Over a century ago most Americans gave birth and died at home, with minimal medical intervention. But today, most Americans today begin and end their lives in hospitals. Over time policies have forced people away from community-based providers, like birth centers, and toward more costly care in fully-equipped hospitals. Lauren K. Hall joins the show today to talk about the medicalization of birth and death.

Has our health care system gone too far? Do we receive too much care? What is the purpose of hospitals? Do we standardize health care too much?

Further Reading:

The Medicalization of Birth and Death, written by Lauren K. Hall

Hill-Burton Act

What to Expect when You’re Expecting: Laws, Regulations, and Government Interference, written by Lauren K. Hall

Related Content:

A Better Choice: Healthcare Solutions for America, Free Thoughts Podcast

How to Fix Health Care, Free Thoughts Podcast

The Best Work/Family Arrangements Come from Families, Not Governments, written by Steven Horwitz

It’s easy to assume that things naturally improve. After all, in our lifetimes technology has advanced, life expectancies have risen, and standards of living have improved. Yet in historical terms, progress is a relatively new phenomenon, only invented a few centuries ago. And the danger is that if we take the idea of progress for granted, we might slow or even reverse the rate of progress. That would be a disaster given that we have an obligation to leave a society to future generations that is in better shape than we received it. Technologist Jason Crawford joins the show to talk about the ethical obligation to pursue progress.

What are the different types of progress? What is the history of progress? Is progress uniform? What progress have we made that is universally good? Is there an ethical imperative to pursue progress? What is sustainable progress?

Further Reading:

The Roots of Progress, blog by Jason Crawford

The History of Steel & the Roots of Progress, The Roots of Progress website

Related Content:

Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era, Free Thoughts Podcast

Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, Free Thoughts Podcast

The Reality of Moral Progress, written by David Boaz

“The difficulty of explaining ‘why I am a Catholic,’” wrote G.K. Chesterton in 1926, “is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.” 

Still, as a libertarian, you might understandably be concerned with the question of whether your pre-existing political and philosophical commitments are compatible with Catholicism. I’m here to put your mind (at least partially) at ease: It’s perfectly possible to be a committed libertarian and an orthodox Catholic. As managing editor of Reason magazine as well as an active parishioner at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., I should know.  

As with any big-tent movement, libertarianism can take a variety of forms; we obviously do not always agree with each other. The Church’s teachings reinforce certain libertarian varieties and exclude others outright. Catholic libertinism, for instance, is surely a contradiction in terms. But there is no inconsistency between libertarian political philosophy per se and faithful Catholicism. In fact, there is much in Catholic history and doctrine to commend it to the kind of person who has already found his way into the libertarian pavilion. 

For many libertarians, human beings’ inherent dignity is directly connected to ideas about the importance of individual freedom. That’s also a major theme in the Church’s teachings. To quote the Catechism again, “God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions…. Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility.” 

For secular libertarians, human dignity is taken as a given, and freedom flows from that. Catholic libertarians go one step further, believing our freedom comes from our dignity—but our dignity and our freedom come from God.  

In 1932, the Ukraine was a thriving farming nation. At the time, Joseph Stalin was trying to take back control. He was attempting to collectivize all farms, bringing all agriculture under state control. This led to a man-made mass starvation in a nation where 85% of the population was farmers.

Why are a majority of people unaware of the 1932 Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor?

Mentions:

Tess Terrible spoke with the following guests throughout this episode; Anne Applebaum, Valentina Kuryliw, and Serhii Plokhii

Thanks to the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium for allowing us to use Holodomor testimonials thoughout this episode.

Music by Cellophane Sam

Further Reading About Holomodor

https://holodomor.ca/

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Famine-Stalins-War-Ukraine/dp/0385538855

http://www.holodomorsurvivors.ca/Survivors.html

Transcript:

What is human nature? It’s a question that’s intrigued philosophers for as long as there’s been philosophy. It’s also where quite a lot of political philosophy begins, imagining how our nature would have us live in a world before government.

How and why do humans cooperate? Why do we interact with people at all? Is there an issue with freedom of assembly? What kind of society is good for us to live together successfully?

Further Reading:

Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, written by Nicholas Christakis

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives — How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do, written by Nicholas Christakis & James H. Fowler

Nicholas Christakis on the Joe Rogan Experience

Related Content:

An Introduction to Public Choice, Free Thoughts Podcast

What Theory Won’t Tell You About Public Goods, written by Jon Murphy

Making the World Better, written by Aaron Ross Powell

                                                 Image Credit: IMDB

Summary:

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women has mattered deeply to generation after generation of women ever since it was first published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. It inspired film versions in 1933, 1949, 1994 starring Winona Ryder & Kirsten Dunst, 2018, and 2019 with the all-star cast of Saorise Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, and Laura Dern. This story is much more than just four girls growing up in Civil war-era Massachusetts making jam & accidentally burning their dresses in the fireplace.

Is Greta Gerwig’s version of Little Women relatable to women and men? Is Jo March really Louisa May Alcott? What role does romance play in Little Women? How is Little Woman about day to day life? What was the best scene in Little Women?

Transcript:

Trump’s victory in November 2016 is the least surprising thing about his candidacy. While it shocked the punditocracy populating the vast wasteland that is cable television news, the results matched scholarly expectations. Political scientists have created dozens of models for predicting outcomes in presidential elections, some of which were uncannily correct predicting the final vote tally in 2016.

One common theme in these models is that they emphasize structural factors over retail politics, ignoring the personalities of the candidates no matter how odious or charismatic. Instead, they look at basic economic indicators and prior political control of the government. In short, voters like to change which party controls the White House periodically and they reward (or punish) the current occupant’s party for the state of the economy.

In 2016, the fact that there had been a two-term Democratic President whose administration spanned a relatively slow economic recovery meant that the election was expected to favor the Republican nominee regardless of who was selected. The GOP could have nominated an orangutan and been favored by the forecast models. Indeed, despite the best efforts of the actual orange-headed nominee to gift the election to his opponent with a stream of ill-considered remarks and leaked scandals, Donald Trump could not overcome the fundamentals that weighed in his favor. 

Four-Dimensional Chess 

This did not stop pundits from uttering such effluviant as claiming that Trump’s victory was proof of his unique genius such that he was playing “four-dimensional chess” while everyone else kidded around at checkers. The far more accurate, albeit mundane, explanation is that Trump won because he was the Republican nominee in an election cycle that favored Republicans. But that doesn’t explain his victory in the Republican primaries for which there simply are not the same kinds of predictive forecast models. Perhaps Trump’s nomination, even if not his election, was the result of his native political ability?

This was not the case. Trump’s success in the hunt for the Republican nomination was a product of old collective action problems reintroduced into the American party system. See part one of this series for a detailed explanation of how collective action problems bedeviled party politics in the 19^th century and how parties evolved to overcome them. Briefly, when party elites lose control of the nomination process, it leads to swollen fields of candidates, a longer debate schedule, and a higher likelihood of an unrepresentative candidate winning the nomination. This has been the story of the Republican Party: it has ceased to function as a modern party, a devolution that culminated in the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016. Trump is a symptom of the decline of the Republican Party, not its cause.

The Cable Newsification of the GOP 

The proximate cause for the decline of the Republican Party is the rise of Fox News. Access to the debate stage and donor lists have been the key tools for party control of the nomination process since the 1970s. By cutting off marginal candidates from the debate stage and funneling large dollar donors to the favored, party elites could keep the field of candidates small, the primary season short, and ensure the nomination of a candidate that would be broadly palatable to independent voters in the general election. Fox News landed like a bombshell in the middle of that system.  

By the early 2000s, Fox News had grown into a major media institution, one that enjoyed more influence with rank-and-file Republican voters than the party apparatus itself. At first, this power was used to bolster Republican interests and candidates, especially during the George W. Bush administration. However, the interests of the news network and those of the Republican Party were never perfectly aligned, especially as Fox News cemented itself as the predominant source of news for older Republican voters.

Media outlets have a natural preference for controversy, hyperbole, and outrage because they generate consumer engagement. Modern political parties, on the other hand, seek stability and unity. These divergent interests come in conflict during the primary process. Party leadership prefers a short, fuss-free process that ends in the nomination of a safe, broadly palatable candidate. Media outlets want a long, fireworks-filled process that ends in the nomination of an outrageous candidate because it’s good for ratings. As CBS President Leslie Moonves said of the feisty, bloated Republican primaries in February 2016, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” But as good as it may have been for CBS’s bottom line, CBS did not have anywhere near as much influence within the Republican Party as Fox News. And what was good for Fox News may not have been good either for America or for the Republican Party.

Too Much of a Good Thing

The most significant test of which institution—cable channel or political party—has gained more effective control of the Republican nomination process is looking at the growing number of primary debates and forums. Before Fox News, there would only be a small number of party-sanctioned primary debates, limited so as to prevent the candidates from beating up on the eventual nominee. But now, Fox News can hold an unsanctioned debate and expect most of the candidates to show up.

This reflects a long-term expansion in the number of debates in each contested election cycle. As shown below, the number has gone from six or seven primary debates per cycle in the 1980s and early 1990s to nineteen or twenty by the 2010s. It is no accident that the major uptick matches almost exactly the trajectory of Fox News, which covered its first full presidential election season in 2000.

Three times more debates means three times more opportunities for the other candidates to gang up on the eventual nominee, also generating more internal ill will among voters who preferred one of the alternatives. After a record-setting twenty primary debates in 2012, the Republican National Committee finally realized this was a problem and tried to limit the number. Technically they succeeded; there was one fewer debate in 2016 compared to four years before. But given that the party had sanctioned only nine debates and still ended up with nineteen in total, it was another reminder of party weakness. If Fox News or another new conservative media outlet held a debate, there’s not much that the Republican Party leadership could do to stop candidates from showing up.

That is because candidates are no longer as dependent on the Republican Party for access to campaign cash. Back in the days of the party-maintained donor list, only party-approved candidates could get access to the high-dollar donors with whom the party had cultivated relationships. But the party donor list only works as long as the party is the key intermediary between candidates and donors. Fox News and the proliferating number of debates made it easier for candidates to appeal directly to the donor class and to prove their viability—and the potential payoff of an investment in their candidacy—through their debate performances. As a result, individual candidates have been able to build donor lists that effectively compete with those of the party itself, like Ben Carson, who could have made millions from renting his list to other candidates after he dropped out of the primaries in 2016. Furthermore, Fox News provides an additional, sympathetic national platform for candidates willing to call into various infotainment shows in what amounts to a source of free campaign advertising.

As both main tools of party control have eroded, the number of candidates entering the nomination contest has ballooned, as you can see in the below graphic (from Bloomberg’s Lauren Leatherby & Paul Murray). Instead of seven or so major candidates contesting an open election in the 1980s, the number more than doubled to seventeen Republicans in 2016 and an astonishing twenty-eight Democrats in 2020.

Mention the swelling number of candidates to a partly loyalist and the odds are you’ll hear some variation of how the quantity is a sign of party strength, that it’s a good thing the party has so many serious, qualified options. In reality, it’s exactly the opposite, a sign of party weakness; the leadership has been unable to prevent candidates from clogging up the nomination process.

If You Say “Collective Action Problem” Into a Mirror Three Times…

The inability of the GOP to streamline the candidate field is the key sign that the party has ceased to function as a modern party; it no longer optimizes for the general election by controlling the nomination process. As a consequence, in 2016 the GOP was confronted by the kinds of collective action problems that had once bedeviled party politics in the 1820s, as discussed in the first part of this series. For those who haven’t read that essay, a collective action problem arises when individual incentives are misaligned with shared group goals. In primary politics, that means an excessive number of candidates can crowd the field and prevent any single candidate from quickly winning the nomination, unifying the party behind them, and having the best possible shot at winning the general election.

When the field becomes particularly large, it changes how candidates behave. In a small field, candidates quickly take control of one of the ideological “lanes” that represents the aspirations of a particular faction within the party. Those factional standard bearers then fight against one another to see whose faction has the most influence. But when the field is large, the support of any given lane is split between multiple candidates, who then spend more time and resources attacking one another than they would otherwise have to. It is a mini-collective action problem nestled within the party’s broader collective action crisis, a Russian nesting doll of collective action problems.

In 2016 the GOP field was divided between several lanes—between three and five depending on who you asked—including the New Christian Right and moderates. Most of the candidates fit into at least one of those lanes, though all of the candidates, of course, tried to court voters from across the spectrum.

If you were, for example, a religiously-motivated voter in the Republican primaries you tended to support either Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, or Mike Huckabee. However, you were significantly less likely to support a twice-divorced, foul-mouthed businessman named Donald Trump. Self-identified evangelicals composed roughly half of the Republican base, meaning that whoever secured that lane, so long as they did it with sufficient rapidity, would have had pole position on the nomination. But the lane was clogged with four major candidates until well into the primary process. Eventually, New Christian Right support consolidated behind Ted Cruz but not until after the vitally important Super Tuesday primaries in early March.

Likewise, the establishment or moderate lane was crowded until quite late in the primary process. By the start of voting, the lane had five major contestants: Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich. But it was the last lane to consolidate, with Marco Rubio and John Kasich splitting moderate support until mid-March.

Why Fight Over the Stairs When You Have an Escalator? 

The beneficiary of all this squabbling over control of the lanes was the one candidate who had the least established support in the Republican Party. When Donald Trump first descended his golden escalator to announce his candidacy, his prospects of securing the nomination looked dim. He underperformed with religious voters, was loathed by suburban moderates, and was too liberal on a range of issues for many ideological conservatives. Worse yet, he was widely considered a joke, someone who was just in the race to raise his public profile in time for a new reality tv contract.

Trump’s initial base of support came from the smallest internal faction, the populists, who rejected the party consensus on trade, foreign policy, and economic laissez-faire. They had long had a presence within Republican Party politics, even earning fifteen minutes of fame back when Patrick Buchanan ran for the Republican nomination in the 1990s. However, they mostly acted as marginal irritants.

But what they lacked in raw numbers, the populists made up for with the intensity of their support. Trump’s base was small but quickly became dedicated to him personally. He consolidated the populist lane months before the other lanes had shaken out, allowing him to pick away at the other candidates while they mostly fought with one another. Indeed, when Trump came in second in the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz, headlines dismissively declared, “Donald Trump Bubble Burst by Ted Cruz” and “Donald Trump Admits He Lost Iowa Because He has No Idea How to Run a Campaign.” The GOP’s main concern throughout the early stages of the primaries was not that Trump might have a prayer of winning the Republican nomination, but that he would defect from the party and run a third-party campaign in the general election. (This is the one kind of collective action problem that even the most uninformed pundits can understand.) Party control of the nomination process had fallen so far from the days of Martin Van Buren that the best the leadership could do was to ask for a meaningless display of loyalty to the party, a literal showing of hands.

Yet by the time the other lanes had consolidated behind a single candidate, Trump was the frontrunner. This is exactly what you would expect as the outcome from a collective action problem; candidates with the broadest possible appeal, who would otherwise be favored, knock one another out of contention, all to the benefit of a more radical alternative with a unified base of support. Trump might’ve had the smallest initial base of support, but, since it was unified behind him, his support only had to be larger than the one-third or one-fourth share gained by his rivals from one of the divided larger factions.

Even so, it is worth remembering that as long as the nomination was competitive, Trump never managed to win more than a mere plurality of any state’s vote. He secured most of his convention delegates in primaries that he won with around a third of the vote, like South Carolina where his 32.5% of the popular vote netted him a full 50 delegates while the other candidates received none. In fact, Trump’s combined vote total from all primary contests—including those that happened after he was the sole candidate—added up to just 44.9%. A landslide majority of the Republican rank-and-file would have preferred another nominee. How could such a widely unpopular candidate secure the nomination with so slim a base of support?

Pity Poor Priebus

It was partly because of ill-advised voting reforms enacted by party leadership a few years prior. In 2012, the favored candidate and eventual nominee Mitt Romney had faced a long, bruising fight against culture warrior Rick Santorum. And even once Santorum finally bowed out, an outsider candidate with a small but energized base of support—in this case the libertarian Ron Paul—took advantage of the decline of party discipline to seriously contest several primaries, thus preventing Romney from immediately pivoting to his general election campaign.

Both the 2012 slog as well as the 2016 surprise were products of party reforms in 2011 that further destabilized the nomination process. The GOP was facing what amounted to an existential crisis, which demanded a leader with a long-term vision, historical awareness, and a willingness to take decisive action. What they had instead was Reince Priebus, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Priebus’s grand plan was to discourage states that fell early on the primary calendar from having winner-take-all primaries, in which all the delegates went to whomever won the most votes even if it was only a plurality. Winner-take-all votes accelerate the nomination process, allowing a candidate to amass an insuperable lead in delegates early on and forcing second-tier candidates to drop out quickly.

By contrast, primaries that award delegates proportionally peg a number of delegates to every few percentage points that a candidate wins, meaning that half a dozen candidates could come out of a proportional primary with at least one delegate. A proportional vote keeps second-tier candidates viable for longer, discouraging them from dropping out of the race as early. Even a few delegates could be flipped into a staff or cabinet position, so why not stay in the race as long as possible? But if you want a shorter, less contested nomination, you should have more winner-take-all elections and hold them as early as possible. Instead, the party did exactly the opposite, pushing the winner-take-all contests until later in the calendar, slowing down the nomination, and voluntarily giving up party control of the process.

Furthermore, Priebus failed to understand that a collective action problem could boost the election chances of otherwise marginal or radical candidates, especially during a longer nomination process. He simply could not imagine that someone like Donald Trump—who had little institutional support, low popularity ratings, and no political experience—might benefit from changes that he had enacted in order to help the likes of Mitt Romney or another party-favored nominee. 

Who Are You Calling an Accidental President??

We have arrived at the fundamental irony of the 2016 election. Trump is an accidental President. The reasons that he won had little to do with his native genius, his campaign’s use of Facebook ads, Russian bot campaigns, or even the failures of his opponents. While those explanations might have some value at the retail margins—and margins do matter when the election hinges on 80,000 votes in three states—Trump’s victory was primarily a product of deeper structural phenomena.

First, Trump benefited from the decline of the GOP as a modern party system. While Fox News was relatively slow to jump on the Trump bandwagon, Trump used his personal connections to prominent Fox hosts and primetime shows to bolster his brand with Republican voters long before he announced his candidacy. His crude antics contributed to making the interminable Republican primary debates must-watch events covered by all the major networks. Trump built his initial base of support on cable television, far outside the control of party leadership, something which would have been nearly impossible prior to the rise of Fox News.

Second, Trump benefited from primary calendar changes enacted years before his candidacy. The resulting protracted knife-fight of a nomination process aided a candidate who had sharpened his skills in the only arena more brutal than politics: reality television.

Finally, Trump benefited from the general political landscape in 2016, running as he did to succeed a two—term Democratic President during a slow economic recovery. He was in the right place at the right time to win the Presidency, as much an accident of history as John Tyler succeeding William Henry Harrison after Harrison died of typhoid a month after his inauguration. Of course, an accidental President has just as much executive power to abuse as any other. Trump’s victory on November 8 might have meant less than most folks thought, but it has meant even more than many expected in the three and a half years since. 

Trump’s victory has masked the breakdown of the Republican Party as a modern party system. And it is possible that its failure might continue to be masked in the immediate future despite Trump’s unique unpopularity and the coming demographic crisis facing the aging, white voters who form the core of the party base. That is because the Democratic Party, while somewhat better insulated from that decline over the past decade, is now also being confronted by collective action problems. As a result, Democrats may not be able to take full advantage of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dominate electoral politics that hasn’t been seen since the New Deal era.

Part three of this series on the Democratic Party’s collective action crisis coming soon.

George Selgin and Diego Zuluaga are back on the show today to talk about the potential of bitcoin. Throughout the conversation they discuss how bitcoin has had it’s up and downs, but this fluctuation does not indicate whether bitcoin is a successful alternative money.

How old is Bitcoin? Does the price of Bitcoin tell us anything meaningful? Is Bitcoin a meaningful money alternative? Where is Bitcoin accepted as payment?

Further Reading:

Floored! How a Misguided Fed Experiment Deepened and Prolonged the Great Recession, written by George Selgin

Should Cryptocurrencies Be Regulated like Securities?, written by Diego Zuluaga

Why Bitcoin Is Not an Environmental Catastrophe, written by Diego Zuluaga

Related Content:

The Future of Money, Free Thoughts Podcast

Cryptocurrency vs. Censorship, Building Tomorrow Podcast

Crypto History, Building Tomorrow Podcast

Facebook Friends Libra, Building Tomorrow Podcast

The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project has opened, perhaps reopened, a debate about the relationship between slavery and capitalism—and, by extension, slavery and classical liberal, libertarian, and free trade thought and ideology. Contributions like Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond’s “In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation” have attempted to develop the historical connection between America’s “low-road capitalism” and slavery, seeing slavery as at the foundation of an economic “culture of acquiring wealth without work, growing at all costs and abusing the powerless.” Desmond’s work for the Project is part of a broader tradition of research on this connection, notably associated with the work of historians such as Cornell’s Edward Baptist and Harvard’s Sven Beckert, both of whom Desmond cites. Classical liberal scholars like Phillip W. Magness, among many other historians, have argued that much of the Project’s content is predicated on tendentious or just plain factually incorrect historical work, on errors that “suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” Indeed, on all sides, political ideology seems to be at the center of what is masquerading as a debate about historical facts. Even before the 1619 Project, libertarians have been keen to defend capitalism from claims like that of Blake Smith, that “the founding fathers of laissez-faire saw the slave trade as a showcase of liberty.” So who is right? Or are both sides right and wrong? Historian Marc-William Palen further contextualizes the ongoing debate:

Nowadays, historians and political scientists tend to associate American free trade ideology with Jeffersonianism, which became tied to a defense of Southern slavery by the time of the American Civil War. However, what I’ve found is that a number of America’s leading abolitionists—among them, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher, Joshua Leavitt, Ralph Waldo Emerson—were subscribers to a very different strand of free trade ideology: the Victorian ideology then famously known as Cobdenism, named after Victorian England’s apostle of free trade, Richard Cobden.

As Palen points out, “the primary underlying cause” of the Civil War was not immediately clear to English onlookers, particularly given “the North’s initial unwillingness to make emancipation a war aim.” Early on, it was easy to see the Civil War as a contest between free-traders in the South and protectionists in the North. In Cobden’s words: “On the one side protectionists, on the other slave owners. The protectionists say they do not seek to put down slavery. The slave owners say they want Free Trade. Need you wonder at the confusion in John Bull’s poor head?” But, owing in no small part to “the propaganda efforts of various transatlantic Cobdenites,” it soon became clear to principled abolitionists in England that the slavery question was at the very heart of the war. The choice was thereafter clear. Cobden’s was always the “free trade peace message,” principled and therefore durable:

His practice was to apply the non-intervention principle to whatever was the question at hand, to state the connection of his position to his others on different questions, to demonstrate his consistency, to stand his ground, and not to waver.

Cobden decided and voiced his position on slavery in the same fashion … .¹

It would be difficult to overstate the extent to which nineteenth century political taxonomies were different from those in popular use today. The contemporary left seems to want to erase libertarian/anti-state abolitionism from history because it doesn’t fit their ideological narrative, which inexplicably sees the race-based enslavement of human beings as an expression of radical libertarian ideology. The obvious truth—abolitionism was a libertarian cause, the abolition of slavery a great libertarian victory (indeed, the great libertarian victory)—just doesn’t square with accepted goodthink, which quite mistakenly places free-market libertarianism on the political right.

The “Cobdenite abolitionist” Garrison was one of several prominent northeastern abolitionists—many of whom were Christian non-resistants who saw in free trade an expression of their philosophical nonviolence—to embrace free trade.² The American abolitionist movement and the Manchester School free-traders were indeed very closely related, often even familially (Bright’s brother and sister were affiliated with Garrisonian abolitionists).³ Garrison even served as Vice President of the American Free Trade League, remarking, “I avow myself to be a radical free trader, even to the extent of desiring the abolition of all custom-houses, as now constituted, throughout the world.”

As Phillip W. Magness observes, the mere conception of such principled libertarians—both abolitionists and champions of the free market—becomes impossible if we blindly accept, as so many in today’s academy do, the “axiomatically asserted market-and-slavery partnership.” Thus are some of the most prominent and important abolitionists simply read out of history, ignored as a poor fit with the confused theses of anti-capitalists in the history profession. Palen notes that “economic historians have only just begun to re-explore the close connection—rather than opposition—among antebellum tariff debates, transatlantic abolitionism, and religious revivalism.” But reformers of the time had no trouble recognizing the close ideological kinship uniting these two liberal causes, their common extraction from a principled focus on the freedom of the individual. In 1838, John Benjamin Smith argued that the Anti-Corn Law Association (the name of the organization was later changed to the Anti-Corn Law League) was “established on the same righteous principle as the Anti-Slavery Society. The object of that society was to obtain the free right for negroes to possess their own flesh and blood—the object of this was to obtain the free right of the people to exchange their labor for as much food as can be got for it.”⁴

Still, we libertarians are not entirely without blame. As I argue here and in other articles at Libertarianism.org and elsewhere, the sad state of the current scholarly discourse on the relationship between market institutions and the abominable crime of slavery is at least partly attributable to libertarians’ own unwillingness to accept the fact, glaring though it is, that “capitalism” does not mean “free market,” at least not necessarily. Today’s libertarian movement arguably employs the term “capitalism” in an exceptional and even intentionally provocative way, much as individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker used “socialism” in a way that was largely unique to their small circle of like-minded people, in a particular time and place. All sides of the debates touched off or reignited by the 1619 Project ought to aim with honesty to prefer substance to form, ideas to ideology, and historical rigor to jargon or bare terminology. The left, broadly defined, should appreciate the manifest historical connections between liberal and reform causes such as free trade, the peace movement, women’s rights, and abolitionism, among others. As Magness points out, the adoption of “an intentionally vague terminology” has allowed New History of Capitalism scholars to selectively import “disparaging characteristics” when it suits them, only to decline to define the term capitalism when doing so would call their claims into question.

Capitalism is, of course, a notoriously slippery term, fraught with ambiguities; its defenders, when they invoke it, tend not to mean what its detractors do, and both groups frequently and earnestly disagree amongst themselves. So while it may be that it is possible to reconcile slavery and capitalism, or even to say that the former is a central feature of the latter’s history, the free market that libertarians endorse must exclude slavery just by definition, slavery being the most extreme violation of the fundamental principles on which a genuine free market system is based.

Nineteenth century free-traders, forerunners of today’s libertarians, understood this well, even if the era’s capitalists (however indeed we define them) did not. It cannot be stressed enough that the period’s most outspoken and principled free-traders consciously and explicitly did not identify their free-trade philosophy with capitalism or with capitalists and their interests. Cobden decidedly did not see free trade as “a matter of advantage to the capitalists”—indeed the idea was “anathema to [him].”⁵ Present-day arguments from left-wing scholars on the relationship between capitalism and slavery demonstrate a serious misunderstanding or outright ignorance of the basic fact that “the liberal principles of free trade” were frequently treated by free-trade advocates themselves as at odds with the interests of capital. It should not surprise us that some of the nineteenth century’s most articulate endorsements of free trade come from critics of capitalism like Thomas Hodgskin and Henry George.⁶ American individualist anarchists like Lysander Spooner also number among those who saw the obvious philosophical connection between free trade and the abolition of slavery, emphatically favoring both libertarian causes. Spooner was an anti-capitalist who championed “free competition, and freedom from all arbitrary interference,” that is, radical laissez faire. Where today’s socialists reflexively bristle at the idea of international free trade, even many who counted themselves socialists in the nineteenth century joined with laissez-faire liberals, at least in principle, in regarding global free trade as the pathway from privilege, monopoly, and war to peace and prosperity. In his famous book Politics Among Nations, eminent scholar Hans J. Morgenthau, whose work pioneered political realism in the field of foreign policy and international relations, even grouped the libertarian socialist Proudhon with the liberal Cobden as among their generation’s⁷ most principled “adherents of free trade.” Morgenthau argues that both Cobden and Proudhon “were convinced that the removal of trade barriers was the only condition for the establishment of permanent harmony among nations and might even lead to the disappearance of international politics altogether.” Today’s left doesn’t understand this part of its own history, and doesn’t care to.

As I’ve discussed in previous articles on this site, the political spectrum in use today simply does not give us language or concepts with which to make sense of thinkers like Hodgskin, George, Garrison, Spooner, Proudhon, and others. The notion that their libertarianism and support for free trade would put them on the political right is beyond absurd, underscoring the defects of the left-right spectrum more generally. As Matt Ridley writes, arguing for “free-market anticapitalism,” “Somewhere along the line, we have let the market, that most egalitarian, liberal, disruptive, distributed and co-operative of phenomena, become known as a reactionary thing.”

Principled libertarians should recognize that both propositions may indeed be true: (1) modern capitalism is stained with the legacy of slavery, and (2) left-wing scholars who have, perhaps unwittingly, adopted the ridiculous and tacitly racist, pro-slavery idea that slavery worked as an economic system—that it was “the indispensable causal driver behind America’s wealth today”—have committed a grave error. Like so many of the arguments of the anti-market left, this one turns back on itself, on the egalitarian ideals that are supposed to motivate the left in the first place. It is akin to the strange claim that free-market competition is harmful to workers, the protection of whom requires special legislation; though the left fails to see it, this kind of argument suggests that the left’s villains, giant multinational corporations and the rich generally, are actually just the deserving winners in a free and fair system of competition. As Henry George noted, “To admit that labor needs protection is to acknowledge its inferiority; it is to acquiesce in an assumption that degrades the workman to the position of a dependent … .” The left should argue, as many left-wing free market anarchists once did, that as a matter of fact we’ve never seen a free market, that the consistent and widespread adoption of free market principles would be a boon to labor and the poor. Why concede that corporate power as it exists has the moral high ground, that existing inequalities are the product of wins and losses in a good, clean game? As I have argued elsewhere, that the left should want to absolve U.S. government power of all responsibility for creating and protecting the peculiar institution of slavery is baffling. Both the pro- and anti-free market voices in the 1619 Project debate would benefit from at least attempting to define key terminology (such as notoriously equivocal words like capitalism) up front, which would enable participants in the debate to home in on actual points of disagreement rather than talking past one another.

1. Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan, eds., Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays (Routledge 2018). ↩
2. Marc-William Palen, “British Free Trade and the International Feminist Vision for Peace, c. 1846-1946” in Imagining Britain’s Economic Future, c.1800–1975: Trade, Consumerism, and Global Markets, edited by David Thackeray, Andrew Thompson, and Richard Toye (Palgrave Macmillan 2018). ↩
3. W. Caleb McDaniel, The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform (Louisiana State University Press 2013). ↩
4. Simon Morgan, “The Anti-Corn Law League and British Anti-Slavery in Transatlantic Perspective, 1838-1846” in The Historical Journal, Vol. 52, Issue 1 (Cambridge University Press March 2009). ↩
5. David Stack, Nature and Artifice: The Life and Thought of Thomas Hodgskin (1787-1869) (The Boydell Press 1998). ↩
6. We must note here that “capitalism” (capitalist was far more common) was not yet a term in popular or widespread use for most of the nineteenth century. To the extent that capitalism was in use during the middle part of the century and the Civil War era, the term was not yet associated with free markets, but with privilege and the power of capitalists themselves. It was not until well into the following century that those who support free markets and free trade began to use the word capitalism favorably, as meaning free markets and free trade. ↩
7. Proudhon was born in January of 1809, Cobden, June of 1804. ↩

While fans of the show Silicon Valley might not have much regard for the role of venture capital in technological innovation, the reality is that venture capitalists do more than act as ATMs for startups. They provide crucial business, marketing, and legal expertise, all of which are necessary to actually get a product to market.

But while venture capital might seem obvious to us today, it was a radical idea in the mid-20th century. Paul interviews Spencer Ante about his biography of the founding father of venture capital, Georges Doriot, a French immigrant who revolutionized the way startups are funded.

What is the relationship between venture capital and start-up owners? Who was Georges Doriot and how did he change the world of venture capital? How is venture capital regulated by the SEC? What barriers do venture capitalists face?

Further Reading:

The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, written by Margaret O’Mara

Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital, written by Spencer Ante

Where are the first 10 Apple employees today?, written by Ben Gilbert

Related Content:

Universities Built Silicon Valley (with Margaret O’Mara), Building Tomorrow Podcast

Immigrants Built Silicon Valley, Building Tomorrow Podcast

On Innovation: Don’t Ask for Permission, Building Tomorrow Podcast

I grabbed a book off my shelf the other day that I had not read in years. The English Libertarian Heritage is a sampling of essays written three centuries ago by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. The pair as “Cato” published their provocative essays on liberty in the London Journal and British Journal between 1720 and 1723, naming themselves after Cato the Younger, who defended republican Rome against Julius Caesar.

The book’s foreword says that the essays, called Cato’s Letters, would years later “exercise a profound influence on the arguments put forward by American colonists in their struggles with the British crown.” The introduction quotes an expert saying the essays were “the most popular, quotable, esteemed source of political ideas in the colonial period.”

The American Founders praised the essays, and it is not hard to see why. Letter #59 argues that “Liberty is the unalienable right of all mankind.” Letter #62 defined liberty as “the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruit of his labour, art, and industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any members of it, by taking from any member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.”

Cato’s Letters heaps abuse on self‐​interested government officials and their misguided policies. Centuries before public choice theory, Trenchard and Gordon described government as it actually operated rather than as the public‐​interest fairy tales that governments want people to believe. Letter #60 argues, “The experience of every age convinces us, that we must not judge of men by what they ought to do, but by what they will do; and history affords but few instances of men trusted with great power without abusing it.”

Letter #17 describes “what measures are actually taken by wicked and desperate ministers to ruin and enslave their country.” Some of those measures are “contriving and forming wicked and dangerous projects, to make the people poor, and themselves rich; well knowing that dominion follows property,” and another is “by all practicable means of oppression, provoke the people to disaffection; and then make that disaffection an argument for new oppression.”

This government strategy will sound familiar to readers of Cato Institute commentaries:

They will engage their country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars, to keep the minds of men in continual hurry and agitation, and under constant fears and alarms; and, by such means, deprive them both of leisure and inclination to look into publick miscarriages. Men, on the contrary, will, instead of such inspection, be disposed to fall into all measures offered, seemingly, for their defence, and will agree to every wild demand made by those who are betraying them.

Another government strategy is to convert temporary measures into permanent expansions of power, as noted in letter #115:

It is the nature of power to be ever encroaching, and converting every extraordinary power, granted at particular times, and upon particular occasions, into an ordinary power, to be used at all times, and when there is no occasion; nor does it ever part willingly with any advantage. From this spirit it is, that occasional commissions have grown sometimes perpetual.

When they were published, Cato’s Letters provoked an uproar. The government tried strong‐​arm tactics to suppress them, but that backfired, and the essays increased in popularity. The government then switched tactics and managed to silence the authors by subsidizing the owner of the London Journal. Sadly, that insidious government strategy is engrained in U.S. policies today. The federal government’s 2,300 subsidy programs tend to silence dissent and turn otherwise independent institutions such as businesses and charitable groups into tools of the state.

Trenchant and Gordon believed England to be the freest country in Europe. With Brexit, the British today have the independence to rediscover some of the libertarian ideas that they pioneered.

For Americans, Cato’s Letters is a reminder that the fight for liberty did not begin in 1776, and also that it will never end because the thirst for power is unquenchable. Government officials “wherever they were trusted with too much power, always abused it.” Government is a “Trust, which ought to be bounded with many and strong restraints, because power renders men wanton, insolent to others, and fond of themselves.”

Officials try to convince citizens that there is “difficulty and mystery” in government affairs “far above the vulgar understandings” of average folks. But letter #38 argues that government is not as complicated as officials make it seem: “Every ploughman knows a good government from a bad one, from the effects of it: he knows whether the fruits of his labour be his own, and whether he enjoy them in peace and security.” However, the public needs to invest in “thinking and enquiry” to see through all the self‐​interested mischief.

Cato’s Letters are available online from Liberty Fund here. The Cato Institute has provided commentary on the essays here and here.

Summary:

President after president, and now even a slew of presidential candidates, promise to end endless wars, yet our troops remain engaged in hot spots like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. What will it take for the United States to finally bring our troops home?

Mentions:

A special thanks to Christopher Preble for the guidance on this episode.

Natalie Dowzicky interviewed; Erik Goepner, Becky Heyse, Jeff Groom, Dan Grazier, Dan Caldwell, and Max Pappas for this episode.

Music by Cellophane Sam.

Transcript:

Bobby Duffy draws on his research into public perception across more than forty countries, offering a sweeping account of the stubborn problem of human delusion: how society breeds it, why it will never go away, and what our misperceptions say about what we really believe.

How do we consume information differently now than we did in the 1950’s? How do we gain knowledge about the world around us? Why are Americans high in confidence but low in true knowledge? Are Americans creating false beliefs from false information?

Further Reading:

Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding, written by Bobby Duffy

Crime, terrorism and teen pregnancies: is it all doom and gloom? Only in our minds, written by Bobby Duffy

Related Content:

Who Elected Donald Trump?, Free Thoughts Podcast

How the Media Really Works, Free Thoughts Podcast

Social Media’s Moral Panic, Free Thoughts Podcast

On the morning of November 9, 2016, journalists and pundits across the country scrambled to find an explanation for the election upset they had just observed. Donald Trump, a moderately successful real estate investor with no political experience, had beaten Hillary Clinton, a former US Senator, Secretary of State, and First Lady. Pollsters had predicted an easy win for Clinton, with several giving Trump a less than one in ten chance of victory. Election post-mortems offered a broad range of answers, from blaming a recrudescence of racism voters, economic anxiety in Appalachia, to any of a dozen or so strategic failures of the Clinton campaign.

But that frantic hunt to explain the outcome missed a question with far greater significance for the future of American politics: how did so unfathomable a candidate as Donald Trump secure the nomination of the Republican Party in the first place? The real surprise for scholars of the election happened not in November 2016 but months earlier, in July 2016, when Donald Trump won the Republican nomination.

The next three articles in this series will explore that question in-depth, but the shortest possible version is this: by 2016, the Republican Party had ceased to function as a modern party. The tools of party control of the nomination process—invented more than a century and a half ago—had been eroded through new technologies. This loss of control reintroduced collective action problems among a ballooning number of candidates, which then allowed Donald Trump to have a serious shot at the nomination. The general election victory of Donald Trump masked the fact that the Republican Party has been hollowed out, making party control of the nomination process the weakest it has been since the 1850s.

But before Democratic readers take heart from the heat death of the GOP, consider that the same, inexorable processes are even now operating on the Democratic Party, increasing the likelihood that previously unthinkable candidates—like Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist from deep blue Vermont—will win the nomination, hurting the party’s chances of victory in the general election. Inasmuch as retail politics matter on the margins, then one lesson we learned in 2016 is that, when facing the least popular candidate in modern presidential history, it is a mistake to nominate the second least popular candidate in modern presidential history. Or even the third, as we might discover in 2020.

The Collective Action Problem

That phrase, “collective action problem,” may be unfamiliar to some readers. In economics, the term describes a way that individual incentives can undermine collective goals.  Even when people agree about the best possible outcome for their group, their own incentives can lead them to take actions that undermine the longed for outcome.

If you happen to have watched the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind starring Russell Crowe, you have seen an illustration of a collective action problem.In one scene, a group of mathematicians at a bar spot an alluring blonde and her less attractive friends. The optimal strategy for ensuring that everyone went home with someone that night would be for the mathematicians to spread their attention equally among the women, with only one of the mathematicians pursuing the blonde. However, the mathematicians each individually prefer the blonde, leading to a collective action problem; if all four pursue the blonde, they will knock each other out of contention for her affections, and, in the end, alienate both her and her ignored friends. Each man goes home alone, their individual incentives having undermined a collective goal.

To put this in terms of presidential elections, a political party is a big tent full of people who generally agree that any one of a group of candidates who ascribe to the party’s platform would make a good candidate for the President. They can, however, nominate only one of those candidates; and it is in the party’s best interest to select that single candidate as quickly, efficiently, and with as little infighting as possible.

However, that collective consensus is complicated by contrary incentives for each individual candidate for office. Each prospective candidate (along with the second, fifth, thirteenth, and twenty-fourth prospective candidates) will reason that while, yes, only one person can win, there is always a chance it might be them; and even if it isn’t, running could lead to career-boosting national exposure or even a lesser administration post. The individual interest is to run regardless of the effects on the collective goal.

And that can work as long as the field of candidates doesn’t grow overly large. If there are just a few candidates, it can be positive, drawing attention to the race, energizing the base, and still have a relatively swift resolution. But if too many individual candidates run, it hinders the agreed-upon collective goal of quickly nominating a candidate so as to maximize their chances of winning in the general election. The nomination contest drags on, the debate schedule grows, the debates themselves become more bitter, money that could have been spent on the general gets spent on the primaries, and the eventual nominee emerges from the process late and limping. This hurts a party’s chances of winning the general election.

Historically, parties have developed mechanisms to prevent these kinds of collective action problems from arising in the first place, but those tools of party control have been critically undermined over the past two decades. Collective action problems have already emerged in the Republican Party, culminating in the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016, and threaten to do the same in the Democratic Party in 2020.

The Little Magician Pulls the Modern Political Party Out of His Hat

But our story begins more than a century and a half before the least popular presidential candidate in polled history won a high-backed chair and an eagle-festooned rug in the Oval Office. It begins with another presidential hopeful, who, in this case, happened to be the second shortest. Martin Van Buren, our eighth President, may have been short of stature (5’ 6”),but he was long on wits; his political instincts earned him the nickname of “the Little Magician.” Van Buren entered national politics in the 1820s just as the first party system was falling apart. It was a time known as the “Era of Good Feelings,” a reference to the fact that the old Federalist Party had imploded and the Democratic-Republican Party dominated national politics.

Yet the Democratic-Republican party was bedevilled by collective action problems. Party leadership had few tools for disciplining party members and, as a result, four candidates from the same party entered the general election in 1824. This divided the party vote, leading to no single candidate receiving a majority of the electoral votes. Per the US Constitution, this threw the election into the House of Representatives; all four candidates were Democratic-Republicans, ensuring the party a win, but a lack of a clear public mandate would harm whoever came out on top. After significant horse-trading, the House awarded the Presidency to the politically well-connected John Quincy Adams, who finished second in the electoral college, instead of to political outsider Andrew Jackson, who had won a plurality in both the popular vote and the electoral college.

Adams won the nod by giving the fourth-place finisher, Henry Clay, a cabinet position in exchange for his backing in the House. Jackson called this a “corrupt bargain,” but it was only possible because Jackson was one of three southerners who had run, while Adams had the advantage of being the sole representative of a more unified bloc of Northeastern states. A collective action problem had allowed Adams to slip by the more popular Jackson.

Van Buren, a US Senator by this point, disliked President Adams’ policies and decided that Jackson had the best chance to defeat Adams in an 1828 rematch. However, those who had backed the third place finisher in 1824, William Crawford of Georgia, liked neither Adams nor Jackson and could have once again split the southern vote, giving the incumbent Adams an advantage in 1828. So Van Buren leaned on his personal relationship with Crawford and his supporters, as well as his control of the large New York delegation—which was then a crucial swing state—to convince Crawford’s supporters to back Jackson. Now that the collective action problem was resolved, Jackson beat the less nationally-popular Adams handily in 1828.

The 1824 and 1828 elections had exposed internal tensions within the Democratic-Republican party, which split into two new parties, the Democrats (of which Jackson and Van Buren were members) and what would become the Whig Party. Heading into the 1832 election, Andrew Jackson had a lock on his party’s nomination. However, the vice president slot remained open. Van Buren, who aspired to the office given that it was a natural stepping stone to the presidency, pushed for the party to adopt a new mechanism for preventing collective action problems among candidates: the nominating convention. Van Buren had expressed interest shifting to the convention model as early as 1827, but it was not until 1832 that the first presidential nominating conventions were held.

Here is how a nominating convention prevents collective action problems. It allows a political party to quickly select a single nominee months before the general election, thus preventing multiple candidates from dividing the party vote, cutting down on intra-party squabbling, and helping the party present a united face against the opposing party’s candidate. And that’s precisely how it worked at the first Democratic nominating convention in 1832; Van Buren called in the many political favors owed him, easily secured the vice-presidential nomination, and served alongside Jackson during his second term.

Four years later, in 1836, it was Van Buren’s turn to run for President. Like in 1832, the nominating convention prevented any collective action problems from cropping up for the Democratic side. But the Whig Party was not so fortunate; the nascent party was too disorganized for effective party discipline and had not yet adopted the nominating convention format. As a result, four Whigs entered the race, divided their parties’ support, and allowed the “little magician” to pull off his greatest trick yet, winning the Presidency in 1836.

Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1944

Van Buren had unlocked the key to modern party organization. The modern party’s primary purpose is to prevent collective action problems and keep internal bickering from undermining their electoral hopes. A tight party structure with robust national, regional, and local branches that whip voters to get behind a single candidate gives the party the best chance of winning in the general election. And a nominating convention helps the party select the most broadly palatable candidate before the general election and do so in a manner that energizes party supporters while maintaining party control of the process. That strategy ushered in more than a century of relative party stability; despite periodic ideological realignments, the routine party turnover of Van Buren’s time was over.

Party leadership developed additional tools for maintaining control of the nomination process other than the nominating convention itself. Conventions continued to be the site of significant horse-trading between candidates. While there was always a whiff of the Adams-Clay “corrupt bargain” about it, at least these deals and disputes occurred within the convention and not on the floor of the House of Representatives. And this bargaining built party unity around the eventual nominee, who might offer a cabinet post or the vice presidency to challengers, thus keeping them and their supporters in line.

This system worked because, unlike today, party delegates were not bound to any particular candidate. There were no binding primaries in which rank-and-file voters expressed their candidate preference and thus bound their state’s delegates to vote for said candidate. As a result, the nominating convention gave substantial power to the party hierarchy. Those in leadership with the largest personal networks had the most say over who the nominee would be. This evolved into an era of deep party control of the nomination process, the very real phenomenon of a group of party loyalists packed in smoke-filled rooms deciding who the next presidential nominee would be.

This process also emphasized electability, as party leaders wanted the most palatable candidate for the general electorate, who was not always the candidate who most closely adhered to any given faction of the party base. The most famous example of this logic was the nomination of Harry Truman as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1944. At the time, President Franklin Roosevelt was in declining health, so party leadership expected that whoever was the next vice president would finish Roosevelt’s term. The problem was that Roosevelt’s previous vice president, Henry Wallace, was a Soviet sympathizer who supported desegregation, alienating crucial blocs within the Democratic coalition. So party leadership worked behind the scenes to push Roosevelt to stay non-committal on the VP nod and then denied Wallace a first ballot victory at the nominating convention. Wallace did receive a plurality of the first ballot, but, after much back-and-forth over several alternative candidates, the leadership settled on a compromise candidate, the relatively moderate Harry Truman. Truman would, of course, finish out Roosevelt’s term after the latter’s death in 1945 and then go on to win a famous upset victory in his own right in 1948.

Viewed from one perspective, strict party control of the nomination had led to an anti-democratic outcome, the rejection of Henry Wallace for his radical beliefs; however, given the Cold War context, Henry Wallace would almost certainly have lost badly in 1948. The pragmatic choice was thus between a failed ideologue and a successful, albeit somewhat milquetoast, President. It is an example of how parties have a tough mandate, to simultaneously maintain a balance between representing the will of their members—which naturally pushes parties towards ideological purity—and ensuring party success in the general election—which incentivizes moderation in the pursuit of independent and swing voters. Until the 1960s, the modern party system tended to privilege general electability over ideological purity. If the goal of modern party systems is to win elections, then that was a sound strategy.

There Ain’t No Party Like a Modern Party, but the Modern Party Can Stop

However, those tools of party control increasingly alienated voters in the mid-20th century. Many in both major parties were frustrated by the consensus politics of the post-World War Two era, in which the parties hewed towards the political center, pushing both the Right and the Left to the margins. Progressive Democrats liked Truman no more than conservative Republicans liked Dwight Eisenhower, who was, after all, recruited by both parties to run as their nominee. Thus, when the New Right and New Left burst through the political levees in the 1960s, there was immense pressure to reform the party system and nominate candidates that reflected the will of party members rather than the machinations of party elites.

The most significant of these reforms was the binding primary. The first primaries dated back to the nineteenth century, but they were non-binding, turning them into little more than “beauty contests,” as political observers called the New Hampshire primary in 1952. (Although Truman’s surprise defeat in that “beauty contest” may have convinced him not to run for re-election.) That changed as a result of the 1968 election. President Lyndon Johnson, despite being mired in the unpopular Vietnam War, was considering running for reelection. But the rising anti-war faction of the Democratic Party preferred Eugene McCarthy, a Senator from Minnesota who had taken a strong stance against the war. McCarthy’s campaign shocked the party establishment after he came uncomfortably close to beating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, in large part because of energetic support from his young, college-age volunteers who reporters gave the derisive nickname of the “childrens’ crusade.” (Half a century later another politically radical senator with a large contingent of enthusiastic, young supporters would outperform expectations in New England.)

His uncomfortably narrow win in New Hampshire convinced Johnson not to run for re-election. That led to a particularly chaotic primary field, especially after the assassination of presumptive frontrunner Robert Kennedy. McCarthy went on to win a majority of primary votes, leaving Johnson’s final heir apparent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, to limp into the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Despite the lack of party enthusiasm for Humphrey, party leadership calculated that McCarthy’s strident anti-war position would hurt their chances in the general election. So the usual wheels began turning, the gears of party control started grinding, and the convention nominated Humphrey. That led to an eruption of protests outside the convention hall in an embarassing, nationally-televised spectacle that likely contributed to Humphrey’s loss in the general election to Richard Nixon. (It also led to the nomination of what was arguably the finest Presidential candidate to ever grace the political stage: Pigasus, the 145 lb pig nominated by Yippie protestors before being eaten by the Chicago Police Department.)

Democratic Party leadership realized that in order to keep the next generation of party members from leaving for more radical alternatives, they needed to reform the nomination process. The resultant McGovern-Fraser Commission proposed changes before the 1972 election, the most sweeping of which was to make primaries binding on most of each state’s delegates. It was the end of an era in which candidates could win the primary process but lose at the convention. And, in so doing, it took away one of the key tools of control over the nomination process. Party leadership would have a much harder time defying the will of rank-and-file membership in order to select more moderate candidates.

However, these reforms, although calming the turmoil within the Democratic Party, also led to a series of nominees that struggled to compete on the national stage because of their progressive policies. What played well with the further Left-leaning contingents of the Democratic base in the primaries did not play as well with the electorate in the general election. That list of ideologically-consistent but doomed nominees included the titular head of the McGovern-Fraser Commission, George McGovern, a progressive senator from South Dakota who lost badly in the general election to Richard Nixon in 1972.

Eventually, the Democratic Party recalibrated its nomination process to give back some control to party elites, creating the “superdelegate” system in 1982 that reserved a substantial minority of unbound delegate positions filled by the party leadership. The Republican Party never adopted the more top-down, nationalized delegate system of the Democrats, preferring to leave primary design decisions to its state parties, but, even though implemented on a state-by-state basis, binding primaries became the norm for Republicans as well by the 1980s. Voters on both sides of the aisle demanded a more democratic process.

At first blush, it might seem like the rise of the binding primary should have fatally undermined the Van Buren-esque modern party system. After all, party leaders could no longer use the nominating convention to control the nomination process. However, by the 1970s, both parties had other tools at hand that could replace the disciplinary function of the nominating convention.

The first tool was the debate stage. While there were sporadic primary debates between candidates on radio and television in the 1940s and 1950s, the practice did not become commonplace until 1968, on the cusp of the McGovern-Fraser reforms. Televised debates became vitally important in the new era of binding primaries given that candidates now had to fight for rank-and-file votes rather than just appealing to party elites. But the party leadership controlled access to the primary debate stage and could use the debate qualification rules to push out candidates who they perceived to be too marginal or radical. They could also limit the number of debates or push them to poor time slots in order to protect an incumbent or other favored candidate from scrutiny.

The second tool was the donor list. Donations are the lifeblood of political campaigns, but, in the pre-digital era, the easiest path to political contributions ran through party-controlled donor lists. Both Republicans and Democrats not only kept track of high dollar donors but also cultivated relationships with them. Those relationships made it possible for party leaders to lean on donors to give or not give to particular candidates. Besides, wealthy donors preferred general election winners—and the possible rent-seeking benefits of political patronage that would follow—so their interests aligned with party leadership more often than not when it came to selecting centrist candidates with the best shot at victory.

So just as they lost one major tool of control over the nomination process, the parties found two sufficiently powerful substitutes. Marginal or radical candidates would now find it hard to make it onto the primary debate stage. If they cleared that hurdle and perhaps even went on to win a few delegates in the early primaries, that was fine. But if, at some point in the primary contest, the party leadership decided it was time to unify behind a single, generally-palatable candidate, they could then turn off the donor tap. It might not look exactly like the modern party system that Martin Van Buren conjured, but it functioned quite similarly.

However, by the end of the twentieth century, these two vital tools of party control were themselves under threat from new technologies, in particular the rise of conservative mass media and online crowdfunded political campaign. The writing was on the wall for the modern party system, but nobody knew how to read the signs until it was much too late. 

Part Two of this series coming soon. Trump is a symptom, not a cause.

The MQ‑9 Reaper attack that took out Iranian General Qassim Suleimani was a drone strike for peace, President Trump explained last week: we took action “to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.” That’s a theory, and it’s going to be put to the test. “All is well!” the president tweeted last night as a salvo of Iranian missiles fell on U.S. positions in Iraq: “So far, so good!”

Trump’s decision to target Suleimani — a figure described as the Iranian equivalent of “an American Vice President, chairman of the Joint Chiefs and CIA director rolled into one” — wasn’t the first time the U.S. government has aimed lethal force at a top government official. There’s the checkered — and occasionally absurd — history of the CIA’s Cold War assassination attempts, including the Kennedys’ efforts to kill Fidel Castro. But we’ve also gone after legitimate targets in congressionally authorized wars: the downing of Admiral Yamamoto’s plane in WWII and the attempted decapitation strike against Saddam Hussein at the start of the Iraq War.

The Suleimani killing was something new under the sun. It marked the first time an American president has publicly ordered the assassination of a top government official for a country we’re not legally at war with.

This is where you’re supposed to acknowledge that the Quds Force commandant was an evil guy who got what he deserved. Done. But that’s got nothing to do with whether the move was wise or constitutionally permissible.

U.S. forces took out Suleimani “at the direction of the President,” per the Pentagon’s announcement. On what authority, exactly? For now, the official rationale is classified. In terms of public justification, all we have is some hand‐​waving by Trump’s national security adviser about the president’s “constitutional authorities as commander in chief to defend our nation” and the 17‐​year old Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq (2002 AUMF). Neither comes close to vesting the president with the power to set off a whole new war.

The 2002 AUMF authorizes the president to use military force in order to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and enforce various UN resolutions “regarding Iraq.” Unless “45” is going to break out the presidential sharpie and change the “q”s to “n”s, that’s not going to cut it. Neither will the 2001 AUMF, as I’ve explained at length elsewhere (See: “Repeal Old AUMFs and Salt the Earth”).

If and when the administration deigns to reveal its legal theory, the argument will probably be: (1) the AUMFs license our continuing presence in Iraq; and (2) the president has inherent power under Article II to defend our personnel from the sort of attacks Iranian proxies have carried out in recent weeks. (National Review’s David French outlines that theory here.)

How far up the escalation ladder are these powers supposed to extend, however? “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sits atop the military chain of command and apparently had to approve the recent militia attacks. Does Article II empower Trump to order a hit on the Ayatollah? That we wouldn’t miss that guy either seems rather beside the point.

It’s true that Article II leaves the president with some defensive war powers, allowing him to “repel sudden attacks,” as Madison’s notes from the Convention put it. But as we move up the ladder, at some point we’ve left the realm of self‐​defense and the response becomes in effect, a declaration of war. The Constitution vests that power in Congress.

War powers practice in the early republic suggests that the president’s power of “self‐​defense” was far narrower than Trump’s defenders imagine. During our first four presidential administrations, the U.S. was on the receiving end of multiple acts of war, including “invasions of territory (Creek [Indians]), illegal capture of neutral shipping not carrying enemy contraband (England and France), and the kidnapping of thousands of foreign sailors (England).” Yet, as the University of Virginia’s Sai Prakash explains, “even though [those] nations had declared war on the United States in formal and informal ways, Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison believed that the President could not wage war in response.” Without formal authorization from Congress, early presidents recognized that “they were limited to those steps falling short of a declaration of war, such as defensive measures.” As Washington put it in 1793,

“The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”

In his June 1, 1812 message to Congress, President James Madison outlined a long train of abuses committed by the British: they’d “wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction” and ripped “thousands of American citizens… from their country and from everything dear to them,” forcing them into the service of the empire. “We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Great Britain,” Madison declared. But whether the United States could answer those abuses with war “is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the government.”

Even James K. Polk understood that just drawing enemy fire wasn’t enough to get a war started. You could, as Polk did, gin up a pretext for one by sending U.S. troops into disputed territory and getting some of them killed, but to “take the fight to the enemy,” you needed authorization from Congress.

All this is likely “academic.” The White House likely doesn’t consider itself bound by its own Office of Legal Counsel opinions, much less the original meaning of the Constitution’s war powers provisions.

But what recent events have made plain, as Jack Goldsmith sums up, is that

“Our country has, quite self‐​consciously, given one person, the President, an enormous sprawling military and enormous discretion to use it in ways that can easily lead to a massive war. That is our system: one person decides.”

I’d quibble with “self‐​consciously,” otherwise, as a descriptive matter, that’s right: that’s the system we’ve got. And it’s the inverse of the one the Framers designed: “This system will not hurry us into war,” James Wilson told delegates to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention in 1787, “it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man… to involve us in such distress, for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large.”

As of this morning, things looked brighter than they did for several harrowing hours last night. Iran’s response didn’t result in any American deaths, perhaps by design: “We do not seek escalation or war,” tweeted Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Trump may be inclined to deescalate as well. Cooler heads may yet prevail.

It is, however, insane and intolerable that peace depends on the restraint of the Islamic Republic and an American president given to rage‐​tweeting war‐​crime threats. No one fallible human being should be entrusted with the war powers now vested in the presidency. Now, more than ever, Congress needs to do everything in its power to reclaim its authority over war and peace.

This piece was originally published on Cato @ Liberty. 

Mengzi or, as westerners know him, Mencius, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher who lived in the fourth century BC. Modern philosophy curricula often downplays eastern philosophy and focuses instead on western traditions. This may be due to an anti-eastern bias that stretches all the way back to Aristotle, who believed Asians were not capable of any form of government besides tyranny. Later thinkers such as Montesquieu stated that Asian lacked a desire for liberty. But these chauvinist claims are easily debunked by examining the contents of Mencius’ work. The philosophy of Mencius borrows heavily from his predecessor Confucius although he expands the scope of Confucian thought and applies it to new issues. What emerges from Mencius is a philosophy that has many principles in common with classical liberalism despite the colossal gaps between them culturally and chronologically.

His Inspiration, Confucius

Mencius was a devout follower of the philosopher Confucius; he wrote, “Ever since man came into this world, there has never been one greater than Confucius.”  Confucius was born in roughly 551BC in the district of Zou. He dedicated his life to reviving the just and ethical rule of the mythical Sage Kings of the past. He did not think of himself as an innovator or original thinker, stating, “I transmit rather than innovate. I trust in and love the ancient ways.” After becoming disillusioned with holding political office, Confucius travelled throughout China to various kingdoms attempting to convince their leaders to adopt humane reforms. Confucius believed that leaders could cultivate a virtuous public and prosperous economy through a policy of non-interference and moral example. 

For Confucius, the people can only become genuinely virtuous when “the heavy burden of oppression has been lifted from their shoulders.”  Rulers should not lead by coercion or force but by moral example, for “if you try to guide the common people with coercive regulations and keep them in line with punishments, the common people will become evasive and will have no sense of shame.” It is no use forcing people to be good. They must instead learn by example from their leaders, “When the ruler is correct his will is put into effect without the need for official orders. When the ruler’s person is not correct, he will not be obeyed, no matter how many orders he issues.”  

The Life of Mencius

Mencius was born in 372BC in the Kingdom of Zhou. The king of Zhou no longer held much territory  and had been reduced to a figurehead. At the time, China was not unified, split into dozens of warring kingdoms, the leaders of which each sought to dominate the others. This period, known later as the Warring States Period, lasted from 475-221 BCE. Despite the misery that came with constant warfare, this period was also marked by a great boom in intellectual activity. Scholars from different schools of thought roamed from state to state offering their advice to rulers on all sorts of matters.

When Mencius was young his father died, which caused great financial strain for him and his mother. Despite the economic hardship, Mencius’ mother dedicated herself to giving her son an excellent education. Due to her dedication to her son, she was much later included in the influential book Biographies of Exemplary Women  by author Liu Xiang. Thanks to his mother’s efforts, Mencius became a scholar and follower of the Confucian tradition, travelling throughout China emulating Confucius by giving advice to rulers. His conversations with various rulers were compiled into a book now simply known as Mencius, which was most likely written by his followers after his death.

Spontaneous Order and Virtue

Similarly to Confucius, Mencius believed that the government existed to cultivate a virtuous citizenry. This at first sounds like a recipe for an overbearing authoritarian regime of paternalism, and yet Mencius’ beliefs do not remotely resemble those of a totalitarian. 

Mencius did not agree with heavy-handed, top-down approaches.  He explained this through the story of a farmer. One day a farmer was inspecting his crops. Seeing that his crops were not ready for harvesting, the nervous farmer begins to pull on the sprouts in order to help them grow faster. When he returned home and told his family what he had done, his son checked on the rice plants and saw that they had all shrivelled up. The moral of the story is that you cannot force something to grow. Instead, you must provide the correct environment. Likewise,  people flourish morally not due to commands or threats of punishment. Furthermore, Mencius also believed that moral virtue was not relegated to any particular class or caste of people; it is accessible to all when given the right environment. 

For Mencius, a person can only become virtuous when three prerequisites have been met. Firstly a person must have their basic needs met. Few people can become wise and virtuous sages without food, water, and shelter. Secondly, people must be socialized by learning manners and etiquette in order to respect others. Lastly, individual effort and self-reflection are required; as the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. 

Pursuing Prosperity

If people’s physical needs are not met, it is unlikely they will ever be able to flourish and grow as a person. The scrabble for subsistence leaves little space for proper etiquette or introspection. Mencius believes the best way to produce prosperity is by following the principle of non-interference laid down by Confucius.

At the time, many rulers were heavily taxing their subjects to the point of destitution in an attempt to enrich themselves. Mencius condemns this kind of behaviour and argues that taxes should be kept to a minimum. In one of his dialogues, a king asks if it is acceptable to reduce the heavy tax burden he has slowly raised over time. Mencius replies “Suppose there is a person who every day appropriates one of his neighbour’s chickens. Someone tells him, ‘This is not the Way of a gentleman.”  He then asks “May I reduce it to appropriating one chicken every month and wait until next year to stop?” Mencius concludes with a striking maxim: “If one knows that it is not righteous, then one should quickly stop.”  

Mencius and Economics

Without some degree of material prosperity, it would be difficult for any but a small minority to become virtuous. Because of this, on numerous occasions Mencius discusses how to best promote material prosperity. Mencius articulates many of the same points Adam Smith would later in his seminal The Wealth of Nations two thousand years later on price fixing, the division of labour, and free trade.

Mencius also argues that government officials should not meddle with the market by fixing prices as it will lower the quality of goods. He argues against price fixing by asking, “If a fine shoe and a shoddy shoe are the same prices, will anyone make the former?” 

He also understood the importance of the division of labour in a free society. Agriculturalists such as Xu Xing believed that there should be no distinction between those who work with their hands and those who work with their minds. Therefore everyone should take part in agricultural work. Mencius believed this was a fundamentally flawed view of the world because it did not take into account the benefits of the division of labour.  Mencius argues that “to trade grain for implements is not to inflict hardship on the potter and the blacksmith. The potter and the blacksmith, for their part, also trade their wares for grain.” He then continues to explain that “if everyone must make everything he uses, the Empire will be led along the path of incessant toil.” The division of labour allows for specialization, which in turn produces more goods and less work overall for society at large. 

Additionally, Mencius believed in free-trade. When describing good government to King Hsüan of Qi, he explained that King Wen of Chi kept taxes low and, while  goods were inspected at the border, there were no tariffs or levies on those goods in order to promote trade.

The Anti-War Attitudes of Mencius

Many leaders attempted to bolster their power by waging wars against weaker neighbouring states. Mencius found this not only ineffective but morally repulsive. To make a prosperous and lasting state through warfare was, for Mencius, like “climbing a tree in search of a fish.” War costs time, resources, and lives. Mencius believed that people would flock to states that cultivated prosperity and peace. He aggressively condemned war, explaining, “In wars to gain land, the dead fill the plains; in wars to gain cities, the dead fill the cities. This is known as showing the land the way to devour human flesh.” For those that wage wars for their own profit at the expense of others, Mencius believed that “death is too light a punishment for such men.” 

Gaining Political Legitimacy

Mencius did not believe that leaders in power gained legitimacy merely by being in positions of power. If a leader wants legitimacy, he must attain what is called the Mandate of Heaven. Mencius lived under the Zhou dynasty; when the Zhou came to power, they justified their rule by arguing that Heaven, an even higher power, had given them the right to rule due to their virtue. Mencius appropriates this idea and argues that only the virtuous should rule, not the merely strong or cunning.  

But how are we supposed to determine what is and is not the will of Heaven? Many saw natural phenomena as proof leaders were fit or unfit to rule. A good harvest justifies a leader’s position, but a flood might show Heaven’s displeasure. This is hardly the most reliable or consistent way to judge who is fit to rule. Mencius believed instead that we must use the people as a barometer to measure the Mandate of Heaven. As he put it, “Heaven sees as the people see; Heaven hears as the people hear.”  If the people are content, then the will of Heaven is appeased. While not an advocate of democracy by any means, Mencius at least had a respect for the sentiments of the people, if he did not go so far as to require their formal consent. 

Importantly the Mandate of Heaven cannot be passed down. Mencius saw no issue with hereditary succession, but new leaders would have to earn their right to rule by appeasing their subjects through benevolence; a dynastic name alone was insufficient. One man named Wan Zhang asked Mencius, “Is it true that Yao gave the empire to Shun?” Mencius answered, “No. The emperor cannot give the empire to others.” Instead, “Heaven gives it to him and so the people give it to him. That is why I said, ‘The emperor cannot give the empire to others.’” For Mencius, the Mandate of Heaven, and therefore the right to rule, is synonymous with the contentment of the people. 

Removing Bad Leaders

But what happens if a ruler fails to fulfil their obligations to their people? Mencius believed that if a leader cannot provide the service they are obligated to provide, they must be removed and replaced. Mencius’s views on this topic can be examined in his conversations with King Xuan of Qi.

While talking to Xuan, Mencius asked him, “If among your majesty’s ministers there were one who entrusted his wife and children to his friends and travelled to the distant state of Chu, and when he returned his friend had let his wife and children become cold and hungry, how should he handle this?” The king replied that he would abandon this minister. Mencius persisted and asks, “If the chief Warden is not able to keep order among the nobles, how should one handle this?” The king replied similarly to the last question, “Discharge him.” Mencius finally asks, “If the region within the four borders is not ruled, then how should one handle this?” The king quickly changed the topic and did not answer the question, the implication being that the ruler should be discharged akin to the minister and warden.

After talking a little longer, Xuan asked if it is acceptable for subjects to assassinate their ruler. Mencius replied, “One who mutilates righteousness should be called a ‘crippler.’ A crippler and mutilator is called a mere ‘fellow.’ I have indeed heard of the execution of this one fellow Zhou, but I have not heard of it as the assassination of one’s ruler.” It is worth noting that in his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke has a similar justification for resistance to tyrants. Locke writes that when a person in power “quits this Representation, this Public Will, and acts by his own private Will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private Person without Power, and without Will, that has any Right to Obedience.” Both Locke and Mencius believed that when a public official uses their position to further their own aims, they forfeit their right to their position of power. 

Calling a Spade a Spade, the Rectification of Names

Mencius theory of deposing unjust leaders utilizes what Confucius referred to as the “Rectification of Names.” This is the idea that words ought to correspond to reality in order to ensure social harmony. Confucius explains that “if language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” When asked to describe good government, Confucius describes it as a society which “consists in the ruler being a ruler, the minister being a minister, the father being a father, and the son being a son.” 

Mencius takes the Confucian idea of rectifying names and applies it to political legitimacy. An excellent example of this is when Mencius asked King Hui of Liang, “Is there any difference between killing a person with a club and killing him with a blade.” After the king replied no, Mencius asked  “Is there a difference between using a blade and government?” Therefore, any crime a leader commits is not excused by their political status. Theft is theft, murder is murder, regardless of the method or personal status. 

Mencius held those in power to strict standards. Like Confucius, Mencius believed leaders ought to be of the highest ethical character given that  their example would filter down to the rest of the population. If leaders did not practice ethical conduct, they could corrupt an entire society. If leaders did not keep clean moral characters or failed to fulfil their duties, it was morally permissible for them to be removed from office and replaced, by force if necessary.

Despite his best efforts, Mencius’ career did not produce humane governments; few, if any, leaders implemented his advice. It is possible he became depressed at his inability to effect change, as the last passage of his work attests,  “From Confucius to the present time is a little more than one hundred years. It is not long from the era of a sage, and we are close to the home of a sage. Yet where is he? Where is he?” While Mencius was unsuccessful during his lifetime in implementing the philosophy of Confucianism, a rival school of philosophy was highly successful: Legalism. 

Proto-Totalitarians

Confucianism and Legalism are complete opposites. Unlike Confucians, Legalist philosophers start not with the question of how ought the world to be, but how it really is. Legalists believed that human nature was naturally bad, that people were prone to selfishness and needed to be convinced to be good by using rewards and harsh punishments. They also did not believe a ruler should rule by virtue but should instead rule by force. Unlike Confucians, Legalists put little stock in moralizing arguments and focused more on realism. Their philosophy is comparable to the thought of Machiavelli’s Prince and Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. 

Legalists’ overarching goal was to create a state with great wealth and a powerful army. Legalists planned to achieve their goal by creating an all-powerful and centralized state which kept the people weak. The Legalist Book of Shang explained, “When the people are weak, the state is strong; hence the state that possesses the Way devotes itself to weakening the people.” Laws should be strict and punishments must be harsh. Legalists advocated for a highly organized bureaucracy to enforce their will. They also argued that the leader of any state should be forever wary of his subordinates, who, according to their view of human nature, would forever be plotting to overthrow their ruler.

The people were to practice either agriculture or soldiery. Merchants and scholars were not respectable figures according to the Legalists. Merchants were to be squeezed out of any profits they made or be forced to till the land like everyone else. Legalists especially loathed scholars such as Mencius and Confucius for two reasons. Firstly, they relied upon the tradition of the sage kings of the past, who the Legalists believed had no bearing on the contemporary situation,  and, secondly, wherever they went the Confucians made the people question authority.

Legalist philosopher Han Fei convinced Qin Shi Huang to implement his reforms. Huang went on to unify the warring states and became the first emperor of China, establishing the Qin dynasty. On paper, this looked like the triumph of Legalism. 

However, the Qin dynasty was anything but a success. Han Fei, who had originally introduced the emperor to Legalist ideas and reforms, was forced to commit suicide due to political intrigue. In a twist of cruel fate, the man who advocated for expansive government power and harsh punishments was killed for his own teachings. After fifteen short years, the dynasty collapsed due to harsh punishments, pointless expansionism, and an overbearing government. A popular revolt took place and this dynasty that was supposed to rule for generations swiftly came to an end. The brutal realism of the Legalist succeeded in unifying China, but the Legalist impulse to micromanage and interfere with every aspect of life led to its ultimate downfall. 

The Lessons of Confucianism

Confucians such as Mencius recognized that the state was not all-powerful. And even if somehow the government were competent to micromanage every aspect of life, it would be immoral to do so.  Confucians valued freedom and lived by the maxim, “Do not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire.” This is very similar to the Golden Rule of Christianity, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Unlike his Legalist contemporaries, the writings of Mencius flatly contradict the stereotypes of eastern philosophy that has persisted in western philosophy. Mencius believed that the state ought to promote the virtuous flourishing of its people. This was to be carried out by a consistent policy of non-intervention in both people’s economic and private affairs. For people to be virtuous, a degree of prosperity was required. Mencius, preceding Adam Smith by two millennia, argued in favour of free trade and the division of labour. His economic views were surprisingly humane for any philosopher, ancient or modern. 

Unlike many of his contemporaries who sought to solidify power by conquering neighbouring territories, Mencius condemned wars of conquest and disdained pointless bloodshed. Rulers were to attract subjects by providing an environment in which they would thrive both morally and economically without oppression or heavy-handed regulations.  However, Mencius’s most original contribution was his analysis of political legitimacy and the necessity of removing illegitimate rulers.

Despite being from very different times and cultures, Mencius’ teachings at times can be comparable to giants in the classical liberal tradition such as John Locke and Adam Smith. For his commitment to economic prosperity and personal freedom, Mencius ought to be honoured as a predecessor to classical liberal ideas.

Yuval Levin argues that we do not need to tear down our current institutions and restart from nothing, but it is definitely a time to re-commit to make our institutions trustworthy once again. And by institutions he means from the military to church groups and everything in between. He argues that we can then use these trustworthy institutions to provide the form and structure we need to really be free.

What counts as a institution? Is there a decline in the public trust of institutions? Are institutions failing across the board? When is distrusting an institution a good thing? Should we work to make institutions more trustworthy?

Further Reading:

A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream, written by Yuval Levin

How did Americans lose faith in everything?, written by Yuval Levin

Beyond the Welfare State, written by Yuval Levin

Related Content:

Stuck in Political Nostalgia, Free Thoughts Podcast

The Collapse of the Local Community, Free Thoughts Podcast

Big Business Loves Big Government: Cronyism in American Politics, Free Thoughts Podcast

Since the dawn of civilization, trade has been an essential part of human coexistence. Trade, as the most basic type of exchange, rests on the virtue of self-interest and is inherently a win-win game. It celebrates peace and seeks to build bridges where politics of aggression try to erect walls. Sustainable international cooperation is essential to creating lasting and truly global prosperity. As markets have become more integrated, developing countries have been able to expand their participation in international trade which unleashed their economic growth.

And yet, despite its incredible potential to boost peace and prosperity, free trade has always had to fight an uphill battle against the seeds of trade protectionism planted by mercantilism in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Corn Laws were initially established as a small duty on the imports of grains at the end of the 17th century in Britain. The laws were originally enacted to support domestic agriculture in an attempt to make it as independent of foreign assistance as possible. In 1815, the Corn Law of 1660 underwent a dramatic change and made it illegal to import wheat when prices were below 82s. 6d. per quarter. The protective nature of the Corn Laws signalled an unfortunate shift towards mercantilism.

British mercantilism didn’t take reins overnight. It is usually tempting to narrow down the scope of complex societal and political phenomenons such as mercantilism to a single factor such governments’ fallacious beliefs about trade, or special interests, or the attitude of society overall. Mercantilism was and remains more than that: it requires us to look at its various components through the prism of their interaction not separately.

Mercantilism’s origins in Britain can be traced back to the Navigation Acts of 1651, which greatly affected the way trade was perceived by the population. The dominant attitude was articulated by Thomas Mun, who in England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade, proclaimed that “the ordinary means to increase our wealth and treasure is by Foreign Trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.” In line with the mercantilist tradition, Mun saw trade as a zero-sum game in which imports enrich the exporter at the expense of the importing country. Fewer imports, more exports is the key message of mercantilism.

Mun’s beliefs that rested on the ideas of national capital along with the fashionable terms of the time such as ‘national trade’ and the ‘national trader’ were popularised by pamphleteers writings.

Writing on the mercantile system of 18th century England, Adam Smith famously pointed out that linen yarn could be imported into England duty-free, whereas heavy import duties were levied on finished woven linen. The reason for that, according to Smith, was that the linen yarn group had better access to the government and thus was able to promote its interests more successfully.

By the time of the Corn Laws of 1815, mercantilism had become entrenched in British political and societal life, with special interests exerting their influence on policymakers and the population tolerating it as the only accepted philosophy. In 1846, however, the situation had changed dramatically with the Corn Laws being abolished in favour of free trade.

In Political Economy and Peel’s Repeal of the Corn Laws, Douglas Irwin suggests that there were two possible reasons why Britain shifted to free trade in 1846: ideological change in Peel’s views and the impact of pressure groups.

Robert Peel, who was British Prime Minister between 1834–35 and 1841–46 inherited the Corn Laws from his predecessors and for a time supported them as necessary measures. Initially opposed to the abolition of protection in agriculture, Peel eventually converted to free trade. In one of the speeches he would proclaim, “if I could be induced to believe that an alteration in the Corn-laws would be an effectual remedy for those distresses [of the poor], I would be the first to step forward, and… I would earnestly advise a relaxation, an alteration, - nay, if necessary, a repeal of the corn laws.”

The source of his influences was the prevailing consumer nationalism of the day and imperialist rhetoric in favour of self-reliance. Mercantilism became something like the most popular pop song of the day: it spread like an infection, and many people adopted it by default without questioning the concept. Peel was no different. He fell under the spell of protectionism at an early period in his public life without reflecting much on “the opinions generally prevalent at the time among men of all parties, as to the justice and necessity of protection to domestic agriculture.”

Another reason for Peel’s support of mercantilism were his close ties with the agricultural class which he had been sustaining during the 1820s. Aware of the controversy underlying such a connection, Peel asserted, “if you ask me whether I bind myself on the maintenance of the existing [corn] law in all its details and whether that is the condition on which the landed interest give me their support, I say that, on that condition, I cannot accept their support.”

At a time when mercantilism was topping the charts, free trade was seen as nothing but a theoretical concept. The lack of tangible evidence in favour of free trade principles made Peel very sceptical of the repeal at first. But he was clearly open to experiments. One of such was the reduction of corn duties by more than one half under the Corn Law bill of 1842, and Peel was convinced no further concessions to free traders would occur while still leaving room for change, “I will maintain the law till my opinion undergoes a change.”

When in the summer of 1845, Charles Pelham Villiers raised a motion against the Corn Laws, Peel voted it down. This was probably one of the few turning points in his ideological tacks on trade. In response to the motion, he stressed, “I must say, that I think experience has shown that a high price of corn is not necessarily accompanied by a high rate of wages.” While still rejecting the idea that landowners were the only beneficiaries of high prices, Peel recognised that cutting tariffs on products such as coffee and tea increased the consumption. As Peel was witnessing the proof of his reforms, a dramatic shift took place.

“During that interval [between the passing of the Corn Bill in 1842 and the close of the Session of 1845] the opinions I had previously entertained on the subject of protection to agriculture had undergone a great change,” wrote Peel in his memoirs. Additionally, in 1841, Peel discovered that the prices of agricultural products across the continent that could be imported were not low enough to substantially hurt domestic farmers.

Peel was not the only person toying with the idea of free trade and the repeal. A lobby group, the Anti-Corn Law League, also known as Free-Trade League led by Richard Cobden and John Bright, was essential to the abolition of the Laws.

The League was not part of any political party and acted independently. Dissociating ourselves from all political parties,” said the resolution, “We hereby declare that we will use every exertion to obtain the return of those members to Parliament alone who will support a repeal of the Corn Laws.”

It was also privately funded. Every manufacturer in the country employing over five hundred had contributed to the coffers of the Anti-Corn Law League. In order to create a public opinion that would become the leading voice in Parliament, various tools at all levels of society were deployed.

Along with sustaining and expanding its access to policymakers, the League hired lecturers and hosted public meetings to educate the public. Extensive production and dissemination of pamphlets and brochures was undertaken to shape the public opinion.

The success of the League would not have been possible without Richard Cobden, who became a passionate voice for free trade. Cobden was a cotton manufacturer and a member of British Parliament between 1804–1865. He is best remembered as a passionate advocate for the adoption of “the general principles of non-intervention and arbitration in foreign policy, publicity in all the transactions of diplomacy, and the renunciation of all ideas of national preponderance and supremacy.” As a follower of Frederic Bastiat, Cobden saw a strong link between free trade and peace.

Cobden was also a contributor to Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine and established a paper called the Manchester Examiner to advance his free trade ideas. A newspaper, the Anti-Corn Law was edited and circulated on a weekly basis.

Everyone involved in the Repeal of the Corn Laws was driven more by their personal interest than public interest. This, however, in no way undermines the value of their actions to the society overall. As a premier lobbying group of the time, the League popularised free trade by educating policymakers and masses about its benefits.

Though Cobden played a significant role in bringing about the repeal, his name and his contribution was suppressed in order not to create a perception that Peel surrendered to special interests which would, of course, have affected his political integrity.

Speaking of intellectual influences of the time, Peel was referring to David Ricardo (1172–1820) and Adam Smith in many of his speeches about trade. David Ricardo, known for his labour, or one-factor theory of trade, was not only an economist but also a businessman. He started his career as a speculator and broker which allowed him to accumulate wealth. Later in life, he went on to become an economist. Ricardo was not a radical free trader. He suggested phasing out tariffs over some time (3–4 years) to ensure that potential damage to farmers, or other groups protected by protectionist regimes, is minimised and that they are able to adjust. His fame and free trade advocacy spread across England and in the 1820s he was asked by Lord Castlereagh to teach the agriculturalists some economics.

Developing a comprehensive framework for free trade and educating the population about it was a significant contribution in itself. Committed to entrenching his findings in British political tradition, between 1819–1823, Ricardo served as a Member of Parliament for Portarlington. The Globe and Traveller newspaper described his behaviour in Parliament as follows: “Mr Ricardo was generally regarded as a moderate oppositionist. He was, however, the most decided and thorough Reformer within the walls of Parliament.”

David Ricardo and his multi-sided impact show that ideas matter and fighting for them even more so. As a political economist, as a capitalist, and as a member of the Parliament, Ricardo had been living his free-trade convictions to the utmost.

The repeal of the Corn Laws was brought about by many factors, among which were the shifts in Peel’s views, the lobbying efforts of the Anti-Corn Law League, the promotion of Ricardo and Smith’s ideas, and of the interests of MPs, which comprised not only their self-interests, but also the economic activity of their constituencies, the party agenda, and the threat of rebellion. 

Mercantilism is poisonous because it shatters the roots of what we ought to value the most: freedom, peace, and prosperity. The repeal of the Corn Laws shows that the entrenched interests that lie at the heart of mercantilist systems are complex, not easy to identify, and above all, are often intertwined with each other. Defining mercantilism only through its economic inefficiency is to turn a blind eye to the components through which it has been sustained for centuries now. Now that global prosperity has hit its highest level ever, there is a momentous opportunity to amplify that growth over the next couple of years if we embrace free trade.

The generation of Peel and Ricardo didn’t have the privilege of going to supermarkets to get lost in a variety of choices or to buy a mobile phone assembled in one country and manufactured in another. The world has become smaller thanks to free trade, and we can do more. We can increase the number of trade agreements, integrate more developing countries and replace the existing anti-foreign bias with a tolerant, cooperative attitude. If we want more freedom, peace, more prosperity, we should ensure mercantilism becomes nothing more but a tale from history books. For that, the repeal of the Corn Laws will come in handy. A significant and timely example of how a passion for free trade combined with a coordinated effort can take the reins, the repeal shows that protectionism in all its forms can and should be defeated.

Most Americans have some idea that our university system, as expensive as it is, is still the envy of the world and a source of science and engineering innovation. But that wasn’t always so. Margaret O’Mara joins the show to discuss how these tech hubs developed in the mid-20th century through a combination of military funding and private research centers. The incentive for university-based research received another major boost in 1980, when Congress deregulated its patent holding policy.

This is the second in a three part series on the origins of Silicon Valley.

Why did California play such a surprising role in America’s innovation economy? How did World War II shape the growth of Silicon Valley? What is a non-compete agreement in an employer contract?

Further Reading:

The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, written by Margaret O’Mara

Animated timeline shows how Silicon Valley became a $2.8 trillion neighborhood, written by Corey Protin, Matthew Stuart, and Matt Weinberger

The Origins of Silicon Valley: Why and How It Happened Here, Stanford Engineering

Related Content:

Immigrants Built Silicon Valley, Building Tomorrow Podcast

On Innovation: Don’t Ask for Permission, Building Tomorrow Podcast

Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy, Free Thoughts Podcast

With every Star Wars movie comes waves of high expectations. The fanbase is so divided that not everyone can be pleased by JJ Abrams’ decisions. Now that the 9-part story is over, Disney will let the franchise cool for a bit before adding spinoff stories. The Rise of Skywalker tied up many loose ends to the sequel trilogy and paid some lip service to fans, but it still left some of us wanting a more satisfying end.

How does power corrupt in the Star Wars galaxy? Did you expect Rey to be a Palpatine in the Rise of Skywalker? How did Disney add to the Star Wars franchise?

There are many contentious areas in science because groups are looking for universal truths that validate their preconceived beliefs. Peter Van Doren comes back to the show today to talk about the role of science in the policy world. We look to scientists to conduct research that may better inform our policy decisions, but at the same time we have to make sure the science is trustworthy.

How should we use scientific evidence to make decisions? What kind of environmental regulation should there be? How much politics go in to scientific evidence? What is the role of science in policymaking?

Further Reading:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the California Waiver, written by Peter Van Doren

EPA’s scientific advisers warn its regulatory rollbacks clash with established science, written by Juliet Eilperin

Trump proposes change to environmental rules to speed up highway projects, pipelines and more, written by Juliet Eilperin

Anti-vaxxers surge past rate allowed by herd immunity: Gallup, written by Tiana Lowe

History of the Clean Water Act, EPA

Related Content:

The Politics of Science, Free Thoughts Podcast

Science Doesn’t Need Public Funding, Free Thoughts Podcast

Capitalism Can Save the Environment, Free Thoughts Podcast

There is a paradox at the heart of Rush, the Canadian band whose all-world drummer and lyricist, and self-described “bleeding heart libertarian,” Neil Peart died of brain cancer on January 7^th:  for a band that wrote so many songs with themes of individualism and whose members are among the most talented individuals on their instruments in the history of rock, it’s nearly impossible to separate one member from the other in order to talk about any one of them as a distinct contributor. But death has a funny way of forcing separations upon us.

As a long-time, very serious fan, I’ve found it difficult to express what his shocking death means to me and to the music world. It’s even weirder because Neil wasn’t even my favorite band member, at least in the sense of the one I’d like to hang out with. A few hours with Neil would have been amazing sure, and a few hours with guitarist Alex Lifeson would be hilarious, but what I really want is a long lunch at Caplansky’s Deli with bassist-singer Geddy Lee. The reasons why aren’t important, other than to say I think we’d have more to talk about and more interests we share than I would with either of the other two. That said, Neil was always a giant figure in my life and his death has indeed hit me hard. I want to share some thoughts here that cover what I think was really important about Rush as a band and a cultural force, and why, for so many of us, they have been so central to who we were and who we are. And I hope I can do this by way of emphasizing Neil’s role in all of that in a way that shines a light on why his death has affected so many so hard.

Part of that devastating effect is that almost no one knew he was sick. Neil was incredibly private and often embarrassed by the way others treated his fame. He could not, as he wrote, “pretend a stranger was a long-awaited friend.” For him to have revealed his struggle of over three years, would have called attention to himself in ways that he would have found incredibly uncomfortable. I’m sure that if he were to read the various tributes and eulogies since the announcement, including this one, he’d be mortified. But if there was one thing that was true of Neil Peart and his fellow bandmates, they were going to do it their way. So here we are, in shock at the very unexpected death of a musical and lyrical giant.

I want to say a few things about Rush’s appeal and Neil’s legacy in particular, then talk about how their music influenced and changed lives. I think the key to understanding Rush’s legacy is that they were middle-brow, middle-class suburban rock. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, most rock fell into one of two categories. On one side was the high-brow, often ironic, artsier rock of people like David Bowie or Bob Dylan. On the other side was the lower-brow, working class, bluesier music of people like the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and AC/DC, among others. The high-brow stuff was more associated with the urban elite, and certainly the rock press, while the lower-brow stuff was clearly working class, though often beloved in a somewhat condescending way by the rock press, usually for its “authenticity.” Where did Rush, or progressive rock more generally, fit in this world?

The ethos of Rush was clearly middle-class suburbia, as was its fan base. Neil and his bandmates were extraordinarily earnest. There was never a touch of irony or a wink at the fans in their over 40 years together. And although they aspired to create art, it was never about pushing boundaries or shocking fans, but being, as they have said, the best version of Rush they could be. Neil was rarely completely satisfied with a live performance, and the band as a whole was constantly restless in its desire to be better than they were “last time,” whether live or in the studio. They genuinely believed that being very, very good at what you do would bring success, both artistic and material. They were neither hip nor ironic enough to sneer at that view of the world as naïve, nor did they believe that success and happiness were impossible, which might thereby justify the nihilism and destructive hedonism that beset so many of their peers. They were just three guys from the Toronto suburbs who wanted to make the best music they knew how. And they meant everything they said and did.

Rush’s middle-class, middle-brow rock unsurprisingly appealed to the very same kinds of people they were. When I look around at many of my fellow fans who I know well, one of the things we tend to share is a similar suburban upbringing in the 70s and 80s. This, I think, also explains why their fan base remains overwhelmingly white (well-known rap stars and the members of Living Colour duly noted as exceptions). What remains more of a puzzle is the relative lack of female fans. The puzzle here is that Neil’s lyrics are notable for the complete absence of the misogyny that affects so much rock and other popular music. If women are put off by the typical male rock star take on sex, love, and cars, they should have seen Rush as an escape from that. There are a few songs about sex, but even those are cerebral not genital. Neil wrote some “love songs” but rather than the usual pablum, they were rationalist love songs about how we fall in love and stay in love (“Ghost of a Chance” being the exemplar here.) Even their car song (“Red Barchetta”) isn’t really about a car, but about the car as a metaphor for freedom and individuality. Presumably, the aggressiveness of the music was not what many young women wanted to listen to. Although in the last decade of their careers, the number of women at live shows began to grow substantially, and not just Rush widows rolling their eyes after being dragged there by well-meaning but completely wacky husbands and boyfriends. (The famous scene in “I Love You, Man” captures this perfectly.)

All of that said, Neil and Rush took both their music and their lyrics seriously, and even if their earnestness sometimes spilled over into pretension, it was only because they were trying so hard to create something they cared about, and that they hoped their fans would care about. That earnestness was a real reflection of the middle class belief in upward mobility and the idea that hard work and excellence was the path to success. And that serious things mattered. It was okay to talk about philosophy and art and politics and history because they mattered. If nothing else, early Rush drove this teenager to the dictionary to learn a few new words (maelstrom?). It was a message, both in Neil’s lyrics and their music, that their fan base was primed to hear and to adopt as their own. For those of us who became fans at a young age, this message was central to so much of what we did and how we lived in the years that followed.

Rush believed in the possibility of human excellence. Each of them, especially Neil, is widely recognized as among the best on their instruments in the history of rock. So many of Neil’s lyrics are about regular people, both individuals and groups, who did extraordinary things, whether the simple acts depicted in “Nobody’s Hero,” or their tribute to the space shuttle (“Countdown”) or Neil’s direct depiction of genius in “Mission.” The message to listeners was clear: you too are capable of excellence and heroism. For suburbanites who were, in Neil’s words, “detached and subdivided in the mass production zone,” being told that you were capable of rising above the crowd was a much needed breath of fresh air.

Neil’s incredible drive to be the best at what he did was similarly inspirational. Early in his career, just watching him play with the energy of a Keith Moon, but with a level of control that reflected the thoughtfulness and complexity of his drum parts, was a thing to behold. As his sonic palette expanded through the 70s with the addition of a variety of percussion instruments, his ability to move among them and integrate them into both Rush’s music and his steadily lengthening solos became his signature. And as his power, speed, and control grew, his solos became feats of human excellence that would make me cackle with glee, thinking “how can a human being do that?” I’ve compared Neil’s drumming to great athletes like Barry Sanders in football or Pavel Datsyuk in hockey (pardon my Detroit bias), or to more everyday feats of excellence, like the work of a highly-skilled flat-top breakfast cook at my favorite diner. They all prompt that reaction of glee at humans pushing the boundaries of excellence. The most important part about this with respect to Neil is that it was never about competition with other drummers in a direct way. It wasn’t that he had to show the world he was better than Moon or Bonham or Copeland, or whomever. It was that he had to be the best Neil Peart he could be. He would accept no less of himself than that very exacting standard. And he was unafraid of feeling proud when he reached that standard, as he said often after playing “Tom Sawyer” live.

This point, for me, gets at the crux of what I think Neil and Rush has meant for so many of us who have been long-time fans. He, and they, have been role models for what it means to live a life of excellence, integrity, and seriousness of purpose, and they have demonstrated that doing so can bring one enormous success. You do not have to “sell your dreams for small desires” and being sucked in by “glittering prizes and endless compromises” will “shatter the illusion of integrity.” From as far back as the “2112” album in 1976 that put them on the map, they have never sold out their vision of making the music they wanted to make. In the face of record company pressure to be more “commercial” and deliver some singles, they made “2112” with its 20 minute suite based on Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem. I have elsewhere described that as the biggest “fuck you” in the history of rock, and when it turned out to be an unexpected huge success, Neil noted that record label executives never again tried to tell them what to do. At the pinnacle of their success in the early 80s, they could have continued to make the same music that sold millions, but that’s not who they were. Their restlessness, their interest in new music, and their desire to be the best Rush they could be, pushed them to move to a more keyboard-oriented sound through the 80s, costing them fans who were clearly just there for the band-du-jour. This was truly “progressive” rock. They found their way back to a harder sound in the 90s, and their final CD from 2012 (“Clockwork Angels”) is among their hardest rocking work ever (and among their best). They were fortunate to have a core fan base who was willing to take this ride with them and who seemed to be motivated by a deep curiosity about what they would do next. Speaking for myself, that describes me perfectly. Not every step was a good one (the “Roll the Bones” CD, for example), but we were there for the journey not the individual destinations.

Their unflinching integrity and commitment to excellence and progress as lyricists, songwriters, and musicians were, and still are, a role model for me personally. Alex once said that while they were never part of the “mainstream,” they were always there, walking along the shoreline. That metaphor seems just right, and has been one that probably applies to my own career as an Austrian school economist. One does not have to be part of the mainstream to have a successful career, and if one’s work is truly outside of that mainstream, little is to be gained by pretending to be something you’re not. It really is “just a question of your honesty.” Those very bourgeois values of honesty, integrity, and excellence are what matter for a career that will not only be successful, but that will allow you to look at yourself in the mirror and come to understand that, in the words of John Mellencamp: “an honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind.”

For young people trying to figure out how to walk their way through life, this is a message that will, I believe, always resonate with a substantial number of them. For all of the other reasons that Rush’s appeal has become multi-generational, as parents introduced their kids to the music that mattered to them, I think this one is central. Young people look around and see too many people who they perceive to have “sold out” or compromised their visions or just lived lives that they are unhappy with and wonder why adults would do that. Neil’s lyrics and Rush’s music offers them an alternative vision of what it means to have a life well-lived. You can achieve excellence. You can do it your way and succeed. You can be you, be successful, and be happy. Neil wrote about it in song after song, and Rush lived it despite the challenges they faced. That message is one that has perpetual appeal to youth and probably assures that Rush’s music will always have an audience.

I think this point also explains the much-discussed connection between Neil and Ayn Rand. For all of the ink spilled about this, it’s all more simple than many think. The real Rand influence on Neil was The Fountainhead and not Atlas Shrugged. In fact, all three members read and liked The Fountainhead. That book’s emphasis on artistic excellence and integrity and the values one brings to a career and to a life, and its ultimate vindication of those who pursue those values, explains much more about Neil’s lyrics, his excellence at his craft, and the band’s career path than anything else Rand ever wrote. Generation after generation keeps rediscovering Rand, and The Fountainhead is still taught in some high school American Literature courses (it’s where I read it first). The reasons for that parallel the reasons why Rush’s music will live on, similarly walking the shore of the mainstream: those are timeless, universal human values and ones that particularly appeal to youths who are trying to figure it all out. Very little of Rand’s influence on Neil was explicitly political. That influence shows up in the themes of excellence, integrity, and honesty, and the drive to be the best you that you can be.

In the end, I don’t think Neil was really much of a libertarian, nor are the bulk of his lyrics accurately described that way. The term that best describes them, as I have argued elsewhere, is “individualist.” That term encompasses the values discussed above and the broad political themes that do appear from time to time in his lyrics. One need not be a libertarian to appreciate Neil’s lyrics, as evidenced by my numerous leftist friends who are fans. But one does need, at some level I think, to believe that those values matter. Their music would be a hard listen otherwise.

I want to finish this on a more personal note. One vastly underappreciated aspect of Neil’s and Rush’s career is the way their music created intense meaning and incredible friendships for fans. Neil has said that his favorite compliment from fans was “thank you for the soundtrack to my life.” It’s the first thing I would have said to him. For almost 40 years now, their music has been there for me in the good times and the bad times. And for 35 of those years, their live shows were a place of escape, of transcendence, of deep friendships, and the sense that nothing could go wrong in the universe if this combination of musical transcendence and human friendship were possible. No matter what was happening in my life, the anticipation of another Rush show just made all of the bad stuff seem small and irrelevant. And for three hours, they just took me to another place in ways few things do. When they ended touring in 2015, it wasn’t a surprise, but the thought of life without those experiences was a hard pill to swallow. That Neil’s death has made that a certainty is part of why it’s hit so many of us so hard.

In addition to the live shows, Rush has given me a group of (mostly male) friends who, via the internet, have kept up our friendships for, in some cases, more than 20 years. We’ve been through all of the life stuff together, from marriages and divorces, to deaths of parents, to kids, to kids going off to college, and now, in our deep middle age, various health issues. At least four of us are dealing with cancer, and others have different serious medical issues. Rush brought us together, but the underlying shared values and experiences that attracted us to Rush have kept us together for two decades. It’s a unique male space that is a combination of incredible support and the humor of our 15 year old selves. That group has been the safest of safe spaces for its members for a very long time and I don’t know exactly what I would have done without them through a divorce and a cancer diagnosis. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that men can’t care for and support each other in our own unique and bizarre ways. As I recently said on Facebook, there’s a great Gender Studies thesis/dissertation to be written about Rush and masculinity. Among the very many gifts that Neil and Rush have given me, this one is up there on the list.

The loss of Neil Peart is more than the loss of a supremely talented musician and lyricist. Many of us have lost a mapmaker of adulthood without whom we wouldn’t be who we are today. It’s also the end of one of the most special stories in the history of rock. It’s the last chapter of the story of the uncool kids who triumphed over the cool ones on their own terms and, finally, became accepted as part of rock royalty with their 2013 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And while no one will ever again get to see in person the genius that was Neil Peart, or the musical spectacle that was all three of them playing together live, we have dozens of CDs of music, all kinds of official videos of their live performances, and several documentaries that will live on. The values and commitment to excellence that drove their careers have an appeal that will always find an audience among the young yearning for a guide to navigate the failings of their elders. It was true in 1976. It’s true in 2020. And it will be true in 2112 and beyond.

Rest in peace, Neil. And thanks for the soundtrack to my life.

Criminal law in the 18th century is best described as unpredictable, repressive, and punitive. Judges had immense discretion and could harshly prosecute people on the basis of flimsy evidence. Capital punishment was employed to punish a myriad of crimes, and nightmarish torture was often used to extract confessions. In England during the 18th-century, there were over 200 capital offences, most of them being property related crimes (theft, arson, trespassing). One of these 200 offenses was the cutting down of a cherry tree in an orchard. This changed when a previously obscure Italian philosopher named Cesare Beccaria published a short but evocative essay entitled On Crime and Punishment.

Beccaria’s Life

Beccaria was born on March 15th 1738 into an affluent,noble family. He was educated at a traditionalist Jesuit college at Parma in Northern Italy and, after graduating, he studied Law at the University of Pavia. After completing his studies, Beccaria returned home and fell in love with a woman called Teresa Di Blasco, the daughter of an army officer. Beccaria’s father forbade him from marrying her as he believed the marriage would sully Beccaria’s noble status. Beccaria protested angrily to his father, who eventually put him under what can only be described as house arrest to dissuade him from marrying Teresa. After three months elapsed, Beccaria married Teresa and became estranged from his parents. 

Beccaria seemed to be entirely uninterested in scholarly affairs. The traditional methods of education failed to inspire him. However, this changed quite dramatically when Beccaria began reading Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, which recounted the travels of two Persian noblemen travelling through France. Montesquieu’s satirical and sharply critical approach to political and religious institutions inspired Beccaria to delve further into philosophy. He then met two intellectually curious brothers, Pietro and Alessandro Verri, Pietro an economist and Alessandro a writer. Pietro was the leading figure of a short-lived but influential? group known as the Academy of Fists. The name was jokingly adopted by Pietro when he heard the group had garnered a reputation for having such heated debates that they were reputed to break into fistfights.  

The Academy was made up of Italian intellectuals who advocated for a variety of economic, legal and social reforms. They published their ideas in a periodical named Il Cafe, or “the Coffeehouse,” modelled after Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s The Spectator. It was there that Beccaria published his first written work in 1762 on the monetary policy of Milan.

However, Beccaria found it hard to write. Pietro described Beccaria as a person with a great mind who was also lazy and easily discouraged. Pietro assigned Beccaria to write about criminal law. After some help from Alessandro, who had a wealth of experience of working with prisons, and some much-needed prodding from Pietro, Beccaria published On Crimes and Punishments at the tender age of twenty-six.

Where Does Law Come From?

A common idea in 18th-century thought was the concept of the state of nature, a time when there were people but no established authority to enforce rules. Many thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau used the state of nature conceit to explain how we emerged from a primitive state into established civil society.

Thomas Hobbes believed that the state of nature was a miserable way to live. Without rules, there was pure anarchy in what he called the war against all. Eventually, the inhabitants of the state of nature, tired of lawlessness and war, surrendered their natural liberty to a sovereign endowed with unlimited powers. This sovereign would then use their power to enforce laws, bring about an end to the anarchy of the state of nature. By contrast, Beccaria wanted to stay away from theories of natural law and divine right to give a more secular account of how laws arise. To this end, the state of nature in Beccaria’s work serves not as a real event in human society but a thought experiment as to how laws would arise and function ideally.

Beccaria agreed with Hobbes’ assessment; humans left the state of nature due to the desire for security and peace. He writes that “Weary of living in a state of war, and of enjoying a freedom rendered useless by the uncertainty of its perpetuation men willingly sacrifice a part of this freedom in order to enjoy that which is left in security and tranquility.” However, unlike Hobbes Beccaria believed we did not give up all of our liberty to a sovereign. No one gives up their liberty for the benefit of another, but, as Beccaria writes, “ Every man thinks of himself as the centre of all the world’s affairs.” We only surrender the smallest portion of our liberty in order to preserve peace. 

Beccaria defines laws as “the conditions whereby free and independent men unite to form society.” From this definition Beccaria reached two conclusions. Firstly, the law must bind all equally, as the obligation to obey the law “reaches from the throne to the hovel” and is equally binding for “the greatest and most wretched of men.” Secondly, laws are only justified as long as they maximise the amount of individual liberty possible. Beccaria’s conclusions are deeply egalitarian and liberal as he believes no one should be above the law and that we ought to be allowed to pursue our rational interests as long as we do not interfere with or harm others.

Deterrence is Better than Punishment 

If a person commits a crime, how should we punish them? Beccaria believes that punishment functions mainly as a deterrence to dissuade future criminals from breaking the law. Retributive punishments which focus on the suffering of a criminal are a waste of time; as Beccaria asks “Can the wailings of a wretch undo what has been done and turn back the clock?” Instead, punishment serves “to prevent the offender from doing fresh harm and to deter others from doing likewise.”

Beccaria subscribed to Locke’s idea of empiricism, the idea that all of our knowledge comes through the senses alone. He believed that if punishments were speedy and certain then people would associate the crime with the sentence more clearly and avoid breaking the law. Therefore Beccaria argues that crimes “are more effectually prevented by the certainty, than the severity of the punishment.” Citing Montesquieu, Beccaria states “every punishment, which does not arise from absolute necessity… is tyrannical.” Punishment is first and foremost about stopping current criminals from causing harm and deterring future criminals. 

Beccaria believed that “it is better to prevent crimes, than to punish them,” but besides punishing criminals to deter others, how does Beccaria believe we can prevent crimes? Firstly, he believes that laws should be written in a manner which is understandable to the average person. Beccaria exclaims, “It is the greatest of evils if the laws be written in a language which is not understood by the people.” Laws should be clear, simple, and applied equally to all so there is no ambiguity or uncertainty. Lastly, Beccaria argued that “the surest but hardest way to prevent crime is to improve education.”

His Opposition to the Death Penalty

Beccaria was deeply opposed to the death penalty, a rarity for his time when most believed capital punishment was an acceptable response to many crimes. He was not the first to oppose the death penalty—he 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides had opposed the death penalty because “it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death”— but Beccaria was the first to provide a sustained critique of the death penalty.

Firstly, Beccaria opposes the death penalty on moral grounds. Laws are made legitimate by people’s consent; however, Beccaria believed no man would rationally sacrifice his right to life. He asks “Who has ever willingly given other men the authority to kill him?”  The minimum sacrifice of liberty people made to emerge from the state of nature did not include “the greatest good of all, life.” There are certain cases where the death penalty is acceptable when the state is in grave danger; however, for most cases detainment is the preferable option. Beccaria concludes that unless there are grave circumstances, the state has no right to put its citizens to death. He stresses further that “the death penalty is not a right, but war of a nation against a citizen.”

Secondly, he argues on practical grounds that the death penalty is not effective as a deterrent. Executions in Beccaria’s day were public affairs. Those who disagreed with Beccaria might well have asked whether the image of a man being beheaded or hung would stick in our minds and make us fear breaking the law? But Beccaria believes it will not as the execution-only lasts a moment. The passing spectacle of execution leaves no real impression in our minds. For the most part executions in the past were not solemn contemplative affairs, most thought of them as entertainment.

The death penalty has existed throughout history. The Athenian Lawgiver of the 7th century Draco made death the penalty for most offences. When asked why, he explained, “The lesser ones deserved it, and for the greater ones no heavier penalty could be found.” However, people still committed crimes despite the harshness of the punishment. The death penalty is ubiquitous throughout history, but as Beccaria points out “the ultimate punishment has never deterred men determined to harm society.” In fact, the times when the most draconian punishments are implemented is when crime is most common. He believes that by responding to savagery with state-sanctioned savagery, it harms the general humaneness of civil society “because of the example of savagery it gives to men.” Overall Beccaria believed that the state had little legitimacy in pursuing capital punishment and that, moral considerations aside, it wasn’t even a particularly useful policy.

Against Torture

Torture was a common practice in the 18th century. Beccaria believed that torture “is a standing monument to the law of ancient and savage times.” His opposition to torture is threefold. Firstly, torture undermines the rationality of the justice system. The use of torture replaces evidence with pain as the method of establishing the truth. Secondly, torturing someone to make them confess to the crime yet again undermines the justice system as “no man can be considered guilty before the judge has reached a verdict.” Thirdly, even if torture was only used on actual criminals, it is unnecessary and extreme, as stated by Beccaria, “Every act of authority between one man and another that does not derive from absolute necessity is tyrannical.” Torture is excessive and only serves to torment criminals, not to deter future offenders.

Gun Control in the 18th-Century 

Beccaria stresses the importance of deterring crime. Today, many proponents of gun control believe the laws they pass will deter criminals. Beccaria strongly disagrees. In a chapter entitled “False Ideas of Utility,” Beccaria makes many surprisingly modern-sounding arguments against laws restricting ownership and access to firearms. He believes that laws restricting firearms “only disarm those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.” If a person is going to murder someone, surely they will have no qualms illegally circumventing any regulatory laws, which Beccaria argues are “the most trifling and purely arbitrary regulations that can be broken with ease and impunity.” These laws are not only ineffective at deterring criminals, Beccaria notes that they also “place the assaulted at a disadvantage and the assailant at an advantage.” Furthermore, they “subject the innocent man to all the annoyances which the guilty deserve.” 

The Legacy of His Work 

Beccaria published On Crimes and Punishments anonymously as he was afraid that his radical views could get him into trouble with the authorities. In some ways, Beccaria was right to do so. His book was added to the Index of Forbidden Books by the Catholic Church in 1766 and was only removed nearly two hundred years later in 1962. Immanuel Kant, who believed that all murderers should be executed, called Beccaria’s arguments “sophistry.”  Long after his death, Beccaria was even called a socialist for his apparently utopian views.

There were many critics of Beccaria, but there were also many admirers. Convinced and inspired by Beccaria, Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany and the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in Austria abolished the death penalty in 1786 and 1787. Empress Catherine the Great wished to abolish the death penalty and offered to hire Beccaria to reform the legal system of Russia; however, he preferred to stay in Milan. Beccaria, along with Montesquieu, inspired the 1791 penal code in France, which abolished the arbitrary crimes and trials of the pre-Revolutionary Ancien Regime. 

Today in America, Beccaria is by no means a household name; however, in the 18th-century he was wildly popular. When two scholars, Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman, analyzed 15,000 sources written during the period of 1760-1805, they found that Beccaria was the seventh most quoted author, ranking alongside people such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who were both fans of Beccaria’s work, advocated for limiting the death penalty to treason and murder, while Benjamin Rush argued for incarceration as opposed to execution, all inspired by Beccaria. Thomas Jefferson even referenced him numerous times in draft legislation to reform Virginia’s penal laws.

The legal systems of Beccaria’s day were for the most part bound by custom and thus based upon personal discretion and hereditary rights. This resulted in laws being applied unequally as well as punishments that were often deeply disproportionate to the crime. Beccaria wished to modernise criminal law by making it a system of rational rules and principles, for which, his friends nicknamed him Newtocino, Little Newton. 

But Beccaria’s rationalism was not cold-hearted, he wished for a system which treated all people equally and fairly, regardless of their class or station in society. In that regard Beccaria was successful, his work having inspired many reformers throughout the Enlightenment. However, even today we have disturbing problems in our justice system. Most prosecutions never see juries, ending instead in plea bargaining. Many people are locked up for victimless crimes. The police disproportionately target minorities, applying the law harshly for some and leniently for others. In this regard, despite being over 250 years old, On Crimes and Punishments is still relevant to this day.