On the value of nuance in political and economic discourse

The 20th century economist Fredrick Hyack in his book The Constitution of Liberty, arguing in the vein of liberal theorists of the past like John Locke and John Stuart Mill, states that liberty ought to be preeminent among all our values because it is a necessary precondition for the pursuit of any of our other values. This defense of liberty he takes as his starting point for advocating for limited government and free-market capitalism. After the fall of Communism this view has held sway in the minds of economists and political theorists since. Indeed much of the current contempt for government is motivated by just such reasoning.

While I do believe that understanding Hyack’s arguments are vital, I think that they are only vital as a defense of individual rights and particularly the rights of minority groups, and not as a basis for an economic or political system, as such. For, considering the individual in isolation, as liberal theorists do, is not realistic. Individuals must be considered in the context of societies as well as in the context of the natural world. While liberty is necessary for the pursuit of other values, flourishing and happiness will not be possible in the context of a dis functional society with high amounts of crime and poverty and disease. Likewise flourishing and happiness will not be possible in the absence of clean air and water and a stable environment. However, if we forget the arguments of Hyack, e. al. and the pursuit of the greatest amount of happiness and flourishing becomes our primary goal then we risk trampling individual rights in the process.

If we accept this much then we can see that there is a continuum here and that those speaking in absolutes are not helpful to conversations about how best to design our political and economic systems and institutions. They are inclined to plant their flag at one end of the continuum and castigate those at the other end- but it can be even worse that that, because they also have no tolerance for those with more nuanced views who accept that both ends grasp part of the truth. And when the conversation is about politics and economics at a certain level nuance cannot be avoided.