Sandefur and Gradualism
Timothy Sandefur has an interesting piece up on the “Romance of Gradualism.” His thesis is essentially that while knowledge problems may make central planning more difficult, they do not, by themselves, invalidate the efficacy of central planning initiatives. Or more precisely, his point is that sudden radical, engineered change can accomplish a great deal despite the knowledge problems inherent in central planning.
As evidence of the success of radical change, he contrasts the American Civil War with Jim Crow and Reconstruction, and again with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The Civil War and The Civil Rights Movement, he argues, were engineered changes, brought about through sudden and violent means. They stand in contrast to the failed gradualism of the intervening period. To further illustrate the danger of gradualism, he contrasts the traditional Burkean view of the French Revolution against a quote from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Twain’s a great writer, and the quote deserves copying:
There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
The Burkean view has it that the French Revolution was a failure because it attempted to remake the entire fabric of society and ignored the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Rather than impose radical and sweeping change, it is better to approach the problem of social change gradually — by working within existing systems, especially the law. Twain’s point makes a different point. The Reign of Terror may have been bad, but it put to death the horror of the previous evil. While the cost of revolution may have been high, it was not as high as the price paid through centuries of oppression and failed attempts at gradual change. Or at least, that’s where Sandefur is going.
The problem is that you can’t really compare the insidious horror of the relatively brief Reign of Terror to centuries of Royal oppression. Had the Reign of Terror lasted as long, the cost would have far exceeded what had come before. But even that is really beside the point. The French Revolution wasn’t a failure simply because of Robespierre’s short and brutal rule. Had France endured that and then emerged free and whole and vibrant, the point–and the comparison to the American Civil War–might be valid. But the Reign of Terror gave birth to Napoleon, not freedom. The French Revolution failed utterly–not because of a madman and a few months of horror–but because it failed entirely to achieve the least of its ambitions. The French Revolution guillotined a king and crowned an emperor.
As for the American examples, the civil rights movement, while violent, was conducted entirely within the constraints and confines of the law. That, I think, makes it a “gradual” movement by the definition of the Burkeans. Rather than throw aside the corpus of the law as the French Revolution did, the movement worked within the law. The Civil War was a tad more…. disruptive. Although I think one could make an argument for the fact that the Civil War was a legal response to a radical and “revolutionary” rebellion and, in a sense, was still conducted within the confines of the law. (Burke’s point about the French revolution applies to the manner in which the revolutionaries abandoned the entire body of society–in a manner decidedly different than the American revolutionaries who went to great pains to preserve existing civic institutions and the English Common Law–including the entire body of precedent.)
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