The Illiberalism of Liberalism.,
August 28, 2012 Is slavery a "liberal" institution?
Can slave-holders be "liberals"?
Was the Confederacy a movement toward the realization of a liberal social order?
Domenico Losurdo, who is a Marxist professor of philosophy at the University of Urbino, seems to say "yes" to these questions. Or at least he seems to argues that the people who originally asked these questions would have said "yes" because they were liberals who saw no paradox between being liberals, and believing in the equality of man, and being slaveholders. As Losurdo points out, John Locke, a fountainhead of the Enlightenment's liberal ideas about the good of limited government, individualism and tolerance, was a shareholder in the Royal African Company, and therefore had a vested interest in the slave trade. (p. 24.) Locke made no bones about his view that slavery - modern chattel slavery - was justified and good, just as he made no bones about his view that papists and the Irish were to be ruthlessly repressed. (p.25.)
Locke was not alone in this liberal "illiberalism." As Losurdo delights in pointing out, through an encyclopedic collection of quotes from the great names of liberalism, such De Tocqueville, Franklin, Jefferson, Mandeville, Franklin, Disraeli, Burke, Hume and others, were variously enthusiasts of, or apologists for, the liberal project of slavery, racism, extermination of native peoples, and oppression of the poor, in the name of the "community of the free," i.e,, those who had the education, status and virtue that made them fit to exercise their freedom. Thus, we see Jefferson talking with the equanimity of a Hitler at the prospect of the extermination of blacks and Indians (p. 340); Bentham and Locke advocating child labor and eugenic practices with respect to the children of the poor, and putting the poor into uniforms, (p. 82); Jefferson supporting Napoleon's attempt to reconquer Haiti in order to re-introduce slavery (p. 152); John Stuart Mills supporting despotism for barbarian people (p. 249); Franklin echoing Malthus in advising a doctor in 1764 that "Half the Lives you save are not worth saving, as being useless; and almost the other Half ought not to be sav'd as being mischievous. Does your conscience never hint to you the impiety of being in constant Warfare against the Plans of Providence?" (p. 115); Mill and Bentham's enthusiasm for the virtual slavery of the poor in English workhouses. (p. 73.) and Disraeli's racial political theories where Celts seem to have taken the place of Jews in anti-semitism.(p. 270 - 272.)
Clearly, this is not the liberalism we were taught in school.
And that is essentially Losurdo's point. Losurdo aims to "replace hagiography with history" by the tried and true tactic of pointing out the foibles of liberalism and making the case that the tolerance of liberals like Jefferson was not an anomaly or a "bug," it was a feature of the system, at least in the minds of Jefferson and others who thought themselves liberals and, yet, thought that slavery was perfectly liberal.
I found Losurdo's book interesting for the most part, albeit it was redundant, and his topical organization seemed to lack rigor. The overall organization of his book is to follow the dark side of liberalism from the period of Locke up to the early 20th Century. Along the way, I think that Losurdo effectively cements his principle points into place. These points include, (a) the idea of the "community of the free" whereby liberals maintained a defined boundary between those who were permitted to be treated as free citizens, and those who were not; (b) the parrying of liberalism as equal treatment by the liberalism of political autonomy whereby slave-holding colonists would respond to efforts by the "metropolitan" authority to protect Indians or slaves by seceding from the control of the metropolitan authority; (c) the master-race democracy by which the community of the free was able to play by democratic rules for itself while denying democracy to others, and (d) the extension of true liberalism to those outside of the community of the free is typically something forced from outside rather than organically developed from within.
On the other hand, I also found Losurdo's book to have a lot of redundancy, as he explored the same concepts at various historical stages. I also found myself questioning his key device of quoting the disquieting, illiberal statements of members of the liberal pantheon. I began to wonder if the quotes weren't overstated as part of an in-house argument or whether Losurdo was providing the full context.
In my view, Losurdo's book is worth the "price of admission" on several subjects.
One subject was Losurdo's treatment of "white slavery" in the colonial era. We tend to forget that "for most of human history the expression `free labor' was an oxymoron." (p. 10.) Labor was by definition servile and the lives of the servile was regulated in detail. The death penalty or slavery could be imposed for a variety of offenses. Locke explained the connection arose from the reasoning that if it was lawful for a man to kill a thief, it was lawful to deprive the thief of his freedom and impose penal slavery. (See p. 78.) Locke's theory was given pragmatic effect; on the eve of the American Revolution, in Maryland alone there were 20,000 servants of criminal origin.(p. 80.) And this was not a sought for position; over 50% of the white semi-slaves sent to Australia died on the voyage. (Id.)
Losurdo is also informative on the role that early liberalism played in the revival of slavery. During the revival of slavery in the early modern era, scholars recognized that Europe had eliminated slavery, at least within Europe. (p. 32, quoting Jean Bodin, "Europe was freed of slavery after about 1250.") Slavery was not a residue of the past. (p. 33.) The Catholic Church was criticized for promoting the abolition of slavery and for opposing its reintroduction in the modern world, thus encouraging sloth and dissipation of vagrants. (p. 34.)
Moreover, the liberal era saw a different kind of slavery. According to John Locke, Old Testament slavery was more in the nature of servant and master where the master lacked the unlimited power that characterized the "modern" form of slavery, and the servant was more in the nature of a hired hand. (p. 41 - 43.) Pre-modern slavery was described by Locke as "imperfect slavery," in which a person was condemned to "drudgery" and not "slavery," and could be killed without restraint, but if injured by the master, had to be compensated or freed from drudgery. (p. 109.) Unlike this traditional slavery, more akin to having a lifetime job, modern slavery involved the excise over the slave of an absolute dominion and an absolute power, a legislative power of life and death, and an arbitrary power encompassing life itself, according to Locke. (p. 42.) This kind of slavery began with a person surrendering the right to life, by being captured in war or convicted of a capital crime, and the term of slavery was simply a kind of "stay of execution."
Losurdo connects the rise of modern slavery with the power of England. The liberal powers, first Holland, and then England, supplanted Spain in the slave trade at an early point. Only a fraction of slaves were carried by non-English shipping. Unlike England, Spain made efforts at an early point to outlaw slavery in its territory at an early point. (Another theme that seems to come through Losurdo's book is just how strong the human impulse to enslave other humans seems to be.)
Another fascinating point made by Losurdo is the role of Haiti in the forced extension of liberalism. Haiti may be the only successful slave revolt in human history, and liberals throughout the world were horrified by it. Haiti was freed by the wrong sort of people. It was a bad precedent for the rest of the slave-holding world. Jefferson hated Haiti. Haitian crews were not permitted to disembark in the United States. And, yet, Bolivar received significant support from Haiti on the proviso that he outlaw slavery.
These are fascinating and provocative data points. I think Losurdo was weak in his explanation of why - for all of its paradox and hypocrisy - liberalism did move in the direction of greater freedom. Things did change. Liberalism and the scope of the "community of the free" did expand. It is easy to understand why selfish, scared, greedy human beings might not live up to their ideals; the more interesting question is what caused them to eventually take those ideas seriously. Losurdo is a Marxist, so one would expect his explanation to involve materialistic factors. Perhaps we will see his answer in his next book.
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