Although it is the predominant political ideology in the west, liberalism is a protean doctrine whose meaning can perhaps be conveyed only by the use of adjectives that describe its particular nuances. The two most familiar are social liberalism and economic liberalism.
The various liberalisms, nevertheless, derive from various interpretations of the morally appropriate relationship between the individual and the state, or organized community. Liberalism has traditionally presupposed that the individual is logically prior to society and that political forms should respect this by allocating a protected sphere within which the person should be free to pursue self-determined goals. It rests upon a belief in a pluralism of purposes such that none is entitled to special pivilege, and claims that law and state should preserve an institutional framework of equal justice. It is therefore indissolubly connected to a form of constitutionalism which limits political authority.
Liberals vary in the extent to which they acknowledge the role of reason in human affairs. However, liberalism has always rejected conservative claims that traditional institutional arrangements are entitled to allegiance in advance of a consideration of the value they might have in the protection of individual self-fulfilment. There is also an implicit universalism in liberalism in that it proclaims a moral validity independently of particular historical and social circumstances. This purported validity is derived normally from either a utilitarian calculation of the advantages that accrue from individual self-determination or from a purely moral perspective that rests on the inviolability of the person.
John Locke (1690) was perhaps the originator of modern liberalism with his argument that government was bound by natural law and that its function was limited to the protection of individual rights, especially the entitlement to property which derived from individual appropriation, subject to moral law. Furthermore, his liberalism included a right to disobedience if government transgressed the boundaries of individualism specified by morality. Despite this, Lockean liberalism could be said to be embedded in the English common law tradition, which was maturing in the seventeenth century
However, the modern development of liberalism owes more to the influence of the Enlightenment on European thought. This produced a much more rationalistic version which explicity subjected all received social arrangements to the test of an abstract reason, uncontaminated by traditional practices. From Voltaire onwards French liberalism in particular was inherently distrustful of experience and supposed that liberty-enhancing institutions were to be designed from first principles. It was a form of liberalism that came to be significantly different from the cautious empiricism of David Hume and Adam Smith, who were distinctive in identifying liberty with the spontaneous growth of market institutions and their associated legal framework. This leaves a small role for government since the ‘invisible hand’ of the exchange system was thought to generate the public good out of the self-regarding actions of private agents (Smith 1776).
From the early nineteenth century, liberalism began to be associated explicitly with laissez-faire economics and utilitarianism, and its moral dimensions were limited to the promotion of happiness. However, Jeremy Bentham (1789), while still claiming that individuals were the units of social evaluation (for him collective entities such as the state and society were ‘fictions’ which were constructed out of the motivations of discrete, pleasure-seeking agents), maintained that there was a role for political direction in the creation of an artificial harmony of interests. This, theoretically, allowed an expanded role for the state. But throughout the century the natural processes of the market in the allocation of resources and in the determination of income became the key features of liberalism. The growth of free trade and the limiting of government to the provision of defence, law and order and other essential public goods, were practices associated exclusively with liberalism. The doctrine was also understood as the means for achieving universal peace, as well as prosperity. John Stuart Mill, although he thought of himself as a liberal utilitarian, was exceptional in stressing the moral value of individuality and in his On Liberty (1859) was as concerned to argue for freedom as a contribution to the development of the personality as well as for its role in wealth creation. The latter was, in fact, understated.
In the early twentieth century, liberalism began to take on a much more social orientation and the state was charged with the duty of providing conditions for the fulfilment of the good life. Under the influence of writers such as L.T.Hobhouse (1911), British liberal doctrine became associated with the rise of the welfare state. This could still claim to be individualistic in that the state was not understood to embody collective values irreducible to those of private agents, or as the source of a morality which could claim an unquestioned loyalty from citizens, but certainly the role of the state in creation of a more equal society became integral to liberalism. Economic liberty, the protection of property rights and the inviolability of contract, faded into the background. The great theorists of economic intervention, such as Keynes (1936), could all claim to be liberal, despite their rejection of the traditional liberal doctrine that a free market is automatically self-correcting. The creation of the general interest was now the direct responsibility of liberal governments.
In the contemporary world, liberalism has shed much of its earlier utilitarianism. This is largely because of its embrace of the theory of social justice. Thus Rawls (1971) argues that justice is the first virtue of society and its demands must be met (normally) before conditions of economic well-being become relevant to the evaluation of government policy. The doctrine remains rationalistic and critical of received institutions. Using the contractarian method, Rawls asks individuals which principles of social and economic organization they would adopt if they were ignorant of their present circumstances and the value of their particular talents. In addition to choosing the traditional liberal values of equality before the law and free expression, Rawls argues that rational agents would opt for a redistributive rule that would permit inequality only in so far as that it is needed to ensure the greatest benefit to the least advantaged. This is seen to be consistent with rational self-interest since an individual may turn out to be the least advantaged in the conditions of the real world.
This approach has come to be definitive of late twentieth-century liberalism (especially in the USA). It is Kantian in foundation since it stresses the inviolability and separateness of persons. Individual interests cannot be conflated into a social utility function since this would put the ends of society in a privileged position. It is also ‘neutral’ about conceptions of the good. Ways of life are matters of individual determination, since for the state to favour any one would be to assume a moral knowledge which it cannot have. It would also involve the unequal treatment of people. It is permitted only to promote the primary goods, those encompassing the conditions of basic well-being, liberty, equality of opportunity and self-respect, and must eschew any ideas of perfectionism. In its original formulation it was heavily universalistic, since individuals are deliberately abstracted from any communal affiliations and asked to deliberate over moral rules which are applicable to all agents. The doctrine is heavily egalitarian because it denies the moral validity of, not merely inherited wealth, but also the advantages that accrue from the distribution of natural assets (skills and talents that are socially valuable). Nobody deserves their talents, they are the product of the random processes of nature. The original liberal notion of self-ownership is explicitly rejected. The earnings derived from natural assets constitute a common pool which is available for redistribution according to the principles of social justice. The only concession to the liberal utilitarian’s notion of efficiency is that some inequality is required to ensure that the talented use their skills so that everybody (including the least advantaged) benefits. The final link between this liberalism and economic liberalism is broken with Rawls’s claim that his system is consistent with either capitalist or socialist ownership of the means of production.
This is not specifically a natural rights doctrine because Rawls and his followers do not utilize a notion of individual claims prior to society, but its moral metaphysic provides liberalism with intellectual armoury to be used against positive law (legislation). The legalistic social liberals, especially Ronald Dworkin (1977), have been active in claiming rights against the state. These individual rights (though they do not include economic freedoms) take priority over communal interests or the will of the majority. This version of liberalism has prospered in the USA precisely because the written constitution there gives the judiciary considerable interpretative authority over the content of liberal rights.
Economic liberalism has undergone a minor revival since the mid-1970s. Here the emphasis has been either on individual rights to property, which social liberalism’s egalitarianism severely attenuates, or on the alleged economic incoherence of liberal redistributivism. Thus Nozick (1974), in a revised version of Locke’s doctrine, argues that individuals have rights to their natural talents and to the products of voluntary exchange and inheritance. For the state to intervene to create an egalitarian order would be to violate these rights and to use individuals (in a non-Kantian manner) as mere means to the ends of society. The state is limited to the enforcement of legitimately acquired property rights, to the protection of freedom of contract and to the correction of past wrongs.
Friedrich von Hayek (1976) takes a more economic view. For him there is no distinction between production and distribution: any redistribution of resources must have a feedback effect (through reduced incentives) on productive possibilities so that society as a whole is worse off. To entrust the state with redistributive powers is to pose serious threats to liberty and the rule of law. Justice is really a type of constitutionalism which forbids the state imposing various outcomes (particular patterns of income and wealth) on a natural market process. Furthermore, Hayek maintains that in a pluralistic, liberal society there is no agreement about the morality of distribution. For example, there is no theory of desert which can secure universal assent and any interference with the verdict of an anonymous market is a threat to the liberal order. Hayek’s liberalism is firmly tied to market economics and the doctrine of the rule of law. What is surprising is his claim that these arrangements will emerge spontaneously if people are left some liberty. The role of reason in the evaluation of social order is seriously diminished.
Whatever their disagreements about economics, modern liberals are united at least in their opposition to that kind of conservatism which locates the identity of the individual within given social orders which are immune from rational criticism. The individual is accorded a peculiar kind of sovereignty which is resistant to the claims of community. Methodologically, almost all liberals doubt the explanatory value of collectivist or holistic theories. They also reject the moral implications that such models may have. Similarly, while not denying the legitimacy of democratic procedures, liberals are not willing to endanger the sanctity of the individual by unconstrained majority rule.
Norman Barry
University of Buckingham
References
Bentham, J. (1789) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London.
Dworkin, R.M. (1977) Taking Rights Seriously, London.
Hayek, F.A. von (1976) The Mirage of Social Justice, London.
Hobhouse, L.T. (1911) Liberalism, London.
Keynes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London.
Locke, J. (1690) Two Treatises of Government, London.
Mill, J.S. (1859) On Liberty, London.
Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State and Utopia, New York.
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA.
Smith, A. (1776) An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, London.
