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The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns
XXIX. Liberalism: Philosophical Radicalism
"The history [of philosophy of natural rights] was an example of the paradox of which Hegel was so fond, that a philosophy is fully developed in its details and
applications only when its main principles have come to be taken for granted
and to that extent have become retarded in their speculative development." 669
A. Liberalism of the 19th Century was reaction against the excesses of the
Revolution and on reliance on "self-evident" axioms.
B. Defined classical liberalism, in essence a program of legal, economic and
political reforms connected, as they supposed, by the fact of being all
derived from the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.
C. Chief ideas that actuated the Philosophical Radicals:
1. Greatest happiness principle as a measure of value.
2. Legal sovereignty as an assumption necessary for reform through
the legislative process.
3. A jurisprudence devoted to the analysis and censure of the law in
light of its contribution to the greatest happiness.
D. Four dimensions of pleasure or pain (for calculation):
1. Intensity.
2. Duration.
3. Certainty it will follow given kind of action.
4. Remoteness from the time it will occur.
E. Greatest happiness principle useful in stripping away 'fictions' and
recalling that real individuals are affected by law and government
actions.
F. Allocation of pains and pleasures by good legislation brings about most
desirable results.
1. Utility only reasonable grounds for such legistation and obligation
to obey.
2. Property rights justified by the need for security and certainty of the
results of our actions.
G. Jeremy Bentham's liberal humanist feeling caused him to temper the
greatest happiness principle (efficiency) by holding equality of men in
calculating happiness.
H. Classical economics grew alongside Bentham's social philosophy
from the same roots in Adam Smith, via David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus
and the French successors to François Quesnay and the Physiocrats.
2. Economics and politics mutually interdependent with 'law-like'
economic behavior.
3. Embraced two diverse points of view:
i. natural order as inherently simple, harmonious and beneficent
ii. belief this order is devoid of ethical attributes and its laws have
no relation to justice, reason or human welfare
iii. the first assumption corresponds to a static social free-market
that will produce most cheap harmony of interests
iv. the second corresponds to the social dynamics of distribution
of the total product of that market through economic classes
where what one gets depends on which class one is in
4. At odds with utilitarian principle which requires a harmony of
interests which is not natural but must be produced by legislation.
I. Malthus proposed two laws:
1. In general, population increases faster than production of food.
2. Law of rent -- food is the product of land and land is peculiar in
that it is limited in amount and differs in productivity. Rent is the
difference between productivity of any given piece of land and that
of land which at prevailing food prices would just fail to pay the
cost of use.
3. Rent therefore contributes nothing to production and landlords
are economic parasites. (Ricardo), and;
i. increase in food prices brings less fertile lands under cultivation,
increases rent and increases population which increases prices
ii. implies law of wages -- except for temporarily, wages cannot
rise above or fall below subsistence level
iii. total product of industry in general distributed as rent, wages
or profit with profits falling as rent increases
iv. does not mesh on theoretical level with a neutral free market
but on practical level led to policy of free trade
v. Marx had ready made picture of exploitation of labor (profit was
economic rent paid to the holders of the means of production
J. Bentham saw that Liberal government need not be defended by accepting
its inefficiency.
K. James Mill
1. Shared Hobbesian view of men driven by desire for power which
institutional limitations cannot check.
2. With Bentham rejected any conception of balancing of powers.
3. Saw middle class as "wisest part of the community" which lower
classes would follow.
4. Unified egoistic theory of individual motivation and belief in the
natural harmony of human interests.
L. Philosophical Radicalism had great practical effect in 19th Century
England.
1. Had no positive conception of a social good and a passive view
of government.
2. Left need for some conception of social good and positive government.
Next week: Liberalism Modernized
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