The Bankruptcy of the New Socialists

by Chris R. Tame

It is, I suppose, a tribute to the revival of liberal and libertarian ideas that they had previously consigned to the dustbin of history that many contemporary socialists are now rephrasing their arguments in libertarian terms, conceding certain criticisms or admitting a "role" for the "market mechanism".

I propose for convenience in this essay to call these writers the "New Socialists", although I am well aware that I am using the term to bracket together individuals who, while having some things in common, also represent diverse or perhaps clashing perspectives. (I do not want to commit the same error made by the "left" when it lumps together libertarians, conservatives, moral reactionaries, racists and fascists into an entity it calls the "New Right").

In fact the libertarian rhetoric of the new socialists is not new. It sounds rather like the justification for statism made by the neo-liberals (T.H. Green, Bernard Bosaquet, Thomas Whittaker, L.T. Hobhouse, etc) of the late 19th/early 20th century. But there has also always been a libertarian strand, as well as the collectivist, authoritarian or statist ones, within socialism. And Marx himself characterized his ultimate communist society as one where "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (Although his concept of freedom is somewhat different, to say the least, for the libertarian one).

Thus, simply to crow over the fact that the new socialists have abandoned the goal of central planning and to see this abandonment as the goal of central planning and to see this abandonment as a decisive victory over socialist ideology is profoundly mistaken. Many socialists never advocated central planning as the core of their position in the first place. Moreover, the new socialists are still socialists and still offer an erroneous critique of the market that must be vigorously refuted.

POSITIVE LIBERTY

The most profound error of the new socialists is their very concept, a "positive" one, of freedom. By defining freedom as a positive capability or option, as "an equal right to the positive resources which are necessary to action and agency", and proclaiming certain positive freedoms as rights, they ignore the fact that these so called rights can only be maintained by physical aggressing against others. In any real world application of their ideals one man's "freedom" is always another man's slavery (ie: loss of life, liberty and property).

Now this is not to say that libertarians have nothing to say about "positive freedom" (as the socialists frequently assert). Our argument is precisely that it is only ensuring negative liberty (freedom from invasive violence) that maximizes positive liberty (choice, options in life, prosperity, etc). The history of humanity, the rise of prosperity as the result of the freeing of the market, is our eloquent evidence. The trouble with using the word freedom to cover "positive freedom" is that it obscures the fact that the attempt to create positive freedom by state action by its very nature infringes freedom from coercion.

THE STRONG STATE

The new socialists frequently argue the libertarianism contains an inner contradiction. They assert that a free market needs a strong state to enforce market relationships. It is of course true that all societies need some form of law enforcement and resolution of disputes. But they ignore many vital points. Firstly, free market societies have depended more on the voluntary acceptance of a just social order by its denizens than they do on the physical enforcement of law. Market societies arose precisely in the absence of strong states. Moreover, the new socialists also ignore the extent that the law itself, in the relatively free market societies of the West, has arisen as the result of decentralized, voluntaristic, market forces.

It is a distortion to describe the classical liberal concept of a limited state as a strong state. For liberals the state should not be able to overwhelm civil society or interfere in voluntary, noncoercive relationships. Of course, whether the "limited state" can actually be limited in practice is a legitimate question, and often much discussed by liberals. It is notable, however, that he new socialists prefer not to mention the work of the "anarcho-capitalists" libertarians, who argue that the state can and should be (in a phrase of Proudhon's) "dissolved in the economic organism", that the services of defense, law enforcement can be better and more justly supplied by market agencies.

VALUES AND THE MARKET

Another major argument of the new socialists is that the market cannot sustain itself, or maintain its own values, that a "pure market" would be a "war of all against all". They possess a curiously Hobbesian view of humanity. If there is one lesson that every exponent of the market has proclaimed it is that when individuals eschew violence and predation, but pursue their self-interest in the market by creating and exchanging goods and services, the interest of all is served. A competitive market system is a harmonious one in which the self-interest of all is compatible. To describe things in a rather reified way, the "market" has generated and maintained its values. In reality, to conceive the market as an "economic system" constrained by moral rules in some way "exterior" to it is a profound mistake. The free market is simply the name given to a specific moral order, one of individual self-ownership, non-coercion, and a productive co-operation. Free market economics is a sustained demonstration of the truth that "selfishness" is mutually beneficial. The work of Robert Axelrod explains theoretically the rather obvious (except to socialists) reality of the way in which as market relationships evolve people do recognize their mutuality of interest. And Ayn Rand's philosophy proclaims precisely that "selfishness" is a virtue, that our nature as distinctive rational entities is served best by a rational egoism which manifests itself in those noncoercive, mutualistic relationships which we call capitalism.

THE STATE AND PRIVILEGE

It is especially ironic that the new socialists attack the market on the grounds that it generates unjust privilege and that the state is needed to prevent special privilege arising. Thus Andrew Gamble justifies state power in order to control those groups which seek to escape from market disciplines. But the whole burden of the economic and class analysis of classical liberals, from Smith onward, is that powerful interests seek to exploit their fellows by coercive means. This is precisely why they supported laissez-faire. Unjust monopolies can only arise as a result of state interference in the market. An allegedly "caring", interventionist state is the organ by which groups. classes and individuals exploit each other.

Ironically, socialism can be seen as a false consciousness that has repeatedly allowed special interests to gain exploitative power by masking their predations in the rhetoric of responsible state action for the common good.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MARKET SOCIALISM

The idea that a "market socialism" is either possible or desirable is a serious error, ant that it has anything to do with liberty an even more serious one. The interventionist state, whatever rhetoric its supporters dress up in, will remain a tool of exploitation and unjust privilege, whether in the hands of an 'old' class (eg: particular employers or industrial or professional groups) or a "new" class (union officials, bureaucrats, administrators, the intelligentsia). When Gareth Stedman Jones speaks of "society as a whole being in the control of its productive resources" and "control of economic destiny at a national democratic level" in "new and democratic forms" we must remember that "society as a whole" is only a useful phrase for hiding the power of particular power wielding individuals. "Society" as a conscious entity does not exist. There are only individuals. Either they dispose of their lives, liberty and property as they themselves see it or they are coercively prevented from so doing. "Democratic participation" in a coercive political process is not much consolation to the losers. Moreover, the evidence of the real world does not give much credence to the idea that democracy will prevent a powerful elite from manipulating such a system for its own power and privilege.

No amount of obfuscation will negate the fact that "new and democratic forms" of public ownership means that individuals will be prevented from establishing and owning particular enterprises and customers from patronizing their competing enterprises.

STATISM IN LIBERTARIAN GUISE

How genuine some of these new socialists are in their libertarianism is a moot point.

Paul Hirst maintains as a central tenet in his definition of socialism the desirability of "the greatest measure of equality of condition attainable between individuals." But this is blatantly at variance with his support for a "socialism which places freedom and autonomy first." If the differing aptitudes, skills, determination, interests, luck, etc result (as they do and will continue to do so) in differing economic success, will Hirst's proposed system interfere with their autonomy in the name of equality? Similarly, would his system interfere with the autonomy of millions of ordinary people's voluntary consumption choices that made, for example, Elvis Presley, a very wealthy and decidedly unequal individual?

One suspects he would. For we find frequent assertions by the new socialists that individuals are influenced or moulded by others, with the implication that freedom is therefore unreal.

The hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) agenda of this sort of assertion is that is alright for (the presumably superior and autonomous) socialists to impose their values upon other individuals who suffer from alienation and false consciousness. The hegemony on the left of reactionary, authoritarian and inhumane "feminism" has reinforced this implicit statism. We thus find the laissez-faire/civil libertarian concept of "freely contracting parties, in cultural and sexual as well as in purely economic matters" rejected in favour of coercive intervention in "the form and content of culture" and in "so-called private life".

But by far the most ominous characteristic of these writers, however, is their repeated declaration that their socialism is a matter of "commitment to the communal and the clective as a good in itself," as Gareth Stedman Jones has said. Eric Hobsbawn is even more explicit; "The good society," he writes, "...should certainly contain 'the greatest sum of freedom', 'the highest amount of choice' and the most human happiness' achievable. But it cannot be defined by adding up individual freedoms, choices and happiness." It is "more than the sum of its individual members." This is the perennial mystical rationale of totalitarianism, the essence of Hegel, Marx, Mussolini, and Hitler, the view that society is somehow an entity independent of, and above, individuals, and entity which can have its own distinct interests, aims and happiness. For is there is such an entity then what justification is there for not sacrificing individuals to it? And sacrificed they have been, in their millions, throughout history and in the present day.

NEW TOTALITARIANS?

While not wishing to deny sincerity to all, one would certainly be more confident of the motivation of the new socialists if they behaved with any intellectual honesty. The New Statesman symposium, "Does Socialism Have a Future?", is replete with polemical tricks, abuse, and the attribution of foul motives. Its contributors constantly assert, but do not demonstrate, that their case is "obvious" and "self-evident" (Peter Kellner). Libertarian scholars are characterized as "ideologues"

(Kellner) and "gurus" (Roy Hattersley, or rather, his ghost writer - who also suffers from a constitutional inability to spell Robert Nozick's name correctly), "intellectually banal and their economic and social analysis sketchy" (Paul Hirst). Worse still, we are labelled "hireling publicists and...client intellectuals" (Hirst). It is striking that they are apparently unwilling to actually read or admit to the existence of the libertarian literature, let alone engage its arguments. This reaches its apogee of absurdity in Sharah Benton's assertion that "There are...an extraordinary number of issue about which the 'new' right is silent...culture, conservation and ecology, care of the sick, aged, children...the decline of manufacturing, especially research and development, defence, and all matters of political rights and civil liberties." This sounds almost like a reading list of issues which libertarian scholars have addressed!

CONCLUSION

Within a relatively brief essay like this it is, of course, impossible to answer all the assertions made by the new socialists regarding the alleged "failings of traditional capitalism", eg: unemployment, "alienation", waste, inequality, etc.

I have tried to focus on the core concerns of the new socialists. Insofar as they truly do have a libertarian motivation their practical proposals cannot result in liberty. And what libertarian motivations do exist also ride in tandem with authoritarianism and coercive values.

The new socialists have no more to offer men and woman of goodwill than the old socialists.

Chris R. Tame is the founder and Secretary of the Libertarian Alliance, Secretary of the Adam Smith Club, and British Representative ofthe Libertarian International. He contributed to The New Right Enlightenment, lectures frequently, and has contributed to a wide range of academic and political journals.

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