Herbert Spencer; J. Powell

THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY HerbertSpencer: Libertyand Unlimited Human Progress by Jim Powell F abled steel entrepreneur Andrew Car negie hungered to know the secret of human progress. During the early 1880s,he found out after he joined a Manhattan dis cussion group. There he heard about British philosopher Herbert Spencer, who had writ ten volumes on the subject. Liberty, Spen cer explained, is the key as free markets without government intervention-provide powerful incentives for people to continu ously improve life. Apparently, Carnegie was overwhelmed to realize that his daily work served a much larger purpose, promoting a beneficent so cial order. He adopted as his motto: "All is well since all grows better." The more Carnegie read by Spencer, the more he wanted to meet the philosopher. "Few men have wished to know another man more strongly than 1 to know Herbert Spencer, " Carnegie recalled. Through a mutual acquaintance, the British classical liberal John Morley, he got a letter of introduction and arranged to travel with Spencer on a steamship from Liverpool to New York.

Mr. Powell is editor 0/ Laissez-Faire Books. He has written/or The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. Carnegie discovered that Spencer whom he had imagined as a "great calm philosopher brooding, Buddha-like, over all things"-was a human being. Spencer, then in his sixties, was of moderate height and reasonably thin. Although his hairline had receded, his hair remained brown, and it was fluffedout at the sides. He complained about his difficulty sleeping. He suffered from nervous ailments. He was quick to criticize the work of others, sensitive to criticism himself but honest enough to ac knowledge his errors. He seemed unhappy living alone, as he lamented: "One who devotes himself to grave literature must be content to remain celibate; unless, indeed, he obtains a wife having adequate means for both.... Even then, family cares and trou bles are likely to prove fatal to his under takings."

In June 1891, Carnegie surprised Spencer by delivering a token of his appreciation. Spencer wrote Carnegie: "I was alike as tonished and perplexed on entering my room yesterday evening to see placed against the wall a magnificent grand piano. ... 1 have all along sympathized in your view respecting the uses of wealth, but it never occurred to me that I should benefit by the carrying of your view into practice. " Carnegie was among the millions inspired by Spencer then and now. He revived the revolutionary battle cry for natural rights that had been trashed by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham and his followers, the Utilitarians. Spencer showed why the the ory of evolution, which naturalist Charles Darwin documented, meant that human progress occurs spontaneously as long as people are free, and governments stay out of the way. He stood as the most passionate defender of liberty when socialism and mil itarism gathered momentum throughout Europe.

Spencer was a prolific writer who pro duced books and articles on biology, edu cation, ethics, psychology, sociology, and government policy, among other subjects. He had a gifted pen-coining, for example, the phrase "survival of the fittest." From the 1860still his death on December 8, 1903, 250 authorized editions of Spencer's books re portedly sold 368,755 copies in the United States alone-a remarkable number for a serious author. Supreme Court Justice Ol iver Wendell Holmes doubted that "any writer of English except Darwin has done so much to affect our whole way of thinking about the universe." A Fiercely Independent Mind Spencer was born in Derby, England, on April 27, 1820. His father George Spencer struggled for years to develop a career. He repeatedly tried manufacturing lace, then fashionable, but failed. He earned a little money teaching school. Friends suggested that he work at a tannery or become a clergyman. Spencer's mother, Harriet Holmes, didn't have it any easier: while she gave birth to five boys and four girls, only Herbert survived beyond age two.

He gained a fiercely independent mind from his Quaker parents. "Individuality was pronounced in all members of the family," he recalled, "and pronounced individuality is necessarily more or less at variance with authority. A self-dependent and self-assert ing nature resists all such government as is not expressive of equitable restraint." His formal education was limited-three years in one elementary school, then for an unknown (probably brief) time he attended his uncle William's school and was inter mittently tutored by his uncle Thomas, a clergyman. By age 11, he seemed to be on his own, reportedly attending a science lecture. When his father was teaching phys ics and chemistry, the lad helped prepare experiments. He taught himselfabout plants and animals. He became good at sketching things. He learned much by listening when friends of his parents visited to talk about politics, religion, science, right and wrong.

His father belonged to the Derby Philosoph ical Society which had a modest library of science books and periodicals, and he browsed through those. He was 15 when his first article-about boats-was published in a little magazine. "I found my article looking very pretty," he 251 noted at the time. "I began shouting and capering about the room.... And now that I have started I intend to go on writing things." Meanwhile, Spencer needed steady pay. A railroad-building boom was underway, and in November 1837,he got ajob produc ing engineering drawings for the London and BirminghamRailway. Ever resourceful, he also invented several railroad-related measuring devices and wrote seven articles for Civil Engineer's and Architect's Jour nal. Mter four years, he had saved some money and decided to take time offto pursue a writing career. He attended meetings of free trade, anti-slavery, and anti-state church groups. He wrote a dozen articles about political philosophy for The Noncon [ormist, a radical journal. These were subsequently reprinted as a pamphlet, On the Proper Sphere of Government.

Spencer was still a long way from being able to earn a livelihood writing, so he returned to railroad work as a draftsman for three years. He continued to read all kinds of books and keep himself informed about public affairs. In November 1848, he was offered an editorial position at the Econo mist, the free trade journal, where he worked for five years. One of the editors was Thomas Hodgskin, a philosophical anar chist who might have influenced him. Social Statics Spencer used spare time to write his first book, Social Statics, and it was published in 1851. He presented an inspiring moral and practical case for individual rights which he called "equal freedom." Everyone should be free to do what he wishes, Spencer insisted, as long as he doesn't infringe on somebody else's equal freedom. Accord ingly, he advocated abolishing all trade restrictions, taxpayer church subsidies, overseas colonies, medical licensing, legal tender laws, central banks, government schooling, government welfare, govern ment postal monopolies, and so-called "public works."

Spencer showed how self-interest leads 252 THE FREEMAN • APRIL 1995 people not only to achieve prosperity-as Adam Smith had explained-but to improve life in countless ways. For example, Spen cer had this to say about sanitation: "Al though everyone knows that the rate of mortality has been gradually decreasing and that the value of life is higher in England than elsewhere-although everyone knows that the cleanliness of our towns is greater now than ever before and that our sponta neously grown sanitary arrangements are far better than those existing on the Conti nent, where the stinks of Cologne, the uncovered drains of Paris, the water tubs of Berlin, and the miserable footways of the German towns show what state manage ment effects-although everyone knows these things, yet it is perversely assumed that by state management only can the remaining impediments to public health be removed."

The most famous chapter was 19-"The Right to Ignore the State." Even during the heyday of classical liberalism, it was bold for Spencer to declare that "If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he isfree to drop connection with the state-to relinquish protection and to refuse paying toward its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others, for his position is a passive one, and while passive he cannot become an aggressor." Social Statics established Spencer as a rising star, and by July 1853,he had resigned from the Economist, determined to make it as an independent author. He sold articles to the Westminster Review, Edinburgh Re view, Fortnightly Review, British Quarterly, and other influential publications. He ap plied his ideas to science as well as ethics and government policy.

Financially, Spencer was hard-pressed and for a while pursued a cushy government job which would allow himtime to write, but fortunately he never became a bureaucrat. A proud man, he declined John Stuart Mill's generous offer to cover his expenses. He resolved to earn his living in the market place. By 1860, Spencer conceived the idea of integrating ethics, biology, psychology, and sociology into a multi-volume work on philosophy-and makingthe venture pay by soliciting subscribers who would pay a half crown for each installment, several times a year. He asked his famous friends to offer testimonials, and some 450 people became subscribers. Among his early subscribers were respected American intellectuals like newspaperman Horace Greeley, historian George Bancroft, clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, botanist Asa Gray, political scien tist Francis Lieber, and abolitionist Charles Sumner. Spencer began working on First Principles, a book about the development of life.

Alas, Spencer experienced subscriber at trition like everyone else in the publishing business. When he no longer got enough income from the project, he announced he would discontinue it. But in 1865, Dr. Ed ward Youmans, a lecturer and founder of Popular Science magazine who had become a big fan of Spencer's, helped raise about $7,000 from American friends. This was enough for Spencer to continue. Again and again, Spencer emphasized how extraordinary human progress devel ops naturally when people are free. Con sider this passage from Principles of Soci ology: The turning of the land into a food producing surface cleared, fenced, drained, and covered with farming appli ances, has been achieved by men working for individual profit not by legislative direction ... villages, towns, cities, have insensibly grown up under the desires of men to satisfy their wants . . . by spon taneous cooperation of citizens have been formed canals, railways, telegraphs, and other means of communication and dis tribution. . . . Knowledge developing into science, which has become so vast in mass that no one can grasp a tithe of it and which now guides productive activities at large, has resulted from the workings of individuals prompted not by the ruling agency but by their own inclinations. . . .

And supplementing these come the innuHERBERT SPENCER: LIBERTY AND HUMAN PROGRESS 253 merable companies, associations, unions societies, clubs, subserving enterprise, philanthropy, culture, art, amusement; as well as the multitudinous institutions an nually receiving millions by endowments and subscriptions; all of them arisingfrom the unforced cooperations of citizens. And yet so hypnotized are nearly all by fixedly contemplating the doings of min isters and parliaments, that they have no eyes for this marvelous organization which has been growing for thousands of years without governmental help-nay, indeed, in spite of governmental hin drances. Spencer anticipated the work of Nobel Lau reate F.A. Hayek who reminded the world why spontaneous market action, not central planning, is responsible for humanity's most stunning achievements. Spencer had his greatest impact in Amer ica where people were eagerly building a new civilization. By 1864,Atlantic Monthly reported: "Mr. Herbert Spencer is already a power in the world . . . represents the scientific spirit of the age." His principles, the magazine concluded, "will become the recognized basis of an improved society."

Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner emerged as the greatest American champion of Spencer's ideas. Despite Spencer's heroics, public opinion increasingly favored government interven tion during the late nineteenth century. Perhaps this was because government had been cut back so much that it no longer seemed like a public menace. More people imagined government could do good. Spen cer responded by writing four powerful articles which affirmed the bedrock princi ples of laissez faire and attacked govern ment intervention, published in the Contem porary Review, 1884. They unleashed what he called"a hornet's nest aboutmy ears in the shape of criticisms from the liberal journals." In July 1884, the articles were gathered together for a book, The Man Versus The State. It was a magnificentperformance as Spen cer hammered his adversaries-socialists especially-with dramatic facts to show why laws almost always backfire. He told how government-enforced interest-rate ceil ings, supposedly enacted to help people, made it more difficultto borrow money. He recalled how price controls triggered the disappearance of food from markets, and many people starved. He documented how well-meaning London officials demolished homes for 21,000 people, built new homes for only 12,000 and left 9,000 homeless anticipating identical attacks which would be leveled against U.S. government "urban renewal" programs duringthe late twentieth century. American journalist Henry Hazlitt called this "one of the most powerful and influential arguments for limited govern ment, laissez faire, and individualism ever written."

Spencer was apparently depressed by accusations that he was superficial and heartless, and in 1892he approved a revised edition of Social Statics without the original chapter 19, "The Right to Ignore the State." This compromise hardly satisfied critics. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, defending New York's regulation (of working hours) in 1905, two years after the philosopher's death, thought it necessary to denounce him by name: "The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's So cial Statics." Yet the twentieth century, bloodiest in history, has shown Spencer to be a phenom enal prophet. More loudly and clearly than anyone during his lifetime, he warned that socialism must lead to slavery. He con demned militarism long before a European arms race exploded into the First World War. He anticipated the evils of welfare state policies that undermine incentives for poor people to achieve independence. He predicted the colossal failure of government schools. He affirmedthat private individuals are responsible for human progress. He would be thrilled by the worldwide resur gence of market economies today, vindicat ing his conviction that wherever govern ments interfere least, you will see decency and improvement in the lives of ordinary people. D THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY The U.8. Banking Debacle of the 1980s:A Lessonin GovernmentMismanagement by George G. Kaufman I. Introduction In the 1980s, the United States experi enced its most serious banking crisis since the 1930sand the second most serious crisis in its 200-plus year history. The crisis af fected commercial banks, savings banks, and savings and loan associations (S&Ls).