Nonsense, nearly all the classical liberals (notable exceptions being von Humboldt, Malthus and Ricardo) held that the state may have some role to play in welfare, it’s just that there was always scepticism about the actual effectiveness of state provision, particularly whether or not it’s counter-productive (i.e. leads to more suffering) in the long run.
From Smith:-
Political œconomy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.
(Note here the emphasis: it’s not that the statesman or legislator is automatically ruled out from providing revenue and subsistence for the people, it’s just that upon close investigation it turns out that it’s better for people to provide revenue and subsistence for themselves. This has generally been the main line of classical liberal thought.)
To Hayek:-
[T]here can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. … Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individual in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.
Or consider Milton Friedman, who sometimes mentioned ideas like basic income or negative income tax. (Can’t remember where, but there are a few talks of his on Youtube where he discusses such ideas in passing - more or less in the spirit of, “well, it would be better in the long run not to have such things, but if you’re going to have them, here’s the best way of doing it economically speaking.” IOW, the bureacratic costs of administering massive welfare systems and unemployment benefit systems is an extra cost that’s unnecessary: just be frank about it and ensure some basic liveable income to everyone, much simpler, cleaner and cheaper.)
As I said, there’s lots of free play in the core classical liberal idea, and there’s always a tension between government relief in the short term and deleterious effects of relief in the long term (with a parallel understanding that localized provision is always better than state-wide provision). It’s just that classical liberals never pretended away the downsides of any kind of state regulation, provision, etc., as populists of both Right and Left have been wont to do, either in order to ensure “jobs for the boys”, or to buy votes.
Classical liberals just always thought (at the very least) that putting the entire burden on the state is a mistake, a mistake that might have beneficial results in the short term, but bad results in the long term, with the problem being, of course, that long-term results are sort of invisible to a 4-year political cycle.
Here’s what Mill actually says about poor relief:-
It is not at all surprising, therefore, that Mr. Malthus and others should at first have concluded against all poor-laws whatever. It required much experience, and careful examination of different modes of poor-law management, to give assurance that the admission of an absolute right to be supported at the cost of other people, could exist in law and in fact, without fatally relaxing the springs of industry and the restraints of prudence. This, however, was fully substantiated, by the investigations of the original Poor Law Commissioners. Hostile as they are unjustly accused of being to the principle of legal relief, they are the first who fully proved the compatibility of any Poor Law, in which a right to relief was recognised, with the permanent interests of the labouring class and of posterity. By a collection of facts, experimentally ascertained in parishes scattered throughout England, it was shown that the guarantee of support could be freed from its injurious effects upon the minds and habits of the people, if the relief, though ample in respect to necessaries, was accompanied with conditions which they disliked, consisting of some restraints on their freedom, and the privation of some indulgences. Under this proviso, it may be regarded as irrevocably established, that the fate of no member of the community needs be abandoned to chance; that society can and therefore ought to insure every individual belonging to it against the extreme of want; that the condition even of those who are unable to find their own support, needs not be one of physical suffering, or the dread of it, but only of restricted indulgence, and enforced rigidity of discipline. This is surely something gained for humanity, important in itself, and still more so as a step to something beyond; and humanity has no worse enemies than those who lend themselves, either knowingly or unintentionally, to bring odium on this law, or on the principles in which it originated.
Now, you might say that “some restraints on their freedom and the privation of some indulgences” is too harsh by modern standards, but you will note a) Mill is talking about a role the state has to play in the alleviation of poverty, and that b) he clearly states that, given the provisos, “society can and therefore ought to insure every individual belonging to it against the extreme of want”.
Welfare dependency is a thing; vote-buying by means of welfare measures is a thing; there is definitely a trade-off of some kind, and there are arguments to be had on both sides.
But what you can’t say is that most classical liberals either a) didn’t care about the poor, or b) didn’t envision some element of state provision.
That is, and has always been, a Marxist strawman, attempting to tout the line that what isn’t Marxist (or at least Marxist-agreeable) isn’t progressive. And, as I said, generations of poorly-educated intellectuals have fallen for it; it’s just an earlier version of the mind-virus I’ve been talking about.
If the near disastrous effects of deflation don’t convince you of the value of being able to expand and contract the money supply in a carefully regulated manner, then I am not sure we will ever see eye to eye on macroeconomics.
It all depends on whether the political system allows for such a thing as “careful regulation” - as opposed to regulation in service to crony capitalism, or short-term panicked maneouvering to buy votes.
And if it doesn’t, if the situation is made worse by regulation that isn’t actually “careful”, what then? What if the absence of “not careful” regulation of the money supply would lead to a better outcome in the long run?
You see, it’s not that state action is ruled out altogether, it’s that we must get away from the notion that the government has to be seen to be “doing something” about this or that. That shouldn’t be the first port of call. The first port of call should always be to see whether a) the problem isn’t being caused by some past, sclerotic attempt by the government to do good, then b) whether the state could have a role in encouraging spontaneous order or collective self-help in some way (i.e. often you find, when you look closely, that there are things people are spontaneously starting to do that are already beginning to ameliorate the problem - the state may then have a role in encouraging such “ground up” action). Only after those two considerations have been looked at first, should direct state action be considered - and even then, very, very carefully and cautiously.
Looking at it in a longer, historical perspective, it’s like this: the great liberal democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries broke the back of kingship as the ruling “thing”. But the middle-class revolutionaries found themselves in control of the king’s apparatus for ruling, the king’s apparatus for imposing his will. At that point, there was a logical divide: keep the apparatus and try to do good with it, or shrink the apparatus (or do away with it altogether)? The temptation was to take charge of the apparatus to do good. But has that always had good results? Is it even possible for something that was designed as the tool of a single will, to “rule” over a democratic republic with divergent interests? Maybe to some extent it is possible, but surely we can no longer have such a Pollyannaishly cheerful confidence that it automatically and necessarily is possible, or that a) a bare majority democratic vote has some magical ability to steer the state properly (to do good in that way), or that b) a bare majority democratic vote either gives warrant to absolute authority on the part of the state, or can justifiably impose on the state the full burden of good-doing (in any given problematic case).
Quite correct.
