Apostle of Freedom; R. Cooney

54 raJ and inevitable friction between 2. waning agricultural life and an emerging industrial life, not as the symptoms of a society in the throes of a profound and difficult transition, but rather as the wages of a political sin of omis sion. Correct that omission, it was said in effect, pass enough laws, the implicit argument ran, and human suffering would vanish. Men of all political stripes, f rom the Liberal Gladstone to the Tory Disraeli succumbed to the pleasant· vision of. a nation where laws would provide the solution to every problem. The motives of these men were doubtless. pure. They were decent men who were shocked at the conditions they saw and tried to relieve them. They were good men, but they were mis guided men. They vastly over estimated the law's properties to 1979 HERBERT SPENCER: APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 55 heal, to cure, to make right. Sadly, they could not foresee liberty, a delicate thing, being ground un der the heel of an unrestricted State.

There were indeed few people willing to challenge the logic and correctness of their society's di rection, and fewer still who real ized its peril. The occasional cries raised in defense of individual freedom were drowned out in the clamor for more and ever more State intervention. Questions· con cerning the future of freedom un der an accelerating State power were infrequently entertained, and more often than not completely ignored. Nonetheless, rare though the voices of liberty were, they did· exist. Of those voices, the most tireless and influential was the great English philosopher, Herbert Spencer. Darwin's Influence Spencer, a contemporary and friend of Darwin, is best known to posterity as the thinker who based an entire philosophic sys tem - his "Synthetic Philosophy" - upon the theory of evolution. Scarcely less significant, but far less well-known, are the contribu tions which he made to political thought, chiefly. in the form of two books, Social Statics (1850), and The Man vs. The State (1884).

For it was in those works that Spencer registered a vigorous dis sent from the prevailing dogma and expressed his deep and abid ing antipathy - what he called his "profound aversion" - to the un checked extension of State author i ty. And it was in those pages too that Spencer, in a lonely sixty year advocacy, championed the rights of the individual, laissez faire, and a classical liberalism. These several strains of Spen cer's political faith are easily dis cerned throughout Social Stat,ics, at once the more theoretical and more satisfying of the two books. Whereas The Man vs. The State elaborates on certain points raised in the earlier work, thus forming a kind of appendix to it, Soc'ial Statics presents the Spencerian view of government in toto. Its wide l'ange encompasses specula tions upon the origin and purpose of government, the nature and ex tent of individual rights, and the proper (and improper) functions of the State. The latter portions of the book, devoted to a discus sion of such timely issues of the day as poor relief, national educa tion, sanitation and health laws, regulation of commerce and cur rency, postal services, and State churches, seek to relate practical concerns to the theories and prin ciples previously laid down.

The argument contained in So cial Statics, and it can be said 56 THE FREEMAN January without much fear of overstate ment, Spencer's whole political philosophy, rests on the "law of equal freedom." The law reads: "Every man has freedom to all he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." In other words, a man has freedom to act so long as his ac tions remain within the bound aries set up by the correspond ing equal freedom of all other men. Spencer notes what he feels will be the obj ections to the principle, namely either "that men have no rights," or "that they have un equal rights." The first assump tion, Spencer says, leads to the doctrine that countenances abso lute monarchy or a dictatorship, i.e., "might makes right." That men should have unequal claims to freedom, or rights in proportion to their "merits" Spencer also de nies. Noway exists for deter mining what is or is not a merit, and there is no authority for such a determination were it possible.

In a State of Nature Here Spencer is speaking of man in a pre-social state where government as such has not yet been established. How and why government came into being is a question Spencer must answer be fore he can proceed to the all important problem of the State's lawful and moral limits. Probably, Spencer thinks, the State origi n.ated in a single individual, su perior in some way to the in dividuals around him. The su perior person keeps (exactly how, Spencer does not say) the group or tribe together, and for this he is revered by the other members of the community. As civilization advances men begin to assert what they feel to be their rights, until they finally reach a state "under which their rights will be entire and inviolable." But why did men originally enter a social arrange ment? Spencer answers thus: ... they found it preferable to the isolated one; which means that they obtained a greater sum total of grati fication under it; which means that it afforded them fuller exercise for their faculties; which means that it of fered a safer guarantee for such ex ercise - more security for their claims to life and property; that is, for their rights.

If this is the reason for the formation of society, then the du ties of the State should reflect it. If men entered the social state for the better protection of their Iives, liberty, and property, then it is the function of government to act first as a police force against aggression from within and with out, punishing criminal acts and defending the nation from foreign invasion, and second as an ad1973 HERBERT SPENCER: APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 57 ministrator of justice, adjudica ting the unavoidable conflicts that arise among imperfect human be ings. The State creates no rights, but only the atmosphere wherein the citizen may exercise what rights he will without infringing the equal exercise of others. The Law of Equal Freedom The benefits issuing from the State's correct maintenance of se'curity and justice, are, unlike the false "rights" that the State at tempts to bestow, indivisible.

That is to say, they are not granted to one segment of the population at the expense of an other. They are, or should be, available to all. The degree to which they inhibit liberty is offset by the degree to which they make possible a climate where liberty can flourish. Finally, they are the only functions the State may un dertake consistent with the law of equal freedom - the law of free men. And if the State endeavors to expand this limited sphere, if it essays to provide more than is necessary for the safety of the citizenry and the rights of the citizenry, it transgresses doubly, first against the law of equal free dom, and secondly against the pur pose for which the State itself was established, the protection of freedom. For this reason is the law of equal freedom particularly valuable as a dictum of absolute justice and as a gauge for the rightness and wrongness of legis lation.

Spencer vehemently denies that the State should interfere in com merce. An Adam Smith free trader, he opposes any regulation of the market - whether in the form of "artificial stimuli or arti ficial restraints." The first, assum ing the shape of bounties to en courage production, are wrong be cause they require more of the citizen's property than is needed to maintain his physical protec tion and his rights. "Artificial re straints" are likewise improper since they directly violate the in dividual's right of free exchange with other individuals. Separation of Church and State Neither may the State legiti mately tax the people in order to set up a State-church. By doing so, Spencer believes, the State pre supposes its own infallibility while simultaneously restricting the freedom of the individual to use his faculties. Furthermore, any disagreement with church doctrine would compel the State to outlaw and punish religious non-conform ity, a fact which Spencer, the des cendant of a long line of Dis senters, could appreciate.

Obviously the State may no lTIOre institute laws for the relief 58 THE FREEMAN January of the poor than it may intervene in matters of trade or religion. Why? Because here again it in fringes on individual freedom and exceeds its proper powers as the guardian of life, liberty, and prop erty. Spencer recognizes and meets head on the argument which says that by providing aid to the poor the State is actually increasing the freedom of action of the poor, however much it may be reducing the freedom of the man who pays for poor relief. Spencer answers: "Cutting .away men's opportuni ties one side, to add to them on another, is at best accompanied by a loss." The State, he argues, can only guarantee the freedom of a person to act to the fullest extent of his rights, bounded, as always, by the equal freedom of other men. Within a confined area the State may aid in the pursuit of happiness, but it cannot assure that happiness will be attained.

That is up to the individual and how he uses his freedom. How Much Is Enough? Spencer argues further that even if one grants that aid to the poor should be supplied, it would be impossible to decide its amount. He notes that even among the pro ponents of "poor-laws" there is considerable divergence· of opinion as to what constitutes a suitable "maintenance." One thinks that a bare subsistence is all that can be fairly demanded. Here is another who hints at some thing beyond. mere necessaries. A third maintains that a few of the en j oyments of life should be provided for. And some of the more consistent, pushing the doctrine to its legitimate result, will rest satisfied with nothing short of community of property. This passage has a special rele vance for our own day, as we hear the debate over the correct" amount, but never the propriety, of a guaranteed annual income. Other Interventions Deplored Finally, Spencer says the State has no right to educate, to satisfy the mental needs of the popula tion, any more than it has the right to satisfy the population's physical needs through State-run charities. The State may not colon ize, since this violates the rights of native peoples, nor can it shoulder the burden for public health, ex cept, interestingly enough, in mat ters of air and water pollution. Last of all, State action in currency ar rangements and postal services are both forbidden as transgressions of the individual's freedom of as sociation and action.

The. views which Spencer enun ciated in Social St.atics changed little throughout the remaining fifty years of his life. The same unwavering devotion to individual 1973 HERBERT SPENCER: APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 59 liberty, the same unflagging es pousal of freedom that marked that book can be found in The Man VB. The State, Spencer's second important work of political phil osophy. Although the ultimate intent of The Man VB. The State is the same as Social Statics, the approach is somewhat different. Spencer al ways referred to himself as a lib eral and to his philosophy. of gov ernment as liberalism. He was speaking, of course, of classical liberalism, of the liberalism exem plified by men like John Locke. About 1860, liberalism of the type that Locke represented underwent a fundamental change. No longer content with merely overseeing a negative government which al lowed a broad area for personal freedom, the Liberal party in England forsook its guiding ideals to 'wholly embrace State interven tion. Spencer himself never wea ried of pointing out to these "new"

liberals how far they had strayed from true liberalism, and how greatly. their notion of liberalism differed from his own. A sizable part of the lesson. he read to the liberals of his time, that the so called liberals of the pres.ent would do well to ponder, is The Man vs. The State. The first essay in the book pointedly expresses Spencer's dis enchantment with the transfiguration of liberalism. Entitled, "The New Toryism," it not only charges the Liberal party with abandon ing its own basic precepts, but also with adopting those of the opposition Tory party. While lib eralism had always stood· for. in dividual rights, voluntarycoopera tion, and a regime of contract, toryism, from the beginning, had stood for privilege, compulsory co operation, and a regime of status. Spencer accounts for the exchange of ideologies this way: The gaining of a popular good, be ing. the external conspicuous trait common to Liberal measures in ear lier days (then in ea.ch case gained by a relaxation of restraints), it has happened that the popular good has come to be sought by Liberals, not as an end to be· indirectly gained· by re laxations of restraints, but as the end to be directly gained.

The consequences and efficacy of liberal lawmaking, from acts reg ulating the railroads to laws pre venting the sale of beer on Sun days, are considered by Spencer in the four essays following "The New Toryism." In "The Coming Slavery" he reflects on the in ability of politicians to see beyond the immediate ramifications of their actions. Pursuing the public welfare through "humanitarian" legislation (such as poor-laws), legislators, knowingly or unknow60 THE FREEMAN January ingly, move a society toward State tyranny, or as Spencer calls it in "From Freedom to Bondage," a military regime which uses force, or the threat of force to achieve its ends. Whether or not legislators have the competence, much less the right, to execute the immense re sponsibilities they are constantly taking on, and whether laws are the best and only ways of solving society's problems, Spencer ques tions in "The Sins of Legislators"

and "Over-Legislation." The need less, oppressive, or simply bad laws so often enacted by a "slow, stupid, extravagant, and unadap tive" officialdom do not simply fail, but frequently worsen the situa tion they were designed to relieve. And, the more they fail, the louder is the demand that they be multi plied. Divine Right of Majorities The Man vs. The State closes with "The Great Political Super stition." In the past, the supersti tion was the divine right of kings, and in the present it is the divine right of majorities, the divine right of parliaments. Spencer cau tions against seeing the proximate good in any widening of Statepower and ignoring the ul,timate evil that such a widening would bring about. Failure to do thi~, he says, will produce a state like that which preceded the French Revo tion, when there was "so exces sive a regulation of men's actions in all their details . . . that life was fast becoming impracticable."

He recapitulates the theme of "The New Toryism" with the final lines: "The function of Liberalism in the past was that of putting a limit to the power of kings. The function of true Liberalism in the future will be' that of putting a limit to the power of Parlia ments." The more than eighty years that have passed since Spencer wrote those words have done nothing to undermine, and everything to vin dicate his warnings. What he stated in Social Statics and The Man vs. The State affronted the Statist orthodoxy of his time as it affronts the Statist orthodoxy of ours. It is not so important whether Spencer's work had any effect on slowing State-socialism, for he did not expect that it would. What is important is that he spoke for liberty when he felt liberty was threatened. For that, he will not be. forgotten. ~ A REVIEWER'SNOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN NOT SO LONG AGO Erik von Kuenhnelt-Leddihn entertained a luncheon gathering of The Rem nant with a description of the peregrinations of a bad idea. The notion that students have a right to use university premises as a privileged sanctuary from which to carryon a revolutionary war against society and/ or the State first took hold in Latin America.