Events

Liberalism is not a sin

Carlos Rodríguez Braun, Professor of History of Economic Thought at the Complutense University of Madrid, and Juan Ramón Rallo, Founding Partner of the Juan de Mariana Institute and Director of its Economic Situation Observatory (13/12/2011)

On 13 December 2011, the Rafael del Pino Foundation hosted the presentation of the book "Liberalism is not a sin", published by Ediciones Deusto. The authors of the book took part in the event: Carlos Rodríguez Braun -Professor of History of Economic Thought at the Complutense University of Madrid - and Juan Ramón Rallo -Founding Partner of the Juan de Mariana Institute and Director of its Economic Situation Observatory.

Carlos Rodríguez Braun said that liberalism is not to blame for the economic crisis: "Liberalism has not been applied to the economy: it is therefore not to blame for the crisis. Rather, it can be the solution to it. Applying liberalism to the economic situation raises two fields of action. One would be public finance itself; the other would be markets and contracts. In the first case, liberalism recommends lower taxes, less public spending and less public debt. It also recommends that the coercive apparatus of the state be reduced and contained. In the second case, markets and contracts, what liberalism recommends is more freedom: let women and men make their contracts as long as they are voluntary, in peace and freedom".

Professor Rodríguez Braun said that liberalism needs defence: "It needs books like this one. Liberalism is not intuitive, unlike socialism. What is very easily understood is that society has to be organised and that women and men cannot be free; we have to be commanded, controlled, monitored, prohibited, fined, taxed... That is what is intuitive. Liberalism, which postulates that all of the above is not good, requires argumentation and reasoning. Society is a complicated phenomenon. Humans have lived most of our history in very small orders, such as tribes or primitive hordes. Modern society is a relatively recent order, which we have some difficulty in understanding. That is why we tend to apply to modern society categories valid for those primitive tribes. Understanding the complexity of modern society requires a little modesty. And liberalism is, above all, modest. We don't know very well what society is like or what people are like. That's why we liberals think it's better to leave them alone than to take away their freedom and their property.

 

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