Mario Rizzo made a passionate appeal to Austrians and friends of classical liberalism to rally at the barricades. He mentioned the need to stand with allies.
“I venture the prediction that they will fare much better this time – especially if we close ranks with those of a similar mindset. There are many more Austrian economists now. In the thirties and forties the profession had become depleted of Austrians.”
In this post I want to signal some of the wider program that classical liberals need to pursue, outside our strongholds in philosophy and political economy. I don’t mean that the philosophers and political economists are all rabid classical liberals, I just mean that this is where our principles have been most clearly articulated.
Back in the 1980s when I found the Austrians in a short-lived libertarian bookshop near the centre of Sydney, it soon became clear that the mix of critical rationalism and free-market economics with minimum government was the way to generate peace, freedom and prosperity. For a nice statement of classical liberal principles see Popper’s talk to the Mont Pelerin Society, especially the emphasis on the moral framework.
At this time there was a bipartisan push for liberalisation (deregulation) of the Australian economy and in each party there was strong resistance from the usual interest groups to maintain the status quo. The virulence of some attacks on “economic rationality” was truly remarkable.
Three things became clear.
1. Classical liberalism involves a lot more than just econonomic rationalism. Some of the Labor economic rationalists just wanted to increase economic efficiency so they could spend more money on the welfare state, like the Scandanavians.
2. Classical liberals need to insist that we care about the poor and the weak as much as anyone else, and we claim to have better policies to help them (especially by ensuring that no able-bodied person is ever priced out of work into welfare dependency by the wage rates that are enforced by trade unions or state tribunals).
3. We could win all the arguments in philosophy and political economy and still lose the war, both in the intellectual and the political arena due to the intellectual support for the left in other disciplines (history, sociology, literature etc) and the way that their ideas are spread through the school education system, the media (especially the public broadcaster of course), the trade unions, and the overwhelming majority of film-makers, novelists, playwriters, poets, cartoonists and comedians. Of course that is the result of what was called “the long march of the left” through the organs and institutions of civil society (politicising them as they went).
The Austrian detour into cultural theory.
Led by the late Don Lavoie, a group of Austrians embarked on a project of cultural studies and hermeneutics. The idea was ok but they picked the wrong people to follow on the journey, like Kuhn, Habermas, Gadamer. They survived the experience, unlike the brilliant and ambitious Jeffrey C Alexander who started with Talcott Parsons and ended up with the “strong cultural program’ incorporating every school of thought in the human sciences with the exceptions of Austrian economics and critical rationalism.
More helpful people.
The more helpful people who I have in mind have done brilliant work in history and cultural studies, psychology, literature and literary criticism. But before looking at the scholars, a word on the writers of the primary works. Bernard Levin was a brilliant and prolific journalist and commentator in Britain. “His longest-standing appointment was his column for The Times from 1971 to 1997. This became a platform for his passionate liberal views and his scorn for authoritarianism of both left and right.”
He studied at the LSE and was impressed by the liberal views of Hayek and Popper, although he said he was already thinking that way as a result of his immersion in the novels and other great works of English literature. I don’t know if he expanded on that comment but the point is that he found in English novels that mix of respect for the individual (the core of liberalism) and also methodological individualism and subjectivism (seeing from the individual point of view) and also an investigation of sound and reasonable moral principles (and the results of the opposite) sensitively and brilliantly explored by the likes of Jane Austen.
David Gordon wrote “What Has Austrian Economics to do With Literature” making some good points along the lines I am following, with the bonus that Shelley, who is one of my favorite poets, comes out on our side on economics.
Getting back to the scholars.
For my money, the people who Lavoie and his students should have turned to include R G Collingwood, Yvor Winters, Jacques Barzun, James McAuley (not in the same class, but Australian), Ernest Gellner, Karl and Charlotte Buhler, Liam Hudson, Rene Wellek, Ian D Suttie, Frank Kermode, and for a critique of certain minds of anti-humanistic high literary theory, two more Australians, Freadman and Miller. The common feature of all these folk, apart from the relevance of many of the substantive problems that they addressed, is that they all work in the kind of metaphysical framework that Barry Smith found in Menger’s economics, and Popper reworked in his debate with the physicists. They are metaphysical fellow travellers with the critical rationalists and the Austrians (on a good day, when they are not being justificationsts).
More work is required to bring out that aspect of their work more clearly, in the meantime you can get an idea of the main lines of their work in the Revivalist Series in the Rathouse.
Good post. Good list. I’m going to have to put them on my (ever-growing) reading list. I’m working on deserving to be on the list, between my scholarly work and my literary work. In addition to writing essays on “The Spontaneous Orders of the Arts,” I also write poems and plays.
Thanks Troy, you should have said that on the Thinkmarkets list, I think there has not been a single hit on any of the links yet. I know busy people don’t hit many links, it would be interesting to know how many hit the link to look at this post.
Links on the Coordination Problem list typically attract one hit, maybe two on a good day.
Maybe that simply means I have too much time on my hands. 🙂 Or that I’m not using it to do the kinds of things I should be doing — like writing papers. Still, I find these things fruitful, so perhaps they are a good use of my time. Especially when I get more reading material.
Too bad blog comments and postings don’t count as publications 🙂
The point is, when you find people like Wellek and Barzun you realise what a small amount of time you need to spend on the likes of Gadamer, Habermas, Ricoeur, Lacan, Derrida et al. Not to mention Heidegger and all his followers.
I’m familiar with some of the names you mention, but not all of them. I of course know all the names of those you object to — and I have in fact read Heidegger, Derrida, and Lacan (and have books by the others). They are inescapable in any humanities dept. in the U.S. In the case of Heidegger, the more I read his works, the less I realize is there. Derrida is the same, primarily accusing smarter people than him of not knowing what they were doing (like his accusation that Plato didn’t know that he was using words with double — indeed, paradoxical — meanings in “Phaedrus”; never mind that the entire dialogue is *about* paradox). Lacan is just ridiculous — he takes everything Freud was wrong about, and applied lingsuistics to it.
As you say, you can’t get away from the dummies in the humanities at present. Is everyone familiar with some of the names that I dropped? If people know about them, how come they still take the others so seriously? Or are they just names and not read very much?
I have heard of R G Collingwood, Jacques Barzun, Rene Wellek, and Frank Kermode, but not through any classes I took in college. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how I heard of these. I know that Fred Turner knows Barzun, but that’s about it.
Well, there you have it. These guys are a distant rumour in the modern academies. They are titans, you don’t have to go along with them but you won’t need to read much of the cribs that i have provided to find out that they are the real deal!
Bad Scandinavians! The point of increasing economic efficiency is to allow the rich to have more yachts, not to have a happy, healthy well-educated population.
Peter,
Scandinavians are relatively good classical liberals — probably more so than Americans, especially in the case of Denmark.
Yes someone on a libertarian blog listed several features of Scandanavian society that were closer to classical liberalism than the US. The only one that sticks in my mind is security of property rights. Can’t recall whether the others were cultural aspects like the work ethic or things like good education. Public education in the US has degenerated but that cannot be attributed to the privatisation of education, it is the result of policies by public educators and teachers.
Peter, I suppose that comment is a condensed version of a claim that the only things economic liberals care about is making it easier for people in business to make a lot of money.
To be equally brief in reply, economic efficiency is about making better use of resources.
No state can guarrantee happiness.
Health services and education can be delivered by the private sector.
Economic rationalism is a part of clasical liberalism but there is more than that, it is about freedom as well as prosperity, and it is also about looking after the poor and the weak.
You may never become a classical liberal but at least attack the real thing and not just a caricature.
Check out the following TED lecture:
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html
Look at that population chart Ridley produces. The human population was static for millions and millions of years, then suddenly shot straight up. That’s the largest single fact in all of human history. How do we explain it? I suggest that it is a result of precisely the economic efficiency disparaged by Peter as the rationale for rich people to have more yachts.
And how does someone having a yacht affect you and me? It doesn’t. If someone else having a yacht makes you unhappy, that is your fault, not theirs.
In every society, no matter how rich or poor, the wealthiest 20% have 80% of the wealth, with the wealth distributed according to power laws distribution. The real difference, then, is how wealthy the poor are. How wealthy the rich are is irrelevant, since this distribution exists everywhere, regardless of system.
I suppose if the economy were a zero sum game, it would matter, but since it is either a positive sum game, or (in the case of a bad system) a negative sum game, then it is the system, not the existence of rich people per se, which matters.
“In coveting is evil’s root” (Chretien de Troyes, “Eric and Enide,” Ruth Harwood Cline, tr. line 2935).
Rafe
“To be equally brief in reply, economic efficiency is about making better use of resources.”
I know. But your original comment was about what economic efficiency is for
“Labor economic rationalists just wanted to increase economic efficiency so they could spend more money on the welfare state, like the Scandanavians.”
“No state can guarrantee happiness.”
No doctor can guarantee a cure, that is not excuse for not trying
“Health services and education can be delivered by the private sector”.
But should they be? The British health system costs half per capita the pre-Obama
Us system. There is no country anywhere that has universal private education.
All rich countries have public education systems, and oor countries
get by on a mixture of private education, wealthy, charities, and no education
at all for many
“…it is also about looking after the poor and the weak.”
How? Private charity? Trickle down?
Troy,
“And how does someone having a yacht affect you and me?”
If money that could be usefully spent on welfare, isn’t spent on welfare, somebody somewhere suffers
It doesn’t. If someone else having a yacht makes you unhappy, that is your fault, not theirs.
“In every society, no matter how rich or poor, the wealthiest 20% have 80% of the wealth,”
It’s not that uniform. The Gini coefficient varies from 0.25 to 0.6, for instance
“I suppose if the economy were a zero sum game, it would matter, but since it is either a positive sum game, or (in the case of a bad system) a negative sum game, then it is the system, not the existence of rich people per se, which matters”
The system includes welfare, redistribution, etc. All succesfull socieities
direct resources into public education, because education is seen as promoting
future success, for instance. Why condemn that as “welfare”?
And how does someone having a yacht affect you and me? It doesn’t. If someone else having a yacht makes you unhappy, that is your fault, not theirs.
In every society, no matter how rich or poor, the wealthiest 20% have 80% of the wealth, with the wealth distributed according to power laws distribution. The real difference, then, is how wealthy the poor are. How wealthy the rich are is irrelevant, since this distribution exists everywhere, regardless of system.
I suppose if the economy were a zero sum game, it would matter, but since it is either a positive sum game, or (in the case of a bad system) a negative sum game, then it is the system, not the existence of rich people per se, which matters.
“In coveting is evil’s root” (Chretien de Troyes, “Eric and Enide,” Ruth Harwood Cline, tr. line 2935).
My only possible motivation is wanting a yacht myself? Good thing <em?that's not a caricature.
Kenneth
That increase could not have occurred without increased economic efficiency,
which I have not been arguing against. It also could not have occurred without
resources somehow being directed into feeding and educating people.
Troy,
“And how does someone having a yacht affect you and me?”
If money that could be usefully spent on welfare, isn’t spent on welfare, somebody somewhere suffers
It doesn’t. If someone else having a yacht makes you unhappy, that is your fault, not theirs.
“In every society, no matter how rich or poor, the wealthiest 20% have 80% of the wealth,”
It’s not that uniform. The Gini coefficient varies from 0.25 to 0.6, for instance
“I suppose if the economy were a zero sum game, it would matter, but since it is either a positive sum game, or (in the case of a bad system) a negative sum game, then it is the system, not the existence of rich people per se, which matters”
The system includes welfare, redistribution, etc. All succesfull socieities
direct resources into public education, because education is seen as promoting
future success, for instance. Why condemn that as “welfare”?
And how does someone having a yacht affect you and me? It doesn’t. If someone else having a yacht makes you unhappy, that is your fault, not theirs.
“In every society, no matter how rich or poor, the wealthiest 20% have 80% ”
The 20/80 ration actually varies between 5 and 45
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
“In coveting is evil’s root” (Chretien de Troyes, “Eric and Enide,” Ruth Harwood Cline, tr. line 2935).
My only possible motivation is wanting a yacht myself? Good thing that’s not a caricature.
Peter, read the summary of Kealey’s book, posted above, and you will find that the private sector can provide services like health, education and scientific research, just as well as the public sector, if allowed to do so and not regulated and taxed out of business.
http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2010/09/30/terence-kealey-on-the-economics-of-science/
The phrase “trickle down economics” is a red flag. No serious economist has ever advocated and nor is there any school of trickle down economics. It is phrase used almost exclusively by very ignorant people, and it is normally meant in a derogatory manner. It merely demonstrates how little time someone has spent trying to understand other opinions — and usually that they aren’t interested in doing so.
Lee,
Well, you could just answer the question
Rafe
Unregulated health care?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,743525,00.html
Peter, can you explain how those cases represent a case against the private provision of health, education and welfare services?
Did I say anything about unregulated health care?
Rafe
You said:
“if allowed to do so and not regulated and taxed out of business.”
Healthcare is regulated everywhere, up to a point, and there are good reasons for regulating it. Who is regulating it out of business? What is the motivation for doing so? Wouldn’t a government that made healthcare inaccessible become pretty unpopular?
Peter,
You’re right of course. Envy is probably far more evil than covetousness.
With greed, you want the same kind of thing that another has.
With covetousness, you want the same exact thing that another has.
With envy, you just don’t want the other to have what he has.
The first generates wealth.
The second destroys wealth by redistributing riches.
The third destroys both wealth and riches.
Troy
Whatever. No relevance to anything I have said.,
Peter,
Surely you’re not so dense as to not understand that my comments had everything to do with what you said. Socialism, welfare, and redistributionism are all based on envy. One can see covetousness as a subset of envy. People like you play to the worst in human nature — some because of misguided idealism, some for power.
Troy,
They should have had something to do with what I siad, since that is the basic principle of a discussion.
I am not a socialist.
Socialism (and social democracy) are not based on envy in the opinion of socialists.
There might be some possibility of a debate on that subject; or you could continue trotting out chearfully caricatures, even after the practice has been condemned.
P.S And the Ad Hominem (“Worst in human nature”) isn’t too cool either. You actually have very little idea of what I think about things, principally because you are not listening to what I am saying.
Peter,
You say, “If money that could be usefully spent on welfare, isn’t spent on welfare, somebody somewhere suffers” — this is a statement of a welfare statist at the very least. Welfare statism is based on envy. So is socialism. I don’t care if socialists think their ideas are based on envy or not; they are. I’m interested in truth, not people’s mispercptions of what they think is true. If you advocate taking something from its rightful owner to give to another you think is worthier, then what are you? Why should it matter if the person you deemed to be worthier is yourself or someone else? To think that you deserve what another has is either covetousness or envy. That is the very definition of the terms. Socialists and welfare statists thus encourage covetousness and envy in others in order to justify stealing on their behalf in exchange for political power or based on an erroneous notion of justice which in fact is the purest kind of injustice.
Troy
There are various ways of defending redistributive justice, or, as you call it “welfare statism” that have nothing to do with envy. I am not going to go in to a lot of
detail, because it is probably a waste of time, but I will make one point: you state,
without justification, that the taxee “rightfully owns” whatever tax is being taken from them. That ignores a whole raft of objections, eg:
1) Rightful ownership is defined by the state. If the state defends property rights through justice system, that has to be paid for somehow
2) It cannot be be demonstrated that the initial distribution of wealth is just even if all subsequent exchanges are fair and equal.
3) In some cases the initial distribution is known to be unjust, ie the New World countries were essentially stolen from their aborigial occupants.
etc, etc.
Redistributive justice is an oxymoron. There is nothing just in taking something by force from one person and giving it to another that you, simply because you have more power (or weaponry) than that person you are stealing from.
But let us take each one you list in turn:
1) rightful ownership is NOT defined by the state. It is recognized by the state (or not). And this assumes the existence of the state, which his merely one form of social organization. One does have to pay for things, but why does that have to be through force? Why does it have to be your money or your life? One cannot found a true system of justice on a system of injustice.
2) Let us assume this to be true. How are we defining “initial”? How far back do we go? A generation? A century? A millennium? 30 thousand years? Any choice will necessarily be arbitrary. As will choosing which culture to begin with. Or group. Free trade erases initial differences better than anything else has ever proven to do. Wealth is created through invention and trade; riches can be accomplished through even the worst villainy. These are very different things.
3) Again, where does it end, or begin? The Aztecs has expanded through war. When the Spanish arrived, they were able to recruit those who the Aztecs had defeated to help them defeat the Aztecs. By your logic, then, the Spanish justly overthrew the Aztecs. Except I’m pretty sure you disagree with that. In the end, you are unjustly arguing that the sins of the father (grandfather, great-grandfather, etc.) should be paid by the son (grandson, etc.). Why am I responsible for what any of my ancestors did or may have done? Why am I responsible for what other members of my race or culture or even country may have done? When we apply this to race with other races, this is properly known as racism. But then, racism is merely one variety of collectivism — though all have the same thinking, and the same results.
In other words, redistributive justice is injustice, pure and simple. But then, collectivism by any name has always been unjust and led to the worst kinds of injustice. Redistributive justice is based on the same theory as is racism. Feel free to call that justice — but doing so robs the word of any meaning. Justice applies to individuals only.
Troy
“There is nothing just in taking something by force from one person and giving it to another that you, simply because you have more power (or weaponry) than that person you are stealing from”
That is why it was unjust for the early settler of America to take theit land from the Native Americans — and equally why it is just to return it, since it is uncontroversially just to return stolen property, Note that in my defence of redistributive justice. I never in the slightest way suggested that force itself was
the justification. You made that up. You have some way to go in responding to arguments relevantly.
1) I have already answered this: one cannot defend property rights without force.
A purely theoretical concept of property rights is just flatus voci. The slave is free in principle, but that does not strike off his chains.
2) The point works both ways. You cannot demonstrate that the initial
distribution was necessarily just. Since it takes wealth to generate wealth, you cannot therefore argue that everybody has generated from nothing the wealth
they own de facto. If I lend you money, you owe me. If my ancestors lent you,
you owe their descendants. If your ancestors stole, they owe the people they
stole from. If it is definitely the case that they borrowed or stole, they
definitely owe. If it is indefinite, they might owe. You canot argue that they
definitely do not owe, because you cannot trace back a 100% honest chain of seed capital.
The claim that capitalist economies naturally lead to an even distribution of wealth is grossly belied by the facts.
3) A perfect redistribiution is impossible, and I never adviocated it. What I have argued is that since the original distribution is not known to be perfect, one cannot
argue that everyone automatically has 100% right to what they “own” — when some of it is borrowed, inherited , stolen or who known what.
You must be a pretty strong Zionist, then.