The Soul of Classical Liberalism.

• Author: Buchanan, James M.

... the bizarre fact that alone among the great political currents, liberalism has no ideology.

Anthony de Jasay

During the ideologically dark days of the 1950s, my colleague Warren Nutter often referred to "saving the books" as the minimal objective of like-minded classical liberals. F. A. Hayek, throughout a long career, effectively broadened that objective to "saving the ideas." In a certain sense, both of these objectives have been achieved: the books are still being read, and the ideas are more widely understood than they were a half-century ago.

My thesis here is that, despite these successes, we have, over more than a century, failed to "save the soul" of classical liberalism. Books and ideas are, of course, necessary, but alone they are not sufficient to ensure the viability of effectively free societies.

I hope that my thesis provokes interest along several dimensions. I shall try to respond in advance to the obvious questions. What do I mean by the soul of classical liberalism? And what is intended when I say that there has been a failure to save that soul during the whole socialist epoch? Most important, what can, and should, be done now by those of us who call ourselves classical liberals?

Science, Self-Interest, and Soul

George Bush, sometime during his presidency, derisively referred to "that vision thing" when someone sought to juxtapose his position with that of his predecessor, Ronald Reagan. He meant the "shining city on a hill," the Puritan image that Reagan invoked to call attention to the American ideal; that image, and others like it, were foreign to Bush's whole mind-set. He simply did not understand what Reagan meant and totally failed to appreciate why the image resonated so successfully in public attitudes. In a sense, we can say that Ronald Reagan was tapping into and expressing a part of the American soul beyond George Bush's ken.

The example is helpful even if it applies to a specific, politically organized, temporally restricted, and territorially defined society. The critical distinction between those whose window on reality emerges from a comprehensive vision of what might be and those whose window is pragmatically limited to current sense perceptions is made clear in the comparison. We may extend and apply a similar comparison to the attitudes of and approaches taken by various spokesmen and commentators to the extended order of social interaction described under the rubric of classical liberalism.

Note that I do not go beyond those persons who profess adherence to the policy stances associated with the ideas emergent from within this framework, policy stances summarized as support for limited government, constitutional democracy, free trade, private property, rule of law, open franchise, and federalism. My focus is on the differences among these adherents, and specifically on the differences between those whose advocacy stems from an understanding of the very soul of the integrated ideational entity and those whose advocacy finds its origins primarily in the results of scientific inquiry and the dictates of enlightened self-interest.

The larger thesis is that classical liberalism, as a coherent set of principles, has not secured, and cannot secure, sufficient public acceptability when its vocal advocates are limited to the second group. Science and self-interest, especially as combined, do indeed lend force to any argument. But a vision of an ideal, over and beyond science and self-interest, is necessary, and those who profess membership in the club of classical liberals have failed singularly in their neglect of this requirement. Whether or not particular proponents find their ultimate motivations in such a vision is left for each, individually, to decide.

I have indirectly indicated the meaning of my title. Dictionary definitions of soul include "animating or vital principle" and "moving spirit," attributes that would seem equally applicable to persons and to philosophical perspectives. Perhaps it is misleading, however, to refer to "saving" the soul so defined, whether applied to a person or a perspective. Souls are themselves created rather than saved, and the absence of an animating principle implies only the presence of some potential for such creation rather than a latent actuality or spent force.

The work of Adam Smith, along with that of his philosophical predecessors and successors, created a comprehensive and coherent vision of an order of human interaction that seemed to be potentially approachable in reality, at least sufficiently so to offer the animating principle or moving spirit for constructive institutional change. At the same time, and precisely because it is and remains potentially rather than actually attainable, this vision satisfies a generalized human yearning for a supraexistent ideal. Classical liberalism shares this quality with its archrival, socialism, which also offers a comprehensive vision that transcends both the science and self-interest that its sometime advocates claimed as characteristic features. That is to say, both classical liberalism and socialism have souls, even if those motivating spirits are categorically and dramatically different.

Few would dispute the...