Mises and Mont Pèlerin 1947

Although Mises was not an anarchist, he was clearly unwavering in principle concerning laissez-faire—he was better than "the rest." From Bruce Caldwell's Mont Pèlerin 1947:

General discussion waited until the evening session [of "Free Enterprise or Competitive Order"—session 1]. That event might have been retitled “free enterprise versus the competitive order,” or more simply “Mises versus the rest,” though both Hazlitt and Miller made brief comments in support of Mises’s positions, and “the rest” did not always agree with one another. Mises had some justification to feel a little prickly. After all, in a session posing a choice between free enterprise and a competitive order, it might have been fitting to have had among the opening speakers at least one person who was willing to defend the former. In any event, Mises’s defense of laissez - faire was predictably direct and pithy: most of the problems that had been identified had government actions as their root cause, so their solution was to get it out of the way. For most of those attending the conference, this simple advice was unsatisfactory. People wanted to discuss alternative policies, to find out which ones might best cohere with a liberal vision, not the reasons why policies were unnecessary. Both Hayek and Robbins tried to intervene in various ways, mostly to clarify the various positions under discussion, but at times things got testy. This was probably the session at which Mises “stood up, announced to the assembly ‘You’re all a bunch of socialists,’ and stomped out of the room," though that is not recorded in the minutes. (p. 47)

David Sloan Wilson on Evonomics: An Agenda Cloaked in Science

After David Sloan Wilson wrote the article, The Road to Ideology: How Friedrich Hayek Became a Monster, Peter Boettke invited him to give a seminar at the F.A. Hayek Center for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. On February 11, 2016, Wilson presented the seminar, which is summarized here with a link to a video that incorporates a recording of the seminar and the slide presentation. I suggest that those interested in Austrian economics or coming from a non-leftist position watch the presentation as it will give you a clear idea of what we are up against. Make no mistake, Wilson and his comrades at Evonomics are heavy hitters and have an agenda that you won't like. Having listened to the presentation once, I have a few thoughts.

First, Wilson alleges that laissez-faire has its roots in the Christian worldview of universal harmony. Doing so is an attempt to discredit it as mystical and unscientific, and rob it of its roots in the Enlightenment. The reality is that Christianity was the home of top-down, unrelenting authoritarianism until it was tamed by the realization that markets tended to reduce or eliminate the antagonisms between religious groups. The resulting intellectual movement, in which those such as Voltaire argued that religion and aristocracy should be de-emphasized and commerce elevated, was probably more of an influence on Christianity than the other way around (see Jerry Z. Muller, The Mind and the Market, p 23).

Wilson goes on to state that progress came from the societal suppression of "disruptive, self-serving behaviors," rather than the realization on the part of individuals that cooperation was to their advantage in achieving goals that would have been difficult or impossible for them on their own (see Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p 143). This view results in a bias toward top-down (coercive) rather than bottom-up (evolutionary) thinking. Wilson is definitely pushing methodological collectivism. He believes societies were successful because they dragooned their members into following the rules, not because they had rules that helped individuals flourish, thereby attracting and keeping members. Group selection is a reality, but only in the context of the feedback of individual selection that makes one group prosper over another.

While wanting to speed up group selection, Wilson fails to realize that the state suppresses selection by bypassing the feedback mechanism of profit and loss, and even imprisons its victims within its boarders, preventing the possibility of "voting with your feet." Failing the latter, there may be an effort for governments to form cartels or impose rules through a world-wide body, eliminating the possibility of selection still further. After all, if there is only one body, we are done with selection. The feedback of money profit and loss in an environment of open competition is superior, and the only objective method I can see that can facilitate group selection.

When watching Wilson's slides you will see that he believes the Earth is being destroyed by human activity. The Evonomics agenda is to reverse that perceived destruction by imposing an "intelligent design," cloaked in science, that has no possibility of effective criticism or reversal--of negative selection. Only by critically developing our own arguments and pointing out that their approach is actually anti-evolution can we succeed in defeating their effort.

The Myth of a (Classical) Liberal or Libertarian Utopia

Cover via Amazon

In reading online articles and blogs it is common to find references to a "libertarian utopia."  These references are both supportive and derisive, distorting what I will claim is the idea of true liberalism.  Hayek is even referenced in this Freeman article bemoaning the fact that "we lack a liberal Utopia."  The problem with this phrase first became clear to me when I read the following words:

Contemporary socialists – "light" totalitarians in mindset and vocabulary – go wrong when they imagine that liberals are busily planning the perfect society, the best that is possible in the world, but of opposite sign to their own. [emphasis in original]¹

The reality is that there is no liberal Utopia.  Liberalism and its modern-day progeny, libertarianism, are processes rather than destinations.  In the same sense that the scientific process leads to the discovery of laws of nature, liberalism leads to the discovery of that society that best conforms to human values.  Such a society defies planning, as planning implements the values of a small elite.  It also stifles the wide-ranging experimentation – through trial and error – that is necessary to discover the institutions and businesses that are necessary in building a society that supports human values.

Of course, one may wonder, "What are human values?"  I tend to think, as did Ludwig von Mises, that most people prefer prosperity over poverty, freedom over slavery, and life over death.  There are, and always will be, predators who prey on those who live peacefully and productively.  The latter will use freedom to create the cost-effective defenses that maximize the cost of predatory behavior, eventually discarding the unwieldy blunt instrument of the state.

What is needed then is a total commitment to the free market and its concomitant competition as discovery procedure by which society progresses.  There can be no fear of unacceptable outcomes, as outcomes will reflect human values.  Yes, in some areas of the world those outcomes might be repulsive to modern westerners, but eventual progress in those regions is not going to be accelerated by murdering, threatening, or lecturing the population.

What is most important is to embrace the idea that liberalism – the free (or freed) market – is the platform upon which progress depends.  The end state defies prior description, but we can have confidence that it will conform to human values.

^*In the body of the post an unmodified reference to "liberal" is a reference to "classical liberal."
¹Revel, Jean-François, Last Exit to Utopia, (2009 New York, Encounter Books), 54.