Liberal Vision

John Milton (1608-1674). Areopagitica (1644)

John Milton (1608-1674)

Areopagitica (1644)

John Milton is best known as a poet, in English and in Latin,  particularly for his epic Paradise Lost, one of the major works in all English literature.  It is work with a religious structure, which also shows evidence of his opposition to (Satanic) tyranny, and support for republicanism as the most godly form of government on Earth.  As this suggests, Milton was also one of the major seventeenth century English republican thinkers.  Nineteenth century English liberals gave great importance to Milton as a forerunner, as in The Whig-Liberal  historian, politician and civil servant Thomas Macaulay who elevated Milton to the status of ‘martyr of English liberty’.   It is Milton’s strangely name Areopagitica which has made the biggest impression in the history of political thought.  Milton was a supporter of the English Commonwealth (1649-1660, though in the strictest sense it ended in 1653), which followed Parliament’s victory over the English monarchy, and the execution of Charles I.  He  argued for the Commonwealth on the basis of  a form of popular sovereignty argument (in which Milton thought that aristocratic bodies could be adequate to represent the nation) inThe Tenure of Kings and Magistrates of 1649.  He worked for Oliver Cromwell, commander of the Parliamentary army, and increasingly dominant in politics, as Secretary of Foreign Tongues (which meant chief translator and publicist for the government).  Cromwell can as much be regarded as the great traitor to English republicanism as its hero, but he did have republican supporters like Milton. Cromwell’s elevation to rank Lord Protector in 1653, along with his crushing of republican and democratic thinkers, his restrictions on parliament and religious dissenters, and increasingly monarchical pretensions, ended the hopes of a pure republic of liberty and parliamentary power, in England.  He was still the defender of the next best thing for Milton,  and for others. Areopagitica refers to the Athenian court of Areopagus which has secular and religious, legal and poetic, significance.  In secular terms it was a court of Athens, the most democratic and liberty respecting of ancient Greek states.  Ancient Greek tragedy links the Areopagus Hill with the transition from revenge to law, as it is the location of the trial of Oestes in the Eumenides (the last part of Aeschylus’ Oresteia), in which the Furies becomes the Kindly Ones.  As St Paul famously spoke there (New Testament. Acts 17: 24), it has an important place in the origins of Christianity.  This is very favourable to Milton’s interest in both Christian religion and antique literature. As was normal for republican and liberty oriented thinkers of the time, he drew on Ancient Greek and Roman history, along with the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, for examples of good and bad political forms.  In Milton, there is a particular emphasis on liberty, as the Protestant liberty for a Christian to seek an individual understanding of the Bible, and of God’s word.  Political liberty is necessarily bound up with this for him.

Milton quotes from Euripides’ tragedy the Suppliant Women at the beginning of Areopagitica, confirming the importance of Ancient Greek tragedy as a source of thought about liberty.  He also refers to the more strictly defined political thought of antiquity, as when he refers to Cicero in his account of  the value of publication freed from pre-censorship. In Areopagitica,  Milton is addressing parliament at the height of the English Civil War (1642-1651, also known, and more accurately, as the War of the Three Kingdoms) to appeal against the pre-censorship of books, which he refers to as licensing.  Milton’s argument in religion, in politics, and in all fields, is that truth emerges stronger for being challenged and then in the arguing for it. We can never be sure that we have found the highest truth, so we are bound to entertain counter-arguments to whatever we think is the highest truth we have.  Milton does make it  clear that he excludes atheism and Catholicism from the range of  thought which can be freely expressed, but this is not intolerance by the standards of the age.   It is the freedom of books in Athens that Milton refers to as a model in antiquity, and this extends to a suggestion that England is a particularly free nation, implicitly like ancient Athens, so we see the role of classicism, of nostalgia for ancient republics, in modern ideas about liberty.  Milton’s specific arguments for free speech include the idea that a right to free speech, and even demonstrable commitment to its exercise, is  a criterion of membership of a political community, both in legal terms and in terms of peer esteem.  Those who are not trusted in their actions, including the action of writing, even though their intentions are not known to be immoral or illegal, must be regarded as excluded from full citizenship, because of intellectual impairment, or citizenship of another nation.  Milton’s sense of liberty includes national self-government, and though his manner of referring to foreign residents may strike us as harsh, he does capture the idea that state power must be limited to what comes from the freely formed political will of the nation, and in responsible genuinely national political institutions, as opposed to the will of one person.  As a defender of free speech, and very few in his time went further in demanding liberty of expression, he is a great antecedent for John Stuart Mill, and all those who have argued for individual liberty, and for political institutions which act with rational deliberation, and which are accountable to public opinion.

A New Leader for European Liberalism

Congratulations to Sir Graham Watson on becoming President of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR). ELDR

Graham Watson

groups national parties in European Union countries into an EU ‘political party’, in practice an alliance of national parties. Watson’s acceptance speech, posted on YouTube, and available as an online transcript, is inevitably a balancing act between different  strands of liberalism, but on the whole is to be welcomed from a LiberalVision point of view. John Milton, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Benjamin Constant, Wilhelm von Humboldt, John Stuart Mill, and Ludwig von Mises are all mentioned.  All of these  thinkers have already been covered in LiberalVision posts, apart from  Milton and Constant. Posts on the last two are coming soon.  One other notable

mention in the speech is Johan Norberg, a Swedish writer who is a Senior Fellow at the US libertarian foundation, the Cato Institute.  Norberg is not a big general thinker of the type covered in our posts on liberal thought, but he has made a notable contribution to the defence of capitalism and globalisation.

Returning to Watson’s speech, he relies on the now discredited belief that it is in Smith’s works other than An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, that Smith refers to regulation and public goods. As scholars now accept, Smith is committed to the merits of both individual economic action and broader public goods across all his writings. Watson also attributes the slogan ‘private  vices, public goods’ to Smith, which comes from the Fable of the Bees (1732) by Bernard Mandeville.  Though Mandeville foreshadows some of Smith’s ideas, Smith was an earnest moralist who was very uncomfortable with accepting ‘vices’ of any kind.  In his opinion ‘commercial society’ was moral all the way through, and he criticised Mandeville for advocating ‘vice’.

However, we are evaluating Watson as a liberal political leader, not a historian of liberal thought!  As a leader he has done well in the past leading first the UK Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament, and then the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, a parliamentary group which gathers ELDR MEPs, with some  from outside ELDR.  These complexities of European Union politics are addressed in Watson speech, in which he discusses the inclusion in ELDR of parties who do not feel comfortable with the liberal label in their home countries, where it is largely taken to mean the same as very conservative.

That is not just a reference to the distinction between: classical or economic liberals on one side, left or social liberals on the other side.  In some countries, ‘liberal’ has become  too much associated with an old oligarch elite,  which defended existing property rights and social relations, and the division of governmental powers within the upper class only, which had difficulty in adapting to democracy, and which was not concerned much with life style liberties.

There is some admirable straight talking in general about the problems of European liberals, with regard to the lack of ELDR representation in all countries, the decline of the number of ELDR Prime Ministers,  and surrender to populism on the part of some European liberal parties.  Watson refers to the need to be open to parties like the Party of Values in Italy, which hosted the ELDR Congress, and is more motivated by a struggle for the rule of law in Italy than adherence to liberal political tradition.  He appeals to the general need for openness, alliance building,  smart thinking and risk taking on the part of European liberals.

The broad context for these very welcome words is that the European Union is suffering from a lack of politics of a kind, which engages  citizens.  It is a self-enclosed world of Brussels politicians and para-political personnel, where there is too much of a tendency to dismiss all criticism from outside a very small circle as populist and irrational. We need more EU political personalities in the sense of individuals who can lead, communicate and inspire, outside the political elite; and who are genuinely interested in why so many people are unengaged by the European project, or even actively hostile. That would go with a renewed political union which does not try to endlessly expand administrative power, intervention, regulation and harmonisation; and which is able to let go of unnecessary, and down right destructive, powers and fields of intervention. A political union which engages public opinion in issues of genuine pan-European concern, where lines of accountability are clear; and with leaders who do not insult and belittle those who are disturbed by detailed interventionism, decided in confusing and oblique procedures, remote from citizens. Graham Watson certainly shows sign of understanding this, let us support and help him in this.

Classical Liberalism and The Liberal Democrats

It’s party conference time, members of Liberal Vision are in Birmingham (though not me unfortunately) and the political positioning of the party is a matter for discussion.  Strange to say LiberalVision sometimes encounters criticism of our existence in the Liberal Democrats, and this time of year tends to intensify that discussion.  It is even sometimes said we are an elite force detached from party activism.  I say it’s strange because individuals connected with LiberalVision are enthusiasts for the Liberal Democrats, work for the party, and prefer it very enthusiastically to any other political party.  We are all active in the party (even I do a bit round Croydon on visits from Istanbul).  LV associates are in local and student politics, campaign for Liberal Democrats of every stripe to get into public office, and stand for public office themselves on behalf of the Liberal Democrats.  Some of us have, or have had, connections with policy institutes in Britain, and elsewhere, but that does not keep us away from ordinary party activism.  Our classical liberal and libertarian position, is deeply embedded in Liberal and Liberal Democrat history.  I don’t just mean the nineteenth century past, though our history in that time should certainly  be something still living for us today.  Something the party recognises in the tradition of party presidents passing on a copy of J.S. Mill’s On Liberty to successors.  A book that is without doubt a definitive text of classical liberalism.

John Stuart Mill

If we look at more recent history, Jo Grimond, who brought the Liberal Party back to full life in the 1950s after earlier near death experiences, wrote for the classical liberal Institute of Economic Affairs in the later part of his life.  The veteran Financial Times journalist Sam Brittan, one of the most distinguished economic commentators in Britain is  long standing classical liberal supporter of the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats.  Though it is fair to say that the ‘New Liberalism’ of the early twentieth century lessened the influence of classical liberalism, classical liberalism never disappeared from the party and some of the leading New Liberals, like the Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, and the economist J.M. Keynes, saw their positions as a continuation of earlier liberalism, not a move away from it.

There is no clear homogeneous majority of ‘social’ liberals in the Liberal Democrats at present.  Yes more people self-identify as social or left-leaning liberals, than as as economic or classical liberals.  The social liberal label is, however, a very broad one concealing many differences within it.  Some of the most ‘left’ social liberals have positions which are popular in LiberalVision, such as support for open immigration and legalisation of drugs.  The number of party members who self-identify as economic liberal is a minority, but a  significant one amounting to about a third according to the evidence I have seen.  That includes many people who might find LiberalVision too radical, but then many ‘social liberals’ disagree with particular ‘left’ policies and positions in the party.

Jo Grimond

A better to way to think of positions, within the Liberal Democrats, is to take the party as a coalition of overlapping groups.  These groups include ‘radicals’ leaning towards  the green left and very strong forms of decentralisation, social democrats oriented towards constitutional reform and human rights issues, localist community activists, pragmatist centrists, and John Hemming style anti-conformist characters, as well as people more or less influenced by classical liberalism and libertarianism.  I put radical greens and libertarians on the opposite end of the list, but you can find people in both of those camps who are enthusiasts for the principle of  land taxation, and maybe its extension into the politics of geo-mutualism (land taxation as the unique source of public revenues).

There are reasons why all these people are together in one party, why we feel part of the historical narrative of Liberalism/Liberal Democracy in this country, rather than the Labour or Conservative narratives.  We all find that is the Liberal tradition which is most open in its attitudes to political ideas and political debate.  We all reject the machine like nature of the Labour and Conservative parties; the predictable interest groups they serve; and the associated style of party organisation based on mistrust of individual members.    For Labour, authority serves a client state where increasing numbers become dependent on poor public services and welfare handouts, along with parts of the employment market dominated  by Labour linked unions  For the Conservatives, authority serves existing property relations, and holding back challenges to the way that wealth, and income, go to those with the most political influence, and the most connections with the state.

William Ewart Gladstone

All currents in the Liberal Democrats can recognise that these are the things we are against, and that the only way to create enduring alternatives is through a politics of social tolerance, individual variety, open debate, constitutional reform, civil liberties, and decentralisation.  We are all opposed to the forces of conformism, entrenched economic interests, established authority, power without balances, and centralisation.  The policies differ, but we do share a political culture, a way of thinking which puts particular values at the centre.  In LiberalVision we are committed to the Liberal Democrats, even where policy decisions go strongly against us.  If policy decisions were to consistently move in our direction, I would still expect the other groupings to stay in the party, and I hope that we would still be carrying on our debate of what liberalism should be with those liberal friends.

To all those who say market liberalism is a conservative position, I say that they should remember that Gladstone was accused of socialism by the Conservative party, because he supported reform of those laws which entrenched economic privilege.  The laws governing tenant-landlord relations in Ireland is a particularly notable case.  That is what LiberalVision is about, social progress through challenging laws and state policies, which serve and entrench privilege.  We may disagree about some of the means with other Liberal Democrats, but surely we can recognised shared concerns and goals.

Listen to Tom Papworth Today

Our very own Tom Papworth is interviewed on Radio 5 Drive today, briefly at about 6 after Nick Clegg’s speech and at greater length about 6.30. Tune in or get online to hear Tom’s perspective.

James M. Buchanan (1919- ) and Gordon Tullock (1922- ). The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1962)

The Calculus of Consent was published two years after Friedrich Hayek  published The Constitution of Liberty. Buchanan and Tullock should be  placed with Hayek and Friedman in the revival of classical liberal ideas of  individual liberty, free markets, and limited government.  It’s not likely that  any books by Buchanan and Tullock will ever be as widely read as  Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom or even the rather longer book, The  Constitution of Liberty.  Buchanan and Tullock write with great intellectual  elegance, but not with elegance of style, or humour of any kind.  It has to be  said that even Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia, which is very  philosophically demanding, is nevertheless more witty and stylish.    However, it would be a great loss for Buchanan and Tullock to be left purely  to the attentions of those concerned with the more formalised aspects of economics and political science.  They use a minimum of formalism, and can be read by those who lack their own mathematical abilities.  Their arguments are clear even if dry.

Buchanan got his doctorate in economics at Chicago, while Tullock got his doctorate in law at Chicago.  This indicates the strength of law and economics at Chicago, as well as of those disciplines taken separately.  The Chicago economics faculty is well known as a centre of free market influenced thinking, and both appropriately ended up at George Mason University in Virginia, a great centre of classical liberalism and libertarianism in economics, and related field.  Tullock was a law professor there, but his work is clearly important in economics.  Both read Human Action, Ludwig von Mises’ main treatise on economics, at an early stage, and were deeply impressed, without becoming fully associated with, Austrian Economics.  Both taught at the University of Virginia and Virginia Polytechnic University before transferring to GMU, and therefore their position is often referred to as Virginia Public Choice Theory.  Though their work is often taken together, The Calculus of Consent is an unusual example of joint authorship.  Buchanan received a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986, it is surely something of an injustice that it was not a joint award including Tullock, or that Tullock has not received the prize in his own right since.  For example, it is Tullock who developed the concept of ‘rent seeking’, that is the use of the political process to receive non-market economic rewards.

In Calculus of Consent, Buchanan and Tullock, admit to lack of expertise in political theory,  but do refer to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s classic of eighteenth-century liberalism, The Limits of State Action.  They see in it a clear example of the distinction between public goods and private goods.  Humboldt restricts public goods (which he refers to as negative welfare) to law and order and national defence.  Buchanan and Tullock find this too restrictive in its understanding of public good, but share the idea that it is important to establish a distinction.  Buchanan and Tullock do not draw such a clear line as Humboldt does.  They establish a way of thinking about where to draw the line which depends on context and a dynamic relation between changeable factors.  Collective decision making about state provided goods need to be less inclusive of a large proportion of the population, that is rest on a level of consent of more than a bare majority, where the population tends to think in universalist rather than sectional terms, that is pays relatively more attention to public goods than private interest.  It is not possible to achieve complete virtue in that areas, and undesirable to try since private self-interest is necessary to motivate human behaviour.  A  more universalist thinking population makes state provision of public goods more acceptable, though still strictly limited because the collective action required rests less on a coalition of self-interest, which has negative impacts on those in the minority.  Issues of self-interested coalition building through exchanging benefits from collective action mean that there is always a limit to how much good can be achieved by collective action, and too much collective action undermines incentives necessary to the economy.

What Buchanan and Tullock are proposing is in part an economic analysis  of politics, and they aim to create some common ground between economics and political science.  As with the private economy, there are imperfect markets in political decision making.  In politics that arises through the possibility of building winning coalitions, and which make decisions at the expense of the minority, the process which is then repeated leads to everyone enduring a growing burden of costs for collective action of a kind which creates privileged exemptions from economic forces, rather than genuinely universal benefits.  Increased collective action, even if justified by the aim of assisting the poor, tends to harm the poor by transferring resources to those who are part of winning political coalitions.

Largeness of size of the area over which collective decision making is exercised is another factor that tends to lead to more bad decision making, and therefore requires more unanimity, that is inclusiveness before action is taken.  This does not mean that states should be broken up into micro-communities, because spill over effects of decision between localities makes makes effective decision making impossible.  The decision making community has to reach a certain size to allow for spill overs between actions in different  localities.  The problems of collective decision making can also be ameliorated by two chamber national assemblies and veto powers of the head of state, or some equivalent form of separation of constitutional powers.  That is because such measures make it less easy to engage in collective actions, without a level of consent approaching the ideal of unanimity.  For Buchanan and Tullock, it is a basic goal to extend economic discussions of individual action into the constitutional sphere, so that the constitution itself will have the best possible rules for decision making in areas with economic impact.