epistemology), as one is truly self-interested (ethics) and seeks an objective legal and defense system (politics).

The last item has been the hardest to absorb. Here is where my mind was fucked the most. Here is where I was infected by libertarianism. The problem is two-fold: 1) libertarians have produced much good thinking and 2) the Objectivist political philosophy has so far not been fully presented (is it too soon?).

Since I presently need to change my focus toward Objectivism, I will not try at this time to describe the first part or what I might credit libertarians with. I will instead try to just clarify what the sketchiness of Objectivist politics is due to, or why I perceive it to be incomplete.

The primary presentations of that political philosophy consists on three articles, one by Ayn Rand herself, entitled The Nature of Government , Leonard Peikoff's chapter on Government in his book, Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand , and one by Harry Binswanger's article Anarchism Vs. Objectivism .

Ayn Rand provides the bones, Peikoff does well with the transition from personal morality to rights and from there to government and then restates Rand's sketch of government itself with some flesh added to the bones, and Binswanger does fairly well with the chaos that an anarchist attempt at a social extension of good morality.

What none of these deal adequately with are:

• Given that the normal or proper relations between men is trade, or a life oriented by the Trader Principle, it would seem that the primary outgrowth of Objectivist ethics in the social sphere is economics. Moreover, historically the actions of government result in harm to the free market, the destruction of trade.
• How is a government is created, elected, etc., objectively? How would it be changed if it is found to be not fully objective in some way?
• What are the features or institutional forms that will limit the government to its legitimate functions and ensure that it complies with law? What recourse would one have in a dispute with the government if the outcome of a trial is decided by the accused, the government?
• By what objective procedures will legislation be enacted?
• How is the decision objectively and effectively made to go to war? No executive or legislative function is mentioned in the list of legitimate functions.
• How can a truly free man be expected to consent to a government and to lose the right and freedom to withdraw that consent? One cannot alienate one's freedom or oneself.
• How is the government to be financed without having coercive monopoly power in certain services?
• What smart, honest and ambitious people would want to work for a government?

These are the issues and questions with which I will be wrestling. You may witness it as I write on these topics at times. You may want to inject new thinking into this process. Furthermore, your comments are welcome.