An Enlightenment Thinker.

• Author: Lemieux, Pierre

Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism

By James M. Buchanan

128 pp.; Edward Elgar

Publishers, 2006

Classical liberalism is under attack today from both the left and right, the progressives (or "liberal" in the peculiar American sense) and the conservatives. This two-pronged attack is not new, but it may have reached a new peak.

What is classical liberalism, anyway? A good way to answer that question is to read Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative by the late Nobel economics laureate James Buchanan. The book, containing several essays he had previously written plus two original chapters, aims at "articulating the liberal vision, interpreted in its classical understanding," Buchanan explains. Like him, in this review I will use "liberalism" to refer to "classical liberalism."

Buchanan "loosely" defines liberalism as a "political organization in the form of constitutional democracy and economic organization through operative market arrangements, relatively free of hands-on political direction." It also entails free trade, private property, the rule of law, and open franchise. He identifies his main intellectual predecessors as Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Rawls. To find Rawls, the Harvard philosopher who wrote A Theory of Justice, on this list will not be the only surprise for those unfamiliar with Buchanan's work.

The subtitle of the book, The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism, indicates that it is about political and moral philosophy, although it is strongly grounded in economics. Since its birth in the 18th century, modern economics has looked at man through a presupposition of natural equality, competence, and perfectibility --a viewpoint typical of the Enlightenment. In many ways, as we will see, Buchanan is an Enlightenment thinker.

Problems with conservatism / In 1960, another liberal economist and Nobel economics laureate, Friedrich Hayek, published The Constitution of Liberty with a postscript titled "Why I Am Not a Conservative." In Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative, Buchanan wanted to echo Hayek's position while deploring that the latter had drifted too far toward conservatism. Buchanan opposed many ideas typical of European-style conservatism, to which American conservatism is increasingly becoming similar. In the book, he argues against the conservatives' attachment to the status quo when reforms in favor of more individual liberty are desirable. He criticizes conservatives' embrace of social hierarchy in lieu of the "natural equality" of individuals, their siding with Plato instead of Adam Smith. While values are viewed by conservatives as objective and transcendent, he argues for the liberal view that they are subjective and reside in the consciousness of each individual. Against the conservatives' paternalism, the classical liberal believes in equal individual liberty and responsibility.

Crucially for Buchanan, classical liberalism, contrary to conservatism, rests on the presumption of man's perfectibility. The individual can "become or remain free of dependency status, provided the institutions that can facilitate independence are in place." The individual can make choices and is capable of self-governance. He is also capable of abiding by the Kantian fairness principle of not treating others only as means, which implies eschewing deceit, fraud, breach of contract, promise-breaking, lying, cheating, stealing, and of course inflicting bodily harm.

What democracy implies I As Buchanan noted, the requirement of moral capacity opposed him to many economists, including his Virginia school colleague Gordon Tullock, with whom he wrote the seminal Calculus of Consent (1962). Buchanan thought that the market and its legal background, including democracy, are not enough to compel bad men to behave morally. We also need "a minimal level...