Forty years ago, Ralph Raico completed his dissertation under F.A. Hayek’s direction. The issue Raico addresses — the revelation of a different form of early liberalism — has major implications in our own time as well. FULL ARTICLE by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/13449/a-different-look-at-classical-liberalism/
A Different Look at Classical Liberalism
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good article but missed the important point that the Church WAS the State for quite an extended time. Probably similar to what is now the Corporate State.
The article also muddles up the subject. Freedom has vey little to do with religion or the Church other than one has the freedom to do whatever one wants in this area and of course, churches must refrain from the use of force to achieve their ends.
Indeed. If what is commonly called the “church” has the same structure as a state (hierarchy), uses the same methods as a state (force, coercion and manipulation), and derives its authority from the same philosophical basis as the state (natural law) then, gee, maybe it’s a state. The church by its nature cannot use force to achieve its ends. Whatever institution may be using force, we can be certain it is not a church.
As with all political speech, the definitions of terms are so confused and obfuscated that rational discussion is almost impossible from the outset. Something like 85% of US citizens claim to be Christian, clearly illustrating that the word has no meaning.
Actually, the first modern defense of freedom and limits on state power came from the Reformation from Protestant theologians. Religious freedom came from a practical desire to end the blood shed and a realization that faith under coercion is worthless. Economic freedoms came from the writings of the Late Scholastics, as many articles on this web site have testified. The enlightenment was mostly an atheistic venture that could never have happened without the freedoms created by the Reformation. That atheists adopted the freedoms created by religious people while denying their source is typical.
“Actually, the first modern defense of freedom and limits on state power came from the Reformation from Protestant theologians.”
As a ‘fundamentalist’ I would have expected you to address the ancient Biblical defense of freedom and limitations on the power of kings.
Well, that was all part of the defense of liberty in the Reformation defense. Anyway, I was referring to the modern movement toward liberty.
Religion is the product of philosophy, implicit or explicit, rational or irrational. Reformation limits on the state originated in the growing philosophical, Aristotelian respect for man’s mind and the resulting demand for a society organized for man’s life in the material universe. As Ayn Rand proved in “Faith And Force,” religion and tyranny are mutually supporting. When religion and individual rights both increase, its a mere coincidence masking religion’s essential destruction of man’s mind. Mind is the source of production and thus morality. There is no need for religion. Man’s mind is a powerful guide to knowledge and action.
“There is no need for religion.”
And yet it continues to exist. So many people must have an emotional need to believe in something beyond the material world.
The material world tends to be dominated by lunatics (Grossman) and the morally flexible (you).
It’s (very darkly) funny how you quake in fear of the Caliphate and run to your Great Mother’s skirts, and in your childish way mock the only thing that could save our nearly dead culture from the Muslims.
You’re saying you’ve read Grossman and you think he’s a lunatic? He’s one of the best reporters who ever covered WW II. And about the only one to have covered it from the front of the Soviet lines. He didn’t just report the action, he was IN the action.
Funny, I don’t recall these incidents: quaking in fear of the Caliphate (an overrated risk); running to the Great Mother’s skirts; mocking something that could save our nearly dead culture from the Muslims (what could that be?). Remind me again when I performed such acts.
You barely read anything, do you, Michael. The foaming-at-the-mouth Randroid Grossman started this thread and I was talking to Russ. What he was mocking is referenced in the article and in Grossman’s and Russ’s comments.
Is there a difference between those who would misuse faith from those who would misuse reason?
Emotion and need are not necessarily pivotal in choices concerning either faith OR reason but emotion and need are often pivotal in the misuse of both faith and reason.
The mistake is in presuming one to be greater than the other.
“Each must wear his own hat” applies.
“The material world tends to be dominated by lunatics (Grossman) and the morally flexible (you).”
Since damned near everyone in the world is similarly flexible (i.e. not an iron-bar-up-the-cornhole rigid anarchist like you), you must lead a very lonely life in your Temple of Sanctitude, Saint Matthew.
“It’s (very darkly) funny how you quake in fear of the Caliphate and run to your Great Mother’s skirts…”
And it’s pathetic that you have shoved your head so far into the sand (or somewhere else, along with the iron bar), that you seem to deny any threat whatsoever from radical Islam.
“…and in your childish way mock the only thing that could save our nearly dead culture from the Muslims.”
OMG!!! I’m a materialist, atheist, and a Darwinist, who thinks that drugs, prostitution, and (most) abortion should be legal, and you think that religion is our only hope. And you accuse me of being a righty?
And I wasn’t “mocking” anything. Actually, I was defending those who believe in religion, by pointing out that there is a need for it.
Oh, and if you really believe we need religion to save us from the Muslims (I can never be sure with you), that would mean that you do believe that they’re a threat.
No. The reason I know what a sad excuse for an anarchist you were is because of the lame cartoons I see you constantly draw of them. You try to cut, but I just laugh because you don’t have the first clue.
You are right for the moment, your State has massively corrupted most people. Every child born every day still has a chance of not being corrupted though, always exciting.
Didn’t deny any threat, think I just said something to the opposite. It must be very confusing for you, sorting out your strawmen, I sympathize.
Being a righty need have nothing to do with religion, it has to do with defending the status quo. Anyone who can be comfortable in this state of afairs is a conservative. You’re more than that. And I’m sure you know as much about religion as you do anarchism. I believe that is mocking the religious, relegating it to some emotional need, that’s more your line.
“The reason I know what a sad excuse for an anarchist you were is because of the lame cartoons I see you constantly draw of them.”
The sad thing is that most of the pictures I draw of anarchists are fairly accurate, despite the fact that they are cartoons. You’re a case in point. You just don’t seem to get that
1) anarcho-capitalism is so drastically different than anything this planet has ever seen, and
2) because instituting it would mean risking everything,
that in order to convince most people that it should be tried, you basically need airtight arguments (which you don’t have). Otherwise, anybody who cares about the future of the human race would rightly find it an incredibly scary proposition. Not because people are afraid of freedom, or because they are brainwashed slaves (real cartoons), but because they don’t want to throw away civilization as we know it on another “noble experiment”.
“It must be very confusing for you, sorting out your strawmen, I sympathize.”
What’s confusing is sorting out when you are being serious, when you are being sarcastic, and when you just in full-blown attack mode. Text isn’t the best medium for discerning such subtleties.
“Being a righty need have nothing to do with religion, it has to do with defending the status quo.”
Hmmmm…. since I am a minarchist, and the status quo is not exactly minarchist, I wouldn’t say I’m defending the status quo. Only someone who is incapable of gradations of thought, and sees everything in black and white (e.g. classical liberal minarchist = fascist), could think that I am defending the status quo.
“Anyone who can be comfortable in this state of afairs is a conservative.”
Well, then, I’m not a conservative. I’m glad we’ve settled that. *grin*
“I believe that is mocking the religious, relegating it to some emotional need…”
Yes, I do think that religious people believe in religion because they have emotional needs, not because they have good rational arguments for believing in them, otherwise I would be a religious person myself. But having said that, I would only be mocking if I thought that emotional needs implied stupidity or immorality, and if I thought that I was above emotional needs. I don’t, and I’m not. Everybody has emotional needs. Everybody has “can’t-helps”; thing they can’t help but believe in, because they can’t conceive of reality existing in a non-self-contradictory fashion without them. My emotional needs and can’t-helps are just different from those of religious people, that’s all.
Major load of crap I can barely muster the effort to glance at here. Briefly: there is no “experiment”, the cartoon is yours.
Get McCain in there, you’re comfortable enough for now, that’s why you voted for him. Of course as your government winds this society down almost no one will be very comfortable, we’re already seeing some of that.
Just like with Michael, one is forced to argue with your vision of your imagined perfect government. Doesn’t exist, not even close. The State banks on all you suckers, you always come through for them.
I think Russ is right – most people don’t want to try anarcho-capitalism because they are comfortable with the way things are now. I’m afraid it would take a collapse of civilization to get them to open their eyes. Sadly, we seem to be setting ourselves up for such a collapse, probably after all of us are gone.
“Major load of crap I can barely muster the effort to glance at here.”
Ah, if only you couldn’t muster the effort….
“Get McCain in there, you’re comfortable enough for now, that’s why you voted for him.”
Ummm, no, I voted for him because I thought he was the lesser of two evils, not because I thought he is not evil. You don’t know me, Matthew.
“Just like with Michael, one is forced to argue with your vision of your imagined perfect government. Doesn’t exist, not even close.”
And your vision does? Or could? Oh, wait, as per SK, the impossibility of anarcho-libertarianism is irrelevant! How could I forget? The only thing that matters is purity of thought.
I said “comfortable enough”, you’ve said about the same many times.
I don’t have a vision of what my violent coercion can accomplish. No one has to be a pure anything, all of you go on fighting each other with your Utopian schemes, I’m just telling you what you’ve wrought, and how much worse it will get until you stop. “No, them first”, right?
“I think Russ is right – most people don’t want to try anarcho-capitalism because they are comfortable with the way things are now.”T
hat’s a major misinterpretation of what I am saying. That’s downright Polzkillian. I think most people wouldn’t want to try anarcho-capitalism (assuming that they had heard of it and thought about it) because they would not be comfortable with the thought of risking the complete and total collapse of civilization by trying ancap. Not because they are comfortable with the way things are now. The only way you could confuse wanting a smaller state with wanting the status quo is if you conflate a minimal state with the status quo, because you don’t see any difference between the two.
“…your Utopian schemes…”
HAHAHAHAHA!!! A classic case of pot, kettle, black, if I’ve ever seen one. You’re a fricking anarchist (oh, excuse me, panarchist), man! You are much more Utopian than I am.
Wow, you’re just too ignorant to deal with. What I’ve been trying to tell you for years is that anarchism is not a scheme, minarchism is a scheme. In very short: Anarchism is a state of mind where no crime is tolerated; minarchism is a Utopian scheme based on an always tiny minority’s particular fears. Anarchy is all around, is wherever anyone does anything of their own volition, is the only reason things still work as well as they do; minarchy is a silly tale you’ve told yourself. Anarchism is feared by the powerful; minarchism is encouraged by some of the huckstering powerful, that’s all one should need to know about it.
To gene- The church state in Europe was upheld by violence and purges. If you’ve been kidnapped by a corporation in America and they tourtured you I’m sure “The daily Kos” will glady accept your story.
Unless of course you meant the threat of coercion that results when the State attempts to elevate one corporation over another, in which case I misunderstood what you meant.
There is one really big downside of this book for most people, at least in America: all citations of Constant and Toqueville (very, very abundant, comprising a large chunk of the chapters on them) are given in French, without the English translation, so for any person who does not read French it is virtually impossible to read this book!!!
That’s not really true. Raico summarizes the contents in every paragraph before or after the quotation.
More dishonest propaganda coming from conservatives who pretend to be liberals.
“After all, it is only the state, not religious institutions, that possess that critical power to aggress against the life and liberty of the individual.”
I cannot agree with this statement. Physically, yes, but the emotional shackles and coercive force a religion institution wields can be just as potent as any the state has at its disposal.
“More dishonest propaganda coming from conservatives who pretend to be liberals.”
You mean,Tocqueville, Constant and Acton?
No, I mean the conservatives who run this site. As to Tocqueville I think he was more of a conservative than a classical liberal, though I’m not really familiar with his books.
How are they “conservative”, TP?
Yeah I’m not understanding that either. How are they conservative?
Right Jim, Russ here, for instance, has been fit-to-be-tied for years because the site isn’t quite as conservative as Mises was. And of course Mises himself while alive was beloved and honored by the Ancien Regime and status quo defenders everywhere.
No, no, and no. I simply think that since the mises.org site is suposedly in honor of Mises, and since Mises (much to your chagrin) was more of a classical liberal minarchist than a libertarian anarchist, who would probably be rolling in his grave if he knew what was offered here under his name, all the stuff here that isn’t strictly scholarly Austrian economics or classical liberal in nature would be better located at lewrockwell.com, or “rothbard.org”, or whatever. But that’s just my opinion, and I don’t own the site.
As for Tocqueville, maybe “Thomas” considers that since he was not 100% respectful of democracy, that puts him on the right wing? Since the right was originally the party of monarchism as opposed to the party of democracy, he would have something of a case.
No, on the chagrin; most probable no, on the grave rolling; no, you *are* on a hare brained campaign against this site.
“…no, you *are* on a hare brained campaign against this site.”
And you seem to be on a campaign against me.
Campaign against the political means, you bet. Talk crap in public that I feel I can counter, you’ll hear from me (sometimes more successfully than others).
That seems a legitimate stance if true. I dont really know Mises’s full story.
Perhaps I miss the point or the pseudo-satire, but I thought the poster, this time identified as Tom (Thomas) Paine, was simply being childishly provocative. How else does one take seriously the juxtaposed inanity, “As to Tocqueville I think he was more of a conservative…. though I’m not really familiar with his books” ?
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