Harry Elmer Barnes argues that the theory we call “libertarianism” was developed merely to justify an economic and political program serving the interests of the 17th-century middle class. FULL ARTICLE by Jeff Riggenbach
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/13488/was-classical-liberalism-a-strife-of-interests-masquerading-as-a-contest-of-principles/
Was Classical Liberalism a “Strife of Interests Masquerading as a Contest of Principles”?
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There surely exists hypocrisy, whereby the furtherance of interests is justified by the pretense of principles. But that does not mean there are no sound principles. I submit that Locke’s principles were sound, whether or not they were useful in practice. Even if someone claimed that 2+2=4, in order to secure an advantageous exchange, it would behoove us to accept that claim. Moreover, when one reads Locke he comes away uplifted & insightful, rather than mercenary & closed-minded.
Free market principles are the only ones that can rightfully claim to be universal — the same set of rules apply to everyone at all times.
(I once had a law professor who would tell us that laws can never be neutral and universal in their application, because after all, even a subsidy to a telephone company discriminates in favor of telephone companies and against everyone else. He apparently assumed that subsidies to telephone companies were legitimate uses of state power, justified on their face, and thus no further inquiry was required. What he never seemed to realize, the idiot leftist that he was, was that telephone and other corporate subsidies are illegitimate precisely because they lack neutrality and universality.)
Universality is the essential feature of a principle. Everything else is just a command, and not a principle at all, but a counterfeit facsimile of one.
Every other form of political and economic organization is class- and status-based.
Magnus – I agree with you.
I’m interested to see what more Mr Riggenbach has to say on Locke, as he’s left us hanging rather. Does he agree with Barnes’ viewpoint or not i.e. is ‘libertarianism’ merely a set of Marxist class-interests cunningly disguised? I don’t agree that it is; as you say, it is a universal principle, not a set of sectional interests.
It might be, however, that libertarianism did emerge from such roots; however, it is clear that its strength is in the universality of its prinicples, so it has transcended its origins.
On Locke, there is a new intellectual biography forthcoming from Dr Mark Goldie of Cambridge – I’m not sure whether this will address some pertinent questions?
Magnus,
what you call “free market principles” may well be universal (say for example diminishing marginal utility) but they are only important in a society with secure private property rights. But the concept of private property itself is not universal at all, nor was it necessarily inevitable that humans invented it.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea of private property is great and certainly the foundation of western society and material wealth, but it IS a man made privilege and every normative ethical justification of it must fail. And so does every ethical justification of liberalism, libertarianism, anarcho capitalism or what have you. In the end, they all rest on coercion.
Understanding history is not a matter of understanding who is motivated by principles and who is motivated by self-interest. The important thing is to understand the principles. The principle of natural rights is irrational and comes from the so-called Enlightenment. Imagine you are Crusoe on an island and a newcomer drifts ashore. You are stronger than this person and consider whether or not to make him or her your slave. If you are a leftwing liberal you will say his rights are the same as mine and I should try to help him. If you are a rightwing liberal you will say slavery diminishes utilities. If you are a rational person, who follows his conscience and believes in God, you will say I will consider making him my slave depending on the circumstances.
understanding history is understanding that you are reading fiction.
the historical truth is always buried by those whose hypocrisy would be uncovered by it and by those who have the power to bury it. They are always one and the same.
Conquerors always stole the gold and razed the buildings. The gold is proof they deserved to conquer and the razed buildings destroy any living witness to the value of the culture they ruined.
What’s the argument? There are principles and those who believe in them, and then there are those who opportunistically take advantage of anything handy and useful, including principles. History is a combination of both types of people.
I really don’t get the confusion about this. Liberalism is a movement directed against privileges. Back in the good old days, the most important privileges were political rights of the aristocracy and “universal human rights” are a sharp stick to poke them with. That does not mean they are wrong, right or anything in between. It means they are useful for the people who employ them. Obviously they won. And so liberalism turned against the next privilege. And the next. And the next. I guess every beast must feed.
Not caring for right or wrong, liberalism has no problem cannibalizing once useful lower order privileges. Say…private property. Useful against the king, but a privilege nonetheless. And so it must die.
btw., that explains the chasm between modern liberals and your idea of classical liberalism: Modern liberals stayed true to the movements principle; that is “destroy all privilege”, whereas you guys realised that in the long run, this course will destroy the very society that gave birth to liberalism in the first place.
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