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Liberty and the Social Order – Part One
Introduction
The twilight of the Cold War – which had largely seen the question of freedom framed as a purely economic debate between “capitalism” versus “socialism” – led to a resurgence of the importance of cultural matters in libertarian thinking. A noted effort from around this time was the paleolibertarian movement, the aim of which was to restore the governance of individual freedom to traditional culture, customs and institutions as an antidote to the un-tethered, culturally relativistic, “libertine” influence of the counterculture in the preceding decades. Right-leaning libertarians today continue to press for the avoidance of hollow, abstract, cosmopolitan, universalist messages in favour of focussing instead on the importance of time, place, culture, custom, tradition, family and community.
In other words, there is greater awareness today that – in spite of their foundational importance – the mere legal application of libertarian principles (e.g. “non-aggression”) to the governance of social relations is not the last word to be said on the composition of a free society. Additionally, the sociological and psychological requirements of sustaining such a society must be given greater attention.
While I agree entirely with these efforts, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that grasping the nature of the (often) unwritten values, morals, traditions and cultural elements of a free society – much less how these things can be recruited as part of a political strategy – is likely to be straightforward. As such, this is the first of a series of five articles which will seek to address this complex subject matter in detail.
To introduce this series, we will devote this first instalment to some clarifications that will dispel a number of confusions and illusions I have seen dog these kinds of issue in discussions elsewhere – confusions which could lead libertarians down a wrong path. This effort will also serve as an indicator of some of the intricacies that we will hope to unravel during this series.
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Toward a Libertarian Political Strategy
[An Article from Free Life]
In my most recent article for Free Life, I discussed a number of ways in which libertarianism differs from many statist philosophies at the fundamental level. One of these ways is the fact that it is more accurate to regard libertarianism as a behavioural ethic rather than as a grand, political system. This present article will echo and develop this particular theme in order to lay some basic groundwork for a libertarian political strategy.
In my most recent article for Free Life, I discussed a number of ways in which libertarianism differs from many statist philosophies at the fundamental level. One of these ways is the fact that it is more accurate to regard libertarianism as a behavioural ethic rather than as a grand, political system. This present article will echo and develop this particular theme in order to lay some basic groundwork for a libertarian political strategy.
Can we “Push the Button”?
The dedicated libertarian should want to see an end to statism in the quickest manner available. For those who adhere to more of an “anarchist” philosophy, such a desire would mean consigning as much of the state as we can to the dustbin of history in the shortest possible time; for those who lean more towards minarchism or to some other level of tolerance of a “nightwatchman” state, it would entail confining the state’s functions to the provision of defence, law and order, and to one or two minor roles.
A fitting example of this kind of fervour came as early as 1946 in a lecture given by Leonard Read entitled I’d Push the Button. Read imagined that, if there was a button in front of him that would release all wage and price controls immediately so as to restore the genuine free market, he would push it, without question. While Read’s preoccupation was with the specific kinds of state interference he specified, the symbolism of a giant, red button bringing about instant, radical change was likely to make a lasting impression during an era in which the very real spectre of the nuclear button was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Decades after Read’s lecture, Murray N Rothbard advocated extending the notion of button pushing beyond wage and price controls, demanding “the instantaneous abolition of all invasions of liberty”.
It is true, of course, that any form of injustice should be removed by the quickest means possible, taking precedence over any other consideration. When confronted, for instance, by the institution of slavery, it is difficult to argue that the emancipation of those toiling in bondage should rank below the welfare of the slave masters, or the “practical” concerns of transitioning to a new labour system. Moreover, twentieth century examples of where free markets have flourished, such as in Hong Kong under John James Cowperthwaite, and in New Zealand under Roger Douglas, succeeded precisely because they were radical and uncompromising in sweeping away socialistic rot.
In stating this, however, we should remember that the adjective possible is as operative as the word quickest. Thus, while the notion of “pushing the button” may serve as a useful symbol, or metaphor, for keeping our eye on the ultimate goal, we cannot allow a literal interpretation of it to blind us to the realities of working towards a freer world. To analogise, a lottery win would very much “push the button” on one’s own lifestyle, delivering untold riches in an instant. But if the lottery player was to eye only the glittering prize, whiling away his days spending all of those millions in his head, then he would end up discarding all reasonable and practical steps towards becoming wealthier over time. Given that the cold, hard reality of probability all but guarantees his loss in every draw of the numbers, this kind of gambler consigns himself to the status of a romantic dreamer rather than that of a practical person.
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Every State is in Anarchy
One of the most frequent objections to positing a world without states is that a free society will be devoid of any kind of law and order. Wouldn’t we all descend into lawless chaos? Isn’t it part of human nature that we will all up fighting each other? Can a free society actually work, or is it just a utopian dream?
Most likely, the libertarian will reply to this searching question with an explanation of how private security and justice firms will work to keep the peace. In addressing the further allegation that such entities could themselves end up fighting each other to the bitter death (until one of them emerges victorious as a new “state”), he might explain how any wanton use of violence will simply lead to a loss of customers and revenue, well before much damage can be done.
While these answers may be cogent, they are still unlikely to proceed beyond the point of mere speculation that never quite does enough to dispel every last shred of doubt. (This is, indeed, a general difficulty with any practical argument in favour of freedom; whereas socialists and statists can lay out impressive blueprints for the production of everything, our aim is to set people free so they can fulfil their own plans. As such, we have no precise idea how any particular industry will be run in a free society.) This is exacerbated by the fact that “anarchy” – which, technically, a world without states would be – is, indeed, always associated with chaos, disruption and disorder. Thus, we always seem to be on the back foot.
Fortunately, a solution is at hand; the best way to dispel the question “how will a free society work?” when it comes to the matter of law and order is, in fact, to redirect it by asking: how does the state work? Just why does the state structure apparently create order yet any alternative is unlikely to do so? What is so special about the state?
The typical answer to this is that the state acts as some kind of extra-societal “umpire” or “final arbiter” that would simply be lacking in a free society. Without the consolidated authority of the umpire in a cricket match, or the referee in a football game, the calling of sixes, outs, goals or whatever would be a free for all.
But this raises the question: why does anyone listen to the umpire? An umpire in, say, a cricket match is obeyed only because the combined weight of players, spectators and cricket associations serves to cement his authority on the field. If all of these, or just a significant number of them, were to withdraw that endorsement then the umpire could shout “Six!” and “Out!” until he was blue in the face, but it would have no effect on the game.
Similarly, therefore, why is it that, in Great Britain, the relatively insignificant number of 650 MPs (and, in practice, just a few dozen government ministers) can declare a rule to be a “law” which is then implemented, enforced and adhered to by a population of 65 million? Why is it that all of the different components of the state – Parliament, the judiciary, the police, the civil service, etc. – together with the general public work towards enforcing and obeying what a bare handful of them has written down on a piece of paper? Why don’t the state agencies just feel free to ignore each other and do their own thing, and why don’t the public – which outnumbers them heavily – just ignore all of them? If all of this was to happen, who would step in as the “umpire” to resolve the situation, and how would he enforce what he says? When framed in this manner, does not the prospect of the state “working” seem to be the absurd proposition?
These, and similar questions, have been addressed by anarchist philosopher Roderick Long:
Who […] is the “final arbiter” in the U.S. system? The president? He can be impeached. The Congress? Its laws can be declared unconstitutional. The Supreme Court? Its rulings can be ignored (as Andrew Jackson did), or it can be bullied into acquiescence (as Franklin Roosevelt did). The voters? They can be disenfranchised by state law. The state governments themselves? Ask Jefferson Davis. Sovereignty does not reside at any single point in the governmental structure; any ruling by one part can in principle be appealed, or overruled, or simply ignored, by another — just as under anarchy. If most of the time the various components of government achieve relatively harmonious coordination, what enables them to do so is not a “final arbiter.”
[…]
[G]overnments are composed of people, not impersonal robots; and being part of a government doesn’t make people any less likely to have disagreements […] What happens, then, if, say, a legislature makes a determination […] and a court strikes it down as unconstitutional? Well, sometimes such disagreements lead to violent conflict — civil wars, coups d’état, and the like — but usually they don’t, because the existing incentive structures tend toward cooperation. Economic theory and historical evidence alike indicate that the answer is much the same under anarchist legal systems.
A government is not an individual; it is a large number of different people, with different interests, interacting. And no one member of that group, unless he or she is a Kryptonian, can by his or her own personal might secure compliance from the others. Moreover, all the members of government combined possess insufficient might of themselves to subdue all those they rule, as well. Thus no government can achieve anything unless there exists a substantial degree of cooperation, both within the government on the one hand, and between the government and the governed on the other. If such cooperation were impossible without some higher agency to direct and enforce it, then the higher agency itself would be impossible for the same reason. There is never a “final arbiter.” There is no such thing, actual or possible, on God’s green earth.
What is possible, and often actual, is that an existing pattern of institutions and practices proves stable and self-reinforcing — that people act in ways that give one another an incentive to keep cooperating, for the most part. Certainly no legal system can function unless most disputes end up getting practically resolved one way or another. But in real-world legal systems (whether state-based or stateless), most disputes do not go unresolved forever — not because there is a “final arbiter,” but because the patterns of activity in which most of the participants engage or acquiesce don’t allow the indefinite continuation of disputes.[1]
Thus, if there is no final arbiter holding the state together in harmony, then there is no reason for it to be necessary for non-state social structures to operate either. Or, to put it another way, the kinds of “stable and self-reinforcing” “incentive structures” that cause people to co-operate in making the state “work” are precisely the same kinds of mechanism which will enable voluntary social structures to work too. The cricket umpire and the football referee never “conquered” their respective sports and enforced their authority as a “final arbiter”. Rather, it was in the interests of all the people who enjoy the game to provide a mechanism that prevented “the indefinite continuation of disputes”.
The real difficulty that libertarians face, therefore, is not the “practicality” of keeping peace in a free society; it is dissolving the network of incentives that have wedded people to the state structure. If people were to reject the state while recognising alternative, more liberating social structures to be good and beneficial, then the power of the state will wither, and liberty would prevail. It is not impossible, utopian or contrary to “human nature” – it is solely a product of people being motivated to choose more peaceful social structures over more violent ones. In the words of Étienne de la Boétie:
From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.[2]
But the further upshot of this is that, next time someone tells you an “anarchist” society could never work, you have a ready reply: we are already in one!
---
Notes
[1] Roderick Long, Anarchy Defended: Reply to Schneider, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 21, No. 1 (Spring 2007), 111-21 at 114-5 [emphasis in the original].
[2] Étienne de la Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, Black Rose Books [c .1550] (1997), 53.
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Freedom – the Law of the Jungle?
It is often asserted that a system of free market capitalism reduces everyone to the level of animals, subject to the "law of the jungle". Similar emotive epithets accuse capitalism of being little more than a "dog eat dog" or "winner takes all" economic system. However, as we shall see now, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Under a capitalist system all property is privately owned, and all legal exchanges must be voluntary, not coerced. However, for a voluntary exchange to occur both parties must expect to benefit from the exchange. If they did not expect to be better off then neither would have made the exchange. The exchange is therefore productive as it is designed to leave each party with something that they deem to be better than what they had before.
Once you extrapolate this to an entire economy, we can see that the very reason why capitalism is able to lift whole populations out of the slum of poverty is because people invest in the production of goods that other people want to buy. They then trade these goods for other goods that they themselves want. Everyone's lives are better off - it is a plus-sum operation that creates more for everybody.
Contrast this, however, with state intervention. Such interventions, such as taxation, are involuntary, i.e. the taxed individual has no choice as to whether the exchange occurs. But if he would not have made the exchange voluntarily then it follows that he does not regard the exchange as being to his benefit compared to an alternative. Instead of having his tax money taken to be spent on the salaries of bureaucrats, he might have preferred instead to buy a new suit or car. Hence, while the state benefits, the forced giver manifestly does not. Further, as it is not possible to measure utilities between individuals we cannot say that the eventual recipient of the funds gains "more" than the tax-payer loses.
In contrast to the productive nature of capitalism, taxation and other forms of coerced exchange are, therefore, fights over existing goods; the state wades into an extant process of production and decides that someone other than the productive party should possess those goods. In contrast to capitalism, this is manifestly a zero-sum game, with one party reaping what another loses.
What could be closer to the law of the jungle than this? Animals in the jungle are not productive; they fight with other animals for the restricted goods that nature has offered them so that they may survive. What one animal gains another animal loses. "Dog eat dog" is therefore a more appropriate description of political fights for taxpayers' money rather than for free exchange.
Finally, "winner takes all" would be a more apt description for democracy than for capitalism. With private property and free exchange, the minority does not have to restrict itself to purchasing the products and services that the majority wants. Most people might decide to shop at the mall, but that does not force others to do so; they are quite free to continue spending their pounds or dollars at a boutique. In a government election, however, the minority – the losers – always has to put up with the successful candidate, even though they may have wanted neither him nor his policies. Such a system benefits only the majority – the winners, who take all – at the expense of the hapless losers.
Criticising capitalism as a “winner takes all” system is usually the effort of those who - on account of their own inability to serve the needs of others - believe that they have failed to benefit sufficiently from free exchange. To remedy this, they want to take what other people have to fulfil their demands for "fairness" or "equality". As we can see, however, it is the resulting squabble over existing resources which would truly reduce human civilisation to the law of the jungle.
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