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Sunday, January 28, 2007

Who's A Real Liberal?

Why “Market Liberals” Are Not “The True Liberals” or Who Really Inherits the Liberty Tradition Anyway?


Some republicans and libertarians are fond of claiming that they are the true liberals of modernity. F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and members of various think tanks such as the founders of the Cato Institute, Edward Crane and Boaz, all claim that their views about liberty and government are more consistent with what they regard as classical conceptions of liberty than those who traditionally called themselves liberals and now call themselves progressives. [i] They therefore eschew the title “conservative” as not capturing their commitments to progress and liberty and think that the term “liberal” better serves to describe their position.

True liberals in their view are those who want to protect individual liberties against the encroachment of big government and who celebrate free markets. Since republicans and libertarians want to limit government size and regulations and promote free markets, they believe they are closer to the original and classic conceptions of liberty in the modern period and in the founding of America. They believe that the liberals of the early twentieth century and the progressives of the late twentieth century are not really liberals in the true sense of the word. Those so-called liberals believe in big government, constraints on markets, and thus promote the limitation on individual freedom. With those kinds of commitments, they can not be “true liberals” and are really more like socialists. And so the true inheritors of the liberal tradition are those who want to limit government and maximize free markets.

We shall see that much more is at stake than simply a name or label. These statements about the term “liberal” are really intended as part of a much broader assault on the meaning of liberty and the liberty tradition. These writers want to limit the use of the term “liberal” by others because they alone stand in the liberty tradition. But such conclusions rest on an overly simplistic (if not intentionally misleading) reading of the liberty tradition and the meaning of liberty itself. These writers therefore fail in their effort to monopolize the meaning of the term liberal and liberty. Whether progressives or democrats decide to keep or abandon the term liberal is less important than that they defend their own continuity with the liberty tradition. For there are other and arguably better notions of liberty than those articulated by these writers. And those who think that government intervention and regulation is appropriate to shape market forces can also claim to stand legitimately in the liberty tradition.

Lets start then by taking a look at these statements by Hayek, Friedman and the founders of the Cato Institute, Crane and Boas.

F. A. Hayek, in the preface to the 1956 edition of The Road To Serfdom puts it this way:

I use throughout the term “liberal” in the original, nineteenth-century sense in which it is still current in Britain. In current American usage, it often means very nearly the opposite of this…It has been part of the camouflage of leftish movements in this country, helped by the muddleheadedness of many who really believe in liberty, that “liberal” has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control. I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensable term but should even have assisted by beginning to use it themselves as a term of opprobrium. This seems to be particularly regrettable because of the consequent tendency of many true liberals to describe themselves as conservatives. [ii]

Milton Friedman takes up the same theme in his introduction to Capitalism and Freedom:

It is extremely convenient to have a label for the political and economic viewpoint elaborated in this book. The rightful and proper label is liberalism. Unfortunately, “As a supreme, if unintended compliment, the enemies of the system of private enterprise have thought it wise to appropriate its label,” so that liberalism has, in the United States, come to have a very different meaning than it did in the nineteenth century or does today over much of the Continent of Europe.

Friedman continues:
As it developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the intellectual movement that went under the name of liberalism emphasized freedom as the ultimate goal and the individual as the ultimate entity in the society. It supported laissez faire at home as a means of reducing the role of the sate in economic affairs and thereby enlarging the role of the individual; it supported free trade abroad as a means of linking the nations of the world together peacefully and democratically. In political matters, it supported the development of representative government and of parliamentary institutions, reduction in the arbitrary power of the sate and protection of the civil freedoms of individuals.

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, and especially after 1930 in the United States, the term liberalism came to be associated with a very different emphasis, particularly in economic policy. It came to be associated with readiness to rely primarily on the state rather than on private voluntary arrangements to achieve objectives regarded as desirable. The catchwords became welfare and equality rather than freedom.… In the name of welfare and equality, the twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism fought. In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century mercantilism, he is fond of castigating true liberals as reactionary!...
Partly because of my reluctance to surrender the term to proponents of measures that would destroy liberty, partly because I cannot find a better alternative, I shall resolve these difficulties by using the word liberalism in its original sense—as the doctrines pertaining to a free man. [iii]

Writing in a similar vein, David Boaz and Edward Crane, founders of the Cato Institute, promise:
To make sense of the American people’s dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs, we need a new vision for American government, a vision rooted in the principles of our Founders and suited to the challenges of the 21st century. In this book we propose such a vision, one that we call market liberal. Today, people in the United States and around the world who believe in the principles of the American Revolution—individual liberty, limited government, the free market, and the rule of law—call themselves by a variety of terms, including conservative, libertarian, classical liberal and liberal…

The market liberal vision brings the wisdom of the American Founders to bear on the problems of today. As did the Founders, it looks to the future with optimism and excitement, eager to discover what great things women and men will do in the coming century. Market liberals appreciate the complexity of a great society, recognizing that socialism and government planning are just too clumsy for the modern world.[iv]

What unites these writers is a common impulse to claim the term “liberal” as the best description of the position that liberty means minimal government, free markets, and maximum protection of individual liberties. For the purposes of this essay, we will follow Crane and Boaz and call this point of view “market liberalism” or “economic liberalism” to differentiate it from other forms of liberalism and other views of liberty.

It should be noted that not everyone who shares these political beliefs wants to use the term “liberal”. Many self-identified conservatives espouse very similar beliefs about government, individual rights and free markets.[v] But the market liberal writers cited above do not believe that the term “conservative” does justice to their commitment to progress and change. Others prefer the term “libertarian” to liberal. [vi]

***
At one level, it would seem that the debate over who is a true liberal is a debate over nothing more than a name or label, rather than a substantive debate over the meaning of liberty itself. “Call yourself anything you want,” we progressives might say! “Take the label ‘liberal’ if you wish.” And yet to respond to market liberal’s argument this way is to miss its real implications. The argument over the label “liberal” is part of a much broader argument over the substantive meaning of the liberty tradition and the meaning of liberty itself. These writers are arguing that they are the true inheritors of the liberal title because their ideas of liberty are more in keeping with the classical tradition of liberty and according to some the founding views of the American founders. In promoting individual rights and free markets against big government, they see themselves as returning us to a lost tradition of liberty, a tradition that was born with the modern world in general and the founding of American society in particular. But this earlier tradition liberty got lost under the weight of socialist tendencies, implemented in the early twentieth century by FDR in the New Deal, with Keynesian economics, and by a liberal and activist supreme court that misinterpreted the American Constitution.[vii] The debate over the term liberal is one important strand in a broader argument that some have called the “Constitution in Exile” movement. In their view, these writers see themselves urging a return to earlier concepts of liberty and freedom that informed early American society and the birth of the modern world. They see themselves as part of a “return to liberty” movement.

The attempt by Hayek, Friedman, Crane and others to appropriate the term “liberal” is, therefore, not just semantics. It is a part of a strategy to say what the liberty tradition means and to claim that 1) one particular interpretation of that tradition is the correct one and 2) that they are the true heirs of the liberty tradition. So while progressives might not care about keeping the term “liberal” per se and might be complacent about letting republicans, conservatives and libertarian’s appropriate the term for themselves, we should care a great deal more about their claim to be the only true interpreters of the liberty tradition. That is a much more serious and dangerous claim, a claim that is justifying a radical refashioning of our modern social life, our understanding of freedom and the interpretation of the American constitution. It is this latter claim that this essay is intended to critique.

To see the full argument, please visit www.freedomandcapitalism.com/FreedomandCapitalism.html



***Endnotes***


[i] Quotes from Hayek, Friedman, and Boaz and Crane follow below.


[ii] Hayek, Road to Serfdom, (xxxv). Hayek develops this further in his The Constitution of Liberty in an essay called, “Why I am not a Conservative” (397-411). “At a time when most movements that are thought to be progressive advocate further encroachments on individual liberty, those who cherish freedom are likely to expend their energies in opposition. In this they find themselves much of the time on the same side as those who habitually resist change. In matters of current politics today they generally have little choice but to support the conservative parties. But, though the position I have tried to define is also often described as “conservative,” it is very different from that to which this name has been traditionally attached. There is danger in the confused condition which brings the defenders of liberty and the true conservatives together in common opposition to developments which threaten their different ideals equally. It is therefore important to distinguish clearly the position taken here from that which has long been known--perhaps more appropriately--as conservatism.” And then after a description of Conservatism as an opposition to change, he writes, “I will nevertheless continue for the moment to describe as liberal the position which I hold and which I believe differs as much from true conservatism as from socialism. Let me say at once, however, that I do so with increasing misgivings, and I shall later have to consider what would be the appropriate name for the party of liberty” (397-398).

[iii] Milton Friedman, Capitalism, 5-6.

[iv] Boaz and Crane, Market Liberalism, 8-9.

[v] See for example the American Conservative Union’s statement of principles adopted in December 1964. http://www.conservative.org/about/principles.html (Cited Feb 2, 2007)


• We believe that the Constitution of the United States is the best political charter yet created by men for governing themselves. It is our belief that the Constitution is designed to guarantee the free exercise of the inherent rights of the individual through strictly limiting the power of government.

We reaffirm our belief in the Declaration of Independence, and in particular the belief that our inherent rights are endowed by the Creator. We further believe that our liberties can remain secure only if government is so limited that it cannot infringe upon those rights.

• We believe that capitalism is the only economic system of our time that is compatible with political liberty. It has not only brought a higher standard of living to a greater number of people than any other economic system in the history of mankind; more important, it has been a decisive instrument in preserving freedom through maintaining private control of economic power and thus limiting the power of government.

• We believe that collectivism and capitalism are incompatible, and that when government competes with capitalism, it jeopardizes the natural economic growth of our society and the well-being and freedom of the citizenry.

• We believe that it is the responsibility of the individual citizen, whenever his inherent rights are threatened from within or without, to join together with other individuals to protect these rights, or, when they have been temporarily lost, to regain them.

• We believe that any responsible conservative organization must conduct itself within the framework of the Constitution; in pursuance of this belief we refuse to countenance any actions which conflict in any way with the traditions of the American political system.

• The American Conservative Union is created to realize these ends through the cooperation in responsible political action, of all Americans who cherish the principles upon which the Republic was founded.

• The American Conservative Union will welcome all Americans who are prepared to fight for the realization and preservation of these principles through political action at the local, state and national level.

The Sharon Statement

The following is the first statement of principles of the modern conservative movement, written by former ACU Chairman M. Stanton Evans and adopted in conference at Sharon, Connecticut (at the home of early ACU supporter William F. Buckley Jr.), on September 11, 1960.

In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths.

We, as young conservatives, believe:

• That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

• That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

• That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

• That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

• That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

• That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

• That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

• That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

• That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;

• That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;

• That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistance with, this menace; and

• That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?


[vi] See also Libertarianism, Chapter 1: “A Note on Labels: Why ‘Libertarianism?’” See http://www.libertarianism.org/ex-3.html (cited Feb 5, 2007)

[vii] This lost sense of liberty is evident in the writing of Hayek, Friedman, and Boaz and Crane.

On Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman, who recently died, made popular the view that “economic freedom is by definition part of freedom”. This view has become widely accepted among conservative and libertarian think tanks in the last decades of the twentieth century such as The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. This essay argues that Friedman’s formulation, while rhetorically brilliant and seemingly self-evident, is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of freedom. Friedman assumes in a free society the bulk of individual choices are left up to the market, and government is simply the umpire of the game. This essay by contrast argues that this formulation misconstrues the nature of freedom. For the very question of freedom is where to place the boundary between markets and government in the first place, i.e., determining the rules of the game versus moves within the game itself.For a fuller discussion, see my essay "What Color Tie Do You Vote For?: Or “Is Economic Freedom Part of Liberty”?
at www.freedomandcapitalism.com