Asignatura: TEORA SOCIAL I

FICHA DE ANLISIS
Referencia:
Spencer, H. (1960). The man versus the state. Herbert Spencer: Political Writings.
Caldwell: The Caxton Printers, Ltd.
Herbert
(Derby, 1820 - Brighton, 1903) Filsofo ingls, la ms destacada
Spencer
figura del evolucionismo filosfico.
Tory vs.
Liberal

Tory a member of the British conservative party

During Spencers time, in general terms:
Liberal
was consistently inclined towards the individualist
philosophy of society.
was not for making new laws, but repealing old ones
HOWEVER, over the course of last half of the 19th century, it
became more and more in favor of State intervention
considered individualism fundamental and axiomatic

Tory
was consistently inclined towards the Statist philosophy.

Statism vs.
Individualism

Statism postulates the doctrine that thecitizen has no rights which

the State is bound to respect;the only rights he has are those which
the State grants him,and which the State may attenuate or revoke
at its ownpleasure.
The individualism professed by the early Liberals maintained the
contrary; itmaintained that the citizen has rights which are
inviolableby the State or by any other agency.
The U.S. Declarationof Independence (disavowal of the Statist
philosophy) takes as its foundation the self-evidenttruth of
individualism, asserting that man, in virtue of hisbirth, is endowed
with certain rights which are "unalienable and governments are
meant to protect these rights.
(**Later liberals in the US drifted toward statism, taxation, etc.
see below).

Chapter 1
The New
Toryism
(El nuevo
conservaduris
mo)

Most of those who now pass as Liberals, are Tories of anew type
(p. 1).
Two opposed types of social organization:
Militant (Tories)
rgime of status
compulsory cooperation
army formed of conscripts, in
which the units in their several

Industrial (Whigs)
rgime of contract
voluntary cooperation
a body of producers or
distributors, who severally

grades have to fulfill commands

under pain of death, and
receive food and clothing and
pay, arbitrarily apportioned
Tories in smaller towns and
villages

Monarch as delegate of heaven

agree to specified payments in

return for specified services,
and may at will, after due
notice, leave the organization if
they do not like it
Whigs in larger cities and
manufacturing districts
Began as resistance to Charles
II
Monarchy as civil institution,
established by the nation for
the benefit of all its members
Habeas Corpus Act

(*The ultimate purpose of a writ of

habeas corpus is to provide a remedy
in cases of illegal restraint or
confinement by testing the legality of
a persons detainment. A petition for
issuance of the writ can be filed by the
imprisoned person or by other
individuals acting on his or her behalf.
If the court cannot find any legal
justification for the persons detention,
an immediate release is ordered)

Liberalism of
the present

- freedom of religion
- freedom of speech / press
- blind justice
- parliament
Liberal of the present (Spencers present)
[The liberals of today] have lost sight of the truth thatin past
times Liberalism habitually stood for individual freedom versus
State-coercion. They have taken the policy of dictating the actions
of citizens.

Intelligence
and
classification

Spencer warns against classifying something by its external

features ex. French Revolution basing its model on the Roman
Republic
Liberalism has lost itself:and the origin of those mistaken classings
of political measures which have misled it -- classings, as we shall
see, by conspicuous external traits instead of by internal natures
(p. 8).
In seeking the popular good, they have created constraints. The
welfare of the many came to be conceived alike by Liberal
statesmen and Liberal voters as the aim of Liberalism.

Increased
legislation as
a form of
slavery

To Spencer, who gives numerous examples of recent Liberal

legislation for the public good, regardless of the fact that this
legislation is considered by many to be a good use of power, the
difference is irrelevant. The real issue is whether the lives ofcitizens
are more interfered with than they were. The end does not justify
the means even if its for good.
He goes on to provide the example of coercion by majority vote

within a union. Then he says, if it is argues that this analogy is

faulty, it doesnt matter:
If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrendertheir
liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? (p. 17).
If that argument doesnt work, says Spencer, heres a third one:
These multitudinous restraining acts are not defensible on the
ground that they proceed from a popularly-chosen body; for that the
authority of a popularly-chosen body is no more to be regarded as
an unlimited authority than the authority of a monarch; and that as
trueLiberalism in the past disputed the assumption of a mon- arch's
unlimited authority, so true Liberalism in the present will dispute the
assumption of unlimited parliamentary authority.
paradox

The coming
slavery

Toryism remains Toryism, whetherit extends this coercion for selfish

or unselfish reasons. Ascertainly as the despot is still a despot,
whether his motivesfor arbitrary rule are good or bad; certainly is
the Torystill a Tory, whether he has egoistic or altruistic motives
forusing State-power to restrict the liberty of the citizen, beyondthe
degree required for maintaining the liberties of othercitizens.
Sympathy with one insuffering suppresses, for the time being,
remembrance ofhis transgressions (p. 22).
Naturally,then, if the wretched are unknown or but vaguely
known,all the demerits they may have are ignored (p. 22).
Basically, Spencer believes that the poor dont deserve special
attention
There is a notion, always moreor less prevalent and just now
vociferously expressed, thatall social suffering is removable, and
that it is the duty ofsomebody or other to remove it. Both these
beliefs are false.To separate pain from ill-doing is to fight against the
constitution of things, and will be followed by far more pain (p. 23).
His point is that benefit may result, not from multiplication of
artificialappliances to mitigate distress, but, contrariwise, from
diminution of them (p. 26).
Spencer argues that by increasing taxes to benefit the poor, the
poors wages show a corresponding decrease.
Another strange analogy: Spencer analogues the momentum of a
train running a peasant over in Spain because the peasants had no
experience with these new contraptions, to a politician who thinks
hell stop political momentum and doesnt take into account
collateral damage.
But the practical politician who, in spite of such experiences
repeated generation after generation, goes on thinkingonly of

proximate results, naturally never thinks of resultsstill more remote,

still more general, and still more importantthan those just
exemplified. To repeat the metaphor usedabove-he never asks
whether the political momentum setup by his measure, in some
cases decreasing but in othercases greatly increasing, will or will not
have the same general direction with other like momenta; and
whether it maynot join them in presently producing an aggregate
energyworking changes never thought of (p. 31).
The question of questions for the politician should ever be- "What
type of social structure am I tending to produce?" But this is a
question he never entertains (p. 32).
Spencer holds that The numerous socialistic changes made by Act
ofParliament, joined with the numerous others presently to bemade,
will by-and-by be all merged in State-socialism-swallowed in the
vast wave which they have little by littleraised (p. 41).
All socialism involves slavery (p. 41).
Ejemplos que usa:
Government housing drives up the offer of houses, thus lowering
prices, and forcing owners to sell at a loss, and goes so far as to
make the government the sole owner of housing.
The same goes for land. More numerouspublic benefits, to be
achieved by more numerous publicagencies, at the cost of
augmented public burdens, must increasingly deduct from the
returns on land (p. 44).
State-owned railways go along the same route, thus creating a
snow-ball effect:
Evidently then, the changes made, the changes in progress,and
the changes urged, will carry us not only towards State-ownership
of land and dwellings and means of communication, all to be
administered and worked by State-agents, but towards Stateusurpation of all industries (p. 47).
It is a matter of common remark, often made when a marriage is
impending, that those possessed by strong hopes habitually dwell
on the promised pleasures and think nothing of the accompanying
pains (p. 48).
Under socialism, Spencer argues that each individual will become a
slave to the community.
There seems no getting people to accept the truth, which
nevertheless is conspicuous enough, that the welfare of a society
and the justice of its arrangements are at bottom dependent on the
characters of its members; and that improvement in neither can
take place without that improvement in character which results
from carrying on peaceful industry under the restraints imposed by
an orderly social life

From Freedom
to Bondage