Private property, Exchange for mutual benefit, Individualism, Personal aims, Personal judgment, Tolerance of those who don't fit into the unselfish band or community, Tolerance of strangers, and Specialization to the point that gathering food was no longer necessary for everyone: all are behaviors and traditions contrary to the instinctive morality of the isolated troop.
Yes, there is some specialization within the communal society of a band, but not to the degree that is common in a trading society.
The morality and traditions - the rules - supporting the extended order of the macro-cosmos had to evolve by experience as some traditions enabled prosperity while others hindered it. Bands of humans with the right traditions would thrive and their populations would expand; other bands would adopt those traditions of behavior or suffer relative declines. Knowledge, ideas, and traditions are also traded along with goods.
The new morality and traditions, the macro morality that enabled the extended order of human interaction, enabled the vast creation of human wealth ultimately leading to the prosperity of the United States in the 21st century and support of our far greater populations than are possible with the social order of hunter-gatherer societies.
Yet we remain with our instinctive motivations, our longing for the socialism of the communal micro-cosmos.
The rules are very different:
Instinctive behaviors, morals, and traditions that make the micro-cosmos function
Communalism
Group ownership of all things
Altruism
Working to group ends
Wisdom and traditions of the group
Everybody works together
Cooperation
Troop self sufficiency
Distrust of strangers
Nonconformists expelled (to die)
Culturally-evolved behaviors, morals, and traditions that make the extended order function throughout civilization
Individualism
Personal (private) property
Exchange for mutual benefit
Working to personal ends
Knowledge of the individual
Labor specialization
Competition
Interdependence with outsiders
Cautious openness to strangers
Nonconformists given specialized roles
Notice how the two are incompatible, almost opposites?
The wealth-generating extended order of voluntary human interaction cannot spontaneously develop if everyone or every group operates withing the rules of the micro-cosmos. Elements of the macro-cosmos - families, associations, individual firms, for example - may function very well with internal behaviors consistent with the rules of the micro-cosmos, but each element has to operate under the rules of the extended order when dealing with most other independent elements. Elements that apply the micro rules to dealings with outside groups will not be able to participate in the extended order nor share in the wealth that the extended order creates.
The extended web of human cooperation that extends world-wide did not begin to develop until the rules of the micro-cosmos evolved to facilitate interactions with the wider world.
On the other hand, a family, a church, or an individual firm cannot survive if its internal inter-human relations are not governed by the rules of the micro order. Another name for the rules of a successful micro-cosmos is "teamwork".
As Hayek wrote in his essay "Between Instinct and Reason":
‘If we were to apply the unmodified, un-curbed, rules of the micro-cosmos ( i.e., of the small band or troop, or of say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilization), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often makes us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply the rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them. So we must learn to live in two sorts of a world at once’ (emphasis in the original)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Instinctive Appeal of Socialism
Socialism is appealing. Like puppies and babies and those of the sex other than our own, socialism resonates with deep instinctive emotions and a visceral recognition of the way things “ought to be”. The way, in fact, things were for millions of years of hominid evolution and for 90% of our species existence, the way of human social and economic organization when we struggled with grinding poverty unimaginable in European, African, Asian, and American civilizations for the last three or four thousand years.
Home Was Socialist
Small group socialism was the way of life for all apes, including ourselves, until human populations became large enough to move beyond the micro-cosmos and evolve traditions and morals that enabled widespread human interaction through trade, interaction that enabled the creation of wealth to move us out of the poverty that characterized our existence up to that point.
Socialism as we know it is the imagined result of implementing the rules of the micro-cosmos throughout the broader society. With its many manifestations - Bolshevism, Marxism, Fascism, Nazism, Leninism, Maoism, etc. – Socialism evidently emerged as a social philosophy when European intellectuals became aware of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies of the Caribbean, recognizing in those societies the object of their instinctive longings.
Philosophers and Preachers
Philosophers, at least since Plato and Aristotle, had objected to the evolved morality of the extended order as contrary to the essence of humanity. Plato wrote that individuals exist for the good of the state, not the other way around. Plato didn’t like what happened when people were at liberty.
Christ emphasized the micro-morality and the need for people to treat those around them as if they were members of the same troop. If one ignores the religious aspect of His teachings, Jesus preached the importance of the micro-morality to people prone to ignore it, making life miserable even amid prosperity.
Many Christian preachers and saints despised the macro-order and its morality. Much of Christianity still views the morals of the extended order as evil, even as the macro-morals contribute to the reduction of human misery.
Discovery of the hunter-gatherer troops in the New World offered hope that the age-old longing might be realized.
Rousseau believed that mankind took a wrong turn, sacrificing the instinctive emotions and morality of the isolated troop, the micro-cosmos, for the supposed benefits of civilization. Rousseau wrote of the noble savage, natural and untainted by civilization (also untainted by sufficient food, security, and the prospect of a long life) as the human ideal. The French revolution sought to make France into one big, happy troop of people acting with the harmony of those desperately clinging to existence but without the desperate clinging.
All the world knows how that turned out.
Rationalization
Condorcet, Godwin, and others caught the bug. Human nature being what it is, these intellectuals deluded themselves that their instinctive longings were the result of rational analysis of how to improve the lot of humanity. They designed Utopian castles in their heads to justify the instinctive emotions in their guts.
We all make decisions based on emotions, then use our reason to justify those decisions, typically deluding ourselves that we made the decision rationally. Think of how difficult it is to convince someone he has made a bad decision by using rational arguments.
Pro-socialist arguments inevitably are appeals to emotion, even if clothed in elaborate rationality, because we are instinctively drawn to socialism. We long for the certainty and simplicity of the small troop, our instinctive home.
Home Was Socialist
Small group socialism was the way of life for all apes, including ourselves, until human populations became large enough to move beyond the micro-cosmos and evolve traditions and morals that enabled widespread human interaction through trade, interaction that enabled the creation of wealth to move us out of the poverty that characterized our existence up to that point.
Socialism as we know it is the imagined result of implementing the rules of the micro-cosmos throughout the broader society. With its many manifestations - Bolshevism, Marxism, Fascism, Nazism, Leninism, Maoism, etc. – Socialism evidently emerged as a social philosophy when European intellectuals became aware of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies of the Caribbean, recognizing in those societies the object of their instinctive longings.
Philosophers and Preachers
Philosophers, at least since Plato and Aristotle, had objected to the evolved morality of the extended order as contrary to the essence of humanity. Plato wrote that individuals exist for the good of the state, not the other way around. Plato didn’t like what happened when people were at liberty.
Christ emphasized the micro-morality and the need for people to treat those around them as if they were members of the same troop. If one ignores the religious aspect of His teachings, Jesus preached the importance of the micro-morality to people prone to ignore it, making life miserable even amid prosperity.
Many Christian preachers and saints despised the macro-order and its morality. Much of Christianity still views the morals of the extended order as evil, even as the macro-morals contribute to the reduction of human misery.
Discovery of the hunter-gatherer troops in the New World offered hope that the age-old longing might be realized.
Rousseau believed that mankind took a wrong turn, sacrificing the instinctive emotions and morality of the isolated troop, the micro-cosmos, for the supposed benefits of civilization. Rousseau wrote of the noble savage, natural and untainted by civilization (also untainted by sufficient food, security, and the prospect of a long life) as the human ideal. The French revolution sought to make France into one big, happy troop of people acting with the harmony of those desperately clinging to existence but without the desperate clinging.
All the world knows how that turned out.
Rationalization
Condorcet, Godwin, and others caught the bug. Human nature being what it is, these intellectuals deluded themselves that their instinctive longings were the result of rational analysis of how to improve the lot of humanity. They designed Utopian castles in their heads to justify the instinctive emotions in their guts.
We all make decisions based on emotions, then use our reason to justify those decisions, typically deluding ourselves that we made the decision rationally. Think of how difficult it is to convince someone he has made a bad decision by using rational arguments.
Pro-socialist arguments inevitably are appeals to emotion, even if clothed in elaborate rationality, because we are instinctively drawn to socialism. We long for the certainty and simplicity of the small troop, our instinctive home.
Should and Must
Morality tells us what we should do (or not do) and what kind of behavior works in certain situations.
Laws tell us what we must do (or not do) if we are to avert violence to ourselves. Legitimate violence, violence against which there is no recourse.
Morality has no effect on individual liberty.
Laws restrain individual liberty.
For Christians, the Gospels tell what you should do (and what is necessary to gain the Kingdom of Heaven) but not what “musts” to impose on other people by your own power or by invoking the power of the state. Christianity is about individual “shoulds”, not collective “musts”.
Although all laws, in a sense, limit individual liberty, paradoxically, individual liberty – in the sense of having sovereignty within one’s private domain – depends on certain kinds of laws that limit one person’s liberty to trespass on another person’s liberty.
Government and its laws are necessary for liberty to exist. But, beyond a minimum, laws restrict liberty. Like many substances, a light dose of government is beneficial, but more than a little is poisonous.
Laws tell us what we must do (or not do) if we are to avert violence to ourselves. Legitimate violence, violence against which there is no recourse.
Morality has no effect on individual liberty.
Laws restrain individual liberty.
For Christians, the Gospels tell what you should do (and what is necessary to gain the Kingdom of Heaven) but not what “musts” to impose on other people by your own power or by invoking the power of the state. Christianity is about individual “shoulds”, not collective “musts”.
Although all laws, in a sense, limit individual liberty, paradoxically, individual liberty – in the sense of having sovereignty within one’s private domain – depends on certain kinds of laws that limit one person’s liberty to trespass on another person’s liberty.
Government and its laws are necessary for liberty to exist. But, beyond a minimum, laws restrict liberty. Like many substances, a light dose of government is beneficial, but more than a little is poisonous.
Slavery
‘Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.’
– Rev. Garrison Frazier (a slave for 59 years)
By this definition, anyone who receives the work of another (or the money that comes from that work) without the consent of the one taken from, and without the one taken from being able to effectively resist, has enslaved the one taken from, to the extent of the receiving.
The rich receiving what is taken from the poor, against the will of the poor, is enslavement of the poor.
The poor receiving from the rich what is taken by irresistible power and without consent, is enslaving the rich.
If slavery is wrong, it matters not the station of the one enslaved nor the degree of enslavement (or conversely, the amount of freedom remaining).
I find it illuminating that Ref. Frazier who, at age 59, bought freedom for himself and his wife, defined slavery as the receiving, not the taking. Thus, taking by irresistible power for the common good (defense, courts of justice, law enforcement, necessary infrastructure) is not enslavement. Transfer payments – the taking from one person or several persons and giving the proceeds to another person or several persons – are slavery.
One must either reject Rev. Frazier’s definition (14 former slaves and 5 black men born free agreed with Rev. Frazier’s definition when he spoke it) or admit that roughly 2/3 of the U.S. Federal budget involves enslaving some of the population so that others may receive what is taken by irresistible force.
If words have meanings, there is no third alternative.
By the way, I care not how the decision to enslave was made. If I am unwillingly enslaved by majority vote of my fellows, whether that majority chooses to enslave themselves or not, I am still unwillingly, tyrannically, and unjustly enslaved. No one, other than myself, and no majority can determine my consent. There are some things so wrong that no majority can make them right.
Unless you believe slavery is moral and just under some circumstances.
We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
Does it make you proud?
– Rev. Garrison Frazier (a slave for 59 years)
By this definition, anyone who receives the work of another (or the money that comes from that work) without the consent of the one taken from, and without the one taken from being able to effectively resist, has enslaved the one taken from, to the extent of the receiving.
The rich receiving what is taken from the poor, against the will of the poor, is enslavement of the poor.
The poor receiving from the rich what is taken by irresistible power and without consent, is enslaving the rich.
If slavery is wrong, it matters not the station of the one enslaved nor the degree of enslavement (or conversely, the amount of freedom remaining).
I find it illuminating that Ref. Frazier who, at age 59, bought freedom for himself and his wife, defined slavery as the receiving, not the taking. Thus, taking by irresistible power for the common good (defense, courts of justice, law enforcement, necessary infrastructure) is not enslavement. Transfer payments – the taking from one person or several persons and giving the proceeds to another person or several persons – are slavery.
One must either reject Rev. Frazier’s definition (14 former slaves and 5 black men born free agreed with Rev. Frazier’s definition when he spoke it) or admit that roughly 2/3 of the U.S. Federal budget involves enslaving some of the population so that others may receive what is taken by irresistible force.
If words have meanings, there is no third alternative.
By the way, I care not how the decision to enslave was made. If I am unwillingly enslaved by majority vote of my fellows, whether that majority chooses to enslave themselves or not, I am still unwillingly, tyrannically, and unjustly enslaved. No one, other than myself, and no majority can determine my consent. There are some things so wrong that no majority can make them right.
Unless you believe slavery is moral and just under some circumstances.
We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
Does it make you proud?
Government Monopoly of Legitimate Violence
Let’s start with some definitions, if not of terms then of concepts.
Violence: Injury to a person, physical capture or restraint of a person, destruction or confiscation of a person’s property. Destruction or confiscation can be covert – without the person’s knowledge until the violence is accomplished – or it may be overt with the person aware that it is happened but threatened with injury or death if he resists.
Legitimacy: Immune from legitimate counter-violence. Now that’s circular and it is intended to be: Violence begets counter-violence; however, legitimate violence cannot, by definition, beget legitimate counter-violence. Legitimacy means there is no circularity. Legitimacy may be determined by custom or law. Despite there being no actual law in Nazi Germany, a Gestapo agent could legitimately kill a striker because there was no agency accepted by the rulers that could legitimately use violence against that Gestapo agent. In 1070a.d., a Norman knight could legitimately beat or kill a Saxon peasant for any reason because he (the Norman) would suffer no consequent legitimate violence: no other Norman noble would use violence against him and any Saxon who was violent against a Norman would suffer legitimate counter-violence from other Norman nobles. Norman violence against Saxons was legitimate (unless it somehow harmed the interest of another Norman), Saxon violence against Normans was illegitimate. Norman violence against a Norman depended on feudal rights and responsibilities for legitimacy.
Recognize that legitimacy is not necessarily determined by who struck the blow (or fired the arrow) but who accepts responsibility for the blow. A Norman noble might use a Saxon agent to legitimately do violence against a Norman vassal, though the Saxon might not legitimately act on his own.
Thus, legitimate violence does not depend on the Rule of Law though the Rule of Law defines and circumscribes legitimate violence and who may exercise (or threaten) it and under what circumstances.
Rulers and Governments not the Same
Rulers are those who have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence to achieve their ends. Those who can use (or threaten) violence without the risk of legitimate counter-violence are among the rulers in that particular situation. While a Gestapo agent could, without risk of legitimate reprisal, use violence on his own initiative against a civilian to achieve any personal or governmental goal, he could not use violence against an SS officer, except in very limited circumstances, to achieve any goal whatsoever without incurring legitimate counter-violence. The Gestapo agent is part of the ruling power in the former circumstance but not in the latter.
The Nazi and Norman-English situations are examples of hierarchical, class-based ruling systems where legitimacy depends on accepted standards and not the Rule of Law. Legitimacy depends on who is using violence and against whom as much as the goal the violence is supporting.
All societies have rulers. Some have governments.
Necessity of the Rule of Law
By my definition, a Government depends on the Rule of Law: Laws which explicitly enable and explicitly circumscribe the government’s legitimate use of violence.
Governments act, and are prevented from acting, according to laws. Non-government rulers act and utilize violence or its threat based purely on relative power and the will of the ruler. Some rulers claim to be governments, but are not.
In a civilized state, government must have a monopoly on legitimate violence. In a liberal society, the people created the government which must act according to the rule of law; the people ultimately control the government and define the laws. Further, a liberal society limits what the government may do and limits what kinds of laws the people (directly or through their government) may enact. These limits can be changed by a super-majority of the citizens, but not by a simple majority.
Rulers act to their own ends. Liberal governments act to ends determined by the citizens. A non-liberal government may act to its own ends, or to ends it (government) believes are those the people do (or should) want; but these are essentially the same: government pursuing its own ends.
(Have you heard a government official claiming that, under government guidance, American auto companies will build cars the American people want? Have you noticed that the "cars the American people want" are cars the American people have resolutely refused to buy except in small numbers? That is non-liberal governance.)
Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: A Primary Governmental Responsibility
Government must maintain its monopoly on legitimate violence by acting against non-government entities that use violence (as defined above – no hankie wringing that offering lots of money for something is somehow violence against the owner of the something.)
Many of the complaints against capitalism are really complaints that a private entity has enforced its will by violence. The failure is of government, not of capitalism: the government is supposed to act according to law to enforce its monopoly on legitimate violence and take action against the private entity using violence to achieve its ends.
Marxists assert that wealthy capitalists are in cahoots with the rulers, or are de facto part of the ruling class. Marxists acknowledge only rulers, evidently believing governments are shams. Perhaps this is because Marxists see human society as a conflicting power centers and dismiss both individuality and voluntary transactions for mutual benefit.
As mentioned in earlier posts, liberty depends on government, the rule of law, and the restraints of tradition. One of the things government must do to enable liberty is jealously enforce its monopoly on legitimate violence.
Violence: Injury to a person, physical capture or restraint of a person, destruction or confiscation of a person’s property. Destruction or confiscation can be covert – without the person’s knowledge until the violence is accomplished – or it may be overt with the person aware that it is happened but threatened with injury or death if he resists.
Legitimacy: Immune from legitimate counter-violence. Now that’s circular and it is intended to be: Violence begets counter-violence; however, legitimate violence cannot, by definition, beget legitimate counter-violence. Legitimacy means there is no circularity. Legitimacy may be determined by custom or law. Despite there being no actual law in Nazi Germany, a Gestapo agent could legitimately kill a striker because there was no agency accepted by the rulers that could legitimately use violence against that Gestapo agent. In 1070a.d., a Norman knight could legitimately beat or kill a Saxon peasant for any reason because he (the Norman) would suffer no consequent legitimate violence: no other Norman noble would use violence against him and any Saxon who was violent against a Norman would suffer legitimate counter-violence from other Norman nobles. Norman violence against Saxons was legitimate (unless it somehow harmed the interest of another Norman), Saxon violence against Normans was illegitimate. Norman violence against a Norman depended on feudal rights and responsibilities for legitimacy.
Recognize that legitimacy is not necessarily determined by who struck the blow (or fired the arrow) but who accepts responsibility for the blow. A Norman noble might use a Saxon agent to legitimately do violence against a Norman vassal, though the Saxon might not legitimately act on his own.
Thus, legitimate violence does not depend on the Rule of Law though the Rule of Law defines and circumscribes legitimate violence and who may exercise (or threaten) it and under what circumstances.
Rulers and Governments not the Same
Rulers are those who have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence to achieve their ends. Those who can use (or threaten) violence without the risk of legitimate counter-violence are among the rulers in that particular situation. While a Gestapo agent could, without risk of legitimate reprisal, use violence on his own initiative against a civilian to achieve any personal or governmental goal, he could not use violence against an SS officer, except in very limited circumstances, to achieve any goal whatsoever without incurring legitimate counter-violence. The Gestapo agent is part of the ruling power in the former circumstance but not in the latter.
The Nazi and Norman-English situations are examples of hierarchical, class-based ruling systems where legitimacy depends on accepted standards and not the Rule of Law. Legitimacy depends on who is using violence and against whom as much as the goal the violence is supporting.
All societies have rulers. Some have governments.
Necessity of the Rule of Law
By my definition, a Government depends on the Rule of Law: Laws which explicitly enable and explicitly circumscribe the government’s legitimate use of violence.
Governments act, and are prevented from acting, according to laws. Non-government rulers act and utilize violence or its threat based purely on relative power and the will of the ruler. Some rulers claim to be governments, but are not.
In a civilized state, government must have a monopoly on legitimate violence. In a liberal society, the people created the government which must act according to the rule of law; the people ultimately control the government and define the laws. Further, a liberal society limits what the government may do and limits what kinds of laws the people (directly or through their government) may enact. These limits can be changed by a super-majority of the citizens, but not by a simple majority.
Rulers act to their own ends. Liberal governments act to ends determined by the citizens. A non-liberal government may act to its own ends, or to ends it (government) believes are those the people do (or should) want; but these are essentially the same: government pursuing its own ends.
(Have you heard a government official claiming that, under government guidance, American auto companies will build cars the American people want? Have you noticed that the "cars the American people want" are cars the American people have resolutely refused to buy except in small numbers? That is non-liberal governance.)
Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: A Primary Governmental Responsibility
Government must maintain its monopoly on legitimate violence by acting against non-government entities that use violence (as defined above – no hankie wringing that offering lots of money for something is somehow violence against the owner of the something.)
Many of the complaints against capitalism are really complaints that a private entity has enforced its will by violence. The failure is of government, not of capitalism: the government is supposed to act according to law to enforce its monopoly on legitimate violence and take action against the private entity using violence to achieve its ends.
Marxists assert that wealthy capitalists are in cahoots with the rulers, or are de facto part of the ruling class. Marxists acknowledge only rulers, evidently believing governments are shams. Perhaps this is because Marxists see human society as a conflicting power centers and dismiss both individuality and voluntary transactions for mutual benefit.
As mentioned in earlier posts, liberty depends on government, the rule of law, and the restraints of tradition. One of the things government must do to enable liberty is jealously enforce its monopoly on legitimate violence.
The Joys of Planning
Liberty Leads to Non-Socialist Behavior
Socialism depends on centralized planning and control if only because people at liberty to make their own commercial (economic) decisions will, by their decisions, pull the system away from the socialistic ideal. Socialism and exemption from coercion are incompatible.
We know this because, without central planning (or where it lacks control), the extended order of people freely interacting for mutual benefit (the free market) always appears spontaneously, without anyone planning it, and it is not socialistic. Even in a controlled and planned economy, free markets spontaneously spring up along the margins and in the interstices left by planning. These weeds of liberty in the socialist garden are usually called “black markets” or "capitalist subversion of the will of the people".
Universal socialism is made possible only by eliminating all liberty or by eliminating (murdering) all individuals who use their liberty to do things other than what is planned. Socialism is possible only to the extent the central authority (the state) can eliminate non-socialist economic activity.
A Problem of Scale
Proper planning depends on ready access to all the relevant information. To the extent that information is lacking, not employed, or out-of-date, the planning process will be poor and results unsatisfactory.
With billions of people in a multi-national society, each person with multitudinous and changing desires, each encountering the vicissitudes of life (accidents, serendipitous opportunities, uncertain weather, etc) and making scores of decisions every day, the volume of information needed for proper planning and allocation of resources is almost unimaginable. And the conditions change daily, even hourly.
Imagine that: 16 million economic decisions per second. Each decision evaluating relative prices, ease of buying or selling, personal preferences, current bodily aches and pains and hungers and longings, personal mental states, and the environment relative to one or more of the 1.2 billion products available in the United States and Canada, plus all the services and all the products available in other countries. (Don’t imagine that the greedy capitalists created all those unnecessary products to take advantage of consumers. I’m a product manager. I know how expensive it is for a supplier to create and manage a new product; you don’t do it unless consumers want it. Profits are higher if you can get by with fewer products.)
So Many Decisions
It’s raining; do I buy an umbrella or not? Would I rather buy an umbrella or get a little wet? Do I drive today or walk to the bus stop in the cold wind? Do I accelerate quickly to save time, or drive more cautiously to save gas? Do I want fries with that? Do I buy an extra roll of toilet paper to put in the cupboard? Do I want to accept the price the customer has offered, or tell him to get lost? Do I throw in an extra doughnut with the dozen the customer asked for, and not charge for the extra? Do I put the 32-ounce Coke on sale? At what price? Every decision leads to an action (or action foregone) and every action affects inventories, demand, prices, and availability as well as affecting the conditions that every other person on the planet faces as she makes her own decisions.
Sixteen million economic actions every second about one or more of the 1.2 billion products. Each action taken with consideration of the economic conditions at the time of the decision to act (or not to act) and each changing, however slightly, the economic conditions faced by everyone else (and every decision-making entity – corporation, department, club, agency, or group) in the economy.
Rationalist intellectuals, socialist planners, and government agencies seeking power imagine that it is possible to understand all the effects of all these decisions and plan accordingly. They imagine they can rationalize, bring order to, and improve the efficiency (and justice) of this human system that has complexity defying human comprehension.
Central planning is possible only by drastically limiting human liberty by eliminating most of available products and restricting choices. You prefer Pepsi? Tough. The planning commission has decided that Coke is all that you need, and only in the 16-ounce size. And it’s always the same price and never goes on sale. And you can only buy 2 six-packs at a time because you don’t need any more. And the stores are only open 9 hours a day, so for the remaining 15 hours you won’t be taking any economic actions that might not be planned. Otherwise, you'll upset the plan.
Nice world. You like it? The Russians didn’t.
Computation by the Evolving, Spontaneously-Created Extended Order
The only computer powerful enough to process all the information and make timely allocations is the one that spontaneously evolves when people are at liberty to make their own decisions within the framework of abstract rules such as traditions and simple laws that protect liberty.
Within this vast, ever-evolving computer, are many cells or subsystems: some flexible, some rigid, some highly efficient and effective, some flawed and destined for extinction. The power of this computer is unimaginable and its operation beyond human understanding because the system it controls is the most complex thing in the universe. Socialists are socialists because they can neither imagine nor believe what this computer can do. Because a certain type of rationalist lacks imagination and doesn’t believe anything he can’t understand, he will be a socialist.
And force you to live in a world that is simple enough for him to understand.
Socialism depends on centralized planning and control if only because people at liberty to make their own commercial (economic) decisions will, by their decisions, pull the system away from the socialistic ideal. Socialism and exemption from coercion are incompatible.
We know this because, without central planning (or where it lacks control), the extended order of people freely interacting for mutual benefit (the free market) always appears spontaneously, without anyone planning it, and it is not socialistic. Even in a controlled and planned economy, free markets spontaneously spring up along the margins and in the interstices left by planning. These weeds of liberty in the socialist garden are usually called “black markets” or "capitalist subversion of the will of the people".
Universal socialism is made possible only by eliminating all liberty or by eliminating (murdering) all individuals who use their liberty to do things other than what is planned. Socialism is possible only to the extent the central authority (the state) can eliminate non-socialist economic activity.
A Problem of Scale
Proper planning depends on ready access to all the relevant information. To the extent that information is lacking, not employed, or out-of-date, the planning process will be poor and results unsatisfactory.
With billions of people in a multi-national society, each person with multitudinous and changing desires, each encountering the vicissitudes of life (accidents, serendipitous opportunities, uncertain weather, etc) and making scores of decisions every day, the volume of information needed for proper planning and allocation of resources is almost unimaginable. And the conditions change daily, even hourly.
Imagine that: 16 million economic decisions per second. Each decision evaluating relative prices, ease of buying or selling, personal preferences, current bodily aches and pains and hungers and longings, personal mental states, and the environment relative to one or more of the 1.2 billion products available in the United States and Canada, plus all the services and all the products available in other countries. (Don’t imagine that the greedy capitalists created all those unnecessary products to take advantage of consumers. I’m a product manager. I know how expensive it is for a supplier to create and manage a new product; you don’t do it unless consumers want it. Profits are higher if you can get by with fewer products.)
So Many Decisions
It’s raining; do I buy an umbrella or not? Would I rather buy an umbrella or get a little wet? Do I drive today or walk to the bus stop in the cold wind? Do I accelerate quickly to save time, or drive more cautiously to save gas? Do I want fries with that? Do I buy an extra roll of toilet paper to put in the cupboard? Do I want to accept the price the customer has offered, or tell him to get lost? Do I throw in an extra doughnut with the dozen the customer asked for, and not charge for the extra? Do I put the 32-ounce Coke on sale? At what price? Every decision leads to an action (or action foregone) and every action affects inventories, demand, prices, and availability as well as affecting the conditions that every other person on the planet faces as she makes her own decisions.
Sixteen million economic actions every second about one or more of the 1.2 billion products. Each action taken with consideration of the economic conditions at the time of the decision to act (or not to act) and each changing, however slightly, the economic conditions faced by everyone else (and every decision-making entity – corporation, department, club, agency, or group) in the economy.
Rationalist intellectuals, socialist planners, and government agencies seeking power imagine that it is possible to understand all the effects of all these decisions and plan accordingly. They imagine they can rationalize, bring order to, and improve the efficiency (and justice) of this human system that has complexity defying human comprehension.
Central planning is possible only by drastically limiting human liberty by eliminating most of available products and restricting choices. You prefer Pepsi? Tough. The planning commission has decided that Coke is all that you need, and only in the 16-ounce size. And it’s always the same price and never goes on sale. And you can only buy 2 six-packs at a time because you don’t need any more. And the stores are only open 9 hours a day, so for the remaining 15 hours you won’t be taking any economic actions that might not be planned. Otherwise, you'll upset the plan.
Nice world. You like it? The Russians didn’t.
Computation by the Evolving, Spontaneously-Created Extended Order
The only computer powerful enough to process all the information and make timely allocations is the one that spontaneously evolves when people are at liberty to make their own decisions within the framework of abstract rules such as traditions and simple laws that protect liberty.
Within this vast, ever-evolving computer, are many cells or subsystems: some flexible, some rigid, some highly efficient and effective, some flawed and destined for extinction. The power of this computer is unimaginable and its operation beyond human understanding because the system it controls is the most complex thing in the universe. Socialists are socialists because they can neither imagine nor believe what this computer can do. Because a certain type of rationalist lacks imagination and doesn’t believe anything he can’t understand, he will be a socialist.
And force you to live in a world that is simple enough for him to understand.
Perhaps You Don't Think It's Possible
You may think a spontaneously emerging, self-ordering system that organizes complexity is not possible, that a complex system requires a human (or superhuman) planner.
Well, that's a religious issue.
Or, perhaps, you think such a system would automatically emerge but for greedy capitalists who thwart a just and efficient system. That's Manichaean, also a religion.
If you think guidance is necessary and you think you are a rationalist and not a religious fundamentalist (that includes those fundamentalists who worship human reason), you might study evolutionary biology. Or contemplate a wild marsh wherein plants, animals, fungi, microbes, and bacteria contrive to create a well-ordered, stable-yet-dynamic system without oversight by Harvard-educated intellectuals.
There are even sciences devoted to the study of self-ordering systems: Synergetics, Autopoietics, Systems Theory, and Cybernetics.
Human reason is a limited tool. Powerful within its realm, but limited. Confronted with the complexity of an ecosystem (wild or human), human reasoning is dwarfed, utterly overwhelmed.
Well, that's a religious issue.
Or, perhaps, you think such a system would automatically emerge but for greedy capitalists who thwart a just and efficient system. That's Manichaean, also a religion.
If you think guidance is necessary and you think you are a rationalist and not a religious fundamentalist (that includes those fundamentalists who worship human reason), you might study evolutionary biology. Or contemplate a wild marsh wherein plants, animals, fungi, microbes, and bacteria contrive to create a well-ordered, stable-yet-dynamic system without oversight by Harvard-educated intellectuals.
There are even sciences devoted to the study of self-ordering systems: Synergetics, Autopoietics, Systems Theory, and Cybernetics.
Human reason is a limited tool. Powerful within its realm, but limited. Confronted with the complexity of an ecosystem (wild or human), human reasoning is dwarfed, utterly overwhelmed.
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