Abstract
There are libertarian movements that can be seen as socialist, capitalist, and populist. All of these groups can profit from an understanding of class in which political differences are viewed as foundational vis-à-vis economic ones. Such an understanding of class, Smithian in nature, is superior to Marx’s. The ruling class should be seen as including both state actors and economic actors outside the state, with each of these subgroups jockeying for power with the other.
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- 1.
Roderick T. Long, “Immanent Liberalism: The Politics of Mutual Consent,” Social Philosophy and Policy 12.2 (Sum. 1995): 12n.26.
- 2.
An alternative possibility would be to abbreviate them as LC, LS, and LP, respectively. But “LP” is so commonly used within LibCap circles to designate the US Libertarian Party that its use to designate some other aspect of libertarianism would be likely to generate confusion.
- 3.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic 1974).
- 4.
David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer (New York: Free 1997) 22–26. A welcome exception to LibCap silence on the existence of LibSocs is Jerome Tuccille, Radical Libertarianism (San Francisco: Cobden 1985) 36ff.
- 5.
Hence, a number of libertarians have hoped for a rapprochement between the LibCap and LibSoc approaches; see Tuccille 31–58, Long, “Liberalism” 26–31).
- 6.
The turn-of-the-century Russian anarcho-communist Pyotr Kropotkin (1842–1921) offers a typical LibSoc indictment of authoritarian socialism . See Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism and Anarchist Communism (London: Freedom 1993) 8–9.
- 7.
Paul H. Weaver, The Suicidal Corporation (New York: Simon 1988) 99–116.
- 8.
Among the notable exceptions: in the 1920s, the anarcho-socialist couple Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were among the earliest critics of the Soviet regime. See Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia (New York: Crowell 1970); and Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth (London: Pluto 1989).
- 9.
This is not to deny that there were genuinely LibCap elements to the programs of Reagan and Thatcher, though I think those elements have been greatly exaggerated.
- 10.
There are still other sources of confusion. Libertarian and authoritarian versions of capitalism have both called themselves “socialist ” upon occasion (e.g., Benjamin Tucker’s “voluntary socialism” and Adolf Hitler’s “National Socialism,” respectively). Indeed, some LibCaps claim to be the only true “socialists ,” since they favor social power over state power . To add to the confusion, not only do LibCaps and LibSocs generally deny one another’s libertarian credentials, but also within each movement one finds both writers who take anarchism as a prerequisite for being a libertarian, and writers who take the rejection of anarchism as a prerequisite for being a libertarian. Then there is the ongoing dispute about the relation between libertarianism and liberalism: Is either LibCap or LibSoc a version of liberalism? Is LibCap identical with classical liberalism, or is it a subset of it, or does it merely overlap with it? Do non-classical liberals count as genuine liberals? And so on!
- 11.
In addition, canny politicians like Pat Buchanan have learned to pitch their message in such a way as to appeal to substantial numbers of populists in both the libertarian and authoritarian camps.
- 12.
In a number of instances, peaceful, tolerant anti-statists (in some cases not even populist in orientation) have been labeled “white supremacists” or members of “Aryan hate groups” by critics who never bothered to discover that the persons so labeled were in fact Jewish or black.
- 13.
I am thinking in particular of the Laws, where Plato defends a version of the mixed constitution , as opposed to such earlier writings as the Republic (and, to a lesser extent, the Statesman), where Plato relies on virtuous rulers rather than on constitutional devices to safeguard the public interest.
- 14.
The ancient liberals arguably had the better case; for discussion, see Roderick T. Long “The Athenian Constitution: Government by Jury and Referendum,” Formulations 4.1 (Autumn, 1996): 7–23, 35.
- 15.
The most important in this context were Charles Comte , Charles Dunoyer , Augustin Thierry, Frédéric Bastiat, and Gustave de Molinari. For a good introduction, see Leonard Liggio, “Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 1.3 (Sum. 1977): 153–78; and David M. Hart, “Gustave de Molinari and the Anti-Statist Liberal Tradition” [part 1], Journal of Libertarian Studies 5.3 (Sum. 1981): 263–90. Cf. also Ralph Raico, “Classical Liberal Exploitation Theory,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 1.3 (Sum. 1977): 179–83; Mark Weinburg, “The Social Analysis of Three Early Nineteenth Century French Liberals: Say; Comte , and Dunoyer ,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 2.1 (1978): 45–63; and Joseph T. Salemo, “Comment on the French Liberal School,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 2.1 (1978): 65–8.
- 16.
See Adam Smith , An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Benton 1952) 211.
- 17.
See, e.g., Wendy McElroy, “Introduction: The Roots of Individualist Feminism in NineteenthCentury America,” Freedom, Feminism, and the State: An Overview of Individualist Feminism, 2d ed., ed. McElroy (New York: Holmes 1992) 23.
- 18.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,” The Social Contract and Discourses, by Rousseau, trans. G.D. H. Cole et al. (London: Dent 1982) 83–89.
- 19.
Frederick Engels , The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, trans. Alec West et al. (New York: International 1985) 224–31.
- 20.
Murray N. Rothbard, “Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 9.2 (Fall 1990): 66n.30; cf. Murray N. Rothbard, “The Laissez-Faire Radical: A Quest for the Historical Mises,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 5.3 (Sum. 1981): 244–45.
- 21.
Walter E. Grinder , “Introduction,” Our Enemy the State, by Albert Jay Nock (New York: Free Life 1973) xx.
- 22.
Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes 1994) 52. Unfortunately, Rothbard does not go on to tell us much about the dynamic between these two components.
- 23.
I borrow these terms from Bertrand de Jouvenel, who defines “statocrat” as “a man who derives his authority only from the position which he holds and the office which he performs in the service of the state.” See Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, trans. J. F. Huntington (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1993) 174n.4.
- 24.
These five are not the only possibilities, of course. Indeed, I shall be arguing that none of them gets it exactly right. But the sixth approach that I favor will not become salient until we see what is wrong with the initially salient five.
- 25.
Noam Chomsky, Keeping the Rabble in Line (Monroe, ME: Common Courage 1994) 109–11.
- 26.
Noam Chomsky , Secrets, Lies, and Democracy (Tucson, AZ: Odonian 1994) 37. Yet Chomsky does distinguish, as many LibCaps would, between a free-market system and the kind of economic system favored by plutocrats (Keeping 242).
- 27.
See, for example, James M. Buchanan and Robert D. Tollison, eds., The Theory of Public Choice: Political Applications of Economics (Ann Arbor, MI: U of Michigan P 1972); and Gordon Tullock, The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking (Boston: Kluwer 1989).
- 28.
See, for example, Robert Higgs , Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (Oxford: OUP 1987).
- 29.
See Bakunin’s contribution to “After the Revolution: Marx Debates Bakunin,” The Marx-Engels Reader, 2d ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton 1978) 542–48.
- 30.
Milovan Djilas, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System (New York: Praeger 1957). Interestingly, Djilas seems to regard the Plutocracy-Dominant position as a viable explanation of most class systems, while treating the Soviet regime as an exception (38).
- 31.
Marx, quoted in “After the Revolution” 546.
- 32.
Ayn Rand and her “Objectivist” followers (the orthodox ones, at least) would not accept the title “libertarian.” Indeed, one prominent Randian, Peter Schwartz, has authored a thundering condemnation of the entire LibCap movement (see Peter Schwartz, Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty [New York: Intellectual Activist 1986]; a revised and condensed version appears in Ayn Rand et al., The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, ed. Leonard Peikoff [New York: Penguin 1989] 311–33.) But I challenge anyone to construct criteria that are simultaneously broad enough to include the major thinkers and traditions of the LibCap movement yet narrow enough to exclude Rand. In my judgment, Rand and her followers should be considered Libertarian Capitalists whether they like the label or not, since the features of the LibCap position they reject are either (a) held by only some LibCaps and therefore not essential to the LibCap position, or (b) not held by any LibCaps at all and therefore based on misunderstandings (often fantastic ones). Randians try to distance themselves from LibCaps on the grounds that the LibCap movement tolerates a number of different philosophical approaches to grounding libertarianism, while Randians insist that Ayn Rand’s Objectivist approach provides the only acceptable grounding. But this is a bit like denying the existence of God yet declining to be called an atheist on the grounds that there are many different kinds of atheists with grounds for disbelief different from one’s own; disbelief in God makes one an atheist, regardless of how one feels about other atheists.
- 33.
Ayn Rand, “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Rand et al. (New York: NAL 1970) 44–62.
- 34.
“Something called ‘the military -industrial complex’—which is a myth or worse—is being blamed for all this country’s troubles.” Ayn Rand, “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” Philosophy: Who Needs It (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1982) 10. On the same page, Rand wrote, breathtakingly, that “the United States Army [is] the army of the last semi-free country left on earth, yet [it is] accused of being a tool of imperialism —and ‘imperialism’ is the name given to the foreign policy of this country, which has never engaged in military conquest . … Our defence budget is being attacked, denounced, and undercut [and] a similar kind of campaign is conducted against the police force .” Despite Rand’s fierce antistatism, her equally fierce Vietnam-era pro-American patriotism had a tendency to lead her into what can only be described as astonishingly naïve statements, not only about the plutocracy but about the statocracy itself. (Most LibCaps would have a far more skeptical assessment of U.S. foreign policy, for example.)
- 35.
Rand, “Minority” 48–49.
- 36.
Ayn Rand, “Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise,” Capitalism 108–9.
- 37.
Rand, “Notes” 107–8.
- 38.
For a LibSoc analysis, see Gabriel Kolko, Railroads and Regulation (Princeton: Princeton UP 1965); and Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism (Chicago: Quadrangle 1967). For a LibCap analysis, see Roy A. Childs, Jr., “Big Business and the Rise of American Statism,” ch. 26 in this volume, as well as Weaver.
- 39.
Burton W. Folsom, The Myth of the Robber Barons (Herndon: Young America’s Foundation 1991) 1–2.
- 40.
In Liberty Against Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs, Jr., ed. Joan Kennedy Taylor (San Francisco: Fox 1994) 30, 38–39, 41–43, Roy Childs offers a LibCap analysis of Morgan less favorable than Rand’s.
- 41.
Rand, “Notes” 108.
- 42.
In the same way, Folsom (in Myth 2), despite his caveat that “[n]o entrepreneur fits perfectly into one category or the other,” divides historical business figures rather too neatly into market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs , with the implausible result that John D. Rockefeller, of all people, comes out as a benign market entrepreneur untainted by political favoritism. One would scarcely guess from Folsom’s presentation that Rockefeller, like Morgan, was a vigorous lobbyist for federal regulation of industry ; see, e.g., Kolko, Triumph 63–64, 78.
- 43.
Of course, from the fact that they became political entrepreneurs , it does not follow that they necessarily ceased to act as market entrepreneurs ; many businessmen pursued both strategies simultaneously. Rand’s assumption that no one who was succeeding by his own economic efforts would be interested in becoming a political parasite at the same time is unwarranted; her mistake was to read her own Manichaean ethical stance into other people’s motivations. Real people are messier and more complicated than the streamlined characters of an Ayn Rand novel.
- 44.
By the conservative wing of the LibCap movement I mean the wing that tends to soften libertarian principles in a direction congenial to mainstream conservatives . The conservative /radical distinction within the LibCap movement does not necessarily line up neatly with the division between minarchists and anarcho-capitalists.
- 45.
Childs , Liberty 45.
- 46.
Charles Tilly has suggested an ingenious criterion to measure the degree to which one or the other of these classes is dominant . Drawing on categories developed by economic historian Frederic Lane, Tilly distinguishes between “(a) the monopoly profit, or tribute , coming to owners of the means of producing [governmental] violence as a result of the difference between production costs and the price exacted from ‘customers’ and (b) the protection rent accruing to those customers—for example, merchants—who drew effective protection against outside competitors …. If citizens in general exercised effective ownership of the government—O distant ideal!—we might expect the managers to minimize protection costs and tribute , thus maximizing protection rent. … If [instead] the managers owned the government, they would tend to keep costs high by maximizing their own wages, to maximize tribute over and above those costs by exacting a high price from their subjects , and … to be indifferent to the level of protection rent. … [This scheme] yields interesting empirical criteria for evaluating claims that a given government was “relatively autonomous” or strictly subordinate to the interests of a dominant class . Presumably, a subordinate government would tend to maximize monopoly profits—returns to the dominant class resulting from the difference between the costs of protection and the price received from it—as well as tuning protection rents nicely to the economic interests of the dominant class . An autonomous government, in contrast, would tend to maximize managers’ wages and its own size as well and would be indifferent to protection rents.” See Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: CUP 1985) 175–76. While this criterion’s validity can be no more than ceteris paribus, it does cast a most instructive light on the policy positions traditionally adopted by left-wing and right-wing political parties.
- 47.
Long, “Liberalism” 27 (text and note 61).
- 48.
Grinder , “Introduction” xviii–xix; cf. Hans-Hermann Hoppe , “Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 9.2 (Fall 1990): 86–87; Walter E. Grinder and John Hagel , “Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-Making and Class Structure,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 1.1 (1977): 59–79.
- 49.
Alexander Berkman, “The ABC of Anarchism,” Life of an Anarchist: The Alexander Berkman Reader, ed. Gene Fellner (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows 1992) 300.
- 50.
Berkman 285.
- 51.
Friedrich Engels , “Versus the Anarchists,” in Reader 728–29.
- 52.
We can identify optimistic and pessimistic versions of this thesis. The optimistic version is that plutocracy and statocracy arise together and depend on each other, so that to vanquish one is to vanquish both. The pessimistic version is that each one is capable of exercising domination even in the absence of the other. The optimistic version seems to have greater affinity with the Statocracy-Dominant view than the pessimistic version has. Henceforth when I speak of the Neither-Dominant view I shall mean the pessimistic version.
- 53.
James J. Martin, Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827–1908 (Colorado Springs: Myles 1970) 271–73.
- 54.
Another LibCap who may endorse a version of the Neither-Dominant position is Herbert Spencer, who, despite his well-known conquest theory of state origination, traces the origin of class domination not to the organized violence of a state or proto-state, but rather to the division of labor—above all, to the division of labor between the sexes, which leads to the oppression of women by men. It is with the subjection of women , Spencer argues, that a distinction between ruling and ruled classes first emerges (see Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Sociology, 2 vols. [New York: Appleton 1884] 2: 288–91, 643–46). Spencer looks forward to an eventual end to class domination , but he puts his faith less in market forces than in the progressive moral development of the human race. (For other versions of the conquest theory of state origination, see Franz Oppenheimer , The State, trans. John Gitterman [Montreal: Black Rose 1975]; and Alexander Rüstow, Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Civilization, trans. Salvator Attanasio [Princeton: Princeton UP 1980].)
- 55.
Conspiracy theories as such should not necessarily be regarded as inherently suspect. After all, the greater the extent to which power is concentrated in a society, the easier it is to form an effective conspiracy (because the number of people that need to be involved to pull off a major change is smaller); so we should predict that more conspiracies will indeed occur in societies with centralized power. However, it is also true that incentive structures can coordinate human activities in ways that involve no conscious cooperation . LibPops seem to see the visible hand everywhere; LibSocs are more aware of invisible-hand explanations, and thus tend to produce somewhat more sophisticated analyses.
- 56.
I am thinking in particular of Michael Levin and. Charles Murray. See Michael E. Levin, Feminism and Freedom (New Brunswick: Transaction 1987); Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free 1994).
- 57.
Currently each tends to accept a distorted stereotype of the other two. More specifically, each libertarian group tends to be seen, by the other two, through the lens of its authoritarian counterpart: LibSocs are seen as Stalinists, LibCaps as fascists, LibPops as neo-Nazis.
- 58.
A regular police force was not introduced in Rome until the Empire, during the reign of Augustus.
- 59.
M. I. Finley , Politics in the Ancient World (Cambridge: CUP 1994) 18–24, 45.
- 60.
Finley 107.
- 61.
Tom Bell, “Polycentric Law,” Humane Studies Review 7.1 (1991–92): 5.
- 62.
Livy, The Early History of Rome, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (London: Penguin 1988) 269.
- 63.
That is why in classical times aristocratic political parties in Greece and Rome always preferred elections over the Athenian practice of choosing officials by lot.
- 64.
Étienne de la Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, trans. Harry Kurz (New York: Free Life 1975) 77–78.
- 65.
Two examples: urban black teenagers have been prosecuted for offering hair-braiding services without benefit of expensive beauticians’ degrees; and in many cities, a taxi license costs as much as $100,000. Such low-capital enterprises as hair-braiding and taxi service are natural avenues for people of modest means to start earning money and achieving independence; but the coercive power of the state closes such avenues off.
- 66.
I do not mean to imply that these results were consciously aimed at by the wealthy. Rather, plutocratic interests frequently shape public policy unintentionally, via the “malign invisible hand” mechanism described earlier (in Section IV). Is this still here after editing?
- 67.
This leads conservatives , and some conservative-leaning LibCaps, to see the poor as beneficiaries of statism—parasites feeding at the public trough. A more realistic assessment would see the poor as net losers, since the benefits received through welfare are rarely large enough to compensate for the harms inflicted through regulation.
- 68.
For example, the recent debate over farm policy in the United States has largely ignored the fact that most agricultural subsidies go to giant agribusiness conglomerates rather than to family farms. Another example is government support for higher education —a benefit received disproportionately by members of the middle class, yet funded through taxes by lower-class workers who cannot afford to postpone their earnings for four years. But one of the worst instances of upward redistribution is inflation, caused by government manipulation of the currency. An increase in the money supply results in an increase in prices and wages—but not immediately. There is some lag time as the effects of the expansion radiate outward through the economy. Under central banking , the rich—i.e., banks , and those to whom banks lend—get the new money first, before prices have risen. They systematically benefit, because they get to spend their new money before prices have risen to reflect the expansion. The poor systematically lose out, since they get the new money last, and thus have to face higher prices before they have higher salaries. (Moreover, the asymmetrical effects of monetary expansion create artificial booms and busts, as different sectors of the economy are temporarily stimulated by early receipt of the new money, encouraging overinvestment that goes bust when the boom proves illusory. The unemployment caused by this misdirection hurts the poor most of all.)
- 69.
Mary Ruwart, Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle, rev. ed. (Kalamazoo: Sun Star 1993) 154.
- 70.
An adequate theory of class would also have to distinguish more groups than just “rulers” and “ruled.” As Chomsky writes: “[T]o do a really serious class analysis, you can’t just talk about the ruling class . Are the professors at Harvard part of the ruling class ? Are the editors of the New York Times part of the ruling class ? Are the bureaucrats in the State Department? There are differentiations, a lot of different categories of people” (Keeping 109). Dividing the ruling class into statocratic and plutocratic factions is valuable as a start, but only as a start.
Libertarian sociologist Phil Jacobson, whose work draws on both the LibCap and LibSoc traditions, is making some valuable developments in this area. Jacobson distinguishes three main groups: the Idea, Force, and Wealth classes. These basically correspond to the priests , warriors , and merchants of traditional class theory : Plato’s philosopher-kings, auxiliaries, and craftsmen; India’s brahmins, kshatriyas, and vaishyas. In turn, each of these three groups is subdivided into two factions with somewhat divergent interests. The Wealth class is divided into a symbol-manipulation component (e.g., banking and finance) and a physicalreality component (e.g., actual manufacturing). The Force class is likewise divided into a symbol-manipulation component (e.g., politicians) and a physical-reality component (e.g., police and the military ). The Idea class is all symbol-manipulation, but can be divided into elite-culture and popular-culture groups (i.e., intellectuals versus entertainers). Jacobson analyzes social change in terms of the interaction and shifting alliances among these six groups.
- 71.
Perhaps the ancient republican theorists—particularly the Athenian democrats (as opposed to the more oligarchy -friendly proponents of the “mixed constitution ”)—deserve a second look.
- 72.
And when they were not Christian priests , they at least maintained exclusive control over Church lands—and their associated tithe revenues.
- 73.
The role of ideology in supporting a ruling class is considerable. Cf. Hoppe, “Analysis” 84–85.
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Hart, D.M., Chartier, G., Kenyon, R.M., Long, R.T. (2018). Roderick T. Long, “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class” (1998). In: Hart, D., Chartier, G., Kenyon, R., Long, R. (eds) Social Class and State Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64894-1_35
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