Liberalism and the common good: a Hayekian perspective on communitarianism.

• Author: Raeder, Linda C.

In the end, given liberty to learn, men will find out that freedom means community.

--William Aylott Orton

In recent years, a spirited exchange between certain critics and defenders of liberalism has engaged the interest of many North American political philosophers. Although the philosophical differences between the two camps should not be exaggerated, the so-called new communitarians (Gutmann 1985, 308) dearly part company with their liberal cousins over one fundamental issue: the new communitarians are convinced that liberal public philosophy is undermining the social foundations of "the good society." Under its influence, they claim, inhabitants of contemporary liberal society have grown ever more isolated, asocial, selfish, calculating, and spiritually barren. Preoccupied by their blind pursuit of trivial and arbitrarily chosen "private goods," modern men no longer recognize the existence of, let alone an obligation to pursue, a comprehensive common good that transcends mere personal interest.

The new communitarians include Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Benjamin Barber, Michael Walzer, Roberto Unger, and others. Antiliberalism is not new, of course; it is a critical tradition that extends back as least as far as Joseph de Maistre. The new communitarian critique of liberalism, however, may be distinguished from earlier variants in that its proponents have drawn their Inspiration primarily from Aristotle and Hegel, rather than Marx, Rousseau, or Nietzsche. Following Aristotle, they conceive of political society as a "community whose primary bond is a shared understanding both of the good for man and the good of th[e] community"; and, following Hegel, they regard the "free[,] ... rational, [and autonomous] being[s]" who people the pages of rationalist-liberal tracts as mere figments of the philosophical imagination (Gutmann 1985, 308).

The new communitarians are united by their common apprehension that our sense of community--the recognition that we arc a people bound by shared values, meanings, traditions, purposes, and obligations;--is being destroyed by an "atomistic" liberalism (Taylor 1985, 187-210) that trumpets the "rights" of the individual at the expense of social cohesion, fellowship, and the pursuit of the common good. Although they may offer different remedies for the social ravages allegedly wrought by the liberal creed, the new communitarians all agree that we must seek to transform the stridently individualistic "politics of rights" that presently dominates public discourse and practice into a more fraternal and morally elevated "politics of the common good" (Sandel 1984, 93; 1992, 222).

Liberals have always been suspicious of calls for "community." Calvin, Rousseau, Marx, and Hitler have cast a long shadow on communitarian dreams. Moreover, liberals regard appeals to the common good warily because historically such rhetoric has accompanied various dangerous or oppressive sentiments--religious Intolerance, nationalism, militarism, and the like. Indeed, "far from being innocent," writes Stephen Holmes (1989), "the idea of the common good was traditionally implicated in the justification of privilege, hierarchy, and deference" (240). Ever since Aristotle distinguished between master and slave by asserting the former's superior ability to recognize and comprehend the common good, there has been no shortage of potential rulers claiming a special insight into Its nature and seeking to impose their exclusive conception of goodness or virtue on the social order.

Despite such abuse, however, few theorists, liberal or otherwise, would challenge the principle that in a free society, governmental coercion may legitimately be employed only in the service of the common good. Of course, the ambiguity of the concept "common good" (general welfare, public interest) generates seemingly intractable difficulties and lack of consensus regarding the proper application of that principle. However, the rise of the new "party of the common good" (Sandel 1992, 224), with its antiliberal rhetoric, underlines the importance of characterizing the common good if we are to preserve our liberal heritage and its institutions of freedom.

Hayek's Defense of Classical

The social and political philosophy off A. Hayek yields insights into the nature of the common good in an advanced liberal society that help to clarify what is at stake in the current communitarian/liberal debate. Hayekian theory generates a precise conception of the nature of the common good in liberal society, an explication of the institutional means by which it may be realized, and a set of criteria by winch we may test whether a public policy is conducive to its realization. Thus it dispels some of the fog surrounding one of political theory's most nebulous yet indispensable concepts.

Hayek fits in neither the communitarian nor the modern-liberal camp; Hayekian liberalism simultaneously supports and refines various aspects of both the and modern-liberal perspectives. Although Hayek must certainly be considered a liberal theorist, his classical liberalism is strongly at odds with the rationalistic, rights-based liberalism espoused by the theorists who arc the object of communitarian criticism. Hayek and the modern liberals do share a commitment to certain traditional liberal values--universal justice, tolerance, peace, individual liberty--but the moderns typically reject the severely circumscribed public sphere implied by Hayekian theory. Having "made .. . peace with concentrated power" (Sandel 1992, 93), the dominant liberal philosophy of our time represents a dear departure from the classical liberalism espoused by Hayek.

On the other hand, Hayek's devotion to individual liberty, the free society, and the rule of law distinguishes him from the communitarians, for whom neither liberty nor justice necessarily has the highest value. Moreover, neither the modern liberals nor the communitarians share Hayek's respect for the ordering function of the market mechanism; indeed, both groups exhibit a certain antipathy toward market-governed exchange. This may explain why both camps give short shrift to Hayek's views even though Hayekian liberalism rests on precisely the sort of social theory that the communitarians claim liberal theory both sorely lacks and requires.

Indeed, the major communitarian criticisms of liberalism simply do not apply to Hayekian theory Communitarians maintain, for instance, that liberalism ignores or discounts the influence of social factors on the formation of individual identity and purpose and that this flawed conception of selfhood undermines its validity Unlike contractarian and rights-based theories, however, Hayeks defense of the liberal political order is free from the ahistorical rationalism criticized by both Hayek and the new communitarians and is, as mentioned, firmly grounded in a comprehensive social theory For Hayek, individualism and individual liberty depend on a thoroughgoing immersion in social reality. As one commentator put it, for Hayek, "individualism is a social theory" (Kukathas 1989, 216).

In short, Hayek's defense of the liberal order meets the communitarian challenge on communitarian terms. Hayekian liberalism neither presupposes the existence of human "atoms," entails the destruction of human community, nor denies the existence of a transpersonal, common good. In fact, the liberal Hayek is as concerned as the communitarians to revive a "politics of the common good." If Hayek is right, however--if individual liberty is both the product of a liberal society and the source of that society's continuing progressive evolution--then personal liberty and the pursuit of the common good are not only compatible but, in a sense, inseparable.

Hayek on Social Life, Law, and the Common Good

Although the communitarian/liberal debate raises many issues that may fruitfully be explored from the Hayekian perspective, I shall consider specifically the following: Does liberal society possess a common good distinct from the private goods of its members? If so, how may that good be identified and realized? What are the nature and function of law and justice within the liberal community? Will our need for justice really become less pressing as our communitarian sympathies expand (as certain communitarians argue)? To answer such questions, I shall examine Hayek's views on the nature of law and the common good, as well as the relation between them, in advanced liberal society.

Liberal Society Is a Spontaneous Order

Because Hayek's political prescriptions are inseparable from his general theory of the nature and operation of complex social formations--the theory of spontaneous order--this must be our point of departure. According to Hayek, Western liberal society is the unintended outcome of the widespread observance of certain "nonrational" traditions--rules, practices, and values--that prevailed not because anyone foresaw the consequences of observing them but because groups that observed them proved more successful than other groups. Once this order had come into existence, however, one could retrospectively investigate its structure and principles of operation. The result of these investigations, first undertaken by the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment and significantly extended and developed by Carl Menger and his followers in the Austrian school, was the formulation of what Hayek terms the theory of spontaneous order.

A spontaneous order is a self-generating and self-maintaining order, an abstract, purpose-independent pattern (system, structure) of stable and predictable relations that emerges as an unintended consequence of the regular, rule-governed behavior of the individual elements forming it.(1) An example of a spontaneous ordering process in the physical realm may help us understand how such forces function in the social realm. To induce the formation of a crystal, one must create...