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On the Origins of Classical Liberalism
Some argue that classical liberalism (now conservatism), as a philosophy, began in the Enlightenment (late 17th century into the 18th century) with the works of thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Bastiat, and Hume. As Friedrich Hayek categorized it, classical liberalism had a French and British branch.
Conservatism, according to this narrative, was rather a unique and radical idea in comparison to all previous philosophies. In other words, what the English did in the Glorious Revolution was the result of a new Protestant paradigm shift from the old and defunct schools of thought which permeated a still predominantly Catholic Continent.
Usually such a movement in the “Enlightenment” is pitted as rational Protestants in England and the Netherlands, along with more secular French and German thinkers, against the superstitious and ritualistic Catholics from Spain and France. As if such areas were entrenched in some permanent medieval paradigm.
I find such a narrative to be antiquated and lacking in detail or support. The roots of classical liberalism are to be traced (obviously in Judeo-Christian writings, the Bible not being the least) in thought to the works of Aristotle (his Politics) then to Augustine (City of God), to Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica), but they were formulated and codified not in the Enlightenment but rather in early 16th-century Spain, with the School of Salamanca.
The School of Salamanca was a group of Jesuit/Dominican thinkers that more or less followed in the Thomist tradition (Scholastics) and their scholarly focus was generally deployed to understanding the various issues in the context that Spain found itself in as an imperial nation in the early 16th century with the unification of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain and its conquests in the New World.
This meant that they dealt with the issue of the humanity of American Indians (do they have souls?), the value of money (all that bullion), the human condition itself (where does sovereignty come from?), the free market (trade across a vast colonial empire), and international law (just wars and treaties).
From the beginning, with the school’s founder Francisco de Vitoria, this group of thinkers more or less made the argument of classical liberalism. They asserted that even the native Americans were humans worthy of dignity. That government’s legitimacy was founded in the will of those under it in a contractual manner, the opposite of the English theory at the time which posited Divine Right (as the king was also head of the Anglican Church).
Free trade was seen as a moral good, as it was the use of free will to the benefit of yourself and your fellow man (thus increasing the bonds of community among all). Value in goods was also subjective (and relied on scarcity), and this meant that only free allocation of goods and services could create efficient outcomes (and was the natural result of said free will).
The concept of usury was undone by the time theory of value posited by Martín de Azpilcueta. The concept of private property being a right of man was posited by Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva, entailing that one had the right to the fruits of that property. These thinkers also devised the concept of just war. To summarize, their theory was that war was supposed to be used to prevent greater evils.
This meant that war ought to occur in order to prevent a greater war, to depose unjust enemies (a government that represses the natural rights of humans), and when it was possible (as a form of charity) to establish some form of peace in areas without structure. In terms of humanity, the school argued that all humans (Christian and non-Christian) had inherent rights that came with our humanity (Vitoria called it ius gentium, the law of all people), and this was the foundation of international law.
In short, such a school formulated classical liberalism (conservatism as we know it today). All humans have an inherent right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the state is supposed to act in a way that does not impede upon such but rather protects it from foreign and native coercion and fraudulence. Free trade is a natural effect of our free will and is the best means of enriching ourselves and our communities.
Thus conservatism was not some radical break from precedent that occurred in the late 17th century, but rather a philosophical tradition already developing in Europe (and arguably had been developing for many centuries). It was finally given its best example in 1787, with the creation of the US constitution, which better exemplified the promise of the Declaration of Independence (classical liberalism). That all men are created equal in the eyes of their creator, and that they have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Published in General
Okay, I’m going to bed too. Two things before I go.
Midge, Stoicous is not a new member, but has changed his handle recently (see his profile).
I object to the term “classical” anything being applied to a political view holding such radically novel and improvised concepts as same-sex marriage. I don’t mind using “liberal,” “progressive,” or “libertarian” to describe someone with these positions, but “classical” by definition means something longstanding which speaks to humanity down through the ages.
In this sense, “classical liberalism” is a real thing, recognizable in the Founders and more closely resembling what we call “conservatism” (in America) today. Libertarianism has become an ideology characterized by radical individualism which discounts what the Founders called “the common good.” Conservatism still attempts to weigh the competing interests of individuals against the common good in a way which promotes liberty for the sake of excellence.
That is all. G’nite.
As said. Everyone from Julius Caesar to King Louis XIV can lay claim to promoting Liberty of Excellence. So long as they get to define excellence.
Classical Liberalism arose out of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants to suggest that the State should not try to declare the one true faith, but should tolerate multiple faiths; Pluralism.
That idea today would constitute not taking sides on social issues. The Libertarian perspective.
I leave this thread to do some work and watch the GOP debate and then you guys start a war on SSM. I will be back in the morning and I will tie the classical liberalism of the Thomist Salamancans to the Enlightenment and to the founders and I will argue those other points brought up between Techera and Stoicous.
I certainly did not intend my passing reference to SSM to hijack this thread. We’ve all heard the arguments against SSM at least a few dozen (or hundred) times, and I find them no more persuasive now than then. I’ve sworn off the SSM argument, but just for the record: So far as I can tell, the purpose of marriage throughout history has not been all this procreation stuff. The purpose of marriage has generally been to make a woman the property of a particular man. I, for one, am glad our society has rejected that concept of marriage.
I would also say, WC, that your assertion that SSM was not “outlawed” but merely outside the scope of “leave well enough alone” require a special kind of logic which escapes me. The prohibition on gay marriage was written into law, and the only thing that has changed is that it is now allowed under the law.
I said that conservatives sometimes do not recognize the distinction between “morally wrong” and “must be outlawed.” You take that one step further by not recognizing the distinction between “morally wrong” and “is outlawed.” I guess your claim is that if there is a law prohibiting something that you deem to be morally wrong, that law is not even a law. It is merely the “status quo.” I respectfully, and strongly, disagree.
CBA,
I am late to this party – and it has been a great party as I can see from the empty beer cans and onion dip dripped all over the carpet.
CBA you had done a great service in simply suggesting the topic. And for those who consider themselves the Rico Authorities, ease back and work to understand how this might occur. Sabrdance was a skeptic, but also open minded to bridging.
Well, here is my reaction. Cross-fertilization of ideas between the great universities in Europe was in vogue by the 14th and 15th centuries. Some instructors left universities and took their students with them. When texts were printed, the availiability of information expanded. Some professors left with other instructors to create new universities. And some students went from one university to another. Paris, where the faculty ran the place, was the best teaching environment. So many who desired would pass through Paris if they could get an appointment. Over time, it was likely to happen that ideas were exchanged. By the 16th century, this might have occured quite often – Salamanca was matriculating about 6,000 students a year for 3 and 4 year programs by 17th century. Europe was not isolated in all cases as some might think. Could Salamanca have influenced Cambridge and Oxford? Yes, quite possibly. In fact, I would say more than likely.
Also, Spain’s reactionary posture resulted from its loss of gold which first inflated its economy and then deflated its productivity. If Spain had prevailed and it gold not run out, it may have dabbled in classical liberalism. Hard to say and perhaps hard to see, but “may” is not out of the question.
There was a flock of Salamanca students (maybe even a few from the islands up north seeking to escape reformation), there were ideas as you cite, and there was also a common language permitting teachers and students to move about and communicate. Remember the teaching was done in Latin. So, the theory of CBA is alive and well – and not proven nor disproven, but very possible since many ideas leaked back and forth.
Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) worked in the Netherlands, in France, and twice in Italy. He was even hospitalized in the “English Hospital in Rome.” I did not know there such a thing in the 16th century.
Point: important people, learned people and even thugs like young Cromwell, travelled about and took their ideas and diseases with them. Maybe some were even football hooligans?
Madison more or less stated what I was going to type. The mobility of ideas was rather fast by the time of the Salamancan school. For example, the later Salamancans (like Suarez) were predominantly Jesuits. Jesuits had a rather strong academic bend and they ran several universities in Europe. La Fleche (in france) was attended by the likes of Rene Descartes and David Hume. Many intellectuals traveled across Europe to receive educations and to treat with foreign elites.
On top of this is the fact that intellectual debates had been occurring in Europe for ages prior to “the Enlightenment”, an example to this being the arguments of how to prove God’s existence between Saint Anselm (Bishop of Cantebury) and Gaunilo (a monk from Tours; so they are far from one another).
Richard Filmer and even King James the First of England had written papers on why they argued that Divine Right of Kings was the truth against this popular sovereignty that had been posited by Thomas Aquinas and the Salamancans.
Intellectual discussions were already occurring long before the Enlightenment in Catholic Europe. Even if one wants to assume that the Catholic Church wanted to literally dominate intellectual thought, how can it govern so vast an area? The fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church fostered such intellectual thought.
If you believe God is all loving, all knowing, and all perfect and that he gave man reason. Then of course that reason is meant to be used.
-continued-
@ Terra. The Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle and even Plato more or less argued that human nature is permanent. They of course did this in different ways but Plato’s theory of the forms advocates for a permanent nature to mankind and that it is rational (as a matter of fact its what distinguishes us from other creatures). Man has free will and is capable of reason. Assuming such then you have the foundation to argue for popular sovereignty.
Likewise with Aristotle and his Naturalism, the world has laws of existence. All things have 4 causes and one of those is telos (which plays into his virtue ethics; as he argues with entelechy) and like Plato Artistotle argues that we humans are distinct because of our capacity to reason that it is integral to us. This reason and free will is so important to Aristotle that he was willing enough to at least rank polity as good form of governance (it being the pure form while democracy was the perverted form).
These Greek philosophers provided foundation to the republican form of thought that classical liberalism sees as the best form of governance.
@ Stocious – I think our difference is in the Libertarian (I call it) impulse against violence. Classical Liberalism was not against conflict, so long as it had a legitimate casus belli (De Vitoria’s 8 cases). Conservatism today does not deviate from this.
Our biggest divide is most likely on the classical liberal origin and what that is.
It is not so much the origins that matter, but the history as a whole. While you make a compelling case that the origins of Classical Liberalism came earlier than typically expected, Classical Liberalism was truly defined as a philosophy by John Locke and and the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment. These are the figures that really began to articulate Rights and Liberties (as we know them today), Free Markets and Limited Governments.
Looking at figures in this tradition, they were strong believers in Pluralism. The belief that the government should be tolerant of diversity of belief, and neutral on societal conventions. This is seen in the Declaration of Independence; “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” does not come with a clause explaining that rights are conditional on doing what society expects. Quite the opposite, it says those rights are inalienable.
Absolute Rights are much more pivotal in Libertarianism than in Conservatism. In Conservatism, exceptions are made to protect the traditional views on sexual morality, family values and societal order. Libertarianism is opposed to such protections, just as Classical Liberals opposed State Established Religions and Religious Protections.
[Continued]
Furthermore, the Economic side of Classical Liberalism was formulated around the issue of Free Trade. Ending the Corn Laws was one of the first issues that Free Market Liberals fought for, and replacing Mercantilism with Capitalism was the great Economic Accomplishment of the Classical Liberals.
Today, however, Mercantilism is readily present in the Conservative movement. True, many Conservatives are Free Traders, but it is difficult to say that Conservatism is the modern incarnation of Classical Liberalism, when there are so many Mercantilists identifying as Conservatives. These characters are not isolated from the Conservative (permanent) Ideology either, as they are also happy to accept the government regulations of societal conventions that Classical Liberal Conservatives are also warm to. Libertarianism, on the other hand, is much more universally in favor of Free Trade, and has far fewer connections with the populism that is often so hostile to Classical Liberalism.
Perhaps this better explains my theory on how these groups relate to each other.
It’s an interesting diagram, but I think there’s a lot more overlap than it suggests. There’s overlap between conservatives and libertarians, for instance, that’s why we can form a working coalition on many issues. There’s overlap between conservatism and socialism, e.g. most mainstream American conservatives support Social Security and Medicare. And there’s also overlap between libertarianism and progressivism, e.g. both support SSM, drug legalization, and share a deep suspicion of the War on Terror.
I posted a more comprehensive explanation here.