From Welfare Wealth to From Welfare, Wealth to T H E E V O L U T IO N OF L IB E R A L IS M . By HARRY K. GIRVETZ Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences University of California Santa Barbara College Stanford University Press Stanford, California STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA London: Geoffrey Cumberleoe Oxford University Prem THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY 55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 3 HENRY M. INYDER A COMPANY 440 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 16 W. ft. HALL A COMPANY 457 MADIftON AVENUE, NEW YORK 22 COPYRIGHT 1950 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS To B.W. G. F.G. H.W.S. “There are forces, Lucius, infinitely more powerful than reason and science.” “What are they?” asked Cotta. “Ignorance and folly,” replied Aristaeus. — Anatole France, Thais . . . every successive phase of social progress pre­ sents inseparably connected phenomena to the observa­ tion of the economist, the jurist, the mental, the moral, and the political philosopher. —T. E. Cliffe Leslie They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak :—James Russell Lowell PREFACE A social philosophy, known as liberalism, appeared in England in the seventeenth century, spread to France in the eighteenth century, and dominated the thought of Western civilization by the late nineteenth century. In the course of its remarkable de­ velopment, liberalism, both as precept and as practice, has under­ gone transformations so great that the term as currently used has come to have contradictory meanings. Everywhere men are di­ viding into camps over issues raised by liberalism, with only the haziest knowledge of the ground upon which they have pitched their tents. One is bound to be perplexed when men so diverse in their views and objectives as Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, Lord John Maynard Keynes, and Ludwig von Mises refer to themselves or are characterized by others as liberals. If the re­ sult has been confusion this is surely no asset in the great compe­ tition which history has thrust upon us. This is not a treatise on world politics and I have resisted a temptation to deal with the international crisis. Nevertheless, it would be a grave error to suppose that a study of liberalism has no implications for the contest between the democratic and totali­ tarian worlds. Whether or not the struggle deteriorates into a collision between the armed forces of America and the Soviet Union, a decisive phase of it is and will be a competition for the hearts and minds of the other peoples of the world. We can hardly succeed in that competition until we achieve a greater measure of clarity concerning our own social arrangements and needs. And we shall very probably fail in the competition—as we so far largely have with the peoples of Asia—until we be­ come more sensitive to the popular aspirations of economically backward countries and discover that in our social tradition which attracts and that which repels the less favored peoples of the world. To say this is to ask for a better understanding of liberal­ ism, its shifting content and enduring form. vm FROM WEALTH TO WELFARE Contemporary liberalism differs markedly from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To define this difference is to treat of the central social problem of our day: the degree to which we shall have collective control over indi­ vidual behavior—the degree, that is, to which individual in­ terests shall be subordinated to social purposes. Thus a discus­ sion of liberalism may not only aspire to clarity where confusion now prevails} it may throw light upon the most vital social issue of our time. An analysis of liberalism may serve another purpose. Albert V. Dicey in his Law and Public Opinion in England suggested this purpose when, referring to the variant of liberalism that pre­ vailed in England between 1825 and 1870, he wrote, Benthamism was a coherent system; its ethics, its constitutional theories, its juris­ prudence, and its political economy were indissolubly linked together, and were indeed different aspects of one and the same theory of life and human nature. An analysis of liberalism affords an opportunity to view capital­ ism not as a mere set of economic relationships but as a part, per­ haps the most important part, of a way of life. The neglect of this approach, however unavoidable, is a shortcoming of most technical economic discussions. To concentrate upon the eco­ nomic trunk of capitalism and ignore the roots and leaves and branches is to see it as so much dead lumber and not as a living thing modifying and modified by a surrounding world. Harold Laski writes in The Rise of Liberalism, The inner idea of capitalism is inherently a philosophy of life. Those who ac­ cept it do not need extra-capitalist sources to validate their activities. Their search for wealth as individuals colours and shapes their attitude to every depart­ ment of behaviour. Unless this had been the case, capitalism could not have achieved the revolution it effected. Whatever one may think of the economic determinism suggested in Professor Laski’s statement (a standpoint which he elsewhere qualifies), the point he makes is profoundly important. Let the economists have the term “capitalism.” Happily, usage allows the term classical liberalism for the philosophy of life inseparably identified with capitalism. The glossary of no single one of the social sciences is adequate for an explanation PREFACE IX of liberalism. The liberal movement in its various historical manifestations has rudely defied the boundaries by which social scientists have defined, often too neatly, their separate spheres of interest. An adequate discussion of liberalism will take freely from political science, economics, the sociology of religion, the sociology of welfare, social anthropology, and social psychology. This study lays claim to no new critical insights. But it does organize the material in a relatively new way. If in some in­ stances the treatment seems too schematic, I may plead in extenu­ ation that the material is of such scope and variety that greater understanding is gained if systematic arrangement is empha­ sized. It is precisely the lack of such arrangement which makes some of the great treatises on liberalism seem so formidable to the average student. Some readers may find the neglect of liberals and liberal­ ism outside of France, Britain, and the United States a glaring omission. The experience of other nations, however, has already been described by Ruggiero. Moreover, liberal ideas have not been markedly transformed when they have crossed national boundaries. The cradle of liberalism is in England and France, and there is no reason for doubting the wisdom of the poet who taught us that the child is father of the man. The best extended studies of classical liberalism are Elie Halevy’s The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism, Guido de Ruggiero’s The History of European Liberalism, Sir Leslie Ste­ phen’s The English Utilitarians, Harold Laski’s The Rise of Liberalism, and Albert V. Dicey’s Law and Public Opinion in England During the 19th Century. I am indebted to these as I am to the friends and associates who have read and criticized the manuscript, especially to my former teacher, Dr. Henry W. Stuart, for his many constructive suggestions, to Dr. and Mrs. Wallace Stegner, for their constant encouragement, and finally, to Drs. Maurice Moonitz and William Kennedy, for their com­ ments on the economic sections. Every teacher, unless he has been singularly unfortunate, owes a debt to his students. This, it is a pleasure to acknowledge. If their names are not here this is not because I have forgotten the associations and friendships