Richman on Brooks on Hume

Don, I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, to consider that you, Richman, and most of Brook's NYT commenters may have misconstrued his column.

So the case is that Hume isn't supportive of a role for government that uses the strength of the market to solve problems because... he supports property rights and thinks that freedom maximizes social welfare?

Well if that's the standard I guess I'm not supportive of a role for government that uses the strength of the market to solve problems either. Look - I think it's fair to say that Hume is as compatible with this sort of libertarianism, just like it's fair to say that it is compatible with other expressions of liberalism.

Take Hume's statement here: "It is his [a legislator's] best policy to comply with the common bent of mankind, and give it all the improvements of which it is susceptible."

or

"It is a violent method, and in most cases impracticable, to oblige the labourer to toil, in order to raise from the land more than what subsists himself and family. Furnish him with manufactures and commodities, and he will do it of himself. Afterwards you will find it easy to seize some part of his superfluous labour, and employ it in the public service, without giving him his wonted return."

or

"Every person, if possible, ought to enjoy the fruits of his labour, in
a full possession of all the necessaries, and many of the
conveniencies of life. No one can doubt, but such an equality is
most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less from the
happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor. It also
augments the power of the state, and makes any extraordinary
taxes or impositions be paid with more chearfulness. Where the
riches are engrossed by a few, these must contribute very largely
to the supplying of the public necessities."

Hume does support property and liberty. He also understands the value of "supply public necessities", "employment in the public service", and the legislator giving mankind "all the improvements of which it is susceptible."

His point - and his dispute with Platonists and mercantilists - was provision for these public goods needs to be achieved with an understanding that we can't design the market. We can't plan spontaneous order, and to a large extent we shouldn't feel like we have to - most social good is supplied by the market with no necessity of public provision at all. But when we do have to, we need to keep in mind how doing "violence" (he uses the word violence to describe this a lot) to liberty can be counterproductive.

I think Brooks captures Hume perfectly - it's very interesting to see people reinvent him as a modern libertarian. As I've said, I think it's appropriate to recognize that Hume is compatible with modern libertarianism in many ways. But I don't agree with this effort to remake him in the libertarian image.

Sorry - I have no idea why that huge gap always comes up... it does that every time I go in to edit a few words.

"Hume is compatible with modern libertarianism in many ways."

"But I don't agree with this effort to remake him in the libertarian image."

Huh?

If you take this into account too "just like it's fair to say that it is compatible with other expressions of liberalism" it probably makes more sense. Hume is not inconsistent with libertarianism. There's a lot that libertarians can draw from Hume. But just because he's compatible with libertarianism doesn't mean he's not the thinker Brooks represented him as. I think there's a difference between recognizing that a person's views are largely compatible with many elements of modern libertarianism, and trying to rewrite someone from a completely different intellectual and historical context as a modern libertarian. Same with Locke, Jefferson, or any other classical liberals that can look like libertarians if you selectively quote them but stand out as their own men when you realize that they had many differences of opinion with modern libertarianism as well (namely this idea that an active state actor his somehow antithetical to liberty and property).