Modern classical liberals, inheriting the rationalism of Hobbes and Locke, believe they can speak authoritatively to the political needs of every human society, everywhere. In his seminal work, “Liberalism” (1927), the great classical-liberal economist Ludwig von Mises thus advocates a “world super-state really deserving of the name,” which will arise if we “succeed in creating throughout the world . . . nothing less than unqualified, unconditional acceptance of liberalism. Liberal thinking must permeate all nations, liberal principles must pervade all political institutions.”
Hazony sees this as universalism, and he sees universalism as leading to the project of worldwide dominion and hence, for example, to the war in Iraq. He draws a line from Mises and Hayek 80 years ago to the neoconservatives of recent decades.
I found the essay to be odd. He writes,
Establishing democracy in Egypt or Iraq looks doable to classical liberals because they assume that human reason is everywhere the same, and that a commitment to individual liberties and free markets will arise rapidly once the benefits have been demonstrated and the impediments removed. Conservatives, on the other hand, see foreign civilizations as powerfully motivated—for bad reasons as well as good ones—to fight the dissolution of their way of life and the imposition of American values.
I have some differences with the folks that I think of as contemporary classical liberals. But I think I can speak for what they would say about the foregoing paragraph.
1. Democracy is not the same as classical liberalism, and majoritarian democracy can be antithetical to classical liberalism.
2. A classical liberal society is one with strong individual rights, including economic rights.
3. A classical liberal society is a universal good, but that does not imply that the American government should send people with guns to other countries to try to turn them into classical liberal societies. Even non-military intervention by our government is wrong. Our idea of universal is that just as we oppose American government officials trying to run our own lives, we oppose them trying to run the lives of people in other countries.
Hazony also writes,
Integrating millions of immigrants from the Middle East also looks easy to classical liberals, because they believe virtually everyone will quickly see the advantages of American (or European) ways and accept them upon arrival. Conservatives recognize that large-scale assimilation can happen only when both sides are highly motivated to see it through. When that motivation is weak or absent, conservatives see an unassimilated migration, resulting in chronic mutual hatred and violence, as a perfectly plausible outcome.
With this paragraph, I believe that he frames the debate about immmigration between classical liberals and conservatives correctly. On this blog, I have seen many commenters take the conservative position. And you know that elsewhere Bryan Caplan speaks for the classical liberal position. I hope that the classical liberals are correct, but I fear that the conservatives may be correct. Rather than eliminate immigration enforcement entirelyl, I would prefer to incrementally increase legal immigration and observe the results.
Overall, I believe that Hazony is correct that the right is divided about President Trump, and that classical liberals are not happy with his economic nationalism. However, I think that when he positions classical liberals as the foreign policy interventionists and conservatives as the non-interventionists, he gets it almost 180 degrees wrong.
After I first composed this post, but before it was scheduled to appear, Alberto Mingardi did a nice job of making the points that I wished to make. Mingardi writes,
Mises was actually criticising the international body of the time (the League of Nations), but expressed hope for “a frame of mind” that looks to see individual rights protected, not just within one’s country but also abroad. I agree that Mises’s use of the word ‘superstate’ is unfortunate, but it is clear that all he is pointing toward is a liberal sensibility that traverses national boundaries.
“Rather than eliminate immigration enforcement entirely, I would prefer to incrementally increase legal immigration and observe the results.”
This is so obviously the best choice at present. I would add that we should also try a rating system for priority.
Of course, “trying” something is very difficult, as any backer of the something is associated with any resultant problems forever in the ads of their political opponents. Making policy adjustments based on real-world observations gets you labeled a flip-flopper.
Overall, I believe that Hazony is correct that the right is divided about President Trump, and that classical liberals are not happy with his economic nationalism.
Well, I would say in the area of Immigration and Free Trade, these issues have not traditionally fallen across party lines like Healthcare or Abortion. It was Ronald Reagan that signed 1986 Immigration and started the pursuit of NAFTA which was ratified by Democrat Clinton administration. And both Bush Jr. and Obama both pursued more ‘liberal’ immigration and 98% protected Free Trade. (They had some term transgressions but there will minor in the long run.) So that is one reason why Trump with his anti-Immigration and anti-Free Trade was easy for Democrats to miss with the demographically right voters in the Rust Belt.
Of course, Trump has not done anything on Free Trade and in reality the big slowdown of Illegal Immigrants was the 2008 Financial Crisis. He simply does not have the political will to end NAFTA or free trade with China. (Partially because the Midwest Rust Belt states will go crazy against big NAFTA changes.) And Trump simply can’t pass significant legislation right now and look at the course of Tax Reform:
1) They devised a plan that will lower corporate and very high earner incomes while protecting lower end taxes fairly well.
2) But anybody from top 5 – 40% will see tax increases (Some substantial) especially if they go forward with 401K caps of $2,400 per year. (Without the 401K caps it probably is 5 – 30%).
So Trump is having trouble with the WWC voters with only modest Immigration & Free Trade changes while his Tax Reform will hurt the Bush Base Republicans, White College Educated Middle (Upper) Class voters.
I continue to be sad that no politician has increased legal immigration for those willing to pay half of the taxpayer median wage to immigrate. At around $50k, that would mean allowing those on the waiting list to pay $25k and come to the USA now.
There is some very high amount now, so very few are using it. A lower amount would allow more immigration, as well as more total gov’t revenue.
Hmmm, I don’t view Hayek as a “rationalist.” And Thomas Sowell’s constrained vs unconstrained visions doesn’t strike me as rationalist either. Neither, frankly, do the writings of the Founders (e.g., Madison, Jefferson).
I guess there is some universalism with classical liberalism in that it says “taking human nature as it is, a small government works best.” That assumes all groups of humans have the same nature. The primary alt-right critique of classical liberalism is that not all human groups do in fact share the same nature. The alt-right says “sure, in a country that’s +80% descended from Western Europe, libertarianism works. Libertarianism is for rich white guys—that ain’t us anymore.”
I do think the lack of assimilation and loss of traditional white American culture caused by massive immigration is a problem, but I’m a little more sanguine about the prospects for converting immigrants into “Americans.” White people will have to stop being pussies about it though. And we’ll have to severely curtail immigration for a while to allow for an adjustment. Given the relatively low likelihood of both of these events, well . . .
Even in the 1600s there was the culture of the Quakers in Philadelphia and the culture of the Cavaliers in Virginia.
Two completely different cultures. Lumping them together as a single white culture doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think of how different they were.
Agreed that Quakers vs Cavaliers had different cultures. But both were Christian and overwhelmingly white. That makes the prospects for harmonious living better than two different cultures embedded within diversitopia.
I’m American, and neither I nor my children are likely to leave the US, so I hope it works out. But as the left’s grand scheme of “win by replacing white people,” which was gladly accepted by cuckservatives (for different reasons), continues in earnest, combined with ever increasing identity politics, I think we’ve got a lot more tumult coming our way.
Caplan strongly opposes “defensive” warfare; he opposes violent resistance to an invading army. Caplan suggests it was wrong to use violence to resist the Nazis in WWII and it was wrong for South Korea to use violence to resist North Korea. Is that the classical liberal position? If so, that’s a very narrow camp of people.
Caplan’s openborders.info site agrees that freedom of migration are in conflict with the model of universal suffrage democracy, equality, and non-discrimination. If people gain voting rights simply by moving to an area, existing residents have full justification for restricting membership to those likely to vote favorably. Caplan opposes democracy. Kling famously promotes voting with individual choice/exit over voting with voice/ballot. I agree. But given the democracy model that exists today across North American and Europe, immigration restriction seems a wise and justified policy choice.
Do individuals have rights to preserve or even grow their ethnic/cultural/religious/linguistic identity? Do migrants have that right? Do host citizens also have that right? I don’t see a consistent position from the classical liberal camp. Bryan Caplan previously said it is reasonable for host citizens to impose language requirements on migrants so they can keep their language as Germany is doing, but that doesn’t seem realistic. I would place a Caplan-style bet on that not lasting.
Look at the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. German values.
Look at the Khmer Rouge. French values.
Iraqis and Cambodians weren’t entirely able to fight the dissolution of their way of life and the imposition of French and German values. Not against Saddam Hussein or Pol Pot.
The pre-Trump GOP leadership pushed a pro-immigration agenda for political reasons, not ideological ones. Former GOP leaders have written that they knew their voter base wanted less immigration, but they saw building a non-white immigrant friendly image as more important for long-term political longevity. This was absolutely a political voter demographic calculation, not some ideological divide.
Kling is wrong to see immigration as an issue divided on ideological lines.
If so it was a huge misreading of political reality. No possible conservative alignment of policy or rhetoric could make NAMs vote R. The only realistic plan for Republican long term prospects is immigrant expulsion. This assessment of reality seems to be one of the primary causes for a split within the Republican party.
At one point Hayek did yammer something about how nations needed to be surplanted by a universal rule of law, but really, doesn’t seem to be much more than the primal lust for the utopian ideal and nothing to be considered seriously.
Dr. Kling writes “Rather than eliminate immigration enforcement entirely, I would prefer to incrementally increase legal immigration and observe the results.”
The US has experienced massive immigration for several decades now. One out of four people in the US is an immigrant or an immigrant’s child. Source US Census Bureau:
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/P23-214.pdf
(This is a remarkably high proportion by world and historical standards.)
We increased immigration some time ago and now have plenty of results to observe.
A high rate of immigration has coincided with high unemployment for the less skilled, high and volatile housing prices, reduced literacy, and, for just one glaring example, the destruction of California’s middle class. Immigration has driven urban and national politics sharply to the left.
The constituencies for more occupational licensing, more government and regulation-driven jobs, urban growth boundaries and other NIMBY/BANANA schemes, etc. are mainly natives trying to preserve themselves and their families against the economic and social effects of massive immigration. Countries with fairly homogeneous populations can balance general interests against narrower ones, but factional politics flourish when populations are fragmented into groups who do not regard each other as kin.
We already have several decades of high-rate immigration to analyze for public-policy lessons.
I propose we reduce immigration and observe the results of that.
(My proposal has one huge advantage: if having fewer immigrants yields bad results we can always invite more. If having more immigrants yields bad results, we cannot easily expel the ones who demonstrate that sad fact.)