Who’s Really Being Naive?
Posted by Kevin Carson on Aug 24, 2010 in Commentary • 18 commentsIt’s quite common for mainstream liberals to dismiss as “naive” and “utopian” the anarchist vision — all varieties of anarchism, not just market anarchism — of a society governed by voluntary associations between free people. Without the state to prevent it, society and the economy will be dominated by the savage, combative, greedy and self-centered.
But if anything is naive and utopian, it’s the view of the state as something that protects ordinary people against big business. If the liberals’ implicit Hobbesian view of human nature is correct, rather than my Kropotkinian view, then we’re all doomed in any case.
So it’s utopian to believe that the ruthless people in charge of businesses will be restrained from making those businesses bigger and bigger at the expense of their competitors, or the ruthless rich will be restrained from getting endlessly richer and richer at the expense of a progressively poor working class and disappearing middle class, by the simple removal of entry barriers and the presence of unfettered competition. But apparently, in the mainstream liberal view of the world, it’s not utopian at all to believe that simple procedural rules and paper restrictions can prevent the state from being controlled by the same ruthless people for their own ends.
Frankly, in terms of gritty realism, I’ll put my belief in the power of market competition to restrain business against their belief in the power of democratic majorities to control the state, any day of the week.
The state, since the beginning of history, has been the instrument of a ruling class. It first came into existence when human predators figured out the peasantry produced a sufficient surplus to be milked like cattle; since then, starting with the king, priests and nobles, moving on to feudal landlords and capitalists, one ruling class after another has been milking us.
It’s utterly naive and utopian to believe a majority of the public can exert meaningful control over the state apparatus. A minority of insiders will always have an advantage in time, attention span, interest, information, and agenda control over those of us on the outside. The average person on the outside only has a limited amount of time or energy for maintaining an interest in politics, after dealing with the primary issues of work and family, friends, and local community. But for the elites that control the state, politics IS a major part of their daily work and social life. Can anything be matched for sheer naive optimism with the belief that, in the long run, we can maintain a higher degree of vigilance over the functioning of the state than they can?
If the state exists as a level of economic control by which a ruling class can profit, you’d better believe the most savage, combative, greedy and self-centered will always have a leg up in gaining control of it. Our only hope, in that case, is that the self-centered savages who gain control of the state will be smart enough to see it as in their self-interest to take good care of us so they can get more work out of us. That’s essentially what happened in the New Deal. The so-called “progressive” policies of the 20th century were brought about, not by democratic pressure (as in the Art Schlesinger received version of history), but in the interest of one faction of the capitalist elite.
So anything done by the state to make our lots more bearable will be done, not because the state is “all of us working together,” but as a side-effect of plutocratic and managerial elites pursuing their own self-interest. Apparently the same people who cannot be trusted in the economic sphere become fully trustworthy when they’re sitting in the “executive committee of the ruling class.”
May the liberals’ illusions rest kindly on them.
C4SS (c4ss.org) Research Associate Kevin Carson is a contemporary mutualist author and individualist anarchist whose written work includes Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective, and The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto, all of which are freely available online. Carson has also written for such print publications as The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty and a variety of internet-based journals and blogs, including Just Things, The Art of the Possible, the P2P Foundation and his own Mutualist Blog.
Frankly, in terms of gritty realism, I’ll put my belief in the power of market competition to restrain business against their belief in the power of democratic majorities to control the state, any day of the week.
Great line!
I generally agree with Hobbes' assessment of human nature. I think where his political theory goes wrong is with his call for an all-powerful sovereign to restrain the excesses of human aggression for the sake of creating and preserving civilization. The obvious flaw in this theory is summed up with the question: Who guards the guardians? That's why I think Proudhon had it right with his assertion that "liberty is the mother of order." Liberty might be thought of as a kind of "separation of powers" that creates a zone of autonomy around each individual, and as individuals are subsequently allowed to fluorish, civilization also fluorishes.
The history of the development of modern liberalism follows something of a linear path with a trajectory that starts with Hobbes' view of the state as the guardian of civilization, the Lockean view of the state as a neutral umpire that protects rights and upholds objective laws, and the Rousseauan view of the state as the expression of some mythical general will. Arguably, modern left-liberalism has a Marxist strand to it as well, one that regards the state merely as an expression of class power (or of privileged demographic groups). The Marxist view of the state is more reasonable and represents a more advanced critique that its predecessors, but it has the same "who guards the guardians" problem as the pure Hobbesians. Its idea that a state can ever me a mere instrument of democratic popular rule was debunked pretty well by the elite theorists.
Once the illusion behind all of these theories of the state are punctured, that only leaves anarchism.
“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realisation, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”
– Edward Abbey
Keith Preston — "The Marxist view of the state is more reasonable and represents a more advanced critique that its predecessors, but it has the same “who guards the guardians” problem as the pure Hobbesians. Its idea that a state can ever me a mere instrument of democratic popular rule was debunked pretty well by the elite theorists."
The Marx influence ignores the state's vulnerability to corruption by forces other than capital. By demonizing "capital" Marx ignores what makes people pursue "capital" with such ruthlessness. It's not something specific to "capital" but rather, base human insecurity, greed, power-lust, and the need for domination of others. Marx's views cannot control these problems by acceding all power to the state. That's its central flaw, the Marxist naivete about human negative impulses. The naivete is in ascribing those impulses to "capital" when they are attributable to being HUMAN.
Karl Marx was a nice snake oil salesman. Lots of people bought the snake oil and continue to ingest it and rub it on their aching craniums. But as with most forms of snake oil, the offered palliative never arrives.
“not by democratic pressure (as in the Art Schlesinger received version of history), but in the interest of one faction of the capitalist elite.”
I don’t see a conflict between a democratic pressure explanation and a self-interested elite explanation. In fact, democratic pressure (including the threat of revolt) is what turns concession into the savvy self-interested elite move. I assume Schlesinger’s version imagines a kind of pressure that ignores or runs counter to this elite self-interest story, wherein the sentence make sense. It just seems like an awkward juxtaposition.
The nature of human beings does not automatically lead to the conclusion that individuals must be ruled by others in order that there be orderly interactions between them. Society, just like any other natural system can be naturally self-regulating by means of interactions between its members, if only humans seek to discover and are allowed to implement the methods by which such self-regulation can be effective, rather than continuing to embrace social systems that need to be constantly held in an unnatural (and very unoptimal) state of balance by the operations of their rulers and other influencers. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are fully adult (particularly meaning self-responsible) humans. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become psychological and social adults – if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not achieve their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently.
Understanding the social interaction methodology by which more individuals would progress to become fully socially mature adults requires a paradigm shift in thinking about human interactions.
Dismissal as “naive” or “utopian” and inability to adequately respond to such descriptions of a potential society without government comes from lack of knowledge and/or understanding of the theory of Social Meta-Needs, which stands in strong contrast to the inconsistencies, inadequacies and ambiguities of virtually all writers of libertarian anarchism.
@Jacob: Oh my God, awesome quote.
@Kevin: I know one person who's being particularly naive on the P2P Foundation website. Could it be he was the inspiration for this piece?
Marcel: It was actually sparked by an old exchange on a Progressive Review comment thread.
It’s utterly naive and utopian to believe a majority of the public can exert meaningful control over the state apparatus.
There is ultimately one vote that counts: getting up and leaving is a vote of no-confidence in the State.
See Detroit, 2010. See the exodus of business from highly taxed areas. New York in the 1970s, California over the last decade.
Brian wrote: getting up and leaving is a vote of no-confidence in the State.
Very true and were there locations currently without government, exodus to them would be a true solution to the problem.
For hundreds of years, the relatively benign governments of North America (especially the US) were the relocation goal of thousands of men and women (many bringing along children) consciously seeking to leave States seen as obstacles to better lives, if not actually physically oppressive in nature. They were definitely “voting with their feet”, voting “no confidence” in the particular State they sought to leave. (Many literally ran a gauntlet and died in their attempt to leave.)
However, there is another action that can be taken but I suspect is still rarely done, even by many self-declared libertarians – withdraw or do not initiate voluntary association with government enforcers.
If only a relative few in a group/population are willing to be enforcers of the rulers (aka government), then the rulers rather quickly lose their ability to get their decisions/decrees/mandates/rules/laws/etc enforced, including their desired wars fought. The rest of the population will simply ignore the written/spoken utterances of the rulers and go about their own affairs/business. It is when significant portions of the population are willing to initiate force on others – whether they be some “foreigners” at a distance or some of their own group/population – that the decrees/mandates/etc become a real problem. The politicians and bureaucrats – rulers – do not get out into the field and enforce their own legislation/decrees/mandates/etc. Instead they depend on the enforcers to do the dirty work. Therefore the enforcers are the key! Politicians and bureaucrats simply talk and write, even when it is to give orders.
Consequently the route with highest level and longest term potential for change is for large numbers of the non-enforcer population to make known to the enforcers they know personally their own dislike of government decrees/mandate/etc enforcement *and* why – the physical harm that is done to persons and property being a simple statement to make. For those enforcers who disregard such an approach (which recommended should include offers of assistance in finding a truly productive job) and continue in their positions, withdrawal of voluntary association is the appropriate next action, making it known to others so that they too can withdraw their association with the enforcer, adding to the persuasive effects. To continue voluntary association with such government enforcers is hypocritical of anyone who is anti-war, and especially so for those who are entirely anti-State.
This selective (discriminating) association to exclude those who cause harm – and also toward those who support such harm causing – is a potentially very powerful method of non-violent action, referred to as ostracism and shunning by many down through the ages. It is included in Gene Sharp’s 2nd volume (of 3), “The Politics of Nonviolent Action”, Chapter 4, “The Methods of Social Noncooperation”. I and husband Paul Wakfer use the term “negative Social Preferencing” for purposeful non-voluntary association (contrasted with positive Social Preferencing towards those who do provide value) and have described how it is the ultimate effector of social order in a truly free society (The Freeman Society) – http://selfsip.org/solutions/Social_Preferencing.html
it sounds like the anarchists and the statists are both naive, along with the middle road of keynesian economics. a true middle ground would be a republic where the capitalists aren't allowed to bankroll the public through the sinful and parasitic FIRE industries: financial (money creation), insurance (claims bookie), and real estate (rent or making a profit on god's bounty: undeveloped land values and natural resource values). the republic should reign in the "reap-what-others-sow" structure and make those public institutions. the government should issue greenbacks in lieu of taxation, ban financing public debt with bonds, provide insurance, and tax undeveloped land values and natural resources (which includes a tariff on exports and imports). with a minimum government financed to protect the rights of the individual, economic and civil, the people should be able to keep all that they sow, labor and capital, untaxed, and if anything is left over after financing a minimum government, citizens should receive a citizen dividend … their share of god's bounty (the profit of the earth) and economic growth (monetary expansion necessary to prevent deflation).
what i promote is a sort of political economics that the bible and founding fathers (the classical economists) all promoted.
anarchists are naive. they can successfully attack the current state, but they can't defend their own position. they just say, look, the implementation of the state failed, anarchy is the solution. true anarchy is impossible. any anarchist version of the state is statism itself. you still have to define what the role of the state should be. anarchists are lazy. they don't provide what the role of the state should be, and when they do, it is usually funded by banksters, like the rockefeller foundation and william volker fund, when they funded anarcho-capitalism, which is incorrect statist solution which favors the financial, insurance, and real estate barons. anarcho-capitalism is statist feudalism.
in other words, you can complain about statism, but until you can define what you think the state should be without parroting banker propoganda from the ludwig von mises institute, stfu. you contribute nothing. you are a failed political idea full of contradiction in the free market of ideas.
i should clarify why pure anarchy is impossible. whenever you have 2 or more people in a given region, a socio-political order emerges… statism emerges. to say since it emerges through anarchy or the free market it is righteous is naive. that is a circular argument. the same could be said about all failed states… they emerged out of anarchy.
i'm going to leave a key preemptive argument.
government causing inflation isn't a threat. government causing deflation is the threat.
inflation robs the lender (the rich). deflation robs the borrower (the poor and the enterprising). monetary-supply inflation allows economic growth (it promotes not only spending and investing, it allows more poor to join economic activity through employment and allows increased productivity without experiencing deflation). deflation (whether caused by economic growth or reduced money supply) kills economic growth since it promotes holding onto wealth rather than spending and investing wealth.
the rich have the means to influence government to stop inflationary creation of money. if you ban financing of public debt with bonds, like jefferson suggested, you don't have the special interest of wasteful spending. the rich bond holders love for the government to extract interest from the producers. you want to ban financing of public debt with bonds.
you want money creation out of the hands of the bankers. you want it in the hands of the government. financing government with monetary expansion necessary to prevent deflation caused by economic growth is much better than taxing what others sow. all engaged in economy activity contribute to economic growth. all producers own economic growth, not the bankers, not the gold and silver traders, and not the gold and silver miners. if you want coins, do like caesar did to build the roman empire, mint cheap coins, brass and copper. hard to counterfeit, but cheap to provide necessary monetary expansion to prevent deflation.
re: "i should clarify why pure anarchy is impossible. whenever you have 2 or more people in a given region, a socio-political order emerges… statism emerges."
There's a bit of ambiguity above, so I can't say precisely which of these two intellectual errors you committed — only that you committed one or both of them.
1) You just used different words to say "anarchy is impossible because anarchy is impossible". This is referred to as a tautology and is considered a species of fallacious argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_%28rhetori…
2) You took it for granted that any social order is a "socio-political" order when what you're arguing against is advocacy of intentionally developing a non-coercive social order — i.e. a "socio-nonpolitical" order. Again, you would be assuming what you purport to demonstrate and the argument fails miserably.
Keith: Please tell me where I have EVER "parroted banker propaganda from the Ludwig von Mises Institute." Until you can do so, maybe YOU should "stfu," take some Lomodil for your diarrhea of the fingers, and learn some basic rules of civility.
Following up on Brad Spangler's response to the primary (IMO) comment by Keith Gardner – "..pure anarchy is impossible. whenever you have 2 or more people in a given region, a socio-political order emerges", I will repeat the first sentence of my 8/25 comment above: "The nature of human beings does *not* automatically lead to the conclusion that individuals must be ruled by others in order that there be orderly interactions between them." (emphasis added)
I suggest that Keith read my comments above and then "Social Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Interaction" http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.h…
Substantive comments and questions are welcome at any public venue – please let me know when/where that occurs [kitty(at)morelife.org]. However the preferred forum for discussion is MoreLife Yahoo – http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/ – which anyone can read but where posters must first be fully identified to me and Paul. Those who already have fully public identities – such as Brad Spangler – have already met that requirement and their posts need only meet the content requirement (as stated at the group home page) and contain their full name and any public aliases. Some may question why are we so "picky" re. anonymity. I composed my answer over 6 years ago, "Anonymity – Hazard, Not Protection; Limitation, not Enhancement" – http://selfsip.org/focus/anonymity.html