“Our Marx”: The Great Herbert Spencer. Really!

When so called classical liberals try too hard to write an article with a catchy headline! Such headlines are not helpful for the cause!

The headline is pretty absurd! I bet Ludwig Mises is spinning in his grave given such nonsense!

“Our Marx”: The Great Herbert Spencer | Mises Institute

How Herbert Spencer Helped Liberate Japan, Egypt, and India

Recommendable!

"Today, Herbert Spencer should be known as one of the great classical liberal anti-imperialists. Unfortunately, any mention of his name is typically accompanied by the phrase, “Social Darwinism,” a theory that individuals are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection governing the evolution of plants and animals. Social Darwinism, at times, was used by early twentieth-century intellectuals to justify imperialist, eugenicist, and white supremacist policies under the principle of survival of the fittest. This intellectual caricature of Spencer as a eugenicist and white supremacist has greatly maimed his legacy.

This reputation damage is in part due to the work of the historian Richard Hoftstader, who, forty years after Spencer’s death, published Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915. Hoftstader condemned free marketeers like Spencer who applied principles of biology to social science. He argued for technocratic economic reform over markets, viewing Herbert Spencer’s doctrines as the source of Social Darwinism’s appeal to American intellectuals. ...

Scholars have since identified Hofstadter’s fundamental error: Herbert Spencer was not a Darwinist but a Lamarckian. Spencer’s Lamarckian account of evolution held that by improving their skills and knowledge to adapt to their environment, humans passed on good practices to their progeny. Darwinian evolution is explained by chance variation and natural selection of inherited traits, while Spencer’s Lamarckian evolution is a result of conscious exertion and self-improvement, characteristic of Spencer’s liberal belief in the freedom of the individual to choose. ...

Despite his quiet life defined by routine and consistency, Spencer was an intellectual rockstar. He is one of the few philosophers who sold a million copies of their work while alive. For decades, Spencer’s ideas inspired millions across the globe in an era before rapid communication. ...

Japan was an isolated archipelago until the latter half of the 19th ​century. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry and his gunboat diplomacy forcibly opened Japan’s borders. The reigning Tokugawa fell apart and was quickly replaced by Emperor Meiji, ushering in a period of unparalleled modernization in Japan. During this period, thirty translations of Spencer’s work into Japanese were made. His philosophy was appropriated by the Freedom and Popular Rights movement led by the founder of Japan’s Liberal Party, Itagaki Taisuke, a samurai turned liberal statesman. ...

British occupation spread Spencer’s ideas abroad, paradoxically giving their subjects the intellectual tools to attack imperialism. Under British occupation until 1922, Egypt was also receptive to Spencer. Publications like the popular monthly science magazine Al-Muqtataf promulgated Spencer’s philosophy and helped it spread, which, for many Arabic readers, was an invaluable sociological source on good government.

Muhammad Abduh, the Grand Mufti of Egypt (one of the highest positions of Islamic jurisprudence), visited Herbert Spencer shortly before Spencer’s death. It was a dream come true for the Mufti, who described Spencer as “the greatest living philosopher.” When Spencer died, the editors of Al-Muqtataf wrote how they “mourned his death like that of the greatest Egyptian.” ...

From 1858 to 1947, India was under direct rule by the British government. Shyamaij Krishnavarma was a lawyer, journalist, and early advocate of Indian Independence. He founded the Indian Home Rule Society for the cause of self-rule in India and India House, an organization promoting Indian nationalism. Both organizations became a hub of revolutionary activity.  He was also an avid follower of Herbert Spencer. On the first anniversary of Spencer’s death, he donated £1000 to the University of Oxford to found a Herbert Spencer lectureship. A year later, Krishnavarma also founded fellowships named after Spencer, which enabled Indian graduates to study in England. 

Krishnavarma started a publication called The Indian Sociologist. Every issue had two quotes from Herbert Spencer on the title page:
“Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man” and 
“Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative. Non-resistance hurts both altruism and egoism.” ..."

How Herbert Spencer Helped Liberate Japan, Egypt, and India | The Daily Economy

British Factory Acts Revisited

Investigating The Beginnings Of Big Government

In my quest to find the origins of why big government in Western countries has become ever so expansive and pervasive I came to the realization you have to go way back in history.

Previously, I have posted a blog post about British Chimney Sweeper Acts.

The Acts

During the 19^th century Great Britain passed about 10 such Acts to protect children, later women and to limit the number of work hours per day. The other component of the early Acts was healthier work conditions.

Between the first such Act in 1802 until the Act of 1844, these Acts provided child labor protection. Beginning with the Act of 1844 similar protections were extended to women.

The Act of 1802 mandated that (Source):

·         “mills and factories provide proper ventilation and required a minimum standard of cleanliness.  … All apprentices were to be educated in reading, writing and arithmetic for the first four years of their apprenticeship. The Act specified that this should be done every working day within usual working hours but did not state how much time should be set aside for it.”

·         “Each apprentice was to be given two sets of clothing, suitable linen, stockings, hats, and shoes, and a new set each year thereafter.”

Why does government coerce specific private businesses to pay and provide for education?

Why did government make such specific prescriptions as what clothing is to be provided to an apprentice? This is a form of partial expropriation or a form of taxation applied to certain businesses. Did other apprentices in non regulated businesses enjoy such benefits?

The Act of 1844 mandated among other things more government control over businesses by:

·         “Ages must be verified by surgeons.

·         Accidental death must be reported to a surgeon and investigated.

·         Thorough records must be kept regarding the provisions of the act.

·         Machinery was to be fenced in.” (Wikipedia)

Each work week contained 63 hours effective 1847 and was reduced to 58 hours effective 1848. In 1850, no longer could employers decide the hours of work. The workday was changed to correspond with the maximum number of hours that women and children could work. Children and Women could only work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the summer and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the winter. All work would end on Saturday at 2 p.m.. The work week was extended from 58 hours to 60 hours.

The Acts first covered only the textile industry, soon after other industries, later all industries.

Alternatives

Why were specific employers not prosecuted when working conditions were shown to lead to outbreaks of diseases? As happened in one of Sir Robert Peel’s factories.

Why were specific employers not prosecuted if neglect led to serious accidents in factories?

Was it really necessary to limit the workday to 10 hours uniformly? Would not have a maximum work hours per day for adults have sufficed? Why were work hours for adult women limited to certain times of the day?

Was it necessary to make very specific prescriptions as to how to enhance work place safety? Would not have best practices developed over time etc. and prosecution of offenders affected about the same result?

How many factory owners were actually ruthless to justify such sweeping legislation?

And so on …

Herbert Spencer On The Coming Slavery

To quote from the same name chapter of his book titled “The Man Versus State” (Emphasis added):

“Neither did those who in 1834 passed an Act regulating the labour of women and children in certain factories, imagine that the system they were beginning would end in the restriction and inspection of labour in all kinds of producing establishments where more than fifty people are employed; nor did they conceive that the inspection provided would grow to the extent of requiring that before a "young person" is employed in a factory, authority must be given by a certifying surgeon, who, by personal examination (to which no limit is placed) has satisfied himself that there is no incapacitating disease or bodily infirmity … The blank form of an inquiry daily made is-"We have already done this; why should we not do that  " And the regard for precedent suggested by it, is ever pushing on regulative legislation. Having had brought within their sphere of operation more and more numerous businesses, the Acts restricting hours of employment and dictating the treatment of workers are now to be made applicable to shops. From inspecting lodging-houses to limit the numbers of occupants and enforce sanitary conditions, we have passed to inspecting all houses below a certain rent in which there are members of more than one falnily, and are nowT passing to a kindred inspection of all small houses.* The buying and working of telegraphs by the State is made a reason for urging that the State should buy and work the railways. Supplying children with food for their minds by public agency is being followed ill some cases by supplying food for their bodies; and after the practice has been made gradually more general, we may anticipate that the supply,now proposed to be made gratis in the one case, will· eventually be proposed to be made gratis in the other: the argument that good bodies as well as good minds are needful to luake good citizens, being logically urged as a reason for the extension. … Failure does not destroy faith in the agencies employed, but merely suggests more stringent use of such agencies or wider ramifications of them.”

Acts To Eliminate Competition

Is it just pure coincidence that some of the most prominent advocates of these laws ran big businesses of the kind to be regulated? Follow the money trail.

Mr. “John Fielden (17 January 1784 – 29 May 1849), also known as Honest John Fielden, was a British social reformer and benefactor. … With his brothers, he expanded the family cotton business at Todmorden to become a wealthy businessman. … The Fieldens owned many mills … They spent £34,000 on the latest cotton-spinning equipment, and it created thousands of jobs. The mill consumed more raw cotton than any other firm in the country at the time.” (Wikipedia).

“On his father's death in 1811, Fielden and his brothers inherited the family cotton-spinning business at Todmorden, which became one of the greatest manufacturing concerns in Great Britain. Unlike most mill owners, Fielden soon became a supporter of legislation to protect factory labour.” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

The famous “Sir Robert Peel, who employed more children than any other cotton master in Great Britain, promoted the bill in response to his concerns regarding the children working in his mills. Peel felt that there was "gross mismanagement" in his factories, and as he could not find time to remedy this himself he proposed an Act of Parliament to address these concerns.” (Wikipedia). Because the famous Sir Peel did not have enough time to remedy mismanagement in his own mills? Give me a break!

In modern parlance this is called leveling the playing field.