Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
How Liberal Was Liberalism
Every year, I have two encounters with John Locke. The first comes when I go to the American Political Science Association, where I try to understand the arguments of the hardcore political philosophers brought in by Claremont and Institute for Humane Studies, and so on. The second comes about a month later when I teach the Founding to a group of Freshmen at my university. A point I try to drive home to my students, and which, given the recent discussions regarding Sohrab Ahmari around here, is relevant to Ricochet, is that the world of 17th Century England, and especially the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, doesn’t look much like the United States of today, and that properly understanding Locke and Montesquieu requires thinking in terms they would have known.
At APSA, there’s always a debate between the philosophers between three basic positions. Position one is the view that Locke is an individualist radical who intended to completely up-end society. However, given that he was writing in 1688, he couldn’t rightly say that, so the message is hidden in the text. This is the dominant Straussian position. Position 2 is the “Built Better than He Knew” position, which is similarly related to the same named position on the Founders held by, for example, Harry Jaffa. In this telling, Locke was trying to justify the Glorious Revolution, but he -and later Adam Smith -actually had found a better way to place civil government and civil society to produce a virtuous and free nation.
Then there’s my position, which I find frankly under-represented. Locke was writing in 1687-89, addressing the particular issues of that time period, and while he does appeal to universal constants and laws of nature (that just makes him modern), he is neither creating a novus ordo secularum nor is trying to tear down the society in which he is a part. Rather, he is trying to explain what just happened in the crazy world of the Glorious Revolution and explain how his society actually worked.
*****
Locke starts his two treatises with an extended dismantling of the divine right of kings. His critique is thorough, pointing out that God never said anything about divine right, even if He had, He hadn’t said anything to any of the ancestors of any of the current kings, and even if He had done that -there are far too many extant kings to claim that all of them held divine right. No one actually operates as if the Divine Right of Kings was true.
So, in his second treatise, he looks at how governments actually operate in England and the rest of the world.
So how did they operate? It’s easy to take modern social structures and back-lay them on 17th Century England, but this would be a mistake. The past is a foreign country -they do things differently there.
A few years back I read A Quarrel with the King, a history and quasi-biography of the late 16th and early 17th century England, told through the relationship of a prominent northern English family (the Earls of Pembroke) and the Kings from Henry VI to Charles I. Along the way, there’s several chapters on how England actually worked.
At the heart of the English society was the commonwealth -the term applied broadly and narrowly, but in this case, really meaning something approximating “the village.” England at the time had only a limited idea of private property -at least as far as land and livestock went. Both were held in common by the entire village, and this was because the relationship between livestock and land was necessary for the continued survival of the village. The land was marked off into fields and chalks. The livestock was grazed every day in the chalks, and every night was kept in a different field. The sheep droppings would fertilize the fields. Each family would be given a plot of land, the shepherds would guarantee its fertility, and this allowed the growing of enough food to feed the village, and then to trade to other villages for whatever couldn’t be produced locally. These villages were largely self-sufficient, at least locally, but they were also mainly steady-state organizations. The social and economic roles played by everyone in the village kept a delicate balance. If anyone didn’t pull their weight, the entire village would starve. The legal regime -in which no one owned land, but rather had the use of the land provided they produced the required allotment of goods and services for the village, encouraged this. Contrary to the common story, these villages did not have many problems with their commons, because everyone’s use of the commons was closely watched by everyone else. No one would overgraze their livestock, or try to cheat another family out of their time with the animals -because if anyone did that, it would throw off the balance, and everyone would starve. (The transition to private property happens during this period, and is largely driven by technological changes that makes farming much more efficient -which caused a lot of other villages to close down, which were then bought by lords like the Pembrokes to build their great estates. Some of the villagers were taken into service by the lords, some went to the cities, and others became basically brigands -who, when the Civil War came, were drafted into both Royalist and Parliamentary armies.)
Because these villages were so delicate, there was a great deal of social coercion used to make sure everyone did their part. Councils of elders could fire shepherds and other specialists if they failed to do their jobs. The indigent were required to be taken care of by their nearest family members, on the threat of the family being expelled from the village. These communities also built up long traditions, their own holidays, and other special quirks which kept everyone working and prevented the village from starving. One of the more interesting passages was about the food allocations everyone got for feast days -food allocations that depend on everyone having already done their part to gather the food into the village first.
This is the reality Locke was writing about when he describes how the commonwealth comes together. By 1688, the method of coordinating village production is currency, not conditions, but the villages are still highly dependent on everyone left doing their part. It also makes some of his more bizarre requirements make a lot more sense. For example, I have long wondered why it was that Locke allows people to leave the commonwealth only on the condition that they cannot take their property with them. But, when you realize that the (predominantly) real property is part of a complicated production chain, the loss of which would kill the village, it makes much more sense why Locke would require people leave their property behind when they exit. He simply scales the idea up to the size of England.
The amazing thing to me, contra the radical individualist reading, is just how much of this system Locke leaves in place. He is perfectly happy to allow every village and community to organize its affairs however it would like, and only when the self-sustaining political units are ready and able to come together does he allow for the creation of larger nations. Even then, though, the larger nation is only allowed so long as it doesn’t interfere in the operations of the constituent villages -all of them have to agree to band together. This echoes the actual justifications for the Civil War. Beyond the religious arguments, the King’s economic policies were making a disaster of the commonwealth -with villages dying all over, and their parliamentary representatives unable to get the King to do anything about it. Pembroke -despite being an aristocrat with a long history of service directly to the Crown -sided with Parliament precisely because of the damage Charles I was doing to Wiltshire.
All of this, Locke is willing to leave in place.
*****
It is true that much of Locke’s theories of government are built on procedural rules. However, Locke wrote against a background of very powerful local and regional political bodies that -while following procedural rules -governed in very specific, coercive, and intrusive ways. These local bodies could tell you what to eat, where to worship, and how to work. The way the decisions should be made matters, but Locke continues to allow this level of government intrusion, only allowing people to leave if they don’t like it, because without these decisions being made and obeyed, the whole networked economy of the village crashes, and everyone dies.
With later technological developments, even more liberality with the rules of the community becomes possible. Generally speaking, the American economy is not so fragile as the 17th-century English economy was. But this does point to the key insight Ahmari was making: Lockian Liberalism -of the type the US was founded on -assumes a civic culture and view of how everyone should live their life. It allows society to enforce that way of life in order to preserve the continued existence of the commonwealth.
The procedural rules, the “neutral public square idea” are not in Locke or Adam Smith. They are later additions -probably at earliest Jeremy Bentham in the early 19th century, if not 20th-century innovations of Rawls and Nozick.
There are those who say that Locke leads inexorably to Bentham, but I don’t see it. I don’t think Ahmari does either.
We can be perfectly true to the ideals of Locke and still support a great deal of socio-political decisionmaking by governments.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I am not going to get into it in this thread.
Totally missed my point.
One would have to wonder how the English nobles were nobles if there was all this common property and no private property. Even then private property as an idea has always existed. One cannot trade goods if there is not some idea of who has ultimate ownership of property.
Also more to the point of the OP the English were an incredibly mercantile nation at the time. Commercial interests had strong influence on policy, as the Anglo-Dutch wars attested to—along with the expanding colonial domains.
John Locke himself was raised and lived in the more urban and commercial areas of England, especially after he went to university (and he later traveled to the Netherlands and France before publishing his political works). His frame of reference would not have been one of these alleged English villages but several cities (both foreign and domestic), as most classical writers were. Cities in that period were far more developed and had greater enumeration of rights between the state and citizen than said villages. This being especially so after the tyranny of the Stuarts and Cromwell—as reforms saw greater and greater enfranchisement of heterogenous elements in society, like the non conformists.
Thats why Locke was often cited and is used as a type of archetype for classical liberalism by the founders. He was advocating for a rather limited state. Does a limited state mean the society is in anarchy? No. Anarchy isn’t really possible. The government exists to ensure that said threats from other humans are prevented. That is the common good which classical liberalism aims at. Because from there anyone should be able to find good for themselves and others.
I think Cato is right that this essay lacks considerable context.
Speaking of what Locke said, I should have asked in the first place if the depiction of the commonwealth in the OP was straight from Locke, or whether it came from other historical sources.
Same happened with the German Drang nach Osten in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Germany wanted to Germanize the Polish lands, but the German and Polish birthrates didn’t cooperate, no matter what incentives and disincentives were provided.
But since when has ineffectiveness stopped a government program? People are going to make babies and governments are going to come up with ineffective programs. It’s what they do.
Sabre,
I am no Locke expert. I do know that “Life, Liberty, and Property” are his words. On this alone let us consider some recent 20th-century events.
Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world
A grotesque genocide. This wasn’t due to the invasion by the Japanese. The U.S.A. had defeated Japan and liberated Asia. Nor was this about the Cold War. The West had made peace in Korea. No, this was purely the creation of the monstrosity that was 20th century Marxism. No respect for Property. No respect for Liberty. Finally, all of it added up to no respect for Life itself.
Maybe we are expecting too much from Locke. He doesn’t have all of the answers but the answers he does provide are still relevant today. The Chinese government just put 2 million people in concentration camps. Locke is still relevant. Perhaps we could paraphrase Churchill. Churchill said that democracy was the worst political system except for every other one. We might say that a Lockian democratic capitalism is the worst economic system except for every other one.
Regards,
Jim
You say, “Then there’s my position, which I find frankly under-represented.”
My position often seems under represented as well, so I relate. (Although often my situation is on more world shaking involvements as to which of us should take out this week’s trash to the curb.)
But I have never delved into Locke. For the main reason being, most of those into discussing him didn’t offer someone totally unfamiliar with John Locke an accessible starting point.
However, you have offered me that starting point, and for that I thank you. It will probably be another two years before I can understand what others know, but at least I am on the road there.
A couple of the videos on the TeacherofPhilosophy YouTube channel might be useful in that department.
Gotta teach you kids how to do self-promotion. Link!
And do stuff like this:
So hard on a phone. Also I’m traveling.
Whatever. It’s done now.
No, my point was that the non-noble English were producing as much as their oaths required them to on the threat of extreme social sanction, up to and including expulsion from the community. They were doing so based on oaths that hadn’t been updated in centuries, but which had -at the time -kept the villages alive. The new technologies and increases in crop yields greatly disrupted this system and led to the Civil War.
Because they weren’t allowed to violate the commons oaths, either. It’s only in the 17th century, when the idea of owning property fee simple became widespread, at which point the lords were able to buy up the land. Another thing that led to the Civil War -as all the displaced peasants had to go somewhere, and into the armies was often the answer. As for the trade issue -the villages also traded on behalf of the residents. They hired merchant go-betweens just like they hired shepherds. They’re not Communists. The commonwealth just has to be understood as a kind of joint production operation rather than a bunch of people who live close together.
But sided with the Whigs in the war -not the London Torries. Also, “cities” in this time period were tiny, and Locke would have -by necessity -been familiar with the hinterlands.
I have no idea what point you are making.
Locke does think property is a great thing. He thinks personal ownership is a great thing. He also thinks nature is held in common, and he also explicitly forbids hoarding at the expense of other people (money is great because it allows hoarding without harm to others). One of the tasks of the commonwealth is to see that the poor and indigent are taken care of. The places he was familiar with did this by requiring family members to take care of each other. If there was no family, the village as a whole would do it. He doesn’t elaborate on the mechanism -any mechanism that does the job is probably fine with him.
More of a family business, really, since few ever left their villages and most married someone else in the village who was already some level of cousin.
I’m seeing a conflation of society and government in these statements. Society enforcing norms or patterns of behavior is quite different than government enforcing patterns of behavior. People going along with norms established by society (whether due to literal survival, or merely tradition) is different than coercion by government dictate.
Our system of government was built on the assumption that the people being governed are moral and virtuous in regards to their liberty. As our culture shifts to being more secular than religious that causes strife around how society should be ordered. I agree with Valiuth in #6:
If Ahmari believes that the only way to restore the alignment of the common good in society with the Highest Good is through government action, then it will be a pyrrhic victory as long as society continues to move in an opposite direction. Laws can be undone. What Ahmari wants is akin to Thomas Friedman’s “China for a Day” for social issues.
Why do you think Ahmari believes that government is the only way to restore the common good? I don’t think he said that, and I don’t think he was implying it either.
Valiuth couldn’t be more wrong on the social changes happening by “argument and the slow crafting of a new social consensus.” That’s simply not how the Left operates to impose its will. Roe and Obergefell were top-down impositions by the Court. The arguments were happening state-to-state until then, as they should be under our constitutional republic. If the Left has its way, all the states will be forced to adopt California values — and we see how well that’s working out!! The Southern states are now being pressured by political activism (and will soon be pressured by the courts, I predict), which is what I believe Ahmari is advocating. And, in the case of the courts, conservative activism looks a lot like #resisting the Left’s judicial activism by forbidding the brailing of “new” and “improved” positive rights in the law. What is legal becomes tolerated becomes mandatory.
The Left influences the culture by controlling the cultural institutions — particularly by indoctrinating our children into secular leftist orthodoxy in the public schools. But, leftists dominate entertainment, the education establishment, the news media, … we’re swimming in leftist activism like a fish who doesn’t know he’s in water. It’s time we break the surface and get some air.
I certainly think he was implying it. One way to look at this dispute is that French favors persuasion and Ahmari favors government force as ways of bringing the culture more in line with social conservative values.
I don’t think he said that either.
And, no.
The purpose of gov’t and the state to is ensure that those rights that are granted to individuals by their creator are maintained. If the purpose is to “organize people and resources so everyone is here tomorrow”, then you’ve just granted the state the right to seize private property and direct individuals to gather on collective farms so everyone can be here tomorrow.
Regarding marriage: I don’t think the state has any interest in what I do or who I marry, regardless of outcome. Individual rights aren’t something that should be casually ceded to a centralized gov’t of any kind. Once you cede that control to the gov’t, it rarely gives it back, on anything. People petitioning the gov’t for new “rights” seem to ignore the fact that the next president or congress may erase those “rights” – so why give someone else that power over your life in the first place?
I don’t need a gov’t sanctioning my choices of how I live, or how anyone else lives, as long as I’m not ax-murdering the neighbors or setting the police department on fire.
I agree with you on the purpose of government. I disagree on marriage. You can only hold that view because marriage has been so thoroughly separated from procreation — same-sex “marriage” is just the latest offense against the ideal of a procreative, permanent man/woman union. Once minor citizens are considered, the protection of the state is a legitimate function. Minors have god-given rights, too, no matter how irresponsible their parents are.
Oh, sure. That’s what you say now…
Well, I don’t want to close the door entirely on my options.
Whose ideal? Yours? A religion’s version? Your line about minor citizens gives the state far too much power to dictate what you can and cannot do, in the service or interest of minor citizens. No matter which side of it you come down on.
How are the interests of minor citizens being served by the govt now, in terms of their education? How’s that working out for them?
Mostly, it’s a matter of protecting minors’ rights when their parents divorce.
And, uh, it doesn’t take a religious argument to acknowledge that children are produced by men and women engaging in the marital act and that children (future adult citizens) do best in a stable, responsible family setting with a mother and a father.
This is probably a different thread. I’ve been looking at Ahmari’s piece and the various commentary that’s responded to it. Maybe I’ll write something about it. I think I’ve concluded I’m very much not an Ahmari conservative. If Ahmari is what conservativism is now, I’m probably no longer a conservative at all. But like I said, parsing that out is probably a different thread.
I think if marriage regulation is “for the children” you – WC – ought to be railing against no-fault divorce, not same sex marriage. No fault divorce has been catastrophic for children. The harm same sex marriage has done requires a microscope to identify if you can find it at all. I’d actually make the case that it’s created stable two-parent homes for some children who otherwise wouldn’t have them. But whether you accept that or not, no-fault divorce has done orders of magnitude more harm. So it’s hard to take seriously anybody who rails against SSM while being silent about divorce.
There ain’t no guards at the flap of the tent to say who is and who isn’t.
Well, we can disagree.
But, the evidence of history is people turn to government to protect themselves from the other.
And, the Founders are on my side, not yours. So, I am in good company, whereas you are dancing with the AnCaps.
Any AnCap society, if existed, would be overrun by a nation organized how I see it.
I agree. It’s certainly a matter of statistical fact (there are way, way more male/female marriages to undergo divorce). And, I did say “just the latest,” implying no-fault divorce as an offense. But, the reason no-fault divorce has been so devastating to children is there’s a man and a woman involved in marriage — a mother and father! Marriage isn’t just for the protection of children. It’s for the protection of women who become vulnerable by bearing children. I find the feminist argument that marriage is some form of slavery for women laughable — in a dark and cynical way.
I am Catholic. I oppose divorce for any but the most extreme reasons (triple-A: adultery, abuse, addiction). You can just assume I oppose no-fault divorce.
And, btw, I assume with the current degradation of marriage, even same-sex couples with children will divorce at something approaching the same rate as sexually complementary couples.