Recently here at EconLog Scott Sumner and Janet Bufton have had an interesting discussion on liberalism as an antidote against authoritarianism (see Sumner here, Bufton’s comments here, and Sumner’s continuation here). The central theme has been how liberalism, properly understood and consistently applied, helps inoculate one against a descent into authoritarianism, even if one likes what the authoritarian is doing. They’re great posts and you should read them (even if you have already). But I think there is a gap in the conversation that I wish to fill: what unique aspect of liberalism makes it an effective vaccine? The liberal understanding of justice makes it an effective vaccine.
To be clear, I am sure both Sumner and Bufton are both aware that the liberal understanding of justice makes liberalism effective. Justice is implicit throughout their posts. I am just bringing it to the fore.
In this man’s opinion, the best development of liberal justice comes in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. In TMS, Smith discusses three understandings of justice. The first he calls “commutative justice,” or “mere justice.” Commutative justice has very precise rules about how to treat one another and they basically boil down to “don’t harm people and don’t take their stuff.”
Like the rules of grammar, these rules of justice are foundational. Under very rare circumstances (and even then most judiciously) they can be broken, but for the most part, they must be upheld. The other two understandings are what he calls “distributive justice,” (which is using one’s talents and resources to the best of their ability), and estimative justice (which is giving a person or thing its proper due). This development can be found on pages 269-270 of the Liberty Fund edition. For my purposes here, I will be discussing exclusively commutative justice.
Justice is foundational. No society can survive without justice. Any society where different individuals are treated unjustly, where their person or property is under constant threat, will tend to extinguish itself, if not through in-fighting then through conquest or dissolution by more robust societies. But justice itself is not sufficient to make a good society or a good person. We need other virtues, like love, beneficence and benevolence. A society that is simply just would not be a pleasant place to live.
But, as Smith points out, we are limited in our capacity to give love, beneficence, and benevolence. We are limited by our own resources; it would be quite impossible to love everyone equally. Such a burden is limited to God (or some other “all-wise Being.”) Any attempt to love anyone and everyone the same would result in a person being immensely unhappy (see Part VI, Section II, Chapter III). Consequently, humanity’s lot is far more simple: “the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country” (pg 237). We love ourselves. We love our family more than our friends. Our neighbors more than our country. And so on. Our social circles determine who we love and how (for more on this, see Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy by Fonna Forman).
So far, so good. Even nationalists will tend to agree with this point. What differentiates the liberal from the nationalist or authoritarian is the question, “What do we owe to each other?” How do we treat people socially furthest from us? This is where the matter of justice comes in.
To the liberal, we do not owe many people love, benevolence, and the other virtues. I am sure you, dear reader, are a lovely person, but I will simply never love you as much as I love my brother, mother, and father. If my brother needs a ride to the airport, I’ll pick him up. If you ask me, I’m charging a fee.
But what we do owe to everyone, globally, is justice. To not cause harm to their person or their property. Smith’s famous “Chinese Earthquake” thought experiment (pages 136-137) demonstrates this point. If an earthquake were to hit China tomorrow and a thousand people die, few people would lose much sleep over it. Yes, we would sympathize with their loss, but our feelings would be only the smallest fraction of what those affected by the quake would feel. One would lose more sleep over the loss of a pinky than the loss of those thousand lives. But if the loss of a pinky could stop the earthquake from ever happening, then there becomes a strong feeling to lose one’s pinky and save the thousand lives.
The fact that everyone, whether they are in our social circles or not, is deserving of the bare minimum of justice is what separates liberalism from authoritarianism. Liberal justice is not much, but it is powerful. Authoritarians tend to divide up the world into categories. Certain categories are deserving of justice. Others are not. Consequently, authoritarians conduct horrific and evil acts. Liberalism, though its reminder that what we owe to everyone is merely justice, acts as an effective inoculation against a descent into authoritarianism. Injustice, when recognized, is a powerful repulsive feeling. We seek to stop injustice. Liberalism helps us see those injustices being done.
READER COMMENTS
Scott Sumner
Feb 14 2025 at 1:01pm
Very good post. In this post:
https://scottsumner.substack.com/p/universal-values
I argued that local favoritism is only justified to the extent that it facilitates necessary social solidarity in various groups. Thus nationalistic policies like tariffs are not justified because they don’t help the national economy. Ditto for excessively strict immigration restrictions, or wars of aggression.
Jon Murphy
Feb 14 2025 at 8:58pm
Thank you.
Agreed. That’s what I was trying to get at (albeit not as well-stated as you) with the discussion of justice. The requirement of treating everyone justly (ie not messing with their stuff) gives a presumption against tariffs, etc., because they are unjust (indeed, Smith calls them such).
Mactoul
Feb 15 2025 at 1:39am
Isn’t this a pretty big loophole to drive a 747 through?
Trump could say this to justify tariffs, walls, annexation, what not.
Jon Murphy
Feb 15 2025 at 5:26am
As Scott and I explain, no he couldn’t. And, in fact, he doesn’t.
Mactoul
Feb 15 2025 at 2:29am
If national economy one’s primary concern then one is nationalist, unless the term nationalist is standing for something other such as being anti-immigration.
So, you say that tariffs aren’t really a nationalist policy since they harm national economy. It is a prudential judgement as opposed to viewing tariffs as unjust imposition on freedom of trade.
Jon Murphy
Feb 15 2025 at 5:29am
That doesn’t logically follow, unless one’s definition of “nationalist” is simply “acknowledges political boundaries.” But if that’s the case, everyone (except the most stringent anarchist) is a nationalist and, consequently, it’s not a political movement.
Richard W Fulmer
Feb 14 2025 at 2:39pm
Justice is giving to each what he has earned. Social justice is giving to each what another has earned, which is a good working definition of injustice.
Mactoul
Feb 14 2025 at 11:15pm
Egalitarianism, implicit if not explicit, is the distinctive feature of the liberal notion of justice as the philosopher David Stove pointed out in On Enlightenment.
Opposite is the classical justice which consists in equal treatment for the equals and unequal treatment for the unequals, with recognition of hierarchical social structure–patents over children, husbands over wives, rulers over the ruled, citizens over strangers and so on.
Classical justice is far more in accord with realities of human life and much less likely to have utopian excursions.
Jon Murphy
Feb 15 2025 at 5:38am
Adam Smith discusses various jural relationships. While all of what you discuss are unjust relationships (in the classical sense), only the rulers-ruled is legitimate. All the others are illegitimate. Only the sovereign may violate the rules of justice, and even then only very carefully. That is because the sovereign in the jural relationship is the superior and the citizen is the inferior. In all the other relationships you mention, the connections are jural equals and thus may not violate the rules of justice.
Ability to reasonably violate the rules of justice is what distinguishes the sovereign from any other social relationship. If, as you lay out here, the sovereign was equal in its relationship status as the others, then society would break down (as the rules of justice would be violated freely).
Mactoul
Feb 17 2025 at 4:11am
Classical notion of justice is perfectly encapsulated in the statement from CS Lewis’ Preface to Paradise Lost
This is taken from Aristotle’s Politics. A liberal has no such categories of monarchic vs political vs despotic rule.
Jon Murphy
Feb 17 2025 at 5:26am
That quote is about authority, not justice.
I highly recommend you read any liberal political philosophy, or at the very least Adam Smith. You’ll find those categories discussed a lot.
Jon Murphy
Feb 16 2025 at 12:02pm
I do not know who David Stove is or the book On Enlightenment. Assuming your one-sentence description of the argument is correct, I’d say Stove is quite incorrect. Rather, there is ambiguity surrounding “equal” that comes out in your longer comment that Stove is likely picking up on.
When discussing equality among people, we must seperate between two kinds of equality: jural equality and comparative equality. In your list of various relationships above, you implicitly combine the two.
In a jural relationship, equality means that one cannot impose an injury upon another in an approving manner. In all the relationships you list above (with the exception of one discussed in a moment), they are jural equals. Injury inflected upon one by the other is morally disapproved and often illegal or otherwise punished. A man may not steel from his wife (and vice versa). Slavery is outright banned. Parents may not beat children, so on.
Only in the sovereign-citizen relationship can an injury be imposed approvingly. The unique ability of the sovereign is to impose injury without retaliation; they are a jural superior and the citizen the jural inferior. Taxes are an injury (they are messing with the taxed person’s stuff). But they are approved of; they may be an appropriate use of the soveregin’s unique power.
Conversely, the other relationships you list are of comparative superiority. In those, one may possess comparative superiority over the other: in skill, in role, etc. But they are not jural superiors. Your list conflates the two.
To say that justice (as defined and discussed above) is owed among equals could be seen as egalitarianism, but only in the vaguest sense of the word. Justice is negative; we are said to do justice to another by simply not messing with him (his stuff, his body). We owe to one another to not do injury. But that’s it.
Mactoul
Feb 17 2025 at 4:14am
In liberal theory only. In reality and in pre-liberal theory, parents are superior to children, the husband to wife, citizen to stranger etc.
Jon Murphy
Feb 17 2025 at 5:30am
Well, no. Even in pre-liberal theory they are comparative, not jural, superiors. Liberalism is not the only philosophy to recognize the uniqueness of the sovereign. My point in this post is that liberalism is unique insofar in its recognition that everyone is owed mere justice.
Mactoul
Feb 15 2025 at 1:33am
The concentric circles of loyalty, care an benevolence may be drawn a bit loosely or a bit tightly, per individual preference.
So are authoritarian type those who draw these circles tighter than seemly ( to us)?
How are individual variation and differing preferences on this matter to be resolved and the category authoritarian defined?
Jon Murphy
Feb 15 2025 at 5:40am
Authoritarians are those who compel others to adopt their preferences. Authoritarians ignore justice.
TMC
Feb 15 2025 at 11:23am
“humanity’s lot is far more simple: “the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country””
“Even nationalists will tend to agree with this point.” “<i>Even? </i> Isn’t that 90% of nationalists argument?
This is like saying even libertarians agree with individual liberties. Redefining ‘nationalist’ to be something no one else recoginzes is no way to make an argument. Scott does the same with ‘authoritarian’.
I totally agree with you on your remarks about justice.
Jon Murphy
Feb 15 2025 at 9:28pm
But the 10%…aye, that’s the rub. The 10% where they deny that justice due to others, even those outside the nation, that is what makes the difference.
Student
Feb 15 2025 at 12:06pm
Excellent post… and the related posts by Scott and others has been needed stuff.
However, I think Smith (and other enlightenment) thinkers were drawing (without citing) on Aquinas and the Salamanca School.
I actually think the latters case is a bit more direct so, while I don’t disagree with what you all are writing… just to add:
Imposing tariffs violates the principles of commutative justice and just prices, as articulated by Thomas Aquinas and the School of Salamanca. By artificially inflating prices, tariffs distort the true value of goods and services, undermining the mutual benefit that arises from fair exchange. As Domingo de Soto argued, tariffs create unequal market conditions, favoring some at the expense of others. This contravenes Aquinas’ concept of commutative justice, which demands that exchanges be based on equal value. By disrupting just prices, tariffs also offend the natural law, which ordains that human interactions be guided by fairness and reciprocity. Therefore, tariffs should be rejected as a violation of commutative justice and the principles of just pricing.
Jon Murphy
Feb 15 2025 at 9:32pm
Agreed. Indeed, Adam Smith calls tariffs manifestly unjust in the sense they violate commutative justice.
To the rest on the Salamanca School and Aquinas, I am afraid that, despite always being on my list, I haven’t read much on the Salamanca School yet. And it has been a long time since I read Aquinas. I will defer to you on the similarities between the authors and Smith.
David Henderson
Feb 16 2025 at 12:47pm
Good post.
You write:
I think that’s too strong a statement unless the “where their person or property is under threat” is meant to give meaning to “treated unjustly.” In every society I’ve ever known about, different individuals are treated unjustly, and yet many of those societies have survived and even flourished. However, if their persons or property are under constant threat, then I think you’re right.
Jon Murphy
Feb 16 2025 at 7:18pm
Yes. I was riffing off Adam Smith, copying his rhetorical flourish:
One of the things that makes a sovereign unique is that it can violate the rules of justice and compel certain behavior among its subjects (pg 81). A sovereign can, therefore, commit serious injustices and the society could survive for a while because the actions could be initially viewed with approval (or indifferent). But I doubt any society could long survive; there is much ruin in a nation.
Monte
Feb 17 2025 at 11:31am
I agree that complete deference to a sovereign can result in “serious injustices”, but the principle of sovereignty has always been a cornerstone of stability within the international system and the costs of infringement upon it should be carefully weighed against the benefits.
The following abstract is from Jacob Grygiel’s excellent piece, The Costs of Respecting Sovereignty, which you might find interesting:
Respect for sovereignty can be an effective tool to manage relations
between states, drawing boundaries of acceptable behavior. But there are
also clear costs of respecting sovereignty. A foreign policy based on a
principled defense of sovereignty can be, in fact, morally wrong, politically
illegitimate, and strategically dangerous. This does not mean that sovereignty
should be broken wantonly, but only that prudential judgment must be
exercised to weigh the costs and benefits of respecting the sovereignty of a
state. In the end, our security and our values, not the principle of sovereignty,
should be the metric by which we should judge the necessity and legitimacy of
U.S. actions.
Janet Bufton
Feb 16 2025 at 9:35pm
Jon, you might be interested in this Great Antidote Podcast episode on Smith, Hayek, and Social Justice.
Jon Murphy
Feb 17 2025 at 5:32am
Thanks! That episode is on my list. Ever since my commute went from being an hour each way to 3 minutes each way, I’ve fallen behind on my podcasts.
Knut P. Heen
Feb 17 2025 at 11:47am
Being prey is not a vaccine against being a predator.
Productive people favor the non-aggression principle because peace favors production.
Less productive people may prefer aggression because war gives an opportunity to exploit more productive people.
Hitler was one of the least productive people in Germany. He knew that politics and war was his only opportunity for wealth.
Giving Hitler a shot of liberalism would not have worked. Liberalism was never in his best interest.
It is just selection.
Roger McKinney
Feb 18 2025 at 2:27pm
Excellent points! Too many Christians try to make political philosophy out of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount on Matthew. But hermeneutics demands we consider the audience, which was followers of Jesus and his church. Jesus left no political policies in the Gospels. He spoke to individuals.
When Jesus said we must love our neighbors as ourselves, he spoke to individuals, not government. Government in the Bible has one job, to punish criminals. And Jesus often used hyperbole, such as plucking out one’s eye to avoid unbelief. Loving neighbors as oneself is hyperbole because impossible. And Jesus qualified his statement with the story of the Good Samaritan.
We may owe others more than justice, but the state has no authority to deliver more than justice. We must perform any other duties ourselves or as part of the church. If we don’t want churches arresting and jailing criminals, we shouldn’t expect the state to do the church’s job.
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