A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

by Thomas Sowell

  An analysis of the implications and dynamics of visions can clarify issues without reducing dedication to one's own vision, even when it is understood to be a vision, rather than an incontrovertible fact, an iron law, or an opaque moral imperative. Dedication to a cause may legitimately entail sacrifices of personal interests but not sacrifices of mind or conscience.

  NOTE S

  The epigraph is from Bertrand Russell, Skeptical Essays (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1938), p. 28.

  CHAPTER 1: THE ROLE OF VISIONS

  1. Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 41.

  2. Vilfred Pareto, Manual of Political Economy (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1971), p. 22.

  CHAPTER 2: CONSTRAINED AND UNCONSTRAINED VISIONS

  L Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: The Free Press, 1965), p. 80.

  2. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976), pp. 233-234.

  3. Ibid., p. 238.

  4. Ibid., p. 108.

  5. Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), Vol. VI, p. 48.

  6. Alexander Hamilton, Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Morton J. Frisch (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1985), p. 390.

  7. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 235.

  8. Ibid., p. 234.

  9. Ibid., p. 235.

  10. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 423.

  11. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), Vol. I, p. 156.

  12. Ibid., pp. 433, 435.

  13. Ibid., pp. 421-438.

  14. Ibid., pp. 434-435.

  15. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 122.

  16. Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Vol. VI, p. 392.

  17. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 308.

  18. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 172.

  19. Ibid., p. 171.

  20. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, Inc., 1979), pp. 52-53.

  21. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1967), p. 60.

  22. Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Vol. VI, p. 47. "Prudence ... in all things a Virtue, in Politicks the first of Virtues ... ," ibid., p. 48. Prudence was indeed the "presiding" virtue, giving "orders" to all other virtues, according to Burke, ibid., Vol. VII, p. 220.

  23. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. 438.

  24. Quoted in Keith Michael Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 217.

  25. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. 448.

  26. Ibid., p. 451.

  27. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 193.

  28. Ibid., p. 211.

  29. Ibid., p. 313.

  30. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 4.

  31. Ibid., pp. 49, 65, 99, 117, 150, 169, 175, 193.

  32. Ibid., p. 185.

  33. Ibid., p. 184.

  34. Ibid., p. 133.

  35. Ibid., p. 200.

  36. Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom, Politics, Economics and Welfare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 522.

  37. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 192.

  38. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, pp. 156, 433.

  39. Ibid., p. 152.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, p. 423.

  42. Ibid., p. 460.

  43. Ibid., p. 128.

  44. Ibid., pp. 98, 128, 249-250, 429, 460, 537.

  45. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II, p. 129n.

  46. John Stuart Mill, "Utilitarianism," Collected Works (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), Vol. X, p. 215. This will be illustrated in later discussions of Mill in Chapters 3 and 5.

  47. However, Mill's pattern of making ringing assertions based on one set of premises and attaching devastating provisos from another system of thought extended to economic doctrines as well. See, for example, Thomas Sowell Classical Economics Reconsidered (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 95-97; idem., Say's Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 143-154.

  48. Harold J. Laski, "Political Thought in England: Locke to Bentham," The Burke-Paine Controversy: Texts and Criticisms (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1963), p. 144.

  49. Thomas Robert Malthus, Population: The First Essay (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 67.

  50. William Godwin, Of Population (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964), p. 554.

  51. Edmund Burke, "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent," Burke's Politics: Selected Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke on Reform, Revolution, and War, eds. R. J. S. Hoffman and P. Levack (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), p. 5.

  52. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1970), p. 89.

  53. William Godwin, Of Population, p. 480.

  54. Thomas Robert Malthus, Population: The First Essay, p. 54.

  55. Quoted in Lewis Coser, Men of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1970), p. 151.

  56. Alexander Hamilton et al., The Federalist Papers (New York: New American Library, 1961), p. 33. Elsewhere, Hamilton said: "We may preach till we are tired of the theme, the necessity of disinterestedness in republics, without making a single proselyte," Alexander Hamilton, Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, p. 63.

  57. Alexander Hamilton et al., The Federalist Papers, p. 322.

  58. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 308.

  59. Alexander Hamilton et al., The Federalist Papers, p. 110.

  60. Keith Michael Baker, ed., Condorcet: Selected Writings (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1976), p. 80.

  61. Ibid., p. 87.

  62. Ibid., p. 157.

  63. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 380. Very similar views are expressed in The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Vol. VII, p. 510.

  64. Keith Michael Baker, ed., Condorcet: Selected Writings, p. 80.

  65. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 147.

  66. Alexander Hamilton, Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, p. 455.

  67. Thomas Jefferson, Letter of January 3, 1793, The Portable Thomas Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 465.

  68. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 369.

  69. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 49.

  70. Ibid., p. 55.

  71. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 64, 70, 87.

  72. Ibid., p. 65.

  73. Keith Michael Baker, ed., Condorcet: Selected Writings, p. 8.

  74. F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 168.

  75. Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Vol. IX, p. 449.

  CHAPTER 3: VISIONS OF KNOWLEDGE AND REASON

  1. F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 26.

  2. F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), Vol. III, p. 157.

  3. Alexander Hamilton, Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Morton J. Frisch (Washington, D.C.: The American Enterprise Institute, 1985), p. 222.

  4. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (New York: Everyman's Library, 1967), p. 84.

  5. Ibid., p. 93.

  6. Edmund Burke, Speeches and Letters on American Affairs (New
York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1961), p. 198.

  7. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 140.

  8. Gerald W. Chapman, Edmund Burke: The Practical Imagination (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), Chapters II, VI; Isaac Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke: Portrait of an Ambivalent Conservative (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977), Chapter 7; Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), Vol. VII, pp. 122125; ibid., Vol. VIII, p. 451n.

  9. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937), pp. 553-555, 559-560, 684, 736-737, 740, 777, 794, 899-900; Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976), p. 337.

  10. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), Vol. II, p. 172.

  11. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 85.

  12. Keith Michael Baker, ed., Condorcet: Selected Writings (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1976), p. 86.

  13. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, Inc., 1955), p. 11.

  14. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II, p. 206.

  15. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 34.

  16. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 299.

  17. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 95-96.

  18. Ibid., p. 31.

  19. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. 70.

  20. Ibid., p. 82.

  21. Ibid., p. 104.

  22. Quoted in Lewis Coser, Men of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1970), p. 232.

  23. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 109.

  24. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 115.

  25. Quoted in Lewis Coser, Men of Ideas, p. 231.

  26. John Stuart Mill, Collected Works (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), Vol. XVIII, p. 86.

  27. Ibid., p. 121.

  28. Ibid., p. 139.

  29. Ibid., Vol. XV, p. 631.

  30. Ibid., Vol. XVIII, p. 86.

  31. Ibid., p. 129.

  32. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 76.

  33. Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1978), p. 57.

  34. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1970), p. 4.

  35. Ibid., p. 20.

  36. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 108.

  37. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 380-381.

  38. Ibid., p. 381.

  39. F. A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 80.

  40. [Pierre Joachim Henri Le Mercier de la Riviere], L'Ordre Naturel et essentiel des societes politiques (Paris: Jean Nourse, Libraire, 1767).

  41. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, p. 423.

  42. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. 66.

  43. Ibid., p. 315.

  44. Ibid., p. 385.

  45. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 320.

  46. Ibid., p. 211.

  47. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 192.

  48. See, for example, Thomas Sowell, "Economics and Economic Man," The Americans: 1976, eds. Irving Kristol and Paul Weaver (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976), pp. 191-209.

  49. See Jacob Viner, The Role of Providence in the Social Order (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1972).

  50. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1923), p. 1.

  51. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co. v. Babcock, 204 U.S. 585, at 598.

  52. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Collected Legal Papers (New York: Peter Smith, 1952), p. 26.

  53. Ibid., p. 180.

  54. Ibid., p. 185.

  55. John Stuart Mill, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, p. 41.

  56. Ibid., pp. 41-42.

  57. Ibid., p. 43n.

  58. Ibid., pp. 42-43.

  59. F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I, p. 81.

  60. Ibid., p. 85.

  61. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 147.

  62. Ibid.

  63. Ibid., p. 144.

  64. Ibid., p. 137.

  65. See, for example, Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 290296.

  66. Louisville and Nashville Railroad Co. v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 197 U.S. 430, at 434.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Baldwin et al. v. Missouri, 281 U.S. 586, at 595.

  69. Nash v. United States, 229 U.S. 373, at 378.

  70. See, for example, Raoul Berger, Government by Judiciary (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 314; Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man," Selected Works of Tom Paine, ed. Howard Fast (New York: The Modern Library, 1945), p. 99.

  71. Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1962), p. 110.

  72. Chief Justice Earl Warren, The Memoirs of Earl Warren (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1977), p. 333.

  73. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, p. 260.

  74. Ibid., p. x.

  75. Ibid., p. 146.

  76. Ibid., p. 239.

  77. F. A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuses of Reason (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979), pp. 162-163.

  78. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 42.

  79. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, p. 423.

  80. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. vii.

  81. Ibid., p. 304.

  82. Ibid., p. 329.

  83. Ibid., p. 331.

  84. Ibid., p. 393.

  85. Ibid., p. 331.

  86. "Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual, which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit," ibid., p. 156. See also ibid., pp. 159, 161-162, 197198; ibid., Vol. II, pp. 57, 415.

  87. Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), Vol. VIII, p. 138.

  88. Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 43.

  89. Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, p. 96.

  90. Ibid., p. 14.

  91. Alexander Bickel, The Morality of Consent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 30.

  92. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II, p. 341.

  93. See, for example, ibid., Vol. I, pp. xi, 302; ibid., Vol. II, pp. 112-113.

  94. V. I. Lenin, "What Is To Be Done?" Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing Office, 1952), Vol. I, Part I, pp. 233, 237, 242.

  95. Ibid., p. 317.

  96. Alexander Hamilton et al., The Federalist Papers (New York: New American Library, 1961), p. 57.

  97. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 243-244.

  98. Ibid., p. 529.

  99. Keith Michael Baker, ed., Condorcet: Selected Writings, pp. 5-6.

  100. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. 100.

  101. Ibid., p. 47.

  102. William Godwin, The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature (London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797), p. 70.

  103. Ibid., pp. 66-72.

  104. Ibid., p. 11.

  105. For example, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 10, 11, 22, 35, 63.

  106. Edmund Burke, Speeches and Letters on American Affairs, p. 203.

  107. Quoted in Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1978), p. 442.

  108. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture
of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 180.

  109. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I, p. 315.

  110. Ibid., p. 385.

  111. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 88.

  112. Ibid., p. 83.

  113. Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Vol. VI, p. 211.

  114. Alexander Hamilton, Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, p. 343.

  115. Ibid., p. 481. See also p. 74.

  116. Ibid., p. 223.

  117. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 16.

  118. F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I, p. 99.

  119. F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, p. 30.

  120. Ibid., p. 377.

  121. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 63.

  122. Ibid., p. 40. See also p. 4.

  123. Ibid., p. 35.

  124. Ibid., p. 23.

  125. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 84-85, 92, 104, 107, 166-167, 168.

  126. Ibid., p. 200.

  127. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 89.

  128. Alexander Hamilton, Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, p. 392.

  129. Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke, pp. 69-70.

  130. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II, p. 538.

  131. Keith Michael Baker, ed., Condorcet: Selected Writings, p. 111.

  CHAPTER 4: VISIONS OF SOCIAL PROCESSES

  1. F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), Vol. I, p. 19. See also Richard Posner, The Economics of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 44-45.

  2. F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I, pp. 74-76.