capitalism

Progress 397
and desirable direction, and infers that this progress will
continue indefinitely.” Bury contends that progress, in this
sense, is a distinctively modern notion—one that does not
begin to take shape until the 16th and 17th centuries,
whereas other historians, such as Robert Nisbet, attribute
the idea to Greek, Roman, and Christian writers long before
the advent of the modern era.
A libertarian theory of progress is one that stresses
the role of liberty in the progressive improvement of
humankind. Whatever position we may take in the historical
controversies about the origin of the idea of progress
and its relationship to other ideas (such as the belief in an
Arcadian golden age, original sin, and divine providence),
there can be little doubt that the link between individual
freedom and progress was forged by post-Renaissance
philosophers, historians, economists, and social theorists.
In The Idea of Progress, Bury divides modern theories
of progress into two types, which he characterizes as socialist
and liberal. The socialist version he describes as “a symmetrical
system in which the authority of the state is
preponderant, and the individual has little more value than
a cog in a well-oiled wheel: his place is assigned; it is not
his right to go his own way.” Liberalism, in contrast, views
individual freedom and social diversity as essential to
progress. Unlike the closed system of socialism, in which
the ultimate goal of progress is foreseeable, having been
mapped out in advance by central planners, classical liberalism
was historically affiliated with a theory known as
“indefinite progress.” In this approach, no limits can be set
to progress, nor can we predict the exact path or form that
progress will take. “Individual liberty is the motive force”
of indefinite progress, and this decentralized, spontaneous
process generates rapid innovations that cannot be predicted
or controlled by any individual, group, or institution,
including government.
Theories of progress are typically concerned with three
spheres of human activity: intellectual, moral, and economic.
Libertarian theories of intellectual progress emerged
during the 17th century, as John Milton, Benedict Spinoza,
and John Locke, among others, argued that freedom of
thought, discussion, and publication are essential to the
advancement of knowledge. Often grouped under the collective
label of “liberty of conscience,” these freedoms
came to be widely accepted as indispensable to the pursuit
of truth in religion, science, and other spheres, and they
played a crucial role in the struggle for religious toleration.
We do not find this near-unanimity, even among libertarian
thinkers, on the subject of moral progress. It has
often been pointed out that knowledge can be used for good
or evil purposes, and some liberals, such as Adam Ferguson
and Joseph Priestley, warned against the enervating effects
of luxury and other vices, which they believed would lead
to the corruption of those moral virtues necessary to sustain
a free society. Other liberals disagreed. In the writings of
David Hume, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, and others, we
see various arguments in defense of luxury and other personal
vices (i.e., those that do not violate the rights of others)
based largely on their unintended, but beneficial,
consequences to society as a whole. Many of these arguments
are variations on a theme first presented by the Dutch
philosopher Bernard Mandeville in his notorious book, The
Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, first
published in 1705 as The Grumbling Hive and greatly
expanded in subsequent editions.
Another internal debate among classical liberals
addressed the possibility of moral progress, a topic that
received a good deal of attention during the 19th century.
W. E. H. Lecky, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, and many other
liberals maintained that progress in the moral sphere (especially
the “sentiment of justice”) is as evident in the historical
record as any other kind of progress, and they point to
advances in religious toleration, the repudiation of torture,
and the abolition of slavery to buttress their case. But other
liberals, most notably H. T. Buckle and others influenced
by the positivistic sociology of Auguste Comte, presented a
different analysis.
In the first volume of his best-selling Introduction to the
History of Civilization in England (1857), Buckle defends
the thesis that moral sentiments and motives, unlike knowledge,
are “stationary” and do not progress from one generation
to the next. As Buckle put it, “the sole essentials of
morals...have been known for thousands of years, and not
one jot or tittle has been added to them by all the sermons,
homilies, and text-books which moralists and theologians
have been able to produce.” True progress occurs in the
realm of knowledge as people become more cognizant of
the long-range consequences of their decisions and actions.
Perhaps the most important contribution of libertarian
thinkers was in the sphere of economic progress. The
growth of commerce, or what was sometimes called the
commercial spirit, was widely regarded by liberals as a
lynchpin of socioeconomic progress.
In Book III of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith discusses
“the natural progress of opulence.” The motive of
self-interest, when confined within the sphere of justice,
naturally leads to a division of labor that is “advantageous
to all the different persons employed in the various occupations.”
This natural economic order—which develops spontaneously,
without foresight or central planning—is called
natural because it is “promoted by the natural inclinations
of men” in a “system of natural liberty,” in which the equal
rights of every individual to life, liberty, and property are
secured by a just system of law and government.
Free-market liberals agreed with Montesquieu that the
“natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace” because
trade creates a mutual dependence among nations, and “all
unions are founded on mutual needs.” Progress, in this
view, is best achieved during periods of peace.