[quote]nephorm wrote:
When you are speaking of liberalism vs libertarianism for that time period, how are you making this distinction? The first real use of libertarianism (not meaning what it means today) that I know of was in 1857. What most people call libertarianism now is what I would call something similar to “classical liberalism,” as differentiated from modern liberalism that is primarily a 20th century invention. [/quote]
Actually, that is exactly my point. Thank you for explaining it much better than I was able to and providing the dates. I appreciate it.
I hope I’m not taking this thread too far off topic but I was hoping someone could clear something up for me. All this discussion of Hobbes has lead me to read the Leviathan–parts of it anyways–because, heretofore, I’ve only discussed the work in a humanities colloquium. While reading through Ch. 21 Of Liberties of Subjects, I came across the following:
“Fear and liberty are consistent: as when a man throweth his goods into the sea for fear the ship should sink, he doth it nevertheless very willingly, and may refuse to do it if he will; it is therefore the action of one that was free: so a man sometimes pays his debt, only for fear of imprisonment, which, because no body hindered him from detaining, was the action of a man at liberty. And generally all actions which men do in Commonwealths, for fear of the law, are actions which the doers had liberty to omit.”
Is he saying that actions committed under threat of force, are still actions done through liberty? If so, is not his working definition of liberty–namely, that given the mere presence of choice, regardless of consequence, having once made a choice free from physical restraint, a man has exercised liberty–a bit flawed? For example, if a monarch deciding, for the common good, that the population of his country is dangerously high, approaches one of his subjects and demands that he kill one of his children or be killed himself, and the subject, being a devoted father, chooses to give up his own life, can it be said that the subject had perfect liberty and the monarch in no way infringed upon that liberty simply because he didn’t physically force the subjects hand?
Hobbes does say that a man has a right to refuse to harm himself or his “fellow,” and I suppose one can argue that in making the choice between his son and himself, he is in fact harming himself; however, Hobbes goes on to say that a person’s right to refuse is valid only until “our refusal to obey frustrates the end for which the sovereignty was ordained, then there is no liberty to refuse; otherwise, there is.” And in any case, Hobbes makes it clear that even if one has the right to disobey, the “sovereign” has the right to take one’s life in reprisal–which doesn’t seem like much of a right to me.
Furthermore, it seems to me, Hobbes makes no distinction between one’s “natural rights”–such as a right to life–and the “liberty,” for instance, of men to have many wives: both are subject to the will of the sovereign: “The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things which, in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath pretermitted: such as is the liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit; and the like. Nevertheless we are not to understand that by such liberty the sovereign power of life and death is either abolished or limited. For it has been already shown that nothing the sovereign representative can do to a subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called injustice or injury…”
So, for Hobbes, liberties (or “rights”) stem from the law–that is, an act of government–and can be taken away by government as it sees fit? The only true liberty lies with the sovereign, regardless of whether that sovereign is represented by one man or assembly, because we, his subjects, have bequeathed our “natural rights,” upon forming civil society, to the sovereign for our greater good?
LBRTRN, I really wish more posters were like you – THIS is the kind of discussions that make this section of forum worth the electricity it uses.
[quote]LBRTRN wrote:
So, for Hobbes, liberties (or “rights”) stem from the law–that is, an act of government–and can be taken away by government as it sees fit? The only true liberty lies with the sovereign, regardless of whether that sovereign is represented by one man or assembly, because we, his subjects, have bequeathed our “natural rights,” upon forming civil society, to the sovereign for our greater good?[/quote]
Hobbes’ work is almost like the Bible for modern philosophers – in more ways than one. His words have been interpreted and re-interpreted hundreds of times already and very few can claim to understand exactly if and where the crossed the line between attacking and supporting absolutism – or what brand of absolutism he supported, assuming that he did. Some say he contradicts himself constantly, like you can see if you re-read what you wrote above.
Many believe he did this on purpose, mainly to avoid backlash. In a sense, by not being clear on what he was defending, he could avoid persecution from either side. Remember that the 17th century was far from being the haven of freedom of speech.
Hence Hobbes work did not create a political philosophy directly at all – he could not, since nobody can claim to completely understand what he was for or against. Really. However, the Leviathan society he described did in fact influence almost every single philosopher after him, in the sense that it provided a lot of food for thought. That is in fact, what I believe he intended, above anything.
He was able to influence many different philosophies, including opposing ones, by simple providing that food for thought.
We can see him as serving as the Devil’s Advocate in discussions about classical liberalism, something that was obviously pivotal in its development, in the best tradition founded by Greek philosophy…
[quote]hspder wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
And you dropped everything to do this and they happened to be available and you had them go to this site and read this…
Weren’t you the one that just pointed out that it is summer?
Most of us are on vacation. I did not drop anything. And a few people of the long list I sent you were in fact available. Most of them are longtime friends, they are happy to talk to me. I also did not give them a link, I copied and pasted.
[/quote]
Doc,
I went to graduate school, I know what happens there. On a Friday afternoon, you could shoot off a cannon in the ‘Halls of Learning’ and only the poor slob secretary would hear it. The esteemed faculty are golfing, sailing, playing tennis, or screwing the hot undergrad chick who wants an ‘A’. So, when you tell me that you found all these guys at your fingertips, on a Friday in the summer, its just pure horseshit.
Did you read the Stanford link I posted? Hobbes believed in absolute government. If the author was wrong (‘not a prof’), why’d they post it? Don’t you see how hollow all this rings?
I’m perfectly happy to debate in a civilized manner, until someone tries to hand me some horseshit. I then respond appropriately.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
hspder wrote:
By the way, liberal and libertarian beliefs of the time had much more in common than they had different – your brand of libertarianism is quite unusual in its open hatred of liberals (at the time, liberals and libertarians shared a lot of fundamental beliefs and a common enemy),
Sorry, I’m sick and I may be missing something.
When you are speaking of liberalism vs libertarianism for that time period, how are you making this distinction? The first real use of libertarianism (not meaning what it means today) that I know of was in 1857. What most people call libertarianism now is what I would call something similar to “classical liberalism,” as differentiated from modern liberalism that is primarily a 20th century invention. [/quote]
Hspder is trying to link my criticisms of modern liberalism with the philosophy of liberals from 300 years ago. “How dare you attack liberalism when it comes from Rousseau, Locke, Berkley, and so on!” He sets up that strawman, then attempted to use an ‘Appeal to Authority’ argument where his supposedly available buddies with Phds in Philosophy back him up concerning Hobbes.
Makes one wonder who the hell graded his 3 dissertations; what a joy that must’ve been. Of course, the ones you buy off the Net probably aren’t graded.
Can you please not associate your views with the Founding Fathers’?
The American Revolution was inspired by liberalism. Now… let that sink in.[/quote]
This requires qualifying. The French Revolution was the offspring of the kind of liberalism you espouse. The American Revolution was certainly an exercise in ‘liberalism’ under the old meaning of the word, but not in the direction you suggest here.
The American Revolution was both liberal and conservative - there was both a desire to implement republicanism and preserve the experience and society at work.
There was no serious desire to blow up society and bring it under new management with utopian blueprints - in fact, there was a sense of revulsion of the French democrats so much that the term ‘democrat’ was an epithet reflecting unchecked radicalism.
Moreover, there was serious debate over the limits of government in the old meaning of liberalism, hence the constitutional separation of powers. Currently, there is a disconnect on that issue. Over-reliance on a top-down governance by unelected technocrats - i.e., the administrative or welfare state - has little purchase in the old meaning of liberalism and limits of government.
Old liberalism rested on fundamentally “conservative” ideas - there should be limits on government because Man was inherently flawed and imperfectible, the tragic view of human nature. Modern liberalism - hyper-excited with the idea that with enough money and the right kind of education, Man’s innate flaws can be overcome and he would therefore need no brake on the untrammeled pursuit of the gratification of his every earthly appetite - doesn’t square with the old view.
Also interesting that you reference Rousseau as a major influence on the Founding Fathers - when that is not accurate - but leave Adam Smith off the list.
Also interesting that you reference Rousseau as a major influence on the Founding Fathers - when that is not accurate - but leave Adam Smith off the list.[/quote]
Many of Rousseau’s ideas were repugnant to the Founding Fathers, although they did reference Montesquieu, especially in the Federalist Papers.
What’s interesting about that is that they misrepresented some of Montesquieu’s thoughts to make the Constitution seem like it was more in line with his Philosophy.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I went to graduate school, I know what happens there. On a Friday afternoon, you could shoot off a cannon in the ‘Halls of Learning’ and only the poor slob secretary would hear it. The esteemed faculty are golfing, sailing, playing tennis, or screwing the hot undergrad chick who wants an ‘A’. So, when you tell me that you found all these guys at your fingertips, on a Friday in the summer, its just pure horseshit.[/quote]
Why are you so stuck up on this? Do you know me? Do you know my friends? Do you know any of the people on that list? Do you even know or have been to the places they work in?
The fact that you’re so eager to believe I’m lying doesn’t make it so.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Also interesting that you reference Rousseau as a major influence on the Founding Fathers - when that is not accurate - but leave Adam Smith off the list.[/quote]
I know most of Adam Smith’s work by heart. I can quote passages from at least two of his books (more on that later) from memory.
I wanted to stay away from Adam Smith because I was focusing on a very specific social philosophy part; Adam Smith’s work was more technical and more purely focused on Economics (that he basically (re-)invented).
In particular, the considerable controversy surrounding the contradiction between Smith’s emphasis on sympathy in his Theory of Moral Sentiments and the key role of self-interest in The Wealth of Nations makes him particularly complicated to cite as influence of the Founding Fathers.
Some Economists believe that there is no contradiction at all – that Adam Smith just believed that selfishness was natural and inherently good, and would produce the best outcome anyway (the idea that Ayn Rand took off with a couple of centuries later).
The base that interpretation on this particular passage (and I’m quoting from memory here, somebody can correct me if I’m wrong):
“Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them.”
The problem is that is an extremely wishful interpretation, and the fact remains that Game Theory has proven very clearly that being selfish is sub-optimal (both for individuals and for the society) while cooperation is optimal, i.e., selfishness is NOT in your best self-interest.
Of course, Adam Smith did not have access to Game Theory, but a lot of Economists (including me) believe that he was smart enough to know this, and that Adam Smith was trying to illustrate the complicated economy with two simple dimensions, one in each book – not defending one of them as THE solution, but rather showing two different dimensions to the same problem.
The alternative is to believe that Adam Smith was simply wrong. That can happen too.
The problem with inferring anything from saying he influenced the Founding Fathers, is that we have no idea what interpretation THEY believed in.
After all, Marx and Engels also cite him as a great influence.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Many of Rousseau’s ideas were repugnant to the Founding Fathers, although they did reference Montesquieu, especially in the Federalist Papers.
What’s interesting about that is that they misrepresented some of Montesquieu’s thoughts to make the Constitution seem like it was more in line with his Philosophy.[/quote]
“Repugnant”? That’s a pretty good word to describe it – gives a certain sense of the irrationality behind it. Can I use it?
Now seriously, yes, Montesquieu was a big influence also. James Madison in particular seemed to have liked him a lot.
With regards to Rousseau (again), and talking about Adam Smith, I’m actually wondering about your opinion on how do you view the contrast between Adam Smith and Rousseau when it comes to their ideas about human nature, namely when it comes to the dichotomy self-love vs. pride (amour de soi vs. amour-propre), where amour de soi represents the instinctive human desire for self preservation, combined with the human power of reason, and, in contrast, amour-propre is not natural but artificial and forces man to compare himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others.
(yes, Rousseau was not the first to make this distinction; it had been invoked by, among others, Vauvenargues)
Do you believe Adam Smith also made this distinction, or not? If not, which one was he ignoring, and why?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Moreover, there was serious debate over the limits of government in the old meaning of liberalism, hence the constitutional separation of powers. Currently, there is a disconnect on that issue. Over-reliance on a top-down governance by unelected technocrats - i.e., the administrative or welfare state - has little purchase in the old meaning of liberalism and limits of government.
Old liberalism rested on fundamentally “conservative” ideas - there should be limits on government because Man was inherently flawed and imperfectible, the tragic view of human nature. Modern liberalism - hyper-excited with the idea that with enough money and the right kind of education, Man’s innate flaws can be overcome and he would therefore need no brake on the untrammeled pursuit of the gratification of his every earthly appetite - doesn’t square with the old view.[/quote]
I feel you’re showing a gigantic, even spectacular, misunderstanding of modern liberalism here.
Your last sentence is particularly disturbing in its mischaracterization.
First of all, let me switch back to addressing Social Democracy, which is the brand of modern liberalism I defend. Just saying “modern liberalism” is too imprecise to qualify. In fact, that’s the first problem with your comment.
Second, Social Democrats like me do NOT believe Men’s innate flaws can be overcome. That is your first spectacular misunderstanding. In fact, it is from our belief that it does not that stems our pragmatic approach of government driven cooperation. If we believed men’s innate flaws could be overcome, we would believe you can overcome the destructive prideful nature of humanity, and hence we would believe you did not need for the government to establish rules to drive cooperation – we would believe people would operate optimally on their own.
It is at the extremes – free market capitalism and communism – that you find the utopian belief that people will behave in the best interest of anything (self or common respectively).
It is Social Democracy that is pragmatic and rational enough to realize that while one must give people enough rope for them to have a feeling of freedom, we can’t give them enough rope for them to hang themselves – pride and stupidity in general drive people to almost invariably make the wrong choice for both themselves and society, so government must provide regulation to avoid the most spectacularly bad choices, and the safety net in case people still find a way to throw themselves out the window anyway.
I feel you’re showing a gigantic, even spectacular, misunderstanding of modern liberalism here.
Your last sentence is particularly disturbing in its mischaracterization.[/quote]
See below.
The point I make is generally shared by modern liberalism (of the American stripe), including Social Democracy.
[quote]It is Social Democracy that is pragmatic and rational enough to realize that while [/quote]one must give people enough rope for them to have a feeling of freedom, we can’t give them enough rope for them to hang themselves[quote] – pride and stupidity in general drive people to almost invariably make the wrong choice for both themselves and society, so government must provide regulation to avoid the most spectacularly bad choices, and the safety net in case people still find a way to throw themselves out the window anyway.
[/quote]
This is where you have erred.
I said that government should be limited because of Man’s imperfectibility, because Government is run by Men.
But here is the catch - in your zeal to ‘manage’ People past from their own flaws, weaknesses, and imperfectibilities - see the highlighted portion above - you are more than happy to shrug off limits of the other side of the equation - the managers, or government - even though the government is run by Men all the same.
So yes, you recognize that Men are perpetually flawed, but as I stated earlier, with the right amount of money and education, they can somehow - in your mind - reach past those flaws and be trusted to be a government administrator, which you trust infinitely more than the average guy on the street.
And with that, you are more than willing to expand the government’s power beyond Old Liberal limits into your Social Democratic state, all based on the idea that educated Rationalists don’t need the old constitutional limits on government, as they are brighter and not as susceptible to the flaws of the Stupid People.
So my critique of ‘more money and education overcomes innate flaws’ is precisely right - you obviously think so, or you wouldn’t ascribe to the expansion of government in the way that you do.
My point was that both the People and the Government are made up of the same men who all suffer from the same imperfectibility, and that is why we have limits on government (old liberalism). Further, in a democratic state, the government will not be a permanent class of managers - so even if you have one generation of government servants that are angels, the next crop could just as easily be devils. There is a good reason for that - again, it is a limit on government power.
Social Democrats are perfectly willing to recognize the flaws of the People, hence the need for the nanny state over the top of them. But you can’t give the state that much power unless you inherently believe that the people in government are less immune to the flaws that hamper the people it governs.
Old liberals recognized the government was still a group of men. Modern liberals have lost touch with this idea. Look no further than your own Stupid People Theory.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
But here is the catch - in your zeal to ‘manage’ People past from their own flaws, weaknesses, and imperfectibilities - see the highlighted portion above - you are more than happy to shrug off limits of the other side of the equation - the managers, or government - even though the government is run by Men all the same.
So yes, you recognize that Men are perpetually flawed, but as I stated earlier, with the right amount of money and education, they can somehow - in your mind - reach past those flaws and be trusted to be a government administrator, which you trust infinitely more than the average guy on the street.
So my critique of ‘more money and education overcomes innate flaws’ is precisely right - you obviously think so, or you wouldn’t ascribe to the expansion of government in the way that you do.
My point was that both the People and the Government are made up of the same men who all suffer from the same imperfectibility, and that is why we have limits on government (old liberalism). Further, in a democratic state, the government will not be a permanent class of managers - so even if you have one generation of government servants that are angels, the next crop could just as easily be devils. There is a good reason for that - again, it is a limit on government power.
Social Democrats are perfectly willing to recognize the flaws of the People, hence the need for the nanny state over the top of them. But you can’t give the state that much power unless you inherently believe that the people in government are less immune to the flaws that hamper the people it governs.[/quote]
Again, a spectacular misunderstanding.
You are contradicting yourself by accusing me of making a contradiction that you are making yourself: you believe that people are smart enough to make decisions that are in their own best self-interest, but not smart enough to elect the right officials, or to be good officials themselves.
That is a much more serious contradiction that any you might accuse me of: if you postulate that the people in government are no different from the people they govern, you either assume they’re all smart enough to act in their best self-interest – and hence, government will no less effective than lack of it – or you assume they’re all too dumb to work in their own self-interest – which basically means the same (ie, government or lack of it makes no difference).
That fundamentally contradicts your belief that the government will make worse decisions than people left to their own devices do…
It also means that you believe specialized education is a waste of time.
You are contradicting yourself by accusing me of making a contradiction that you are making yourself[/quote]
Heh, seriously. Write clearly.
Huh? A complete swing and a miss. It is not my suggestion that people aren’t smart enough to elect the right officials or to be good officials themselves.
A foolish assumption - and one I am disappointed in coming from a guy who can’t go three posts without handing us your resume.
Electing good officials - those with both the brains and the values to make decisions you think are good - is the very definition of acting in your own self-interest.
Why in the world would you think that I thought that people weren’t smart enough to elect the ‘right’ officials? Wow.
Nonsense. Your line of thinking is entirely too basic. Republican government is built on the fundamental that an elected representative is ‘different’ than the electorate that elected him - the representative would likely be one of the best and brightest of the electorate, etc. This is precisely why we don’t have direct democracy.
Nowhere did I suggest that elected officials were ‘no different’ than the people who elected them. Had I said that, your tangent would be right and a direct democracy would generate the same laws as a representative democracy. But alas, I never said it nor do I believe it.
What I do believe is that elected officials can be both the best and brightest among their peers in an electorate and yet still have the same set of values as the electorate. I realize this doesn’t fit too well with your ridiculous Stupid People Theory, but you’ll learn in time that people, even the unwashed masses you sneer down at, are rather complicated creatures.
Moreover, you have this Pavlovian fixation on public decisionmaking as nothing more than an extension of Rational Thinking. It is faulty. Public decisionmaking - i.e., making laws - is not a math problem with an optimal result. It gets complicated with values and morality. Until you recognize this, you won’t grasp politics, no matter how many PhD’s you try and collect.
The entire point of our system of government is to generate laws that reflect the general will of the people tempered with wisdom, intelligence, and experience of the elected officials. Our bicameral legislature is built to reflect exactly that - exactly that.
But even that system was built on the idea that no matter how smart or accomplished the public official, they were still subject to human nature - so there were institutional limits placed on government power.
Unlike you, the Founders recognized that intellectual brilliance did not insulate people from being moral or ethical failures.
Nope - because you have acted upon a false assumption.
I suspect this is the real crux - your undying belief that a certain education makes people remarkably ‘better’ across the board.
And, of course, it is wrong again. Education, properly defined, is a necessary condition of leadership, but it is not a sufficient condition of leadership. You tend to overweight the value of formal education - and of course you would - I consider it a factor in a very large stew of conditions.
As stated before, most academics I know I wouldn’t put in charge of a lemonade stand. I don’t mean this as a personal swipe at you, I am just making the point that on paper, they are theoretically the smart ones in our society - but are not fit to govern anyone.
Matter of fact, were I pushed to adopt an extreme position, I’d say that academics are the ones most in need to paternalistic oversight - the real world is awfully unforgiving to the insulated and naive people that are tehcnically supposed to be the brightest among us.
How do you think I met Mrs. HH? She was an athlete, quite attractive, had a lot of guys hanging around. Told her she’d be beautiful even in old sweats and no make-up. That was many years ago.
It was the University of Michigan by the way. Hspder’s the useless nut (a Buckeye).
What I do believe is that elected officials can be both the best and brightest among their peers in an electorate and yet still have the same set of values as the electorate. I realize this doesn’t fit too well with your ridiculous Stupid People Theory, but you’ll learn in time that people, even the unwashed masses you sneer down at, are rather complicated creatures.
[/quote]
Could Hspder, champion of the Enlightenment, be a Platonist? (I know the Republic was written for public consumption and what Plato really thought is lost, btw.)
