Classical Liberalism Books

“If we go back to the classics, or at least what I regard as the classics, say for example, Humboldt's "Limits of State Action" which inspired Mill and is a true libertarian-liberal classic. The world that Humboldt was considering, which was partially an imaginary world. But the world for which he was developing this political philosophy was a post-feudal but pre-capitalist world. It was a world in which there is no great divergence among individuals in the kind of power that they have and what they command, let's say. But there was a tremendous disparity between individuals on the one hand and the state on the other. Consequently, it was the task of a liberalism that was concerned with human rights and equality of individuals and so on. It was the task of that liberalism to dissolve the enormous power of the state which was such an authoritarian threat to individual liberties. And from that, you develop a classical liberal theory in, say, Humboldt's or Mill's sense.

Well, of course, that is pre-capitalist. He couldn't conceive of an era in which a corporation would be regarded as an individual, let's say, or in which such enormous disparities and control over resources and production would distinguish between individuals in a massive fashion. Now, in that kind of a society, to take the Humboldtian view is a very superficial liberalism. Because while opposition to state power in an era of such divergence conforms to Humboldt's conclusions, it doesn't do so for his reasons. That is, his reasons lead to very different conclusions in that case. Namely, I think his reasons lead to the conclusion that we must dissolve the authoritarian control over production and resources which leads to such divergences among individuals. In fact, I think one might draw a direct line between classical liberalism and a kind of libertarian socialism, which I think can be regarded as a kind of an adapting of the basic reasoning of classical liberalism to a very different social era.

So, my own feeling has always been that to achieve the classical liberal ideals, for the reasons that led to them being put forth in a society so different, we must be led in a very different direction. It's superficial and erroneous to accept the conclusions which were reached for a different society and not to consider the reasoning that led to those conclusions. The reasoning, I think, is very substantial. I'm a classical liberal in this sense, but I think it leads me to be a kind of an anarchist, you know, an anarchist socialist.”
― Noam Chomsky