Daniel Klein on the Derivation of "Liberalism" in the Scottish Enlightenment
Daniel
Klein, a professor of economics at George Mason University, where he directs
the Smithian Political Economy program, and a fellow at the Ratio Institute,
posts in “The Atlantic” HERE
“Thanks to digitization, we can now establish
when the word “liberal” first took on a political meaning. For centuries it had
had what scholars have called pre-political meanings, such as generous,
tolerant, or suitable to one of noble or superior status—as in “liberal arts”
and “liberal education.” But now using Google’s Ngram Viewer we
can see what the word “liberal”—as an adjective—was used to modify. Up to 1769
the word was used only in pre-political ways, but in and around 1769 such terms
as “liberal policy,” “liberal plan,” “liberal system,” “liberal views,” “liberal
ideas,” and “liberal principles” begin sprouting like flowers. …
My research with
Will Fleming finds that the Scottish historian William Robertson appears to be
the most significant innovator, repeatedly using “liberal” in a political way,
notably in a book published in 1769. (I presented more details in a lecture at
the Ratio Institute, viewable on You Tube
HERE [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNsk3A0CF8]“
Of the Hanseatic
League, for example, Robertson
spoke of “the spirit and zeal with which they contended for those
liberties and rights,” and how a society of merchants, “attentive only to
commercial objects, could not fail of diffusing over Europe new and more
liberal ideas concerning justice and order. Robertson’s friend and fellow Scot
Adam Smith used “liberal” in a similar sense in The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. If
all nations, Smith says, were to follow “the liberal system of free exportation
and free importation,” then they would be like one great cosmopolitan empire,
and famines would be prevented. Then he repeats the phrase: “But very few
countries have entirely adopted this liberal system.
Smith’s “liberal
system” was not concerned solely with international trade. He used “liberal” to
describe application of the same principles to domestic policy issues. Smith
was a great opponent of restrictions in the labor market, favoring freedom of
contract, and wished to see labor markets “resting on such liberal principles.”
Comment
Readers who follow
my recomendation that the read Dan Klein’s thoughts in the paper and on You
Tube at the Ration Institute will be treated to a vintage and typically authoritative read from Daniel
and, should they choose to do so, an enlightening account of an oft neglected
account of importance to those interested in the Scottish Enlightenment and, of
course, Adam Smith.
Daniel and I have
long had debates on our different interpretations of the use by Adam Smith of
the invisible hand metaphor since we met at Balliol College, Oxford, Adam Smith’
college in 2009 (see Lost Legacy since 2009).
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