“Neoclassical Liberalism,” Property Rights, and Capitalism

Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi have a thought-provoking piece entitled, “A Bleeding Heart History of Libertarianism,” in the latest Cato Unbound. They criticize postwar libertarians (specifically mentioning Mises, Rand, and Rothbard) for seeing property rights as absolute and, in their view, regarding the welfare of the working poor as irrelevant to moral justifications for capitalism:

In the remainder of this essay, we will discuss one particular way that neoclassical liberalism has a better grounding in the libertarian intellectual tradition than the libertarianism of Mises, Rand, and Rothbard. It is not the only contrast, but one of the clearest and most important differences between these two schools of libertarian thought has to do with the proper nature of concern for, and obligation to, the working poor. On this issue, the neoclassical liberal position is that the fate of the class who labor at the lowest end of the pay scale under capitalism is an essential element in the moral justification of that system. And this position, we will argue, has a far more solid grounding in the libertarian intellectual tradition than the justificatory indifference to which the postwar libertarians are committed.

They go on to cite John Locke, Adam Smith, and Herbert Spencer (yes, Spencer!) as classical liberals who would be more sympathetic to the neoclassical-liberal project of justifying markets partly on the basis of their consequences for the welfare of the least well off. However, they also argue, plausibly, that Rand and Rothbard in particular were not indifferent to the fate of the poor, simply that they viewed the coincidence of respect for individual property rights and a better life for all as a happy fortuity. (Mises was more of a consequentialist and perhaps after all a comfortable fit within neoclassical liberalism.)

I would stress that

Read Full Post »

How Do Libgressives Define Freedom?

Matt Yglesias throws some scorn the way of Freedom in the 50 States 2011:

Reasonable people can disagree as to whether there’s more freedom in Los Angeles or Brooklyn, and there may be good reasons to move from either place to Sioux Falls, but obviously “for the freedom” is not one of those reasons. For the lower taxes? Sure. Because there’s less government regulation? Maybe so. But because there’s more freedom? Clearly not. They say that they “explicitly ground our conception of freedom on an individual rights framework” but all that goes to show is that their understanding of the individual rights framework offers an unsound conception of freedom. These answers are clearly and uncontroversially mistaken.

Because he doesn’t propose any alternative conception of freedom, it’s unclear precisely in what way he thinks that the libertarian conception of freedom is mistaken. But it’s even more perplexing how he comes to the conclusion that the ranking “refutes” the libertarian conception of freedom. California lost 4.4% of its 2000 population over the next 9 years to other states, on net. New York lost 8.9% of its 2000 population over the next 9 years to other states, on net. New Hampshire, by contrast, enjoyed a net gain of 2.8% of its 2000 population over the same period. South Dakota’s net in-migration was 0.8%. The study finds that freer states experience more net in-migration, controlling for climate.

So let’s get this straight: People are fleeing a state with gorgeous year-round climate, world-class universities, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood and flocking to a wintry, windswept state with… the Badlands. People are fleeing a state with Wall Street, the Met, the Yankees, and Broadway for a wintry, rural state with… the Old Man of the Mountain. Wait, he’s gone now too. The omitted variable? Libertarian freedom. And that makes all the difference.

So how do libgressives define freedom? They often seem to conflate freedom and utility. (See for instance the quotes at the end of this story.) But surely a man locked in a cell hooked to an experience machine isn’t really free, is he?

Read Full Post »

Western Civilization: It’s Nice to Finally Have Some

Lately I’ve been reading One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark by Dartmouth history professor Colin G. Calloway. On some level I had always known that the conquest of the Americas had been brutal in the extreme, but passages like the following tend to numb one:

General Cardenas, however, claimed to know nothing of the peace and adhered to his orders to take no prisoners. He ordered stakes driven into the ground at which to burn the Indians. Seeing the fate in store for them, the Indians fought desperately to escape. Spanish infantry drove them off, and Spanish cavalry rode them down. Castaneda said there were two hundred prisoners; other sources suggest the figure was closer to eighty. At any rate, “none escaped alive except a few who had remained concealed in the pueblo and who fled that night.” (p. 139)

The conquistadors retaliated with brutality: at a pueblo called Puaray Espejo had thirty Indians burned alive when the villagers refused to feed his troops. (p. 144)

Males over age twenty-five… were sentenced to twenty-five years in slavery and were to have their right foot amputated… Two Hopis, visitors to Acoma at the time of the assault, had their right hands amputated and were sent home as living examples of the punishment meted out to those who resisted Spanish power. Such “theater of terror” was familiar to Spaniards and Moors but new and shocking to Pueblos. (p. 149)

In 1655 Fray Salvador de Guerra caught a Hopi named Juan Cuna in “an act of idolatry.” The priest whipped him until he was “bathed in blood,” then drenched him in burning turpentine. (p. 170)

Whatever hold the Franciscans had over the Pueblos, their authority eroded in bickering with Spanish civil authorities… Governors accused friars of abusing their positions, whipping Indians who refused to attend mass and raping Indian girls even as they insisted that Indians follow strict new codes of sexual behavior.  (p. 171)

The French and English weren’t much better (see also “pitchcapping“).

Hopelessly outnumbered…, the Foxes offered to surrender. They dropped more than three hundred children over the palisades in an effort to touch the hearts of the Indians in the besieging force, “calling out to them that since they hungered after their own flesh that all they had to do was eat of it and quench their thirst with the blood of their close relatives, although they were innocent of the offenses that their fathers had committed.” The besieging Indians received the children “with open arms,” and the Sauks provided safe refuge for them, but the French ended further communications by keeping up a continuous fire on the fort… The French were determined to exterminate the Foxes.

A week later…, the Foxes attempted a desperate breakout under cover of darkness during a violent thunderstorm. The cries of their children alerted French sentries, and the French and their Indian allies easily caught up with them the next day… Two hundred Fox warriors and three hundred women and children died in the slaughter. Captured warriors were tortured and burned at the stake. (pp. 323-4)

The English-American colonists used similar tactics to exterminate their enemies (see Pequot War).

We have come a long way. The U.S. government does torture people, but burning people alive is truly of a different order than waterboarding. Nor do most European governments today use genocidal strategies such as exterminating whole tribes and mass rape (but see Bosnian War).

What the history of the American conquest reveals is that ideas of liberalism and toleration are more endogenous to institutions and development than the latter are endogenous to ideas. Western ideas remained barbaric and inhuman, at least relative to those of the Indian “savages,” up until quite recently. (I am not giving any quarter to romantic “noble savage” myths either; Indians were quite capable of bloody warfare both against Europeans and among themselves.) The rapid economic development of western Europe and the neo-Europes had more to do with the fact that Europe was politically divided, both among several polities, and internally between church and state, than with any pre-existing ideas of liberalism. Liberalism came about because of the openings created by regime incoherence and competition, as well as the smoothing effects of trade. Materialist explanations of civilizational change seem to have much more going for them than idealist explanations.

Read Full Post »