The emphasis of earlier liberalism upon individuality and liberty defines the
focal points of discussion of the philosophy of liberalism today. This earlier
liberalism was itself an outgrowth, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, of an earlier revolt against oligarchical government, one which came
to its culmination in the “glorious revolution” of 1688. The latter was
fundamentally a demand for freedom of the taxpayer from governmental arbitrary
action, in connection with a demand for confessional freedom in religion by the
Protestant churches. In the new liberalism expressly so named, demand for
individual freedom of action came primarily from the rising industrial and
trading class, and was directed against restrictions placed by government, in
legislation, common law and judicial action (and other institutions having
connection with the political state) upon freedom of economic enterprise. In
both cases, governmental action and the desired freedom were placed in
antithesis to each other. This way of conceiving liberty has persisted; it was
strengthened in this country by the revolt of the colonies and by pioneer
conditions.
Nineteenth-century philosophic liberalism added, more or less because of its
dominant economic interest, the conception of natural laws to that of natural
rights in the earlier Whig movement. There are natural laws, it held, in social
matters as well as in physical, and these natural laws are economic in
character. Political laws, on the other hand, are man-made and in that sense
artificial. Governmental intervention in industry and exchange was thus regarded
as a violation not only of inherent individual liberty but also of natural
laws—of which supply and demand is a sample. The proper sphere of governmental
action was simply to prevent and to secure redress for infringement by one, in
the exercise of his liberty, of like and equal liberty of action by others.
Nevertheless, demand for freedom in initiation and conduct of business
enterprise did not exhaust the content of the earlier liberalism. In the minds
of its chief promulgators there was included an equally strenuous demand for
liberty of mind: freedom of thought and its expression in speech, writing, print
and assemblage. The earlier interest in confessional freedom was generalized,
and thereby deepened as well as broadened. This demand was a product of the
rational enlightenment of the eighteenth century and of the growing importance
of science. The great tide of reaction that set in after the defeat of Napoleon,
the demand for order and discipline, gave the agitation for freedom of thought
and its expression plenty of cause and plenty of opportunity.
The earlier liberal philosophy rendered valiant service. It finally succeeded in
sweeping away, especially in its home, Great Britain, an innumerable number of
abuses and restrictions. The history of social reforms in the nineteenth century
is almost one with the history of liberal social thought. It is not, then, from
ingratitude that I shall emphasize its defects, for recognition of them is
essential to an intelligent statement of the elements of liberal philosophy for
the present and any nearby future. The fundamental defect was its lack of
perception of historic relativity. This lack is expressed in the conception of
the individual as something given, complete in itself, and of liberty as a
ready-made possession of the individual, only needing the removal of external
restrictions in order to manifest itself. The individual of earlier liberalism
was a Newtonian atom having only external time and space relations to other
individuals, save in that each social atom was equipped with inherent freedom.
These ideas might not have been especially harmful if they had been merely a
rallying cry for practical movements. But they formed part of a philosophy,
and of a philosophy in which the particular ideas of individuality and freedom
were asserted to be absolute and eternal truths; good for all times and all
places.
This absolutism, this ignoring and denial of temporal relativity, is one great
reason why the earlier liberalism degenerated so easily into pseudo-liberalism.
For the sake of saving time, I shall identify what I mean by this spurious
liberalism, the kind of social ideas represented by the “Liberty League” and
ex-President Hoover. I call it a pseudo-liberalism because it ossified and
narrowed generous ideas and aspirations. Even when words remain the same, they
mean something very different when they are uttered by a minority struggling
against repressive measures, and when expressed by a group that has attained
power and then uses ideas that were once weapons of emancipation as instruments
for keeping the power and wealth they have obtained. Ideas that at one time are
means of producing social change have not the same meaning when they are used as
means of preventing social change. This fact is itself an illustration of
historic relativity, and an evidence of the evil that lay in the assertion by
earlier liberalism of the immutable and eternal character of their ideas.
Because of this latter fact, the laissez faire doctrine was held by the
degenerate school of liberals to express the very order of nature itself. The
outcome was the degradation of the idea of individuality until in the minds of
many who are themselves struggling for a wider and fuller development of
individuality, individualism has become a term of hissing and reproach, while
many can see no remedy for the evils that have come from the use of socially
unrestrained liberty in business enterprise, save change produced by violence.
The historic tendency to conceive the whole question of liberty as a matter in
which individual and government are opposed parties has borne bitter fruit. Born
of despotic government, it has continued to influence thinking and action after
government had become popular and in theory the servant of the people.
I pass now to what the philosophy of liberalism would be were its inheritance of
absolutism eliminated. In the first place, such liberalism knows that an
individual is nothing fixed, given ready-made. It is something achieved, and
achieved not in isolation but with the aid and support of conditions, cultural
and physical: including in “cultural,” economic, legal and political
institutions as well as science and art. Liberalism knows that social conditions
may restrict, distort and almost prevent the development of individuality. It
therefore takes an active interest in the working of social institutions that
have a bearing, positive or negative, upon the growth of individuals who shall
be rugged in fact and not merely in abstract theory. It is as much interested in
the positive construction of favorable institutions, legal, political and
economic as it is in removing abuses and overt oppressions.
In the second place, liberalism is committed to the idea of historic relativity.
It knows that the content of the individual and freedom change with time; that
this is as true of social change as it is of individual development from infancy
to maturity. The positive counterpart of opposition to doctrinal absolutism is
experimentalism. The connection between historic relativity and experimental
method is intrinsic. Time signifies change. The significance of individuality
with respect to social policies alters with change of the conditions in which
individuals live. The earlier liberalism in being absolute was also unhistoric.
Underlying it there was a philosophy of history which assumed that history, like
time in the Newtonian scheme, means only modification of external relations;
that it is quantitative not qualitative and internal. The same thing is true of
any theory that assumes, like the one usually attributed to Marx, that temporal
changes in society are inevitable—that is to say, are governed by a law that is
not itself historical. The fact is that the historicism and the evolutionism of
nineteenth century doctrine were only halfway doctrines. They assumed that
historical and developmental processes were subject to some law or formula
outside temporal processes.
The commitment of liberalism to experimental procedure carries with it the idea
of continuous reconstruction of the ideas of individuality and of liberty, in
their intimate connection with changes in social relations. It is enough to
refer to the changes in productivity and distribution since the time when the
earlier liberalism was formulated, and the effect of these transformations, due
to science and technology, upon the terms on which men associate together. An
experimental method is the recognition of this temporal change in ideas and
policies so that the latter may coordinate with the facts, instead of being
opposed to them. Any other view maintains a rigid conceptualism, and implies
that facts should conform to concepts that are framed independently of temporal
or historical change.
The two things essential, then, to thoroughgoing social liberalism are, first,
realistic study of existing conditions in their movement, and, secondly, leading
ideas, in the form of policies, for dealing with these conditions in the
interest of increased individuality and liberty. The first requirement is so
obviously implied that I shall not elaborate it. The second point needs some
amplification. Experimental method is not just messing around nor doing a little
of this and a little of that in the hope that things will improve. Just as in
the physical sciences, it implies a coherent body of ideas, a theory, that gives
direction to effort. What is implied, in contrast to every form of absolutism is
that the ideas and theory be taken as methods of action tested and continuously
revised by the consequences they produce in actual social conditions. Since they
are operational in nature, they modify conditions, while the first requirement,
that of basing policies upon realistic study of actual conditions, brings about
their continuous reconstruction.
It follows finally that there is no opposition in principle between liberalism
as social philosophy and radicalism in action, if by radicalism is signified the
adoption of policies that bring about drastic, instead of piecemeal, social
change. It is all a question of what kind of procedures an intelligent study of
changing conditions discloses. These changes have been so tremendous in the last
century, yes, in the last forty years, that it looks to me as if radical methods
were now necessary. But all that the argument here requires is recognition of
the fact that there is nothing in the nature of liberalism that makes it a
milk-water doctrine, committed to compromise and minor “reforms.” It is worth
noting that the earlier liberals were regarded in their day as subversive
radicals.
What has been said should make it clear that the question of method in
formation and execution of policies is the central thing in liberalism. The
method indicated is that of maximum reliance upon intelligence. This fact
determines its opposition to those forms of radicalism that place chief
dependence upon violent overthrow of existing institutions as the method of
effecting desired social change. A genuine liberal will emphasize as crucial the
complete correlation between the means used and the consequences that follow.
The same principle which makes him aware that the means employed by
pseudo-liberalism only perpetuate and multiply the evils of existing conditions
makes him also aware that dependence upon sheer massed force, as the
means of social change decides the kind of consequences that actually result.
Doctrines, whether proceeding from Mussolini or from Marx, which assume that
because certain ends are desirable therefore those ends and nothing else will
result from the use of force to attain them, is but another example of the
limitations put upon intelligence by any absolute theory. In the degree in which
mere force is resorted to, actual consequences are themselves so compromised
that the ends originally in view have in fact to be worked out afterwards by the
method of experimental intelligence.
In saying this, I do not wish to be understood as meaning that radicals of the
type mentioned have any monopoly of the use of force. The contrary is the case.
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police,
but in the press and the schools. The only reason they do not advocate the use
of force is the fact that they are already in possession of it, so that their
policy is to cover up its existence with idealistic phrases—of which their
present use of the ideas of individual initiative and liberty is a striking
example.
These facts exemplify the essential evil of reliance upon sheer force. Action
and reaction are physically equal and in opposite direction and force as such is
always physical. Dependence upon it on one side always sooner or later calls out
force on the other side. The whole problem of the intelligent use of force is
one too large to go into here. I can only say that when the forces in possession
are so blind and stubborn as to resist by force the free use of intelligence in
effecting social change, they not only encourage dependence upon the method of
force in those who see the need of social change but they give the latter its
maximum of justification. The emphasis of liberalism upon liberty of inquiry,
communication and organization does not commit it to unqualified pacifism but to
the unremitting use of every method of intelligence that conditions permit—and
to search for all that are possible.
In conclusion, I wish to emphasize a point implied in the earlier discussion.
The question of the practical significance of liberty is much wider than that of
the relation of government to the individual, to say nothing of the monstrosity
of the doctrine that assumes that under all conditions governmental action and
individual liberty are found in separate and independent spheres. Government is
one factor and an important one. But it comes into the picture only in relation
to other matters. At present, these other matters are economic and cultural.
With respect to the first point, it is absurd to conceive liberty as that of the
business entrepreneur and ignore the immense regimentation to which workers are
subjected, intellectual as well as manual workers. As to the second point, the
full freedom of the human spirit and of individuality can be achieved only as
there is effective opportunity to share in the cultural resources of
civilization. No economic state of affairs is merely economic. It has a profound
effect upon the presence or absence of cultural freedom. Any liberalism that
does not make full cultural freedom supreme and that does not see the relation
between it and genuine industrial freedom as a way of life is a degenerate and
delusive liberalism.