Is a libertarian the same as a classical liberal?

[Mark Hornshaw]

This is excellent, highly recommended if you want to understand what the words Libertarian and Liberal mean.

Short version: If you study the classical liberals who were representative of liberal thought in their day eg - Locke, Jefferson, Cobden, Bastiat, De Molinari - there is a direct line through the thought of Mises, Rothbard down to modern day Ron Paul. I.E. classical liberalism = libertarianism. It was and is a political philosophy based on private property, natural rights, non-aggression, and telling the state/King/ruler to back off.

So why is the word liberalism sometimes used to mean a moderate form of leftism? How can Hilary Clinton or Malcolm Turnbull be called a 'liberal'? This is because political science textbooks wrongly hold up John Stewart Mill as the quintessential classical liberal. Mill clouded the term with his own personal fetishes, like hating any social pressure to be faithful in marriage (including hating religion) and seeking 'personal fulfilment'. This was NOT representative of other liberals back in the day. To them it was a political philosophy, not a 'lifestyle choice'. But this emphasis on breaking all social norms could then include other illiberal collectivists like Rousseau, down through Keynes, to a modern-day social democrat. Their politics ends up the opposite of the classical liberals, but they don't care.

Have a listen for yourself via any podcast app. https://mises.org/library/problem-classical-liberals

 

[Rob]

This is excellent, highly recommended if you want to understand what the words Libertarian and Liberal mean.

Short version: If you study the classical liberals who were representative of liberal thought in their day eg - Locke, Jefferson, Cobden, Bastiat, De Molinari - there is a direct line through the thought of Mises, Rothbard down to modern day Ron Paul. I.E. classical liberalism = libertarianism. It was and is a political philosophy based on private property, natural rights, non-aggression, and telling the state/King/ruler to back off.

So why is the word liberalism sometimes used to mean a moderate form of leftism? How can Hilary Clinton or Malcolm Turnbull be called a 'liberal'? This is because political science textbooks wrongly hold up John Stewart Mill as the quintessential classical liberal. Mill clouded the term with his own personal fetishes, like hating any social pressure to be faithful in marriage (including hating religion) and seeking 'personal fulfilment'. This was NOT representative of other liberals back in the day. To them it was a political philosophy, not a 'lifestyle choice'. But this emphasis on breaking all social norms could then include other illiberal collectivists like Rousseau, down through Keynes, to a modern-day social democrat. Their politics ends up the opposite of the classical liberals, but they don't care.

Have a listen for yourself via any podcast app. https://mises.org/library/problem-classical-liberals

Thanks Mark, an interesting post but I don't agree.

Classical liberalism is a philosophy which has the State at its centre and a key point of debate is the scope of the State. Classical liberals (the exceptions prove the rule) saw the State as essential for maintaining law and order. Recognizing that the State is potentially very dangerous they attempted to ring fence it with the rule of law, written constitutions, seperation of powers, republican government etc.
Classical liberalism was effectively dead by WW1 and even the writing of perhaps the greatest of them (Mises) was unable to revive it.
Libertarianism (based on the NAP) can be seen as a response to the failure of classical liberalism and an attempt to reconstruct the philosophy of liberty without its fatal flaws.
Rothbard (the father of libertarianism) and Mill (the father of modern liberalism) are the two key figures.
Classical liberals are fellow travellers and classical liberalism is a progenitor of libertarianism but in my view they are not the same.
I don't know whether you have read Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism. It is a fun read and I am happy to recommend it. Brian works for Reason magazine and is not totally unsympathetic to libertarianism (he hates Rothbard) but it shows the incoherent babble that one can produce if the definition of concepts is not clear.

 

[Mark Hornshaw]

Hi Rob,
Did you listen to the podcast? The view you expressed (eg Rothbard as the father of libertarianism and Mill as the father of modern liberalism) is the very one they are trying to debunk.
They argue that there is a natural progression from Locke to Rothbard, with Mill sitting outside on his own, as the founder of nothing.

 

[Rob]

Hi Rob,
Did you listen to the podcast? The view you expressed (eg Rothbard as the father of libertarianism and Mill as the father of modern liberalism) is the very one they are trying to debunk.
They argue that there is a natural progression from Locke to Rothbard, with Mill sitting outside on his own, as the founder of nothing.

Hi Mark. No I haven't listened to the podcast. This is an issue of particular interest to the yanks because the word liberal in the US has a meaning very different to the original meaning we are discussing. I understand that Europeans still use the term to mean classical liberal. Mill was very influential in shifting the term to its current modern meaning, I agree that he was not a liberal in the classical sense and was more concerned with self expression and self actualisation than liberty in the libertarian sense of the word but many current day liberals (self described) do see Mill as an important historical figure. I think it is a mistake to dismiss his influence. I have not read his economic works but I gather they were pretty hopeless from a free market perspective and were enormously influential in England and the US.
My key point though is that whilst classical liberalism and libertarian share many common features and libertarianism is a development of the work of the classical liberals it deserves to be treated as a distinct philosophical world view. I am happy to accept that my view is iconoclastic and idiosyncratic but I am sticking to my view that libertarianism is not the same as classical liberalism.

Thanks for the response, Rob

 

[Mark Hornshaw]

Hi Rob,
The view you take is the common view. They are not downplaying Mill's influence, only his relevance to other liberal thinkers. His ramblings, and the weight they are given by modern political science courses, are what allowed the word liberal to be stolen in the 20th century. They don't say whether listeners should try to resuscitate the word or not. But all the actual liberal thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries would be aghast at what happened to their movement.

 

[Rob]

Hi Rob,
The view you take is the common view. They are not downplaying Mill's influence, only his relevance to other liberal thinkers. His ramblings, and the weight they are given by modern political science courses, are what allowed the word liberal to be stolen in the 20th century. They don't say whether listeners should try to resuscitate the word or not. But all the actual liberal thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries would be aghast at what happened to their movement.

I agree with your last sentence, cheers

 

[Conza]

Definitely agree; but have long ago let ago any desire to try salvage the term. Especially locally.

Stephan Kinsella has the best overall take I've come across:

Using clear and consistent terminology is essential to understanding. As noted by Böhm-Bawerk,

“For it would be an absurd undertaking to banish from the language of economic theory every manner of speaking that is not literally correct; it would be sheer pedantry to proscribe every figure of speech, particularly since we could not say the hundredth part of what we have to say, if we refused ever to take recourse to a metaphor. One requirement is essential, that economic theory avoid the error of confusing a practical habit, indulged in for the sake of expediency, with scientific truth.”

And as Guido Hülsmann has observed,

“It is not prices that coordinate the actions of sellers and buyers of tin; prices are the outcome of (coordinated) action, not its coordinators. It is property, rather than knowledge, that coordinates the separate actions of different people. The terms coordination and communication rather obfuscate than adequately express this fact. This is another example of the dangers linked to the use of metaphors in scientific discourse.”[*]

We see the danger of conflicting definitions in the description of libertarians by various types of libertarians and fellow-travelers. It’s bad enough that mainstream media often refer to us as “conservatives.”

So, to try to clarify matters as to the difference between libertarians, anarchists, minarchists, and classical liberals, as seen by… 1. Plumbline libertarians. 2. Some minarchists, and 3. Budding libertarians/classical liberals to plumbline libertarians…

First: plumbline libertarians are anarchists (sometimes called anarcho-capitalists or libertarian anarchists) and we believe all true anarchists must be libertarian. Likewise, as noted by Hans-Hermann Hoppe,

“There can be no socialism without a state, and as long as there is a state there is socialism. The state, then, is the very institution that puts socialism into action; and as socialism rests on aggressive violence directed against innocent victims, aggressive violence is the nature of any state.”

That is, socialism requires a state, i.e. is always statist, and any state implies socialism (defined broadly as Hoppe does as the institutionalized aggression against private property rights). A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism.[*]

And Hoppe recognizes that while socialism typically refers to state or collective ownership of the means of production, its essence is the “institutionalized interference with or aggression against private property and private property claims” (TSC, 2). In other words, any public or institutionalized aggression is inherently socialistic, and gives rise to the problems that accompany standard central planning. Indeed, as Hoppe elsewhere notes,

“Societies are not simply capitalist or socialist. Indeed, all existing societies are socialist to some extent.” (TSC, 10) The state is always socialistic, and socialism always implies a state. [*]

So: we libertarians use the term “libertarian” broadly to refer to (a) anarcho-libertarians, (b) minarchist libertarians [sometimes we call them mini-statists though to tweak them], © possibly the term can encompass “classical liberals”, a watered down version of minarchism. We refer to members of the LP as capital-L Libertarians, and most Libertarians tend to be libertarians of one type or another. But not all libertarians are Libertarians, though don’t try explaining that to the mainstream media, who usually call all libertarians “Libertarians” when they are not calling us conservatives.

Some minarchist libertarians think anarchism is not libertarian at all, and thus for them the term libertarian refers only to minarchists. For example, soi-disant libertarian Jeffrey A. Miron states: “libertarianism accepts a role for government in a few, limited areas: small government, not anarchy”. Libertarianism, From A to Z (2010), Kindle Locations 198–99. What he means by libertarian is minarchist. What we mean by libertarian is minarchist and anarchist. The minarchists don’t want to be thought of as anarchists when they are called libertarian, so they try to exclude “anarchist” from the definition of libertarian.

And some of the budding libertarians/self-proclaimed “classical liberals”, conversely, seem to think “libertarian” mean “anarchist” (no rules) while “classical liberal” means what we think of as minarchist. Dave Rubin is an example of someone who uses such terminology. (going by memory). He’s wrong in several respects.

1. Classical liberals are not minarchists. They’re more like watered down minarchists. They’re barely minarchist, and barely libertarian, if that.
2. libertarians are not all anarchists. Only some are. Many libertarians are in fact minarchists. Burn is neither a minarchist nor anarchist libertarian; he is a classical liberal who seems to want to define it the way libertarians define minarchism (even though Rubin is not a minarchist) so as to leave libertarianism as meaning nothing but anarchism. Like the minarchists noted above, the classical liberals also don’t want to be seen as anarchist, but they mistakenly then “libertarians” means “anarchist” and therefore they shun the word libertarian.

So, to sum up:

When we say libertarian: we mean anarchist and minarchist libertarians and maybe classical liberals: but some minarchists say “minarchist”, and classical liberals say “anarchist”. And the media calls us Libertarians or conservatives.

When we say anarchist, we just mean consistent libertarianism, i.e. anarcho-libertarianism; minarchists call this non-libertarian; classical liberals call this libertarian.

When we say minarchist, we mean one subset of libertarianism; minarchists say this is all of libertarianism; classical liberals think this is about the same as classical liberalism.

The classical liberals, the minarchists, and the media need to adopt my terminology going forward. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.
— Stephan Kinsella

The above is what I have always understood. Though I prefer to eschew the anarchist label entirely. I prefer to use private law, voluntarist, Austro-Libertarian, or just libertarian.