The Meaning of the Topic. The title refers to the
history of the science dealing with the general and
hence abstract principles of “economic” conduct and
of the free “economic” social order, based on ex-
change—rather than with the concrete history of either
subject matter. “Pivotal ideas” include a large part of
the important things to be said about modern “liberal”
civilization, a revolutionary development in Western
Europe following the Middle Ages. As the adjective
in quotation marks indicates, the central and distinctive
feature of this civilization is liberty, or the closely
synonymous term, “freedom.” About that, of course,
many books have been written, and many more will
be. Briefly, it refers here to the comparative absence
or minimizing of “compulsory” control over personal
conduct by “society”—its governmental agents and
laws enforced by penalties for infraction—interfering
with people doing as they like and associating on terms
initially agreed upon. Freedom does not mean absence
of “natural” obstacles to action, relative to a person's
“power” to act, which is taken as “given.” It implies
absence of arbitrary interference by other persons,
which liberalism views as the primary function of
coercive law and government to prevent, to assure
maximum freedom for all.
The freedom in question applies in three major
forms, which are inseparable. Primary is freedom of
thought and expression, which largely entails freedom
of action or conduct; and these freedoms are meant
to be assured by political freedom, or “democracy”
in the modern meaning of the term. All exist in an
“institutional” social order—partly compulsory in a
broad “moral” meaning, but largely consisting of usage
established by custom and mostly followed automati-
cally or by voluntary choice. The type of these laws
is that of the language current in a society, but will
include its accepted proprieties or “manners.” Men feel
in varying degree restrained and compelled by custom
as such, as well as by the agencies which have evolved
for securing conformity, chiefly government and reli-
gion. There is some plausibility in Rousseau's famous
statement that men are born free but are everywhere
in chains; but the first part of the statement asserting
natural freedom, though repeated by Jefferson and
Lincoln, is manifestly false or without practical mean-
ing; for a newborn babe has neither will nor power
to act. And in general, the idea of human beings living
outside of limiting social conditions is so unrealistic
as to be essentially self-contradictory.
Institutions, or in the aggregate a “culture,” are of
the essence—the primary distinctive human trait. (The
word “freedom” is used with respect to animals, plants,
and even inanimate objects; but this meaning must not
be confused with that of the human freedom in ques-
tion here. The word “economy” is also used in connec-
tion with living organisms, though not with inert ob-
jects. This causes confusion only as implying a kind
of purposiveness, which dogmatic devotees of mecha-
nistic science often deny—even to human beings—
though the denial itself is a purposive act.)
The problems of a free society, both of explanation
and of guiding its policies in acting as a unit, focus
in the relations among the three main social expressions
or embodiments of freedom—the democratic state, an
“economic” organization through exchange of goods
and services, and the general freedom of communi-
cation and association by voluntary assent and agree-
ment. Logically, and especially in a historical view,
the first requirement for freedom is religious, i.e., ab-
sence of exercise of power by persons or a “mob”
ostensibly acting for a supernatural source. This calls
for notice especially because modern free society
developed out of an antecedent medieval social order
explicitly based on religion—and practically because
of the persistence of such presuppositions in the short
modern epoch in which democratic ideals have been
nominally accepted. These were first effectively born
in seventeenth-century Britain, out of a three-cornered
struggle for power between a sovereign claiming to
rule by divine right, a partly representative Parliament,
and a judiciary and legal profession.
Many features had existed before in varying degree,
in Greece and Rome and even in medieval Europe (and
some non-European lands)—notably the rule of law in
contrast with government by arbitrary command; but
the “pivotal idea” of free society is government by
consent of the governed, or in ideal terms, self-rule.
For a group this is possible in only one way, by having
the laws made and enforced by the people subject to
them, as far as possible; i.e., by agents chosen by a
majority, under free and equal suffrage. Majority tyr-
anny is limited only by moral forces and finally overt
resistance.
The analytical science of economics, under its pres-
ent name, goes back less than a century. The discipline,
in its most distinctive features, is about a generation
older; it grew out of the preceding “political econ-
omy,” which arose in the late eighteenth century as
an aspect of the “Enlightenment” and revolutionary
period, marked by the American and French Revolu-
tions; it is also called the Age of Reason. This period
of individualism followed a few centuries of “national-
ism” beginning at the “Renaissance” with the founding
of modern states as monarchies, through concentration
of feudal power. This individualistic efflorescence,
along with modern science, led to the Protestant Revolt
and Wars of Religion, resulting in displacement of the
Church as the supreme authority by a plurality of
states. Renaissance civilization was as much, if not
more a new birth as a rebirth (of classical antiquity).
Its most “pivotal” concrete aspect was surely the
launching or impetus given to modern science through
the work of Copernicus (1543) and Galileo (ca. 1610)
in astronomy and mechanics, and of Vesalius (also 1543)
in anatomy. Growth of trade, after the Crusades, was
an important stimulus to liberalization. A major fore-
runner was Leonardo da Vinci (d. 1519). Newton,
roughly speaking, completed the movement in physical
science, and in mathematics; René Descartes should
be named, but after the beginning in Italy and
Germany, the main development was British. The
effective religious revolt started, of course, in Germany
with Luther, but England had important forerunners
of both aspects, in John Wycliffe and Sir William
Gilbert.
