Enemies of Liberalism

Abstract

Far from the wide wings liberalism, statist nationalism and Marx’s socialism occupy a strong position in twentieth century’s political economy, with a heavy influence on Europe’s great dictatorships. Italian corporativism represents an original strand of thought, partly built on the German Historical School of the previous century, partly functional to Italy’s protectionist interests, partly based on the concept of the ethical State, where the conflicting interests of all social classes are to be represented in the “corporations” and reconciled in the superior interest of the nation. This implies a dirigiste policy and the creation of a set of quasi-governmental institutions: features that—in a different political context—we find again in post-WW2 Italy. Marxism remains a static ideology—compared to the dynamism of liberalism. This is due to the fact that historical materialism is an interpretation of economic reality that does not admit deviations and, possibly, to the relatively better economic performance of the Soviet Union during the long period of Depression that afflicts capitalistic countries in the 1930s. The doctrinarian inflexibility made Marxist economists unable to deduct the appropriate inferences from changes occurring in the structure of the economy, in the modes of production. In particular, competition—which Marx had seen as capitalism’s prevalent form of market—had been superseded by monopolistic structures where capitalism’s creative destruction was a continuing source of strength (Schumpeter). The survival of “economic laws” in a socialist economy, denied by pure Marxists, was itself an object of controversy. In the end, socialist economists saw their discipline as a neutral science of economic management, reduced to a sort of social engineer and search for efficiency. “Socialism by default” is a formula that brings together two quite diverse and non-Marxist thinkers, but with a strong historical sense, which leads both to a basically wrong forecast: the fall of capitalism and the advent of socialism. Schumpeter, criticising Weber who had said that we will live with capitalism “until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt”, believes that capitalism will die from a sort of exhaustion, not because of a revolution but as a consequence of the boredom of the bourgeoise class and the bureaucratization of giant industries, where administrators will replace the vanishing entrepreneur (as distinct from the enterprise’s owner). Polanyi’s Christian vision is critical of economic liberalism. Society as a whole, as distinct from any social class, risks self-destruction by the forces of free-market economy, where a pivotal role is played by haute finance. In a new socialist society, labour, land and money will be liberated from the constraints of the free market. This society will rely on Christian traditions, as testified by the Old Testament, the teachings of Jesus, the utopian socialism of Robert Owen.