>Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 09:05:58 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan [From Res Publica, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1995),pp. 3-23] Individualism versus Classical Liberal Political Economy Tibor R. Machan Is Individualism a Monkey on the Back of Classical Liberalism? Perhaps the most significant charge against the classical liberal order has been that it is unjustifiably individualistic. This is one of the main claims Karl Marx made against the system, in his famous essay "On the Jewish Question," and it is a charge being repeated by the current champions of the most recent version of palatable collectivism, namely, communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Robert Bellah, Amitai Etzioni, Thomas Spragens, and Richard Rorty. This problem of being closely linked with individualism has plagued classical liberal theory, whether advanced by John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, and even those modern forms of liberalism favored more recently by John Maynard Keynes an d John Rawls. The central charge is that such individualism as liberalism embodies is simply incapable of making room for morality. Even many supporters of the free market find fault with it on these grounds -- e.g., Irving Kristol made the point in hi s essay "When Virtue Loses All her Loveliness" some years ago in an address to the Mt. Pelerin Society, the most distinguished international scholarly society devoted to exploring the philosophy of freedom, as well as in his pointedly titled book, Two Cheers for Capitalism. Why is the individualist association deemed so problematic? What about it disturbs many people spread across the political spectrum? Leo Strauss from the right, Herbert Marcuse from the left, as well as many of their epigone, have repeated the char ge: Liberalism fosters licentiousness, libertinism, hedonism and moral subjectivism. The Amoralism of Radical Individualism In short, in the difficult task of defending individual liberty, liberalism hasn't much heeded ethics because it relies on a type of individualism that precludes a coherent, intelligible concern with moral matters. What is the central theme of liberalism involving this problem? Liberals have usually argued that a society organized with individuals allowed to pursue their chosen goals is for the best. Via unimpeded self-interested behavior the overall social go od is supposed to be most efficiently promoted.1 The necessary connection between individual selfishness and the public good relies on a special view of the human individual, one repeatedly attacked by such writers as Robert Bellah & Co., Thomas A. Spra gens, Jr., et al..2 Once they have finished with their criticism of individualism, these writers predictably go on to champion not only the fellow feeling they believe individualism fails to bring to prominence in human community life but something of a coercive social system, one that issues in such public policy proposals as compulsory national service, compulsory health care, severe government regulation of the free exchange that is part and parcel of the classical liberal political economy, and even more radical notions such as the abolition of the system of individual rights.3 Others may not be so harsh as to want to revamp liberalism completely but even those from the right are suggestion modifications that may have the identical result, namely, to undue the polity of individual liberty. Thus when Kirstol calls for more attention to virtue, he is also championing censorship and a large dosage of government regulation of the economy. Clearly, once the individualism underlying classical liberali sm has come unhinged, a kind of duces wild situation develops with regard to the degree of statism that should reign in a community. Certainly, a principled adherence to individual freedom vanishes in the process. Radical Individualism What is this individualism that has disturbed so many people with different orientations on politics? Radical individualism is spelled out first by the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, a materialist in whose view human nature does not exist independently of social invention and cannot be known objectively. His influential metaphysics posited a kind of raw, barren - radical or "atomic" - individualism: only pure particular material things - no general classes - exist in reality. The individualism of Hobbes was widely taken to be the application of the laws of motion to human life. Self-advancement would occur most successfully if left unimpeded, just as classical physics had it. Applied to human social life, Hobbes believ ed, the laws of motion would at first lead to conflict, whereupon human intelligence would introduce social rules. This would improve on the state of nature. Individuals would thereafter behave in an orderly fashion. Hobbes's endorsement of absolute monarchy is a detail that his philosophical sympathizers later dropped. They accepted that societies are made up of these unique individuals striving to aggrandize themselves - to seek their own advantage in every way possible. They would only agree to rules of social conduct that would guarantee the enhancement of their own subjective self-interest. But they didn't believe absolute monarchy served this purpose. For example, Adam Smith held that the attempt to organize society through mercantilist economics was inefficient. Smith, embracing Hobbes, held that if we just adopt rules to which everyone will agree and let people pursue their self-interest, over all social prosperity and success will result. Radical Individualism and Homo Economicus Classical and neoclassical economics, both of which embrace liberalism, start from the assumption that each persons is "essentially a utility maximizer - in his home, in his office (be it public or private), in his church, in his scientific work - i n short, everywhere." So argued Nobel Laureate and Smith scholar, the late George Stigler of the University of Chicago, in his famous Tanner Lectures. Professor Gary Becker, the 1992 Nobel Prize winner in economics, is perhaps the most prominent and pro ductive advocate and practitioner of this kind of economic imperialism, whereby all human affairs are to be studied as instances of primarily economic transaction, although Professor Gordon Tullock of the University of Arizona is a close second. But liberal individualism suffers much because of its relationship to this Hobbesian view whereby each individual human being is entirely unique. Paradoxes arise immediately. First the fact that human beings name other groups of things suggests so mething distinctive about them by nature, not only by convention. Second, entirely unique individuals have no natural need for society, nor any natural ethical system obligating them to act responsibly. Third, the Hobbesian individualism finds no easy p lace for political authority - e.g., via the "social contract." What if some individuals desire to violate that contract? Nothing is wrong with this "by nature." Nothing well grounded can be said to morally object to it. Furthermore, radical individualism leads to an untenable moral subjectivism -- the view that what is right or wrong for persons to choose to do is a matter of what they prefer or like or feel, nothing else. Ironically, this subjectivism also applie s to its own cherished political principles. A radical individualist accepts liberty only so as to promote mutual self-interest understood in a purely subjective sense. But this really isn't necessary to human life and cooperation, nor required by human nature, the way in which fighting an oil fire requires certain specific methods as a matter of the nature of the case, in contrast to how a game's moves can be changed by common consent. So radical individualism's political values are what we have come to agree upon as useful for our subjective purposes. (For Hobbes an element of objectivism did remain by way of his endorsement of self- preservation as having ultimate value. But l iberalism cannot go even that far.) Any judgment of morally or politically good or bad, as well as right and wrong, comes to no more than a preference, a positive or negative feeling of the agent, lacking any objective moral import. Is the favorite poli tical principle of classical liberals itself a mere subjective value? The answer is "yes," despite the fact that the right to individual liberty at first impression seems to be well supported by this radical individualism. But it is only a matter of con venience, something we have adopted but might just as easily not have; we might with equal justifiability have adopted something else, say the right to equality or security. If this is all true, then people who prefer playing golf to defending liberty when the latter is in jeopardy do nothing wrong. Also, if someone ignores the plight of the hapless or unjustly treated, there is nothing to be criticized about this cho ice. Feelings toward one's community or fellow human beings are in no way superior to feelings toward another visit to Las Vegas or playing tennis. Since there are no objective goods or objective values, neither the defense of liberty nor any other cour se of conduct is more important than any alternative. But if a social philosophy cannot justify its own defense in terms dictated by its own tenets, it's seriously flawed. Yet, there are other problems. Apparent Anti-Authoritarianism in Radical Individualism Often people are pleased that classical liberalism, when resting on radical individualism, advances a subjective theory of value. Many liberal economists believe that if values are subjective then no one can justify coercing us to do anything. Aft er all, if what they believe is merely subjective, what justification would they have for making us do it? None. This sounds like a wonderful way to fend off interventionism. Yet, suppose the person says, "I don't need any justification to interfere with you, I just desire to do it." Now how is the subjectivist going to respond? Not by claiming, truly, that the aggressor should not do what he desires to do - after all, that claim is but a subjective preference. The criminal, tyrant, dictator or government regulator wants to force you and you want to be free. But neither is an objective value, so it then c omes down to a matter of power. The alleged liberal benefits of subjective (radical individualist) value theory are not benefits at all. Indeed, from ignorance of what is right nothing follows, not even the objection to acting on such ignorance. Individualism's Bad Press There is, also, the public relations problem. Here what liberalism faces is the problem of explaining its moral position vis-a-vis alternative systems, some of which have lost their appeal except for their self-proclaimed moral high ground. I have in mind Marxism- Leninism, Marxist National Liberationism, Fundamentalist Theocracies, etc. Most people reject the subjectivity of values. Whether some institution is just or unjust is not for them a matter of personal preference. This is no mere prej udice. Human beings are well aware of moral values, even while they may not be able to explain them clearly and convincingly. It's similar to rejecting the claim by some physicists, e.g., Erwin Schrodinger, that there are no solid objects since at the s ubatomic level everything is composed of a great deal of empty space. Such theories cannot argue reality away. Sound theories can only make clearer and deeper our awareness of reality. The same is true with ethics and morality. Skepticism can be intriguing but it has no power to actually convince about something as obviously true as that there are good and bad things, right and wrong ways of acting. At most it can produce confus ion and hesitation, especially when it comes to standing up for one's values. It can, of course, also prompt a measure of caution as against arrogance. Individualism: Is it a Liability? Clearly, in light of these and related considerations, radical (subjectivist) individualism has become a target of not just criticism but even moral outrage. A good example is a work by Robert Bellah and his colleagues, Habits of the Heart: Individ ualism and Commitment in America (1983). Some have rejected it - especially as advanced within the field of economics - on simple moral grounds. They say the view engenders selfishness, social isolation and alienation. Others, following Karl Marx, have noted that while it may have had some uses as an ideology during the 17th, 18th and 19 centuries, it has lost its value in our "post-modern" era. We should no longer be concerned with amassing great material wealth, something radical individualism was s upposed to have encouraged, but rather with the quality of our lives, its spiritual dimensions, the ecosystem, community values, etc. And here radical individualism is not just useless but a disvalue. Need we, then, dismiss individualism and the liberalism with which it is so closely aligned? Should we embrace a new version of collectivism, for example, communitarianism, in order to recover us from the consequences of subjectivism? I don't believe that is necessary. Individualism has not had a full hearing. There are forms of it distinct from the version the classical liberal tradition inherited. The type of individualism I have in mind focuses on individual human beings. This humanist, ethical or classical individualism recognizes that there is in nature a class of human individuals. And their human nature has a lot to teach us about social life and personal ethics. It seems there are indeed good reasons to classify hum an beings as a distinct class of entities in nature. There is, however, also good reason to regard their individuality as one of their essential, central characteristics. So on the one hand we must abandon the radical individualism but on the other hand we can firm up the foundation for individualism by noting that in the nature of the case - by a study of human nature, by a careful examination of what it is to be a human being - we arrive at the conclusion that one of the crucial factors about being a human being is that human being are individuals. In response to this, instead of saying, with Hobbes, that there is no human essence, we can say in opposition to both Marx and Hobbes that the human essence is the true individuality of man. What, if anything, does classical individualism have going for it that is lacking in the radical individualist tradition? Classical Individualism: Humanizing the Radical Version A major criticism of the idea of an objective or real human nature has to do with the legacy of Platonism in both natural law and natural rights theories. There is a very serious problem with the Platonic view of "the nature of something." In the Platonic tradition the nature of anything had to be a timeless, unchanging, perfect form. And certainly in Euclidean geometry we may usefully think of the perfect circle this way but that's because geometry is a purely formal field, concerned with measu rement and precision, not with substance. But when we consider knowing the nature of human beings, justice, or governments, can we expect what we know is timeless, perfect, unchanging, eternal? Hardly. Human beings are actual, temporal. We aren't in a position to demonstrate what somethi ng is timelessly, perfectly, and finally. So Platonism in this area leads to skepticism. If we have to come up with a final truth to know the nature of man, we simply reach an impasse. Such skepticism, of course, makes it impossible to rest any sort of stable social or political order or conception of a good society on human nature, natural law or natural rights. This is what Hobbes concluded. We are now left with two extremes, the radical skeptical idea which issues in nominalism and radical individu alism, a la Hobbes, and the Platonic alternative of an unattainable, hopelessly utopian and ideal conception of human nature. Both favor skepticism in the end. Revising Naturalism Might we, however, reconceive naturalism instead of abandoning it? Yes, and quite promisingly. When we talk about the nature of something we should have in mind what is reasonably justifiable given what we know to be so beyond a reasonable doubt. The classification that we are entitled to make on the basis of evidence we have gathered - limited to the context of our present knowledge as that may be (provided that we are consistent and reasonably historically complete) - will yield a conception of what the nature of something is. And that's firm enough to guide us in our political and even our personal lives, as firm as we can expect the world to be from our knowledge of history and from common sense. Actual aspects of the world - its substance - shouldn't be thought of as we think of its formal features, e.g., in mathematics and geometry. The subject matter of these fields is capable of yielding final definitions - although some dispute even th at - because these definitions concern measurement devices, not actual objects. But human beings, for example, are not mere measurements - they actually exist and undergo changes which our theory of understanding them must also accommodate. Now, when we study homo sapiens from the 92,000 years on that they have emerged in roughly their current form on this earth, we are justified to conclude that they do have a stable nature as thinking animals - biological entities that are distinctively facilitated to think and depend upon exercising this faculty in order to live and do well at that task. Furthermore, human beings seem to always be confronted with the possibility of mishaps through their own agency, which accounts for the pervasive fact of criticism among them! They can be wrong as well as right in what they do, unlike other animals , and it is often up to them. And the way they can be wrong is by their failure to act in accordance with their distinctive human nature - by not being in full focus, by failing to pay heed, by negligence, evasion, thoughtlessness, imprudence, dishonesty , etc. Yet there is also an inescapable individuality to human nature, not only common features that give rise to certain universal standards. It is by their own particular initiative, circumscribed by their family backgrounds, traditions, habits, customs , environment, opportunities, climate, etc., that people must confront living their lives. So they must implement or establish their individuality every moment of their lives. This also points up the social nature of human life - being thinking animals implies that their flourishing is interwoven with their fellows. They will learn from them, find enjoyment and love from them, trade, play and carry on all the most exciting aspects of their humanity with them. How does all this help us out of some of t he problems and paradoxes of individualism that I have described earlier? For one, with a viable conception of human nature we can identify some general principles we could count on to guide our lives. These principles, alluded to above, are general enough to apply over time, to succeeding generations, even if they aren't guaranteed to hold for eternity. As Aristotle recognized, the application of the general principles that rest on our knowledge of human nature will not be identical in different situations, at different times. Being honest in the 20th century probably requires applying the princip les to telephones, call waiting, fax machines and computers. Earlier people didn't have the responsibility to be honest in just this way. So honesty, although a general human virtue, will also have its individual, regional, temporal and culturally relat ed manifestations. And so with prudence, justice, etc. Classical Individualism and the Free Market So how would classical individualism approach the points neoclassical economists provide in support of the free market? Take the claim that in free market exchanges both parties necessarily benefit. Classical individualism rejects this understanding of market exchange. It is quite possible that a free exchange will not benefit both parties, even neither party. Bot h could be making a mistake. Sometimes one trades good money for bad goods or exchanges items that are harmful to both parties. Impulse buying or similarly thoughtless purchases also illustrate this clearly enough. (Nor will it do to say, "it seems to be of benefit to them," either, since what seems to be would, on occasions, have in fact be possible.) Neoclassical economists tend to reject this because if true, they think some central or collective planner might have second guessed one or both trading parties and ordered them to behave different "for their own best interest." If it were possible to know (objectively) what would benefit people in trade, even when they themselves deny this, it may be possible to admit to the legitimacy of paternalism a nd authoritarianism and to defeat free trade. But does interventionism follow from classical individualism, simply because it rejects the theory of subjective value? No, not at all. A central feature of an objective moral value judgment and conduct is that a person must be able to choose, that is, initiate his or her conduct. Bona fide moral theorists have all understood that one cannot force others to behave morally - moral c onduct must be the agent's own choosing, meaning not that what is right is a matter of choice, but that doing it is morally right only if it has been chosen freely by the agent. So a central feature of morally relevant conduct is that it is chosen and if imposed or regimented, its moral significance vanishes. Included in the range of choices every individual is confronted with is the entire array of issues concerned with t he bulk of community life. Classical Individualism and Morality Classical individualism, furthermore, places before us certain stable (enough) principles of community life that are necessary for us to even embark upon a morally independent or sovereign, peaceful and productive social existence. This aspect of t he social moral nature of human life is a result of both one's humanity and one's inherent individuality as the author of one's moral character and conduct. If one behaved as a good citizen or a charitable person simply because one is dreadfully scared of the state placing one in jail, one would not be a good citizen or person but barely more than a circus animal. So it is wrong to confuse conduct one should have engaged in of one's own free will with regimented behavior imposed by some planning authority, politburo or regulatory agency. There is, in short, no such thing as coerced morally right conduct. Those aspects of the classical liberal polity that concerned individual rights, never mind whether they had been founded on the right philosophical groundings, have validity here as well. Within the framework of individual rights, however, ample room for uncoerced communitarian values remains. Classical Individualism and Public Affairs This position also allows for moral criticism of commerce - including the behavior of commercial agents from used car sellers to corporate magnates - without sanctioning interference in it. Business ethics, for example, would be a subbranch of ethi cs. It would allow for us to say, with full justice, that some individuals in the market place - some persons or entire firms - are behaving badly and shouldn't do so. They might have chosen to do otherwise. Of course, classical individualism and its resulting polity would not turn a blind eye toward corporate behavior with adverse impact in the form of violating individual rights. The entire sphere of corporate behavior vis-a-vis the environment could still be seen, as it is by anti-individualists, as public wrongs that need to have legal sanctions applied. But these would be construed not in the murky fashion of the environmentalist ethics movement, as assaults upon nature or intrinsic values but as dumping on and intrusions upon individuals, violations of their rights. The remedy would also shift from the more communitarian approach of social cost-benefit analysis to the individualist approach to giving full protection to those who might be dumped on or assaulted by means of toxic side-effects of production or transportation processes. Classical Individualism and Liberalism Some of this is disturbing to various classical liberals because they realize that in terms of this form of individualism sometimes what we do in the free market we shouldn't do. Yet, as we have noted already, this does not at all imply that whateve r I should not do may be prohibited or what I should be may be commandeered. Rather it admits what common sense recognizes and needs some guidance about, namely, that free agents can do the wrong thing and this may be pointed out to them in peaceful ways . Clearly, nothing about statist interventions follows. What are the theoretical and political gains from classical individualism concerning how the classical liberal may analyze many aspects of contemporary society? For example, as noted before, this position allows for moral criticism of commerce -- in cluding the behavior of commercial agents from used car sellers to corporate magnates -- without sanctioning the regulation of commerce. Business ethics, for example, would be an entirely sensible subbranch of ethics. It would allow for us to say, with full justice, that some individuals in the market place -- some persons or entire firms -- are behaving badly and shouldn't do so. They might have chosen to do otherwise. And we can with perfect theoretical justification write articles about this and se nd letters, protest sometimes by way of boycotts and ostracism, or maybe even attend a stock holders meeting and argue a company's management out of their current wrong headed policy. With radical -- as distinct from classical -- individualism, whatever people do in the market place has to be accepted as what they ought to do. That is because the only clue as to what they ought to do is their doing it. I have already indicated w hat kind of difficulties that produces. Classical individualism recognizes that individual market agents might behave either in a morally praiseworthy or in a morally blameworthy fashion and yet it has to be their choice whether they do one or the other. That is the only way in which a socioeconomic system avoids becoming demoralized. Within certain "rules of market conduct" that identify for us the borders around us -- which is where natural rights theory comes into the picture -- individuals must be left free. Because that is the only way that their human dignity is preserved in a commercial setting, namely, if they are free to misbehave. All this makes sense because it could now be said that objectively speaking some of what these people do in the market they shouldn't be doing. But since it is a matter of free choice whether someone ought to do something or ought not to do somethin g, it follows that they may not be regimented to do otherwise except if their morally wrong conduct infringes on the rights of others -- that is, obstructs other people's liberty to make moral choices. The only avenue toward influencing others it to pers uade them to do otherwise. Classical Individualism and Market Failures Thus, classical individualism and its resulting polity would not turn a blind eye toward behavior associated with commerce that has adverse impact in the form of violating individual rights. The entire sphere of corporate behavior vis-a-vis the envi ronment could still be seen, as it is by anti-individualists, as public wrongs that need to have legal sanctions applied. But these would be construed not in the murky fashion of the environmentalist ethics movement, as assaults upon nature or intrinsic values but as dumping on and intrusions upon individuals, violations of their rights. The remedy would also shift from the more communitarian approach of social cost- benefit analysis to the individualist approach to giving full protection to those who m ight be dumped on or assaulted by means of toxic side-effects of production or transportation processes. In short, classical individualism gives every sign of satisfying the concern expressed by many anti-individualist, namely, with the amoralism and recklessness of the radical individualist based liberal social order. But this view, unlike others such as socialism and even communitarianism, retains a principled adherents to the ultimate value of individual sovereignty based on the moral nature (that is, the requirement of self-governance) of human individuals in the bulk of their lives. Classical Individualism and Neoclassical Economics There is no loss at all in embracing classical individuals to classical liberalism and neoclassical economics. Diversity of values still holds -- not, however, because of subjectivity but because of enormous individual variations among people. The price system remains the best means by which to communicate human choices, although at times this means that wrong choices will also be communicated and responded to by market agents (for example, choices that may produce the production of harmful drugs o r trivial pursuits or pornography). Still, the point made by public choice theorists still holds: any attempt to remedy market failures by means of political intervention involves the far greater risk of enshrining the errors of politicians into the much less flexible aspect of a culture than its market, namely, its legal system. In addition, the point about trying to make people good by means of coercion must also be recalled. Both of these points count against any interventionist policies, so the fre e market remains intact, despite its somewhat altered philosophical foundations. The Hobbesian Monkey off the Classical Liberal Back This then is the crucial alteration that needs to be made on the standard classical liberal doctrine of individualism. We must abandon the Hobbesian view, which states, in Hobbes's own words, "But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or de sire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil ....For these words of good and evil ... are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any co mmon rule of good and evil ...."4 Instead we must recognize that "good" and "bad" have objective meaning for individual human beings, based on their humanity and the individual persons they are. There are very general moral principles that apply to human life, based on human nature, as well as particular moral judgments based on the special or unique circumstances of the individual. While this preserves the full range of diversity that most classical liberals wish to call attention to in socioeconomic situations -- ergo the stress of the value of the price system that communicates all these diverse value judgments -- it does not embrace the flawed and self-defeating idea of subjective value theory whereby what is morally right or wrong is merely a matter of what a persons happens t o feel about some course of conduct. There is another charge leveled at individualism, one that does not target its radical, neo-Hobbesian features but something akin to that, namely, its alleged denial of our fundamental social nature. This view, championed by such writers and Richard Rorty, holds that human beings are inherently dependent creatures and can never, in any respect of their lives, exhibit individuality. They point to the elementary fact that human language is social. They invoke certain esoteric arguments from philoso phers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, arguing that the very idea of privacy is incoherent because knowing anything is a social process.5 The public relations aspect of this alternative to radical individualism amounts to the fact that no longer will there be an unbelievable, unpalatable doctrine of moral subjectivism attached to the defense of the free society. Individualism is true, but subjectivism is false. Most people realize this as they conduct their lives -- it is clear to them, for example, that male chauvinism is wrong, that slavery is evil, that racism is vile, etc. It is clear to them that kindness, generosity, courage, and honesty are virtues. To claim, as radical individualism does, that all of that is a matter of personal preference simply makes the socioeconomic system derived from individualism an incredible system. Give Mature Individualism a Chance All of this is especially important now, in the light of the recent economic and cultural demise of the planned economic systems of Eastern Europe. That their system has collapsed does not necessarily mean that one that embraces freedom is going to be successfully sold to them. There is competition here -- Western social democrats, or democratic socialists, are only too willing to rework their system, call it communitarianism, and sell it to the victims of Stalinist socialism. Unless individualism can be shown to be a sound position, it will not be successful in capturing the minds and hearts of those who have found its opposite, collectivism, practically impossible. One can always claim, after all, that collectivism has not failed but was merely misunderstood, misplayed, and it will now have to be tried again, the right way. In short, classical individualism satisfies the concerns expressed by many anti-individualist with the amoralism of the radical individualist based liberal social order. But this view retains a principled adherence to the ultimate value of individu al sovereignty based on the moral nature (that is, the requirement of self-governance) of human individuals in the bulk of their lives. It is vital to note in conclusion that what the classical liberal polity, including its private enterprise system of economic life, faces from the anti-individualist critics is a fatal criticism -- unless its individualism can be placed on a solid p hilosophical and, especially, moral footing. There is no question that freedom advances the life of individual human beings. There is no question that those who find fault with the regime of liberty are not champions of such advancement but argue, mostl y on the basis of their various moral and ethical theories, that service to the community is our primary and, indeed, enforcible moral and political obligation. It is not enough to respond to this with public policy studies showing that policies that for ce people to help others just do not work -- the critics will reply, well we must try harder, we must be more vigilant, we must use, indeed, greater force! A far more germane response to such criticism of the free society is that lthe right to liberty, including the liberty to trade freely with willing others, rests on the supreme moral importance of individual human beings. This importance does not pr eclude community and fellow feeling. But it prohibits making it mandatory and enforced by the state or anyone else in society. Unless this kind of response is available to the classial liberal political economist, the system is doomed. No public policy holding out some hope of serving the community by means of yet another scheme of coercion -- be it more taxes, greater gove rnment involvement in the provision of goods and services, regulating commerce and even the arts and entertainment, etc. Piecemeal response to the assault on individual liberty simply will not suffice -- it can always be met with the moral outcry, but let us try yet another restriction, prohibition, regulation. A general moral-political theoretical case needs to be pr esented showing that such restrictions, prohibitions or regulations are immoral in the light of human nature, a commonly recognizable fact of reality. ENDNOTES: 1 Bernard Mandeville's motto, "private vice, public benefit" captures this idea best. It has been the impetus for a good deal of economic thinking since the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776. When we consider the details of e conomic theory itself, we find that it is not self-interested but so called utility maximizing behavior that we are all driven to engage in; but the content of the utility is entirely subjective - thus the thesis ultimately comes to be tautological, since , of course, we all do what we do and because we do it. By this "explanation" of human behavior, no wonder everything is fully explained, from suicide and marriage, to bank robbery and multibillion dollar corporate mergers. In all these cases people do what they do because they want to do it and the way we can test the truth of this claim is by noticing that, indeed, they are doing it. For why this is no explanation at all, see my Capitalism and Individualism, Reframing the Argument for the Free Societ y (St. Martin's, 1990). 2 The most ambitious effort to debunk individualism on a regular basis consists in the launching of the journal The Responsive Community, edited by Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University. See, also, his book The Spirit of Community (New York: Crown Publ. Co., 1993). Some more subtle efforts in this direction have been made by such philosophical luminaries as Richard Rorty. See, e.g., his Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge University Press, 1991),especially Chapter 1, "Objectivity versus Solidarity," in which the result of a pragmatic theory of knowledge abolishes objectivity in all disciplines of human knowledge and replaces it with the communitarian ideal of solidarity. 3 See, Rorty, op. cit., page 31ff, where he flatly rejects the theory of individual rights based on his communitarian or solidaristic outlook. 4 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter 6, "Good," p. 48. 5 See, Ludwig Witggenstein, Philosophical Indvestigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell & Mott, Ltd., 1953), as well as such extensions of his argument as presented by some of his students claiming that his objection to the possibility of a private language is, in fact, a blanket rejection of the possibility of any individual human act.