External Posts: Sciabarra, Horwitz; definition of Socialism; the “case” for anarchy

Stephan (K-dog) Kinsella – 7/14/2005

It is not “government” per se that is the problem, as Tibor Machan has noted. We can say that a free society with no states has “government” but no states. The question is whether there is a state. A state is an entity that both taxes people and forcibly outlaws competition. There is no reason to say that private justice agencies would have these characteristics. See on this, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Private Production of Defense, http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf

“You can call it a non-government, but the entity with the most capacity for force is going to BE a government as far as I’m concerned.”

But this assumes there is one dominant agency (even then, I would not assume it’s going to “be a government” [state]).

Stephan (K-dog) Kinsella – 7/14/2005

Horwitz: “I don’t think the case for anarchism is completely convincing.”

Does there need to be a “case” for anarchy? Anarchy simply means the absence of an institutionalized means of aggression. If one is already against aggression, why does a “case” need to be made that it is good to avoid having an institutionalized source of aggressoin? And if one is not against aggression… to whom is the “case” to be made, and by whom?

Libertarians should not have to be defensive and prove their “contention” that they have rights. If someone wants to attack you, you don’t have some obligation to first “prove” your rights; rather, you simply fight back as best you can–hopefully obliterate the uncivilized naked ape who is attacking you. Likewise, the question re anarchy is whether the *statists* have proved their “case” that the state is justified. If the state–which obviously uses aggression–is not shown to be justified, then it is what it appears to be: a mafia that has fooled knaves and dupes into believing it is “legitimate”. The person who is NOT fooled has no obligation to “justify” why he is not fooled.

Stephan (K-dog) Kinsella – 7/14/2005

“A case needs to be made because in the real world, states are overwhelmingly preponderant. This is particularly so in industrialized societies, which have never to my knowledge had a functioning anarchy.”

Well… I don’t see what the argument is here. Murder is prevalent in every country and society on earth. That does not mean a “case” needs to be made by those who oppose murder; rather, the opposite is the case (no pun).

“As to the state employing force, of course it does.”

Of course, I said it’s an institutionalized source of aggression, not force. Libertarians don’t equate aggression with force. We are not pacivists. It is aggression–initiated force–that is prohibited, not all force. Responsive force–force in response to initiated force–is not aggresion.

Campbell: “Your line of argument assumes that defense agencies or protection agencies under free-market anarchy would not themselves be institutionalized sources of aggession. Indeed, that they could not be institutionalized sources of aggression.”

I don’t think it assumes that at all. I simply say that states, because they necessarily commit aggression, are therefore immoral and unjustified. The recognition of this fact does not imply that a PDA would not be a state–what it implies is that IF a PDA is an institutional source of aggressoin, it is then a state or like a state in that it is immoral and unjustified.

Recognizing that something is aggression and immoral has nothing to do with a prediction about whether it’s possible to eradicate it. I can state that all murder is wrong and all murder should stop or be stopped, and this normative proposition is not contradicted by the *fact that* murder will not be completely stopped.

“People who don’t already agree with you are most unlikely to grant that assumption.”

As I’ve noted before, libertarians always want for some reason to convert a substantive issue into a question about tactics and strategy–they want to judge a statement’s validity or truth by asking whether it’s a good strategical argument in the “fight” for liberty. I don’t know if you are doing this, but it seems like you’re hinting at it.

Jason Kuznicki – 2/6/2005

1. Calling a government a mafia is not an argument. It is merely a slur, and I do not feel the need to respond to it.

2. When there is not a dominant agency, there is almost inevitably civil war: How else do you expect multiple agencies all employing force to compete with each other–if not by force?

M.D. Fulwiler – 2/6/2005

The mafia employs both retributive and initiatory force all the time, but if possible I would move it toward only the first type.

… the entity with the most capacity for force is going to BE a mafia as far as I’m concerned. After that, the only question is whether it is a good or a bad mafia.

Jason Kuznicki – 2/5/2005

When I wrote “force,” do note that I did not write “initiatory force.”

The state employs both retributive and initiatory force all the time, but if possible I would move it toward only the first type.

Robert Campbell’s analysis of anarcho-capitalism above more or less sums up what I believe of it too: You can call it a non-government, but the entity with the most capacity for force is going to BE a government as far as I’m concerned. After that, the only question is whether it is a good or a bad government.

Robert L. Campbell – 2/5/2005

Stephan,

Your line of argument assumes that defense agencies or protection agencies under free-market anarchy would not themselves be institutionalized sources of aggession. Indeed, that they >i>could</i> not be institutionalized sources of aggression.

People who don’t already agree with you are most unlikely to grant that assumption.

Robert Campbell

Jason Kuznicki – 2/5/2005

“If one is already against aggression, why does a “case” need to be made that it is good to avoid having an institutionalized source of aggressoin?”

A case needs to be made because in the real world, states are overwhelmingly preponderant. This is particularly so in industrialized societies, which have never to my knowledge had a functioning anarchy.

As to the state employing force, of course it does. Certain people are always going to be more inclined to force than others, and the state is a clever device for making them fight against one another–state versus mafia, state versus gangs, state versus terrorists. Without the state, those who incline toward force would perhaps join one of these other institutions. The state is a two-way check on violence, and that’s another reason why I think it’s worth keeping.

Jason Kuznicki – 2/5/2005

Historically, it is preposterous to say that statism is an early mistake of liberalism–as if any bona fide theory of anarchism existed in the days of Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke. It just didn’t happen that way. Liberalism has almost always contained a theory of the state in some form, and anarchists have generally considered this a fundamental difference between themselves and liberals.

You may argue that anarchism is preferable to statism–and even to a minarchist liberalism–but that’s quite another issue.

John T. Kennedy – 2/4/2005

Statism is an early mistake of liberalism, but that doesn’t make it the core.

Jude D Blanchette – 2/4/2005

I completely agree with Dr. Horwitz on both counts. However, I think there must be a much firmer distinction between the terms “anarchist” and “libertarian.” Libertarianism as a doctrine is simply the extension of liberalism. At its core, it holds a belief in the state, albeit an aggressively limited one. This is in distinction with anarchism (or anarcho-capitalism, or market anarchism, etc.). While there is certainly a fair amount of agreement between the two groups, they are two distinct concepts and for the purpose of verbal clarity, there should be a strict delineation.

Stephan (K-dog) Kinsella – 7/14/2005

Roderick, what term do you prefer to describe “socialism”–I have always liked Hoppe’s definition of socialism as a system of institutionalized aggression against private property. This seems to get to the essence of what is wrong with “Socialist” or “communist” societies, and put this way it shows that all non-minimalist states are to a degree “socialist”–theocracies, welfare-states, what have you. And in Hoppe’s A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, he indeed analysis Socialism Russian-Style, Socialism Social-Democratic Style, the Socialism of Conservatism, the Socialism of Social Engineering, etc. ( http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications.php#soc-cap )

Curious if you bifurcate institutions or interpersonal actions or laws into 2 types, this way, and if so, what labels you apply.

Stephan (K-dog) Kinsella – 7/14/2005

To me, the word used is not that crucial. It’s just semantics. What is important is that the single concept (whatever word tags it) identifies something common to all forms of (what I’m calling here as socialism), even though there are also significant differences. I suppose criminal or criminalism could be used, but this implies the existing legal code outlaws it; obviously, the state’s laws are “legal”. I think the trick is to realize that there are both private/individual forms of aggression, i.e., crime; and public forms of it, more organized forms of it…. the state in all its variants is thus some type of socialism or public, institutionalized aggression.

Not sure waht the best label is, but there are commonalities among all public forms of it, and even between public and private types of aggression or border-invasion. Maybe we call them property snatchers, or second-comers. I don’t know.

Kevin Carson – 2/7/2005

I usually hesitate to sign onto discussion boards that require logins, because I’m horrible at keeping track of the passwords. But this is too interesting to pass up.

A very thought-provoking post, Chris–and some great discussion in the comment thread. I’m currently digesting a blog post on the main points here, but thought I’d add my $0.02 on this interesting discussion of the term “socialism.”

Mises’ equation of “socialism” with state ownership/planning was ahistorical IMO, and flew directly in the face of earlier usage.

Even Friedrich Engels, arguably the father of “vulgar Marxism,” only saw state involvement in the economy as a step toward socialism, or maybe even a precondition–not as socialism itself. Even for Engels, “socialism” still carried its earlier meaning of a system in which the actual workers exercised real political and/or economic power. As an unreconstructed Tuckerite, I still hold onto the earlier usage of “socialist” myself, along with the “free market” label.

Engels argued in Anti-Duhring that state ownership and control might serve as a bridge to socialism, if workers seized political power. But if capitalists retained power in the state, state ownership and control would function as a component of an overall capitalist system of class-rule. Engels saw the Junker Socialism or “gas light socialism” of his day as just another example of the capitalists acting through their own executive committee, the state, to stabilize and plan capitalism and make their profits more secure. And he certainly would have ridiculed the use of the term “National Socialist” by the corporatist regimes of a later generation.

For Engels, the mixed economy had a dialectical character. The capitalists played a leading role in creating it for their own purposes; but some aspects of it (like the welfare state) were created at least partially in response to pressure from outside, from the working class. And although both state ownership/planning and the welfare state might be used by capitalists as an instrument of their own class-domination, the state became an arena of struggle in which the working class contested capitalist control over the mixed economy and attempted to redirect it to their own purposes.

So even for a state socialist like Engels, whether statism was a precursor of socialism or only an intensifier of capitalist exploitation depended on the outcome of the class struggle in the political arena.

The issue is further complicated by the assertion of Rosa Luxembourg and other assorted libertarian communists that the statist system implemented in the USSR was not “socialist” at all, because it was in its essence a class system for exploiting the worker. Luxembourg coined the term “state capitalist” to describe it, with the Party apparat replacing the old capitalists as owners of the means of production and extracting surplus value through the state. The Frankfurt School people argued that Marxist-Leninist systems were a post-capitalist form of class society, which they called “bureaucratic collectivism.” As Luxembourg put it, a post-capitalist collectivist society was inevitable–the only question was whether it would be socialism or barbarism.

Me, I like Immanuel Goldstein’s term “oligarchical collectivism.”

Sorry for the long rant.

Charles Johnson – 2/7/2005

Stephan,

I agree that getting a precise and theoretically useful concept is more important than the specific word you use to tag it; I’m perfectly willing to talk with people who use “socialism” in a Hoppean sense and I agree that questions of lexicography shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of analysis and discussion.

But, granted all that, I also think that it can be worthwhile to look at how the choice of a particular word for your stipulate definition eases or obscures communication with others about the content of the theory. I mean, I take it that Hoppe didn’t think of himself as offering a pure neologism–if he did, then he would have made up a word or phrase that doesn’t have a fixed meaning–but rather catching ahold of, and clearly setting out, what is essential to a historical common usage.

I think that’s a mistake, but you’re right that the mistake isn’t a serious mistake as far as the development of the theory is concerned. But there are questions as to what sort of problems in the gaps between the historical usage of “socialism” and Hoppe’s (and other 20th century libertarians’) stipulative definition of “socialism” might cause for the communication and application of the theory. (In particular, I’d argue that the use of the term in such a way that libertarians become *by definition* anti-“socialist” has encouraged libertarians to overestimate their proper distance from the Left and even more substantially underestimate their proper distance from the Right. If this can partly be traced to the Left and libertarians simply talking past each other when they use terms like “capitalism” and “socialism” (in ways that libertarians did NOT use them in, say, the 19th century), then that may be a reason to reconsider the words. Not necessarily a decisive reason, but at least a prima facie one.

As for what word to use… well, again, what’s wrong with “statism?” Doesn’t that already mean institutionalized aggression against private property, especially for a specifically anarcho-capitalist libertarian like Hoppe? Or if you think that runs the risk of making the account seem tautologous at first glance (“states are bad because they’re statist”), why not just use the term “institutionalized coercion” instead? Or “a racket,” if you want something a bit punchier. These are all terms that get the point across clearly and wouldn’t raise any objections from even the most ardent Tuckerite.

Kenneth R Gregg – 2/6/2005

The use of these terminologies leave us with quite an important issue, and an important opportunity as well. The pre-Austrian (and by that I mean prior to the introduction of Mises to American circles of scholars and free-marketeers in the late 1940’s) economic thinkers were Thomas Nixon Carver (who was known as “Mr. Capitalism” at Harvard, where he taught) was the author of many books and articles on economic theory, and Carl Snyder, primarily with the publication of his magnificant book, “Capitalism, the Creator.”

It may be well worth reviewing Charles T. Sprading’s influence in popularizing the “libertarianism” from the time of the publication of his “Liberty and the Great Libertarians” and the usage that he made of the term. His emphasis on “mutualism” and “cooperation” may well be keys in helping to resolve, or possibly expand, this topic.

Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net

Max Swing – 2/5/2005

So what is it then you want to call that system? Free market, or perhaps, as I would prefer, it is some sort of Trade-ism 😉

Charles Johnson – 2/5/2005

Kinsella: “I have always liked Hoppe’s definition of socialism as a system of institutionalized aggression against private property.”

Stephan, one of the problems with this definition is that there are many clear cases of people who called themselves socialists, and were recognized as such by other folks at the time, but did not accept any kind of aggression against private property, institutionalized or otherwise, especially Benjamin Tucker and the Liberty circle in the late 19th and early 20th century. Of course, they recognized at the time, and defined themselves in opposition to, statist socialists such as Marx. But they viewed this as an internecine struggle within “Modern Socialism” over a question of means (both constitute and instrumental, for what that’s worth), and identified the State-capital nexus, not statist socialists, as the primary target of their struggle. (Of course, the seizure of the state by the most monstrous forms of state socialism in the 20th century couldn’t help but change the rhetorical stance that libertarians would take. But while the change may have been understandable, there may be good reasons to think that it’s had plenty of unfortunate consequences.)

Of course, you might say, “Well, look, they may have called themselves socialists, but if they didn’t endorse institutionalized aggression against private property then they weren’t really socialists at all; they were libertarians.” I agree that they were libertarians, but I think that conceding the term “socialists” to the Marxists and the welfare statists gives the doctrinaire pronouncements of statist butchers entirely too much credence. Just because specifically Marxist socialism was clearly ascendent from ca. 1921 onwards doesn’t mean that the Marxists have any firmer claim to determining the content of the word “socialist” than the many other competing conceptions of socialism that were common in the 19th century. If Tucker used the word “socialist” in such a way that socialism was conceptually compatible with a thoroughgoing free market (as, in fact, he did), I don’t see any reason to take Marx’s word over his as to what “socialism” means.

Or, while we’re at it, to take Hoppe’s stipulative definition over either historical conception. It’s good to point out that welfare liberalism, fascism, Nazism, Bolshevism, theocracy, “progressivism,” etc. all have something importantly in common with one another. But isn’t the best word for what they have in common just “statism,” or, if you prefer, “coercion?” Why not save socialism for what its practitioners actually took it to pick out–a tradition of thought and action with the aim of placing the means of production under workers’ control–rather than expanding it (so as to encompass all other forms of statism) and contracting it (so as to eliminate many forms of anarchist socialism) so as to make it fit a concept that we already have a perfectly good word for?

Lisa Casanova – 2/4/2005

In a course I took about Latin American democracies, the teacher used the term “corporatism” to refer to a historical stage in Latin America when many countries sought to promote economic development and push industrialization via very heavy government involvement in industry and partial socialization of the economy, and applied the term to this type of system in general. I used the term to explain to someone the distinction between capitalism as I believe in it and the system we have in the U.S. I said that I would consider the system we have here to be corporatism, meaning a kind of capitalism where companies compete in markets but are in bed with the government, and don’t hesitate to use government to achieve their ends when it suits them. I don’t know if using that term might help define the debate more precisely.

Grant Gould – 2/4/2005

The terminology problem seems to come down to an attempt to capture too many axes of difference in a single term. When we examine a sociopolitical system, we can characterize it by the classes (if any) on whose behalf the political means (coercion, violence, expropriation) are used. We can characterize it by the principles on which the society is broadly organized. We can characterize it by the economic mechanisms that predominate. These axes are not totally independent, but they are also not tightly enough correlated to let a very few terms suffice.

For instance, I have generally divided societies on the first basis — the control of the political means of the state. Thus, anarchist (no political means), capitalist (holders of capital in control), socialist (representatives of “social interests” in control). But in each of these cases, plenty of social organizations and economic mechanisms could exist.

Unless we want to populate the whole three-dimensional space with technical terms that nobody will understand or remember (and I’ll admit, it’s tempting) we need to defer to the wider understanding of terms. And in the world outside of our rarified libertarian cloud, what prevails today in the US is capitalism and a voluntarily-organized society is anarchism. If those are the terms we have to work with — and for the larger discourse, they are — then I’m an unapologetic anarchist.
–G

Roderick T. Long – 2/4/2005

Plus, one can be a “market liberal,” or even a “radical libertarian” (e.g., Chris) without being an anarchist. and “anti-statist” might convey merely being against statism rather than being against the state.

Rand embraced terms like “capitalism” and “selfishness” as a kind of the-hell-with-it defiance. I’m not inclined to embrace those terms, but I confess my liking for “anarchism” expresses a similar mood.

But there’s another factor. I’m a big fan of the 19th-century individualist anarchists and think they had many things right. “Anarchism” stresses libertarianism’s continuity with that tradition while “capitalism” has the reverse effect.

Roderick T. Long – 2/4/2005

That’s true, and maybe I’m being inconsistent in remaining fond of “anarchism” as a term. But I do see one difference:

There are plenty of people who have no fundamental objection to the system that most libertarians call “capitalism” but who still object to the term because it has negative associations for them.

By contrast, people who have no fundamental objection to the system that I call “anarchism” tend to object to the term, when they do, only because it has negative associations for others (i.e., for people who, given their current views, wouldn’t like anarchism even if it were called something else).

Roderick T. Long – 2/4/2005

Stephan, I don’t have any preferred word there. I use “state socialist” for governmental socialism, but I don’t have a term that distinguishes non-governmental-but-still-rights-violating socialism (as in the nastier versions of anarcho-socialism) from genuinely voluntary socialism (as in the nicer versions of anarcho-socialism). I’m open to suggestions!

Aeon J. Skoble – 2/4/2005

What you say here about labels is all true – I rarely use “capitalism” with lefties because for them it’s definitionally bad — but this also goes to your use of the word “anarchism.” For pretty much everyone, that’s definitionally bad too. Not that I have any better suggestions — anti-statism? radical libertarianism? market liberalism? — but the deck is already stacked against you using the a-word.

Gus diZerega – 2/4/2005

Let me offer an example to suggest how sensitivity to where others are coming from rather than thinking in slogans can have a positive effect.

Karl Hess, jr., Randal O’Toole, Rocky Barker, and I (and possibly others) have been working from complementary directions on the idea of democratic national forest trusts as an alternative to national forests. Currently, such forests mean a substantial percentage of especially western land is under the incompetent oversight of Congress and the lunatics in the executive branch.

Democratic trusts would be free from governmental control, their boards elected by citizens who chose to join the trusts. They would be responsible for raising their own money – but would not be organized like corporations, where market prices are basically commands rather than serving as signals. There is much more to the proposal, but think a decentralized version of the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If they were successful, they could also be adapted to BLM lands.

The concept is voluntary, frees land from government control without thereby subjecting it to corporate control, and constructively addresses issues that many environmentalists hold dear, while also being open to local communities. It serves what we political theorists term public values. (These are different from what economists call public goods.)

For some time I have been speaking about the idea with the staff of Wild Earth, one of the best, and most influential, radical ecology journals – you know, the ones the likes of Fred Smith like to denounce as the implacable enemy of everything good. They say they will be printing an article of mine arguing for the concept.

Roderick T. Long – 2/4/2005

I’ve largely stopped using the words “capitalism” and “socialism” because they’re so misleading. I still use the terms “state capitalism” and “state socialism” (both evil), but to most right-libertarians “socialism” just means “state socialism” and to most left-libertarians “capitalism” just means “state capitalism.”

That’s also why I generally describe myself as a “market anarchist” rather than an “anarcho-capitalist.”

Grant Gould – 2/4/2005

I’ve been thinking on this issue ever since I read Fernand Braudel’s extraordinary “Civilization and Capitalism” trilogy. Braudel, a doctrinaire Marxist in aradigm and vocabulary if not quite in practice, distinguishes effortlessly between “free markets” and “capitalism” — indeed, to him they are opposites. While I had tended to look at subsidies, tarriffs, regulations, and the like as flaws in a capitalist order, I realize increasingly that these are simply epiphenomena of capitalism, and distinguish capitalism from actual free-market liberty.

I think that Marx got it right. Capitalism is the dedication of the political means to the projects of holders of capital. This is a system quite different from free markets, and is in fact doomed for largely the same reasons that Marx identified. Because at any particular moment the current capitalist classes must oppose innovations that would devalue their existing capital, they can deploy the political means to stifle such innovation. Innovation is the revolutionary class struggle; the political class opposes it with the political means. In the absence of productive innovation, efficient markets rapidly degenerate into zero-sum games. An analogous argument about diversity worsens the situation even more.

I believe that advocates of liberty and of free markets must separate themselves from this system of social organization, and I believe that it has for better or for worse taken the name “capitalism.” The efforts of revisionists like Rand notwithstanding, liberty has lost the war to define capitalism. The more that we speak of capitalism as an ideal, the more we make asses of ourselves.

I favor liberty and free markets, and their child prosperity. I oppose capitalism and socialism, and their bizarre hybrid, fascism.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Roderick T. Long – 2/4/2005

By the way, Kevin Carson’s very interesting book is the subject of an upcoming symposium issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies.