Complexity and the Meaning of Freedom: The Classical Liberal View

Steven R. Hickerson

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1984, vol. 43, issue 1, 91-101

Abstract: Abstract. The classical liberal view of economic freedom as the absence of coercion in economic affairs is examined in its historical and epistemological foundations. The contributions of Descartes, Bentham, Newton and Locke are emphasized. This view is found to be unduly restrictive in relation to the complexity and synergistic interdependencies of modem technology and economic arrangements. More specifically, it is found to be atomistic, negativistic, aresponsible, and historically perverse. It is based on the notion that markets somehow exist prior to and independently of social control— an error of which Adam Smith and the classical economists were not guilty. The complex and interdependent characteristics of contemporary society, with its maldistribution of income, wealth and power, have rendered it obsolete. The instrumentalist view of freedom outlines the competing alternative.

Date: 1984
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