Can the space be exploited? What about the possibility of trade, industry and traffic, which logistical problems will occur? These questions relate to imperialist objectives. There are geographers who offer their services to answer these questions. In the nineteenth century the objectives of imperialist nations such as England, France and Germany contributed to the development of a nationalist geography.

Not every geographer, just as every economist, sociologist or lawyer, is willing to serve the development or application of nationalist, imperialist objectives. The rejection is due to the difference in ideological perspective, which is chosen. This approach simultaneously determines scientific development. Because the ideas of the French geographer Elisée Reclus (1830-1905) [1] will be central here, it is not so strange to choose anarchy as the ideological perspective.

Anarchy refers to a state of order without an imposed government and without imposed rules. It is about order, which is self-chosen or has a freely accepted structure. The question now is, what is the possible link between geography and anarchy? It is this question that is formulated by the French social geographer Philippe Pelletier in his recently published book Géographie et Anarchie. Reclus, Kropotkine, Metchnikoff et d’autres.

The author, besides teaching geography at one of the universities in Lyon, is active in the anarchist movement. He publishes regularly on both subjects.

Introduction

For the purpose of answering the question of the possible link between geography and anarchy, it is necessary to discuss a number of previous questions. Pelletier does this especially in the first part of his book. Then it should be clarified that there are several choices to be made, depending on the ideological ‘spectacles’ that one uses. It matters greatly whether personal presuppositions are being influenced by anarchist elements or ideological elements of a capitalist and nationalist kind. Pelletier maps these differences out relevant to the kind of geography that is developed, in the second part of his book.

Although Elisée Reclus plays a leading part in Pelletier’s book, it has not become a Reclus biography. Significantly he puts in the title of his book, next to Reclus, the geographers/anarchists and his friends, Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) and Leon Metchnikoff (1838-1888). Reclus does have a distinct stamp on the kind of geography that he operates. He has called this ‘social geography’. In addition Pelletier also speaks of ‘Reclusian geography’. In short, Reclus has claimed attention in many ways.

This makes a person vulnerable to insults. But are these indeed justified? Did Reclus defend colonialism, which is asserted, and would he not be free of anti-semitism? In the third part of his book Pelletier responds to such insults and he makes it clear that these are without any foundation. In this part he also deals with some themes that are dear to Reclus, such as the development of the social phenomenon: the city.

The work of Reclus has influenced both geography and anarchism. Each continuously overlaps the other. In order to provide an insight into the heart of those thoughts, I will first discuss some concepts or phenomena in pairs, taking Pelletier’s text as a point of reference.

The first pair concerns ‘geography and anarchy': to what do these concepts refer? This then leads to the pair ‘anarchists and geography': why are anarchists interested in geography? After that we come to the ‘anarchist position and science’. Anarchism (and anarchy) is not a science, but some anarchists are called scientists. Does the one have an impact on the other?

If this has repercussions, is this reflected in the type of geography in which one is engaged? This question refers to the following theme, in which the core is formed by the phenomenon of ‘border’. The accumulated sum of knowledge leads Reclus towards the end of his life, to what he calls ‘social geography’. Finally, one can find here a summary by Pelletier successfully defending Reclus against unjust criticism.

Geography and Anarchy

Previously Pelletier notes in his book that when we wander through the countryside, then we engage with geography. This is what I call a functional description of the object of study. What purpose does geography serve? It can be used for diplomacy and warfare (geography serves in the making of topographic maps for commanders) and for discovering areas that can be exploited (colonialism, imperialism).

Such a functional description, as opposed to an essentialist definition (what is geography?) is an open description. So geography can also be used for the creation of ‘peace’. In that case it is possible to connect it to irenology [2] (the science of peace), for which I refer to the Dutch libertarian social critic and antimilitarist Bart de Ligt (1883-1938).

A functional description can be instrumentalized. Through the course of time this can also be done with geography, as Pelletier has outlined in detail. This is exactly what the geographers among the anarchists have done. They have instrumentalized their geography using anarchy. This created the goal of a social order other than the existing one.

Anarchy is a term used in anarchist circles to indicate simultaneously a state of affaires, a perspective and a set of principles. Pelletier explains that one should not confuse anarchy with anomie. The latter term refers to the absence of rules in social life. Such absence is not characteristic of anarchy. A characteristic of anarchy is the rejection of heteronomy. So in summary, anarchy does not preclude the existence of freely expressed, social rules. Anarchy includes order and structuring, freely agreed by free people. It also reflects, Pelletier argues, the recognition of scientific and natural laws (so it is absurd to resist the law of gravity) and presuppose a multitude of principles. The principles referred to are considered to include mutualism and
libertarian federalism, other elements of the social order as the goal.

Anarchists and Geography

The descriptions of geography and anarchy do not clarify by themselves, which links exist between the two. Therefore Pelletier poses the question: why would anarchists involve themselves with geography? Furthermore, why should geographers engage themselves with anarchy? In short, there is a whole melange of links to investigate. That is the task that Pelletier has set himself.

The practice of geography to the extent that occurred in the last quarter of the nineteenth century within anarchist circles, involved three main characters: Reclus, Kropotkin and Metchnikoff. In addition, it is striking that in the work of some of the anarchists who preceded them such as Proudhon (1809-1865) and Bakunin (1814-1876), geographical dimensions can be distinguished. And in our period the work of Paul Goodman (1911-1972) and Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) refers back to the geographical dimensions of the previous ideas of Reclus and his contemporaries.

In this way Pelletier develops an order of people who, on the one hand, held libertarian views and on the other hand gave their work geographical dimensions (such as Patrick Geddes, Ebenezer Howard, Lewis Mumford and Colin Ward). It is also striking that the development of the Reclusian network of anarchist geographers, coincides with the development of the anarchist, socialist and syndicalist movement. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, socialism is known as an intellectual and social project. It gets rid, as noted by Pelletier, of mysticism and irrationality. It is then possible to connect it with various social sciences.

Thus, in Proudhon one can see an ‘announcer’ of sociology (following Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who was one of its founders). Proudhon is the first one to theorise mutualism and the premises of anarchism. Pelletier then sees Bakunin building, “on the rubble of the romantic nationalism”, the theory of revolutionary and libertarian socialism.

In fact, here we find the ‘personal touch’ of scientification of the libertarian project: some scientists (like geographers) began to instrumentalize their ideological principles (anarchy) within their scientific work. Can this be justified methodologically? That is the question, which is discussed in the following topic.

The Anarchist Position and Science

In the practice of science it is inevitable that a ‘personal touch’ plays a role. Strict positivism in this regard is a pacifier. “Facts are not facts”, I learned from the Dutch legal philosopher J.F. Glastra van Loon (1920-2001) in his critique of positivist science. The personal element provides subjectivity in science. Is there then, in that case, any science possible, as objectivity is presupposed?

I would think so. For that purpose, I derived from Helmut Schreiner (1942-2001) two minimum requirements proposed to be able to rise above a purely subjective moment.

These concern:

• The requirement of inter-subjective possibility of reconstruction, and
• The requirement of inter-subjective acceptability.

Possibility of reconstruction refers in this regard to the possibility of a person, other than its author, to develop not at random, certain reasoning of the author. The reader must therefore be able to follow and to check the data in use by the author (verifiability requirement). The requirement of reconstruction thus presupposes the existence of mutual communication and open communication channels.

Acceptability demands the accounting with regard to the conformity to the principles contained within a thought. The agreement about the principles can be realised voluntarily and/or by convention (conventional legitimacy) or procedural (procedural legitimacy). Thus an inter-subjective level can be achieved by using well-known methods, such as to analyse, systematise, and abstract, to apply logical reasoning, coherence and transparency.

It is clear that especially the requirement of acceptability places a clamp on the open end of the anarchistic epistemology, which was pleaded at the time by Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994). [3] ‘Anarchy’ is reflected in his slogan: anything goes. The latter should be understood as a methodological challenge. I refer here to this point, because Pelletier expresses a different vision regarding Feyerabend, as do I.

With Pelletier, I am of the opinion that Feyerabend is frankly nearsighted in his book Against Method, with regard to his observations on Lenin and the neutrality of the state. Feyerabend also uses the term anarchy in a different way to both Pelletier and myself. He disconnects it from the anarchist movement and uses the term anarchy to describe the unconditioned practice of science. He rejects the compulsion and pressure in science. And this, for me, is an acceptable use of the term anarchy. However, at the same time, Feyerabend consigns the history and continuity of classical anarchism and anarchist philosophy, to the dunghill. As with Pelletier, I do not agree with this. Whilst this whole discussion can be ignored, the methodological approach of Feyerabend can still be appreciated.

So I am of the opinion that the methodological meaning of ‘anything goes’ with regard to Feyerabend has a fundamental, a procedural and a conditional character. It is fundamental because it requires the channels through which the communication takes place to be kept open. It is procedural because it works by hearing both sides: it is accepted that it is possible to introduce all arguments, to voice opposition (principle of contradiction). It is conditional because it is free to look at a completely different way beyond current levels. It is quite possible that what is accepted as a ‘normal’ position or vision should or can be surpassed.

All of this can lead to the discovery of facts or to acquire insights that are contrary to those previously considered being part of a ‘well established position’. The methodological position, which has the potential to enable contrarian discoveries, I am willing to defend as an ‘anarchistic position’. Without such a methodological commitment, the earth would still be flat, the sun would still revolve around the earth (Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642); evolution would still be objective, linear, directed and executed according to a certain (divine) design (Charles Darwin, 1809-1882).

The opposition (of Galilei, Darwin) would under no circumstances be made public, as for example where the power has lain entirely within the Roman Catholic Church. These are the thoughts, which Feyerabend has provoked under his slogan ‘anything goes’. It is therefore completely incomprehensible why precisely he extols Lenin and his state as ‘neutral’. On this point he must have been blind. Perhaps his aim was to antagonise people, to that end his approach was masterly.

Different Types of Geography

So far, Pelletier has outlined different starting positions on geography and geographers, anarchy and anarchism and the study of science and their mutual relationship. Now it is possible for him to concentrate more on the Reclusian geography and the Reclusian network in particular. In addition, he can now also clarify what other types of geography occur or develop. In the context of this discussion I will focus primarily on the Reclusian view. But for creating a contrast it is good to pay some attention to the other views.

Two leading geographers in the late nineteenth century are, along side Elisée Reclus, the Frenchman Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918) and the German Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904). Politically, we find here very different personalities. Reclus takes on the side of Bakunin and the Paris Commune (1871), in which he also participated. He will be sentenced for that (ultimately to ten years exile from France). Reclusian geography has its roots in Proudhon and Bakunin and develops by the cooperation of Reclus with Kropotkin and Metchnikoff. They are anarchist and anti-capitalist in character.

In contrast, Vidal takes the side of ‘Versailles’ (the right-wing government that also bloodily pounds the Paris Commune). He will be the first to occupy the chair of historical geography (1891). Pelletier describes him as a nationalist intellectual who elaborates on an economic imperialism within a territorial one. This is influenced by the vision of Ratzel. Ratzelian geography serves the state apparatus and provides support for colonialism. This view permeates through Vidal into the Vidalian School. This school will preach pétainism (derived from the French commander Pétain), so too the Vichyist doctrine ‘back to nature’, explains Pelletier. It is the line along which the ‘Geopolitique nazifiee’ develops.

Thus Pelletier outlines two orientations, each with their own ‘ideology’ and diametrically different results. Who can thus pretend that an objective study of science is possible? In my opinion nobody can (the question of the personal touch arises; we are always at the level of statistical objectivity and/or in inter-subjective situations). So it is clear that whomever is engaged along side that of power, it is his conception that will be recognized as ‘objective’ and will be selected for use. Thus, those on the one hand in order to preserve ‘the power’ purge out those on the other hand who have a ‘desire for change’. Reclus, spokesman for the second position, holds that a libertarian social order is the goal.

In short, it does matter to pose the question along with German jurist Joseph Esser (1910-1999), with which kind of ‘Vorverständnis’ (premise, prejudice) one works. This is not only so in jurisprudence – compare Joseph Esser’s Vorverständnis und Methodenwahl in der Rechtsfindung (1970) – but also in geography. In that science it is not about ‘law’ that one thinks, but about ‘borders’. It appears that our perception of borders is equally as influenced by our different presuppositions, as we shall see from Pelletier.

Border

We saw above that Ratzel and Vidal take nationalist positions, whilst Reclus takes a ‘communalist’ position. The nationalist positions are grafted onto state law and the communalist manifests as anti-state law. The first two geographers focus on defending state borders, the latter rejects state borders. Pelletier argues that it is from this rejection of borders that the federalist proposals by Proudhon, Bakunin and Reclus come into being.

In the context of the ideas of Reclus, he takes a real break from predefined, legally guaranteed, territorial boundaries just like the so-called ‘natural’ borders. What applies to national state borders, I think can also be applied to municipal and provincial boundaries. In this case a functional approach can play an important role, concerning – current – boundaries. My suggestion here is derived from the role it also plays in jurisprudence. Two examples:

When the Dutch lawyer J. In’t Veld was searching, for his thesis in 1929, for new forms of decentralization (also the title of his thesis), he does not begin by describing a legal order, instead, he places value on thinking in terms of dynamic forces; centripetal forces (centralizing) and centrifugal forces (decentralizing). The problems analysed by In’t Veld were mainly related to the growth of the harbour of Rotterdam and the question of whether or not the expanding harbour activity ‘reflects’ the need in that area of Rotterdam of a new type of administrative authority of their own.

In a different way, considering (current) boundaries comes up for discussion via the expression of the immanent law of the functional structure. It is a conception by the Dutch legal theorist Jack ter Heide (1923-1988), elaborated in his doctrine of functional law. I took this from him, but applied it in a broad geographical perspective. The phrase indicates the relationship between a concrete means and the (direct and indirect) effects of the use of that means.

For example, an operating windmill (let’s say for grinding grain or sawing wood) can be used. Such a mill can only work if it can catch the wind freely and surely, which I call the immanent law. This means that within a certain radius around the mill no high constructions may arise. The mill itself can be seen as a functional structure. The interdiction of erecting high-rise constructions within the indicated radius does not depend on legal regulations (the ban), but the immanent law of that mill, which is contained within itself as a functional structure. Here the functional structure dictates the ‘law’ (the border) and not a legislator.

Pelletier reminds us that borders are markers of dominance. They are determined by or after warfare – by conquest. I would add that dominance also comes into play when determining municipal and county borders.

Borders are associated with geography, which is partly reflected in geopolitics. Theoretical anarchists, who are interested in politics by definition, engage consciously or not in geography, even though it is not their area of activity (such as Proudhon and Bakunin). Obviously the reverse is also true. A geographer, who is carrying anarchy as his Vorverständnis, will develop geography with an anarchist appearance. We meet this as far as it concerns Reclus in his ‘social geography’.

Social Geography

Pelletier points out that the geography as practiced by Reclus, rests on the dialectics of environment-space and environment-time. Space is a social construct; environment-space is studied in a synchronous approach to the complex structures of interactions (‘horizontal’ consideration). It involves attention to phenomena that coexist in the same period. Environment-time is studied by means of a diachronic, evolutionary approach. Here the attention is paid to phenomena that follow each other in time (‘vertical’ consideration). This provides a dynamic vision. So, as Pelletier concludes, Reclus has no static views of nature.

A difficulty arises when translating the term ‘environment’. Reclus has given that term a wider range than usual. The ‘environment’ simultaneously indicates a middle position: median (Reclus also speaks about mesology, ‘meso’ indicates the place between micro and macro). In my discussion with the author we found that the term, representing the inclusive character of ‘environment’ in Reclus’ notion, should be ambience: the material and moral atmosphere that surrounds a person or a group of people (the French explanatory dictionary Le Petit Robert).

Toward the end of his life, Reclus defines three “laws” and uses the term social geography. The three laws are “orders of facts” which must by studied, namely: (1) class struggle, (2) search for balance and (3) the sovereign decision of the individual. In the chaos of things, these orders of facts show themselves as sufficiently constant to talk about in terms of “laws”, believes Reclus.

It is not about legal but sociological laws, which are characterized in sociology as ‘conventional laws’. This involves groups of no more than partial regularity. This is also apparent in the explanation by Pelletier. The first law is a reference to socialist issues: human history can be understood as a long story of struggle between two differently resourced groups, of which one group consists of rulers.

The second law is now known by the term ‘homeostasis’. In relation to the first law, the second refers to seeking a balance in the struggle for justice. The third law refers to the idea that society cannot function properly and cannot move forward if it is not based on the free cooperation of the individual (for which the individual should be sovereign).

The three laws mentioned by Reclus make it clear where the differences can be found in relation to the view of Marx. For Marx the course of history is derived from determinism. Therefore predictions about the future possess levels of certainty (following the phases of capitalism, socialism will occur in the world). It is, as Pelletier indicates, an approach to history rejected by anarchists. Namely it upholds a vision in which phenomena are approached, linear, teleological and fatalistic (based in part on the dialectics of Hegel). In history, it is proclaimed as necessary for the different phases to proceed. We now know that nothing remains of the predictive value of these Marxian dialectics.

Insofar as one can speak of dialectics in anarchism, they take a serial form. So Proudhon speaks about ‘dialectique sérielle’ (sérielle, serial is here: bipolar). One is seeking balance (Reclus). That’s to say, there are ‘fields of tension’, for example, between freedom on the one side and justice on the other side. The contradictions have no ‘synthesis’ in which they are released (as in the Hegelian, Marxist conception). It just runs to ‘unstable equilibrium’ (Reclus).

This manner of Reclusian observation also determines how one reacts in discussions about, for example, Darwinism, nature, and ecology. Pelletier discusses all of this and takes the opportunity in his magnum opus to treat the themes. Whenever something is presented as transcendent, a non-correctable determinism, an inevitable fatalistic and an eschatological end, then this exasperates both Reclusian geographers and anarchists. Tirelessly Pelletier explains why this is so.

Criticism of Reclus

It almost goes without saying that certain views, or views of a scientist more than a century ago will be outdated. Pelletier points this out regularly as he discusses Reclusian views. However, these observations do not diminish the value of the aforementioned scientist. This is not the purpose of the criticism mentioned here.

The criticism here has been expressed within recent years. Namely that Reclus has been accused of being a racist, that he would have approved of colonialism and would have espoused anti-semitism. Pelletier rejects these criticisms. The basis for them being, is in one case a vague reference and in another literally nonsensical. The reason why such anachronistic accusations are made is completely unclear. The only thing I can think of is that one wishes to bring Reclusian anarchist thought into disrepute.

Pelletier pays most attention to the anti-semitism-reproach. He refers to texts by Henriette Chardak and Jean-Didier Vincent. These two authors do not mention documented sources from where they get their idea. Beatrice Giblin recently joined them. She notes that Reclus always refers to Jews in a certain discriminatory manner, but for this accusation she gives no textual reference. Pelletier takes some thirty pages for citing sources to disprove these damaging allegations.

Pelletier does not waste words answering the burning question of where this desire to discredit someone like Reclus comes from. I return to this question because in the Netherlands a similar anachronistic issue is at stake concerning the figure of Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis (1846-1919). Domela is one of the nineteenth century founders of socialism and later on, an anarchist. It is the contemporary Dutch biographer Jan Willem Stutje who, not so long ago, seized upon anti-semitism within Domela’s work. Historians such as the Dutch Bert Altena and Rudolf de Jong then skillfully parried these complaints. Nevertheless, such a reproach remains and is not easily silenced.

To another author, Robin te Slaa, these facts lead to the disfiguring comment that some fascists have derived their anti-semitic conceptions from some anarchists. On what does he base his view? Among other things, on a number of remarks about Domela found by Stutje. Hans Ramaer, editor of the Dutch anarchist three monthly de AS, notes in his commentary on Te Slaa’s book that this is how myths develop and go on the lead their own lives.

Sociability First

What is the overarching doctrine of Reclusian geography? This is difficult to summarize in one word, but with sociability, or mutual aid we are pointing in the right direction. It can be reasoned as follows.

The space, as we saw, is a social construction. A plurality of spaces is to be found. Also the ‘environment’ is characterized by Reclus in multiple forms. The human himself he called an environment for human beings. This multiplicity of spaces and environments are thought of as being in motion, hence the use of dynamic thought in relation to geographical and historical determinism. Determinism is in fact immediately counterbalanced by variation.

Plurality is therefore essential for Reclus says Pelletier. That struggle therefore is a factor in evolution, as Darwin worked out, is not denied. Darwin, however, forgot some factors, namely those of solidarity and cooperation, contained in one term: entraide (mutual aid). On this the anarchist geographers expound unrelentingly. It is one of the effects of people (and animals) that live in social relationships. The reference to the use of the term sociability proves it.

Mutual aid, entraide, plays a role in Reclus’ thoughts but it is put on the map by another anarchist and geographer, Kropotkin, with whom he was a friend, with his book Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution (1902). It should be noted that Leon Metchnikoff, the third geographer and anarchist, has played a major role in this. In fact it is he who in 1886 put forward the material base for the theory of mutual aid.

Pelletier has mapped out all of this in his book. He has consistently pointed out how concrete situations and social structures, in other words concrete sociability, produce composite human forces. These forces contribute to define the emancipating and revolting quality of collective unity. But without the presence of the sovereign individual this collective unity would deflate. The dynamics must be guaranteed.

Pelletier has delivered a book to study and to use as reference. It is also one of the rare French books with particular keywords and index!

Thom Holterman (September 2013)

PELLETIER Philippe, Géographie et anarchie, Reclus, Kropotkine, Metchnikoff et d’autres, Éditions du Monde libertaire & Éditions libertaires, Paris, 2013, 632 p., price 24 euros.

Remarks

[1] Reclus. The most Élisée Reclus has published about geography is his unprecedented Nouvelle Geography Universelle, La Terre et les Hommes, Hachette Paris, 1876-1894, 19 volumes. Towards the end of his life he completed L’Homme et la Terre, Librairie Universelle, Paris, 1905-1908, 6 parts, in which he explicitly elaborated on his ‘social geography’.

On anarchism he wrote only one book L’Évolution, La Révolution et l’Ideal anarchique (1898). In the hometown of Reclus, Sainte Foy la Grande (near Bordeaux) is an active Reclusian association called “Les Reclusiennes”.

[2] Irenology. It is the libertarian social critic and antimilitarist Bart de Ligt (1883-1938) who deals explicitly with irenology between the two world wars, see his “Introduction to the science of peace” (by De Ligt written for the first summer course at the Academie de la Paix in 1938), included in the anthology Bart de Ligt 1883-1938, Arnhem, 1939.

[3] For my observations on Paul Feyerabend, I used his Against Method, Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge, London, 1975; furthermore I based my comment on his “Outline of a pluralistic theory of knowledge and action”, in S.Anderson (ed), Planning for Diversity and Choice, Possible futures and their relations to the man-controlled environment, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, p.275-284.

My thoughts on scholarship, I justified in my book Argumentative arbitrariness and the practice of constitutional science (Zwolle, 1988), as well as in “Scholarly and public law” in the collection: Thom Holterman, C.Riezebos (ea ed.), General constitutional concepts (Zwolle, 1991, third edition, P 281-317). Both texts are only available in Dutch.

The “Facts are not facts” of J.F.Glastra van Loon is included in his collection The unity of action – Drawing on law and philosophy (Boom, Meppel/Amsterdam, 1980). With regard to inter-subjectivity I worked from H.Schreiner, who wrote Die Intersubjektivität von Wertungen, Zur Begründbarkeit von Wertungen im Rechtsdenken durch ethisch verpflichtetes Argumentieren, Berlin, 1980.

On the position of Paul Feyerabend within the anarchist movement, I suggest the following information. In the years 1974-1985 appeared the anarchist cultural magazine Unter dem Pflaster liegt der Strand, edited by Hans Peter Duerr, published by the libertarian Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin. It appeared in 15 parts (in the form of yearbooks). In almost every part a contribution of Paul Feyerabend is included.

De AS, a Dutch anarchist three monthly, devoted considerable attention to Feyerabend in the special issue “Anarchism and science” (No. 37, January/February 1979).

On YouTube one can find an interview with Feyerabend, a year before his death, recorded in Rome, from a balcony overlooking the Vatican. The opening refers to it when the interviewer rhetorically comments on its grandeur. Feyerabend reacted by declaring “Es kann nicht gros sein!” For the interview, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-Q6pfXSPo .

This should be a wakeup call for the rising Brazilian libertarian movement. The examination of political and social phenomena should never be pulled out of context.

Unfortunately, I have witnessed many instances of “de-contextualized libertarianism,” the application of libertarian principles to a given political issue without due regard to the circumstances. The analysis is scarily vitiated.

An example is the re-integration of Oi’s property, about which I have written. Some libertarians complimented the swift decision by the Justice. This can be seen as, technically, a correct application of the principle that property rights should be upheld. But what is missing? Context.

Thousands of people were deprived their homes by World Cup developments and natives and riverside inhabitants are being expropriated for the building of the Belo Monte dam. The same efficiency displayed by the state to reinstate Oi’s property is what allows its violence against the poor. Oi’s property reinstating, in context, reveals a state that combines the protection of the rich and powerful’s property with systematic aggression against the poor with an impetus to control their access to land.

A second example is the tendency, among some, to criticize Bolsa-Família (a welfare program for the very poor) and its recipients. We should listen to Kevin Carson: Our anger should not be directed towards welfare recipients, because the true parasites are higher up on the social pyramid.

Think about it: The state, by means of countless interventions and laws in the past and present has deprived the poor in Brazil of many opportunities and granted even more privileges (subtly or openly) to the well-connected. Do you really think that the few hundred reais from Bolsa-Família come even close to outbalancing what was taken from the poor in opportunity? They may receive welfare, but they are clearly hurt by the government. It is much better to criticize BNDES (a bank that primarily lends money to the rich on very favorable terms) and the insistence of the government on creating Brazilian transnational corporations.

One last example: Sao Paulo separatism. There exists a historical movement of secession in the Sao Paulo state. Libertarians defend secession, but the one the movement calls for is not libertarian, since they would not recognize the right of its constituent parts to secede as well.

Moreover, some people who argue that Sao Paulo should secede claim that it “supports the rest of the country” by having their taxes seized and spread among the other states in the country. It is impossible to associate libertarianism with that in any way. The Brazilian Amazon and the Northeast have always been hurt by the protectionism in favor of Sao Paulo, poorer people that have always bought more expensive goods to prop up Sao Paulo’s industries and finance a supposed “national development.” It would make sense, nowadays, to have the Amazonian states trade with the Andes countries. That is not possible, though, because Brasilia thinks the Mercosur is sacred.

Something amazing about the American left-libertarian tradition is its ability to turn libertarianism into a powerful tool of contextual political analysis. Albert Jay Nock, for one, used to denounce the usage of “imposter terms” such as laissez faire and individualism to cover the fact that since the very beginning of the modern factory system, there have been systematic interventions in favor of manufacture. In Brazil, in law schools, a convenient “imposter term” is the “liberal state from the 19th century,” a century in which liberals themselves were the opposition.

Hence, the conclusion we can arrive at is that, superficially and out of context, the application of libertarian principles seems to coincide with the interests of the elites, but attention to circumstances reveals that they are in line with the general welfare, especially for the poor. A contextualized libertarianism tends to be some form of left-libertarianism, which promotes individual freedom and social justice at the same time. We will not always agree on the details because the intellectual variety in libertarianism is impressive and positive, but we will be more consistent with the soul of classical liberalism.

Brazil needs a contextualized libertarianism that should be consequently inclusive, liberating and humanitarian. Contextless libertarianism, on the other hand, is but a pretext to those “those selfish and blind interests that set themselves athwart the necessary transformation of a political and economic organization which has ceased to be adapted to societies’ present conditions of existence,” which Gustave de Molinari mentioned in the 19th century.

Translated from Portuguese into English by Erick Vasconcelos.

Opponents of the free market love that quote from Smith. For obvious reasons they rarely add the sentences that follow: “It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary” (book I, chapter X, part II, paragraph 27; emphasis added).

As Smith well knew, government often facilitates such assemblies. Effective “conspiracy[ies] against the publick” would be impossible without state support. Absent political privilege, “contrivance[s] to raise prices” would crumble under the pressure of free competition. It takes a state to make a tariff, a price support, or a punitive tax or regulation on one’s competitors.

Smith’s book was a brief against mercantilism, the nationalistic system of business privilege. But we sometimes forget that the economic system that succeeded mercantilism was not free of all mercantilist features. Especially in the second half of the nineteenth century and at the hands of the Republican Party, mercantilism (in the form of Henry Clay’s old American System) had wide influence at the national level. (The states had their own modest versions earlier in the century.) Its program consisted of protective tariffs, taxpayer-financed infrastructure projects (“internal improvements”), regulation of private infrastructure, a national bank for credit manipulation, and other forms of government intervention intended to guide society’s development and in the process benefit the well-connected business class. A good deal of land was also parceled out to politically favored interests, such as most of the major railroads. Dominant business figures did not oppose this program; on the contrary, they championed it because they stood to gain from the above-market prices, lucrative government contracts, and burdens on smaller competitors.

Later, the Progressive Era “reforms” were not only supported, but were often proposed, by big business. Meat inspection, railroad regulation, drug-safety monitoring, and policing of competition were activities favored by the major players in the relevant industries. It is not widely appreciated how much big-business support the New Deal had (or how the New Deal actually began under Hoover). The industry codes enforced by the National Recovery Administration were a godsend to businessmen who for years had striven, unsuccessfully, to create stable cartels to assure long-run profits. Government economic planning during World War I had given many businessmen (and bureaucrats) a taste of what it was like to run an economy. They liked it enough to return to Washington during Franklin Roosevelt’s tenure in the White House.

What today is called rent-seeking, exploiting others through political means, was as common in earlier times as it is now. It was a rare business proprietor who favored laissez faire. Why risk your money in the unpredictable marketplace when you could have stable prices and profits with government intervention? Even an income tax might be a small price to pay for that safety. Most business people were uninterested in moral philosophy, economic theory, and ideology. The shortest route between them and a nice return on investment usually went through the statehouse or the Capitol.

No knowledgeable champion of free markets will be surprised by any of this. The problem is that we too often forget it in the heat of current controversies. By dropping the historical context we weaken our case and sound like defenders of the corporate state, the opposite of laissez faire.

This has been pointed out before. Kevin Carson, who calls himself a “free market anti-capitalist,” writes in Studies in Mutualist Political Economy that many libertarians “use the term ‘free market’ in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles.”

For example, several months ago opportunistic members of Congress proposed a windfall-profits tax on the oil companies because gasoline prices had jumped during the hurricane season and profits had risen dramatically. In arguing against the tax, many libertarians (and conservatives) explained why in a free market, prices and profits would rise under the current circumstances. Thus higher prices and profits warranted no government intervention.

Fine. The economic theory and conclusion were impeccable. But something was missing, and this gap gave credibility to the free market’s adversaries. What was missing? An acknowledgment of the contemporary effects of the long period of pro-business interventionism, what Carson calls “the subsidy of history.” For many years oil companies have benefited from a system of federal and state favoritism. Much U.S. foreign policy has the effect of forcing the taxpayers to pick up the huge tab for stabilizing the companies’ sources of crude oil. All of this has distorted investment, prices, and, therefore, consumer behavior, and it’s hard to know what the oil industry—or indeed the entire economy—would look like without the distortion. The rippling effects have been pervasive and substantial.

In sum, the companies are not creations of the free market. And if we defend them as though they are, we will sound naïve at best and like apologists for the corporate state at worst. That diminishes our efforts to win the public to our position. Let us never be guilty of supporting, even implicitly, the socialization of costs, for there is no surer way to undercut the case for the privatization of profits.

Labor Legislation

Another example: Free-market advocates frequently criticize unions and their supporting laws. Any government intervention deserves to be criticized, but once again the context is often dropped. The context includes the fact that the business elite historically supported labor laws, even if in the end they objected to the precise form of the National Labor Relations Act and other enactments. Business-backed social-reform organizations, such as the National Civic Federation and the American Association for Labor Legislation, long had proposed labor laws in the belief that they were the path to labor peace and the end of wildcat strikes. “Respectable” union leaders would be brought to the corporate-state table as responsible junior partners who would discipline their unruly elements. Moreover, industry-wide collective bargaining would have a cartelizing effect on American industry, reducing the “cutthroat competition” that was so unsettling and that worked to the advantage of upstart rivals.

While we should hit at government intervention in the labor market, as everywhere else, we must hold the context and never fail to point out that such intervention was integral to the system enacted largely at the behest of the dominant business interests. It is reasonable to believe that workers would have more bargaining power if all corporate privilege were abolished and competition were truly unfettered. If talk of the corporate state and exploitation sounds left-wing, it’s only because laissez fairists seldom talk about those things. But we should. They are our issues.

Context-holding is not just of academic interest; it has strategic implications. If we keep in mind that the current threat to liberty is the centrist corporate state, we will see that a top priority is the repeal of all corporate subsidies, even the most subtle kinds.

In his short review of The Political Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, Timothy Virkkala (May 1999) praises Tim S. Gray’s discussion of the great classical liberal’s methodology as a synthesis of “individualist” and “holist” approaches to social theory. But Virkkala remarks

This method–I’m tempted to call it “dialectical,” but Spencer’s prose and position seem so far from Hegel’s that the term is almost indecent–confuses many readers. But it is surely his strength. Gray is one of the few Spencer scholars to see this method as fundamental, and to present sophisticated analyses of Spencer’s syntheses.

It is unfortunate that Virkkala refuses to give into his temptation, because crucially significant aspects of Herbert Spencer’s work are, indeed, dialectical.

Some will say: “Ah, there goes Sciabarra. He thinks everyone is dialectical!” The truth is, of course, that though a genuine dialectical mindset is rare, not a few of the major classical liberal and libertarian thinkers have had a strong dialectical sensibility–and the neglect of this dialectical streak has been something I’ve tried to remedy for many years. The project encompasses a trilogy of works that began with Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (SUNY, 1995), where I argued that Hayek’s critique of “constructivism” is essentially dialectical because it views utopianism as a revolt against the broad conditions within which freedom is born and nourished. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Penn State, 1995) is the second part. There I argue that Rand was a master at tracing the relationships among disparate factors within a dynamic context; her emphasis on the epistemic, psychological, ethical, and cultural requirements of freedom was simultaneously a vision of an integrated human existence that triumphed over conventional dichotomies–mind versus body, fact versus value, theory versus practice, etc. My forthcoming book, Total Freedom, completes the trilogy by tracing the history and meaning of the concept of dialectic from the pre-Socratics to Murray Rothbard, focusing on its relevance to our defense of liberty.

Dialectics is a methodological orientation toward contextual analysis of dynamic, structured systems. Dialectical techniques have been championed by Hegel, Marx, and those on the left, but they are as old as Western philosophy. They originated in the argumentative arts. A two-person dialogue constituted a dialectic of sorts, a means of contextualizing a problem by looking at it from different vantage points. While Plato gave expression to the Socratic form in his many dialogues, Aristotle was the first theoretician, the father, of the enterprise. His Topics and Sophistical Refutations were the first textbooks of dialectic. He articulated its principles and was probably its teacher in Plato’s Academy.

In the evolution of dialectics, it was inevitable, perhaps, that it would be applied to objects and phenomena far beyond the confines of discourse. As long as an object of study can be treated as a structured totality–as a specific kind of whole constituted by dynamic relations–dialectical analysis becomes possible. There are many distinct phenomena–a language, a philosophy, a culture, an economy, a political organization, a social system, and even the relations among these–that can be analyzed as structured totalities. Because none of us can achieve a godlike vantage point on the whole, because the desire for omniscience is what Hayek called a “synoptic delusion,” dialectics requires that we grasp any given object in its multiple dimensions by successive shifts in our perspective.

For years, Marxists derided liberals as thoroughly “undialectical” because their allegedly “atomistic” approach reduced social analysis to an abstract mental gymnastic on the life and times of Robinson Crusoe. But the history of liberalism is replete with rich, textured, context-sensitive thinking. In this regard, Herbert Spencer was one of the most important classical liberal thinkers to pioneer an alternative “dialectical libertarianism.” His contributions to this project have yet to be fully appreciated, although his contributions to general systems theory in sociology are well known.

Hayek tells us too that Spencer’s work had an impact on some of the early Austrian economic thinkers, including Friedrich von Wieser. But as Tibor Machan argues, Spencer was also among the first to provide “a full-blown scientific justification” for the liberal worldview, just as Marx had done for communism (in Spencer [1879-93] 1978, 9). His evolutionary approach shared much with that of Darwin and provided inspiration for Collingwood, Kuhn, and Toulmin. It displayed all the “architectonic instinct[s]” and “propensit[ies] for synthesis” that we have come to expect from bona fide dialectical modes of inquiry (Copleston [1966] 1985, 145).

Spencer ([1879-93] 1978) admits into his conception a genuine appreciation for reciprocal relations among factors within a wider totality. It was Aristotle who first explored the mutual implications of “correlatives,” such as “master” and “slave.” Hegel stressed the same notion in his analysis of the relationship between “lord” and “bondsman.” Like Aristotle and Hegel, Spencer explains “that correlatives imply one another,” as surely as a father requires a child, and a child requires a father.

Beyond the primary truth that no idea of a whole can be framed without a nascent idea of parts constituting it, and that no idea of a part can be framed without a nascent idea of some whole to which it belongs, there is the secondary truth that there can be no correct idea of a part without a correct idea of the correlative whole. There are several ways in which inadequate knowledge of the one involves inadequate knowledge of the other. (37)

An examination of the part of a whole must not reify that part as “an independent entity,” or it will risk the misapprehension of “its relations to existence in general . . .” (37). And the relations must not be viewed “statically,” says Spencer, but “dynamically” and “organic[ally]” (38). Spencer absorbs the organic metaphor from Aristotle in much the same way as Hegel did. In Parts of Animals, Aristotle examines the connections of parts that derive their essence from their constitution of the living organism as a whole. A hand disconnected from the body to which it belongs is a hand in name only, for “it will be unable to perform its function” (1.1.640b34-641a10).   Spencer ([1879-93] 1978) argues likewise that “a detached arm” is one in name only and that it must be integrally understood as part of the organic whole to which it belongs. The moon’s orbit cannot be understood apart from the movements of the larger solar system; the loading of a gun is “meaningless” outside the context of the “subsequent actions” performed; the “fragment[s] of a sentence” are “unintelligible” when disconnected from “the remainder”; and moral conduct “is an organic whole . . . of interdependent actions,” in which each action is “inextricably bound up with the rest” (38-39).

This dialectic is extended to the whole network of social intercourse. Long predating Hayek, Spencer ([1984] 1981) views society as a spontaneous “growth and not a manufacture.”  His focus on the “mutual dependence of parts” within a society and on the analytical “integrity of the whole” does not lead him to embrace the organic collectivism of traditional holistic approaches. He maintains that society lacks a collective brain, a “corporate consciousness,” and since each person within the community retains an individual consciousness, the “corporate life must here be subservient to the lives of the parts, instead of the lives of the parts being subservient to the corporate life.”  As a society becomes more and more integrated, there is a greater need for heterogeneity and differentiation among the individuals who compose it (392-93).

This individualist insight does not prevent Spencer ([1850] 1970) from suggesting that the “body-politic” requires the freedom of each of its members in order to achieve freedom-in-general (405). In Spencer’s conception of the social world, “whatever produces a diseased state in one part of the community must inevitably inflict injury upon all other parts.” It is a “salutary truth” of the ideal community “that no one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy” (409).

Eric Mack has recognized that this kind of utopian vision is “implausible and doctrinally corrosive” to the individualism that Spencer espouses (xvii). In the first place, it is virtually impossible to measure interpersonally people’s level of morality and happiness. And if the human community requires such “perfect” freedom across the globe, freedom is likely to remain a chimera for a long time to come. But despite these problems in Spencer’s work, we can still appreciate how he integrates the theoretical lessons of conservatism and radicalism, moving back and forth between adaptation “to old conditions of existence” and “becoming adapted to new ones” (Spencer [1950] 1970, 420).

What makes his contribution so important is his penchant for tracing the connections among social relations as manifested across different organizational structures and institutions. He sees an organic unity between the increasingly bureaucratic domestic state and its militarism abroad, between the interventionist dynamic and social disintegration. These ties are endemic to the statist system as a whole, as it evolves and influences each of its parts. Each part becomes a microcosm of the wider injustices, Spencer declares, even as all the parts reproduce injustice on a macroscopic scale.

The lesson is one that contemporary libertarians should heed. Those who advocate a single change in one part of society, namely government, will not sustain their revolution. To focus solely on rolling back the state, while not paying attention to the complexities of social psychology, ethics, and culture, is a sure prescription for failure. As Spencer might say, to disconnect a single aspect from its broad context is to achieve partial, one-sided, “inadequate knowledge” of all that is necessary to achieve fundamental change. That Spencer was among the first “dialectical libertarians” to grasp this principle remains an enduring legacy of his work.

REFERENCES

Copleston, Frederick. [1966] 1985. A History of Philosophy, BookThree Volume VIII. Bentham to Russell. Garden City, N.Y: .Image Books.

Gray, Tim S. 1996. The Political Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Avebury.

Spencer, Herbert. [1879-93] 1978. The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols. Introduction by Tibor R. Machan. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics.

___. [1940] 1981. The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom. Foreword by Eric Mack. Introduction by Albert Jay Nock. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics.

___. [1850] 1970. Social Statics: The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.

Virkkala, Timothy. 1999. Booknotes: The Synthetic Man. Liberty 13, no. 5 (May): 59-60.