Collectives, Communities, and the Individual; J.K. Williams

Paul's insight that we must be 'members one of another.' You forget the wisdom enshrined in John Donne's famous insistence that no man is an island! You simply don't understand what it is to be human!" The speaker happened to be a clergyman. Yet his criticism of an advocate of individual and economic liberty-indeed, of such liber ties themselves-has today become a com monplace. By and large, critics and opponents of the free market in a free society have conceded that socialism has failed as an economic system. During the nineteenth century socialism was but a theory to be debated; during the twentieth century, however, socialism became a reality to be observed. The bare bones of theory took on flesh, countless variants of the socialist state being established. The result was unambiguous. Without ex ception, the attempt to coordinate the produc tive activities of men and women by the edicts of central planners proved disastrous. Dreams of increased abundance were shattered against the reality of experienced destitution. Today socialist theorists such as Peter Rutland, author of The Myth of the Plan (Open Court, 1985) The Reverend Doctor John K. Williams has been a teacher and is ajree-lance writer and lecturer in North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

have begun openly to suggest that failure in practice is indicative of a drastic error in theory. Socialist leaders have tentatively begun to move their countries in the direction of freer markets and financial incentives. Almost over night, the advocates in Western nations of old style socialism found themselves regarded not as daring innovators on the cutting edge of human thought, but as quaint anachronisms clinging to the discredited illusions of yes terday. If socialism is understood as a prescription for increased material abundance, the case for socialism is in desperate straits. The Need for Community Today, however, socialism is frequently proffered not so much as a solution for eco nomic problems but as an alleged remedy for "existential" problems. The problem with the free market in a free society is not any claimed economic inferiority to socialism or even any supposed tendency to widen the gap between rich and poor. Rather, the problem of capi talism is the sense of loneliness and isolation it allegedly spawns. Men and women rich in con sumer goods begin to perceive one another-or so the story goes-as "things" to be pos sessed, used, and discarded. Individuals feel or so it is claimed-cut off from one another.

The warm bonds of human companionship al legedly are supplanted by impersonal contrac tual agreements. All sense of community is lost, and "the lonely crowd" is born. Thus Marxist revisionists today frequently 92 THE FREEMAN. MARCH 1987 point not to the developed economic theories of Marx but to the somewhat impressionistic musings of the so-called "early Marx," the Marx known through his Economic and Philo sophical Manuscript. The key word becomes not "value" or "labor" or "exploitation" or any of the other terms popularly associated with Marx, but the word "alienation." That word is interpreted in terms of experienced loneliness, apartness, isolation - an under standing of the word that departs drastically from Marx's intended meaning. In this way the supposedly "scientific cri tique" of capitalism launched by Marx is sup planted by the imprecise psychological rumina tions of such "New Left" thinkers as Herbert Marcuse and Jiirgen Habermas. Their language is notoriously opaque and muddled-indeed, clearing away the tangled linguistic under growth is a daunting task. Yet when that task is completed, one discovers claims not unlike that of the cleric quoted at the beginning of this ar ticle: To be human is to be a social animal, finding joy and meaning and significance in and through relationships of interdependence.

The free market in a free society, rooted and grounded in individualism, effectively denies the "social nature" of human beings and thus deprives them of life's deepest joys and values. What Individualism Is Not It is folly to deny that human beings, in sev eral significant senses, are "social animals." For example, reasoned thought, in the ab sence of language, would be at best rudimen tary . Yet language, as the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein so powerfully argues in his Philo sophical Investigations (translated by G. E. M. Anscombe; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958) is an essentially social phenomenon. The notion of a purely "private" language generates-or so Wittgenstein argues-grotesque paradoxes. Furthermore, substantial evidence exists that an infant deprived of "tender, loving care" is deprived of something vital f9r growth to matu rity. In the affective as well as the cognitive domain, growth to mature humanness presup poses community.

Indeed, there is no need in this context to cite learned authorities. Everyday experience testifies that the life of the human mind and the joy of the human heart in large measure are born of creative interchange between people. The hunger of the human spirit for communion with others is universal and seemingly insa tiable. Everyday experience testifies that the life of the human mind and the joy of the human heart in large measure are born of creative interchange between people. The hunger of the human spirit for communion with others is universal and seemingly insatiable. It also would be folly to assert that the mate rial well-being of people is not served by inter dependence. Certainly the defender of a market economy makes no such assertion. At the very heart of a market economy lies the division of labor, itself an exercise in interdependence. In fact the genius of the market is constituted by its unrivaled capacity not simply to coordinate the diverse activities of countless market partic ipants, but to enable individual men and women to draw upon and use a totality of in formation no single person could consciously even begin to assimilate!

Ironically, the opponents of interdepen dence, and thus the advocates of a perverted "individualism," are to be found among the opponents of the free market. Marx perceived the division of labor as itself a cause of "alien ation." His utopia is an imprecisely defined so cial order in which not only the state, but the division of labor itself, is no more. He dreams of a day in which he will be able "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fish erman, shepherd or critic" (The German Ide ology, in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, ed. D. McLellan [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977] p. 169). Lenin elaborated this pseudo-individualism further, insisting that with the abolition of "the division of labor among people" a new huCOLLECTIVES, COMMUNITIES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL 93 manity "able to do everything" will emerge (Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder [New York: International Publishers, 1940)] p.

34). If by "individualism" one signifies an ad vocacy of atomistic independence and abhor rence of the cooperative interdependence dis played by the division of labor and a free market economy, Marx and his original dis ciples are the "Individualists"! What Individualism Is Individualism, properly understood, begins with a fact about the world: Human beings exist. What is more, each human being per ceives from a unique point in space and time. Each human being experiences sensations in his or her own body for himself or herself. Each person enjoys privileged access to the contents of his or her consciousness. Each human being is capable of initiating purposive action' 'from within. " It might be objected that many significant human activities involve a group. From time immemorial, for example, human beings have met together and thought things through. Yet, while human beings engage in creative inter changes of ideas, this group activity does not presuppose some single "super-thinker" above the individual thinkers making up the group.

Likewise, coordinated group action-the activ ities of people seeking to achieve a common purpose-ultimately signifies the self-initiated and self-directed actions of each member of the group. The individualist denies that a "community" or a "society" or a "state" is a "thing" dis tinct from the concrete, flesh-and-blood indi viduals making up that community, society, or state, certain shared characteristics of these in dividuals, and certain relationships obtaining between them. A "society" thus is not a mys terious "super-thing" existing independently of the members of the society, the language, traditions, patterns of behavior, and so on shared by these members. Rather, to talk of a ,'society" is to use a shorthand term signifying what exists: individuals sharing certain charac teristics and related in specifiable ways. To deny this is to be guilty of what the phi losopher A. N. Whitehead calls "the fallacy of Karl Marx: a theory of pseudo-individualism misplaced concreteness" (Process and Reality [New York: Macmillan, 1929] p. 11; Science and the Modern World [New York: Macmillan, 1929] p. 75). What in truth is "concrete" are the perceiving, thinking, valuing, and acting flesh-and-blood people sharing particular char acteristics and related in various ways signified by the abstract word "society." The collec tivist mistakenly holds that the single word ,'society" refers to a single "thing" distinct from individual people, their qualities, and their relationships, and no less mistakenly pre tends that this mysterious "thing" is "con crete" and individual people the "abstrac tions.' , The individualist reads thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau with growing astonishment.

Crucial to the social and political thought of Rousseau is what he called "the general will." According to Rousseau, a society, as against a mere cluster of individuals, is coordinated and unified not by the will of any individual nor by the common will of any set of individuals, be that "common will" the "will of the majority" or even a "consensual will of all. " Somehow, a "general will" distinct from and other than any individual will or set of individual wills ac tually exists. This somewhat eerie "general will" allegedly is informed by a wisdom and goodness far exceeding the wisdom and good ness of any individual will or set of individual 94 THE FREEMAN. MARCH 1987 wills. Given this single "general will," Rous seau affirms that there is a single supreme good-a single overriding goal-toward which a society strives. The Jacobins and Gir ondins quite correctly appealed to Rousseau when, during the reign of terror that so devas tated France, they outlawed all voluntary asso ciations.

A "society" is not a mysterious "super-thing" existing independently of the members of the society, the language, traditions, and patterns of behavior shared by these members. Rousseau affirms that rulers, by a process he does not identify or describe, are somehow sensitive to the dictates of the "general will" of their society, encoding these dictates in the specific laws they devise. The "good citizen" thus ascribes to the laws of his society a wisdom and goodness surpassing his or her own wisdom and goodness. In the unhappy event of an experienced tension between what an individual wills and what the "general will," known in and through specific laws, de crees, a misperception must exist. For the "general will" allegedly reflects the "real" will of each member of society. A contrast can thus obtain between what a person may think he or she wills and what a person "truly" wills. It is a short step from this strange cluster of teachings to the insistence of the German phi 10sopher Hegel that the "general will" is the will of an existing entity, the State, and his fur ther claim that the State is the earthly manifes tation of the Absolute or God. It is but another short step from the political philosophy of Hegel to Marx's and Hitler's totalitarian systems.

The individualist insists that it makes no sense to subordinate what is real and concrete to a theoretical, abstract construct. For ex ample, the individualist views any claim that the "rights" of society somehow take precedence over the' 'rights" of individuals as not so much a false claim but as a meaningless claim. ,'Rights" can no more be predicated of "so ciety" than they can be predicated of triangles. Thought through, all "natural" or "moral" or ,'human" rights are rooted and grounded in the autonomy of the individual human being. A being incapable of self-directed behavior cannot be the subject of "rights"; inasmuch as ,'society" is not even a "being" at all, let alone a "being capable of self-directed be havior, " society cannot have "rights." Indeed, when politicians and others refer to the "aim" or "goal" or "good" of a society or a state, almost invariably they are referring to the aim or goal or good of an individual or set of individuals desirous of coercively im posing one particular vision of the "good life"

upon others. The only sense the individualist can give to the notion of a "common good" is the freedom of each member of a society to be what he or she in fact is: an autonomous being able to formulate his or her own vision of the good life and to initiate behavior he or she hopes will lead to the realization of that vision. So stated, individualism can sound like yet another abstract and even arid philosophical creed. Yet it was this creed that led to the im passioned moral cry that no person is a chattel, a means to another's ends, a pawn on a political planner's chessboard. It was this creed that gave institutional and "secular" expression to the ancient insight of Israel that even the hum blest human being was created in the imago Dei-the "image of God"-and thus enjoyed a creativity and dignity no ruler could with im punity ignore. In the final analysis it was this creed that gave birth to the American Revolu tion and the challenging of all dominations and tyrannies, all bigotries and legally entrenched privileges, all predatory institutions debasing and enslaving the free spirit of humanity.

Interdependence Most surprising of all, individualism un leashed an unprecedented measure of human interdependence and hitherto unknown forms of community. • As the free market grew, the business firm became increasingly important. What traits COLLECTIVES, COMMUNITIES, AND THE INDIVIDUAL 95 of individual character did the business firm foster? Surely the ability to work co operatively with others as part of a team! Aristocrats admired the solitary and even eccentric individual; businessmen lauded the person capable of integrating his or her activities with those of others . • Pre-market societies were characterized by what one might call the "ubiquitous tyr anny of the economic." Family and other relationships were valued in large part as means to an economic end. The goal of most activities was the fundamental goal of acquiring sufficient goods and services for bare survival. The abundance created through the free market liberated men and women from total preoccupation with the economic dimensions of human activity.

Human relationships could be valued not as means to an economic end but for the intrinsic pleasure they involved. • Free trade broke down barriers separating nation from nation. Bonds of interdepen dence between peoples who had never met and might never meet were forged. Far from denying the claim that "no man is an island, " the free market underscored that A Harmony of Interests claim's truth - members of communities joined by the ties of peaceful trade could not rationally perceive themselves as being isolated from those distant and individu ally unknown people with whom their well-being was entwined. Conclusion Paradoxically, it is the collectivists who foster and further the divisiveness and "com petitiveness" they so deplore. An economic system run by political edicts breeds warring factions locked in zero-sum games, one special interest group prospering at the expense of people less powerful or less skillful at lobbying for their own advantage. It is the individualists - those affirming and cherishing the unique ness of each and every human person-who, "as though led by an invisible hand," inadver tently bring into existence a sociopolitical order making for peaceful cooperation, harmo nious integration, and radical interdependence.

It is only when the uniqueness and worth of the individual is affirmed, that a true and lasting community becomes a possibility. 0 IDEAS ON LIBERTY T he socialists believe that men's interests are essentially antago nistic. The economists believe in the natural harmony, or rather in the necessary and progressive harmonization, of men's interests. This is the whole difference .... To be sure, if men's interests are naturally antagonistic, we must trample underfoot justice, liberty, and equality before the law. We must remake the world, or, as they say, reconstitute society, according to one of the numerous plans that they never stop inventing. For self-interest, a dis organizing principle, there must be substituted legal, imposed, involun tary, forced self-sacrifice-in a word, organized plunder; and as this new principle can only arouse infinite aversion and resistance, an attempt will be made at first to get it accepted under the deceptive name of fraternity, after which the law, which is force, will be invoked.

-FREDERIC BASTIAT Justice and Fraternity 96 Sweden's EITIpty SITIorgasbord by Eric Brodin W hen in 1976 a nonsocialist Swedish government for the first time in 44 years replaced a socialist govern ment, the defeated premier, Olof Palme, ex plained that the Conservative-Centrist coali tion was taking over ett dukat bord, a set table filled with smorgasbord delicacies. The new government spokesmen, of course, pointed out that Sweden's economy was much more to be likened to "an empty table," a smorgasbord bereft of even essential ingredients due to ex cessive demands. of a cradle-to-grave welfare statism which even relatively wealthy Sweden could no longer afford. In fact, what Sweden was experiencing is what had earlier been characterized by East German Marxist economic theorist Jiirgen Ha bermas: "The division of labor between the state and the private sector that forms the basis for the Swedish model requires that a contin ually increasing share of the national product be transferred to the public sector [it is now 65 per cent]. Technical and economic changes must be accompanied by enormous public in vestment in order to insure the stability of so ciety. There is a point where a dislocation in the social structure, caused by the free play of the market forces, becomes so great that people are no longer willing to pay the price for the necessary remedies. The demand for security remains, but the desire for each person to con tribute to the cost of this security diminishes.