Was Percy Shelley, the great English Romantic poet, a socialist? This may sound like an odd question, since, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word socialist was not even coined until 1833, that is, 11 years after Shelley died. Yet, despite the fact that Shelley could not have been aware of what we normally think of as socialist ideas, later socialists have claimed him for their lineage.
In “Government Regulation and Intergenerational Justice,” Rolf Sartorius argues that some government regulation is justified in order to protect the rights of the unborn.’ More than half of his paper is a discussion of the theory that views the only justifiable function of government as the “umpirage of the law of nature.” In the remainder of his paper, he argues for an extension of the theory in order to justify regulation as well as umpirage.
This paper contends that Adam Smith meant what he said; human nature is ennobled by the cultivation of its lands, the advancement of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, etc. Since it describes the environment in which these improvements will most likely occur, The Wealth of Nations provides a base for the ennobling of man’s nature, which Smith discusses in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
To state with precision and force the economic and moral imperative of the free market has been of the utmost concern to some of civilization’s foremost thinkers. From the early writings of the classical political economists and moral philosophers, to the most recent works of modem authors, the combined effect of these intellectual efforts has been the development of an argument displaying increased clarity, urgency, and polarization of theme.
War Follows Protection. Peace Follows Free Trade. As David Ricardo said, “If you want peace, starve the government.” Adam Smith believed that trade both refined the manners and improved the standard of living of a people.1 Throat cutting and xenophobia decline with the growth of internationalism.
It would probably be looked upon as unusual to associate sixteenth century Spain with the libertarian tradition. However, during that time there arose a school of natural law thinkers and activists who espoused a universal ethic of freedom, which they saw as applicable to all mankind.
“We are passing through the most serious moment in the history of the world since the year 410 A.D.-the year of the fall of the Roman Empire and the capture of Rome by the barbarian king, Alaric.” So commented Herbert Hoover on May 25, 1940, to the bar association of Nassau County, New York. German troops had just reached the English Channel. The hulk of British and French forces in Belgium and northwestern France were trapped.
A characteristic feature of modern civilization is the steady growth of government.1 This government growth occurs under two forms: either through a more intense taxation of its present subjects, or through bringing more people under its control. In other terms, government growth can either be an “intensification” or an “extensification” of hegemony. Since government growth means that private-property rights have been more invaded than before, the fundamental problem of bringing more persons under government control is that some persons are likely to resist.
If law exists only where there are state-backed courts and codes, then every primitive society was lawless. Indeed, one widely held definition or “theory” of law is that “the rule of law simply means the ‘existence of public order.’ It means organized government, operating through the various instruments and channels of legal command. In this this,all modem societies live under the rule of law [but primitive societies did not].” This definition of law characterizes the legal positivist school of legal theorists and dominates the economics profession.
In 1849, at a time when classical liberalism was still the dominant ideological force and “economist” and “socialist” were generally—and rightly so—considered antonyms, Gustave de Molinari, a renowned Belgian economist, wrote, “If there is one well-established truth in political economy, it is this: That in all cases, for all commodities that serve to provide for the tangible or intangible need of the consumer, it is in the consumer’s best interest that labor and trade remain free, because the freedom of labor and trade
