69. How I Became Almost a Libertarian

69

JEREMY SHEARMUR

HOW I BECAME ALMOST A LIBERTARIAN

I WAS BORN INTO A MIDDLE-CLASS English household in Woodford Green, Essex, a suburban area just outside the borders of London. My father was the headmaster of a state school for educationally subnormal children, and my mother a teacher. I was (by far) the youngest of three children, and my father died when I was seven years old. After this things became financially quite difficult. I also suspect that the early death of my father led to my becoming psychologically resistant to arbitrary male authority, and thus gave me a psychological predisposition toward libertarianism. Our house had perhaps two hundred books in it and a limited number of records (although we had access to a good public library system).

The culture in which I grew up was non-academic, and in substance it bore the influence of the indoctrination that the British received during the Second World War. It was also distinctive because of its religious pluralism: my mother was a devoted member of the Church of England; my brother had become a Catholic convert when he was studying at Oxford; my sister had become an evangelical Christian when she was at horticultural college, while I had been sent—for reasons that I do not understand—to an evangelical Christian Sunday school, and was (briefly) converted when I was about eleven. After attending a private elementary school, I was sent to a Quaker secondary school, a residential, co-educational school which offered a number of places paid for by the County’s Educational Authority, and which I was able to attend without paying fees.

It used to be said that the Church of England was the Conservative Party at prayer; British Quakers represented something like left liberalism at prayer—although there was not much prayer going on, and in a religious instruction class, some surprise was registered when I expressed interest in hearing a systematic theological defense of the views of the Society of Friends. All this had some strange personal consequences, in that my upbringing was quite conservative, and at the very point when one might well rebel against established views, I found that the established views at school were, politically, on the left. The result of all this was that I became a somewhat timid, personally conservative non-conformist—in the sense of being unwilling to go along with established ideas and combining kind of morally driven for established values with a strong individualism and anti-authoritarianism in my personal attitudes. At the same time, the diversity of religious views to which I had been exposed led me into an interest in the problem posed by a diversity of claims to truth, and with how this should be intellectually resolved.

At British schools, one specializes in the last two years of study, and I specialized in history, mathematics and chemistry. Our careers adviser suggested that I might study economics, and with the intention of doing this I applied to and was accepted by the London School of Economics. The B.Sc. (Econ) degree required that, in the first year, one studied five different topics, and in addition to economics, I took courses in political science, history, mathematics and logic. Economics I found utterly unappealing.

It was taught like a Kuhnian “normal science,” and used deadly dull text-books by Lipsey and Samuelson. It so happened that the logic course was taught by Alan Musgrave, now a Professor of Philosophy at Dunedin in New Zealand, and it was taught not in the deadly dull manner in which logic is often taught, but as a fascinating history of problems, attempts to solve them, and what the consequences of this were. Of all the subjects that I was studying, philosophy appealed most. I was able to specialize in philosophy within my B.Sc. (Econ) degree, and subsequently in my M.Sc.

Philosophy at the L.S.E. was distinctive, because of the way in which the Department of Philosophy had been formed around Karl Popper. His ideas—and battles about them—formed the center of my education. Popper, while I do not think his ideas have been fully successful, has been the major influence on my philosophical views. In particular, I have been influenced by his epistemological ideas. I also think that the ideas of Popper and of Lakatos about research programs offer a particularly important approach to the key problem for a libertarian of how one can combine an aspiration to objectivity with political commitment.

I was at the L.S.E. during the years of the late 1960s student revolts. These, at the L.S.E., were highly contested, with, for example, students in philosophy being almost totally at odds with the student revolutionaries. The renewed influence of Marxism in the late 1960s, however, gave a contemporary relevance to Popper’s epistemological and political thought; notably to his critique of Marx. At the same time, I was exposed to—and felt utter contempt for—British progressive conservatives. They seemed to have no ability to engage with the intellectual issues that the Left were raising. I also encountered some American SDS-style radicals who played a leading role in the occupations at the L.S.E. They prided themselves in having no theoretical analysis behind what they were doing, and they seemed to me, in consequence, little better than fascist thugs.

After a year at the University Library at Durham, I returned to the L.S.E. as Popper’s assistant, a position that I held for some eight years. Popper’s work has been the most significant intellectual influence upon me, although I have come to disagree with some important aspects of his approach to politics. During this time, I was also registered for a Ph.D. thesis. The topic of Hayek’s political thought had been suggested to me by Professor J.W.N. Watkins. I had known of Hayek through his “Scientism and the Study of Society” and some of his other methodological writings. These had seemed interesting but in some respects also rather odd. I was happy enough with Watkins’s suggestion. But as I studied I became increasingly interested in and impressed by the political aspects of Hayek’s work. In particular, I came to find his criticisms of socialist economic planning fascinating, and to offer a really telling response to a lot of ideas which, with the revival of Marxism, had come back into favor. I also found very stimulating Hayek’s reading of Hume’s political philosophy. In particular, I was most impressed by his discussion of Hume’s ideas about justice—and of the way in which it works as a system, but includes actions on the part of a judge which, viewed individually, would be rejected as unjust. This—and points that related to it—became central to my later criticism of Popper’s politics. But they also seemed to me to point to a key problem for any democratic system that responds to problems articulated in a piecemeal manner, without there being a check on their systematic consequences, as in American “pluralism,” while Hayek’s ideas about the limited role that rational deliberation can play in social organization (in his Road to Serfdom) was equally telling against the kind of deliberative democracy that is currently fashionable, as I write. I was also led, through my work on Hayek, to a serious study of Adam Smith, whose ideas—not least those on theoretical history and the epistemology of his Theory of Moral Sentiments—have had a lasting influence on me. They emphasized, further, the ideas that I had absorbed from Hayek, as to the significance of systematic ways of proceeding which, however, one did not have to understand in a holistic manner. In this way, Hayek and Smith—both individualists—furnished me with the tools for a critique of certain other kinds of individualism (from Popper to rational choice theory), and for the appreciation of a market-based economy as a system.

I also think that there is a lot to be said for the kind of approach that Smith offered to the understanding of history, in which the way in which people are living—the mode of subsistence—plays a key role, supplemented by the effects of the kinds of customs and legal formations that people have, contingently, been led to adopt (see Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence). All this, in Smith, formed the backdrop against which his ideas about people’s psychology and their other dispositions, then operated. This kind of analysis still seems to me sound—though I would now stress the way in which we may have a choice as to the structures under which we may live. But I would further supplement it, by arguing that we should bring in the interplay between such systematic ways of behaving and their ecological consequences, too. I discussed issues concerning the interpretation of Smith over many years with Knud Haakonssen, whom I first got to know as a translator of Popper into Danish, and I have subsequently been influenced in my understanding of rights theory and what also seem to me its limitations, by his fascinating work on Post-Grotian Natural Law theory.

At that time, however, I was still strongly influenced by Popper’s political writings, and I had been impressed by Bryan Magee’s reading of them as offering a basis for democratic socialism—indeed, to the point where I joined the local branch of the British Labour Party. My membership of this, however, did not last more than a few weeks, as I discovered the Party to be dominated by almost the antithesis of the piecemeal reformism that Popper’s work suggested. At the same time, I made contact with some libertarians, as a consequence of John Blundell’s organizing a conference on The Austrian School with financial support from the Institute for Humane Studies. The conference itself was interesting; but it was more the aftermath which made its mark on me personally. There were some follow-up meetings, and with continuing support from IHS, John and I came to run the Carl Menger Society. This had informal meetings, and subsequently one-day conferences, at which papers were given on themes relating to the Austrian School and to classical liberalism. My own concerns at the time related to Austrian methodology, and also to how traditional ways of life, valuable customs, and systematic ways of doing things, could be preserved within a classical liberal structure. At the same time, I had doubts about libertarianism, as I was concerned that the ways in which political power had been tamed, over time, might be lost, if there was a move to its interpretation of a completely free society (i.e., as to whether those running protection agencies might not behave more like absolute than constitutional monarchs). My own political views combined conservative themes—in the sense of an attachment to traditions—with a free-market liberalism. I was strengthened in these views by my growing hostility toward the kind of British conservatism represented by Edward Heath and, in particular, by his appeals for a government of national unity at the very point at which his government had been defeated by a strike of coal miners.

I became friendly with several libertarians through the Carl Menger Society—including both utilitarians, and semi-Randians. The former included David Ramsay Steele, now working for Open Court, whose From Marx to Mises contains a particularly effective presentation of the economic calculation argument, the latter, Chris Tame, who was for a while the manager of The Alternative Bookshop—a libertarian and classical liberal bookstore, set up with the financial assistance of some people working at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

From London, I moved to teaching positions in Edinburgh where I learned a lot about the distinctive tradition of Scottish philosophy from George Elder Davie, author of The Democratic Intellect, and, subsequently, in Manchester. At Manchester, I met Istvan Hont: we had many conversations, not least about Smith, and I found his and Ignatieff’s Needs and Justice in The Wealth of Nations immensely suggestive (not least for its discussion of the interplay between rights-based and economic argument in Smith). It also made a considerable impact upon my reading of Hayek. By this point, I was strongly attached to Hayekian and market-based perspectives, but I was also concerned with problems about how to shelter useful traditions and systematic ways of proceeding from a kind of piecemeal undermining by the currents of market-based societies. I spent a lot of time working through issues relating to these problems, making use of ideas from Adam Smith and Karl Popper.

While I was at Edinburgh, I received an invitation to participate in a Liberty Fund Summer Fellowship program at the Institute for Humane Studies, at Menlo Park, in 1982. Through this I made my first contact with serious neo-Randian philosophy, in the person of Doug Rasmussen, with whom I found myself in a good measure of political agreement, but in philosophical disagreement. The time at IHS led to a further invitation, in 1984, to direct their Summer Fellowship program—through which I had the opportunity of getting to know, over the years, many able younger scholars, including Steve Macedo and Dave Schmidtz.

My positions at Edinburgh and at Manchester were temporary, and Britain, at that time, offered little by way of academic appointments. I was, however, fortunate enough to be offered a position as Director of Studies at the Centre for Policy Studies in London, a “think-tank” set up initially by Sir Keith Joseph, with which Margaret Thatcher had also become associated, and who retained formal links with the Center while she was Prime Minister. This placed me at the heart of public policy issues, with access to political policy advisers in various different ministries, and to the 10 Downing Street Policy Unit. I considered my goal, to try to encourage non-governmental solutions to public policy issues, of a kind that might be of use to the government. It was an interesting time, but my own concerns were more academic than party-political. I was delighted when I received an offer from IHS to work for them, directing their summer residential programs, and working with the young scholars to whom they made awards. This gave me the chance to return to an academic setting; and IHS gave me three months on their payroll to complete my Ph.D. before joining them.

My work at IHS was fascinating, as it brought me into contact with a whole generation of young scholars with interests in classical liberalism, working in a range of disciplines including economics, history, political science and philosophy. It was a privilege to work with such people, and it brought me into contact with a wealth of scholarship of which I had, previously, only a very limited knowledge. I also benefited greatly from my contacts with IHS’s staff members: from Leonard Liggio’s amazingly broad historical knowledge; from Walter Grinder’s vitally important insight into the significance, for arguments about liberty, of being able to show that, in the past, various things had been done without the state which, today, people often presume can only be done by it, and from Tom Palmer’s passionate concern for liberty, wide academic knowledge and ready wit. In addition to enabling me to spend my time discussing issues with, and giving assistance to, a range of outstandingly able young scholars with interests in classical liberalism, my time at IHS also led me away from the kind of academic parochialism that is, I fear, all too common in the UK.

In addition, I found that it made three significant intellectual changes to my own approach to political issues. First, it became clear to me that there is something terribly wrong with Hayek’s views. For while he has some good arguments against central economic planning, he does not really have much to say about what the scope should be of state activity, within a market-based economy, provided, that is, that the state operates in such a way that it does not call the economy, or the rule of law, into question. Hayek does, it is true, raise some problems here; but they seem to me as telling against the modest interventionism of his own approach, as they are against more extensive ideas about the role for government. In my view, we should bite the bullet—and restrict the scope of what the state does, only to those things that it is impossible to do by other means. I would not, here, wish to be doctrinaire; however, and I am well aware of Popper’s plea for piecemeal experimentation. Accordingly, I favor a policy of hollowing out the state, piecemeal, by gradually shedding its functions (where this means that it completely gets out of the particular business, rather than remaining in charge, and asking people to bid to provide services). In addition, it seems to me important to follow up on cases in which private provision leads to problems, to diagnose whether—and how—things might be done better, in future.

Second, it led me to an understanding of the extent to which the kind of statist presuppositions that nearly everyone in the academic world takes for granted are false. Not only are there historical counter-examples to so many of the claims and implicit assumptions that only the state can do this or that. But there is a sense in which many people seem to be wearing blinders, in terms of their view as to what are possible ways in which problems can be solved. The contrast is so stark, that it is, at times, difficult to know how it is best addressed. If one does so too directly, there is a risk that one might come across, to ones’ colleagues, like a member of some odd religious sect.

Third, I have become convinced of the significance of the libertarian case against foreign intervention. Attitudes like those of Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair come all too easily to people brought up in Britain. In my own case they were re-enforced by the way in which many of my contemporaries at university seemed to favor the idea that the horrific political regime in North Viet Nam should be imposed on those living in the South, or to see nothing wrong with the tyranny of China’s Cultural Revolution. I would not wish to argue that there are no cases in which there is an obligation not to intervene; and the toleration of German re-armament prior to the Second World War looks to me a case in point. Further, a world full of predatory states may force us to maintain our own active state, for the sake of self-defense. But what does now seem to me clear, is that the kind of interventionist foreign policy currently being pursued in relation to Iraq by the governments of the U.S., Britain and Australia is horrific. Aside from the likely deaths of conscripts involved in the fighting and of civilians who get caught up in it, there are wider problems posed by the hubris of politicians who think that nation building is an easy enough matter, and the dangers of an international regime in which it is accepted that if you have strong moral objections to some other political leader, it is fine to go to war with his country. In addition, there are the dangers of a loss of liberty within the countries that engage in war.

So what is the outcome? I am still concerned with issues relating to how specific customs to which people may be attached, and worthwhile traditions (a concern, also, of John Gray’s, which has led him in very different directions) may be preserved within market-based societies. But, over the years, and as I have learned more, not only is my attachment to classical liberalism stronger, but I have also become convinced that the best way to address these long-standing concerns is by means of voluntary associations within market-based societies, within which government plays as minimal a role as possible. I have also found the libertarian case against international intervention increasingly telling. Accordingly, I find that I have become almost a libertarian, and there is the possibility that, as I find out more, I may be led all the way, even to embrace a form of market-based anarchism (I am conscious of the fact that my views do change, on a regular basis, as the result of further reading).

However, while this change in my views has occurred, my reasons for holding the views that I do differ, I suspect, from those of many libertarians. I find Aristotle tedious and unconvincing and Ayn Rand’s novels unreadable (while her work as a philosopher makes me think she should have stuck to novels). I’m a bit skeptical about traditional rights-based approaches and don’t think that utilitarian or self-interest based, rational-choice approaches, or the recent rebirth of a kind of libertarian sociobiology, are either fully satisfactory or that they really lead to libertarian conclusions. I also find Mises and Rothbard better as cheerleaders than as sources of really telling scholarship.

All this, however, serves to re-enforce Popper’s point that we are all fallible (not least myself in such judgments), and also to bring out just how diverse a group even of libertarians and near-libertarians may be. And this, as Nozick was to suggest in the under-appreciated utopia section of his Anarchy, State, and Utopia, itself suggests a further line of argument for libertarian, or almost-libertarian, ideas.

Jeremy Shearmur is Reader in Philosophy, School of Philosophy, Australian National University.