A New Social Question : Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia [1 ed.] 9781443886314, 9781443883740

Citation preview

A New Social Question

A New Social Question: Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia Edited by

Casey Harison

A New Social Question: Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia Edited by Casey Harison This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Casey Harison and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8374-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8374-0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ............................................................................................. vii Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Casey Harison Part I: Capitalism Chapter One ................................................................................................. 8 John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism Helen McCabe Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 27 “The Right to Aspire to Everything”: Entering the Capitalist Economy in Nineteenth-Century France Emily C. Teising Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 43 From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism in the American Individualist Republic Susan Love Brown Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 64 The Divine Right of Things: On the “Impersonal Dependence” of Capitalism Paul Christopher Gray Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 85 Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty Leonard Williams, John Deal and Matthew Hendryx

vi

Table of Contents

Part II: Socialism Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 108 The Capitalism, Christian Communism and Communitarian Socialism of New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen Donald E. Pitzer Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 126 Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and an Inquiry into Arendtian Labor Robert Geroux Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 144 Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face Neil Wright Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 164 Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity Ted Goertzel Part III: Utopia Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 184 Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now Joe White Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 198 Seeking a Better Life: A Study of Utopian Communities Proposed by Robert Owen and Edward Bellamy Annette M. Magid Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 218 Utopia and Apocalypse Now: (Re)Producing Meta-Narrative in America Jeremy Buesink Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 238 Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy David F. Ruccio Contributors ............................................................................................. 262

LIST OF TABLES

Top Income Shares and Average Incomes. United States. 1975-2013.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the University of Southern Indiana for its support of the conference on “Capitalism & Socialism: Utopia, Globalization, and Revolution” (New Harmony, Indiana, November 2014) from which the chapters in this book are drawn, and Marilyn Thielman for her great help in organizing that conference.

INTRODUCTION CASEY HARISON

In November 2014, the University of Southern Indiana’s Center for Communal Studies sponsored the conference on “Capitalism & Socialism: Utopia, Globalization and Revolution” at New Harmony, Indiana as part of the bicentennial celebration of New Harmony’s founding by German Harmonists in 1814. The Harmonists are fairly well known, at least among scholars, but New Harmony is probably most famous as the site of industrialist Robert Owen’s experiment in communal living in 1825, and it was especially the legacy of Owen that animated the proceedings and drew participants from across the Atlantic to this small town in southwest Indiana. When the conversation about how to celebrate New Harmony’s bicentennial began, the possibility of the Center organizing a conference around the theme of “capitalism and socialism” came up. This seemed a great idea–a topic very much befitting New Harmony’s history, a good way to attract scholars who otherwise were probably unfamiliar with the Center for Communal Studies, and timely because the effects of the Great Recession were still with us. Indeed by the second decade of the twentyfirst century, some of the momentous issues of Robert Owen’s day had again come to feel relevant in ways they had not for a generation or more. As a factory owner and manager in early nineteenth-century New Lanark, Scotland, Owen was a “success” in the new regime of modern capitalism. But as a critical observer of the effects of industrialization, he was also a committed reformer–one of the “utopian socialists” mentioned by Marx whose ideas were tremendously influential in his day. The thinking in planning the conference was that Owen’s work and the experiment he pursued at New Harmony again had currency as the world looked back on the 2008 economic crisis and as socialism, seemingly banished with the failure of Communist states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at the end of the last century, has returned to the political and economic lexicon. As the planning for the conference proceeded, more than one person pointed out that it appeared that in coming up with a title we had just

2

Introduction

“strung together a bunch of big words.” And in a way this was true, though we did so with the sense that the words–some of which did not exist or had only recently begun to show up in dictionaries in Owen’s day– represented modern ideas with origins mostly in the eighteenth century, whose promise Owen sought to understand in his own time and as we are still trying to sort them out nearly two centuries later. The processes represented by the words in the conference title–“capitalism,” “socialism,” “utopia,” “globalization,” “revolution”–were at the heart of what was called the “Social Question” when Owen arrived at New Harmony in 1825. For Robert Owen and his contemporaries, the Social Question was part and parcel of the “industrializing” revolution for which Owen himself was as much responsible as any factory owner of his day. The status of the industrial working class–their living and working conditions in the nineteenth century’s “age of pauperism,” but also their political rights– were central to the original Social Question as the phrase gained currency in Western Europe and then the Americas in the first half of the nineteenth century.1 Owen did not use the precise phrase in A New View of Society (1817) and The Book of the New Model World (1840), but the books are nonetheless filled with references to the “social” and to posing “questions” about the troubling condition of contemporary society. The modern social sciences represented among the chapters in this book took their shape during the second half of the nineteenth century partly as ways to understand and address the Social Question. By the turn of the century and particularly after the First World War, the way of thinking about modernity represented by the Social Question faded as chattel slavery was abolished in those corners of the world where it persisted, and as political rights were won by workers, peasants and women. In the twentieth century, technology promised ways to improve the standard of living across the globe, while Marxism-Leninism and the great revolutions in Russia and China offered universal solutions to the ongoing problems of modernity. By the 1930s, “Social Question” seemed like an old-fashioned way to formulate a plan for changing the world for the better. Yet the underlying questions about how to live in the modern world did not fade away. Since the end of the Cold War, scholars have once more taken up the Social Question as they have updated the phrase’s application. Pierre Rosanvallon, for one, formulated a “New Social Question” in terms of the “crisis” of the welfare state that began in the 1970s. He argues that socialism, which seemed an answer to the Social Question for part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is no longer an

A New Social Question: Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia

3

option because of its’ “deterioration… deriv(-ing) almost directly from the philosophical crisis of the welfare state.”2 For Rosanvallon, there has been a shift in the direction and the potential “answers” of Social Question in the second half of the twentieth century, but for other scholars who use the phrase it mostly continues to stand for alternatives to capitalism.3 Today the Social Question is less about gaining the right to vote for an industrial working class and more about guaranteeing the broader range of universal human rights for all. It is less about the path down which industry is carrying humanity and more about using technology and the sciences to raise the standard of living for the disadvantaged. Where the idea of sustainability was only implicit in the nineteenth century’s Social Question, it is explicit in the twenty-first century’s New Social Question. We did not use the phrase in our conference title, but the idea of the Social Question was there in the panels at New Harmony. In hindsight, we can say that the bicentennial celebration at New Harmony offered a small opportunity to return to the Social Question and the fundamental issues that framed Robert Owen’s mental landscape, as they do for an even more integrated world today. We hoped that the conference and this book, which draws from papers presented at New Harmony, might represent, to borrow a phrase from Erik Olin Wright, a moment of “emancipatory social science.”4 The issues explored here include the globalizing aspirations of capitalism and socialism; the paths, including reform or revolution, toward capitalism or socialism; the degree to which the promises of material wellbeing and fulfilled political lives born of these siblings of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolutions remain achievable; and, finally, the opportunity to simply imagine “utopian” alternatives to the status quo. These are all aspects of A New Social Question. Contributors to this volume come from fields in the social sciences and humanities. The coverage is transatlantic, with topics and authors from North America and Europe. The book is organized into sections on “capitalism,” “socialism” and “utopia.” Within sections, chapters are arranged chronologically. Particular topics include individual thinkers and theorists from the nineteenth century–Robert Owen, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, John Stuart Mill and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon–as well as analysis of contemporary topics, including the recent work of economist Thomas Piketty. Other chapters take up the interplay of religion, economics and “cybernetics” within these globalizing systems. The final section on “utopia” presents a synthesis on capitalism and socialism, concluding with a “Marxian critique of utopia.” With the collapse of the Soviet Union and Stalinist states across Eastern Europe a generation ago, it felt, as one scholar famously put it at

4

Introduction

the time that we had reached “the end of history.” 5 The questions and contests that had animated university life, as they had defined politics and economics across the Atlantic and beyond for the previous two centuries, seemed to have been settled. But of course this was not really the case. As Joyce Appleby, David Harvey and Thomas Piketty have lately reminded us, capitalism, particularly the forms it has assumed since 1945, is probably exceptional, perhaps ephemeral, but also dynamic and resilient.6 If the Great Recession derailed personal lives, destabilized economies and unnerved politicians, it also reminded us that we have not reached the end of history. Where there was once a Social Question, there is now a New Social Question. The great questions of modernity, of capitalism and socialism, that troubled Robert Owen and inspired him to test his ideas for an alternative, “utopian” future along the banks of the Wabash River on what was then the frontier of the United States, persist, as they also provide an opportunity in this book to once again re-consider these enduring subjects.

Bibliography Appleby, Joyce. The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (New York: Norton, 2011). Beck, Herman. The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia: Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and The Social Question, 1815-1870 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). Castel, Robert. From Manual Workers to Wage Laborers: Transformation of the Social Question, tr. and ed., Richard Boyd (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003). Fukuyama, Francis. End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). Harvey, David. Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Marx, Ive. A New Social Question: On Minimum Income Protection in the Postindustrial Era (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007). Masaryk, T. G. Masaryk on Marx: An Unabridged Edition of T.G. Masaryk: The Social Question: Philosophical and Sociological Foundations of Marxism, tr. and ed. Erazim V. Kohák (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1972). Moggach, Douglas, and Paul Leduc Browne, eds., The Social Question and the Democratic Revolution: Marx and the Legacy of 1848 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2000). Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century, tr. Arthur

A New Social Question: Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia

5

Goldhammer (New York: Belknap Press, 2014). Rosanvallon, Pierre. The New Social Question: Rethinking the Welfare State, tr. Barbara Harshau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). Wright, Erik Olen. Envisioning Real Utopias (New York: Verso, 2010).

Notes 

1 Hermann Beck, The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia: Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and the Social Question, 1815-1870 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 2. Google Books Ngram Viewers using the phrases “social question” (English) and “la question sociale” (French) show usage of the phrase beginning in the early 1840s and reaching peaks in English-language texts around 1880 and French-language texts around 1900; http://books. Google.com/ngrams. 2 Rosanvallon, The New Social Question: Rethinking the Welfare State, tr. Barbara Harshau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 108. 3 See, for instance, Ive Marx, A New Social Question: On Minimum Income Protection in the Postindustrial Era (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007); Doulgas Moggach and Paul Leduc Browne, eds., The Social Question and the Democratic Revolution: Marx and the Legacy of 1848 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2000); Robert Castel, From Manual Workers to Wage Laborers: Transformation of the Social Question, tr. and ed., Richard Boyd (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003); and T.G. Masaryk, Masaryk on Marx: An Unabridged Edition of T.G. Masaryk: The Social Question: Philosophical and Sociological Foundations of Marxism, tr. and ed. Erazim V. Kohák (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University press, 1972). 4 Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (New York: Verso, 2010). 5 Francis Fukuyama, End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). 6 Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (New York: Norton, 2011); Harvey, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, tr. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Belknap Press, 2014)

PART I: CAPITALISM

CHAPTER ONE JOHN STUART MILL’S ANALYSIS OF CAPITALISM AND THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM HELEN MCCABE

In Principles of Political Economy, John Stuart Mill both provides an assessment of the workability and desirability of some prominent contemporary forms of socialism, and sketches his own view of how society might be transformed from capitalism into socialism. 1 His assessment of contemporary forms of socialism–particularly Owenite communism, Saint-Simonism and Fourierism–in the main determines, not that the schemes are themselves wholly unworkable, nor that the criticisms socialists level against contemporary capitalism are entirely unwarranted, but that a better solution could be found which would also not involve their potential problems (particularly for the free development of individuality). 2 Co-operative socialism, which avoids these problems, whilst also providing solutions to the problems of capitalism, is far more favorably reviewed. 3 It is true that Mill’s language regarding the transformation of capitalism is possibilistic rather than deterministic or normatively prescriptive (often using “may” rather than, say, “will”), but there are both clues in his work that he thought some of these changes would come about (perhaps so long as dominant class-interest did not actively seek to prevent it), and that it should–after all, Mill describes a similar set of reforms as his “Utopia” and declared that, by the mid-1840s, his political philosophy was “under the general designation of Socialist”.4 Although the Saint-Simonian scheme called for state-wide adoption of socialism, and the Owenite and Fourierist schemes Mill assessed called for small intentional communities (such as that planned at New Harmony), they were linked by their demand for whole-scale adoption of socialism, and, therefore, for total, immediate, root-and-branch reform. 5 Mill’s preferred model of transformation to socialism is piece-meal, peaceful, small-scale, incremental, voluntaristic, organic and grass-roots-led–but his proposed, and favored, transformation is no-less radical or, in the end,

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

9

wide-reaching. Although wary of being too prescriptive, the socialist proposals Mill did make, ultimately, call for some state-action, provision and ownership (at both national and local level), alongside agricultural and industrial producer- and consumer-cooperatives, which could be as communal in their living arrangements as members wished, and which would implement just distributions of the surpluses of co-operation according to principles of justice democratically determined by all members.6 He also envisaged radical reform to the family, to religion, to the social ethos and, ultimately, to human nature itself.7 In this chapter I wish to sketch, firstly, Mill’s analysis of capitalism, and, secondly, his preferred road to socialism.

Mill’s Changing Political Theory and Philosophy of History: Opening up the Possibility for Social Progress beyond Liberalism Firstly, however, a word concerning Mill’s owns “road” to a critical analysis of capitalism, and the transition to socialism. In his youth, Mill believed his father (James Mill) and Jeremy Bentham (amongst others) had discovered the complete program for desirable social change, and that, if their philosophic-radical proposals were instituted in and by government, the end-state of social improvement would be achieved. 8 There was neither the space within these reforms for anything approaching socialism, nor any scope for considering possible social improvement beyond this program. 9 This is clearly to be seen in his debates against Owenites in the early 1820s, where Mill, though professing to share their ultimate endeavor of alleviating the plight of the poor, and evidently sharing much of their feminism, forthrightly declares that the resources involved in setting up Owenite intentional communities would be much better spent on directly improving education; on political reform to trade, and to aristocratic and religious privilege; and on setting up representative government by universal personhood suffrage.10 There is no real criticism of capitalism, for poverty is seen as the fault of old, and out-dated, institutions such as monarchy, aristocracy, and established religion, all of which lead to bad government run in the interests of the few, alongside poor education, particularly concerning population control. The very need to transition to socialism is denied: philosophic-radicalism will be enough. But Mill lost his childhood faith during what he calls “a crisis” in his “mental history”, and developed some independent ideas of what means and methods to adopt in order to achieve utility (which remained the ultimate goal of social improvement), as well as to what “utility” meant.11

10

Chapter One

In addition, in adopting a new view of history from the Saint-Simonians (socialists with whom he came into contact in the early 1830s) a new horizon appeared, beyond the current “critical” age, in which there were new possibilities not only for social reform and improvement but for the institutions and social ethos (or ideology) which they would bring about.12

The Saint-Simonians and Mill’s Changing Philosophy of History The Saint-Simonians proposed that history was split into two distinct types of “age” – “organic” and “critical”.13 In organic ages, there was an overarching ideology (religious, political, social, scientific etc.) which adequately explained the world and which was near-universally adhered to.14 It supported, and was supported by, a particular set of social, political, religious and economic institutions.15 For instance, the European Middle Ages was an organic age in which a particular near-universally believed ideology was (repeatedly re-)generated and supported by institutions whose legitimacy and “naturalness” it, in turn, explained.16 But over time, Mill took the Saint-Simonians to explain, humanity progressed (socially, intellectually, technologically, politically), and these institutions, and their attendant ideology, were no longer either suitable or able to adequately explain the world. 17 Thus society entered a “critical” age (e.g. the Reformation), where faith was lost in both institutions and ideology; where the institutions were torn down; and in which, slowly, a new organic age was built upon the ashes of the former one. 18 This, Mill believed, could last a long time, as can be seen by his identification of the Reformation and French Revolution both belonging to the same critical age in which he found himself.19 As part of this change in his view of history, Mill came to identify his previous philosophic-radical ideas as being a necessary part of the work of the current critical age–they were, though, no longer all that could be said regarding social improvement. Instead, he saw at least a part of his role as a philosopher and reformer to be building the institutions and ideology of a new, organic age–a task which would take different proposals and ideas to his philosophic-radicalism, which was only suited to the current, critical age.20 It was his consideration of what that forthcoming organic age ought to look like, along with viewing contemporary capitalism and his previouslydesired changes with newly-critical eyes, which took Mill down the “road” to socialism, a critical analysis to which I wish now to turn.

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

11

Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism Evidently, Mill much preferred capitalism to feudalism–capitalism was more productive and efficient, offering a chance to eradicate poverty, and it went hand-in-hand with important advances in knowledge, and political and social reforms, such as representative government, civil liberties, and the destruction of inherited and established privilege. When faced with paternalist theorists, Mill clearly argued against what was being hailed as a “return” to feudal relations of dependence and protection as inappropriate, unsuitable and out-dated, as well as arguing that such relationships never really existed as anything other than exploitation, conquest and use of force.21 Mill also defended capitalism–and particularly private ownership of articles of consumption and competition in the market for goods and services–against some of the charges laid against it by socialists. This said, however, Mill made his own criticisms of capitalism, and was by no means its whole-hearted supporter.22 Mill criticized capitalism on five fronts, which I will take in turn: liberty and independence; equality and social justice; inefficiency and wastage; relentless pursuit of growth; and social harmony and ethos.23

Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism on the Grounds of Liberty and Independence Mill is, of course, most famous as the author of On Liberty, and it is worth recollecting that he asserts his “one very simple principle” against the prevailing social and political evils of contemporary capitalist society–one in which the (democratic) tyranny of the majority is liable to crush all individuality, eccentricity and difference. 24 Evidently, he thought that some forms of socialism (particularly communism) offered the same risks as contemporary capitalist society on this score, and that “the social problem of the future” would be “how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with … common ownership”.25 But it is worth bearing in mind that this was a problem contemporary capitalism faced just as much as any possible socialist future. Indeed, Mill insists that the criticism of communism (by which he means socialist schemes involving communal ownership of property in both articles of consumption and the means of production) on the grounds of apparent lack of individual freedom is “vastly over-exaggerated.” 26 “The restraints of Communism” he says “would be freedom in comparison with the present condition of the majority of the human race.”27 Under contemporary capitalism, most laborers have little or no choice of

12

Chapter One

occupation, or freedom of movement, and are “practically as dependent” on “fixed rules” and “the will of others” as they can be, short of slavery.28 Moreover, half the world’s population (women) live in “entire domestic subjection” (from which socialism aims to free them).29 Against this, Mill declares himself in favor of the independence of the laboring classes, not just in terms of rejecting the paternalist the idea that the rich should be “in loco parentis to the poor”, but in the sense that laborers should be able to take responsibility and control over their own working conditions (firstly through profit-sharing, secondly through co-operation).30 The poor ought to be able to think for themselves, and make decisions regarding “the determination of their destiny.”31 Indeed, this was a central element of his socialism, which was cooperative rather than communist. As others rightly argue, Mill saw co-operation as importantly extending liberty into the economic sphere, and one of the elements of his critical analysis of capitalism was that it did not make people as free as they might be.32

Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism on the Grounds of Equality and Social Justice Mill was fiercely critical of contemporary capitalism on the grounds of equality and social justice.33 At the start of “On the Probable Futurity Of the Labouring Classes”, he expresses his dissatisfaction with the title of the chapter, which is “descriptive of an existing, but by no means a necessary or permanent, state of social relations” because he “do[es] not recognise as either just or salutary, a state of society in which there is any ‘class’ which is not labouring; any human beings, exempt from bearing their share of the necessary labors of human life, except those unable to labor, or who have fairly earned rest by previous toil”.34 This is not only a state of affairs which capitalism has not brought about–it has not sought to bring it about, and, indeed, could not bring it about.35 In contemporary capitalism, “some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty”, and this is unjust in itself, as is the fact that “the produce of labour ... [is] apportioned … almost in an inverse ratio to labour–the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life”.36 Mill says even the problems of the least optimal kind of communism would be “as dust in the balance” compared to the injustices of contemporary capitalism, and emphasizes the inhumanity and cruelty of

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

13

capitalism when he likens the current economic system to a race declared by an evil Roman Emperor in which those “who came hindermost” would be put to death: “it would not be any diminution of the injustice,” Mill insists, “that the strongest or nimblest would … be certain to escape. The misery and the crime would be that any were put to death at all”. 37 Mill also criticized contemporary capitalism for not even achieving the kind of justice it was designed to produce: the laws of private property, under contemporary capitalism, did not guarantee the laborer the fruits of his labor, but instead “have made property of things which never ought to be property, and absolute property where only a qualified property ought to exist. They have not held the balance fairly between human beings, but have heaped impediments upon some, to give advantage to others; they have purposely fostered inequalities, and prevented all from starting fair in the race.”38 Mill does not think that private property is necessarily unjust– indeed, he recognizes that it can be founded on an important claim of justice (securing for the laborer the fruit of his labor), though the current system of capitalism has done all it can to exacerbate the worst potential consequences of capitalism: inequality, poverty, injustice–but he endorses non-capitalistic principles of justice (such as “from each according to his capacities; to each according to his needs”) as “higher” than those capitalism could possibly achieve.39 Of course, Mill does not seem to have thought that all these problems were inherent in the very nature of capitalism: he is, in part, criticizing legislation as having exacerbated the problems of capitalism. 40 And, as noted above, capitalism evidently has many advantages over feudalism, and is not guilty of all the charges socialists level at it. On the other hand, there are potential inequalities and injustices built into capitalism. As Mill notes, “[t]hat all should … start on perfectly equal terms, is inconsistent with any law of private property”, and this is something he sees as an inherent problem. 41 He also criticizes what might seem to be fair distributions of income under capitalism–for instance, piece-work–as ultimately unjust as they give more to those who already have most. 42 Though some of his criticisms, therefore, are leveled at problems caused by current systems of capitalism, some are inherent in capitalism itself. Capitalism, then–even an ideal form of capitalism–leads to inequality and social injustice. Although Mill suggests ways of improving capitalism, and thinks this would be the best thing to do immediately (rather than instantly implement full-scale socialism), this is no longer the “last word” in social improvement. Instead, Mill wants to radically alter social, political and economic institutions such that “the division of produce of labour … will be made by concert, on an acknowledged principle of

14

Chapter One

justice”, and everyone will do their fair share in bearing the burdens of social co-operation: to transcend capitalism, that is, and adopt a form of socialism.43

Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism on the Grounds of Inefficiency and Waste Although Mill disagreed with some socialists that competition was inefficient, he criticized capitalism as being inefficient for other reasons.44 Mill thought that wage-labor under capitalism was prone to be unproductive, which is why he supported profit-sharing schemes and worker-owned-andmanaged co-operatives.45 He also criticized the inefficiency of distribution in contemporary capitalism, with the profit of “mere distributors” taking an “enormous portion of the produce of industry”, and saw communistic modes of living, and organizing buying and selling, as much more efficient, as were co-operative wholesalers which cut-out middlemen. 46 Lastly, Mill criticized capitalism for the “prodigious inequality with which” the benefits of “unproductive labour” (such as the arts and luxury goods) are distributed, “the little worth of the objects to which the greater part of it is devoted, and the large share which falls to the lot of persons who render no equivalent service in return”, which, he says, “are not incapable of being remedied”. 47 Although there is a strong egalitarian element to this criticism, there is also an efficiency criticism, too–labor is being wasted on items “of little worth”, and the benefits of it being spread less widely than they might be.

Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism on the Grounds of the Relentless Pursuit of Growth Mill’s predecessors in political economy had believed that society was inexorably progressing towards a “stationary state” in which there would be no further progress in technology, capital, “the productive arts” or wealth.48 Life for the poor, in particular, in this state would be parlous.49 Radically, Mill rejected this view.50 Indeed, Mill felt it would be “on the whole, a very considerable improvement on our present condition”.51 Mill criticizes the relentless pursuit of riches which characterizes contemporary capitalist society–what he calls the “struggling to get on” by the “trampling, crushing, elbowing and treading on each other’s heels which form the existing type of our social life”–and says that, although, if we are going to relentlessly pursue riches, it would be better if everyone had an equal opportunity to do it, it would be better still if, “while no one is poor,

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

15

no one desires to be richer, nor has any reasons to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward”. 52 Moreover, Mill criticizes the very metric of success against which capitalist societies (and the people within them) measure themselves, saying “I know not why it should be a matter of congratulation that persons who are already richer than any one needs to be, should have doubled their means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as representative of wealth: or that numbers of individuals should pass over, every year, from the middle classes into a richer class, or from the class of the occupied rich to that of the unoccupied”. 53 Indeed, he insists we need, not “increased production”, but “a better distribution”.54 Thus, one aspect of his criticism of capitalism is for its focus on economic growth–it leads to an undesirable form of society which is over-competitive and which pitches people against each other in a struggle to survive, whilst pursuing unworthy goals and ignoring what is really needed for social justice and efficiency. There is also a second element to Mill’s criticisms of capitalism on the grounds of its relentless pursuit of growth, which might be thought of as proto-environmentalist concerns.55 Mill writes passionately and eloquently about the paucity of a world with “nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture.” 56 Capitalism’s relentless pursuit of growth could lead to this non-diverse landscape, and this is another reason Mill criticizes it.57

Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism on the Grounds of Social Harmony and the Social Ethos As already mentioned, Mill disliked the “trampling, crushing [and] elbowing” of people by their fellow-men that he believed capitalism, with its relentless pursuit of growth, entailed. 58 This also speaks to Mill’s critique of capitalism on the grounds of its negative impact on social harmony (indeed, its rendering social harmony impossible); and its encouragement of selfishness, class-struggle and class-antagonism.59 Mill disparages the competitive, selfish egoism which capitalism both lauds and creates, seeking to heal the divisions of contemporary society through

16

Chapter One

an end not just to class warfare, but to classes themselves; the adoption of a new social ethos inspired by a “Religion of Humanity”; the embrace of the public good by all as not just good political policy (though it would be that) but as a motivating inspiration for their actions and goals; and a friendliness in what remained of commercial relationships between cooperatives.60 It is also worth noting in this context Mill’s conception of history as moving between “organic” and “critical” ages, which was explained above. Although knowing the contemporary “critical” age in which he lived to be vital for human progress, Mill disliked certain aspects of all critical ages, and desired the harmonious aspects of an organic age (though not the potentially stultifying ones).61

Mill’s Suggestions for Improving Capitalism It should be clear from the fore-going discussion that Mill had criticisms both of capitalism as it contemporaneously existed, and of capitalism per se. We might, however, improve the current system of capitalism–and if we were to, the problems with communism would no longer clearly be “as dust in the balance”.62 These improvements to capitalism would include stricter controls on inheritance (though not on what one might bequeath)–a proposal with its roots in Mill’s philosophical-radicalism–such that no one could inherit any more than would keep themselves (and only themselves–not a wife and children) without their having to work. 63 They would include profitsharing schemes such as those described in detail in Principles, which inthemselves would do something to heal class antagonism and improve inter-class relationships, as well as improving productivity.64 They would involve reforms to tariffs, taxes and systems of inherited privilege and nepotism, as well as political reforms (including representative government elected by universal suffrage), implementation of the “harm principle” as the basis for government interference in individual liberty; national provision of education free for those whose parents could not otherwise afford it; and public health initiatives.65 The intention regarding private property would be towards equal, widespread and generally small holdings, with inequalities of wealth depending as much as possible on individual talent, effort and choice.66 There would also be some welfare provision, particularly for those unable to work, balanced against (to modern eyes, at least) fairly draconian laws regarding marriage and concerning the treatment of able-bodied, unemployed people of childconceiving age, in order to keep the population rate in check.67 Instead of

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

17

the relentless pursuit of growth, we might achieve a happy “stationary state”, and cultivate “the Art of Life”.68 This “perfected” capitalism would look very different to not only Mill’s contemporary capitalist society, but our own, which is characterized by vast inequality; ownership of capital concentrated in very few hands; wage-labor; inherited wealth, and economic and social class, dictating to a great degree one’s life-chances; and a very unequal distribution of leisure and access to the arts and education (even for those people living in countries where previous governments have implemented some socialdemocratic policies). (And where, outside of China, at least, we do not have much direct government control of the birth-rate.) It seems plausible to think that this “perfected” capitalism would be the best Mill thought his contemporary critical age could hope to become.69 It is also easy to believe that Mill would have preferred this to communism, because of communism’s potentially negative effects on individuality. It is less plausible, though, to think that this “perfected” capitalism is Mill’s “Utopia”. It might be possible to conceive of a capitalism not only with no welfare payments for those who are unemployed but fit for work, but also with no owners of capital (except those who have retired on the proceeds of their previous labor) living off the proceeds from it, but actively working with it (but where there would be no ability to live off inherited capital)–which is one element of Mill’s preferred future state.70 Similarly, one might argue that Mill accepts that private property is under-pinned (though not as it currently exists) by a principle of justice; and one might also think that the “benefits of combined labour” he wishes all to enjoy might include wage-laboring.71 I think this would be to misread these passages, however, for it is not possible to conceive of a form of capitalism in which the division of the product of labor is determined “by concert, on an acknowledged principle of justice”; where there is also “common ownership in the raw material of the globe” which means not only natural resources such as mineral and fuel resources, but land; where some of that “common ownership” is administered by the state, and some through producer- and consumercooperatives; where there would be no class system; and where people would be united in a common endeavor for the public, general good, and not motivated by self-interest or narrow, partisan, class, or familial interests. This, instead, looks like socialism.72 Moreover, it looks like socialism not merely on Mill’s fairly narrow account as provided in Principles (communal ownership of the means of production, but not articles of consumption), but on a thicker conception,

18

Chapter One

where as well as involving communal ownership, we think socialism has to be concerned with the “social”; where action is coordinated across the community to aim at the common good; and where classes (and, therefore, class antagonisms) would be eradicated in favor of social harmony, egalitarianism and respect. 73 Mill’s critical re-assessment of capitalism, therefore, led him not only to criticize contemporary forms of capitalism, but to prefer socialism even to a “perfected” capitalism for the forthcoming organic age.

Mill’s Critical Assessment of Capitalism: A Brief Conclusion Mill, then, though he was well-embedded in classical, laissez-faire political economy, was not uncritical of capitalism, and eschewed some of the assumptions–particularly concerning the possibilities of future social improvement and (re)organisation–held by both his predecessors and contemporaries. His changing beliefs led him to criticize both contemporary capitalist institutions and even an ideal form of capitalism on the grounds of liberty and independence; equality and social justice; inefficiency and waste; the relentless pursuit of growth; and social harmony and to develop a form of co-operative socialism which, he hoped, would avoid the problems of both capitalism and currently-developed forms of socialism. In the next section I will turn to the “road” Mill thought we might take to this organic socialist “Utopia.”

Mill’s Account of the “Road” to Socialism Mill briefly sketches a ‘road’ to socialism near the end of ‘On the Probable Futurity…’, which he expanded to include discussion of co-operation and a socialist transformation of society in 1852. 74 The working classes, he says, are increasingly unwilling to be kept in positions of dependence, inequality and powerlessness. 75 They are agitating, coming together in political movements, and campaigning publically for radical changes in society, which they will be able to more-easily enforce once they are granted the franchise (as they ought to be).76 They will demand a more just society, with a more just division of the produce of labor and the benefits of modern industry.77 As a part of this, they will demand re-organization of industrial relations.78 On the other side of the current divide between workers and capitalists, many capitalists are already recognizing that they get more out of their workers, and thereby increase their profits, when they share profits–and

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

19

management–with their employees.79 In time, Mill thinks, all employers will see the wisdom of profit-sharing, and will not be able to get any but the worst, and therefore least-productive and skilled, workers to agree to anything less.80 But what Mill views as the best part of the laboring classes–those he praises for courage, resourcefulness, an independent spirit and rigorous self-discipline–are already going well beyond profit-sharing schemes where the means of production are still owned, and almost all decisions still made, by capitalists, into “organisations of the labourers themselves” in (particularly producer-)co-operatives, and it is these kinds of industrial organization which Mill sees as the means of achieving social justice.81 Mill was convinced that such co-operatives would prove themselves more efficient, making better quality, cheaper goods and providing so many more benefits to their members in terms of independence, respect, self-respect and justice that everyone who was capable of joining or forming one would do so.82 Cooperatives would get rid of the need for middle-men (particularly in distribution).83 They would be democraticallyrun, and divide the surplus of their labor according to principles of justice agreed upon by all members (male and female).84 If people did not like the co-operative for which they worked, they could join another one, or set up their own, once they had saved the requisite capital–they could not take their capital out of a co-op once they had joined, and if the co-op was disbanded (when, for instance, everyone wished to retire), the accumulated joint capital would have to be given to charitable causes.85 Thus, by slow degrees, the market would be transformed.86 True, the cooperatives would compete amongst each other, thus helping increase efficiency and the development of new technologies and production-methods, but there would be no competition in the labor-market, and therefore less strife amongst men, and the cooperatives might well not trade at a profit, but at cost price (though Mill acknowledges this might be hard to determine).87 The kind of competition he foresees still existing is not the “trampling, crushing [and] elbowing” of contemporary life, but “[a] contest, who can do most for the common good”.88 In this state of things, capitalists (Mill is still thinking of relatively small-scale personal holdings of capital) will see that they will get a better return for their investment by investing in cooperatives than in wagepaying industrial concerns (Mill was always insistent that capital deserved a reasonable return when lent, as it represented the past prudence of its owner), and, eventually, they might even exchange their capital for an annuity. 89 In this way, he writes, “the existing accumulation of capital might honestly, and by a kind of spontaneous process, become in the end

20

Chapter One

the joint property of all who participate in their productive employment: a transformation which, thus effected, (and assuming of course that both sexes participate equally in the rights and in the government of the association) would be the nearest approach to social justice, and the most beneficial ordering of industrial affairs for the university good, which it is possible at present to foresee”.90 Alongside this “spontaneous” transformation of private ownership of most of the means of production, there would have to be some state action, for Mill also desired the state-ownership (on the part of the people) of land and natural resources, as well as state (either through national or local government) provision of goods and services which tended to monopoly, thus allowing everyone to share the benefit of monopoly profits–for example, utilities, street-lighting, public health, education (though not exclusively) and railways.91 Property-owners, Mill argued, must be fairly compensated for the loss of property it was not illegal to them have owned at the time, but the fact that people did now have private property rights over, for instance, land, was not enough reason to prevent those rights being changed, and even denied, by government. 92 After all, property rights are part of the laws of distribution, and these are human constructions–and, as such, can be legitimately re-constructed by humans.93 There would also have to be legislation regarding inheritance, for Mill continued to favor limits to intergenerational bequests to no more than a “moderate independence”, whatever the express wishes of the testator–though, of course, the problem of inheritance (or at least the inheritance of large amount of wealth, leading to great inequality) would in any case be partly solved by nationalization of land, and by capitalists exchanging their capital for an annuity, and thus having none to leave to their children.94 As well as this, first and foremost, there would have to be a change in education (broadly understood), and the resultant change in human nature, which would make any of this possible and sustainable.95 However, Mill evidently thought that participation in cooperatives, in profit-sharing schemes, and in national and local democratic proceedings all counted as a vital part of the necessary education.96 People might also be helped along by social structures such as a “Religion of Humanity”, which would help shape the requisite social ethos, as well as a tolerant concern for each other’s welfare as advocated in Liberty. 97 The “road” to socialism, therefore, would be built step-by-step by people who became more capable of realizing it the further down the “road” they travelled.

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

21

Conclusion Mill’s adoption of the Saint-Simonian conception of history, coinciding as it did with his loss of faith in the efficacy of philosophical-radical reforms to actually maximize happiness, led Mill to critically reassess contemporary capitalism (of which, of course philosophic-radicalism was not wholly uncritical), to suggest improvements to it, and to transcend even this “perfected” capitalism such that the forth-coming “organic” age, if it managed to achieve his “Utopia”, would be a form of socialism. This was something he not only thought desirable, but also at least possible, if not probable (and Principles and the Autobiography suggest Mill did think the future would be a socialist one, even if it was not going to be precisely his preferred form of socialism).98 He criticized capitalism on the grounds of liberty and independence; equality and social justice; inefficiency and waste; relentless pursuit of growth; and social harmony and social ethos. Some of these criticisms might be overcome through “perfecting” capitalism–but many and, arguably, the most important, such as injustice, inequality, inefficiency, waste, the social ethos, and social harmony–could not be wholly remedied within a capitalist framework. Thus, Mill preferred a form of socialism for future society, which there has not been the space to fully describe here, though key institutions, at least, have been sketched. He foresaw the change to the socialist future (whether identical to his preferred form, or not) as being both possible and probable via a “road” of gradual, peaceful, organic, grass-roots led, democratic, piece-meal change, which would in itself provide the necessary education to make such a change not only possible but sustainable.

Bibliography “W.E.H.”, The Co-operative Magazine and Monthly Herald, February 1826 (London: 1826). Baum, Bruce, “J.S. Mill’s Conception of Economic Freedom”, History of Political Thought, 20/3 (1999), pp. 494-530. Berki, R.N., Socialism (London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1975). Claeys, Gregory. Mill and Paternalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Kurer, Oscar, John Stuart Mill: The Politics of Progress (London: Garland Press, 1991). —. ‘J.S. Mill and Utopian Socialism’, The Economic Record, 68/202 (1992), pp. 222-32.

22

Chapter One

McCabe, Helen, “John Stuart Mill’s Philosophy of Persuasion”, Informal Logic 34/1 (2014). —. ““Under the General Designation of Socialist”: The Many-Sided Radicalism of John Stuart Mill”, unpublished doctoral thesis (Oxford: 2011). Mill, John Stuart, Autobiography and Literary Essays, Collected Works I (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981). —. Principles of Political Economy, Collected Works II and III (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963). —. The Claims of Labour, Collected Works IV (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967). —. Chapters on Socialism, Collected Works V (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967). —. Newman’s Political Economy, Collected Works V (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967). —. A System of Logic, Collected Works VIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). —. Coleridge, Collected Works X (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969). —. Three Essays on Religion, Collected Works X (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969). —. Early Letters, CW XII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963). —. On Marriage, Collected Works XXI (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1984). —. The Spirit of the Age, Collected Works XXII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986). —. “Co-operation: Closing Speech,” Collected Works XXVI (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). —. On Liberty, CW XVIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). Robson, J.M., “Textual Introduction”, Collected Works II (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963). Sarvasy, Wendy, “A Reconsideration of the Development and Structure of John Stuart Mill’s Socialism”, The Western Political Quarterly, 38/2 (June, 1985), pp. 312-33.

Notes 

1

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Collected Works II and III (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), pp.203-214 and 758-96. 2 Mill, Principles, pp.203-214. 3 Ibid., pp.753-971.

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

23



4 Mill, Autobiography, CW I (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), p.239; J.M. Robson, “Textual Introduction”, CW II, pp.lxv-lxvii. Almost all Mill scholars who have considered his socialism tend to think he was not really ever a socialist, or that he ceased to be one after 1852. I agree with Oscar Kurer’s analysis of the implausibility of these views (despite their contemporary persistence), though I disagree with Kurer on regarding Mill’s socialism as ‘utopian’ (notwithstanding Mill’s use of the word in connection with his socialist thought), and in that Kurer does not include in his account the state actions and management of communallyowned property (particularly in land) which forms an important aspect of Mill’s preferred socialist institutions (as Wendy Sarvasy rightly notes), his laisser-faire commitments, and general decentralisationism, notwithstanding. Oscar Kurer, John Stuart Mill: The Politics of Progress, (London: Garland Press 1991), pp.3359 and ‘J.S. Mill and Utopian Socialism’, The Economic Record, 68/202 (1992), pp.222-32; Wendy Sarvasy, “A Reconsideration of the Development and Structure of John Stuart Mill’s Socialism”, The Western Political Quarterly, 38/2 (1985), p.313; McCabe, ““Under the General Designation of Socialist”: The Many-Sided Radicalism of John Stuart Mill”, unpublished doctoral thesis (Oxford: 2011), pp.273-88. 5 Kurer, Politics of Progress, pp.37-49. 6 Mill, The Claims of Labour, CW IV (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), p.382; Mill, Principles, pp.758-796; Mill, Autobiography, CW I (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), p.239. 7 Mill, On Marriage, CW XXI (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), pp.35-49; Mill, The Subjection of Women, CW XXI, pp.259-340; Mill, Three Essays on Religion, CW X (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), pp.369489; Mill, Coleridge, CW X, pp.147-48; Mill, Autobiography, p.239. 8 Mill, Autobiography, pp.107-9. 9 Ibid., p.111. 10 Mill, Autobiography, p.127; “W.E.H.”, The Co-operative Magazine and Monthly Herald, February 1826 (London: 1826) p.56; Mill, “Co-operation: Closing Speech,” CW XXVI (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), pp.31523. 11 Mill, Autobiography, pp.171-3 and 239. 12 Ibid., pp.171-3. 13 Mill, Autobiography, pp.171-3 Mill, Letter 28, to d’Eichthal, 7 November 1829, CW XII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), p.42. This acceptance is also very clear in his use of “transitional” and “natural” to describe the stages of history in The Spirit of the Age. Mill, The Spirit of the Age, I, II, III, IV and V, CW XXII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), pp.227-35, 238-46, 252-8, 278-83, 289-95, 304-7 and 312-7. Mill acknowledges that these ideas had already been formulated by people other than the Saint-Simonians – “they were the general property of Europe”–but he insists that “they had never ... been so completely systematised as by these writers, nor the distinguishing characteristics of a critical period so powerfully set forth”. Mill, Autobiography, pp.171-3. 14 Mill, Autobiography, p.173.

24

Chapter One

 15

Ibid. Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 McCabe, “John Stuart Mill’s Philosophy of Persuasion”, Informal Logic 34/1 (2014), pp.38-61; Sarvasy, “John Stuart Mill’s Socialism”, pp.312-13. 21 Mill, Claims, pp.365-82; Mill, Principles, pp.758-62. 22 Mill, Principles, pp.203-14; Mill, Chapters, pp.727-36. 23 Sarvasy concentrates on Mill’s criticism of class conflict, and his account of workers’ desire for independence. Kurer also notes Mill’s criticisms of capitalism on the grounds of “breeding egoism and class conflict”; inequality; and “because it did not allow for the full development of individuality”. I think these account, though good in themselves, are incomplete. Sarvasy, “Mill’s Socialism”, p.315; Kurer, Politics of Progress, pp.35-36. 24 Mill, On Liberty, CW XVIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), pp.223. 25 Mill, Autobiography, p.239. 26 Mill, Principles, p.209. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., pp.758-96. 31 Ibid., p.759. 32 Bruce Baum, “J.S. Mill’s Conception of Economic Freedom”, History of Political Thought, 20/3 (1999), pp.494-530; Kurer, Politics of Progress, p.36. 33 As noted, Kurer also points to this as one of the grounds of Mill’s criticism of capitalism, but only “because the ‘distinction between rich and poor’ was only “slightly connected … with merit and demerit’ [and] ‘such a feature could not be put into the rudest imaginings of a perfectly just state of society’”. These certainly are grounds upon which Mill criticized the injustice of capitalism, but not the only ones. Kurer, Politics of Progress, p.35. 34 Mill, Principles, p.758. 35 Ibid., p.207. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., p.213; Mill, Chapters, p.713. 38 Mill, Principles, pp.207-8. 39 Ibid., p.203. 40 Ibid., p.207. 41 Ibid., p.207. 42 Ibid., p.210. 43 Mill, Autobiography, p.239; Mill, Principles, p.758. 44 Mill, Principles, pp.794-5 and 753. 45 Ibid., pp.204-05 and 769-94. 46 Ibid., pp.204 and 791. 16

John Stuart Mill’s Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism

25

 47

Ibid., p.54. Ibid., pp.752-3. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., pp.753-4. 51 Ibid., pp.754. 52 Ibid. This is one reason that, though Mill endorses a market in consumable goods under his preferred socialist system, he eschews the labor-market. 53 Mill, Principles, p.755. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., p.756. I say ‘proto-environmentalist’ because Mill offers arguments in support of ‘green’ initiatives such as protecting diversity of species and habitats; protecting open space from development; and allowing access to undomesticated ‘wilderness’ on human-centric, and utilitarian, bases, rather than as being goods in their own right. 56 Mill, Principles, p.756. 57 Ibid., p.755-6. 58 Ibid., p.754. 59 Mill, Claims, pp.379-82; Mill, Principles, p.754; Kurer, Politics of Progress, p.36. 60 Mill, Principles, p.753; Mill, Claims, p.379; Mill, Utility of Religion, p.422; Kurer, Politics of Progress, p.36; Sarvasy, “Mill’s Socialism”, pp.31461 Mill, Utility of Religion, p.422. 62 Mill, Principles, p.207.; Gregory Claeys, Mill and Paternalism (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 71-77. 63 Ibid., pp.218-26. 64 Mill, Principles, pp.765-75. 65 Ibid., pp.947-50; Mill, On Liberty, pp.301-303. 66 Ibid., pp.207-208. 67 Ibid., pp.355-60; 367-76; 728, 763-65; Mill, Claims, p.375; Mill, On Liberty, pp.304-305. 68 Ibid., pp.752-57; Mill, A System of Logic, CW VIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), p.949. 69 Kurer identifies it with Mill’s pre-1852 “Utopia” as described in Claims and early editions of Principles. Sarvasy calls it ‘prefiguring’ (full) socialism. There is certainly much to be said for both ideas, though I do not think Kurer’s description of this early “Utopia” is full-enough, and nor do I think that wholly encapsulates Mill’s “Utopia” pre-1852. Kurer, Politics of Progress, p.53; Sarvasy, “Mill’s Socialism”, pp.312-13. 70 Mill, Autobiography, p.239. 71 Mill, Principles, pp.207-208; Mill, Autobiography, p.239. 72 As Sarvasy notes, public distribution of the surplus of labor combined with common ownership is a key claim of socialism and is incompatible with capitalism. Sarvasy, “Mill’s Socialism”, p.315. 73 Ibid., pp.202-203; R.N. Berki, Socialism (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1975), pp.9 and 23-29. 48

26

Chapter One

 74

Mill, Principles, pp.775-94. Ibid., p.763. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid., p.769-75. 80 Ibid., p.793. 81 Ibid., pp.793-94. 82 Ibid., p.793. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., pp.793-94. 85 Ibid., pp.783-84; Kurer, Politics of Progress, pp.50-51. 86 Mill, Principles, pp.793-4. 87 Ibid., p.795; Mill, Newman’s Political Economy, CW V, p.446. 88 Mill, Principles, p.205 and 754. 89 Ibid., p.793. 90 Ibid., pp.793-4. 91 Ibid., pp.230-32, 801 and 947-56. 92 Ibid., pp.230-32. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., p.755. 95 Mill, Autobiography, p.239. 96 Mill, Principles, p.793. 97 Mill, Essays on Religion, p.422-28; Mill, On Liberty, pp.223-24. 98 Mill, Principles, pp.793-94; Mill, Autobiography, p.239. 75

CHAPTER TWO “THE RIGHT TO ASPIRE TO EVERYTHING”: ENTERING THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE EMILY C. TEISING

Young men emerging from the French educational system in the 1830s only wanted to be doctors and lawyers, according to a critique in the Figaro newspaper. Any other useful profession, they considered a failure, the article complained in response to a March 1837 debate in the Chamber of Deputies. In that debate, François Arago, a scientist and politician, argued that Latin and Greek should be replaced by math, or at the very least, by instruction in modern languages. The poet and legislator Alphonse de Lamartine argued in support of a greater emphasis on literature and languages. In its commentary the Figaro criticized the educational system, saying that it engendered ambitions that would most likely be disappointed. Tongue-in-cheek it continued, saying that if you teach Latin to the son of a baker, whom nature has made a baker, there will come a time when he will be nothing at all.1 Indeed, at this time an increasing number of young men, attracted by the promise of prestige and wealth, followed their ambitions to law school. In 1830, there were 3,500 students enrolled in law school in France. By 1838, that number had risen to 5,300. 2 The Ministre de l’instruction publique Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy attributed the increase to a generalized tendency toward upward social mobility spurred by the Revolution of 1830. And yet, as the Figaro reminded readers, a greater accessibility to a range of professions did not guarantee that everyone who set out on such a path would succeed in climbing the social ladder. A number of novels published in the 1830s and 1840s, including some by Honoré de Balzac, George Sand and Emile Souvestre that we will explore here, found their plots in the struggles of characters of modest backgrounds to change their circumstances through education and a new profession. A number of them

28

Chapter Two

belonged to the petite bourgeoisie, or even the lesser nobility. Many of these characters aspired to become lawyers. 3 Those who succeeded in establishing a steady and upscale clientele could hope to join the top one percent of most highly compensated professionals, earning ten to twelve times more than the bottom 50 percent of the workforce.4 Indeed, financial gain is a primary motivation for Eugène de Rastignac in Balzac’s Le Père Goriot (1835) and for Antoine Larry in Souvestre’s Riche et Pauvre (1836). In Simon (1835) and Horace (1840), George Sand focuses on aptitude, dedication and individual desire as reasons for choosing a profession, as well as economic motivation. To what extent do these novels express the belief that political and social change in the first part of the nineteenth century had actually transformed the stakes of choosing a profession? Was it sufficient, as Sand and the writer Edouard Charton, author of Guide pour le choix d’un état; ou, Dictionnaire des Professions (1842) seem to suggest, to follow one’s desires, working hard and gaining an education? Or was a significant amount of capital in the form of inheritance and a noble birth a prerequisite? Thomas Piketty, in Le Capital au XXI Siècle, used the exconvict Vautrin’s speech to Rastignac in Le Père Goriot to delve into his analysis of chasing an inheritance as a more effective strategy for accumulating wealth than work.5 In analyzing Vautrin’s speech, Piketty formulates the following question: what can an individual achieve by virtue of his inheritance, and what can he achieve through hard work? Piketty answers that individuals in the top one percent in terms of riches gained through inheritance were significantly wealthier than the top one percent of those whose income came from their work, validating Vautrin’s assessment that Rastignac would be better off marrying rich than going to law school.6 Given the increasing number of students in law school, there were clearly still a great many young people who believed in the possibilities of such an education. Economic capital in a restricted sense, whether money or property, inherited or earned, could not alone account for an individual’s choice of a profession, or his success in that chosen profession. This was especially true in the case of a profession like that of avocat, which depends on establishing a network of individuals at the Palais de Justice to refer clients, the temperament to endure setbacks, and a fortune to sustain the young avocat until he had built his reputation. Further analysis of Balzac’s work, and novels by Souvestre and Sand, who were also great observers of the social mores of this era, reveal their belief that social and cultural capital—not just economic capital—played a central role in the choice to pursue one profession over another, and the relative success of those who

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

29

made these choices. By joining literary analysis with Piketty’s observations and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on “The Forms of Capital,”7 we can gain a deeper understanding of the cultural, social and economic mechanisms at work. According to “The Forms of Capital,” cultural and social capital will influence the individual’s ability to accumulate greater economic capital through labor. The novels analyzed here insist on the importance of cultural and social capital. Literature provides insight into these questions by imagining the influence of forms of capital less easily measured by economists. An exploration of these novels by Balzac, Sand and Souvestre will analyze some nineteenth-century beliefs about how different forms of capital, particularly education and social connections, could influence an individual’s professional trajectory. In an era when the receding limitations of rank and birth ostensibly imposed fewer restrictions on young men’s opportunities for raising their economic and social status than under the Old Regime, individuals of modest means could give freer rein to their individual ambitions. Alongside this greater range of activities, an evolution of personal and political identities was linked to increased pressure on men to measure their worth in terms of their economic success.8 In addition to fictional texts, new non-fiction texts explored concerns about achieving such success and finding one’s place in society during the July Monarchy. Reference guides advised parents and their children on handling the responsibilities that accompanied the new opportunities to choose a profession accessible through education, even when a lack of wealth or connections would previously have placed it out of reach. One such guide, Charton’s Guide pour le choix d’un état expresses optimism about young men’s ability to join a profession previously considered unattainable: Each citizen has the right to aspire to everything, and this right is not an absolute fiction: for admission (to the profession) it is sufficient to attain a level of education that is within reach, likely not of the majority, but of an already considerable minority. From this starting point, which is like a second birth, the chances are more or less the same for all and, in the absence of wealth, one can succeed through study, talent, and a persistent desire.9

The change Charton compares to “a second birth,” is clearly momentous. In a guide that listed nearly 300 professions from accoucheur (obstetrician) to vétérinaire (veterinarian), passing by banker, engineer, judge and sculptor, Charton started with the premise that they were open to all. He set three conditions for choosing a profession. It should “procure that which is necessary to fulfill basic material needs, it should nurture

30

Chapter Two

one’s intellectual and moral faculties, and be useful to society.”10 Charton went on to underline the idea of usefulness and simplicity, valorizing moderation and encouraging readers to pursue professions that lead to prosperity, but not necessarily riches. A man should seek the respect, but not the envy, of his peers. Finally, he should focus on developing his intelligence and morality, rather than the fulfilment of passions.11 Within these guidelines, Charton envisioned opportunities to follow one’s aspirations as a positive development.

The Cost of an Education With sufficient economic capital, which often ensured that a character also possessed a high level of social and cultural capital, there was little need to worry about the risk of discouragement and failure. Of course, in the interest of dramatic intrigue, the heroes in the novels analyzed here never have quite as much money as they need—or want, in any case. As young men starting their education, these characters do not yet possess their own fortunes. Novelists solve this problem by allowing them access to funds from their family or in some cases, the kindness of an unrelated benefactor. The instantaneous transferability of economic capital initially seems to give these aspiring lawyers the support necessary to launch their careers. In the hope of advancing their fortunes, even families for whom such outlays constituted a hardship willingly made the sacrifice. For context, Old Goriot lives on 500 francs a year, approximately the average income for his era, but an absolute misery in Balzac’s world.12 Rastignac, who comes to Paris in 1819 to study law, squanders more than twice that amount. From an annual income of 3,000 francs brought in by the family’s property, Rastignac’s mother, father, two brothers and two sisters, manage to spare 1,200 francs each year for him. In George Sand’s eponymous novel, Horace Dumontet’s family was not noble like Rastignac’s, but possessed a similar level of income. The bulk of the Dumontet family’s income comes in the form of a 3,000 franc annuity from his mother’s inheritance, with another 1,500 francs from his father’s employment as a provincial administrator. Acceding to the vanity of her husband and afraid of appearing backward and lacking faith in the promises of the Revolution, Mme Dumontet, relinquishes the 10,000 francs she had saved for her daughter’s dowry so that her son can pursue his education in Paris. In two other novels, Sand’s Simon and Souvestre’s Riche et Pauvre, the main characters, who come from families of more modest means and have their education paid for by outside benefactors, are also more

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

31

assiduous in their studies than Rastignac or Horace. Without any kind of family inheritance to fall back on, their only hope for future financial security lies in professional success. Antoine, the aspiring lawyer in Riche et Pauvre, is born to a gunsmith in Rennes. A few months before the gunsmith’s death, he saves a young boy from being gored by a bull. The boy, Arthur Boissard, belongs to a wealthy and elite family. In gratitude, Mme Boissard assumes financial responsibility for Antoine’s education when his father dies. Antoine and Arthur both excel in school, and they both enroll in law school at the same time. They seem, at this time, to have equal opportunities to succeed. Simon, the son of a poor laborer, is also fatherless when we meet him, and his godfather steps in as his benefactor. Before this time, Simon and his mother live off of the 1,200 francs a year given to her by her brother, a priest. His mother uses this money to educate Simon, who realizes early on that he is not meant to follow in his father’s footsteps: “The village school had sufficed to teach Simon that he was destined to live from his intelligence, not from manual labor.”13 He takes out loans to attend law school in Poitiers, but aspires to complete his education in Paris. Parquet, Simon’s godfather and an avoué, recognizes his godson’s potential and says to him, “You are destined to forge your own path,” as he hands over ten thousand francs to fund the young man’s studies.14 Although her hero is pursuing a profession known for leading to fame and fortune, Sand frames the journey of Simon, a dedicated republican, as a quest for knowledge and to fulfill his destiny rather than a pursuit of material wealth and recognition. Despite their differing family backgrounds, all five, Rastignac, Horace, Antoine, Arthur and Simon, pursue legal studies, Antoine and Arthur in Rennes and the others in Paris. The authors have provided their heroes with similar financial resources, but do they believe that the characters they created have an equal chance at success?

Can He Dance? In Riche et Pauvre, Souvestre15 set up a social experiment comparing the trajectories of Arthur, who was born into wealth and then well educated, and Antoine, who is born into relative poverty but receives the same formal education as his wealthier counterpart. Both study at the Collège Royal de Rennes. Both receive numerous honors upon graduation, although Arthur does win more than Antoine.16 And yet, in spite of the great advantages he could reap from his education, the experience is not a happy one for Antoine. “Deprived of the earliest instruction, that children of a certain class receive by listening to the conversation of their educated

32

Chapter Two

parents, he was forced to suffer the shame of his ignorance, as he had suffered the shame of his ragged clothes,” writes Souvestre.17 From the very beginning of the novel, therefore, Souvestre suggests that as a child of the people, with a working class background, some of the obstacles Antoine faces may be insurmountable. Unlike economic capital, cultural capital—such as the educated conversations Antoine never hears growing up—is not instantaneously transferable, and takes time and effort to accumulate. Economic capital could assist in the accumulation of cultural capital. Money was, after all, required for an education, the primary form of institutionalized cultural capital. Attending law school in Paris would have been more expensive in Paris than in Poitiers or Rennes, due in large part to the cost of living. Charton estimates at 1,000 francs the cost of books, enrollment in law school, and other related expenses, plus about 2,000 francs per year for food, lodging and other personal expenses – the minimum for one to live “decently.” 18 Equal access to institutionalized capital (education), could not entirely compensate for objectified or embodied forms of cultural capital. In the 1830s and 1840s there were nine law schools in France, but the largest and most prestigious was in Paris. The most expensive place to live and study, it was also the most distracting. Neither Rastignac nor Horace has a particular dedication to the law, as evidenced in the way they spent the money supposed to fund their studies. At the end of one year, Horace had been to class only three times, and he had sold all of his textbooks. Similarly, Rastignac becomes an expert on all of the leisure activities Paris had to offer. As Balzac writes, “a student doesn’t have much time to spare if he wants to see each theater’s repertory, study the nooks and crannies of the Parisian labyrinth, learn the customs, study the language, and grow used to the particular pleasures the capital offers.”19 Rastignac was gaining an extensive education, but very little of it took place in the École de Droit. Such an education, Antoine could not afford. His disadvantage compared to his wealthier contemporaries emerges starkly when Arthur invites him to a ball. He declines, indicating that he does not know how to dance, to which Arthur, insensitive to the struggles of those less well-off than him, replies matter-of-factly, “Why don’t you learn?” 20 Antoine’s mother, of course, cannot afford to pay for such a luxury, and it has not dawned on Mme Boissard to offer. Under these circumstances, Antoine misses out on more than a dance. He loses a valuable opportunity to build relationships that would have helped him in his future career. Given the fact that an income at least 20 or 30 times the average income would have

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

33

been necessary to pay for the proper attire to wear to a ball, as well as other luxuries in the form of objectified capital such as books, musical instruments or jewelry, Antoine would seem to have little hope of fitting in.21 He is quickly learning that cultural capital in the form of knowledge acquired outside of a formal education plays an essential role in accessing society’s higher ranks. Simon struggles less with a lack of cultural capital. The details Sand provides about his family background do allow readers to infer that he has greater access than Antoine to the cultural capital he would need to succeed in school and beyond. His uncle, a priest, imparted an appreciation for books, religion and learning, which his mother shared. When a local noblewoman befriends Simon’s mother Jeanne, Mlle de Fougères, a local noblewoman, remarks on the woman’s qualities: “Mlle de Fougères was surprised by the deep sense and even by the spiritual and naïve grace of this superior mind. She hadn’t thought it possible for so little culture to accompany such resources.” 22 This citation echoes an idealization of the peasantry found in many of Sand’s novels. Although the author here describes Simon’s mother, Mlle de Fougères’s admiration of the innate traits of a woman whose very qualities emerge from her insulation from the type of culture that society values suggests qualities that Simon shares. Within the category of cultural capital, Bourdieu identified embodied capital, which, as an integral part of a person, could take years to refine. If not acquired at an early age, developing this non-transferable form of capital required a great deal of sacrifice and effort devoted to selfimprovement. Rastignac arrived in Paris well-equipped with the cultural capital necessary to engage with Parisian aristocracy. Balzac introduces Rastignac by saying, “The manner in which he carried himself, his manners, his usual posture were those of the son of a noble family, where his early upbringing consisted solely of traditions in good taste.”23 Such attitudes and behaviors resulted from his upbringing in a privileged social class, and perhaps more importantly, allowed people who met him to identify him as such. Balzac’s descriptions of the student underline his noble origins, which guarantee his success in Paris in spite of his sometimes ragged attire, typical of students of somewhat limited means. Although he still has much to learn, he already possesses familiarity with many of the customs he needs to fit in with the group he seeks to join. While Rastignac benefits from familiarity with social practices and Antoine suffers from the lack of them, Horace seems to be too blinded by his own ambition to care about how others perceive the things he does to fulfill those ambitions. The narrator, Horace’s friend and a focused

34

Chapter Two

medical student, critiques his vanity. When Horace attempts to enter into Parisian society after winning 17,000 francs gambling, he does so rather awkwardly and with excess. His friends laugh at him when he “buys a horse, scatters gold pieces among his host’s valets, wrote to his tailor that he inherited some money, and that the tailor should send him all of the latest fashions.”24 He has a sense of the accoutrements required in high society, but not the cultural capital to fit in. Two months later, the narrator tells us, Horace is completely transfigured, having grown into his new role: “What was most extraordinary is that he had taken on a perfectly natural tone, and it was impossible to guess that the way he spoke was the result of study.” 25 After abandoning the path of becoming a lawyer to pursue literary fame, Horace even changes his name to Du Montet to pretend to belong to the nobility. It takes time, but Horace eventually learns to dress, speak and behave like the members of the class to which he aspires. In the case of Arthur and Antoine, the division between the young man who grows up rich and the one who grows up poor becomes clear through the contrast in their appearance and behavior. The charismatic Arthur “was so blond, so fragile, so charming, that everyone marveled at the success of this delicate child.” 26 His charm comes from being at ease among his peers, whose background he shares, and his delicacy from his wealthy origins. Antoine, for all of his hard work and self-sacrifice in school, succeeded only in polishing some of his working class roughness; as Souvestre notes, “education had brought some modifications to the primitive expression of his face,” bringing a look of intelligence to his eyes. 27 Even when he does acquire a more sophisticated wardrobe, his apparent discomfort in his suit “indicates that he was unaccustomed to this luxury.”28 Simply having enough money to buy a nicer suit—and this suit was still clearly made by an inferior tailor—is not enough for Antoine to fit in with the group he wishes to join. Souvestre recognizes, just as Bourdieu later outlined in The Forms of Capital, that with some difficulty, through personal sacrifice and effort, an individual could compensate to an extent for a lack of early education. For Antoine, this means trying to change parts of himself that most of us take for granted. To escape his humble origins, “He had to break out violently of the vicious molds in which his thoughts had grown accustomed to forming; he had to battle both the habits developed in childhood and against the example of every day; to recompose even his accent, that interior prosody, that sound of the soul’s voice, that is more ours than even our thoughts.”29 Antoine must give up or change even characteristics that are a fundamental part of who he is, that form his core identity in order to

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

35

leave behind his working class origins. One’s manner of thinking and speaking require significantly more effort and resolve to alter than other elements of cultural capital that can be acquired over time, but are accessible to all with money, such as formal education, books or a new suit. The effort would prove for many to be worthwhile, as all three forms of cultural capital strongly influence the individual’s ability to build a durable network of connections that will help him make progress in his profession.

Making Connections to Riches In spite of his lack of money, Rastignac’s background provides him with the capital to build his network more easily than someone like Antoine, or even Horace, who has cultural capital but few useful connections. Rastignac had noticed the influence women had on social life, remembers his aunt’s connections to the Court and, “Suddenly, the ambitious young man recognized, in the memories his aunt had so often shared with him, the elements of several social conquests at least as important as those he undertook in law school.”30 Thanks to an introduction by his aunt, he gains entry into Parisian society at a ball hosted by a cousin, Mme de Beauséant, one of the “queens of style” in Paris.31 To achieve his ambitions, he will need money and connections. These two resources elevate men in Paris society, and attending balls appears to be a more expedient path to riches than studying law. Fittingly, the novel ends not with victory in the courtroom, but with a social conquest: dinner at the home of Mme de Nucingen, Old Goriot’s daughter and, more importantly, wife of the rich banker Baron de Nucingen. Whereas Balzac portrays Rastignac as shrewd in paying necessary attention to building his social network, Sand presents Horace’s lack of focus on his legal studies as a character flaw. Horace, having abandoned law school and gained moderate literary renown, turns his attentions to women, and “he no longer viewed talent and glory simply as ways to earn a fortune, and he counted on his natural gifts to capture the heart of some rich heiress.”32 However, he overestimates his charms and the fortune he needs to complete a marriage contract with a woman as rich as he had hoped. At this point in his life, Horace lacks not only the social connections he needs to fulfill his ambitions, but also professional connections. He had been lucky enough to have his first novel published on merit, but for his second novel, editors demand a preface from Eugène Sue, a letter of recommendation from Alphonse de Lamartine, or that he guarantee acquisition of a serial novel by the famed Jules Janin. 33

36

Chapter Two

Counting among his acquaintances mainly poor students like himself, Horace faces a road block in the path of his literary career. In a typically idealistic Sandian ending, after a few more youthful follies, Horace gains maturity and restraint, finishing his law degree and settling down to practice law in his native region. Simon largely rejects social interaction and the parts of his profession that he finds distasteful. Simon gently rebuffs friendly efforts to draw him out of his melancholy, and “all of the following days, he showed the same love of solitude, the same need for silence and forgetting.”34 Eventually, in the course of solitary reflection, Simon reconciles his passions and gains control over his fear of public failure. In Simon, Sand at first seems to create a romanticized loner who prides himself on achieving success independently. Ultimately, however, even he makes use of his connection to his mentor Parquet, an experienced and respected avoué. Simon’s opportunity to prove himself and earn public recognition comes when Parquet lets him take the lead in a case about an unnamed crime that involves tragic scenes, passion and mystery. Simon gives a winning performance, the substance of which is secondary to his powerful and convincing delivery. “Soon, the belief entered into everyone’s heart, and the orator swept away his listeners, to the point where the spirit withheld judgment,” Sand writes. “Their souls were moved, submitting to the laws of sympathetic deference that superior souls have the power to impose.”35 Without ignoring the economic realities facing Simon or his partial reliance on an established lawyer, Sand valorizes her main character’s inner qualities and the professional success he achieved through diligence. The first hand (Mme Boissard’s) that stretched out to assist Antoine by paying for his education is not enough to gain him a firm standing in the legal community in Rennes. He cannot find clients. The first case he defends is that of a poverty-stricken young women whose case, while heartbreaking and worthy, will never lead to other clients. Antoine finally achieves some measure of success when he heeds the advice of Randel, a friend who is just a few years into his career as a doctor. He needs to ingratiate himself with potential clients, even though it is contrary to his natural disposition: “Antoine’s inelegant education, along with his oversensitivity and consciousness of his awkwardness, had always made visits odious to him, and it is to these characteristics, more than rigid principles, that one must attribute the distance he kept from the social world.”36 Rather than reacting defensively to supposed slights against his origins, Antoine must fight on with confidence if he wants to establish himself as a lawyer. After all, social interactions and networking constitute the currency in which one must trade in order to continue to make progress

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

37

after earning one’s diploma. In highlighting Antoine’s rough, workingclass origins and the disadvantage at which they place him, Souvestre is underlining the contrast between rich and poor, rather than condemning Antoine’s roots. Disappointed that he has not found fame, fortune or love, Antoine does allow Randel to console him with the thought that he still has the power to help others. Ultimately, Souvestre critiques a society so rigidly ordered according to a hierarchy of economic, social and cultural standards that it does not make room for the inclusion of an individual with a different background.

Conclusion A dedicated Saint-Simonian, Souvestre believed that art had a role to play in furthering the progress of humanity: novels should make theories of progress accessible to the people, providing them with examples and guidance and urging them to act.37 The work of George Sand, who shared a similar ideology, also stakes a claim for literature’s power to influence politics and society in novels that proposed idealized depictions of the people. Her writing is an expression of her beliefs as well as a questioning of the status quo. Their fictional works, while not explicitly prescriptive, sought to guide young people by illustrating models for how they could better themselves and society by seizing educational opportunities. In the case of Souvestre, success takes on the definition of helping others, while Sand values self-sufficiency and selflessness. Balzac conveys a markedly more pragmatic vision in his novels, wherein characters who play society’s games to gain money, culture and connections often benefit from their manipulations. Even Charton’s guide, which in the preface painted a rosy picture of the opportunities for improving one’s position through education and access to lucrative professions, later in his text acknowledged and warned of the challenges ahead. The entry on lawyers conveys a positive image of all that a successful lawyer can hope to gain in money and fame before delivering this gloomy assessment: How many hundreds, thousands of young men have deluded themselves about the obstacles that must be overcome? How many, lacking the financial resources, the patience, and the connections necessary to reach or hasten the moment when they would emerge from obscurity, waste their youth on thankless work from which they will never reap rewards, grow tired of fighting against an immense and nearly invincible opponent, retire, discouraged in a deluge of disgust, giving up on their future?38

38

Chapter Two

Contrary to earlier assurances of success emerging from hard work and education, this passage suggests that in some cases, these efforts would prove futile. That invincible opponent could take the form of a disconnect between an individual’s talents and the obligations and restrictions society imposes on him, setting the stage for a battle, in some cases between the young professional and members of the field in which he is trying to establish himself, or another social group whose support her requires; sometimes it is an internal battle in which the protagonist struggles within himself to identify what he is destined to do in this life. The fraught process of finding one’s way in life ended with a dramatic moment of success for some aspiring lawyers, failure for others, while others still simply seem to accept their fate with quiet resignation. They embrace the idea that the Revolution has made it possible for anyone to improve his situation through education. As expressed through the pens of Charton, Souvestre, Sand and Balzac, the petite bourgeoisie seem to feel that it was their responsibility not to let the opportunities that the Revolution created for them go to waste. These texts remind readers, however, that change was still very much incremental, and even with help, it took extraordinary amounts of self-sacrifice to overcome a lack of capital.

Bibliography Balzac, Honoré de. Le Père Goriot. France: Gallimard, 1971. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” In Readings in Economic Sociology, 280–91. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002. Charton, Edouard, ed. Guide pour le choix d’un état; ou, Dictionnaire des professions. Paris: Lenormant, 1842. http://goo.gl/PIr15. “Chronique.” Le Figaro. March 25, 1837. Moreau, Alain. Le Notaire dans la société française d’hier à demain. Paris: Economica, 1999. Piketty, Thomas. Le Capital Au XXI Siècle. France: Seuil/Les Livres du Nouveau Monde, 2013. Plötner-Le Lay, Bärbel. “Emile Souvestre, un artiste saint-simonien au service du théâtre et du roman populaire.” In Emile Souvestre: écrivain breton porté par l’utopie sociale, 37–57. Lyon: Université Lumières Lyon 2, 2007. Salvandy, Narcisse-Achille de. “Commission des Hautes études de droit (extrait du procès-verbal de la première séance en date du 30 juin 1838).” Journal général de l’Instruction publique: enseignement supérieur 7, no. 116 (August 25, 1838): 765–72.

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

39

Sand, George. Horace. Oeuvres de George Sand. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1857. —. Simon. Brussels: Meline, 1836. http://books.google.com/books?id=KD86AAAAcAAJ&printsec=front cover&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false. Souvestre, Emile. Les Derniers bretons. Vol. 1. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1858. http://books.google.com/books?id=a7tyA3W4GncC&printsec=frontco ver&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false. —. Riche et pauvre. Oeuvres Complètes d’Emile Souvestre. Paris: Michel Lévy, 1858. http://books.google.com/books?id=8s0JETnB5sAC&printsec=frontcov er&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false. Thompson, Victoria E. The Virtuous Marketplace: Women and Men, Money and Politics in Paris, 1830-1870. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Notes 

1

“Chronique,” Le Figaro, March 25, 1837, 229. Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy, “Commission des Hautes études de droit (extrait du procès-verbal de la première séance en date du 30 juin 1838),” Journal général de l’Instruction publique: enseignement supérieur 7, no. 116 (August 25, 1838): 766. Jean-Claude Caron gives a slightly lower estimate and notes that the exact numbers are no longer known because the registration and enrollment records have been lost; Jean-Claude Caron, Générations Romantiques: Les Étudiants De Paris Et Le Quartier Latin (1814-1851) (Paris: Armand Colin, 1991), n. 56. 3 In these novels, characters pursued the more lucrative and prestigious legal profession of avocat, who pled in court, as opposed to avoué (legal professionals who did not plead in court) or notaire (responsible for drafting marriage contracts, wills, leases and more). For definitions and comparisons of the legal professions in the British and French systems, see Alain Moreau, Le Notaire dans la société française d’hier à demain (Paris: Economica, 1999), 18–20. 4 Thomas Piketty, Le Capital Au XXI Siècle (France: Seuil/Les Livres du Nouveau Monde, 2013), 676. Meanwhile, inheritance could bring the top one percent, inheritance a standard of living 25-30 times greater than the bottom 50 percent of workers. Piketty’s figures underline the trend during most of the nineteenth century according to which inheritance accounted for the greatest gaps in wealth between the richest and the poorest individuals. 5 Ibid., 378–379. 6 Piketty, Le Capital Au XXI Siècle. 7 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Readings in Economic Sociology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 280–91. 2

40

Chapter Two

 8

Victoria E. Thompson, The Virtuous Marketplace: Women and Men, Money and Politics in Paris, 1830-1870 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 14. 9 “Chaque citoyen a le droit de prétendre à tout; et ce droit n’est pas absolument une fiction: il suffit pour être admis à en faire usage d’atteindre à un degré d’instruction qui est à la portée, non sans doute de la majorité, mais d’une minorité déjà considérable. A ce point de départ, qui est comme une seconde naissance, les chances sont à peu près les mêmes pour tous, et, à défaut de fortune, on peut arriver par l’étude, le talent et une volonté opiniâtre.” This text included alphabetical listings of nearly three hundred professions, complete with descriptions of required training, the cost of education, and personality traits best suited to the job. New editions of the text were published in 1851 and 1880, suggesting the text’s popularity. Another similar guide, this one by the writer and professor Victor Doublet, Dictionnaire universel des professions ou Guide des familles pour les diriger dans le choix d’un état pour leurs enfants, appeared in 1858; Edouard Charton, ed., Guide pour le choix d’un état; ou, Dictionnaire des professions (Paris: Lenormant, 1842), http://goo.gl/PIr15. 10 “Toute profession doit du reste satisfaire à une triple condition: procurer ce qui est nécessaire aux besoins de la vie, développer les facultés intellectuelles, être utile à la société.” Ibid., xii. 11 Ibid. 12 Le Père Goriot sacrificed most of his fortune to his daughters’ dowry. In Balzac’s world, approximately 20 to 30 times that income was necessary to live with dignity; Piketty, Le Capital Au XXI Siècle, 654. 13 “L’école du village, puis le collège de la ville, avaient suffi au jeune Simon pour comprendre qu’il était destiné à vivre de l’intelligence et non d’un travail manuel.” George Sand, Simon (Brussels: Meline, 1836), 17, http://books.google.com/books?id=KD86AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq#v =onepage&q&f=false. 14 “Tu es destiné à faire ton chemin.” Ibid., 26. 15 Souvestre started law school in Rennes in 1823 and was admitted to the bar in Nantes before moving to Paris to pursue a literary career. It is tempting to bring an autobiographical reading to parts of Antoine’s experience. In the introduction to Souvestre’s first literary success, Les Derniers Bretons, he describes how illprepared he felt for taking on the Paris literary world. Like Antoine, he was naïve, frustrated with the business relationships necessary to making a name for himself, and he felt himself to be a misunderstood genius; Emile Souvestre, Les Derniers bretons, vol. 1 (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1858), xi, http://books.google.com/books?id=a7tyA3W4GncC&printsec=frontcover&dq#v= onepage&q&f=false. 16 Emile Souvestre, Riche et pauvre, Oeuvres Complètes d’Emile Souvestre (Paris: Michel Lévy, 1858), 11, http://books.google.com/books?id=8s0JETnB5sAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=#v= onepage&q&f=false.

Entering the Capitalism Economy in Nineteenth-Century France

41



17 “Privé de la première instruction, que les enfants d’une certaine classe puisent dans la conversation de parents éclairés, il fut obligé de souffrir la honte de son ignorance, comme il avait souffert celle de ses haillons.” Ibid., 6. 18 Charton, Guide pour le choix d’un état; ou, Dictionnaire des professions, 51. 19 “Un étudiant n’a pas trop de temps s’il veut connaître le répertoire de chaque théâtre, étudier les issues du labyrinthe parisien, savoir les usages, apprendre la langue et s’habituer aux plaisirs particuliers de la capitale.” Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot (France: Gallimard, 1971), 56. 20 “Pourquoi ne l’apprends-tu pas?” Souvestre, Riche et pauvre, 9. 21 Piketty, Le Capital Au XXI Siècle, 660. 22 “Mlle de Fougères fut étonnée du sens profond et même de la grâce spirituelle et naïve de cet esprit supérieur, vierge de toute corruption sociale. Elle n’avait pas crut qu’il fut possible de joindre si peu de culture à tant de fonds.” Sand, Simon, 117. 23 “Sa tournure, ses manières, sa pose habituelle dénotaient le fils d’une famille noble, où l’éducation première n’avait comporté que des traditions de bon goût.” Balzac, Le Père Goriot, 36. 24 “Il acheta un cheval, sema les pièces d’or à tous les valets de son hôte, écrivit à Paris à son tailleur qu’il avait fait un héritage, et qu’il eût à lui envoyer les modes les plus nouvelles.” George Sand, Horace, Oeuvres de George Sand (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1857), 349. 25 “Mais ce qu’il y avait de plus extraordinaire, c’est qu’il avait pris un ton parfaitement naturel, et qu’il était impossible de deviner que tout cela fût le résultat d’une étude.” Ibid., 351. 26 “Il était si blond, si frêle, si charmant, que tout le monde s’émerveillait des succès de cet enfant délicat, que ses rivaux dépassaient de toute la tête.” Souvestre, Riche et pauvre, 11. 27 Ibid., 3. 28 Ibid., 2. 29 Ibid., 6. 30 “Tout à coup, le jeune ambitieux reconnut, dans les souvenirs dont sa tante l’avait si souvent bercé, les éléments de plusieurs conquêtes sociales, au moins aussi importantes que celles qu’il entreprenait à l’Ecole de Droit.” Balzac, Le Père Goriot, 58. 31 Ibid., 59. 32 “Il ne regardait plus le talent et la gloire que comme des moyens de parvenir à la fortune, et il comptait sur les dons qu’il avait reçus de la nature pour captiver le cœur de quelque riche héritière.” Sand, Horace, 357. 33 Ibid., 362. 34 “Tous les jours suivants, il montra le même amour pour la solitude, le même besoin de silence et d’oubli.” Sand, Simon, 29. 35 “Bientôt la conviction passa dans tous les cœurs, et l’orateur s’empara de son auditoire au point que l’esprit s’abstint de le juger. Les fibres furent émues, les âmes subirent la loi d’obéissance sympathique qu’il est donné aux âmes supérieures de leur imposer.” Sand, Horace, 194–195.

42

Chapter Two



36 “L’éducation peu élégante d’Antoine, jointe à sa susceptibilité ombrageuse et à la conscience de sa gaucherie, lui avait toujours rendu les visites odieuses; et c’était à ces dispositions de caractère, bien plus qu’à des principes arrêtés, qu’il fallait attribuer l’éloignement du monde dans lequel il s’était tenu.” Souvestre, Riche et pauvre, 52. 37 Bärbel Plötner-Le Lay, “Emile Souvestre, un artiste saint-simonien au service du théâtre et du roman populaire,” in Emile Souvestre: écrivain breton porté par l’utopie sociale (Lyon: Université Lumières Lyon 2, 2007), 52. 38 “Combien de centaines, de milliers de jeunes gens qui se sont fait illusion sur l’étendue des obstacles à vaincre! combien qui, n’ayant ni les ressources pécuniaires, ni la patience, ni les relations nécessaires pour atteindre ou hâter le moment qui les ferait sortir de l’obscurité, consument leur jeunesse dans des travaux ingrats dont ils ne recueilleront pas le fruit, se lassent de lutter contre une concurrence immense et presque invincible, se retirent découragés et abreuvés de dégoûts, et perdent ainsi leur avenir!” Charton, Guide pour le choix d’un état; ou, Dictionnaire des professions, 48.

CHAPTER THREE FROM UTOPIAN SOCIALISM TO UTOPIAN CAPITALISM IN THE AMERICAN INDIVIDUALIST REPUBLIC SUSAN LOVE BROWN

American individualist anarchism was born in the Utopian Socialist era in the United States (1825 to 1840), and like most ideologies, it was a product of its own unique cultural environment. Although most of its first practitioners considered themselves socialists, they tempered this largely European approach with American cultural values, specifically the core values of individualism, private property, and anti-authoritarianism. Rooted in the work of Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, American individualist anarchism took as its basic assumptions the labor theory of value, the evil of monopolies, and the right of private property earned through labor. Even though its founder, Josiah Warren, attempted to meld his notions of individual sovereignty to his ideas about labor and monopoly and did it specifically within the context of community, even he would eventually divest himself of his utopian socialist views and focus on the importance of individual sovereignty in constituting a viable society. Later anarchists, following in this individualist wake, would take up the calling of capitalism in the 1970s—a call that would be renewed by economic scholars in the early years of the twenty-first century, making American individualist anarchism a movement that spans almost two centuries. One important feature of the shift from the nineteenth-century American individualist anarchism to the mid-twentieth-century anarchocapitalism and the twenty-first-century private property anarchism was the eclipse of the labor theory of value by the theory of subjective value in economics, the busting up of trusts and improvements in labor conditions over time, the trauma of and recovery from the Great Depression, and the participation of the United States in two world wars, resulting in the

44

Chapter Three

emergence of the United States as both a world economic and political power and the consequent rise of a consumer economy. Add to this the social upheavals wrought by baby boomers coming of age, the civil rights movement, and anti-war movement, and the stage was set for the renewal of individualist anarchism. The new approach to American anarchism, arriving first under the rubric of “anarcho-capitalism” in the 1970s and then that of “privateproperty anarchism” in the early twenty-first century can also be deemed utopian precisely because of the hope it invested in the market mechanism to free people from the coercion of the state by replacing government mandates with the voluntary participation characteristic of the market. In doing so, anarcho-capitalists and later private-property anarchists sometimes overlooked the phenomenon of society. This oversight lends a distinctly utopian aura to this renewed capitalistic ideology, whose origins lay in the ideas first generated by the American individualist anarchists of the nineteenth century—ideas sprouted in the newness of the American republic, the residue of the Panic of 1819, Jacksonian democracy, and the subtle shifts from agriculture to industrialism.1

American Individualist Anarchists of the Nineteenth Century Nineteenth-century American individualist anarchism can be divided into three phases: (1) the beginning phase, part of a revitalization movement2 in the early 1800s, consisting of experiments with community particularly influenced by Scottish industrialist Robert Owen—the so-called Utopian Socialist Era (1825-1940) characterized by the work of Josiah Warren; (2) a middle phase, in which the consolidation of government power before, during, and following the Civil War changed the emphasis from one of general individual liberty and abolitionism to land reform, labor reform, and economic reform, all of which had been concerns before but which now took on a new immediacy in the work of Lysander Spooner and later William B. Greene and Ezra Heywood; (3) a final phase in which individualist anarchism was consolidated as a movement and its variations debated within the pages of Benjamin Tucker’s publication Liberty, until this anarchist ideology was totally eclipsed in the United States by the communist anarchists and the rise of a relatively powerful socialist movement during and after the First World War. However, the libertarian ideology from which it sprang continued on as the link between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

45

But initially, American individualist anarchism was a response to changes in the social and economic environment of the early nineteenth century. The nation was relatively new (the constitution was only 36 years old by 1825), and there was unprecedented industrial growth that spanned an era marked by oppositions: property owners vs. the propertyless; abolitionists vs. pro-slavers; Union vs. Confederacy; railroads vs. farmers; business vs. labor; rich vs. poor. The nation also experienced a series of financial Panics–the Panic of 1819-21, the Panic of 1837-1843, and the Panic of 1857. Inspired by Robert Owen and his proposed New Harmony community, the first American individualist anarchist, Josiah Warren, a true entrepreneur, left Cincinnati, Ohio, with his family for the banks of the Wabash.

Josiah Warren (1798-1874) Josiah Warren is considered “the father of American anarchism,” according to later anarchists in the movement, although he never referred to himself as an anarchist but as a “Democrat.”3 Warren was an inventor of the first rotary press, an entrepreneur (owning a factory that manufactured lamps), and became involved with three intentional communities after New Harmony: Equity (1835), Utopia (1847), and Modern Times (1851).4 He was a publisher, a musician, and an educator as well. Warren, born in 1798 in Boston, Massachusetts, was manufacturing lamps by 1823 in Cincinnati. He sold his business two years later to join Robert Owen in the formation of a community in New Harmony, Indiana, an experiment that lasted only two years, although the town itself was to continue to the present day. Warren, having personally experienced the attempt to live in a communal fashion arrived at the conclusion that “the chief causes were the suppression of individuality, the lack of initiative and responsibility. What was every one’s interest was nobody’s business.”5 Further, Warren wrote, “We had carried communism farther than usual and hence our greater confusion. Common society, then, had all the time been right in its individual ownership of property and its individual responsibilities and wrong in all its communistic entanglements.”6 As early as 1827, having moved his family back to Cincinnati, Warren opened his Equity store, which operated on the basis of the amount of labor that went into a product, measured with the use of clocks, determining the amount of labor to be exchanged. He opened a second time store back in New Harmony in 1842, where he and his family had returned to live. Both were attempts to live by the labor theory of value, or

46

Chapter Three

cost the limit of price. Since he believed that labor was the source of value, he concluded: Estimating the price of every thing by the labor there is in it promised to abolish all speculations on land, on clothing, food, fuel, knowledge, on every thing—to convert into capital, thereby abolishing the distinctions of rich and poor—to reduce the amount of necessary labor to two or three hours a day, when no one should wish to shun his share of employment. The motive of some to force others to bear their burden would not exist, and slavery of all kinds would naturally become extinct. Every consumer becomes interested thereby in assisting in reducing the costs of his own supplies, and in doing this for himself, he is doing it for all consumers. Destructive competition would be changed into an immediate regulator of prices and property, and property might ultimately become so abundant that like water in a river or spontaneous fruits all prices would be voluntarily abandoned, and the high and noble aims of communists be reached without communism, without organization, without constitutions or pledges, without any legislation in conflict with the natural and 7 inalienable individualities of men and things.

Just as Warren’s commitment to the labor theory of value led him to implement this principle in the form of time stores, his dislike of monopoly led him to believe that monopolies of land ownership were also wrong. He noted: Laws and governments are professedly instituted for the security of person and property, but they have never accomplished this object. Even to this day every newspaper shows that they commit more crimes upon persons and property and contribute more to their insecurity than all criminals put together. The greatest crime which can be committed against society and which causes poverty and lays the foundation of almost all other crimes is the monopoly of the soil. This has not only been permitted but protected or perpetuated by every government of modern times up to the last accounts from the congress of the United States.8

Land ownership by those who did not actually work the land and the protection of their property by law was a misuse of law, according to Warren. But Warren was consistent, seeing as monopoly patents on machinery, and copyrights: The copy right has been secured as the only existing means of securing remuneration. But abhorring the principle of monopoly and all the workings and tendencies of copy rights and patents and of an endless and principles scramble after indefinite and unlimited gains, the work and the art by which it is printed…shall be thrown open to the free use of every

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

47

one, whenever any people or government shall merely remunerate the labor that has been bestowed upon them.9

Warren also disliked craft monopolies and set up a trade school so that people could learn trades, eliminating the apprenticeship programs that Warren considered exploitative, especially of women and children from whom they exploited cheap labor. These proposals were radical even in the time in which they were proposed. The only just authority, according to Warren, was the authority that individuals exercised over themselves and their justly earned property. He believed in the individual sovereignty of women as well as men—that they deserved the same rights as men. But individual sovereignty remained the centerpiece of his outlook. As he stated in The Peaceful Revolutionist in 1833: A little observation will disclose an individuality in persons, times, and circumstances which has suggested the idea that one of our most fatal errors has been the laying down rules, laws, and principles without preserving liberty of each person to apply them according to the individuality of his views, and the circumstances of different cases. In other words, our error, like that of all the world that has gone before us, has been the violation of individual liberty.10

In the face of the impending Civil War, Warren proposed “alternative agencies” made up of community elders, who would settle disputes without recourse to the violence he saw threatened in the confrontation over slavery.11 Warren’s ideas established a specific kind of anarchism—individualist anarchism—that was native to American culture, although not the only form of anarchism it produced, and Warren’s ideas about life without the state predate all but William Godwin, giving him a priority rarely recognized or acknowledged.12 It would be Marx and Engels who dubbed the kind of socialism or “communism” that Owen practiced as utopian.13 But the utopian nature of Warren’s thinking is not so much attributable to the ideas he had in common with Owen, as to the idea that the individual could operate without government in a society of which politics was a part.

Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) If Warren was not only the founder of the individualist anarchist tradition in the United States but also an active participant in it, Lysander Spooner contributed to the legal justification of individualist anarchism through his

48

Chapter Three

natural law approach and constitutional arguments. An ardent pamphleteer and one of the most prolific writers among the American anarchists (his collected works comprise six volumes), his life is highlighted bt personal attempts to change a system that he viewed as unfairly limiting individual initiative, more often than not his own. Spooner was born and raised in Athol, Massachusetts, and was known as a lawyer, a deist, and a staunch abolitionist. He spent the better part of his life fighting what he considered unjust laws, somewhat unsuccessfully. He did successfully fight for the repeal of a 1836 Massachusetts statute that prevented his becoming a lawyer without a college education. He argued that such a law prevented poor people from competing successfully with rich people even if they were competent in their professions.14 He spent a number of years in Ohio as a lawyer specializing in land titles and losing money in land speculation, but he eventually moved to New York to pursue a business career. He started the American Letter Mail Company in 1844. However, he was driven out of business by the unfair advantages given to the U. S. Postal Service by congressional legislation. His business experiences were often the spur that led him to examining the banking system, the system of currency, and business practices.15 Growing up in an abolitionist family, Spooner was also a radical abolitionist and author of The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, published in1845, in which he argued that slavery was clearly unconstitutional and that the United States Supreme Court had the power to declare it so at any time. His Defence of Fugitive Slaves, published in 1852, not only considered assistance to such slaves a moral and legal imperative—what he termed “a meritorious act”—he supported sending arms south to aid slaves and also groups that would flog slave owners and deprive them of their slaves in a kind of guerilla warfare.16 Spooner considered slavery “a state of war, in this case it is a just war, on the part of the negroes—a war for liberty, and recompense for injuries; and necessity justifies them in carrying it on by the only means their oppressors have left them. In war, the plunder of enemies is as legitimate as the killing of them; and stratagem is as legitimate as open force.” 17 Abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips disagreed with Spooner’s arguments, but eventually Frederick Douglass would use Spooner’s arguments against slavery, abandoning the arguments of Garrison and Phillips.18 By failing to declare slavery unconstitutional (and even arguing that the Constitution upheld slavery), the politicians once again failed Spooner. He was to spend the rest of his life writing about free competition, and he

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

49

became increasingly radical with age. He saw the government as responsible for monopolies, poverty, and injustice.19 Spooner’s “classical anarchist works,” according to biographer Charles Shively, were Trial by Jury (1852) and No Treason (1867). Spooner was in contact with both Stephen Pearl Andrews and Josiah Warren, with whom he became quite close after 1863. According to Shively, it was the young Benjamin Tucker who brought together Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, William B. Greene, Victor Yarros, and Joseph Labadie, among others, forming an actual movement following the Panic of 1873. Publishing the Radical Review (1877-1878), they “staunchly defended bourgeois values; they strictly opposed any social or community control of property.”20 It would be Tucker who gave the movement its deepest voice through his periodical Liberty.

Benjamin Tucker (1854-1939) Benjamin R. Tucker was born into the ferment of New England radicalism to a father of Quaker descent, who was a whaler outfitter and a grocer, and a mother who was a Unitarian. Educated at the Friends Academy in New Bedford, Tucker attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for three years and, after learning the printing business from Ezra Heywood at his cooperative printing shop in Princeton, Massachusetts, worked for eleven years on the staff of the Boston Globe. Thus, his penchant for writing and publishing was formed early and found its object in the libertarian ideology that slowly formed out of the radical intellectual environment in which he grew up.21 He was fortunate enough to meet Ezra Heywood and through him Josiah Warren, Stephen Pearl Andrews, and William B. Greene.22 His publication of his translation of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s What is Property? in 1876 and working on the Radical Review and The Word placed him right in the center of the individualist anarchist movement and earned him its respect.23 Because of his youth, he was to outlive the others and become the last of the great American individualist anarchists of the nineteenth century. When he started publishing Liberty, along with other books and pamphlets, from 1881 until 1908, Tucker took up the cause of freedom in the form of anarchism, but he also championed the cause of many persecuted poets and writers, such as Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, and Emile Zola. In 1882, when Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was censored under the Comstock law, Tucker openly criticized the act in Liberty and then published the work himself. This resulted in the further publication of Leaves of Grass in violation of the law. “Thus Tucker earned Whitman’s

50

Chapter Three

life-long esteem.” 24 Tucker also had a long relationship with George Bernard Shaw, publishing many of Shaw’s music and drama reviews, especially Shaw’s scathing review of Max Nordau’s Degeneration (1895).25 Using Liberty as a forum for his own ideas and those of others, he dealt with all of the key political issues of the day.26 Many of his own writings appeared in his Instead of a Book: By a Man too Busy to Write One published in 1897. For example, the opening piece in that volume is his “State Socialism and Anarchism” in which he explained the differences between the kind of socialism practiced by anarchists and the kind practiced by the followers of Karl Marx.27 Moving from the “labor is the true measure of price” found in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Tucker notes that the “economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith…” 28 He continued, “Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle…Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and, in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.”29 This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable…. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the Americana fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article.30

Noting that State Socialism followed the principle of Authority, while anarchism followed the principle of Liberty, he also stated that “there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism.”31 The outcome of State Socialism, Tucker noted, would be the following: Whatever, then, the State Socialists may claim or disclaim, their system, if adopted, is doomed to end in a State religion, to the expense of which all must contribute and at the altar of which all must kneel; a State school of medicine, by whose practitioners the sick must invariably be treated; a State system of hygiene, prescribing what all must and must not eat, drink, wear, and do; a State code of morals, which will not content itself with punishing crime, but will prohibit what the majority decide to be vice; a State system of instruction, which will do away with all private schools, academies, and colleges; a State nursery, in which all children must be

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

51

brought up in common at the public expense; and, finally, a State family, with an attempt at stirpiculture, or scientific breeding, in which no man and woman will be allowed to have children if the State prohibits them and no man and woman can refuse to have children if the State orders them. Thus will Authority achieve its acme and Monopoly be carried to its highest power. Such is the ideal of the logical State Socialism, such the goal which lies at the end of the road that Karl Marx took.32

So from Tucker’s perspective, when talking about State Socialism, “the remedy for monopolies is Monopoly.”33 On the other hand, anarchism saw the remedy to monopolies as individual liberty and private ownership to be established through one’s labor. Nevertheless, Tucker and the individualist anarchists also ran into trouble with communist anarchists. According to author William Gary Kline: …the relationship of the Individualist Anarchists to the mostly foreign born Communist Anarchists was turbulent most of the time and often openly hostile. The surface harmony which initially existed between these two varieties of anarchists deteriorated rapidly after the failure of the Pittsburgh ‘Anarchist Congress’ of 1883; the groups could not reconcile their differences, the Communist Anarchists dedicated to a community of property and the Individualist Anarchists deeply committed to private property and individual effort. They never again found any basis for an attempt at rapprochement.34

Tucker took issue with any group or ideology that sought to use government power as a remedy for social problems. This included the Single Taxers, labor unions, and Herbert Spencer, whom he accused of dismissing socialism without making the distinction between state socialism and anarchism. Eventually, Tucker even managed to alienate many other individualist anarchists when he adopted Max Stirner’s brand of anarchism as elaborated upon in The Ego and Its Own.35 Reading the pages of Liberty, one gets an idea of the dynamic environment of debate that went on among individualist anarchists and others. But after his offices burned down in 1908, the fire burning all of his stock of books, papers, and printing equipment, Tucker retired and moved to France and eventually to Monaco as the world plunged into world war. Eventually, Tucker declared: “Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.”36 Although American individualist anarchism faded at the turn of the century, the libertarian philosophy of which it was a part would continue on into the 20th century taking a variety of forms until the 1960s, when it would re-emerge and with it a new branch of anarchism based not only on

52

Chapter Three

individualism but on capitalism itself. Again, it was changes in the environment of the United States that would precipitate the rise of anarcho-capitalism at the end of the 1960s, but it was a change that took place much earlier that would make way for it theoretically. That is the rise of subjective value theory in economics—the so-called marginal revolution.

Subjective Value Theory and the Rise of Anarcho-Capitalism Although the utopian socialism of the early American republic was largely influenced by men like Robert Owen, Josiah Warren, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, all of whom operated from the labor theory of value in their economic perspectives, the “scientific” socialism of Marx and Engels was bolstered by the theory of surplus value developed by Karl Marx. Rejected by anarchists because of its authoritarian nature, the socialism of Karl Marx nevertheless had a major impact because of its seeming relevance to the plight of the working classes. But the labor theory of value, even in the more innocuous form put forth by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, was a roadblock that eventually stymied classical economics. But, as economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, “In this case, Adam Smith provided the basis both for Ricardo’s laissez faire and for Marx’s communism.” 37 Marx considered the understandings of the utopian socialists with regard to economics to be simplistic, including their ideas of using time as the measure of labor. When three men simultaneously came up with the theory of subjective value, the marginal revolution–William Stanley Jevons in England, Leon Walrus in France, and Carl Menger in Austria–a greater understanding of economics was possible, and Marx’s theory of surplus value was itself marginalized, although his ideas would take form in Russia, China, and a number of other countries as the decades of the twentieth century proceeded. But the revolution in value that had taken place would stimulate the development of new approaches to economics throughout the twentieth century. This deeper understanding of economics would influence young libertarian thinkers in the United States in the 1970s through the economic work of members of the Chicago school of economics and the Austrian school of economics, as well as through the political writings of Ayn Rand, a staunch defender of capitalism. Subjective value allowed a more powerful explanation of how the market functioned. Free market economists were able to make the distinctions between actions that

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

53

involved individual and peaceful activities and those that constituted the disruption of those activities, distinguishing between those businesses that arose as a consequence of government intervention (monopolies) and those that arose freely and were subject to competition. Therefore, business was not regarded as bad among free market economists generally or among anarcho-capitalists in particular. It all depended on whether or not they used the government to promote their own ends (crony capitalism) or were victimized by government. This would be the distinction made by the new anarchists.38

The Anarcho-Capitalists in the Twentieth Century American anarchism was resurrected in the 1970s but with distinct differences from the earlier anarchism. Although individualist anarchists were willing to experiment with their ideas, their philosophy rested primarily on a moral argument based on natural law, invoking the fundamental correctness of individual rights and the inherent evil of government. While retaining the same foundation in natural law (with one exception) and belief in individual rights and private property, anarchocapitalism was no longer bound to the labor theory of value, nor to material equality, nor to the idea of anarchism manifested only in small communities. The ideal would be the free market. As with the earlier anarchism, this later appearance was stimulated by changes in the social environment of the United States. As I have explained elsewhere, the coming of age of the huge and idealistic babyboom generation in the 60s and the large social movements, such as the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, gave rise to a renewed anti-authoritarianism.39 Among the various ideologies that sprang out of that change came the resurgence of libertarianism among young people, and out of that new libertarianism came anarcho-capitalism. Although economists were seriously exploring the ramifications of anarchism from an economic point of view in two important volumes, Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy (1972) and Further Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy (1974) edited by economist Gordon Tullock, it was three volumes that promoted anarchism from an ideological perspective that represented the first forays into anarcho-capitalism: The Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill (1970), The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman (1973), and For A New Liberty (1973) by Murray N. Rothbard. These three books presented the anarcho-capitalist arguments from three different perspectives: Objectivism, utilitarianism, and natural law, respectively.

54

Chapter Three

Morris and Linda Tannehill The Tannehills began their book, The Market for Liberty, with a moral argument drawn largely from the Objectivist ethics of philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand, showing that the existence of human beings as rational beings requires rational self-interest; hence, the requirement of individual rights and all that these imply, including a free market.40 In their chapter, “Government—An Unnecessary Evil” the Tannehills define government as a “coercive monopoly which has assumed power over and certain responsibilities for every human being within the geographical area which it claims as its own.”41 Although the Tannehills note that most “social thinkers” assume that government is a given, they never ask why this might be so. The Tannehills continue to give evidence that government is coercive—that it holds a monopoly by force, it taxes, it perpetuates the notion that people are democratically represented, it rules others and is therefore the master of slaves. 42 In the end, the Tannehills decide that the presence of government everywhere can be explained by people’s naïve acceptance of it. “…the majority of people might have accepted the idea of a government-free society long ago if they hadn’t been sold the notion that the only alternative to government is chaos. Government may be evil, they feel, but after all, it’s a necessary evil.”43 But the point of their book is to show that government is not necessary at all. In their chapter, “From Government to Laissez Faire,” the Tannehills prescribe the following program for achieving anarcho-capitalism: (1) abolish all restrictions on the private ownership of gold and silver and the right to produce coins privately; (2) abolish the Federal Reserve monopoly; (3) abolish taxes immediately; (4) allow government property to be taken over by whomever is able to claim it.44 “There would certainly be difficulties and temporary dislocations involved in making the transition from government slavery to laissez-faire freedom, but they could be overcome by free men acting in a free market. And when the transition has been made, new opportunities would open up for everyone.”45

David Friedman In The Machinery of Freedom (1973), David Friedman also takes an economic approach to anarchism, but he dispenses with heavy moral arguments and introduces a practical one: the only way for everyone in a society to be “free to go his own way” is to observe property rights. “If we

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

55

consider that each person owns his own body and can acquire ownership of other things by creating them, or by having ownership transferred to him by another owner, it becomes at least formally possible to define ‘being left alone’ and its opposite ‘being coerced’.”46 Friedman explains that there is no distinction between property rights and human rights–that one is impossible without the other. He then proceeds to make a distinction between the economic effects of public versus private ownership of property especially with regard to major societal problems such as poverty, the Great Depression, monopolies, education, and immigration. As a first step toward a free society, Friedman advocates decentralization of local government so that such items as education and police are under the control of local residents and out of the control of cities and counties that answer to state governments. Friedman also discusses the privatization of the arbitration of contracts, the exploration of space, and essentially continues to make his basic economic argument– that anything the government can do, the free market can do better. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Friedman’s anarchism is that he believes that law itself can be produced in the market. Friedman never questions why governments exist but assumes that life in a complex society might be possible without one.

Murray N. Rothbard Rothbard was a member of the Austrian school of economics, and his magnum opus, Man, Economy and State (1970), sets out the basic economic principles of the operation of a free market economic system, and only in its final pages does it discuss the consequences of “violent intervention in the market,” which form the basis of later arguments supporting anarcho-capitalism.47 Having established the orderly manner in which the market operates in the previous pages of his work, Rothbard then completes the picture by developing a “typology of intervention” consisting of three kinds: (1) autistic intervention, in which the single individual is compelled or prohibited from acting with regard to his own self and property; (2) binary intervention, in which the government forces a transaction between itself and an individual (e.g., taxation or conscription); (3) triangular intervention, in which the government intervenes in transactions between a pair of individuals (e.g., any kind of economic controls, such as price controls). Rothbard’s typology of violent intervention is fully developed in his book Power and Market (1970). Besides analyzing the nature of

56

Chapter Three

government intervention, Rothbard describes how the free market would provide for police services and defense–the two areas most heavily addressed by those critical of anarcho-capitalism. Besides dealing with the three types of intervention and the consequences of each, Rothbard, in a chapter entitled “Antimarket Ethics: A Praxeological Critique,” also attempts to critique ethical objections to the free market: that it rests on the assumption that people know their self-interest when in fact don’t; that it prevents equality; that it does not provide security; that it alienates people; that it cannot ensure the elimination of poverty; that it encourages selfish materialism; that it is too impersonal and results in the “survival of the fittest”; that it ignores private coercion in the form of economic power; that it is too much based on luck; that it must be regulated; that it cannot function in so complex a society. Rothbard answers each of these arguments in turn, noting that once violent intervention takes place in the market, things become so disrupted that even more intervention becomes necessary to cure the original intervention. The endless cycle of attempted corrections of previous interventions leads to more and more government control and less and less liberty. Rothbard sees the state as an alien force. In his book, For A New Liberty (1973), which was written for a popular audience, Rothbard argues that to justify the state, one must justify the use of coercion as a legitimate tool. He once again presents and faces down arguments that justify the state. However, in all of the arguments against the necessity of government, Rothbard never once touched upon some of the most crucial questions regarding government, just as the Tannehills and Friedman did not. How did governments arise? Why do they persist? How have they changed over time? What functions do they serve? What is the relationship between governments and the rest of society? All of these works had a profound effect on the libertarian movement of which they were a part, marking a clear distinction between those who felt that the state or government had a limited role to play in human society and those who, like the Tannehills, Friedman, and Rothbard, felt that the state or government had no role to play. The utopian capitalism of the Tannehills, Friedman, and Rothbard represents an ideal that envisions a complex society without a government or state – it eliminates the political and puts the economic in its place. 48 This moralistic ideology, however, completely overlooks the reality of human society and the role of politics (and, therefore, governments) in it.

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

57

Private Property Anarchism in the Twenty-First Century All of the debates that went on in the 1970s around the possibility or impossibility of anarchism were revisited in two edited volumes, Anarchy, State and Public Choice (2005) and Anarchy and the Law (2009), both edited by economist Edward P. Stringham. In both volumes, classic papers, both for and against anarchy, are matched up, and many of the papers are rebutted by a new generation of scholars, mostly economists, bringing more contemporary considerations to the debate. While many of the articles require a technical knowledge of economics (meaning a knowledge of econometrics), others are based on more general arguments, albeit still mostly of an economic nature. Still missing, however, is the contextualization of the debate within the context of a knowledge of the structure of society itself. It is conceivable, given the way in which cultures and the ideologies that spring from them tend to reconfigure understandings, maintaining their core meanings adapted to new environmental circumstances, that individualist anarchism (regardless of the name by which it is called) may appear and reappear in a variety of incarnations, as long as the stress on individualism, liberty, and antiauthoritarianism remain a part of American culture. It took more than a million years of human existence for the state to come into being and only slightly longer for capitalism to emerge.49 Both were dependent on other developments–the domestication of plants and animals and increases in population on the one hand, and the discovery of new technologies on the other. So, just as the phenomenon of capitalism was an unintended consequence of human action, so was the state itself. Nevertheless, the arrival of both the state and capitalism led to the discovery of new principles by which human society operates. These principles are real, they are now inevitable, and they cannot be put back into the bottle. Ironically, anarcho-capitalists, private property anarchists, and their individualist and socialist forbearers by excoriating government– and by failing to understand its origins and nature–have turned capitalism (or at least the approach to it that apotheosizes the free market) into an utopian ideal–a savior that would remedy all the ills of government incursion on individual rights. However, in advancing a kind of economic imperialism, they have overlooked the very principles by which society itself operates, especially with regard to the domains of human action from which arise the differentiated institutions of the market, government, and law. Social evolutionary history suggests that the separation of economy and state is possible, but anarcho-capitalism leaps over that separation and

58

Chapter Three

suggests the abolition of the domains of human action themselves. Since these domains represent different aspects of human action operating by different sets of rules, this outcome hoped for by anarchists is highly unlikely, as work by James Buchanan (1975), Gordon Tullock (1972 and 1974), and Robert Nozick (1974) has suggested. Even so, there is something to be said for the utopian approach, for by generating an extended scholarly debate, and through a thorough analysis of the possibilities of a free market, the anarcho-capitalists and private property anarchists, through their utopian visions, have provided some hope for a better state and a better capitalism than the one that currently exists and, therefore, hope for a better world. Which, is precisely what Lyman Tower Sargent seems to indicate when he says, “There is a utopia at the heart of every ideology, a positive picture—some vague, some quite detailed—of what the world would look like if the hopes of the ideology were realized.”50

Bibliography Appleby, Joyce. The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism. Reprint Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011. Bailie, William. Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist. Boston: Small, Maynard, and Company, 1906. Reprinted by Arno Press and the New York Times, 1972. Brown, Susan Love. “The Free Market as Salvation from Government: the Anarcho-Capitalist View.” In Meanings of the Market, edited by James G. Carrier, 99-128. London: Berg, 1997. —. “Society: Toward an Objective View,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 9, No. 1 (2007): 113-138. Buchanan, James. The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Carneiro, Robert. “A Theory of the Origin of the State,” Science 169, No. 3497 (August 21, 1970), 733-738. Douglass, Frederick. “What to the Slaves is the Fourth of July?” (July 5, 1852). The Nation. URL: www.thenation.com/article/what-slavefourth-july-frederick-douglass/. Retrieved July 6, 2015. Engels, Frederick. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. New York: Pathfinder, 2008. Friedman, David. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973. Ishill, Joseph. Benjamin Tucker: Pioneer of American Anarchism. MS. 64 pp.

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

59

Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. Special Collections. Ishill Collection, Box 4, 4 32. Kates, Steven. Free Market Economics: An Introduction for the General Reader. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2011. Kline, William Gary. The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987. Martin, James Jay. Men Against the State. Colorado Springs: Ralph Myers Publishers, 1970. McElroy, Wendy. “Benjamin Tucker’s Individualism and Liberty.” Literature of Liberty. IV, No. 3 (1981), 7-39. —. The Debates of Liberty: An Overview of Individualist Anarchism, 1881-1908. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. Nordau, Max. Degeneration. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895. Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Reichert, William O. Partisans of Freedom: A Study in American Anarchism. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976. Rothbard, Murray N. Man, Economy and State. Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1970. —. Power and Market. Menlo Park, CA: The Institute for Humane Studies, 1970. —. For A New Liberty. New York: Macmillan, 1973. Sargent, Lyman Tower. Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Sartwell, Crispin. Introduction to The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren, Edited by Crispin Sartwell. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011. Schuster, Eunice Minette. Native American Anarchism: A Study of LeftWing American Individualism. Smith College Studies in History XVII, Nos. 1-4, 1-202 (1932). Reprinted by Loompanics Unlimited. Port Townsend, WA. Shaw, George Bernard. The Sanity of Art. New York: Benj. R. Tucker, 1908. Shively, Charles. “Biography” in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, 15-62. Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971. Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982.

Chapter Three

60

Sowell, Thomas. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. New York: William Morrow, 1985. Spooner, Lysander. “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery” (1845) in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, Four Volumes. Edited by Charles Shively. Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971. —. “Defence of Fugitive Slaves” (1852) in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, Edited by Charles Shively. Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971. —. “Trial By Jury” (1852) in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, Edited by Charles Shively. Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971. —. “No Treason” (1867) in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, Edited by Charles Shively. Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971. Stirner, Max. The Ego and Its Own. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 [1845]. Stringham, Edward P., editor. Anarchy, State and Public Choice. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2005. —. Anarchy and the Law: the Political Economy of Choice. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009. Tannehill, Morris and Linda Tannehill. The Market for Liberty. Lansing, MI: Tannehill, 1970. Tucker, Benjamin R. Instead of a Book: By a Man Too Busy to Write One. Elibron Classics, 2005[1897]. Tullock, Gordon. Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy. Center for the Study of Public Choice, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1972. —. Further Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy. Center for the Study of Public Choice, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1974. Van Overveldt, Johan. The Chicago School; How the University of Chicago Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business. Evanston, IL: Agate B2, 2009. Vaughn, Karen I. Austrian Economics in America: the Migration of a Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Warren, Josiah. The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren. Edited and with an introduction by Crispin Sartwell. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011. .

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

61

Notes 

1

For an excellent history of capitalism in general and the rise of capitalism in the United States, see Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2010). 2 See Anthony F. C. Wallace, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist, New Series, 58, no.2 (1956): 264-281.Wallace specifies “utopian community” as one form that revitalization movements take. 3 Crispin Sartwell, introduction to The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren, ed. Crispin Sartwell (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 2. 4 In addition to Sartwell, see accounts by Bailie 1906, Martin 1970, and Schuster (1932). 5 William Bailie, Josiah Warren: the first American Anarchist. (Boston: Small, Maynard, and Company, 1906. Reprinted by Arno Press and the New York Times, 1972), 6. 6 Josiah Warren, The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren, edited and with an introduction by Crispin Sartwell (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 188. 7 Warren, The Practical Anarchist, 190. 8 Warren, The Practical Anarchist, 108. 9 Warren, The Practical Anarchist, 234. 10 Warren, The Practical Anarchist, 105. 11 James Jay Martin, Men Against the State (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myers Publishers, 1970), 96-97. 12 On the varieties of anarchism see Eunice Minette Schuster, Native American Anarchism: A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism, Smith College Studies in History XVII, Nos 1-4, 1-202 (Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited, 1932), 9. For Warren’s priority in developing anarchism see Sartwell, Introduction, 99. 13 Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (New York: Pathfinder, 2008). 14 Charles Shively, Biography in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, Volume 1 (Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971), 17-18. 15 Shively, Introduction, 17-18. 16 These works appear in Lysander Spooner, The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, ed. Charles Shively (Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1971). 17 Cited in Shively, Introduction, 37. 18 Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slaves is the Fourth of July?” The Nation, July 5, 1852, accessed July 6, 2015, http://www.thenation.com/article/what-slavefourth-july-frederick-douglass/. 19 Shively, “Introduction,” 15-62. 20 Shively, “Introduction,” 52-53. 21 Joseph Ishill, Benjamin Tucker: Pioneer of American Anarchism, MS 64 pages, Ishill Collection, Box 4, 4 32 (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, Special Collections), 3-5.

62

Chapter Three

 22

James Jay Martin, Men Against the State, 203. Wendy McElroy, “Benjamin Tucker’s Individualism and Liberty,” Literature of Liberty, IV, No. 3 (1981), 7-39. 24 William Gary Kline, The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), 58. 25 Max Nordau, Degeneration (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1895). This book was originally published in Germany in 1893 under the title Entartung. Shaw’s review was published as an open letter to Benjamin Tucker, who sent copies out and later published it in 1908 as The Sanity of Art (New York: Benj. R. Tucker, 1908). The original title was “The Sanity of Art: An Expose of the Current Nonsense about Artists Being Degenerate.” 26 See Wendy McElroy, The Debates of Liberty: An Overview of Individualist Anarchism, 1881-1908 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003). 27 As Tucker notes, this article was originally written for the North American Review following the Haymarket incident in Chicago in 1886. They, however, failed to publish it and eventually issued Tucker a kill fee (in consideration of their having held the article for so long). He then published the article in the March10, 1888 issue of Liberty. It was also issued as a pamphlet, as noted in Benjamin R. Tucker, Instead of a Book: By A Man Too Busy To Write One (Elibron Classics, 2005), 3. 28 Tucker, Instead of a Book, 5. 29 Tucker, Instead of a Book, 5. 30 Tucker, Instead of a Book, 5-6. 31 Tucker, Instead of a Book, 5. 32 Tucker, Instead of a Book, 8-9. 33 Tucker, Instead of a Book, 7. 34 William Gary Kline, The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism, 5859. 35 Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995[1845]. 36 Cited in Martin, Men Against the State, 275. 37 Thomas Sowell, Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (New York: William Morrow, 1985), 117. 38 For an understanding of the history and influence of the Chicago school of economics, see Johann Van Overveldt, The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business (Evanston, IL: Agate B2, 2009). For an understanding of the Austrian school of economics, see Karen I. Vaughn, Austrian Economics in America: the Migration of a Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For an overview of free market economics, see Steven Kates, Free Market Economics: An Introduction for the General Reader (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2011). 39 Susan Love Brown, “The Free Market as Salvation from Government: the Anarcho-Capitalist View,” in Meanings of the Market, ed. James G. Carrier (London: Berg, 1997), 108-109. 23

From Utopian Socialism to Utopian Capitalism

63

 40

Morris Tannehill and Linda Tannehill, The Market for Liberty (Lansing, MI: Tannehill, 1970), 2-15. It should be noted that Ayn Rand herself did not approve of anarchism and, although she is considered part of the libertarian mainstream, she disavowed libertarianism because she equated it with anarchism. 41 Tannehill and Tannehill, The Market for Liberty, 32. 42 Tannehill and Tannehill, The Market for Liberty, 34-35. 43 Tannehill and Tannehill, The Market for Liberty, 42. 44 Tannehill and Tannehill, The Market for Liberty, 150-159. 45 Tannehill and Tannehill, The Market for Liberty, 159. 46 David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973), xiv. 47 Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy and State (Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1970), 765-890. 48 For a detailed critique of anarcho-capitalism within the context of American culture, see Brown 1997. For a discussion of the nature of society and why the political, in the form of a government or state, cannot be simply eliminated see Brown 2007). 49 For an explanation of the rise of the state, see Robert Carneiro, “A Theory of the Origin of the State,” Science 169, No. 3497 (August 21, 1970), 733-738. For a history of capitalism, see Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, Reprint Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011). 50 Lyman Tower Sargent, Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 124.

CHAPTER FOUR THE DIVINE RIGHT OF THINGS: ON THE “IMPERSONAL DEPENDENCE” OF CAPITALISM PAUL CHRISTOPHER GRAY

“The king towards his people is rightly compared to a father of children, and to a head of a body composed of divers members, for as fathers the good prince and magistrates of the people of God acknowledged themselves to their subjects.” —James VI, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies “When men have gained freedom in purely economic relationships they begin to desire it elsewhere. Hand in hand with the development of Capitalism, therefore, go attempts to expel from the State all arbitrariness and all personal dependence.” —Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis “A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” —Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy

Introduction If mythology is but religion past, religion is mythology present. 1 More confounding still, however, is when our mystifications shed their religious form. Although we moderns often exalt ourselves for having abandoned the idols, relics, and talismans of the past, how often do we question the sources of the values and prices of the commodities with which we engage every day? If we did, how ably could we explain them? Even if we expelled the political and theological domination typical of ‘personal

The Divine Right of Things

65

dependence,’ perhaps we would remain mired in relations of dependence and social mystifications of a very different kind. In a few somewhat fragmentary passages in the Grundrisse, an early draft of Das Kapital, Marx presents a schema for three broad phases of human history. The first phase contains every non-capitalist class society, all of which divide rank and status between castes or estates. These include what Marx calls, at least at this point in his intellectual development, the Asiatic, Greco-Roman, Germanic, and feudal modes of production. The second phase of the schema is capitalism, and the third, socialism. Relations of personal dependence (entirely spontaneous at the outset) are the first social forms, in which human productive capacity develops only to a slight extent and at isolated points. Personal independence founded on objective dependence is the second great form, in which a system of general social metabolism, of universal relations, of all-round needs and universal capacities is formed for the first time. Free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on their subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the third stage.2

We can refer to these as the phases of personal dependence, impersonal dependence, and interpersonal independence. 3 In this schema, genuine ‘independence’ entails an end to relations of hierarchy, domination, and appropriation, whatever their form. Liberal notions of personal dependence, such as that offered above by von Mises, describe its overtly political forms of coercion and exploitation as a series of historical obstacles to achieving the capitalism they regard as essentially beyond dependence. These notions of personal dependence foster uncritical conceptions of the alternative: an ethos of purely voluntary obligations based in the negative rights of the individual against society and the state. Lurking behind this ‘personal independence,’ however, is an ‘objective’ dependence. To the extent that we embrace this liberal ethos we become more subject to what we describe here as ‘impersonal dependence,’ to the specifically economic forms of coercion and exploitation typical of capitalism. This is not to advocate for a stronger, more coercive state—this inevitably combines the worst elements of personal and impersonal dependence. We aspire instead to an ethos based in a genuine ‘interpersonal’ independence that is beyond relations of dependence of any kind. Critical concepts of personal and impersonal dependence must explain not only the forms of coercion and exploitation typical of non-capitalist

66

Chapter Four

and of capitalist societies, but why the people within these relations do not often perceive them as such. A crucial dimension of this is ‘fetishism.’ By this we do not mean the specifically sexual connotation popularized by Freud.4 In its broadest sense fetishism occurs whenever an object that has its origin in human activity is unconsciously ascribed with independent powers. For example, in Feuerbach’s theory of religion humans project perfected forms of their own attributes onto deities and thereby make themselves the objects of these ideal projections.5 It is as if the gods made us in their image. The more independence we impute to our creations the more we lack by comparison. The author José Saramago, in his deeply Feuerbachian novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, draws an amusing parallel between the taboo against eating certain species of animal and the divine sanction with which mutable historical social relations come to appear as natural and eternal: Behold what you may eat of the various aquatic species, you may eat anything in the waters, seas, and rivers that has fins and scales, but that which has neither fins nor scales, whether they be creatures that breed or that live in the water, you will shun and abhor them for all time, you will refrain from eating the flesh of everything in the water that has neither fins nor scales, and treat them as abomination. And so the despised fish with smooth skins, those that cannot be served at the table of the people of the Lord, were returned to the sea, many of them so accustomed to this by now that they no longer worried when caught in the nets, for they knew they would soon be back in the water and out of danger. With their fish mentality, they believed themselves the recipients of some special favour from the Creator, perhaps even of a special love, so that in time they came to consider themselves superior to other fish, for those in the boats must have committed grievous sins beneath the dark water for God to let them perish so mercilessly.6

These feelings of superiority show how religious fetishism can bestow supernatural sanction upon societal inequality, as is exemplified above in King James’ declarations of the divine basis for his rule. Although this form of fetishism has eroded considerably in the modern era, we must ask if we are beyond this ‘fish mentality.’ On the contrary, the uniquely impersonal character of capitalism gives rise to novel kinds of fetishism that ascribe human powers to the material properties of commodities, money, and capital. This conceals the forms of coercion and exploitation specific to capitalism. As we will soon see, this fetishism is so pervasive that, with regard to ethics, even Marx, despite all of his criticisms of capitalism, does not entirely escape it.

The Divine Right of Things

67

Capitalism, despite the Enlightenment, is no less bewildering than other forms of class society. In the conquering of personal dependence by impersonal dependence the heirs to the Mandate of Heaven and the Divine Right of Kings are the Mandate of Mammon and the Divine Right of Things. To understand impersonal dependence we must first explain the form of dependence that precedes it.7

Personal Dependence: “No Land Without its Lord” All class societies, including capitalism, entail relations of dependence. The distinction between personal and impersonal dependence is a function of whether or not the producers based in the predominant forms of production possess their conditions of production, including communal property, land, instruments, technical knowledge, and means of subsistence. If producers possess these conditions the authority of ruling classes tends to be more personal, direct, fixed, and tangible; if not, it is more impersonal, mediated, fluid, and ephemeral. Relations of personal dependence exist within an immense variety of societies with differences in, among other things, the degree to which the ruling classes are monolithic and centralized, the extent of market exchange, and the complex relations between communal and private property.8 Despite these differences, in all forms of personal dependence class relations tend to be overtly political and tangibly unequal in the divisions between orders, castes, and estates. As Marx describes it, the “definedness of individuals,” their role, status, and identity, “appears as a personal restriction of the individual by another.”9 In non-capitalist class societies production is primarily for direct use by immediate communities. Even when markets are extensive, products are usually exchanged for their material utility, as ‘use-values’ that satisfy definite needs, and not as abstract embodiments of wealth, as ‘exchangevalues’ accumulated for their own sake: “Among all the peoples of antiquity, the piling-up of gold and silver appears at first as a priestly and royal privilege, since the god and king of commodities pertains only to gods and kings. Only they deserve to possess wealth as such.” 10 Consequently, markets are peripheral bridges between communities rather than the bases of production within them. To the extent that production for use is social, however, it is directly social.11 Products have an immediately ‘social character’ because the variety of social needs, and thus, the kind0 and extent of the contributions and compensations of the unequal ranks

68

Chapter Four

and orders, are contested and coordinated before production processes begin. Non-capitalist production is directly social in part because ruling classes exert immediate political control. Take for example the way in which ruling classes often permitted mercantile activity as a supplement to their own wealth and power, but restricted it by establishing the ‘just price,’ imposing levies and rents, or by denigrating it as sinful usury for which one must do penance.12 It is also directly social because, with the exception of slaves, producers have at least partial possession and control over not only their own labour, but also their conditions of production. Consequently, collectivities of producers engage in communal deliberations over the character and the amount of the things to be produced as well as the methods and rhythms by which they are to be produced and consumed. 13 Take for example the medieval basket-making guilds who conducted regular shop inspections and ritually burned faulty products. As Faar notes, “These inspections, of course, had an economic side, but they were just as much, perhaps more, about the honor and status of the guild and its members. The inspections were a form of public tribunal, and, as the spectacle-makers and basket-makers put it, were even referred to as ‘trials’ with a ‘jury’ and ‘witnesses.’”14 As the possessors of particular forms of property, producers are bound to specific forms of labour and products. The shepherd’s contribution to the community, the basis of his share in the total social production, can only be expressed in his flock of sheep.15 Since production is primarily for use, surplus appropriation usually takes the form of compulsory services or tribute. In ancient Greece and Rome, for example, taxes were not levied against wealth measured as income but as the eisphora and the tributum, performing public duties and offering a proportion of crop-yields. 16 Producers who possess their conditions of production are self-sufficient because they can produce their own subsistence. Therefore, the appropriation of surplus is not inherent to the production process itself. It requires overtly political means, including the sanction of custom and the threat of force. In other words, the extraction of surplus is directly bound to state power and public functions, whether political, military, or administrative.17 Since most producers control their production there is a correspondence between, on the one hand, the materials used and the time spent to make the product, and on the other hand, its worth. Surplus appropriation is therefore tangible because producers know the amounts of time that they work for themselves and for their masters: “The tithe owed to the priest is more clearly apparent than his blessing.”18 Nevertheless, since producers

The Divine Right of Things

69

have partial control over production they can demand reciprocal, albeit unequal, duties from the ruling classes, including obligatory aid during times of dearth. This is functional for the interests of landed wealth because it preserves the relatively fixed and long-term relations of exploitation. Consequently, there are dense webs of mandatory obligations and intersecting customs governing the interactions between the different orders. Economic activity is not a separate realm with its own laws—it is an extension of politics and ethics. Since production is a means to consumption and is therefore bound by predetermined needs, each estate is expected to receive no more or less than what is deemed to be necessary for a social function of its kind.19 The typical ethos prescribes that the accumulations of each are directly subordinate to the more or less stable reproduction of the communal whole within which all legitimate interests are reconciled. The system of social functions, of castes, estates, and orders, corresponds to the hierarchy of objective goods deemed to have intrinsic value whether or not certain individuals recognize them as such. This hierarchy is ordered under the supreme good, the common ends of the social whole rooted in a human nature that is continuous with what is by no means a morally indifferent universe. Authorities as diverse as Aristotle, the compiler(s) of the Laws of Manu, and John of Salisbury depict society and its functions as an organism analogous to the human body. The most infamous example is the apocryphal tale of Menenius Agrippa, a consul of the Roman republic, who quelled a plebeian revolt with a speech that described the plebs as the arms that obtain food and the rulers as the stomach that redistributes it to the entire body.20 This culminates, as we saw above, in James VI, who, in the justification of his divine rule, likens himself to the head of the body politic. Within personal dependence the existence of authority and appropriation is obvious to all. Nevertheless, in normal circumstances this is not often regarded as undue domination and exploitation because, in part, religious fetishism ascribes the social hierarchy to the structure of the cosmos. People within the various orders tend to take for granted their ‘intrinsic’ inequalities because the products of mutable social relations are transformed into immutable natural laws that seem to produce them. The unequal obligations between castes and estates become ‘mandatory’ because it appears that from the time of creation this is how it has always been. This ‘fetishism’ is evident in the rise of religion amid the transitions from hunter-gatherer to class-stratified societies. Take for example the way in which tribes of interdependent clans often create rules against eating certain species of animal, their ‘totem’ animals, because the

70

Chapter Four

function of each clan in the division of labour is to produce a supply of its own species for the others. As Thomson notes: The ancestor-worship characteristic of the early phases of tribal society is at once an expression and a confirmation of the authority exercised by the tribal elders. It is magical rather than religious. No prayers are addressed to the totem, only commands. The worshippers simply impose their will on it by the compelling force of the ritual act, and this principle of compulsion corresponds to a condition of society in which the community is still supreme over each and all of its members. The more advanced forms of worship develop in response to the rise of a ruling class—hereditary magicians, priests, chiefs and kings. The totem is now tended with prayer and propitiation, it assumes a human shape, and becomes a god. The god is to the community at large what the chief or king is to his subjects. The idea of godhead springs from the reality of kingship; but in the human consciousness, split as it now is by the cleavage in society, this relation is inverted. The king’s power appears to be derived from God, and his authority is accepted as being the will of God. Thus, the reality is strengthened by the idea which has grown out of it. Each acts upon the other.21

Religious fetishism pervades the various forms of personal dependence. From China’s Son of Heaven through the Inca’s Son of the Sun to France’s Sun King, rulers have often anointed themselves with the Mandate of Heaven and the Divine Right of Kings. Amid the transitions to capitalism this worldview undergoes dramatic changes. The organic cosmic whole with its hierarchy of functions comes to appear more like an impersonal mechanism with no overarching end, purpose, or good to unite its parts. The ‘head,’ so to speak, is lopped off. There emerge the modern sensitivity to anthropomorphism and the classical theories of fetishism critical of the ways in which we unconsciously ascribe human values to the natural order of the universe. Against personal dependence and its mandatory obligations there arises an ethos of ‘personal independence,’ of liberty, of the negative rights of the individual against society and the state. This includes the right to choose the personal preferences and individual values most conducive to our subjective happiness. In the seventeenth century Robert Boyle compared the workings of the universe to the cathedral clock at Strasbourg.22 Both attest to a designer, but, as Hirschman notes, God ‘retools’ from an Old Testament potter to the modern master clockmaker: “The implication was of course that once He had built the clock, it was going to run entirely by itself.”23 Not even a god need interfere with what will become the ‘self-regulating’ market.

The Divine Right of Things

71

In the early eighteenth century Vico asserted that the three vices, ferocity, avarice, and ambition, create the military, merchant, and governing classes upon which rest the strength, riches, and wisdom of the commonwealth.24 How else could these private passions be transformed into public institutions except through the providence of a divine legislative mind? Nevertheless, the idea that society is an organic unity begins to dissolve. What is true of the whole is not always true of each part. Avarice is a base intention with beneficial consequences. Around the same time Mandeville also argued that private vice leads to public virtue, but unlike Vico, he did not couch this paradox in terms of divine providence. Indeed, to an anonymous eighteenth-century poet this was the rhetoric of the antichrist: “And, if GOD-MAN Vice to abolish came, / Who Vice commends, MAN-DEVIL be his Name.” 25 And yet, Mandeville responds, thieves provide useful functions: “if all People were strictly honest, and no body would meddle with or pry into any thing but his own, half the Smiths of the Nation would want Employment.”26 Not least of whom was Adam Smith who took the next step and cast market activity beyond good and evil. He argued that little good is done when the motive for trade is the public good: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”27 By substituting words like ‘vice’ with less morally-charged terms like ‘advantage,’ Smith dulled Mandeville’s unsettling declarations.28 No longer need we claim that the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions! As Enlightenment thinkers reinterpreted nature as an impersonal force there arose the original theories of fetishism. As Pietz notes, this was inspired in part by the tales of merchant-adventurers for whom the truth of objects was their commodification and their commensurability across different cultures: “All other meanings and values attributed to material objects were understood to be the culture-specific delusions of peoples lacking ‘reason.’”29 For merchants, purely contractual relations are disrupted when the exchange of objects overlain with spiritual import requires cumbersome religious ceremonies and the swearing of oaths. Meanwhile, the philosophes redefined superstition as the anthropomorphic personification of material objects and deterministic processes the true efficacy of which derives from the laws of physics and economics.30 This culminates in libertarian assertions that the economy is an impersonal realm for which moral evaluation is inappropriate. For Hayek, the old interpretation of society as an organism is inherently hierarchical and authoritarian. This completes the modern sensitivity to the fallacy of composition: what is true of the whole is not true of each part. Labour

72

Chapter Four

must find its ‘natural price’ according to the formal rules of exchange. Not only will attempts to regulate the infinite complexity of the market lead to unintended consequences, its motive, a ‘just’ distribution, is “anthropomorphism.” 31 It imposes values on facts and confuses an airy and metaphysical ‘what ought to be’ for the solid and scientific ‘what is.’ Instead, we must replace relations of personal dependence with the purely voluntary obligations of our chosen contractual commitments. Hayek knows well this history: It was men’s submission to the impersonal forces of the market that in the past has made possible the growth of a civilization which without this could not have developed; it is by thus submitting that we are every day helping to build something that is greater than any one of us can fully comprehend. It does not matter whether men in the past did submit from beliefs which some now regard as superstitious: from a religious spirit of humility or an exaggerated respect for the crude teachings of the early economists. The crucial point is that it is infinitely more difficult rationally to comprehend the necessity of submitting to forces whose operation we cannot follow in detail than to do so out of the humble awe which religion, or even the respect for the doctrines of economics, did inspire.32

And yet are we not still in awe? For Nozick, following Hayek, the ideal of market justice is, “From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.”33 Such is how the new elect are anointed. From the finger of god to the invisible hand, from Providence to progress, and from the ‘just’ price to the ‘natural’ price, the will of the market is as inscrutable as that of the gods. “No god I know ever said such a thing,” says God to Cain in Saramago’s retelling, “it would never even occur to us that our ways are mysterious, no, that was something invented by men who presume to know god intimately.”34 By overthrowing relations of personal dependence, by submitting to the impersonal forces of the market, are we genuinely beyond dependence? Does this ethos of personal independence foster a dependence of a different kind?

Impersonal Dependence: “Money Has No Master” The basis of capitalism, and thus, of the impersonal character of its relations of dependence, is the dispossession of producers of their conditions of production. Capitalist production is primarily for exchange. Producers do not create commodities as use-values for the direct consumption by their immediate communities. Rather they produce them

The Divine Right of Things

73

as exchange-values to be sold. As market processes become the primary basis for production and distribution they displace the overtly political control by superior estates as well as the communal direction within and between subordinate estates. For liberals the impersonality of market relations is the guarantor of their impartiality, equality, and freedom. Marx, to a certain extent, agrees. Unlike the relation between the shepherd and his lord, the possessors of exchange-values are formally equal. Although inequalities in the amounts of property persist, for the seller of a $10 product, the worker who buys it has a social function identical to the king who does the same—each is $10 incarnate.35 Furthermore, unlike the shepherd and lord, the possessors of exchange-values are formally free. Even if the individual has private property only in her own person, each may choose with whom they engage in exchange. Indeed, for liberals like von Mises, only in a free market unencumbered by externally imposed obligations can the laws of exchange treat everyone alike, rich or poor. As Marx describes these social conditions, the “definedness of the individual” no longer appears as a “personal restriction” of each by the other but as “an objective restriction of the individual by relations independent of him and sufficient unto themselves.” 36 As such, “individuals are now ruled by abstractions, whereas earlier they depended on one another.” 37 Nevertheless, though the dissolution of the ties of personal dependence “seduces the democrats,” Marx warns us, the developing system of exchange does not abolish relations of dependence. Rather, it dissolves them into a “general form,” an elaboration of the “general foundation” of the relations of personal dependence.38 That these societal imperatives originate in human activities is concealed by the reification of persons and the personification of things. 39 Most importantly, new forms of fetishism ascribe the powers of collective labour to the material properties of commodities, money, and capital. We will look at each in turn. Fetishism occurs because capitalist production is separated from consumption by market exchange. Since particular productive activities and products do not have a predetermined social worth, production is indirectly social. 40 The commodification of qualitatively distinct acts of concrete-labour and their use-values reduces them to units of abstractlabour and exchange-value that are quantitatively comparable according to the amount of labour-time necessary to produce them. These exchangevalues are not determined by the actual amounts of labour-time required to produce each commodity but by the average amount of time necessary to produce all commodities as determined by market competition. The production of exchange-values must match this socially-necessary labour-

74

Chapter Four

time: to the extent that actual labour-time exceeds this average it is not recognized by the market and is not recouped in the sale of the commodity. Consequently, privately held products only gain a social character as exchange-values after the production process. Since this occurs through exchange without the control or foreknowledge of independent producers it appears that commodities themselves conduct this movement.41 Exchange-values therefore seem to reside in the material properties of the commodities rather than the labour-time required to produce them. This masks the discordance between the amounts of value produced by the labourer and what they are paid in wages. Profit can only emerge in a system of equal market exchange because, for capital, the usevalue of labour-power is that it produces more value than it costs. The extraction of surplus is not a tangible appropriation of what has already been produced—it is inherent in the capitalist production process itself.42 Commodity fetishism therefore obscures this appropriation of uncompensated surplus value. The general representative of commodities is money. Whereas the possession of particular use-values entails social relations that are relatively local and fixed, money is wealth in a general form. The possessors of this general wealth are dependent less on particular individuals with specific needs and more on the universal medium of exchange that can represent almost any need. Money is no mere symbol of imaginary values. It is the form of appearance of the labour-power and exchange-values it represents. Like commodities, however, these values seem to reside in the intrinsic properties of the currency itself: “Each individual possesses social power in the form of a thing. Rob the thing of this social power and you must give it to persons to exercise over persons.”43 People therefore put the faith in money that they no longer have in each other. 44 The fetishism of money further obscures the appropriation of surplus value.45 Surplus value is the basis of profit. Since the values advanced by capital in production can only be recouped as profits in the market, it appears as if value arises not from production but from exchange. Capital therefore appears to be money that, of itself, by Immaculate Conception, makes more money. Nevertheless, capital is not a thing. It is a social relation between producers who can acquire only the means of consumption and capitalists who also possess the means of production. Capital is appropriated past labour fed back into the expanded conditions of production, the value of which can only be transferred to new commodities by present workers.46 Living labour is therefore dominated by dead labour: our ancestors haunt us still. This is concealed when the

The Divine Right of Things

75

powers of collective labour are ascribed to the ‘genius of capital.’ Hence the cult of Steve Jobs: when it would take a Foxconn worker six months of wages to buy one of the Apple products they produce, it seems that, contrary to Locke’s expectations, the fruit is forbidden precisely to those who mix their labour with it.47 Commodities and money exist in many non-capitalist societies. They only become capital when, along with the means of consumption, the means of production become commodities that can be bought and sold. Conversely, when producers possess the conditions of production they can only be appropriated by force.48 This is why the primitive accumulations that expropriate producers require a great deal of violence. When this is sufficiently accomplished, however, coercion can adopt a more indirect, intangible, impersonal form. Wage-labour is not forced-labour in the sense of personal dependence. It is not a mandatory obligation backed directly by political force. Nevertheless, wage-labourers are subject to a specifically economic coercion. Producers who own nothing but their ability to labour cannot produce for their own subsistence. Consequently, they can only gain access to the conditions of production by entering into wage-contracts with capitalists to whom they cede control over their labour and products. The aggressors need not lay siege to the fortress: they blockade it until the famished inhabitants surrender ‘voluntarily.’ When the conditions of production are drawn into the same competitive pressures as other commodities, they must constantly be made more productive. Therefore, capitalist production is not a means to consumption but production for its own sake and accumulation as an end in itself. Political and communal control over production is no longer a sacred limit to be respected but a material barrier to be overcome: “There appears here the universalizing tendency of capital, which distinguishes it from all previous stages of production.”49 Forms of personal dependence persist. After all, the Portuguese government censored José Saramago’s novels and the Catholic Church lobbied against his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 50 Furthermore, the imposition of socially constructed identities, of ‘personal restrictions,’ remains vital for political domination and economic exploitation. For example, racializing and gendering certain workers devalues their labour-power. As Bannerji notes, “There is no capital that is a universal abstraction. Capital is always a practice, a determinate set of social relations—and a cultural one at that.”51 Nevertheless, capitalist social relations are a uniquely impersonal form of dependence because the role of labour-power is primarily dictated not by the personal authority of the capitalist but by the capital-relation, the dominance of the independent conditions of production over producers.52

76

Chapter Four

Whether it is private capitalists in a free market or bureaucratic functionaries in a command economy, particular individuals must personify capital in order for it to exist. In comparison to capital itself, however, the character of its personification is secondary. Conversely, when producers possess their conditions of production, personal authority is the necessary form of rule. Without coercion by rulers there is no external compulsion to increase surpluses. The ‘personification’ of mastery is primary. Under capitalism, however, as McNally notes, even workers’ co-operatives must accumulate ever-growing surpluses in order to produce at or below the average social productivity.53 They too must become personifications of capital. As with the totem become godhead, when labour transforms into capital our products gain mastery over us. Truly, truly, this is the divine right of things. A particularly virulent form of this is, as we saw, Hayek’s assertion that interfering with the ‘natural price’ of labour in the market is a form of anthropomorphism. Nevertheless, by regarding flesh-and-blood workers as the pure embodiments of commodified labour, and by treating prices as if they inhere in the physical properties of commodities, he reflects uncritically the reification of persons and the personification of things. By falsely imputing human qualities into non-human things it is Hayek who engages in anthropomorphism. Indeed, with these market fundamentalists, fetishism is the reification of persons and the deification of things. This undermines liberal notions of the alternative to personal dependence, namely, the ethos of personal independence. As with any other form of stoicism it is able to declare the achievement of freedom only by impoverishing its meaning. Along these lines, in Saramago’s Gospel, Jesus admonishes a slave: “Today in the Temple I heard it said that every human action, however insignificant, interferes with the will of God, and that man is free only in order to be punished. My punishment doesn’t come from being free, it comes from being a slave, the old woman told him. Jesus fell silent.”54 In the same stoic way we moderns often describe as ‘liberty’ what is dependence in a different form. If we put aside for a moment the respective merits of an ethics based primarily in nature or in history, in objective goods or in self-defined values, we must note that in the same way the ethos of mandatory obligations is functional for the rule of landed wealth even if it requires paternal assistance to producers during times of dearth, purely voluntary obligations are functional for the rule of capital even if producers have some control over their own proprietary person. Liberal notions of personal independence have certainly made us more sensitive to individual freedoms that we cannot dismiss. Nevertheless, if we embrace this ethos of

The Divine Right of Things

77

negative rights, if we reject our positive duties to others whether or not they have social power in the form of a thing, be it commodities, money, or capital, we become more dependent on what confers these things, the capitalist production and market exchange through which there occur specifically economic forms of coercion and exploitation. Although we may feel more independent because we are not necessarily tied personally to particular individuals, or because those to whom we are tied are increasingly interchangeable with others, it is precisely for this reason that we are increasingly dependent on these impersonal processes as a whole. We are more dependent because this dependence adopts an ‘objective’ form. As ever, what has its origin in human activities adopts the appearance of ‘natural laws.’ Nevertheless, nature, both non-human and human, is now deemed to be devoid of any objective end, purpose, or good. This is in part because the fetishism unique to capitalism conceals the extent to which seemingly independent activities have an inherently social character. The individual or private interest is nonetheless a sociallydetermined interest.55 Capitalist social relations are no less an organism imposing its functions than are relations of personal dependence. Therefore, the belief that capitalism arises from our inherently selfregarding nature confuses cause and effect. The Son begets the Father to the great confusion of the Holy Ghost. Although capitalist imperatives tend towards a zero point of absolute impersonality, this can only be approximated because there is never a total absence of working class resistance. Social relations and processes are independent of the wills of individuals only insofar as they act in isolation. To the extent that people adopt ideals of ‘rugged individualism’ they will be reduced to the personification of economic processes and coerced by capitalist imperatives with as little consideration as expendable objects in high supply. Market regulations, a limited form of what we might call mandatory obligations, demonstrate that, since the impersonal laws of capitalism are the product of human activities, they can be reformed and transformed. By enacting and enforcing these laws the impersonal tendencies of capitalism are made a little less so. Market imperatives must now recognize personal aspects of otherwise interchangeable units of labour-power. Legislation against child-labour, for example, ensures that market imperatives must now distinguish between the adult who is exploitable and the child who is not. This is at least partial recognition that each worker is a unique individual with a life and needs not totally reducible to the wage-labour they perform. The person seizes ground from the personification.

78

Chapter Four

These market regulations are significant, but they only ameliorate impersonal dependence. Is there a genuine independence, a free individuality that is beyond coercion and exploitation as such?

Interpersonal Independence: No Lords, No Money, No Masters? The third phase in Marx’s historical schema, what we have called ‘interpersonal independence,’ reconciles elements of the two phases that precede it. Like personal dependence, socialist production is directly social, but like impersonal dependence, it is on a universal basis. Producers hold in common the conditions of production and deliberate democratically about the various societal needs as well as who and what will fulfil them. In this vision of independence the notion of society as an organic whole need not entail the hierarchy, coercion, and exploitation typical of personal or of impersonal dependence. Furthermore, the direct and conscious reconciliation of individual and general interests in coordinated production would not give rise to fetishism: The religious reflections of the real world can, in any case, vanish only when the practical relations of everyday life between man and man, and man and nature, generally present themselves to him in a transparent and rational form. The veil is not removed from the countenance of the social life-process, i.e. the process of material production, until it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control. This, however, requires that society possess a material foundation, or a series of material conditions of existence, which in their turn are the natural and spontaneous product of a long and tormented historical development.56

Yet our torment lingers on. Every attempt to overthrow capitalism has developed hybrids of personal and impersonal dependence with often horrifying consequences. This raises the question not only of a genuine independence but of ethics in general. Societal conditions within which people often inscribed a distinctly social ethics into the eternal structures of the universe have been eclipsed by conditions within which we tend to deem ethics as separate from nature and other realms of society. Ethics now appears to be historical, relative, and mutable. Perhaps this Marxist analysis in which I base the ethics of mandatory and voluntary obligations in their respective historical contexts is itself an uncritical absorption of the uniquely impersonal character of capitalism. While we must be wary of the conflation of history and nature

The Divine Right of Things

79

typical of people within relations of personal dependence, perhaps we cannot entirely reduce ethics to its historical conditions in the ways typical today. To the extent that we follow Marx’s claim that “in money matters sentiment is out of place,”57 or his ridicule of appeals to ethics as “obsolete verbal rubbish,”58 we too may be guilty of the fetishism and reification that pervades impersonal dependence. The theory of fetishism, which roots ethics in specific historical circumstances, can itself be rooted in the transitions to capitalism. Perhaps a natural basis for ethics cannot be so easily dismissed. This would require much deeper inquiries and insights than anything I offer here. In the meantime, I write this conclusion from Athens. The people of Greece are stockpiling necessities as the European Union imposes harsh austerity and odious debts. As one such Greek recently noted, “It is like being in a war without weapons.”59 This is as good a description as any of impersonal dependence. In the normal run of things Germany need not invade and impose territorial imperialism on Greece any more than the capitalist need bring a garrison to the workplace. And yet, whether on the transnational or local scales, they both get their tribute in the end. We must remain vigilant that in our struggles with capitalism we do not re-create the relations of coercion and exploitation typical of personal dependence. Nevertheless, even those who are unconvinced by any of the prevailing alternatives to capitalism must ask what it would mean to be genuinely beyond relations of dependence of every kind.

Bibliography Aristotle, Carnes Lord (trans.), Aristotle’s Politics (second edition) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013). Bannerji, Himani. ‘Building from Marx: Reflections on ‘‘Race,’ Gender, and Class,’ in Sara Carpenter and Sharhzad Mojab, Educating From Marx: Race, Gender, and Learning (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). Comninel, George. ‘English Feudalism and the Origins of Capitalism,’ Journal of Peasant Studies 27/4 (2000), pp. 1-53. de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London: Gerald Duckworth & Company Ltd., 1983). Doniger, Wendy, and Brian K. Smith (trans.), The Laws of Manu (London: Penguin Books, 1991). Editors, ‘Nobel Writer, A Communist, Defends Work,’ The New York Times, October 12, 1998.

80

Chapter Four

Farr, James R. Artisans in Europe: 1300-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Feuerbach, Ludwig, George Eliot (trans.), The Essence of Christianity (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1957). Freud, Sigmund. ‘Fetishism,’ in Philip Rieff (ed.), Sexuality and the Psychology of Love (New York: Touchstone, 1997). Gray, Paul Christopher. ‘Planning For the Feast,’ Radical Philosophy 189 (January-February 2015), pp. 65-67. Harvey, David. The Limits to Capital (New York: Verso, 2006). Hayek, Friedrich A. Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967). —. Law, Legislation, and Liberty: Volume One: Rules and Order (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983). —. The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994). Hirschman, Albert O. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). Hudis, Peter. Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government (London: Everyman, 1993). Mack, Eric. ‘Could a Foxconn Factory Worker Ever Afford an iPhone?’ Cnet.com, February 23, 2012: http://www.cnet.com/news/could-afoxconn-factory-worker-ever-afford-an-iphone/ Mandeville, Bernard, Phillip Harth (ed.), The Fable of the Bees (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), Marx, Karl, Ben Fowkes (trans.), Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume One (New York: Vintage Books, 1977). Marx, Karl. ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme,’ in in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader (second edition) (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978). —. David Fernbach (trans.), Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume Three (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1991). —. ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,’ Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton (trans.), Early Writings (London: Penguin, 1992). —. Martin Nicolaus (trans.), Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Draft) (London: Penguin Books, 1993). McNally, David. Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism, and the Marxist Critique (London: Verso, 1993).

The Divine Right of Things

81

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974). Pietz, William. ‘The Problem of the Fetish, II: The Origin of the Fetish,’ RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 13 (Spring, 1987), pp. 23-45. Plutarch, R. H. Carr (ed.), Plutarch’s Lives of Coriolanus, Caesar, Brutus, 1906). Reed, Adolph Jr., ‘Unravelling the Relation of Race and Class in American Politics,’ Political Power and Social Theory, 15 (2002), pp. 265-74. —. ‘Rejoinder,’ Political Power and Social Theory, 15 (2002), pp. 301315. Salisbury, John of. Policratus, in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin (eds.), The Portable Medieval Reader (New York: The Viking Press, 1971). Saramago, José. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (New York: Harcourt, 1991). —. Cain (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations (New York: The Modern Library, 2000). Smith, Helena. ‘Greek Citizens: ‘It’s Like Being in a War Without Weapons,’ The Guardian, July 6, 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/greek-citizenseurozone-crisis-war-without-weapons Tawney, R. H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1975). Thomson, George. Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origins of Drama (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1973). Ullmann-Margalit, Edna. ‘Invisible-Hand Explanations,’ Synthese Vol. 39, No. 2 (1978), pp. 263-91. Vico, Giambattista. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch (trans.), The New Science of Giambattista Vico (London: Cornell University Press, 1970). Wolf, Eric R. Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Meiksins Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Democracy Against Capitalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

82

Chapter Four

Notes 

1

I thank Steve Maher and Adam Hilton for their extensive comments on earlier drafts of this essay. 2 Karl Marx, Martin Nicolaus (trans.), Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Draft) (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 158. 3 It has recently come to my attention that David Harvey uses the terms “personal dependency” and “impersonal dependency” (David Harvey, The Limits to Capital (New York: Verso, 2006), 33). To my knowledge, he does not develop these terms in the ways done here. 4 Sigmund Freud, ‘Fetishism,’ in Philip Rieff (ed.), Sexuality and the Psychology of Love (New York: Touchstone, 1997). 5 Ludwig Feuerbach, George Eliot (trans.), The Essence of Christianity (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1957), 29-30. 6 José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (New York: Harcourt, 1991), 230. 7 The quotations in the next two section titles are drawn from Karl Marx, Ben Fowkes (trans.), Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume One (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 247. 8 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 472-87; Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 80-85; Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 31. 9 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 164. 10 Ibid., 230. See also Peter Hudis, Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 7. For my review of Hudis’s book, which develops some of these themes, see Paul Christopher Gray, ‘Planning For the Feast,’ Radical Philosophy 189 (January-February 2015), pp. 65-67. 11 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 158; Marx, Capital: Volume One, op. cit., 166. 12 Wolf, op. cit., 84-85; R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1975), 61. 13 George Comninel, ‘English Feudalism and the Origins of Capitalism,’ Journal of Peasant Studies 27/4 (2000), pp. 1-53, 5-9. 14 James R. Faar, Artisans in Europe: 1300-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 90. 15 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 157, 221. 16 G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London: Gerald Duckworth & Company Ltd., 1983), 114. 17 Wood, op. cit., 31; Wolf, op. cit., 79-80. 18 Marx, Capital: Volume One, op. cit., 170. 19 Tawney, op. cit., 36. 20 Plutarch, R. H. Carr (ed.), Plutarch’s Lives of Coriolanus, Caesar, Brutus, and Antonius (London: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1906), 6; Aristotle, Carnes Lord (trans.), Aristotle’s Politics (second edition) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 1253a20-23; Wendy Doniger and Brian K. Smith (trans.), The Laws

The Divine Right of Things

83

 of Manu (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 6-7; John of Salisbury, Policratus, in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin (eds.), The Portable Medieval Reader (New York: The Viking Press, 1971), 47-48. 21 George Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origins of Drama (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1973), 15. 22 Edna Ullmann-Margalit, ‘Invisible-Hand Explanations,’ Synthese Vol. 39, No. 2 (1978), pp. 263-91, 287, n. 6. 23 Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 87. 24 Giambattista Vico, Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch (trans.), The New Science of Giambattista Vico (London: Cornell University Press, 1970), paragraphs 131-33. 25 Phillip Harth, ‘Introduction’, Bernard Mandeville, Phillip Harth (ed.), The Fable of the Bees (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), 8. 26 Mandeville, op. cit., 118. 27 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: The Modern Library, 2000), 15; 485. 28 Hirschman, op. cit., 18-19. 29 William Pietz, ‘The Problem of the Fetish, II: The Origin of the Fetish,’ RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 13 (Spring, 1987), pp. 23-45, 36. 30 Ibid., 36-45. 31 Friedrich A. Hayek, Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), 170-71; Friedrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty: Volume One: Rules and Order (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), 53. 32 Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 224. 33 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 160. 34 José Saramago, Cain (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), 26. 35 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 246. 36 Ibid., 164. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 163-64. 39 Karl Marx, David Fernbach (trans.), Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Volume Three (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1991), 969. 40 Hudis, op. cit., 111. 41 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 166-68; David McNally, Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism, and the Marxist Critique (London: Verso, 1993), 162. 42 Wood, op. cit., 29. 43 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 157-58. 44 Ibid., 160. 45 Marx, Capital: Volume One, op. cit., 184-86; McNally, op. cit., 69.

84

Chapter Four



46 Marx, Capital: Volume One, op. cit., 932; Marx, Capital: Volume Three, op. cit., 523-24; 965-70. 47 Eric Mack, ‘Could a Foxconn Factory Worker Ever Afford an iPhone?’ Cnet.com, February 23, 2012: http://www.cnet.com/news/could-a-foxconn-factoryworker-ever-afford-an-iphone/; John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: Everyman, 1993), 128. 48 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 505. 49 Ibid., 540; see also 542. 50 Editors, ‘Nobel Writer, A Communist, Defends Work,’ The New York Times, October 12, 1998. 51 Himani Bannerji, ‘Building from Marx: Reflections on ‘‘Race,’ Gender, and Class,’ in Sara Carpenter and Sharhzad Mojab, Educating From Marx: Race, Gender, and Learning (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 47. See also Adolph Reed Jr.’s debate with Ellen Meiksins Wood: Adolph Reed, Jr., ‘Unravelling the Relation of Race and Class in American Politics’, Political Power and Social Theory, Volume 15, (2002), pp. 265-74; Adolph Reed, Jr., ‘Rejoinder’, Political Power and Social Theory, Volume 15, (2002), pp. 301-315. 52 Marx, Capital: Volume Three, op. cit., 1021; see also Wood, op. cit., 41. 53 McNally, op. cit., 180-82. 54 Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, op. cit., 180. 55 Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., 156. 56 Marx, Capital: Volume One, op. cit., 173. 57 Ibid., 343. 58 Karl Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme,’ in in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader (second edition) (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978), 531. 59 Helena Smith, ‘Greek Citizens: ‘It’s Like Being in a War Without Weapons,’ The Guardian, July 6, 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/greek-citizens-eurozone-crisiswar-without-weapons

CHAPTER FIVE REDISCOVERING INEQUALITY: FROM BUSH TO PIKETTY LEONARD WILLIAMS, JOHN DEAL AND MATTHEW HENDRYX

Concern with issues of political and economic inequality is not new; it has a long history in Western thought. Aristotle philosophized about distributive justice in the Politics. Machiavelli addressed the pervasive and troubling conflicts between the few rich and the many poor in the Prince and the Discourses. Seeking a pure republican spirit, Rousseau proposed a society that admitted of no extremes of wealth and poverty. Madison acknowledged in The Federalist that inequality—“the various and unequal distribution of property”—plays a role in fostering the spirit of faction in democratic societies. Last, but not least, nineteenth-century socialists like Marx and Proudhon criticized the endemic and redundant inequalities associated with capitalism. Our focus here, though, will not be on the theorists of the past. Our interests will be more contemporary in nature. For many outside the academy, issues of inequality have been brought to the forefront by a diverse set of activists. Tea Party-affiliated Republicans have attacked both big government and crony capitalism, Obamacare and TARP bailouts. Similarly, Occupy Wall Street activists helped bring the topic of inequality into the daily news and the 2012 election cycle. Since then, labor activists and politicians alike have sought a higher minimum wage as the first step toward redressing inequality. Interestingly, during the previous decade or so, economists and political scientists in the United States have embarked on empirical research projects to examine the nature of inequality. In this paper, we wish to examine the ways in which these mainstream academics have rediscovered the significance of inequality. We will discuss some of what

86

Chapter Five

today’s social scientists have learned about the causes and consequences of inequality. We will also examine a few measures for improvement.

Economics From Adam Smith to Karl Marx, inequality appears as a topic of concern for those studying economics. Implicit in Adam Smith’s work, for example, is the notion that people have essentially the same capabilities and only differ because they have chosen alternative paths to success. In reading Smith, one senses his optimism that inequality will diminish as economies progress. Although the issue was often addressed in theoretical terms, the importance of inequality as an area of empirical study was raised by Simon Kuznets in his 1954 presidential address to the American Economic Association, where he explored the causes of income inequality in the context of economic growth. 1 He hypothesized that income inequality increases with industrialization and urbanization at earlier stages of development. The concentration of income, and thus savings, by successful capitalists allows them to bequeath larger shares of income to their descendants, while population growth and urbanization leads to more income inequality as rural populations tend to have lower degrees of income inequality than do urban populations. He also argued that this inequality would diminish over time as countries continue through the industrialization and urbanization phases of development. Kuznets raised two important issues in his presidential address—the paucity of reliable data to look at income distribution issues and the importance of analyzing these issues in the context of economic growth. Kuznets acknowledged the importance of inequality when he observed that “any insight we may derive from observing changes in countrywide aggregates over time [economic growth] will be defective if these changes are not translated into movements of shares of the various income groups [income inequality].” 2 Although Kuznets raised the issue of income inequality, economists concentrated on the determinants of economic growth (not inequality) for the next thirty to thirty-five years.3 Although the focus was on economic growth for many years, trends that began in the late 1970s and 1980s led to a renewed interest in inequality from the economics profession. In addition to observing increasing inequality in income distribution data, economists saw changes in policy (e.g., reductions in marginal tax rates, efforts to reduce the power of unions) and changes in the structure of the economy (e.g., globalization, rapid technological change) that brought the issue of inequality back as a viable area of research interest. A series of papers, beginning in the early

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

87

1990s, looked at both trends in inequality and possible causes of those observed trends. It quickly became clear that the results were often dependent on both the source of data and the definition of income used in the various studies.

Assessing Inequality Disagreements over the level of inequality and the changes in inequality over time exist in the profession. Although possibly ideological in nature, many disagreements result from differences in data and definitions of income. First, findings typically are not always robust to the choice of data. The typical data sources used for studies of the United States are tax return data and the Current Population Survey (CPS). While tax return data can be used to look at the concentration of income at the top of the income distribution, it is not able to capture inequality across the distribution since many low-income individuals do not pay income taxes. The CPS captures inequality across the distribution of income, but it does not capture the concentration of income at the top, particularly the top 0.1 percent, due to top-coding to protect the identities of individual taxpayers. Second, researchers use a variety of measures of inequality, ranging from “market” income (pre-tax, pre-transfer income) to broader measures of income that include taxes and transfer payments. While all of these measures tend to be positively correlated, the extent of inequality varies substantially depending on the measure. Although methodological and definitional disagreements remain, economists generally agree that the data indicate growing income inequality between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the income distribution in the United States, in addition to growing inequality within the remaining 99 percent of the distribution. Major disagreements exist as to the extent of inequality, as well as its causes, consequences, and remedies (if needed). Economists have long believed that higher income is simply a reward for accumulating skills and foregoing current consumption, and thus acts as an incentive to encourage people to work, save, and invest. While these incentives may be reduced if we attempt to reduce these rewards in order to compress the income distribution (e.g., impose “excessively” high marginal tax rates), many economists recognize that the distribution of income may become so unequal that the costs of inequality might begin to outweigh its benefits. Recent research even purports to show that societies with a more equal distribution of income (or wealth) exhibit higher levels of economic growth and social welfare than societies with less equal distributions.4

88

Chapter Five

Explaining Inequality Although economists have since the 1980s been increasingly interested in issues of income inequality, the recent “firestorm” created by the release of Thomas Piketty’s Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century has focused the attention of many in the profession on efforts to sort through possible explanations of the trends we see in the data.5 Economists have come up with three general categories of explanations for the increasing levels of inequality: (1) supply and demand framework explanations (e.g., skillbiased technological change and educational attainment), (2) governance and rent-seeking explanations (e.g., changing social norms concerning CEO pay), and (3) institutional explanations (e.g., changes in the minimum wage and levels of unionization). Many researchers attribute the increasing levels of income inequality to the impact of skill-biased technological change (SBTC). Technological change, such as the introduction of computers, can act as a complement to skilled labor and as a substitute for unskilled labor. For example, the creation of software for computers requires workers with a relatively high level of education and skills, resulting in an increase in the demand for more skilled workers. On the other hand, many functions that required a lower level of skills (e.g., typewriting) could be replaced by more skillintensive substitutes (e.g., word processing). As a result, the introduction of computers increased the demand for more skilled workers, thus increasing their wages, while decreasing the wages of unskilled workers as the demand for their services decreased. The interrelationship between education, technology, and inequality was explored in The Race Between Education and Technology, by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. 6 They analyzed the patterns of wage inequality in the twentieth century in the United States through an exploration of skill-biased technological change and educational attainment patterns. They concluded that, with a few exceptions, inequality fell during most of the last century, but then increased substantially in the last thirty years. If technological change and the increased demand for skilled workers was the primary explanation of this pattern, one would have to argue that skill-biased technological change occurred at the end of the century but did not occur earlier. Goldin and Katz demonstrated that skillbiased technological change was relatively constant over the century and that the missing component of the story was the supply of educated workers. They concluded that the “skill bias of technology did not change much across the century, nor did its rate of change. Rather, the sharp rise in inequality was largely due to an educational slowdown.”7 Although the

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

89

SBTC-education nexus seemed to explain long-term patterns of inequality in the United States, it also ignored the more complex relationship between skilled and unskilled workers.8 Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, among others, identified more complex patterns in wage inequality that could not be explained by the Goldin-Katz model. For example, inequality increased in the upper half of the male wage distribution over most of the period since the 1980s, while inequality in the lower half of the distribution increased during the 1980s but decreased since the 1990s. A possible explanation for this pattern rests on “a richer version of the skill-biased technical change (SBTC) hypothesis in which information technology complements highly educated workers engaged in abstract tasks, substitutes for moderately educated workers performing routine tasks, and has less impact on low-skilled workers performing manual tasks.” 9 This could possibly explain the observed pattern of the hollowing out of the middle of the wage distribution as moderately skilled workers performing routine tasks are replaced by capital (e.g., TurboTax replacing accounting services), while low-skilled workers performing non-routine tasks (e.g., janitorial services) are not affected by technological change, and thus experience an increase in relative income as the wages of middle-income workers fall. Regardless of the version of the SBTC model employed, it is clear that the return to skill accumulation has increased and that this must be part of any explanation of changes in income inequality, at least at the top of the income distribution. Sherwin Rosen provided a possible explanation for this divergence at the top, particularly between the top 1percent and other income earners, when he proposed the existence of a “superstar effect.”10 Rosen argued that the increase in market size associated with improvements in communication and transportation technology increased the potential rewards for the most highly skilled workers (i.e., the “superstars”). A possible example can be found in the increase in compensation for corporate executives. The median pay, including realized stock options, for CEOs of Standard and Poor’s 500 companies rose from approximately $2.5 million (in 2010 dollars) in 1993 to approximately $8 million in 2011.11 As the rewards to perceived managerial skill increase, the ability of the CEOs to extract rents beyond their contribution to the firm increases. Given the reduction in top marginal tax rates from over 70 percent to 28 percent between 1970 and 1986, the incentives to extract rents also increase. 12 If Piketty and Saez are correct that the social norms against “excessive” CEO pay have diminished, it is much easier to extract higher pay from a board of directors, particularly if those CEOs can influence the

90

Chapter Five

selection of members of the board.13 Although increases in compensation have occurred across the spectrum of CEOs, concern has been raised that the “financialization” of the economy is one of the driving forces behind increasing managerial compensation. Zalewski and Whalen find that income inequality is higher in countries that have undergone more extensive movements toward deregulation of and innovation in the financial sectors of the respective economies.14. Kaplan and Rauh argue that this is not evidence of poor corporate governance.15 They show that the same trends in executive pay exist in privately-owned (i.e., closelyheld) businesses where the same principal-agent problems do not exist. They argue that this provides support for the SBTC and “superstar effect” hypotheses to explain the increasing inequality at the top of the income distribution, at least in comparison to the poor governance hypothesis. While support for the SBTC explanation can generally be found in the United States, lower levels of income inequality in other developed countries with similar technologies call into question the generalizability of the empirical findings. Given that institutions vary across countries, a number of economists have instead focused on institutional changes in the economy that may have contributed to growing levels of income inequality in the United States. Institutional changes include reductions in the real value of the minimum wage, declines in union membership, deregulation of industries, increased globalization, and government policies, such as the reduction in marginal tax rates that allow higher levels of wealth accumulation. The real value of the minimum wage fell since the 1960s, with a real value of $8.25 per hour (in 2011 prices) in 1967 and a real value of $7.25 in 2011.16 This fall in the real income of minimum wage workers relative to other workers would increase income inequality at the lower end of the distribution. David Card and John DiNardo find that much of the growing inequality observed in the 1980s could be explained by a decline in the real value of the minimum wage, while David Autor, Alan Manning, and Christopher Smith, after controlling for some estimation problems, would find that only a small part of the changes in inequality can be explained by the minimum wage.17 The level of unionization has declined substantially since the late 1970s, declining from 24 percent to 17 percent from 1979 to 1988. The fall in the rate of unionization among men was even more dramatic, falling by ten percent during the same period. Since unions generally compress wages among union members, higher levels of unionization could reduce wage disparity. At the same time, union workers generally earn higher wages than do workers in nonunion jobs and therefore increase wage

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

91

inequality. Since these effects are offsetting, the impact on unionization on income inequality is largely an empirical question. Most studies indicate that higher rates of unionization are associated with overall lower levels of wage disparity. Therefore, a fall in unionization would reduce this wageequalizing effect. 18 In an influential paper on the role of unionization, David Card found that the decline in unionization could account for 15-20 percent of the increase in male wage dispersion between 1973 and 1993, but could explain almost none of the female wage dispersion.19 In summary, many economists agree that income inequality has increased over the last thirty years, particularly accelerating throughout the 1980s, and that the primary source of this increase is the interaction between technological innovation and educational attainment. An increasing number of economists believe that the “hollowing out of the middle class” requires a more nuanced explanation centering on the distinction between routine and non-routine tasks instead of the traditional distinction between skilled and unskilled labor. Given the difficulty in reconciling differences in inequality across countries facing similar technological changes, a number of economists now emphasize institutional factors, such as the real value of the minimum wage and the rate of unionization, that differ across countries as potentially more important factors in determining trends in inequality.

Enter Piketty While a continuing body of research on inequality accumulated in the 1990s and early 2000s, a series of papers by Emmauel Saez, Thomas Piketty, and others intensified the debate in the profession concerning the extent and causes of inequality. In particular, these economists constructed large time-series data sets, primarily from tax data, that allowed researchers to look at trends over long periods of time and across many countries.20 They found high levels of inequality at the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States, but diminishing levels of inequality during the period between the two world wars. Inequality began to increase in the 1970s and reached “historical” levels by the late 2000s. These researchers also found that the high levels of inequality experienced in the United States and the United Kingdom were not observed in many European countries, particularly those with a less free-market inclination. Given these differences across countries, their explanations often emphasized institutional factors and promoted policies (high marginal tax rates on the wealthy) that featured an active role for government. Although these papers stimulated discussion in the economics profession, they were

92

Chapter Five

largely ignored by the public until the publication of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. Piketty argued that the share of wealth going to the top 1 percent (0.1 percent and 0.01 percent) are at historically high levels and this trend is likely to continue or accelerate over time. His argument is that wealth grows at the rate of the return to capital (since most wealth is generated from capital, not labor) and that the return to capital grows at a faster rate (r) than the growth in output or income (g). If r grows at faster rate than g, then the economy will generate higher wealth to income ratios and wealth will become concentrated over time. As a result, the top 1 percent will control increasing shares of the wealth (i.e., assets) in the country. He views this trend in income concentration as the normal state of affairs and the shrinking income inequality over most of the twentieth century as an anomaly. Piketty argued that the two world wars and the economic hardships of the 1930s reduced the return to capital, and thus temporarily reduced income inequality. He argued that policy intervention, such as an international tax on wealth, will be necessary for either slowing down or reversing this “inevitable” result when the rate of return to capital is higher than output (income) growth. Capital in the Twenty-First Century has set off a firestorm of controversy in the discipline of economics. Although generally regarded as a ground-breaking work in the field, particularly regarding the historical analysis of inequality, many economists question both the economic theory and the policy prescriptions put forth by Piketty. In a review of the book, Lawrence Summers states that there can “be no doubt that the phenomenon of inequality is not dominantly about the inadequacy of skills of lagging workers [a reference to the SBTC hypothesis] …. Even if none of Piketty’s theories stands up, the establishment of this fact has transformed political discourse and is a Nobel Prize-worthy contribution.”21 To be sure, Piketty’s work has not been without its critics, whose particular responses have been shaped by their own ideological perspectives. As Mike Konczal has observed: “If critics to Piketty’s right are concerned that he doesn’t ground his theory deeply enough in economic models, economists and others to Piketty’s left are concerned that he concedes too much to mainstream economics and lacks sufficient regard for politics.”22 Naturally, then, it is time for us to give due regard to politics—or, at least, political science.

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

93

Political Science In American political science, inequality has not been a central concern. The issue was not absent, but it generally took a back seat to other matters—particularly the question of power. Amid the postwar consensus that the United States was the good society in operation, sociologists such as Floyd Hunter and C. Wright Mills took a contrary position. Their works highlighted the stratified nature of American politics in which an economic and social elite made the big decisions and dominated political life. Political scientists such as Robert Dahl and David Easton countered that the elitist conception of power was overblown. Dahl, for example, argued that power was held by small groups of decision makers whose identity varied depending upon the policy domain.23 Thus was born the idea that pluralism was the model for understanding American politics. Yet, there were voices in the discipline that challenged the pluralist orthodoxy. Among its early critics was E. E. Schattschneider, whose studies led him to conclude that there was a serious flaw in “the pluralist heaven”—namely, that its heavenly chorus routinely sang “with a strong upper-class accent.” 24 Amid the turmoil of the Sixties, other political scientists further attacked the “bias of pluralism” in the course of their work on political participation, agenda setting, decision making, and power. Inequalities in economic and political life nevertheless remained a primary focus only for those on the “radical” wing of the discipline. Even when Charles Lindblom demonstrated that pluralism in all advanced industrial countries always led to a “privileged position for business,” few others took up the invitation to investigate how a capitalist economy warps the polity and undermines democracy.25

Enter Bush The election of George W. Bush in 2000 was aimed, as his political adviser Karl Rove suggested, at creating a permanent Republican majority and a new Gilded Age. The former would eventually dissipate, but the latter clearly developed. Real wages for average workers had declined since the 1970s; compensation for the CEOs of major businesses had reached new heights; and both major political parties had become beholden to donations from the same corporate and financial sector. Academic political science soon turned its attention to inequality when, in 2001, the American Political Science Association (APSA) established a Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy “to gather what political scientists and other scholars know about the ways in which recent

94

Chapter Five

trends in inequalities impact democratic participation and governance in the United States, and to consider how changing patterns of participation and policy influence inequality along various dimensions.”26 The full Task Force report noted that, despite significant progress with respect to racial and gender equality, income and wealth inequality were growing. This fact highlighted a problematic contrast between the American promotion of democratic ideals abroad and significant challenges to democracy at home—e.g., low levels of citizen participation, limited responsiveness by government, and patterns of policymaking that favor the few over the many. Growing inequalities of income and wealth not only threatened the gains made in the areas of race and gender, they also exacerbated the extent to which public affairs and policy reflected unequal participation, voice, and influence in politics—“ordinary Americans speak in a whisper while the most advantaged roar.”27 To some, however, supposed threats to democracy were exaggerated and overstated. In a symposium about the Task Force’s report, Robert Weissberg argued that the real threats to democracy were more likely to be fraud, corruption, or judicial overreach than increased inequality. The Task Force, though, had claimed that “the real culprits” undermining democracy “are greater political activism among wealthier citizens than among the disadvantaged, the targeting of the affluent by political parties, unexpected disproportionate Internet use by ‘the privileged,’ blue collar unionism’s decline, the failure of ‘public interest’ organizations to counter business groups, and, most central, soaring U.S. economic disparities.” 28 For Weissberg, changing the discipline’s research agenda from voting behavior or political institutions to a focus on “democratic inequality studies” would do no more than give political science a liberal cast. Even if the effort succeeded, there is no evidence to suggest that resolving problems of economic inequality would actually bring Americans greater freedom and democracy. In a rejoinder, Larry Bartels produced empirical evidence to show that responsiveness, a key criterion of representative government, is indeed severely limited in the United States. 29 In short, inequality and politics both matter. In political science research on inequality, two main discussions have occurred. One, concerning the political causes of inequality, focuses on how the two major parties have contributed to the widening of economic disparities over the last few decades. Their respective constituencies and policies have been shown time and again to have had a differential impact on economic life in the United States. The other concerns the political consequences of inequality and focuses on how less affluent people have

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

95

little to no influence on government policies. Moreover, the inequality in political voice that belied the pluralist model has only worsened.

Parties and Policies Taking these discussions in turn, let us first explore one of the key publications to emerge out of this political scientific research—Unequal Democracy.30 In that book, Bartels acknowledges that, in examining the causes and consequences of inequality, one has to be mindful of a basic truism—economics affects politics and politics affects economics. Beyond that, we have to recognize the mounting evidence that inequality in the United States has been escalating. As Colin Gordon notes: “Americans today live in a starkly unequal society. Inequality is greater now than it has been at any time in the last century, and the gaps in wages, income, and wealth are wider here than they are in any other democratic and developed economy.”31 Neither inevitable nor necessary, inequality has important political causes and consequences that are worth examining. Bartels does so by exploring patterns of policy making generally and in the context of case studies (the Bush-era tax cuts, the repeal of the federal estate tax, and the debates over the minimum wage). His central conclusion is this: “Under Democratic presidents, poor families did slightly better than richer families (at least in proportional terms), producing a modest net decrease in income inequality; under Republican presidents, rich families did vastly better than poorer families, producing a considerable net increase in income inequality.”32 The partisan political economy that Bartels discovers is matched by a partisan economic polity. He presents evidence that United States senators respond more often and better to their affluent constituents than they do to their low-income constituents. This is true whether the issues are economic (like the minimum wage) or social (like abortion). Moreover, he finds that Republican senators are even more likely to exhibit this pattern of responsiveness than are Democratic ones. The pattern cannot be traced to the peculiar qualities of poor people (e.g., that they are ignorant or passive citizens), because representation disparities persist even when one controls for political knowledge and activity.33 In the end, the studies that Bartels has conducted reveal that economic inequality yields unequal political responsiveness, “which in turn produces public policies that are increasingly detrimental to the interests of poor citizens, which in turn produces even greater economic inequality, and so on.”34

96

Chapter Five

Similarly, Gordon has focused on how policy choices are a primary source of growing inequality. The New Deal order had produced a set of policies—acknowledged rights for organized labor, establishment of a minimum wage and social insurance programs, government regulation of economic activity, and the advent of Keynesian macroeconomic policy— that substantially reduced inequality for nearly forty years. By the end of the 1970s, though, a more conservative policy regime had taken hold. Spending on social programs was cut, union membership and bargaining position both weakened, and deregulation for its own sake became de rigueur. “Rising inequality was not a lamentable side effect of America’s new policy framework; it was its intent.”35 The policy choices made by the political system have produced easily growing rewards for the well-to-do, while the least advantaged have found it hard to improve their lives in modest ways.

Voice and Responsiveness Contemporary research into inequality has identified two constants in American politics: “First, the poor never have as much influence as the middle class, and the middle class never has as much influence as the affluent. Second, over the last four decades, responsiveness to the affluent has steadily increased while responsiveness to the middle class and the poor has depended entirely on the existence of the congenial circumstances just described.” 36 Martin Gilens traces these constants to patterns of political participation that reveal the affluent to be consistently “more likely than are less well off citizens to vote, volunteer in campaigns, and make large political donations.”37 Pervasive inequalities cannot be traced to electoral politics alone, however. Kay Schlozman notes that interest group activity also plays a big role in producing inequality. Very few lobbies advocate for the poor; most represent businesses and institutions. “Of the billions of dollars devoted annually to lobbying in Washington, 72 percent is spent by organizations representing business interests; in contrast, 2 percent is spent by public interest groups (a category that includes both liberal and conservative advocates), 1 percent is spent by unions, and less than 1 percent is spent by organizations advocating on behalf of social welfare programs or the poor.” 38 The pressure group system reflects a persistent imbalance in people’s participation and influence in politics. The unequal political voice that Kay Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry Brady document not only ensures that economic inequality will continue to exist, but it also threatens to undermine the democratic promise.39

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

97

Participation in both electoral and non-electoral politics is highly stratified by social and economic status, and this stratification is durable and pervasive. What bearing does this have on inequalities of income and wealth? Schlozman and her colleagues find that “American participatory inequalities yield greater pressure for conservative positions on economic policy matters such as income redistribution,” but yield more liberal outcomes when it comes to social issues.40 Overall, whether the focus is on political participation or on the activities of organized interests, the heavenly chorus of American politics still retains its upper-class accent. As Schlozman, Verba, and Brady observe, “in the aggregate, business interests are very well represented—and the interests of broad publics and the less privileged, whether defined in terms of economic well-being or identity, are much less well represented—in organized interest politics.”41 Time and again, the empirical evidence points to a status quo bias in policymaking. Whether the issue is taxes, trade, or government regulation, the story is always the same. If interest groups and affluent Americans support a particular policy change, that change will likely occur. If they do not, it will not. The American political system can best be characterized as one of biased pluralism, where—despite democratic wishes to the contrary—the majority simply does not rule.42

Finding Our Way For some time now, government officials have done little to promote policies aimed at redistribution or even evaluate existing policies in terms of equity. A pro-market, neoliberal orthodoxy has long since taken root starting with the era of Reagan and Thatcher. Work in economics has focused on theoretical measures of inequality, the efficiency losses of welfare programs, and inequality among countries. Political science has been concerned with explaining election outcomes, understanding governmental institutions, and accounting for policy failures. All the while, the growth in real wages has flattened and failed to keep up with gains in productivity, CEO salaries and shareholder dividends have risen, the financial sector has taken center stage, and political pressure to limit government spending has grown. During the Clinton administration, things seemed to have turned a corner as both inequality and poverty dipped. Yet, once the “dot com” bubble burst and unemployment rates rose, inequality continued its trend upward, worsening under the impact of the Great Recession and the austerity measures that followed. Soon, everyone from pundits to policymakers, from economists to political scientists, began to worry that we were letting inequality worsen.

98

Chapter Five

Finding remedies for inequality appears to be the task that remains. One approach to this task might be to examine the differential effects of public policy. For instance, a taxonomy of economic inequality might lead us to array policies along two dimensions. In one dimension, policies are identified as to which income group they affect—low, middle, or high. The other dimension hinges on what stage in the generation of inequality they affect. For example, some policies (such as inheritance taxes or spending on public education) are efforts to affect the distribution of endowments (e.g., property, education, and financial wealth). Other policies (such as minimum wage, promotion or opposition to unions, and unemployment compensation) have an impact on people’s earnings from their endowments, and thereby, have an impact on their gross incomes. Finally, still other policies (such as social welfare programs and taxes on incomes or capital gains) alter gross income and generate net income (purchasing power) effects. This reasoning leads us to the idea that policies do not have similar effects on inequality. Among the lower and middle income brackets, the elderly have a higher level of gross income inequality than any other age group. Social Security has helped matters by providing relatively greater resources to poor earners than to high earners. Similarly, increased spending on public education would be likely to improve the condition of the both the less well-off and the moderately well-off. When choosing policies available to remedy inequality, it is necessary to establish whether it is lower or middle incomes who are suffering. Once that is done, then whatever policies are chosen would certainly be better targeted to the burdens imposed by the actual incidence of inequality. Rather than follow this narrow approach, Gordon outlines a larger, more comprehensive set of goals.43 Naturally, one aim would be to expand the pie, that is, to achieve some measure of real and sustainable economic growth. Next, Gordon proposes that we invoke stronger labor standards and strengthen the labor movement in order to combat the overwhelming clout of business and industry. Fashioning an authentic social insurance system would help, too, so Gordon advocates disentangling health care and pensions from a job-based system for eligibility and participation. Finally, economic inequality cannot be redressed unless we restore progressivity to the tax code; in other words, we need to again limit the concentration of wealth controlled by the one percent. Ultimately, all these suggested reforms hinge on unskewing the political system. As Gordon puts it, “any real progress on the economic side of the equation is likely to be tenuous unless we can sever the ties (exacerbated, but hardly invented,

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

99

by the one-two punch of Citizens United and McCutcheon) between economic affluence and political influence.”44 Like Gordon, other researchers still hold out some hope for creating a more egalitarian polity. Archon Fung, for example, thinks that people should push for campaign finance reform as a way of limiting the impact of the monied interests 45 Given Supreme Court decisions and the impotence of the Federal Election Commission, this approach seems more problematic than it did a few years ago. Nonpartisan districting and voter mobilization might help, but they too are unlikely to pass in the current polarized environment. Given Republican commitments to economic austerity and deregulation, the prospects for such remedies as increases in the minimum wage or greater government spending on education and social welfare programs seem rather dim indeed. In other words, the very patterns of political participation described above make reform difficult. How, then, could the necessary policy changes be made? One possibility is to simply engage the battle. Rather than hoping that people of good will somehow manage to coalesce around popular ideas, we have to recognize that, as Nancy Rosenblum suggests, the “transition from festivals of protest to political impact requires leadership focused on long-term goals, sympathetic media, resistance to premature disappointment, and, above all, conversion of protesters into active partisans.”46 For Rosenblum, this means that we need to develop both more and better partisans. Another route is to change the dynamics of political participation itself. Schlozman, Verba, and Brady—while loath to endorse any particular set of reforms—nevertheless outline various strategies for promoting equality of political voice.47 Among the strategies that they propose for limiting the power of the affluent are instituting full public funding of elections or encouraging voter participation in various ways (e.g., making Election Day a holiday or having compulsory voting). To develop citizen capacity, the authors endorse a strategy of developing programs for civic education and service learning. Ultimately, Schlozman, Verba, and Brady conclude that, all too often, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Rather than trying to bring about an egalitarian utopia, advocates for equal political voice should simply act—work on any number of limited reforms, without seeking a massive, immediate change. Essentially, the consensus is that citizens’ groups have to generate enough political pressure on the parties and government officials to get the kinds of policy changes that are needed to redress inequality. As Gilens puts it: “If enough Americans come to see that current arrangements favor the privileged few, change is possible.” 48 Getting enough folks to see

100

Chapter Five

things this way is, of course, the hard part. A pervasive neoliberal ideology, heavily promoted by well-funded interest groups and candidates, makes it difficult for people to embrace a change in perspective—even if such phenomena as partisan polarization, confirmation bias, and epistemic closure did not exist. Further, the various organizations and movements that at times emerge to push for equality often founder as they quarrel about which combinations of ideology, strategy, and tactics will prove most effective. At this point, the only conclusion that can safely be advanced is this: The struggle—whether within the academy or within the polity—will continue.

Bibliography American Political Science Association. "Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy." http://www.apsanet.org/content_2471.cfm. APSA Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy. "American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality." 2004. Autor, David, and David Dorn. "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the U.S. Market." The American Economic Review 103, no. 5 (2013): 1553-97. Autor, David, Lawrence Katz, and Melissa Kearney. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists." The Review of Economics and Statistics 90, no. 2 (2008): 300-23. Autor, David, Alan Manning, and Christopher Smith. "The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to U.S. Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment." NBER Working Paper 16533 (2014). Published electronically 28 February. http://www.nber.org/papers/w16533. Bartels, Larry. "Is the Water Rising? Reflections on Inequality and American Democracy." PS: Political Science and Politics 39, no. 1 (January 2006): 39-42. —. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Bivens, Josh, and Lawrence Mishel. "The Pay of Corporate Executives and Financial Professionals as Evidence of Rents in Top 1 Percent Incomes." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 3 (2013): 5777. Card, David. "The Effects of Unions on Wage Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 54, no. 2 (2001): 296315.

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

101

Card, David, and John DiNardo. "Skill-Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality: Some Problems and Puzzle." Journal of Labor Economics 20, no. 4 (2002): 733-83. Fortin, Nicole, and Thomas Lemieux. "Institutional Changes and Rise Wage Inequality: Is There a Linkage?". The Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 2 (1997): 75-96. Fung, Archon. "Fighting Concentrated Money." Boston Review (2012). Published electronically 1 July. http://bostonreview.net/forum/leadessay-under-influence-martin-gilens. Gilens, Martin. "Listening to the People." Boston Review (2012). Published electronically 1 July. http://bostonreview.net/forum/leadessay-under-influence-martin-gilens. —. "Under the Influence." Boston Review (2012). Published electronically 1 July. http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martingilens. Gilens, Martin, and Benjamin I. Page. "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens." Perspectives on Politics 12, no. 3 (2014): 564-81. Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence Katz. The Race between Education and Technology. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2008. Gordon, Colin. "Growing Apart: A Political History of American Inequality." http://scalar.usc.edu/works/growing-apart-a-politicalhistory-of-american-inequality/index. Kaplan, Steven, and Joshua Rauh. "It's the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 3 (2013): 35-55. Konczal, Mike. "Studying the Rich: Thomas Piketty and His Critics." Boston Review (2014). Published electronically 29 April. http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/mike-konczal-thomas-pikettycapital-studying-rich. Kuznets, Simon. "Economic Growth and Income Inequality." The American Economic Review 45, no. 1 (1955): 1-28. Lemieux, Thomas, W. Bentley MacLeod, and Daniel Parent. "Performance Pay and Wage Inequality." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 1 (2009): 1-49. Lindblom, Charles. Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems. New York: Basic Books, 1977. Mishel, Lawrence. "Declinimng Value of the Federal Minimum Wage Is a Major Factor Driving Inequality." Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief #351 (2013). Published electronically 21 February.

102

Chapter Five

Nelson, Richard, and Edmund Phelps. "Investments in Humans, Technological Diffusion, and Economic Growth." The American Economic Review 61 (1966): 69-75. Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. Piketty, Thomas, and Emmanuel Saez. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1993-1998." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 1 (2003): 1-39. Romer, Paul. "Increasing Returns and Long Run Economic Growth." The Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 5 (1986): 1002-37. Rosen, Sherwin. "The Economics of Superstars." The American Economic Review 71, no. 5 (1981): 845-58. Rosenblum, Nancy L. "In Praise of Partisans." Boston Review (2012). Published electronically 1 July. http://bostonreview.net/forum/leadessay-under-influence-martin-gilens. Schattschneider, E. E. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Schlozman, Kay Lehman. "The Role of Interest Groups." Boston Review (2012). Published electronically 1 July. http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martingilens. Schlozman, Kay, Sidney Verba, and Henry Brady. The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. Solow, Robert. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1 (1956): 65-94. Summers, Lawrence. "The Inequality Puzzle." Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, no. 33 (2014). Published electronically Summer. http://www.democracyjournal.org/33/the-inequalitypuzzle.php?page=all. Weissberg, Robert. "Politicized Pseudo Science." PS: Political Science and Politics 39, no. 1 (January 2006): 33-37. Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Pickett. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009. Zalewski, David, and Charles Whalen. "Financialization and Income Inequality: A Post Keynesian Institutionalist Analysis." Journal of Economic Issues 44, no. 3 (2010): 757-77.   

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

103

Notes 

1

Simon Kuznets, "Economic Growth and Income Inequality," The American Economic Review 45, no. 1 (1955). 2 "Economic Growth and Income Inequality," 27. 3 Robert Solow, "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1 (1956); Richard Nelson and Edmund Phelps, "Investments in Humans, Technological Diffusion, and Economic Growth," The American Economic Review 61 (1966); Paul Romer, "Increasing Returns and Long Run Economic Growth," The Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 5 (1986). 4 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009). 5 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014). 6 Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, The Race between Education and Technology (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2008). 7 The Race between Education and Technology, 7-8. 8 David Autor and David Dorn, "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the Us Market," The American Economic Review 103, no. 5 (2013). 9 David Autor, Lawrence Katz, and Melissa Kearney, "Trends in Us Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics 90, no. 2 (2008): 301. 10 Sherwin Rosen, "The Economics of Superstars," The American Economic Review 71, no. 5 (1981). 11 Steven Kaplan and Joshua Rauh, "It's the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent," The Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 3 (2013). 12 Josh Bivens and Lawrence Mishel, "The Pay of Corporate Executives and Finacial Professionals as Evidence of Rents in Top 1 Percent Incomes," The Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 3 (2013). 13 Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, "Income Inequality in the United States, 1993-1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 1 (2003). 14 David Zalewski and Charles Whalen, "Financialization and Income Inequality: A Post Keynesian Institutionalist Analysis," Journal of Economic Issues 44, no. 3 (2010). 15 Kaplan and Rauh, "It's the Market." 16 Lawrence Mishel, "Declinimng Value of the Federal Minimum Wage Is a Major Factor Driving Inequality," Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief #351 (2013). 17 David Card and John DiNardo, "Skill-Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality: Some Problems and Puzzle," Journal of Labor Economics 20, no. 4 (2002); David Autor, Alan Manning, and Christopher Smith, "The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to U.S. Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment," NBER Working Paper 16533 (2014), http://www.nber.org/papers/w16533.

104

Chapter Five

 18

Nicole Fortin and Thomas Lemieux, "Institutioanl Changes and Rise Wage Inequality: Is There a Linkage," The Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 2 (1997). 19 David Card, "The Effects of Unions on Wage Inequality in the Us Labor Market," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 54, no. 2 (2001). 20 Piketty and Saez, "Income Inequality in the United States, 1993-1998." 21 Lawrence Summers, "The Inequality Puzzle," Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, no. 33 (2014), http://www.democracyjournal.org/33/the-inequality-puzzle.php?page=all. 22 Mike Konczal, "Studying the Rich: Thomas Piketty and His Critics," Boston Review (2014), http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/mike-konczal-thomas-pikettycapital-studying-rich. 23 Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961). 24 E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), 35. 25 Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1977). 26 American Political Science Association, "Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy," http://www.apsanet.org/content_2471.cfm. 27 APSA Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, "American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality," (2004), 11. 28 Robert Weissberg, "Politicized Pseudo Science," PS: Political Science and Politics 39, no. 1 (2006): 33. 29 Larry Bartels, "Is the Water Rising? Reflections on Inequality and American Democracy," PS: Political Science and Politics 39, no. 1 (2006). 30 Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). 31 Colin Gordon, "Growing Apart: A Political History of American Inequality," http://scalar.usc.edu/works/growing-apart-a-political-history-of-americaninequality/index. 32 Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, 34. 33 Ibid., 278. 34 Ibid., 286. 35 Gordon, "Growing Apart: A Political History of American Inequality". 36 Martin Gilens, "Under the Influence," Boston Review (2012), http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martin-gilens. 37 Ibid. 38 Kay Lehman Schlozman, "The Role of Interest Groups," Boston Review (2012), http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martin-gilens. 39 Kay Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). 40 Ibid., 233. 41 Ibid., 440.

Rediscovering Inequality: From Bush to Piketty

105

 42

Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," Perspectives on Politics 12, no. 3 (2014): 576. 43 Gordon, "Growing Apart: A Political History of American Inequality". 44 Ibid. 45 Archon Fung, "Fighting Concentrated Money," Boston Review (2012), http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martin-gilens. 46 Nancy L. Rosenblum, "In Praise of Partisans," Boston Review (2012), http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martin-gilens. 47 Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy, 540-73. 48 Martin Gilens, "Listening to the People," Boston Review (2012), http://bostonreview.net/forum/lead-essay-under-influence-martin-gilens.

PART II: SOCIALISM

CHAPTER SIX THE CAPITALISM, CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM AND COMMUNITARIAN SOCIALISM OF NEW HARMONY’S FOUNDERS GEORGE RAPP AND ROBERT OWEN DONALD E. PITZER

As New Harmony, Indiana celebrates its bicentennial in 2014, it is fitting to recall the broad array of economic and financial arrangements introduced, employed, and enhanced by the founders of this remarkable town. These range from what is now called corporate and investment capitalism to Christian communism and communitarian socialism. George Rapp, as prophet and president of the Harmony Society, and Robert Owen, as owner and manager of the cotton mills of New Lanark, Scotland, were two of the most renowned capitalists of the nineteenth century. Both also brought international attention to New Harmony by their utopian communal experiments here between 1814 and 1827. George Rapp built his religious Harmonist movement on such a strong economic and organizational foundation that it thrived for a century in three consecutive communal towns—Harmony, Pennsylvania (18041814); New Harmony, Indiana (1814-1824); and Economy, Pennsylvania (1824-1905). Rapp arrived in America in 1803. He was followed by some 2,000 of his pietistic, millennialistic disciples who had separated from the established Evangelical Lutheran Church in the German Province of Württemberg. This is possibly the largest group of immigrants to enter this country following a single leader. The United States was a newly independent republic that not only beckoned prophetically as a land of religious freedom where they could await the return of Christ, but also economically as a godsend of cheap land, free enterprise, and endless entrepreneurial opportunity. To minimize the scattering of his believers, in 1804 Rapp began settling nearly 1,500 faithful in a single town—Harmony, Pennsylvania.

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

109

There, he adopted the age-old communal method of organization. By doing so, Rapp could both seek the security, solidarity, and survival it promises and also give a biblical justification to his economic arrangement by insisting it was modeled after the community of goods practiced by the first century Christians in Jerusalem as described in Acts, chapters 2 and 4. As a capitalistic Christian communist (with a small “c”), as contradictory as that phrase might seem, Rapp brought his Harmony Society into existence.1 At their prophet’s insistence, his disciples signed Articles of Agreement, a lifetime commitment of all their assets, possessions, and labor, to the Harmony Society. Using these Articles as the basis to incorporate under Pennsylvania law in 1807, Rapp legitimized, legalized, and protected the financial interests of what became an awesome economic engine. Obviously, George Rapp was a quick study of the advantages of corporate enterprise in his new country. John Melish, a Scottish cotton industrialist, visited Harmony, Pennsylvania in 1811 and realized that a relatively small communitarian group was, for the first time, beginning to prove that manufacturing based on the available machinery of the Industrial Revolution could be used to approach self-sufficiency. European readers of Melish’s book Travels in the United States (1812) would immediately recognize the implications for their mercantile monopolies; they would now have to face the real challenge of domestic manufacturing among their increasingly independent colonies. Rapp reasoned that manufacturing could be introduced as a community’s basic source of income, supplemented by the agricultural produce of their fields and forests. For years, the Harmony Society placed its collective political strength behind the Whig Party which championed what Henry Clay called the “American System” that kept import tariffs high, protecting and stimulating domestic production and sales. The Harmonist prophet moved his community in 1814 to found New Harmony on 20,000 acres along the navigable Wabash River. The Harmonist men represented every trade that made it possible to build a town of 180 buildings that a neighbor called “that wonder of the West.”2 They enjoyed the universal communitarian advantage of a workforce dedicated to a common economic and ideological purpose and realized the enormous potential of their combined cooperative labor. Their financial success stemmed from their ability to be internally cooperative and externally competitive.3 All of this was made possible because of the daily on-site management of George Rapp and his adopted son Frederick who spoke English and

110

Chapter Six

adroitly conducted affairs with the outside world. New Harmony created factories where men, women, boys, and girls produced shoes, rope, leather goods, and cotton, woolen, and flannel cloth. They established the first commercial brewery in Indiana offering fine wines, whiskey, and beer. In a decade here, the Harmonists gained an international reputation as communal capitalists. American economist and publisher Mathew Carey concluded that “the settlement made more rapid advances in wealth and prosperity, than any equal body of men in the world at any period of time, more in one year, than other parts of the United States . . . have done in ten.”4 By 1824, New Harmony’s commerce reached to 22 of the 24 states and to at least nine foreign countries. Harmonist scholar Dr. Karl Arndt concluded that by then the per capita wealth of the Harmony Society was ten times that of the average in the United States.5 The economic depression after the War of 1812 hit the frontier hard with unstable currency and widespread bank failures just as the Harmony Society arrived and Indiana became a state. To protect their commercial transactions, the Harmonists established the Farmers Bank of Harmony and promoted the creation of a viable state banking system. Frederick Rapp served on the board of directors of the state bank at Vincennes. The Harmony Society also contributed to the economic survival of the state. When Indiana’s first governor, Jonathan Jennings, asked for a personal loan of $1,000 at 10 percent interest, the Harmonist bank refused; but when the state treasurer asked for a $5,000 loan to keep the state solvent in 1823, the bank acquiesced at the usual 6 percent.6 Yet the Harmonists’ generosity to the state did not prevent them from taking full advantage of capitalism’s supply and demand and letting their profit motive gouge their mill customers. The monopoly in the grinding of grain which Rapp created in the lower Wabash region demanded cash payment and charged more than the backcountry market could reasonably bear. The neighbors petitioned the state for relief and, while awaiting a decision, rioted in the streets of New Harmony. Nine frontiersmen were arrested, and, allegedly, at least two prominent pacifistic Rappites were involved in the fisticuffs.7 The impressive Harmonist financial affluence must not blind us to the fact that their Christian communism did not always produce harmony. When members left the Harmony Society, they did so at their own peril since there was no clear money-back guarantee for those who had signed the Articles of Agreement. When some sued, raising troubling questions about refunds of their original contributions or receiving an inheritance from their deceased parents, Rapp simply burned the record book in 1818. Although, under duress, Rapp made a monetary settlement with most

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

111

seceders, this problem was an early indicator of the direction of the evolution in the economic union that helps define a communal group. That direction has been increasingly away from community of goods (pure communism) and toward cooperatives, collectives, land trusts, and other forms of minimal economic sharing within a commodious and secure social and physical environment for a mutual purpose. Since the 1980s, the result has been thousands of communally organized cohousing projects, retirement centers, and ecovillages.8 To escape the financial instability of the west and be closer to eastern markets, George Rapp moved his disciples back to Pennsylvania during 1824. In their third town of Economy, now Ambridge, on the Ohio River north of Pittsburgh, the Harmony Society reached the pinnacle of its capitalistic prowess. Before the end of the century, its ownership in oil wells, refineries, and railroads helped lead the United States into the age of investment capitalism. Perhaps the best business deal George Rapp ever made was selling his entire town of New Harmony to a single buyer—Robert Owen, Great Britain’s most famous cotton mill capitalist. This sale also provided the most exhilarating moment in my communal research. Reportedly, George Rapp had sent his trusted friend Richard Flower from the English settlement of Albion across the Wabash River in Illinois to Scotland to convince this wealthy man of utopian bent to buy New Harmony. I was pouring through the 1824 entries in the daily sign-in ledger of Owen’s New Lanark mills in the archives of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. And there it was—right before my eyes—written in his own hand: “Richard Flower, Edwards County, Albion, Illinois.” Obviously, Flower succeeded in his mission. At New Lanark, Owen had already become well-known as a benevolent social reformer. For a decade, he had been intrigued by the communal method of reform from reports of the thriving communities of Shakers and Harmonists in America. In 1820, he sent a letter to Rapp asking the secret of his financial success through communal organization. Owen already had proven that mills could be operated both profitably and humanely. Now he wanted to know if communal towns could form a secure economic base for his own secular utopian dream—a New Moral World of peace and plenty in which a superior character would be instilled in everyone from infancy by kind treatment and mind-liberating education.9 As early as 1819, Owen had engravings made of a utopian Agricultural and Manufacturing Village of Unity and Mutual Cooperation which he proposed be replicated in thousands of socialistic communities worldwide. Apartments within the walls of a quadrangle 1,000 feet square would

112

Chapter Six

make available housing for 2,000 people with gas lighting and hot and cold running water. The structures would include dining halls, baths, laundries, stores, schools, libraries, museums, gymnasiums, and dance and lecture halls. The surrounding 33 acres would provide space for fields, factories, and mills to supply every need.10 The residents, acting in perfect harmony for their mutual prosperity, would achieve abundance for all, eliminating the need for private property and the presence of social inequality. Everyone would achieve Owen’s ultimate goal of human happiness and live, on average, 140 years!11 He showed printed images of this imposing edifice wherever he found listeners, including the captive audience on board the vessel as he crossed the Atlantic in 1824 to buy Rapp’s New Harmony. The arrival of this philanthropic capitalist was celebrated by America’s most important businessmen, scientists, and statesmen in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. Furthermore, the very day he signed the purchase agreement at New Harmony on January 3rd, 1825, he left town to indulge himself in another triumphant propaganda tour lasting three months. He twice addressed congressmen and members of the Supreme Court in the Hall of Representatives in Washington. The building of his ideal Village just south of New Harmony became such an obsession in Owen’s mind that he left Indiana again from June 1825 to January 1826 for a journey back to England on an architectural and propagandizing mission. There, he engaged English architect Stedman Whitwell to make a professional design of his ideal community for the construction of an authentic six-foot-square architectural model to bring back to America. The model showcased the attractive spectrum of Owen’s projected social, economic, educational, and technological features. He brought Whitwell along to explain its attractive features, even exhibiting it in the White House at the invitation of President John Quincy Adams.12 During this time, Owen’s twenty-two-year-old son William was trying to decide what to do with the rush of over 800 restless new residents back in Indiana. Owen, himself, spent less than two months in his floundering New Harmony during the first of its two-and-a-half year existence. Nothing could save Owenite New Harmony or Owen’s promised Village of Unity and Mutual Cooperation from his early absences and other fatal flaws inflicted largely by Owen himself. Thus, major questions linger. Why did this consummate capitalist and mastermind manager of the New Lanark mills utterly fail to perform his administrative duties as owner and ideological leader of New Harmony? How could he have neglected the essential economic base which he knew was the first rule of all enduring enterprises and the very reason he had

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

113

found the communal systems of the Harmonists and Shakers attractive in the first place? How could he have set aside his famous capitalistic skills while financing a philanthropic project that would cost him his fortune? At New Harmony, Owen never devised an economic program to use the Harmonist’s fields and factories to reactivate Rapp’s flourishing financial base. He had no idea how difficult it would be to manage a town on the Indiana frontier, especially one to which he invited all comers. His vague plan let confusion reign over the arrangements for labor, lodging, and ownership among a heterogeneous citizenry made up of everyone from uncouth frontiersmen who ate with their fingers to sophisticated educators and scientists from Philadelphia who arrived on a now famous “Boatload of Knowledge.” 13 In an effort to determine remuneration for communal work, Owen introduced his novel and later much imitated “labor notes,” a medium of exchange idea he had proposed for communal living as early as 1820. This proved unsuccessful because the common laborers complained that they received less credit at the community store for each hour of their work than did their educated professional compatriots. 14 Owen did set aside his natural Rapp-like autocratic paternalism to attempt a democratic process, but rancorous debates led to seven constitutions during his community’s brief life span. Let me introduce a new theory to help explain Owen’s apparent managerial ineptitude. Robert Owen did not try and fail to make New Harmony work. He never really tried. His heart and mind had rushed beyond Rapp’s Harmonist New Harmony to the opportunity of building his own utopian dream town nearby. It becomes clear that Owen’s anticipation of erecting the first of his idyllic Villages had become the centerpiece of his reform strategy, composed the content of his propaganda, and increasingly absorbed the bulk of his energy. This is why he called his first feeble effort to organize Owenite New Harmony the “Preliminary Society” and “the halfway house.”15 He deluded himself into thinking that he could buy time before he had to put his nebulous theories into concrete practice at the new site on high ground overlooking the Wabash River several miles south of town. If George Rapp used a millennialism carrot to motivate his disciples, Owen used the promised Village and the socialistic utopian age it would bring to life. In August 1825, Owenite William Pelham wrote enthusiastically from New Harmony to his son, “. . . in 2 years, the contemplated new village will be ready for the reception of members.”16 During November and December 1825, east coast newspapers, including the Washington National Intelligencer, gave wide publicity to Owen’s elaborate model as it was exhibited at Rembrandt Peale’s museum in New

114

Chapter Six

York, then in Philadelphia and the nation’s capital. They emphasized the benevolent Owen’s solemn intent soon to bring his utopian obsession to practical reality in brick and mortar and a socialistic community of equality near his preliminary one at New Harmony. The New-Harmony Gazette reprinted these national reports to confirm the nearness of Utopia to the true believers at the local level, reassuring them that this was Owen’s all-consuming, primary commitment. Unfortunately, none of the 240,000 bricks they fired to erect Owen’s futuristic Village ever rose in grandeur toward the Indiana sky. The failure to build his model Village foiled Owen’s utopian dreams as surely as the failure of Christ to return sealed the fate of Rapp’s Harmony Society. However, Owen and Owenites did stand in the vanguard of those who coined the English terminology for the economic, social, and theoretical concepts we call “socialist” and “socialism.” Owenites in England first published the word “socialist” in one of their periodicals in 1827, and Owen himself put the term “socialism” into print in 1837.17 But the term “communitarian socialism” was devised by historian Arthur Bestor as the basic theme of his 1950 book, Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663-1829.18 He used his new term “communitarian socialism” to describe both the sectarian and secular communalism seen in America during that time frame. With it he could clearly identify the communal method of reform Owen chose for improving the world’s social and economic fabric in response to the distresses of the Industrial Revolution. On a small scale, it promised to be immediate, voluntary, and non-violent. It was more inclusive than individualism, speedier than legislation, and safer than revolution. 19 How ironic that Robert Owen, one of the most successful capitalists of the early Industrial Revolution, should be the person to introduce the concept of communitarian socialism into the United States. Whatever it is called, for far too long, Owen’s brand of humanitarian socialism has been confused in the public mind with the class-conflictoriented, revolutionary “scientific socialism” advocated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Marx and Engels specifically denounced Owen’s communitarian form of socialism as too utopian and gradual to be effective. It was so directed toward goodwill among all classes that it would negate revolutions of the proletariat which they thought essential to permanent reform.20 Yet Owen never flinched. Ten years after the Manifesto, in the year Owen died he declared his undying faith in his own style revolution. He called it “an entire revolution in the spirit, mind, manners, habits, and conduct, of the human race;—a rational, practical revolution, to be introduced gradually, in peace . . . and

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

115

to be highly beneficial for all . . . .” “A revolution which will destroy every ignorant selfish feeling, will unite man to man, and will then harmonise all to nature and to God.”21 If Marx and Engels attacked Owen’s socialism in the nineteenth century, German-American theologian Paul Tillich embraced it in the twentieth. Tillich’s Christian concerns and Owen’s utopian concerns ran in parallel socialistic channels. The secular Owen, sounding as much the prophet as the religious Rapp, asserted that in his new moral world “This second creation or regeneration of man will bring forth in him a new combination of his natural faculties, qualities, and powers, which will imbue him with a new spirit, and create in him new feelings, thoughts, and conduct . . . .”22 Owen called this person a “re-created or new-formed man . . . [whose] joy will be increased a thousand-fold, because all his fellowbeings will equally enjoy it with him.” 23 Tillich became familiar with such Owen concepts and phrases as akin to his own Christian socialism and used some to sharpen his own position.24 The title of his 1955 book, The New Being, encompasses Owen’s utopianism in the context of the message of St. Paul. In the same vein, when New Harmony patron Jane Blaffer Owen, who had attended Tillich’s lectures at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, invited him to town to dedicate the ground for a park in his honor, Tillich titled his sermon “Estranged and Reunited: The New Being.” This Owen-like expression is carved in the stone that still marks the entrance to Tillich Park where the theologian’s ashes were interred in 1966.25 Robert Owen’s attempt at communitarian socialism has often been disparaged as a dismal failure and George Rapp’s Christian communism as a glowing success. This view rests mostly on an economic perspective of their communal efforts and can be explained in part by the fact that Rapp and Owen traveled in opposite directions on their capitalistic journeys. Rapp began as a religious reformer in Württemberg who combined Christian communism with America’s free enterprise system to build a wealthy domain of corporate capitalism. Owen abandoned a lucrative capitalistic career to experiment with communitarian socialism and let his mission for social reform override his responsibility to make his community financially secure. In fact, since Owen and his wealthy Scottish partner, William Maclure, never turned their New Harmony property over to the residents, the question remains whether their town truly became America’s first experiment in communitarian socialism or always remained the philanthropic venture of two successful capitalists. The success or failure of the contrasting millennialist and socialist movements of Rapp and Owen is a matter of context and definition.26 In

116

Chapter Six

both communal longevity and financial growth, Rapp’s movement wins. The century-long duration of his Harmony Society exceeded not only Owen’s Indiana community but also the combined length of the thirty others partly inspired by Owen’s ideas.27 Rapp’s millennialist utopia failed to materialize became Christ did not return in 1829 as Rapp prophesied. But had the Second Coming occurred any time thereafter in the nineteenth century, Christ would have found the pious Harmonists as flourishing capitalistic communists. To assess the Owenite movement fairly, its scientific, educational, and social reform contributions must be credited to its ledger of success. If Owen’s community was capitalistically stunted, his utopian vision attracted an impressive spectrum of natural scientists, progressive educators, and humanitarians. Many of these stayed on after he left in 1827 and became invaluable to the scientific, economic, and social revolution that helped shape the modern world. In their untouched Indiana wilderness laboratory Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Thomas Say, and others made dramatic scientific discoveries. Lesueur, who had been curator of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, contributed advances in ichthyology, paleontology, and zoology and published Fish of North America. 28 Say, former curator of the American Philosophical Society, added new knowledge to entomology and conchology. Two of his books became classics: American Entomology and American Conchology, the latter printed by boys in Maclure’s School of Industry and containing meticulous color illustrations by Say’s wife, Lucy Sistare Say.29 Robert Owen’s sons, David Dale Owen and Richard Owen, were attracted into the religiously controversial but economically promising new field of geology by the New Harmony influence of geologists William Maclure, Gerard Troost, and others. Maclure’s expeditions and publications had already earned him the title “Father of American Geology.”30 Richard Owen taught geology at Indiana University for fifteen years. David Dale Owen, as Indiana’s first state geologist and director of the first United States Geological Survey, discovered some of the mineral resources in several states that eventually brought industrialization to the Midwest. Socially, America benefitted from both the educational innovations made during the days of the Owen-Maclure community (1825-1827) and the social reforms Owenites helped launch thereafter. Robert Owen started the first infant school in this country in imitation of the one he set up as part of the Institute for the Formation of Character he created at New Lanark in 1816. At New Harmony, children from ages two through five were separated from their parents and given loving care and dormitory lodging in the old Harmonist Community House No. 2. They were

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

117

instructed by the new learning-by-doing system of Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. William Maclure, already a convert and patron of this method, began a school in New Harmony for children six to twelve years old under the direction of Joseph Neef who had pioneered the Pestalozzian style education in America for Maclure at Philadelphia and in Louisville, Kentucky. 31 Asserting that his own classical education had left him as “ignorant as a pig of anything useful,” Maclure founded the first trade school in the United States at New Harmony.32 His School of Industry set the precedent for the widespread vocational programs and schools begun in the twentieth century. Maclure biographer Leonard Warren suggests that “one of Maclure’s major achievements was to introduce a multiple track system of education into the United States—a trade school approach, and a progressive, more intellectual education, grounded in observation and rational analysis, with a modern understanding of science.” 33 Functioning from the late 1820s to 1840, the School of Industry was designed to provide free, practical, hands-on instruction for the benefit of both boys and girls ages twelve to eighteen from all classes of society. However, Maclure’s theory that the products of the printing, carpentry, and farming of the boys and sewing, dressmaking, and cooking of the girls would eventually pay for their instruction, board, and room never proved true in practice. During his lifetime and through a bequest, Maclure also became an early Andrew Carnegie. In a philanthropic effort to raise the educational and therefore the economic and political standing of the working classes, Maclure began giving money to establish working men’s libraries in 1838 when he provided $500 to found the Working Men’s Institute in New Harmony. This is now the oldest continuously functioning library in Indiana. In his will, Maclure designated funds of which $80,000 was eventually used to set up 160 working men’s libraries, 144 in Indiana and 16 in Illinois.34 After its experiment with communal socialism at New Harmony, the Owenite movement in America and England morphed into more successful post-communal organizational forms and methods in a process I call “developmental communalism.” 35 Robert Owen’s son Robert Dale Owen, daughter Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy, and other Owenite New Harmony residents and visitors (including feminist and antislavery advocate Frances Wright) became crusaders for emancipation, women’s rights, labor unions, birth control, producer/consumer cooperatives, and free public schools, libraries, and museums.36 In 1846, as a member of the United States House of Representatives, Robert Dale Owen drew on the socialistic and educational concepts he had learned from his father to write

118

Chapter Six

the legislation that founded the Smithsonian Institution as a free, public national museum. Having studied medicine, he published Moral Physiology in 1831 as the first book on birth control in America. It addressed the questions of population growth and the perpetual poverty among large families and advocated coitus interruptus as an answer. 37 Both Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright worked to end slavery and thus the slave labor system. Wright used communal methods and socialistic ideas she learned from visits with the Harmonists and Owenites to found an experiment called Nashoba near Memphis, Tennessee. There, from 1825 to 1830, she attempted to demonstrate that slaves could be educated and freed by a plan she thought could offer a solution to slavery in America. 38 Prior to Lincoln’s issuing his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, Robert Dale Owen wrote a letter to the president strongly urging him to embrace emancipation as the only route to end the war with a lasting peace in a unified nation. Editors of the democratic New York Evening Post thought Owen’s well-argued letter of such importance and influence they published it.39 Robert Owen himself, in England and on one trip back to America, remained an outspoken activist for his socialistic ideals to the end of his long life at age 86 in 1858. He never knew that his benevolent yet capitalistically profitable New Lanark management techniques and New Harmony’s innovative educational and communal concepts were used in an unprecedented success story among the 300 slaves on the 5,200-acre estate of Joseph Davis south of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Joseph, whose brother Jefferson Davis became the president of the Confederacy, visited New Harmony in 1826. Then he reorganized his Davis Bend plantation using Owen’s and Maclure’s methods. Good food and housing, classes for literacy and trades, and a measure of self-government produced unheard of positive results from his slave community. After emancipation, some of them, with Isaiah Thornton Montgomery in the lead, founded the progressive African-American town of Mound Bayou north of Vicksburg in 1886. Drawing on their intimate experience with Owen’s and Maclure’s concepts, they created a town known as “a Beacon of Hope” that became a unique center of black capitalism and black freedoms in the segregated South. 40 Owen also could not have known that as early as 1868 his enlightened capitalistic success and cooperative ideas were becoming known, studied, and absorbed into the cooperative movement and modernization process of Japan. 41 Or, that during the centennial of his death in 1958 the Robert Owen Association of Japan was founded and still exists.42

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

119

Both of New Harmony’s founders produced books summarizing their respective millennialistic and socialistic utopian visions. In his 1824 Thoughts on the Destiny of Man, George Rapp claimed that his perfected saints were already living in a heavenly state. For them, New Harmony had become a place “where those who occupy its peaceful dwellings, are so closely united by the endearing ties of friendship, confidence and love, that one heart beats in all, and their common industry provides for all. Here, the members kindly assist each other, in difficulty & danger, and share with each other, the enjoyments, and the misfortunes of life: one lives in the breast of another, and forgets himself; . . . pressing forward to the haven of their mutual prosperity.”43 In 1842 Robert Owen published his Book of the New Moral World and in 1857/1858 his autobiography as The Life of Robert Owen. In the latter he reprinted an 1817 address in which he described his promised socialistic communities in such a strikingly similar vein to Rapp’s that it might be called a secular millennialism. “In these happy villages of unity . . . every aid is near; all the assistance that skill, kindness, and sincere affection can invent, aided by every convenience and comfort are at hand.” And “around them on all sides, as far as the eye can reach, or imagination extend, thousands on thousands, in strict, intimate, and close union, are ready and willing to offer them aid and consolation.”44 We know that even by employing capitalism, Christian communism, and communitarian socialism New Harmony’s founders did not deliver all the unity, contentment, and happiness they described. But, as New Harmony passes its bicentennial milestone into its third century, we can conclude that George Rapp and Robert Owen and the utopian movements they led have brought immeasurable benefits and taught invaluable lessons to American society and the world at large.45

Bibliography Arndt, Karl J. R. George Rapp’s Harmony Society,1785-1847. Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1972 revised edition. —. The Indiana Decade of George Rapp’s Harmony Society: 1814-1824. Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1971. Barnhart, John, and Donald Carmony. Indiana: From Frontier to Industrial Commonwealth. Vol. 1, 300-313. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1954. Bestor, Arthur. Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian origins and Owenite Phase of Communitasrian Socialism in America, 1663-1829. Eugene,

120

Chapter Six

Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012 reprint of 1970 Second Enlarged Edition. Bestor, Arthur. “The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary.” Journal of the History of Ideas 9 (June 1948): 277. Botscharow-Kamau, Lucy Jane. “Neighbors: Harmony and Conflict on the Indiana Frontier.” Journal of the Early Republic 11:4 (Winter 1991): 510. Communities Directory: A Comprehensive Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living. Rutledge, Missouri: The Fellowship for Intentional Community. 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2010 editions. Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture. Rutledge, Missouri: The Fellowship for Intentional Community. Published quarterly. Donnachie, Ian, and George Hewitt. Historic New Lanark: The Dale and Owen Industrial Community since 1785. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993. Elliott, Josephine Mirabella. Partnership for Posterity: Correspondence of William Maclure and Marie Duclos Fretageot, 1820-1833. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1994. Elliott, Josephine Mirabella. “William Maclure: Patron Saint of Indiana Libraries.’ Indiana Magazine of History 94: 2 (June 1998): 178-196. Elliott, Josephine Mirabella, and Jane Thompson Johansen. CharlesAlexandre Lesueur: Premier Naturalist and Artist. New Harmony, Indiana: the authors, 1999. Gutek, Gerald. Joseph Neef: The Americanization of Pestalozzianism. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1978. Harrison, John F. C. Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Hummel, Gert. “Hope for a New World.” In Paul Tillich’s Theological Legacy: Spirit and Community, edited by Frederick J. Parrella, 15. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Company, 1995. Leopold, Richard W. Robert Dale Owen: A Biography. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1940. Reprint New York: Octagon Books, 1969. “Letters to William Creese Pelham, 1825 and 1826.” In Indiana as Seen by Early Travelers, edited by Harlow Lindley, 365, 376, 394. Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana Historical Society, Vol. 3, 1916. Maclure, William. William Maclure to Benjamin Silliman, October 19, 1822. In Life of Benjamin Silliman, by George P. Fisher. New York: Charles Scribner, 1866.

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

121

Morris, Celia. Fanny Wright: Rebel in America. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Owen, Jane Blaffer. New Harmony, Indiana: Like a River Not a Lake. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2015. Owen, Robert. The Book of the New Moral World, Containing the Rational System of Society. London: The Home Colonization Society, 1842. Part 1, 75-76. Reprint New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1970. —. The Life of Robert Owen. 2 vols. (London: Effingham Wilson, 18571858). Reprint New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1967. Owen, Robert, editor. Millennial Gazette, January 1, 1857: 18. Owen, Robert Dale. Robert Dale Owen to President Abraham Lincoln, September 17, 1862. The [New York] Evening Post, October 23, 1862. Pitzer, Donald E., editor. America’s Communal Utopias. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997, 481482. Pitzer, Donald E. “Communes and Intentional Communities.” In The Routledge Companion to Alternative Organization, edited by Martin Parker, George Cheney, Valérie Fournier, and Chris Land, 89-104. London: Routledge, 2014. Pitzer, Donald E. “Developmental Communalism: An Alternative Approach to Communal Studies.” In Utopian Thought and Communal Experience, edited by Dennis Hardy and Lorna Davidson, 68-76. Enfield, England: Middlesex Polytechnic, 1989. —. “Developmental Communalism into the Twenty-first Century.” In The Communal Idea in the 21st Century, edited by Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yaacov Oved, and Menachem Topel, 33-52. Leiden: Brill, 2013. —. Introduction to Backwoods Utopias, by Arthur Bestor, xxv-xxxvi. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, Reprint of Second Enlarged Edition, 2012. —. “Response to Lockyer’s ‘From Developmental Communalism to Transformative Utopianism.’” Communal Studies: Journal of the Communal Studies Association 29: 1 (2009): 15-21. —. “William Maclure’s Boatload of Knowledge: Science and Education into the Midwest.” Indiana Magazine of History 94:2 (June 1998): 110-137. Pitzer, Donald E., and Darryl D. Jones. New Harmony Then & Now. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2012. Pitzer, Donald E.,and Josephine Mirabella Elliott, general editors. Indiana Magazine of History 94: 2 (June 1998). Issue devoted to articles on William Maclure.

122

Chapter Six

[Rapp, George]. Thoughts on the Destiny of Man. [New Harmony, Indiana]: The Harmony Society in Indiana, 1824. Rinsma, Ritsert. Alexandre Lesueur, Tome I: Un Exploration et Artiste Français au pays de Thomas Jefferson. Le Havre: Editions du Havre de Grâce, 2007. Rosen, Joel Nathan. From New Lanark to Mound Bayou. Druham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2011. Stroud, Patricia Tyson. Thomas Say: New World Naturalist. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. Tsuzuki, Chushichi. Robert Owen and the World of Co-operation. Tokyo: Robert Owen Association of Japan, 1992. Warren, Leonard. Maclure of New Harmony: Scientist, Progressive Educator, Radical Philanthropist. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2009.

Notes 

1

On the Harmonists, see Karl J. R. Arndt, George Rapp’s Harmony Society, 17851847, rev. ed. (Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1972) and Donald Pitzer and Darryl Jones, New Harmony Then & Now (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2012), 3-38, 79-80. 2 Quoted in Karl J. R. Arndt, The Indiana Decade of George Rapp’s Harmony Society: 1814-1824 (Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1971), 7. 3 Donald Pitzer, “Communes and Intentional Communities,” The Routledge Companion to Alternative Organization, eds. Martin Parker, et al. (London: Routledge, 2014), 89-104. 4 Arndt, The Indiana Decade, 7. 5 Ibid. 6 John Barnhart and Donald Carmony, Indiana: From Frontier to Industrial Commonwealth, vol. 1 (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1954), 300-313. 7 Lucy Jayne Botscharow-Kamau, “Neighbors: Harmony and Conflict on the Indiana Frontier,” Journal of the Early Republic, 11: 4 (Winter, 1991): 510. 8 Hundreds of such communities in North America illustrating this trend in communal history are documented in the publications of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, Rutledge, Missouri. These publications include six editions of its Communities Directory since 1990, the latest in 2010, and for decades its quarterly periodical Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture. 9 On the Owenites, see Arthur Bestor, Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian Origins and Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663-1829 (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012) with a new introduction by Donald Pitzer, second Reprint of Second Enlarged Edition originally published by University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970, First Edition 1950. See also John F. C.

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

123

 Harrison, Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969); Ian Donnachie and George Hewitt, Historic New Lanark: The Dale and Owen Industrial Community since 1785 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993); and Pitzer, New Harmony Then & Now, 41-80. 10 Harrison, Quest for the New Moral World, page with illustration and explanation between pages 116 and 117. 11 Robert Owen, ed., Millennial Gazette (January 1, 1857 ): 18. Published in London. 12 Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, 128-129; Pitzer, New Harmony Then & Now, 55. 13 Donald Pitzer, “William Maclure’s Boatload of Knowledge: Science and Education into the Midwest,” Indiana Magazine of History 94: 2 (June 1998): 110137. 14 Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, 82, 87, 88, 185. The labor note concept was learned by Josiah Warren during his time in Owenite New Harmony, and he led a more individualistic time store cooperative movement after 1833 in which he used Owen’s idea with his own adaptations. Warren reintroduced labor notes at New Harmony in his “time store” there in the early 1840s. He had more success with his time stores in Cincinnati and in his peaceful anarchist communities of Equity and Utopia in Ohio and Modern Times in New York as late as 1863. In recent years, the labor note idea also has been revived in various forms of alternative, collective currencies used by groups in Europe and America. 15 Ibid., 119. 16 “Letters to William Creese Pelham, 1825 and 1826,” in Indiana as Seen by Early Travelers, ed. Harlow Lindley, 3 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1916), 365, 376, 394. 17 Arthur Bestor, “The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary,” Journal of the History of Ideas 9 (June 1948): 277. 18 See Bestor’s explanation for needing a new term in his Backwoods Utopias, vii, viii. 19 Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, vii, viii,1-19. 20 Ibid., 18, 19. 21 Robert Owen, The Life of Robert Owen, vol., I.A. (London: Effingham Wilson, 1858): page following title page and dated March 30, 1858. 22 Robert Owen, The Book of the New Moral World (London: The Home Colonization Society, 1842), Part 1, 75-76. Reprint (New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1970.) 23 Ibid., 76. 24 Gert Hummel, “Hope for a New World,” in Paul Tillich’s Theological Legacy: Spirit and Community, ed. Frederick J. Parrella (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1995), 15. 25 Jane Blaffer Owen, New Harmony Indiana: Like a River Not a Lake (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2015), 88-91, 197-208, 217-221, 223-231. 26 Pitzer, New Harmony Then & Now, 79-80.

124

Chapter Six

 27

For a list of communities Owen helped inspire, see Donald Pitzer, ed., American’s Communal Utopias (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 481-482. 28 On Lesueur, see Ritsert Rinsma, Alexandre Lesueur, Tome I: Un Exploration et Artiste Français au pays de Thomas Jefferson (Le Havre: Editions du Havre de Grâce, 2007). English translation as Alexandre Lesueur, Explorer and Artist in the Land of Thomas Jefferson pending. Also see, Josephine Mirabella Elliott and Jane Thompson Johansen, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur: Premier Naturalist and Artist (New Harmony, Indiana: the authors, 1999). 29 On Say, see Patricia Tyson Stroud, Thomas Say: New World Naturalist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992). 30 On Maclure, see Leonard Warren, Maclure of New Harmony: Scientist, Progressive Educator, Radical Philanthropist (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2009); Indiana Magazine of History 94: 2 (June 1998), issue devoted to articles on William Maclure, general eds. Donald E. Pitzer and Josephine Mirabella Elliott; and Josephine Mirabella Elliott, Partnership for Posterity: The Correspondence of William Maclure and Marie Duclos Fretageot, 1820-1833 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1994). 31 On Neef, see Gerald Gutek, Joseph Neef: The Americanization of Pestalozzianism (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1978). 32 Maclure to Benjamin Silliman, October 19, 1822, in George P. Fisher, Life of Benjamin Silliman, (New York: Charles Scribner, 1866). The Rensselaer [Polytechnic] Institute of Troy, New York, opened in 1824, but stressed technology rather than trades. 33 Warren, Maclure of New Harmony, 231. 34 Josephine Miralbella Elliott, “William Maclure: Patron Saint of Indiana Libraries,” Indiana Magazine of History 94: 2 (June 1998): 178-196. 35 On developmental communalism, see Donald E. Pitzer, “Developmental Communalism: An Alternative Approach to Communal Studies,” Utopian Thought and Communal Experience, eds. Dennis Hardy and Lorna Davidson (Enfield, England: Middlesex Polytechnic, 1989), 68-76; Donald Pitzer, ed. American’s Communal Utopias, xii-xviii, 88-134; Donald Pitzer, “Response to Lockyer’s ‘From Developmental Communalism to Transformative Utopianism,’” Communal Studies: Journal of the Communal Studies Association 29: 1 (2009): 15-21; Donald Pitzer, “Introduction to the 2012 Reprint Edition,” in Arthur Bestor, Backwoods Utopias [Second Enlarged Edition] (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2012), xxvxxxvi; and Donald Pitzer, “Developmental Communalism into the Twenty-First Century,” The Communal Idea in the 21st Century, eds. Eliezer Ben-Rafael, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 33-52. 36 On Robert Dale Owen, see Richard W. Leopold, Robert Dale Owen: A Biography (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1940). Reprint (New York: Octagon Books, 1969). On Frances Wright, see Celia Morris, Fanny Wright: Rebel in America (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1992). 37 Robert Dale Owen, Moral Physiology (New York: Wright and Owen, 1831). 38 Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, 49.

New Harmony’s Founders George Rapp and Robert Owen

125



39 Robert Dale Owen to President Abraham Lincoln, September 17, 1862, The [New York] Evening Post, October 23, 1862. 40 Joel Nathan Rosen, From New Lanark to Mound Bayou: Owenism in the Mississippi Delta (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2011), 81155; Elliott, Partnership for Posterity, 382, 408. 41 Chushichi Tsuzuki, ed., Robert Owen and the World of Co-operation (Tokyo: Robert Owen Association of Japan, 1992): 195-209. 42 Ibid., 202. 43 [George Rapp], Thoughts on the Destiny of Man ([New Harmony, Indiana]: The Harmony Society in Indiana, 1824), 66. 44 Robert Owen, The Life of Robert Owen, vol. I.A., 114. Reprint of his address of August 14, 1817. 45 Pitzer, New Harmony Then & Now, 79, 80.

CHAPTER SEVEN ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY, WARREN’S “TIME STORE” AND AN INQUIRY INTO ARENDTIAN LABOR ROBERT GEROUX

Beginning with Alternative Currency Money represents a flow in a field of vital forces, and yet as it circulates, it holds fast onto originary stains, stains that can rub off onto the hands of those who must use it. Money is a sign of public health (in wealth, measures of growth, et cetera), and a public health problem. The dirty money complex necessitates a washing machine, a comprehensive assemblage of public powers that interrupt its movement, discern the potential for contagion, isolate the danger, eliminate/erase it, and reintroduce the currency into healthy flows/flows of health. In some contexts, however, such efforts cannot go far enough. What happens when an imaginary of origins arises and spreads, in which every step forward is thought to be a sign of corruption? What happens when money is no longer selectively tainted, but universally and comprehensively polluted? To use Aristotelian language, what happens when the virtual world of chrematistics has fully occupied economic space, its relations and “monstrous filiation” shaping every type of human encounter, the very number of time distorted and perverted? 1 What happens when we lose our trust in money, and that mistrust takes on a note of disgust and repugnance? Just as the Occidental tradition is constituted in part by a common fund of rhetoric concerning the proper and improper origins of the money-form (from Aristotle to Locke and so on, into modernity), so “from the beginning” have circulated as well totalizing critiques of money as fundamentally debased. In such visions the dirt and perversion attached to currency can become generalized and universalizing – part of a narrative that critiques the whole of society rather than one of

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

127

its parts – which means the only option is one of social exit and comprehensive reconstitution. Ascetic communities in particular have historically focused on this point, broken away and attempted to found new visions of collective life concreted around a radical “return to origins” in valuation. In modernity this imperative has undergone a secularizing turn: in certain circles discourse arises and circulates and is itself about circulation, the bad infinity or “wrong kind of growth” generated by an animating force that is supposed to generate health, but which has instead created disparity and misery. Money is the sign of this (de)generation, this vector of pollution and contagion, a fabric that might be purged of its accretions but which cannot be cleaned of its corrupt origins. Here, fastness elicits and is challenged by radical fastidiousness, an effort at negating the negative influence of corrupt money, really wiping the slate clean of its power by reconstituting a community around a new vision of equality and correspondence. This reconstitution requires a break in the circuit of growth, an irruption that troubles the image of increase. The negation of the negation that it represents aims directly at the heart of society, but it nevertheless moves forward by a gesture of erasure/exit/departure rather than total revolution. Its proximate concern is in returning the generation of value to its proper, true and “natural” place in equivalency, which requires above all an alternative currency. The point of this return and revaluation is to make humanity truly and finally healthy: first locally and experimentally, and then perhaps universally. Turn to any contemporary discussion of alternative currency, and you will find a treatment of time: whether as an echo of Marx’s critique of organic time versus the time of the machine, or as part of a discussion of the especially distending/distorting qualities of affective labor, one must be immediately aware of a powerful critique of the lived experience of temporality. For many inhabiting the margins of a world dominated by financial capital, the specific perversity of temporal distention is symbolized neatly by the sharp contrast between two forms of growth: the expansion of profit on the one hand, and the malignant growth of debt on the other. The two are obviously tied together: the former grows by means of the imposition and securitization of the latter. The totalizing nature of this relation – the inexorability of the vector of marginal growth and the seeming (co)existence of permanent debt – means that time makes its mark in a similarly total fashion. This in turn helps radicalize those visions which critique and attack the contemporary order for its inscription of the excessive on the very heart of the normative. In other words, since the very term “economics” has come to represent an inversion in meaning, there is no clear sense of return, no plotline to get us back to a world in

128

Chapter Seven

which the number of increase is more closely attuned to and reflective of nature. Some have nevertheless attempted a return to the oikos, choosing a relatively small and perhaps intimate order of like-minded individuals who seek a sense of balance, who want to return a level of dignity without distortion to the laboring process, who want to reward “real” work rather than the administrative supervision of capital in its monstrous and perverse and parasitic growth.

Josiah Warren’s Vision An important figure in the history of such experiments is the American inventor and individualist-anarchist Josiah Warren. Warren was born in Boston from Puritan stock in 1798. He came west to Cincinnati in 1821, and according to the biographical account of his son George, he “followed the profession of music for some time.”2 He also built a factory around one of his many inventions, a lamp that burned lard, a fuel cheaper than whale oil. Warren abandoned the life of an industrialist, however, after becoming interested in Robert Owen’s social experiment at New Harmony. While respecting Owen personally, he quickly became disillusioned with Owen’s scheme for common property, and returned to Cincinnati where he began work in earnest on his Labor for Labor ideas, deciding to put them into practice in what he called a “Cooperative Magazine.” Our best foundation for both the theory and operation of what would be informally known as a “Time Store” is by means of an examination and analysis of Warren’s copious (and often repetitive) writings. The source for what follows here is an 1829 periodical entitled the Mechanics Free Press.3 Perhaps reflecting on his own situation as an inventor and budding entrepreneur, Warren discusses “pecuniary concerns” as a distraction from moral awareness. One must step back from them and “abstract his thoughts” from an immersion in economic concerns, to face full-on the range of practices associated with the institution of private property. 4 When one does so, Warren asserts that a chain of abuses comes into focus. The concentric rings surrounding the institution of private property also encircle and bind us in legally-sanctioned (or even mandated) practices that extract the labor from bodies while in the same motion disciplining and consigning those bodies to the margins of society. Workers have “produced everything,” Warren argues, but are “starving in the streets for want.”5 Capitalists as well are rendered miserable from the “anxieties of speculation and competition.”6 Even those who have wealth and leisure at their disposal have lost touch with the wellspring of meaning: “for want of an object worthy of pursuit, (they) are destroying their health, and

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

129

shortening their lives by inactivity and apathy, or by luxuriously revelling upon the labour of the depressed.” 7 A clearer inversion of the Mandevillean vision is not possible: for Warren, the semi-sacred right of private property has clearly become perverted. The luxury of the few doesn’t provide productive lives for the many: it simply immiserates them. Those at the top are bored and unproductive, and those at the bottom are desperate. Private vices turn out to create a social space suffused with misery. Mandeville was wrong. Tocqueville it seems was wrong too. His discovery of the alleged “equality of conditions” in America was meant to provide a foundation for an exemplary arrow that pointed (back) in the direction of Europe. 8 America indicated–for better and for worse, in all its complex ambivalence–that the future belonged to the power of democracy. 9 For Warren, in contrast, the obscene race to concentrate wealth has already started. Unless that course is reversed, he argues, America will indeed provide an exemplary arrow pointing in the direction of the Continent, but for all the wrong reasons. The nation will provide an object lesson in the decline (not ascendancy) of democracy, and the corrupt growth of an “aristocratic” (really oligarchic) order: unless some effort be made to prevent the accumulation of wealth of the country, in the hands of a few, we instead of setting the world an example of republican simplicity, of peace and liberty, shall soon add one more to the catalogue of nations, whom aristocracy has blasted, and whom inequality of wealth, has precipitated from a comparatively prosperous situation to the lowest grade of degradation and misery.10

Warren’s invocation of simplicity seems to represent a return to an earlier civic republican argument against luxury. In fact, the issue is taken out of its original context in a (Machiavellian) political vision (namely, a people grown lazy because of luxury cannot defend its freedom), and inserted into a more purely moral position. The apparatus of private property has not done what its defenders like Mandeville promised to do, namely create an order in which the public interest might be established. The providential transformation of vice into a kind of virtue has not happened; no transmutation has taken place. Vice remains vice, both individually and globally. In a critical and clear inversion of the providential action of Mandevillean hive life, those at the top who are “luxuriously revelling” in the reality of disparity are in fact privately miserable. Those at the bottom are as well, but their suffering is plain and evident to anyone who has eyes that can see.

130

Chapter Seven

There may be a way out of this quandary. Warren’s answer will radically reform the structure of bourgeois private property and the practices surrounding it, but unlike the later vision of Marx, it will not propose to do away with it.11 For Warren the wage form is not a pure cipher of the alienation of the age; laborers will labor, and will continue to receive for their bodily expenditures a kind of payment, albeit in a currency different from the one currently in use. This points to a second observation: Warren’s solution is not one that either arises out of worldhistorical historical movements or one that attempts to intervene in those movements at the architectonic level. The impact will be small-scale and modest and local, and the outcome will likely be imperfect. The “Labor for Labor Store” is nothing more than what Warren calls an “experiment.” With success, an effort might be made at scaling-up the model; as he says, “it will be a very easy and natural step, to make more complete and extensive arrangements whenever it may be desirable.”12 The first step in the project is in a reconsideration of value. All the distortions that ramify into inequality can be read and understood as the unfolding of an originary break with equivalence, with the practical conception that money is nothing more than a mediating sign whose use arises out of convenience. 13 Rather than engaging in the difficult reformation of currency in order to force a return back to something like empty signification or the place of perfect equivalency in exchange, Warren chooses the tack of a different system of valuation: “All labour is valued by the time employed in it.”14 The primary focus is the contention that (as Locke argued), labor in its essence “adds value” to the natural world, or the related argument that in some occulted manner money comes to carry or embody that transformation (and in the end to mimic its growth as well). Instead, we see here the possibility of a reversal, labor as a sign of expenditure and loss, movement in the direction of entropy. We can begin with the observation that while the world grows, the laboring body exhausts energy and time “runs out.” Put in temporal language, the movement of the hands on a clock measures something as the body labors, but what? In common parlance, it measures something that is gone, a flow that moves from the present to the past and can be retrieved only with effort (in what Augustine called the “house of memory”). In part because of this quality of sheer loss – this expenditure, or passage from being into non-being – we can assert that “time is above all things most valuable, that time is the real and natural standard of value.”15 Time is spent in laboring and of course we know that each man and woman’s time is limited. The clock of mortality is constantly ticking. If labor is an expenditure of the body’s metabolic powers, and that loss is absolute and really irrecoverable

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

131

(i.e. regarding the past: “you can’t get it back”), then such expenditure enters a field of necessary compensation in a very pure sense indeed. In her dissertation, Ann Caldwell Butler remarks that the origin of Warren’s Time Store or the “Labor for Labor Store” is in an elaboration on the barter system.16 In one sense this is true: the point of any exchange at the Magazine is in perfect equivalency, in an encounter that is hermeneutically sealed tight, hermetically prevented from disclosing any additional growth of value that might ramify beyond the present time-fortime exchange. The store represents a return, a self-consciously radical occupation of a starting-point that allegedly occurred in simpler, more straightforward times. At the same time however, this process is never perfect. Abstraction and ramification must take place. At least two temporal levels need attention: the time spent laboring on the object in question, 17 and the time spent in the actual exchange (selecting the commodity, preparing it for sale, ringing up the price, exchanging currency, and so on). Two clocks need to be running: one which assays and summarizes the value congealed in the commodity for sale, and a second one which exists and operates in and spans the present tense rather than the perfect aspect.18 The keeper of the store is a laborer too, after all, so his movements “on the clock” need to be paid for with an equal amount of labor on the part of the customer. We will come back to this operation when we examine the practical aspects of trading at the time store. Warren’s Time Store is not just a market exchange. Producers are able to deposit their wares for later sale, and customers are able to purchase what they want with promissory notes of labor. The store’s system isn’t sealed-off completely to the use of money, but Warren emphasizes that such use must be limited. When it comes to deposit, this is particularly true: it must be made clear at the outset that the value which inheres in the commodity always comes from labor power. The way to measure that power is by means of a clock that numbers expenditure, rather than tallying the “value added” to the object in question. For types of labor that resist signification – for example in objects that are used up in the process of expenditure without leaving any tangible trace – Warren notes that “the person who receives it (the expenditure of labor), gives a labour note on the Magazine, by which the bearer can draw out any articles which the magazine may contain, as persons of all professions will require those things which do admit of being deposited” 19 In this sense, the Time Store/Magazine serves as an equalizer. The labor note emerges and serves as a wage for services rendered even in a condition of radical expropriation. In an ontological sense, exchange serves the aim of scaling

132

Chapter Seven

the chain of being, rather than reinforcing a system that points in the opposite direction of dispersion and loss. There are complications. Warren admits that there are some articles “one part of which is procured with money, and the other has been deposited upon the new principle.”20 Here the abstraction starts to take on a life of its own, becoming concrete in the form of a sign or seal that the object in question carries with it. In such items, Warren says: “That part for which money was paid, is paid for in money, and the other part is paid for in an equal amount of labour.”21 This is potentially confusing, since the object itself does not change. Its value nevertheless becomes bifurcated. Its purchase would seem to require two forms of currency: regular money (which “buys” the aspect which bears the sign of the dollar) and labor notes. Conversion between the two systems complicates matters further, which causes Warren to return to the principle that opened the discussion in the first place: “We do not exchange labour for money, or money for labour, except in particular cases of necessity.”22 Above and beyond such complicating factors, however, Warren argues adamantly for the value of his system. He provides at least one case study to make this point. In an 1827 article in a periodical called the Western Tiller, he discusses a “mechanic of our acquaintance whose customary reward for labor is about 12-1/2 cents per hour…”23 Per Warren’s account, the mechanic came into Warren’s Magazine and spent twenty minutes in the process of purchasing four items. He paid (or really exchanged) twenty minutes of purchase time for twenty minutes of the keeper’s time laboring. As a result, the store keeper received twenty minutes of abstracted or promised time “by deducting it from a labour Note that had been previously given for his labour…” 24 The cost of the items – Warren suggests the mechanic pays cash for these – is significantly lower than in a traditional store. Because items are sold at cost, and because additional costs are separated and dealt with using an entirely different system of compensation in this case, the mechanic saves over a dollar. This is, as Warren emphasizes, “nearly a whole day’s labor.”25 This equation shows a deeper conceptual commitment, one that keeps the expenditure of the laboring body on an equal basis: the store keeper’s twenty minutes is equal to the time spent in the store by the customer. But is this an accurate assessment of the social nature of labor power? In a manner illustrated well by Boltanski and Chiappello, it is important to recall that in the world of parcellized authority we inhabit, labor expenditures are everywhere marked by signs of expertise.26 This in turn depends on trust. We have to trust in the nature and validity of expertise, and to secure and sustain such trust, a vast and complex language of cues

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

133

must be configured in both subtle and explicit ways around nearly every meaningful economic encounter. All around us are complicated assemblages of gestures, gradations of social signs. The “expert” receives these signs and gestures of respect, is the ritual focus of deference and so on, because she has been tested, has passed through the many trials and truth procedures that mark-off one level of achievement from another. In some cases these trials are formalized, in other cases they represent more informal or existential/narrative passages. They all point to one fact: the expenditure of time in labor by an expert is thought to be more valuable than that of a novice or beginner. Because the individual has spent more time preparing for the encounter, her time in the present exchange is thought to be worth more. In other words, no exchange is perfectly discrete. Every exchangepresent also has a past. Every assemblage of concreted labor power refers to other comparable objects as it circulates in a commodity-form. If it is an object of art, part of its fetish-power refers back to a creator whose excellence in the present is represented in part by a prototypical past, a past of “practice runs” whose products are less valuable in comparison with the works of a master. Or, conversely, the commodity in question might be viewed and understood as a comparatively early expression of fuller authenticity and vitality than later works, works which have grown stale and somewhat rote. The fetishized life of the commodity–whether it be a good or service–draws some of its life in value from the collective practices and judgments around its production and consumption. In a somewhat different context, Alasdair MacIntyre has drawn attention to a similar point: insofar as the pursuit of excellence implies distinctions that refer to levels of skill–whether it has to do with the high refinements of aesthetic judgment or the practical question of who is best-qualified to fix my car–community comes into play.27 Such judgments only make sense in the context of a collective framework of progress over time, forward movement towards a shared vision of excellence. While it speaks to us in the present moment of exchange, the commodity therefore tells a complicated story: its passage through the punctual “now” is striated by past configurations of labor power expended and expertise involved, and of course both of these aspects or elements are embedded in finely-grained judgments about both utility and beauty. Such judgments themselves imply courses of progress and refinement, tests and badges of accomplishment, ramifying and complicated in our own time by the fact that the process which confers status in expertise is itself a commodified service. Warren lived in a very different world, but his critical point is still relevant here: the more we move away from the constitutively “real”

134

Chapter Seven

measure of the body’s expenditure in labor over time, the more potential there is for distortion and corruption. In some cases, we can no longer realistically know or understand where the original valuation came from, nor can we see or comprehend its arc of valuation over time. The only epistemological/historical authority we have to rely upon are those experts of the profession itself. We have to trust in their declarations. It therefore seems we face two disjunctures or “scandals” at the heart of Warren’s reparative vision. On one hand we have something like a scandal of inequality, namely something like the shopkeeper’s twenty minutes being equal to that of the common mechanic’s twenty minutes. The men bear different signs of expertise, with different professional arcs behind them, the gestures of their laboring bodies bear witness to different tests over time. In MacIntyre’s terms, the two men are not equal, and as a result one might say that one man’s time should be “more valuable than” the other’s. This points in the direction of an opposite distortion, however: the scandal of equality. As Hobbes noted, human abilities aren’t all that different. 28 In the radically commodified world of consumer capitalism, the providential hand that guides the specialization of labor all too-often lifts up the well-connected but incompetent or vacuous, and casts down the useful and meaningful. If we insert the process of judging and ranking into the circulation of commodities, the potential for distortion grows exponentially. Entirely arbitrary configurations of value concrete around certain power-centers, which means that some expenditures of labor find extremely high rates of return while others become unjustifiably marginalized.29 Reward in turn ramifies into social status, which reinforces the circle of distortion and disparity. We realistically find ourselves back at the beginning, in the world that Warren observed and denounced. Both scandals need attention and adjustment, but it is clear which one is more important. As a way of emphasizing this point, by the time Warren wrote Practical Details of Equitable Commerce (pub. 1852), he revised his earlier commitment to the fundamental equality of all expenditure in labor. He instead introduced a new, adjusted system, one in which the (labor for labor) logic of valuation and exchange stayed the same, but where the manner for numbering labor’s expenditure changed. In an interesting inversion of the common valuation, Warren came to believe that hard physical labor was worth more than mental labor.30 This is consistent with the emphasis on valuing lost time, time-as-loss. Since hard labor challenges the physical body more in time, it merits more remuneration.

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

135

Warren, Arendt and the Distinction of Labor from Work Unlike the productivity of work, which adds new objects to the human artifice, the productivity of labor power produces objects only incidentally and is primarily concerned with the means of its own reproduction; since its power is not exhausted when its own reproduction has been secured, it can be used for the reproduction of more than one life process, but it never ‘produces’ anything but life.31

After Locke, labor is thought of as both additive and transformative. It represents surplus on its own and unleashes natural growth. However it is at this precise juncture–the space of a transit between the body and the world – where an especially toxic departure takes place.32 It’s not just that the object produced by labor power is close to the life process, it is also that laboring seems to unlock the living, vital, dynamic element within the object itself. Take a look again at Locke for example: a large part of the legitimacy of property comes from the fact that labor turns the substrate of “common” space from a fallow state to fruitfulness.33 Labor is productive and rational and it adds value by means of processes that were already in nature, merely waiting in a potential state to be unleashed by laboring bodies. Vitality (in the body) seems to rise and meet vitality (in nature). A mimetic circuit is established between the poles of subject and objectworld. From the ground of this argument, it’s only a small step to the belief that money also naturally grows. In Locke’s terms money is a sign of stored value, value that comes from a laboring process which unlocks natural vitality; why then shouldn’t labor power unlock vital growth in monetary space as well? The problem, of course, is that money has no internal vital principle independent of a social and economic system that allows such growth to happen. Money’s aleatory/circulatory movement requires an elaborate system of technics that is all the more remarkable in practice for having become mostly invisible.34 Hannah Arendt helps us surmount this conceptual impasse. To begin, she defines labor in part by its distinction from other human modes of activity, especially what she defines as work. For Arendt, labor creates objects that in a phenomenological sense barely rise above bodily immanence. They are consumed almost as soon as they come into being. 35 Because of labor’s propinquity to the body and its cycles of reproduction, what Aristotle called “mere life,” labor offers very little time (and can create no space) for reflection on the contours of its condition. The laboring body struggles cyclically against loss and in the end loses that struggle; its metabolic expenditure is incapable of creating a home for the contemplation of that reality. It arises out of a corporeal ground and by

136

Chapter Seven

itself cannot provide a collective, public world. 36 The human faculty of work in contrast creates the layers of artifice which house the body, provides the lasting structure, the habitation for humanity. Not labor but work is engaged in processes of worldly construction, uniquely capable of creating a space of technics that allows human beings to exist and flourish. Its objects are not permanent or eternal, but they do last in time. Without work, there would be no human world, no space of artifice and lasting habitation, no home for human beings. Alternative currency can make a helpful interruption and intercession here. A time-based currency that values labor understood in an Arendtian sense does something unlike money after Locke: it can operate via compensatory power. Rather than numbering surplus, it can stand in the space of loss. In terms borrowed from Roberto Esposito, its specific “positivity” can be in the negation of a negation, of imperfectly compensating for an absence that is in the end absolute.37 The reality of Arendtian labor is in a struggle against disappearance and nullity from which moments of rest are possible but which in fact never ends as long as the body lives. Arendt helps us remember this corporeality and the experience of absence and original weakness; her vision of labor reminds us of the temporal figure of cyclicality that represents its expenditure of energy. When we narrow our focus onto these phenomenological elements, the hasty construction of metaphorical conduits between the body and the market is suspended. The market more clearly appears as what it is: a vastly ramified and elaborate edifice of technics collectively created and sustained by means of work. Leaving aside the processes that occur within its privatized space aside for the moment, that is, we can observe that its construction comes not from laboring bodies but is instead the work of human hands. There’s another question that vexes the analysis, however. How is such a vision of corporeal expenditure and its compensation useful? The practical answer is this: in breaking the circuit between laboring body and “natural growth” in the economic market, one in this case also constructively short-circuits the elaborate scaffolding that connects the flow of money to the fantasy of vitality in markets.38 That image, as it stands waveringly and unsteadily at the heart of the delirious dream-world of late capitalism, is one that rewards those who allegedly stand “closest to” the process of unleashing and accelerating the generation of surplus. Put more directly, the managerial and administrative logic that circulates in the world of monetary sovereignty rewards those actors who “train” both subjects and institutions to act more “naturally” in their generation of vitality-in-surplus. The winners of the game of capitalism as it is currently

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

137

played are allegedly closest to the process of ordering vitality, and their claim to (often obscene) remuneration deploys Lockean language in a straightforward manner: since they rationally and insightfully apply their managerial methods to fallow space (the space of object-flows and Taylorized labor-flows alike) and elicit from it levels of growth that didn’t exist before, the fruits of that application are properly theirs. In this sense, administrators will always be exponentially “more productive” than individual workers can ever be, because they are the fulcrum-point for extracting ever-higher levels of surplus, that is, at the level of the conduct of conduct. One cannot battle the distortion at the heart of this valuation by means of a turn to (and struggle over) surplus value alone, for example by arguing that it “properly” or morally belongs to the worker rather than the manager. I would suggest that a completely different vision is necessary.39 At the same time, it should be painfully clear that my intention/contention here is emphatically not to show that Warren (or Owen and others before him) had in mind something like an implicit formulation of labor that pointed forward, gestured across space and time, to Arendt. Warren also points forward (and perhaps even more clearly) to Marx. The real point of labor notes and the Time Store, however, was not theoretical but as a small-scale, experimental orientation towards the world, albeit one guided by the strong moral sense that the number of money was measuring something other than value. We can’t get anywhere by means of an exercise in the history of ideas by “recovering the intention” of Warren and attempting to stay pure or true to that value. By reading Warren’s practical quest next to Arendt’s critique, however, we can see that an experiment with alternative currency might do at least three things. First, it might expose the ground of labor as an immanent, corporeal phenomenon. It might acknowledge that the proper ground of labor is (in) the body. Second, it might acknowledge that the important conceptual arrow is one that points in the direction of decline and expenditure, even in the generation of so-called surplus. Third, it might assert that if currency is to exist at all, it must operate as a sign of mediation whose clock numbers the time of that loss, “lost time.” What is lost in lost time, what must be compensated for? The pure expenditure of the body’s metabolic capacities. Harder labor means more expenditure, which in turn means more compensation for the laborer, more time-fortime, constructing a vector of extraction that moves in the opposite direction from the current configuration. Such a “negative” move of shortcircuiting the mobilization of meaning that moves from the body as it allegedly adds value to the economic world helps expose the massive,

138

Chapter Seven

indeed historically unprecedented dismantling of the welfare state. That dismantling began with the triumph of neoliberalism, and it continues– indeed has accelerated–well into our own time.40 The language of nature, of images of natural economic “health” and the austerity and disruption necessary to reach that state, supports the continued self-understanding of its administrators. What appears as “natural,” however is in fact nothing more than the seizure of wealth, its systematic expropriation and a redistribution of from labor to capital. Reading Arendt against the grain, in the context of a discussion of Warren and alternative currency, has the potential to unmask the pretensions of the class which benefits from this distortion (managers, administrators, above all the financial sector). If in the end the body is the only source of immanent vitality, and if that vitality is a vector that resists appropriation and representation, is in the end nothing more than a temporary struggle against nothingness in death, then remuneration must be scaled accordingly. It must be tied to those who actually “spend more” of their vital energy, that is, expend it in loss, rather than mobilized as a reward to those who configure and manipulate an imaginary of market vitality that merely parodies the body. Since physical labor is the most “brutal” (i.e. least human) and costly form of metabolic loss, it requires the most compensatory intercession. This, I would argue, is the truth that lies bare and exposed in the space denuded by the deconstruction of the mimetic circuit between (real) vitality in the body and (virtual) vitality in the neoliberal imaginary of economic/financial space.

Bibliography Alliez, Eric. Capital Times. Edited and Translated by Georges van den Abbeele. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Boltanski, Luc and Chiapello, Eve. The New Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Gregory Elliott. London and New York: Verso, 2005. Butler, Ann Caldwell. Josiah Warren: Peaceful Revolutionist. Unpublished Dissertation, Ball State University, 1978. Roberto Esposito, Immunitas: The Protection and Negation of Life. Translated by Zakiya Hanafi. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2011. Harvey, David. Limits to Capital. London and New York: Verso, 2006. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1651/1991.

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

139

Robert Kuttner, “Why Work is More and More Debased.” In New York Review of Books, October 23, 2014. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. —. Whose Justice, Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989. Macpherson, C.B. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1976. Maurer, Bill. Mutual Life Limited. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Rancière, Jacques. Hatred of Democracy. Translated by Steve Corcoran. London and New York: Verso Press, 2014. Warren, Josiah. “Plan of the Cincinnati Labor for Labor Store.” In Mechanics Free Press. Philadelphia. 1829. Wolin, Sheldon. Tocqueville Between Two Worlds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Notes 

1

See Eric Alliez, Capital Times (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 2 These biographical notes come from the unpublished memoirs of Josiah Warren’s son George, whose papers are part of the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan. The passages here come from Professor Clark Kimberling of the University of Evansville: http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/warren.htm. 3 An online version of the article from the Mechanics Free Press can be found at: http://www.uj.edu.pl/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=035a2932-5e4e-4dcebceb-6f8438a16b92&groupId=1479490. 4 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 1. 5 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 1. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 On the equality of conditions, examined especially in the Introduction to Part 1 of Democracy in America, note this comment: “Equality of conditions functioned as the modern equivalent of the logos in ancient Greek philosophy, as the underlying organizing principle of the universe. …it shaped the ‘public mentality,’ the complexion of laws, and the actions of the governors as well as the habits of the governed” (Sheldon Wolin, Tocqueville Between Two Worlds [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001], 124). 9 Tocqueville’s “description of equality as ‘rapidly advancing toward power’ revealed equality to be a metaphor for a new kind of power. Not Marx’s power of the forces of production, or Saint-Simon’s power of organization, but power that

140

Chapter Seven

 first seems merely quantitative, as the power of sheer numbers that had burst the bounds of the traditional societies of the Old World. In the New World, however, where no resistive order had existed, quantity had turned into something more formidable” (Wolin, 125). 10 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 1. 11 This is perhaps a key point of difference and debate, between the earlier visions of Owen and Warren on the one hand, and Marx on the other. What is the nature of the wage relation? What is its role in the current society and any future world? For Marx the answer is social and historical: the wage system in its modern form reflects and continually reinforces a relation in which labor power is extracted and real surplus is expropriated, detourned and used to build a world which workers create but which they inhabit as alien beings. Arendt on the other hand will shift the focus from the wage relation to the nature of labor itself, that is, from history and social order to a question of phenomenology or even ontology. Her point will be to focus on labor and redefine it in such a way that its allegedly productive qualities will be called into question. Labor in her sense does not produce a lasting world, but ultimately points in the direction of loss and absence (and ultimately death). The nature of surplus, time, and surplus-in-time also changes. Of course this also means that we must rethink wages or any form of compensation; if for Marx the modern form and structure of wages conceals and reifies a prior expropriation of surplus value, the very notion of value itself becomes uncertain in Arendt’s vision. For her, labor does not and cannot produce anything but life itself. Whatever money does, it does not number or measure the expansion and growth of labor in the world. 12 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 1. 13 As Maurer’s Mutual Life Limited (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005) points out repeatedly, an essential aspect of every scheme of alternative currency may be a vision of origins/nature and a break from that originary beginning, as well as an implicit or explicit call for return. This is not the same thing as to say that every vision of alternative currency is reactive or antimodern (although many are). Marx’s vision of full communism, after all, was delimited in part by what he called “primitive communism” – i.e. a vision of its past –and yet no sane person would call Marx a conservative. 14 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 1. This is similar to an argument that Marx will make, about value and time: “A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because abstract human labor is objectified or materialized in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? By means of the quantity of the ‘value-forming substance’, the labor, contained in the article. This quantity is measured by its duration…” (Capital, Volume 1 [London: Penguin Books, 1976], 129). 15 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 1. 16 Ann Caldwell Butler, Josiah Warren: Peaceful Revolutionist (unpublished dissertation, Ball State University, 1978), 37. 17 An example to consider in the discussion of labor in time and value, would be the production of diamonds from Volume 1 of Capital. As Marx points out, every

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

141

 aspect of diamond mining is what we would call “labor-intensive”: discovery, mining, extraction, refinement, and polishing all require massive quantities of human labor. “With richer mines, the same quantity of labor would be embodied in more diamonds, and their value would fall. If man succeeded without much labor, in transforming carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks” (130-131). For a discussion of the differences between use values, exchange values and values, see David Harvey, Limits to Capital (London and New York: Verso, 2006), Chapter 1. 18 The language of value concreting or “congealing” in the commodity of course comes from Marx: “Human labor-power in its fluid state, or human labor, creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value in its coagulated state, in objective form” (Capital, Volume 1, 142). The first part of this is not far from what Arendt will say. However, for Arendt, what Marx calls specifically labor-power is embedded in cycles of reproduction. It is the production of life from life. While it rises out of the body and is corporeal in origin, it can never be reduced to the body in isolation or as a static entity in objects/commodities. Put differently, it is a flow that resists congealment. 19 Warren, in the Mechanics Free Press (1829), 2. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 In Butler, Peaceful Revolutionist, 40. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Boltanski and Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism (London and New York: Verso, 2005). 27 The thread of this argument connects the two works After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) and Whose Justice, Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,1989). 28 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1651/1991), Chapter 13: “Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery.” 29 The example I have used in a discussion of this point is the contrast between compensation levels for medical specialists on the one hand, and Ph.D. faculty members teaching courses as part-time or adjunct professors. I know of one very brief medical procedure, carried out by an individual doctor, which has the price tag of $3000. This is essentially the salary paid to an adjunct for her labor for one class, across the span of a semester. For simplicity’s sake, let’s make the contrast in time one between thirty minutes on the one hand, and three months on the other. In both cases, the actors are highly-educated masters of specialized labor in their field. The difference in remuneration across these temporal levels (30 minutes/3 months for $3000) is obscene. 30 See Butler, Peaceful Revolutionist, 60. 31 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 88. Emphasis added.

142

Chapter Seven

 32

Note that in making this observation, I am not claiming that it was Locke’s intention – either implicit or unconscious – to establish or legitimate this departure. Rather, in every major (and many minor) works of influence, there are concepts that can be constructed into sophisticated lines of flight that depart from original context and intent. On the beginnings of this debate over the place and role of Locke in the development of capitalism see C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), Part V: “Locke: the Political Theory of Appropriation.” 33 See John Locke, Second Treatise (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1690/1988), Chapter V, Sections 26-28. An interesting point at the heart of this section is in the emphasis Locke uses to discuss consent – or rather, its absence – in the process of extracting private property from the common store. That is, rather than emphasizing the “value added” to the raw material – a question that certainly makes sense later, in an industrial or post-industrial world – Locke’s emphasis here is on the fact that property that is tied “properly” to the labor of the individual arises naturally insofar as it doesn’t need collective discussion. It’s not just that accumulation precedes the political or the juridical; it seems here to precede as well even mediation by language. 34 34 On this matter, the difference between Marx and Arendt is subtle but important. For Marx, the clear logic of history moves in the direction of Taylorized specialization, depersonalization and abstraction, the widespread “de-skilling” of labor. As David Harvey points out, “skills that are monopolizable are anathema to capital” (Limits to Capital, 59), which leads ineluctably to a division of labor whereby every work station is perfectly convertible. In this process, the “reduction problem” comes near to a zero-point of total universality, representing what Marx called “abstract labor.” And yet always, for Marx this reduction always conceals a surplus: expropriation and extraction always aims at a specific productive power that adds value and substance to the world. For Arendt, in contrast, certain modes of human activity do not rise above their corporeality; their only surplus is in life itself. 35 “Whatever labor produces is meant to be fed into the human life process almost immediately, and this consumption, regenerating the life process, produces – or rather, reproduces – new ‘labor power,’ needed for the further sustenance of the body.” (Arendt, 99). 36 In an important point, Hannah Arendt emphasizes that even the allegedly pure, reduced and concentrated expression of vitality-in-surplus only achieves its status as distinct increase within the space of artifice: “It is only within the human world that nature’s cyclical movement manifests itself as growth and decay. (Arendt 97). See note 19 above, for a related comment by Marx. 37 Roberto Esposito, Immunitas: The Protection and Negation of Life (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2011), 82. 38 Breaking the flow in this way has some interesting parallels with interrupting the circuit that connects claims of authority (connected to class or pedigree) with the practice of ruling: one interruption disrupts the circuit of inequality in the economic world, another interrupts the circuit in the common politics of oligarchy.

Alternative Currency, Warren’s “Time Store” and Arendtian Labor

143

 On this latter point see Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (London and New York: Verso Press, 2014). 39 A distinct but related way of making the same argument is by returning to Locke’s claim that “in the beginning all the world was America.” Just as productive processes in North America were encompassed by means of what might be called the colonization of work, so that colonization also generated its own claim to legitimacy because of its unleashing of previously fallow, “wild” and fecund but unproductive power. Here, it is not the propinquity of one’s body to nature in the laboring process that generates the title to private property, but rather the abstraction of instrumental control: whoever directs the labor at the level of the conduct of conduct receives the right to the generation of value. 40 Behind the ideological surface of neoliberal apologetics stands the reality of a vast seizure of resources and an unprecedented transfer of wealth from labor to capital. See Robert Kuttner, “Why Work is More and More Debased,” in New York Review of Books, October 23, 2014.

CHAPTER EIGHT PROUDHON AS A GUIDE TO SOCIALISM WITH A HUMAN FACE NEIL WRIGHT

Having languished for two decades under state communism, Czech dissidents during the Prague Spring of '68 demanded economic and political decentralization. The stultifying control of the state bureaucracy, they argued, was stifling economic, social, and moral development. Interestingly, they did not call for capitalism, but rather, “socialism with a human face.”1 It is in search of this creature that I turn to the preeminent political theorist of decentralized socialism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In his infamous What Is Property?, Proudhon complains that “we always think…in terms either of property [i.e., capitalism] or of community of goods [i.e., communism], political systems which are both contrary to the nature of man.”2 Proudhon keenly recognizes the moral necessity, and the difficulty, of theorizing a socialism compatible with human flourishing. Unlike Karl Marx, Proudhon understands human nature to be fixed––that it limits the possibilities, and determines the ends, of politics.3 In this chapter, I consider seriously Proudhon's claim that his anarchist brand of socialism is the “natural form of human society.”4 If political theorists intend their theories to inform practice, they must evaluate the compatibility of their prescriptions with what modern science can tell us about human nature. Both Peter Singer, in his A Darwinian Left, and Larry Arnhart, in his Darwinian Conservatism, criticize socialists––particularly Marx––for presuming human nature to be radically malleable. 5 Interestingly, both Singer and Arnhart approvingly cite the anarcho-collectivist Mikhail Bakunin's critique of Marx's understanding of human nature and the communist program that follows from it. 6 While both thinkers pay at least short shrift to Bakunin and to the anarchocommunist Petr Kropotkin, neither even considers Proudhon––who is perhaps the most influential anarchist philosopher, especially to the

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

145

thought of both Bakunin and Kropotkin––in their evaluation of socialist thought. Considering the evolutionary history of our species that Singer and Arnhart demonstrate to be of such importance to political theory, this omission is surprising. Someone unfamiliar with the anthropological record, who looks around at this world dominated by states, could be excused for assuming that society without government is impossible, that anarchism is outside the bounds of human nature and is thus utopian. The vast majority of human history, however, was spent in small, egalitarian, and stateless communities. In fact, the definitively human faculties of conscience, symbolic reasoning, and speech evolved in and were adapted for this environment. These very faculties are what enabled these communities to suppress domineering and exploitative individuals and to preserve economic and political egalitarianism for tens of thousands of years. By contrast, the bureaucracies of capitalism, communism, and the state––which only came about in the last 10,000 years or so––suppress the reason and conscience of those subordinate to them. The alienation, anonymity, and anomie characteristic of modern mass societies induce submission to these hierarchies. Although our complex human nature makes both extreme egalitarianism and extreme hierarchy possible, we nevertheless face the reality that the distinctly human faculties of our natures evolved for and flourish in egalitarian social environments nearly antithetical to the one we find ourselves in. Happily, however, we find that our social environment is not predetermined. If we are to opt for our prevailing order or for state socialism, we should first refute Proudhon's challenge. Proudhon's vision for stateless socialism, an economic system he calls “mutualism,” is founded on the decentralization, equalization, and universalization of the individual ownership of the means of production. Proudhon argues that if economic power was thus equalized, and if producers agreed to exchange goods based upon the cost of production, the parasitic and socially corrosive proprietary powers of rent, interest, and profit-taking would be nullified. Such an economy, he argues, would have no need for the coercion that capitalism and communism require to preserve themselves. In this chapter, I outline Proudhon's portrait of human nature, compare his portrait with that painted by modern science, and evaluate the prospects of Proudhon's anarchism.7 His theory, I argue, can be seen as an adaptation of the sort of stateless egalitarianism wherein humanity spent the great bulk of its evolutionary history to modern times. For those in search of “socialism with a human face,” Proudhon is a promising guide.

146

Chapter Eight

Proudhon’s Portrait of Humanity One might expect Proudhon, an enemy of capitalism and the state, to follow other modern egalitarians in assuming human nature to be extremely malleable. 8 On the contrary, Proudhon paints a strikingly conservative portrait of human nature.9 Not only does he insist that “man has but one nature, constant and unalterable,” he rejects a host of assumptions many consider definitive of the Left: he denies that mankind is naturally good; he argues that humans are unequal in their natural talents and capacities; he insists that individuals naturally desire ownership and that they possess natural inclinations both to dominate and to be ruled; and he denies that altruism can be a reliable basis for an economy. 10 Proudhon's sober assessment of human nature inoculates his argument against facile defenders of the prevailing order who believe they have refuted all alternatives to capitalism by exposing what Proudhon agrees to be the “obvious” and “disgust[ing]” falsity of communism.11 As Proudhon laments, “no one has ever regarded society as possible without either [proprietary12] property or communism. This deplorable error has been the life of [proprietary] property.”13 Human nature, for Proudhon, is characterized by the antagonism between “absolutist”––that is, unbending and imperious––forces, or what he refers to as “antinomies.”14 Within each individual, he argues, exists a tension between the antinomies of the will and the social instinct. The will seeks a realm of freedom from which the idea of private property arises. Our social instinct, on the other hand, seeks to subsume the individual into society. This instinct, he argues, gives rise to the idea of communism.15 So, while the social side of humanity inspires a need for society, our individualist side often sets us against society. Human nature is thus ineluctably complex and perpetually susceptible to conflict. Unlike Marx, Proudhon does not believe that such antinomies can ever be truly resolved.16 Rather, in order to develop the whole of our natures, these opposing forces must be structured to complement one another. Our individual side requires independence with which to act and equitable recognition of our merit, and our social side requires the equality of conditions across society and reciprocity in interactions between its members. For Proudhon, equilibrium between the individual and social needs of humanity is synonymous with justice and is the end goal of his political philosophy.17 Proudhon's political philosophy is built upon the Aristotelian premise that humans are by nature “speaking and social animal[s].”18 Unlike other animals, humans can use their superior rationality to transcend instinct and

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

147

to come to understand both their nature and the principles of human society that that nature implies. They can thus form and, by use of their “instinctive” faculty of speech, communicate ideas of just relations to others within that society. Through deliberate action, they can then cooperate to realize these shared ideas.19 Although humans possess a social instinct and a moral sense, or conscience, that has morality and justice as its objects, Proudhon warns that blind instinct is incapable of realizing these ends. Proudhon describes the social instinct as “a sort of magnetism which is awakened in us by the contemplation of a being similar to ourselves” and the moral sense as “a secret sympathy which causes [man] to love, interact, and sympathize, so that, to resist this attraction, he must pit his will against his nature.”20 The social instinct alone has a “blind, unruly nature”; it propels, but it does not steer.21 This instinct can drive us toward good or bad, depending on the advancement of our understanding and the refinement of our consciences, and Proudhon warns that the worst evils spring from the “misuse of man's sociability.”22 The social instinct inspires us to seek society, but it is our conscience that compels us to treat each other well once there. With the conscience, Proudhon argues, “[man] carries within himself the principles of a moral code that goes beyond the individual.”23 As Proudhon explains, conscience is “the faculty for which Justice is the content”; it is what “enables man to be master of himself.” According to Proudhon, “with man conscience is the dominant faculty, the sovereign power, and the others are useful to it as instruments or servants.” 24 The conscience provides the internal authority that affords the possibility of self-governance. It is the wellspring of anarchic order. Inspired by the recognition of the likeness of our fellows to ourselves, the conscience demands that we treat these equals as equals, for, as Proudhon argues, “equality is a need of the conscience, as beauty is a need of the heart and precise reasoning a need of the mind.”25 Reason, however, must legislate to the conscience who our equals are and concerning what things. Proudhon claims that “the development of the moral sense in individuals…[is] everywhere in proportion to intelligence.” 26 Reason combined with conscience can point us toward universal moral principles. As he explains, “reflection, by illuminating our instinct, enlightens us about our sentient nature but does not alter its character; it tells us what our morality is but neither changes nor modifies it.”27

148

Chapter Eight

Natural Inequality and Social Egalitarianism Although Proudhon demands the equality of social rights, he insists just as fervently on the natural inequality of human faculties. This natural inequality is not only prerequisite for the personality of the individual, but he boldly asserts, “this difference of degree in the same faculties, this predominance of talent for certain tasks is…the very foundation of our society.”28 For Proudhon, true human society is not, as in the communist mode, a unity of identical parts. It is, rather, a voluntary and “synallagmatic” association of naturally differing but complementary parts.29 Whereas “[social animals] see, feel, and come in contact with each other but never understand each other,” man must come to understand himself and his fellows in order to truly associate.30 Humans, he argues, are meant for “a society deliberately and freely accepted.”31 Paradoxically, Proudhon insists that this inequality of faculties is the necessary basis for social equality and that the full development of each individual depends on social equality. Humans are born weak and undeveloped. Our development, according to Proudhon, depends upon the exchange of ideas, which develop our reason; the exchange of feelings, which refine our consciences; and the exchange of products and services, which allows us to pursue satisfying labor and which creates a forum for the exercise of justice. Each is incapable of satisfying all of their needs on their own. Proudhon believes there to be a vocation for each within society, and that by pursuing their vocations, associated individuals can satisfy needs isolated individuals would be incapable of fulfilling. Proudhon marvels at the “economy of nature” where “in this multitude of needs which we are given and which by himself a single man cannot satisfy, nature has accorded to the species the power refused to the individual.”32 True human society, Proudhon insists, is incompatible with social privilege. Justice, which is prerequisite for true association, is founded on “the recognition of the equality between the personality of another and our own.” 33 Because the inequalities between ourselves and others are so obvious, however, we have to deliberately choose equality. Unlike animals whose social order springs from instinct, Proudhon argues, “we, …starting with the principle that society implies equal sharing, can by our reasoning faculty understand and agree with each other in the regulation of our rights.”34 Although the “government of man by man,” or “royalty,” requires the resignation of our faculties of free will, reason, and conscience, Proudhon warns that our natural susceptibility to it is nonetheless real and

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

149

formidable. On account of the anxiety our ignorance of the future breeds, humans are prone to give those that show superior intellect and talent not only esteem, but also wealth and power.35 They resort to these material signals of worth because, as Adam Smith put it, wealth and power are more “plain and palpable.”36 Proudhon describes how “the spontaneous, instinctive, and as it were physiological origin of royalty gives it, from its beginnings, a superhuman character.”37 In place of this false distributive justice of wealth and power, Proudhon advocates “equity,” which he defines as “the distributive justice of social sympathy and universal love.” Proudhon equates equity with the Latin humanitus, or “humanity,” which he describes as “the kind of sociability which is proper to man.” Humans need recognition of their excellence from their peers, but Proudhon insists that true distributive justice can be realized only by disassociating esteem from the unjust privileges of economic and political power. 38 The degree to which an individual bestows praise and esteem is rightfully at their discretion, but to bestow inequalities in economic or political power conveys privileges that are destructive of society and that individuals have no right to give. Assuming men equal in their natural dignity, and assuming each member of society is equally in need of society, Proudhon demands each be accorded equal social rights. Proudhon argues that with an accurate understanding of justice, the conscience can become its agent, and esteem can become an added reward for just actions.39

Proudhon’s Philosophy Viewed Through the Lens of Modern Science Although unaware of modern science's insights on human nature, Proudhon's philosophy nevertheless appears tailored to them. As Christopher Boehm's survey of the anthropological record shows, the vast majority of human history was spent in stateless, egalitarian societies. So much so, in fact, that these societies constitute our species' “environment of evolutionary adaptedness”––that is, definitive aspects of human nature like symbolic language, conscience, and morality were evolutionarily selected in and for this egalitarian environment.40 Proudhon's anarchism is, ultimately, built on the conscience. The conscience, as evolutionary psychology, biology, and anthropology confirm, provides humans with a natural impetus toward cooperation, an innate sense of the fundamental equality they share with their fellows, a natural desire for reciprocity in their interactions with one another, and an instinctual intolerance for exploitation and oppression. 41 Boehm argues

150

Chapter Eight

that we instinctively dislike those who try to dominate us and those who “[take] more than they give.” Boehm describes how “moral feelings of inappropriateness enhance these feelings,” and thereby the conscience motivates the sacrifice that maintaining egalitarianism requires. 42 Allan Young explains that humans developed the capacity for “empathic cruelty,” which spurs humans to partake in “altruistic punishment.” Rational, self-interested calculation alone would be insufficient to inspire individuals to incur the severe risks of challenging upstarts; they find their reward, rather, in the feeling of justice earned by punishing the unjust.43 Oddly, despite the conscience's revolutionary potential, critics of the modern order tend rather to emphasize the malleability of human nature and the influence of forces outside the individual. Language, for its part, allowed humans, unlike our more despotic ancestors, to communicate ideas of right and wrong. This allowed us to construct “moral communities” that made it possible to establish egalitarian societies that could “definitively reverse the flow of power in their bands so that individual autonomy could be maximized.” 44 These moral communities enabled the complex cooperation necessary to suppress potential dominators. Because early humans lived in small communities where interaction was frequent and indefinitely recurrent, they had to guard their reputations and be wary of being perceived as an upstart. Gossip played the essential function of facilitating common opinion and thus made possible coordinated resistance against dominators.45 Our capacity for culture also plays a critical role in our story, as culture educates the consciences of those that maintain the moral community. Although we naturally seek esteem, the objects of esteem are largely culturally determined, and they vary. 46 In contrast to modern American society, egalitarian societies encourage the consciences of their members to adopt an egalitarian code, and as Boehm argues, “it is the verbally elaborated egalitarian ethos that serves as a social 'gyroscope' …[It] provides a rather precise blueprint for group members to follow.” 47 Following this “egalitarian ethos,” egalitarian moral communities esteem actions that reinforce economic and political egalitarianism––things like cooperation, the sharing of economic resources, respect for individual autonomy, the equality of political rights and privileges, and generosity–– and they sanction their opposites.48 Boehm describes “an indigenous recognition that control of economic resources can lead to political as well as material self-aggrandizement.”49 Egalitarians understand that such accumulation presents an opportunity for others to dominate them. To maintain egalitarianism, group members

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

151

intentionally construct and enforce what Boehm calls “reverse dominance hierarchies” whereby they actively and preemptively suppress members that try to accumulate economic and political power. Hereby the moral community can resist both the tyrant and the free-rider, a necessary adaptation for the survival of a stateless but cooperative society.50 Of egalitarian societies, Boehm marvels, “their ingenious invention is to define the ideal society in a way such that no main political actor gets to dominate another. Then they see to it, as a group, that anyone who tries to infringe seriously on this rule is himself dominated.” Their commitment to their egalitarian ethos “enables a stable coalition of potential subordinates to dictate the tenor of political life in the band, and thereby remain politically autonomous as individuals.”51

Co-optation of Social Power in the Modern Order Echoing Proudhon's theory of antinomies, however, Boehm argues that human nature is “inherently contradictory or 'ambivalent'”; it contains within it the potential for both despotism and egalitarianism. While more recent genetic adaptations introduced egalitarian traits, hierarchical traits lie deep within our primate DNA. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were able to employ their despotic tendencies in service of egalitarianism. Reverse dominance hierarchies depend both on our natural aversion to subordination and our willingness to dominate dominators. Indeed, Boehm claims that the essence of the “egalitarian ethos” is that all want to rule, but when each realize they cannot, they seek equality in not being ruled.52 Benoit Dubreuil, like Proudhon, stresses that just as human egalitarianism is distinctly human, so too is human hierarchy.53 Reverse dominance depends upon cooperation. In large societies, such cooperation becomes more difficult; it becomes less costly to shirk the responsibility and risks of challenging dominators, and it becomes more costly to coordinate action to suppress the powerful. Just as human brain development made reverse dominance possible, it is also made possible the concept of representation––that is, the collective attribution, and resignation, of the power of social sanction to a few individuals.54 Through such symbolic representation, hierarchy re-emerged in human history. Through representation, revered (or feared) leaders facilitate a degree of trust amongst individuals and groups that can facilitate collective action in large, impersonal societies. 55 Unfortunately, due to the collective action problems of large groups, it is much harder to sanction abusive leaders. In this environment, rulers are able to co-opt the power of social cooperation for themselves.

152

Chapter Eight

The social power that underlies the power of political and economic hierarchies only exists on account of the combined efforts of those subordinate to them. Proudhon explains that the cooperation of diversely talented individuals creates a power greater than the sum of its parts.56 As he illustrates, two hundred men can erect an obelisk with one day's labor, but one man could not accomplish this task in 200 days, indeed, Proudhon argues, not in a lifetime.57 Rulers, he claims, seek to represent, direct, and exploit this “collective force.” As Proudhon argues, despite the tyranny that results from this co-optation, the ruled believe that it is better for each to remain in the group than to leave it… It is thus not actually the exploiter…[but rather] it is the social power that they respect, a power ill-defined in their thinking…a power whose prince… may show them its seal and see them tremble to break with it by a revolt…. For this reason any usurper of the public power never fails to cover his crime with the pretext of the public safety, to call himself the father of the fatherland…as if the social force drew its existence from him, while in fact he is only an effigy for it, a stamp, and, so to speak, a commercial brand. And he will fall…the moment his presence appears to threaten the great interest that he claimed to defend: there… is the cause of the fall of all governments.58

The ruler, like the proprietor, leeches off social power; he does not create it. The subordinate stand stupefied before the immense power they created and in awe of those who have successfully taken credit for it. Both the state and the proprietor rule by turning the combined force of society against itself. Despite their superhuman posturing, though, they must depend upon productive members of society in order to survive. The proprietor is only wealthy because he sits atop a social system wherein wealth is produced and its producers are forced, because of their exclusion from ownership over the means of production, to surrender to him the products they create––that is, the proprietor exists by way of a privilege secured by the coercive force of the state. The state, for its part, expropriates its subsistence through taxation, again from value generated by those under its control. The key to confronting such hierarchies is to find means of reclaiming this social power. Like Proudhon, Gene Sharp argues that the way to challenge centralized power structures is to develop what he calls “loci of power” within society. The long-term realization of egalitarianism depends upon the devolution and diffusion of social power throughout society. It requires small-scale groups with experience coordinating and exercising social power through cooperation and collective decision-

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

153

making. Conversely, successful tyrants atomize society and suppress these loci of power.59 Centralized social power is most easily co-opted. Despite the inhumanity of our prevailing order, communism is thus no solution either. As Sharp argues, communist centralization allows the state to subject people to an even greater dependence than capitalism and thus poses an even greater threat to individual liberty.60 Capitalism at least provides a choice, however marginal, between masters. Neither economic nor political power can ever be done away with; humans are social creatures, and will always have to manage their scarce resources to meet their needs. Egalitarianism requires, rather, that power be organized such that no one is capable of exploiting or dominating another. Political and economic power would have to be decentralized and universalized. Balance between these loci of power would require an equitable distribution of productive resources, economic relationships that prevent the consolidation of such resources, and social norms that reinforce these ends.

Proudhon’s Humanized Socialism Proudhon's prescription for wresting back social power––what he calls “mutualism”––involves a decentralized, federated society of voluntary associations of producers. Such small, voluntary associations make the reverse dominance Boehm describes possible. The fundamental principle of mutualism––Proudhon's articulation of Boehm's “egalitarian ethos”––is reciprocity, a value which Arnhart agrees is a universal desire as old as the human species. 61 Reciprocity is incompatible with both capitalist exploitation and communist leveling. Mutualism “unites all the conceptions of the mind and the justifications of conscience.” The terms of mutualist association are set by the moral obligations owed to each member of society on account of their humanity. As such, mutualist contract precludes proprietary or coercive powers that enable individuals to take unequal values in exchange. 62 Presuming rational individuals vigilant against exploitation, voluntary exchange between those with equal economic power would be that of equal values.63 In mutualist society, “men, declaring themselves to be essentially producers, renounce all claims to governing each other.” 64 Proudhon insists that in entering such a contract, associates “do not really bind themselves by an act of their private will: they swear to conform henceforth to a previously existing social law hitherto disregarded by them.”65

154

Chapter Eight

The key difference between Proudhon and other socialists is his support for individual ownership. Proudhon insists that property ownership is a universal human desire.66 Indeed, all human societies, even the most egalitarian, have included some form of individual ownership. Unlike acquisitiveness in animals, humans desire possessions not only for the biological purposes of self-preservation and procreation, but also for the psychological attachment that develops between the individual and resources. Ownership aids in self-awareness and promotes the development of human personality. Humans need a private space where they can feel undisturbed. Citing studies of children in communistic kibbutzim, Richard Pipes argues that regardless of one's rearing, children naturally exhibit possessive desires and that efforts to quash this desire, to the extent that they are successful, inhibit social and personal development. Ownership represents an important social affirmation of our individuality and recognition of our labors.67 It allows the individual to feel sovereign over their life. To deny some members of society access to a share of the productive resources at society's disposal would be to deny them the chance to fully develop, thus disregarding their humanity and voiding any true association between themselves and the rest of society. Both communism and capitalism use coercive force to deny such ownership to many. A socialism compatible with human nature would have to satisfy this need for individual ownership. Members of Proudhon's mutualist society would be entitled to ownership over an equal share of the productive resources available to that society in order that they be able to pursue a vocation. Instead of a violent redistribution of wealth, however, Proudhon advocates the gradual creation of anarchist property relations through an institution he called the “The People's Bank.”68 Funded by member subscriptions, it would lend out funds on an interest-free basis. Hereby, each could acquire property and secure independence.69 Proudhon imagines that with the spread of mutualism, the false necessity of the state would be exposed and the state superseded. As Proudhon argues, “under current conditions, politics is the equivocal and risky art of making order in a society in which all the laws of economy are ignored, all balance destroyed, every freedom compromised, every conscience warped, all collective force converted into a monopoly.” 70 Proudhon explains that “[w]hen the Revolution has regulated this chaos, and organised the industrial forces, there is no further pretext for political centralisation.”71 Proudhon's anarchism is a libertarian socialism. As he argues,

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

155

what, in politics, goes under the name of Authority is analogous to and synonymous with what is termed, in political economy, Property…. Where capital is stripped of all interest, government is rendered useless and impossible; and, on the other hand, capital, in the absence of a government to support it, cloak it with its prerogatives and guarantee it the exercise of its privileges must, of necessity, remain unproductive and all usury unfeasible…. Socialism and Liberalism are the two halves of the wholesale opposition that Liberty has, ever since the world began, mounted against the principle of AUTHORITY as articulated through property and through the State.72

Proudhon calls the application of mutualist principles to the political realm “federalism.” As mutualism decentralizes and balances economic power, federalism decentralizes and balances political power within and between voluntarily associated communities. Proudhon argues that “the aim of civilization... is to allow each individual to become an instrument of right and agent of the law,” which he claims is “a principle of evident moral superiority, the only one by which the free man can be distinguished from the slave.”73 Proudhon feared for individual liberty even in an anarchist society.74 Individuals would still have to actively maintain their “freedom, sovereignty and initiative.” 75 Proudhon, identifying property with sovereignty, aims to decentralize that sovereignty to the level of the individual. Individual ownership is the linchpin of his federalism. Ownership enables that self-rule which lies at the core of anarchism. 76 Each individual needs sovereign control of resources sufficient to provide a livelihood, even if they run afoul of the community or wish to leave it. It is on this basis alone that a truly free and voluntary society can exist. Members of mutualist society would pledge to ensure the property of each individual; in return, the individual would acquire sovereignty over the resource but pledge not to use these resources in a manner detrimental to his fellows. When ownership has thus been decentralized and universalized, “given a moral basis, and surrounded by…emancipatory institutions,” Proudhon believes it can provide the necessary balance between the individual and the community.77 Anarchism is the just form of human society, according to Proudhon, because unlike capitalism or communism, it balances the antinomies of our nature. Absent coercion, the chaotic struggle between proprietors and the iniquitous treatment of laborers would destroy society and ruin the great productive power of cooperation that proprietors live off of. Absent coercion, workers under communism would not subordinate their freedom and independence to the community and toil with all their might in its

156

Chapter Eight

service. Proudhon charts a course between capitalism and communism in an attempt to distill “what is true in each and in harmony with the wishes of nature and the laws of sociability.”78

The Prospects for Proudhonian Anarchism The prospects for Proudhon's anarchism ultimately rest with the viability of voluntary cooperation. Important theoretical support for Proudhon's anarchism can be found in Robert Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation. Axlerod demonstrates the viability of cooperation absent coercion, even while assuming humans to be self-interested egoists. 79 In iterated “Prisoner's Dilemma” games, he found that the long-term cumulative gains of cooperative strategies were superior to gains from exploitative strategies. The success of cooperation, however, depends on some telling conditions that lend weight to Proudhon's brand of socialism. Axelrod found the most successful cooperative strategy to be that of reciprocity, where one starts out cooperative and reciprocates the cooperation or exploitation of those they encounter.80 Importantly, as Peter Singer points out, participants in this game had an equal amount of power.81 To sustain voluntary cooperation, individuals must have the same ability to resist exploitation. As power dynamics change, so too does one's ability to suppress cooperators and coerce exploitation. Another important condition is that cooperative individuals must cluster together to ensure that they encounter fellow cooperators repeatedly and indefinitely. As Axelrod summarizes, “the main results of Cooperation Theory are encouraging. They show that cooperation can get started by even a small cluster of individuals who are prepared to reciprocate cooperation, even in a world where no one else will cooperate.”82 If we modify Axelrod's egoistic assumptions and instead consider the interaction of actual human beings, the benefits of clustering would only be amplified. Humans have an innate proclivity for cooperation and desire to punish defectors. We are rewarded with satisfaction when we engage in the sorts of cooperative behavior that Axelrod identifies as keys to evolutionary fitness. Clustering reinforces these moral sentiments, which become more powerful with closer proximity.83 Clustering also lessens anonymity. By making interactions frequent and recurrent, it becomes easier to identify and punish defectors. As Axelrod argues, “an individual must not be able to get away with defecting without the other individuals being able to retaliate effectively. The response requires that defectors not be lost in a sea of anonymous others.” Humans have the advantage of being able to recognize one another's faces,

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

157

making reciprocation more precise. Individually, however, we are only capable of knowing a limited number of individuals.84 Our suitability to small groups owes to human evolutionary history, most of which was spent in groups of between 30-50 individuals. For this reason, large, impersonal bureaucracies, like those of communism, the modern American state, and the multinational corporation, are commonly perceived to be so inhuman.85 As Boehm illustrates, it is also in these sorts of small communities wherein our ancestors evolved that individuals are capable of checking the power-seeking individuals who might threaten their freedom.86 Promisingly, Axelrod's study also demonstrates that by clustering together, cooperators can actually invade and overtake defector societies.87 Proudhon predicts similar success for mutualism, which, he argues, “by virtue of the mutualist principle… tends to draw into its system of guarantees… industries with which it is in direct contact… then those that are more distant… mutualist association is unlimited in scope.” 88 Interestingly, Boehm posits that the egalitarian ethos––our ancient cooperative strategy––spread in prehistory through a similar process. As other cultures observed the benefits of the egalitarian model, they decided to copy it. Boehm goes as far as to label this process “revolutionary.”89 Ellen Clarke, who also sees Axelrod's findings as providing critical theoretical support to anarchism, argues that Axelrod's conclusions concerning the possibilities of stateless cooperation do not go far enough. Not only is cooperation possible without a central coercive authority, she argues that such coercive authority, because it destroys the equality and freedom upon which stable cooperation depends, actually inhibits cooperation. She concludes that anarchism is best suited for “Axelrodian cooperation”; state socialism, she argues, fails to provide the conditions for successful cooperation.90

Conclusion By abjuring centralization in favor of decentralized, but federated, cooperative associations, Proudhon aims to retain the social capital of the cluster while harnessing the benefits of inter-associational cooperation and coordination. This seems to be a promising technique for adapting socialism to modern production and to our natures. Conversely, large, centralized systems where individuals lack proximity and autonomy dilute the attachments upon which our consciences operate and breed a sense of anonymity and anomie that enables exploitation.

158

Chapter Eight

Those seeking an alternative to capitalism must find one that abides the limits of human nature and satisfies its needs. Capitalism, communism, and the state require immense coercive institutions in order to maintain order. Whereas the conscience must be suppressed and reason confined to preserve these systems, the free expression of our human faculties is the very source of order in Proudhon's vision. What we know of the anthropological record, evolutionary psychology ,and human cooperation indicates that Proudhon's anarchism is not only possible, but that it is tailored to human nature and its needs.

Bibliography “Action Programme of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia,” Marxism Today (July, 1968): 205-217. Arnhart, Larry. Darwinian Conservatism. Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, 2005. Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 2006. Boehm, Christopher. “Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy [and Comments and Reply],” Current Anthropology 34.3 (1993): 227-254. —. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Clarke, Ellen. “Anarchy, Socialism, and a Darwinian Left.” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 136-150. Dubreuil, Benoit. Human Evolution and the Origin of Hierarchies: The State of Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Harbold, William H. “Justice in the Thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.” The Western Political Quarterly 22.4 (1969): 723-741. Marx, Karl. Early Writings. Trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton. New York: PenguinBooks, 1992. Pipes, Richard. Property and Freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1999. Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. The Evolution of Capitalism, The Philosophy of Misery: System of Economic Contradictions. Hong Kong: Forgotten Books, 2008. —. General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Cossimo, 2007. —. Property Is Theft: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology. ed. Iain McKay. Baltimore: AK Press, 2011.

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

159

—. The Works of P. J. Proudhon. Trans. Benjamin R. Tucker. Princeton: Benjamin R. Tucker, 1876. —. Théorie de la Propriété. Paris: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Co., 1866. —. Selected Writings of P.-J. Proudhon. ed. Stewart Edwards, trans. Elizabeth Fraser. Garden City: Books, 1969. —. What Is Property? ed. and trans. Donald R. Kelley and Bonnie G. Smith. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Rubin, Paul H. Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origins of Freedom. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Sharp, Gene. Social Power and Political Freedom. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1980. Singer, Peter. A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ed. Ryan Patrick Hanley. New York: Penguin Books, 2009. Tiger, Lionel and Robin Fox. The Imperial Animal. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998. Vaculik, Ludvik. “Two Thousand Words that Belong to the Workers, Farmers, Officials, Scientists, Artists, and Everybody.” The Prague Spring 1968: A National Security Archive Documents Reader, ed. Jaromìr Navràtil. Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998. Vincent, K. Steven. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Wilson, James Q. The Moral Sense. New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1993. Wright, Neil. Anarchist Property. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University, 2012. Young, Allan. “Empathic Cruelty and the Origins of the Social Brain.” Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience. Ed. Suparna Choudhury and Jan Slaby. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012.

Notes  1 “Action Programme of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia,” Marxism Today (July, 1968): 205-217; Ludvik Vaculik, “Two Thousand Words that Belong to the Workers, Farmers, Officials, Scientists, Artists, and Everybody,” in The Prague Spring 1968: A National Security Archive Documents Reader, ed. Jaromìr Navràtil (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998), 177-181.

160

Chapter Eight

 2 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property?, ed. and trans. Donald R. Kelley and Bonnie G. Smith (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 18. 3 Karl Marx, Early Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), 357. 4 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 189. 5 Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 5, 25, 32; Larry Arnhart. Darwinian Conservatism (Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, 2005), 5. 6 Singer, 1; Arnhart, 5. 7 This chapter is a more extensive development of an argument from my 2012 dissertation entitled Anarchist Property (Northern Illinois University, 2012). Some sections of this work have been borrowed and/or modified from that text. 8 Arnhart, 60; Singer, 32. 9 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 102. 10 Ibid., 45; Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, (New York: Cossimo, 2007), 210. 11 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 195; K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 175. 12 I refer to the prevailing system of property, what is commonly called “private property,” by what I find to be the more descriptive “proprietary property.” “Private property” indicates an absolute ownership incongruent with the reality of property relations under the state. The state affords property owners in our system powers that allow owners to appropriate value created by non-owners; this proprietorship is the definitive difference between our property regime and that of Proudhon's anarchist theory of property. 13 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 195. 14 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Evolution of Capitalism, The Philosophy of Misery: System of Economic Contradictions (Hong Kong: Forgotten Books, 2008), 63-65. 15 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Théorie de la Propriété (A. Lacroix state. The state affords property owners in our system powers that allow owners to appropriate value created by non-owners; this proprietorship is the definitive difference between our property regime and that of Proudhon's anarchist theory of property. 15 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 195. 15 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Evolution of Capitalism, The Philosophy of Misery: System of Economic Contradictions (Hong Kong: Forgotten Books, 2008), 63-65. 15 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Théorie de la, Verboeckhover & Co., 1866), 52. 16 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 189. 17 Ibid., 211. 18 Ibid., 171. 19 Ibid., 193; Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Property Is Theft: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology, ed. Iain McKay (Baltimore: AK Press, 2011), 642. 20 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 175, 172.

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

161

 21 Ibid., 174. 22 Ibid., 192. 23 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Selected Writings of P-J Proudhon, ed. Stewart Edwards, trans. Elizabeth Fraser (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1969), 249. 24 Cited in William H. Harbold, “Justice in the Thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,”The Western Political Quarterly 22.4 (1969): 736. 25 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 249. 26 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 180. 27 Ibid., 174. 28 Ibid., 181. 29 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “Second Memoire,” The Works of P. J. Proudhon, trans. Benjamin R. Tucker (Princeton: Benjamin R. Tucker, 1876), 314. 30 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 211. 31 Ibid., 190. 32 Ibid., 101-103. 33 Ibid., 175. 34 Ibid., 180. 35 Ibid., 203. 36 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Ed. Ryan Patrick Hanley (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 267. 37 Ibid., 206. 38 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 183, 202-203. 39 Ibid., 192. 40 Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 3. 41 Arnhart, 30; Christopher Boehm et. al., “Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy [and Comments and Reply],” Current Anthropology 34.3 (1993): 236; Paul H. Rubin, Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origins of Freedom (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 79, 83-85; James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1993): 64, 65. 42 Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 194; Rubin, 87-91. 43 Allan Young, “Empathic Cruelty and the Origins of the Social Brain,” in Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience, ed. Suparna Choudhury and Jan Slaby, (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 168-170. 44 Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 170. 45 Ibid., 246, 254 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 190. 48 Ibid., 67-70. 49 Ibid., 112. 50 Ibid., 213; Young, 168. 51 Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 170, 194. 52 Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 12, 252, 174, 225-226, 231.

162

Chapter Eight

 53 Benoit Dubreuil, Human Evolution and the Origin of Hierarchies: The State of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 91; Proudhon, What Is Property?, 206. 54 Dubreuil, 7. 55 Ibid., 204. 56 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 93, 111. 57 Ibid., 91. 58 Proudhon, Property Is Theft, 663. 59 Gene Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1980), 38-41, 52, 55. 60 Ibid., 41-42. 61 Arnhart, 30. 62 Proudhon, Property Is Theft, 745, 750. 63 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 103. 64 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 96. 65 Proudhon, Property Is Theft, 745. 66 Proudhon, Revolution, 210. 67 Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 68, 71-76, 85; Rubin, 80; Arnhart, 59. 68 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 75. 69 Ibid., 73. 70 Proudhon, Property Is Theft, 660. 71 Ibid., 596. 72 Ibid., 505-506. 73 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 37. 74 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Théorie de la Propriété (Paris: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Co., 1866), 137. 75 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 106. 76 Proudhon, Theory of Property, 137. 77 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 133. 78 Proudhon, What Is Property?, 211-212. 79 Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 189. 80 Ibid., 136. 81 Singer, 52. 82 Axelrod, 173. 83 Wilson, 47-49, 65-69. 84 Axelrod, 128, 100, 102. Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, The Imperial Animal (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 48-51. 85 Tiger and Fox, 35, 48-51. 86 Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 328. 87 Axelrod, 145. 88 Proudhon, Selected Writings, 63. 89 Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest, 196.

Proudhon as a Guide to Socialism with a Human Face

163

 90 Ellen Clarke, “Anarchy, Socialism, and a Darwinian Left,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 141144, 147.

CHAPTER NINE CYBERNETIC SOCIALISM AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY TED GOERTZEL

The socialist experiments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries turned out to be just that: time-limited explorations of alternatives. This was true of the hundreds of voluntary communities that sprung up across the American continent in response to economic crises and the yearning to realize philosophical and religious ideals. 1 It was also true of the state socialist regimes that began with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. As it turns out, the Shakers actually lasted longer than the Soviets. These experiments ended for many reasons, one of which was the difficulty of competing with vibrant market-based industrial and commercial enterprises. The state socialist experiments were very costly; millions of lives were lost to failed efforts at collectivization. The voluntary communities, denigrated by Marxists as “utopian,” turned out to be a much more humane way of trying out social innovations. Indeed, this kind of voluntary experimentation continues usefully today.2 There is much that we can learn from these experiments, both about what not to do and about what might work in the future. Advances in computer technology, robotics and artificial intelligence may make some options viable that were not so in the past. In 1845, Karl Marx painted a picture of a utopia where “society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, 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, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”3 This kind of freedom was difficult to achieve in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, although Brook Farm came closer than any of the Soviet experiments. But this kind of utopia may become more viable when robots are able to do the necessary hard labor. This has long been anticipated in science fiction.4 And it has been slower in coming than many visionaries anticipated. But

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

165

the technology is rapidly catching up to the visionaries. Many technological milestones anticipated in the 1950s are realities today. In 1957, Herbert Simon predicted that a computer would beat the world chess champion by 1967. It happened in 1997. Today we have all the world’s information at our fingertips, an amazing accomplishment that we take for granted. Computers translate foreign languages, drive automobiles and diagnose illnesses-not perfectly but much better than skeptics thought possible a few decades ago. No one knows for sure, but the median estimate of engineers and scientists working on the problem is that computers with human level intelligence will be a reality in thirty or forty years.5 There are still some who object that this will never happen, that computers will never really “think” in the way that humans do. And computer intelligence is likely to be different, more powerful than ours in some ways, less in others. But greatly increased computer intelligence is surely coming. Socialist revolution was eagerly anticipated by many and greatly feared by others. So too with the coming of intelligent machines. Dystopians fear that humanity is at risk of being destroyed by its own creations. Elon Musk, the Tesla electric car and commercial space entrepreneur, recently warned that: I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like yeah he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out.6

And theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned that: The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.... It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate... Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded.7

Hawking’s concerns are ironic since he is dependent on artificial intelligence devices to cope with his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Indeed, people with illnesses like Hawking’s are already on the way to becoming cyborgs, beings with a combination of biological and biomechatronic parts. On the other side of this debate are the techno-utopians who promise that intelligent machines will bring health, wealth, happiness and perhaps even eternal life right here on earth. Ray Kurzweil, who was the pioneering developer of a machine to read aloud to the blind, has

166

Chapter Nine

popularized the meme of the singularity, a point in time at which change will become effectively instantaneous and computers will be smarter than people. He counts on these computers to resolve problems humanity has been unable to solve on its own.8 While thoughtful people disagree about whether the coming of artificial general intelligence is a good thing, no one has shown how it can be stopped.9 Research is being conducted in too many places in too many countries and there is no international agency with the mission, let alone the capability, to suppress it. The best we can do is prepare for it, and try to make it as beneficial as possible. This paper examines the impact of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence on human social and economic organization.

The Singularity: Science or Wishful Thinking? The singularity, as Kurzweil presents it, seems too good to be true. It resembles wishful thinking such as belief in the coming of a Messiah or of the communist utopia. A problem with millenarian beliefs like these is that people may conclude there is no need to prepare for the future. All we have to do is keep praying or philosophizing and wait for the Singularity or the Revolution or the Second Coming. Then all our problems will be solved. This is especially problematic with belief in the singularity since it posits that change will be so fast we won’t be able to even understand it, let alone do anything about it. But is it likely that change will be this fast? Kurzweil offers a scientific rationale for his prediction, and has gathered a lot of data to support it. His core argument is that scientific and technological progress is cumulative and combinatory. The more advances that are made, the more ways there are to produce new ones. This leads to an exponential increase in the rate of innovation over time, something he illustrates empirically in a number of time series graphs. Mathematically, it is true that if one projects an exponential trend far enough into the future, the rate of change becomes virtually instantaneous. The curve on a time series graph shoots up to the ceiling. But in the real world exponential growth processes don’t go on that long. The more usual pattern is slow growth at first, rising very quickly for a time, then slowing down and leveling off. This is a pattern best described on a graph as an S-curve rather than an exponential one. But even if the forthcoming changes are not instantaneous, they will still be very quick by the standards of historical change. Economic historian Robin Hanson compares the anticipated technological singularity to two other “singularities” in human history: the agricultural revolution

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

167

and the industrial revolution.10 Both of these took place very quickly when plotted against the long course of human existence, but not instantaneously. They look like singularities if you plot them on a long historical graph. The technological singularity may take place much more quickly, because technical progress is faster now, but still over a period of years or decades. But the precise timing is not critical. In fact, the beginnings of the technological singularity are already here with the advent of technologies such as self-driving automobiles and the World Wide Web. Further changes are coming fast and the likelihood that the doomsayers will be able to stop them is negligible. Whether their impact is utopian or dystopian or something in-between is not entirely out of our control.

The Soviet Experiment Perhaps the most utopian possibility is that super-human intelligences will finally bring about the future Marx and Engels dreamed about in 1845. Marx and Engels did not specify how “society would regulate the general production,”11 indeed they thought it was premature to speculate about it. If they had thought seriously about it, they might have realized that the material conditions for such a utopia were a very long way off. But they and their comrades had a very human propensity to want change during their own lifetimes. A detailed blueprint for a communist society was published by their follower August Bebel in his 1879 classic Woman and Socialism. 12 It was to be a society where technicians and statisticians would make decisions in the interest of the common good and everyone would accept these decisions voluntarily. The coercive institutions of the state would wither away because they would not be needed. Any crimes would be punished informally by the citizens. The disasters caused by trying to implement this vision in the twentieth century are well known. Power was monopolized by a nomenklatura and a police state, individual initiative and work incentives were stifled, and human rights were trampled. The promised land of milk and honey failed to materialize. The planned economy was slow and inefficient compared to its capitalist competitors. But is a repeat of this failure inevitable if such an experiment should be tried in the future? One of the reasons for the poor performance of the Soviet economy may have been that the computer technology available at the time was inadequate to the task. Norbert Wiener’s classic book Cybernetics was enthusiastically received by the Soviet technological intelligentsia in 1959. They were overwhelmed with the computational tasks of centrally commanding the entire Soviet economy and hoped that

168

Chapter Nine

cybernetics could offer a solution. Cybernetics was heralded in the Communist Party Program as science in the service of communism. But after conducting serious feasibility studies the Soviet experts concluded that “it was impossible to centralize all economic decision making in Moscow: the mathematical optimization of a large-scale system was simply not feasible.”13 They estimated that it would take twenty years to install a computer network adequate to the task, and cost several times the price of the Soviet space program. The Soviet leaders turned down this opportunity to build the first Internet, leaving it to the Pentagon and the venture capitalists of Silicon Valley. A few diehards argue that the Soviets were just in the wrong century and that we should rerun a centrally managed state socialist experiment today. Paul Cockshott observes that contemporary computers are fully adequate to handle input output tables for a modern national economy.14 Capitalism has built the necessary computer systems and most economic transactions are already online, or easily could be. Mathematical optimization would not be necessary, planning could be done with computer simulation. Heinz Dietrich, a German who has lived mostly in Latin America since 1970, caught the attention of Hugo Chávez, then president of Venezuela, with the slogan “Twenty-first Century Socialism.” Dietrich’s book on the topic featured a picture of Karl Marx holding a laptop computer.15 Such a system would to do away with market pricing. Goods and services would be exchanged according to the labor time needed to produce them. Marx’s nineteenth century theories did not account for such twenty-first century concerns as limitations of natural resources, pollution and global warming. But environmental factors are not handled well by unregulated market pricing, so that is an additional reason to go beyond the market. No country has yet been persuaded to try this communist experiment, although for a while it seemed that Venezuela might forge the way. Venezuelan Defense Minister Raúl Isaías Baduel wrote a prologue to Dietrich’s book in which he encouraged Venezuelan intellectuals to take up President Chávez’s challenge to “invent the socialism of the twentyfirst century.”16 But it didn’t happen. Baduel soon asked “where are the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mathematicians, statisticians, economists, systems engineers, programmers, and information systems experts, committed to socialist ideology and with the will to change to a system different from capitalism, who will form the central planning team that will have the formidable and enormous mission of replacing nothing more and nothing less than the market and the businessmen?”17

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

169

Baduel went into the opposition and was eventually imprisoned on questionable corruption charges. It became apparent that Hugo Chávez had no intention of replacing capitalist markets with a Soviet-style nomenklatura. Cuba and North Korea, the only remaining countries with anything approaching that kind of system, are both backward in computer technology and both seem more likely to gradually introduce market economics. There are, after all, a great many things wrong with the state socialist model that cannot be remedied with better computers.

The Chilean Experiment Another possibility is that cybernetics could help to realize the dream of a “third way” between capitalism and socialism. In 1970, the newly elected Chilean president Salvador Allende sought to build a democratic socialist system. One of the young visionaries in his administration, Fernando Flores, was familiar with the writings of British cybernetician Stafford Beer and invited him to consult with the Allende government.18 Beer was a successful business consultant who specialized in helping companies computerize their information and decision making systems. He was ideologically sympathetic to Allende’s project and he responded enthusiastically to Flores’ invitation. Stafford Beer was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the Soviet experience. He fully understood the technical limitations in Chile at the time. There were only approximately fifty computers in the country as a whole, and no network linking them together. Beer set up a network of telex machines and then designed a modernistic control room where decision-makers could sit on swivel chairs and push buttons on their arm rests to display economic information on charts on the wall. There was no attempt to replace human brains or model the entire economy statistically. The project simply sought to collect time sensitive information and present it in a way that human managers and workers could use it to make betterinformed decisions. Beer emphasized that information should be available to all levels of the system, so that workers could participate with managers in making decisions. Proyecto Synco, as it came to be called, came to an abrupt end in September 1973 when the Chilean military overthrew the Allende government and brutally suppressed the Chilean left. But there was really no technical reason for ending Proyecto Synco; the new government could have used an economic information system. Today, information systems of the type Beer was trying to implement in Chile are maintained by all modern governments, and they very much help economists and planners

170

Chapter Nine

advance social democratic goals. Improvements in artificial intelligence and computer modeling can help to make this kind of governance more effective, minimizing crises and moderating inequalities.

Voluntary Communities and Worker Self-Management Advances in technology could make it possible to replace the cash nexus with a means of exchange more closely tied to labor value or to other social values. Replacing market prices with labor certificates was tried in the nineteenth century by American anarchist Josiah Warren and his followers.19 Warren believed that goods should be priced according to the hours of labor that it took the average workman to produce them. He was not just a theorist; he opened a retail store in Cincinnati in 1827 that followed his principles. Goods were sold for what he paid for them in dollars, plus a four percent to seven percent markup to cover expenses. In addition to the dollar price, there was a charge for the time it took him to sell them, as noted from a large clock on the wall. The time was paid for with labor certificates that could be exchanged for labor by the purchaser. It made for quick, inexpensive shopping, and the store was quite popular. Warren also helped to set up experimental communities in the towns of Utopia in Ohio and Modern Times (now Brentwood) in New York, where residents exchanged local goods and services with labor certificates, while continuing to use dollars to buy things from the outside. This worked reasonably well, better than many of the utopian communities set up on the communist principle of equal sharing based on need. But using labor certificates instead of money did not bring about a revolutionary change in human relationships as Warren hoped. The certificates simply became an alternative currency. Economic studies have shown that most consumer goods already sell for prices closely correlated with the amount of labor it takes to produce them.20 Warren’s activities were limited to the goods he could sell face-to-face in his store, and he was not able to measure values other than labor time. Modern computer networks create the possibility of more sophisticated exchanges incorporating dimensions of value other than labor time. The system of Offer Networks suggested by Ben Goertzel is similar to Josiah Warren’s system of Labor Certificates, but an improvement in that it allows for incorporating dimensions of value other than labor.21 Computer networks also allow for exchanges on a global scale, while the nineteenth century anarchists were limited to face-to-face transactions. Offer Networks, which base exchanges on complex computer models, provide no practical advantage over using money for relatively simple exchanges

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

171

of standardized goods or services. But they could be better for more sophisticated exchanges between companies or collectives, exchanges that now require extensive work by attorneys and accountants. As with Josiah Warren’s experiments, the system could be implemented on a trial basis by groups interested in it without suppressing the use of traditional money. This is also true of Bitcoin or other alternative currencies that are already being used, although these are based on market principles, not on labor value or other non-market values. The Israeli kibbutzim have been the most extensive experiment so far with voluntary secular communal socialism.22 Many of the kibbutzim were organized on the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” After the Israeli economic crisis of 1985, however, they began a process they call “privatization” under which many kibbutz enterprises have been reorganized and function according to market principles. They have differential wage scales, and employ workers and managers from outside the kibbutz when needed. The residential community is separated organizationally from the productive enterprises. On some kibbutzim members still contribute their salaries to a common fund and receive a standard allowance, so “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” continues to be a lifestyle choice. But differential pay scales are used in the enterprises and those employees who do not choose to join the kibbutz keep their differential wages. The failure of the kibbutzim to sustain socialist purity has been disappointing to some, especially in the founding generation. But the new arrangements offer a possibility of sustaining socialist lifestyles and values while succeeding in the modern global economy. Many of the kibbutz enterprises are quite sophisticated in the use of modern technology, and can offer challenging careers to highly educated young people. As highly innovative and flexible voluntary communities, they are well suited to becoming part of what technological visionaries call the Global Brain. Worker owned cooperatives have had a long history, going back to the 1830s and very much influenced by the thinking of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. 23 While some have found a niche and competed successfully with privately owned companies, this seems to be difficult when they grow to become major players in the global economy where competitors benefit from lower wages and state protection. The bankruptcy of the largest unit in Spain’s Mondragón Cooperatives in 2013 raised serious concerns.24 The most striking successes are undertakings, such as Wikipedia, which do not attempt to sell products at a profit. But there are also employee owned enterprises, such as King Arthur Flour, which compete successfully in selling packaged goods.25

172

Chapter Nine

The Global Brain and the Withering Away of the State The “withering away of the state” was one of the most seductive visions of the Marxian utopia, but it was inconsistent with the promise that the state would “regulate the general production,” a task which required a very large and powerful state apparatus. Today minimizing the state is promoted by libertarians who favor market economics because markets can function with minimal state regulation. 26 This philosophy is very popular among computer innovators and entrepreneurs at the forefront of the technological revolution. But leaving economic and social decisions to the market alone does not incorporate social and environmental values. To incorporate these values in a libertarian system Viktoras Veitas and David Weinbaum, two theorists at the Global Brain Institute in Brussels, advocate replacing the hierarchical state with a fluid social order facilitated by distributed social governance.27 In this view, society will be regulated by voluntary, negotiated arrangements, very much in the anarchist or libertarian tradition, with disputes settled through arbitration. With future advances in artificial intelligence these networks will not be limited to humans, but may include intelligent computers or robots with diverse degrees of autonomy. No violent rupture of social institutions need take place to create such a system, no class of exploiters need be violently overthrown. Instead, their vision is that state will actually “wither away” gradually as state institutions are used less and less. The fundamental function of maintaining a currency, for example, can be gradually replaced by nonstate instruments such as the Bitcoin network which is already in existence. The Global Brain model is less threatening than the typical science fiction vision of intelligent robots competing with humans, or the revival of central planning by a giant centralized computer network. Francis Heylighen, a theorist at the Global Brain Institute, argues that the Global Brain will be inherently linked to human activities just as the human brain is inherently linked to human bodies.28 In his view, the global brain will not be a separate entity housed in a robotic body or a mainframe computer capable of an independent identity. The Global Brain will depend on maintaining the welfare of humanity. Heylighen predicts that this Global Brain will bring with it four key values: omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. Omnipresence. Today’s Internet is well on the way to omnipresence, and further steps are easy to visualize. Cameras can continuously photograph all our streets so we won’t have to listen to conflicting eyewitness accounts of confrontations between police and citizens. Small

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

173

children, pets and senile elders can be fitted with chips allowing us to know where they are all the time. Our spouses won’t have to wonder if we are really working late, they can check the cell phone network to know where we are. (Indeed, they can do this now if the “where is my lost cell phone” feature is activated.) The network is already beginning to reach into our bodies to monitor our pulse, blood pressure, insulin levels and other indicators and perhaps even to activate our pacemaker or pancreas implant if needed in a crisis. The issue today is not whether omnipresence is possible but whether stopping it is possible. How much of our privacy will it be possible or desirable for us to preserve? Preserving areas of privacy will have to be a deliberate choice; if technology is allowed to progress unrestrained, privacy will be a thing of the past. Omniscience. With all the data we have and the computer power to analyze it, our knowledge and understanding are increasing rapidly if not exponentially. Of course, we are not yet omniscient; there are still major unknowns. We can’t cure every disease or stop the aging process. We don’t have lasting solutions for environmental or energy problems. But certainly our understanding is increasing rapidly. Perhaps the last challenge will be learning how to prevent wars, terrorism and ethnic conflicts problems that are rooted in our human nature. Omnipotence. Even if the global brain is everywhere and knows everything anyone on the planet knows, that doesn’t give it the power to solve all our problems. Technically, we know how to build a modern, humane society in Afghanistan or North Korea, but we clearly don’t know how to solve the human conflicts there. We may not be able to defend the earth from a collision with a giant asteroid or prevent the extermination of species. Our ability to prevent nuclear proliferation and global warfare is certainly questionable. It isn’t exactly clear how computer networks can help to solve many of these problems. But we can certainly use any help that more advanced artificial intelligences may offer. Omnibenevolence. The most pressing issues here are global poverty and inequality, and there is no guarantee that a global brain will make solving these problems a priority. The most advantaged regions and communities may seek to use their technological resources to wall themselves off from the world’s poor. The future of abundance seems much further off in Africa than it does in Europe or North America. Writing from Addis Ababa, transhumanist Hruy Tsegay makes an eloquent plea for technologists to prioritize the continent where the human species began its journey. 29 Singularitarian Mingyu Huang is more optimistic about prospects in China, where technological innovation has

174

Chapter Nine

accompanied real progress in lessening poverty, despite the Great Firewall and other well-known limitations on Internet freedom.30 The gradual development of a Global Brain to supplant centralized state control is remarkably similar to the vision advanced by Friedrich Engels in 1878: The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished,” it withers away.31

Today we talk about the “Internet of things” instead of about the “administration of things,” and social management is already partly automated. It will be even more so in the future.

The Future of “Socialism” If by “socialism” we mean a state socialist system of the North Korean type, its future for the next few decades is fortunately bleak. This is not because of an inability of today’s computers to keep track of the inputs and outputs, but because there is as yet no acceptable way to set wages and incomes or to incentivize innovation or to avoid abuses of power. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” didn’t work very well even in the highly motivated culture of the kibbutzim. Such a system needs to be managed by an all-powerful and all-knowing leader, or leadership group, that selflessly manages everything in the common interest without taking advantage of the prerogatives of power. Human beings have not proved capable of providing such leadership. The only hope for such a system would seem to be to develop an all-powerful supercomputer, an Artificial General Intelligence “Nanny,” to run society for us. Such an AGI would not have evolved in a competitive world, it would have been engineered, so it would not have the psychological complexes that infect people with power. Such an AGI is perhaps thirty or forty years off, maybe more. At that point, humans could decide whether to put it to use. It wouldn’t have to rule the whole world, it could be put into place in a large voluntary community. If by “socialism” we mean European-style social democracy, the prospects are certainly much better. These are currently among the most successful societies on earth, by almost any objective measure, and their functioning can be improved with better information systems and more sophisticated econometric models provided by advanced artificial intelligence. In 2009, as George W Bush was busy bailing out failed

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

175

financial firms, Newsweek magazine published a cover announcing that “We Are All Socialists Now.”32 But, of course, we are all also capitalists. Modern societies have large capitalist firms, but also large state agencies that dominate the economy in sectors such as health, education, security, and environmental protection. These sectors are likely to increase as a proportion of the economy. As production is increasingly automated, leisure time can be increased and incomes can be guaranteed, giving people the option to devote more of their time to creative pursuits. If by “socialism” we mean voluntary communities and worker owned or managed enterprises, these may have a growing future as more people have the resources to choose how they want to live. Most of the hippie communes of the 1960s and 1970s were ephemeral, but some still exist such as The Farm Community in Tennessee. Israeli kibbutzim have worked out mechanisms for such communities to co-exist with companies organized on a profit-making model, getting the benefits of both. The biggest problem of communal living, at least on the kibbutzim, seems to be lack of excitement and opportunities for young adults. Most Israelis seem to believe that kibbutzim are great places for children and the elderly.33 Jeremy Rifkin predicts an “eclipse of capitalism” with the emergence of a “near-zero marginal cost society.” 34 In this vision capitalism will be gradually supplanted by what he calls Creative Commons activities, voluntary associations such as Wikipedia, where people work for creative fulfillment. His argument fits certain products, such as encyclopedia publishing, where Wikipedia has out-competed the commercial encyclopedias. “Near-zero marginal cost” means that once you have the infrastructure created it costs next to nothing to produce additional product. This true for books, newspapers and magazines, movies and music recordings if they are published digitally. But reporters and authors still need an income, as do musicians and actors and Internet preachers. Rifkin, interestingly, charges market prices for his book, even in electronic form. So focusing on the marginal cost is really unrealistic, you need to look at the cost of creating the original copy. With today’s technology, the “near-zero marginal cost” argument doesn’t apply to products such as food, housing, medicine, transportation and energy. It will be several decades, at least, until we get 3D printers such as the ones on “Star Trek” that can synthesize a hot meal or a medication or a suit of clothes on order. The replacement of capitalism by the Creative Commons will only be possible after the singularity, when robots and computers will do all the tedious or tiresome work. The most realistic futurist analysis suggests that American capitalism will remain the dominant economic, technological and military force for at least fifty years

176

Chapter Nine

and perhaps for the next one hundred years.35 If we accept this as the most likely reality, the best prospect for advancing socialist ideals will be in the communitarian and social democratic traditions, gradually building the infrastructure for a better future. Sociologist Erik Olin Wright and his group at the University of Wisconsin have been in the forefront in advocating realistic socialist alternatives within the framework of existing societies. 36 Brazilian socialist Paul Singer, who led the “economic solidarity” efforts in the Lula da Silva government, offers a similar vision. These writers do not advocate a revolutionary rupture with capitalism. They advocate building socialist alternatives in the spaces where they can work in competition with other organizational forms. In some cases, they can be triumphant, especially where the cost of producing one more item is close to zero. Linux has competed successfully with Apple and Microsoft for many applications. Music publishing has been largely taken over by free downloads, with musicians earning their living through live performances. There are also successful worker-owned manufacturers including parts of the Mondragón Cooperatives in Spain, King Arthur Flour in Vermont, Uniforja in Brazil, and many kibbutz associated industries in Israel. These are a very small proportion of any national economy, even in Israel, and they face strong competition. This situation is likely to continue for some time. As Paul Singer and João Machado put it: The socialist economy will probably suffer (for how long no one knows) competition with other modes of production. It will be permanently challenged to demonstrate its superiority in terms of self-realization of products and satisfaction of consumers. This leads to the conclusion that the struggle for socialism will never cease. If this is the price which socialists must pay to be democrats, I venture to say that it is not too much.37

While these socialist alternatives may struggle today, they keep alive visions and organizational frameworks that may become more important in the future. If the singularity brings intelligent robots that can do the tedious work, many more people may choose to volunteer their time on projects such as Wikipedia and Linux or spend it on producing books or music or art to be distributed free on the Internet. They may even agree to turn much of the economic planning over to a super-intelligent artificial intelligence “Nanny” should such become available. The distinction between “capitalism” and “socialism” is much less clear today than it was before the end of the Soviet Union. Singapore and South Korea are exemplars of very successful capitalism funded by heavy

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

177

state investment and guidance that created companies such as Samsung. This sort of thing would be criticized as “socialism” in the United States, but even in the United States the government took ownership of General Motors for a time. China calls its system “communism with Chinese characteristics” but it might better be called communist politics with capitalist economics. Samsung’s and Xiaomi’s smart phones are powered by Android, a program adapted by Google from the open source Linux operating system. They compete very effectively with Apple Computer which follows a more standard capitalist corporate model. Israel now markets itself as the “start-up nation” with a mixture of state enterprises, private enterprises and some modern high tech enterprises based on kibbutzim, all of which compete vigorously on a competitive global market. Perhaps the greatest risk is that this future may develop in the most advanced parts of the world, leaving poor countries further and further behind. Their comparative advantage of cheap labor may be lost if intelligent mechanization is cheaper still. There is also the risk of a more fascist alternative, the engineering of a superior “race” of neo-humans through genetic engineering or cyborgian implants. 38 But none of these futures are pre-determined. With careful thought and planning, humans can choose to use technological opportunities to build better societies. What seems clear is that the future of socialism is more likely to resemble the voluntary socialist experiments of the nineteenth century than it is to resemble the Soviet state socialist model. Socialism will not take over the world, at least not in one fell swoop, but socialist ideas and experiments will be part of the process as humanity faces the challenge of making the best of new technological advances.

Bibliography Armstrong, Stuart. 2014. Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence. Machine Research Intelligence Institute, 2014. Kindle Edition. Amazon Digital Services. Baum, Seth, Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel. 2011. "How Long Until Human-Level AI?: Results from an Expert Assessment," Technological Forecasting and Social Change 78 (2011): 185-195. Berry, Brian. America’s Utopian Experiments: Communal Havens from Long-Wave Crisis. Dartmouth: Dartmouth College Press, 1992. Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

178

Chapter Nine

Cockshott, Paul and Allin Cottrell . Towards a New Socialism. London: Spokesman Books, 1993. —. “Cybernetic Paradigm of 21st Century Socialism.” Accessed on June 25, 2015, https://leftforum.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/dublin.pdf Dieterich, Heinz. Hugo Chávez y el Socialismo del Siglo XXI, Segunda Edición Revisada y Ampliada. Accessed on June 25, 2015, http://www.rebelion.org/docs/55395.pdf. Gavron, Daniel. The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Gerovitch, Slava. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Goertzel, Ben and Ted Goertzel, editors. The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity. Humanity+ Press, Amazon Kindle Edition, 2015. Goertzel, Ted. "The Path to More General Artificial Intelligence," Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 26: 343-354, 2015. Hanson, Robin. “Economics of the Singularity,” IEEE Spectrum 45 (2008): 45-50. Hughes, James. Citizen Cyborg. New York: Basic Books, 2004. Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Leviatan, Uriel, Jack Quarter and Hugh Oliver. 1998. Crisis in the Israeli Kibbutz: Meeting the Challenge of Changing Times. New York: Praeger, 1998. Martin, James. Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America 1827-1908. (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles. 1970). Medina, Eden. Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011. Wright, Eric. Envisioning Real Utopias. New York: Verso, 2010. Zilbersheid, Uri. “The Israeli Kibbutz: From Utopia to Dystopia.” Accessed on July 13, 2015 at: https://libcom.org/library/israeli-kibbutz-utopia-dystopia-urizilbersheid.

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

179

Notes 

1

Brian Berry. 1992. America’s Utopian Experiments: Communal Havens from Long-Wave Crisis. (Dartmouth: Dartmouth College Press, 1992). 2 Erik Olin Wright, “Challenging (and maybe transcending) Capitalism through Real Utopias" (paper presented at the Capitalism & Socialism: Utopia, Globalization and Revolution conference in New Harmony, Indiana, November 68, 2014.) 3 Karl Marx, The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers, 1970) page 53. 4 Mack Reynolds, Looking Backward from the Year 2000 (New York: Ace Books, 1973). 5 Seth Baum, Ben Goertzel, and Ted Goertzel, Ted. 2011. "How Long Until Human-Level AI?: Results from an Expert Assessment," Technological Forecasting and Social Change 78 (2011): 185-195. 6 Emma Finamore and Kunal Dutta, “Tesla boss Elon Musk warns artificial intelligence development is 'summoning the demon'.” The Independent, October 26, 2014. Accessed April 10, 2015 at: http://www.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/gadgets-and-tech/news/tesla-boss-elon-musk-warns-artificial-intelligencedevelopment-is-summoning-the-demon-9819760.html. 7 Tanya Lewis. “Stephen Hawking: Artificial intelligence could end human race.” Fox News, December 3, 2014. Accessed on April 29, 2015 at: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/12/03/stephen-hawking-artificial-intelligencecould-end-human-race/. 8 Ray Kurzweil. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. (New York: Penguin Books, 2006) 9 Stuart Armstrong. Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence. Machine Research Intelligence Institute. Amazon Digital Services. Nick Bostrom. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 10 Robin Hanson, “Economics of the Singularity,” IEEE Spectrum 45, 2008: 45-50. 11 Marx, loc. cit. 12 August Bebel. Woman and Socialism. (New York: Socialist Literature Co., 1910). 13 Slava Gerovitch. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), p. 273. 14 Paul Cockshott. “Cybernetic Paradigm of 21st Century Socialism,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtlZys7QOO4. Accompanying slides: https://leftforum.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/dublin.pdf. Accessed December 12, 2014. 15 Heinz Dieterich. Hugo Chávez y el Socialismo del Siglo XXI, Segunda Edición Revisada y Ampliada. (Edición Digital, 2007). Accessed December 12, 2014 at: http://www.rebelion.org/docs/55395.pdf. 16 Ibid., p. vii.

180

Chapter Nine

 17

Raúl Isaías Baduel. “Why I Parted Ways With Chávez,” New York Times, December 1, 2007. Accessed on April 29, 2015 at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/opinion/01baduel.html?_r=0 18 Eden Medina, Eden. Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011). 19 Magdalena Modrzejewska. “’Cost the Limit of Price’: Economic Theory of Josiah Warren.” (paper presented at the Capitalism & Socialism: Utopia, Globalization and Revolution conference in New Harmony, Indiana, November 68, 2014.). James Martin . Man Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America 1827-1908. (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles Publisher, 1970). 20 Len Brewster. “Review Essay on Towards a New Socialism,” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 7, 2004: pp. 65-77. Accessed on December 12, 2014 at: http://mm.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_1_6.pdf. 21 Ben Goertzel. “Beyond Money. Offer Networks: Potential Infrastructure for a Post-Money Economy.” In Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel, editors, The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity. Humanity+ Press, Amazon Kindle Edition, 2015. 22 Daniel Gavron. “The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). Uriel Leviatan, Jack Quarter and Hugh Oliver. Crisis in the Israeli Kibbutz: Meeting the Challenge of Changing Times. (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1998). Uri Zilbersheid, “The Israeli Kibbutz: From Utopia to Dystopia.” Accessed on April 30, 2015 from http://libcom.org/library/israelikibbutz-utopia-dystopia-uri-zilbersheid 23 “Worker Cooperative,” Wikipedia. Accessed on April 30, 2015 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative. 24 Gar Alperovitz and Thomas Hanna. “Mondragón and the System Problem.” Truthout November 1, 2013. Accessed on April 30, 2015 at: http://www.truthout.org/news/item/19704-mondragon-and-the-system-problem#. 25 http://www.kingarthurflour.com/about/history.html 26 James Hughes. “The Politics of Transhumanism.” Accessed on April 30, 2015 at: http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/TranshumPolitics.htm. 27 Viktoras Veitas and David Weinbaum, David. 2015. “A World of Views: A World of Interacting Post-human Intelligences.” In Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel, editors, The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity. Humanity+ Press, Amazon Kindle Edition, 2015. 28 Francis Heylighen. “Return to Eden? Promises and Perils on the Road to Global Superintelligence.” In Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel, editors, The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity. Humanity+ Press, Amazon Kindle Edition, 2015. 29 Hruy Tsegaye. “Africa Today and the Shadow of the Coming Singularity.” In Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel, editors, The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity. Humanity+ Press, Amazon Kindle Edition, 2015.

Cybernetic Socialism and the Technological Singularity

181



30 Mingyu Huang. “Chinese Perspectives on the Approach to the Singularity.” In Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel, editors, The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity. Humanity+ Press, Amazon Kindle Edition, 2015. 31 Friedrich Engels. Anti-Dühring. Section III, Chapter II. Accessed on April 30, 2015 at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm. This translation says that the state “dies out” but the translation “withers away” is much better known. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state#cite_note-cq-2 32 Newsweek Magazine, cover, February 16, 2009. 33 Daniel Gavron. “The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). 34 Jeremy Rifkin. “The End of the Capitalist Era, and What Comes Next.” Huffington Post Blog. June 2, 2014. Accessed on April 30, 2015 at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-rifkin/collaborative-commons-zeromarginal-cost-society_b_5064767.html. 35 George Friedman. The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. (New York: Anchor, 2010). 36 Erik Wright. Envisioning Real Utopias. (New York: Verso, 2010). 37 Paul Singer and João Machado. Economia Socialista. São Paulo: Editora Fundação Abramo, 2000). Translation from: Ted Goertzel. Lula: The Most Popular Politician on Earth. (Boca Raton: BrownWalker, 2011), p. 155. 38 James Hughes. Citizen Cyborg. (New York: Basic Books, 2004).

PART III: UTOPIA

CHAPTER TEN ENGELS, OWEN AND UTOPIANISM— THEN AND NOW JOE WHITE

Bringing a discussion of anything having to do with Frederick Engels into a serious discussion of Utopianism—either as concept or practice—might well seem as well-advised as letting the fox into the henhouse. Hadn’t Engels and his friend and collaborator Karl Marx done a memorable hatchet job in the Communist Manifesto, a political pamphlet with arguably the largest world-wide circulation in the history of political pamphlets? And don’t forget Engels’s Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and Anti-Duehring. Here is what Marx and Engels had to say in the Communist Manifesto about Utopian Societies and their champions: They…endeavor…consistently to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. They still dream of experimental realization of their social Utopias, of founding isolated phalansteres, of establishing ‘Home Colonies,’ of setting up a ‘Little Icaria’—duodecimo editions of New Jerusalem and to realize all these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and the purses of the bourgeoisie. By degrees they sink in to the category of the reactionary Conservative Socialists….1

Nor did Engels stop in l848. For the rest of his life—but especially in the last two decades of his life when he at last became “first fiddle” in the words of his most recent biographer 2 he repeated and sharpened his critique, so that by the last decades of the nineteenth century virtually everybody who cared about these things accepted what Engels took to be an unbridgeable distinction between supposedly Scientific and supposedly Utopian socialism. This was not a simple left- versus right argument. The Fabian Socialist, Sidney Webb, didn’t like anything that smacked of utopianism either and for the same reasons as Engels. As Webb said, Utopians are content with persuading a few people to change their ideas

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

185

and their ways completely, whereas sensible people like us Fabians are just as happy when we persuade many people to change their ideas and ways a little bit. And there matters rested well into the twentieth century. Some serious students of Marxism found or rediscovered that Engels was not merely influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen, but that by any reasonable judgment young Engels was an Owenite. That didn’t seem a big deal to some dyed-in-the–wool Marxists. After all, Marx himself didn’t start off as a Marxist. But from the second half of the twentieth century to the present, it became clear that Engels’s Utopian-Scientific distinction was not sustainable,3 which is why it is high time to revisit a number of issues. Fortunately we no longer have to demonstrate that young Engels was indeed a utopian socialist; that job has already been adequately done. Instead we can ask why was Engels drawn to Owenite socialism and the other varieties at home and abroad in the first place. What did he make of them? When and why did he begin to change his mind—insofar as we can draw any firm conclusions from the employment of what C. Wright Mills called the plain historical method? Finally because of the seriousness of the continuing—some have even said terminal—crisis of international socialism, it is time to move beyond historic divides which are no longer needed and which serve no purpose, if indeed they ever did.

I Just about the first thing Frederick Engels did when he first set foot in England in December l842 was to look up the socialists. We should not be surprised. He was a very recent convert to communism. The words communism and socialism were more or less interchangeable back then and thus did not have quite the same denotations and connotations they do today, leaving aside the question of how many people today know the difference between communism and rheumatism. To return to our main point, he had no difficulty finding the English socialists. Their founder, Robert Owen, was still very much on the scene. More important was the fact that there were many thousands of people who if asked would surely have characterized themselves as Owenites. So that in this sense Owenism was the only socialist show in town, so to speak. But in another sense there were two varieties of Owenism–one being the Socialism propounded by Owen himself, the other being propounded by his working class and artisan supporters.4 Sidney Pollard has—correctly in my opinion—called Robert Owen’s thought a “remarkably complete and self-consistent social philosophy.”5

186

Chapter Ten

Far from being the kind of movement that rose and fell rapidly, Owenism had sunk numerous and deep roots in Britain. I suppose that if one wanted to be pin down a beginning date, one could do worse than go with his famous l8l7 letter to the Times of London. Who can doubt but that on the Biggest Issues of his time and beyond Owen was right and his critics were wrong? 6 But for our purposes, what we need to key into was Owen’s championing of community building as the way to begin building the New Moral World. I see nothing wrong in saying that for these people the New Moral World would be made up of these communities. On the virtues of community building both “wings” of Owenism were in full agreement. They practiced what they preached. By the early l840s a number of attempts had been made in Britain and the United States, and more were to follow. The consensus among historians of the British working class is that Owenism had already begun to decline by l842. We’ll return to this matter later, but there is no reason to suppose that this was clear to young Engels, seeing as he had no basis for comparison. In any event there were still plenty of socialists in Manchester, whence Engels sent back his first of many glowing reports on the state of things socialist in England and beyond. In a dispatch to the Schweizerischer Republikaner (June l843) he says that the Communist hall in Manchester holds 3,000 persons and is full every Sunday. How he arrives at an estimate of 8,000 dues-paying members in greater Manchester he does not say. He especially likes the way in which the speakers’ arguments are “supported by proofs based on facts.” He is less impressed by Robert Owen’s writing style: Owen “writes badly.” But he “has his lucid moments,” and in any case “his views are comprehensive.” He has no doubt but that the socialists have done “an incredible amount to educate the working classes in England,” up to and including expounding the fact that they are not “mere Republicans,” but understand that a republic can be just as bad as a monarchy.” On this point he gives no examples. In the l840s the United States was the only political democracy of any size to be found anywhere in the world and therefore was no use to Engels as an example, one would think. Engels did not confine his investigations and reporting on the local scene. For him to discover that the socialists in England were numerous and active was all well and good. But that in itself did not address a question that a considerable number of people have considered to be of burning importance over the years—namely, can socialism actually work? He sought his most of his answers by citing the American experience of communal societies. And why not? In the l840s there were more communal societies in the United States than in the rest of the world put

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

187

together. As L.S. Feuer points out in his useful, but quite perverse, article, “The Influence of the American Communist Colonies on Engels and Marx,” “at this time America was pre-eminently, for Engels, the land of socialist pioneering.”7 Published writing about American communal societies was abundant and readily available in England in the l840s, so that while his research efforts might not have been exhaustive, Engels nevertheless could consult many descriptions and analyses of American communal societies, both faith-based and secular. He liked what he read. (Saw is not perhaps the right verb here, as I’m not aware that Engels ever set eye or foot in a communal society in his entire life.) Neither the objections Engels addresses nor his rebuttals seem all that original or fresh from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century. Perhaps his easiest task was to show how prosperous many American communal societies were—starting with the Shakers and extending to the Harmonists (whose glowing accounts of Harmony by John Melish had reached England shortly after its publication in American in l8l2)8 and the Bimmlerites of Zoar, Ohio. Showing their prosperity was so easy to do that it wasn’t Engels but one of his sources who found it puzzling that the Shakers even bothered to put in a full day’s work. As for that old chestnut of who will do the hard, dirty work, “… the tasks are, once they are part of the Community, no longer lowly; and then, they permit themselves to be done away with almost completely through improved contrivances, machines and the like.” What life in these communities all added up to was sharply different from what obtained in the rest of the world. “In [Shaker] towns there is not a single gendarme or policeman, no judge, lawyer, or soldier, no jail or penitentiary; and yet everything goes on orderly. The laws of the land mean nothing there for them … for they are the quietest citizens, and have never delivered a law-breaker to prison.”9 Himself a recent convert to Atheism, Engels could not easily and in the event did not overlook the fact that the American communal societies that furnished the most grist for his mill were faith-based. Engels indeed “described their strange religious opinions, their prohibition of marriage and sexual intercourse.” But these paled into insignificance for him when considered in the context of their prosperity and overall social well-being. I don’t know what thought if any Engels gave to the millennial aspect of Shaker and Harmonist thought, nor do I know if it ever occurred to him that the militantly anti-Christian Owenites also had a marked millennial streak, though this was probably at its strongest among Owen and hisfollowers in around the years l8l8-l820. But I doubt that there is much that has not yet been discovered along these lines.

188

Chapter Ten

So far we have been surveying Engels’s reportage and advocacy. If that was all that Engels had to say about Owenism and other utopians, it frankly wouldn’t be all that interesting or important. But in fact Engels did acquaint himself and integrate into his own thinking a key part of Owenite teaching. Gregory Claeys has argued convincingly that the origins of what was to become the Marxist critique of capitalism has the fingerprints of Owenism all over it and traces of Fourier and Proudhon as well. According to Claeys, “Engels essentially adopted the conclusions of Owenite political economy.” But as interesting as are the origins and development of Marxist economics, I shall instead concentrate on one idea in particular that Engels took from John Watts, a “Social Missionary”-full-time national organizer and speaker is a first approximation of a definition—in particular. Watts was the author of The Facts and Fictions of Political Economy (l842). Engels was highly impressed by Watts, whom he mentions with approbation in one of his earliest dispatches. In Facts and Fictions, Watts bitterly assailed Adam Smith’s endorsement (to put it mildly) of an extreme division of labor. As Watts, whose earlier trade was that of a ribbon weaver, wrote, “it cannot admit of long question, whether, the clipping of the wire, or the pointing or heading of a pin, be fit employment for the life of a rational being….” 10 Three important points can be made, The first is that it nicely illustrates the difference between Robert Owen’s Owenism and the Owenism of his working-class and artisan disciples. For all his paternalistic kindheartedness (sincerity is not the issue here) I am not aware that Owen ever questioned or critiqued the division of labor in the factories that he owned and managed. But Watts did. The second point is that the division of labor figured prominently in Engels’s Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (l843) which was in its turn fully integrated into Marx’s thought as in The German Ideology where he and Engels famously wrote that “under communism” it would be “possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, 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, fisherman, shepherd or critic.” 11 Alienation reappears in the section on commodity fetishism in Das Kapital. (So much for the supposed distinction between the early Marx and the mature Marx.) The third and final point is that radical questioning of the actually existing division of labor and its consequences, the most important of which finds its expression in the concept of alienation, is plainly the common intellectual property of the Marxist and Utopian traditions alike. We shall return to this soon. Like the Weber thesis, many nails have been pounded in, but the lid refuses to stay shut,

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

189

II But by l847-48 Engels was no longer an Owenite. I have already touched on why subsequent generations of Marxists have seen little or nothing to explain: why trouble yourself with trying to explain what you take to be a Very Good Thing? This is one reason that there has been so little discussion. Another reason is that Engels did not leave anything resembling a well-defined paper trail in which he indicated, step by step, where he was headed intellectually and politically. These obstacles notwithstanding, I think that it’s both possible and helpful to roughly retrace his trajectory away from Owenism. Even at the beginning of his stay in Manchester, Engels was not a completely uncritical supporter of the Owenites, who, he noted very early on, had a reputation for being high-handed and undemocratic, and this should serve to remind us that he and Marx were radical, small d democrats. However, he does not seem to have dwelt on this criticism nor does he seem to have repeated it. I would instead mark the start of his serious criticism of Owenism with Chapter IX of The Condition of the Working Class in England (l845), entitled “Working-Class Movements.” In his view (which is hard to argue with) there are three major movements—trade unions, Chartism, and socialism—which he discusses in that order, though without explicitly rank-ordering them in terms of size or importance. Unions, on the one hand,“ are helpless in the face of the major factors influencing the economy,” but on the other hand “the workers could not have chosen a more vulnerable chink in the armor of the middle classes and the present social structure than by organizing trade unions and strikes.” 12 Despite their weaknesses and the fact that unions must by their very nature must take industrial capitalism as given, at least for the time being, “trade unionism is an ideal preparation for social war,”13 which, it may be noted in passing, remains the off-the-shelf Marxist take on trade unions right up to the present. Engels does not make any explicit statements that I can find on the relationship between unions and socialism but instead slides smoothly into his discussion of Chartism. Without a doubt, the Six Points of the People’s Charter constituted a world-class political slogan or parole by virtue of their power to mobilize and inspire millions of people. “Freedom Now” is in my opinion an American equivalent. Engels himself had no doubts as to the importance of Chartism, and he first raised the question which historians have been wrestling with ever since, namely, seeing as the Charter’s Six Points were purely political, was Chartism also a social

190

Chapter Ten

movement? And if it was, what kind of social program did the Chartists implicitly or explicitly have in mind? Engels’s answer to the first question is printed in italics: “Chartism is essentially a social movement.” As to the second question he says that in addition to the Six Points, they also support parliamentary legislation for the l0-hour working day, a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work, and repeal of the hated New Poor Law of l834. That said, however, “the [Chartist] workers are by no means clear in their own minds as to what they can achieve once the Charter has been accepted.” 14 Fortunately, “meanwhile the Socialist agitation is making progress,” Engels has launched his discussion of the third member of the trade union/Chartism/Socialism troika. After a thumbnail sketch of socialist “home colonies of between 2,000 and 3,000 people and their chief economic, political and social distinguishing characteristics, he notes that Robert Owen was a millowner whose theories, while “developed from an appreciation of the antagonism between the middle classes and the workers,” nevertheless somehow favored the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, were “mild mannered and law-abiding,” relying as they did entirely on peaceful persuasion. Perhaps worst of all “the English Socialists are constantly bewailing the demoralization of the lower orders” and in doing so “fail to recognize that the dissolution of the social order is in fact a sign of progress.” Finally, “They do not appreciate the significance of historical development.” Strong words, these. It strongly appears that as early as l845 was well on his way to saying farewell to Owenism. And yet Chartists and Socialists are not completely separated from and opposed to one another. Nor was the present and future all that bleak. Some Chartists are already Socialists. Some Socialists are in favor of fighting for the Charter. If the Chartists represent the genuine working class, the Socialists are more far sighted. Both movements need to hook up. That process has already begun. “Only when it is finally accomplished will the working classes really rule England.”15 It is more than arguable that Engels has provided posterity a fully adequate explanation of the influences that led him to be critical of Owenite Socialism. There is, however, one final factor what we may wish to consider. Although to my knowledge he never mentions it in his writings, many of the community building experiments of the l840s were short-lived and in both England and America were disappearing as fast as the proverbial mushrooms after a spring rain. What’s more, the Owenite and Fourierist ones were the most vulnerable. Being the sharp-eyed observer of the current scene as he was (and which generations of latter-

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

191

day Marxists have tried their hardest to emulate, not always successfully), I find it highly unlikely that Engels did not notice what was happening as scores of communities went under. Perhaps the most spectacular was the crash of Brook Farm, which he had singled out for special mention just a few short years ago. But however salient the experience of failed community-building was in the development of Engels’s thought, it was only a small step from The Condition of The English Working Class in l844 to an article titled “Citizen Cabet’s “Emigration Scheme” that appeared in l847 in the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, published under the aegis of Marx and Engels. In it the case against community–building in America was rehearsed in full. It couldn’t be done. Quarrels would arise. The habits and values of the old immoral world would not disappear overnight. Even if roots were sunk, the communities would be hopelessly sectarian. Neighbors would be hostile. Far better then to stay in Europe where a socialist society “will be inaugurated here if it is going to be inaugurated at all.”16 Viewed from this angle, their strictures against Utopian Socialism that appeared a few short months later in the Communist Manifesto can be regarded as little more than icing on the cake. Finally, it is more than plausible that with the outbreak of the Revolution of l848, Frederick Engels settled his account with Utopianism once and for all.

III We proceed from where we left off. For over a century—from the mid nineteenth to the mid twentieth century and beyond there was little love lost between these two (far from monolithic) traditions which in shorthand we shall now call Marxist and Utopian.17The Marxists were clearly the aggressor. Not that they were entirely off the wall. Many of their l847-48 criticisms were well taken. The fact that the Communist Manifesto appeared six weeks before the Revolution of l848 and was thus one of the most spectacularly accurate predictions in the political history of the modern world only added to the power and credibility of its analyses. That was just the beginning. The serious difficulties encountered by the First International after the defeat of the Paris Commune of l871 could plausibly be blamed on the Utopians and the Anarchists, which of course is exactly what Marx did.18 Of even greater importance was the growth and successes of labor and socialist movements throughout much of the world epitomized by the emergence of the Second International. To be sure the Marxists never did sweep the field—particularly in the Latin world. But it was plain to contemporaries that the largest and apparently

192

Chapter Ten

most successful party of all—the German Social Democrats—was also the most militantly anti-utopian. As noted earlier, Reformists and Left Radicals in the years of the Second International were equally anti-utopian and adduced essentially similar criticisms. The impact of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in l9l7 and for the next 70 years was to a degree similar to Engels’s pointing to actually existing communal societies as proof that socialism really could work. As if that wasn’t enough, from the end of the World War II to l990, virtually all Marxists (by now there were several varieties) thought that the whole world was in the opening stages of a epochal transition from capitalism to socialism, even if only a few of them dared to predict how long and messy that transition might be. In addition, Social Democrats, who for the most part downplayed their Marxist patrimony, could also claim success—in a way even more convincingly, since they could declare their project of creating a welfare state essentially completed. Utopianism was thus largely driven back into the margins. Especially in the l950s one encountered the argument that aside from and maybe even because of its supposedly obvious shortcomings, Utopianism was in its way even worse than Marxism, which in any case was said to also be fatally infected with the Utopian virus. Any prospects for these interrelated propositions becoming permanently settled orthodoxy have been rudely shaken by many events of the past half-century. 1968 in France and Czechoslovakia plainly did not conform to a stereotypical yawning gap between Utopianism and Marxism. With the downfall of Soviet Russia, it suddenly became cold fact that Utopian communal societies like the Harmonists and Shakers actually lasted longer. Chinese Communism has apparently morphed into chemically pure State Capitalism. Social Democracy has either been defeated by Neoliberalism or has turned into Neoliberalism. A falling Marxist trajectory has been overtaken by a rising Utopian one. One would have thought that these cataclysmic changes on a worldwide scale—the greatest since the early decades of the Industrial Revolution—would find expression in a sustained re-examination of Utopianism, Marxism, and an exploration of their overlaps and interrelatedness. If we look for evidence of such a re-examination from the Marxist side and let our guide be David McLellan, Marxism after Marx (4th edition, 2007), we do find a few mentions of Utopianism. McLellan notes that Engels, Georgi Plekhanov (l856-l9l8) and others fully agree that Marxism was the (rightful) inheritor of Utopianism. Herbert Marcuse (l898-l979) displays no end of “utopian radicalism,” as does Frederic Jameson with a postmodern twist. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri “take

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

193

up the Marxist side of the Utopian project,” in contradistinction to “addressing the economic logic of capitalism.” McLellan ends with a reference to “Marx and his dangerously utopian aspirations,” as his twentieth century opponents stridently characterized and denounced his ideas and their consequences when put into practice. The issue here is not whether any or all of these localized judgments have merit—I happen to think that they do. I also think that McLellan’s survey is broadly accurate: Marxists after Marx for the most part did not dig deeply (and often not at all) into Marxism’s relation to utopianism. This seems to go for McLellan himself. On the one hand he says that State and Revolution is just about the most important thing that Lenin ever wrote. This judgment is surely sustainable though not obviously true on its face. On the other hand, he does not make what seems to me the obvious point that State and Revolution is utterly Utopian —whether in the most common sense or erudite sense of the term—in its imagining of a world in which states that rule over men and women have given way to the routine administration of things—“every cook a diplomat” being the most often cited example—and in my view accurate—boiling down.19 Are matters clarified if we approach them from the Utopian side? That is to ask, once again, what a coherent view of how Marxism fits in with Utopianism might look like. Here our guide will be Ruth Levitas, The Concept of Utopia (l990). Unlike McLellan, for whom Utopianism is virtually a non-problem, Levitas leaves the reader with no doubt that Marxism simply cannot be ignored, seeing as the two schools of thought are so deeply intertwined—often in the same persons, Herbert Marcuse, Ernst Bloch and William Morris being key examples who receive extended discussion. Levitas does not say explicitly if she considers Marxism in the late twentieth century and beyond still to be the “Gold Standard” against which other broad-gauge social science theories and liberation projects are to be assessed. My reading of her is that at the very least she prefers Utopianism to Marxism. In any case, a critique of Marxism is not the book’s main focus. Levitas correctly argues that modern Utopianisms and Marxism— however each is defined— share many common features. Both are deeply critical of existing society for broadly the same reasons. Both think that another world is possible which would be incomparably better than the one we have now. So why has the relationship been so fraught with tension and (all too often) outright hostility? Her somewhat longwinded answer boils down to the claim that Utopians and Marxists have had two very different ways of thinking about how to achieve the new society.

194

Chapter Ten

I think that Levitas is right about this but that her argument operates at a level that is far too abstract to be helpful and at any event is not stated in a familiar vocabulary. What exactly are those two different ways? She doesn’t say explicitly, so that one can only speculate as to why she doesn’t say flat out that the Marxist view of society and how to change it has always been based on an largely unqualified model of class conflict, which by definition is a Good Thing if ever there was one. “Fan the flames of discontent,” says the cover of the I.W.W. Little Red Songbook. 20 Intensified class struggle might or inevitably will—depending on what which Marxists in which periods say—produce revolutionary situations and the triumph of the revolution. By sharp contrast, all the varieties of Utopianism play down the element of social struggle in one way and extent or another, up to and including totally. I’m fairly sure that Levitas would agree with my reading of her, although here too she doesn’t say what I am saying in as many words. It is then in the context of this sharply defined difference between Utopianism and Marxism that the thought of William Morris (l834-1896) becomes crucially important. According to the great historian, E.P. Thompson, the key to why Morris should be considered a major thinker (as opposed to “merely” a wonderful artist and craftsman who for the last l5 years of his life discovered and preached what he took to be Marxist socialism) is what Thompson calls Morris’s Scientific Utopianism as expressed in News from Nowhere. Whatever could Thompson mean by such a glaring but obviously intentional oxymoron? He explains: The science lies not only in [News from Nowhere’s] wonderful description of “How the Change Came”, the mastery of historical process, the understanding of the economic and social bases of Communism. And yet it is still a Utopia, which only a writer nurtured in the romantic tradition could have conceived—a writer ever conscious of the distinction between the “ideal” and the real.”21

Thompson is famous for many things, one of which was his ongoing debate with and within Marxism. But here the issue is Thompson’s claim that Morris showed that it was indeed possible achieve a synthesis of “scientific” socialism and utopianism, with neither one or the other dominant but with both equally necessary. Levitas cites Thompson’s interpretation—not with a view to fully endorsing it or even to rate it as the best available interpretation on offer, but rather to show that his interpretation has not convinced everyone. And if William Morris did not in her view successfully effect a synthesis of Utopianism and Marxism, neither has anyone else, right up to the present.

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

195

IV Reconciling and transcending differences so deep and long lasting as those discussed in this essay will not happen overnight, if indeed they ever happen, to say nothing of the fact that tension between the “Realos” and “Fundis” (Realists and Fundamentalists, a term we owe to the German Greens) can never and should not be permanently settled one way or the other. But despite the history that we have all too briefly surveyed in this essay, the need for Utopians and Marxists to search for common ground is as pressing as ever. What Marxists can bring to metaphorical marriage or merger talks is an emphasis on agency, self-activity and struggle. What the Utopian tradition can bring to the table is just as important—an unswerving emphasis on the importance of thinking and dreaming about what men and women should be wanting on the proverbial “day after the Revolution.” But whatever the tensions, there is one big insight on which all can agree—namely that the trouble with capitalism is that it really is antisocial in all senses of the term. We’re all on the same page more than is often acknowledged, and we’re certainly all in the same boat.

Bibliography Althusser, Louis. For Marx, London: l985. Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope, Cambridge, MA: 1995. Briggs, A. and J. Saville, Essays in Labour History, London: l960. Claeys, Gregory. The Utopia Reader, New York: l999. Collins, Henry Collins and Chimen Abramsky. Karl Marx and the British Working Class: Years of the First International, London: l965. Engels, Friedrich. Anti-Duehring, Chicago: l907. —. The Condition of the Working-class in England in l844, Oxford: l971. —. Socialism Utopian and Scientific, London: l950. Hardt, Michael and Antionio Negri, Empire, Cambridge, MA: 200l. Hunt, Tristiam. Marx’s General : The Revolutionary Life of Fredrich Engels. New York: 2009. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism: the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Berkeley: l99l. Lenin, V.I. State and Revolution, New York: l943. Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia, London: 1990. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party, Moscow: l977. McClellan, David. Marxism After Marx, 4th edition, London: 2003.

196

Chapter Ten

Pollard, Sidney, et al. Robert Owen: Prophet of the Poor, London: l971. Robinson, Paul A. The Freudian Left: Wilhelm Reich, Geza Roheim, Herbert Marcuse, New York: l969. Shaw, George Bernard, ed. Fabian Essays in Socialism, London: l889. Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class, New York: l963. —. William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, New York: l977.

Notes 

1

K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marxists Internet Archive, (marxists.org), 2010, p. 33. 2 T. Hunt, Marx’s General, London: 2009, especially pp. 317-351. 3 There were holdouts. Perhaps the most famous was Louis Althusser, whose version of Marxism turned on his claim that there was a huge “epistemic break” between the Marxism of Marx and Engels in the l840s and the mature Marx. Althusser found nary a trace of Utopianism in the mature Marx. As for Engels, Althusser never had much respect for him. 4 This distinction has been fully and brilliantly explored by E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class, London: l963. 5 S. Pollard, “Nineteenth Century Co-operation: From Community Building to Shopkeeping,” in A. Briggs and J. Saville, Essays in Labour History, London: l960, p. 75. 6 On matters like the contention that the industrial revolution was here to stay, women and children ought to be treated as human beings, education is preferable to ignorance…. 7 L. S. Feuer, “The Influence of American Communist Colonies on Marx and Engels,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. l9, No. 3 (Sept. l966), p. 461. 8 John Melish, Travels in the United States of America, Philadelphia: l8l2. 9 Feuer, p. 46l. George Rapp, the leader of the Harmonist Society, made the same point about his associates in Thoughts on the Destiny of Man, New York: l97l. 10 Cited in T. Hunt, op. cit., p. 89. 11 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 22. 12 F. Engels, The Condition of the Working-class in England in l844, Oxford: l97l, p. 248. 13 Ibid., p. 234 14 Ibid., p. 268. 15 Ibid., pp. 267-70. 16 Cited in Feuer, op. cit., p. 474. 17 Ruth Levitas, The Concept of Utopianism, London: l990, passim. 18 The best treatment in my view is to be found in H. Collins and C. Abramsky, Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement: Years of the First International, London: l964. 19 V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution, Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp, 38l-492.

Engels, Owen and Utopianism—Then and Now

197

 20

Many (more than 40) editions, dates and places of publication. It is still in print. E.P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, New York: l977, p. 693. 22. Levitas, op. cit., pp. l27-l31. 21

CHAPTER ELEVEN SEEKING A BETTER LIFE: A STUDY OF UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES PROPOSED BY ROBERT OWEN AND EDWARD BELLAMY ANNETTE M. MAGID

The United States served as a fertile testing ground for utopian dreams, especially from the end if the eighteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century, the period of approximately ninety years between the American Revolution (1775-1783) and the end of the Civil War (18611865). The mere place of one’s birth and one’s upbringing can have a profound effect on the decisions a person makes later in life. The focus of my paper is to assess key points regarding the personal backgrounds and upbringing of Robert Owen and Edward Bellamy who each had dreams of 1 American utopian “communities.” It is my conjecture that the influences of the childhood and early manhood of Owen and Bellamy had a profound effect on their personal philosophy and may also have guided them to seek a better, more utopian-type life.

Robert Owen’s Early Years Owen was born in Wales in 1771 where his character and outlook were formulated by his Welsh schooling and religious upbringing. His immediate family and nearby relatives also had an effect on his critical thinking skills. 2 Much of what is known about Owen’s early years is derived from his autobiography, written when Owen, in his later years, was reminiscing about his youth. 3 According to one source, Robert Owen’s father, Robert, came from a family of well- off farmers who had fallen into hard times and became landlords of the White Lion Inn and an adjacent malt house in Welshpool. Since Owen senior was one of the

Seeking a Better Life

199

younger sons and unlikely to inherit any assets that the family may have had, he was bound as a saddler’s apprentice, Later, after Owen senior married Anne Williams, whom Robert Owen described in his autobiography as smart and beautiful, Owen senior established himself as a saddler and a retail ironmonger. Owen senior also held responsible positions in the community; he was the post-master and a church warden. The combined craft skills and his two official appointments united his practical skills with knowledge of required and appropriate levels of math and literacy (in both Welsh and English) which probably had an influence on his son, Robert Owen. Owen was the second youngest of a family of seven, two of whom died in infancy.4 The town of Newton where Owen lived was one of several emergent flannel making locations in Central Wales. During Owen’s time in Newton, both Welsh and English were in daily use with English dominant. Owen claimed he was ill-educated, awkward, and spoke an ungrammatical Welsh English. Since it is difficult to verify this, perhaps it could be hypothesized that Owen portrayed himself as an untutored youth in order to emphasize his rags-to-riches or Horatio Alger-like story of his success. As early as age four or five, Owen probably began his formal education; however, this cannot be verified in his autobiography since he claimed to have no recollection of his first days at school. The master who took charge of his school in Newtown Hall was William Thickens whom Owen identified as Mr. Thickness, which was possibly his nickname or Owen’s attempt at childhood humor. Owen’s education under the guidance of Thickens was no more than the three Rs which would have provided the student with what was considered a good education: to read fluently, to write a legible hand, and to understand the first four rules of arithmetic. Owen claims to have mastered these rudiments of learning by the age of seven. At age eight, Owen was offered the post of assistant and usher to Mr. Thickens in return for a free education during the rest of his schooling. In his role as assistant and usher, Owen served as monitor and taught what he knew to other students, perhaps younger than himself. He gained first-hand knowledge of teaching and the rudiments of an elementary school curriculum, which would later prove useful. The principle of older, more adept students, teaching younger and/ or less able students is called the Factory System and Owen adopted this method as a model for his school for his workers’ children in New Lanark.5 Even though he did not recall his early days at school, he did recollect his need to be first in all that he did and he also recalled that in his haste, he ate scalding hot breakfast cereal that resulted in physically and

200

Chapter Eleven

psychologically scarring him. After the incident that caused him to faint and remain unconscious for a length of time, he was unable to digest regular portions of food. He had to change his diet and make close observations of the effects of different kinds of food on his constitution. He also claimed that he could not eat and drink as others of his age.6 During his early years he was a voracious reader and had access to libraries of the learned in the town—the clergyman, doctor and lawyer— with permission to take home any volume that he liked. He read many classics of the time including Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim’s Progress, Paradise Lost, all standard novels, Cook’s and all circumnavigators’ voyages, and all the lives of philosophers and great men.7 Education was not much of a priority in his town and as with Owen’s formal education, very limited. Both of Owen’s parents, according to Owen in his autobiography must have had a bit more education than most in their town. It is interesting to note that Owen’s parents and possibly his brothers, especially William, did much to encourage Robert Owen’s education. He did successfully complete the elementary education level offered in Newton. Owen used whatever he learned from the books he read. For example, Owen embraced this highly moral tale of Robinson Crusoe, which had strong religious, environmental and economic messages, and noted the hero’s success in building up, step by step, out of whatever materials came to hand, a physical and moral replica of the world Crusoe had left behind him.8 One of the most influential of the townspeople who loaned Owen books was The Reverend Samuel Drake whom Owen referred to as: Parson Drake. Drake had three young sons around Robert Owen’s age. Parson Drake took Owen to church and introduced him to the power of rhetoric and persuasion. Owen loved child’s games of marbles, hand ball and football. He also enjoyed dancing which he learned as a local dancing school. He attempted to learn music, playing the clarinet quite loudly in his neighborhood, but he was not very talented with the instrument. In his autobiography he identified himself as the best dancer, a skill he later taught to the children in his New Lanark mill school. Beside his skills at children’s games and dancing, he also was proficient at helping in his father’s shop where he ran various errands and later served as a clerk. Like many children in the eighteenth century, child labor was common. Once his skills as a clerk were observed by various townsfolk, he was asked to work daily for a neighboring shop owner who ran a wholesale and retail drapery and haberdashery store. When Owen was nine and one half, he wanted to leave Newton and move to London where he could expand his employment opportunities. Even though his parents initially rejected the idea, Owen

Seeking a Better Life

201

convinced them that he could stay with his brother William and his sisterin-law. So, when Owen was ten years old, it was Owen senior who made the arrangements for Owen’s job at a retail haberdashery in Stamford. The man for whom Owen worked, McGuffog, was a prosperous self-made man. Owen learned much about commerce from him and noted that McGuffog was thoroughly honest, a good man of business, very methodical, kind and liberal, and much respected by his neighbors and customers. In other words, McGuffog was a perfect role-model for a young Robert Owen.9 Owen used the gifts that his background and family bestowed on him. Like his parents, he was industrious and pious and despite the obvious limits of his formal schooling, he was probably much better educated than others of his age. Also, at an early age, he acquired a great deal of experience in a relatively short time. He had developed a good all-around knowledge of the retail clothing trade, some basic business skills, and the necessary social skills to deal successfully with people from different backgrounds. As J. Butt mentioned in his introduction to Owen’s autobiography in the 1971 reprint, through his jobs in various levels of society, he was comfortable talking with everyone from Scottish lairds, royal duke, diplomats and aristocratic and occasionally radical cabinet ministers whom he met in McGuffog’s haberdashery, to the lower class clientele he encountered at Flint and Palmer during his stay in London, to the middle-class customers, whom he met when he moved to Manchester and worked at Satterfield’s store. From all of his retails experiences, he gained considerable initiative and promise. It was in Manchester, which was a hub of the cotton industry that served as an ideal environment for his newly acquired attributes to help Owen achieve success.10 When Owen moved from London to Manchester: He found himself at the very center of the nascent industrial revolution, based on the new cotton-spinning machinery invented less than a score of years before by Hargreaves, Arkwright, and the others. In Manchester in the 1780’s the new factory system was in process of rapid growth, exploiting both the new devices and the working population that gathered to operate them.11

Owen into Adulthood Owen learned, perhaps through his extensive reading or perhaps through his keen observations and ingenuity, the skill of managerial techniques. New Lanark, the place Owen was later to make internationally famous, became, in a sense, his island, much like the one in Robinson Crusoe he had read about as a child many years before. In New Lanark, like

202

Chapter Eleven

Robinson Crusoe, he used what came to hand, both in the physical environment and in what he himself later called the “human capital.”12 He kept his workers busy and focused on their work so they could be most productive for the mill. He personally needed to be the best at all he attempted and this approach to life is reflected in his role as manager of New Lanark. He was experimental in his approach to seeking the most productivity from his workers. For example, one technique he personally observed was that when he was busy, he was more comfortable and less aware of the heat of the day. He, therefore, incorporated his experience of being busy rather than being idle as a method to approach workers as the manager of New Lanark. Before he was twenty years old, Owen was displaying his remarkable business ability even without parental guidance. He made sure that everyone was working at his/ her optimum speed and their optimum output. He even created a split shift with eight hour shifts so that the Mill could run 24 hours a day.13 Of all the things he learned during his childhood years, one of the most important was the power of rhetoric and persuasion which Owen initially learned during the sermons of Parson Drake. Owen’s gift of powerful speech can be attributed to his Welshness. He heard both Welsh and English in his father’s shop, the schoolroom, and in the church. Owen used the messianic language typical of the period in his writings and speeches.14 Because Owen was exposed to other cultures while inspecting outposts of the British cotton industry for his father-in-law, he developed toleration for other philosophies, religious thought, and various languages including Gaelic which he used to communicate with the workers in New Lanark where he worked as managing partner. From his knowledge of dealing with a multiplicity of workers, Owen tried to spread his philosophy of dealing with a community of goods. He spoke in England as well as in Washington. When Owen’s theories were discussed in the press a few decades earlier, they were regarded with doubt and viewed as farfetched. Owen’s proposal to give workers more leisure time was viewed as a means of presenting a “less powerful stimulant to toil.”15 His message was not clearly embraced in the American press and many responses such as one from an unnamed member of Congress questioned if once equality is achieved in society, “When all have enough, what is to be done? Will the mind be at ease? It will not. . . . As long as some men possess more intellect, more industry, and prudence, than others, there will be a difference of condition.” 16 Owen’s philosophies were not warmly embraced in America nor in Great Britain. One possible deterrent may have been the dictatorial tone with which Owen, the self-made man, spoke and the possibly arrogant know-it-all manner with which he approached a

Seeking a Better Life

203

problem after he studied and thought about it, deriving what he considered the only solution to the problem. Perhaps, if Owen would have initiated discussions, rather than didactic lectures, he would have been more kindly regarded; because he was proposing that organized religion was no longer helpful to mankind, he struck a raw nerve with his audiences. Perhaps Owen’s theories were rejected due to his secular focus which denied the doctrine of original sin. 17 While today’s society is more tolerant of different theories, Owen’s anti-religious postulations might still be shunned by a segment of the public. It should be noted that his speaking and writing skills developed into strong features of his character in adult life. In his spare time during his off hours when Owen was still reading everything he could, he recorded in notebooks, notes and passages that resonated with him. While Owen was managing the cotton-mill village of New Lanark, Scotland, he, a successful industrialist and utopian thinker published, A New View of Society. His essays, A New View of Society, were published initially in Scotland in 1813 and republished for the United States in 1822. Owen presented his theories to the United States Congress when President Monroe was in office. A New View of Society sparked interest and inspired President Monroe to suggest that Owen’s theories could help unite the Native Americans (then called Indians) with the new immigrants from all over the world.18 The American press seemed to find Owen’s proposals “economically feasible even though the premise for his philosophy was somewhat abstract.”19 It wasn’t until Owen appeared in Washington in a public forum that the press began to criticize his theories. His New View of Society was too radical for the religious conservatives and he was lampooned for his writing. Even though Owen’s message was not too different from Bellamy’s theories regarding social equality, once Owen proposed that one should reject the doctrine of human depravity and original sin, his proposal engendered torrents of wrath. Response to Owen’s theories took the form of letters and editorials in a variety of newspapers both in England and.in America. Three months following Owen’s Washington addresses, the National Intelligencer alone published twenty-four long communications on his plan, most of them included discussions regarding the seemingly anti-religious implications of his philosophy.20 Because of his philosophy regarding the separation of church and education, there was a religious attack upon Owen beginning as early as 1817 in the London Christian Observer. The newspapers and commentators linked Owen with Voltaire and others such as Paine and focused on principal passages in Owen’s New View of Society sustaining the charge of deism.21

204

Chapter Eleven

Owen was one of the many inventive thinkers regarding experimental communes. Owen had the means to sustain his publications, presentations and world travels. After some difficulty with his partners in Scotland, Owen decided to travel to America to see if he could purchase Harmonie which according to British monetary standards was relatively far less expensive than land in Scotland. Owen had a personal fortune of $250,000. When Owen negotiated to buy Rapp’s community in Harmony, the valuation of the land and the houses was put at $126,000 which included $88,000 for the land. 22 Another feature of Harmonie that appealed to Owen is that it was an already established community with houses, streets and municipal buildings already in place, much like the Lanark area was when he purchased it and established New Lanark. Owen’s American community of New Harmony was established in the 1820s, only forty-four years following the formation of the United States. Those who lived in either New Lanark or New Harmony identified themselves as Owenites. Owenites were an early secular group who followed the teaching and inspiration of Owen who espoused that his community should be based on secular theories. However, Owenites were not secular in the sense of disavowing religious practices in their utopian community. In fact, he guaranteed freedom of worship in his community. Owen had an elaborate model created while he was in England of his ideal community as a means of explaining his envisionment of a utopian community. The community was labeled as secular because Owen very strongly believed in the separation of religion and education. His ideas also included help for working mothers which at the time was not a popular practice. One of his accomplishments was developing a school system to interest the children of the mill workers. An innovative part of the education he provided incorporated his love of dancing and music into his educational system. He made an effort to reform the schools to help the female working mothers with their children while the mothers were working. Another innovative idea Owen considered was to combine farming and manufacturing to enhance productivity and profit.23 While Owen loved reading as a child, it seems strange that in later life he exhibited to his wife, his children and later to some of those who had reason to challenge the educational notions practiced at New Lanark, his strong disdain for books. It is not clear that his attitude against books was a result of his lack of time to read them as he became more engaged in his busy life or if he resented reading anything that disagreed with him in print. Owen shunned struggle and since newspapers were available and

Seeking a Better Life

205

were easier to read quickly, Owen probably was able to keep up with events outside of his very small town through articles he read.24 Another consideration Owen had was a desire to create an early “think tank” to share and expand intellectual pursuits. Perhaps that was his motivation to bring philosophers, scientists and writers to the New Harmony community. It might have been successful if he would have also brought skilled craftsmen as well. While people flocked to New Harmony, most exhibited “irresponsible character”25 and this most likely contributed to the failure, but according to Bestor’s Backwoods Utopias, “Owen had only himself to blame.”26 Owen seems to have ignored his oversight of the community. “For months after Owen purchased the property of New Harmony in Indiana, Owen’s closest associates had no idea how he intended to recruit the population for his experiment.”27 There were not enough people to take care of the farming of crops, husbandry of livestock and completion of menial tasks in the thriving community which Owen had purchased from Father George Rapp. Also, the philosophy of Owen's utopian village was communistic where the rights of the masses were more important than those of the individual. This theory involved the satisfaction of having been a part of the whole. This worked well in New Lanark, Scotland, however, it was not as successful in the community of New Harmony because as ironically the cliché goes, Owen had too many chiefs (intellectuals) and (figuratively) not enough Indians. It seems that while Owen was busy trying to gain American public opinion support on a national level by presenting impressive propagandistic treatises, he left much of the day-to-day difficulties of New Harmony with his twenty-three year old son, William who was clueless about how to proceed. When Owen initially returned to Scotland, he left his son William in charge of New Lanark; however, he gave William no guidance and he “never knew what to expect.”28 Even though there was a Preliminary Society formed at the onset of New Harmony, there was no actual leadership to guide the community other than Owen’s initial “vague and outmoded ‘Rules and Regulations’.”29 While the Preliminary Society of New Harmony offered Owen the opportunity to produce “a better matured plan during the period for reflection provided by the Preliminary Society,” 30 Even though Owen indiscriminately admitted eight or nine hundred persons during the seven weeks he had spent at New Harmony, no use was made of the probationary features on the Preliminary Society. In fact, for the next year everyone at New Harmony was admitted to the supposedly permanent Community of Equality, on the simple condition of signing the new constitution.”31

206

Chapter Eleven

Bellamy’s Early Years Many specific occurrences in the life of Bellamy shaped the characterizations and theories within Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel, Looking Backward. Because Bellamy was born in middle-class home in a small town, Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, a highly industrialized center for textiles and bronze manufacturing,32 he was subjected to the power of machine over man. It should be noted that Owen viewed industrialization as a boon for mankind and he credited the increase of wealth in society to the increased productivity of the new machinery, or the new “scientific power” as he called it.33 While living in this hub of entrepreneurial energy, during a period of emerging dehumanization, Bellamy’s poor health allowed him extended hours to imagine his own discussions with heroes and kings, no doubt Bellamy’s imaginary characters were wearing fanciful textile garments adorned with bronze. His insatiable appetite for high adventure and military exploit fueled his fascination with war heroes such as young Napoleon. It is ironic that he yearned for the glory of Napoleon while being rejected at West Point because he was suffering from tuberculosis. It was recorded that his rejection was “because of physical inadequacy.”34 Bellamy did not have the financial backing to even try to establish a utopian community based on his writings. It should be noted that Bellamy did have a “modest literary reputation”35 from his short stories published in “some of the best magazines of the day—Scribner’s, Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, among others.”36 During a span of six years from 1878 through 1884, he also published four novels: Six to One (1878); The Duke of Stockbridge (1879); Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process (1880); and Miss Ludington’s Sister (1884).37 Even though Bellamy was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts in 1871, he realized he enjoyed writing more than he enjoyed being a lawyer. He foresaw his destiny, gave up his practice and turned to journalism. It is my inference that the influences of Bellamy’s childhood had a profound effect on Bellamy’s personal philosophy and may also have guided each of him to seek a better, more utopian-type life. One such influence was deeply rooted in the home of Edward Bellamy. His siblings were a constant source of frustration for him. Bellamy was the third of four sons. Unlike Robert Owen who at age ten left his home in Newtown in northern Wales to live with his brother in London and seek his fortune,”38 Bellamy lived a more sheltered life in a comfortable mid-class American home and was perpetually competing for parental attention.

Seeking a Better Life

207

Constantly being compared to his brothers, Bellamy was left at a disadvantage. A utopian world Bellamy may have envisioned for his adolescent years might have been one in which each individual had the ability to excel without interference from anyone else, especially siblings. A constant frustration during his childhood was derived from the fact that Bellamy's parents were constantly bickering. Bellamy’s father was a Baptist minister and his mother was a Calvinist. Since each parent was strongly religious in his/ her own right, each tried to impress the virtues of his/ her religion on their impressionable, obedient son. Each hoped that Bellamy would choose one parent’s personal religion as his own. It was impossible to choose one religious practice over another since it would have been tantamount to choosing one’s father over one’s mother as the favorite parent. Bellamy was subjected to heated arguments and continued confusion concerning each parent’s religious principles. His parents constantly reprimanded him even though he was a rather well-behaved boy. His parents seemed to agree regarding the flawed character they perceived in their son. They told him that “he was a grievous sinner, accursed from God with whom he must make peace or suffer the most terrible consequences.” 39 The heavy burden placed upon his young shoulders could have pushed Bellamy to become an introverted individual; but, in spite of his parents' admonitions, he gained personal strength when he found his vocation as a writer. At an early age Bellamy was able to escape the tyranny of his parents’ continuous ridicule through his absorption in books. Bellamy was a wellread young man since his father gave each of his sons an extensive reading list which they were obligated to read and understand; however, Bellamy's father controlled the thinking and behavior of his four sons. Upon his deathbed, his father, Rufus, wrote a lengthy list of books and tasks for his son Paul (then thirteen) to master “during the next four or five years.”40 Rufus taught his sons the importance of studying history as well as learning from the past. It is from this guidance that Bellamy adopted the philosophy that “history is the key to knowledge” and that “if you know how the human race behaved under certain stresses and strains in the past, you can pretty well plot its course in the future.” 41 In fact, Bellamy’s father gave all of his sons an extensive reading list so they would have a comprehensive education even without attending college.

208

Chapter Eleven

Bellamy into Adulthood Besides his parents, his teachers and other writers, there were other people who influenced Bellamy's adulthood. One such influential person might have been considered the black sheep of the family. This relative gave shape to Bellamy's philosophy of life and was his boyhood hero. Captain Samuel Bellamy, a pirate, a socialist, a philosopher and an orator gave Edward the inner strength to reject what was socially accepted and espouse ideas that were not the norm. Edward later adopted each aspect of Samuel’s life, other than his piracy. The socialist in Samuel is strongly exemplified in Edward's utopia. The philosopher in Samuel is exhibited early in Edward when he writes his articles at age ten. Samuel carried on as an inheritance for him, since Edward enjoyed lecturing all his life. 42 The philosophy Samuel shared with Edward moved his thoughts away from his immediate problems with his parents. It was through Samuel that Edward learned how to cope with his overbearing parents. Samuel explained to Edward that a person was “the offspring of mankind and his mother is humanity;” his parentage was not as important as his entire heritage and what that person finally did with his life. 43 Bellamy hoped that his life would be happier but since his present life was unalterable, he had a need to create an imaginary perfect society in which all within its bounds could live in harmony. This was the beginning of Bellamy's search for utopia. It was also the beginning of the development of Bellamy’s inner resolve to leave the church of his father and find his own way. It is clear that Bellamy was raised in a very religious home, but he did not use religion as the absolute foundation for his theories. Bellamy dreamed of a better, more cohesive country. Even though Bellamy did not have the means to finance the establishment of an entire community, he was able, later in his career, to briefly finance a new publication, The New Nation, which ran for three years (1891 to 1894). Bellamy’s novel, Looking Backward, published three years after The New Nation ceased publication created a socialistic alternative to the corrupt capitalistic enterprises festering in the United States economy. He seemed to be seeking change from the horrific Civil War in the United States which is one of many issues that inspired Edward Bellamy’s utopic novel, Looking Backward: 2000-1887, according to Kenneth Roemer. 44 Even though Looking Backward is an American novel, there is a British flavor to the mannerisms and tone. 45 Bellamy's early encounter with stark and revolting poverty that he observed all over London and elsewhere in Europe during

Seeking a Better Life

209

a trip as an adolescent had a profound effect on his dream of a perfect society.46 Through Looking Backward, guidance is offered to move Americans through a technologically changing world. According to Hal Draper, author of article “The Two Souls of Socialism,” there are two theories of embracing socialism: on one hand he assesses the authoritarian, antidemocratic idea of socialism and then counter poses Marx’s consistent view of socialism as a democratic movement in which he explains the movement from dictatorship to a political party over the working class.47 Even though Marxism had already become doctrine in parts of Europe and found sympathizers in the US, Looking Backward won millions of readers, ardent disciples who founded Bellamy Clubs; socialists— Christian and Marxist—who adopted the book for propaganda and educational purposes; religious groups who saw in its ideal society the fulfillment of their principles; labor and farm leaders who wished to show their followers the equitable world which could be achieved; and humanitarian idealists who could not accept ‘traditional economics’ and who aspired to end ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’48 Bellamy’s utopia made people aware of alternatives to “selfishness” and the “wealth-worshiping century.”49 Instead of espousing Marxism in his changed world, Looking Backward 2000-1887, suggests a manner of dealing with the machine age which promotes the positive aspects of industrialization. 50 Bellamy envisioned a non-violent solution using an industrial ‘war’ in which progress, rather than destruction, and later ‘equality,’ rather than divisiveness, were the answers to the devastation experienced by his wartorn country. 51 Bellamy, a remarkable futuristic thinker whose focus throughout his utopian romance, Looking Backward, incorporates fraternal cooperation combined with consideration and kindness, has influenced writers who at times embraced anarchistic philosophies. I see Bellamy’s theories regarding the barbarism of the nineteenth-century civilization as anarchical since he was, in fact, suggesting that one of the key philosophical tenants of nineteenth-century America, individualism, be overthrown in favor of “Authoritarian Socialism” as depicted in Looking Backward and discussed in several articles he wrote in the Ladies’ Home Journal and other popular journals in the 1890s. Through discussion clubs and lectures Bellamyites (members of the Bellamy Clubs) endeavored to persuade the masses that a possible revolutionary and perhaps anarchistic approach might be a means to experience a more equitable life, once the revolution calmed to normalcy and the “Solidarity of Equality,” envisioned initially by Bellamy, prevailed. Not only were the “conversations” held in

210

Chapter Eleven

philosophical Nationalist and Theosophical clubs, there were also attempts to put the theories into practice. One of the “intellectual forces” was the Australian “Social Laboratory” which attempted albeit unsuccessfully to create a trade union movement force for fundamental reorganization of society.52 Looking Backward also attracted the interest of writers and thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin "the Anarchist Prince." 53 The non-violent revolution in Looking Backward transformed the American economy. Bellamy’s ideas and theories were embraced by a large population in the world. It is my supposition that the thousands of Bellamy books circulating from 1887 through 1890 stirred a new kind of revolution. In August 1887 when Bellamy urged his publisher to publish 6,000 copies of his novel, Looking Backward: 2000-1887, as quickly as possible, he was quite aware of the immediate need for a “publication touching on social and industrial questions.”54 Bellamy’s world of 1887 was at times anarchic and brutal. His utopian novel was perfectly timed to emerge onto the marketplace. Bellamy felt that his novel echoed “a bare anticipation in expression of what everybody was thinking and about to say.”55 Bellamy’s real world exhibited “immoral exploitations of the competitive Nineteenth Century. . . .”56 Economic equality for all men and women was seen as a necessary safeguard for their social equality, political freedom and equality of opportunity. Bellamy’s utopia realized that it was foolish to entrust industry and commerce on which the people’s livelihood depends onto private persons to be managed for private profit, it was viewed as similar to that of surrendering the functions of political government to kings and nobles to be conducted for their personal glorification. By 1873, when America had at last freed itself from slavery, Bellamy observed that the country first began to open its eyes to the irrepressible conflict which the growth of capitalism had forced—a conflict between the power of wealth and the democratic idea of the equal right of all to life, liberty, and happiness. Even at the formulation of the Republic, there were social and cultural divisions in the melting pot of the United States where according to George Washington, immigrants to the United States should “get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws; in a word, soon become one people.”57 Bellamy’s vision saw all the people employed in the nation’s work forces with all means of production and distribution controlled by the state, a condition the Libertarians in the present-day United States would consider appalling. The idea of the nation controlling commerce was a profound juxtaposition of the reality of Bellamy’s own times which had unemployment, poverty, panics, depressions and laborcapital conflicts as an integral part of daily life in 1887. Bellamy

Seeking a Better Life

211

introduced industrial democracy which solved all the social, ethical, political and economic problems. When Bellamy contacted his publisher regarding his need to expedite the printing of Looking Backward, he stated in his letter that it was the ‘accepted time.’58 Bellamy used a mythical text: Storiot’s History of the Revolution as a means to introduce his doctrine to the reader as well as to his protagonist, Julian West, by having the patriarchal Dr. Leete, West’s future father-in-law, read aloud in Equality.59 Bellamy's protagonist spent the night before his transmigration into the twenty-first century at the home of his fiancée. His conversation focused upon denouncing the working class. When he returns home to sleep in his tomb-like sleeping chamber in his house’s lower level, West is in fact spiritually dead. Like West, death-like existence is an integral part of Bellamy’s psyche. West awakens in modern Boston in the twenty-first century with “new freedom mirrored in the splendor and expanse of the city spread out before him. The view of urban utopia and the sense of ventilation and spaciousness immediately affects his mood.”60 According to David Bleich in “Eros and Bellamy,” Bellamy embraced the task to use his writing to serve as a spokesperson for the American “immense average of villages, of smalltown-dwellers.” 61 Perhaps Bellamy’s acceptance in the world literary market is due to the fact that he wrote fiction, a clever method used by some philosophers to share their ideas in a less imposing medium. Bellamy employed the twenty-two chapters of his novel to explain his philosophy through the persona of his protagonist, Julian West. The novel discusses Bellamy's theories of nonviolent revolution and social change by introducing them in conversations between Dr. Leete and West. Dr. Leete prepares his pupil, West, with lowkeyed lectures filled with parables and homilies. These lectures are the antithesis of the diatribes that Bellamy experienced from his father Rufus. Through fiction Bellamy transforms the tempestuous childhood he experienced into peaceful, informative discussions. Bellamy viewed struggle as a means which engendered change and encouraged attempts to reform the flaws of private capitalism falsely identified with individual liberty, industrial freedom and personal initiative which unfortunately became morally and economically indefensible. For Bellamy, his utopia Looking Backward that was the culmination of his beliefs. In fact, Bellamy was correct in his assessment of the reaction of the citizens of the chaotic world of the 1880s and the 1890s. From 1873 on, the “pseudo-American Republic” declined. 62 During this time, utopian communities which had been founded on principles begun in Europe, such as those of Charles Fourier, the French utopist and philosopher whose

212

Chapter Eleven

ideas were brought to America by those who wanted to live the life Fourier envisioned with free love and shared property in a larger, more, free land, began to disband. 63 Until 1890, the phase of ‘incoherent civilization’ as Fourier labeled it, ended, and plutocracy flourished where free men were crushed into a proletariat and class lines were hardened. Bellamy’s Looking Backward created a socialistic alternative, a forum for thoughtful consideration and discussion of alternatives through Bellamy Clubs which appeared near the end of the 1890s. In living rooms around the country, Bellamy Clubs, which were ‘strictly non-political’ and adhered to the spirit of Bellamy’s Looking Backward in not allowing class antagonisms in their discussions, assessed and conversed about important issues such as the possibility of nationally owned and operated telegraph systems and nationalizing railroads. 64 Bellamy’s theological approach embracing a non-violent revolution offered an opportunity to create forums espousing the spirit of unity even amidst the struggle for an alternative. Some of the Bellamy Clubs evolved into groups calling themselves Nationalist Clubs which were strongest and most numerous in the American West. Perhaps it was because Bellamy included human flaws such as selfishness and financial issues in his Utopian romance, which his Theosophical idea of universal brotherhood took on as a more realistic approach. The main flaws centered on financial difficulties until he employed some suggestions similar to those offered through works by Jack London, the late eighteenth-century journalist and an outspoken socialist who wrote Call of the Wild, White Fang, Iron Heel, and Martin Eden, and was considered among the most popular American authors of his time. Bellamy included, as did London, details that seemed to be more capitalist and reminiscent of free enterprise and self-promotion than that of the socialist philosophy. West listens to his tutor's account of the coming of utopia, accompanying him on tours of the city, inspecting the social machinery and analyzing the simple religion of brotherhood that makes it work. Bellamy uses the radio message 65 of Dr. Barton as a final means of justification for the utopia. Looking Backward is a religious fable that has two parts: one is the resurrection of Julian West and the other is Dr. Leete's catechism concerning the creation and management of utopia. Bellamy transforms West from an inhabitant of the New World to a time traveler simply as a fanciful device designed to give color to an otherwise “non-fanciful issue.” 66 The details, such as the model industrial army, which are explained in different parts of the book, are conflicting.

Seeking a Better Life

213

Bellamy's purpose was to provide the psychological drama of conversation, which was the means of expounding his concept of utopia. According to Bellamy, the American people had to first be converted through circumstance and revelation to the idea of solidarity in a National Party. 67 So long as most Americans, like fictionalized West, remained class-bound and blind to the truth of brotherhood, all the inventions and increased efficiency only made their problems of strikes, lockouts, unemployment, slums and starvation more difficult to solve. Bellamy combined an economic determinism similar to Marxism and a traditional American doctrine of progress as the basis for his National Party in Looking Backward. For West's friends to insist on perverse individualism was to forestall the great transformation which was illuminated by the process of history that Bellamy espoused.68 In Bellamy’s utopia private property was abolished; the state owned all capital; social classes were eliminated; employment was voluntary for citizens between the ages of 21 and 45, after which time all would retire. In Looking Backward, work was simple, aided by machine production. Working hours were short and vacation time was long. These issues among other political and social foci were the foundations of the new political “Nationalist Movement” which in turn helped to make Bellamy’s utopian vision a practical reality. In the 1890s there were approximately 160 Nationalist Clubs run by Bellamyites. The new economic basis of society effectively remade human nature itself in Bellamy’s idyllic vision, with greed, maliciousness, untruthfulness, and insanity all relegated to the past.

A View of the Philosophy of Owen and Bellamy Both Robert Owen and Edward Bellamy wrote their philosophies which became popular templates for utopian thinking in America and, eventually, throughout the world. Owen and Bellamy used their significant writing skills to share their philosophical theories. Even though Owen’s and Bellamy’s approach seem like peaceful solutions, both Owen’s and Bellamy’s theories fomented anger in some circles. Each utopian experiment yielded its unique set of difficulties; some had economic difficulties while others lacked new recruits which eventually led to economic loss. The envisioned communities, one a reality and the other virtual, are noteworthy and reflect utopian thinking in emerging America. Each was theorized in different ways. Owen’s community, New Harmony, was based on his philosophy and established by Owen after he left New Lanark

214

Chapter Eleven

in Scotland and the other based on the theories of Edward Bellamy whose utopian plans never developed into an actual community; however, his philosophies strongly influenced many individuals. 69 Perhaps the dichotomy between theory and practice was the main antagonist in the saga of utopian socialist communities.

Bibliography Aaron, Daniel. Men of Good Hope: A Story of American Progressives. New York: Oxford University Press, 1951. Appleby, Joyce. The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward 2000-1887. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press, 1967. —. Autobiographical Fragment, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Archives. —. Notebooks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Archives. —. “Progress of Nationalism in the United States.” The North American Review 154, no. 427 (Jun 1892): 742-752. Bestor, Arthur. Backwoods Utopias: Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America: 1663-1829. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970. Bleich, David. “Eros and Bellamy,” American Quarterly 16 (Fall 1964): 445-59. Bowman, Sylvia. Edward Bellamy Abroad: An American Prophet’s Influence. New York: Twayne, 1962. —. The Year 2000. New York: Bookman, 1958. Donnachie, Ian. Robert Owen: Owen of New Lanark and New Harmony. East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 2000. Draper, Hal. Socialism from Below. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992. —. “The Two Souls of Socialism.” New Politics 3, no.1 (1990): 129-156. Isaac, Larry. “To Counter ‘The Very Devil’ and More: The Making of Independent Capitalist Militia in the Gilded Age.” The American Journal of Sociology 108, no. 2 (Sep 2002), 353-405. Kropotkin, Peter. “Edward Bellamy.” Freedom 128 (July 1898): 42. Lauer, Robert H. and Jeanette C. Lauer. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sex in Utopian Communities. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1983. Morgan, Arthur E. Edward Bellamy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1944.

Seeking a Better Life

215

Roemer, Kenneth M. “Contexts and Texts: The Influence of Looking Backwards.” Centennial Review 27 (1983): 204-223. Stokes, Geoffrey. The ‘Australian Settlement’ and Australian Political Thought.” Australian Journal of Political Science 39, no. 1 (March 2004): 5-22. Washington, George. Fritzpatrick, John Clement, ed. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 17451799. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1931.

Notes 

1

It is not clear whether Owen withdrew or was dismissed from management in New Lanark, Scotland which may have inspired his travels to America to establish a new utopian community. He had a “rift with [William] Allen over religion and education.” Ian Donnachie. Robert Owen: Owen of New Lanark and New Harmony (East Lothian, Scotland, Tuckwell Press, 2000), 228. 2 Donnachie, Robert Owen, 2. 3 Some of Owen’s early history has been collected in the Robert Owen Memorial Museum. Donnachie, Robert Owen, 2. 4 Donnachie, Robert Owen, 3. 5 Ibid., 8. 6 Ibid., 7. 7 Daniel Aaron, Men of Good Hope: A Story of American Progressives (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951). 8 Donnachie, Robert Owen, 9. 9 Robert Owen, The Life of Robert Owen Written By Himself (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1920), 62-63. 10 J. Butt, introduction to The Life of Robert Owen Written By Himself by Robert Owen (London: C. Knight, 1971), viii. 11 Owen, Life, 21. 12 Ibid., 5. 13 Ibid., 160. 14 Ibid., 5. 15 Arthur Bestor, Backwoods Utopias: Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America: 1663-1829 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970), 124. 16 Bestor, Backwoods Utopia, 123. 17 Ibid., 125. 18 Donnachie, Robert Owen, 216. 19 Bestor, Backwoods Utopia, 122. 20 Ibid., 125. 21 Ibid., 124. 22 Donnachie, Robert Owen, 240. 23 Ibid., 122.

216

Chapter Eleven

 24

Ibid., 16. Many individuals moved from one community to another. Those who had been in the Fourier community were accustomed to free love which was not appropriate for the behavior expected in the Owen community. 26 Donnachie, Robert Owen, 16. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Bestor, Backwoods Utopia, 120. 30 Ibid., 121. 31 Ibid., 122. 32 Arthur E, Morgan, Edward Bellamy (Columbia University Press, New York, 1944), 5. 33 Bestor, Backwoods Utopia, 64. 34 Ibid., 41. 35 Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), ix. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Bestor, Backwoods Utopia, 62. 39 Morgan, Edward Bellamy, 37. 40 Edward Bellamy, Notebooks, Unpublished Papers (Cambridge: Harvard University Archives), viewed June 2000. 41 Ibid. 42 Edward Bellamy, “Progress of Nationalism in the United States,” The North American Review 154, no. 427 (Jun 1892): 742-745. 43 Bellamy. Notebooks. 44 Kenneth M. Roemer, “Contexts and Texts: The Influence of Looking Backwards,” Centennial Review 27 (1983): 204-223. 45 Bellamy’s Aunt Harriet Parker financed his first trip to Europe to attend his British cousin’s funeral. Bellamy, “Progress,” 47. 46 Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward,. vii. 47 Hal Draper, Socialism from Below (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992), 129-156. 48 Larry Isaac, “To Counter ‘The Very Devil’ and More: The Making of Independent Capitalist Militia in the Gilded Age” The American Journal of Sociology 108, no. 2 (Sep 2002), 353-405. 49 Edward Bellamy, Equality (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1897), 164. 50 Larry Isaac. 2002.“To Counter ‘The Very Devil’ and More: The Making of Independent Capitalist Militia in the Gilded Age,” The American Journal of Sociology 108, no. 2 ( Sep 2002): 353-405. 51 As discussed in his second utopic volume. Bellamy, Equality. 52 Geoffrey Stokes, “The ‘Australian Settlement’ and Australian Political Thought” Australian Journal of Political Science 39, no. 1 (March 2004), 16. 53 Peter Kropotkin, “Edward Bellamy,” Freedom 128 (July 1898): 42. 54 Sylvia Bowman, The Year 2000 (New York: Bookman, 1958), 29. 25

Seeking a Better Life

217

 55

Sylvia Bowman, Edward Bellamy Abroad: An American Prophet’s Influence. (New York: Twayne, 1962), 246. 56 Bowman, Edward Bellamy Abroad, 82.: 57 George Washington, John Clement Fritzpatrick, ed. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1931), 23. 58 Bellamy, Notebooks. 59 Bellamy, Looking Backward, 123. 60 Ibid., 52. 61 David Bleich. “Eros and Bellamy,” American Quarterly, 16 (Fall 1964), 445-59. 62 Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), 194. 63 Robert H. Lauer and Jeanette C. Lauer. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sex in Utopian Communities (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1983). 64 Edward Bellamy, “Progress of Nationalism in the United States,” The North American Review, 154, no. 427 (June 1892), 742. 65 The concept of a radio which had multiple stations and could be accessed in each individual room was an invention of Bellamy’s since Marconi had not yet transmitted his radio waves yet. 66 Bleich, “Eros and Bellamy,” 51. 67 Ibid., 55. 68 Ibid., 56. 69 The impact of Looking Backward extended far beyond the United States. Soon after publication translations appeared in German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Danish and a dozen more languages. The work had a huge sale in England, provoked William Morris to write News from Nowhere, and was influential even in Russia. Tolstoy was much impressed: ‘am exceedingly remarkable book,’ he said, and arranged immediately for the first translation into Russian.

CHAPTER TWELVE UTOPIA AND APOCALYPSE NOW: (RE)PRODUCING META-NARRATIVE IN AMERICA JEREMY BUESINK

The Lord showed John the mighty battle between good and evil that was being played out on the earth. John saw the happiness of men and women who believe in the salvation of Christ, and the misery and fear of those who do not repent. He saw angels of destruction sweep over the earth to kill wicked men and women with plagues, as warnings to all those left to repent before it was too late. John heard the souls of those who had been killed for their Christian beliefs cry out to God, “O Lord, avenge us and wipe out the world and all its wickedness.” God comforted them and told them it was not time. [...] Then John witnessed the end of the world. [...] God then passed judgment on everyone who had ever lived. If their name was not in His book of life, they were destroyed along with Satan. —Children’s Illustrated Bible: The best-loved stories of the Old and New Testaments We can also be confident in the ways of providence, even when they are far from our understanding. Events aren’t moved by blind change and chance Behind all of life and all of history, there’s dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God. And that hope will never be shaken. —George W. Bush We have to accept the fact that all sorts of clouds and disturbances (basically, small fits of stupefaction) drift over the spirit of a people who suffers and wants to suffer from national nervous fevers. —Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a rather astonishing paradox in America between endless pronouncements about liberalism and freedom and the insidious culture of

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

219

ritual and sacrifice to the addictive gods of capitalism and militarism. This paradox is hidden, or ideologically concealed, in large part, by a systemic essentialized narrative of the quintessential American citizen tethered to the capitalistic imperative of the American Dream—both a divisive and difference neutralizing dogma that delineates a specific version of freedom widely considered innate in America. The paradox is also concealed by the sheer ubiquity of America’s military footprint and intense loyalty to at least the idea of the righteousness of America’s beacon of light military endeavours, and thus the centrality of militarism in American culture. Facts and historical accuracy, in these regards, have a tendency to be ignored in favour of a rather mythologized, not so subtly imperialist narrative wherein, as Andrew Bacevich suggests, international problems are perpetually viewed as military problems while there are utopian expectations as to what can be achieved by military means. What assists these ideological concealments of paradox, and what they also simultaneously produce, are dogmatized, essentialist facets of national ethos—perpetually reiterated in all matter of political rhetoric, media content, official policy, and ‘implicit’ policy—which are treated as ideological endpoints: dogmatic certainty with all the power of religious Truth, and thus often simply supported by inner conviction and selectively chosen signifiers of affirmation of faith. And inner conviction and selectivity do well against the blind spots of dogma, the blind spots that are indeed the objective rules of dogma. Moreover, the permanence implicit in ideological endpoints, which strategically lack dialectical engagement, promotes structural-posturing and systematic-posturing policy—economic, political, and moral—that operates in terms of the faith in an established, sacralized meta-narrative in America which tends towards, and thus privileges, myth rather than historical accuracy. This meta-narrative in turn produces a distinctly ‘Americanist’ faith upheld by reiteration of righteousness and reification of righteousness (as that which is abstract becomes ‘real’ and true normative reality regardless of the actuality of circumstance). And, importantly, the utopian faith in the metanarrative functions in concert with apocalypse, for the utopianism of the American Dream and the presumed sanctity of American life are highly selective promises, while what is right is ever so frequently determined by might—militaristic, economic, or otherwise—which, often ironically, reasserts the meta-narrative.1 While political elites produce rhetoric and policy that sustains metanarrative discourse, implicit cultural policy—which can be located in language, events, activities, performances, and public panoplies such as the nationalistic pre-game ceremonies at sporting events or the nationwide

220

Chapter Twelve

‘pep rally’ that broke out after the news of Osama bin Laden’s murder, to cite two exaggerated and yet oddly normative examples—enables said rhetoric and policy by sustaining meta-culture. 2 Implicit cultural policy “prescribe[s] and shape[s] cultural attitudes and habits over given territories” thereby producing and sustaining ‘organic laws’ which come to represent dominant public consciousness, and thus too, in America, works to preserve the nationalistic meta-narrative, quelling concern regarding the ambiguity of liberalism and freedom, whilst upholding the rigidity of capitalism and militarism. 3 The ‘soft’ power of implicit policy works affectively to reify meta-cultural understandings that adhere to essentialist tendencies by providing belief with seduction and force. Thus, ambiguity is frequently dismissed in order to sustain cohesive, structured, systemic interpretations of the significance of American identity and American values. In turn, that which are described as ‘American values’ have a tendency to be underpinned by Us/Other, American/un-American, virtuous/immoral, capitalist/socialist, advanced/backward essentializing binaries and binary sub-narratives that have the propensity to be bound to militaristic zeal and to the economic imperative of the American Dream. And as bell hooks reminds us, binary, either/or ways of thinking are the philosophical underpinnings of systems of domination. Thus, utopian dreams often come at the expense of the Others’ ‘apocalypse’ both within and without the nation’s borders. Despite perhaps seeming counterintuitive, apocalypse and utopia are not terms exclusive of one another. The Christian myth of the apocalypse entails tribulation and triumph, chaos and order. In most biblical or biblically related contexts, damnation and redemption, heaven and hell, and apocalypse and utopia must co-exist, the latter pairing as one entity much like the sacred trinity. Lois Zamora, argues that it is this “creative tension, the dialectic, between these opposites that explains, in part, the myth’s enduring relevance.”4 And this myth emerges in forms other than strictly biblical of course. As Zamora asserts, “apocalypse, one of our most basic yet least understood myths, has always been essential to America’s conception of itself.”5 On the other hand (seemingly), novelist Carlos Fuentes correctly asserts that America was invented by Europe as a utopia. 6 Utopia and apocalypse are of course distinguishable from one another in some fairly obvious ways including that the latter “is impelled by the historical dialectic between good and evil, and confronts the violence of the present,” while the former focuses on a “future, perfect world.” 7 However, this distinction does not rescue utopian vision from apocalyptic present. Indeed, utopian vision often trivializes apocalyptic aspirations, or apocalyptic actualities, thereby also enabling their enacting.

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

221

We can recognize this in our current moment by much of the Christian Right’s (non)response to climate change, and certainly in George H.W. Bush’s assertion that whatever the environmental situation, “the American way of life [is] not negotiable,” a statement of incredible hubris and apocalyptic consequence to which Richard Falk responds, “[s]uch moral and political decadence with respect to human destiny has rarely been so openly embraced.”89 Yet, there is a long history of the ‘American way of life’ being nonnegotiable. Indeed, we can identify utopian vision trivializing apocalypse in the words and actions of the ‘founding’ Puritans, with the added element of the celebration of the Others’ demise and therein evidence of God’s indwelling grace. William Bradford writes of the massacre of the Pequot Natives: [A]ll was quickly on a flame, and thereby more were burnt to death than was otherwise slain. […] Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatched, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about four hundred at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.10

The signs of destiny and God’s enduring grace for the New World could often be located in the righteous destruction of the Other, and too the damnation, the eternal suffering, the eternal apocalypse, of the Other. Of course, when reading the signs of God’s good favor, or destiny, or Exceptionalism for that matter, it is paramount to do so selectively. This is precisely where the blind spots of dogma come in. For instance, how many of God’s good, favored, and Chosen creatures even endured the first few months in the New World? “[Of] one hundred and odd persons, scarce fifty remained,” Bradford informs us, half of his company infected with “scurvy and other diseases.” 11 Yet, he makes no comment on the deservedness of their fate as he does with the Pequot natives, or Anne Hutchinson for that matter, or Mary Dyer, or a “proud and very profane” seaman whom “it pleased God […] to smite [with] a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard.”12 This type of selectivity, which finds its signs and wonders and Truth where it wishes, effaces history in favor of mythologized narratives. More contemporarily, Michelle Goldberg, in Kingdom Coming, an examination of totalizing Christian evangelical

222

Chapter Twelve

ideology in America, describes a Christian marketplace where she finds— among science videos claiming to debunk evolution and astronomy textbooks explaining that the universe was created six thousand years ago with ‘the appearance of age’—a “CD lecture [which] lauded the Christian kindness the Puritans showed to the Native Americans.”13 Both utopianism and apocalypse are frequently, it could be argued intrinsically, careless with the past. Howard Zinn asks, Was all this bloodshed and deceit—from Columbus to Cortes, Pizarro, the Puritans—a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? […] Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made—as it was made by Stalin when he killed peasants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgement be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mentioned quickly?14

Likewise, Judith Halberstam suggests, “[L]osers leave no records while winners cannot stop talking about it, and so the record of failure [in America] is a ‘hidden history of pessimism in a culture of optimism.’”15 Furthermore, as Wendy Brown correctly asserts, “[a]n identification of belief, moral fiber, and individual will with the capacity to make world history is the calling card of biographical backstories and anecdotes that so often substitute for political analysis and considerations of power in American popular culture.” 16 Due to a social historical viewpoint in dominant American discourse that is steeped in romance and mythology, beacon on the hill utopian/apocalyptic vision, heroes and villains, good values and bad values, and “conceits that right attitudes produce justice [and] that willpower and tenacity produce success,” and due to these elements of narrative within the subtext and pretext of national ethos in terms of progress and success, what is produced is more than a penchant for meta-narrative understanding and for framing Americanism in essentialist terms.17 While the capacity to contest the idea of essentialism, specifically, though not exclusively, as it pertains to national, cultural, and individual identity, may be greater and more commonplace now in public consciousness than typically in days past, expressions of the essentialized American character derived from the essentialized characteristics of national ethos permeate political rhetoric, now, as they have historically, on both the left and the right. For instance (and this is just one of seemingly endless examples of course), in Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address he states that the term ‘American’ “describes the way

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

223

we’re made. It describes what we believe.” 18 And when he makes this assertion he does not, and needs not, even define what the former or the latter are meant to indicate. Instead, by utilizing idiomatic phrasing and a lack of rhetorical specificity for these seemingly undefined but implied categorical truths about what constitutes an American citizen and American belief, Obama can count on the vast majority of people believing that they know precisely what he means. Thus, despite the centrality of the American Dream and therein the importance of rugged individualism in national ethos wherein belief is a choice not determined by force, this type of entirely common rhetoric that Obama uses suggests a historical determinism that works to naturalize individual acquiescence to be a part of a monolithic unit. The rhetoric works towards reifying the reassuring presumption that “culture is a uniform and binding groundwork of norms” rather than, as Judith Butler suggests, “an open field of contestation.” 19 Indeed, this type of rhetoric is effective affectively in quelling contestation, appealing to the desire to be included in the metaculture, which Francis Mulhern defines, in part, as a discursive formation with an inherent strategic impulse to mobilize culture. Essentialist nationalistic rhetoric, which is both embedded in and appeals to meta-cultural normative authority, naturalizes a nativist understanding regarding the ‘make’ and the ‘belief’ of the citizenry (which Obama’s aforementioned address does eventually specifically link to the meta-cultural understanding of the inherent grit and determination of the American people). Popularising nativism is a significant part of Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy as he had a substantial role in (re)defining American identity in order to provide a pathway to ‘proper’ citizenship for all— regardless of ethnicity, race, or birth place—rooted in the masculism and exceptionalism of the Frontier Myth. He provided the public with the opportunity to be obedient to the authority of the tenets of his notion of Americanism, and therein the strict and literal interpretation of what American values were: hard work, determination, grit, rugged individualism and specific types of conformity, and, in all, the prospect of earned equality in the socio-cultural paradigm of the yet to be coined ‘American Dream’. In doing, Roosevelt was an integral part of instituting the mythical qualities of an essentialist American history and essentialist American identity. Walter Benn Michaels argues that in the nativist paradigm that Roosevelt promoted, wherein immigrants could be just as ‘American’ as the ‘native’ American (theoretically if not in actuality in most cases), “identity becomes an ambition as well as a description. [...] What we want [...] may be a function of what we are, but in order for us to want it, we cannot simply be it.” 20 Thus, as Michaels suggests, nativist

224

Chapter Twelve

logic—which is a meta-cultural logic and a facet of meta-narrative— determines that the notion of cultural identity, and individual identity as such, becomes not a description of a peoples’ actual practices and values per se, but rather an essentialist ambition to become what one already is, in this case American, which is then an ambition that can be entirely elusive. “One of the most persistent questions in U.S. history,” Leroy Dorsey suggests, is “What does it mean to be an American?”21 And when what it means to be an American is for many people absolutely crucial to understanding individual identity, as integral a relationship as a religious context invites (and is frequently ideologically intertwined), then the compulsion to incessantly define what it means to be an American—in often rather anxious, reassuring, essentializing manners in order to (re)assert righteousness and maintain the social authority of the normative—is also a crucial practice in order to conceal immense paradoxes within often perceived concrete, unambiguous definitions of American identity and American values. Meta-culture and meta-narrative work towards not repeating the question of what does it mean to be an American per se, but reiterating normative understandings. As Dorsey suggests, “[A] community wants to imagine itself with a ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’ regardless of the ‘actual inequality and exploitation’ that certain groups suffer.”22 Thus, there is a mythical, or imaginary, element that often comes with ideals of community ethos, made even more prevalent when engaging in meta-cultural and meta-narrative understandings. Moreover, as Antonio Gramsci concludes, political questions may become “insoluble” when “disguised as cultural ones.”23 Therein, in large part, lies the ubiquity of essentialist Americanist references in American political rhetoric, the effectiveness of implicit cultural policy, and the strategic mobilizing impulse of meta-culture. And, as Mulhern suggests, the “subject and object [of meta-cultural discourse] are one and the same culture,” but it is “split between norm and actuality.”24 For instance, democracy is, of course, widely considered intrinsically American, a central tenet and utopian promise of American ethos, and a fundamental norm inherent of freedom. And yet, democracy and another American norm, the juggernaut of capitalism, are not terribly compatible. If democracy is to be achieved in real, meaningful form, the advance towards it is, as Ernesto Laclau suggests, “a long march which will only be completed with the elimination of class exploitation.” 25 However, the elimination of class exploitation would be quite an accomplishment within a capitalist system that fundamentally thrives on domination and simultaneous exploitation as “the rate of surplus value depends, in the first place, on the degree of exploitation of labour-power.”26 And importantly,

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

225

in the hyper-capitalism of America, self-interest is generally correlated to “maximized economic advantage” and pursued “with minimal reference to extraneous criteria such as altruism, self-denial, taste, [...] or collective purpose” (in actuality if not rhetorically), while the freedom to make money is frequently confused with freedom itself. 27 Furthermore, democracy is a ‘march’ that must never be completed, or thought to be completed, as it is by definition perpetually in process, fluid, even as it is often treated in America as a rather static entity that simply exists and in fact can be delivered, militarily, to other nations. Nevertheless, the elimination of class exploitation is an elemental starting point. We can recognize, then, in this case (and others too of course), why there is a culturalized, often naturalized compulsion in America for meta-narrative, and for policy (implicit and otherwise) and rhetoric that legitimizes metaculture in order to repress paradox. Jean-Paul Sartre suggests that in America there exists “the myth of liberty [and] perhaps nowhere else will you find such a discrepancy between people and myth, between life and the representation of life.”28 This gulf is due, in part, to the centrality of the American Dream in national ethos and its function ideologically under the longstanding presumption of egalitarianism, of opportunity for all, though the reality is that it functions as a moral barometer linking virtue to acquisition of capital and immorality to lack of capital gain. (One need only examine the uneven hand of the law in America to find grounds for this assertion.) Jennifer L. Hochschild summarizes this tenet of the Dream succinctly: “My success implies your failure.” 29 Or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests, “There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune, and so in making money.” 30 The gulf between ‘virtuous’ and ‘immoral’ Americans is only exacerbated in our current historical moment with neoliberalism, which pushes the Dream to its limit locating freedom quite singularly in consumer capitalism, whilst utilizing utopian rhetoric in order to reassert ruling class power, and thus enabling a rather dystopian reality wherein those who do not achieve the Dream are frequently literally treated as utterly disposable, failed consumers, failed Americans, undeserving of proper social welfare and social justice.31 “Throughout class history,” Fredric Jameson suggests, “the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and horror.” 32 What then is to be expected when the capitalist imperative of the American Dream is vital to national and individual identity? Indeed, the Dream is so ingrained in the psyche of the nation as being synonymous with freedom that it should be entirely unsurprising that its ideology has evolved into the free-market free-for-all of neoliberalism, which is framed by the faithful as the truest,

226

Chapter Twelve

most potent realization of the Dream. Yet, ever-increasing privatization within neoliberalism intensifies the polarity between wealth and poverty, success and failure, those who are virtuous enough to deserve freedom and those who are too weak or too scrupulous to handle it, and thus those who enjoy freedom and those who merely survive, or, of course, do not: ‘our’ utopia, ‘their’ apocalypse. Zygmunt Bauman writes, “The collateral victim of [...] the consumerist rendition of freedom is the Other as object of ethical responsibility and moral concern,” while concepts of responsibility and responsible choice which used to reside in the “semantic field of ethical duty and moral concern for the Other” have been “shifted to the realm of self-fulfillment and calculation of risks.”33 And as David Harvey argues, the “assumption that individual freedoms are guaranteed by freedom of the market […] has long dominated the US stance towards the rest of the world [while the] word ‘freedom’ resonates so widely within the common-sense understanding of Americans that it becomes ‘a button that elites can press to open the door to the masses’ to justify almost anything.”34 Therefore, capitalism and its current neoliberal actualities are often framed in rather utopian terms such as the inherent human freedom of free-market enterprise, the supposedly innate rationality and even purity of the market, and in the too-infrequently adhered to supposedly inherent elements of capitalism such as trust, cooperation, and the common good. Yet, as Tony Judt suggests, “Markets do not automatically generate trust, cooperation or collective action for the common good. Quite the contrary: it is in the nature of economic competition that a participant who breaks the rules will triumph—at least in the short run—over more ethically sensitive competitors.”35 But for those who triumph in America, it rarely matters that rules may have been broken along the way as acquisition of capital stands in for virtue. The lack of accountability individually and ideologically during the ‘Great Recession’ exemplifies just how little the ‘rules’ matter. (It should be noted too that the dissipation of the Occupy movement a year after its birth speaks, in part, to the authoritative persuasiveness of meta-narrative and of meta-culture.) Moreover, the ideals that are perpetually reasserted in regards to acquisition of capital and virtue are, again, of the nativist variety insofar as ontological naturalness, essentialism, essence, are in actuality earned by some and lost by others, thereby affirming the existentialist contention that existence precedes essence. Nevertheless, due to the centrality of the Dream in American ethos, it is widely believed that “success results from actions and traits under one’s own control,” or in other words, that essence precedes existence—a troubling moral posturing that carries devastating, wide-reaching effect. 36 Furthermore, as Brown

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

227

argues, when every feature of social and political life is saturated with “entrepreneur and consumer discourse” (a feature “inaugurated by capitalism [...] but taken to new levels by neoliberal[ism]”), and when “every aspect of human relations, human endeavor, and human need is framed in terms of the rational entrepreneur or consumer, then the powers constitutive of these relations, endeavors and needs vanish from view.”37 And when power vanishes from view, so too do politics. Culture, then, is elevated over politics and political motivations become thought to be motivations of culture. Thus, what can be described as the ‘culturalization of politics’ is a reductionism that produces and sustains essentialist ideas. American history, when examined accurately, demonstrates that the culturalization of politics—which can be further understood as the assumption that “every culture has a tangible essence that defines it and then explains politics as a consequence of that essence”—has produced many atrocities in terms of militarization and foreign policy, and domestic policy for that matter, that are not quantified as criminal, or murderous, but cloaked in presumed altruism simply because they are American acts. 38 We need look no further than the recent Bush regime for a seemingly endless amount of examples. But let us examine an exchange on record that Noam Chomsky singles out between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger wherein Nixon wants to launch a major assault on Cambodia under the pretense of airlifting supplies. Nixon states, “‘I want them to hit everything,’” to which Kissinger then responds by ordering the Pentagon to carry out a “‘massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves.’” 39 Chomsky refers to this moment as “the most explicit call for what we call genocide when other people do it that I’ve ever seen in the historical record.” 40 And yet, commenting on America’s national ethos, its record of militarized foreign policy, historical inaccuracy, and selective amnesia, Chomsky states, “We cannot be people who openly and publically call for genocide and then carry it out. That can’t be. So therefore it didn’t happen. And therefore it doesn’t even have to be wiped out of history, because it will never enter history.”41 Of course, history, while it may be kept hidden, does not disappear completely; but this is precisely where the meta-narrative comes in. Because within the meta-narrative, imperfections are still the result of rightful intention, or at least righteous intention, as it is generally accepted as a central facet of national ethos that American military power manifests “a commitment to global leadership,” and this coupling of military power and leadership expresses and affirms “the nation’s enduring devotion to its founding ideals.” 42 “American power, policies, and purpose” are often

228

Chapter Twelve

thought to be, and are oft rhetorically wielded as being, “bound together in a neat, internally consistent package,” while reflectivity regarding past actualities is subordinated, suppressed, and often, as Chomsky suggests, entirely muted. 43 Or worse, atrocities are celebrated (quietly and otherwise) as an inevitability of America’s utopian, beacon of light ambitions, its Manifest Destiny. Consider George W. Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ aircraft carrier address, or Robert Frost’s “The Gift Outright,” read during John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, wherein the genocide of the American Native—entirely unspoken of, of course, but nonetheless there historically—is framed as America surrendering to its destiny: Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found out that it was ourselves We were withholding from our land of living, And forthwith found salvation in surrender.44

Utopian vision trivializes apocalypse even as it enables it. Frost’s poem, and sentiment similar, do not simply expunge history but reinforce the righteousness of American acts, wherein might is right, in turn enabling further violence and enthusiasm for imperialistic activity. Indeed, Falk argues that America’s imperial intention is “beyond debate” stating that “the scale and nature of the huge military budget confirm an imperial ambition.” 45 Interestingly, the “distinctive American suspicion of taxation,” which Judt suggests translates as “patriotic dogma,” does not correlate whatsoever to the other unshakable patriotic dogma that is America’s value-based commitment to its military budget, its vast global military footprint, and thus what Bacevich terms its state of ‘permanent war’.46 The following is part of Barack Obama’s entirely typical Americanist response to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ‘torture report’ from 2014: “Throughout our history, the United States of America has done more than any other nation to stand up for freedom, democracy, and the inherent dignity and human rights of people around the world. [...] No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better.”47 This is meta-narrative rhetoric; it works to dismiss doubts of piety whilst affirming righteousness with broad rhetorical strokes. And, despite its claim, it does nothing to confront the past, indeed, it allows for further ‘imperfections’ and imperialist actions that are, again, framed as altruistic rather than imperialistic. This type of rhetoric sacralizes America and American values. And “[s]acralization,”

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

229

Tzvetan Todorov states, “obstructs the drawing of generally valid lessons from particular cases, and so the communication between the past and the present.”48 Although Obama insists that the communication between the past and the present is one of America’s exceptional qualities, exceptionalism itself, sacralized within the meta-narrative, dictates differently, while sacralization causes individual cases to lose that “enlightening potency that rests in their particularity,” thereby leaving idealized narratives (such as exceptionalism) unchallenged.49 Indeed, Butler argues that America is a country that “systematically idealizes its own capacity for murder.”50 And that particular idealization is precisely what took place during the Osama bin Laden death celebrations wherein scores of people nationwide took to the streets with their flags aloft, high fiving, singing, chanting “U.S.A.” en mass, and even gathering at ‘ground zero’ to sing “We are the Champions” arm in arm with one another. The national jingoistic bin Laden death ‘pep rally’ was an event of implicit cultural policy reifying righteousness while disregarding moral and political complexities. It was an event wherein the media—“Rot in Hell” (New York Daily News), the citizens, and their leaders—“Justice has been done” (Barack Obama), relished in righteous murder whilst questioning or simply being reflective rather than reflexive were held to being entirely unpatriotic, and thus too carrying anti-American sentiment.51 Haley Blum, a Penn State blogger for USA Today, captured the mood that seems to accurately reflect the popular sentiment of the nation regarding the news and subsequent celebration of bin Laden’s death: It felt like I was at the most patriotic ‘AMERICA F*** YEAH!’ concert ever. And it probably was. But after witnessing this whole beautiful, patriotic mess, I started analyzing it. Were we taking this too far? What about the possibility of retaliation attacks? [...] Who is going to clean up the street, lined with the makeshift confetti and other assorted trash, tomorrow? (Sometimes I think too much about things…). At the end of the night, I am in awe [...] and I don’t know any of the answers to the questions above. [...] But, right now, I do know that I’ll always remember feeling like a part of an amazing, joyful whole. The impulsiveness of every tweet, chant and confetti toss was attached to an intense emotion that might defy any sort of rational post-riot (er, celebration) analysis. In the moment, we were just proud to be Americans.52

Alternatively, Chomsky writes, We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his

230

Chapter Twelve body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a ‘suspect’ but uncontroversially the ‘decider’ who gave the orders to commit the ‘supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole’ (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. [...] The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes ‘Jew’ and ‘Gypsy.’53

The general lack of (national) self-reflectivity is symptomatic of the potency and the lure of meta-narrative and meta-culture; it is symptomatic of the culturalization of politics and sacralization of values, not only insofar as how the Other is perceived from an Americanist viewpoint, but because of the oft essentialized manners in which many Americans perceive America and American ethos and the moral authority presumed therein. Yet, no matter how morally righteous we may consider ourselves and no matter how morally repugnant we may consider our enemy, in varying contexts, that does not directly correlate to ethical action or inaction. Ethics, if it is to function in relation to the production of social justice, must be grounded in the uncertainty and precarity that binds humankind together, rather than substantiated by divisive supposedly morally certain ideology derived from, for instance, national identity. This latter type of morality produces and sustains the idea of naturally occurring subdivisions of humanity, which in turn decreases precarity for some whilst maximizing precariousness for Others. “Precariousness,” Butler suggests, “implies living socially, that is, the fact that one’s life is always in some sense in the hands of the other. [...P]recariousness imposes certain kinds of ethical obligations on and among the living.” 54 Thus, as stated, ethics should be grounded in uncertainty—metaphysical, ontological, pragmatic, and otherwise. Ethics must be situational and rational, rather than rooted in individual morality or in national ethos, and certainly not elitist nationalism that utilizes utopian tropes in order to justify apocalyptic acts. Butler writes, “[T]he US government gives all kinds of reasons for its killings while at the same time refusing to call those killings ‘killings’ at all.”55 Furthermore, she asserts, “Nationalism works in part by producing and sustaining a certain version of the subject. We can call it imaginary, if we wish, but we have to remember that [...] what gives power to [the]

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

231

version of the subject is precisely the way in which the subject’s own destructiveness [is rendered] righteous and its own destructibility unthinkable.”56 And if nationalism is spiked with meta-narrative ideals of exceptionalism within an ideological dichotomy of another’s (potential) righteous destruction and one’s own unthinkable destructibility (exacerbated of course by military ubiquity and capitalist fervor), and if meta-culture produces an inclination for limiting national self-reflection that is less than reverential, what we are left with is a socio-cultural paradigm wherein the absence of illusion is cynical and the absence of violence is immoral. When The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart interviewed Hillary Clinton in 2015, asking her specifically what is America’s current foreign policy, the bulk, and certainly the entire emphasis of her answer was on the importance of reasserting the meta-narrative. She states, We have not been telling our story very well. We do have a great story. We are not perfect by any means, but we have a great story about human freedom, human rights, human opportunity. And let's get back to telling it—to ourselves first and foremost—and believing it about ourselves and then taking that around the world. That's what we should be standing for. […] Look at what happened initially with Ukraine. Russian media was much more effective in sort of telling a story. It wasn't true, but they kept repeating it over and over again. So I think we have to get back to a consensus in our own country about who we are and what we stand for.57

The only need to tell a better story is if the story belies actualities. For Clinton to express the importance of storytelling as America’s foreign policy first and foremost, says a lot about America’s foreign policy. And, importantly, it speaks to an underlying crisis of accuracy that underpins meta-narrative. Moreover, it is telling that Clinton actually uses what she considers Russia’s purposeful lies as part of her reasoning. Reiteration, consensus, ‘our story’: what Clinton is calling for, quite explicitly, is to ignore what she considers the mere ‘imperfections’ of history and instead work towards reifying mythology. Therefore refine, reestablish, reassert, the meta-narrative. And again, importantly, reasserting the meta-narrative does not simply efface ‘imperfections’, or atrocities, but it actively enables them. “You have been a poor observer of life,” Nietzsche states, “if you have not also seen the hand that, ever so gently – kills.”58 Reasserting the meta-narrative works affectively to render logic and reason burdensome thereby allowing certain power-knowledge relations to be decontextualized and dehistoricized, instead understood as self-evident, declarative truth. And as Michel Foucault suggests, “power must be

232

Chapter Twelve

understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization.”59 Reasserting the meta-narrative is an anti-intellectual exercise in the misrecognition of actualities in favour of an axiomatic meta-cultural storyline: non-questioning, non-self-reflective, accepting of tradition and reified discourse as truth. And, of course, ideological transformations can only be produced through the articulation and disarticulation of discourses. Moreover, if recognition is a precondition of cognition, then reification, as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer suggest, is a forgetting, which is a terribly relevant thought when considering why capital is ideologically linked with virtue, and why ‘bombs bursting in air’ are a necessary expression of a nation’s freedom.

Bibliography Ahearne Jeremy, “Cultural Policy Explicit and Implicit: A Distinction and Some Uses,” in International Journal of Cultural Policy. Vol. 15. No 2. May 2009. Bacevich, Andrew J. Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010. Bauman, Zygmunt. Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008. Blum, Haley. “Osama death celebration: Penn State brings it to the Canyon,” USA Today College, accessed May 6, 2011, www.usatodayeducate.com/.../blog/osama-death-celebration-penn-st. Bradford William. “Of Plymouth Plantation” in The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol. A, 7th edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Brown, Wendy. Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? London: Verso, 2010. Chomsky, Noam. Imperial Ambition: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005. —. “My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death,” World News Daily: Information Clearing House, accessed May 7, 2011, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28045.html. Dorsey, Leroy G. We Are All Americans Pure and Simple: Theodore Roosevelt and the Myth of Americanism. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2007.

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

233

Falk, Richard. “Slouching Toward a Fascist World Order,” in The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God: A Political, Economic, Religious Statement, edited by David Ray Griffin et al. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Frost, Robert. “The Gift Outright.” PoetryFoundation.org, accessed 10 December, 2014. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/. Goldberg, Michelle. Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. Halberstam, Judith. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Hedges, Chris. When Atheism becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists. New York: Free Press, 2008. Hochschild, Jennifer L. Facing up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” in Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks. Second Edition, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Keller. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Judt, Tony. Ill Fares the Land. New York: The Penguin Press, 2010. Laclau, Ernesto. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: Verso, 1982. Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Three Leaves Press Doubleday, 2004. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume One, translated by Ben Fowkes. New York: Vintage Books, 1977. Michaels, Walter Benn. Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil, edited by Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Obama, Barack. State of the Union 2013 Speech.” Politico.com, accessed 3 April, 2013, http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/state-of-theunion-2013-president-barack-obamas-speech-transcript-text87550.html.

234

Chapter Twelve

—.

“Statement by the President Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence” The White House, accessed 3 April, 2015. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/09/statementpresident-report-senate-select-committee-intelligence. Osborne, Peter Osborne. “Whoever Speaks of Culture Speaks of Administration as well: Disputing Pragmatism in Cultural Studies,” in Cultural Studies. Vol. 20. No. 1, January 2006. Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Americans and Their Myths,” in The Nation, 18651990: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1990. Stelter, Brian. “U.S. Networks Scramble on News of Bin Laden’s Death,” The New York Times, accessed May 6, 2011, http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/u-s-networksscramble-on-news-of-bin-ladens-death/. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Comedy Central. 16, July 2014. http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow. Zamora, Lois P. The Apocalyptic Vision in America. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982. —. Writing the Apocalypse: Historical Vision in Contemporary U.S. and Latin American Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States 1492 – Present. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Notes 

1

It may appear that I utilize the term ‘apocalypse’ quite loosely, and admittedly I do so at times, but not without purpose which I hope will be clear to the reader as the chapter progresses. Nevertheless, I will address certain aspects of the term’s usage here in brief. Mainly, the use of the term is in regards to what is considered righteous destruction. As well, I employ the term, in part, in regards to militaristic zeal, or, the historically enthusiastic militarism in America, which not only has apocalyptic consequences in terms of destroying life, destroying ways of life, or life as one knows it, but certainly too apocalyptic significance in terms of ecological destruction, economic destruction, and the like. I also think it is important that when the Others’ point of view is not only disregarded or belittled by the media, political rhetoric, general ignorance, and purposeful ignorance, but, as mentioned, their destruction considered righteous, a term as strong as ‘apocalypse’ be employed in order to counter the lack of thought, or lack of reflectivity, regarding what is too often taken for granted as righteous, or at least rightful, militaristic acts and/or economic consequences.

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

235

 ʹMeta-culture

has various definitions and connotations in different contexts. Here it is used to describe particular groups in terms of shared belief, ritual behaviors, sense of community, customs, and the generality of manifestations of any or all of the aforementioned.  3 Jeremy Ahearne, “Cultural Policy Explicit and Implicit: A Distinction and Some Uses,” in International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol. 15. No 2 (May 2009), 141. 4 Lois P. Zamora, The Apocalyptic Vision in America (Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982), 4. 5 Ibid, 4. 6 Lois P. Zamora, Writing the Apocalypse: Historical Vision in Contemporary U.S. and Latin American Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1989. 7 Ibid, 17. 8 George Bush Sr. Quoted in Richard Falk, “Slouching Toward a Fascist World Order,” in The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God : A Political, Economic, Religious Statement, ed. David Ray Griffin et al. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 57. 9 Falk, “Slouching Toward,” 57. 10 William Bradford, “Of Plymouth Plantation” in The Norton Anthology of American Literature,Vol. A, 7th edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 135. 11 Ibid., 121-122. 12 Ibid., 114. 13 Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), 5. 14 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States 1492 - Present (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 17. 15 Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 88. 16 Wendy Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 18. 17 Ibid., 18. 18 “President Barack Obama State of the Union 2013 Speech.” Politico.com, accessed 3 April, 2013, http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/state-of-the-union2013-president-barack-obamas-speech-transcript-text-87550.html. 19 Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (London: Verso, 2010), 108. 20 Walter Benn Michaels, Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 3. 21 Leroy G. Dorsey, We Are All Americans Pure and Simple: Theodore Roosevelt and the Myth of Americanism (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2007), 11. 22 Dorsey We Are All Americans, 6. 23 Antonio Gramsci. Quoted in David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 39.

236

Chapter Twelve

 24

Francis Mulhern. Quoted in Peter Osborne, “Whoever Speaks of Culture Speaks of Administration as well: Disputing Pragmatism in Cultural Studies,” in Cultural Studies, Vol. 20. No. 1 (January 2006), 35. 25 Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: Verso, 1982), 108 in footnote. 26 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume One, trans. Ben Fowkes, (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 415. 27 Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land (New York: The Penguin Press, 2010), 35. 28 Jean-Paul Sartre, “Americans and Their Myths,” in The Nation, 1865-1990: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1990), 178, emphasis added. 29 Jennifer L. Hochschild, Facing up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 17. 30 Ralph Waldo Emerson. Quoted in Hochschild, original emphasis, 21. 31 It should be stated that I acknowledge Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho’s assessment that in the wake of the ‘Great Recession’ neoliberalism has faced a crisis of legitimacy, and indeed at “a superficial level, and only with minor exceptions, there were no neoliberals left in the wake of the crisis.” However, what this statement means is that neoliberal ideology runs deep, but at the ‘superficial’ level, that is the level of action in this case, many who maintain a deep ideological commitment to neoliberalism have nevertheless betrayed their belief in their actions, even as they, paradoxically, maintain their belief. 32 Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” in Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks Second Edition, ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Keller. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 410. 33 Zygmunt Bauman, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 53,52. 34 Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 7,39. 35 Judt, Ill Fares the Land, 38. 36 Hochschild, Facing Up, 30. 37 Brown, Regulating Aversion, 18. 38 Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Three Leaves Press Doubleday, 2004), 17. 39 Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Quoted in Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambition: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005), 100. 40 Chomsky, Imperial Ambition, 100. 41 Ibid., 101. 42 Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010), 7. 43 Ibid., 7. 44 Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright.” PoetryFoundation.org, accessed 10 December, 2014. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ 45 Falk, “Slouching Toward,” 56.

Utopia and Apocalypse Now

237

 46

Judt, Ill Fares the Land, 31. Barack Obama, The White House, accessed 3 April, 2015. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/09/statement-presidentreport-senate-select-committee-intelligence. 48 Tzvetan Todorov. Quoted in Zygmunt Bauman, Does Ethics Have a Chance, 95. 49 Bauman, Does Ethics Have a Chance, 95. 50 Butler, Frames of War, 46. 51 Brian Stelter, “U.S. Networks Scramble on News of Bin Laden’s Death,” The New York Times, accessed May 6, 2011, http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/u-s-networks-scramble-onnews-of-bin-ladens-death/. 52 Haley Blum, “Osama death celebration: Penn State brings it to the Canyon,” USA Today College, accessed May 6, 2011, www.usatodayeducate.com/.../blog/osama-death-celebration-penn-st. 53 Noam Chomsky, “My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death,” World News Daily: Information Clearing House, accessed May 7, 2011, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28045.html. 54 Butler, Frames of War, 14,22. 55 Ibid., 47. 56 Ibid., original emphasis, 47. 57 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Comedy Central. 16, July 2014. http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow. 58 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, ed. Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 59. 59 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 92. 47

CHAPTER THIRTEEN UTOPIA AND THE MARXIAN CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY DAVID F. RUCCIO

“If there is some connection between dreams and life then all is well.” —Lenin, What Is To Be Done, quoting D. I. Pisarev

It is indeed a sign of our times that, in New Harmony, Indiana, at the conference for which I first developed the ideas in this essay, we held what was a fascinating, wide-ranging discussion about the role of utopia.1 Our contemporary conversation in that location with such historic utopian roots occurred in the midst of the Second Great Depression, when capitalism is (once again) being called into question and more and more people are seeking out, imagining, and inventing alternatives. The task I was given for the conference, and want to take up here, was to rethink the notion of utopia from the perspective of Marxian theory. I then decided to go further and investigate the role utopia and the Marxian critique of political economy can play in the midst of the current crises of capitalism. My focus, therefore, is on our contemporary situation. But I want to start my investigation much further back in time, in the middle of the nineteenth century, a couple of decades after Robert Owen, his twentytwo-year-old son William, and his Scottish friend Donald McDonald sailed to the United States to purchase a site to implement Owen's vision for "a New Moral World.”2

1. Let me begin, then, in 1845, when the Philadelphia Industrial Association, a Fourierist Phalanx, was established on a farm in what was then German Township, located in the northwestern corner of what is now South Bend, Indiana. The Association became an officially recognized society

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

239

consisting of 50 members, and described as a joint-stock company, on 13 January 1845. Many of the original members were actually New Englanders who had migrated to Ohio and then to Indiana. Its first official act was on 3 April of that year, when William McCartney sold 230 acres of land to the association for $5,000. The fee was to be repaid over a span of twelve years. The association seems to have had no relationship to the city of Philadelphia but took its name from the same roots meaning "brotherly love." The principal founding figures were William C. Talcott and William McCartney. (Other important figures were Ephraim Trueblood, who was one of the charter members and who donated everything he owned to the society, the entirety of his money, house goods, and library, and Mary Sumption, who was the only woman listed in the original charter.) McCartney served as the Association’s first president and Talcott, its clerk or secretary. Talcott, the “prime mover” of the Association, was born in Massachusetts, raised in Ohio, and arrived in Indiana in 1837, where he taught school, did surveying, became a Universalist minister, published a newspaper, read law, and eventually was appointed probate judge. From what I can gather, he began as a Free-Soil Democrat and ended up an ardent Republican, and his economic views were “strongly socialist”; apparently, it was his interest in socialist economics that led him to discovering Fourier. According to the South Bend Tribune (1969), Although the records of the society's proceedings have long been lost. various county histories quote a report by Talcott, who later moved to Valparaiso, that there were approximately 70 members at one time and that for at least a while they took their meals communally. The society cleared land on the firm and apparently sought to draw persons having various skills needed for communal life. Its goals included education, as indicated in an advertisement printed in the St. Joseph Valley Register Feb. 13, 1846. Plans for publishing a journal to fight for social change as well as "phonography," a science enabling persons to learn to spell in a few hours," are set forth in the ad. It is not known if any copies were ever issued.

In the second year of its operation, the Philadelphia Industrial Association fell on hard times, apparently as the result of a dispute between McCartney and other members of the society. As Talcott told the story, Mr. McCartney violated his promise to invest his whole tract of land, and after we were fully organized and on the ground and ready to receive the

240

Chapter Thirteen title and use the land, he withheld all of the valuable and available portion, and turned us off with the broken, marshy land lying between the road and the river at $20 per acre, the appraised price of the entire tract.3

Undeterred, the Association then proceeded to purchase another plot of land, 40 acres in Greene Township. But even then, it was not able to survive—and all the land was sold on 21 December 1846, thus ending the short life of the Philadelphia Industrial Association. We don’t know much more about the Association than what I’ve just related. But we are aware that, more than a decade after its demise, in 1857, a Workingmen’s Institute was formed in the area, part of a group of 114 public libraries established in Indiana, including most famously the one in New Harmony (Indiana’s oldest continuously operating public library). And, of course, the Philadelphia Association was not the only intentional community in Indiana at the time, a movement that included the Lagrange Phalanx founded near Mongoquinong (now Mongo) in Springfield Turnpike, Lagrange County, which lasted from 1843 and 1848, and the Congregation of Saints, in Lexington, also in Lagrange County, in 1843.4 I’ll admit I’m interested in the short-lived Philadelphia Industrial Association because I’ve worked in the area for over thirty years now. Even more, when I teach my University of Notre Dame students about capitalism and alternatives to capitalism, I enjoy pointing out that, not only has the United States over the course of its history featured hundreds of communist societies, at least one of them (the Shakers) endured much longer than the Soviet Union—and of course some of them existed in Indiana, a state where they spend four years and yet is the last place in the world where they expect to find a history of living, breathing, practicing communists. Before we leave this forgotten history, let me also point out that, a world away, at roughly the same time, a distinct but related movement was beginning to take shape. In February 1844, one of the Young Hegelians published an article in the first and only issue to appear of the GermanFrench Annals (Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher). It was in the form of a letter to Arnold Ruge, dated September 1843 (thus, at the age of 25), just before he moved to Paris. I am referring, of course, to the text we now know as “For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing.”5 In that article, for those of you who may not have looked at it recently, Marx announced that he was not in favor of “raising a dogmatic banner”— such as the “actually existing communism as taught by [Etienne] Cabet, [Alexandre Théodore] Dézamy, [Wilhelm] Weitling, etc.” So, he declares,

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

241

If the designing of the future and the proclamation of ready-made solutions for all time is not our affair, then we realize all the more clearly what we have to accomplish in the present—I am speaking of a ruthless criticism of everything existing, ruthless in two senses: The criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be.6

In Marx’s view, the starting-point for such a “ruthless criticism” were the real struggles taking place in that time, and in which the critics themselves needed to participate. Thus, we shall confront the world not as doctrinaires with a new principle: "Here is the truth, bow down before it!" We develop new principles to the world out of its own principles. We do not say to the world: "Stop fighting; your struggle is of no account. We want to shout the true slogan of the struggle at you." We only show the world what it is fighting for, and consciousness is something that the world must acquire, like it or not.7

2. So, we have, at roughly the same time, the formation of a utopian community by 70-100 individuals in northern Indiana and Marx’s announcement of a project of “ruthless criticism” in Kreuznach, the German spa town where Marx married Jenny and where he penned considerable portions of his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, before moving on to Paris, which is where he first embraced communism and developed his lifelong partnership with Friedrich Engels. The key question I want to answer in the remainder of this essay is the following: what is the relationship between Marxism and utopia? In my view, the answer to that question has tremendous implications. It certainly has had important consequences over the course of the history of Marxism—during the Second International, in the Soviet Union, in the long history of the labor movement here in the United States, in the student movements of the 1960s, and in the more recent Occupy Wall Street movement. And it takes on particular relevance right now, in the midst of what I am calling the Second Great Depression, when so much misery has been imposed on workers and their families—through mass unemployment, stagnant wages, grotesque levels of inequality, high levels of poverty and precariousness, and even elevated rates of ill health and suicide.8 The powers that be call it a recovery but consider, for a moment, the conditions and consequences of that so-called recovery:

242

Chapter Thirteen

x masssive unemployyment (which reached a peaak, in January y 2010, of 10.6 percent officcial unemploy yment, and off 18 percent, once we incluude discourageed workers an nd those involluntarily work king parttime jjobs) x an unnwillingness to increase the t federal m minimum wag ge (which falls further and fuurther behind increases i in prroductivity) mpts to dismaantle Social Security S (whicch would cutt into the x attem beneffits we owe too retired Amerrican workers)) x and a return to thee grotesque leevels of inequuality that precceded the Greatt Crash (succh as the enormous gap between thee average incom mes of the topp 1 percent and those of thee bottom 90 percent, as can bbe seen in Figuure 1)

The irony, of course, is that with thee Fall of the Wall, the co ommunist utopia has bbeen declared a failure. It’ss been a consttant refrain, even e from those who aadmit the spectacular failuree of mainstreaam economicss and who

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

243

invoke Marx’s Capital as the only text and tradition that might help us understand why the crash of 2007-08 erupted in the first place. Why, we might ask, given the devastation of the past seven years—in the United States, Western Europe, and elsewhere around the globe—during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, are we not willing to openly and publicly declare the failure of capitalism? And then, of course, to take up the task of imagining and creating a radically different set of economic policies and institutions. The problem is that any such proposal is labeled utopian—naïve and unworkable—and then set aside. That’s the case even for the relatively modest global wealth tax proposed by Thomas Piketty in his best-selling recent book.9 Piketty, of course, is given credit (along with this frequent coauthor Emmanuel Saez) for documenting the spectacular rise of income inequality from the mid-1970s onward—the 1 percent versus everyone else—and then showing how wealth is even more unevenly distributed, which (if things continue as they are) creates the specter of the formation of new inherited wealth dynasties, the basis of what he calls “patrimonial capitalism.” And yet his proposal for a reasonable and moderate global wealth tax is considered a utopian dream and never seriously considered. That’s how much the level of our discourse—in the discipline of economics and in public debate—has fallen. The spectacular rise of economic inequality and the low level of our ability to meet the problem head-on offer even more reason, then, to consider the utopian dimensions of Marxian theory.

3. My view, to put my cards on the table, is that all economic theories have a utopian element. That’s what I teach to my students on a regular basis. It’s not just the Marxian critique of political economy but mainstream, neoclassical economics, too. In fact, let me make it even stronger: there simply can’t be a modern economic discourse—a theory of how goods and services are produced, exchanged, distributed, and consumed, how prices of commodities are formed, how incomes are generated, where profits come from, and so on—without some utopian element. Consider, for example, that most scientistic of economic theories, the one that was born in the 1870s and 1880s and, after many skirmishes, is arguably the hegemonic theory within the discipline of economics today. According to neoclassical economists, in a society based on private property and markets, individual choices (utility-maximizing decisions on the part of households, profit-maximization by firms) can, at least in

244

Chapter Thirteen

principle, lead to Pareto efficiency—a situation where no one can be made better off without making someone worse off. That general equilibrium, the supposedly perfect balance of limited means and unlimited desires, represents the utopian horizon—in both theory and policy—of neoclassical economics. Let me make the point even stronger: the possibility of Pareto efficiency serves as the basis of neoclassical theory’s utopianism. With devastating consequences. The possibility of that perfect balance serves to justify any and all manner of attempts to create the conditions leading to that utopia. If there are markets, they need to be free of any and all interventions. (Think, for example, of the labor market, which must be shorn of any regulation, such as, for example, a minimum wage or a cap on financial bonuses or corporate executive salaries.) And if there aren’t markets (for example, of financial derivatives or carbon emissions), then they need to be created (and kept unregulated) in order to achieve an efficient allocation of resources. And we know the results of that particular utopianism. Naomi Klein has collected many of the examples—from Pinochet’s Chile to postKatrina New Orleans—in her Shock Doctrine (2007). And, of course, we’re still living through the devastation of the crash of 2007-08 and its aftermath. In all those cases, and many more, neoclassical economists and the powers that be outside the discipline of economics took as their goal, and sought by whatever means to create the conditions to achieve, the utopia promised by Pareto efficiency.

4. Marxism is not such a utopianism. Or better: Marxism as I read it is not based on the kind of utopianism that characterizes neoclassical economics. It does, however, have a utopian moment. So, in what follows, I want to distinguish between, on one hand, utopianism and, on the other hand, a utopian impulse, dimension, or moment. Now, of course, the relationship between utopia and Marxism is a contested, much-discussed and long–debated, aspect of the Marxian tradition. There are, in my view, two common views concerning that relationship. One is that Marx (and Engels and other leading figures in Marxism) presented a clear vision of an alternative, post-capitalist or communist society. On this score, it is enough to retrieve the elements of that vision from Marx’s writings—akin to the utopias that have been

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

245

described by countless authors, from Thomas More through Edward Bellamy to Ursula Le Guin and to chart a path or transition from the capitalist present to the clearly articulated communist future.10 (There are, of course, different interpretations of what communism should look like, from state ownership to worker control. But there is general agreement, on this view, that Marx, Engels, and latter-day Marxists were inspired by and provided some kind of blueprint of a postcapitalist society.) The other view is that Marxism represents a scientific, materialist analysis of capitalism—of the world as it is (or at least might be, if capitalism continues to flourish and develop), without any need for a utopian vision. It is enough, on this view, to identify and analyze capitalism’s “laws of motion,” including the accumulation of mounting contradictions that will ultimately and inevitably lead to its final crisis. Speculating about utopia can only distort and divert what is often referred to, borrowing Engels’s phrase, as “scientific socialism.” My reading of Marx and of the Marxian tradition is, as you might imagine, somewhat different. In a nutshell, I reject both of these views. The first view—that Marx left a well-specified conception of communism—is questionable because nowhere in his writings is there even an outline, let alone a complete specification, of what an alternative to capitalism might or should look like. It simply isn’t there. It can’t be found in the early texts (such as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844), not in the Communist Manifesto or Capital (contrary to what my students and others expect when they first encounter them), and not even in the later writings (such as the Critique of the Gotha Program). All readers encounter across the length and breadth of Marx and Engels’s oeuvre are some general, albeit powerful, allusions and phrases: “abolition of private property”;11 a society that permits one “to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner”;12 “production by freely associated men”;13 “direct social appropriation”; 14 and, of course, most famously “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” 15 The only conclusion one can reasonably draw is Marx (and Engels and others) left us some general, suggestive concepts and formulations but certainly no detailed or worked-out conception of the economic and social institutions that might serve as the basis of a communist society. By the same token, we also have to recognize that all of Marx’s major texts include such evocative phrases. That is, as against the second vision of a purely scientific, analytical Marxism, there is a utopian element in Marx’s writings—a persistent idea that economic and social life can be different from (and certainly better than) what it is. That’s true across the

246

Chapter Thirteen

range of texts—from the more philosophical (such as the 1844 Manuscripts) to the economic (such as the Grundrisse and Capital), from the political (such as the Manifesto) to current events (such as the Civil War in France). In every single one of those texts one finds evidence that Marx was not only analyzing what is but also suggesting what can and should be—informed by and pointing in a utopian direction. So, my answer to the question, of whether Marxism has a utopian dimension, is both no and yes. And that’s why I want to maintain the distinction between utopianism and utopian moment. Marxism, as I see it, is not a utopianism—with a clear vision or blueprint of the kind of society that should be created—but it does have a utopian moment—a sense that existing forms of capitalism can be and should be criticized and eventually replaced by something else.

5. What about Marx and Engels’s actual writings about utopian socialism, such as the ideas that inspired the Philadelphia Industrial Society in 1845? As it turns out, this was my biggest surprise in preparing this essay. I’ll confess, I’ve long held the view (shared apparently by many others) that “utopian socialism” merely served as a foil for Marx and Engels, and that throughout their writings, especially in such texts as the Manifesto and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, they mostly disparaged and set themselves apart from anything related to the utopian socialists. Well, I was wrong. In fact, I couldn’t have been more wrong. What I discovered, instead, was as an appreciative, almost embarrassingly fulsome, commentary on the work of the utopian socialists, such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen. We should remember (or, as in my case, learn for the first time) that Engels, of scientific socialism renown, wrote a series of articles on the development of radical social movements on the continent, between 1842 and 1844 in, of all places, Robert Owen’s periodical The New Moral World. They include this paragraph on Fourier: Nearly at the same time with Saint-Simon, another man directed the activity of his mighty intellect to the social state of mankind — Fourier. Although Fourier’s writings do not display those bright sparks of genius which we find in Saint-Simon’s and some of his disciples; although his style is hard, and shows, to a considerable extent, the toil with which the author is always labouring to bring out his ideas, and to speak out things for which no words are provided in the French language — nevertheless, we read his works with greater pleasure; and find more real value in them,

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

247

than in those of the preceding school. There is mysticism, too, and as extravagant as any, but this you may cut off and throw it aside, and there will remain something not to be found among the Saint-Simonians — scientific research, cool, unbiased, systematic thought; in short, social philosophy; whilst Saint-Simonism can only be called social poetry. It was Fourier, who, for the first time, established the great axiom of social philosophy, that every individual having an inclination or predilection for some particular kind of work, the sum of all these inclinations of all individuals must be, upon the whole, an adequate power for providing for the wants of all. From this principle, it follows, that if every individual is left to his own inclination, to do and to leave what he pleases, the wants of all will be provided for, without the forcible means used by the present system of society. . .I cannot, of course, follow Fourier through the whole of his theory of free labour, and I think this will be sufficient to show the English Socialists that Fourierism is a subject well worthy of their attention.16

That’s certainly a more positive set of comments than we might expect, even if they’re followed by a clear criticism (although I don’t know if problems identified by Engels were relevant to the ultimate fate of the Philadelphia Industrial Association): There is one inconsistency, however, in Fourierism, and a very important one too, and that is, his nonabolition of private property. In his Phalanstères or associative establishments, there are rich and poor, capitalists and working men. The property of all members is placed into a joint stock, the establishment carries on commerce, agricultural and manufacturing industry, and the proceeds are divided among the members; one part as wages of labour, another as reward for skill and talent, and a third as profits of capital. Thus, after all the beautiful theories of association and free labour; after a good deal of indignant declamation against commerce, selfishness, and competition, we have in practice the old competitive system upon an improved plan, a poor-law bastile on more liberal principles! Certainly, here we cannot stop; and the French, too, have not stopped here.17

But, I understand, perhaps these are just the overly enthusiastic but ultimately misguided thoughts of a young Engels—before he entered into his collaboration with Marx. So, then let us consider for the moment a somewhat later text, which is often taken to include a ruthless criticism of utopian socialism: the Communist Manifesto. There, of course, we find the familiar attacks on both “reactionary” (“feudal,” “petty-bourgeois,” and “German, or ‘true’,”) and “conservative, or bourgeois” socialism (including, to be specific,

248

Chapter Thirteen

“economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind”). However, the outlook of “critical-utopian socialism” presented by Marx and Engels is quite different: these Socialist and Communist publications contain. . .a critical element. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence, they are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures proposed in them — such as the abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the function of the state into a more superintendence of production — all these proposals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest indistinct and undefined forms only.18

Although, to be clear, the same section includes the familiar references to “castles in the air” and what Marx and Engels interpreted as the utopian socialists’ opposition to “all political action on the part of the working class.” But let me return to that issue below. We should also take into account a much later text, the three chapters of Engels’s 1878 Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, which were published two years later as the famous pamphlet, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.” There, Engels explains the appearance of utopian socialism in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries as a result of the general disappointment with the social and political institutions created by the “triumph of reason” of the French Revolution. All that was wanting was the men to formulate this disappointment, and they came with the turn of the century. In 1802, Saint-Simon’s Geneva letters appeared; in 1808 appeared Fourier’s first work, although the groundwork of his theory dated from 1799; on January 1, 1800, Robert Owen undertook the direction of New Lanark.19

What follows is what can only be considered effusive praise for the ideals and ideas of Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen. Given the latter’s role in establishing the utopian community in New Harmony, let me quote Engels at some length:

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy At this juncture, there came forward as a reformer a manufacturer 29years-old—a man of almost sublime, childlike simplicity of character, and at the same time one of the few born leaders of men. Robert Owen had adopted the teaching of the materialistic philosophers: that man’s character is the product, on the one hand, of heredity; on the other, of the environment of the individual during his lifetime, and especially during his period of development. In the industrial revolution most of his class saw only chaos and confusion, and the opportunity of fishing in these troubled waters and making large fortunes quickly. He saw in it the opportunity of putting into practice his favorite theory, and so of bringing order out of chaos. He had already tried it with success, as superintendent of more than 500 men in a Manchester factory. From 1800 to 1829, he directed the great cotton mill at New Lanark, in Scotland, as managing partner, along the same lines, but with greater freedom of action and with a success that made him a European reputation. A population, originally consisting of the most diverse and, for the most part, very demoralized elements, a population that gradually grew to 2,500, he turned into a model colony, in which drunkenness, police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, charity, were unknown. And all this simply by placing the people in conditions worthy of human beings, and especially by carefully bringing up the rising generation. He was the founder of infant schools, and introduced them first at New Lanark. At the age of two, the children came to school, where they enjoyed themselves so much that they could scarcely be got home again. Whilst his competitors worked their people 13 or 14 hours a day, in New Lanark the working-day was only 10 and a half hours. When a crisis in cotton stopped work for four months, his workers received their full wages all the time. And with all this the business more than doubled in value, and to the last yielded large profits to its proprietors. In spite of all this, Owen was not content. The existence which he secured for his workers was, in his eyes, still far from being worthy of human beings. "The people were slaves at my mercy." The relatively favorable conditions in which he had placed them were still far from allowing a rational development of the character and of the intellect in all directions, much less of the free exercise of all their faculties. . . The newly created gigantic productive forces, hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the masses, offered to Owen the foundations for a reconstruction of society; they were destined, as the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all. Owen’s communism was based upon this purely business foundation, the outcome, so to say, of commercial calculation. Throughout, it maintained this practical character. Thus, in 1823, Owen proposed the relief of the distress in Ireland by Communist colonies, and drew up complete estimates of costs of founding them, yearly expenditure, and probable revenue. And in his definite plan for the future, the technical working out of details is managed with such practical knowledge – ground plan, front and side and bird’s-eye views all included – that the Owen

249

250

Chapter Thirteen method of social reform once accepted, there is from the practical point of view little to be said against the actual arrangement of details. His advance in the direction of Communism was the turning-point in Owen’s life. As long as he was simply a philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honor, and glory. He was the most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and princes listened to him approvingly. But when he came out with his Communist theories that was quite another thing. Three great obstacles seemed to him especially to block the path to social reform: private property, religion, the present form of marriage. He knew what confronted him if he attacked these – outlawry, excommunication from official society, the loss of his whole social position. But nothing of this prevented him from attacking them without fear of consequences, and what he had foreseen happened. Banished from official society, with a conspiracy of silence against him in the press, ruined by his unsuccessful Communist experiments in America, in which he sacrificed all his fortune, he turned directly to the working-class and continued working in their midst for 30 years. Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen. He forced through in 1819, after five years’ fighting, the first law limiting the hours of labor of women and children in factories. He was president of the first Congress at which all the Trade Unions of England united in a single great trade association. He introduced as transition measures to the complete communistic organization of society, on the one hand, cooperative societies for retail trade and production. These have since that time, at least, given practical proof that the merchant and the manufacturer are socially quite unnecessary. On the other hand, he introduced labor bazaars for the exchange of the products of labor through the medium of labornotes, whose unit was a single hour of work; institutions necessarily doomed to failure, but completely anticipating Proudhon’s bank of exchange of a much later period, and differing entirely from this in that it did not claim to be the panacea for all social ills, but only a first step towards a much more radical revolution of society.20

Undoubtedly, Engels admired both Owen and his utopian socialist proposals and projects. There’s no question that Marx and Engels engaged in running battles with other radical (socialist, anarchist, and so on) thinkers of their own time, reserving particular scorn for Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (best exemplified by the Poverty of Philosophy). But, even then, they retain their respect for the utopian socialists, both of which we can see in Marx’s 1866 letter to Ludwig Kugelmann:21 Proudhon has done enormous harm. His pseudo-critique and his pseudoconfrontation with the Utopians (he himself is no more than a philistine

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

251

Utopian, whereas the Utopias of such as Fourier, Owen, etc., contain the presentiment and visionary expression of a new world) seized hold of and corrupted first the ‘jeunesse brillante’ the students, then the workers, especially those in Paris, who as workers in luxury trades are, without realising it, themselves deeply implicated in the garbage of the past.

And, before I leave this topic, let me mention one last commentary on utopian socialism: Marx’s appreciation, which he expressed late in his life, for the Russian peasant commune, in the first draft of a letter to Vera Zasulich (1881): My answer [to the supposedly inevitable dissolution of the mir] is that, thanks to the unique combination of circumstances in Russia, the rural commune, which is still established on a national scale, may gradually shake off its primitive characteristics and directly develop as an element of collective production on a national scale. Precisely because it is contemporaneous with capitalist production, the rural commune may appropriate all its positive achievements without undergoing its [terrible] frightful vicissitudes. Russia does not live in isolation from the modern world, and nor has it fallen prey, like the East Indies, to a conquering foreign power.

Here we have both a positive appreciation for an existing, noncapitalist form of economic and social organization and an example of Marx’s rejection of a “historico-philosophic theory of the marche générale imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself.”22

6. But we do know, of course, that Marx and Engels did in fact reject “utopian socialism” for their own time, in the middle of the nineteenth century, during the formation and development of the First International. On what basis? As I see it, their rejection of utopian socialism (and their defense of socalled scientific socialism) rested on two main pillars: the role of the working-class and the project of critique. There’s no doubt, Marx and Engels envisioned the movement beyond capitalism not in terms of realizing some ideal scheme, no matter how well conceived and worked-out, but as the task of the growing industrial working-class. In other words, the idea was that capitalism produces its own grave-diggers. The growth of capitalism—the widening and deepening of capital—was accompanied by the growth of a class that had both the

252

Chapter Thirteen

interest and the means to overturn the rule of capital. A class that could challenge the pretensions of capital to become a universal class, by posing its own universal aspirations—not for everyone to become a laborer but to abolish the wages system itself and lay the basis for a different way of organizing economic and social life. This is the Marxian version, if you will, of the preferential option for the poor. The point is not, as some interpret it, to be merely mindful of and charitable to the poor. Rather, the idea is that the existence of poverty in the midst of plenty is a situation that hurts everyone, both rich and poor— that robs everyone of their humanity. And that humanity can only be restored by the abolition of the economic and social conditions that lead to poverty and create a different economic and social system, one in which poverty itself has been abolished. More philosophically, the idea was, as Louis Althusser later put it, the masses—not “man” (or great individuals)—make history. 23 It’s an idea that has perhaps best been captured by Bertolt Brecht—in, among other places, his poem “Question from a Worker Who Reads,” his play The Days of the Commune (which, incidentally, was staged by Occupy Wall Street in March 2012), and the parable “The City Builder” (as translated by Fischer).24 As Gerhard Fischer explains, the prize for good building that was awarded to the Friendly One at the end of the parable involves a familiar Brechtian trope: “to be astonished at the way things are makes the familiar appear strange, it begs the question of why things are the way they are.”25 And, I would add: how things can be different. As I see it, the Friendly One’s door shows the way toward building a new economy—a friendly economy, one in which marvelous pieces of work are recognized but not owned, an economy that favors the common good based on individual effort and collective achievement. As it turns out, that’s also the way Marx and Engels proceeded—to make familiar things appear strange and to point in the direction of an alternative. And their manner of accomplishing this is what I consider to be the second pillar of their rejection of “utopian socialism” for their time: the method of critique. This method, which is first announced by Marx in the letter to Ruge, continues throughout their work (including, in a piece I discovered as part of my research here, Engels’s own essay, before he entered into his collaboration with Marx (“Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy”26). My view is that the notion of critique—the “ruthless criticism of everything existing”—not “the designing of the future and the

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

253

proclamation of ready-made solutions for all time,” is the utopian moment of Marxian theory. To put it differently, in terms of the literary tradition so thoroughly explored by Fredric Jameson, the Marxian approach to critique is aligned with the first, but not the second, part of Thomas More’s Utopia. It is utopian because, as in the eleventh on Feuerbach, it involves not only interpreting but changing the world.27 And more: it’s that project of ruthless criticism that is so lacking today, in the midst of the Second Great Depression.

7. Let me leave for another time a tracing of the thread of critique that, in my view, runs throughout the writings of Marx and Engels—and, instead, jump immediately to the critique of political economy. The critique of political economy, we sometimes forget, is the subtitle of Capital. Furthermore, it’s a two-fold critique: a critique of both mainstream economic theory and of capitalism, the economic and social system celebrated by mainstream economists. In Marx’s day, it was thus a critique of classical political economy (the theory developed by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and others). In our own day, it’s a critique of neoclassical and Keynesian economics, the limits of the discussion within contemporary mainstream economics. In both cases, the Marxian method is not to start with some abstract principles of dialectical or historical materialism and then to develop a specifically Marxian analysis of capitalism. Instead, Marx starts from existing economic theory—in particular, where the classicals left off, with the wealth of nations, an “immense collection of commodities,” which he uses as his startingpoint—in order to make familiar things strange, to denaturalize or defamiliarize them, in order to point in a different direction. For the purposes of this discussion, that utopian critique of political economy can be boiled down to three key elements: First, it’s a critique of humanism, that is, the idea that capitalism corresponds to a given (transcultural and transhistorical) human nature. The best example, from Capital, is the section on commodity fetishism, where Marx makes two key arguments: against the classical political economists, that there’s nothing natural about homo economicus, and against Feuerbach, that commodity fetishism is somehow a distorted or false consciousness of commodity exchange. The utopian moment stems, therefore, from the idea that there have been and can be many different economic subjectivities (including within a commodity-exchanging

254

Chapter Thirteen

society) and that, in order to move beyond commodity consciousness, it is necessary to eliminate commodity exchange as a regulating principle of society.28 Second, it’s a critique of the presumed stability of capitalism—the idea, enshrined (although more often hidden behind the blackboard than made explicit) in mainstream economics from Marx’s time to our own, that we refer to as Say’s Law. Readers may be more familiar with it as “supply creates its own demand.” In any case, the presumption is that capitalist markets achieve a stable, general equilibrium of full employment. Marx’s argument, long before Keynes wrote his General Theory, is that the only world in which Say’s Law holds is nonmonetary or barter exchange. Once money is introduced, all bets are off. There is no guarantee, in monetary or generalized commodity exchange, that purchases will equal sales, which creates the possibility (although not, mind you, the necessity) of a crisis (as well as, as the critique proceeds, of the anarchy of production and of the industrial reserve army). And, notice, we’re not even referring to capitalism here—just the exchange of commodities. But the third element certainly does refer to a specifically capitalist economy: it’s the Marxian critique of exploitation. I’m referring, of course, to surplus-value—which Marx famously explains in terms of capital that “vampire-like. . .only lives by sucking living labor” and Engels, later, as what the utopian socialists—notwithstanding their denunciation of the “exploitations of the working-class”—could not clearly show, either in terms of what it consisted or how it arose.29 We should remember that all three pillars of the critique of political economy assumed “perfect” conditions, that is, the strongest possible case for mainstream economics. In other words, Marx presumed the existence of “freedom, equality, property, and Bentham”—what we refer to today as perfect markets, perfect information, perfect property rights, and so on. And still he ended up with commodity fetishism, market instability, and capitalist exploitation. In other words, he revealed what mainstream economists and other supporters of capitalism try hard not to say. Here’s a different way of putting the point: capitalism and mainstream economics promise full employment, the correct prices, just deserts, and so on. And Marx shows that they don’t—and, perhaps even more important, they can’t—deliver on those promises, even under the best of circumstances. That’s why the critique of political economy—the ruthless criticism of mainstream economic theory and capitalism—points in a different

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

255

direction, opening a space for actually moving toward the kinds of practices and institutions first imagined by the utopian socialists.

8. What then of utopia and the critique of political economy today? In my view, less important than the alternative economic and social arrangements painstakingly devised by the utopian socialists or the scattered remarks Marx and Engels made about communism in their writings—what is more important for our times is the utopian dimension of the critique of political economy. That is, our task is to intervene in contemporary debates from the standpoint of a ruthless criticism. In other words, we too need to engage in a practice of “self-clarification. . .by the present time of its struggles and desires in order to participate in the process of “awakening it out of its dream about itself.” Let me provide a few examples of what I mean, by returning to the examples I presented at the beginning of this essay. First, consider the massive unemployment we have endured in recent years. Yes, it is an enormous waste of human potential, now and for the future. Some of the recently unemployed have been able to find jobs, although in many cases with much lower wages, and many of the longterm unemployed will probably never find another full-time job. But we also need to see the industrial reserve army as another way in which labor as a whole—both unemployed and employed—is disciplined and punished so that it continues to be forced to have the freedom to sell its ability to work to a tiny number of employers, competing with one another for the available jobs. And the alternative? We could have the government capture and use a portion of the enormous surplus available in society to directly hire unemployed workers or, alternatively, we could create the conditions (locally and nationally) for workers themselves to join together to provide jobs for themselves and for their fellow workers. Second, let’s focus on the minimum wage. As we all know, the real value of the minimum wage (both federal and the higher ones created in recent years by many states) continues to decline, thus making it impossible not only for fast-food and retail workers to support themselves and their families, but also for all other workers to make demands for higher pay. Instead of merely raising the minimum wage, alone or in conjunction with the Earned Income Tax Credit (which, remember, is a subsidy to employers to hire low-wage workers), why not provide a guaranteed income to all citizens, so that no one is consigned to a lowwage, dead-end job?

256

Chapter Thirteen

A third example is Social Security. As we know, the average household in the United States has managed to accumulate very little in the way of retirement savings. There simply isn’t enough left over after paying their bills and helping their children get a start in life. That’s why Social Security is so important for them. So, we have a system according to which the generations currently working support the generations that have retired. The schemes to cut future benefits (by lowering the amount paid out or raising the retirement age) or to privatize the system (by having individuals place their savings in the stock market) threaten to sever that community relation in favor of individual investment accounts. The fact is, we should be expanding benefits—by increasing payments and lowering the retirement age—and all we need to do is raise the earnings limit and/or increase the percentage corporations pay into the fund to make the Social Security system financially solvent for the foreseeable future. And, finally, my fourth point, about inequality. There is much talk, of course, these days about economic inequality—a discussion that has certainly been galvanized by Piketty’s data and book. The problem, as I see it, is the debate remains confined within narrow limits: between workers getting pretty much what they deserve (and therefore in need of more education, to justify higher incomes) and decreased mobility (which, of course, even if it increases, does nothing to eliminate the actual disparities between top and bottom); between unequal outcomes that are harmless and in the end justified (the view held by Harvard’s Gregory Mankiw) and inequalities that are supposedly invisible and whose major consequence is not economic but political (for the most part, Paul Krugman’s outlook); and so on. In the end, it’s a debate about receipts (of income) and ownership (wealth)—not about the way the surplus is created, appropriated, and distributed. It is the fact that most people receive their incomes in the form of stagnant wages and a tiny minority at the top is able to capture the growing surplus created by those workers that is, from a Marxian perspective, the root of the problem. As these examples demonstrate, each time society faces the question of how to solve the economic and social problems it creates, the goal of the critique of political economy is to pose reasonable demands, which serve to demonstrate just how unreasonable the current common sense is. The utopian moment of that critique is to risk an alternative solution— a different way of solving the problems of, for example, unemployment, minimum wages, Social Security, and inequality—without a predetermined path or ideal solution. It is a way of challenging and disrupting the existing unreasonable reason and to open up other

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

257

possibilities: new ways of economic thinking (as practiced first by the utopian socialists and then Marx and Engels) and new economic institutions (from the Philadelphia Industrial Association to Occupy Wall Street). Today, in the midst of the Second Great Depression—with grotesque inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth, record corporate profits and many people barely getting by on stagnant wages and almost no retirement savings, with soaring rentals of luxury apartments and the decline in once-great cities like Detroit—we need that utopian critique more than ever.

Acknowledgements I want to thank Casey Harison, for providing me the opportunity to investigate the relationship between utopia and Marxism for the conference he and others organized on Capitalism & Socialism: Utopia, Globalization, and Revolution in November 2014; Connor Funk and Elizabeth Helpling, for invaluable research assistance; and Dwight Billings, Jack Amariglio, Antonio Callari, John Deal, and Leonard Williams for their encouragement and insightful comments on earlier versions of this essay.

Bibliography Althusser, L. 1976. “Reply to John Lewis (Self-Criticism).” In Essays in Self-Criticism, 33-99. New York: New Left. Amariglio, J. 2010. “Subjectivity, Class, and Marx’s ‘Forms of the Commune’.” Rethinking Marxism 22 (3): 329-44. Amariglio, J. and A. Callari. 1993. "Marxian Value Theory and the Problem of the Subject: The Role of Commodity Fetishism." In Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, ed. E. Apter and W. Pietz, 186-216. Ithaca: Cornell. Bellamy, E. 1960. Looking Backward 2000-1887. Foreword by E. Fromm. New York: Signet. Bestor, A. 1971. Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663-1829. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Brecht, B. 1976. “Questions from a Worker Who Reads.” In Poems 19131956, 252-53. New York: Methuen. —. 2003. “Days of the Commune.” In Collected plays: Eight. Ed. and intro. T. Kuhn and D. Constantine. 53-126. New York: Methuen.

258

Chapter Thirteen

Engels, F. 1975a. “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy.” In K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, 418-43. New York: International Publishers. —. 1975b. “Progress of Social Reform on the Continent.” In K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, 392-408. New York: International Publishers. —. 1978. “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 683-717. New York: W. W. Norton. Fischer, G. 2008. “’Good Building’: Bertolt Brecht’s Utopian Historical Optimism at the End of World War II.” Cultural Studies Review 14 (1): 137-46. Harrison, J. F. C. 1969. Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Holloway, M. 2011. Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880, 2nd ed. New York: Dover. Jameson, F. 2005. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and other Science Fictions. New York: Verso. Keynes, J. M. 1964. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Klein, N. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan. Le Guin, U. K. 1994. The Dispossessed. New York: Harper Voyager. Lenin, V. I. 1961. “What Is To be Done?” In Collected Works, vol. 5, 347530. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Marx, K. 1881. “The ‘First’ Draft.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/zasulich/draft1.htm (accessed: 24 October 2014) —. 1955. The Poverty of Philosophy. Moscow: Progress. —. 1973. Grundrisse. London: New Left Review. Marx, K. 1975. “Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann in Hanover.” In K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, 325. New York: International Publishers. —. 1977a. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. 3 vols. Trans. B. Fowkes. New York: Vintage. —. 1977b. Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right.’ New York: Cambridge University. —. 1978a. The Civil War in France.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 618-52. New York: W. W. Norton. —. 1978b. “Critique of the Gotha Program.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 525-41. New York: W. W. Norton.

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

259

—. 1978c. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 66-125. New York: W. W. Norton. —. 1978d. “For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing” (Letter to A. Ruge). In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 12-15. New York: W. W. Norton. —. 1978e. “The German Ideology.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 12-15. New York: W. W. Norton. —. 1978f. “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 469-500. New York: W. W. Norton. —. 1978g. “Theses on Feuerbach.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed., 143-45. New York: W. W. Norton. More, T. 1951. Utopia. Seaside, OR: Watchmaker. Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Harvard University. Pitzer, D. E., ed. 1997. America’s Communal Utopias. Durham: University of North Carolina. South Bend Tribune. 1969. “Michiana.” 19 October, p. 6. (http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=53444) Swidler, L. 1961. “The Doktrin and Practis of William C. Talcott.” Indiana Magazine of History 57 (1): 1-16.

Notes 

1

This essay is based on a plenary talk I delivered at the Conference on Capitalism & Socialism: Utopia, Globalization, and Revolution, in New Harmony, Indiana, 8 November 2014. I have chosen to keep much of the in-person tenor of the talk; however, I have changed some of the verb tenses and added bibliographical citations and references. 2 The standard work on Robert Owen and the Owenites is by J.F.C. Harrison, Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969). See also Arthur Bestor, Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663-1829, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1971) and the chapters on New Harmony in M. Holloway, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America 1680-1880, 2nd ed. (New York: Dover, 2011), and Donald E. Pitzer, ed., America’s Communal Utopias (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). 3 L. Swidler, “The Doktrin and practis of William C. Talcott,” Indiana Magazine of History 57 (1) (1961), 5. 4 Bestor, Backwoods Utopias.

260

Chapter Thirteen

 5

Marx, “For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing (Letter to Ruge),” in Robert Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader , 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978. 6 Ibid., 13. 7 Ibid., 14. 8 I regularly investigate and write about many of these consequences for workers and others on my blog, Occasional Links and Commentary on Economics, Culture, and Society (https://anticap.wordpress.com/). 9 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014). 10 More, Utopia (Seaside, OR: Watchmakter, 1951); Bellamy, Looking Backwards 2000-1887 (New York: Signet, 1960); Le Guin, The Dispossessed (New York :Harper Voyager, 1994). 11 Marx, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 163. 12 Marx, “The German Ideology,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 160. 13 Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, 3 vols., tr. B. Fowkes (New York: Vintage, 1977), vol. 1, 173. 14 Engels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 712. 15 Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Program,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 531. 16 Engels, “Progress of Social Reform on the Continent,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1975), vol. 3, 394-95. 17 Ibid., 395. 18 Marx, “Manifesto,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 498. 19 Engels, “Socialism,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 687. 20 Ibid., 691-93. 21 Marx, “Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann in Hanover,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 42, 325. 22 The Russian mir, of course, represents a different category from the ideas of and intentional communities established by the utopian socialists. It is more closely connected to what Marx wrote about the “original,” precapitalist forms of the commune in the Grundrisse. To my mind, it has a utopian dimension in the sense both that throughout much of human history people have lived in various forms of the commune (thereby showing that communist alternatives to capitalism have existed historically) and that it is not necessary to endure the full development of capitalism (whatever that might be) in order to create a radically different, noncapitalist society. (For more on Marx’s analysis of the commune, see J. Amariglio, “Subjectivity, Class, and Marx’s ‘Forms of the Commune,’” Rethinking Marxism 22 [3] [2010], 329-44.). 23 Althusser, “Reply to John Lewis (Self-Criticism),” in Essays in Self-Criticism (New York: New Left, 1976. 24 Brecht, “Question from a Worker Who Reads,” in Poems 1913-1956 (New York: Metheun, 1976; Brecht, “Days of the Commune,” in Collected Plays: Eight,

Utopia and the Marxian Critique of Political Economy

261

 ed. T. Kuhn and D. Constantine (New York: Metheun, 2003); G. Fischer, “’Good Building’: Bertolt Brecht’s Utopian Historical Optimism at the End of World War II,” Cultural Studies Review 14 (1) (2008), 137-46. 25 Fischer, “’Good Building,’” 138. 26 Engels, “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy,” in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, 418-43. 27 Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future; Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 143-45. 28 For more on Marx’s notion of commodity fetishism, see J. Amariglio and A. Callari, “Marxian Value Theory and the Problem of the Subject: The Role of Commodity Fetishism,” in E. Apter and W. Pietz, eds., Fetishism as Cultural Discourse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). 29 Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 342 and Engels, “Socialism.”

CONTRIBUTORS

Susan Love Brown received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, San Diego, and is currently professor and graduate advisor in the department of anthropology at Florida Atlantic University. She is the editor of Intentional Community: An Anthropological Perspective (SUNY Press, 2001). Jeremy Buesink received his BA honors in English and Cultural Studies with a minor in Religious Studies at McMaster University. He subsequently received his MA, also from McMaster, in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. He is currently completing his dissertation under the working title “Fundamentalizing Morality (Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action): Identity, Myth, Militarism, and Essentialist Thought in American National Ethos” in the Communication and Culture doctoral program at York University. John Deal is the Howard S. and Myra Brembeck Associate Professor of Economics at Manchester University. His research agenda focuses on teaching pedagogy and agricultural economics, and he has recently published articles in the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and the International Journal of Business and Social Science. Robert Geroux is a political theorist (Ph.D. Minnesota). He was for three years Postdoctoral Fellow in Western Traditions (now Core Humanities) at the University of Nevada-Reno. He has taught in Departments of Political Science at Gonzaga University, DePauw University, and IUPUI. He is currently at work on a project that analyzes the political dimensions of research on the human microbiome. Ted Goertzel, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. He has published a number of biographies and sociological studies. His most recent work is The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity, edited with his son Ben Goertzel.

A New Social Question: Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia

263

Paul Christopher Gray is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at York University. He has published articles in the journal Radical Philosophy. Currently, he is working on his dissertation, Deafening Silence: The Absence of Justice in Marx. You can see his work at https://yorku.academia.edu/PaulGray. Matthew Hendryx did graduate work at the University of WisconsinMadison and the London School of Economics. His undergraduate degree is from Indiana University. He has published work on academic dishonesty and presented conference papers on economic education. Annette M. Magid, Ph.D. is affiliated with SUNY Erie Community College, Buffalo, NY, USA. Her areas of expertise include American/ British Utopian literature and film, Science-Fiction literature and film, as well as children’s literature. Her publications include, Apocalyptic Projections: A Study of Past Predictions, Current Trends and Future Intimations as Related to Film and Literature, 2015; Wilde’s Wiles: Studies of the Influence on Oscar Wilde and His Enduring Influences in the Twenty-First Century, 2013; You Are What You Eat: Literary Probes into the Palate, 2008 and Tunnel of Stone, 2002. She has published articles in a variety of utopian journals and monographs. Her book on Quintessential Wilde will be published in 2016. Helen McCabe is a Teaching Fellow in Political Theory at the University of Warwick. Her doctoral thesis considered John Stuart Mill's claim to be “under the general designation of socialist”; this remains one of her main research areas, alongside exploration of Mill's intellectual relationship with Harriet Taylor Mill. Publications include articles on Mill's socialism, his philosophy of persuasion, and his feminism, and a forth-coming chapter on Taylor-Mill's role in the development of his thought. Donald E. Pitzer is professor emeritus of history and director emeritus of the Center for Communal Studies at the University of Southern Indiana. He was a co-founder and first president of the Communal Studies Association and the International Communal Studies Association. He edited America's Communal Utopias (1997) and wrote the text for New Harmony Then & Now (2012).

264

Contributors

David F. Ruccio is Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame and former editor of Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture, and Society. His recent books include Development and Globalization: A Marxian Class Analysis (Routledge), Economic Representations: Both Academic and Everyday (Routledge), and Postmodern Moments in Modern Economics (Princeton University Press). He is currently working on a new book, “Utopia and Critique.” Emily C. Teising is an assistant professor of French at the University of Southern Indiana. Her article "'Il est la loi qui marche': Représentations de l'homme de loi dans les romans de Léon Gozlan et George Sand" was published in L'Année Balzacienne: Balzac, homme de loi(s) ? in 2014. She earned her Ph.D. in French and French Studies from New York University in September 2013, with her dissertation titled "Unmasking Lawyers: Representations of the Legal Professions in Popular French Literature, 1830–1850." Joe White taught modern British history for many years at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing a new history of the Harmony Society. Leonard Williams is Professor of Political Science and Dean of the College of Education and Social Sciences at Manchester University. The author of American Liberalism and Ideological Change, his research interests largely focus on the study of political ideologies. He has published articles in Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, the Journal of Political Science Education, and the Journal of Political Ideologies. Neil Wright is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Quincy University. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Northern Illinois University in 2012. His dissertation, entitled Anarchist Property, evaluates Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of property.