The history of the human race is one long story of attempts by certain persons and classes to obtain control of the power of the State, so as to win earthly gratifications at the expense of others.
--William Graham Sumner, 1883
For advocates of individual liberty, this has got to be the most depressing election in many years. (Well, at least since 2020, the most depressing election since 2016.) Full, true, laissez-faire liberalism is far from public discussion. Kamala Harris ("I'm smart and I care"), the mush-mouthed empty suit, and Donald Trump ("I'm Trump!"), the narcissistic, militantly nationalist demagogic windbag, both threaten what remains of Americans' liberty.
No one can confidently say which is the bigger threat. Their styles differ, but that cannot camouflage the danger each represents. This may be availability bias speaking, but I am not so sure. There has been no joy for liberalism this season.
The palpable lesson of nearly everything we see in politics is that freedom and prosperity are at risk when the government can do almost anything a majority or an influential minority wants—when the idea of constitutional constraint is treated as old-fashioned. It matters little whether those who get their hands on such power come from the "left" or the "right," ideologically incoherent terms signifying little but tribal membership.
The political system and media offer a "choice" between elitist authoritarianism and populist authoritarianism. Fie on both! Democracy can go either way depending on chance events. What we can be sure of is that the government will not remain limited merely to domestic peacekeeping and defense against invasion. Unlike empire-building and social engineering, those modest functions hold no opportunities for heroic undertakings by self-actualizing and self-seeking politicians.
The forgotten, but not unknown ideal is real, original liberalism, or libertarianism: complete individual freedom, private property, and the market economy, full stop. The government today is regarded by nearly everyone as a full-service shop open all hours to address any and all wishes, whims, and needs. People differ on what they want the government to do for them, but if you consolidate their wishlists, you will have a blueprint for the total state. This is what happens when economically illiterate people lose their liberal intuitions. Liberty requires more than intuition. It requires knowledge of how societies (economies) work; how they essentially run themselves in an orderly and efficient way—when the initiation of physical force is seen as illegitimate.
In the liberal spirit, here are some thoughts from two worthy political thinkers from the 19th and early 20th centuries: Herbert Spencer in England and William Graham Sumner in America. Both were hardcore promarket and antimilitarist liberals—admirable personifications of the party of liberty. We are worse off for not having their likes on the scene today.
Let's start with Sumner's What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. Bear in mind that this book was published in 1883. That was right before the interventionist Progressive Era kicked in, before the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission (1887) and the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). That's also the period many people, including libertarians, see as the height of American laissez faire. Maybe it wasn't quite so.
With a little modernizing of style, this book could have been written today, Observe what Sumner says about social engineers, "lovers of humanity," and kindred busybodies:
The amateur social doctors are like the amateur physicians—they always begin with the question of remedies, and they go at this without any diagnosis or any knowledge of the anatomy or physiology of society. They never have any doubt of the efficacy of their remedies. They never take account of any ulterior effects which may be apprehended from the remedy itself. It generally troubles them not a whit that their remedy implies a complete reconstruction of society, or even a reconstitution of human nature. Against all such social quackery the obvious injunction to the quacks is, to mind their own business.
The social doctors enjoy the satisfaction of feeling themselves to be more moral or more enlightened than their fellow-men. They are able to see what other men ought to do when the other men do not see it. An examination of the work of the social doctors, however, shows that they are only more ignorant and more presumptuous than other people.
Now to the main event.
The fashion of the time is to run to Government boards, commissions, and inspectors to set right everything which is wrong. No experience seems to damp the faith of our public in these instrumentalities.
Imagine what he would be saying today!
The English Liberals in the middle of this century seemed to have full grasp of the principle of liberty, and to be fixed and established in favor of non-interference. Since they have come to power, however, they have adopted the old instrumentalities, and have greatly multiplied them since they have had a great number of reforms to carry out. They seem to think that interference is good if only they interfere. [Emphasis added.]
Which tribe does that last sentence remind you of?
In this country [America] the party which is “in” always interferes, and the party which is “out” favors non-interference.
That's a sign of our further decay. Out-parties no longer complain about in-party interference per se, but only the details.
The system of interference is a complete failure of the ends it aims at, and sooner or later it will fall of its own expense and be swept away.
Some of us are still waiting, Professor Sumner.
The two notions—one to regulate things by a committee of control, and the other to let things regulate themselves by the conflict of interests between free men—are diametrically opposed; and the former is corrupting to free institutions, because men who are taught to expect Government inspectors to come and take care of them lose all true education in liberty. If we have been all wrong for the last three hundred years in aiming at a fuller realization of individual liberty, as a condition of general and widely-diffused happiness, then we must turn back to paternalism, discipline, and authority; but to have a combination of liberty and dependence is impossible.
I take issue with the good professor's term "conflict of interests," although I know what he meant. I prefer Ludwig von Mises's insight that what enables society to run itself is "the harmony of rightly understood interests." Conflicts of interest in the market—say, between two people vying for the same job or customers—sit atop a deeper common interest in what Adam Smith called "the system of natural liberty." Both would be worse off in a society without the freedom to compete against each other.
In his Introduction, Sumner wrote:
During the last ten years I have read a great many books and articles, especially by German writers, in which an attempt has been made to set up “the State” as an entity having conscience, power, and will sublimated above human limitations, and as constituting a tutelary genius over us all. I have never been able to find in history or experience anything to fit this concept....
He'd find that nothing had changed.
As an abstraction, the State is to me only All-of-us. In practice—that is, when it exercises will or adopts a line of action—it is only a little group of men chosen in a very hap-hazard way by the majority of us to perform certain services for all of us. The majority do not go about their selection very rationally, and they are almost always disappointed by the results of their own operation. Hence “the State,” instead of offering resources of wisdom, right reason, and pure moral sense beyond what the average of us possess, generally offers much less of all those things.
Bingo!
The little group of public servants who, as I have said, constitute the State, when the State determines on anything, could not do much for themselves or anybody else by their own force. If they do anything, they must dispose of men, as in an army, or of capital, as in a treasury. But the army, or police, or posse comitatus, is more or less All-of-us, and the capital in the treasury is the product of the labor and saving of All-of-us. Therefore, when the State means power-to-do it means All-of-us, as brute force or as industrial force.
Bingo, again.
If anybody is to benefit from the action of the State it must be Some-of-us. If, then, the question is raised, What ought the State to do for labor, for trade, for manufactures, for the poor, for the learned professions? etc., etc.—that is, for a class or an interest—it is really the question, What ought All-of-us to do for Some-of-us? But Some-of-us are included in All-of-us and, so far as they get the benefit of their own efforts, it is the same as if they worked for themselves, and they may be cancelled out of All-of-us. Then the question which remains is, What ought Some-of-us to do for Others-of-us? or, What do social classes owe to each other?
I now propose to try to find out whether there is any class in society which lies under the duty and burden of fighting the battles of life for any other class, or of solving social problems for the satisfaction of any other class; also, whether there is any class which has the right to formulate demands on “society”—that is, on other classes; also, whether there is anything but a fallacy and a superstition in the notion that “the State” owes anything to anybody except peace, order, and the guarantees of rights.
Liberals should be saying this sort of thing all the time, especially during elections. As Mencken put it, "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." All the rest is commentary.
Herbert Spencer's first book, Social Statics (1851), contained a chapter 19 titled "The Right to Ignore the State." Alas, he removed it from later editions—don't ask me why. Nevertheless, I resolutely believe that we have the right to ignore Spencer's deletion and judge the chapter for ourselves.
As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state—to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor.
...Do we not continually hear [the radicals of our day] quote Blackstone’s assertion that “no subject of England can be constrained to pay any aids or taxes even for the defence of the realm or the support of government, but such as are imposed by his own consent, or that of his representative in parliament?” And what does this mean? It means, say they, that every man should have a vote.
That's all it means? One measly vote that has no consequence? Spencer says nay.
True: but it means much more. If there is any sense in words it is a distinct enunciation of the very right now contended for. In affirming that a man may not be taxed unless he has directly or indirectly given his consent, it affirms that he may refuse to be so taxed; and to refuse to be taxed, is to cut all connection with the state.
That doesn't mean leaving the country. If you own or rent, you should not have to go anywhere. (For one thing, they'll tax you there.) Spencer anticipated the objection.
Perhaps it will be said that this consent is not a specific, but a general one, and that the citizen is understood to have assented to everything his representative may do, when he voted for him.
The congressmen will like that. What say you, Mr. Spencer?
But suppose he did not vote for ["his" representative]; and on the contrary did all in his power to get elected some one holding opposite views—what then? The reply will probably be that, by taking part in such an election, he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the majority. And how if he did not vote at all? Why then he cannot justly complain of any tax, seeing that he made no protest against its imposition. So, curiously enough, it seems that he gave his consent in whatever way he acted—whether he said yes, whether he said no, or whether he remained neuter! A rather awkward doctrine this.
Indeed! The game is rigged. You have no warrant to complain if you voted for the winner, the loser, or no one at all! How convenient for power.
Here stands an unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will pay money for a certain proffered advantage; and whether he employs the only means of expressing his refusal or does not employ it, we are told that he practically agrees; if only the number of others who agree is greater than the number of those who dissent. And thus we are introduced to the novel principle that A’s consent to a thing is not determined by what A says, but by what B may happen to say!
The whole bloody political system is bankrupt—literally and figuratively.
