BLACKHEATH PHILOSOPHY FORUM

Beyond Left & Right: Freedom and Security

Tony Lynch.
Philosophy & Politics,
University of New England,
June, 2006.

(Note from the Forum Webmistress: apologies to Tony Lynch if some book titles referred to in his talks are not in italics due to transposition to the site)

Introduction

The idea that politics in the liberal and social democracies of the West has somehow moved past the traditional opposition between the Conservative Right and the Socialist Left, and that this is somehow "a good thing", has been a feature of much "intellectual" commentary and self-congratulatory political rhetoric.

Often the claim is a political guillotine - it is used to silence those on the Right who might object to what they see as an attack on traditional values and social structures, and those on the Left who might object to what they see as an attack on the most vulnerable in our communities, or in the failure to provide for, or to protect, equality of opportunity. Used this way it serves to rule out politics as a sphere in which we might express our concern for others - for their traditional values and communities, or for their capacity to satisfy their vital needs and to live flourishing lives. Such concerns are said, in a derisory tone, to be "out of date", to reflect a "fear of the new", to manifest an "hostility to change", to embody a sentimental insistence on "looking backwards", even - in the most egregious of caricatures - just what you would expect from "elites" still hopelessly opposed to the radical transformation of our lives by the real elites. In this sense the topic is hardly worth talking about philosophically because it has no other tone but the exercise, deployment and enjoyment of power.

But it is the job - or curse - of the philosopher to be trained to try and find sense even where it isn't clear that there is sense to be found. Charity may not always be appreciated, thanked, or profitable, but it is to a sense making charity that philosophers are committed. And so I want to try and find the sense - if any - behind the familiar rhetoric of a politics "Beyond Left and Right".

Being Upfront

Let me be up front: I think there is something in the claim that we have a politics that is "Beyond Left and Right". (i)

In my view, the Right and the Left both took individual freedom to be a fundamental value; and both took this freedom to presuppose a secure choice environment of the kind only a politically organized world could provide. Against this view - and in different ways - we have the modern positions of Neo-Liberalism and Neo-Conservatism. In the name of individual choice Neo-liberalism detaches (the value of) individual freedom from a politically facilitated security. What individual freedom requires is a politically unsecured choice environment. Neo-conservatism takes a different tack. Now the idea is that individual freedom can only be delivered and secured by a political authority whose power is unfettered and untrammeled. Yes, individual freedom matters, but it can only be securely provided if the state - that is to say, those who man, and so naturally see themselves as embodying, it - have the freedom to do as they see fit in the name of securing our freedom.

Freedom: the Right & the Left

To begin the story let us return to the politics of freedom of the Conservative Right and the Socialist Left.

The Right has always emphasized the importance of individual freedom. What makes it distinctive is that it does situates this freedom against the background of an established social order that sustains a robust ethical system; freedom consists in the exercise of one's traditional liberties and the pursuit of conventionally sanctioned moral values. Without an established socio-ethical order freedom degenerates into mere "license", and is to be repudiated as soulless "decadence". The task of politics is to protect and preserve individual freedom by protecting and preserving the established social order and conventional ethical system. The challenge of politics is to do this without falling into a reactionary elitism in which traditional liberties are curtailed for the unrestricted prerogatives of the powerful, or into a reactionary reification of present conventions that denies the (occasional) need for adaptive change.

The Left too, has always emphasized the value of human freedom. Where it differs from the Right is in connecting this idea of freedom very closely to the idea of equality. For the Left it is an obvious truth that without social, political and economic equality, freedom becomes, on the side of the less than equal, a constrained system of desperate choices, or, more often, of the desperate absence of choices; while on the side of the more than equal, it transmutes into a deplorable (and self-damaging) capacity for exploitation and oppression of others. The task of politics is to provide material security for all, and to provide equally for citizens an array of opportunities through which they might develop their capacities. The challenge of politics is to do this without turning freedom of opportunity into an enforced uniformity, and to make sure that where political power expands into new areas it is freedom-enhancing, not freedom-restricting.
Let me turn now to neo-liberalism.

Neo-Liberalism

In a nutshell, neo-liberalism not only denies the internal connection between the provision of a politically secured choice environment and individual freedom, it sets the two at loggerheads. Thus a secure choice environment is - of its nature - an impediment to "real" freedom; and "real" freedom involves the imposition, and welcoming, of a politically unsecured choice environment. The slogan is "Free to Choose", or of "the Right to Choose", and the range of choices is thought to be potentially (and properly) unlimited. The more choices there are around, the more freedom there is to be found. And there are obviously more choices around, and so the more freedom, when less in the choice environment is guaranteed, either by a politically defended traditional social order, or by the secure provisions of government welfarism. The neo-liberal rhetoric of freedom is not, as it was for the Right, a matter of traditional liberties tied to an established social order and conventional standards of moral evaluation, nor, as with the Left, a matter of developing our capacities, and so tied to the provision of material well-being and to standards of social and political equality; it is tied instead to the notion of "risk" (2). The idea is that the more risks one faces, then the more one's capacity for free choice has been unleashed. The rhetoric of freedom as risk is that of "flexibility", "deregulation", "privatization", of "letting managers manage", of "portfolio careers", of "individual responsibility", of "winners and losers", of - in short - the maximal opportunities for individual choice.

Whereas for the Right and Left individual freedom was taken to have its meaning in so far as it keyed into the idea of an individual life, and so of a life worth living, with choice entering insofar as it was a matter of enacting our traditional liberties, or of furthering the development of our capacities, for neo-liberalism freedom is detached from this embedded and extended temporal perspective, and is identified with the act of choice. It is for this reason that the model for freedom comes to be the model of the consumer and the metaphor - or model - for social existence becomes that of the laissez-faire market. Under this model, the task of politics is its self-effacement. Politics is not the means to the freedom guaranteeing security the Left and the Right, in their own ways, take it to be; it is rather the dismantling of such guaranteed security, and so of its own dismantling.

I call this act-of-choice conception of human freedom pre-political. I do so not just because of the self-abolitional politics it involves, but because it was precisely this kind of freedom that characterized human life in what liberal political philosophers, from John Locke onwards, termed the "state of nature" - where this means human life outside of (any) political society (3). The significance of seeing neo-liberalism in this light is that in the liberal democratic tradition within which the Right and Left fought their battles, politics had been conceived as a means of defending and furthering individual freedom by dealing with the problems that arise from the operations of individual freedom in the state of nature; yet it is precisely this vision of the politics of freedom that is refused or denied in the neo-liberalism

Rather than leap into the details of Locke's arguments - sound though I think they are - let us try to see in as simple as possible a way why we might see politics as a solution to the problems of unfettered individual choice; and why we might see a politics which dealt with such problems as a contribution to human freedom.

The basic idea is this: Freedom is a good thing, but there are many kinds of choice which - on any sane view of things - can hardly be thought of as a good thing, and so cannot be a contribution to freedom. In fact many kinds of choice seem to undermine, diminish or destroy, freedom; at least to destroy the kind of freedom which we might value for the place it has allowing us to live meaningful lives.

With no claim to give an exhaustive list (it isn't), let me suggest that there are at least three kinds of choices which tell against, not for, human freedom. They are cases in which the choice is the product of an underlying, unwanted, necessity; cases in which the choice, while not in itself undesirable, is undesirable when collectively available; and cases where the choice is irrelevant, distracting, unnecessary, or trivial for us as we seek to pursue those things we value in life.

For an example of the first category, consider Sophie's Choice: which of her children to leave to the executioners, and which to save (4). This is a choice which no-one should have to face. Facing it does not extend Sophie's freedom - just as having the choice between being electrocuted or hung does not extend the freedom of the condemned. When one must make - or refuse to make - choices in situations in which no-one should have to, or would want to, find themselves, then whatever freedom there is, is simply the unwanted product of an underlying, and terrible, necessity. While Spinoza may have had a word in favour of this as the epitome of human freedom, for most of us it is surely true that Sophie's freedom would be furthered, not diminished, if the world were so arranged that the necessity for such choices never hit the radar in the first place.

For a less florid, but no less desperate, example, consider the parent who, in the absence of government welfare provision, or of established institutions of charitable provision, and in unfortunate circumstances, faces the question of whether to allow their children to eat, or themselves to eat. Or who faces the question of whether to eat or to heat their freezing abode. More choices than the norm, that is true, but more freedom? Again these are choices driven by a deeper, freedom restricting, necessity of the kind one might well think it the task of politics to free us from.

Consider, finally, another case many of us more fortunate than those in the previous examples might see as a little closer to home - the provision of healthcare. Are we really better off - better able to enjoy and value our freedom - if we are faced with the choice of whether to purchase private health care or not (and so of whether to purchase it in this form and from this provider), compared to the provision, through compulsory taxation, of a good public health care system? Is it a cowardly denial of our individual freedom to prefer the security of public provision? The answer is, surely, only if refuse to accept that we might freely choose to bind ourselves into systems which, from then on, do not demand continuing choices, but rather close off such choices. Indeed, accepting this possibility is just to accept the possibility of politics itself (5). After all, governments must be funded, and that means taxation. Now, ask yourself, would there be any taxation, so any government, if to pay tax was subject to individuals' acts of choice, rather than their choice to bind themselves into a system of compulsory collection? As any rational choice theorist will tell you, there will not be, for the logic of free-riding is irresistible in such institutionally unstructured environments.

As we can now see, if one problem with neo-liberal freedom is its exclusive focus on acts-of-choice, another is that it focuses on an impoverished idea of choice; as if all we ever choose is some particular line of action or inaction, rather than appreciating that we can make choices about our choices. There is no reason why we might not choose, and for good reasons, to close off certain arenas of choice; and this is something we might want to do to secure the choice environment so that we can get on with doing what we (really) want to do. For a contemporary example of the refusal of neo-liberals to acknowledge this, consider the recent industrial relations "reforms" in this country. Employees are claimed to have more individual choices than before as they stand alone before their employer, their job, conditions, and remuneration on the line. If our honesty is sufficient to penetrate any vested interests we might have, then it is clear that for the majority (as they are well aware) such individual choices are now desperate in a way they were not under the conditions of collective bargaining. Without the countervailing power of organized labour, such choices emerge from our newly unprotected vulnerability to the underlying structures of capitalist necessity. It was, in fact, just because of the disvalue of such choices that employees chose to engage in collective bargaining strategies in the first place. Less choices to be sure, but less freedom? Hardly.

I turn now to the second kind of potentially freedom restricting choice opportunities. Now the problem is not that the choices available reflect an unwanted underlying structure of politically remediable necessity - in fact, considered in themselves, the choices I have in mind here are something one might well want to have available. The problem does not lie in the choice in itself, but in its being collectively available. Consider a simple case - driving from A to B. It is doubtless a desirable thing for a person to be able to decide just how they get from A to B - whereabouts on the road they drive, if there at all, how fast they drive, in what state of consciousness, with what vehicle, at what speed, etc. Consider, however, that if this is true of me, then it is equally true of all other (potential) drivers. Think now of a neo-liberal inspired, act of choice, repudiation of the security offered by legally binding road rules. Such rules are repudiated as involving a "cowardly risk averse", "individual responsibility denying", restriction on the freedom of individual drivers. So to further the "right to choose" we instigate a laissez-faire open slather. What do we get? We get, of course, mayhem on (and off) the roads. We get greatly increased numbers of deaths, injuries, and accident damage. We now have to choose whether or not to take the risk to drive to Mum and Dad's, rather than simply driving to see them. Here, we might think, is a case where more choices mean less security, and so means more desperate choices, of the kind we might well like to be relieved of - and relieved of not because we reject freedom, but because we value the freedom of secure travel.

The final set of choice opportunities we might wish to limit in the name of freedom are those that are trivial or pointlessly time-consuming, so that acts of choice involved do not seem to further our freedom, but to force us into unwanted activity when, all things considered, we would much rather be doing something else. The provision of new possibilities of individual choice may well have unwanted opportunity costs for individual freedom.

I remember becoming aware of this possibility as a boy when my school (a tightly uniformed Catholic School) introduced "Casual Clothes Day". The idea was that on a certain designated day one could choose, for the payment of a nominal amount, to abandon the school uniform for whatever you could find acceptably clean from the wardrobe. Oh the freedom! And oh the nuisance! For it soon became clear to me - and not only to me, for the general response was such that, in the end, the event was dropped - that choosing to wear or not wear a uniform, and then choosing just what other clothes to wear, was not really empowering at all, but a source of time-consuming anxiety and pointless activity as one rushed to and from the wardrobe to the mirror, and all for what? The choice was essentially trivial, and the time deliberating about it time that one well knew was being wasted, not enjoyed (6).

For a modern example of such trivial, time-wasting, choices consider the variety of styles of number plates that are on offer at one's RTA office. Here they are, in all their different colours, their different sizes, their alphabetical and arithmetic possibilities, and all available for different monetary amounts. One now has more possible choices, just as we did on casual clothes day, but at what cost? It is one of the pernicious aspects of the neo-liberal conception of freedom that at the same time as it tends to foist on us unwanted necessities which generate terrible or repulsive choices, it tends also to an imperialism of the trivial. After all, if freedom just means free to choose, then the one relatively easy way to maximize freedom is to multiply the occasions for trivial choices. Just as one is freer by having to choose whether to put food on the kids table or into one's stomach, so too one is basking in freedom when standing perplexed in front of a supermarket freezer which has 34 different brands of frozen peas.

At this point, rather than continuing to chant "free to choose" one might well turn to politics, and, in the name of freedom, seek to eliminate those unwanted necessities which lead to awful choices. One might turn to politics to ensure that what might be individually desirable as a freedom does not generalize into a debacle no one wants or intends. And one might hope for a politics that stands against the cluttering of our lives by the unnecessary and irredeemably trivial. One might hope that, but not if one is convinced by neo-liberalism. The neo-liberal idea of freedom makes no room for politics at all, except as an unraveling, a "rolling back" of the state. The upshot is either simple anarchy, or a policed anarcho-capitalism that revels in the freedom to sleep under bridges or in the Hilton; to live and beg in the streets and to step over living beggars; to accept what is insultingly offered or to get out; to meet risk penniless and defenceless, or secured by private wealth; and so on.

This is not an unfamiliar story because it is, in a major part, our story. But it is not all there is to the story. For as well as the neo-liberal conception of freedom, identifying it with the maximal array of choices under conditions of risk, there is too the emerging (or, more accurately, re-emerging) neo-conservative conception of freedom, and it is to his that I now turn.

Neo-Conservatism

Where neo-liberalism responds to the Right and Left's claim that freedom and a politically secured choice environment go together by severing the tie between security and freedom - and so encouraging a retreat from the political altogether -neo-conservatism brings the notions of freedom and security back together, but in quite a different way. While the Right and Left felt that it was the task of politics to further the conditions of individual freedom, both were wary (if not always wary enough) of the capacity for the state to usurp or inhibit such freedom. Both balanced the need for a political regime to provide a secure choice environment with a concern that it not overstep the mark into a potentially freedom destroying tyranny (7). Neo-conservatism, on the other hand, is prepared to detach the provision of a politically secured choice environment from worries about tyrannical rule. There may be threats to freedom that can only be countered by disregarding individual freedoms.

If this were not an essentially philosophical engagement with the issues of freedom and security, I would have an historical and political account of the emergence of neo-conservatism. Such an account would look at how conservatism, particularly in the United States, under the pressures of the Cold War and a concern for Israel's security, took on a more strident, realpolitik, conception of political power; it would look at how neo-liberal's anti-politics always carried the seeds of neo-conservative political authoritarianism, both through its willingness to ride roughshod over the traditional political constituencies of the Right and Left, and its need to deploy "strong social policies" to deal with the social destabilization the spread of laissez-faire always generates; it would consider how the end of the Cold War encouraged a triumphalist "freedom has won" self-confidence that encouraged many to think that all had been achieved, and that any continuing concerns for its health were unnecessary; and so on through a whole network of issues, policies and contingencies, including, most importantly, the emergence of the so-called "War on Terror" as the defining metaphor - for political elites, if not for the rest of us - of political seriousness. All this would be interesting, but it would not be philosophical. What I want is to sketch the political logic of neo-conservatism as it concerns itself with questions of security and freedom.

The first thing to say is that neo-conservatism has a novel rhetoric of freedom and security. Whereas both the Right and the Left thought of freedom as a matter of individuals' capacity to pursue lives they found worthwhile, and understood politics as securing the arena for such lives, neo-conservatism understands freedom to be the product of government security. It is because government security creates the very possibility of individual freedom, and does not merely protect and further it, that the neo-conservative rhetoric of freedom is essentially a rhetoric of political authority, not of individual claims on such authority. Thus: "the Government needs to be free to - exercise surveillance on citizens without court authorisation, to incarcerate people interminably and without trial (and torture them if that is how it feels), to prosecute those who "glorify terrorism" or "indirectly encourage it", to use "national security" to close down democratic and judicial assessment and discussion, etc. - and it needs to do this to "protect our freedoms".

The assumptions that shape neo-conservatisms understanding of individual freedom are threefold. First that there are bad people out there who wish us only harm (in the neo-conservative rhetoric, they are those "who hate us for our freedoms"). Secondly, that all good people are to be treated as potential victims who need the authoritarian state to prevent their destruction at the hands of the freedom-haters. And third, that claims to individual freedoms can never be used to trump the means such a State claims as necessary or essential to the protection of such dependent and fragile beings. Putting the assumptions together we get - at the very best - a "politics of freedom" which rests on power infantilizing individuals' freedom. The model is patriarchal in the strict Roman sense: the State is the pater familias, with the power of life and death (vitae necisque potestas) over those "under his hand" (sub manu).

One reason why I am inclined to attribute to neo-conservatism a pre-political conception of politics is because it morphs politics into this kind of paternalism, and paternal authority is not political authority - your father, no matter how strict or lax he exercises his power over you, is not governing you. A further - associated - reason for doing this is that the promises of security made, and so of the role of the State in facilitating individual freedom, can only be reasonably accepted if we also hold the view that the State is is never tempted, out of selfish interests, malice or ignorance, to abuse or misuse the power it claims the right to wield. This view, of the sanctity of political power and the saintliness of those who deploy it, was, of course, just the view of those "Divine Right to Rule" theorists like Sir Robert Filmer that John Locke attacked on behalf of liberal democracy. It was against such views that Locke argued for an articulated and mutually balancing set of political institutions. Such a "checks and balances" view of politics is anathema to neo-conservatism, for whom such a separation of powers does not mark the strength of liberal democratic politics, but its (potential) weakness. Neo-conservatism holds that the protection of individual freedom is compatible with - even demands - an unrestricted and centralised deployment of political power. In the United States this is called the "unitary executive" thesis, and it has been interpreted by the present regime as meaning that the executive branch can overrule the courts and Congress on the basis of the president's own interpretations of the Constitution (8).

It is because neo-conservatism is a style of paternalism that it takes its second distinctive rhetorical turn. Whereas for the Right and the Left the natural - and first - rhetorical move involved individuals asserting their freedoms - be they their traditional liberties, or their equal freedom to the resources and opportunities for self-development - neo-conservatism speaks first with the voice of political power. It follows that while individuals might protest at the state violating their freedoms (assuming, of course, that they are still around to protest anything), ultimate authority lies with the State's claims to be serving the cause of human freedom. A claim, for example, that one's freedom of speech and association have been violated by the State will be countered with the claim that the State is concerned to "protect the rights of people not to be insulted", or, upping the ante in the familiar way "their right not to be a victim". In one sense, of course, this is uncontroversial - both the Right and the Left saw it as essential to politics that it provide security of life; but both felt that such security was just as important - perhaps even more so - in the face of its potential abuse by the State. Unless one was secure from such violations, then the idea that politics provided a secure choice environment was not merely empty, but false (9).

The third distinctive contour to neo-conservatism is its propensity - and arguably inevitable propensity - to think of all politics, intra-state as well as inter-state, in terms of an aggressive realpolitik. Because neo-conservatism understands respect for individual freedom as requiring first respect for the beneficence of untrammeled State power, it begins from the assumption that it is surrounded by extra-political threats, be they from other political regimes, or from other kinds of enemies, both outside and within the State. The politics of freedom becomes a kind of paranoia; and it ties neo-conservatism to (a permanent state of) ever-present, and omnipresent, warfare. In such circumstances to hold that political power is limited by the assertion of individual freedom is tantamount to treason (10).

The Link Between Neo-Liberalism & Neo-Conservatism

At first sight it can seem as if neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism are deeply opposed. One ties freedom to an unstructured, and politically unsecured choice environment, the other insists that only a politically secured choice environment makes individual freedom possible. But if we look a little deeper we see that both share a crucial assumption, and that, in virtue of this, they have a natural relationship, and one that has emerged in practice.

The crucial assumption is that freedom is best insured by pre-political means. For neo-liberalism freedom is a matter of institutionally unstructured, and so politically unsecured, freedom of choice; while for neo-conservatism freedom is to be produced and secured through pre-political paternal authority. This shared commitment to a pre-political understanding of freedom may take different forms in each, but we can see how each conception finds a natural partner in the other. The fact is that in their shared rejection of the politics of the traditional Right and Left, both need each other to remedy - at least, appear to remedy - their different inadequacies.

The fundamental problem with neo-liberalism has been there from the start. If choice is all, and choice is furthered by risk, then heavenly freedom promises to be an anarchic hell. In practice, then, and despite its proclaimed hostility to the political provision of a secured choice environment, neo-liberalism has qualified its unleashing of economic laissez-faire with demand for a "vigorous" or "strong social policy". Thus, at the same time as acts of choice have been celebrated and multiplied, increasing numbers have been penalized and more severely for making such risky choices.

The fundamental problem with neo-conservatism has been how to present untrammeled state power as the defender, rather than enemy, of individual freedom. If part of the answer has been to appeal to the threat of terrorism so as to terrorise the population into an infantile dependence on paternal power, another part of that answer has been to encourage the imperialism of trivial choices as the real expression of human freedom.

Conclusion

And so now we have the full "beyond Left and Right" package - unrestricted political authoritarianism and unrestricted economic laissez-faire. Do you feel more secure? And do you feel freer than ever before? These questions you have to answer for yourselves.

Footnotes

1. I shall often abbreviate "Conservative Right" and "Socialist Left" to "Right" and "Left".
2. This - the emphasis on risk, and its supposed internal connection with freedom - is the key theme of Anthony Giddens' 1994 book Beyond Left & Right (Polity, London).
3. John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, many editions. The "state of nature" is a place where each individual is free to make whatever choices they wish; and in which such choices are unregulated by any institutional structures or systems.
4. The example comes from William Styrom's novel of the same name.
5. One might also see accepting this view as accepting (say) the possibility of marriage, and so on.
6. Nor should we overlook the new choices foisted on our (typically unwilling) parents. Should they choose to give into our frantic demands for this or that brand shoe or shirt; should they allow us to borrow their favourite jacket, etc. And nor should we overlook the point that most of the choices we make in such situations will in fact be choices whose necessity and outcome is largely determined by our slavishness before the determinations of "fashion".
7. I speak of "tyranny" not "fascism". I understand tyranny to be any form of government, or any act of political decision-making, that involves a lack of respect for the Rule of Law on behalf of a political authority that involves considerable concentration of power in the hands of a single person or organisation. I take fascism to be a political ethos characterized by such things as the cult of the leader, anti-democracy, nationalism, terroristic policing, anti-egalitarianism, love of political symbolism, etc. I have no intention (at present, anyway) of sliding neo-conservatism into fascism.
8. For a discussion of the thesis, see Elizabeth Drew, "Power Grab", The New York Review, vol. 53, No. 11, June 22, 2006.
9. As Locke put it, with Hobbes in mind; one would be mad to abandon the freedoms of the state of nature, no matter how arduous, for the promises of secured freedom emanating from an unrestrained executive authority. "This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions." (Second Treatise on Government, Section 93.)
10. The most shameless presentation of this view is to be found in Ann Coulter, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, (New York: Crown Formu, 2003). For a critical reaction, see Paul Krugman, "The Treason Card", New York Times, 07/07/06.

 

Part ii

Legitimating Libertarian Capitalism:
The Availability Problem

Tony Lynch & Adrian Walsh
Disciplines of Philosophy & Politics,
School of Social Science,
University of New England,
Armidale, 2351
New South Wales,
Australia.
alynch@pobox.une.edu.au
awalsh@pobox.une.edu.au

Legitimating Libertarian Capitalism:
The Availability Problem

But a company of merchants are, it seems, incapable of considering themselves as sovereigns ... . . As sovereigns, their interest is exactly the same with that of the country which they govern. As merchants their interest is directly opposite to that interest.
- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk. 4, Ch 1.

Legitimating Libertarian Capitalism

It is a common enough view - perhaps the dominant view - that market agents are self-interested, not benevolent or altruistic, and that this is morally defensible, even morally required. For ease of exposition we call this view "libertarian capitalism", though we might equally have called it "neo-liberalism".

Within libertarian capitalism we find two ways of making this case. On the one hand we have the utilitarian appeal to the material consequences of the market system - it is justified just because it makes us, on average, a richer community than would otherwise be the case. This is the position Adam Smith takes when he writes:

Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention (1).

And it is also the (sometimes) position of Milton Friedman who argues that while "maximizing profits is an end from the private point of view (2) ; it is a means from the social point of view". This means, he explains, that "the social responsibility of business [is] to increase its profits", is "equivalent" to the "statement that 'the enlightened corporation should try to create value for all of its constituencies [investors, customers, employees, suppliers, and the community]." (3).

On the other hand we have a deontological argument according to which only an economic system which frees agents from any altruistic obligations for others material well-being respects that personal freedom which derives from, and is protected by, those fundamentally defensive private property rights that embody our essential moral freedom. This view derives from Adam Smith's celebration of laissez-faire capitalism as an expression of individuals "sacred rights" or "natural liberty", and in modern times is (rightly) associated with Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and Rose and Milton Friedman's Free to Choose (4) . As we might expect the deontological approach is commonly expressed by defenders of "freedom". The Future of Freedom Foundation, for instance, describes its "mission" this way:

The mission of The Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government (5).

And has Sheldon Richman arguing as follows in an essay entitled "Four Cheers for Capitalism":

Here is a universal truth: capitalism is what you get when the government leaves people alone. It is a legal environment that recognizes the rights to life, liberty, and property. It is a set of rules that reflects the natural right of self-ownership. Any alleged evils of capitalism are simply the result of people's being free to choose. Blaming capitalism for what people supply and demand is a little like blaming the game of baseball because players spit (6).

The utilitarian strategy implies that for an agent to resile from the self-interested pursuit of economic goals for altruistic or benevolent reasons is not morally good or permissible, but is in fact reprehensible insofar it means reducing the average level of well-being. It is an implication of the deontological strategy that justice defends, and demands, the right of the economic agent to make any production, consumption or investment decision free from any intervening (or interfering) concern for the material welfare of others. If any person wishes by their activity to aim at or serve some altruistic end, then they are perfectly entitled to do so, though given that they are not obliged to so compromise their personal freedom - and that if they do so compromise it, the recipient of their benevolence has no obligation to reciprocate - such has a decidedly quixotic aspect.

These positions differ in important ways. The utilitarian strategy depends heavily on the truth of the "invisible hand" thesis, and its ability to generate those consequences which make it true that a system of uncompromisingly self-interested market-agency out performs any alternative economic system which makes room for benevolently or altruistically intended actions. It is thus a conditional justification. The deontological strategy, on the other hand, is unconditional in the sense that even if it were true that we would all be, or be on average, materially better off under some alternative system of economic arrangements, still only libertarian capitalism is morally legitimate.

The Availability Problem

If these positions differ on the conditionality or unconditionality of libertarian capitalism's moral legitimation, there is an important sense in which, each in their own way, face a similar puzzle with their legitimating strategies. This puzzle arises because when we act in the market we are supposed to have no concern for the well-being of others; yet the legitimation of this lack of concern clearly does imply an essential concern for the well-being of others. The utilitarian appeals to a concern with maximizing the average level of material well-being across the community; and such a concern is - in its generalizing way - an other-regarding concern. The deontologist appeals to our concern to recognize and honour the "rights" of others, even when doing so promises to impede us in freely pursuing our own material ends; and such a concern involves - in its univeralising way - an other-regarding concern for the rights of others.

We call the puzzle that emerges here the Availability Problem, for it is a matter of the availability to self-interested market agents of those other-regarding concerns, whether conceived in a utilitarian or deontological fashion, necessary to the legitimation of libertarian capitalism. The problem is to see how the necessary other-regarding resources are available, and robustly so, to agents who, in the arena for which such justification is sought, are not thought to be other-regarding, but self-regarding.

The Separation Solution

To the extent that the availability problem has been dealt with in traditional accounts, it has been through a doctrine of separation - either as a matter of separation between people(s), or as a matter of (some style of) psychological separation.

The separation of people approach is that favored by Adam Smith. According to Smith whenever a group of merchants are gathered together we can anticipate a conspiracy against the public good (7). Self-interested market agents unregulated by any conception of the public good will act, or tend to act, in ways which undermine the efficacy of the "invisible hand" market mechanism. Even more than this, the very operation of the market place as a site of interaction between self-interested agents means that the successful market competitor, and just because of his success:

…is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it (8).

To prevent this subversion of the public good, either by commercial conspiracy or by outright theft, Smith waxes eloquent on the necessity to an efficient market economy of the Sovereign Power as guarantor of The Rule of Law. The duty of the Sovereign, he writes, is to protect "every member of the society from the injustice and oppression of every other member of it" through the "exact administration of justice" (9).

What is required are a class of people who embody a commitment to the "Rule of Law" - "civil magistrates" - who are to police market agents so as to prevent their self-interest leading them into socially destructive practices. And so the availability problem is "solved" by locating the moral legitimation of the market in the magistrates concern for the public good, and allowing these concerns to police the limits of self-interest in the market. This is, of course, the usual rationale for state regulation of the economy.

This approach is suspect on its own terms, and fails to solve the availability problem.

It is suspect on its own terms because the appeal to supervisory extra-market agency involves a recision from the "invisible hand" thesis. After all, if the "invisible hand" requires external policing in the service of the public interest to fulfill its promise, why insist that it can only do its work if economic agents eschew all directly other-regarding concerns? And it fails to satisfactorily address the availability problem in so far as it fails to recognize two things.

It fails to acknowledge that we are today - all of us, "magistrates" included - reflective economic agents deeply implicated in the logic and activities of the market-place. If we are to be constrained, it is difficult to see how it can be by market-external command and coercion alone. And it fails to appreciate the kind of psychological dynamics which come into play when systems of material reward conflict with standards of moral evaluation. The point was most succinctly made by Nietzsche when he remarked somewhere that the closer the concept of goodness approached the concept of stupidity, the less goodness there will tend to be in the world; a point important for the possibility of an effective magistracy.

As the magistrate (like the market agent) is well aware, the pursuit of private rather than public ends reliably promises to return greater material benefits - which benefits are real benefits - than more directly altruistic ends. Those who acquire such rewards will be - and will expect to be - envied by others for their success; and, by a natural movement of thought, will tend to despise or disparage those other-regarding motivations which fail to deliver such rewards. Given too that other-regarding activity is typically less remunerative, and given that remuneration is generally valued, those who bear such motives will not only be thought "foolish" by those who resolutely pursue private ends, but will struggle to sustain their vision of themselves as morally upright, rather than dupes of their more successful fellows. This struggle is all the more difficult because those who simply pursue private ends will be able to appeal to their moral virtue in producing, through the operations of the "invisible hand", greater average utility, or to their virtuous respect for peoples "natural liberties".

These remarks enable us to see why any psychological version of the separation response to the availability problem offers no real advance. It is all very well to speak of us as easily able to "wear two hats", simply replacing the one - engaged and self-interested market activity - with the other - the morally concerned agent in the "cool hour" who formulates and appreciates the moral legitimation of market selfishness in terms of its utilitarian benefits or its embodiment of fundamental human rights (10); but it is hard to cash this out in any plausible way. (One suspects this is why Smith to opted for the separation of persons approach.)

Again the problem is one of what becomes of goodness when it approaches to what many - and not foolishly - will see as stupidity.

Consider the utilitarian strategy. It must be admitted that in the marketplace I will likely do better in real (material) terms by pursuing self-interested goals and eschewing other-regarding concerns. The move from wearing one hat in which I directly pursue such goods for myself, to assuming that hat in which what worries me is how those goods are distributed across a community of others is one in which I must, in giving such a legitimation, be prepared to abandon activities aimed at bringing me such goods, so, in all probability, reducing - and out of a concern for others - not only my own welfare, but the average welfare. On the prudential level this just looks stupid, while on the moral level it looks simply wrong. Prudentially the problem is that goodness and stupidity move alarmingly close to the detriment of the former; for why waste the time on such unproductive activity? While morally the problem is that any "time-off" to contemplate such a justification would appear to be ruled out by that very justification. After all, taking off the hat of market self-interest for the hat of generalized benevolence means acting in a way that threatens to reduce the average welfare.

With the deontological style of legitimation the problem appears in a more complex form. Now it isn't that that which I selfishly pursue in the market is just that value which I am supposed to take altruistically on the level of reflection - something which seems obviously problematic - but that my appeal to my "natural liberty" to legitimate my self-regarding pursuit of material ends places pressure on my commitment to respect the natural liberties of others. How is it that a rights based defense of market-selfishness can make available, and securely so, a commitment to respect the rights of others when such respect may involve me in forgoing opportunities to further precisely that end (my material well-being) which these rights guarantee my freedom to pursue without care for the welfare of others? What, if anything, is there to put in the way of the natural tendency - under the usual Nietzschean pressures- to slide from "My right to pursue in a self-regarding way my material interests", to "My self-regarding right to do whatever will further my material interests"? Certainly it is no good appealing to the meaning of the term "rights", for it is just this meaning which is under pressure.

It would seem that if there is to be a justification here then our commitment to the welfare or to the rights of others - so that the self-interest unleashed in the market does not undermine the provisions of the "invisible hand", and does not generate widespread rights violations - must be both com-present with, and effectively mediate, our self-interested agency in the market-place. Separation approaches to the availability problem fail to satisfy this condition; though this does not mean that the moral justification of libertarian capitalism is a hopeless, hypocritical, or doomed exercise, for there is a different, and potentially more fruitful, approach.

The "As-If" Solution to the Availability Problem

The only promising response to the availability problem is that championed by Samuel Brittan in Capitalism with a Human Face (11). This is the "as-if" approach.

According to this view, what is required is that in the market-place agents act as if they are self-interested, rather than pursuing benevolent or altruistic ends. They act as if they are self-interested because acting that way has utilitarian returns, or because only in an "as-if" conditionalisation of our self-interested aims ensures respect for the freedoms of others.

The strategy, in either case, is not to separate, either sociologically or psychologically, market motivation from the grounds of moral legitimation, but to show (and to explain) how what appear to be self-regarding market motives might, at just the same time, and in just the same deliberative space, also present themselves as sufficiently other-regarding to enable the availability problem to be met - and in a way that stands against any tendency for the "as-if" conditionality to collapse into an unqualified, indicative, selfishness.

A Divine "As-If" Solution?

One way of implementing the "as-if" strategy, and of meeting the security challenge, is to call upon the assistance of Divine Providence; either by identifying it with the operation of the "invisible hand", or appealing to it as the source of those "sacred rights" which underpin our right to pursue our private ends free from any concern for the public good.
Consider the words of Samuel J. Tilden at a testimonial dinner for John Pierpont Morgan's father, Junius Morgan:

You are, doubtless in some degree, clinging to the illusion that you are working for yourself, but it is my pleasure to claim you are working for the public. [Applause] While you are scheming for your own selfish ends, there is an overruling and wise Providence directing that the most of all you do should inure to the benefit of the people. Men of colossal fortunes are in effect, if not in fact, trustees for the public (12).

On this view our "selfishness" in the market is, in a real sense, "illusory", and so able to sustain the "as-if" conditionalisation - for in so pursuing our personal ends we are doing the Will of God, and that Will, as we know, is other-concerning. Our selfishness is informed by a genuine concern, through our subjection to Divine authority, for the public welfare, or for the "sacred rights" of others. And, of course, given God's goodness and power, we have reason to feel secure in our conditional, "as-if", market egoism.

A more demandingly altruistic version of this approach, and one which eschews appeal to the "invisible hand", is offered by the 18th Century founder of Methodism, John Wesley. According to Wesley, God demands of us the following "system of work": work for the sake of earning; earn for the sake of saving; save for the sake of giving (13). The "as-if" conditionalisation succeeds in so far as the first demand - work for the sake of earning - is itself subsumed in a Divinely sanctioned moral circuit which issues in increased capacity for direct altruism.

A deontological, "natural law", formulation of this Divinely guaranteed as-if conditionalisation can be found at least as far back as 1835, when Andrew Ure, taking himself to be following Smith's lead, argued that "Providence" underpins and bounds the apparent selfishness of market-agency (14). The self-interested market agent acts "as-if" he were merely self-concerned, but this apparent selfishness is a veneer beneath which we find the expression (and so defense and protection of) the Divinely determined conditions of just co-operation.

A Divinity-Free "As-If" Solution?

It is not obvious what it would be to implement and secure the "as-if" strategy without appeal to Divine Providence or to a Divinely sanctioned moral circuit. The difficulty is that the "as-if" conditionalisation cannot appeal to a subsuming commitment to further God's plan for "collective well-being" or for the "conditions of just cooperation" which is to inform even the most overt "scheming for … [one's] own selfish ends". With Divine Province we can rest assured that although our activities might seem to be selfishly motivated, still before the Eye of God, their saintly character stands revealed. The trouble is that absent the Divine Eye the only witness our ultimate saintliness is ourselves alone. At this point there emerge some general reasons for doubting whether the necessary saintly concern can be robustly sustained in the face of our market selfishness.

The first reason is Aristotelian. It is to the effect that how we act tends, of itself, to determine or shape our character. Deeds - and in particular deeds which are regularly performed - have a certain weight that threatens to corrode away any "as-if" mental reservation. The teacher, for example, who decides to keep classroom order by acting as-if he were an aggressive authoritarian may well soon find - and, one might think, in good part through the very success of the strategy - that that is the kind of teacher he becomes. As Aristotle says, quoting Evenus:

I say that habit's but long practice, friend,
And this becomes men's nature in the end (15)

In part this would seem to be a matter of our tendency to resist moral effort - for it takes a certain effort to make and mean an "as-if" qualification before every case of what, without that qualification, would be an unabashed piece of straight-forwardly self-interested activity. And, of course, absent the eternal Divine gaze, and as witnesses to our own virtue, there would seem no other strategy except such particularized conditionalisation.

Perhaps this is a little quick; for there may be one clear example where this kind of "as-if" conditionalisation might be immune to a habit informed collapse into an unqualified indicative (16). Consider the "paradox of hedonism". The point is familiar - if one wants happiness then the best way to achieve it might not be to aim it directly (whatever that might mean), but to approach it indirectly by acting as-if other things mattered.

Perhaps this is how it is with the paradox of hedonism, but closer reflection shows us that we have two quite different styles of conditionalisation in play. With the paradox of hedonism when one acts as-if other things mattered, one is still in fact getting happiness, and getting it at the time that one is doing or pursuing those other things. The "as-if" conditionalisation libertarian capitalism requires lacks this neat conformity; on the contrary the "as-if" conditonalisation is of something - self-interest - which may pull in exactly the opposite direction to the other-regarding concerns which the conditionalisation is meant to serve. (This oppositional structure is given expression in the passage from Smith we quoted at the head of this essay.)

This tension between self-interest and a concern for others welfare, or for their rights, means that the "as-if" conditionalisation is extremely fragile, both on the side of those who may be asked to express other-regarding concerns in the market-place, and on the side of those who might be tempted to call for such expressions.

It is fragile on the side of those who might be the target of such appeals because it will sometimes involve us "turning off", or turning away from, what might be our initial, spontaneous, and apparently "altruistic" urge to provide help or aid to others.
For the utilitarian this difficulty is especially sharp; for not only are we permitted to turn off such reactions, we are morally obliged to turn them off, indeed to condemn them, for their adverse impact on the level of benefits available. Thus even if another is in great need, if provision of a commodity they require involves us in forgoin our self-interested purposes for an "altruistic" act, then we must reject it. As Brittan says:

… a businessman does not serve his fellows, least of all the poorest of them, by selling a product at a price well below what the market will bear.
If he were to do so, the most likely result would be a misallocation of scarce resources, which is likely to make the community worse off, with no presumption that the poor will escape the effects (17).

At this point one is entitled to wonder at what content there is to that altruism which is supposed to import the "as-if" conditionalisation. After all, what is there to draw upon when a desperate other whom one is in a position to help must be refused such help? The claim that one cares for others - but not any particular other, and not at any particular time of need, and not when one is obviously well-placed to do so - starts to look like the thinnest hypocrisy.

If, on the one hand, it looks as if there may be too little altruism available to give content to that other-regardingness which is to legitimate market egoism; on the other hand - and if we look at things from the point of view of the person in need - it may seem that the "as-if" legitimating strategy demands too much altruism be available.

If the legitimation rests on a commitment to maximize the average level of benefits, then that conditionalisation would seem to imply that if I, say, were in need of some commodity, and a "businessman" was in a position to help me obtain it by reducing his price or donating it freely, then I should refuse such assistance, and do so by quoting Brittan's words to the intending do-gooder. After all, I am not really, indicatively, self-interested, but only conditionally so; and this conditionality - if genuine - will, and must, emerge into the indicatively altruistic precisely in those cases where perceptions of immediate self-interest would seem to push one to act in ways which harm the pursuit of the general good.

The deontological case for libertarian capitalism does allow for altruistic assistance from a vendor if he or she happens to feel like it - though given justice is at best silent on the matter, and benevolence entails no obligation for reciprocal aid when needed, it is perhaps not to be expected that many would feel like this. The Nietzschean point kicks in here, for those who might so choose will typically be considered foolish by those with a more robust commitment to their own interests. But if we change our focus, if we look at things from the side of the person in need, we see just the same problem emerging.

Consider that one is in desperate need of some good, and that without it one's life is endangered. Assume too that one lacks the financial resources to purchase it, and suppose that no vendor is prepared to make it available at a reduced cost or for free. Suppose now that the store in which the good lies is presently unattended, and one can see it lying on the counter. On the deontological account one should refrain from accessing the good with the thought - perhaps even one's final thought - "'Tis available, I desperately need it, but Lo! I must respect his freedom to let me die in the gutter."(18) And, given that one's market egoism is conditionalised, then one should be able to do this. After all, if the conditionalisation is to be real, rather than simply hypocritical, then it is precisely in such tough cases that it is meant to count.

At this point the puzzle with utilitarian and deontological justifications of libertarian capitalism is that the "as-if" conditionalising of self-interest seems to involve our dissembling to ourselves, and to be doing so in a most puzzling and paradoxical way. We dissemble because if the legitimating strategies are to work, then it would seem that really we are not self-interested at all, but are dedicated to a kind of other-regarding saintliness which permeates and shapes all our economic activities and all the way down. This unique style of saintliness means that we must, or in all justice can, ignore calls for assistance from those in need; and it means we should forgo the opportunity to have such needs met if that means ignoring or undercutting the price "that the market will bear", or if it means violating - even in the service of our continued existence - the property rights of others. And it is puzzling and paradoxical because this "saintly" altruism has somehow to obtain its content and sustain itself without ever manifesting itself, or having to manifest itself, in any decision or policy that goes against what would be delivered by unadulterated self-interest.

If we are right that only the "as-if" strategy makes it possible to offer a justification of individual self-interested market behaviour, then the libertarian capitalist position is not looking too good. At the very best there would seem to be a kind of Catch-22 problem. The more effectively the moral justification of the market commits agents to "as-if" selfishness, the less power or point there is to such a justification; so that if the justification is effective, then (on Aristotelian grounds) it seems likely to consume itself in the selfishness it unleashes, or (on Nietzschean grounds) it tends to undermine its own rationality.

The only response to this we can find - an assertion of the saintly other-regardingness of our "as-if" market agents, so that they are simply immune to such pressures - exhibits a striking ignorance of actual market agency, and refuses to acknowledge the akratic pressures emanating from the conditionalised selfishness unleashed in the marketplace (19).

As the talk of saintliness suggests, it would take a miracle; which suggests that there may be a deeper connection between religious fundamentalism and market-fundamentalism than is typically contemplated; though it is worth noting that the connection appeared obvious to the soon-to-be disgraced chairman of Enron, Kenneth Lay, who told the San Diego Union-Tribune (February 2, 2001), "I believe in God and I believe in free markets" (20)

Conclusion

Libertarian capitalism, understood as the view that market agents are self-interested, not benevolent or altruistic, and that this is morally defensible, even required, is unsustainable, for the availability problem is insurmountable. The conditions that set the Availability Problem make it insoluble. There is no moral alchemy that transmutes individual selfishness into a generalized benevolence as the utilitarian justification requires; and there is no way of ensuring a secure and robust respect for the (property) rights of others at the expense of one's own material interests when one begins with a rights based insouciance towards the needs of others that makes any expression of benevolence or altruism non-obligatory and foolishly quixotic. Nor does the as-if conditionalising approach, initial appearances aside, do any better.

Perhaps the libertarian capitalist can simply deny, ignore, or forget about the (supposed) need to morally legitimate market selfishness? This is possible (and not completely unfamiliar), but only at the cost of leaving libertarian capitalism defenceless against the moral criticisms that may, and inevitably will, be made against it - as a system of motivational selfishness; as licencing the most blatant selfishness in the face of real, immediate, and pressing calls for altruistic assistance; and as requiring from those in need of such assistance a terrible stoicism or insouciance towards their own plight.

Any account of market agency which concerns itself with its moral legitimation must reject the view that when it comes to their activities in the market-place agents are simply self-regarding - for this assumption forces on us the separation or "as-if" strategies. We must allow that many bear, and not simply in a conditional fashion, real other-regarding concerns, which concerns may find morally admirable expression within the market-place.

This should not be a difficult a concession, even for supporters of the most robust styles of capitalism; for only if there is a willingness to find a certain fundamental other-regardingness in the market-place can any moral legitimation of market agency get off the ground. The only way to give content to such other-regardingness (outside of certain religious conceptions) is to allow, approve, and draw on real instances of the provision, and the call for, a certain benevolence or altruism.

This is very clear with the utilitarian strategy. One can appeal to benevolence to justify libertarian capitalism, but one cannot defend oneself against the charge of hypocrisy if that benevolence is meant to imply that one never succumb to altruistic concerns when one is faced with someone in great need. If such altruism meant the entire system of capitalist economic provision would collapse, perhaps there would be some reason to stay one's hand; but this piece of hysteria is simply the other side of that hypocritical moral coinage the utilitarian offers us.

The picture is more complicated when we come to the deontological justification of libertarian capitalism, but in the end the same availability problem emerges, with the same fateful consequences. Unless a significant set of market-agents are willing to perceive and honour the obligations imposed on them by the material needs of others, then we have no reason to expect the deontological side-constraints the libertarian capitalist appeals to will place any meaningful obstacle in the way of more liberated and brutal forms of expressing such interests. After all, my "rights" licence my insouciance towards the material interests of others, and legitimate my pursuit of my material interests. True, I am supposed to respect the like rights of others, and so be side-constrained in the pursuit of my material interests; but that which is meant to restrain me is just that which also legitimates my concern with my material interests. At this point the goodness of respecting such side-constraints comes under pressure from the stupidity of doing so. And the case is symmetrical for all (other) market agents, and now the extreme fragility of the position emerges. We each want others to respect the deontic side-constraints, but we all want ourselves to be free of such restraint, and we all know that this is how each and all of us think. Where, in such circumstances, comes that other-regardiness which would sustain such a universalized respect for the rights of (all) others? The grounds for such respect can, and must, be found in that spontaneous other-regardingness for the material interests of others which the deontic case for libertarian capitalism futilely and self-defeatingly tries to render a quixotic and supererogatory exercise.

Footnotes

1. Adam Smith, Theory of the Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael & A. L. Macfie (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), p. 456.

2. Milton Friedman, "Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business: A Reason debate featuring Milton Friedman, Whole Foods' John Mackey, and Cypress Semiconductor's T. J. Rodgers, Reasononline, October 2005, p. 12. The remaining quotations in the paragraph are from this article.

3. As so often with Friedman when he goes into his "philosophical" mode, superficial clarity masks unended (and unending) confusion. In this case the confusion is a manifestation of what are soon to discuss as the "Availability Problem". For why on earth should we think that the two statements are equivalent? And why, in particular, should we think that the second simply brings out what is in the first? Consider the reported case of the future CEO of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling. Asked what he would do if he found that one of his products had fatal side-effects, he is said to have answered: "I'd keep making and selling the product. My job as a businessman is to be a profit centre and to maximize returns to my shareholders". (Cited in Francis Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, (London: Harper Perennial, 2004), p. 283.) Where, in this case, is the equivalence between maximizing profit (and shareholder returns) and maximizing returns to the (now deceased) customer?

4. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974). Rose & Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: a personal statement, (London: Secker and Warburg, 1980). (It is characteristic of many proponents of libertarian capitalism that they slide from one style of legitimation to the other, depending on rhetorical need.)

5. http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/index.asp <01/03/2006>

6. One might think the last image incomplete. The real question is what to do or think when one player spits on another, or on the umpire?

7. "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices". Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, Ch. 10.

8. Smith, op. cit., Bk. V, Ch. 1.

9. Smith, op. cit., Bk.1, Ch. 11.

10. The "two hats" possibility was suggested to one of the authors (in conversation) by Erik Olin Wright.

11, Samuel Brittan, Capitalism with a Human Face, (Edward Elgar, 1995).

12. Cited in E. Ray Canterbury, The Making of Economics, 2nd ed. (Wadsworth: Belmont CA, 1980), p. 120.

13. John Wesley (1760) "Sermon on the Use of Money", in G. Maddox (ed.) Political Writings of John Wesley, (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1998). Earn all you can (p. 116), Save all you can (p. 121), Give all you can (p. 123).

14. Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures or An Exposition of the Scientific, Moral and Commercial Economy of the Factory System of Great Britain, (London, 1835).

15. Aristotle, Nicomachen Ethics, 7.10. 1152a33.

16. We are indebted to John O'Neill for this point.

17. Samuel Brittan, op. cit., p.32.

18. Oh, all right (but it comes to the same thing): "Respect his right, premised on his 'natural liberty' to make as much profit as he can consistent with a justice that stands mute before the claims of common humanity."

19. This impasse - and his failure to recognize the threat it poses to libertarian capitalism - comes out in Brittan's remark that:
The as if injunction must be applied with care. Even where it applies, the pursuit of self-interest must be limited by side constraints, such as the observance of contracts, honesty, non-violence and so on. (Ibid., p. 38.)

20. Cited in Wheen, op. cit., p. 276.