Yet Spain is a textbook illustration of two devastating criticisms of the consensus view made by anarchist Karl Hess in a July 1976 Playboy interview. First, when Hess denied “that the medieval monarchs were much different from our Presidents now,” and was incredulously challenged that “Surely, even as an anarchist you must be willing to admit that there are some differences between Presidents and kings,” he insisted: “Presidents achieve power by hoaxes and handshakes, while kings take the far less tiring route of being born. That is the only difference I can discern.” Second, while “Most analysts see the political spectrum as a great circle, with authoritarian governments of the right and the left intersecting at a point directly opposite representational democracy. But my notion of politics is that it follows a straight line, with all authoritarian societies on the right and all libertarian societies on the left,” with the opposite of both representative democracy and dictatorship being “a world of neighborhoods in which all social organization is voluntary and the ways of life are established in small, consenting groups.”

In his introduction to The Anarchist Collectives, Murray Bookchin scorned the mainstream liberal and Old Left interpretation of the Spanish Civil War as “a struggle between a liberal republic that was valiantly and with popular support trying to defend a democratic parliamentary state against authoritarian generals.” In fact, the ordinary people of Spain “viewed the republic almost with as much animosity as they did the Francistas,” and “were concerned not to rescue a treacherous republican regime but to reconstruct Spanish society.” Following Bookchin’s introduction is detailed primary documentation of their success when state power was pushed back enough to give them a fighting chance.

Far from being what the Old Left saw as a quixotic last stand of preindustrial “primitive rebels” against the tide of history, the Spanish anarchists seem ever more prescient of tomorrow’s post-industrial age.

The seemingly unstoppable power of the state and its plutocratic appendages — the modern successors of what Bookchin called the Spanish people’s “historic class enemies, ranging from the landowning grandees and clerical overlords inherited from the past to the rising industrial bourgeoisie and bankers of more recent times” — to crowd out alternative socioeconomic organization has always entirely stemmed from their ability to extract wealth involuntarily — in Franz Oppenheimer’s phrase, “political means.” The roots of the political means are steadily drying up as economic production becomes ever more localized and less capital-intensive, and correspondingly harder to efficiently levy tribute from. In the military realm, the might of the standing army is being increasingly challenged by fourth generation warfare techniques reviving the popular spirit of the voluntary, decidedly un-state-run Brigadas Internacionales.

Human-scale social organization decentralized enough to make Monaco look cumbersome, functioning without requiring any individuals to give up sovereignty over their personal lives, will bear out George Woodcock’s observation that “In reality, the ideal of anarchism, far from democracy carried to its logical end, is much nearer to aristocracy universalised and purified.”

Kent Paterson discusses the challenging of a militarized police state.

Medea Benjamin discusses the broken promises of Obama.

Martha Rosenberg interviews Michael Arria.

Jeffrey St. Clair discusses the recently passed away, Gabriel Kolko.

Justin Raimondo discusses how a CIA backed general recently launched a coup in Libya.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses the awfulness of the 9-11 museum.

Jim Hightower discusses how the allegedly libertarian Koch Brothers fund a group that wants solar taxes.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the history of the First World War in 100 moments.

Jonathan Turley discusses the imperial presidency.

Wendy McElroy discusses the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s acquiring of submachine guns.

Cathy Young discusses the situation in the Ukraine.

Daniel Larison discusses Rand Paul’s opposition to the appointment of David Barron.

Human Rights Watch discusses U.S. training of an abusive Cambodian military.

Sheldon Richman discusses U.S. intervention in Libya.

Anneke E. Green discusses the drone memos.

Laurence M. Vance discusses conservative attempts to ban chocolate milk.

Joseph Stromberg discusses corporatism in theory and practice.

Predrag Rasjic discusses cartels and subsidies in Canadian agriculture.

Chris Floyd discusses the roots and fruits of the War on Terror.

John Knefel discusses the endless war.

Andrew Levine discusses stopping Hilary Clinton.

Daniel Kovalik discusses the U.S., Colombia, and the death squad state.

Sheldon Richman discusses Keynes.

Wendy McElroy discusses idealism vs gradualism.

Gary Reed discusses why Memorial Day is more aptly named Government Day.

Franklin Lamb discusses liberating Syria.

Helen Redmond discusses the diehard drug warriors.

Yifan Hou defeats the great Judit Polgar.

Viktor Korchnoi defeats the chess genius, Robert James Fischer.

Hablar de una crítica libertaria decimonónica del fascismo puede parecer anacrónico, ya que el fascismo es generalmente entendido como un fenómeno del siglo XX. Pero el fascismo no surgió de la nada, y los liberarios del siglo XIX lo vieron venir.

El fascismo se diferencia de sus primos cercanos, el comunismo y el conservadurismo aristocrático, en varios puntos importantes.

Empecemos con las diferencias con respecto al comunismo. Primero, donde el comunismo pretende sustituir la propiedad privada por estatal, el fascismo pretende incorporar o cooptar la propiedad privada dentro del aparato estatal a través de una alianza público-privada. El fascismo tiende a ser más tentador que el comunismo para los intereses de los ricos quienes pueden verlo como un medio para aislar su poder económico de la competencia a través de un proceso de cartelización forzosa y otras estratagemas corporativistas.

Segundo, donde el comunismo tiende a ser cosmopolita e internacionalista, la ideología fascista tiende a ser chauvinísticamente nacionalista, acentuando la lealtad particularista hacia el país, la cultura o la etnia de cada uno; a esto se le une la desconfianza hacia el racionalismo, una preferencia económica por la autarquía, y una visión de la vida como una inevitable pero gloriosa batalla. El fascismo también tiene a cultivar un ser humano gregario o völkish, la retórica de “el hombre del pueblo”, “el pragmatismo por encima de los principios”, “el corazón por encima de la cabeza”, “no prestes atención esos intelectuales cabezas de chorlito”.

Estos contrastes con el comunismo no deberían ser exagerados, claro está. Los gobiernos comunistas no pueden permitirse suprimir la propiedad privada por completo, en tanto ello les llevaría a un veloz colapso económico. Además, a pesar de todo el cosmopolitismo e internacionalismo que puedan caracterizar a los regímenes comunistas en la teoría, tienden a ser tan chauvinísticamente nacionalistas en la práctica como sus primos los fascistas; mientras que, por el otro lado, los regímenes fascistas podrían apelar demagógicamente al universalismo liberal.

Con todas estas similitudes, existe una diferencia en énfasis y estrategia entre el fascismo y el comunismo. Cuando se trata de encarar las instituciones vigentes que amenazan el poder estatal -las empresas, iglesias, la familia o la tradición- el impulso comunista pasa en gran medida por abolirlas; mientras que el impulso fascista consiste en absorberlas.

Las estructuras de poder externas al estado son potenciales rivales del propio poder estatal, por lo que los estados siempre tienen alguna razón para pretender su abolición; el comunismo da rienda suelta a esta pulsión. Pero las estructuras de poder externas al Estado son también potenciales aliados del Estado, particularmente si sirven para reforzar los hábitos de subordinación y acatamiento entre la población, y por tanto, siempre existe la oportunidad potencial de una alianza mutuamente beneficiosa; aquí mismo descansa la estrategia fascista.

Estos rasgos en los que el fascismo difiere del comunismo podrían dar a entender que lo alían más bien con el conservatismo aristocrático tradicional del ancien régime, que es del mismo modo particularista, corporativista, mercantilista, nacionalista, militarista, patriarcal y anti-racionalista. Pero el fascismo difiere de este desfasado conservadurismo en abrazar el ideal del progreso industrial dirigido por directores tecnócratas, así como en adoptar una postura populista capitaneando la lucha del “hombre desamparado” contra las elites -recordemos su gregarismo. (Si las tendencias tecnocráticas del fascismo parecen estar en conflicto con su pulsión antirracionalista, entonces, en palabras del proto-fascista Moeeler van den Bruck “tenemos que ser capaces de vivir con las contradicciones”).

Algunas de las diferencias entre el fascismo y el viejo conservadurismo podrían deberse a los avances conseguidos por sus enemigos comunes, los liberales. El progreso del liberalismo y la industria tuvo la consecuencia de trasladar la riqueza, al menos en parte, desde la aristocracia tradicional a nuevas manos privadas, creando así nuevos grupos con intereses privados con la habilidad de operar como empresarios políticos; permitiendo de esta manera, tal vez, la tendencia hacia la emergencia de una clase plutocrática nominalmente fuera del tradicional aparato estatal. De la misma manera, el progreso de la democracia significó que la plutocracia sólo podía esperar obtener el triunfo siguiendo el juego populista; de ahí la paradoja de un movimiento elitista desfilando bajo la bandera del antielitismo -un claro ejemplo de la historia de EEUU comenzó con las leyes antimonopolio y otras supuestas leyes anti-grandes-empresas que fueron vigorosamente forzadas por las propias grandes empresas.

(Cf. War Collectivism in World War I de Murray Rothbard, The Suicidal Corporation: How Big Business Fails America de Paul Weaver, Railroads and Regulation, 1877-1916 y Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916 de Gabriel Kolko, In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918-1938 de Butler Shaffer, Big Business and the Rise of American Statism, de Roy Childs, Political Economy of Liberal Corporatism and The Role of State Monopoly Capitalism in the American Empire de Joseph Stromberg, Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-Making and Class Structure, de Walter Grinder & John Hagel, etc.)

Por lo tanto, aquí tenemos la curiosa fusión fascista del privilegio y el gregarismo; uno podría calificarlo como un movimiento que piensa como Halliburton y habla como George W. Bush.

La asociación entre el aparato estatal official y beneficiarios nominalmente privados del poder estatal fue un recurrente tema de los libertarios decimonónicos, como Frédéric Bastiat y Gustave de Molinari, quienes extendieron y radicalizaron las críticas de Adam Smith al proteccionismo mercantilista como un esquema diseñado para beneficiar a los intereses concentrados de las grandes empresas a costa del público en general. En palabras de Molinari, las empresas “pedían que el gobierno salvaguardara sus monopolios con los mismos métodos que había usado para salvaguardar el suyo” (The Evolution of Protectionism).

Los sociólogos libertarios como Charles Comte y Charles Dunoyer habían desarrollado una completa teoría premarxista del conflicto de clases, según la cual la posición esencial de la clase dominante no es, al contrario que Marx, el acceso a los medios de producción, sino más bien el acceso al poder político. (Cf. Radical Liberalism of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer de David Hart, Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism, de Leonard Liggio, Classical Liberal Exploitation Theory de Ralph Raicoy, Social Analysis of Three Early 19th-Century Classical Liberals de Mark Weinburg, etc.)

Cuando Marx denominó al gobierno francés “una sociedad anónima dedicada a la explotación de la riqueza nacional de Francia” en nombre de la élite burguesa a expensas de la producción y el comercio (“Las Luchas de Clases en Francia“), él simplemente se estaba haciendo eco de aquello que los libertarios habían estado diciendo durante décadas.

Herbert Spencer, de la misma manera, se quejó de la influencia de los “autócratas de los ferrocarriles”, en la política americana “que perjudicaban los derechos de los accionistas” y “controlaban las cortes de justicia y el gobierno estatal” (“The Americans”). Y Lysander Spooner denunció a la élite financiera y bancaria de la siguiente manera:

Entre los salvajes, la simple fuerza física, por parte del hombre, puede permitirle robar, o matar a otro hombre… Pero con los (así llamados) pueblos civilizados… en las que los soldados en cualquier número, y otros instrumentos bélicos en cualquier número, pueden ser obtenidos a través del dinero, la cuestión de la guerra, y por tanto la cuestión del poder, es poco más que una cuestión de dinero. Como consecuencia necesaria, aquellos capaces de suministrar este dinero son los auténticos gobernantes… [Los] gobernantes nominales, los emperadores y los reyes y los parlamentos, no son nada al lado de los gobernantes auténticos de sus países. No son más que simples herramientas empleadas por los ricos para robar, esclavizar y (si es necesario) asesinar a aquellos con menor riqueza, o con ninguna riqueza en absoluto… [Los] llamados soberanos, en estos distintos gobiernos, son simplemente los cabecillas y los jefes de estas distintas bandas de ladrones y asesinos. Y los cabecillas y los jefes dependen de los prestamistas de la sangre dineraria para llevar a cabo sus robos y asesinatos. No podrían mantenerse ni un momento a no ser por los préstamos realizados por estos prestamistas proveedores de sangre dineraria… Además de pagar el interés de sus bonos, quizá les garanticen a sus tenedores, grandes monopolios sobre la banca, como el Banco de Inglaterra, de Francia y de Viena; con el acuerdo de que estos bancos les provean con dinero siempre que, en caso de repentina emergencia, sea necesario atracar a más ciudadanos. Tal vez, así mismo, a través de los aranceles sobre las importaciones de la competencia, les otorguen grandes monopolios sobre ciertas ramas de la industria, en las que estos prestamistas de sangre dineraria estén metidos. Ellos también, por fiscalidad desigual, eximen completa o parcialmente a la propiedad de estos prestamistas, e incrementen correspondientemente las cargas de aquellos que son demasiado pobres o débiles para resistirlo. (No Treason VI.)

Esta cita de Spooner demuestra que los libertarios decimonónicos también veían una conexión entre la plutocracia y el militarismo, y criticaron duramente lo que hoy podría llamarse el complejo militar-industrial. Spencer, por ejemplo, bramó contra “las subvenciones militares y los privilegios concedidos por el Estado” de los que disfrutaba la East India Company, que le permitieron cometer “hazañas sangrientas y rapiña” en India donde “las autoridades policiales se aliaba con los diablillos enriquecidos” para “permitir que la maquinaria de la ley fuera usada para los propósitos de la extorsión”. Semejantes abusos, dijo Spencer, fueron “mayoritariamente debidos al mantenimiento del control estatal, y gracias a la ayuda de los fondos y la fuerza del Estado”. En caso de que el poderío militar del Imperio Británico no se hubiera puesto a disposición de los directores de la Empresa, “su estado de indefensión los hubiera obligado” a actuar de manera distinta; ellos habrían “prestado atención a un desarrollo integral del comercio y se hubieran comportado pacíficamente”. (Social Statics, cap.27). Escrito a mediados del s.XIX, Spencer se quejó especialmente del “vergonzoso monopolio de la sal” -que casi un siglo después llegaría a ser un importante catalizador del movimiento independentista indio.

¿Pero quiénes [escribio Spencer] son los beneficiados? Los monopolistas… en sus bolsillos han entrado, en forma de salarios a los oficiales civiles y militares, o dividendos de los beneficios…, una gran parte de los enormes ingresos de la East India company… Los propietarios ricos de la propiedad colonial obtuvieron protección, así como sus hermanos, los terratenientes de Inglaterra -los primeros con impuestos prohibitivos, los segundos con las leyes del grano, todo ello destinado a incrementar la desbordante riqueza de los dirigentes” (The Proper Sphere of Government).

Así, la plutocracia, según pensaban estos escritores libertarios, conducía al militarismo. Pero ellos también sostuvieron que el militarismo conducía a la plutocracia. Así argumentaba el americano spenceriano William Graham Sumner:

“El militarismo, la expansión y el imperialismo favorecerán la plutocracia. En primer lugar, la guerra y el expansionismo favorecerán la corrupción, tanto en las colonias como en casa. En segundo lugar, difuminarán la atención de la gente sobre todo el mal que los plutócratas están haciendo. En tercer lugar, provocarán grandes gastos del dinero de la gente, cuyos rendimientos no irán a parar al Tesoro, sino a las manos de unos pocos confabuladores. En cuarto lugar, clamarán por grandes impuestos y deuda pública, y estas cosas tienden a hacer al hombre desigual, ya que las cargas sociales pesan mucho más sobre los débiles que sobre los fuertes, y por tanto hacen al débil más débil y al fuerte más fuerte” (Conquest of the United Status by Spain).

Mientras que la influencia de las grandes riquezas privadas sobre el gobierno no era nada particularmente nuevo, los libertarios decimonónicos tendieron a pensar que se le había dado un nuevo ímpetu por la instauración de la democracia y sus inevitables compañeros, los grupos de presión políticos -lo que los liberales franceses llamaron “el gobierno ulceroso”. Un número de libertarios afirmó que la democracia representativa llevaba a batallas por la influencia política entre los grupos de intereses competitivos, y de manera poco sorprendente, son los intereses más ricos y más concentrados los que suelen llevarse el gato al agua. Sumner, por ejemplo, mantuvo que la democracia, lejos de ser, como se suponía comúnmente, la archienemiga de la plutocracia, era, de hecho, su crucial salvoconducto:

“Los métodos y la maquinaria de los gobierno democráticos y republicanos -camarillas, primarias, comités, y convenciones- nos conducen tal vez con mayor facilidad que otros métodos y maquinarias políticas a la aparición de afectos egoístas que buscan la influencia política para sus interesadas finalidades. (Sumner, “Andrew Jackson”)” [Sobre esta cuestión recomiendo enormemente el artículo de Scott Trask William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism en el número de otoño de 2004 del Journal of Libertarian Studies.]

Pero en estos puntos, los escritores como Sumner estaban simplemente desarrollando las implicaciones del comentario de Madison en el Federalista sobre que la extrema mutabilidad de la que los gobiernos representativos son responsables tenderá a trabajar en beneficio de una rica minoría:

De poco servirá al pueblo que las leyes sean aprobadas por hombres de su elección si son tan voluminosas que no pueden ser leídas, o tan incoherentes que no pueden entenderse; si son revocadas o reformadas antes de que se las promulgue, o si padecen alteraciones tan incesantes que nadie que conozca la ley hoy puede adivinar cuál será ésta mañana… Otro efecto de la inestabilidad pública es la poco razonable ventaja que otorga a una minoría astuta, emprendedora y adinerada, sobre la masa laboriosa y desinformada del pueblo. Toda disposición nueva que se refiera al comercio a la renta, o que afecte de cualquier manera al valor de los distintos tipos de propiedad, ofrece una nueva cosecha a quienes vigilan el cambio y pueden deducir sus consecuencias; una nueva cosecha que no ha sido producida por ellos mismos, sino mediante la abnegación y el trabajo duro del conjunto de sus conciudadanos. Se trata de una situación en la que con alguna certeza puede afirmarse que las leyes están hechas para unos POCOS y no para la MAYORÍA. (Federalist 62.)

Y Madison, a su vez, estaba trazando el antiguo argumento ateniense de que los sistemas electorales son de hecho oligárquicos en lugar de democráticos. (Ver mi The Atenian Constitution: Government by Jury and Referendum).

Mientras que tanto los liberales como los marxistas se quejaron del poder de las élites ricas, no estuvieron de acuerdo en el remedio, porque tampoco estaban de acuerdo en el origen del problema. Para los marxistas, la plutocracia era un producto del mercado; la clase dirigente emergía a través del comercio, y sólo se dedicó a consolidar su hegemonía a través del subsiguiente control del Estado. (El propio Marx era ambivalente en esta cuestión, pero Engels solidificó la posición marxista ortodoxa). Por lo tanto, para los marxistas el mercado debía ser suprimido; este es el origen de la visión izquierdista del fascismo como una manifestación del “capitalismo” del libre mercado. Para los libertarios, por el contrario, el poder de una clase dirigente depende del poder del Estado, y por tanto esta última es la que debe ser suprimida.

Los libertarios no cometieron, sin embargo, el error de suponer que el poder del Estado por sí solo era el único problema. Dado que los dirigentes eran generalmente superados en número por aquellos a quienes dirigían, estos pensadores se dieron cuenta de que el Estado no podía sobrevivir excepto a través de la aceptación popular, sobre la cual el Estado no tiene un poder coactivo. En palabras de Spencer “En el caso de un gobierno representando a una clase dominante… la mera existencia de una clase monopolizando todo el poder se debe a ciertos sentimientos de la comunidad” (The Social Organism). De la misma manera Dunoyer escribió:

El primer error, y en mi opinión el más serio, está en no ver suficientemente los problemas allí donde están -no reconocerlos excepto en los gobiernos. Dado que es además allí donde los mayores obstáculos se dejan generalmente notar, se asume que es allí donde existen, y que solo es allí donde hay que dirigir el ataque… Uno está poco dispuesto a darse cuenta de que las naciones sean el material del que los gobiernos están hechos; que es en su seno donde emergen los gobiernos (Industry and Morals)”.

O como preguntó el anarquista americano Edwin Walter: “¿Si el estatismo fuera la causa de todos los males sociales, qué cosa podría ser la causa del estatismo? (Communism and Conscience)”.

Los libertarios decimonónicos, por tanto, tendían a ser pensadores “radicales” o “dialécticos” en el sentido de Chris Sciabarra: veían el poder del Estado como una parte de un sistema entrelazado de mutuamente reforzadas prácticas y estructuras sociales, y estaban intensamente interesadas en los acompañantes institucionales y culturales del estatismo -acompañantes que tanto obtuvieron apoyo del Estado como ofrecieron apoyo al poder del Estado.

Es en los análisis de estos acompañantes donde los vemos pelear contra aspectos fascistas de la cultura estatalista. Escritores como Dunoyer, Spencer y Molinari vieron una cerrada conexión entre el estatismo y el militarismo porque en su opinión el Estado originaba la guerra; las tribus que tenían éxito en esquivar a los invasores se convertían progresivamente en dependientes de su clase guerrera, mientras que las tribus que fracasaban en repelerlos se convertían en los sujetos de la clase guerrera de la tribu enemiga -y en cualquier caso la clase guerrera estaba posicionada para convertirse en la clase dirigente. Dunoyer y Spencer también observaron una relación recíproca entre el estatismo y el militarismo, por un lado, y patriarcado por otro, dado que consideraban el poder de los hombres sobre las mujeres como la división de clases original de la que crecieron todas las restantes. No hubieran sido sorprendidos por el hecho de que los movimientos fascistas glorificaran la conquista militar, por un lado, y la familia patriarcal por otro.

No hubieran tampoco sentido ninguna sorpresa al conocer que el fascismo tomaba su nombre de las fasces, el símbolo romano de un hacha atada entre cuerda. (Un nudo de cuerdas por sí solo indicaba que un oficial tenía el poder para infligir daño corporal; añadir un hacha al haz de cuerdas significaba el poder para castigar con la muerte). Bastiat consideró la imperante reverencia a la Antigua Roma como una perniciosa influencia cultural. Escribió:

¿Qué era el patriotismo Romano? Odio a los extranjeros, destrucción de todas las civilizaciones, el sofoco de todo el progreso, el azote del mundo con fuego y espada, la esclavitud de las mujeres, niños y ancianos a los triunfantes carros -esto era gloria, esto era virtud… La lección no se ha perdido; y este adagio indudablemente procede de Roma… las pérdidas de una nación son las ganancias de otra- un adagio que aun gobierna el mundo. Para adquirir una idea de la moralidad romana, imagina en el corazón de París una organización de hombres que odian trabajar, determinados a satisfacer sus deseos con engaños y por la fuerza, y consecuentemente en guerra con la sociedad. Sin duda algún código moral o incluso algunas virtudes sólidas se manifestarán en esa organización. Coraje, perseverancia, autocontrol, prudencia, disciplina, constancia en los infortunios, secretos profundos, las puntillas, la devoción a la comunidad -estas indudablemente serían las virtudes que la necesidad y la opinión mayoritaria esperaría de estas brigadas; éstas eran las de los piratas; éstas eran las de los romanos. Podría decirse que, en relación con lo anterior, la grandeza de la empresa y la inmensidad del éxito han extendido un velo sobre sus crímenes hasta el punto de transformarlos en virtudes. Y esta es la razón por la que la escuela es tan dañina. No son los vicios abyectos, sino los vicios cubiertos con esplendor los que seducen las almas de los hombres (Acadeic Degrees and Socialism).

Roma, incidentalmente, fue otra gran cultura donde la plutocracia triunfó al adoptar una imagen democrática.

Spencer estaba convencido de que la cultura occidental de su día estaba en una fase de retroceso, una fase que llamó de “rebarbarización”, en la que los valores de la sociedad industrial, la sociedad de cooperación voluntaria y beneficio mutuo, estaban rindiéndose, una vez más, a los viejos valores de la sociedad militante, de jerarquía, reglamentación, agresivos impulsos, anti-intelecual, y una visión de la humanidad como una suma cero. Spencer vio la evidencia de la rebarbarización no sólo en la política oficial militar, sino también en la evolución cultural, como por ejemplo la creciente militarización de la Iglesia, o el recrudecimiento de lo que llamó “religión de la enemistad” (Principles of Sociology). Spencer estaba afligido al obervar que en “los servicios provistos por la Iglesia en ocasión de la salida de tropas hacia Sudáfrica [Spencer estaba escribiendo sobre la Guerra de los Boers]… se emplean ciertos himnos de una manera que sustituye el enemigo humano por el enemigo espiritual. Así, durante la generación pasada, bajo el manto de una religión que proclama la paz, el amor y el perdón, han sido perpetrados gritos de guerra, sangre, fuego y batalla y un continuo ejercicio de sentimientos antagónicos”. (Facts and Comments, cap. 25).

Otra evolución cultural que Spencer identificó como un síntoma de rebarbarización era el auge de los deportes profesionales. Según las palabras de Spencer:

Naturalmente junto con… la exaltación de la fuerza bruta en su forma armada… mostrando con qué intensidad el trato coactivo, que es el elemento esencial de la militancia, había pervertido a la nación, ha ido unida el cultivo de la fuerza física profesional bajo la forma del atletismo. La palabra es bastante moderna, por la razón de que durante la generación anterior los hechos que abarcaba no eran suficientemente numerosos y conspicuos como para llamarlo así. En mi juventud “las noticias deportivas”, así lo llamaban, estaban concentradas en un periódico semanal, Bell´s Life in London, que se encontraba, según me han dicho, en las guaridas de los camorristas y en las tabernas de clase baja. Desde entonces, el crecimiento ha sido tal que la adquisición de destreza en los deportes principales se ha convertido en una ocupación absorbente… Mientras tanto, para satisfacer la demanda que el periodismo ha cultivado, tal que aparecieron varios periódicos diarios y semanales dedicados enteramente a los deportes, los periódicos diarios y semanales de carácter ordinario informan de los “acontecimientos” en todos las localidades, y no es inhabitual que un periódico diario les dedique una página entera… Al mismo tiempo que la superioridad física se colocaba al frente de la sociedad, la superioridad mental descendía a las catacumbas… Así, estos diversos cambios apuntan de nuevo a los días medievales donde el coraje y el poder físico eran los únicos determinantes de las clases dirigentes, mientras que la cultura existente estaba recluida en los sacerdotes y los internados en los monasterios. (Facts and Comments, cap. 25).

Estos síntomas de militarización y barbarización en la arena de la cultura fueron coaligados con cambios análogos en el gobierno, incluyendo un desplazamiento del poder desde los civiles a la autoridad militar, y dentro del gobierno civil desde el parlamento a la autoridad ejecutiva. En 1881, Spencer se refirió a las medidas que se estaban tomando en Alemania:

para extender, directa o indirectamente, el control sobre la vida de la población. Por un lado, están las leyes bajos las cuales, a mitades del año pasado [i.e., 1880], 224 sociedades socialistas fueron cerradas, 180 periódicos retirados de circulación, 317 libros prohibidos… Por otro lado, podemos mencionar la política del Príncipe Bismark para reestablecer los gremios (cuerpos que coaccionan a sus miembros mediante sus regulaciones) y para constituir el Estado asegurador… En todos esos cambios se observa un progreso hacia… la sustitución de las organizaciones civiles por las militares, hacia el reforzamiento de las restricciones sobre los individuos y hacia una mayor regulación de su vida en gran detalle”. (Principles of Sociology V. 17.)

Y Spencer veía como Inglaterra estaba siguiendo el rastro de Alemania; expresó su temor a que “una extensión notable del espíritu militante y la disciplina entre la policía quienes están llevando sombreros con forma de cascos, pistolas y considerándose a sí mismos medio soldados, ha provocado que hablemos de la gente como “civiles””, y criticó a la “creciente asimilación de las fuerzas de voluntarios al ejército regular, llegando ahora mismo al extremo de proponer que estén disponibles para el extranjero, de manera que en lugar de las acciones defensivas para las que se crearon, puedan ser usados en acciones ofensivas”. (Ibid.)

Pocos años después, al otro lado del Atlántico, Voltairine de Cleyre percibió una evolución similar en Estados Unidos:

Nuestros padres pensaban que nos habían protegido del ejército permanente proveyéndonos con una milicia voluntaria. Al día de hoy, hemos podido ver como esa milicia se ha declarado parte del ejército regular de los EEUU, y sujeta a las mismas demandas que los regulares. Dentro de otra generación probablemente veamos a sus miembros cobrar regularmente del gobierno general. (Anarchism and American Traditions).

Durante la Guerra hispano-americana, Sumner estaba escribiendo “La Conquista de los EEUU por España“, dando a entender que los EEUU, aun venciendo a España en el campo de batalla, había sucumbido ideológicamente a las ideas imperialistas que tradicionalmente habían representado. Y E. L. Godkin, el editor de The Nation -en ese momento un periódico liberal clásico- escribió desesperadamente en 1900 sobre el “Eclipse del Liberalismo”:

Nacionalismo entendido como codicia nacional [escribió] ha suplantado al Liberalismo… Al colocar la grandeza de una nación particular por encima del fin del bienestar de la humanidad, ha sofisticado el sentido moral de la Cristiandad… No oímos hablar de derechos naturales, sino de razas inferiores, cuyo destino es someterse al gobierno de aquellos a los que Dios ha hecho superiores. La vieja falacia del derecho divino ha demostrado una vez más su ruinoso poder, y antes de que sea nuevamente rechazado tendrán que haber batallas internacionales de terrible magnitud. En casa toda crítica a la política exterior de nuestros dirigentes es denunciada como antipatriótica. No debe haber ningún cambio, la política nacional debe continuar. En el extranjero, los dirigentes de cada país deben apresurarse a ejercer el saqueo internacional, de manera que puedan asegurarse su porción. Para tener éxito en estas expediciones predatorias las restricciones del parlamento… sobre el gobierno deben dejarse a un lado”. (The Eclipse of Liberalism.)

En resumen, los libertarios decimonónicos observaron la emergencia de varias tendencias que al unirse se convertirían en fascismo -militarismo, corporativismo, reglamentación, chauvinismo nacional, plutocracia y lenguaje populista, las llamadas a “líderes fuertes” y la “grandeza nacional”, la glorificación del conflicto por encima del comercio, y de la fuerza bruta por encima del intelecto- y se opusieron con dureza a todo el paquete. Y aunque en última instancia perdieron la batalle, su bandera caída la hacemos nuestra al recogerla.

Dejemos que Sumner diga las últimas palabras; una vez más escribiendo en contra de la guerra hispano-americana:

[L]a razón por la que la libertad, de la que nosotros los americanos tanto hablamos, es una buena cosa, se debe a que significa permitir a la gente vivir sus propias vidas a su manera, así como podemos hacerlo nosotros. Si creemos en la libertad, como un principio americano, ¿por qué no la apoyamos? ¿Por qué vamos a lanzarla por la ventana para entrar en una política típicamente española de dominación y regulación?… [E]ste esquema de una república que conformaron nuestro padres fue un sueño glorioso que reclama más de una palabra de respeto y afecto antes de que se desvanezca… Su idea era que nunca permitirían que ninguna de las formas de abuso social y político del viejo mundo volviera a aparecer aquí… No debía haber ningún ejército salvo la milicia, que no tendría otras funciones que las de policía. No se les otorgaría ningún cortejo ni ninguna pompa; ninguna orden, jirones, condecoraciones o títulos. No habría deuda pública… No habría ninguna diplomacia majestuosa, porque pretendían ocuparse de sus asuntos y no dedicarse a las intrigas a las que estaban acostumbrados los políticos europeos. No debía haber ningún reequilibrio de poderes y ninguna “razón de Estado” que pudiera ejercerse a costa de la vida y la felicidad de los ciudadanos… Nuestros padres iban a tener un gobierno económico, incluso si la gente distinguida lo calificara de parsimonioso, y los impuestos no debían ser más altos que lo absolutamente necesario para financiar un gobierno así. El ciudadano debía retener el resto de sus ingresos y usarlos tal y como mejor creyera convenientes para la felicidad de él mismo y de su familia; su obligación era, sobre todo, asegurar la paz y la tranquilidad mientras seguía trabajando honestamente y obedecía las leyes. Ninguna política aventurera de conquista o ambiciones personales… debían ser emprendidas por una república libre y democrática. Por lo tanto los ciudadanos en ese país nunca serían forzados por ninguna razón a abandonar a su familia o a entregar a sus hijos a que derramaran su sangre por la gloria, y a dejar viudas y huérfanos… Por virtud de estos ideales hemos estado “aislados”, aislados en una posición que el resto de las naciones de la tierra observan con envidia silenciosa; y sin embargo todavía hay gente que se vanagloria de su patriotismo porque dicen que ahora hemos tomado nuestro lugar entre las naciones de la tierra por merced de esta guerra.”

Artículo original publicado por Roderick Long en LewRockwell.com el 2 de noviembre de 2005.

Traducción del Inglés de Juan Ramón Rallo, editada por Alan Furth.

Esta semana o grupo hactivista Anonymous  iniciou ciberguerra contra os trogloditas buscadores de atenção da Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). Depois de essa igreja sediada em Topeka, Kansas ter anunciado sua intenção de fazer piquete nos funerais das vítimas dos disparos em escola na última sexta-feira em Newton, CT, pessoas filiadas ao Anonymous divulgaram a seguinte declaração no Vimeo: ”Não permitiremos que vocês corrompam as mentes dos Estados Unidos com suas sementes de ódio … Não permitiremos que vocês inspirem agressão às facções sociais que consideram inferiores. Tornaremos vocês obsoletos. Destruiremos vocês. Estamos chegando.”

De acordo com o Huffington Post, a conta no Twitter da porta-voz da igreja, Shirley Phelps-Roper, foi objeto de acesso sem autorização [hacked]. O Anonymous também cobrou crédito por derrubar o website da igreja e afixar online as informações pessoais dos membros da igreja. Em resposta inconvincente,  o homófobo-em-chefe da Westboro, Fred Phelps, tweetou: “Nunca ouvi falar do  Anonymous, mas de algum modo ele obteve nossas informações pessoais … Trata-se de NOSSAS informações, não de vocês para as divulgarem! Deus nos resgatará.”

O Anonymous, naturalmente, já desenvolveu considerável reputação por punir ampla variedade de pessoas violentas  — desde grupos privados como a Igreja da Cientologia a agentes do estado — que se beneficiam de intimidação ou são protegidas pela lei. Vocês talvez se lembrem de que esse grupo afixou informações pessoais do Tenente John Pike (anteriormente membro do Departamento de Polícia da Universidade da Califórnia em Davis) depois de ele serflagrado por uma câmera lançando spray de pimenta sobre manifestantes sentados. Depois desse incidente, o grupo declarou: “Não temos nenhum problema em visar a polícia e divulgar informações dela, mesmo se isso a puser em risco … porque queremos que ela experimente uma pequena parcela da brutalidade e da  dor intensa que nos impõe todos os dias (ênfase no original).”

Aqui porém está o problema. As pessoas visadas pelo Anonymous podem ter famílias ou outras pessoas próximas que também podem ser prejudicadas (física ou financeiramente) pelo acesso não autorizado e divulgação de informações pessoais. Pessoas associadas ao Anonymous já, por vezes, pediram diretamente informações acerca de membros das famílias de seus alvos. Durante o recente ataque à WBC, agentes secretos do Anonymous foram ao Pastebin.com para afixarem informações referentes a membros da família Phelps e a pessoas a ela vinculadas. Ao examinar rapidamente esses dados, descobri pelo menos três menores listados.

Para que fazer isso? Será que essas crianças seriam vistas como “danos colaterais” pelo Anonymous se alguém resolvesse atacá-las juntamente com atacar seus pais? Se sim, será o Anonymous muito melhor do que os órgãos do governo com os quais tem esgrimido? O Anonymous (e radicais em geral) bem fariam em lembrar o verso magistral de Bob Dylan: “Para viver fora da lei, é imperativo ser honesto.”

A despeito de minhas reservas acerca de algumas táticas empregadas pelo coletivo Anonymous, acredito que sua prática de revidar órgãos do governo opressores e dados ao segredo — em vez de recorrer aos “canais oficiais” — tem sido parte de uma tendência positiva de advertência ao estado. O hacktivismo, juntamente com crescentes filmagens da polícia, representa o que gosto de chamar de “pequeno irmão.” O Anonymous também está certo, em teoria, ao reagir agressivamente a grupos fascistas.

No que diz respeito a grupos como a WBC, a KKK ou os neonazistas, não me convencem as tautologias liberais “ignore-os, simplesmente.” Porventura as pessoas detiveram os camisas-pardas que saíam à cata de quem atacar mediante fazerem vigílias à luz de velas, cantarem canções folclóricas ou citarem Voltaire? Tanto quanto eu saiba, essas táticas sozinhas nunca detiveram as forças do fascismo. O fascismo se espalha quando as pessoas passam por agruras econômicas e sentem necessidade de bodes expiatórios. Eis porque é imperativo sufocar esses movimentos antes de eles ganharem maior influência.

Organizações como a Westboro Baptist Church devem ser enfrentadas agressivamente onde quer que se reúnam. Esse deveria ser um esforço da comunidade, não responsabilidade apenas de uma vanguarda ativista. A violência deve ser evitada, mas esses cretinos morais devem sentir que estarão em perigo mortal se decidirem aterrorizar pessoas de nossas comunidades. Os fascistas devem ser considerados ameaça a todos nós até que mudem seus métodos de agir ou morram. Coleta de inteligência, piquetes em casas ou empresas, colocar no gelo, ridicularização pública, boicote e outras formas de ação direta poderão ajudar-nos a manter os fascistas acuados e podendo ser facilmente monitorados. Se os fascistas tiverem de existir, é precisamente nessas condições que desejamos que eles vivam.

Artigo original afixado por Dave Hummels em 22 de dezembro de 2012.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

According to the Huffington Post, church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper’s twitter account was hacked. Anonymous also claimed credit for taking down the church’s website and posting the personal information of church members online. In a lame response,  Westboro’s homophobe-in-chief Fred Phelps tweeted, “I’ve never heard of Anonymous, but somehow they got our personal info … That is OUR info, not yours to give out! God will deliver us.”

Anonymous, of course, has developed quite a reputation for punishing a wide variety of thugs — from private groups like the Church of Scientology to state actors — that thrive on intimidation or are shielded by the law.  You may recall that the group posted personal information from Lt. John Pike (formerly of the UC-Davis Police Department) after he was caught on camera dousing seated protestors with pepper spray. After that incident, the group stated, “We have no problem targeting police and releasing their information even if it puts them at risk … because we want them to experience just a taste of the brutality and misery they serve us on an everyday basis (emphasis in original).”

But here’s the problem. The people targeted by Anonymous may have families or others close to them that could also be harmed (physically or financially) by hacking and release of personal information. Individuals associated with Anonymous have, at times, directly requested information on family members of their targets. During the recent attack on WBC, Anonymous operatives went to Pastebin.com to post information on members of the Phelps family and associates. While looking through this data, I found at least three minors listed.

What is the point of this? Would these children be viewed as “collateral damage” by Anonymous if someone decided to attack them along with their parents? If so, is Anonymous much better than the government agencies it has jousted with? Anonymous (and radicals in general) would do well to remember a great line from Bob Dylan: “To live outside the law, you must be honest.”

In spite of my reservations about some tactics employed by members of the Anonymous collective, I believe their practice of striking back at oppressive, secretive government agencies — rather than going through “official channels” — has been part of a positive trend of putting the state on notice.  Hacktivism, along with increased filming of police, represents what I like to call the rise of “little brother.” Anonymous is also right, in theory, to respond aggressively to fascist groups.

When it comes to groups like WBC, the KKK or Neo-Nazi’s, I don’t buy into liberal “just ignore them” tautologies. Did people drive out marauding brown shirts by holding candle-light vigils, singing folk songs or quoting Voltaire? As far as I know, these tactics alone have never quashed the forces of fascism. Fascism spreads when people are feeling economic distress and are in need of scapegoats. This is why it is imperative that we stifle these movements before they gain greater influence.

Organizations like Westboro Baptist Church should be confronted aggressively wherever they gather. This should be a community effort, not the sole responsibility of an activist vanguard. Violence should be avoided, but these moral cretins should feel that they will be in mortal danger if they decide to terrorize people in our communities. Fascists should be considered a threat to all of us until they change their ways or die. Intelligence gathering, picketing of homes or businesses, shunning, public ridicule, boycotting and other forms of direct action may help us to keep fascists  boxed in and easy to monitor. If fascists must exist, this is precisely where we want them.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, Para Confrontar os Fascistas do Século 21.

Fascism differs from its close cousins, Communism and aristocratic conservatism, in several important ways. Let’s begin with its difference from Communism. First, where Communism seeks to substitute the state for private ownership, fascism seeks to incorporate or co-opt private ownership into the state apparatus through public-private partnership.

Thus fascism tends to be more tempting than Communism to wealthy interests who may see it as a way to insulate their economic power from competition through forced cartelization and other corporatist stratagems. Second, where Communist ideology tends to be cosmopolitan and internationalist, fascist ideology tends to be chauvinistically nationalist, stressing a particularist allegiance to one’s country, culture, or ethnicity; along with this goes a suspicion of rationalism, a preference for economic autarky, and a view of life as one of inevitable but glorious struggle. Fascism also tends to cultivate a “folksy” or völkisch “man of the people,” “pragmatism over principles,” “heart over head,” “pay no attention to those pointy-headed intellectuals” rhetorical style.

These contrasts with Communism should not be overstated, of course. Communist governments cannot afford to suppress private ownership entirely, since doing so leads swiftly to economic collapse. Moreover, however internationalist and cosmopolitan Communist regimes may be in theory, they tend to be just as chauvinistically nationalist in practice as their fascist cousins; while on the other hand fascist regimes are sometimes perfectly willing to pay lip service to liberal universalism. All the same, there is a difference in emphasis and in strategy between fascism and Communism here. When faced with existing institutions that threaten the power of the state — be they corporations, churches, the family, tradition — the Communist impulse is by and large toabolish them, while the fascist impulse is by and large to absorb them.

Power structures external to the state are potential rivals to the state’s own power, and so states always have some reason to seek their abolition; Communism gives that tendency full rein. But power structures external to the state are also potential allies of the state, particularly if they serve to encourage habits of subordination and regimentation in the populace, and so the potential always exists for a mutually beneficial partnership; herein lies the fascist strategy.

The respects in which fascism differs from Communism might seem to align it rather more closely with the traditional aristocratic conservatism of the ancien régime, which is likewise particularist, corporatist, mercantilist, nationalist, militarist, patriarchal, and anti-rationalist. But fascism differs from old-style conservatism in embracing an ideal of industrial progress directed by managerial technocrats, as well as in adopting a populist stance of championing the “little guy” against elites — remember the folksiness. (If fascism’s technocratic tendencies appear to conflict with its anti-rationalist tendencies, well, in the words of proto-fascist Moeller van den Bruck, “we must be strong enough to live in contradictions.”)

Some of the differences between fascism and the older conservatism may be due to the advances won by their common foes, the liberals. The progress of liberalism and of industry had the effect of shifting wealth, at least in part, from the traditional aristocracy to new private hands, thus creating new private interest groups with the ability to operate as political entrepreneurs; hence, perhaps, the tendency toward the emergence of a plutocratic class nominally outside the traditional state apparatus. Likewise the progress of democracy meant that plutocracy could hope to triumph only by donning populist guise; hence the paradox of an elitist movement marching forward under the banner of anti-elitism — a prime example in U. S. history being antitrust laws and other allegedly anti-big-business legislation being vigorously lobbied for by big business itself. (Cf. Murray Rothbard’s “War Collectivism in World War I,” Paul Weaver’s The Suicidal Corporation: How Big Business Fails America, Gabriel Kolko’s Railroads and Regulation, 1877—-1916 and Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900—1916, Butler Shaffer’s In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918—1938, Roy Childs’ “Big Business and the Rise of American Statism,” Joseph Stromberg’s “Political Economy of Liberal Corporatism” and “The Role of State Monopoly Capitalism in the American Empire,” Walter Grinder & John Hagel’s “Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-Making and Class Structure,” etc.) Hence fascism’s odd fusion of privilege and folksiness; one might call it a movement that thinks like Halliburton and talks like George W. Bush.

The partnership between the official state apparatus and the nominally private beneficiaries of state power was a familiar theme for 19th-century libertarians like Frédéric Bastiat and

Gustave de Molinari, who extended and radicalised Adam Smith’s critique of mercantilist protectionism as a scheme for benefiting concentrated business interests at the expense of the general public. In Molinari’s words, businesses “asked the government to safeguard their monopolies by the same methods that it had put into effect for protecting its own.” (“The Evolution of Protectionism.”) Libertarian sociologists like Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer had developed an entire pre-Marxian theory of class conflict, according to which the key to the position of the ruling class is not, contra Marx, access to the means of production, but rather access to political power. (Cf. David Hart’s Radical Liberalism of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer, Leonard Liggio’s “Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism,” Ralph Raico’s “Classical Liberal Exploitation Theory,” Mark Weinburg’s “Social Analysis of Three Early 19th-Century Classical Liberals,” etc.) When Marx called the French government “a joint-stock company for the exploitation of France’s national wealth” on behalf of the bourgeois elite and at the expense of production and commerce (“Class Struggles in France”), he was only echoing what libertarians had been saying for decades.

Herbert Spencer likewise complained of the influence of “railway autocrats” in American politics, “overriding the rights of shareholders” and “dominating over courts of justice and State governments.” (“The Americans.”) And Lysander Spooner denounced the financial and banking elite, writing as follows:

Among savages, mere physical strength, on the part of one man, may enable him to rob, enslave, or kill another man. … But with (so-called) civilized peoples … by whom soldiers in any requisite number, and other instrumentalities of war in any requisite amount, can always be had for money, the question of war, and consequently the question of power, is little else than a mere question of money. As a necessary consequence, those who stand ready to furnish this money, are the real rulers. … [The] nominal rulers, the emperors and kings and parliaments, are anything but the real rulers of their respective countries. They are little or nothing else than mere tools, employed by the wealthy to rob, enslave, and (if need be) murder those who have less wealth, or none at all. … [The] so-called sovereigns, in these different governments, are simply the heads, or chiefs, of different bands of robbers and murderers. And these heads or chiefs are dependent upon the lenders of blood-money for the means to carry on their robberies and murders. They could not sustain themselves a moment but for the loans made to them by these blood-money loan-mongers. … In addition to paying the interest on their bonds, they perhaps grant to the holders of them great monopolies in banking, like the Banks of England, of France, and of Vienna; with the agreement that these banks shall furnish money whenever, in sudden emergencies, it may be necessary to shoot down more of their people. Perhaps also, by means of tariffs on competing imports, they give great monopolies to certain branches of industry, in which these lenders of blood-money are engaged. They also, by unequal taxation, exempt wholly or partially the property of these loan-mongers, and throw corresponding burdens upon those who are too poor and weak to resist. (No Treason VI.)

As this quotation from Spooner shows, 19th-century libertarians also saw a connection between plutocracy and militarism, and sharply criticised what today would be called the military-industrial complex. Spencer, for example, railed against the “military aid and state-conferred privileges” enjoyed by the East India Company, which enabled it to commit “deeds of blood and rapine” in India where “the police authorities league with wealthy scamps” to “allow the machinery of the law to be used for purposes of extortion.” Such abuses, Spencer noted, were “mainly due to the carrying on of state-management, and with the help of state-funds and state-force.” Had the military might of the British Empire not been placed at the disposal of the Company’s directors, “their defenceless state would have compelled them” to behave differently; they would of necessity have “turned their attention wholly to the development of commerce, and conducted themselves peaceably.” (Social Statics, ch. 27.) Writing in the mid-1800s, Spencer complained especially of the “grievous salt monopoly” — which would of course become the chief catalyst for the Indian independence movement nearly a century later.

But who [Spencer wrote] are the gainers? The monopolists. … Into their pockets, in the shape of salaries to civil and military officers, dividends of profits, etc., has gone a large part of the enormous revenue of the East India company. … The rich owners of colonial property must have protection, as well as their brethren, the landowners of England — the one their prohibitive duties, the other their corn laws; and the resources of the poor, starved, overburdened people must be still further drained, to augment the overflowing wealth of their rulers. (“The Proper Sphere of Government.”)

Thus plutocracy, these libertarian writers thought, drives militarism. But they also held that militarism drives plutocracy. Thus the American Spencerian William Graham Sumner argued:

[M]ilitarism, expansion and imperialism will all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. (“Conquest of the United States by Spain.”)

While the influence of private wealth on government was not exactly anything new, 19th-century libertarians tended to think that it had been given a new impetus by the rise of democracy and its inevitable accompaniment, interest-group politics — what the French liberals called “ulcerous government.” A number of libertarians argued that representative democracy leads to a struggle for political influence among competing special-interest groups, and unsurprisingly it is the wealthier and more concentrated interests that tend to win out. Sumner, for example, maintained that democracy, far from being, as is usually supposed, the archenemy of plutocracy, is actually plutocracy’s crucial enabler:

The methods and machinery of democratic, republican self-government — caucuses, primaries, committees, and conventions — lend themselves perhaps more easily than other political methods and machinery to the uses of selfish cliques which seek political influence for interested purposes. (Sumner, “Andrew Jackson”)

[On this topic I highly recommend Scott Trask’s article “William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism” in the Fall 2004 issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies.] But on this point writers like Sumner were simply developing the implications of James Madison’s remark in the Federalist that the extreme mutability to which representative governments are liable is likely to work to the benefit of a wealthy minority:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. … Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY. (Federalist 62.)

And Madison in his turn was drawing on the ancient Athenian argument that electoral systems are actually oligarchic rather than democratic. (See my “The Athenian Constitution: Government by Jury and Referendum.”) While both libertarians and Marxists complained of the power of wealthy elites, they disagreed on the remedy, because they disagreed on the origin of the problem. For the Marxists, plutocracy was a product of the market; the ruling class emerged through commerce, and only subsequently seized control of the state in order to consolidate its already established hegemony. (Marx himself was ambivalent on this question, but Engels solidified the orthodox Marxist position.) Hence for the Marxists it was the market that needed to be suppressed; this is the origin of the left-wing view that fascism is simply a manifestation of free-market “capitalism.” For the libertarians, by contrast, a ruling class depends for its power on the power of the state, and so it is the latter that needs to be suppressed.

The libertarians did not, however, make the mistake of supposing that state power by itself was the sole problem. Since rulers are generally outnumbered by those they rule, these thinkers saw that state power itself cannot survive except through popular acceptance, which the state lacks the power to compel. In Spencer’s words, “In the case of a government representing a dominant class …. [t]he very existence of a class monopolizing all power, is due to certain sentiments in the commonalty.” (“The Social Organism.”) Likewise Dunoyer writes:

The first mistake, and to my mind the most serious, is not sufficiently seeing difficulties where they are — not recognising them except in governments. Since it is indeed there that the greatest obstacles ordinarily make themselves felt, it is assumed that that is where they exist, and that alone is where one endeavours to attack them. … One is unwilling to see that nations are the material from which governments are made; that it is from their bosom that governments emerge …. (Industry and Morals.)

Or again as American anarchist Edwin Walker pointedly asked: if statism were the cause of all social evil, what on earth could be the cause of statism? (Communism and Conscience.) 19th-century libertarians, then, tended to be “radical” or “dialectical” thinkers in Chris Sciabarra’s sense; they viewed state power as part of an interlocking system of mutually reinforcing social practices and structures, and were intensely interested in the institutional and cultural accompaniments of statism — accompaniments which both drew support from and provided support to the power of the state.

It is in their analysis of these accompaniments that we see them grappling with the specifically fascist aspects of statist culture. Writers like Dunoyer, Spencer, and Molinari saw a close connection between statism and militarism because in their view the state originated in war; tribes that succeeded in fending off invaders became increasingly dependent on their warrior class, while tribes that failed to fend off invaders become the subjects of the enemy tribe’s warrior class — and in either the case the warrior class was thereby positioned to become a ruling class. Dunoyer and Spencer also saw a reciprocal relationship between statism and militarism on the one hand and patriarchy on the other, since they regarded the rule of men over women as the original class division from which all later ones grew. They would thus not have been surprised to see fascist movements glorifying military conquest on the one hand and the patriarchal family on the other.

They would also not have been surprised to notice that fascism takes its name from the fasces, the Roman symbol of an axe in a bundle of rods. (A bundle of rods by itself indicated that an official had the power to inflict corporal punishment; adding an axe to the bundle of rods implied the power to inflict death as well.) Bastiat regarded the prevailing reverence for ancient Rome as a pernicious cultural influence. He wrote:

What was [Roman] patriotism? Hatred of foreigners, the destruction of all civilization, the stifling of all progress, the scourging of the world with fire and sword, the chaining of women, children, and old men to triumphal chariots — this was glory, this was virtue. … The lesson has not been lost; and it is from Rome undoubtedly that this adage comes to us … one nation’s loss is another nation’s gain — an adage that still governs the world. To acquire an idea of Roman morality, imagine in the heart of Paris an organization of men who hate to work, determined to satisfy their wants by deceit and force, and consequently at war with society. Doubtless a certain moral code and even some solid virtues will soon manifest themselves in such an organization. Courage, perseverance, self-control, prudence, discipline, constancy in misfortune, deep secrecy, punctilio, devotion to the community — such undoubtedly will be the virtues that necessity and prevailing opinion would develop among these brigands; such were those of the buccaneers; such were those of the Romans. It may be said that, in regard to the latter, the grandeur of their enterprise and the immensity of their success has thrown so glorious a veil over their crimes as to transform them into virtues. And this is precisely why that school is so pernicious. It is not abject vice, it is vice crowned with splendor, that seduces men’s souls. (“Academic Degrees and Socialism.”)

Rome, incidentally, was another culture in which plutocracy triumphed by adopting a democratic guise. Spencer was convinced that Western culture in his day was entering a retrograde phase, a phase he called “re-barbarization,” in which the values of industrial society, the society of voluntary cooperation and mutual benefit, were yielding once more to the older values of militant society, of hierarchy, regimentation, aggressive impulses, anti-intellectuality, and a zero-sum view of human existence. Spencer saw evidence of re-barbarization not only in official military policy but also in cultural developments, as for example in the increasing militarization of the church, or the recrudescence of what he called the “religion of enmity.” (Principles of Sociology.) Spencer was distressed to observe that in “the Church-services held on the occasion of the departure of troops for South Africa [he was writing of the Boer War] …. certain hymns are used in a manner which substitutes for the spiritual enemy the human enemy. Thus for a generation past, under cover of the forms of a religion which preaches peace, love, and forgiveness, there has been a perpetual shouting of the words ‘war’ and ‘blood,’ ‘fire’ and ‘battle,’ and a continual exercise of the antagonistic feelings.” (Facts and Comments, ch. 25.)

Another cultural development that Spencer identified as a symptom of re-barbarization was the rise of professional sports. In Spencer’s words:

Naturally along with … exaltation of brute force in its armed form … showing how widely the trait of coerciveness, which is the essential element in militancy, has pervaded the nation, there has gone a cultivation of skilled physical force under the form of athleticism. The word is quite modern, for the reason that a generation ago the facts to be embraced under it were not sufficiently numerous and conspicuous to call for it. In my early days “sports,” so called, were almost exclusively represented by one weekly paper,Bell’s Life in London, found I am told in the haunts of rowdies and in taverns of a low class. Since then, the growth has been such that the acquirement of skill in leading games has become an absorbing occupation. … Meanwhile, to satisfy the demand journalism has been developing, so that besides sundry daily and weekly papers devoted wholly to sports, the ordinary daily and weekly papers give reports of “events” in all localities, and not unfrequently a daily paper has a whole page occupied with them. …. While bodily superiority is coming to the front, mental superiority is retreating into the background. … Thus various changes point back to those mediaeval days when courage and bodily power were the sole qualifications of the ruling classes, while such culture as existed was confined to priests and the inmates of monasteries. (Facts and Comments, ch. 25.)

I suspect Spencer would not enjoy chanting “War Eagle!” in the Auburn stadium.

Such symptoms of militarization and barbarization in the arena of culture proceeded in tandem with analogous changes in government, including a shift in power from civilian to military authority, and within the civilian government from parliamentary to executive authority. In 1881 Spencer referred to the measures then being taken in Germany

for extending, directly and indirectly, the control over popular life. On the one hand there are the laws under which, up to middle of last year [i.e., 1880], 224 socialist societies have been closed, 180 periodicals suppressed, 317 books, &c., forbidden …. On the other hand may be named Prince Bismarck’s scheme for re-establishing guilds (bodies which by their regulations coerce their members), and his scheme of State-insurance …. In all which changes we see progress towards … the replacing of civil organization by military organization, towards the strengthening of restraints over the individual and regulation of his life in greater detail. (Principles of Sociology V. 17.)

And Spencer saw England beginning to follow in Germany’s footsteps; he noted with alarm “a manifest extension of the militant spirit and discipline among the police, who, wearing helmet-shaped hats, beginning to carry revolvers, and looking upon themselves as half soldiers, have come to speak of the people as ‘civilians’,” and he objected to the “increasing assimilation of the volunteer forces to the regular army, now going to the extent of proposing to make them available abroad, so that instead of defensive action for which they were created, they can be used for offensive action.” (Ibid.)

A few years later, on the other side of the Atlantic, Voltairine de Cleyre noted analogous developments in America:

Our fathers thought they had guarded against a standing army by providing for the voluntary militia. In our day we have lived to see this militia declared part of the regular military force of the United States, and subject to the same demands as the regulars. Within another generation we shall probably see its members in the regular pay of the general government. (“Anarchism and American Traditions.”)

At the time of the Spanish-American War, Sumner was writing of the “Conquest of the United States by Spain,” meaning that the United States, while victorious over Spain on the battlefield, was succumbing ideologically to the imperialist ideas that Spain had traditionally represented. And E. L. Godkin, the editor of The Nation — at that time a classical liberal periodical — wrote despairingly in 1900 of the “Eclipse of Liberalism”:

Nationalism in the sense of national greed [he wrote] has supplanted Liberalism. …. By making the aggrandizement of a particular nation a higher end than the welfare of mankind, it has sophisticated the moral sense of Christendom. … We hear no more of natural rights, but of inferior races, whose part it is to submit to the government of those whom God has made their superiors. The old fallacy of divine right has once more asserted its ruinous power, and before it is again repudiated there must be international struggles on a terrific scale. At home all criticism on the foreign policy of our rulers is denounced as unpatriotic. They must not be changed, for the national policy must be continuous. Abroad, the rulers of every country must hasten to every scene of international plunder, that they may secure their share. To succeed in these predatory expeditions the restraints on parliamentary … government must be cast aside. (“The Eclipse of Liberalism.”)

In short, the 19th-century libertarians observed the rise of the various tendencies that would come together to make fascism — militarism, corporatism, regimentation, nationalist chauvinism, plutocracy in populist guise, the call for “strong leaders” and “national greatness,” the glorification of conflict over commerce and of brute force over intellect — and they bitterly opposed the whole package. And although they ultimately lost that battle, their fallen banner is ours to pick up.

Let me give Sumner the last word; he’s writing once again of the Spanish-American War:

[T]he reason why liberty, of which we Americans talk so much, is a good thing is that it means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way, while we do the same. If we believe in liberty, as an American principle, why do we not stand by it? Why are we going to throw it away to enter upon a Spanish policy of dominion and regulation? … [T]his scheme of a republic which our fathers formed was a glorious dream which demands more than a word of respect and affection before it passes away. … Their idea was that they would never allow any of the social and political abuses of the old world to grow up here. … There were to be no armies except a militia, which would have no functions but those of police. They would have no court and no pomp; no orders, or ribbons, or decorations, or titles. They would have no public debt. … There was to be no grand diplomacy, because they intended to mind their own business and not be involved in any of the intrigues to which European statesmen were accustomed. There was to be no balance of power and no “reason of state” to cost the life and happiness of citizens. … Our fathers would have an economical government, even if grand people called it a parsimonious one, and taxes should be no greater than were absolutely necessary to pay for such a government. The citizen was to keep all the rest of his earnings and use them as he thought best for the happiness of himself and his family; he was, above all, to be insured peace and quiet while he pursued his honest industry and obeyed the laws. No adventurous policies of conquest or ambition … would ever be undertaken by a free democratic republic. Therefore the citizen here would never be forced to leave his family or to give his sons to shed blood for glory and to leave widows and orphans in misery for nothing. … It is by virtue of these ideals that we have been “isolated,” isolated in a position which the other nations of the earth have observed in silent envy; and yet there are people who are boasting of their patriotism, because they say that we have taken our place now amongst the nations of the earth by virtue of this war. (“Conquest of the United States by Spain.”)

This speech was delivered at the Mises Institute‘s conference on The Economics of Fascism.

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, Lo Vieron Venir: La Crítica Libertaria Decimonónica del Fascismo.

The American government has some of the most disingenuous accounting practices imaginable.  Every cost they estimate is really a logarithmic function, and they cannot keep the United States Post Office from losing about $5 billion a year.  They systematically sap the value of Federal Reserve notes through inflation and cannot be trusted to leave funds appropriated for Social Security in the designated account.

They literally take money from those worst off in society for retirement, supposedly for their own benefit, remove the money from that account, leave an unfunded liability, and then use the money on something more politically expedient while the weakest lose their coerced investment and are reimbursed unwillingly by those who remain productive.  What a racket!

As an institution, one should be extremely skeptical of both the practical ability of the government to be able to deliver quality results and the motivations behind the actions of state actors.

Many of the people who argue for the necessity of the state believe that humankind is essentially petty and cruel and thus make the case for a centralized political system to maintain order, peace, and prosperity.  But if humankind is all of those naughty things, then how are the people in government any different?  If people are profit-seeking and brutal, then they don’t become magnificently well-intentioned and public-spirited after joining the state.

Conversely, centralized power might even attract the cruelest in society, and any government would thus become infinitely more dangerous if the humankind were inherently evil.  I am far from the first to point this out.  Hayek famously wrote about this in The Road to Serfdom in the chapter “Why the Worst Get on Top.”  This idea is also central to the economic study of public choice theory.

Worse still for libertarians, the right has thoroughly embarrassed itself with its mercantilist defense of BP after the Deep Horizon Disaster and further sullied the reputation of markets in the process.  The juxtaposition of free market rhetoric and the fascistic reality of their position is responsible for an ever-increasing amount of damage to the perceived credibility of market liberalism.

In the haste to defend their mythological and hollow admiration of markets, the GOP’s ranks have closed around BP, in an effort to prevent a guilty-by-association wave of anti-market eruption from the political left.  Their smoke screen dooms liberty’s message and begs the question:

“How is defending an aggressive company a virtue for a free marketeer?”

I know the feeling. As a market-oriented thinker there can be pressure to defend every single market interaction.  “Walmart did what?  Oh, well, they have a right to, even though that’s ridiculous.  This is really a problem of state-granted corporate privilege.  In a freed market without a state these incentives and interactions would not actually exist, and this poor behavior would be very unprofitable…”  This isn’t always so convincing to the uninitiated, but libertarians walk a tightrope on issues like this.

This debate in the popular and mainstream media sources truncate the acceptable lines of argument between the fascist right, who are currently blocking legislation to raise liability caps, and the cries for more well-intentioned but economic progress-strangling regulation from the left.  There is a better way though, with a free market and without a state.

I’d argue that one should react with a “don’t hate the player, hate the game” attitude with regard to this incident.  BP, like all market actors, respond to the forces of supply and demand mostly outside of their control in order to internalize economic gains for their staff and investors.  However, with this statist anti-market and dangerous liability cap, firms like BP and their shareholders are are predictably incentivized to be less cautious than they would be without state protection.

With unlimited liability for civil damages through torts (private non-criminal damages suits) and a freed market, BP and all companies would be positively incentivized to keep the likelihood of negative (and expensive!) externalities to the most minimal amount conceivable.  This is precisely the kind of ‘regulation’ libertarians support.

This one change against caps on liability would make business extremely responsible and would do so without all of the inflexible bureaucratic regulations which produce sluggish and impoverishing economic conditions.  Unlimiting torts will make the world freer, safer, and more sustainably productive.  This is but one step on the road to the ideal of a stateless society, but if you are currently arguing for justice as a result of BP’s actions, please don’t forget to include this essential point.  Without this necessary reform, any new laws reacting to the Deep Horizon Disaster will only be polishing brass on the Titanic, and it will only be a matter of time until the perverse incentive structure strikes again.