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The Constitution for the
United States, Its Sources and Its Application
Senate Report 93-549 War and Emergency Powers Acts,
Executive Orders, and the New World Order
Who is Running America?
Senate Report 93-549 War and Emergency Powers Acts,
Executive Orders, and the New World Order
Who is Running America?
Our Enemy, The State
by Albert J. Nock - 1935
by Albert J. Nock - 1935
CHAPTER 2
I
AS FAR back as one can follow the run of civilization, it
presents two fundamentally different types of political organization. This
difference is not one of degree, but of
kind. It does not do to take the one
type as merely
marking a lower order of civilization and the other a
higher; they are commonly so taken, but erroneously. Still less does it do to
classify both as species of the same genus - to classify both under the generic
name of "government,"
though this also, until very lately, has always been done, and has always led
to confusion and misunderstanding.
A good example of this error and its effects is supplied by
Thomas Paine. At the outset of his pamphlet called Common Sense, Paine draws a
distinction between society and government. While society in any state is a
blessing, he says, "government,
even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an
intolerable one." In another place, he speaks of government as "a mode rendered necessary by the
inability of moral virtue to govern the world." He proceeds then to
show how and why government comes into being. Its origin is in the common
understanding and common agreement of society; and "the design and end of government," he says, is "freedom and security."
Teleologically, government implements the common desire of society, first, for
freedom, and second, for security. Beyond this it does not go; it contemplates
no positive intervention upon the individual, but only a negative intervention.
It would seem that in Paine's view the code of government should be that of the
legendary king Pausole, who prescribed but two laws for his subjects, the first
being, Hurt no man, and the second, Then do as you please;
and that the whole business of government should be the purely negative one of
seeing that this code is carried out.
So far, Paine is sound as he is simple. He goes on, however,
to attack the British political organization in terms that are logically
inconclusive. There should be no complaint of this, for he was writing as a
pamphleteer, a special pleader with an ad captandum argument to make, and
as everyone knows, he did it most successfully. Nevertheless, the point remains
that when he talks about the British system he is talking about a type of
political organization essentially different from the type that he has just
been describing; different in origin, in intention, in primary function, in the
order of interest that it reflects. It did not originate in the common
understanding and agreement of society; it originated in conquest and
confiscation.[1]
Its intention, far from contemplating "freedom and security," contemplated nothing of the kind.
It contemplated primarily the continuous economic exploitation of one class by
another, and it concerned itself with only so much freedom and security as was
consistent with this primary intention; and this was, in fact, very little. Its
primary function or exercise was not by way of Paine's purely negative
interventions upon the individual, but by way of innumerable and most onerous
positive interventions, all of which were for the purpose of maintaining the
stratification of society into an owning
and exploiting class, and a propertyless dependent class. The order of
interest that it reflected was not social,
but purely antisocial; and those who
administered it, judged by the common standard of ethics, or even the common
standard of law as applied to private persons, were indistinguishable from a professional-criminal class.
Clearly, then, we have two distinct types of political
organization to take into account; and clearly, too, when their origins are
considered, it is impossible to make out that the one is a mere perversion of
the other. Therefore, when we include both types under a general term like
government, we get into logical difficulties; difficulties of which most
writers on the subject have been more or less vaguely aware, but which, until within
the last half-century, none of them has tried to resolve. Mr. Jefferson, for
example, remarked that the hunting tribes of Indians, with which he had a good
deal to do in his early days, had a highly organized and admirable social
order, but were "without
government." Commenting on this, he wrote Madison that "it is a problem not clear in my mind
that [this] condition is not the best," but he suspected that it was "inconsistent with any great degree of
population." Schoolcraft observes that the Chippewas, though living in
a highly-organized social order, had no "regular"
government. Herbert Spencer, speaking of the Bechuanas, Araucanians and Koranna
Hottentots, says they have no "definite"
government; while Parkman, in his introduction to The Conspiracy of Pontiac,
reports the same phenomenon, and is frankly puzzled by its apparent anomalies.
Paine's theory of government agrees exactly with the theory
set forth by Mr. Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
The doctrine of natural rights, which is explicit in the Declaration, is
implicit in Common Sense;
[2] and
Paine's view of the "design and end
of government" is precisely the Declaration's view, that "to secure these rights, governments
are instituted among men"; and further, Paine's view of the origin of
government is that it "derives its
just powers from the consent of the governed." Now, if we apply
Paine's formulas or the Declaration's formulas, it is abundantly clear that the
Virginian Indians had government; Mr. Jefferson's own observations show that
they had it. Their political organization, simple as it was, answered its
purpose. Their code-apparatus sufficed for assuring freedom and security to the
individual, and for dealing with such trespasses as in that state of society
the individual might encounter - fraud, theft, assault, adultery, murder. The
same is as clearly true of the various peoples cited by Parkman, Schoolcraft
and Spencer. Assuredly, if the language of the Declaration amounts to anything,
all these peoples had government; and all these reporters make it appear as a
government quite competent to its purpose.
Therefore when Mr. Jefferson says his Indians were "without government," he must
be taken to mean that they did not have a type of government like the one he
knew; and when Schoolcraft and Spencer speak of "regular" and "definite"
government, their qualifying words must be taken in the same way. This type of
government, nevertheless, has always existed and still exists, answering
perfectly to Paine's formulas and the Declaration's formulas; though it is a
type which we also, most of us, have seldom had the chance to observe. It may
not be put down as the mark of an inferior race, for institutional simplicity
is in itself by no means a mark of backwardness or inferiority; and it has been
sufficiently shown that in certain essential respects the peoples who have this
type of government are, by comparison, in a position to say a good deal for
themselves on the score of a civilized character. Mr. Jefferson's own testimony
on this point is worth notice, and so is Parkman's. This type, however, even
though documented by the Declaration, is fundamentally so different from the
type that has always prevailed in history, and is still prevailing in the world
at the moment, that for the sake of clearness the two types should be set apart
by name, as they are by nature. They are so different in theory that drawing a
sharp distinction between them is now probably the most important duty that civilization owes to its own safety.
Hence it is by no means either an arbitrary or academic proceeding to give the
one type the name of government, and
to call the second type simply the State.
II
Aristotle, confusing the idea of the State with the idea of
government, thought the State originated out of the natural grouping of the
family. Other Greek philosophers, labouring under the same confusion, somewhat
anticipated Rousseau in finding its origin in the social nature and disposition
of the individual; while an opposing school, which held that the individual is
naturally anti-social, more or less anticipated Hobbes by finding it in an
enforced compromise among the anti-social tendencies of individuals. Another
view, implicit in the doctrine of Adam Smith, is that the State originated in
the association of certain individuals who showed a marked superiority in the
economic virtues of diligence, prudence and thrift. The idealist philosophers,
variously applying Kant's transcendentalism to the problem, came to still
different conclusions; and one or two other views, rather less plausible,
perhaps, than any of the foregoing, have been advanced.
The root-trouble with all these views is not precisely that
they are conjectural, but that they are based on incompetent observation. They
miss the invariable characteristic marks that the subject presents; as, for
example, until quite lately, all views of the origin of malaria missed the
invariable ministrations of the mosquito, or as opinions about the
bubonic-plague missed the invariable mark of the rat-parasite. It is only
within the last half-century that the historical method has been applied to the
problem of the State.[3] This method
runs back the phenomenon of the State to its first appearance in documented
history, observing its invariable characteristic marks, and drawing inferences
as indicated. There are so many clear intimations of this method in earlier
writers - one finds them as far back as Strabo - that one wonders why its
systematic application was so long deferred; but in all such cases, as with
malaria and typhus, when the characteristic mark is once determined, it is so
obvious that one always wonders why it was so long unnoticed. Perhaps in the
case of the State, the best one can say is that the coöperation of the
Zeitgeist was necessary, and that it could be had no sooner.
The positive testimony of history is that the State
invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State
known to history originated in any other manner.[4] On the
negative side, it has been proved beyond peradventure that no primitive State
could possibly have had any other origin.[5] Moreover, the
sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one
class by another. In this sense, every State known to history is a class-State.
Oppenheimer defines the State, in respect of its origin, as an institution "forced on a defeated group by a
conquering group, with a view only to systematizing the domination of the
conquered by the conquerors, and safeguarding itself against insurrection from
within and attack from without. This domination had no other final purpose than
the economic exploitation of the conquered group by the victorious group."
An American statesman, John Jay, accomplished the
respectable feat of compressing the whole doctrine of conquest into a single
sentence. "Nations in
general," he said, "will
go to war whenever there is a prospect of getting something by it."
Any considerable economic accumulation, or any considerable body of natural
resources, is an incentive to conquest. The primitive technique was that of
raiding the coveted possessions, appropriating them entire, and either
exterminating the possessors, or dispersing them beyond convenient reach. Very
early, however, it was seen to be in general more profitable to reduce the
possessors to dependence, and use
them as labour-motors [economic
slaves]; and the primitive technique was accordingly modified. Under special
circumstances, where this exploitation was either impracticable or
unprofitable, the primitive technique is even now occasionally revived, as by
the Spaniards in South America, or by ourselves against the Indians. But these
circumstances are exceptional; the modified technique has been in use almost
from the beginning, and everywhere its first appearance marks the origin of the
State. Citing Ranke's observations on the technique of the raiding herdsmen,
the Hyksos, who established their State in Egypt about B.C. 2000, Gumplowicz
remarks that Ranke's words very well sum up the political history of mankind.
Indeed, the modified technique never varies.
"Everywhere
we see a militant group of fierce men forcing the frontier of some more
peaceable people, settling down upon them and establishing the State, with
themselves as an aristocracy. In Mesopotamia, irruption succeeds irruption,
State succeeds State, Babylonians, Amoritans, Assyrians, Arabs, Medes,
Persians, Macedonians, Parthians, Mongols, Seldshuks, Tatars, Turks; in the
Nile valley, Hyksos, Nubians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks; in
Greece, the Doric States are specific examples; in Italy, Romans, Ostrogoths,
Lombards, Franks, Germans; in Spain, Carthaginians, Visigoths, Arabs; in Gaul,
Romans, Franks, Burgundians, Normans; in Britain, Saxons, Normans."
Everywhere we find the political organization proceeding
from the same origin, and presenting the same mark of intention, namely: the economic exploitation of a defeated
group by a conquering group.
Everywhere, that is, with but the one significant exception.
Wherever economic exploitation has been
for any reason either impracticable or unprofitable, the State has never come into existence; government has existed,
but the State, never.
The American hunting tribes, for example, whose organization so puzzled our
observers, never formed a State, for there is no way to reduce a hunter to
economic dependence and make him hunt for you.[6] Conquest and
confiscation were no doubt practicable, but no economic gain would be got by
it, for confiscation would give the aggressors but little beyond what they
already had; the most that could come of it would be the satisfaction of some
sort of feud. For like reasons primitive peasants never formed a State. The
economic accumulations of their neighbours were too slight and too perishable
to be interesting;[7]
and especially with the abundance of free land about, the enslavement of their
neighbours would be impracticable, if only for the police-problems involved.[8]
It may now be easily seen how great the difference is
between the institution of government, as understood by Paine and the
Declaration of Independence, and the institution of the State. Government may
quite conceivably have originated as Paine thought it did, or Aristotle, or
Hobbes, or Rousseau; whereas the State not only never did originate in any of
those ways, but never could have done so. The nature and intention of
government, as adduced by Parkman, Schoolcraft and Spencer, are social. Based
on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the
individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy
of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both
in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not
based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no
rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always
made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself
above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so
doing.[9] So
far from encouraging a wholesome development of social power, it has invariably, as Madison said, turned every contingency into a resource
for depleting social power and enhancing State power.[10]
As Dr. Sigmund Freud has observed, it can not even be said
that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of
crime. In Russia and Germany, for example, we have lately seen the State
moving with great alacrity against infringement of its monopoly by private
persons, while at the same time exercising that monopoly with unconscionable
ruthlessness. Taking the State wherever
found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to
differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries
from those of a professional-criminal
class.
III
Such are the antecedents of the institution which is
everywhere now so busily converting social power by wholesale into State power.[11] The
recognition of them goes a long way towards resolving most, if not all, of the
apparent anomalies which the conduct of the modern State exhibits. It is of
great help, for example, in accounting for the open and notorious fact that the
State always moves slowly and grudgingly towards any purpose that accrues to
society's advantage, but moves rapidly and with alacrity towards one that
accrues to its own advantage; nor does it ever move towards social purposes on
its own initiative, but only under heavy pressure, while its motion towards
anti-social purposes is self-sprung.
Englishmen of the last century remarked this fact with
justifiable anxiety, as they watched the rapid depletion of social power by the
British State. One of them was Herbert Spencer, who published a series of
essays which were subsequently put together in a volume called The
Man versus the State. With our public affairs in the shape they are, it
is rather remarkable that no American publicist has improved the chance to
reproduce these essays verbatim, merely substituting illustrations drawn from
American history for those which Spencer draws from English history. If this
were properly done, it would make one of the most pertinent and useful works
that could be produced at this time. [12]
These essays are devoted to examining the several aspects of
the contemporary growth of State power in England. In the essay called Over-legislation,
Spencer remarks the fact so notoriously common in our experience, [13] that when
State power is applied to social purposes, its action is invariably "slow, stupid, extravagant, unadaptive,
corrupt and obstructive." He devotes several paragraphs to each count,
assembling a complete array of proof. When he ends, discussion ends; there is
simply nothing to be said. He shows further that the State does not even fulfil
efficiently what he calls its "unquestionable
duties" to society; it does not efficiently adjudge and defend the
individual's elemental rights. This being so - and with us this too is a matter
of notoriously common experience - Spencer sees no reason to expect that State
power will be more efficiently applied to secondary social purposes. "Had we, in short, proved its
efficiency as judge and defender, instead of having found it treacherous,
cruel, and anxiously to be shunned, there would be some encouragement to hope
other benefits at its hands."
Yet, he remarks, it is just this monstrously extravagant
hope that society is continually indulging; and indulging in the face of daily
evidence that it is illusory. He points to the anomaly which we have all
noticed as so regularly presented by newspapers. Take up one, says Spencer, and
you will probably find a leading editorial "exposing"
the corruption, negligence or mismanagement of some State department. Cast your
eye down the next column, and it is not unlikely that you will read proposals
for an extension of State supervision.[14] . . . Thus
while every day chronicles a failure, there every day reappears the belief that
it needs but an Act of Parliament and a staff of officers to effect any end
desired.[15]
Nowhere is the perennial faith of mankind better seen."
It is unnecessary to say that the reasons which Spencer
gives for the anti-social behaviour of the State are abundantly valid, but we
may now see how powerfully they are reinforced by the findings of the
historical method; a method which had not been applied when Spencer wrote.
These findings being what they are, it is manifest that the conduct which
Spencer complains of is strictly historical. When the town-dwelling merchants
of the eighteenth century displaced the landholding nobility in control of the
State's mechanism, they did not change the State's character; they merely adapted
its mechanism to their own special interests, and strengthened it immeasurably.[16] The
merchant-State remained an anti-social institution, a pure class-State, like
the State of the nobility; its intention and function remained unchanged, save
for the adaptations necessary to suit the new order of interests that it was
thenceforth to serve. Therefore in its flagrant disservice of social purposes,
for which Spencer arraigns it, the State was acting strictly in character.
Spencer does not discuss what he calls "the perennial faith of mankind" in State action, but
contents himself with elaborating the sententious observation of Guizot, that "a belief in the sovereign power of
political machinery" is nothing less than "a gross delusion." This faith is chiefly an effect of
the immense prestige which the State has diligently built up for itself in the
century or more since the doctrine of jure divino rulership gave way. We
need not consider the various instruments that the State employs in building up
its prestige; most of them are well known, and their uses well understood.
There is one, however, which is in a sense peculiar to the republican State. Republicanism permits the individual to
persuade himself that the State is his creation, that State action is his
action, that when it expresses itself it expresses him, and when it is
glorified he is glorified. The republican State encourages this persuasion
with all its power, aware that it is the most efficient instrument for
enhancing its own prestige. Lincoln's phrase, "of the people, by the people, for the people" was
probably the most effective single stroke of propaganda ever made in behalf of republican State prestige.
Thus the individual's sense of his own importance inclines
him strongly to resent the suggestion that the State is by nature anti-social.
He looks on its failures and misfeasances with somewhat the eye of a parent,
giving it the benefit of a special code of ethics. Moreover, he has always the
expectation that the State will learn by its mistakes, and do better. Granting
that its technique with social purposes is blundering, wasteful and vicious -
even admitting, with the public official whom Spencer cites, that wherever the
State is, there is villainy - he sees no reason why, with an increase of
experience and responsibility, the State should not improve.
Something like this appears to be the basic assumption of
collectivism. Let but the State confiscate all social power, and its interests
will become identical with those of society. Granting that the State is of
anti-social origin, and that it has borne a uniformly anti-social character
throughout its history, let it but extinguish social power completely, and its
character will change; it will merge with society, and thereby become society's
efficient and disinterested organ. The historic State, in short, will
disappear, and government only will remain. It is an attractive idea; the hope
of its being somehow translated into practice is what, only so few years ago,
made "the Russian experiment"
so irresistibly fascinating to generous spirits who felt themselves hopelessly
State-ridden. A closer examination of the State's activities, however, will
show that this idea, attractive though it be, goes to pieces against the iron
law of fundamental economics, that man tends always to satisfy his needs and
desires with the least possible exertion. Let us see how this is so.
IV
There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's
needs and desires can be satisfied. One
is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means.[17] The other is
the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political
means. The primitive exercise of the political means was, as we have
seen, by conquest, confiscation, expropriation, and the introduction of a
slave-economy. The conqueror parceled out the conquered territory among beneficiaries,
who thenceforth satisfied their needs and desires by exploiting the labour of
the enslaved inhabitants.[18] The feudal
State, and the merchant-State, wherever found, merely took over and developed
successively the heritage of character, intention and apparatus of exploitation
which the primitive State transmitted to them; they are in essence merely
higher integrations of the primitive State.
The State, then, whether primitive, feudal or merchant, is
the organization
of the political means. Now, since man tends always to satisfy his
needs and desires with the least possible exertion, he will employ the
political means whenever he can - exclusively, if possible; otherwise, in association
with the economic means. He will, at the present time, that is, have recourse
to the State's modern apparatus of exploitation; the apparatus of tariffs,
concessions, rent-monopoly, and the like. It is a matter of the commonest
observation that this is his first instinct. So long, therefore, as the
organization of the political means is available - so long as the
highly-centralized bureaucratic State stands as primarily a distributor of
economic advantage, an arbiter of exploitation, so long will that instinct
effectively declare itself. A proletarian State would merely, like the
merchant-State, shift the incidence of exploitation, and there is no historic
ground for the presumption that a collectivist State would be in any essential
respect unlike its predecessors; [19] as we are
beginning to see, "the Russian
experiment" has amounted to the erection of a highly-centralized
bureaucratic State upon the ruins of another, leaving the entire apparatus of
exploitation intact and ready for use. Hence, in view of the law of fundamental
economics just cited, the expectation that collectivism will appreciably alter
the essential character of the State appears illusory.
Thus the findings arrived at by the historical method amply
support the immense body of practical considerations brought forward by Spencer
against the State's inroads upon social power. When Spencer concludes that "in State-organizations, corruption is
unavoidable," the historical method abundantly shows cause why, in the
nature of things, this should be expected - vilescit origine
tali. When Freud comments on the shocking disparity between
State-ethics and private ethics - and his observations on this point are most
profound and searching - the historical method at once supplies the best of
reasons why that disparity should be looked for.[20] When Ortega
y Gasset says that "Statism is the
higher form taken by violence and direct action, when these are set up as
standards," the historical method enables us to perceive at once that
his definition is precisely that which one would make a priori.
The historical method, moreover, establishes the important fact
that, as in the case of tabetic or parasitic diseases, the depletion of social
power by the State can not be checked after a certain point of progress is
passed. History does not show an instance where, once beyond this point, this depletion has not ended in complete
and permanent collapse. In some cases, disintegration is slow and painful.
Death set its mark on Rome at the end of the second century, but she dragged
out a pitiable existence for some time after the Antonines. Athens, on the
other hand, collapsed quickly. Some authorities think that Europe is
dangerously near that point, if not already past it; but contemporary
conjecture is probably without much value. That point may have been reached in
America, and it may not; again, certainty is unattainable - plausible arguments
may be made either way. Of two things, however, we may be certain: the first
is, that the rate of America's approach to that point is being prodigiously accelerated; and the second is, that there is no
evidence of any disposition to retard it, or
any intelligent apprehension of the danger which that acceleration betokens.
Chapter 2
Footnotes https://www.blogger.com/null
[1] Paine was of course well aware of this. He says, "A
French bastard, landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king
of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry
rascally original." He does not press the point, however, nor in view of
his purpose should he be expected to do so. https://www.blogger.com/null
[2] In Rights of Man, Paine is as explicit about this
doctrine as the Declaration is; and in several places throughout his pamphlets,
he asserts that all civil rights are founded on natural rights, and proceed
from them. https://www.blogger.com/null
[3] By Gumplowicz, professor at Graz, and after him, by
Oppenheimer, professor of politics at Frankfort. I have followed them throughout
this section. The findings of these Galileos are so damaging to the prestige
that the State has everywhere built up for itself that professional authority
in general has been very circumspect about approaching them, naturally
preferring to give them a wide berth; but in the long-run, this is a small
matter. Honourable and distinguished exceptions appear in Vierkandt, Wilhelm
Wundt, and the revered patriarch of German economic studies, Adolf Wagner. https://www.blogger.com/null
[4] An excellent example of primitive practice, effected by
modern technique, is furnished by the new State of Manchoukuo, and another bids
fair to be furnished in consequence of the Italian State's operations in
Ethiopia. https://www.blogger.com/null
[5] The mathematics of this demonstration are extremely
interesting. A rTsumT of them is given in Oppenheimer's treatise Der
Staat, ch. I, and they are worked out in full in his Theorie
der Reinen und Politischen Oekonomie. https://www.blogger.com/null
[6] Except, of course, by predmption of the land under the
State-system of tenure, but for occupational reasons this would not be worth a
hunting tribe's attempting. Bicknell, the historian of Rhode Island, suggests
that the troubles over Indian treaties arose from the fact that the Indians did
not understand the State-system of land-tenure, never having had anything like
it; their understanding was that the whites were admitted only to the same
communal use of land that they themselves enjoyed. It is interesting to remark
that the settled fishing tribes of the Northwest formed a State. Their
occupation made economic exploitation both practicable and profitable, and they
resorted to conquest and confiscation to introduce it. https://www.blogger.com/null
[7] It is strange that so little attention has been paid to
the singular immunity enjoyed by certain small and poor peoples amidst great
collisions of State interest. Throughout the late war, for example,
Switzerland, which has nothing worth stealing, was never raided or disturbed. https://www.blogger.com/null
[8] Marx's chapter on colonization is interesting in this
connexion, especially for his observation that economic exploitation is
impracticable until expropriation from the land has taken place. Here he is in
full agreement with the whole line of fundamental economists, from Turg(t,
Franklin and John Taylor down to Theodor Hertzka and Henry George. Marx,
however, apparently did not see that his observation left him with something of
a problem on his hands, for he does little more with it than record the fact. https://www.blogger.com/null
[9] John Bright said he had known the British Parliament to
do some good things, but never knew it to do a good thing merely because it was
a good thing. https://www.blogger.com/null
[10] Reflections,
1. https://www.blogger.com/null
[11] In this country the condition of several
socially-valuable industries seems at the moment to be a pretty fair index of
this process. The State's positive interventions have so far depleted social
power that by all accounts these particular applications of it are on the verge
of being no longer practicable. In Italy, the State now absorbs fifty per cent
of the total national income. Italy appears to be rehearsing her ancient
history in something more than a sentimental fashion, for by the end of the
second century social power had been so largely transmuted into State power
that nobody could do any business at all. There was not enough social power
left to pay the State's bills. https://www.blogger.com/null
[12] It seems a most discreditable thing that this century
has not seen produced in America an intellectually respectable presentation of
the complete case against the State's progressive confiscations of social
power; a presentation, that is, which bears the mark of having sound history
and a sound philosophy behind it. Mere interested touting of "rugged individualism"
and agonized fustian about the constitution are so specious, so frankly
unscrupulous, that they have become contemptible. Consequently collectivism has
easily had all the best of it, intellectually, and the results are now
apparent. Collectivism has even succceded in foisting its glossary of arbitrary
definitions upon us; we all speak of our economic system, for instance, as
"capitalist," when there has never been a system, nor can one be
imagined, that is not capitalist. By contrast, when British collectivism
undertook to deal, say with Lecky, Bagehot, Professor Huxley and Herbert
Spencer, it got full change for its money. Whatever steps Britain has taken
towards collectivism, or may take, it at least has had all the chance in the
world to know precisely where it was going, which we have not had. https://www.blogger.com/null
[13] Yesterday I passed over a short stretch of new road
built by State power, applied through one of the grotesque alphabetical tentacles
of our bureaucracy. It cost $87,348.56. Social power, represented by a
contractor's figure in competitive bidding, would have built it for $38,668.20,
a difference, roughly, of one hundred per cent! https://www.blogger.com/null
[14] All the newspaper-comments that I have read concerning
the recent marine disasters that befell the Ward Line have, without exception,
led up to just such proposals! https://www.blogger.com/null
[15] Our recent experiences with prohibition might be
thought to have suggested this belief as fatuous, but apparently they have not
done so. https://www.blogger.com/null
[16] This point is well discussed by the Spanish philosopher
Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, ch. XIII (English translation), in
which he does not scruple to say that the State's rapid depletion of social
power is "the greatest danger that today threatens civilization." He also
gives a good idea of what may be expected when a third, economically-composite,
class in turn takes over the mechanism of the State, as the merchant class took
it over from the nobility. Surely no better forecast could be made of what is
taking place in this country at the moment, than this: "The mass-man does
in fact believe that he is the State, and he will tend more and more to set its
machinery working, on whatsoever pretext, to crush beneath it any creative
minority which disturbs it - disturbs it in any order of things; in politics,
in ideas, in industry." https://www.blogger.com/null
[17] Oppenheimer, Der Staat, ch. I. Services are also,
of course, a subject of economic exchange. https://www.blogger.com/null
[19] In America, where the
native huntsmen were not exploitable, the beneficiaries - the Virginia Company,
Massachusetts Company, Dutch West India Company, the Calverts, etc. - followed
the traditional method of importing exploitable human material, under bond,
from England and Europe, and also established the chattel-slave economy by
importations from Africa. The best exposition of this phase of our history is
in Beard's Rise of American Civilization, vol. 1, pp. 103-109. At a later
period, enormous masses of exploitable material imported themselves by
immigration; Valentine's Manual for 1859 says that in the
period 1847-1858, 2,486,463 immigrants passed through the port of New York.
This competition tended to depress the slave-economy in the industrial sections
of the country, and to supplant it with a wage-economy. It is noteworthy that
public sentiment in those regions did not regard the slave-economy as
objectionable until it could no longer be profitably maintained. https://www.blogger.com/null
[19] Supposing, for example, that Mr. Norman Thomas and a
solid collectivist Congress, with a solid collectivist Supreme Court, should
presently fall heir to our enormously powerful apparatus of exploitation, it
needs no great stretch of imagination to forecast the upshot. https://www.blogger.com/null
[20] In April, 1933, the American State issued half a
billion dollars' worth of bonds of small denominations, to attract investment
by poor persons. It promised to pay these, principal and interest, in gold of
the then-existing value. Within three months the State repudiated that promise.
Such an action by an individual would, as Freud says, dishonour him forever,
and mark him as no better than a knave. Done by an association of individuals,
it would put them in the category of a professional-criminal
class.
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