History of libertarianism

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Part of the series on Libertarianism

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The history of libertarianism is closely related to the history of classical liberalism. Modern libertarians see themselves as having revived the original doctrine of liberalism, and often call themselves "libertarians" and "classical liberals" interchangeably. The term "classical liberalism" itself was coined in the 20th century, and applied retroactively to pre-1850 liberalism, to avoid confusion with an accepted modern definition of liberalism.

[edit] Classical Liberalism

Renaissance thinkers such as Erasmus, Francis Bacon, Niccolò Machiavelli and Galileo Galilei represent the rise of empiricism and humanism in place of scholastic tradition of Middle Ages. This was followed by Age of Reason, which attempted to organise philosophy on rational, skeptical and axiomatic grounds. Three major thinkers of this period were René Descartes, Blaise Pascal and most importantly, Thomas Hobbes, whose Leviathan set the framework of all subsequent Western political philosophy. Influenced by the English Civil War, Hobbes conceived the hypothetical notion of the natural condition of mankind from the axiomatic proposition of human nature. Hobbes's state of nature is exemplified by the famous motto, bellum omnium contra omnes ("war of every man against every man"), where every person has a right and a need to do anything to preserve their own liberty and safety. To escape this state of chaos, people form social contract, ceding their individual rights to create sovereignty ruled under absolute monarch in explicit rejection to democracy. The law under this Leviathan state is positive, that is man made law which has no inherent or necessary connection with ethics or morality.

[edit] Age of Enlightenment

John Locke challenged Hobbes in his Two Treatises of Government which was written beforehand and published after the Glorious Revolution with an introduction explicitly endorsing the event. His formulation laid the foundation of liberalism and was loosely reflected in the policy and the philosophy of the Whig of Britain. In contrast to Hobbes, John Locke proposed actual state of nature, a primitive society with no government. In this state, everyone is in a state of perfect freedom which is only constrained by the law of nature characterised by right to "life, liberty and estate". However, this ideal state lack effective authority of enforcement and the state of nature soon degenerate into Hobbesian state of unrest. However, unlike Hobbes's ethical egoism, this does not release men from moral obligation to observe natural law. Subsequently, a social contract was formed where men submit to the rule of law to "preserve" the state of nature and its natural law. The basis of Lockean social contract is the consent of the governed derived from the natural rights. On this basis, Locke formulated the justification of slavery and conquest in term of response to or retaliation to violation of natural right. This is, however, "but the state of war continued" and therefore all forms of slavery and tyranny are invalid by definition. It thus follow that there is a moral injunction to rebell against such institutions. As a practical matter, in every society, a part must rule the whole. As the majority is composed of more will and is stronger than the minority, the will of society must be determined by the majority. This makes liberal democracy a moral imperative of natural law and reason itself. Parliament should be comprised by those men who own estate. The role of legislature was to protect natural law in the form of civil right. In Locke's definition, "property" means "life, liberty, and estate." because the word "property" is derived from Latin 'proprius' meaning "that which is one's own including oneself". Hobbes argue that, in a state of nature (which he denied actual existence), everything would be held in commons: there could be no private property, and hence no justice or injustice. Locke proposed a labour theory of property that built on the idea of natural law (see Thomas Aquinas). Each individual in the state of nature, at a minimum, "owns" himself and consequently own his labour. By applying one's labour to nature, any fruits of labour become his by merit of its effort. This eventually cause natural emergence of economy based on private property, trade and money (tradable piece of metal). In ideal state of plenty, it makes no sense to enclose more land than one needs for its own consumption and exchange. However, as the population increases, problem of scarcity arises which cause inevitable conflict which prompt the formation of social contract where everyone submit both private property and commons under the rules of laws.

The Lockean framework was further developed by later Enlightenment thinkers, most notably, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith. Kant expanded the concept of natural rights in his formulation of categorical Imperative, from which all other moral obligation and natural rights are generated as inalienable natural law. Rousseau, reformulated state of nature by contending that man was good by nature, a noble savage in direct conflict with the notion of the original sin. Rousseau suggested that man's bad habits are the products of civilization, specifically social hierarchies, property, and markets, which led to increased interdependence and inequality and chaos, resulting in deeply flawed original social contract which ought to be revised. The idea of Rousseau together Montesquieu's separation of powers provided the founding principle of revolutionary republicanism of subsequent era.

Republican reformulation of Lockean framework, which emphasise civic virtue and the common good is somewhat contrasted by the classical economics of the Wealth of Nations, magnum opus of Adam Smith. The book was Smith's attempt at refutation to the theory and policy of mercantilism, bullionism and monopolistic guilds. Written at the dawn of industrial revolution, Smith further reformulated Lockean labour theory of property into labour theory of value. He also demonstrated that division of labour is a result as well as a consequence of dynamic engine of economic progress which was made possible by the use of capital. At the same time, he stated that such specialisation leads to a 'mental mutilation' in workers and advocated government investment in compulsory public education. Smith stresses the critical importance of meritocracy, allowing individuals to achieve what their "God-given talents" will allow them to, without interference from outside forces which lead to inefficiency in the division of labor and hamstring progress generally. Smith stated that "a voluntary, informed transaction always benefits both parties." provided that there is no coercion or fraud. Smith repeatedly admonished tendency of merchant and craftsmen to form cartel. But despite this tendency, the market, while appearing chaotic and unrestrained, is actually guided by so called invisible hand to produce the right amount and variety of goods at its natural price. His thinking was further developed by subsequent English classical economist such as David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill.

General tenet of Enlightenment was that nature, while basically good, was not basically self-ordering and, instead, had to be ordered with reasoning and maturity. Thinking of later enlightenment thinkers such as Smith and Rousseau who believed that social order at its natural state as somewhat self-ordering and that chaos was, in a real sense, the result of excessive intervention of authority or entrenched political or commercial interest. This shift represented the impending end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of Romanticism.

[edit] Age of Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century. It stressed strong emotion, the individual imagination as a critical authority, and overturning of previous social conventions, particularly the position of the aristocracy. There was a strong emphasis on the importance of sublimity through a connection with nature. In economic term it was the period of Industrial Revolution. In political term, it was period of greater demand for democracy represented by independent movement in American Revolution and subsequent French Revolution, the Latin American independence movement and the May Constitution of Poland. In term of libertarian political philosophy, the period is characterised by the emergence on utilitarianism, individualism, anarchism and laissez-faire economics.

The origin of utilitarianism is credited generally to Jeremy Bentham who was born at a time of great social change accompanied by demands for greater democracy. He stated that the utility, that is pain and pleasure is the only absolutes in the world which govern human behaviour. He further insisted that what is ethical is whatever brings "the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people". Bentham soon realised that the former could potentially conflict with the later. He dropped the second part and talked simply about Greatest happiness principle. The ethical proposition of Bentham was a clear break from the ethical proposition of natural law. Moreover, in political term, the principle can be applied to both totalitarian and anarchist principle.

John Stuart Mill reformulated Bentham's utilitarianism in term of individual liberty. Mill states that "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign". Mill is compelled to say this due to what he calls the "tyranny of the majority", wherein majority could control etiquette and morality of individuals. Mill also articulated harm principle that people can do anything they like as long as it does not harm others. Mill insisted that cultural and spiritual happiness to be of greater value than mere physical pleasure and that utilitarianism requires that political arrangements which satisfy the "liberty principle", where each person would be guaranteed the greatest possible liberty that would not interfere with the liberty of others, so that each person may maximize his or her happiness.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon advocated an anarchist version of social contract which was not between individuals and the state, but rather "an agreement of man with man; an agreement from which must result what we call society". One of his famous statements is that "anarchy is order". In his formulation of mutualism, he asserted that labour is the only legitimate form of property ("property is freedom"), rejecting both private and collective ownership of property in favour of possession ("property is theft!"). Proudhon endorse limited private property "as a counterweight to the power of the State, and by so doing to insure the liberty of the individual." Proudhon's advocacy of property ownership was not absolute and he continued to oppose concentrations of both wealth and property, arguing instead for small-scale property ownership associated with peasants and artisans. Proudhon still opposed private property in land: “What I cannot accept, regarding land, is that the work put in gives a right to ownership of what has been worked on.” In addition, he still believed that that “property” should be more equally distributed and limited in size to that actually used by individuals, families and workers associations. (Theory of Property in Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon p. 136, p. 129, p. 133, p. 135, p. 129)

Laissez-faire economics is the combination of quantity theory of money proposed byJean-Baptiste Say, Say's law of demand and supply articulated by James Mills, international trade theory based on David Ricardo's comparative advantage and lastly, John Stuart Mill's articulation of theories of production based on factors of production. In essence, it states that recession cannot occur because of failure in demand or lack of money. This theories evolved into what is sometimes called "law of markets" which was the framework of macroeconomics from mid 1800s until the 1930s and inspire neoclassical economics which arose later in the 19th century.