Book Reviews

The individualist asserts the moral primacy of the person against the claims of the social col lectivity. Fabians who are waiting for the inevi tability of gradualism to bring them to socialism are confident that the State will not interfere with their private affairs under a collectivist or der, which means that they remain liberals in heart, though in a deluded sense. Gray's definition spares him a lot of trouble when it comes to dealing with the difference be tween continental European liberals, who hold to the nineteenth-century classic outlook, and American and British liberals who want cradle to-grave support in all phases of their existence. Liberalism, to Gray, constitutes a single tradi tion in spite of the variations that have come with what he calls the "revisionist liberalism of our own times." Personally, I find Gray's ef fort to stretch a rubber band around Hayek and Keynes, Tocqueville and Harold Laski, Hobbes and Mises, a bit confusing. But until he comes into really modern times, Gray is clear enough.

He begins by denying any claims to the an cients, whether Greek or Roman, to being lib erals. The ancients, even Aristotle, did not grant that individuals had any immunity from control by the community. To them, a man was free when he had an entitlement to participation in the community's deliberations, but that is as far as it went. Anti-liberal sentiment is not as virulent in Aristotle as it is in Plato, but Gray says that "nowhere in Aristotle is there any glimmering of an assertion of the negative right to individual liberty postulated by such mod ernists as Hobbes and Locke." The Sophists did indeed develop a doctrine of political equal ity that went against elitist conceptions of gov ernment, but the Western world had to wait for the seventeenth century for the first systematic expositions of the modern individualistic out look which fathered the liberal tradition. Hobbes began the tradition when he postu lated that each man always acts with a view to his own benefit. But this, with Hobbes, did not mean that men would fight to the death for free dom. Since men, in his opinion, were com pelled to avoid violent death as the greatest of evils, they were content to accept a Leviathan state with an arbitrary power to keep the peace.

Hobbes may have been an individualist, but he offered no defense against the coming of the to talitarian State. Nor did Spinoza, despite his feeling that human beings aim to persist in be ing not only to avoid death, "but in order to assert themselves in the world as the individuals they are." Gray says that Hobbes and Spinoza belong to "the prehistory of liberalism." The Spanish Je suits of the School of Salamanca anticipated some of the themes of the classical liberals of the Scottish Enlightenment when they argued that the just price of any commodity was the market price. But, as Gray puts it, "the central elements of the liberal outlook crystallized for the first time into a coherent intellectual tradi tion" in John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government. Locke was the first to link the rights to personal property and individual lib erty. To him, the property right came from mix ing one's personal labor with natural resources appropriated without theft. It was the duty of government to protect the property right under the rule of law. The acceptance of Locke's the ories was essential to the full flowering of the capitalist order. The American Revolution of 1776 might be called the colonial version of the English Glorious Revolution of 1688, which Locke's theories touched off.

Classical liberalism, developed in detail by the Scottish philosophers and Adam Smith, gave a distinct character to the first half of the nineteenth century in England. The classical economists of this period subscribed to the the ory that the State had only night watchman functions. But theory and practice did not al ways jibe. The first Factory Acts, passed in the early decades of the century, were an infringe ment of the laissez-faire doctrine. There came a real split with John Stuart Mill, who held that the State had rights to distribution of the capital ist product once it had come into existence. Mill was the first important revisionist liberal. Gray is good when it comes to tracing. the ramifications of revisionist liberalism in Britain and the attempts to backtrack from it to a classi cal stance. He is less satisfactory when it comes to a description of the American scene. The re volt against Fabian revisionism in the U.S. was considerably more than can be found in the work of Robert Nozick. Gray makes no men tion of such important anti-revisionist rebels as Albert Jay Nock, Garet Garrett, Claude Robin son, Henry Hazlitt, and Leonard Read. Despite the failure to give credit where it is due on this side of the Atlantic, Gray's final defense of the free market is first-rate. 0 Editors' Note: For another perspective on Pro fessor Gray's Liberalism, we are pleased to publish the following review by Professor Rich ard Ebeling of the University of Dallas.

439 LIBERALISM by John Gray Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press • 1986 • $9.95 Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling T he twentieth century has frequently been labeled the "age of collectivism." Since the first World War, the spirit of individual liberty and the policy of economic freedom have appeared to be irrevocably on the decline. Every conceivable form of State con trol and management has been tried during the past 75 years: socialism, fascism, Nazism, wel fare statism, and interventionism. And each has failed, bringing nothing but tyranny, poverty, and a lost sense of hope in its wake. But now with the twenty-first century less than 15 years away, the age of collectivism may be drawing to a close. And in its place may be coming a new liberal era. This is what makes Liberalism by John Gray such a valuable hand book. In a mere 100 pages, Professor Gray out lines the history of liberalism from ancient times to the present, and gives a concise and insightful analysis of the major tenets of the lib eral point of view.

It is important to realize that by liberalism, Professor Gray means classical liberalism, i.e., the political philosophy which has emphasized that civil liberties and economic freedom are in separable, both requiring respect for private property in a competitive, free market environ ment. The historical half of the book traces the ori gin of liberal ideas to the ancient Greeks and Romans. But, as Professor Gray points out, the individualist foundation of liberalism only re ally developed in the seventeenth century in the writings of such thinkers as Benedict de Spinoza and John Locke. However, it was only in the eighteenth century that a general liberal world-view and philosophy was systematically developed by the Scottish moral philosophers, the French philosophes, and the American founding fathers. While liberal ideas predominated throughout the nineteenth century, Professor Gray points out that an era of full laissez-faire never existed and liberal policies in general were on the de cline by the 1870s. A major villain in the story 440 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1986 is John Stuart Mill who flirted with socialism and redefined liberalism in such a way that opened the door to the redistributional welfare state. The liberal era ended with the First World War and the growth in State power and control over economic affairs.

Now that collectivism has been tried and found wanting, there is new interest in the lib eral alternative, and Professor Gray analyzes the premises of liberalism in the second half of his book. He discusses the alternative founda tions that have been offered for liberalism natural rights, utilitarianism, and contract arianism-and explains the strengths and weak nesses of each. He contrasts the alternative "negative" and "positive" meanings of free dom and their relationship to each other. In a chapter on "Individual Liberty, Private Property and the Market Economy," Professor Gray defends economic freedom for the protec tion of individual liberty by drawing upon the writings of Austrian Economists, particularly the works of F. A. Hayek (who has defined the market economy as a "spontaneous order" of mutual and voluntary cooperation). Professor Gray brings the book to a close with a discussion of the' 'legitimate" functions of the minimal, liberal State and the possibili ties for classical liberalism in the future.

One of the most difficult problems in the past was to know which single book to recommend to someone interested in knowing more about the classical liberal ideal, but who was not up to reading through a half dozen lengthy works. Professor Gray has now solved that dilemma with a readable and concise volume. 0 Freeman readers may order copies of John Gray's Liberalism at $10.95 each (includes shipping) from Laissez Faire Books, Department F, 532 Broadway, New York, NY 10012, (212) 925-8992. 1986 · 1987 Freedom Essay Contest for high school and college students AWARDS First Prize- $ 1500 Second Prize- $ 1000 Three runnersup will receive prizes of $ 500 each. Since 1946, The Foundation for Eco nomic Education has promoted the philosophy of limited government and private enterprise. Through seminars, our monthly journal The Freeman, and other publications, FEE hopes to at tract others who will join in thinking, reading, and writing about freedom.

Because of the success of last year's student essay contest, FEE is once again sponsoring a similar competi tion. The contest is open to all high school and undergraduate college stu dents. Topics for essays may include any aspect of the free market, private enterprise, limited government philos ophy. Outstanding essays will be published in The Freeman. Award winners and runnersup will receive fellowships for a FEE seminar, and all entrants will re ceive a complimentary subscription to The Freeman. The maximum length for submitted essays is 3,000 words, and the deadline for entries is January 15, 1987. For further details, write: Freedom Essay Contest Foundationfor EconomicEducation Irvington-on-Hudson,New York 10533 THEFREE IDEAS ON LIBERTY 444 Ravioli and the Economics of Trade James'Doti Grandma found her niche in the market without benefit of restrictive trade policies. 450 Should We Organize for Liberty?