Liberalism and the State
In the second half of the nineteenth century, some British liberals responded to calls from an expanding electorate by moving away from a laissez-faire position that called for minimal state interference in society and the economy. This laissez-faire position still had its adherents among liberals, most notably the libertarian social philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the face of a more organized labor movement and what was perceived to be a very real threat of revolution, however, other liberals began to argue that some forms of government action to alleviate social distress were not only compatible with individual liberty in the economic realm but were in fact also necessary to preserve it. Compare Herbert Spencer's arguments against assistance to the poor from 1851 with L. T. Hobhouse's defense of state pension plans in 1911.
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1851)
N common with its other assumptions of secondary offices, the assumption by a government of the office of Reliever-general to the poor, is necessarily forbidden by the principle that a government cannot rightly do anything more than protect. In demanding from a citizen contributions for the mitigation of distress-contributions not needed for the due administration of men's rights-the state is, as we have seen, reversing its function, and diminishing that liberty to exercise the faculties which it was instituted to maintain. Possibly, unmindful of the explanations already given, some will assert
That by satisfying the wants of the pauper, a government is in reality extending his liberty to exercise his faculties, inasmuch as it is giving him something without which the exercise of them is impossible; and that hence, though it decreases the ratepayer's sphere of action, it compensates by increasing that of the rate-receiver. But this statement of the case implies a confounding of two widely-different things. To enforce the fundamental law-to take care that every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man-this is the special purpose for which the civil power exists. Now insuring to each the right to pursue within the specified limits the objects of his desires without let or hindrance, is quite a separate thing from insuring him satisfaction. Of two individuals, one may use his liberty of action successfully-may achieve the gratifications he seeks after, or accumulate what is equivalent to many of them-property; whilst the other, having like privileges, may fail to do so. But with these results the state has no concern. All that lies within its commission is to see that each man is allowed to use such powers and opportunities as he possesses; and if it takes from him who has prospered to give to him who has not, it violates its duty
Hostile to the republic, the Republican legislature passed new laws that prohibited any religious orders in France that were not authorized by the state and forbade clerics to teach in public schools.
The French Republic withstood the attacks of radical anti-Semites in the first decade of the twentieth century, but the same right-wing and nationalist forces made their voices known elsewhere in Europe. The mayor of Vienna in 1897 was elected on an anti-Semitic platform. The Russian secret police forged and published a book called The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (1903 and 1905), which imagined a Jewish plot to dominate the world and held
Jews responsible for the French Revolution and the dislocating effects of industrialization. Political anti-Semitism remained popular among a substantial number of Europeans who accepted its insistence that social and political problems could be understood in racial terms.
Among the many people to watch with alarm as the Dreyfus Affair unfolded was Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian-born journalist working in Paris. The rise of
Towards the one to do more than its duty towards the other. Or, repeating the idea elsewhere expressed, it breaks down the vital law of society, that it may effect what social vitality does not call for.
Source: Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed (London: John Chapman, 1851), p. 311-12.
L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (1911)
Or the mass of the people, therefore, to be assured of the means of a decent livelihood must mean to be assured of continuous employment at a living wage, or, as an alternative, of public assistance. Now, as has been remarked, experience goes to show that the wage of the average worker, as fixed by competition, is not and is not likely to become sufficient to cover all the fortunes and misfortunes of life, to provide for sickness, accident,
Unemployment and old age, in addition to the regular needs of an average family. In the case of accident the State has put the burden of making provision on the employer. In the case of old age it has, acting, as I think, upon a sounder principle, taken the burden upon itself. It is very important to realize precisely what the new departure involved in the Old Age Pensions Act amounted to in point of principle. The Poor Law already guaranteed the aged person and the poor in general against actual starvation. But the Poor Law came into operation only at the point of sheer destitution. It failed to help those who had helped themselves. Indeed, to many it held out little inducement to help themselves if they could not hope to lay by so much as would enable them to live more comfortably on their means than they would live in the workhouse. The pension system throws over the test of destitution. It provides a certain minimum, a basis to go upon, a foundation upon which independent thrift may hope to build up a sufficiency. It is
Not a narcotic but a stimulus to self help and to friendly aid or filial support, and it is, up to a limit, available for all alike. It is precisely one of the conditions of independence of which voluntary effort can make use, but requiring voluntary effort to make it fully available.
Source: L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911), pp. 177-78.
Questions for Analysis
1. According to Spencer, what is the primary function of government? Why does he deem assistance to the poor to be a violation of that duty?
2. According to Hobhouse, what circumstances make assistance to the poor, such as of state-sponsored pension plans, necessary?
3. What assumptions lie behind their disagreement about the state's responsibility to remedy social inequalities? What values do they share?
Virulent anti-Semitism in the land of the French Revolution troubled Herzl deeply. He considered the Dreyfus Affair “only the dramatic expression of a much more fundamental malaise.” Despite Jewish emancipation, or the granting of civil rights, Herzl came to believe Jewish people might never be assimilated into Western culture and that staking the Jewish community’s hopes on acceptance and tolerance was dangerous folly. Herzl endorsed the different strategy of Zionism, the building of a separate Jewish homeland outside of Europe (though not necessarily in Palestine). A small movement of Jewish settlers, mainly refugees from Russia, had already
Begun to establish settlements outside of Europe. Herzl was not the first to voice these goals, but he was the most effective advocate of political Zionism. He argued that Zionism should be recognized as a modern nationalist movement, capable of negotiating with other states. In 1896, Herzl published The State of the Jews; a year later he convened the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland. Throughout, he was involved in high politics, meeting with British and Ottoman heads of state. Herzl’s vision of a Jewish homeland had strong utopian elements, for he believed that building a new state had to be based on a new and transformed society, eliminating inequality and
JEWISH MIGRATION IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY. ¦ Where did Jews primarily flee from in the late nineteenth century? ¦ What drove Jewish people to flee from eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century? ¦ To what areas did Jewish people migrate and why?
Establishing rights. Although Herzl’s writings met with much skepticism, they received an enthusiastic reception among Jews who lived in areas of eastern Europe where anti-Semitism was especially violent. During the turmoil of the First World War, specific wartime needs prompted the British to become involved in the issue, embroiling Zionism in international diplomacy (see Chapter 24).
Germany's Search for Imperial Unity
Through deft foreign policy, three short wars, and a ground-swell of national sentiment, Otto von Bismarck united Germany under the banner of Prussian conservatism during the years 1864 to 1871. In constructing a federal political system, Bismarck sought to create the centralizing institutions of a modern nation-state while safeguarding
World History
