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Classical Liberalism v. Conservatism, by George
J. Irbe (con't)
The most hurtful and outrageous attack by the
conservatives on the classical liberals concerns
societal and private morals: conservatives claim
that classical liberalism has abetted their
degradation. Yet, even as he throws these
accusations at the liberal, one must wonder about
the moral stance of the conservative himself.
Judging from the contradictory quotes below, it
appears that the conservative uses moral rules in a
cynical, pragmatic, utilitarian fashion -- "do as I
say, not necessarily as I do" -- as another tool to
enforce "order and good government". In the quotes
below, a conservative is "not concerned with moral
right and wrong", he recognizes the utility of an
official religion of the state that can be put to
good use by government, and yet to him private
morality and public decency are "of urgent
political concern".
On the one hand ...…
- (2) At all events the disposition to be
conservative in respect of government is rooted
in the belief that where government rests upon
the acceptance of the current activities and
beliefs of its subjects, the only appropriate
manner of ruling is by making and enforcing
rules of conduct. … It is not concerned
with moral right and wrong, it is not designed
to make men good or even better; it is not
indispensable on account of 'the natural
depravity of mankind' but merely because of
their current disposition to be extravagant; its
business is to keep its subjects at peace with
one another in the activities in which they have
chosen to seek their happiness. … a
government which does not sustain the loyalty of
its subjects is worthless; and … one which
is indifferent to 'truth' and 'error' alike, and
merely pursues peace, presents no obstacle to
the necessary loyalty.
-
- (2) … what makes a conservative
disposition in politics is nothing to do with a
natural law or a providential order, nothing to
do with morals or religion; it is the
observation of our current manner of living
combined with the belief (which from our point
of view need be regarded as no more than a
hypothesis) that government is a specific and
limited activity, namely the provision and
custody of general rules of conduct … which
it is appropriate to be conservative about.
… in respect of governing and the
instruments of government … a conservative
disposition … is to be found in the
acceptance of the current condition of human
circumstances …
(2) Indeed, a disposition to be conservative in
respect of government would seem to be preeminently
appropriate to men who … know the value of a
rule which imposes orderliness without directing
enterprise, a rule which concentrates duty so that
room is left for delight. They might even be
prepared to suffer a legally established
ecclesiastical order; but it would not be because
they believed it to represent some unassailable
religious truth, but merely because it restrained
the indecent competition of sects …
… ... but, on the other hand ...
- (1b) It is only an exaggeratedly liberal
view of politics that can refuse to see that
matters of private morality and public decency
are connected, and that both are of urgent
political concern.
-
- (1b) … a conservative stance towards
civil society might begin to translate itself,
without violence to its sense of the legitimate
activity of state, into laws which seriously
restrict what some would call the 'freedom' of
the citizen. And these laws make no reference to
'harmful consequences'; or if they do it is only
because 'harm' is being redefined in the
process. … Men extend their idea of 'harm'
to cover such difficult conceptions as those of
innocence and maturity … we embody in the
concept of 'harm' precisely the moral and social
sentiment which the liberal wished to remove
from it. … the sense of a common moral
order is the greatest force which reconciles
… [the] majority to eccentricities
that it can neither understand nor emulate.
Pursued for its own sake, and in defiance of
civil feeling, liberalization must breed
resentment, whether in Christian Europe or
… in Islamic Iran.
Frank Meyer is less acerbic on the issue and
ends with a statement urging reconciliation between
conservatives and "those who called themselves
liberals" in the nineteenth century. He is very
wrong, however, to place Hayek and Mises in the
previous century; both men are of this century and
made their giant intellectual contributions to
mankind in this century. And although Meyer's use
of the past tense with reference to these liberals
suggests that they are now extinct, I fervently
hope that classical liberalism will experience
resurgence as a distinct political force,
unfettered by the shackles of conservatism.
- (3) As [classical liberalism]
developed the economic and political doctrines
of limited state power, the free-market economy
and the freedom of the individual person, it
sapped, by its utilitarianism, the foundations
of belief in an organic moral order. But the
only possible basis of respect for the integrity
of the individual person and for the overriding
value of his freedom is belief in an organic
moral order. Without such belief, no doctrine of
political and economic liberty can stand.
-
- (3) On the other hand, the same error in
reverse vitiated the thought of
nineteenth-century conservatives. They respected
the authority of God and of truth as conveyed in
tradition, but too often they imbued the
authoritarianism of men and institutions with
the sacred aura of divine authority. They gave
way to the temptation to make of tradition,
which in its rightful role serves as a guide to
the operation of reason, a weapon with which to
suppress reason. … Sound though they were
on the essentials of man's being, on his destiny
to virtue and his responsibility to seek it, on
his duty in the moral order, they failed too
often to realize that the political condition of
moral fulfillment is freedom from coercion.
-
- (3) The historical fact is -- and it adds to
the complexity of our problems -- that the great
tradition of the West has come to us through the
nineteenth century, split, bifurcated, so that
we must draw not only upon those who called
themselves conservatives in that century but
also upon those who called themselves liberals.
The economists of the liberal British tradition,
from Adam Smith through and beyond the vilified
Manchesterians, like the Austrian economists
from Menger and Boehm-Bawerk to Mises and Hayek,
analyzed the conditions of industrial society
and established the principles upon which the
colossal power that it produces can be developed
for the use of man without nurturing a monstrous
Leviathan. Without their mighty intellectual
endeavor, we should be disarmed before the
collectivist economics of Marx, Keynes, and
Galbraith. And in the sphere of political
theory, who has surpassed the nineteenth-century
liberals in their prophetic understanding of the
looming dangers of the all-powerful state?
Conservatives today can reject neither side of
their nineteenth-century heritage; they must
draw upon both.
-
Conservatives at least concede that it was the
classical liberals who warned the world about the
"looming dangers of the all-powerful state" in the
economic domain, but they do not seem to be
listening to what the classical liberals have to
say about their attitude toward morality, and who
they think are responsible for the degenerative
trends in the morality of the public and of
institutions. The following quotes from Hayek
provide some insight into how a classical liberal
views the problems that have afflicted liberalism
in particular and democratic government in general.
Classical liberalism is the victim and not the
perpetrator of the ills that the conservatives
ascribe to it.
- (4a) Freedom will only prevail if it is
accepted as a general principle whose
application to particular instances requires no
justification. It is thus a misunderstanding to
blame classical liberalism for having been too
doctrinaire. Its defect was not that it adhered
too stubbornly to principles, but rather that it
lacked principles sufficiently definite to
provide clear guidance, and that it often
appeared simply to accept the traditional
functions of government and to oppose all new
ones. Consistency is possible only if definite
principles are accepted. But the concept of
liberty with which the liberals of the
nineteenth century operated was in many respects
so vague that it did not provide clear
guidance.
-
- (4a) The expression 'liberty under the law',
which at one time perhaps conveyed the essential
point [of a free system] better then any
other, has become almost meaningless because
both 'liberty' and 'law' no longer have a clear
meaning. And the only term that in the past was
widely and correctly understood, namely
'liberalism' has, as a supreme but unintended
compliment been appropriated by the opponents of
this ideal.
In the above two quotes Hayek implies that
classical liberalism was actually very close to
conservatism in that it too operated with vague,
undefined concepts of freedom and liberty. It is
not much of a stretch to speculate that it was
precisely this doctrinal fuzziness that left
liberalism undefended from invasion by the
ideological left.
- (4b) … the main difference between the
order of society at which classical liberalism
aimed and the sort of society into which it is
now being transformed is that the former was
governed by principles of just individual
conduct while the new society is to satisfy the
demands for 'social justice' ... the former
demanded just action by the individuals while
the latter more and more places the duty of
justice on authorities with power to command
people what to do.
-
- (4b) ... after a period of ascendancy of
conceptions which have made the vision of an
Open Society possible, we are relapsing rapidly
into the conceptions of the tribal society from
which we have been slowly emerging.
-
- (4b) The submergence of classical liberalism
under the inseparable forces of socialism and
nationalism is the consequence of the revival of
those tribal sentiments.
-
- (4c) Socialist ideas have so deeply
penetrated general thought that it is not even
only those pseudo-liberals who merely disguise
their socialism by the name they have assumed,
but also many conservatives who have assumed
socialist ideas and language and constantly
employ them in the belief that they are an
established part of current thought.
In the above four quotes Hayek identifies
tribalism, socialism, its tool for coercion --
'social justice', and nationalism as the social
poisons which have entered the political body of
democracies. No parts of the body have been immune
from it. That is why, with great irony, Hayek
dedicated his famous work, The Road to
Serfdom, to "the socialists of all parties". As
a matter of fact, the conservatives find the
hierarchical and authoritarian aspects of tribalism
appealing to their predisposition for traditional
values. There is thus a nexus between conservatives
and socialism which was openly acknowledged in the
nineteenth century. Both the conservative and
socialist sentiments have common roots in the
frigid tribal totalitarianism of Plato (see The
Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1, by Karl
R. Popper).
The following several quotes deal with law and
morals. Far from being the amoralists that
conservatives accuse classical liberals to be,
Hayek's statements stress the importance a liberal
places in the moral rules of a society and their
role in common law adjudication. And, with the
conservative, the liberal draws a line beyond which
the state cannot go to legislate private
morality.
- (4b) There can ... be no absolute system of
morals independent of the kind of social order
in which a person lives, and the obligation
incumbent upon us, to follow certain rules
derives from the benefits we owe to the order in
which we live.
-
- (4b) … it is in no sense a necessary
truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain
demands for morality ...
-
- (4b) ... in some instances the judge may
have to refer to the existing moral rules in
order to find out what the law is ...
-
- (4b) The law of all countries is full of
such references to prevailing moral convictions
to which the judge can give content only on the
basis of his knowledge of these moral
beliefs.
-
- (4b) … within a spontaneous order the
use of coercion can be justified only where it
is necessary to secure the private domain of the
individual against interference by others, but
that coercion should not be used to interfere in
that private sphere where this is not necessary
to protect others. Law serves a social order,
i.e. the relations between individuals, and
actions which affect nobody but the individuals
who perform them ought not to be subject to the
control of law, however strongly they may be
regulated by custom and morals.
-
- (4b) … the difference between moral and
legal rules is not between rules which have
spontaneously grown and rules which have been
deliberately made; for most of the rules of law
also have not been deliberately made in the
first instance. Rather, it is a distinction
between rules to which the recognized procedure
of enforcement by appointed authority ought to
apply and those to which it should not.
The next set of many quotes clearly demonstrates
Hayek's absolute antipathy to, and condemnation of,
the concept of so-called "social justice", which
has become the fashionable moral hobby-horse for
all politicians, including many a conservative.
Hayek's kind of classical liberalism would -- given
the chance -- declare the concept of "social
justice" invalid and do away with it.
- (4b) … society, in the strict sense in
which it must be distinguished from the
apparatus of government, is incapable of acting
for a specific purpose, and the demand for
'social justice' therefore becomes a demand that
the members of society should organize
themselves in a manner which makes it possible
to assign particular shares of the product of
society to the different individuals or groups.
… But the prior question is whether it is
moral that men be subjected to the powers of
direction that would have to be exercised in
order that the benefits derived by the
individuals could be meaningfully described as
just or unjust.
-
- (4b) The commitment to 'social justice' has
in fact become the chief outlet for moral
emotion, the distinguishing attribute of the
good man, and the recognized sign of the
possession of a moral conscience.
-
- (4b) ... there can be no doubt that moral
and religious beliefs can destroy a civilization
and that, where such doctrines prevail, not only
the most cherished beliefs but also the most
revered moral leaders, sometimes saintly figures
whose unselfishness is beyond question, may
become grave dangers to the values which the
same people regard as unshakable.
-
- (4b) It seems to be widely believed that
'social justice' is just a new moral value which
we must add to those that we recognized in the
past ...
-
- (4b) ... the striving for ['social
justice'] will … lead to the
destruction of the indispensable environment in
which the traditional moral values alone can
flourish, namely personal freedom.
-
- (4b) ... the kind of 'moral socialism' that
is possible in the small group and often
satisfies a deeply ingrained instinct may well
be impossible in the Great Society.
-
- (4b) ... the great moral adventure on which
modern man has embarked when he launched into
the Open Society is threatened when he is
required to apply to all his fellow men rules
which are appropriate only to the fellow members
of a tribal group.
-
- (4b) … the ubiquitous dependence on
other people's power, which the enforcement of
any image of 'social justice' creates,
inevitably destroys the freedom of personal
decisions on which all morals must rest.
Hayek warns that what he calls the modern Great
Society, or Open Society (Karl Popper's term) which
classical liberalism had endeavored to build, is
being dismantled -- in material and in moral terms
-- by the popular pursuit of "social justice".
- (4b) ... the greatest crimes of our time
have been committed by governments that had the
enthusiastic support of millions of people who
were guided by moral impulses. ... Some of them
certainly believed that they were engaged in the
creation of a just society in which the needs of
the most deserving or 'socially most valuable'
would be better cared for.
-
- (4b) &endash; We ... regard it as really
better to help one starving man we know than to
relieve the acute need of a hundred men we do
not know; but in fact we generally are doing
most good by pursuing gain.
-
- (4b) The moral progress by which we have
moved towards the Open Society, that is, the
extension of the obligation to treat alike, not
only members of our tribe but persons of ever
wider circles and ultimately all men, had to be
bought at the price of an attenuation of the
enforceable duty to aim deliberately at the
well-being of the other members of the same
group. When we can no longer know the others or
the circumstances under which they live, such a
duty becomes a psychological and intellectual
impossibility. ... It would therefore not be
really surprising if the first attempt of man to
emerge from the tribal into an open society
should fail because man is not yet ready to shed
moral views developed for the tribal society;
...
-
- (4b) … the ideals of socialism (or of
'social justice') ... are an atavism, a vain
attempt to impose upon the Open Society the
morals of the tribal society which, if it
prevails, must ... destroy the Great
Society...
-
- (4c) Only limited government can be decent
government, because there does not exist (and
cannot exist) general moral rules for the
assignments of particular benefits ...
-
- (4c) … the necessity of constantly
wooing splinter groups produces in the end
purely fortuitous moral standards and often
leads people to believe that the favoured social
groups are really specially deserving because
they are regularly singled out for special
benefits.
-
- (4c) Nobody with open eyes can any longer
doubt that the danger to personal freedom comes
chiefly from the left, not because of any
particular ideals it pursues, but because the
various socialist movements are the only large
organized bodies which, for aims which appeal to
many, want to impose upon society a preconceived
design. This must lead to the extinction of all
moral responsibility of the individual..
-
- (4c) The only moral principle which has ever
made the growth of an advanced civilization
possible was the principle of individual
freedom, which means that the individual is
guided in his decisions by rules of just conduct
and not by specific commands.
-
- (4c) Ethics is not a matter of choice. We
have not designed it and cannot design it. ...
The rules which we learn to observe are the
result of cultural evolution.
-
- (4c) There is ... so far as present society
is concerned, no 'natural goodness', because
with his innate instincts man could never have
built the civilization on which the numbers of
present mankind depend for their lives. To be
able to do so, he had to shed many sentiments
that were good for the small band, and to submit
to the sacrifices which the discipline of
freedom demands but which he hates. The abstract
society rests on learnt rules and not on
pursuing perceived desirable common objects: and
wanting to do good to known people will not
achieve the most for the community, but only the
observation of its abstract and seemingly
purposeless rules.
-
- (4c) ... if the illusion of social justice
must be sooner or later disappointed, the most
destructive of the constructivistic morals is
egalitarianism. … An egalitarian
distribution would necessarily remove all basis
for the individual's decision how they are to
fit themselves into the pattern of general
activities and leave only outright command as
the foundation of all order.
-
- (4c) While the realization of socialism
would make the scope of private moral conduct
dwindle, the political necessity of gratifying
all demands of large groups must lead to the
degeneration and destruction of all morals.
Finally, Hayek condemns the moral turpitude that
afflicts our society today in the strongest terms,
calling its product 'non-domesticated savages who
represent themselves as alienated from something
they have never learnt, and even undertake to
construct a "counter-culture".
- (4c) Morals presuppose a striving for
excellence and the recognition that in this some
succeed better than others, without inquiring
for the reasons which we can never know.
-
- (4c) Democratic morals may demand a
presumption that a person will conduct himself
honestly and decently until he proves the
contrary - but they cannot require us to suspend
that essential discipline [rules of
conduct] without destroying moral
beliefs.
-
- (4c) In 1946 the late [Canadian
psychiatrist] Dr G.B. Chisholm in a work
praised by high American legal authority,
advocated 'the eradication of the concept of
right and wrong which has been the basis of
child training, the substitution of intelligent
and rational thinking for the faith in the
certainties of old people [...since]
most psychiatrists and psychologists and many
other respectable people have escaped from these
moral chains and are able to observe and think
freely.'
-
- (4c) It is the harvest of these seeds which
we are now gathering. Those non-domesticated
savages who represent themselves as alienated
from something they have never learnt, and even
undertake to construct a 'counter-culture', are
the necessary product of the permissive
education which fails to pass on the burden of
culture, and trusts to the natural instincts
which are the instincts of the savage.
-
- (4c) What can we expect from a generation
who grew up during the fifty years during which
the English intellectual scene was dominated by
a figure [J.M. Keynes] who had publicly
pronounced that he always had been and would
remain an immoralist.
-
- (4c) If our civilization survives, which it
will do only if it renounces those
[constructivistic rationalist] errors, I
believe men will look back on our age as an age
of superstition, chiefly connected with the
names of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. I believe
people will discover that the most widely held
ideas which dominated the twentieth century,
those of a planned economy with a just
distribution, a freeing ourselves from
repressions and conventional morals, of
permissive education as a way to freedom, and
the replacement of the market by a rational
arrangement of a body with coercive powers, were
all based on superstitions in the strict sense
of the word ... the twentieth century was
certainly an outstanding age of superstition.
... Ironically, these superstitions are largely
an effect of our inheritance from the Age of
Reason, the great enemy of all that it regarded
as superstitions.
It is obvious that a classical liberal who
thinks like Hayek (and that is the only kind worthy
of the label) doesn't need to take lessons in
morality -- private or public -- from anyone, least
of all from the conservative whose predilection for
authoritarian enforcement of morals is very much
like that of the socialist, and where both
conservative and socialist, each in their own way,
are the modern-day disciples of Platonic tribal
morality.
To conclude, I want to repeat, with
modifications, portions of two quotes of Meyer. The
first is that classical liberals not only
developed, but continue to develop the economic and
political doctrines of limited state power , the
free-market economy and the freedom of the
individual person. The second is that the
conservatives still today respect the authority of
God and of truth as conveyed in tradition, but
imbue the authoritarianism of men and institutions
with the sacred aura of divine authority.
One must wonder whether conservatism consists of
anything more than a wish for the status quo and
aversion to any change, no matter how salutary.
Hayek calls it a "necessary element in any stable
society", but not a social program. Hayek notes
that conservatism tends to be "paternalistic,
nationalistic, and power-adoring"; so does
socialism, but not classical liberalism.
Conservatism is a necessary element in society, but
it is only just that and no more, let alone a
political doctrine.
Classical liberalism contains many conservative
elements, but it is a proactive doctrine built
around the core value of liberty under the rule of
law. The classical liberal is prepared to innovate
in order to improve the institutions which
safeguard that core value. One major task for the
classical liberals of the future is to take up the
challenge posed by Karl R. Popper: in order to
fortify our political institutions from misuse and
abuse by bad rulers, we must re-construct them
according to plans that first settle the question
of "How shall we guarantee control of the rulers?"
before the old traditional question of "Who shall
be the rulers?" is considered.
Modern-day classical liberals have excelled in
governing, but they have had to do so under the
conservative label. President Ronald Reagan and
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher are both admirers
and students of Hayek and both are classical
liberals in the truest sense. In the United States
of America there are literally thousands of
politicians whose ideological trappings are drawn
from classical liberalism, but who, of necessity,
must co-habit with arch-conservatives in the
Republican Party. It is to be hoped that classical
liberals of the future will be able to march
proudly under their own political banner.
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Mr. Irbe's Website: Classical
Liberal George
E-mail Address: George
J. Irbe
A Brief
Autobiography of George J. Irbe
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