As scientists working in the framework of Public Choice Theory, we need only show where History II, the hypothetical transformation laws, takes us and at what point they break down. Just as an engineer applies physics and mathematics to the designing a bridge to withstand all reasonable physical occurrences (but never all conceivable ones), so too we can design our institutions to withstand severe social changes but, people being who and what they are, we cannot hope to make them withstand all possible contingencies. Uncertainty can never be exorcised away from any market. In analyzing the social situation, uncertainty acts like a conserved factor. When it disappears from ne part of the system, it reappears in another. There is no uncertainty in that!
How does this works in practice? One of the primary appeals of the totalitarian state is its vow to eliminate the uncertainties of the free market. And to do so, officials of the state act to increase their power without limit. Now as actors they function under the same knowledge constraints as the rest of us. They cannot know the future in detail. Hence, they will argue that the bounds of their power must never be fixed but must fluctuate as conditions change. Thus the laws are subject to a constant threat of change through state intervention, though the cause itself might not occur. A new legal uncertainty replaces the prior economic one, and this new uncertainty acts to undercut what remains of the free market for goods and services, because it is impossible to isolate economics from politics. Rapidly decreasing economic growth and shrinking time horizons are the result. The agents of Leviathan have transformed the problem (made it worse in fact), but despite their vow have not solved it.
This may help explain why welfare states are so frequently led to war when their avowed aims are the opposite. The welfare state must placate the most powerful rent seeking groups. It does not have the power to neutralize them. This reinforces already serious economic rigidities causing increasing friction at home and trade wars with other countries. There is less to go around but more demands to “redistribute.” The government officials are now in an impossible situation. To remain in power, they must satisfy both the rent seeking groups and those left out. Since a free market economic solution is ruled out, only a political one can do the job. If a higher unifying goal, one of pressing importance can be formulated, it will permit the government to make some reforms and placate the excluded. Few solutions are more satisfactory to the above than war (though various “moral equivalents” are likely to be tried) And, one might add, few entail greater uncertainty.
So, what to do? That rent seeking sets severe limits on practical reform has already been emphasized. Other routes to reform must be considered. While I retain fondness for the idea of libertarian “communes,” perhaps modeled after “Atlantis,”56 implementing a constitution for these communes is a non-trivial matter. It should be obvious that it would be a difficult problem to establish and maintain these communities. They would have a hard enough time if they fail, but Lord help them if they succeed. Obviously, tax consultants and lawyers would be prominent and essential members to the “commune.” If things work out (in theory they should) these communities would serve as true experiments in social contracts and could yield a wealth of empirical data, but I cringe when I think of the difficulties. It can be done. It may have to be done if civilization is to survive. But anyone who thinks it will be easy or “fun” is kidding himself.
[Editor’s note: I still like the idea, but people contemplating joining such communes need to be aware of all the risks – e.g. an energized and ruthless state, eager to demonstrate the effectiveness of a “Waco solution” to the “Atlantis problem.” That may sound extreme, I obviously thought so when I originally wrote this piece, but that is exactly what happened less than a decade later to a non-libertarian, religious commune.]
There is little more that can be added in terms of practical suggestions. No one wants to encourage fatalism, but one of the facts that we must face as adults is there is little that can be done to change or improve the world. For the foreseeable future, freedom will be found (and likely for only precarious periods) where enforcement and knowledge costs are prohibitively high or where there are such clashes of rival power groups and institutions to enable it to survive at the boundaries. These freedom “oases” would be similar to those that existed when the state and church conflicted during the Reformation. Precarious as they would be, nevertheless, they might permit cooperation to survive until such time as the rulers wearily decide to let the people go (i.e. attack some other group.) Historically, such has been a typical pattern. For those with iron nerves and a love of adventure, not to mention a slightly masochistic bent, this could prove exciting. For the rest of us, it is depressing. Freedom will be viewed much the same way as we now view polygamy; something that is socially tolerable so long as it is kept out of sight and practiced only by a few. Of course it is immoral and in no way to organize a society, but we’ve got our own lives to worry about, so we’ll ignore it.
The above analogy is not written as a defense of polygamy.
Long range prospects are slightly more encouraging. Perhaps, if some measure of scientific and technological progress continues, it may be possible for the disaffected to flee to comets and asteroids, there to build independent colonies that would, at the start anyway, be no threat to the statists on earth and thus, presumably, be left alone. Coercive regimes (there will be a lot of them) might even encourage such migrations as a way to get rid of trouble-makers. “Really out of sight, really out of mind,” as one might say. This too has happened before. I am not saying that this is what will happen, only that it might. It is one of the more optimistic scenarios.
[Editor’s note: This scenario, a recapitulation of the peopling of North America projected onto the solar system, remains a possibility though I am increasingly unwilling to give it much credence. This would likely be a post-Singularity (currently re-scheduled to happen ~2029) scenario, i.e. possible only when advanced AI joins with advanced nanotechnology for truly exciting stuff, which is what the Singularity is. But it is a large question if in fact the Singularity will happen. Forces, economic, political, religious, and social are coming together to ensure it doesn’t. The “re-primitivization of the world” is happening so rapidly, it is certain to be a horserace as to which comes first – Singularity or new Dark Age?
Manned space travel, almost but not quite a government monopoly, has as its simplest measure the cost of getting a pound into orbit (“halfway to anywhere” in terms of energy costs). This cost has shown no signs of decreasing over the decades which is exactly what one would expect. It may have increased in real terms. The space tourism industry, the lone exception to that monopoly, can currently send multi-millionaires into orbit for a few days or sub-orbit for a few minutes. Big deal. Not meaning to demean a great technical accomplishment, but it has a long way to go. Sending the interplanetary equivalent of the Mayflower mid-21st century (see Robert Heinlein’s wonderful novel, Farmer in the Sky) to a distant solar system homestead is a long shot. Analogies are suspect in any event and this one is far more than most. Should interplanetary colonization occur, there is every reason to believe it will be quite different in form from what took place over a period of four centuries when people from Europe (primarily) came to the Americas. Those who remember the past too strongly are likely to be blinded to future possibilities or something like that.
There is such a thing as living in too interesting times.]
If it does happen, once established these independent polities would be difficult to control. Attempts by the central authorities of Earth to do so would prove disastrous and lead to revolts that would be impossible to suppress. Again, Heinlein considered such possibilities in two of his novels, Between Planets and The Moon is Harsh Mistress. Alfred Bester did the same in The Stars My Destination. Perhaps a Renaissance will then occur and lead to a liberal (classical) spirit similar to the reaction against the interminably hideous religious wars that followed the Reformation. Ultimately, a mature civilization might arise and political leaders would come to view the prospect of using force as an absurdity much like the Catholic Church would view a proposal (now) to burn heretics in Rome. It took a while to get there but it did happen.
But my focus is on America of here and now. Granted if such a future does transpire, then the death of America the nation would not necessarily mean the death of America the idea, but that would be cold comfort to us.
* * *
Some of the ideas and possibilities expressed here are remote both in time and in their abstractness. Some are only too close and concrete. It has not been possible up to now to tie them to our personal lives. This is always the danger of philosophy. Instead of deepening our lives, instead of bringing about a love of thinking, it gradually disengages from us to become the sole concern of the academics and college students. This tends to bring contempt to ideas and reasoning, leaving us with a feeling of: What does it mean to me? The question is valid and because ultimately the science of politics and economics has meaning only when it touches the individual, it is to the individual we must turn. As noted at the start, this was the basis for the subjectivist treatment of the social sciences, from Menger to Shackle, from von Mises to Buchanan and Tullock. We start with the individual and worked up. Now it is time to return.
Let us summarize. The engine of society is the ideas and values at its base. These values and ideas have consequences. The state is a market for them. Given knowledge of the market rules, we can make near-term (and in some cases, long-term) predictions about the state of that market. What I want to do is move away from the market in the abstract and examine the effect of these ideas and values on our lives. In other words, to understand the moral implications of Public Choice Theory. It was never my intention to write this essay as only an intellectual exercise. When preparing it, I wondered how I could impress upon the reader the dimension of the disaster coming to engulf America. More often than not, I found the business distasteful and kept putting it off until it could be avoided no longer. What can we hope to do except hope it doesn’t affect us? It was like writing about a third world bus accident. It was something impossible in our daily lives to relate to. We consider it briefly and move on. What more can think or feel?
We must go deeper than science and philosophy into the secrets of the heart which only art can reveal.
* * *
It was philosopher/film director Terrence Malick who achieved the perfect metaphor for the transformation that is about to occur in America, and accomplished it with the skill and grace of a supremely talented poet and painter. The film is Days of Heaven (1978). The theme is the costs that ideas and values entail when put into action and who bears those costs. The story is set in the wheat fields of a huge farm in pre-World War I Texas (1916) and concerns four people, one in particular: Bill, a young steel worker from Chicago who is frequently in trouble with both the law and his employers. It is he who initiates the events that bring about his own destruction and of those around him. It is his resentments and frustrations that lead him to justify an act of deception and desperation that is at the center of the film’s tragedy. “Some people,” says the narrator of the film, Bill’s pre-teen sister (possibly half-sister, we are unsure) Linda, “got more than they need, others need more than they got. It’s just a matter of getting us all together.” This is the principle by which Bill acts. He and his lover Abby (in keeping with the mythic structure of the film, they hide the nature of their relationship by passing themselves off as brother and sister) and Linda arrive at the farm in Texas having fled Chicago. There Bill learns the owner\farmer is dying. Said to have only a year (“maybe a year”) to live, he finds himself strongly attracted to Abby. Bill, noticing this, persuades Abby to accept the Farmer’s marriage proposal, figuring it certain that when he dies, she will inherit the farm thus enabling them to live easy the rest of their lives. She reluctantly agrees to this scheme but over the months the farmer’s condition does not worsen, “it just stays the same,” and Abby’s feelings for him grow. Naturally, the situation grows tenser as the sense grows that no good can come from this. There is a confrontation between Bill and the farmer, and Bill leaves. Lonely for Abby, however, he returns to the farm in late-summer 1917. It is at that point that the farmer learns the truth of the relationship between Bill and Abby. At the film’s climax, all Biblical hell is unleashed. There is even a plague of locusts and a conflagration that destroys the farm. Bill kills the farmer in self defense. The three again are on the run, but they are tracked down by the authorities (who believe Bill murdered the farmer) and Bill in turn is killed.
At the film’s conclusion, we see Abby putting Linda in a boarding house and then walking to a train station to hitch a ride with soldiers heading to the front. The final scenes show Linda walking with a friend, likely along those same railroad tracks, while around them the death-throes of turn of the 19th century America take place and a new America is born. It is in these final images of a world that now seems as remote as ancient Egypt that the film effortlessly transcends itself. The loss of America’s 19th century dream of freedom and happiness is mirrored in the lives of these four characters whose love for each other was fatally mixed with the deceptions and resentments of envy that could not be contained once released.
Americans, like everybody else, are slow learners. World War I was a big mistake and, of course, nobody learned anything from it. It is never explicitly stated in the movie though it is strongly implied (great art is like that) that such catastrophes are the norm in history and America, for all its Exceptionalism, is no exception. The movie is at root a retelling of the Biblical tale of Abraham and Sarah and is intended to be a timeless statement of prophecy. Many critics did not understand this. Let me emphasize: Days of Heaven is not a naturalistic movie.
I do not want the reader to conclude form the above synopsis that Malick is a libertarian any more than that he is a Biblical scholar. He is far too accomplished and sensitive an artist to engage in such didacticism. In any event, don’t fret about the artist – focus on the art. What is crucial to our understanding the film comes directly from his artistic integrity and nothing else; the tension between what could be and what is. Like Rand, Malick has great respect for the potential of human beings and never lets the failings of his characters detract from his valuing of them. Like Rand as well, justice is an integral part of his cosmos. Moreover, while the vision of both artists is secular, they make it clear that when we fail morally, we will find ways to punish ourselves that are, if anything, more horrific than the gods could devise. And if the punishment is not borne by the guilty, it will be borne by the innocent. Yet, like Rand again, his universe, Malick’s cosmos is not malevolent. It is indeed a magnificent existence that is worthy of man and man is worthy of it. The beauty of Abby touches all around her. There is good in her that is not to be denied. There is good in all of them. Despite their failures, they were not born to fail. Despite their choices, they were not destined to choose evil. As human beings, the survivors came to accept their choices and the resulting costs. As human beings, we must do no less. The film warns that for all time though we do not have to make the same choices, given a similar situation, if we do the costs will be as grim.
Unlike Rand, Malick’s view of life is tragic, but life itself still has enormous value.
* * *
There is a question here, a difficult and interesting one, on how to define morality in social terms. In other words, how can we enable the private moral rate of return to equilibrate to the social rate of return? That is, to what extent can people be punished for their actions in service of Leviathan and the ideas that make Leviathan possible? Since I have maintained there is a degree of determinism to the dynamics of the transformation from majority-vote democracy to totalitarian state, it would appear that the extent to which I hold people responsible has been significantly diminished. In the case of complete determinism (assuming it makes sense to speak of such a think in a human context), it would be monstrous to be an advocate of punishment. It would be like whipping a person for growing old.
I know of no easy resolution to the matter. Certainly we cannot hold an entire nation accountable for the sins of its leaders, though in war that is how we act and must act. That seems to be nothing less than collective guilt on a vast scale, every bit as vicious as the crimes we are seeking to punish. Suppose you had to judge a person caught in the maw of Leviathan? Arguing from the point of view of partial determinism, would you deem that individual guilty? And what of his superior? We don’t want to yield to the “I only followed orders” defense, but a degenerate state posses problems of such complex jurisprudence that the problem of punishment must be restricted if it is to be made manageable at all. We also want to do everything possible to provide incentives for people to resist Leviathan, granted how difficult that is to do. I suggest the following: for state crimes, only those individuals can be pushed who created and/or interpreted the political laws of the state. This would place the burden of guilt on the intellectuals and the apparatus of enforcement. This view acknowledges that it is too much to ask of people caught in such situations to, in effect, act irrationally, i.e. seek martyrdom when survival itself is difficult enough. It does not free the bulk of the subjects from censure, but admits that in the majority of cases, these functionaries are more pathetic than evil. They would be placed in the odd position of being neither forgivable nor punishable.
When, Bill, Abby, and Linda fled the farm, Abby confided to Linda that “she didn’t care whether she was happy or not, only that she did what was right.” This implies, again in agreement with Rand, that our happiness is vitally dependent upon our moral base. When the base weakens, we can expect our happiness to crumble as well. It is in moral terms that Abby attempts to understand what has happened and seek out a resolution in the time remaining. Similarly, I maintain that most people if they want to understand what is taking place in America should seek out an understanding in moral terms. While my respect for the Public Choice Theory is unqualified, in some ways I wonder how great an improvement it is to Bastiat’s aphorism quoted way back in Part I or Rand’s grim summation (speaking through her character Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas Shrugged) of the moral consequences of rent seeking in Part VI. Both statements have the advantage that no amount of economic or political theory can match. They speak in clear, concise, and precise moral terms. The issues are presented explicitly and a choice is offered. Rand’s great achievement as a philosopher was to recognize the need for such a moral base for a free market society when everyone before her had considered it superfluous or in bad taste. In her art, she quickly found that it is necessary to go to the metaphysical level, to pronounce man worthy of life, and that the future was his whenever he chose to claim it. Morally, nothing less would do.
For Abby, by doing the most moral of actions in the limits of her knowledge and the constraints, she performed a remarkable feat. Considering her appalling situation, this is an outstanding act of moral courage.
It is in these moral terms which speak directly to the individual that we find the greatest danger of statism. Well before the GULAGs are established and the nation goes to war, it is in our lives and relations to others that the tragedy occurs. The many subtle (and some not so subtle) cruelties of status and privilege, the hidden resentments, the unacknowledged fears, the dreaded choices, are all part of the mix and combine to give our lives a feeling of unending frustration and hopelessness. We become a nation of hurt people seeking revenge upon an enemy, any enemy. We come to depend upon an absurdity that somehow this raw mass of emotion will lead to a better life — if only others would believe and obey. We seek to affirm a cosmic order that cannot even be defined. This is a hooligan’s version of Historicism, a joke masquerading as civic involvement. And we come to dread above all the man who asks questions. Questions upset us and force us to look at ourselves. They force us to perform that most despised of acts, growing up. This process of hiding from reality has names, such as “Peter Pan politics” or the “Politics of Cultural Despair,” but however it is designated, the meaning is clear: the flight to Leviathan is a flight from reality and self. We become adrift somewhere far from earth in the Platonic realm where concepts of processes, like the state, market, and society, are things, like rocks and rutabagas, things that we can crush whenever the displease us. It is no wonder that in the end, losing happiness and the knowledge of good and evil, we are expelled from Eden.
Divesting punishment from moral censure makes sense if it allows us to shift the burden of choice back to the individual and leave it there. It would be presumed that having defined a moral code, punishment must be mandated for violations. That view is unrealistic when we deal with the state as a market. Instead of searching for moral perfection, we instead seek to discover moral certainty (difficult enough). We accept that we live in a society of diffuse knowledge and that most behaviors of which we disapprove will be prohibitively expensive to detect let alone stop. Instead of saddling people with guilt to ensure compliance, we concentrate on the most evil actions in the state and leave to you the problem of censure. We concentrate on the incentives and constraints of the state as a market and accept the fact that we cannot make people over into our own image and instead work only to achieve our own happiness.
This view is hopeful. It leaves the market alone to encourage the best behavior and rewards those engaged in forming moral capital. It extends the traditional libertarian view of victimless crimes by acknowledging both society and individual. It opens the possibility of a consistent understanding of anarchy and utopia: a state with no forced rules. So while people can be censured for their reliance on the state as both a substitute for their mind and self-esteem, the runaway state is bad enough without us joining in to make it worse. Enough bitterness and unhappiness lie in the future. When we accept statism, we become statists. A truism that means ultimately we lose our humanity, our morals being the first to go. Seeking to be something we are not, we deliver ourselves to forces impossible to control. We become killers of souls, then killers of men. The inhumanity of our actions are the consequence, we become inhuman long before. Paraphrasing Bertrand Russell, there is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of the state.
[Final Note: Despite everything, particularly the length, I think the essay works for the most part and to a degree I take pride in it. Where I did not have the answers, which was most of the time, I think the questions remain interesting Granted, the writing needed to be trimmed, the word choices improved — I noticed the longer the essay went on, the more editing was required — but that was it. For those interested in the references, let me know and I will supply you with them.
I particularly like the bit about “Peter Pan politics” and the “Politics of Cultural Despair.” Great phrases (I forget where I first came across them) and applicable today more than ever, now that Peter Pan has been elected President.]