On Prudential Liberalism, the Balance of Power, and the retreat from an International Moral Order

It’s a bit tricky to establish what the rules of the game are in figuring out what the relationship is between a broad programmatic ideology that is has different streams (like liberalism) and certain important concepts (the death penalty, or balance of power). This can, in fact, be quite confusing.

So, for example, in a recent book that I have digressed on during the last few weeks, The Machinery of Government, Joseph Heath claims that social contract theory is “one of the signature doctrines of liberal political philosophy.” (p. 107) In context Heath notes that the concept was already deployed by Glaucon in Plato’s Republic (and nobody treats Glaucon as a liberal). Anyone familiar with the significance of Rawls’ shadow today will not be surprised by Heath’s claim. Yet, Heath himself confuses matters greatly by claiming (in a different context) to be distinguishing “two forms of liberalism: the “classical liberal” view, which is associated with the social contract doctrines of the Enlightenment, and the “modern liberal” view, which accompanied the rise of the welfare state in the 20th century.” (p. 96)

Now, this is odd for a number of reasons. First, as Foucault noted (recall) on 14 march 1979 in his Birth of Biopolitics lectures in commenting on the impact of the Beveridge plan, the post WWII welfare state was articulated in terms of a new social contract between state and people. Second, that today one associates the social contracts of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau with liberalism at all is largely the effect of the impact of Rawls. (It’s not only the effect of Rawls because as I have discussed, echoing Duncan Bell, that Locke’s social contract became paradigmatically liberal — and so Hobbes was pulled into the liberal orbit — was a mid-twentieth century construct, initiated by critics of liberalism.) Third, those that call themselves ‘classical liberals’ today tend to reject social contract thinking in part because they associate liberalism with the natural right elements in Locke or with the nineteenth century free traders and radicals (who, as Duncan Bell shows) all rejected the social contract as a medieval view. (Heath is aware of this, see his comments on Mill at p. 301.) As regular readers know, I think part of the historical problem here is Locke’s tricky relationship to the liberal tradition (and Heath ended up drawing on too many unquestioned tropes)—for Locke is more mercantile imperialist than liberal; but others may be inclined to suggest that liberalism is just too heterogeneous, and that this kind of confusion is to be expected.

By contrast, Heath has a lovely argument that “under social contract theory” the death penalty “began to seem problematic in a way it never had before.” (p. 111) There are, in fact, conceptual necessitation relations between certain theoretical commitments X and certain doctrines Y, even if there is no logical derivation between X and Y and even if at To it is not evident (despite being foreseeable) that commitment to X will always seem to require embrace of Y. This kind of reasoning would be rejected by Cambridge historians, but I think Heath is right that once Hobbes is seen as the framework in which social contract theory develops (and one adheres to the social contract), the death penalty will become increasingly felt problematic (despite many of the actually more liberal post Hobbesian social contract theorists missing this) this despite Bill Clinton’s tactical and electoral embrace of it.

Now, today, in what we may call international relations theory, balance of power thinking is not associated with liberalism. It is usually associated with its purported alternative in international relations, realism (see, for example, back in 2007 Deborah Boucoyannis who wants to contest this conceptual link and make space for a liberal version of balance of power theory). In some past digressions, I took advantage of this tight link in order to claim that its warm embrace by Hume (and his fondness for ostracism, which he treats as conceptually analogous to the balance of power) actually helps us discern retrospectively that Hume is quite distant from being a pure liberal theorist.*** (In fact, I think some of Smith’s deviations from Hume help originate the actual history of liberalism.)

As it happens, during the nineteenth century, when ‘liberal’ became an actor’s category for Cobden and John Bright, the rejection of the balance of power became one of the core elements of their political self-identity during their courageous criticism of the Crimean war. In fact, Bright’s historical role as a most liberal champion of democracy++ rests, in part, on his tireless advocacy for the household franchise in which (drawing on the experience of the Crimean war) he uses the argument that aristocratic government predictably leads to disastrous wars.**

When on March 31, 1854 the House of Commons debated the war resolution this became a centerpiece of Bright’s speech. Unlike many liberals today, Bright immediately rejects moralism in international politics. In commenting on a phrase by Disraeli, Bright rejects two kinds of moralizing positions: one is the pacifist and the other is what we may call the ‘abstract just war theory.’ (Throughout his life Bright does embrace a form of ius gentium, but it’s fairly minimal.) Bright discards the latter on epistemological grounds by claiming “I shall not discuss the justice of the war. It may be difficult to decide a point like this, seeing that every war undertaken since the days of Nimrod has been declared to be just by those in favour of it.” I think Bright’s point is not that one can’t ever decide the justice of a war impartially and retrospectively, but that in the moment this is a doctrine that is likely to be abused by agents involved and so ought not enter into the deliberations of the political agents.

But while the abstract just war theory is discarded, there is a more colloquial and more concrete sense of justice that Bright does not discard.

I may at least question whether any war that is unnecessary can be deemed to be just. I shall not discuss this question on the abstract principle of peace at any price, as it is termed, which is held by a small minority of persons in this country, founded on religious opinions which are not generally received, but I shall discuss it entirely on principles which are accepted by all the Members of this House. I shall maintain that when we are deliberating on the question of war, and endeavouring to prove its justice or necessity, it becomes us to show that the interests of the country are clearly involved; that the objects for which the war is undertaken are probable, or, at least, possible of attainment; and, further, that the end proposed to be accomplished is worth the cost and the sacrifices which we are about to incur.—John Bright Selected Speeches of the Rt. Hon. John Bright M.P. On Public Questions. J. M. Dent, 1853, pp. 125-126.

Now, Bright’s rhetorical strategy is to claim that he will base his arguments on a kind of overlapping consensus. Not on his own liberal commitments. However, it also means that his liberalism is to fit in this overlapping consensus (which need not be liberal at all). And we may say that for Bright a war will be unjust in the concrete sense if (i) a country’s interests are not immediately at stake, (ii) the war-aims impossible to achieve, and (iii) the costs of achieving it disproportionate to the war-aims the latter, thus, involving a kind of informal cost-benefit analysis. (Bright is much more Smithian than he is utilitarian.) If any of these obtain the war is unnecessary, and if all three obtain the war is clearly unjust in the concrete sense. Now, obviously all of these arguments can be abused in practice too, but the abuse will not engender sacred moral principles.*

Many today who reflect on such matters will treat Bright’s reasoning here as not liberal at all. There is no commitment to international law and no talk of rights. Of course, by contrast, in the background is Bright’s more general sense that war itself generates the conditions for immoral conduct and moral monstrosities. In fact, Bright’s general opposition to war is on par with his general defense of free trade: the only who benefit from war (or the Corn Laws) are the aristocrats who promote valor and political greatness. This is a commitment to a higher form of moralism that is compatible with the prudential arguments we find in the overlapping consensus of his peers. This joining together of prudence and morality is, in fact, characteristic of the liberal art of government.

So much for set up.

Bright offers five arguments against the balance of power doctrine: first, that the term has unstable meaning, but this plays little role in what follows (although see the fifth argument). Second, that Turkey is not part of the European balance of power. Bright’s argument is from authority (Burke in 1791), and not very compelling. (It made be compelling to Bright, however, because Burke’s argument rests on the idea that Europe and so a European balance of power is Christian in character.)+

Third, that even if one embraces the balance of power, it is a defeasible instrument. It is not a proper end, but more akin to a prudent maxim. In fact, one may forego commitment to the balance of power if one gains a more valuable end. (Bright puts the argument in the mouth of Samuel Whitbread — an early critic of slavery — in 1791.) This is, in fact, related to one of Boucoyannis’ main points in her argument that the balance of power can be sees as part of a more what we may call prudential liberalism. In fact, Bright’s argument is that strict adherence to the balance of power may well be self-undermining. (He thinks this is clearly the case for Turkey over time.)

It’s doubtful whether Bright could show true warmth to the balance of power, but he can’t reject it outright because his is a species of prudential liberalism. Subsequently, Bright notes with an appeal to details of 19th century political history that this, in fact, how the British government behaves frequently. Rather than acting on the balance of power as a normatively binding principle, it decides whether or not to adhere to it on a case-by-case basis.

Fourth, that the balance of power incentivizes going to war whenever another state looks to be growing more powerful. (He puts this argument in the mouth of the Whig politician, Fox.) Unfortunately, “the pretence for war will never be wanting, and peace can never be secure.” So, the balance of power, if adhered to without judiciousness, just is a recipe for open-ended warfare: “If this phrase of the “balance of power,” the meaning of which nobody can exactly make out, is to be brought in on every occasion to stimulate this country to war, there is an end to all hope of permanent peace.”

Fifth, and finally, that how one draws the boundary of a system in which a balance of power is supposed to adhere is somewhat arbitrary, and even dangerously so. (This was already hinted at Turkey’s exclusion/inclusion from European balance.) For, it is foreseeable that if one is only focused on maintaining a European balance of power, one may end up contributing to a change in the Transatlantic balance of power:

The United States may profit to a large extent by the calamities which will befall us; whilst we, under the miserable and lunatic idea that we are about to set the worn-out Turkish Empire on its legs, and permanently to sustain it against the aggressions of Russia, are entangled in a war. Our trade will decay and diminish—our people, suffering and discontented, as in all former periods of war, will emigrate in increasing numbers to a country whose wise policy is to keep itself free from the entanglement of European politics—to a country with which rests the great question, whether England shall, for any long time retain that which she professes to value so highly—her great superiority in industry and at sea. (p. 141).

Unlike many in his audience, Bright greatly admires the US, and also ended up siding with the Union during the civil war.

Okay, let me wrap up. Bright is not an isolationist because he champions free trade and, with Cobden, piecemeal functional integration of states to secure more durable peace. He is also disinclined to turn his back on empire as such because maintaining the status quo may be in the country’s interest, even if he would prefer an empire-less world. (But Bright’s views on Ireland suggest he would be willing to dismantle core features of British empire much more rapidly than most imagined.)

Bright’s arguments against the balance of power doctrine are fundamentally informed by his view that peace is generally to be preferred over war and this stance is usually in the interest properly understood of the vast majority of the population (and of foreign populations). This is the heart of his prudential liberalism in which emancipatory free trade and full democracy at home, and, where possible, peaceful mutual international cooperation mutually support each other. This prudential liberalism has deep moral foundations, but it is quite distinct from the more familiar Wilsonian, millenarian liberal theorizing and practice that American empire eventually embraced.

So, unlike Boucoyannis, and with Bright, I think liberalism should generally keep the balance of power at arm’s length. But I do so not in the name of international global moral order. Rather, because it generally undermines liberal political aims. (This is the instrumental ‘realism’ I share with Boucoyannis—[this may be a cohort effect because she an exact contemporary of mine at The University of Chicago back in the day.])***

During the next few months I wish to articulate what such a prudential liberalism can look like today, in the context of American empire, and the existence of quite a number of twentieth century, millenarian liberal global institutions and principles that are characterized by bankruptcy. For, while America First must be defeated at the polls, liberalism lacks an international agenda and is adrift.

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*In what follows, I will abstract away from the details of the debate surrounding the casus belli (in which I happen to agree with Bright’s criticism of Palmerston), and also ignore the more delicate issue of how one should deal with treaty obligations to allies.

**Bright himself is no Machiavellian. But this has a Machiavellian provenance because in so far Machiavelli defends a wide democratic franchise it is connected to its (otherwise rather limited) ability to select proper war-leaders and whether or not one should go to war.

+Bright’s own work is not characterized by antipathy toward Muslims, but it is characterized by rejection of Turkish despotism which uses (what we may call) ‘political Islam’ to oppress Christians in its dominion.

++Bright’s views on the suffrage question are inconsistent, but about that, perhaps, some other time more.

***Boucoyannis diagnoses that liberalism is opposed to concentrated power is correct (and informs my own sympathy with the ordoliberals). She sees the balance of power as a kind of prediction about the dangers of concentrated power. This is, in fact, also Hume’s view. Unfortunately, I don’t read Hume as a paradigmatic liberal, and I depart greatly from her treatment of nineteenth century liberalism.