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- Oct 16, 2018
The Rise of the West
The European Miracle was one in which humans achieved sustained growth for the first time on earth. Why Europe? Because of European decentralization and private enterprise. Property rights were well-defined and well-defended. Feudalism was of the contract variety. City states and chartered towns arose. The freedoms that people fought for were primarily economic freedoms. Political freedoms followed. The middle ages were not the dark ages they were portrayed to be. The rule of law required little or no involvement of the state. The ruler was under the law. The West even held a social taboo on the expression of envy. Historian Ralph Raico explains why all of this contributed to the rise of human rights and economic prosperity in the West — and why it happened there first. From a lecture presented at the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Aug 26, 2004
Intellectual Origins of Natural Rights
There was a natural law tradition from antiquity and the middle ages. Natural law is the oldest and most frequently used concept of political theory. Natural law is the principles that are to be established if justice were to prevail. Or, it is the scientific laws of man and his environment.From the 5th century until the end of the 18th century the doctrine of natural law as a moral philosophy played a major role. Legislative law which rules today is the opposite of natural law.In some ways Aristotle was an ancestor to the natural rights tradition, seen clearly in his view of property rights. He preferred private property, common use. Most of us prefer private property, private use. Christianity was born with the concept of natural law. It is at the center of our idea of individuality. This idea is linked to modern natural rights theory. Thomas Aquinas‘s pinnacle is the natural law doctrine. For him there was no conflict between faith and reason. Natural law is not God’s will. It is God’s plan. We call it freedom. Aquinas never imagined a coercive state.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Mar 1, 2004
Historians, the State and Liberty
The opinion that is dished out in textbooks every year by academic historians is ideologically mostly left-liberalism or left-radicalism. The effect of this is to bias what is written, especially with recent events. The historians see class conflicts as driving forces.They also see anything that is pro labor or against business as reform. Capitalism itself is seen as an unmitigated evil and all free markets are bad. Individualism is a code word for primitive people. A few progressive episodes from our history included the fact that Colonists were not permitted to manufacture hats or iron products under the British mercantile system. Navigation Acts restricted commerce when they could be enforced.Historians have looked at these activities with a cost-benefit view. They usually find neither great benefit nor great cost from colonies remaining part of the British system. Liberty was not considered. Desiring self-government didn’t enter their minds.Historian Charles Beard’s 1913 interpretation of the making of the Constitution was not challenged until the 50’s and 60’s. Anti-Federalists were overlooked. Their fear of political centralization was not noted.Hamilton got an excise tax passed on whiskey. Whiskey was a medium of exchange and a major source of calories. The Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania was to show that the government was serious about collecting taxes. Washington was seen as a military nincompoop. He was also a notorious land grabber, almost single-handedly starting the French and Indian War. He betrayed private trust for his private gain.Land policy became the central government action in US History. It was land policy that led to the War of Secession. It was not a moral question over slavery. Lincoln intended to guarantee slavery. Historians do not recognize the Constitutional shift that took place because of that war. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments put an end to thoughts of secession.Progressivism is the most important event other than the Civil War in our history. It was a bridge to modern times. They intended to make government more active and powerful. They opposed classical liberals. They were going to set people free --- by force.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Mar 1, 2004
Origins of Science in the Age of Faith
Lessl’s field is rhetoric. The history of the relationship between faith and science shifted when the theological nucleus was removed and science was inserted. Rhetoric was left behind. Faith was erased in the middle of the nineteenth century. Kant was intensely hostile to Catholicism. He wanted to replace it with humanism.Science evolved in three stages: The Medieval Period during 1100-1600; Baconian science 1600-1750 aligns science with the Protestant Reformation; and Positive science circa mid-18th century during which science was seen as the stable foundation for an enlightened society.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Mar 1, 2004
The Rise of the Nation-State
Most of what is said about nation-states is not true. They are neither democracies nor republics nor nations nor states. There is no natural relationship between government and state. Men have been governed by many things that are not states. Throughout most of history man has lived without a state.But the modern state is a distinct form of government. Hobbes’ Leviathan is a brilliant reference to this issue. The contract is between the people themselves. There are two features: 1) the state is vast, and 2) the state is “an artificial man”, a nation person.By the end of the Middle Ages the independence of the Church had been considerably weakened. The Thirty Years War reduced the Holy Roman Empire to a shadow. Absolute Monarchy (three generations old) was established. A system of large states was created, centralizing the King’s bureaucracy. Louis XIV was the most powerful monarch. Yet the state administrative system, with people called republicans, held that society must control the state with the single will of the French nation.The modern state destroys, creates problems, and then presents itself as the solution. The state cloaked itself in moral authority that was much greater than monarchs had imagined. But authority is based on nothing but opinion. Hegel described the state as that veritable God on earth.When the state could present itself with social authority, it could enforce unilateral taxation (1913), ultimate jurisdiction, and conscription (1873). Four times as many people have been killed by government than by war. The banality of evil arises from this artificial man.Small states cannot arise today without the right of secession.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Mar 1, 2004
Puritan Revolution and Republicanism
The transforming ideology of the American Revolution consists of four elements: liberalism, republicanism, English law, and Protestantism. Liberalism was developed by the Levellers, saying that natural rights could be evolved from natural law.English law lends itself to the rights of Englishmen as the Colonists understood them. Constitutionalism held that certain laws were above the King. Protestantism created new occasions for state intervention. In New England the church and state largely merged in practice.Republicanism broadened the citizenship base. The Long Parliament in 1641 had a large Presbyterian section. Oliver Cromwell emerges out of all this and becomes a dictator. The new model Army wanted to make policy. Levellers come from this. The notion of self-ownership develops here. The Puritan Revolution is reined in by Cromwell. Republican ideas come into the picture by 1651 just before the restoration. Americans saw George III and his standing armies after 1763 undertaking the bad things they feared.The downside to republican theory was there was a theory of government but not of rights. That can go off into nationalism. They dreamed of an empire which remains republican.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Mar 1, 2004
Natural Rights
Natural law does not depend directly on God’s will. Natural law goes back to at least the scholastics and perhaps Thomas Aquinas. Modern Natural Rights theory began in 1625. Modern theory recognizes the institution the state. Natural law is thought to produce inalienable natural rights. They speak to the dignity of the individual and life and property. The close connection between liberty and property is part of this tradition.John Locke changed in 1689 the notions of the origin of private property. Locke’s doctrines became the basis of classical liberalism and libertarianism. The original acquisition had to be legitimate. Every man has a property in his own person. Self-ownership and homesteading were the foundation of private property. No natural rights are given up when individuals enter political society. You have the right to be protected by the government and the right to protect yourself from the government. You cannot divest yourself of these rights.In 1982 The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard took up Natural Rights.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
- Mar 1, 2004
Colonial America and the American Revolution
Albion’s Seed is a great book about the four migration folkways into the colonies from Great Britain during 1629 through 1775. The groups had many characteristics in common which may be what made future union possible, but the groups were also different. Puritans hated Quakers. Everybody hated Catholics. The competing regional cultures created quite a laissez-faire outcome between the community-based groups and more individualistic groups.The Revolution had been profoundly argued well in advance. It wanted to conserve the good things of their past British lives. In the 1830s disputes centered on the United States being either a compact school of independent states forming a confederation or a nationalist school of a single people in the aggregate. The British thought they were dealing with thirteen independent and sovereign states.From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.
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About History of Liberty
This 25-lecture instructional seminar presents a reinterpretation of the history of liberty from the ancient world—an ambitious agenda, but a wonderfully successful conference. Hosted at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, 24-30 June 2001.Download the complete audio of this event (ZIP) here.
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