Dialectical Libertarianism
(posted by Kevin Carson)
In the comments to Angelica’s post “Fannie’s Follies, Freddie’s Foibles,” an interesting discussion developed in the comment thread about the order in which to scale back the different forms of state intervention. We also discussed the possibility that particular regulations, even though nominally a form of state intervention, might not actually be a net increase in statism; they might be, rather, a case of the state limiting its own previous grant of special privilege, and amount substantively to a reduction in statism. In such cases, nominal deregulation may actually result in a net increase in statism. In “Public vs. Private Sector,” I discussed the class nature of the state and the meaninglessness in many cases of the distinction between nominally “public” and “private” organizations.
Both of these issues involve what Chris Sciabarra, in his brilliant book Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism, called… well, “dialectical libertarianism.”
By dialectical analysis, Sciabarra means to “grasp the nature of a part by viewing it systemically–that is, as an extension of the system within which it is embedded.” Individual parts receive their character from the whole of which they are a part, and from their function within that whole.
This means, especially, that it is a mistake to consider any particular form of state intervention in isolation, without regard to the role it plays in the overall system.
This is quite at odds with the mainstream libertarian approach (which Arthur Silber calls “atomistic,” in contrast to Sciabarra’s “contextual” approach):
These issues are very complex, so I will state the main point very briefly to begin with: there are two basic methods of thinking that we can often see in the way people approach any given issue. One is what we might call a contextual approach: people who use this method look at any particular issue in the overall context in which it arises, or the system in which it is embedded. Liberals are often associated with this approach. They will analyze racism or the “power differential” between women and men in terms of the entire system in which those issues arise. And in a similar manner, their proposed solutions will often be systemic solutions, aimed at eradicating what they consider to be the ultimate causes of the particular problem that concerns them.
The other fundamental approach is to focus on the basic principles involved, but with scant (or no) attention paid to the overall context in which the principles are being analyzed. In this manner, this approach treats principles like Plato’s Forms….
Atomistic libertarians argue “as if the society in which one lives is completely irrelevant to an analysis of any problem at all.”To determine the function a particular form of state intervention serves in the structure of state power, we must first of all ask what is the end of the state. This is where libertarian class analysis comes in.
The single greatest work I’m aware of on libertarian class theory is Roderick Long’s article, “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class” [Social Philosophy & Policy 15:2 (1998)]. Unfortunately, as far as I’m aware, it’s not yet available online (hint, hint). You can probably get it through JSTOR or something similar.
Long categorizes ruling class theories as either “statocratic” or “plutocratic,” based on the respective emphasis they place on the state apparatus and the plutocracy as components of the ruling class.
The default tendency in mainstream (i.e., right wing) free market liberalism is a high degree of statocracy, to the point not only of emphasizing the role of state coercion in enabling exploitation by the plutocracy, but of downplaying the significance of the plutocracy even as beneficiaries of statism. This means treating the class interests associated with the state as ad hoc and fortuitous. Long cites David Friedman as an extreme example of this tendency:
It seems more reasonable to suppose that there is no ruling class, that we are ruled, rather, by a myriad of quarrelling gangs, constantly engaged in stealing from each other to the great impoverishment of their own members as well as the rest of us. [from The Machinery of Freedom]
Sciabarra observes that, at first glance, Rothbard’s class theory might seem to fall into this category, bearing a superficial resemblance to interest group liberalism: although the state is the organized political means, it serves the exploitative interests of whatever collection of political factions happen to seize control of it at any given time. This picture of how the state works does not require any organic relation between the various interest groups controlling the state at any time, or between them and the state. The state might be controlled by a disparate array of interest groups, ranging from licensed professionals, rent-seeking corporations, farmers, regulated utilities, and big labor; the only thing they have in common is the fact that they happen to be currently the best at latching onto the state.
But Long shows that, on closer observation, Rothbard’s position is far different. Rothbard saw the state as controlled by
a primary group that has achieved a position of structural hegemony, a group central to class consolidation and crisis in contemporary political economy. Rothbard’s approach to this problem is, in fact, highly dialectical in its comprehension of the historical, political, economic, and social dynamics of class.
I have argued that the corporate economy is so closely bound up with the power of the state, that it makes more sense to think of the corporate ruling class as a component of the state, in the same way that landlords were a component of the state under the Old Regime.
Given this perspective, it doesn’t make much sense to consider particular proposals for deregulating or cutting taxes, without regard to the role the taxes and regulations play in the overall structure of state capitalism. That’s especially true, considering that most mainstream proposals from “free market reform” are generated by the very class interests that benefit from the corporate state.
No politico-economic system has ever approximated total statism, in the sense that “everything not forbidden is compulsory.” In every system, there is a mixture of compulsory and discretionary behavior. The ruling class in every system allows some amount of voluntary market exchange within the interstices of a system whose overall structure is defined by coercive state intervention. The choice of what areas to leave to voluntary exchange, just as much as of what to subject to compulsory regulation, reflects the overall strategic picture of the ruling class. The total mixture of statism and market activity will be chosen as most likely, in the estimation of the ruling class, to maximize net exploitation.
Some forms of state intervention are primary. They involve the privileges, subsidies, and other structural bases of economic exploitation. This is the primary purpose of the state: the organized political means to wealth, exercised by and for the ruling class. Some, however, are secondary. Their purpose is stabilizing, or ameliorative. They include welfare state measures, Keynesian demand management, and the like, whose purpose is to limit the most destabilizing side-effects of privilege, and to secure the long-term survival of the system.
The kind of “free market reform” typically issuing from corporate-funded “libertarian” think tanks and politicians involves eliminating only the ameliorative or regulatory forms of intervention, while leaving intact the primary structure of privilege and exploitation.
The strategic priorities of real libertarians should be just the opposite: first to dismantle the fundamental, structural forms of state intervention whose primary effect is to enable exploitation; and only then to dismantle the secondary, ameliorative forms of intervention which serve to make life bearable for the average person living under a system of state-enabled exploitation. As Jim Henley put it, remove the shackles before the crutches.
Regulations that simply limit and constrain the exercise of privilege do not involve, properly speaking, a net increase in statism at all. They are simply the statist ruling class’s stabilizing restrictions on its own more fundamental forms of intervention.
Arthur Silber illustrated the dialectical nature of such restrictions in another post. He raised the question of whether pharmacists ought to be able to refuse to sell items (morning after pills, birth control pills, etc.) that violate their conscience. The atomistic libertarian response is “Of course. The right to sell, or not sell, is a fundamental free market liberty.” The atomistic libertarian’s implicit assumption, as Silber pointed out, is “that this dispute arises in a society which is essentially free.” But pharmacists are in fact direct beneficiaries of compulsory occupational licensing, a statist racket whose central purpose is to restrict competition and enable them to charge a monopoly price for their services.
The major point is a very simple one: the pharmacy profession is a state-enforced monopoly. In other words: the consumer and the pharmacist are not equal competitors on the playing field. The state has placed its thumb firmly on the scales — and on one side only. That is the crucial point, from which all further analysis must flow….
…[T]he state has created a government-enforced monopoly for licensed pharmacists. Given that central fact, the least the state can do is ensure that everyone has access to the drugs they require — and whether a particular pill is of life and death importance is for the individual who wants it to decide, not the pharmacist and most certainly not the government.
I had the opportunity to work out these principles further in an extended discussion with Charles Johnson, starting with my blog post “On Dissolving the State, and What to Replace it With.” Charles responded with a post of his own, “On Crutches and Crowbars: Toward a Labor Radical Case Against the Minimum Wage.” From there, the debate went to an extended discussion in the comments under my original post. What I worked out in my mind, in that very productive exchange, was the following:
When the state confers a special privilege on an occupation, a business firm, or an industry, and then sets regulatory limits on the use of that privilege, the regulation is not a new intrusion of statism into a free market. It is, rather, the state’s limitation and qualification of its own underlying statism. The secondary regulation is not a net increase, but a net reduction in statism. On the other hand, the repeal of the secondary regulation, without an accompanying repeal of the primary privilege, would be a net increase in statism. Since the beneficiaries of privilege are a de facto branch of the state, the elimination of regulatory constraints on their abuse of privilege has the same practical effect as repealing a constitutional restriction on the state’s exercise of its own powers.
Brad Spangler used the analogy of gunman and bagman to illustrate the relationship between the state apparatus and the corporate ruling class. To apply that analogy here, a great deal of alleged statism amounts to the gunman telling the bagman, after the victim has handed his wallet over at gunpoint, to give the victim back enough money to pay cab fare back home so he can keep on earning money to be robbed of.
When the state is controlled by robbers, and every decision for or against state intervention in a particular circumstance reflects the robbers’ strategic assessment of the ideal mixture of intervention and non-intervention, it’s a mistake for a genuine anti-state movement to allow the priorities for “free market reform” to be set by the robbers’ estimation of what forms of intervention no longer serve their purpose. If the corporate-funded “libertarian” think tanks and the corporate stooges in government are proposing a particular “free market reform,” you can bet your bottom dollar it’s because they believe it will increase the net level of statist exploitation.
The measure of statism inheres in the functioning of the overall system, not in the formal statism of its separate parts. A reduction in the formal statism of some separate parts, chosen in accordance with the stategic priorities of the statist exploiters, may result in a net increase in the overall level of statism.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Rational Choice/Game Theory Framework vs. Dialectical Methodology
As I had posted previously, I was somewhere at the nexus of Anthony De Jasay and Left-Rothbardianism, which, I guess, technically, means I would tend to favor Rational Choice/Game Theory as a framework for modeling libertarian theory as opposed to a purely dialectical treatment of libertarian class theory. I’m not an ideologue on the matter, but a purely dialectical framework would tend to gravitate toward “conspiracy theories” IMHO. LRC is the perfect example, I believe, of “dialectical libertarianism” in full force.
In the Social Sciences, Rational Choice/Game Theory has gained in popularity at the expense of the “dialectical method” for modeling social institutions and interactions.
Nevertheless, there is merit in a dialectical treatment of libertarian class theory. Rothbard’s fusionism with the New Left is an example of this. However, I believe it’s a mistake to rely purely on a dialectical framework for libertarianism.
Then again, not being a professional academic, is it naivety to think I can go, say, 2 parts Rational choice/1 part Dialectical to synthesize my own framework of libertarianism, in the process, convincing no one but myself…?
April 8th, 2008 at 5:32 am
An eye-opening post, indeed. We need more work in this direction.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Kevin,
What would be your assessment of the economic ideas outlined in this article from John Zmirak?
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/imagining_a_future_for_conservatism
Are you very familiar with Wilhelm Ropke?
April 8th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I’m kinda with kaligula - I think there’s a mix involved. There is certainly a core group that can be fairly well defined that always gains more from the state than it sacrifices. An easy way of finding them is to focus on issues that both the Ds and the Rs never raise, let alone advocate changing. (The federal reserve, anyone?)
Beyond that, though, there are a lot of junior partners who resemble David Friedman’s description. Pharmacists, doctors, lawyers, eco-warriors, gender warriors, etc. all take their shots at controlling the beast, but I don’t think that they all qualify as part of the ruling class, even though some (like doctors) clearly are net beneficiaries of state intervention. I don’t think that most of them are conscious of the nature of the beast - the core group most certainly is.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Great article, Kevin! The bottom line is that we have to get radical. The system is far too adept at taking criticism and turning it into institutional reform that staves off their own collapse. Stephan Kinsella had an interesting blog post not too long ago where he implied that there is no need to make good, consistent law when one can pass a million exceptions, addendums, and qualifications to said legal principle to effect precisely the outcome one desires.
Similarly, there’s no reason for institutions to fundamentally change when they can simply adopt a policy and retain their essential structure and ends. Because of this, I think the radical position simply maintains a fundamental threat that allows for the greatest possible change, with the final goal being the destruction of these institutions as self-perpetuating fiefdoms (even if that means playing nice). At some level, we have to ask whether the institutions are even designed to serve us, or whether that service is a grudging price they pay to maintain power and control. And if it’s the latter, why have it as our end goal to keep them around?
If one is determined to approach this issue in a radical sense - and this seems to be what Carson is suggesting vis a vis class analysis - then rational choice is just not sufficient, IMHO. It treats institutions as a given, rather than what their proper position in society is: an ultimately arbitrary, pragmatic solution to a common problem, nothing more. Radicals must appeal to individuals as the constituents of these institutions who must exercise their sovereign power to dissolve them and render them empty abstractions at will.
That said, there’s bound to be a mix of agendas in any anti-establishment movement, and I agree with accomplishing what’s possible. If some people want to restructure existing institutions to better fit in a free society, I say let them. What I don’t agree with is limiting the analysis and the goal simply because that’s the most achievable. Radicals set the direction that things move, and moderates follow.
And personally, I think we could do a lot worse than attacking formal institutions as such, but I acknowledge the creeping primitivism of that sentiment some find distasteful.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Whoops, “(even if that means playing nice)” should be “even if they agree to play nice”.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Kevin,
I’m reposting this comment, in somewhat modified form, from Charles Johnson’s post which you referenced. Unfortunately, I made this comment initially after the threat had more or less died, and wasn’t able to get any substantive response. I’d be interested to know your thoughts:
One further nuance that I would want to add to your analysis of the “shackles”/”cruches” problem and the upshot thereof on strategy and the proper sequence of repealing various unlibertarian laws:
As you mentioned, it is often the case that a second coercive measure will be imposed so as to “correct” for the harm done by the first coercive measure. For example, let’s suppose that certain employers are complicit with the passage of a piece of legislation which cartelizes their industry making it harder for new entrants to break into the market. This then, makes it easier (based upon the improved bargaining position for all incumbent employers within that industry) for such employers to pay workers less and/or sell their products for higher prices.
Proper evaluation of subsequent legislation imposed in order to “restore” the balance of employers vis-a-vis workers or consumers requires a piecemeal approach. In principle (and considered in a vacuum)the second piece of legislation would be illicit under libertarian principles; however, as applied in certain circumstances, the second piece might be perfectly in accord with the libertarian conception of justice. That is, it might be perfectly acceptable for aggrieved workers and/or customers to try to achieve partial redress by invoking the second piece of legislation against those employers who were complicit in the initial passage of the first piece of legislation.
However, it would be improper for them to do so against the inadvertent, innocent beneficiaries of the first piece of legislation (i.e. other incumbent employers who were in no way responsible for the passage and retention of that legislation). While these innocent beneficiaries might be in a possession to non-coercively exploit workers and/or customers based on the legal privilege created by the first piece of legislation, that would not justify those exploited thereby in using the second piece of legislation to coercively end that exploitation…
The upshot of this point is that, when considering the repeal of the secondary measure, it is not possible to consider those benefited from the primary measure as a homogeneous, uniformly-culpable class — therefore, to repeal the secondary measure would at the same time be an “increase of statism” and a “decrease in statism,” depending upon which particular interactions would be subjunctively effected be the proposed repeal. The only case in which one could consider the repeal of a secondary measure an unambiguous “increase in statism” would be if there were no innocent beneficiaries of the primary measure. Would you still be as keen on mandating that a particular pharmacist provide even drugs about which he has some ethical issue when that same pharmacist also is a tireless supporter of the dismantling of the cartel apparatus from which he inadvertently benefits?
Thanks,
Araglin
April 8th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Wow, Araglin said everything I wanted to say.
I remember hearing about how in Holland, women who choose to have babies and stay out of the work force are thought to be “stealing” from the state which has educated them; presumably they ought to do something more with their lives, to “give back”. Under this dialectical libertarianism, is the answer to indeed encourage them somehow to compensate “society” for this privelege?
Assume for a moment there was no compulsory schooling in the above situation.
And, of course, the state crowds out alternatives, which has the effect of moving people toward statist “privelege” such as student loans, etc.
David Friedman has a point, insofar as the social choice dimensions of the politicized society encourage people to seek pre-emptive privelege because they know others will if they don’t. A depressing situtation.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
The ultimate solution to all scheduling and prioritization problems is to collapse all events into a temporal singularity so that everything happens at once — by which I mean that revolution cuts the Gordian Knot of reformist libertarian policy initiatives.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It’s possible to read a good chunk of “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class” on Google Books, in the anthology Problems of Market Liberalism (which is probably easier to track down in hard copy than the original journal version):
http://books.google.com/books?id=R-jihjl6ITQC
WorldCat link for the book:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38566023
But yeah, Roderick should really put it online for real.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
@Brad Spangler
I suppose you’re right about how Revolution would have the felicitous effect of solving some of the thornier questions of prioritization and scheduling, but until that glorious day comes, won’t the same problems reproduce themselves when we, as actors operating within the current, state-capitalist system, attempt to engage in practical reasoning as to which measures we may licitly evade via counter-economic direct action and the like?
If one is the recipient of what Kevin is calling a primary privilege, may one (consistent with the canons of left-libertarianism) seek to evade a secondary, ameliorative measure? And, does the answer to the foregoing question depend to any extent upon whether one bears any moral responsibility for the imposition and/or continued existence of the primary privilege?
@Dain
Thanks for your kind words. I’ve rarely if ever managed to say everything I wanted to say, let alone what someone else wanted to say.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:34 am
@Araglin,
Regarding:
“If one is the recipient of what Kevin is calling a primary privilege, may one (consistent with the canons of left-libertarianism) seek to evade a secondary, ameliorative measure?”
That’s an excellent question. What I would suggest is that case by case uncertainty over this set of concerns will (and ought to) be treated as economic risk — both analytically and in terms of crafting personal responses.
One “may” do as one wishes. Perhaps we ought to be asking which behavior is smarter rather than what is “allowed”. Everything I want to do revolves around making smarter behavior cheaper for as many peopleas possible. Everything else is elaboration on that.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Jeremy:
Don’t mistake my predilection for rational choice/game theory as a modeling framework for advocating Statist reform. Indeed, it was De Jasay’s work and his Rational Choice critiques of contractarianism that utlitmately led me to abandon belief in minarchism and “beltway libertarianism” in the first place.
That being said, I’m not at all hostile to dialectical methodology in terms of libertarian class theory and state capitalism expoitation. It’s just that I don’t think it’s fully explanatory or predictive. Truth be told, both frameworks have limitations. If you are a libertarian theorist, it would be profitable, I believe, to be “ambidextrous” in terms of methodology. JMHO.
In terms of getting “radical,” i would argue that appealing to dialectical arguments to reform Statist institutions out of existence have little chance of succeeding, at least in any applicable time frame. Achieving a critical mass of “class consciousness,” or relying on a “glorious day of revolution,” or waiting on some Malthusian Level Event(Peak Oil) to collapse the State all exhibit a degree of passive-aggressive traits. The only direct action is “counter-economics.” This is where Konkin get’s it right, IMO. Counter-economics can have a broad meaning, to include Counter-Institutions. There is nothing stopping people from opting out of the State and organizing under their own anarchist institutions. The problem is when the State comes calling to crush it with force. Protection against the state is one good that markets seem to have trouble supplying.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Keith,
I’m not real familiar with Roepke. The sentiments expressed in the linked article sound a lot like the Catholic Distributists. I certainly agree that large institutions are not conducive to freedom or genuine democracy. That’s one reason the founding generation in this country so feared standing armies. It wasn’t just because of the tyrannical use they could be put to domestically. It was because of their internal culture. At the time, they were one of the few (and by far the most prominent) large-scale, hierarchical institutions in a society made up almost entirely of self-employed farmers and tradesmen. The internal culture of hierarchy and obedience in a standing army was a breeding ground for what they regarded as utterly “un-American” kind of authoritarianism. In their view, a free society couldn’t be preserved by a population taking orders from other people. Kind of ironic, then, that most Americans today earn their livelihoods in a way that involves taking orders from a superior for almost half their waking hours, and have to pee in a cup on command. I don’t really think the boys with the flintlocks at Lexington Green would even have considered political arrangements worth fighting over in a society with such economic arrangements. With civil society organized on such an authoritarian basis, who even needs political tyranny?
April 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
quasibill,
You’re probably right. The difference probably corresponds to C. Wright Mills’ upper and middle levels of the power structure. The top level is the Power Elite per se, and tends to be both long-term and cohesive (along with the Fed and finance capital, I’d include Thomas Ferguson’s entire coalition of “capital-intensive, export-oriented” firms that’s dominated American politics since FDR). The middle level is more ad hoc, and corresponds more closely to the liberal idea of interest group pluralism.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Araglin,
I think the principle would still apply even to the kinds of people you mention, because the secondary intervention would only affect them insofar as they were beneficiaries of privilege. It would be a constraint specifically on the exercise of a previous privilege granted by the state. Whether or not they were complicit with the earlier grant of privilege, or even opposed it, does not alter the fact that to the extent they exercise that privilege a constraint on its exercise is not a net increase in statism.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Joel,
Thanks for the link. For all I know, Roderick may be working under some constraints imposed by the Copyright Nazis.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Kevin,
Thanks for your response. I certainly agree with your analysis insofar as the exercise of the privilege iself involves the violation of the rights of others, but where “exercising the privilege” simply amounts to incumbents continuing to engage in their lawful, non-rights-violating business (now perhaps more profitably or with greater bargaining power due to the erection of legal barrier to entry), I would want to argue that any constraints on how incumbents may engage in their business could only be rightly applied against those culpable for the creation or continued existence of the exclusionary privilege.
To continue with your example, unless the act of selling pharmaceuticals within the context of a cartelized market can be classified as per se an instance of the actual or threatened initiation of force, it’s not clear how the the repeal or evasion of secondary, ameliorative measures requiring that pharmacists sell birth control or whatever (imposed on all incumbents, not just “guilty” ones) could be considered an unambiguous “increase in statism.”
Thanks,
Araglin
April 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
ka1igu1a:
Can you point me to the De Jasay work you’re speaking of? Sounds interesting - I remember being very intrigued by an essay of his I once read, but I never followed up on it.
Surely counter-economics and counter-institutions are the forms of direct action that hold the most promise. Indeed, these forms of “secession from the system” allow for a market, not only in anti-state approaches, but also analyses - the kind of ambidexterity that you and I seek. I also hope they will deny the establishment institutions the stability in which they thrive, thwarting the rationality of the social system to the point where management and planning are impossible.
Brad:
I really liked your answer to Araglin. At some point, we have to hope that the moral calculus of deciding on reform strategies becomes too expensive, and people are willing to liquidate the old system’s obligations to themselves and seek fundamental reorganization. Call me a radical, but I do think that attacking primary privilege is the quickest way to destroy popular buy-in to the system, where people see that there is no point to operating under the old rules and give up looking for justice under it.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
“Against Politics” and “Justice and it’s Surroundings” are probably his 2 best works.
http://www.dejasay.org/