The Classical Liberals Were Radical Opponents of War and Militarism
One of the most disastrous elements of the post-World War II conservative movement in America has been its commitment to severing the ideology of “classical liberalism” from its historical roots in antiwar and anti-interventionist foreign policy. What we now call classical liberalism—the ideology of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Frederic Bastiat, Richard Cobden, and Herbert Spencer—was consistent in opposing state power in all spheres, both international and domestic.
This was true in the United States up until the early twentieth century when the people called liberals—now known as “classical liberals” or “libertarians”—were characterized by anti-imperialism, restraint in military spending, and a general philosophy that is now maligned with the term “isolationism.”
After the Second World War, however, the new so-called conservative movement succeeded in neutralizing the old laissez-faire liberal opposition to foreign intervention in the name of fighting communists. The conservatives replaced the old laissez-faire factions with a new incoherent ideology that claimed it favored “freedom and free markets” while also promoting runaway military spending and endless foreign interventionism. This, of course, was all to be done in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”
Many American conservatives who consider themselves to be “classical liberals,” or in some other way the ideological heirs of laissez-faire, have fallen for this historical bait and switch for many decades now.
The Real History of Classical Liberalism: Opposing the State and Its Wars
To better understand how immense this turnabout really was—and what a victory it was for the forces of militarism—we need to first consider just how closely the ideology of laissez-faire liberalism was associated with antiwar sentiment during the formative years of liberalism.
In his history of political thought, historian Ralph Raico notes that the ideology we now call classical liberalism considered opposition to war and foreign intervention as central to the ideology. Even the milquetoast liberals like British Prime Minister William Gladstone put peace up front and center in their political programs. Raico writes:
Extolling peace has characterized the classical liberal movement from the eighteenth century, at least from Turgot, on through the nineteenth century to even Gladstone, who wasn’t, frankly, that much of a liberal. His slogan in mid-Victorian Britain was, “Peace, retrenchment, and reform.”
This propeace liberalism was the standard form of liberalism in Britain through Richard Cobden’s Manchester School, and also in France through popularizers and scholars such as the radical liberal editors of the political journal Le censeur européen. At the top of every issue of the journal was the phrase “paix et liberté”—peace and freedom.
Among the journal’s editors were Charles Dunoyer, a leading figure of the French liberal school—and the close ally of Charles Comte, the son-in-law of Jean Baptiste-Say. Like most liberals of his time, including those of both the United States and Britain, Dunoyer opposed standing armies. He wrote:
“What is the production of the standing armies of Europe? It is consisted in massacres, rapes, pillages, conflagrations, vices and crimes, the deprivation, ruin and enslavement of the peoples. The standing armies have been the shame and the scourge of civilization.
Similarly, Dunoyer’s views were reflected in the writings of Frederic Bastiat who sought to abolish France’s standing army. In an 1847 pamphlet titled “The Utopian,” Bastiat reminded his readers that military expenditure is generally an enormous waste of money, and that the exploitation of the taxpayers could be greatly reduced were the size of the French military drastically lessened. Specifically, Bastiat sought to abolish “the entire army” with the exception of “some specialized divisions” which would have to be staffed with volunteers since Bastiat, of course, also sought to abolish conscription altogether. Bastiat sought to replace the state’s army with a militia of private citizens in possession of private arms. As Bastiat put it: “Every citizen must know two things: how to provide for his own existence and how to defend his country.”
In this, Bastiat was echoing American sentiments. In the United States, of course, opposition to militarism took the form of vehement opposition to a centralized military force and an American standing army. The lack of direct taxation made funding a large military difficult as well.
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
