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The Libertarian Tradition No 1: Auberon Herbert The Journal of the Libertarian Alliance Vol. 1 : No.2 Spring 1980 - Article 1 of 6 The libertarian Trouble About his Soul, The Rights and Wrongs of Compulsion by the State and The tradition No 1: Voluntaryist Creed. Auberon Herbert Although Herbert never composed a system- atic exposition of his ideas, he consistently By Chris R Tame pointed the direction in which Libertarian ideology had to develop if it was Some recent hostile responses to the rapid successfully to combat, not only the growth of Libertarianism have depicted it as remaining survivals of old-fashioned statism, a febrile spin-off from the post-hippy 'Me but also the virulent new form rooted in the Decade'. In fact we are the inheritors of an socialist movement. Whilst many liberals illustrious centuries old tradition, largely relapsed into a tired defence of the status overlooked by the myopic current fashions in quo, Herbert held aloft the utopian ideal of a the history of ideas. Liberals like J. S. Mill fully "Voluntaryist" social order. His and Jeremy Bentham receive plenty of philosophy of "Voluntaryism" was an attention in college courses, but the inspiring statement of the doctrine of "self- libertarian tradition as a whole is largely ruling, not each-other-ruling", a "system of ignored, and misrepresented where touched complete liberty". It was a philosophy based upon. Mill and Bentham constitute one on the axiom of self-ownership and the right aspect - in many ways the feeblest - of and necessity for individuals to seek their liberalism. Dozens of thinkers and activists own interest and happiness, to employ their who embodied the most systematic or radical faculties unobstructed by aggressive force. elements in Libertarianism have been Herbert considered it absurd to deny that consigned to the Memory Hole. individuals were "self-owners", and his view This journal honours Auberon Herbert by on this is repeatedly stressed in his work. reviving the title of his publication Free Life, Taxation so it is fitting that the series begin with him. While, with some exceptions (such as the Born in 1838, Herbert developed at first as a Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari and typical member of the British ruling class. the American individualist anarchists) most Youngest son of the third Earl of Carnarvon, libertarians of his time had accepted the right he went to Eton and Oxford, and entered and necessity of the state to levy taxes, politics as a Conservative. After several Herbert rejected this assumption. He unsuccessful Tory candidacies, he entered recognised that the issue of compulsory Parliament as a Liberal in 1872. There was a taxation marked the real difference between period of fluctuating, indeterminate opinions individualist and state socialist, and that by before Herbert emerged as a radical and accepting taxation the liberal conceded the penetrating defender of individual liberty. state socialist's premises: From the early 1880s until his death in 1906, "I deny that A and B can go to C and force Herbert was probably the leading English him to form a state, and extract from him Libertarian. He was published by major certain payments and services in the name of houses, and his ideas were widely discussed. such a State; and I go on to maintain that if He eventually lost the support of his Liberal you act in this manner, you at once justify constituency organization (and hence his State socialism. The only difference between seat) but remained active in anti-war the tax-compelling Individualist and the agitation and in the Personal Rights and Self- State Socialist is that whilst they both have Help Association, both of which he founded. vested ownership of C in A and B, the tax- As well as his own Free Life, Herbert wrote compelling Individualist proposes. to use the essays for such leading contemporary powers of ownership in a very limited journals as Nineteenth Century, Fortnightly fashion, the Socialist in a very complete Review, Contemporary Review and fashion." The Humanitarian, and turned out a succession of books including A Politician in Free Life Archive on the Web from the website www.libertarian-alliance.org.uk Vol 1 No 2 The libertarian tradition No1: Auberon Herbert - Chris R Tame Page 1 of 3 The Libertarian Alliance is an independent, non-party group, with a shared desire to work for a free society. Herbert added: "I object to the ownership in produce consequences the reverse of those any fashion". The power to levy taxes was its wielders professed to seek. He opposed then for Herbert the "stronghold" which must attempts to 'better society' or 'enforce morals' be "levelled to the ground". "There can be no by outlawing or regulating prostitution, true condition of rest in society, there can be pornography or the sale or consumption of no perfect friendliness amongst men who alcohol and other drugs, not because he differ in opinions, as long as either you or I approved of such activities, but because such can use our neighbour and his resources for attempts did not achieve their alleged goals. the furtherance of our ideas and against his His view was that "thinking and acting for own." others had always hindered, not helped, the real progress; that all forms of compulsion Anarchism deadened the living forces in a nation that Herbert refused to accept the label of every evil violently stamped out still per- 'anarchist', largely because of a semantic sisted, almost always in a worse form, when decision whereby he labelled the defensive driven out of sight, and festered under the use of force (which, naturally, he accepted) surface. as "government". His discussion of the issue Subsequent history has amply corroborated of anarchism (mainly in debate with the Herbert's claims. American prohibition of American individualist anarchist Benjamin alcohol created organized crime and led to Tucker) unfortunately never emerged from increased consumption of (poor quality, high such confusion, and became bogged down in priced) alcohol. Persecution of prostitutes other side-issues. It has had to wait until our does not lessen the demand for their services, generation for writers like Murray Rothbard, but simply renders them subject to David Friedman, Jarret Wolistein, Morris exploitation by criminals and makes their and Linda Tannehill to demonstrate how the customers liable to similar criminal free market can supply defensive force and harassment or to disease (because of the lack rights- protecting agencies (police protection, of any open market in information and courts etc.) in the absence of a monopoly common law redress). agency of force (government). The Dangers of War The Workers' Cause In foreign policy, Herbert had a true Libert- Although Herbert's wealth and social origins arian dedication to the cause of international enabled socialist opponents to smear his peace. He was one of the chief organizers of philosophy as "Rich Man's Anarchism" (title the anti-Jingoism rallies at Hyde Park in of an essay by J. A. Hobson) it is clear that 1878, to counteract the growing momentum Herbert defended free market capitalism as towards war with Russia. He opposed British the means for liberating the masses from state intervention in Suez to guarantee the their age-long burden of poverty. The free results of particular commercial speculations. market was "the way of peace and co- operation"; interventionist or socialist War had indeed proved to be the principal systems were "the way of force and strife". destroyer of lives, liberties and property, and The former resulted in division of labour, the principal collectivizer of economics and increasing productivity, high wages, minds throughout the twentieth century. innovation and progress. The latter could Opposition to chauvinism and war hysteria only mean perpetual conflict, mutual and to the involvement of the state in predation and poverty. Hayek's modern overseas private business affairs must be a insights on the diffusion of knowledge, the principal activity of Libertarians today - a market as the means of discovering and logical counterpart to their struggle to restrict channelling such knowledge into the most the state at home. urgent applications and the impossibility of Socialism efficient central planning, were all presciently suggested in Herbert Herbert was writing at a time when, largely due to its own errors, Liberalism was The Fatal Gift crumbling before the rise of socialism. For Herbert, power, the use of force, was Whilst socialists were largely successful in always "a fatal gift", which could only portraying their ideology as an heir to Free Life Archive on the Web from the website www.libertarian-alliance.org.uk Vol 1 No 2 The libertarian tradition No1: Auberon Herbert - Chris R Tame Page 2 of 3 The Libertarian Alliance is an independent, non-party group, with a shared desire to work for a free society. liberalism, Herbert saw it as the last gasp of Recognition of mutual interdependence is a reactionary phenomenon, aggressive force. not enough to justify placing everyone under He called for "One fight more. The Best and a system of universal compulsion as the Last" against this "mere survival of designed by Hobson and his descendants. barbarism, . perpetuation of slavery under Ironically, as Herbert observed, the socialist new names against which the reason and the aim of "controlling" society had the most moral sense of the civilized world have to be "unsocial" consequence since "The unity of called into rebellion." unrestrained differentiation is a far truer unity than the unity of compulsory Against the "Social Organism" sameness". In reality, as those born since In my view his most incisive contributions to Herbert's time have seen demonstrated only the critique of socialism came in his too clearly, "social control" has meant the exchange with the eminent socialist J.
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