個人主義與經(jīng)濟秩序

1、IndividualismandEconomic OrderPrefaceLTHOUGH the essays collected in this volume may at first ap-pear to be concerned with a great variety of topics, I hope that the reader will soon discover that most of them treat of closely con- nected problems. While they range from discussions of moral philos-

2、ophy to the methods of the social sciences and from problems of eco- nomic policy to pure economic theory, these questions are treated in most of the essays as different aspects of the same central issue. This connection will be seen most readily in the first six essays, yet in some measure the thre

3、e on the problem of socialist calculation which fol- low them may be regarded as an application of the same ideas to a particular problem, although when I wrote these I did not yet quite see it in that light. Only the last three essays deal with somewhat dif- ferent points of theory or policy; but,

4、since I believe that the problems with which they are concerned will be discussed even more in the future than they have been in the past, I have taken this opportunity to make them available in a more convenient form.Since I publi.shed not long ago a more popular book on problemsrelated to some of

5、those discussed here, I should in fairness warn the reader that the present volume is not intended for popular consump- tion. Only a few of the essays collected here (chaps. i and vi, and pos- sibly iv and v) may in a sense be regarded as supplementary to that advance sketch of certain practical con

6、clusions which a sense of ur- gency has tempted me to publish under the title Thc Road to Scr)dom. The rest are definitely addressed to fellow-students and are fairly technical in character. All are admittedly fragments, products which have emerged in the pursuit of a distant goal, which for the tim

7、e being must serve in place of the finished product. I should perhaps add that from my recent publications in the field with which most of the essays in this volume deal I have not included two series of articles on “Scientism and the Study of Society” and the “Counterrevolution ofPrefaceScience” be

8、cause they are intended to form part of a larger and more systematic work; in the meantime they can be found in the volumes of Economics for 194145 and 1940, respectively.My thanks are due to the editors of the American Economic Review, Economica, the Economic Journal, Ethics, and the New Common- we

9、alth Quarterly for permission to reprint articles which first ap- peared in these journals, and to Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London, for permission to reproduce the two essays originally contributed to the volume on Collectivist Economic Planning pub- lished by them in 1935.F. A. HxvEKL

10、oNDON SCHOOL OF EeoxOv ICSJune 1947Contents Ecou 0M res a Nn K u omEnOEItt. THE F ACTS 0 F TH E COC I ML DC IE NCESiv.v.vi. “FnEE” E NTERPh ISE AND COMP ETITIVE ORDEROClALiSt C ccURATION I : THE NxrURE AN n HISTORY OF THE PROB- LEM.Socialist Cn rc ELATION II: Tue STATE OF THE DEBATE ( 1935)A Couuonr

11、ry RESr RVz C unn E NCY33577792107119148181209Xl.THE RicARDo Errzci220XII. Twz Eco comic Cou niiiONS or 1 NTERSTATe FSDERALISMIndividualism: True and FalseDu dix-huitime sicle et de la revolution, comme dune source commune, taient sortis deux fleuves: le premier conduisait les hommes aux institution

12、s libres, tandis que le second les menait au pouvoir absolu.ALEXls nE Toc9t3EV LLE.TO A DVOCATE any clear-eut principles of social order is todayan almost certain way to incur the stigma of being an unprac- tical doctrinairc. It has come to be regarded asthc sign of the judicious mind that in social

13、 matters one does not adhre to fixcd principles but dcides cach question “on its mcrits”; that one is generally guided by expediency and is ready to compromise between opposed views. Principles, however, have a way of asserting themselves even if they are not explicitly recognized but are only impli

14、ed in particular deci- sions, or if they arc present only as vague ideas of what is or is not being done. Thus it has come about that under the sign of “neither individualism nor socialism” wc are in fact rapidly moving from a society of free individuals toward one of a completely collectivistcharac

15、ter.I propose not only to undertake to defcnd a general principle of social organization but shall also try to show that the aversion to gen- eral principles, and the prefercnce for procecding from particular instance to particular instance, is the product of the movement which with the “inevitabili

16、ty of gradualness” leads us back from a social order resting on the general rccognition of certain principlcs to a system in which order is created by direct commands.After the experience of the last thirty years, there is perhars notThe twelfth Finlay Lecture, delivered at University College, Dubli

17、n, on December1945. Published by Hodges, Figgis fi Co., Ltd., Dublin, and B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., Oxford, 1946.Individualism and Economic Ordermuch need to emphasize that without principles we drift. The prag- matic attitude which has been dominant during that period, far from increasing our command

18、over developments, has in fact led us to a state of afiairs which nobody wanted; and the only result of our dis- regard of principles seems to be that we are governed by a logic of events which we are vainly attempting to ignore. The question now is not whether we need principles to guide us but rat

19、her whether there still exists a body of principles capable of general application which we could follow if we wished. Where can we still find a set of precepts which will give us definite guidance in the solution of the problems of our time? Is there anywhere a consistent philosophy to be found whi

20、ch supplies us not merely with the moral aims but with an ade- quate method for their achievementThat religion itself does not give us definite guidance in these mat- ters is shown by the efforts of the church to elaborate a complete social philosophy and by the entirely opposite results at which ma

21、ny arrive who start from the same Christian foundations. Though the declining influence o1 religion is undoubtedly one major cause of our present lack of intellectual and moral orientation, its revival would not much lessen the need for a generally accepted principle of social order. We still should

22、 require a political philosophy which goes beyond the fundamental but general precepts which religion or morals provide. The title which I have chosen for this chapter shows that to me there still seems to exist such a philosophya set of principles which, in- deed, is implicit in most of Western or

23、Christian political tradition but which can no longer be unambiguously described by any readily understood term. It is therefore necessary to restate these principles fully before we can decide whether they can still serve us as practicalguides.The difficulty which we encounter is not merely the fam

24、iliar fact that the current political terms are notoriously ambiguous or even that the same term often means nearly the opposite to different groups. There is the much more serious fact that the same word frequently appears to unite people who in fact believe in contradictory and irrec- oncilable id

25、eals. Terms like “l(fā)iberalism” or “democracy,” “capital-2Individualism . True and Yalseism” or “socialism,” today no longer stand for coherent systems of ideas. They have come to describe aggregations of quite heterogeneous principles and facts which historical accident has associated with these word

26、s but which have little in common beyond having been advo- cated at different times by the same people or even merely under the same name.No political term has suflered worse in this respect than “individ- ualism.” It not only has been distorted by its opponents into an un- recognizable caricaturean

27、d we should always remember that the political concepts which are today out of fashion are known to most of our contemporaries only through the picture drawn of them by their enemiesbut has been used to describe several attitudes toward society which have as little in common among themselves as they

28、 have with those traditionally regarded as their opposites. Indeed, when in the preparation of this paper I examined some of the standard descriptions of “individualism,” I almost began to regret that I had ever connected the ideals in which I believe with a term which has been so abused and so misu

29、nderstood. Yet, whatever else “individual- ism” may Faye come to mean in addition to these ideals, there are two good reasons for retaining the term for the view I mean to defend: this view has always been known by that term, whatever else it may also have meant at different times, and the term has

30、the distinction that the word “socialism” was deliberately coined to express its opposition to individualism.1 It is with the system which forms the alternative to socialism that I shall be concerned.2Before I explain what I mean by true individualism, it may be use- ful if I give some indication of

31、 the intellectual tradition to which itBoth the term “individualism” and the term “socialism” are originally the creation of the Saint-Simonians, the founders of modern socialism. They first coined the term “individualism” to describe the competitive society to which they were opposed and then inven

32、ted the word “socialism” to describe the centrally planned society in which all activity was directed on the same principle that applied within a single factory. See on the origin of these terms the present authors article on “The Counter-Revolution of Science,” Economics, VIII (new ser., 1941), 146

33、.3Individualism and Economic Orderbelongs. The true individualism which I shall try to defend began its modern development with John Locke, and particularly with Bernard Mandeville and David Hume, and achieved full stature for the first time in the work of Josiah Tucker, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smit

34、h and in that of their great contemporary, Edmund Burkethe man whom Smith described as the only person he ever knew who thought on economic subjects exactly as he did without any previous communication having passed between them.2 In the nineteenth cen- tury I find it represented most perfectly in t

35、he work of two of its greatest historians and political philosophers: Alexis de Tocquevillc and Lord Acton. These two men seem to me to have more successfully developed what was best in the political philosophy of the Scottish philosophers, Burke, and the English Whigs than any other writers I kr.ow

36、; while the classical economists of the ninetecnth century, or at least the Benthamites or philosophical radicals among them, came increasingly under the inuence of another kind of individualism of different origin.This second and altogether difierent strand of thought, also known as individualism,

37、is represented mainly by French and other Con- tinental writersa fact due, I believe, to the dominant role which Cartesian rationalism plays in its composition. The outstanding rep- resentatives of this tradition are the Encyclopedists, Rousseau, and the physiocrats; and, for reasons we shall presen

38、tly consider, this rational- istic individualism always tends to develop into the opposite of indi- vidualism, namely, socialism or collectivism. It is because only the first kind of individualism is consistent that I claim for it the name of true individualism, while the second kind must probably b

39、e regarded as a source of modern socialism as important as the properly collectivist theories.R. Bisset, Li/e oJ Edmund Burpc (2d ed., 1800) , II, 429. Cf. also W. C. Dunn, “Adam Smith and Edmund Burke: Complimentary Contemporaries,” Southern Eo- nomic ournal (University of North Carolina), Vol. VII

40、, No. 3 (January, 1941) .Carl Menger, who was among the first in modern times consciously to revive the methodical individualism of Adam Smith and his school, was probably also the first to point out the connestion between the design theory of social institutions andIndividualism: Truc and YalscI ca

41、n give no &tter illustration of the prevailing confusion about the meaning of individualism than the fact that the man who to me seems to be one of the greatest representatives of true individualism, Edmund Burke, is commonly (and rightly) represented as the main opponent of the so-called “individua

42、lism” of Rousseau, whose theories he feared would rapidly dissolve. the commonwealth “into the dust and powder of individuality,” and that the term “individualism” itself was first introuced into the English language through the trans- lation of one of the works of another of the great representativ

43、es of true individualism, De Tocqueville, who uses it in his Democracy in Amcrica to descri& an attitude which he deplores and rejects. Yet there can no doubt that both Burke and De Tocqueville stand in all essentials close to Adam Smith, to whom nobody will deny the title of individualist, and that

44、 the “individualism” to which they are opposed is something altogether diflerent from that of Smith.socialism. See his Unicrsuchungcn iibcr dic Mcthodc dcr Sozialwisscnschatcn ( 1883), esp. Book IV, chap. 2, toward the end of which (p. 208) he speaks of “a pragmatism which, against the intention of

45、its representatives, leads inevitably to socialism.”It is significa t that the physiocrats already were led from the rationalistic indi- vidualism from which they started, not only close to socialism (fully developed in their contemporary Morellys Le Codc dc la nature 1755 , but to advocate the wors

46、tdepotism. “Ltat fait des hommes tout ce quil veut, wrote Bodeau.Edmund Burke, Rcflcctions on the Rcvolution in Francc (1790), in Works (Worlds Classics ed.), IV, 105: “Thus the commonwealth itself would, in a lew gener- ations, be disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality, and at lengt

47、h disperscd to all winds of heaven. That Burke (as A. M. Osborn points out in her book on fioorzrau and Burpc Oxford, 1940 , p. 23), after he had first attacked Rousseau for his extreme “individualism,” later attacked him for his extrme collectivism was far from incon- sistent but merely the result

48、of the fact that in the case of Rousseau, as in that of all others, the rationalistic individualism which they preached inevitably led to collectivism.Alexis de Tocqueville, Dcmocracy in Amcrica, trans. Henry Reeve (London, 1864) , Vol. II, Book II, chap. 2, where De Tocqueville defines individualis

49、m as “a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows, and to draw apart with his family and friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. The translator in a

50、 note to this passage apologizes for introducing the French termindividualism” into English and explains that he knows “no English word exactlyequivalent to the expression.” As Albert Schatz pointed out in the book mentioned below, De Tocquevilles use of the well-established French term in this pecu

51、liar sense is entirely arbitrary and leads to serious confusion with the established meaning.Individualism and Economic Order3What, then, are the essential characteristics of true individualism / The first thing that should be said is that it is primarily a #heory of society, an attempt to understan

52、d the forces which determine the social life of man, and only in the second instance a set of political maxims derived from this view of society. This fact should by itself be sucient to refute the silliest of the common misunderstandings: the belief that individualism postulates (or bases its argum

53、ents on the assumption of) the existence of isolated or self-contained individuals, instead of starting from men whose whole nature and character is determined by their existence in society. If that were true, it would indeed have nothing to contribute to our understanding of society. But its basic

54、contention is quite a difierent one; it is that there is no other way toward an understanding of social phenomena but through our understanding of individual actions directed toward other people and guided by their expected beha vior.7 This argument is directed primarily against the properly collect

55、ivist theories of society which pretend to be able directly to comprehend social wholes like society, etc., as entities iui generis which exist independently of the individuals which compose them. The next step in the individualistic analysis of society, however, is directed against the rationalisti

56、c pseudo-individ- ualism which also leads to practical collectivism. It is the contention that, by tracing the combined eflects of individual actions, we discoverIn his excellent survey of the history of individualist theories the late Albert Schatz rightly concludes that “nous voyons tout dabord av

57、ec Evidence ce que lindividualisme nest pas. Cest prcisment ce quon croit communment quil est: un systeme disol- ment dans lexistence et une apologie de 1goisme” (Llndividualismc cconomique ct social Paris, 1907 , p. 558) . This book, to which I am much indebted, deserves to be much more widely know

58、n as a contribution not only to the subject indicated by its title but to the history of economic theory in general.In this respect, as Karl Pribram has made clear, individualism is a necessary result of philosophical nominalism, while the collectivist theories have their roots in the “realist” or (

59、as K. R. Popper now more appropriately calls it) “essentialist” tradition (Pribram, Die Entstchung dcr individualistischcn Sozialphilosophic Leipzig, 1912 ). But this “nominalist” approach is characteristic only of true individualism, while the false individualism of Rousseau and the physiocrats, in

60、 accordance with the Cartesian origin, is strongly “realist” or “essentialist.”6Individualism : True and Falsethat many of the institutions on which human achievements rest have arisen and are functioning without a designing and directing mind; that, as Adam Ferguson expressed it, “nations stumble u