National Socialism vs. liberal philosophy (1 of 6): Classical liberalism

Herbert Marcuse, 1955

This is another of my posts about the Frankfurt School. This one is about Herbert Marcuse’s essay “Der Kampf gegen den Liberalismus in der totalitären Staatsauffassung”, which first appeared in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 2/1934. It is collected in Herbert Marcuse, Schriften Bd. 3: Ausätze aus der Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 1934-1941.

It appears in an English translation by Jeremy Shapiro as „The Struggle Against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State“ in Herbert Marcuse, Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (1968). The English text of Negations is available online in an authorized SCRIBD edition from MayFly Books and is available as a text or PDF download. The quotations from „Kampf gegen den Liberalismus“ used here are taken from Shapiro’s translation.

The “Kampf gegen den Liberalismus” essay from 1934 is focused in particular on Germany and the new situation created by the installation of the Third Reich in 1933. This is an academic essay; it wasn't written to communicate basic ideas to the minimally literate. In other words, it assumes the reader has a basic knowledge of the liberal philosophy of the previous two centuries, of the political history of Germany in the previous century, and of the very specific history of the Weimar Republic and the early months of the Third Reich.

Classical liberal philosophy

The liberal tradition of philosophy and political thought grew up together with the capitalist system that was replacing feudalism in Europe. Harry Girvetz described that background in his article on “liberalism” for Encyclopædia Britannica 2006:

Medieval society did not provide a soil in which the first seeds of liberalism might easily germinate. The Middle Ages produced a society of status in which the rights and responsibilities of the individual were determined by his place in a stratified, hierarchically ordered system. Such a closed, authoritarian order, however grandiose in outline and noble in aspiration, was bound to place great stress upon acquiescence and conformity. As new needs and interests, generated by the slow commercialization and urbanization of Europe, gained strength, the medieval system was modified to accommodate the ambitions of national rulers and the requirements of an expanding industry and commerce. The ensuing policies and arrangements came to be known as mercantilism, a policy of state intervention that, in theory at least, might be extended to regulation of the most minute details of economic life (cf. Eli Heckscher, Mercantilism, 1935). However, as such intervention came more and more to serve established interests and to inhibit enterprise, it was challenged by the members of the newly emerging middle class. The challenge took the form of revolt, first against the Universal Church, and later against mercantilist states, presided over by absolute monarchs. The former manifested itself in the Protestant Reformation and the quest of Calvinists and Calvinist sects for freedom of conscience; the latter in the great revolutions that rocked England and France in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the French Revolution a century later, and the successful revolt of England's American colonies. Classical liberalism as an articulated creed is a product of those great collisions.

Some of the major figures in the liberal philosophical tradition would include Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Adam Smith (1723-1790), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Jeremy Bentham (1748-1842), James Madison (1751-1836), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).

Core concepts of classical liberalism included the value and sanctity of private property, limits to the power of the state, nationalism, parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties (freedom of speech, assembly, petition, religion), and the autonomy, integrity and privacy of the individual.

This wasn't some set of dogmas, though, like the Nicene Creed that liberal thinkers all endorsed. For instance, many liberals of both the philosophical and practical turn of mind were cautious about supporting universal suffrage, even for men. Nor was their opposition to government involvement in the economy some metaphysical demand of pure principle. The capitalists of the 18th century opposed government policies like mercantilism that restricted the free international trade they preferred. The fact that liberals opposed Absolutism in the days of Frederick the Great in Berlin and Joseph II in Vienna in favor of parliamentary government didn't mean they wanted government to be restricted solely to police and armies.

Tags: critical theory, frankfurt school, herbert marcuse, liberalism, national socialism