Alvaro Florez Estrada: compromised liberalism in nineteenth-century Spain.

• Author: Braun, Carlos Rodriguez
• Position: PREDECESSORS - Critical essay

The Asturian economist Alvaro Florez Estrada (1766-1853) has earned the title of "the most relevant theorist of liberalism" in nineteenth-century Spain by espousing liberal--even "extremely liberal"--ideas "that nobody questions" (Munarriz Peralta 1967, 11; Anes 1992, 17; Smith 2000, 323; see also Perez-Prendes 1991, 29; all translations are mine). (1) His views on land property are treated as if they were a mere exception with no impact on his classical-liberal framework. In this essay, I explore the limitations in Florez's liberal analyses, especially those contained in his most important work, Curso de economia politica, first published in London in 1828.

Florez relied on Locke and the Spanish liberal tradition and made liberal statements on a number of topics, from trade, production, public debt, and paper money to press and religious freedom, but he did not support all private property, recommending emphyteusis in land and stating that land is not legitimate property (emphyteusis is a prolonged or even perpetual fight to a landed estate that belongs to another). He justified land expropriations by concerns for the general welfare and the development of a backward country. Almenar calls Florez a "revolutionary pioneer," arguing that he was not a socialist but an antirentist (1980, XXX; see also Florez Estrada 1958, 113:312-16, and 1967, 36, 51, 73, 88ff., 103-5, 130-32, 150, 158; Rodriguez Braun 1989, 89-90; Fuentes 2004, 191-93). I present an alternative conjecture based on the idea that fragmenting the legitimacy of property unleashes the antiliberal genie from the bottle. Once it is out, there is no getting it back in: if one exception was defended previously, another can be defended later.

Florez's Contradictory Liberalism

Florez's support for industrial and commercial liberties is so clear that it would seem reasonable to conclude, as Martinez Cachero does, that Florez was advocating for "full state abstention, except in fiscal matters." Proof of just how dubious this drastic assertion is, however, comes from Martinez Cachero himself, for whom Florez's liberalism does not contradict his proposal to "undertake an agrarian reform whose result would be a fairer distribution of land." Nor does this author notice a contradiction between Florez's "socializing tendency" and his welcome of "the total triumph of liberty" (1961, 111, 115, 166, and 1976, 107).

Moreover, we should note Varela Suanzes-Carpegna's recent attempt to hang the adjective leftist liberal on the Asturian economist, something he praises as opposed to the odious "right-wing liberalism." He does not include support for private property among the characteristics of a good liberal, though, nor does he detect any contradiction when he states that Florez distanced himself from liberalism in matters of land property "to be clearly collectivist," that he ceaselessly defended "the fight to property and that the state should not meddle in the economy," and that he was a liberal with a "marked social character." Varela insists, as does Almenar, that Florez was not a socialist, but that his liberalism was more leftist regarding property and that he was influenced by French socialists (2004, 15-17, 63; see also Capellan de Miguel 2004).

This confusion is perhaps due to a temptation in the history of ideas: adjusting the explicit ideas of the authors under examination to fit nonanalytic conveniences. Liberalism has been a tool in such tactics, and socialists have worked with it. In Florez's case, their recent aim is to claim him as the source of a liberalism opposed to the "Spanish right." Therefore, they argue that the right cannot appropriate liberalism for itself because the Asturian's liberalism was "very advanced," not "conservative," but "bent on joining the defense of liberty to democracy and social justice" (Varela 2004, 63, 70). (2)

It seems that Florez, despite having occupied the same seat as none other than Claude-Frederic Bastiat in the Academy of Social and Political Sciences in Paris, did not have a coherent body of thought and so was vindicated by opposite doctrines. (3) Whatever consistency there is belongs to the antiliberal side: Florez does not fit Prados Arrarte's claim that he "was not, generally speaking, an enemy of property rights" (1981, 59, 65, 179-83); in fact, he favored the state's being the sole direct owner of land. As early as 1887, Pedregal Canedo had already stated: "Florez Estrada was always an enemy of territorial property." During the 1930s, Suarez highlighted and shared Florez's "categorical opposition to private property of land." At the same time, he said Florez was not an enemy of private property: "His doctrine is only against private property of land ... which belongs to everyone in common, like the air" (1992, 140, 150-52). Florez's scholarship seems to have undergone a radicalization. The latest example is Varela's attempt to place Florez within Jeremy Bentham and John Smart Mill's utilitarianism and thereby to shape an "authentic liberal left" (2004, 64; see also Perez-Prendes 1991, 34-45). If caveats apply to Florez's authenticity and leftism, they do so even more clearly in the case of his liberalism.

Almenar places Florez among classical republicans, arguing that he can be classified as a liberal only because he defended free trade (2004, 408ff., 428ff.). Florez's French sources recommended progressive taxation of territorial property, and even the Asturian deemed property to be instrumental, depending, in a utilitarian style, only on positive laws that may be altered in a society of conflicting interests. Interventionism sprang from this reflection and led to a questioning of private property, whether partially, as in the case of Ricardo, Mill, and the classical economists, or completely, as in Marx's case. (4)

Classical or civic republicanism is a source of socialism and generally influenced Enlightenment thinkers and, in particular, the classical economists. This link has opened the way to interesting reflections on inertias and parallels--from the universally accepted progressive taxation now on personal income and the suspicion generated by any increase in wealth beyond the modest level of small landholders (in the past) or average citizens (today) to the recent political and legislative inroads on individual conduct via virtuous arguments, which bring us back in time to the morally severe early days of socialism. Against this onslaught, what is sorely lacking is classical-liberal content aimed at restraining power.

It may be acceptable to subordinate landowners' interests to free-trade principles or to defend making access to property through the market easier; but it is not to expropriate, redistribute, and administer property as if it were neither a freedom nor a right. To restrain royal power, separate church and state, expand suffrage, or worry about the poor may be fine; to increase the state's political power and reduce liberties is not. The main difference lies between the various so-called liberal positions and a doctrine that defends liberty by limiting political power and safeguarding private property. It is hardly consistent to cheer Florez for being against "social inequality" when he advocated treating people unequally according to the idea that property is legitimate and must be safeguarded, but only in certain cases. Whether we label Florez a "leftist technocrat" or praise him as a predecessor of "social-democratic liberalism," his incoherencies do not disappear under the cover of the struggle for equality. Liberals such as Bastiat also attacked social inequality, but they understood inequality to be a consequence of violating property rights. (See Florez Estrada 1958, 112:361; Almenar 2000; Friera Alvarez 2004, 159; Fuentes 2004, 184, 207; Varela 2004, 74.)

Even those who criticize Florez for not being left wing enough, such as Lancha, state that the Asturian advanced liberty, "democratic" property, and social justice. Lancha's critique is that Florez restricted his interpretation of the social question to agrarian matters and therefore was a bourgeois or petty bourgeois--as if his own reasoning cannot be logically extended to the growth of the social idea now encompassing everything into which political power can intervene. Lancha supports Marx and Lenin in their disdain for the views of people such as Henry George. They believed nationalizing land did not contradict capitalism. In their eyes, the emancipation of the oppressed proletariat required the expropriation of all property, particularly capital. Just as Marx accused Mill, Lancha accuses Florez of trying to reconcile irreconcilable interests and of supporting a degree of redistribution just sufficient to contain the revolutionary dangers, a mantra that abetted state expansion in the twentieth century (Lancha 1984, 186-87, 209, 225-26, 247-51). Another author, Capellan de Miguel, also praises Florez's "social feeling" and remarks that the Asturian fortunately developed a "social theory superior to liberalism, one that left us at the gates of socialism" and held out the promise of coming social rights and justice (2004, 489, 498-505). In this new system, law would allow for expropriation, redistributing "with more or less respect for private property" (Suarez 1992, 149) and without violating it! In short, even Lancha describes Florez as "socializing" and underlines that his thought "depasse largement les frontieres du liberalisme" (1984, 300-301).

The Curso de economia politica

Almenar's excellent edition of Florez's Curso de economia politica (Florez Estrada 1980) justifies his opinion: Florez had no analytic rivals among his compatriots. The book, which Bernacer describes as "the first systematic treatise on economics written by a Spaniard" (1967, 285), is well written and argued; although the author leans heavily on the classics for support, he does so appropriately, given his aim of reaching a wider...