I could write a book on why Republicans and Democrats do not understand each other because they are driven by fundamentally opposing concepts of freedom and liberty, and thus, justice. But I’m not sure if the world really needs another political tome. And, besides, I have already written a book and it’s called Quest for Justice. Much more interesting and enjoyable than anything in those piles of unsold books by Brookings Institute fellows, reading Quest for Justice will help you understand why the fault lines separating the Republican and Democratic outlook goes all the way back to antiquity.
Worth subscribing to it!
In my last commentary, I talked about Positive liberty and how it defines the Democratic party’s outlook and why they see their behavior as both democratic and just despite exhibiting strongly non-democratic behaviors to others. This time, it’s my turn to talk about Negative liberty.
For those who’d like a quick reminder, the two classic understanding of liberty defined by Isaiah Berlin and explored in Trump the Anti-Hero, an explanation for why voters flock the most deeply flawed presidential candidate in the history of American politics:
Negative liberty: freedom from external factors, such as regulation or state control, with the emphasis on the greatest autonomy for man’s free will. Proponents of Negative liberty would support strong restrictions on a government activities, seeing it as unnatural obstacle to expressing one’s natural free will. This is just.
Positive liberty: freedom to be able to seek self-mastery or perfection of the individual. Removing obstacles that prevent one’s self-mastery, such as poverty or oppression of a minority, is a priority. Respecting an individual’s free will is less a priority than the social well-being that allows self-mastery to flourish. As such, government intervention needs to be proactive and substantial, even if often requires curbing free-will actions. This is just.
I had originally planned to explain Negative liberty in a certain way but lo and behold, two topics perfectly illustrating Negative liberty popped up! And you will find an answer to why the establishment media keeps being confused by the Republican Party.
The birth of Negative liberty
Although I have been making observations on justice squarely in the context of the American political scene and Quest for Justice takes place in the United States, I need to start by going across the ocean to a nation whose astonishing historic cultural clout has been reduced in recent decades to match that sad, anonymous, meaningless, gray-faced midwit bureaucratic acronym: the UK. Out of respect of its past history I prefer to refer to it as Britain.
The United States owes a great deal to Britain. Not only did the settling of the original 13 colonies by the English ensure a radically different outcome for both these lands and the world than had it been the Spanish or Portuguese instead. In the rebellious years of the 1770s-1780s, the American Founding Fathers were thoroughly in the mold of British gentlemen, educated as British gentlemen and deeply conversant in the principles of British liberty. The new state they created in the American constitution is described as being influenced by French philosophers, namely the Montesquieu balance of powers, but Montesquieu himself was influenced by the nature of English politics and political thought. And the main argument for rebellion was to preserve the rights of Englishmen. And the raison d’etre behind the new American liberalism was squarely John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government.
The entirety of Locke’s argument can be summarized by the following sentence: To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.
Locke conveniently gave the future Americans their sacred freedoms reflecting man’s natural free-will capacity and called out key freedoms including as speech, association, religion and to choose our leaders, among others. Enjoying these freedoms formed the basis of a just state of existence and was perpetuated through reciprocal equality of rights and obligations among men. The role of the government is to protect these freedoms.1 These were popular freedoms being explored in the 18th century English enlightenment, already the most liberal of the European nations save perhaps the Netherlands, and did form the origin of Berlin’s Negative liberty.
But the English Parliament and English governing of the 18th century was politics for gentlemen, not the common man. Only a small minority of Englishmen were enfranchised2 and if English politics behaved like boisterous upper class dinner parties, it was because the aristocracy, gentry and their wealthy merchant allies dominated politics and Parliament was an extension of their dinner tables.
In America, the Founding Fathers expanded the political concept of who gentlemen were to the entire nation, if not entirely in the way they anticipated,3 but that was the outcome. Ultimately, for all the petty rivalry of the 19th century, there was not much to differentiate between the John Bull caricature of the brash, stubborn, liberty-loving and common-sense Englishman who prized his freedom and the brash, stubborn, liberty-loving common-sense Uncle Sam who prized his freedom.
(William Allan and J.B. Herbert. John Bull and Uncle Sam. Chicago: S. Brainard's Sons, [1898]. Sheet music cover. Music Division, Library of Congress (75A)
Americans take (took?) liberties for granted to the extent it is second nature to us just as air is second nature to us, but why these classic liberties are historically unusual is summarized by a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “I have come to realize men are not born to be free...Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men. Consequently, it may be repressed with impunity. Equality, on the other hand, pleases the masses.”
The Strange Death of John Bull
Not many Americans know that the British Tory party has proposed to ban the sale of tobacco products, phasing in the ban with the 14 year olds. Everyone over that age will be able to buy tobacco, but as the 14 year old grows up, he and she, and all people after them, will never legally be able to buy tobacco, no matter how old they become. The law will result in a situation where someday a 50 year old can legally buy tobacco but a 49 year old cannot.
Leaving aside all the questions over the ability to ban a substance (hello, Prohibition? Hello? PROHIBITION!), should people have the freedom to enjoy smoking cigarettes or vapes? Or is tobacco a societal harm and people would be better off, aka fulfilling their self-mastery, if tobacco was banned and no one ever allowed to try it?
Negative liberty versus Positive liberty!
Tobacco has become a highly passionate subject and heavily moralized to the point it is difficult to have a frank discussion about it. Too many lives ended early due to tobacco addition. Most of us know people who died of cancer or emphysema. On the other hand, it’s still an addiction that takes multiple decades to shorten a life and there’s also no shortage of millions of people who enjoyed tobacco occasionally or even for a few decades before giving it up and got on with life without any health problems. Since the focus is on youths, it must be pointed out that tobacco poses far less of a short term danger than alcohol or marijuana or other drugs. Binge drinking on a Saturday night can have disastrous outcomes including death, the deaths of others, loss of bodily control and so on. If you smoke too much in a night you end up with a sore throat the next day.
Making the ban more intriguing is that tobacco usage has collapsed in my lifetime and is already at an all time low in both America and Britain, and especially so among the youths. Just the other week I was shocked, I tell you, shocked, to walk past a group of teen skateboarders and not one of them was smoking!
If anything, the anti-smoking movements and collapse of smoking as an acceptable habit in the last 30 years is probably one of the greatest testaments to the beliefs of the 19th century Englishman, John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher of classical liberty,4 who wrote a man shouldn’t be stripped of his liberty but a government and society should be free to reason with him and try to persuade him to change his mind. Which is exactly what happened with tobacco with tremendous success without any bans or punishment.
Back here in the United States, there is not even a hint of a discussion on a tobacco ban, something that might surprise some in eyeing the American Positive liberty left, who are currently more preoccupied with their banning of gas stoves to save our lives, never mind that gas stoves were entirely harmless for generations and only became a sudden threat and danger in the last two years.
But the reluctance to follow in the footsteps of the British does make sense. Uncle Sam is still around, even if somewhat battered. But John Bull is dead, finally killed by tobacco. Remember, as Napoleon astutely pointed out, the genuine need for liberty is only felt by a small minority. When that minority ruled Britain, it gave itself great liberty. Without a liberty loving minority in possession of a nobler mind, the tyranny in the velvet glove of Positive liberty will come to rule and tell you what to do and that you will obey, and it’s good for you.
But luckily for Americans, the Founding Fathers made a country where every man is in possession of a nobler mind, and Negative liberty remains a powerful force backed by strong Constitutional rights.
Why Republicans have no platform
In the context of the 2024 elections, the standard chattering classes commonly complained that Republicans have no platform (which they do, every four years like clockwork). But every time I hear or read yet another talking head proclaim the Republicans have no platform or policies other than cutting taxes, I always laugh.
My response is that it’s the entire point. If you are a proponent of Negative liberty, you don’t want a platform. You don’t need a platform other than “stay out of my life.” The popular Republican policies, insofar as they do exist, can be summarized by three key points:
Lower taxes
Deregulate
Stay out of foreign affairs
See a common theme?
Such painfully chattering voices in a staunchly pro-Democratic media only illustrates the clash between Positive and Negative liberty and why the same media perpetually misunderstands the American Republican party.
There is not a whole lot for a Negative liberty government to do other than to maintain the defenses, ensure law and order, protect the rights and otherwise leave people alone. What I found fascinating about the reaction to Trump’s 2016-2020 administration is that this is exactly what he did. He cut taxes, he deregulated and he stayed out of foreign entanglements and didn’t invade countries. Even on the domestic front, he stayed out of people’s lives. There were no new blue laws or moral campaigns (a significant shift from earlier Republican compromises with the evangelicals for their votes, and besides, Trump as the head of a moral campaign? Trump?!). The modern Republican party under Trump is distinctly amoral with one notable exception in abortion rights.5
So when the Republicans are accused of having nothing other than hatred of the Democrats, accusers are missing the point due to failing to understand Negative liberty. To the Republicans, the lack of a platform is just. And it is why Republican administrations always approach governing with a strong distaste for policy other than cut taxes and deregulate. But cutting taxes and deregulating always threaten to undermine the Democrats’ beloved Positive liberty efforts.
Unfortunately for the Republicans…..
We would not have many (any?) of our generous and necessary social programs, medicare, protection for the environment or public education, without Positive liberty. And pure Negative liberty can be cold to the point of indifference. What is the point of liberties if you are crippled by poverty, prevented from doing anything or going anywhere due to want. Ask the Republican what to do about poverty in America and the response is most likely a shrug.
It’s easy to see why Republicans are despised as uncaring and selfish of their fellow men. A working class 19th century English poet, John Clare, wrote the following stanza at the height of the era of classical liberty in Britain:
“Thou’st heard the knave abusing those in power,
Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free;
Thou’st sheltered hypocrites in many a shower
That when in power would never shelter thee;6
Rings perhaps too close to the truth, doesn’t it?
But for all the rational, reasoned and, frankly, fair charges of indifference, the passionate defense of Negative liberty is worth a consideration. Where does one draw the line at Positive liberty versus Negative liberty? The more power given to the state to improve the lot of society, the harder it is to keep the state from infringing at personal freedoms and respecting your autonomy. And that is where tyranny too easily starts, taking away liberty while calling it good for you. And we see this with the weird hypocrisy of the British smoking ban. Today tobacco, tomorrow sugar?
I am a great fan of Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn’s weekly podcast America This Week and this week was an eye-opening analysis of Shirley Jackson’s famous The Lottery. At one point every school kid in America read the book. It’s possibly the only story read in middle school that one still remembers as an adult. The story is simple in its perfection and perfect in its simplicity. The horror is the ordinariness of ordinary people in an ordinary town complicit in evil because it’s ordained by society, however it was originally determined. The story was published after WWII when the world was grappling with the evils of Nazism and dealing with the evils of Soviet totalitarianism, but the Lottery takes place in an American town, a reminder that, as Taibbi said, “You have evil within you whether you don't know it or not.”
Evil married with the quest for the perfect society has been the most destructive force man has ever created. If there is no respect for free-will and autonomy, any excuse given for any infringement can be used for anything the state wants to do.
Taibbi also pointed out that American literature used to teach the eternal truths of mankind, including this hidden capacity for evil in all men, and to try to “escape our fate or rewrite the way the universe works, we get punished for it.” As a society we used to accept that eternal truths existed for a reason and we are imperfect beings and knew the risks of seeking impossible perfection. Even our embracing of liberties and rights were grounded in this hallowed understanding of mankind’s limits.
But this focus on man’s imperfections and limits has disappeared to be replaced with a new, modern belief that we can “rewrite the very fabric of the universe, and we finally have the ability to make our own destiny.” We can make ourselves perfect by stamping out all imperfections in our society, using the power of Positive liberty to justify our actions.7
Hmm.
The real danger is that we know happened to people deemed imperfect in other types of regimes seeking to create a perfect society, do we?
Incidentally, the chapter on Locke in Quest for Justice may be my all time favorite chapter. It’s not the most profound, but I wrote it with startling ease, illustrating how natural Locke’s writing was to someone raised in America of the 80s and 90s. At the same time, writing the chapter also sadly confirmed how much has changed and been lost since.
Approximately 120,000 out of 7 million, according to https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/04/23/campaign-finance-and-the-lessons-of-1776/
Read Quest for Justice and find out!
And one of the first serious writers to say, hey, you know, women are just as capable as men to enjoy all their liberties too.
Abortion. Yes. Abortion. Abortion is a topic that supersedes all other divides and flips the ideology for so many people, or so it is argued. I don’t entirely agree, and I do have thoughts on the topic but it’s a different post. If it ever happens.
https://armedwithvisions.com/2014/01/29/john-clare-fallen-elm/ and courtesy of Matthew Parris in the Times, an article in which he made several good points and several I thoroughly disagreed with.
And therein lies the explanation for the British tobacco ban in a country where just two decades ago it was commonly quipped that smoking was a nasty habit but an individual’s decision. The strange death of John Bull is a fitting epitaph for the end of the liberal British state.