March 09, 2008
William F. Buckley and Economics-Becker
I agree with Posner that Buckley was not a major originator of ideas. He was, however, an absolutely superb public intellectual who had the courage to be a conservative when that was still highly unpopular, especially in the New York City circles that Buckley inhabited. He persuaded many young college students that a conservative stance is a respectable position intellectually, and to this end founded the political youth movement Young Americans for Freedom. He influenced Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, although he was a much less important influence on their thinking, or on that of Margaret Thatcher and other conservative political leaders, than more creative thinkers like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.
I did not know William Buckley personally, but I admired his multi-talented contributions. He was a media entrepreneur, as seen from the influence of The National Review, a magazine that he founded when conservative magazines were not popular, and supported financially for many years. He wrote a widely read syndicated column On the Right, and hosted for many years Firing Line, a weekly television program that debated public policy issues. I have only occasionally read National Review or his columns, or watched his television programs, but I usually enjoyed and admired them when I did. When young he had repugnant views on several issues, like racial matters and McCarthyism, but he had the intellectual honesty to eventually repudiate most of these opinions. Over time he became the favorite conservative of liberals for his wit, use of language, and urbane debating skills.
Although a friend and skiing companion of Milton Friedman, Buckley had little interest in economic issues per se, and he was not concerned with the effects of taxation, regulation, and other economic policy issues. He recognized and accepted that his support of strong armies would lead to a much bigger government. He had a well-publicized conversion toward legalizing the use of drugs, a conversion influenced by Milton Friedman's strong stand in favor of legalized drugs.
Discussions by economists of regulation, competition, and other economic issues generally concentrate on their contribution to economic efficiency, and the analysis of conditions under which competition and private enterprise promotes efficiency. Friedman, Hayek, and George Stigler, three leading free market economists of the twentieth century ,were very much interested in these issues, but they also took a much broader view. For example, in Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman claims that greater freedom should be the goal of economic activity, and also discusses the connection between political and economic freedom: "economic freedom is an end in itself…economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom". Hayek's Road to Serfdom and Constitution of Liberty argues that a private enterprise system is crucial for the achievement of political and social freedoms.
Stigler in his Five Lectures on Economic Problems references with approval the classical economist' much broader approach toward the contributions of individual choice and private enterprise. By making individuals responsible for their decisions, competition and private enterprise force individuals to become more self-reliant since this type of economic system provides much stronger pressures to act responsibly than do systems where individuals have their choices made for them by governments. In essence, this approach argues that competitive economic systems do not just (usually) satisfy individual preferences in an efficient way, but that these systems also change preferences themselves in valuable directions. Hayek claimed in Individualism and the Social Order that Adam Smith, and presumably Hayek as well, believed that "man was by nature lazy and indolent, improvident and wasteful, and that it was only by the force of circumstances that he could be made to behave economically or carefully to adjust his means to his ends".
Buckley was not interested in the technical discussions of economists, and the nitty-gritty economic issues they analyzed, but he was drawn to a generally free market position because he was attracted by the broader virtues of free markets and capitalism in encouraging economic, political, and civil freedoms. He did not care as much as economists do that, for example, agricultural price supports make for inefficient food production, or that tariffs on imports raised the cost to consumers of various goods. On the other hand, he did care very much that these and other interferences tend to stifle various freedoms. In this way he was, I believe, greatly influenced by the broader perspective of the effects of an economic system on individual responsibility taken by classical economists and the leading free market economists of his time.
Posted by becker at 02:30 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
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That respect for broader freedoms aided by free markets, and disinterest in the economic consequences of free markets (except as they relate to political and social freedoms), is a deeply Catholic view. It would be interesting to see an historical analysis of Buckley's approach: it strikes me as similar to the heterodox economics of the late-19th century Catholic labor movements.
Posted by AndrewK at March 9, 2008 04:48 PM | direct link
"Conservative" isn't an intellectually defensible position, not because free market's aren't a good thing, but because to be conservative means to preserve the status quo as best as possible.
That's why conservatives are chameleons; they were small-government types in the 19th century, today they are big government socialists.
Posted by Pablo Escobar at March 10, 2008 05:05 PM | direct link
Pablo,
That's why Milton Friedman said he actually was a liberal, because he wanted to change the status quo which was moving toward more socialism and less liberty.
Posted by gator80 at March 10, 2008 08:38 PM | direct link
......... It's perhaps poor timing to mention, but were you to ask Gore Vidal what motivated Buckley's (non-economic??) "conservativism" I'm sure he'd point out the desire for a status quo that ensured the wealthy would remain wealthy with very little concern for those who failed to inherit. Vidal once mentioned that were working folk to find out what the rich are doing and doing to them they would rise up and eat them.
Posted by Jack at March 11, 2008 01:20 AM | direct link
I know Buckley did not support civil rights legislation but is that so disreputable as Posner and Becker imply? I read once an old piece published in NR about race and civil rights and it more or less endorsed the white supremacy line, which is what I think Posner and Becker mean to associate to Buckley himself.
I have not, however, ever seen anything Buckley he himself wrote along these lines. Maybe it's out there. Could somebody provide a link or quotation? Lots of people opposed civil rights legislation for sounds and principled reasons, so I'm assuming Becker and Posner have described his views as "repugnant" and "disreputable" because they have something more concrete in mind.
Posted by Curious at March 11, 2008 06:49 PM | direct link
"I have not, however, ever seen anything Buckley he himself wrote along these lines."
I don't have a quote but WFB himself acknowledges it. However, he has said he was dead wrong for some time.
Posted by Nathan at March 13, 2008 07:42 AM | direct link
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Posted by sad at March 13, 2008 10:18 PM | direct link
I think what is interesting is the melding of free market economists, and the conservative movement.
Conservatives (meaning the Buckley type) embraced free market economics, but only to the ends that it supported their vision of democracy.
True free market economists would be against much of the wasteful spending that goes on in the federal budget, subsidies being the easiest one to pick on. There are few true "conservative" economists that have been elected to political office.
If they could get a majority, we would greatly change the way government collects and spends money.
Posted by jeff at March 15, 2008 01:58 PM | direct link
All of us most be for ourselves. What is in the utility fns of (us) free mkt economists? Civil rights. If we are Christians (most of us are I think) we can truely say we want civil rights for people who are denied them. If we are not Christians, then questionable. If atheists, then surely we can say nothing, except, I (as a nonChristian) want political gain from supporting civil rights legislation. Buckley was a Christian, and he correctly saw the hypocrcy of the civil rights pushers. Theirs was and largely still is, a political position, motivated for political ends.
Posted by Mark L at March 16, 2008 12:01 AM | direct link
