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Home , Classical liberalism, James Mill

: Classical, Reformist and Neo-Liberalism1

“Liberalism is a that society can safely be founded on ... self-directing power of personality, that it is only on this foundation that a true community can be built, and that so established its foundations are so deep and so wide that there is no limit that we can place to the extent of the building.” – Hobhouse

“[Liberalism is] an idea committed to as a method and policy in government, as an organising principle in society, and a way of life for the and community.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica

“Liberalism is a tentative attitude towards social problems which stresses the role of and human ingenuity.... Liberalism looks ahead with flexible approach; seeking to make future better for more people, as looks back aiming mainly to preserve the attainment of past.” – Grimes

The elements of liberalism as a way of life and an outlook can be traced back to the classical Greece and Rome. The ideas of the , Protagoras and Gorgias, Democritus the atomist and Pericles in the ancient Greece and Solon, Cicero, Justinian, Constantine, Livy and Tacitus of the Roman age contain a multitude of liberal elements. Even the Christianity in its early stage also contained some liberal-individualistic elements. However, as a political current and an intellectual tradition, an identifiable strand in thought and practice, liberalism is no older than the 17 th century. Earlier the term ‘liberal’ used to denote the classical of humanity, generosity and open-mindedness. During the the term was considered as a derivative of ‘liberality’. It was only in 1812 that the term was used for the first time to denote a political movement when ‘liberalism’ was adopted as the political by the ‘Spanish Party of ’.

As a dynamic political ideology liberalism has been evolving and reshaped constantly through the major events of the Western world, such as the dissolution of the feudal order and rise of the bourgeoisie as the dominating social class in during the 16 th and 17 th centuries, the French and American revolutions in the late 18 th century, the emergence of democratic and socialist mass movements in the second half of the 19 th century and also by the near eclipse of the liberal society by totalitarian regimes in Europe in the first half of the 20 th century.

Accordingly three distinct but overlapping phases of evolution of liberalism have been identified by the scholars. They are:

• , spanning from the 17 th century to the late 19 th century, with , , , , and others as the chief propagators. • Reformist or Positive liberalism, spanning from the late 19 th to the late 20 th century, with , Thomas Hill Green, MacIver, Harold J. Laski, Sydney Webb,

1 Prepared by Sandipan Sen for PLSA – III Paper V Half 1 Topic 4a

1 Beatrice Webb, Lindsay, Ernest Barker, Hobhouse, Cole, J.M. Keynes and among others as the main thinkers. • Contemporary or Neo-liberalism , emerging since the late 20 th century and running through the early 21 st century, being propagated by thinkers like , Schumpeter, R.A. Dahl, F.A. Hayek, and others.

The distinctive features of liberalism, marked by its conception of man and society have been altered and reshaped throughout the last four hundred years, but they have not changed out of recognition. A common thread characterized by a definitive and modern conception of man and society consisting of four key elements, helps us to distinguish liberalism as a modern intellectual tradition and political movement from any other political , in spite of its ever-changing contours. These conceptual elements have been identified by in his Liberalism as the following:

1. : liberalism asserts the moral primacy of the person against the claims of any social collectivity. 2. : liberalism confers all men the same moral status and denies relevance to legal or political order of differences in moral worth among human . 3. Universalism : liberalism affirms the moral unity of human species and accords secondary importance to specific historical or cultural forms. 4. Meliorism : liberalism affirms the corrigibility and improvability of all social institutions and political arrangements.

Classical Liberalism

The background of the emergence of liberalism as a political ideology was prepared during 16 th to 19 th centuries by the , Renaissance, , Puritan and Glorious Revolutions in England, the Scottish Enlightenment, the French Enlightenment and the and the American War of Independence.

Nicolo Machiavelli made the pioneering attempts towards secularization of . Jean Bodin invented the concept of to distinguish the secular authority from the divine one and provided the legal foundation of the bourgeois state. Rene Descartes emphasized the pursuit of material and scientific enquiry for human . pleaded for the separation of power to ensure the and termed as something permitted by law.

The modern systematic political theory begins with (1588 – 1679). He provided a materialist or secular foundation of politics. For him political obligation was a deliberate rational activity of man and it was not guided by but self-interest and consent was the basis of authority. Thus he was a modernist. He considered and society as products of rational human deliberations not as natural phenomena. Hobbes was also an uncompromisingly individualist as he affirmed equal liberty to all men (egalitarianism) in the and rejected purely hereditary titles to political authority.

2 Benedict de Spinoza (1632 – 77) was also a modernist as he conceived of and freedom as conditions of one another. He considered liberal as the preferred such political arrangements which can secure human freedom as it guaranteed the freedom of thought, expression and association.

In spite of these seminal contributions to the emergence of liberalism, Hobbes and Spinoza are not considered as liberals, as they did not endorse the meliorist outlook of liberalism. For Hobbes, was always likely to fall back into barbarous state of nature. And, for Spinoza, free man was a rarity, as most men were likely to be ruled by passion and illusion rather than reason.

With the Whig ascendency following the in 1688, the debates during the English Civil War and ultimately in the ideas contained in the Two Treatises on Civil Government (1692) by John Locke (1632 – 1704) the central elements of the liberal outlook were crystallized for the first time. It was a strong assertion of parliamentary government under the rule of law against the monarchical absolutism, with an emphasis on and private . These aspects of the English political (for centuries) were theorized by Locke in his concept of ‘civil society’ of free men, equal under the rule of law, bound together by no common purpose but sharing a respect for each others’ .

Some of the basic features of classical liberalism as identified by Hallowell in Main Currents in Modern Political Thought are as following: 1. Liberalism is a faith in spiritual equality of the individual and absolute value of the human personality. 2. It is a belief in and goodness of man. 3. It is a belief in the of certain inalienable rights of man like the rights to life, liberty and property. 4. Liberalism is a consideration that the state is an artificial institution, which was created with the sole objective of preserving and protecting the rights of the . 5. It is an assumption that the relationship between the state and individual is contractual and if a government fails to observe the terms of the contract and protect the rights of the people, the people have the right to replace it. 6. Liberalism is a faith in the rule of law instead of the rule by whims. 7. It is a consideration that the state is a necessary evil and the best state is one which performs the least. It has assigned negative functions to the state. 8. Liberalism is an affirmation of the freedom of individual in all aspects – political, social, cultural, economic, moral and spiritual. 9. Liberalism that the individual is a rational person and when he pursues his own interests; the interests of the society are automatically promoted. There is no contradiction between the interests of the individual and the society. 10. Liberalism believes that complete freedom in economic sphere and non-interference by the state in economic matters (laissez faire) is the best condition for the individual to pursue his self-interest.

These principles are embodied in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, and are considered

3 as the essence of classical liberal views on the nature of relationship between the individual and the state authority.

Reformist or Positive Liberalism:

By mid 19 th century, in the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution in England, the socio- economic disparities between the propertied class and the labouring classes were on the rise. As a consequence, different shades of socialist ideas emerged to voice the growing resentments of a vast majority of the population, challenging the existing social fabric and its constituting liberal ideas. In response to these challenges the necessity to reform some aspects of the classical liberal ideas was felt. The change in liberal first became visible in the writings of Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) and James Mill (1772 – 1836). They sought to reconcile the idea of individual liberty with the principle of general good or happiness. From their utilitarian perspective they demanded that public policies should be based on the principle of utility, i.e., greatest good for the greatest number. They had asked for the end of all sorts of privileges. They favoured state initiated reforms in the fields of education, law, parliament, municipality, poor relief and prison management etc., so that the public grievances may be addressed more efficiently.

However, it was in the writings of John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873), that positive liberalism assumed more concrete shape. Though J.S. Mill was an ardent champion of the individual liberty, yet he was in favour of increasing the functions of the state for the promotion of the of the society.

In his (1859) J.S. Mill wrote: “... the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their member is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his , is to prevent harm to others.... Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

So Mill was ready to accept state interference into individual’s rights only in those aspects whereby the social welfare for a peaceful and harmonious life could be promoted. At the same time, in his other works like On Representative Government (1861) and Principles of (1880) he pleaded for state initiatives in the spheres of compulsory education for children, liberating individuals from contracts like marriage and slavery, controlling monopoly in business, checking exploitation of workers, regulating working hours and conditions, fixing minimum wages and compensation in case of injury, maintenance of public wealth, etc. He vested these functions only to a representative government elected periodically on the basis of proportional representation method.

Thomas Hill Green (1836 – 1882) in his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obedience (1882) pleaded for direct intervention by the state to eradicate three gigantic social evils – ignorance, pauperism and addiction to liquor. He insisted that the state should not only remain busy in dealing with conventional functions like maintaining law and order or preventing external invasion, but instead it should “… remove external hindrances to the voluntary performance of good acts.” Green sought to turn individualism into a morally sound and socially committed . According to Green the state has the right to interfere or control an

4 individual’s behaviour only to remove the obstacles to his moral development or to restrain his animal impulses that tend to act against the common good of society.

L.T. Hobhouse (1864 – 1929) in his Liberalism (1911) favoured harmonious development of all aspects of the individual culminating into his comprehensive elevation. He said, “The heart of liberalism is the understanding that progress is not a matter of mechanical contrivance, but of the liberation of living spiritual energy.” He was against any arbitrary government and he demanded “no taxation without representation”, liberation form foreign rule and autonomy at various levels within the country.

R.M. MacIver asserted that the essential functions of a modern state include the establishment of areas and frontiers of political authority and control over import and export, transportation, communications, acting as guarantor to contracts, currency and marriages, planning for rural and urban development, promotion of primary healthcare and education system etc. So a socialist overtone is clearly visible all through MacIver’s views on state.

Harold J. Laski, under the influence of the socialist ideas, had examined the questions of individual liberty and state-interference and emphasized that the state was an institution for securing general welfare for the largest possible number.

The other important contributors to the reformist liberal ideas Sydney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Lindsay, Ernest Barker, Cole, the liberal welfarists like J.M. Keynes and most notably, John Rawls. Some of the major aspects of the reformist liberal ideas are as following:

1. Reformist liberalism treats the state as a positive instrument for the promotion of general welfare of the society. 2. Reformist liberalism does not favour curtailment of state functions. Rather, it prefers the participation of the state in socio-economic, political, cultural and other activities in the general interest of the individual. 3. It considers the state as a moral institution capable of promoting moral as well as intellectual faculties of the citizen. 4. Reformist liberalism considers that the rights and of the individual have to be considered in the social context and the state has legal authority to impose restraints on them if they obstruct the welfare of the society. 5. Reformist liberalism favours regulation and control of the economy in the larger interest of the society. 6. It prefers state-sponsored reforms in the socio-economic structure. 7. Reformist liberalism welcomes state initiatives to eradicate poverty, , disease, and to improve the standard of living for the society at large. 8. Reformist liberalism expects the state to establish unity and order in the society, to safeguard and promote the rights and liberties of the people, to create healthy environment for moral and intellectual development of the people and to create adequate conditions conducive to the proper development of human personality and social welfare.

Neo-liberalism:

5 During the inter-War period there was a steady rise in totalitarian regimes in different parts of the world. The Communist rule in the USSR, the Fascist government in Italy and the Nazi regime in Germany posed considerable threats to individual liberty. Even in so called liberal countries in West Europe and the US, there was a growing tendency of state activism, particularly during the of 1930s and in the two World Wars. In the post- World War II era in the name of economic reconstruction the Labour government in the UK initiated the Beveridge Plan and the US President Roosevelt introduced the ‘managerialist’ policy of the . Undoubtedly, these were major state interventions into the economic sphere. The relative success of war time economic planning convinced most opinion leaders under the influence of like J.M. Keynes that the same techniques could and should be used to promote full employment in a context of rapid economic growth. But these increased state activities faced strong criticisms from a section of the liberal thinkers who sought to revive the classical liberal idea of ‘minimalist state’ to resist undue state interventions and protect individual liberty.

The pioneers of this critical line of thinking were the members of the of like Carl Manger and F. Von Wieser and Lionel Robbins of the London School of Economics. They were followed by thinkers like F.A. Hayek, , J.L. Talmon, , Robert Nozick, Milton Friedman of the Chicago School, James Buchanon of the School.

Some of the major features of the neo-liberal ideas of state are: 1. Neo-liberalism seeks to save the mankind from the tyranny of totalitarian political systems. 2. Neo-liberalism lays more importance on the personality of the individual and his social groups than the authority of the state. 3. Neo-liberalism is generally against the state and it treats the state as little more than a federation of groups, a union of guilds, or a community of communities, which coordinates the activities of these groups and adjusts their conflicting claims. 4. Neo-liberalism upholds those institutional policies that protect and foster both free expression and confidence in freedom of the individual. 5. While emphasizing the equality of opportunity for all, neo-liberalism never compromises with the liberty and rational choice of human beings.

Critical evaluation:

Liberalism has been criticized on various grounds. Some of the major points raised against liberalism are as following: 1. As a political ideology liberalism is highly flexible, inconsistent and has no definite programme acceptable to all. 2. Liberalism is essentially the of the bourgeois class as it protects their class interest at the cost of the welfare of all, and seeks to preserve the status quo by opposing any initiative for radical change. 3. Classical liberalism paved the way for anarchy, again positive liberalism compromised with individual’s liberty in the name of state-run welfare programmes. 4. According to the Marxists, no fundamental change in a society can be brought through peaceful means as suggested by the liberals.

6 5. Liberalism is a deceptive theory as it strengthens the hands of a bourgeois state with an apprehension of a false threat on individual liberty. In spite of all these criticisms liberalism remains the most acceptable political ideology world over even in the 21 st century, more than four hundred years since its inception in England.

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