David Brooks, in this provocative critique of Republican Libertarianism, uses the insights of Hayek without mentioning him. Brooks's theme is that Republicans emphasize the market and freedom without realizing that these are means not ends. He argues that people care about community and order, not freedom per se. The key part is the last paragraph of this excerpt:
….Democrats have been able to establish themselves
as the safe and orderly party. President Obama has made responsibility
his core theme and has emerged as a calm, reassuring presence (even as
he runs up the debt and intervenes rashly in sector after sector).
If the Republicans are going
to rebound, they will have to re-establish themselves as the party of
civic order. First, they will have to stylistically decontaminate their
brand. That means they will have to find a leader who is calm, prudent,
reassuring and reasonable.
there are two theories of civic order. There is the liberal theory, in
which teams of experts draw up plans to engineer order wherever
problems arise. And there is the more conservative vision in which
government sets certain rules, but mostly empowers the complex web of
institutions in which the market is embedded.
Maybe it's a quibble but I think it's misleading to talk about the market being embedded in the "complex web of institutions" Brooks calls civic order. The market is one of those institutions and they all work together.
Civic order in the classical liberal vision is a bottom up emergent order that takes advantage of knowledge that the top down engineering approach misses. This is true in pecuniary activity such as buying and selling but it's also true in non-pecuniary activity–who I want to associate with religiously or in my hobbies or how much time I have for my children or my parents. Freedom doesn't just mean the right to be selfish. It's the right to associate with whom I choose. The classical liberal prescription for the good life isn't about making as much money as possible. It's about the freedom to choose. It's about voluntary rather than coercive solutions, decentralized rather than centralized solutions, bottom-up emergent solutions that are the result of many actions and actors rather than top-down solutions by experts.
Unfortunately, economists and Republicans and columnists often use "the market" as short hand for economic freedom. But most people take it to mean the stock market or at most, the pecuniary parts of our lives. This mistake is why people ask how poor people can possibly survive if there is more liberty. Or the argument that the market "delivers the goods" but alas, it produces inequality. Some respond by trying to argue that economic freedom does indeed help the poor. They're right but that doesn't comfort the skeptic who is worried abot today's poor person. But freedom doesn't mean poor people starving. Freedom means that the government doesn't try to solve the problem of poverty, but rather it leaves the door open to voluntary community rather than coerced community.
Brooks understands that while pocket book issues are important, they don't inspire. Freedom is important not because it makes us rich but because it makes our lives more meaningful. Not because freedom lets us prosper–it does–but because freedom lets us express all that is important about our humanity. Top down approaches deaden that humanity.
I talk about these issues in The Invisible Heart and The Price of Everything. The Invisible Heart deals with the free-riding problem that arises with voluntary aid to the poor.
Podcast RSS Feed
Full EconTalk Text
{ 13 comments }
The current administration is building a political base using platform planks that are inconsistent and mutually exclusive.
Brooks contends that libertarians/fiscal-conservatives/classical-liberals (love the labeling) must take ownership of one of those planks away from the Obama Democrats.
Why must they?
Why not communicate a vision of liberty, that takes into account how it is applied by real human beings? Bottom-up vs. top-down isn't a winner, because top-down promises faster and more measurable results (even if the results are negative, politicians can still claim credit for them.)
Brooks wants someone to expose the contradiction by stealing a plank. Why not let the contradiction crumble under its own weight?
Nice post Russ.
However, while freedom probably does let "us express all that is important about our humanity", my observations tell me that most people fell they have more than enough freedom and don't mind at all further incursions on that freedom. For example, highly intelligent and/or motivated people inherently have a wide range of choices available to them, and reducing their freedom hurts them. That's not so much true of most people though, and for them, things other than liberty have greater appeal.
This is the distinction I make to my friends, "freedom from" or "freedom to". Most libertarian leaders talk incessantly about the cause in terms of the civil gov. leaving people alone. I don't disagree with this, but that begs the question, why do we want to be left alone by the federal civil authorities (or most civil authorities). The reason is we want to do something else; freedom to do something different. Freedom for a purpose. Maybe I am naive, but if we who care about "freedom to" can learn to cast this vision of culture differently I think we can peel away support from the right and left to change the political landscape. It will take time, but the more traditional way of talking about this hasn't gotten us very far.
Freedom means the opportunity to not be selfish, since coercive "sharing" is not altruism.
Only free people can be moral actors, that is, responsible for their choices. Without freedom, we are merely instruments of another moral actor, devoid of responsibility, and unable to do right nor wrong.
Unfortunately, I think this is precisely why some people are drawn toward socialism. They do not want to be moral actors, because being responsible is hard. Freedom is seen as a burden, not a liberator. For many so-called progressives, freedom from responsibility is what they seek, from consequences and judgement.
Beautiful post. As a sample of views about "the market", the Templeton Foundation had "conversations" on the topic. It is surprising that so many public intellectual misunderstand or simplify the meaning of a market. For example, Bernard-Henri Lévy defines it as "[...] the ferocious competition of interests and passions, the mad rule of money, and materialism as the measure of all things – in short, the free market [...]". Thanks to Russ for reasserting the generality and importance of voluntary exchange.
Didn't somebody say something like you don't know what freedom is until you lose it?
Good post. We take freedom for granted. When I hear someone equating capitalism with greed (which exists with or without capitalism), they don't seem to recognize the many decisions they've made today for their own self interest.
Don't forget… Today marks Hayek's 110th birthday!
Happy birthday, Friedrich Hayek.
(Wonderful post, by the way).
Curt, I understand where you are coming from, but you have to boil this frog.
"Freedom To" is an Active Freedom, where one knows exactly what he wants to accomplish.
"Freedom From" is Passive Freedom, where one has no imperative to declare what he will or will not do.
If you set the standard at "Freedom To," then the language gives implicit authority for government to have its way, as long as it doesn't encroach upon that which you've declared.
We're already long down that road, and need to return our government to a mindset of having to declare which constitutional provision provides the foundation for action. "Joe Taxpayer didn't tell us no" isn't a constitutional authority.
Let's free the people first, then encourage them to do something breathtaking later.
Never forget the fact that Brooks, first and foremost, is a neocon, not a friend of liberty
Prof Roberts,
You wrote:
"Brooks understands that while pocket book issues are important, they don't inspire."
But according to Mises:
"It is hardly possible to miscontrue the history of our age more crassly…Without exception all political parties promise their supporters a higher real income…If a party asks it supporters to make sacrifices for its cause, it always explains these sacrifices as the necessary temporary means for the atainment of the ultimate goal, the improvement of the material well-being of its members. Each party considers it as an insidious plot against its prestige and its survivial if somebody ventures to question the capacity of its projects to make the group members more prosperous…All varieties of the producers' policy are advocated on the ground of their alleged ability to raise the party members' standard of living..as the most suitable or the only means to increase the real income of the people for whose votes they canvass. Every contemporary statesman or politician invariably tells his voters: My program will make you as affluent as conditions may permit, while my adversaries' program will bring you want and misery…It is true that some secluded intellectuals in their esoteric circles talk differently…But the public ignores such utterances. The main goal of present-day political action is to secure for the respective pressure group memberships the highest material well-being. The only way for a leader to succeed is to instill in people the conviction that his program best serves the attainment of this goal."
Mr. Roberts:
Precisely the point. It is about freedom. And the contrast that needs to be made is who is best to determine your needs – the government or you! Until Republicans understand this as the core issue and articulate a clear vision of individual liberty vs totalitarian collectivism than we really don't have a choice – and the despots win.
Changing it is very difficult. When you consider this country has had a couple of presidents now that have pounded their fist and declared themselves strong free-market supporters and dedicated to small government, only to spend more, increase the size of government, and in the case of the last one, set a new standard for crony capitalism, then the challenge is enormous.
Many of the largest companies in the US depend on government contracts, or depend on legislation that keeps government programs going.
I think for Libertarianism to stand a chance, it is going to need to come to grips with the structure of power, hold its nose, and play the game.
Look what AIPAC has accomplished over time; they get to vet which politicians will be allowed on a ticket. I exaggerate slightly, but the fact is, they are a force to be reconed with, and they continue to guide power into places they see as important. They are the Citi of politics – systemmically important for all the wrong reasons. I mean that in the sense of their tactics.
I think Brooks makes the common mistake that equates individual freedom with selfish individual isolation. Freedom just means the right to choose, and most individuals choose (when they CAN freely choose) to be part of a community and to assert those values that make the spontaneous civic order a stable and happy one.