Jeremy Livingston

I’m a liberal individualist and one thing I have observed about the communitarian critics of my worldview is that they seem to think the fact of human sociality alone implies we ought to abandon individualism of any kind. That is wrong and they never do the work beyond it. A thread.

You’re on a roll this week!

Liberalism Needs Liberals It is precisely because liberalism cannot take sides that liberals must.

"It is precisely because liberalism cannot take sides that liberals must. Liberalism defends individuals, and it depends upon them." www.liberalcurrents.com/liberalism-n...

Being a liberal means trying to make the world a better place, despite the best efforts of basically everyone saying they’re just trying to make the world a better place

In Defense of Classical Liberalism The classical liberals were, after all, liberals, even as we understand the word today. They valued personal liberty and moral equality, and were prepared to undertake radical social reform to advance...

"It remains a model of how moral clarity, critical insight, institutional creativity, and attentiveness to social science can come together in the service of freedom, compassion, and social progress." www.liberalcurrents.com/in-defense-o...

I can’t sign onto “liberal socialism” because I don’t understand what, specifically, I’m being asked to endorse or repudiate. Is it an ethical principle? A metaphysical view of human nature and society? A policy programme? The vision is appealing but I’ve got a whole lot of questions.

It’s a little bit of hurt feelings, too. With a socially radical, egalitarian, idealist moral outlook but Austrian-inflected policy outlook, I never personally seem to fit into any category more finely grained than “liberal.” I feel left out of every club.

I don’t like drawing sharp distinctions between different kinds of liberal. It needlessly politicizes what should be scientific questions: under what conditions do markets promote general welfare, and under what conditions does government, or any other institution or practice?

I honestly think Mises was stuck in an impossible position when he got to America. He had no serious professional prospects, and was entirely dependent on support from libertarians. I think it’s telling Rothbard waited until he passed to create LvMI.

Mises’s biographer, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, is a Rothbardian, but he makes it clear that Mises was uncomfortable with a lot of Rothbard’s hard right leanings—not just the anarchism but also the Lost Cause narrative.

I was thinking something similar. Really draw out the differences between a proportional harm principle versus the non-aggression principle. Then recontextualize economic policy debates around harm—allowing a range of views but showing points of agreement and shared values.

I have thoughts!

I think my stricter definition of “classical liberal” is well motivated for periodization purposes, and I stand by the implications. What matters for me is for mainstream liberals to engage with the ideas of that period, and maybe see progressive potential in free markets. Thanks for engaging!

Oh, I would also add: I don’t dispute that Locke *influenced* the classical liberals. They were influenced in a lot of ways by a lot of thinkers. But I think the magnitude and significance of that influence is greatly exaggerated. In any event, it doesn’t make Locke himself a liberal.

3/3 Constant, for example, talks about actions innocent in themselves that tend to give rise to harms.

2/3 The principle actually used allows interfering to minimize harms greater than those involved in the interference itself, whether or not there’s a direct link between the action interfered with and the harm.

1/3 Re NAP: Classical liberals say smthg like NAP when they’re speaking uncarefully or assuming context. Generally the inferences they draw only make sense on a slightly different principle. Rothbard takes the formulation on its face and draws extreme conclusions from it.

The US Founding Fathers are not “classical liberals” by my definition. This is part of the anachronism I’m trying to challenge.

Thank you for the invitation. I’m not confident I’d fit in. But best of luck to you.

This is not my understanding. Locke was largely ignored by the classical liberals (Smith to Mill). It wasn’t until the New Liberal period, when “liberal” came ot mean everything and nothing, that Locke started to be called a “liberal” at all.

Well, he always identified as “on the Right”; and he grounds himself in Locke, who (on my definition) predates liberalism properly speaking. I agree with historians who argue that calling Locke a “classical liberal” is anachronistic. So, I think, is Rothbard’s use of the label. NAP is not liberal.

My main experience with libertarians has been with Objectivists and Rothbardite ancaps. If you’re trying to make the libertarian movement more truly liberal (in a Smith–Constant–Mill sense, not just a narrowly Bastiat sense), I wish you luck, and I’d celebrate your success. I’m just not optimistic.

My experience among libertarians has involved a lot of condescension. But among liberals and even most dem-soc and anarchists, I can get a long way by demonstrating compassion and willingness to prioritize the well-being of the worst off over strict adherence to an ideological programme.

3/3 This project was fatally disrupted by the Anschluss. Surviving Austrians continued to work on it, but no longer as a “school.” Mises found a receptive audience among American libertarians and had no one else to support him, but was always ambivalent on a number of their commonplaces.

2/3 I’d have to write a whole other essay on Mises, and I might do that someday. My view in a nutshell: the Austrian project was to reconstruct liberalism on a marginalist basis. They differed as to how closely the result would follow the classical liberal paradigm (Böhm-Bawerk versus Wieser).

I don’t concede that time-based labels are unreasonable. Political practice is grounded in history and careful, cogent periodization matters. But to answer your question… 1/3

I’m not conflating. I’m just citing phenomena that I think are representative of an illiberal dimension that was always present in American libertarianism. Honestly, I don’t envy any American with a classically-liberal spirit who sees no better home for themselves than among the libertarians.

I’m not trying to deny anyone permission. But not all claims to be building on or otherwise taking up a historic project are equally credible. I think Mises and Hayek have a strong claim to be building on the liberal tradition. Fusionism, the Paleo strat—not so liberal.

I invite you to read my essay. According to the definition I give there, the classical period of liberalism came to an end around 1880. Anything that happens after that is part of a different era.

For my part, I decided a long time ago I’d rather spend my life arguing policy with progressives with whom I’m united in my values, than arguing values with conservatives with whom I happen to share some policy preferences for unrelated reasons.