Crosscurrents (Vol. 2 No. 3)

Political Philosophy

The revival of interest in natural rights among political philosophers continues. Highly recommended is the collection Human Rights (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), ed. Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr., and Jeffrey Paul.

The Oxford political philosopher John Gray has expanded and rewritten his essay “F. A. Hayek and the Rebirth of Classical Liberalism,” Literature of Liberty, 1982, V, 4, pp. 19–101, which now appears in book form: Hayek on Liberty (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984).

The Institut économique de Paris is publishing a series of books to revive the liberal tradition in France. It is translating Hayek’s Law, Legislation and Liberty, Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia and reprinting some of the works of indigenous classical liberal, Frédéric Bastiat. Available so far is Bastiat’s essays Propriété et Loi suivi de l’état, ed. Florin Aftalion (Insitut économique de Paris, 1983) and his Oeuvres économiques, ed. Florin Aftalion (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983). Both are masterpieces of style and withering polemic in the cause of free trade and laissez-faire.

John Locke continues to be reassessed by scholars. Johannes Rohbeck, “Property and Labour in the Social Philosphy of John Locke,” History of European Ideas 5, 1, pp. 65–77, argues that Locke owed much to the more radical Levellers, who wrote about property during the English Revolution.

A sympathetic treatment of rights is given by Terrence McConnell, “The Nature and Basis of Inalienable Rights,” Law and Philosophy, 1984, 3, 1, pp. 25–29.

Legal Theory

The legal philosopher Lon Fuller is the subject of a useful monograph by Robert S. Summer, Lon Fuller (London: Edward Arnold, 1984).

Economics

The great liberal economist Lord Robbins, who died in 1984, will be able to influence another generation of economics students with the very welcome reprint of his classic work An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (London: Macmillan, 1984 3rd ed.), ed. William J. Baumol.

Two articles in a recent issue of the History of Political Economy 16, 2, 1984, are of considerable interest. Leland B. Yeager, “Henry George and Austrian Economics,” pp. 157–74, argues that there are similarities between Henry George and the Austrians (although not on the single tax issue) and Patricia J. Euzent and Thomas L. Martin, “Classical Roots of the Emerging Theory of Rent Seeking: The Contribution of Jean-Baptiste Say,” pp. 255–62, show that Say was well aware of the role of the state as a source of monopoly privilege.

On the problem of whether the state (as protector of property or dispenser of privileges) creates the conditions for economic development, see Douglass C. North, “Government and the Cost of Exchange in History,” Journal of Economic History XLIV, 2, 1984, pp. 255–64.

The Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 140, 1, 1984, is a special issue devoted to “The New Institutional Economics.” Of particular interest are the articles by Douglass B. North, “Transaction Costs, Institutions, and Economic History”; T. W. Hutchinson, “Institutionalist Economics Old and New”; and Oliver E. Williamson, “The Economics of Governance: Framework and Implications.”

On the important topic of rent-seeking again, James M. Buchanan, “Rent Seeking, Noncompensated Transfers, and Laws of Succession,” Journal of Law and Economics XXVI, 1, 1983, pp. 71–85.

Feminism

Two important works on nineteenth century liberal feminism have been republished by Virago Press of London. The first is a combined edition of The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill and Enfranchisement of Women by Harriet Taylor Mill (London: Virago Press, 1983), ed. Kate Soper. The second work is Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography (London: Virago, 1983), 2 vols., ed. Gaby Weiner, on the life of a well-known nineteenth century popularizer of laissez-faire economics.

“We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual, what is and what is not their ‘proper sphere’” “What is wanted for women is equal rights, equal admission to all social principles; not a position apart, a sort of sentimental priesthood.”

Harriet Taylor Mill

Literature

Radical liberal ideas were taken up by some famous poets and novelists like Percy Shelley, John Milton, George Eliot, and Stendahl. Shelley’s political ideas are discussed by Michael Henry Scrivener, Radical Shelley: The Philosophical Anarchism and Utopian Thought of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Princeton University Press, 1982).

History

The remarkable explosion of talent which occurred in Scotland during the mid and late eighteenth century continues to attract scholars. A recent collection of essays is Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1983), ed. Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff.

A comprehensive collection of the most influential and important articles about Adam Smith and his seminal contribution to the Scottish Enlightenment is Adam Smith: Critical Assessments (London: Croom Helm, 1984), 4 vols., ed. John Cunningham Wood.

If ever there was a classical liberal heyday it was the nineteenth century in England. The broader theoretical framework in which classical liberals operated is the subject of That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History (Cambridge University Press, 1983), ed. Stefan Collini, Donald Winch, and John Burrow. An overview of classical liberalism appears in Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984). Unfortunately, Arblaster ignores most of the radical liberal tradition that we have discussed in past issues of the Humane Studies Review.

Marxist theorists of “dependency” have a difficult time explaining how some dependent colonial societies such as Australia, Argentina, and South Africa flourished under the colonial domination. Donald Denoon, in Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), shows that the absence of capitalist institutions rather than colonial dependency as such is the cause of poverty and backwardness.

The rich heritage of nineteenth century French liberalism is gradually being rediscovered by scholars. The most recent work is Cheryl B. Welch, Liberty and Utility: The French Idéologues and the Transformation of Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).

A new translation of a classic essay by Ludwig von Mises is highly recommended: Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of our Time, trans. Leland B. Yeager (New York University Press, 1983).

Jeffrey Williamson argues in a recent paper that money needed to finance the Napoleonic Wars siphoned capital away from industry and thus slowed down British economic development. See Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Why Was British Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?,” Journal of Economic History XLIV, 3, 1984, pp. 687–712.

The way in which the State has gradually and increasingly taken over various aspects of the German economy from the late nineteenth century to the present is the subject of Gerold Ambrosius, Der Staat als Unternehmer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1984).

The right to bear arms is a fundamental plank in the classical liberal platform of basic individual liberties. On the history of this right, see Lawrence D. Cress, “An Armed Community: The Origins and Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms,” Journal of American History, 1984, 71, 1, pp. 22–42.

Should a historian make moral judgments? Faced with the brutality of states in the modern period it is hard not to. The great advocate of moral judgments in history was the liberal historian Lord Acton. The development of Acton’s views on this vital matter can be found in T. Murphy, “Lord Acton and the Question of Moral Judgments in History: The Development of his Position,” Catholic Historical Review, 1984, LXX, 2, pp. 225–50.

An interesting historical, although not particularly sympathetic, treatment of the relationship between economic and political liberalism is Rudolf The Red Nosed Walther, “Economic Liberalism,” Economy and Society, 1984, 13, 2, pp. 178–207.

“The legal subordination of one sex to another—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.”

“Since nobody asks for protective duties and bounties in favour of women; it is only asked that the present bounties and protective duties in favour of men should be recalled.”

John Stuart Mill

Amazing changes in a liberal direction are taking place in Communist China. Contemporary events make the “Special Issue On China” of Theory and Society, 1984, 13, 3, relevant. In particular, A. Feuerwerker, “The State and the Economy in Late Imperial China,” pp. 297–326, and Mark Elvin, “Why China Failed to Create an Endogenous Industrial Capitalism: A Critique of Max Weber’s Explanation,” pp. 379–91.

Sociology

For a view of modern history which sees the expanding role of the state and its bureaucracies as the central factor we can recommend the new and expanded edition of Henry Jacoby’s Die Bürokratisierung der Welt (New York and Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1984).

The great sociologist Georg Simmel had a profound interest in the problem of individual freedom. Many of his perceptive essays can be found in Das Individuum und die Freiheit: Essais (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbuch, 1984).

The death of French liberal sociologist Raymond Aron was a great loss to the liberal movement. A translation has appeared of an article Aron wrote about one of his great liberal mentors, Élie Halévy, who is most famous for his multi-volume history of England and for the collection of essays, The Era of Tyrannies: Essays on Socialism and War, trans. R. K. Webb (New York University Press, 1966). See Aron’s “Elie Halévy,” Government and Opposition, 1984, 19, 4, pp. 407–22.

War and Peace

A useful encyclopedia of pacifist ideas and movements in the German speaking lands of Europe is Die Friedensbewegung: Organisierter Pazifismus in Deutschland, Österreich und in der Schweiz (Düsseldorf: ECON Taschenbuch Verlag, 1983), ed. Helmut Donat and Karl Holl.

A central theme of the Humane Studies Review is the total opposition of classical liberalism and all forms of militarism. An excellent short book about the development of the idea of “militarism,” with a guide to the massive literature, is V. R. Berghahn, Militarism: The History of an International Debate 1861–1979 (Cambridge University Press, 1984).

A one-volume history of the various peace movements in American history, showing their continuity and interrelationships, is Charles DeBenedetti, The Peace Reform in American History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984).