Anarcho-Fantasy--The Dream of a World Without the State
This essay is the second installment in a three-part symposium on sovereignty. The first contribution was made by Thomas E. Woods Jr..
Every time I read an anarchist essay like Tom Woods’s piece on sovereignty, in which he implicitly calls for the abolition of the State, it fills me with a warm, nostalgic glow. Some 25 years ago, I was active in a group called the Party of the Right. To this day, that student-led organization of conservative inactivists still fights the Left at Yale—through bow-tied Oxford-style debates held over port and sherry on topics like “Resolved: That the Beautiful is Closer to the Good than to the True.” When last I visited, not much had changed, except that you can no longer smoke cigars, and now the group attracts a fair share of date-able women. Something to do with 9/11, I’m told. (“If you don’t kiss a conservative, then the terrorists will have won.”)
It used to be that the sharpest divide in the group was between fish-eating, guilt-haunted Catholic traditionalists like me, and the Loompanics-reading, coke-snorting libertarians like… well, most of my closest friends. (Face facts: They were a lot more fun than the Opus Darien stiffs I’d met through Students for Life.)
The lines were clearly drawn between the Libertarians and the Trads, and debates centered on how large a part (if any) the State had to play in promoting the Good. The worst fate folks on our side could imagine was that the conservative movement might be taken over by those Ayn Ranters, and turned into a movement concerned merely with small government, low taxes, and non-intervention.
For their part, the Libertarians feared that we Moral Majority types would outlaw abortion, relegate porn mags to special stores on back roads in bad neighborhoods, impose draconian laws on divorce, and restore Bible-reading at public schools.
None of us, in our worst panic attacks, ever dreamed how much worse things would actually turn out. That both our factions would soon be shoved aside or bought. That within a decade the conservative movement would be captured, controlled, and re-educated by a third force altogether: A movement that promoted irreligious moralism, a Cold War stubbornly waged despite the absence of Communism, and big government for the sake of “National Greatness.” Had you laid out John McCain’s platform for me in 1984, I probably would have said, loudly, in the dining hall: “That sounds… fascist. In the negative sense.”
So Woods’s learned piece brings me back to the old days. And in arguing for the anarchist position, he looks for evidence that the State is inherently abusive, finding in the trash bin of the 20th century (and then of the Bush years) an embarrassment of riches. Of course, that’s a little like using footage from a San Francisco bathhouse to argue for universal celibacy.... As we pro-lifers learned long ago, the sight of something can turn your stomach, but it might not change your mind—especially if you know you’re only getting part of the picture.
And part of the picture is all you really see in Woods’ analysis. He attributes the notion of sovereignty to an early modern advocate of royal absolutism. And perhaps he’s right about the term. But I doubt that a Roman emperor would have had much trouble articulating his claim to arbitrary power without Jean Bodin’s neologism. (Indeed, the thinkers who advocated quasi-divine powers for kings looked to Roman law, which they wielded to liquidate feudal customs and Common Law—Teutonic holdovers which are the origin of our liberties.) The reality that rulers will seek to liquidate every obstacle to their “liberty” of action is a perennial observation. You can find it in the Old Testament and in the writings of Roman republicans. That’s where our Founding Fathers found it.
To note this fact, and deplore it, and favor institutions that would counteract it by establishing rival centers of power within the state, and thriving institutions of civil society and Church that serve as the main guarantors of order—all this is the heritage of Anglo-American conservatism. And Ron Paul, in everything he said out loud in his presidential run, stands firmly in this tradition. I’ve written here before on how I believe this position is today, here and now in our political context, the only option for Christians.
The public sector in America is so deeply infused with liberal secularism that it cannot be used to further Christian (or even conservative) ends—apart from defending basic rights and keeping order. Beyond that, whatever short-term success you achieve, the deep structure of our institutions and the legal ideology that governs the courts will turn the knife against you. Gain public funding for your parochial schools—and you’ll end up having to follow state directives about whom to hire and fire. Partner with the government in running an adoption agency… and wait to see the kind of “families” where the courts make you place those innocent children. And so on.
Whatever a fruitful cooperation of Church and state might have accomplished in 19th century Bavaria, or 1940s Portugal, it can’t happen here. It’s time to scrape the needle on the Trad’s favorite LP, “Don’t… Stop… Thinking About the Carlists...” and get with the program: Rendering a whole lot less unto Caesar, so we can save up something for God. We’ve tried for some 25 years (Jerry Falwell’s debut makes a handy starting point) to make God into our Caesar. By the time John Hagee declared the First Protestant Crusade on behalf of restoring Solomon’s kingdom, the truth became apparent: We’ve taken Caesar for our God.
Admitting all this should make anyone sympathetic to Lord Acton‘s classical liberalism, and the decentralist aspirations of Chesterton—embodied so well in the localist institutions that still keep Switzerland free. It should move us to root for regionalists in Flanders, and support a state’s rights approach to changing abortion laws. We ought to take with great seriousness the doctrine at the heart of Catholic social teaching called subsidiarity, which asserts that it is a sin to centralize power unless it is absolutely necessary. While I wouldn’t try telling this to the mitred Democratic party hacks who issue bishops’ pastorals, this is the real political tradition of the Church, with its roots in the decentralized order of the Middle Ages, where kings’ aspirations were checked by the rights of free cities and regions, and the moral force of the Church.
We can follow Tom Woods thus far—but not much further. We can reject the “monism” of early modern absolutists, and insist on viewing with great suspicion every attempt to centralize power in the hands of technocrats. But that doesn’t bring us anywhere near his comprehensive rejection of the State, which is not libertarian but simply anarchist. And it’s deeply misleading for him to suggest that the Medieval order provides a precedent proving that his anarchist project is workable. In Medieval France, there certainly was overlapping sovereignty, a happy confusion of powers between local lords and a distant king, the rights of guilds and the dictates of bishop and pope. And this tension left a great deal of space for civic liberty.
You know what didn’t exist? A Rothbardian anarchist collective where no one institution claimed a monopoly of force, where contracts were only enforced by voluntary arbitration, and rights were protected by private enforcement agencies. When a village enforced its laws using the powers of police, it was seen as representing the face of public order—wielding the “temporal sword” of the State, acting as Caesar, whom Christians must obey except when he commanded them to sin. A medieval townsman who violated the draconian laws of the local guild would find himself under arrest. When the Church declared someone a heretic, it turned him over “to the temporal arm” for punishment. (Thankfully, the Church renounced this use of State power to prosecute religious dissidents at Vatican II. Better late than never.)
In fact, it is impossible to imagine a successful society that would not insist on a public monopoly of deadly force—however wisely decentralized, and kept in check by an armed citizenry keenly aware of its right to revolt against a tyrant.
Let’s jump forward a few centuries, and imagine that the citizens of a “Paulville,” populated by lovers of liberty, somehow convinced the U.S. government to let their city secede. And within this free community, the most consistent anarchists have prevailed, and the local government has dissolved itself. Instead of paying modest taxes for the enforcement of minimal laws that protected the maximum individual liberty consistent with public order, the residents subscribed to one of a competing group of private enforcement agencies. (Perhaps I’m a cynic, but I imagine these “protection” companies bearing names like “Bonanno” “Lucchese” and “Gambino.”) So far so good.
What happens, I wonder, when Bubba Rodriguez complains that Fallopia O’Reilly, who lives down the road, is dumping the waste from her pig farm in the stream where he likes to fish? He calls his protection agency, the Bonannos—who contact Fallopia’s agency, the Gambinos. They try to work things out. What happens if they can’t? If there’s a great deal of money involved, or if passions become inflamed.... Is there some third party that can enforce on them an agreement? If so, what power does it use to make them settle? If the argument descends into a feud, does someone step in and use force to stop the fighting and impose on the parties a compromise? If that happens, the third force which has stopped the fighting has acted as a STATE, and the state it has imposed is what we call ORDER, according (we hope) to principles known as LAW. In subjecting the Bonnanos and Gambinos to its superior force, it is exercising SOVEREIGNTY.
Of course this need not happen. For several hundred years, in large swathes of Europe, there was no center of power sufficient to impose law and order on the private feudal enforcement agencies based on hilltops in crenellated castles. Outside of a few small cities, the writ of baron and duke ran without limit—except when a neighboring militia managed to muster more swords and shields. There was, we can say with certainty, no State. There was also, outside of the castle, no guarantee for individual rights. Nor freedom of trade, freedom of movement, or prospect of lasting peace. That may be why the period got the pesky nickname, the Dark Ages.
The High Middle Ages—which saw the explosion of prosperity, the building of the great cathedrals, the founding by the Church of Europe’s universities from Salamanca to the Sorbonne—also saw the rise of kings, and the growth of some central authority that could restrain the excessive powers of local tyrants. Indeed, the common people commonly looked to the king for protection against feudal lords who flouted their rights. At some point, in various places, a healthy balance was achieved between the centralizers and the regionalists. We look to such golden moments when we invoke the Magna Carta, the establishment of fueros in Spain, the chartering of free Imperial Cities throughout Germany and Italy. When the tension collapsed, and moved too far in one direction or other, we see periods of chaos or tyranny. The Polish kingdom, too crippled by the veto which a single noble could impose on any law, was gradually gobbled up by its neighbors—while the French kingdom after Louis XIII was turned into a tyranny. As conservatives, who know that Original Sin afflicts both citizen and sovereign, we warn against either extreme.
Put in more concrete, domestic terms: We know how dangerous it is to have social service agencies that interfere in the legitimate exercise of parental rights, that try to ban homeschooling and impose sex education on near-toddlers. But when we have proof that a neighbor is beating or molesting one of his kids, we want there to be someone we can call, someone in a uniform who will bring a gun and take that guy away in shackles. Someone whose use of violence is limited by a very specific code, who will convey that abusive parent to a fair trial based on evidence, and that child to a safe haven. That guy in the uniform is the representative of the State. The power he wields was delegated by the citizens—but it flows from the justice of God. I don’t think we can do without him. Those of you who think we can should find some depopulated region of Africa or Ukraine and give it a try. Report back to me once you’re done with your seventh civil war—and you’ve installed some Grand Panjandrum to please (please, please!) impose a monopoly of force. You’ll have learned that old, sad lesson: Even tyranny is better than chaos.
Dr. John Zmirak is Writer-in-Residence at Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, and author of several books, including Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist, and most recently The Grand Inquisitor.
Comments
Good article! I’m glad you pointed out how Mr. Woods cherry-picked his anti-statist examples and ignored all the good stuff that can be chalked up to the state. Robert Nisbet himself emphasized that the modern state, for good or ill, has been an engine of individualism, which you’d think would bring about some grudging thanks from the libertarians: as you pointed out, all those beloved intermediate institutions were coercive.
Your naming of the so-called “private” protection agencies, Gambino etc., is especially apt, not just because they would resemble organized crime, but because protection will most likely be based on kinship--the default grouping when the state is weak or nonexistent. But I suppose it will be different once all the clan patriarchs have read Murray Rothbard.
It’s surprising that we’ve gotten through two articles in this, uh, symposium on sovereignty without a single reference to the evolution of interstate war. The bracketing and humanizing of war under the jus publicum Europaeum, during which Europe went for two centuries without “wars of annihilation,” would have been impossible, even inconceivable, without the sovereign territorial state. It was the decline of the sovereign state in the 20th century, not the state itself, which brought this humane period of history to an end.
But as you also said, this whole discussion is academic, like every other discussion among paleoconservatives and libertarians. We’re sipping our port and refining our beautiful theories down to the last precious detail, watching from the side of the road as humanitarian liberalism marches on.
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Intellectual frenzy, real-life apathy. We sip our port and refine our beautiful theories. And complain anonymously on crummy comment-strings about how we sip our port and refine our beautiful theories.
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It is an interesting experience to read such beautiful, informative, and well written essays while, at the same time, realising that nothing is really being done to begin to even slow down the inertia of our descent into barbarism and tyranny.
Short of a flat out miracle, what is to be done? Mr. Paul is an admirable man but he got nine Americans to vote for him and, unless I missed it, there is no structure or program in existence that will carry on and so I will wait another decade or so until the next Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan or
Howard Phillips comes along to entertain us during the descent.
The only sensible “program” I am aware of is Catholic education within The Domestic Church. And then your children can “graduate” from that program and enact that “program” in their Domestic Church etc etc.
All else, especially anything self-consciously political, is doomed to failure.
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Mr. MacLaren, I wasn’t complaining! I like port and I like beautiful theories. Why else would I be referring to theoreticians like Carl Schmitt all the time? Beautiful theories, unlike port, are a luxury which should be permitted only to the politically powerless, like us.
There’s more to life than political theory, though. My own recommendations--take ‘em for whatever they’re worth--for a right-wing praxis are presumably floating around forever in past comment threads, so I won’t clutter up this thread by repeating them.
“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will!” Cheers.
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John,
Your points are well-taken and well-argued, and the knowledge of medieval history that both you and Tom Woods display is impressive, but you’re falling into the same trap as the Rothbardians in setting up the false dichotomy of public vs private. A protection racket is a protection racket is a protection racket. It doesn’t matter much whether the racketeers bear the labels “politicians”, “bureaucrats” or “police” and call themselves “The State” or whether they are called “businessmen” under the banner of “Joe’s Protection Service, Inc.” or whether they are called “mafiosi” or “gangbangers” under the banner of the “The Gambinos” or the “18th Street Boyz”. Having dealt extensively with politicians, bureaucrats, police, businessmen and “official criminals” in my various lives, I can say with some certainly they’re all pretty much cut from the same moral fabric.
The example of medieval Europe that both you and Tom use was neither anarchy nor “statism” in the modern sense, but “polycentrism” where authority, including legal authority, is exercised by a plurality rather than monopoly of institutions. Similar features were found in most other civilizations of time, including the Ottomans, the Japanese, and aspects of the traditional Hindu caste system.
On the evil of private protection rackets, I’ll quote Martin Van Creveld:
“I do not see that being stopped, or searched, or arrested, or imprisoned, or executed, by the employees of a private organization is superior to being subjected to the same indignities at the hand of the state’s own servants. This is true even if the private ‘security personnel’ wear uniforms, even if they have badges, and even if they disguise their power behind a carefully studied courtesy.”
On the evils of public protection rackets, I’ll quote the economist Steven Landsburg:
““[W]hen the Justice Department prosecutes an organized crime family,
I’m not sure which side to root for. Violent urban gangs are scary
things. So are police forces who face no competition in the market for
extortion. I don’t know which is worse….The best argument I’ve ever
seen against gun control was on a bumper sticker that said “When guns
are outlawed, only the police will have guns.”
Long live the ubermenschen.
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The descent into tyranny is because the average American will not simply walk a short distance each day up the hill, and gravity pulls him farther toward tyranny each day if he does nothing. The Paulites realize this.
And there is the contradiction. You would have to impose by force and against the will the liberty we seek. Perhaps reason will prevail, but like the Green Witch, someone needs to put out the tranquilizing fire even if they get burned in the process.
Else nature will impose something - but it will also be universal and far uglier.
The state is like a gun - it needs to be there but its use or even visibility is because of a failure.
And in “Paulville” - lets say I move in (are they for or not for immigration) and start a Thieve’s guild (extending to Assassination if needed). People will be happy to buy stuff from my fence-mart as they are from Wal-Mart (as the Chinese do in their air and water - similar to the pollution example in the post). Perhaps I will only steal from other states and let them try to do arbitration (of course the guild will have its own - the judges will have gavels, but it will be an auction, not a trial). And Rothbard had no use for laws against slander and libel which could be fun…
The difficulty is there are several errors which may be categorical. Most monasteries can survive “without the state”, but the abbot still rules within and the vow of obedience. Hermits can.
When you have cities, disputes, and a “community”, things aren’t as simple. First there must be universal rules. Coase’s theorem (the market works as long as ownership is well defined) is still part of economics. Having multiple arbitration agencies have different ideas of easements, commons, squatting, abandonment, makes for something worse than we have now. And all these things aren’t obvious.
We have a millennium of common law, much put into precedents and statutes as a foundation. The top layer may be cracked but I would not question the foundation too quickly. Since it is not a Gothic Cathedral it doesn’t look like it was hard to construct. But it is and was and also needs daily upkeep.
Properly perceiving the (natural) law is not easy, nor is applying it properly. I don’t know he has said we can just make it up ex-nihilo as we desire, but such would not aid liberty.
Freedom is hard and comes from carefully crafting and balancing things. And we have a long heritage to look at. Forgetting this is like the child that thinks food magically appears at the Grocery store. No, it must be wrestled from nature by farmers. There can be bad or incompetent farmers and the result is famine. And we can have states that are not run by statesmen.
Yet we know how to do it. It requires not so much knowledge as humility (like the first reading at Mass last sunday) - like Ron Paul. The temptation is toward both extremes - and anarchy is not so much no state as no law as they require enforcement and everyone enforces their whims (usually misnamed learned, well reasoned conclusions) - and tyranny is enforcing something which is not law.
State power should be approached like a “just war”. If the matter is not grave or immediate, there is no cause for violence. If it won’t work anyway or cause greater evils it ought not be done.
Passion rules reason, so although the answer is clear, it is overridden by greed (wealth transfer), anger (revenge, not justice), envy (regulation), etc. with pride - the hubris saying we know better how to run things.
But this hubris is also in Rothbard, and many others. They say a 5-year program for the economy is impossible because humans and the market are too complex. Then they turn around and propose Anarchocapitalism with great detail about these arbitration - insurance - protection agencies. What if the people don’t buy? And what if they buy evil like my thieve’s guild example?
Why are socialists full of hubris for suggesting how people should act - yes their 5 year plans would work for angels - but libertarians not exactly the same for suggesting the same KIND of thing requiring people to act in specific ways in their version of utopia? Rothbard pointed to pre-revolution american times. But they didn’t do complex commerce, nor were they able to last more than a few decades.
Paulville will have a perimeter. The first one on that perimeter who would rather be a petty king under the invaders than preserve the liberty of all will cause its downfall. Some things are collective whether we want them to be or not. Paulville will be flooded if even one owner refuses a levee.
I would think Mr. Woods would believe in the confessional. But if men are fallen, something must act to restrain their evil. And if good men won’t collectively make it clear that only the most egregious and universally recognized evils WILL be countered in unpleasant manners, they will be left to destroy the good men.
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I should probably clarify things a bit. I’m an admirer of Rothbard as well as Kirk, Nisbet, Weaver and other paleo heroes. I also admire both the Classical Anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin and the Catholic Distributists like Belloc and Chesterton, aristocratic radicals like Nietzsche and Junger and European New Right thinkers like Alain De Benoist. I’m a philosophical anarchist in the Stirnerite tradition, but I’m also a “conservative” in the realist tradition of Machiavelli and Hobbes that was rediscovered in the 20th century by some “revolutionary conservative” thinkers like Pareto, Schmitt, Mosca, Michels, Sorel, et.al.
The point is that the problem of power is never going away. There is no magical system or set of institutions that will solve that problem. It doesn’t matter whether we have rule by private fiefdoms, or public states or anarchist communes or theocratic religious enclaves, the human being is still a predatory animal, most people are still creatures of the herd, and it is the wolves rather than the sheep that get to the top. So the question is how do we keep the wolves at bay? And this includes the police wolves, politician wolves, and businessman (or union boss) wolves as well as the common criminal wolves.
I actually think the polycentric/decentralist/federalist/subsidiarity principle is a helpful one, but I also think this can be reconciled with both the conservative and anarchist, libertarian and communitarian traditions. So we really don’t need to spend a lot of time arguing about it.
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What a shame that you chose to run your exemplary essay on Switzerland in Frontpage:
http://frontpagemag.org/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7453
If there is to be a sequel,please consider focusing on a canton that is not the locus classicus of Appenzeller jokes.
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Appenzell ueber Alles!
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“In fact, it is impossible to imagine a successful society that would not insist on a public monopoly of deadly force—however wisely decentralized, and kept in check by an armed citizenry keenly aware of its right to revolt against a tyrant.”
That is a contradiction my friend. If power is a monopoly, then all power exercised is done at the will of the center of power. If power is decentralized, then there is no center of power, and no monopoly. Perhaps what you meant to say was that power was divided, in the sense that Federal Governments have power over the military, the local governments have power over zoning enforcement. But local governments get their power by decree of the center just like anyone.
“What happens, I wonder, when Bubba Rodriguez complains that Fallopia O’Reilly, who lives down the road, is dumping the waste from her pig farm in the stream where he likes to fish? He calls his protection agency, the Bonannos—who contact Fallopia’s agency, the Gambinos. They try to work things out. What happens if they can’t?”
What happens is that they fight, until they have had enough of fighting. Who is to say they shouldn’t be allowed to, provided they don’t interfere with anyone else? If the fight does spill over, the aggressor will find himself quickly overwhelmed. But of course the whole purpose of purchasing protection is so that you won’t have to fight. Hence they are more likely to find an arbitrator that they will agree on than to fight.
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Sorry Mr. Zmirak , as much as I enjoy your cheerful entreaties, I have to say a kind of arch reductionism runs rampant this time. So glad to hear that the State can be boiled down to the need for a taxpayer-funded thug to be dispatched to the thug next door in order to mete out a punishment decreed by the Honorable Judge God.
It sounds similar to the current slap-happy incarnation of our lapsed-Republic. Our esteemed Leedur listens to the God-Judge on his shoulder and dispatches thugs at whim whilst paying for it by printing currency at a manic rate. To make sure he stays busy, said Deesidur Leedur cons his way into a government sanctioned program of listening to everyone, everywhere, 24 hours a day and busily assembling a long Doomsday List of addresses to send his thugs to. He likely has a swell name for the document , like, say “Evil Doers Masterlist”
Government as simply an arrangement wherein one sells one’s dignity and independence in order to pay to have somebody else do one’s dirty work under the rubric of “law and order”. How inspiringly aspirational.
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That you should accuse someone else of reductionism while using the “reductio ad Bush” in
the most blatant and unmerited fashion is a delightful irony that I am sure everyone noticed, except for you.
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The last post was addressed to Dirk W. Sabin, who I am sure would not call the cops—oops,
I meant the “taxpayer-funded thugs” if “the thug next door” (maybe one named Romulus)
abducted his daughter.
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Awhile back, there was a controversy over at the Chronicles blog. I believe that Dr. Fleming
favorably cited some 19th century North Carolina Supreme Court ruling to the effect that
a father who severely beat his son was perfectly within his rights as a parent. Even
though the extent of the damage was such as to merit state intervention these days, or an
assault and battery charge back then, the court basically used a slippery slope argument
to say that if the state intervened to save a child from severe physical abuse, then the
father’s prerogative would slowly be chipped away. I think that Dr. Fleming more or less
agreed with that ruling. I agree with you, Mr. Zmirak. I don’t think that families have
“unlimited sovereignty,” virtually or in fact.
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Face facts: They were a lot more fun than the Opus Darien stiffs I’d met through Students for Life.
Hmmm…
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I was trying to think of some counterexamples, but the only ones I could think of were supernumeraries, not numeraries…
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Tobias, would you encourage DWS and like minded people to peacefully secede and put to the touch their theories regarding the State? Looking forward to your reply as well as DWS’ comments. The old Icelanders and the Irish had some interesting libertarian societies. For recent times, the Somali Xeer has some attractive elements also. ST
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“But this hubris is also in Rothbard, and many others. They say a 5-year program for the economy is impossible because humans and the market are too complex. Then they turn around and propose Anarchocapitalism with great detail about these arbitration - insurance - protection agencies. What if the people don’t buy? And what if they buy evil like my thieve’s guild example”
Interesting comparison between top down command economy and diffuse non-hierarchical structure, perhaps pre-Deng Peking vs Hong Kong? Most of our daily interelations are anarchic - do you not commit crimes against your friends neighbors, and strangers because Officer Friendly is watching you or because of your live and let live nature?
Provision can be made for those who cannot afford a-i-p agency fees, or are not able to understand the process, such as infant orphans. Anarchos get hammered either way by statists - either we have no solutions fit for the statist table or we are hyper-detailed to the point of absurdity.
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Once again, great piece by Zmirak!
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“Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism.”
Ludwig von Mises
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Dear all,
I heartily agree with Mr. Preston’s comment above wherein he said:
“...[T]he polycentric/decentralist/federalist/subsidiarity principle is a helpful one, but I also think this can be reconciled with both the conservative and anarchist, libertarian and communitarian traditions. So we really don’t need to spend a lot of time arguing about it.”
I think we should try to avoid re-drawing old lines of division (traditionalist v. libertarian, etc.) and instead try to:
(1) learn from what’s best in each of the traditions listed in the above-quoted
material; and
(2) See where purportedly irreconcilable differences among them may only be apparent.
From Nisbet (as well as Gierke, Maitland, John Neville Figgis), it has become quite apparent that to me that Individualism, Capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution in their bad senses (i.e. those features of these phenomena which are rightly objectionable to traditionalists and other non-Randroid right-thinking people), are in large part the product of aggressive state action which undermined the juridical bases of corporate, group, and associational independence and flourishing. Examples of such state action include the following:
The reception of some of the bad bits the reconstructed Roman Law, the late medieval adoption of the concession theory of corporate existence, restrictions on sub-infeudination (combined with Escheat), the Enclosure Movement, the dissolution of the monasteries, the Laws of Settlement, Chapelier’s Law, grants of royal monopolies, and the early poor laws.
As for legal pluralism (or polycentrism), and the lamentable decline thereof, much can be learned from Harold J. Berman’s masterful works on legal history: Law and Revolution - Parts I and II. One interesting point that Berman brings out is the way in which, following the Protestant Reformation, the various emerging states throughout Europe (including ones that remained Catholic) tended to more or less fully usurp the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Church (so, bringing the state into inter alia the welfare and education business).
Regards,
Araglin
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RE Tobias,
It is entertaining that there exists a group of people who demonstrate their undying support of the current Deficit-Spending Statist Escapade by accusing anyone who raises an objection to it as being either an anarchist or some gruel sipping pacifist. That someone might endorse the notion of a Republic over the Monarchy fer ijits we now have is never an option.
Then , like all good primates, they jump and bellow about the treetops , exhibiting fine Primate Threat Display and suggesting abductions for one’s daughter as a fit form of therapy for doubting the Imperium.
What, Grand Theft Auto not picturesque enough for you? Jackboots pinching a bit?
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Our Founding Fathers were smart enough to realize governments and economies can’t be based on utopian fairy tales, thus the deceptively simple, straightforward charter, checks and balances… But as a German observer (whose name escapes me) noted a few decades ago, democracies only last until their citizenries realize they can vote themselves access to the treasury.
You’re right anarchy just means chaos and law of the jungle. I’ve always suspected that “anarchists” used their gobbledygook “movement” as the front for a much darker agenda of assuming total control.
As your colleague Justin Raimondo wrote in this week’s Antiwar.com:
Armed ideologues have been responsible for all – not most, but all – of the catastrophic bloodbaths of the 20th century, and are no doubt slated to redouble their efforts in the course of the 21st.
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Anarchy is not scalable.
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Wow, Mr. Sabin, wow. Please calm down, okay, and read this slowly.
“It is entertaining that there exists a group of people who demonstrate their undying support of the current Deficit-Spending Statist Escapade by accusing anyone who raises an objection to it as being either an anarchist or some gruel sipping pacifist.”
What does the Iraq War have to do with Mr. Zmirak’s post? I don’t recall Mr. Zmirak accusing
anyone of being an anarchist or pacifist because they opposed the Iraq War. I don’t recall
(perhaps I’m mistaken) accusing you of being an anarchist or pacifist because of the Iraq
War. Do you mention this because I like Mr. Roach’s posts? Many of the people with whom
he argues do in fact use pacifist or anarchistic arguments against the war. Those arguments
fail not because they are opposed to the war, but because pacifism and anarchism are wrong.
So I don’t see how your comments are at all germane to this conversation. You reduced (as
it seemed to me) Mr. Zmirak’s argument against anarchism by comparing it to an argument
for Bush and the Iraq War. Clearly Mr. Zmirak doesn’t think that. So you made a huge
reductio, all the while accusing him of just that. That is the issue here, not the Iraq
War (can we have just one conversation at Takimag NOT on that subject?), and not George
W. Bush.
“Then , like all good primates, they jump and bellow about the treetops , exhibiting fine Primate Threat Display and suggesting abductions for one’s daughter as a fit form of therapy for doubting the Imperium. “
No, no, no. I did not threaten you at all, and certainly not because you oppose American
imperialism. You mocked Mr. Zmirak’s argument that we all like having a police force. As
far as I could understand your point, you said that a cop is just a thug. My point was
that you’d change your tune very quickly if you were the victim of the crime. I was pointing
out the fact that you probably would not practice what you seem to be preaching, and God
help your poor daughter if you did actually practice it. It was not a threat at all, and
I certainly wasn’t proposing it as a “punishment.” Sheesh.
“What, Grand Theft Auto not picturesque enough for you? Jackboots pinching a bit?”
No, no, no. I don’t need jackboots. I am quite happy with the current law enforcement
arrangements. I am happy that if my daughter or yours were abducted, there are trained,
professional, tax-payed, state-mandated, law-enforcement officers who would come into
save my daughter or yours. I don’t want your family hurt; my whole point is that I want
them saved. Sheesh again!
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To readers other than Dirk Sabin: were my original posts really so obscure as to lend
themselves to Mr. Sabin’s misunderstanding?
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Tobias,
Calm down? Aw come on, exactly what’s wrong with a good dustup? My disagreement with the good Mr. Zmirak’s article is that he ended or summarized his defense of government over anarchy by using the example of the need for police. There is far more to government than the rigors and demands of police. To emphasize or support one’s justifications for government with policing, over all else is to see little of liberty and much of enforcement.
This was curious to me because my experience with Mr. Zmirak’s musings is that they have far more to do with the pleasures of liberty than they do with police action. This is an unapologetic liberty in it’s fullest sense, religious and secular, intellectual and sensual. Though a man of faith, he is neither airy nor dogmatic and certainly not someone who I would surmise to be authoritarian in anything other than his own convictions.
Perhaps my knee jerk slamming of our Benighted President was a stretch but rest assured, his vision of government begins and ends with police action and we have seen what this mindset has done to our economy, our civil liberties, the functioning of our government, our opinion of intellectualism and, in fact the jingoization of Faith.
As to “sheesh”, don’t be so quick......insult at will, I enjoy a good thumb in the bloodshot eye, it distracts from the ongoing farrago. If I didn’t want my finer sensibilities both offended and obliged, I wouldn’t be reading this site, let alone Mr. Roach.
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The debate over whether or not anarchy is viable is moot. There is only question to answer: will you fight the rebels? If you answer no, you accept the abolition of the monopoly of power.
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“There is far more to government than the rigors and demands of police. To emphasize or support one’s justifications for government with policing, over all else is to see little of liberty and much of enforcement.
“
Yes, I know that there is more to govt. than the police. Police forces are not sufficient
to make for a good argument. But the need for the police is a sufficient argument against
anarchism. That was Mr. Zmirak’s point.
I wondered if you were in fact appealing to the higher functions of govt. I am glad you
were. But it did seem you were dismissing the police forces of govt. as somehow wrong or
unnecessary.
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Make no mistake, the highest function of any proper government should be limiting itself to the greatest extent possible. This is what the Framers attempted and it lasted a good long while and was productive in both secular and spiritual realms until authoritarian statists decided to replace it with militant and statute-happy Democracy at Gunpoint On A Spending Jag....a thing so preposterous that it would be hilarious if not so destructive.
Of particular interest should be the fact that the authoritarians generally practice anarchy in their own actions while demanding the total obedience and complacency of those they rule....in fear more often than not. Just as they have made Nixon look saintly....and liberal, the current Creeping Polizei State makes anarchy look somehow appealing.
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“Yes, I know that there is more to govt. than the police. Police forces are not sufficient
to make for a good argument. But the need for the police is a sufficient argument against
anarchism. That was Mr. Zmirak’s point.
I wondered if you were in fact appealing to the higher functions of govt. I am glad you
were. But it did seem you were dismissing the police forces of govt. as somehow wrong or
unnecessary. “
You are once again asking the wrong questions, and thus getting the wrong answers. The question is not whether it is right for the police to exist, but why it is forbidden for there to exist more than one police.
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Stranger—there are several police agencies. Local, state, federal. I am not asking the wrong
questions.
“Make no mistake, the highest function of any proper government should be limiting itself to the greatest extent possible.”
This is a mistake. The highest function of a thing is what justifies its existence—it
raison d’etre. The raison d’etre of a thing cannot be to limit itself. That’s like saying
the purpose of a thing’s existence is not to exist more than it does. The highest function of any
proper govt. is to fulfill the legitimate public needs for order, authority, and security.
It is supposed to fulfill those goals. Flowing from this positive role is the negative
role of not exceeding its parameters. But the highest function of a thing cannot be its
own self-limitation.
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To anti-Spartacus:
Having RC priests educate our kids isn’t the answer to our malaise, or haven’t you heard of a certain scandal that is sinking the church right now? And I am still waiting for the paleo-papalists on the site to stop decrying liberalism, etc., and write some blurb about what is awry in Rome today.
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Italic textThe raison d’etre of a thing cannot be to limit itself.</i>
Government is a necessary evil. The raison d’etre of any necessary evil should be to limit itself. The Founding Fathers knew this: To the extent that “rights” are reserved by the ruled, the rulers are constrained. Their power is limited. In this case, self-limited.
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Anti-strauss,
You said:
“To anti-Spartacus:
Having RC priests educate our kids isn’t the answer to our malaise, or haven’t you heard of a certain scandal that is sinking the church right now? And I am still waiting for the paleo-papalists on the site to stop decrying liberalism, etc., and write some blurb about what is awry in Rome today.”
Which was presumably intended as a response to I-Am-Not-Sparticus, who said:
“The only sensible ‘program’ I am aware of is Catholic education within
The Domestic Church. And then your children can ‘graduate’ from that program
and enact that ‘program’ in their Domestic Church etc etc.”
Unfortunately, what I think you missed was that “RC priests” would only be implicated in education “within the Domestic Church” in the event that such priests were in violation of their respective vows of celibacy.
Why? Because the term “Domestic Church” refers to the institution of the (Catholic)
family (i.e., husband, wife, and children). Next time if you want to riff on priestly abuse as a way of discrediting the Catholic Church, do it in a way that doesn’t entirely miss the gist of your interlocutor’s argument.
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Gee Araglin, I didn’t realize the Domestic Church is magically separate from the rest of the Church. I guess there’s no interaction with asexual priests in the Domestic one. If you want to pursue your silly fallacy, why should RC adherents go to church at all (they can stay domestic, at home).
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“...in the event that such priests were in violation of their respective vows of celibacy.”
To clarify, what I meant here was that, RC priests would only be involved in edu)cation “within the Domenstic Church” in the event that they had children of their own (which would thus give rise to a “Domestic Church"). I neglected to mention or deal with the canonical possibility (based on my quite-limited understanding of the relevant bits of the Fourth Lateran Council and the canon law) that a person could be lawfully wed and have children, be widowed, and then be ordained as a priest, but I’m pretty sure that is not the situation what
Anti-Strauss had in mind when attempting to respond to I-Am-Not-Sparticus. Furthermore, even if that <i>were<> the situation he was referring to, his point would still not be well taken, as none of the reported cases of priestly abuse of which I am aware involved abuse by priests of their own natural children
(which would be to pile the additional mortal sin of incest on that of pederasty).
Regards,
Araglin
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As a National Anarchist, I emphatically believe that my world would be better served without the State then with it. This is not for the sake of chaos and destruction- or even an abhorrence for the rule of law and a Natural Order- but a belief that has been proven in time that the goals of the ruling class in Western countries is absolutely opposed to freedom of association and a decentralization of political power. In a sentence, none of them are opposed to the political and economic effects of globalization and consumer paradise of multiculturalism, gender roles, sex change operations, and pharmaceutical mind control. I thereby reject the sovereignty of the state and it’s claim to legitimacy by the mere legal monopoly of violence. Especially the right of the State to refuse property owners freedom of association and the right to decide who is allowed to live on their property.
However, your argument against anarchism is fundamentally flawed:
“A Rothbardian anarchist collective where no one institution claimed a monopoly of force, where contracts were only enforced by voluntary arbitration, and rights were protected by private enforcement agencies.”
By this statement you reveal that you have no understanding of classical anarchism. “private enforcement agencies” are by definition anathema to anarchism and are instead the tool of capitalist societies, not post-capitalist. An understanding of what anarchism is like in practice would be possible with even a limited understanding of what happened in the anarchist controlled areas of the Spanish Civil War but you fail to mention that anywhere.
As a National Anarchist I am opposed to liberalism (and communism) in all it’s forms including all enlightenment ideals made catholic orthodoxies since Pax Americana and the French Revolution. So I’m a bit different from the run of the mill anarcho-communist that is so common today.
I contend that the further a people stray from traditional cultural structures it can be proven throughout history that they become the prey of history rather it’s subject. American materialism (and by extension, the collapse of European culture the United States engineered) is by definition vapid, shallow, and ultimately devoid of a distinct national character as Barak Obama perfectly embodies.
I believe it is a moral imperative to 1) limit the amount of government in our lives as much as possible, 2) reduce the importance of the economy in human affairs, 3) deny special interest groups the domination of government policy, 4) design society along organic and sustainable practices that is completely different from the artificial and unsustainable as it is today.
I believe that with these principles fully enacted in public policy all other problems in society will be able to resolve themselves within a relatively harmonious fashion.
For revolution,
BANA
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So many points to consider and I consider this issue as the primary issue of any political theory. First, I’d like to consider a few statements made here.
Quote: “Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism.”
False, because both anarchism and Liberalism are modernist and anarchism was reactionary response to the so-called “liberalism” of the English system of capitalism.
Quote: “I am happy that if my daughter or yours were abducted, there are trained,
professional, tax-payed, state-mandated, law-enforcement officers who would come into
save my daughter or yours.”
One, they don’t have to save your daughter at all. They are simply charged with enforcing the law against the criminal abductors and the Child Protective Services are largest gang of child kidnappers in the world. If you want someone to save your daughter call Blackwater International or some other PMC. They will do a better job.
The issue here is not the state or the form of sovereign control but whether the organization of power in society should be monopolistic or multi- variant. Anarchism is not merely rejection of the state but rejection enforced social hierarchy. The issue is complex because no free and decent society allows for complete domination of all political power in one place but on the other hand civilization doesn’t exist without certain level of cooperation required for large scale project for infrastructure such as irrigation, walls, roads and other environment improvements. Unfortunately, without a enforced social hierarchy people usually won’t participate in such necessary projects and instead become primitive and tribal. Indeed, hunter and gatherer tribal society have the least amount of social hierarchy because they are basically just extended families.
So what we are faced with absent sovereignty is a world of anarcho-primitivism (which is what a totally libertarian free market directed society would actually lead to and I’m not saying that is entirely without merit) but with sovereign hierarchies we face the evils of the state. Once we understand that utopia with civilization is not available to us then we can begin to think correctly about the political organization of civilized society understanding that “progress” has a price as does tradition.
Now I’m not sure I’m actually a conservative in the traditional sense because I really believe it is possible to re-organize society (slowly and at a cost) in a way that can improve the lives of most people culturally, materially, and spiritually. I’m not optimistic that this the likely course of events but I have hope that it is possible and I believe to work for such “progress” can be a good and moral thing to strive for.
I don’t have all the answers and I understand that no one does have all the answers to the problems we face in society and I understand the conservative argument that we should resist notions of “progress” because we do lack understanding and that in conservative philosophy must make our decisions on reality but taken to an extreme such idea would come to deny the reality that is human nature to be creative and alter things in nature with our ideas and thing God given power is gift to be used and not buried like the wicked servant did with his talent.
So that is where I am politically. Deciding between the ideas of “progressive” Benjamin Franklin and the Catholic thinkers like Chesterton. In our postmodern world I guess that puts me in the “conservative” camp but I’m sure I’m too liberal for some here but as least we have dialogue here without PC censorship unlike the liberal sites where I keep getting banned for being “racist” and “anti-choice.”
A good piece by John and I hope this series continues. As I said before this issue is foundational.
P.S. Good to see some National Anarchists here and they are best Anarchism has to offer.
I’m so tried of these anarcho-capitalist like Dr. Woods who pretend they are the only ones who hate the state and capitalism will save us.
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Is anarchy better than no government at all?
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When you have cities, disputes, and a “community”, things aren’t as simple. First there must be universal rules. Coase’s theorem (the market works as long as ownership is well defined) is still part of economics. Having multiple arbitration agencies have different ideas of easements, commons, squatting, abandonment, makes for something worse than we have now. And all these things aren’t obvious.
We have a millennium of common law, much put into precedents and statutes as a foundation. The top layer may be cracked but I would not question the foundation too quickly. Since it is not a Gothic Cathedral it doesn’t look like it was hard to construct. But it is and was and also needs daily upkeep.
Properly perceiving the (natural) law is not easy, nor is applying it properly. I don’t know he has said we can just make it up ex-nihilo as we desire, but such would not aid liberty.
Freedom is hard and comes from carefully crafting and balancing things. And we have a long heritage to look at. Forgetting this is like the child that thinks food magically appears at the Grocery store. No, it must be wrestled from nature by farmers. There can be bad or incompetent farmers and the result is famine. And we can have states that are not run by statesmen.
Yet we know how to do it. It requires not so much knowledge as humility (like the first reading at Mass last sunday) - like Ron Paul.
Well said. History has already discovered the optimum set of laws through the process of trial and error. Common law contains a collection of “best practices” in law.
I don’t think it’s worthwhile to try to hypothesize how people would react under various possible legal structures in order to determine, all over again, what principle is the best one to use to govern society, as this discussion attempts to do.
To discover the optimum general principle for governance would require analyzing enormous amounts of information, far more than any one person could process. In order for this principle to be generally applicable, there would need to be thousands of conditional prescriptions for every possible permutation, i.e. it would be need to be a set of laws, and in order to determine what these laws should be, every single societal factor would need to be defined and quantified. This is not a project that can be successfully tackled by intellectuals, and probably not even by scientists employing empirical analysis.
The best course of action IMO is to focus on the here and now; the situation we’re in, and using the collective wisdom found in tradition as a guide, decide what form of government would best serve America.
Any one with half a brain knows Ron Paul’s way is the best.
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If you want someone to save your daughter call Blackwater International or some other PMC. They will do a better job.
...With the understanding, of course, that you’ll have to pay these private enforcers an arm and a leg whether they find your daughter or not. The New Feudalism will have a downside, kiddies.
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“Stranger—there are several police agencies. Local, state, federal. I am not asking the wrong
questions. “
No, each of these is the only police within their jurisdiction.
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SFC,I am already paying ‘public enforcers’ plenty via property tax. Pub enforcers have no incentive t either prevent crime or to make good any losses I sustain. Crime going up means more State police and more laws. Under private insurance/investigation/restitution, multiple providers compete for my business. Hans Herman Hoppe has some excellent articles explaining the particulars. SFC does a commendable job probing for weaknesses in fre market system. His posts and similar ones are among the many reason I enjoy the articles and commentts at this site. ST
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“Anarchy is not scalable.
Posted by Patrick O’Connor on Jul 29, 2008.”
Neither, Patrick, does democracy. The whole idea behind anarchism is to decentralize political power as much as possible.
For revolution,
BANA
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Prof. Zmirak does a far better job, and with much more good humor than I, or perhaps many to show the errors of Prof. Woods’ position.
Nevertheless, as the subsequent back and forth over which police agencies would be more effective demonstrates, the primary argument against the “anarchist” position, from the Catholic perspective, is a principled one.
And that principle is that the State, despite its failures in this or that instantiation, is an inherent good--a perfect society, and necessary for the attainment of man’s end--the common good.
Even in the prelapsarian state, man would require an authority to lead him to the Common Good, because the reconciliation of frequently diverging private goods--not just the reduction of consequences from the conflict between them--but the very reconciliation itself requires authority.
Yves Simon made this point very well in his writings, as summarized in Thomas Rourke’s “A Conscience as Large as the World: Yves Simon vs. The Catholic Neoconservatives”
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BANA, I checked your website at http://www.bayareanationalanarchists.com/blog/. Excellent homepage - I particularly like your ‘notion of nationalism’. Bravo!. ST
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Right, Al, support the State that has worked to undermine and destroy the Church and Christianity, while turning abortion into a secular ‘sacrament’ that destroys thousands of innocent lives per annum. Can’t have a rival power to the false g*d Mammon, don’t you know. Wave those flags in the temples and pledge allegiance to the flag during church services while sending your sons and daughters as sacrifices to the State’s will. ST
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lew rockwell put it best: To restore the Church Destroy the State!
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Quote: “And that principle is that the State, despite its failures in this or that instantiation, is an inherent good--a perfect society, and necessary for the attainment of man’s end--the common good.”
Unfortunately the State’s “failures” are so massive I can hardly think one can argue that they serve any common interest at all. Consider that fact that because of the State we now all live in fear eventual nuclear annihilation. Is that for the common good?
Can any good that a State brings in creating order be worth the risk of total destruction?
The lion may drive away the vultures but what good is that when we are its meal?
The National Anarchism unlike the joke of Anarcho-Capitalism that Dr. Woods promotes is different from all other forms of Anarchism because it rejects modernist notions altogether.
Unlike Dr. Woods National Anarchism it doesn’t pretend that all the convinces of modern life and industrial economy will be available to everyone if the State disappeared. They in fact welcome the absence of those things and with good reason.
I’m torn between two visions of society. One of national anarchist distributist communities and the other of the American System of sovereign nation states.
Right now we have rejected both ideas and embraced naked Global Imperialism in the nuclear age and it will surely be the death of us all.
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Thanks for the compliment Simon! Feel free to join the forum at http://www.bayareanationalanarchists.com/forum and check out some affiliated movements we work with such as the Australian New Right: http://www.newrightausnz.blogspot.com/
For revolution,
BANA
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Simon, Septeus,
You again bring up particular failures of particular states. Which are no doubt true.
Nevertheless, despite all the failures of all the states from now till the end of time, the principle would remain.
The same holds true for bad families and Church corruption.
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Al,
One can refuse to impute to any one institution in society the full panoply of attributes of sovereignty (Immunity from suits to which it doesn’t consent, police power, general taxing power, escheat, etc.) without being committed thereby to denying the qualified goodness of certain kinds of authority and hierarchical relations. The state, in its modern Westphalian and/or Weberian sense is a contingent social configuration and ought not to be seen as the only capable guardian of the common good just because mouthpieces of states use that kind of rhetoric from time to time.
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Italic text
Under private insurance/investigation/restitution, multiple providers compete for my business.
If the private enterprise model extends to police and fire protection, a large segment of our society will be left to the looters, since it can’t afford such protection. And in times of economic downturn, when all industries cut back, reducing services and workforce, that vulnerablity may extend even to those who can pay. It’s doubtful banditos, rapists and pedophiles will hold off their rampages until a more bullish climate rescues our free-market nightmare.
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I also associated with these “utopians of the right” in my youth, but time and reality set
in, and the reality of the “deregulation” of the securities and banking industry under the
Neuter Gingrich congress just gave us banking conglomerates, the internet “dot-con”, Enron
and it’s abuses, and most recently the real estate speculation bubble and bust.
If the economy is more socialist, it is because the “reforms” of the free market
fundamentalists created financial chaos, that reguired the massive state intervention and
private investment bailouts that we see today. It the stubborn refusal of the “libertarians”
to see the reality of the “free market” that has created the “socialism” they complain about.
While I might admire the utopian vision of a purely “free society”, we have to live in the
real world of conglomerates, and constant wars to maintain the system of finance capitalism
that underpins the problems we see today in the US economy.
The so-called “free market fundamentalism” is really as mch as fantasy as the “true believers” on the Left, who believe in the vision of “pure” communism, when the state withers away, leaving behind a society of cooperation and love. It’s all bull-toss. And dangerous.
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Araglin,
That seems largely a semantic question.
Aquinas refers to the “state” (as the English Dominicans translate him) as a “civitas”. Several regimes are identifies in the management of the “civitas” as well as scopes for that authority.
Nevertheless, this is the “state” that the Church describes as a “perfect society.”
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Al,
Thanks for replying. I certainly agree that this may be a semantic issue. In that case, though, commitment to the necessity and goodness of the “state” in Aquinas’s sense of the term, may be entirely compatible with the outright rejection of the “state,” in its Weberian territorial monopolist sense. In that case, one could be a good Thomist without ceasing be an “enemy of the [Weberian, Westphalian] state” (and, in that sense an anarchist). This, by the way, is arguably the position occupied by Alastair MacIntyre.
Regards,
Araglin
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-----------I also associated with these “utopians of the right” in my youth, but time and reality set
in, and the reality of the “deregulation” of the securities and banking industry under the
Neuter Gingrich congress just gave us banking conglomerates, the internet “dot-con”, Enron
and it’s abuses, and most recently the real estate speculation bubble and bust.-----
All of these, save for Enron, were a result of the Fed’s credit manipulation. And for every Enron, you get 5 FEMAs. I’ll take the free market over socialism.
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“If the private enterprise model extends to police and fire protection, a large segment of our society will be left to the looters, since it can’t afford such protection. And in times of economic downturn, when all industries cut back, reducing services and workforce, that vulnerablity may extend even to those who can pay. It’s doubtful banditos, rapists and pedophiles will hold off their rampages until a more bullish climate rescues our free-market nightmare.”
Given the underclass’ possession of autos, tv’s, a/c, and even homes, you might be surprized at what the poor could afford. For the truly indigent or incapable, charity based on associational groups, such as church, civic, or other providers may work. Employers might offer security protection as fringe. You and I may have a fundamental disagreement on security provision - I believe that the individual has primary responsibility for his and his family’s security, and that the State interferes with such provision because of State aggarandisement, purposelly trying to turn us into adult infants in need of ‘Nanny State’. I also believe that the police could not control the criminals you list above if the #’s of bad guys were more than a small % of population. Criminals admit they fear armed and willing cits more than police. Kudos to your intelligent probings. ST
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It is worthy of note that both Mises and Marx promise a “withering away of the state,” but that the application of both ideas results in gargantuan states. Of course, they start in different places and walk different roads, but always end in the same place. Mises starts with a methodological individualism, while Marx starts with a collectivism, but both start with some flavor of reductionism, and both meet each other in practice, no matter how far apart they are in theory. As we have seen, politicians who grew up with Mises and Hayek grow the state and its powers no less than those who grew up with Marx. There is no functional difference between the two.
Man is a social being, and therefore a political being. No individual can accomplish his goals, even the goal of survival, without a social structure and context. However, the whole point of the social structure is to support the individual, or rather the individual family. And the family itself is a small society, a petty state. Any larger state can be judged solely in terms of how well it supports this small state. No other terms of reference are necessary.
I find disputes between Marx and Mises uninteresting; both lead to tyranny. Anyone--left or right--who promises the withering away of the state will wither only the rights of the family. The interesting political discussions occur entirely within the bounds of subsidiarity. What are the real needs of the family, and the real rights of other structures necessary to support the family? On this basis alone one can found an interesting politics, and, I might add, a sane and workable economics.
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“It is worthy of note that both Mises and Marx promise a “withering away of the state,” but that the application of both ideas results in gargantuan states.”
JD, there is no moral, political, or economic equivalence between the ideas of Mises and Marx. Thant the State has hijacked the economic bounty created by freer economic times is no more the result of Misean ideas than a mugging victim is responsible for his assault. In the US, the State is the greatest threat the family has ever experienced. ST
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Amin: “All of these, save for Enron, were a result of the Fed’s credit manipulation.”
Economic ignorance. All these problems were caused by the deregulation of the banking
industry, by repealing Glass-Steagall, which allowed the mergers of investment and consumer
banking.
The “free market” always results in chaos, and always results in bailouts by the State,
and bigger government.
The more “free” Amin and his fellow utopian fanatics claim to be, the more unfree the
results. Amin and Simon, you need to take responsibilty for that which YOU and yours
created.
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Reagan the “free market fanatic” NOt quite. The Reagan legacy was PROtECTIONISM! Reagan
put huge taxes on Japanese semiconductor and memory chips, “protecting” the US semiconductor
industry from the dumping the Japanese were doing.
Ditto with the auto industry. He put limits on IMPORTS of Japanese cars, and the result was
the Japanese built plants in the US, saving jobs and tax revenues. There are as many
jobs in the auto industry today as there were in the 1970’s...thanks to Reagan’s “protectionism"…
So let’s shut up about Reagan’s legacy---he was a protectionist. The HERO of the
“conservative” movement was a protectionist, and an economic nationalist.
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ST, I did not say that Mises and Marx were equivalent in their ideas; I did say that they were equivalent in the effects of their ideas. Both promise a withering away of the state; both deliver a gargantuan state. This is simply a fact of history; there are no exceptions, neither for Mises nor for Marx.
Hayek’s approach to economics became official gov’t policy in Britain in 1979 with the ascension of Thatcher, and in the United States with Reagan. Further, it became the official policy of the World Bank and the IMF under Reagan. Hayek’s ideas were forced down the throats of every developing country that accepted their “aid.” The results are always and everywhere dismal.
The United States had a total federal debt of $700B when Reagan took office; the debt tripled to $2.1T by the time Bush I left. Then it doubled, and doubled again, and now approaches $10T. Wages have been stagnant since the Reagan era, and the power of the federal gov’t has expanded beyond the wildest dreams of the liberals.
These are simply the facts of history, and facts that repeat themselves with appalling regularity in every economy that follows the Misean line. If you can point me to an exception--either for Mises or for Marx--then we have something to discuss. Otherwise, your dispute is not with me, but with history.
The state is, as you say, the greatest threat to the family, and that particular threat has only grown under right-wing gov’ts. But Mises does not recognize the family. His economics is based on “methodological individualism” which recognizes only isolated individuals. Despite claims to the contrary, such an economic philosophy is no more friendly to the family that is the socialism of Karl Marx. And both end in the same place. Neither thinker wanted want actually happened, but the law of unintended consequences is stronger than any abstract philosophy. And history is the laboratory; it alone tests the ideas and pronounces the results. Some will not read them, preferring abstractions instead. But history doesn’t care.
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JP, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Capitalism survives from gov’t bailout to gov’t bailout. Capitalism has never been able to provide stability apart from state re-balancing of the economy. Indeed, the last lingering elements of a “pure” capitalism died with the depression and its aftermath, World War II. People were fed-up; they had had enough and they weren’t going back.
The historical fact is that America in the period from 1853-1953 was in recession fully 40% of the time. Since then, that is, since the gov’t took full responsibility for economic stability, the economy has been in recession only 15% of the time. Moreover, what we call a bad recession would have been barely noticed in those pre-war days; our recessions are shorter and milder than the old sort.
I don’t think the system of quasi-gov’t control can continue much longer. The debts are too great and the inequalities too high, and each crises seems to require a geometrically greater effort than the last. Its time for something new. Marx and Mises have had their day. Keynes could find a compromise between them that worked, more or less. But I don’t think it can work much longer. It is time to get to work on something new, something which I suspect will be something old. but we shall see.
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‘The “free market” always results in chaos, and always results in bailouts by the State,
and bigger government.
The more “free” Amin and his fellow utopian fanatics claim to be, the more unfree the
results. Amin and Simon, you need to take responsibilty for that which YOU and yours
created.”
JP, if your thesis is true, then why are North Korea and Cuba basketcases? Our economy is so statist that for you to deny it and to insist that the US cit suffers from a surfeit of “free markets” is amazing. I sSee the extra tax revenue Reagan supplied the State as an unmitigated disaster - more food to the beast with an insatiable apppetite.You claim Reagan saved jobs - what about the jobs lost because of Reagan’s interferanence. The arrogance of people who think that they can control others economic decisions better than the primary parties.. JP, as I wrote before, the fruits of advanced statism in its corporatist form are here, but you blame the remnant of the free market for the economic meltdown. Why are India, China, Viet Nam, and other countries thriving economically through dereg and opening markets? By your reckoning, Soviet Russian and Maoist China should have been econ powerhouses, or were they suffering from free-markets, too? ST
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JM, can you direct me to any lit or website that supports even partially your last comment? That the State makes an econ great or ‘rescues’ capitalism is straight out of the government controlled ‘public schools’. ST
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ST, which statement would you like me to verify? That the economy was in recession 40% of the time but since Keynesianism only 15% of time? Check out the National Bureau of Economic Review website; they are the organization charged with calling the business cycle.
That the debt and the gov’t grew under Reagan-Bush-Bush? That should only take you about five minutes research to verify.
That the gov’t is constantly bailing out the capitalists? Have you read the papers lately? Have you heard of the airline bailout, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, JP Morgan, Chrysler, the S&L;bailout, or just the day-to-day subsidy of business through the Fed and a host of favorable laws, tax breaks, protective legislation, etc. (I’m sure I’ve missed some here.)
That Misesean policies have always and everywhere resulted in larger gov’t and greater debt? Name an exception.
I think that covers it. Is there something else you need?
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“That the gov’t is constantly bailing out the capitalists? Have you read the papers lately? Have you heard of the airline bailout, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, JP Morgan, Chrysler, the S&L;bailout, or just the day-to-day subsidy of business through the Fed and a host of favorable laws, tax breaks, protective legislation, etc. (I’m sure I’ve missed some here.)”
What you call ‘capitalist” I call ‘corporatist’, so we have a hard time discussing the issue, but I thank you for your reply. I agree that the corporatists Reagan and Bush are both frauds who helped destroy this US econ. ST
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JM, I forgot to ask you what Misean policies the State follows to: steal money at gunpoint and callit ‘taxes’ not robbery, regulate my purchases and much of my life, tell me what to say or think (not yet as bad as a total police state but the direction is clear, assume the power to reward its friends and punish its enemies through agencies such as the IRS, and bail out its financial cronies and enablers while turning the general economy into the Titanic after the fateful iceburg? ST
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ST, we have then come to a sort of agreement. But you still have a problem. Actually existing capitalism is always in this corporate or mercantilist form, and was true from its first days. Adam Smith devotes 3/4’s of the Wealth of Nations (1776) to documenting the support of the gov’t to the capitalists. Nothing has changed. The results of the Liberal Party’s attempt (from 1832 to the 1870’s) to impose a pure Laissez faire economy were a complete disaster, leaving us mainly the legacy of the workhouse and the works of Charles Dickens. This was indeed an attempt to impose a Misean form, an attempt that, like all the others, was a miserable failure.
Thus, you must either admit that these ideas have been tested and failed, and else try to maintain (contrary to the facts of history) that they have not been tried at all. But if you take this latter course of defense, then you must admit that you don’t know if they would work, since the only test is historical, and you would be claiming that your ideas have no actual history. So which is it? They don’t work or they’ve never been tested?
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JM, thank you for your thoughtful comment. Real free-market never been tried, but your remarks about 19th century England do ring a bell. I believe you are referring to Cobden, Spencer, and the Anti Corn Law ilk (I agree with them for the most part). The nightmare of unrestrained Dickensian capitalism is well disputed in several articles posted at http://www.mises.org. All I recall is that the reality of the time period is much different than Dickens depicted, based on the statistics from the era. Improved working conditions and rising prosperity basevolved from rising productivity and the division of labor - the State codified the results and took credit for defending the worker. When I think of the free market, I think of railroad magnate J.D. Hill, as described at mises. ST
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The vast majority of govenment bailouts are of regulated enterprises. The Fed,the banks Fanny Mae, the utilities, the farmers, the mortgage business. They are not free market. The regulated goverment controlled enterprises are not allowed to fail and we all pay the price.
Organized police departments have only existed for less than 200 years. How oh how did the world survive without all those policemen. I think we could get rid of about 75% of government and be a lot richer and more free. The over fed underworked police in my town could get by with virtually no one. The schools are bloated beyond belief. How did people get educated without public schools?
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ST, I’ve seen the Misean defense of 19th century capitalism. It is a-historical nonsense that flies in the face of all known facts. One easy way to spot the lies is the fact that they use averages rather than medians for distributional questions. Any competent statistician recognizes that immediately as bunk, a way to lie with statistics.
People did not reject laissez-faire because it was working, but because it wasn’t; they did not reject rising incomes, but falling standards. In the Misean fantasy world, everybody was getting richer, but just rejected it for no good reason. They cannot give an explanation why their paradise was rejected. But of course, the reasons are obvious to anyone not blinded by pure ideology: it wasn’t paradise and it wasn’t working. It never has worked, not in England, not in the United States, not anywhere. The statistics from the period are clear: constant and chronic recessions and depressions.
To OJ, the derivatives and securitization markets were not regulated, are not regulated. In fact, they’re not even measured; no one is really sure just how big they are. Of course, now they are likely to get regulated. This is the pattern of capitalist history. As Karl Polanyi points out, “laissez-faire was planned; planning was not.” So-called planning was always a spontaneous response to chronic market failures.
As for how people were educated before public education, the answer is easy: they weren’t. At least, not since the breakdown of the middle ages and the parish school. But then, that was a form of public education as well, wasn’t it?
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The only thing government does is try to pick winners and losers and then it backs its losers with cold cash in bailouts. The market lets the losers fail and go on to something else. The free market lets free people make the decisions when they buy and sell. The regulated market lets government bureaucrats blunder along stranging the lives of a free people.
With all due respect: who was better educated,the founders of this country, all home or church educated or the fools that rule us now?
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“People did not reject laissez-faire because it was working, but because it wasn’t; they did not reject rising incomes, but falling standards. In the Misean fantasy world, everybody was getting richer, but just rejected it for no good reason.”
To the extent that ‘people’ as opposed to the oligarchs and their court philosophers rejecttcted the free market, it is because folks eventually fall for the ‘free lunch’ bunco of the State. I leave to the curious to explore http://www.mises.org to examine the validity of your charges. Pre-industrial revolution England had its downsides in child mortality, with kids reported to be literally dying at the sides of roads. Industrial Rev helped to lessen child mortality by providing jobs to kids (other than stealing and begging).
“As for how people were educated before public education, the answer is easy: they weren’t. At According to deTocqueville, he was astonished at the level of literacy he found in rural America. He was able to have complex discussions of various issues re: current events as well as others throughout his travels. Ohter historians such as Sowell?, have remarked upon the high literacy level before the State started its indoctrination programs.. What it comes down to between our stances, JD, is that I believe I can work with you or anyone else without the State standing between us, with one of its hand out for loot and the other holding a club to remind me who owns my life (in its eyes only). ST
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Quote: “I leave to the curious to explore http://www.mises.org to examine the validity of your charges.”
Dude, I was raised on that crap. The first book I read on economics was “Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?” by Richard J. Maybury when I was 10.
I believed it until I read Hamilton and Franklin and came to understand history isn’t that simple.
I want to you to read The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation by Michael Perelman and check out Mutalist.org for rebuttal from a left-libertarian anarchist point of view (i.e. historical libertarian anarchists not a front for ultra elitist Mont Pelerin Society who reinvented British liberalism in right wing form and called it libertarianism).
Even Ron Paul said in the debates that one of the problems with the Industrial revolution
was that they didn’t respect property rights. A bit of short hand for saying that the capitalists didn’t respect the idea of property until it they owned it.
Quote: “JP, if your thesis is true, then why are North Korea and Cuba basket cases? Our economy is so statist that for you to deny it and to insist that the US cit suffers from a surfeit of “free markets” is amazing.”
North Korea and Cuba are basket cases because they are based on the anti-family and anti-human philosophy of materialism (like Mises and Marx) and the problems of command and control centralized economics. Also the United State practices economic warfare against those countries in fear that any general access to larger markets will discredit idea communism was the worst economic system ever. Communish was the worst political system ever but not the worst economic one. Stalin did oversee industrialization and periods of growth.
No one here denies that our economy is increasing statist and that is a bad thing. What we disagree about is the history of how we got here. What the standard libertarian line is that we failed to “deregulate enough” and taxed “capital to death”, we failed to promote enough “free trade” and those gosh darn are “Le-bur-al De-mo-crats.”
What we say is the increasing statist nature of our economy was the not lack of effort to liberalize the economy but the failure to understand the social basis for economic freedom is not found in ultilitarian and materialistic views of the nature of man. As a result the deregulation that took place served only as a basis for serving the needs of the wealthy and letting the wealthy crush the economic freedom of everyone else and they did so in the name of freedom. Libertarians failed to see would happen because they lack a correct theory of the moral social order and instead argue using the “no true free market” fallacy like the Marxist with their “no true Marxist” when excusing the failure of Communism.
Simon, we don’t hate markets but we understand that human beings are part of a transcendent order that is far larger than the individual human being acting a market. Simon, I want to see “free markets” (altought my idea of freedom my be different than yours) but I understand that we need a moral context in a humane society that allows for one to exist.
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S7, another good comment. Disagree with your conclusions for the most part. I believe in two-party trrade and wish to see the eventual elimination of the State’s interference in market exchanges with proper recognition of property rights combined with the immediate elimination of eminent domain.. Best realistic soulution for folks that think as we do is in BANA’s ‘notion of nationalism’ whereby our ideas as well as others can be put to the test. I do not agree with Hamilton’s economic nostrums, as he was a strong economic and political centralizer who wanted a unitary execurtive to rule as a virtual king. ST
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Would someone please answer Simon’s question: what specific Austrian policy recommendations have been actively followed and implemented by the US government? Last time I checked, we have a central bank and fiat currency, confiscatory levels of taxation, massive government intrusion into and regulation of the entire economy, state run schools, close and self-serving cooperation between government and big corporations, and constant attacks on property rights and freedom of association. These are the policies and practices of communist and fascist governments, not classical liberal ones; these are the policy prescriptions of the “Communist Manifesto”, not “Human Action”.
Also, opposition to the state does not entail opposition to morality and tradition. You can oppose minimum wage laws, for example, and still believe in and advocate for a just wage; you can defend the sanctity of marriage, charitable giving, traditional communities and the rights of workers and at the same time oppose and even loathe the state. Indeed, counterintuitive as this might seem, folks like Simon (if I understand him correctly) would probably argue that moral truth and traditional cultural would prosper and thrive without the state - and no less a traditional conservative (and Catholic) than Joe Sobran seems to embrace this line of thinking.
Finally, I think Simon’s main concern (and mine too) has to do with the morality of using force or the morality of coercion. Put differently, inquiring minds want to know: when is the use of force morally justified and when, if ever, is it morally licit for a single organization (the state) to claim a monopoly on the use of force. This is an important question, especially during these twisted times when the answer appears to be: the government can use force whenever it damn well pleases.
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Joseph, very strong and eloquent comment. What S7 and others may be missing, when considering cases such as N Korea, is that giving the State the power to control one aspect of life, (in this case commerce), ineluctably leads to a totalist state (PC, family destruction, rights curtailment, internal if not external militarization). What is especially galling is that the State does it to us with our own wealth. The State as the master vampire is an apt metaphor. The State hates light (history distorted by it and its court philosopjhers ), hides in darkness (secrecy acts), promises heaven on earth while destroying its host (society), and adds nothing of value to its victim but has as its ultimate objective its own survival. ST
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Mr. Zmirak: Absolutely beautiful article! Eloquent, logical, and utterly common-sensical, if I may say so.
But on one small point, Vatican II was merely a pastoral council; whatever is in its documents, it cannot overrule the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on religious liberty. While individual conscience cannot be violated, no one has the right to go around spreading heresies (i.e. libels against the Church Christ founded) and misleading others.
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I’m new here (just found this site recently) and I’d like to thank the author for a very interesting article. Also, I would like to say how refreshing it is to see civil discussion by such passionate people, and on the internet, no less!
Anyhow, very much enjoyed the article and the resulting discussions.
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JP: Economic ignorance. All these problems were caused by the deregulation of the banking
industry, by repealing Glass-Steagall, which allowed the mergers of investment and consumer
banking.
The Savings and Loans Crisis was largely due to the fed’s sudden increase in interest rates (a stop to the printing presses) in an effort to reduce inflation under Volcker’s tenure.
Regarding deregulation’s contribution to all this: undoubtedly changing the regulatory environment is going to have adverse affects, that goes without saying, and says nothing about whether having more regulations or less is better.
For every deregulation that has had negative repercussions, I can point to a new regulation that has had negative repercussions. For example the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was enacted in reaction to Enron, has made it much more difficult for American capital markets:
http://www.cfo.com/printable/article.cfm/9855360/c_9855575?f=options
Obviously regulatory stability is to be preferred, but the question is, do we want it stable at high regulations or low regulations? I prefer low regulations, and the stability that comes from a Constitution, rather than the whims of a reactionary Congress.
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