The Ways of John Gray.

• Author: KLEIN, DANIEL B.

A Libertarian Commentary

In writing about classical liberal ideas and libertarian reforms, John Gray uses various terms. Besides "classical liberalism" and "libertarianism," he uses "neo-liberalism," "market liberalism," "paleo-liberal," "the New Right," "the market," "free market ideology," and, most broadly, "the Enlightenment Project." To understand why a libertarian such as myself might feel an urge to comment on Gray's writings, consider the following statements in which Gray disparages libertarianism:

The argument of Beyond the New Right [Gray 1993b] ... suggested that the historic inheritance of liberal institutions and practice was endangered, not as hitherto by left-liberal policy and ideology, but by the market fundamentalism sponsored by the New Right. (1995a, vii) The libertarian condemnation of the state and celebration of the free market is a recipe for social breakdown and political instability. (1997, 133) The celebration of consumer choice, as the only undisputed value in market societies, devalues commitment and stability in personal relationships and encourages the view of marriage and the family as vehicles of self-realization. The dynamism of market processes dissolves social hierarchies and overturns established expectations. Status is ephemeral, trust frail, and contract sovereign. This dissolution of communities promoted by market-driven labour mobility weakens, where it does not entirely destroy, the informal social monitoring of behaviour which is the most effective preventive measure against crime. (1995a, 99) The tendency of market liberal policy is significantly to reinforce subjectivist and even antinomian tendencies which are already very powerful in modernist societies and thereby to render surviving enclaves and remnants of traditional life powerless before them. (1995a, 99) The desolation of settled communities and the ruin of established expectations will not be mourned and may well be welcomed by fundamentalist market liberals. For them, nothing much of any value is threatened by the unfettered operation of market institutions. Communities and ways of life which cannot renew themselves through the exercise of consumer choice deserve to perish. The protection from market forces of valuable cultural forms is a form of unacceptable paternalism. And so the familiar and tedious litany goes on. (1995a, 100) In this paleo-liberal or libertarian view, the erosion of distinctive cultures by market processes is, if anything, to be welcomed as a sign of progress toward a universal rational civilization. Here paleo-liberalism shows its affinities not with European conservatism but with the Old Left project of doing away with, or marginalizing politically, the human inheritance of cultural difference.... This perspective is a hallucinatory and utopian one. (1995a, 102) Market liberal ideologists will argue that the stability of a market society is only a matter of enforcing its laws. This thoroughly foolish reply need not detain us. (1995a, 102) Communities need shelter from the gale of market competition, else they will be scattered to the winds. (1995a, 112) At present, the principal obstacle we face in the struggle to renew our inheritance of liberal practice is the burden on thought and policy of market liberal dogma. (1995a, 113) It is in social policy, however, that the errors of unrestrained neo-liberalism are most egregious. (1993b, 53) Conservative government has the responsibility of protecting and renewing the public environment without which the lifestyle of market individualism is squalid and impoverished. Conservative individualists, unlike their liberal and libertarian counterparts, recognise that the capacity for unfettered choice has little value when it must be exercised in a public space that--like many American cities--is filthy, desolate, and dangerous. (1993b, 60) Liberal ideologues, in the nescience of their rationalist conceit, suppose that they can answer the question posed by the greatest twentieth-century Tory poet: what are days for? These ideologues have still to learn that, when local knowledge is squandered in incessant self-criticism, people realise that solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor In their long coats Running over the fields (Gray 1993b, 53 [quoting Philip Larkin's poetry]) Gray's vituperation is especially remarkable because Gray was once a classical liberal. Although he did not begin as a classical liberal, he apparently moved in that direction during his thirties. For years, he contributed to the intellectual refinement and social cause of classical liberalism. He wrote books on John Stuart Mill, on F. A. Hayek, and on the history of liberalism. The back cover of his Beyond the New Right (1993b) contains the statement that "for over a decade [Gray] has been associated with the ideas and think-tanks of the New Right." In the United States he worked with libertarian or classical liberal organizations, including the Institute for Humane Studies, the Cato Institute, the Liberty Fund, and the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. In Britain he worked with the Institute of Economic Affairs, which in 1989 published his classical liberal booklet Limited Government: A Positive Agenda. But early on, Gray's work had shown a definite discomfort with classical liberal ideology, and that discomfort evolved into harsh denunciation.

I came to read Gray's books in the course of researching a project on ideological migration. Gray is significant because he migrated far and especially because, subsequent to his more classical liberal phase, he migrated in an uncommon direction--from belief in small government to belief in not-so-small government. In researching Gray for the ideological migration project, I found that he habitually argued in certain ways. Once I had discerned his characteristic ways, reading his work became much easier.

I present here a memorandum on the ways of John Gray, which takes the form of a broadside against his writings. Although I set myself up as Gray's opponent, I do so with significant misgivings. I share what is perhaps most fundamental in this thought--an agonistic attitude, as he aptly puts it, about political philosophy and about liberalism in particular (Gray 1993a, chap. 6; 1995a, chap. 6; 1996, chap. 6). Also, I admire his wide learning, his daring, and his industriousness. Yet I feel that he has been intellectually irresponsible in ways that damage the cause of good policy reform. My aim is to expose and counteract certain regrettable themes and rhetorical tactics in his work. The ways of Gray that I will treat are as follows:

* Gray habitually sets up a straw man and then knocks it down. He often neglects to specify whom or what he is attacking.

* Gray often attributes an extreme brittleness to his opponent's ideas, insisting that as soon as any ambiguity or incompleteness is identified, the entire body of ideas shatters. Yet Gray does not hold his own ideas to the same extreme standard for definitiveness and completeness.

* In many cases when Gray does identify the opposition, he flagrantly misrepresents it. He presents citations and truncated quotations to signify ideas that are quite at variance with what the sources are really saying. (I will consider in particular his misrepresentation of Hayek.)

* Gray often casts the opposition in hyperbolic terms, turning his opponent into an apocalyptic bugaboo.

Two themes in Gray's writings to which I call special attention are Gray's hostile view of the United States and his elitism.

The Liberty Maxim and Its Limitations

Gray has always opposed the foundationalist and rationalist strains in classical liberal thought. Finding the same antipathy in Hayek's writings, he praised Hayek in 1984 as follows:

We find in Hayek a restatement of classical liberalism in which it is purified of errors--specifically, the errors of abstract individualism and uncritical rationalism--which inform the work of even the greatest of the classical liberals and which Hayek has been able to correct by absorbing some of the deepest insights of conservative philosophy. (1984, viii) As Gray began his turn away from classical liberalism, he began using charges of rationalism, foundationalism, and fundamentalism to flog classical liberalism. This maneuver, which he has employed regularly since 1989, depends on constructing a straw man and on attributing a false brittleness to the victim. Before considering examples, let us explore the significance and relevance of foundationalism and rationalism in libertarian and classical liberal thought.

The central idea of libertarianism is liberty--the maxim of private property and freedom of consent and contract. But the maxim has limitations of several kinds.

First, it is sometimes ambiguous. The terms of consent and the rights inhering in property are sometimes unclear and indeterminate. Consider the following gray areas: the unsightliness of a neighbor's house; unpleasant noises; the basis of consent by the young, the senile, and the mentally retarded; issues relating to the unborn fetus; the tacit terms of ongoing relationships, including employment and marriage; the continuum that spans private voluntary agreement and coercive local government. The maxim also is ambiguous about whether the taxation to finance a minimal state ought to be deemed coercive and in violation of liberty. Ambiguities abound.

Second, the maxim is incomplete. It stipulates no rules to govern the use of government resources; it is silent on ten thousand issues of public administration. Given that the government imposes taxes and raises revenue, the maxim of liberty, by itself, does not say whether that revenue may be used for welfare benefits. Where we believe that government resources should be privatized, it fails to tell us how and how fast to privatize. It does not instruct us about meting out punishment and enforcing restitution. Incompleteness abounds.

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