Liberty 1887-1889, What Is CIVIL Liberty? [1889]

It might seem that liberty was one of the most trite and worn of all subjects. It will be the aim of this essay to show that liberty is the least well analyzed of all the important social conceptions, that it is the thing at stake in the most important current controversies, and that it needs to be defended as much against those who abuse it as against those who deride it.

In the first place, I put together some citations which will, I think, justify me in bringing this subject forward again.

1. Rodbertus is the one of the recent socialists with whom it is best worth while to deal, for he is the master of them all. He is also best understood in his writings on Roman taxation, in which his historical text and his social dogmas throw important light on each other. He defines liberty to be a share in the power of the state. He then defines “free trade,” in the following pages, so as to make it cover all civil liberty, according to Anglo-American institutions, and attributes to free trade, in this sense, no less harm than the destruction of civilization. It is amusing to notice how this denunciation of free trade, which it would have been so satisfactory for the opponents of free trade to quote, has been fenced off and marked with the strongest kind of a danger-signal, so that it is never quoted at all, because it is an assault on all modern liberalism as broad as the Pope’s “Encyclical” of 1864. In fact, this parallelism must be noted more than incidentally, for it helps to show what I here have in view: that all forms of liberty are solidaire with each other; and all forms of assault on liberty, as well the revolutionist and socialistic as the extreme reactionary, are also solidaire with each other. A criticism of Rodbertus is a task which I reserve for another occasion, but, as germane to my present subject and as illustrating the sort of dogma which shows the need of re-analyzing liberty, I ask attention to the following proposition: “Moral freedom is conditioned on historical necessity.” Some of our contemporaries take that sort of proposition as the profoundest wisdom. To me it is oracular in more senses than one.

2. From a large collection of similar cases I select the following: “Life appears to the Manchester party to run its course under the form of a parliamentary debate, and not otherwise. An assertion is followed by an objection, this by a rejoinder, and so on. The decision of the majority is final.” The view here stigmatized is held by all those who believe in government by deliberation: “The great affair in this world is, not to convince a man’s intelligence, or to increase his knowledge, but it is at least equally important to lead his will and to conquer it.” The writer goes on to argue that, if men are allowed to act freely, they will not act by deliberation, but selfishly. There he leaves the matter, apparently believing that he has routed the “Manchester Schule,” and established something of philosophical or practical importance. He must, of course, assume that he and his friends are to decide when others and their friends are acting selfishly, and ought to have their wills conquered.

3. To take another citation from a popular writer: “Not one liberal principle but is admirable in the abstract; yet not one liberal measure that has not worked terrible mischief in our time. The liberty of thought, for instance; who dare gainsay it? Yet it has proved destructive of the principle of religion, without which there is less cohesion among men than among a herd of swine. The liberty of settlement and circulation has given rise to the pestilence of large towns, in which men congregate and live together on terms worse than a pack of wolves. The liberty of industry has reduced four-fifths of the population to a state of serfdom more cruel than negro slavery, while more than half of the remaining population is engaged in a perpetual struggle, more savage than the intermittent warfare of cannibals. Free trade among nations has ruined, first individually, then industrially, then financially, and finally politically, prosperous countries, such as Turkey, while in England it has destroyed, not only agriculture, but all those sterling qualities which formerly characterized British industry and trade. . . . Parallel to the deception experienced by the modern world through the progress of industry, aided by discovery and invention, have come down on this generation the fatal effects sprung from the spread of education. While thoughtless or superficial writers pretend to find in education the remedy of all social evils, as a matter of fact education has become the source of a vast amount of human suffering in modern times, under which those whose education is their only patrimony or source of income suffer most.” This is sufficiently explicit, and also manifests the solidarity of all forms of liberty and modern civilization. Those who attack them all show that they appreciate the truth of things a great deal better than those who try to attack some and save others.

4. Then there are the philosophers of the newest school, who, seizing upon the plain fact that all liberty is subject to moral restraints, as we shall presently see, are forcing upon us, or trying to force upon us, by legislation, restraints on liberty derived from altruistic dogmas, and, in general, under the high-sounding name of ethics, are assuming a charter for interference wherever they choose to allege that they have moral grounds for believing that things ought to be as they want them.

5. Finally, the anarchists, taking liberty to mean that a man ought to be a law unto himself, and that there should be no other law, have shown from another side that we should try to find out what liberty is.