Was Adam Smith a liberal?

or, in other words, once theories are untrue then they might not be true

That is not at all what I said. I said:

"they might not be true until they are untrue"

I.E. ala Popper, they can only be proven untrue.

K Ackerman,

You wrote that theories might not be true until they are untrue, or, in other words, once theories are untrue then they might not be true.

That's the standard model, and I accept it tentatively, but I don't take it for granted.

hehe. After I posted, I thought about that. It totally contradicted the point I was trying to make.

I understood your point and agree with it, except the part about the speed of light in a vacuum. Maybe it's universally constant. That's the standard model, and I accept it tentatively, but I don't take it for granted.

Martin Brock - yes, it's mass that undergoes the transformation. I know you know the point I was making.

The formula for kinetic energy, e=mv, was thought to be correct until Einstein showed that it was subjected to a Lorenz transformation.

That's a formula for momentum. Einstein showed that the classical formula for kinetic energy, m*v^2/2, is a special case, for low velocities, of his more general expression dm*c^2, where dm is the change in mass between reference frames, which is given by a Lorentz transformation, required by the invariance of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism across reference frames.

"He argues that liberalism means being in favor of letting as many people as possible being in control of their own lives... He argues that Hayek is not a liberal under that definition."

I think I've figured out what's going on - he's talking about some _other_ person called Hayek. That's the only possible explanation.

But anyway, do you understand what you wrote? Do you really think that Popper, or anyone with a brain, said that theories might not be true until they are false? Because that's what you just wrote.

I don't understand how you can disagree with what I wrote. The formula for kinetic energy, e=mv, was thought to be correct until Einstein showed that it was subjected to a Lorenz transformation. It's why they accelerate particles in particle colliders.

There is only one thing that I believe is universally true, and that is the speed of light in a vacuum. Everything else is tentative, and may remain so for a very long time.

Chris in Austin,

Most people have it all wrong.

A genome is like a sentence, an environment is like an interpretor, and an organism is like the meaning which emerges when a sentence and an interpretor come together.

The same sentence, when interpreted by either Sam Grove or muirgeo, can have a very different meaning. Using this analogy, we can better understand why identical twins are not actually identical--merely their "sentences" are identical. Also, why can small differences in a genome result in a very different organism? Well, a small alteration to a sentence can have a significant impact on its interpretation, even when the interpretor is held constant, (comedians frequently make use of this fact).

So, an organism is like the meaning which emerges when a sentence and an interpretor come together. But imagine if someone proposed to investigate whether some part of a meaning was caused more by the sentence or by the interpretor. Suppose that he claimed that 70% of the meaning you take from this sentence is caused by the words on the screen, and the other 30% is caused by your particular interpretation, would he be making any sense?

But people are often fooled by statistical correlations (see Bryan Caplan).

I don't understand how one could deny that evolved organisms aren't at least partially constrained by their genetic or evolutionary history. I think he is building a straw-man argument here in implying that evolutionary psychologists believe that human behavior is 100% constrained by the past.

rpl,

Evolutionary biologists often specialise in the same way that ordinary biologists specialise. Different organs are studied as products of evolution, and the brain is one such organ. Evolutionary biologists who study the brain are, unsurprisingly, called evolutionary psychologists.

Unless a theory is tautological, it is, in principle, testable. Though theories propounded by evolutionary psychologists are often difficult to test, they are not untestable. But the relevant issue is how such theories compare to the alternatives. Which, among the candidate theories explaining the evolution of the brain, is preferable?

What Wolfe seems to object to is that evolutionary psychology is typically pessimistic about human perfectibility. These ideas seem to rub Wolfe up the wrong way, since they would throw a spanner in the works, so to speak, with regard to his "liberal" policy preferences. He champions the same kind of constructivist rationalism that Hayek so wisely critiques.

Wolfe's point, as I read it, is that we can lead a "purposeful" life, and that we aren't totally controlled by unchangeable genetic predispositions.

To quote -- "Evolutionary theorists just cannot come out and say that human nature is purposive becaue that might imply that people make deliberate choices, their behavior cannot be so easily predicted by forces more powerful than themselves. We have, it would seem, freed ourselves from a supernatural power only to find ourselves enslaved to a natural one."

K Ackerman,

For Odin's sake, think before you type!

But they didn't try and ban the ideas altogether, just from rational debate.

Where did I suggest that anyone tried to ban ideas altogether? My whole point was that some ideas were delegitimised, because they were deemed in some respect undesirable. The result is that "rational"

debate is framed, before it even begins, in such a manner that only good thoughts are permitted entry.

Popper never said we should stop creating theories, just know they might not be true until they are untrue.

But anyway, do you understand what you wrote? Do you really think that Popper, or anyone with a brain, said that theories might not be true until they are false? Because that's what you just wrote.

Perhaps for his purposes, the distinction between classic and modern liberals is not useful, but for almost everyone else, it is very useful.

The distinction is meaningful, but it seems less useful to classical liberals these days. For better or worse, we have this two party duopoly in the U.S. More broadly, we this painfully simplistic, two dimensional political spectrum. You must either be a "conservative" or a "liberal".

Of course, these categories are incredibly vague, and their meaning changes continuously. "Conservative" seemed ascendant for a while, but the strange bedfellow coalition of neocons and Left Behind know nothings, who gave us Big Government Conservatism, have now soiled "conservatism" for at least a generation. Libertarians were never invited to the party in reality, so of course, "conservatives" will happily go along with blaming us for their puke all over the carpet.

So it's back to "liberalism", because "liberalism" is "the change we need", so libertarians need to persuade people who rarely think beyond simple labels that "liberalism" means classical liberalism and has always meant classical liberalism. That's just how politics works.

I've only listened to the first 20 minutes or so of the interview, but, at least so far, it sounds to me that what Wolfe is condemning is not evolutionary biology, but evolutionary psychology. That is, he seems to object to the idea that our thinking is shaped by our genetic history, but I haven't heard him claim that our physical makeup isn't a product of genetics.

For those who asked, Wolfe's argument against evolutionary psychology (EP, for short) is that it seems to consist of observations of human nature coupled with just-so stories about how evolution caused those behaviors. EP theories have little or no predictive power, and no evidence analogous to the fossil record for straight-up evolutionary biology. Thus, EP can't be tested, can't be falsified, and doesn't offer much insight beyond that contained in the input observations of human behavior.

Martin Brock, that is an extremely interesting idea. Did you think of it?

I thought of it in the eighties, but lots of people have thought of it, before and since. Sam Nunn and Pete Domenici cosponsored an Unlimited Savings Allowance in the nineties. The New America Foundation has championed the idea more recently. The idea is taken very seriously at high levels of government, but I suppose "liberals" have opposed it for threatening their tax revenue while "conservatives" have opposed it for threatening the consumption of their constituents, as well as their revenue.

Although you don't hear much about it, I'm increasingly optimistic that some sort of progressive consumption tax is coming, because the Feds will soon need to generate a lot more tax revenue. They'll have no luck raising taxes on the middle of the income distribution, because the available income just isn't there, and if they try to raise marginal income taxes much without exempting investment, they'll strangle investment. They'll need to target marginal consumption to get the revenue they want without killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

That's not the reform I want. I want a progressive consumption tax that starves central authorities, but I'm not that optimistic; however, I can imagine steps in the direction of a progressive consumption tax in the foreseeable future.

Also, long-term yields have been very low for a while, and I don't see that changing. It's not just about easy money from the Fed. It's about demographics. With yields so low, we must save more to accumulate a retirement income, so lifting limits on tax deferred saving is very appealing politically. I'm maxed out now but would like to do more.

After reading Wolfe's A False Distinction, I am left even less impressed with his ability to reason. Can you say "equivocation"? He seems confused: at one moment the distinction is not useful, and the at the next moment it is false. But I'll be generous to Wolfe, and assume he means "not useful". Perhaps for his purposes, the distinction between classic and modern liberals is not useful, but for almost everyone else, it is very useful.

and made it clear there goal was to banish some ideas, like those of metaphysics, from sensible and rational debate.

But they didn't try and ban the ideas altogether, just from rational debate.

Popper never said we should stop creating theories, just know they might not be true until they are untrue.

I'd like to point out that these lines get blurred time and time again.

K Ackermann -

This is akin to some schemes that have come out of Brookings and a few other places. I'd be a strong advocate of something like this as well. Thanks for sharing that, Martin.

While there are interesting questions about evidence, testability, and method, for the most part, "science" is merely a political tool to delegitimise particular beliefs. Some of the first "philosophers of science" were explicit about this, and made it clear there goal was to banish some ideas, like those of metaphysics, from sensible and rational debate. In accordance with that goal, they developed methods of "science" to control what kind of beliefs would be acceptable.

As Wolfe observes, science is today an authority, and its official stamp of approval is much sought after. Intellectuals develop methods by which it is not possible to arrive at particular undesirable beliefs, and then label that method "scientific". The authority and prestige of science is thereby preserved for only good thoughts. Unfortunately, Wolfe continues to play this perverse game with his attack on evolutionary biology.

It's either the genetic or ad hominem fallacy depending on how you look at it.

Martin Brock, that is an extremely interesting idea. Did you think of it?

Of course, Adam Smith advocates something like a progressive consumption tax in Wealth of Nations.

RL, I see a progressive consumption tax as a check on statutory authority rather than a restraint of individual liberty. Proprietors with much income are not Lockean frontiersmen consuming the fruits of value they add to the land by the sweat of their brow. They're captains of industry and finance, title holders navigating rivers of entitlement flowing through a network of forcible propriety. They're modern counterparts of the lords of feudalism. I'm not saying that's a "bad" thing, but I am saying that's how things are.

I favor a progressive consumption tax that essentially is a progressive income tax with unlimited tax deferred investment. Every individual income taxpayer has an Individual Investment Account. An IIA is like an IRA or a 401k, except that contributions are unlimited. The level of an individual's tax then is voluntary. If you don't want to pay much tax, you reinvest your income rather than consuming it. In principle, Bill Gates could pay little or no income tax, if he chooses to consume no more that someone at the threshold of poverty while reinvesting the bulk of his income.

This tax is not a wholesale transfer of entitlement from decentralized proprietors to central authorities. It's very much the opposite. It only limits the entitlement to consume vs. the entitlement to invest.

Seth -

Ummm... because the former recognizes the dignity of human beings, has a great track record in improving the quality of people's lives, offers an excellent theoretical prospect for continuing to improve people's lives in the future, and minimizes the possibility of one individual using the state apparatus to serve his or her own (rather than society's) purposes.

Hayek revolutionized modern neuroscience with his 1952 book _The Sensory Order_ -- see my posting on world renowned neuroscientist Joaquin Fuster's development of Hayek's work:

http://hayekcenter.org/?p=1046

Hayek was working on this stuff in 1919 and 1920. He's worked in Constantin von Monakow brain anatomy lab as an undergraduate.

Wolfe doesn't know what he is talking about when he says "my understanding is that late in his life Hayek got really fascinated by evolutionary psychology."

Well, Wolfe's understanding if false -- and comically shallow when it comes to Hayek.

Compare Hayek's sophisticated look at the topic of autonomy from the points of view of neuroscience, political philosophy, social science, moral philosophy, etc. and put those up against Wolfe's shallow accounts of "power" and his superficial and confused accounts of the human sciences and the history of ideas -- and suddenly Wolfe's attack on Hayek and evolutionary psychology begin to look like the ill informed radio talk show calls coming from boob yokels lashing out in their ignorance at Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Why is individual responsibility, limited government and voluntary collective action better than limited individual responsibility, big government and coerced collective action?

I don't feel like reading the article, could someone please tell me why Wolfe hates evolutionary biology?

Because controversy=$ales.

Either that, or someone told him not to believe in it.

"liberalism means being in favor of letting as many people as possible being in control of their own lives."

If this is Wolfe's definition of liberalism, it will be interesting to see how he gets from there to a progressive income tax.

It is nice when someone is empowered, but not when someone is empowered at the expense of someone else. Increasing the autonomy of one person should not come at the cost of decreasing autonomy for another. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the position of Alan Wolfe. Why? Because people demand "equality" (i.e. greater autonomy for some at the expense of others), and, when "equality" is denied, they will get violent. In other words, we have an ultimatum: "increase my autonomy, or else!" The same strategy used by kidnappers, terrorists, and others extortionists since time immemorial. Wolfe suggests appeasement in the form of social programs (seemingly regardless of their actual efficacy), but what incentive does that create?

The Alan Wolfe Carnival Mirror:

WOLFE: "These days Rousseau is loved by conservatives."

Anyone have any idea who these "conservatives" might be?

I read this blog post when it first went up - I found it interesting and refreshing (too much reading Cafe Hayek commenters pit Keynes against Smith for my tastes!) but I do think his analysis was fundamentally flawed as well, for precisely the same reason that a lot of people here raise. He essentially equated liberalism with democracy, which is intellectually lazy - and he glossed over exactly what liberty even means (ie - negative vs. positive rights). So I think I came out where you did Russ - interesting read, but some major problems.

I'd offer another definition of liberalism that gets at it's philosophical core and still does vindicate Wolfe's point that there is a false distinction between "classical" and "modern" liberals. Liberalism is the idea that the individual is dignified, free, and has rights and obligations independent of the collective. I think anything that departs from that really rejects the underlying tenet of liberalism. That's why a variety of interventionists and Keynesians are still "liberal" in both a modern and classical sense even if they aren't Hayekian, and that's why Communism and the more encompassing incarnations of socialism are decidedly illiberal.

I have no clue why he thinks Hayek isn't a liberal. I find Hayek very insightful but flawed, personally - but I've never questioned his liberal credentials.

I'm also BAFFLED at how somebody can "condemn" evolutionary biology. WTF??? I mean... perhaps some Luddites out there don't buy into it - but condemn it? I'm intrigued... excited to listen to the interview.

Well, I looked at Wolfe's references to Hayek's works and ideas in his book and every one of them is a superficial waving of the hand at Hayek as a stand in straw man and I didn't see one that is a sophisticated explication or analysis of Hayek's ideas and work.

I guess this doesn't surprise me.

He sees freedom as a positive. This means a people liberated FOR something - a specific purpose - which will mean freedom to have this or that, aka positive rights. This approach is more religious in nature.

Liberalism and freedom the way I've understood it is negative in nature. Freedom FROM oppression aka negative rights. This is a more rational approach. (I happen to be religious in my personal life).

For him to say that his approach would make him and Keynes more in line with Smith than Hayek is purely subjective because it's based on his perception of both the liberal idea of Smith and by the same token, from where I stand on the issue, Hayek is the liberal and Keynes is not.

Hayek has hundred of pages written on the securing of an individuals "private domain", on how stable common rules allow an individual to have a vastly expanded room for secure action and long range plans.

I note that when Wolfe talks about Hayek's ideas, he never sights specifics, and he always seems to be guessing about what he thinks might be in Hayek -- as if he's never actually read much of any Hayek.

I'd like to see if Wolfe's book establishes that Wolfe actually has closely read and studied Hayek's work.

Most people place a low value on money. That may seem counter-intuitive, but if someone was given hundreds of books at the beginning of the month, and had already traded all of them for other goods and services by the end of the same month, would that suggest to you that they value books highly? No, because we tend to hold that which we value more, and ask for more before exchanging it.

Monetarily wealthy people tend to like money, and, when they visit the store, do not see many goods or services which they are willing to exchange for their money. Monetarily poorer people tend to be the exact opposite, and, unsurprisingly, tend not to accumulate money for long. In fact, monetarily poorer people are like speculators: they don't collect money because they value it, but because they speculate that other people do value money, and will be willing to exchange goods and services to obtain it.

By accumulating money, monetarily wealthy people engage in saving: a necessarily precursor to investment. It is this under-consumption which enables long-term economic growth and prosperity, ultimately benefiting non-savers--those who do not accumulate money--as much as those who do.

Monetarily wealthy people are specialists; they can do something which most of us find very difficult, that is, they can delay gratification today for the betterment of tomorrow.

Some people like books more than others. Does anyone believe that a policy to redistribute books more equitably would be a good idea?

An equal distribution of books would not make everyone equally wealthy in books, because not everyone values books in the same way. And, when people expressed such unequal valuation through trade, an unequal distribution of books would again emerge. Any attempt to force the equal distribution would merely make everyone poorer.

Why is this principle any different with money? Some people like money more than others, and like books-lovers, tend to collect more.

I don't feel like reading the article, could someone please tell me why Wolfe hates evolutionary biology?

I've read the book, and while I agree with 90% of his ideas regarding liberalism, like all new liberals who feel they've advanced beyond classic liberalsim, he can't break away from the idea of positive rights enforced by the government. He contradicts himself in several places when he upholds freedom in general and condemns government interventions which violate basic rights, then condones violating the freedom and rights of the wealthy (actually, not just the wealthy, but anyone forced to pay into the welfare state).

Trumpit,

The buffet can profit is because of economies of scale.

How did you do in that econ class?

I haven't finished the podcast yet, but it's interesting as always. There are not many venues where I can hear opposing views discussed in a non-adversarial format. The distinction bewteen autonomy and liberty is the key. Autonomy and liberty are not the same although they blur may together as an individuals resources increase.

"But there is no force at present other than government that can, theoretically squash the omnipotent rich. Government is effectively a tool of the rich."

Cool! So the rich use the government to squash the rich.

But what do we non-rich use for a tool? OK, here's an idea: How about if we use the rich as our tool to squash the omnipotent government?

"The buffet cannot exist as a viable entity with the gluttonous rich running rampant." Huh? This is a simplistic response, but that's seems nutty. Do the "gluttonous rich" get rich by simply stealing from the presumably virtuous poor? Or do they make their fortunes by trading their services, skills, goods, etc., to willing buyers? The buffet analogy is further inapposite because prosperity is not a finite dish from which we take a piece to the exclusion of others. The market generally expands and grows as people willingly trade with one another. Life isn't a zero-sum game, and the fact that someone else is prosperous does not mean your chances of prospering have now been lowered.

"I like to call myself a classical liberal, someone who is in favor of personal responsibility, limited government and voluntary collective action."

It is too late to ask Smith directly how he feels about those things, but it's not to late to ask me. I am also a classical liberal. But there is no force at present other than government that can, theoretically squash the omnipotent rich. Government is effectively a tool of the rich.

I believe you failed to learn the lesson of your own profession, economics. By about the third week of class an econ 101 student is made to understand the theory of how an all-you-can-eat buffet can make a profit. The answer is satiation. The feedback mechanism that tells you that you are full is broken in the rich; they want more and more until we are all made poorer by it. The buffet cannot exist as a viable entity with the gluttonous rich running rampant.

Imagine a bulimic lunching in a Swedish buffet. After stuffing themselves to the point that they can vomit easily, they then return to take more heaping portions of food to fill themselves up again. A bulimic never can eat too much and eventually the cupboard will be bare. If you live in a household with a bulimic you will soon regret it because you will find little that you eat because everything edible has been consumed by a ravenous mentally ill person.

When I go to McDonalds, I eat one hamburger, not one billion. Your students understand that, why don't you?

What beef dose Wolfe have with evolutionary biology?

Do you mean classic liberal?

Not everyone is impressed with Wolfe's sincerity, knowledge, or intellectual competence. Daniel Drezner on Wolfe discussing behavioral economics:

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2008/07/09/sweet_jesus_who_let_alan_wolfe_review_economics_books

Wolfe in my experience has a unique capacity for twisting the world of ideas to a carnival mirror when necessary to fit his political agenda.

It will be interesting to see if he does this in his interview.

Talk about obsessing over semantics.

He does understand the basic distinction of negative vs. positive liberty, right? "Freedom from" vs. "freedom to". He can say that "true liberalism" involves both if he pleases, but it's basically a case of making an argument by defining a word to mean what you want it to mean. You can call classical liberalism "conservatism" or "libertarianism" or "monkeyism" if all you care about is names.

Getting particular about what label is used rather than the substance of what the label is applied to is the shallowest sort of analysis. I haven't heard the podcast yet and I intend to listen to it, but really--I hope there's more to his argument than just that people shouldn't use particular words in a way that he disapproves of.

I haven't had the time to listen to it in it's entirety yet, but it seems like the real issue is that liberty is subtly being defined in terms of entitlement. The idea that a person's liberty is increased as they are able to claim more stuff from society.

It sounds a little like a more subtle version of post-modern perspectives on human rights. Defining rights in terms of the ability to act in a world that is shaped as I want it to be, as opposed to being able to act in any way I want in the world as it is. (ie: saying the world needs to change around me, not me based on the world).

To put it in economic terms, it's the desire to change the constraints that exist in the market as opposed to purchasing within the market.

Speaking of Hayek, Wolfe writes "The latter seek to straighten out the crooked timber of humanity by forcing everyone into a mold established by the market."

If he is this confused about Hayek, he is probably confused about classical and modern liberalism. But of course that line indicates less confusion than willful misrepresentation, indeed projection.