Lost Causes: The Retreat from Classical Liberalism.

• Author: D'Amico, Daniel J.
• Position: Book review

* Lost Causes: The Retreat from Classical Liberalism

By Deepak Lal

London: Biteback, 2012.

Pp. 288. $18.94 paperback.

Deepak Lal holds the James S. Coleman Professorship of International Development Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a research fellow at the university's Center for India and South Asia. His latest book, Lost Causes: The Retreat from Classical Liberalism, is a compilation of short topical writings, opinion editorials, and policy research papers. Bound together, these essays outline the tragic history of policies the United Kingdom has adopted in recent decades. The book is a disturbing read for an American reader because the history it describes eerily parallels the U.S. trajectory of failed plans in the twentieth century.

Many of the United Kingdom's current social problems are obfuscated by the typical debates that surround them. To Lal, moving toward real solutions requires recognizing that today's problems are the results of yesterday's plans. Furthermore, yesterday's plans were the inevitable consequences of even earlier debates in regard to political economy and the proper role of government. In other words, it is difficult to stop or slow the effects of a flood once the waters have topped the levy.

In an earlier text, Reviving the Invisible Hand: The Case for Classical Liberalism in the Twenty First Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), Lal explicitly supports classical-liberal public policies for the near-term and distant futures. The classical-liberal worldview is simply a framework to help us understand how social institutions operate. What cause-and-effect relationships hold in the social world? Lal's earlier title refers to Adam Smith's turn of phrase "the invisible hand," which suggests the essence of classical liberalism.

Economists, political philosophers, and social theorists recognize the obvious and strong correlation between an orderly and harmonious society and a peaceful and prosperous society. Paris cannot be fed while riots plague its streets. In Smith's words, a classical liberal sees that "little else is requisite to carry a nation from the lowest degree of barbarism to the highest degree of opulence but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; the rest being brought about by the natural course of things." For classical liberals, the invisible hand best explains the source of order in society. Interacting individuals guided by...