Over the past several years, I have grown more and more disillusioned with industrialism as some sort of lofty pinnacle of civilisations. My last entry, specifically regarding the additional effort required in sustaining an industrial civilisation, made the argument that a return to simpler times might be better for everybody involved with the exception of production capitalists and those whose livelihood depends on the huge overreaching bureaucracies inherent in industrial societies. As it turns out, the views expressed in that entry are not as farfetched or odd as one might think.
Last year, my family and I ventured north to Brooklyn to spend some much needed time with my wife’s family. Originally, we had intended to stay but for a few days and then return. Seeing that the time spent was so short, and the travel time disproportionately long, I decided that I would return on a bus ride and my wife and children could stay for a much longer visit. Since I was not equipped for a long ride back to the south, I asked my father-in-law for some reading material to keep me occupied on the way back. He happily obliged and gave me a stack of three or four books to keep me company. Of these books was a plain, black paperback with the riveting title, The Collapse of Complex Societies. I know, it may not have New York Times bestseller written all over it, but if you know me, you know that such is some of my favourite reading material. I happily jumped into the book, not knowing what awaited me.
The book was quite engaging from the very beginning. The author, Dr Joseph Tainter, begins by defining collapse and highlights several key traits: less social stratification, less economic specialisation, less information processing, less centralised control, less communication and trading, and division into smaller political units. One thing that Dr Tainter notes is that complexity exists on a continuum. It is not as though civilisations go from primitive and leap immediately into giant bureaucracies. Rather, complexity increases slowly over time as new methods are implemented to increase productivity, ease of travel and communication, or make resources more readily available.
The next thing he does is to describe several dozen collapses that have occurred throughout history and then offers many of the various theories to explain collapse and offer an assessment of each one. The theories include resource depletion, natural catastrophe, foreign invaders, mystical explanations, and finally economic problems. He methodically explains the strengths and weaknesses of each theory and offers his own insight as to why each one comes up short in explaining what has been observed as a universal occurrence. One of his more powerful arguments is that complex societies are noted for their abilities to deal with natural catastrophes and foreign invaders; thus, a society collapsing because of one of these things explains nothing but is rather something that must be explained. Rome spent many generations effectively toppling foreign empires and resisting invaders – it is not an explanation for the Roman collapse that armies invaded Rome. That foreign armies were able to conquer the greatest standing army of the known world is something that demands an explanation.
The next portion of his work delves into a discussion of the law of diminishing returns as it applies to complex societies. This law is universal and immutable; there is simply no avoiding it. Case in point: if you wish to clean all the rubbish out if your garage, it might take you five minutes to get half of it out. It would take you a half an hour to get three-fourths of it out. And if you wish to clean it and organise it from top to bottom, it may well take five to six hours. This applies to farming an acre of land, removing impurities from metals, extracting energy from a barrel of oil, and everything else in the known world.
And it certainly applies to complex societies and the various problems they have to solve to maintain their complexity. In my last entry I wrote the following regarding the additional energy that we expend in order to have luxuries like cooler homes in the summer:
We now have electricity to light up our homes, power our refrigerators, and keep our homes cool in the summer. But we have to pay electric bills. To pay electric bills requires money, so we work at someplace. But we no longer own land, so now we must pay a man for a place to exist. So we work even more at that place. And the job we found is fifty kilometres away, so now we have to have an automobile, and must maintain it, fuel it, insure it, and pay obligatory taxes on it. So we work some more. Still, we have to communicate with the people with whom we now work, so we purchase an internet connection at home so that we can stay in contact with everybody efficiently. And that costs money, of course, so we work more. But then we have to eat. How could we forget about eating? Why, it is practically an afterthought nowadays. After all this work, we forgot that we still have to eat. And we are no longer in our own yards growing our own food – indeed we are rarely even home at all – so we have to pay somebody else to get our food for us. And so we work some more.
And all of this extra work says nothing of the expenditures that the energy company racks up in order to provide us with electricity. They must design and build a power plant, move coal from the ground to the power plant, have an enormous infrastructure of towers and power lines, engineers to design them, a team of people to maintain them, and must make sure that the energy they produce at any given power plant is sufficient for the network of customers for whom they are providing this service. And at each level, the sheer number of people and man-hours involved is simply staggering. Being an engineer myself, I can tell you that there is nothing in this task that is of little importance. And when you require scores of engineers, those engineers have to be managed, and generally have to work in a common location, requiring even more resources than have been mentioned thus far. And all of this is for cool houses in the summer (or refrigeration in general) and swift means to do laundry and cook food.
Like any system which is subject to the law of diminishing marginal returns, there comes a point where it does not make economic sense to press any farther. Take taxation, for instance. A government may increase taxes in order to finance its own diminishing returns. But as taxes become more oppressive and more unwelcome on the populace, people will begin evading them altogether. And when that happens, the state then has to hire people to enforce the new tax laws. At some point, it becomes economically unfeasible to pursue any higher tax rate and at that point, regression is the only economic option.
But when I hear of upcoming collapse, I do not see it as a bad thing. Interestingly enough, neither does Dr Tainter. He admits that collapse is not always bad, but is sometimes the most economically sensible thing to do. When you cease to get returns on something, then that line of progress should be abandoned. In ancient societies, this resulted in large empires dissolving into smaller city-states with smaller governing bodies that could work well within the confines of the newer, smaller systems.
The problem nowadays is that civilisations are so complex, that collapse could be catastrophic since so few people actually know how to produce things that are actually needed to sustain life. I have long since lamented that so many people are experts in market research but could not grow a single tomato plant or butcher a chicken. In our case, collapse might be devastating for everybody who was not involved in primary caloric production.
Which brings me to the same point I have been heralding for some time: people who are aware of how stretched thin our current system is would do well to learn how to become primary calorie producers, not secondary and tertiary calorie consumers. My family and I are now pursuing our second attempt to garden. Having learnt from last year’s mistakes, we are hopeful that we will be able to bring in more than we did last year. In some years, we hope to be raising livestock as well. I also plan on learning to hunt this year. I would that more families did the same.
Though collapse is inevitable with our current trajectory, this can be a very good thing, especially for those of us who are weary of the state demanding so much of our livelihood. Income taxes, property taxes, social security numbers, driver’s licenses, &c. have become nuisances for many of us who do not depend on the government dole for survival. For those who depend on it, well, that is another thing entirely. [Tainter concludes that collapse is going to happen again, but since there is no portion of the world undiscovered any more, that collapse cannot happen without its being a simultaneous global collapse. Local collapse, he argues, is impossible since if one regime fails, a local stable regime will immediately pick up where the failed one left off. With this conclusion I cannot agree or disagree but I do think he makes a valid point and it is hard to counter.]
One thing that struck me soundly about Dr Tainter’s work is that he clearly places some of the blame for the Roman collapse on the debasement of currency. Now this statement in itself does not strike me at all odd; in fact, I agree with it as it seems indisputable fact. What struck me was that he, a mainstream archaeologist, basically asserts that the modern monetary policy we have in the West, is a prime vehicle for collapse. Monetary realists have been saying this for a century, but every time somebody has the gall to admit this in a mainstream news source, they are looked at as kooks and tin-foil hat wearers.
Nero was the first of the Roman emperors to begin the trend of currency debasement and his successors found it all too effective. Instead of paying for the costs of the regime up front, why not borrow a line of credit as it were from future generations to finance current expenditures? This could only go on for so long though, before the populace lost all confidence in the half-silver, half-iron denarius that was being paid by the Roman government to its employees. Inflation had accelerated to biblical proportions before the entire system collapsed as the Roman state could no longer afford its bread-and-circus budgets. But this was not a bad thing for everybody. Indeed, as Tainter notes, many of the peasant farmers welcomed the barbarian invaders with open arms as the barbarians were far more efficient since they were not burdened by the grotesque Roman bureaucracy that had sapped the populace for the last three centuries of all its wealth.
So I find myself with a slightly more optimistic outlook for now. I doubt that collapse will come so soon as to disrupt my immediate goals for my family. I hope I have enough time to learn to farm, grow livestock, extract some needed power from the sun and wind, &c. before the giant American empire finally comes falling to the ground. I am hopeful that if the intelligent people of this country can learn the same, one by one, we can remove our families from the grid and learn self-sufficiency. This will actually cause the collapse to happen more quickly though, as the ones paying into the system will decrease whilst those receiving from the system will increase.
Even so, let the economic chips fall where they may; and may the American empire of bread and circuses become yet another study in the collapse of complex societies.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts about the future too.
One thing that usually isn’t mentioned is that the barbarians that sacked Rome were actually Roman soldiers.
Rome made the mistake of incorporating the conquered people into its army. It worked for a while, but eventually they got too much “diversity” and found that it isn’t necessarily a strength.
An interesting first-hand account of the situation, circa 430 or so, is “The Governance of God”, by Salvian the Presbyter.
He tells how people were renouncing their citizenship and fleeing the Empire because of oppressive taxes. The tax collectors were born into the job and could not renounce it, but were also personally liable for uncollected taxes. Those people who could not pay could indenture themselves to the wealthy, who paid on their behalf; thus bringing about the feudal society and serfdom.
Very interesting stuff, indeed. I am also considering learning to hunt (once my hand heals). When you set before yourself the goal of becoming self-sufficient, you realize how incredibly dependent you are on so many third parties (usually an evil alliance of big business and big government) for basic products and services. Also, when you start buying gold and silver, you realize how desperate our currency situation really is (you mean to tell me it costs over $150 for one-tenth of an ounce of real money?!!).
It can be a little overwhelming for someone like myself, whose main knowledge base and skill sets lie in the intellectual field, and my tool of choice is a laptop rather than a pickaxe.
But I think the biggest factor that everyone misses in preparing for the coming collapse is community (yes, I know that word gets abused often today). Those who have a tight-knit group of friends and family will make it, even if they haven’t prepared. I think that our community of parishioners at St. Francis de Sales could become VERY important in growing and sustaining our livelihood and protecting our hard-earned crop from desperate thieves and looters.
Those who retreat to a survival shelter in the middle of nowhere will surely survive, but in the wake of the collapse will be an unprecedented opportunity to determine how our new, smaller political units will be ordered. This task is far too important to be left to those who gave us the previous unjust and overweening leviathan.
Great stuff. You will really enjoy Spengler if you find time. I’m only scratching the surface of Decline of the West, and it’s right in this vein.
Glad to see you blogging again, Dave!
I’ve been meaning to read Tainter’s book, but wondered about the secular slant. I think so much more of history can be explained through the covenantal blessings and cursings of the Almighty, though it is hard to discern at times, which is which. I do grow weary of material causation being the only acceptable explanation of why things go south.
I commend your efforts at self-reliance. And I definitely concur with Logan’s thoughts on community. No one man, however competent and vigilant he may be, is able to do all that needs done. This is of course God’s design. We are about to find out through much upheaval, that we need fellow believers almost as much as we need the Lord himself, when it comes to staying warm and fed, anyway. Can you tell that I’m not sure I agree with Tainter’s assertion that only global collapse is possible in our age? He should tell that to those in Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan and Egypt. Local collapse does happen, and frequently there is no calvary riding to the rescue. Only countries that have oil will be rescued, and then only till the world stops buying our debt.
Enough ranting for now. Stay in touch.
Jay, believe it or not, Tainter is quite critical of both Spengler and Toynbee for their non-scientific approaches to collapse, but he does not deny that they have some valuable contributions to the discussion. I am still interested in both of their works despite Tainter’s criticisms of them.
Gerard, the secular slant is a real one, but I don’t think it takes away from his points at all. A Christian shopkeeper is subject to the laws of diminishing returns just as much as the heathen, and if the heathen balances his books and the Christian doesn’t, the heathen will stay in business and the Christian will not. Same with nations. If you spend more than you have available, you will end up with a deficit. There is nothing inherent about being a Christian that takes away the need to plan for the future, count the cost, and spend less than you take in.
That said, Christian nations have been very much blessed, and we have witnessed this in Europe in times past. If we see atheist nations reaping the same benefits, it is because they are following the principles of living within proper means and not over-expanding their empires, which principles are Christian in and of themselves.
Tainter’s “secular” thesis takes away a significant portion of the guesswork as to why Christian nations like Uganda and Ethiopia may struggle, whilst Mohammedan nations like Turkey, and secular states like Albania and the Czech Republic do not. Race also plays a factor in these things. Being Christian alone does not guarantee blessings, and being non-Christian does not guarantee failure. Rain and sunshine fall on the baptised and the unbaptised alike.
As for the middle east right now, none of the countries are experiencing collapse as Tainter defines it, nor as I understand it. Collapse involves a loss of a complex infrastructure for balancing resources, relaying information, and maintaining economic specialisation, &c. These things are still in place, though many of those countries are experiencing civil unrest and/or civil war. Countries like Afghanistan and Sudan never really had much complexity to begin with, so it’s difficult to say that they have collapsed. The time is short though – I have no idea how this will all play out in the future.
“Only countries that have oil will be rescued, and then only till the world stops buying our debt.”
Exactly – the buying of debt can postpone the inevitable. But it cannot prevent it.
Dave,
As always, you make very good sense, and I have no quibbles with 2nd causes and certainly not with logic. Just once though, I would like to hear a secular scientist attribute 2nd causes to Him who created and caused everything. The more they try to make 2nd causes ultimate, the more my eyes glaze over, and my patience wanes.
I have read Spengler’s work, though it was many years ago. As I recall, he attributed the decline of nations to what Chalmers Johnson would call ‘imperial over-stretch’ and ‘blow-back’. Nations tend to expand in power and authority to the extent they are blessed with wise leadership and natural abundance. But the more they expand, the more toes they step on, and the more their policies gather opposition. They are first considered champions, then invaders. They then become stagnant and retract as they reach the limits of their leadership and resources, their decline hastened by increasingly bold enemies. A simplistic explanation perhaps; but valuable for it’s clarity.
I will give Tainter’s book a closer look. I have picked it up several times, and then decided against it, because of the author’s tendency to attribute all truth to natural, material causes. You have convinced me to persevere with it, though.
“…the author’s tendency to attribute all truth to natural, material causes.”
Well, he certainly does do this, and makes repeated allusions to the “impersonal forces of history” so I don’t want to make it sound like the book is all roses. He is certainly approaching it apart from what he considers to be “mystical” explanations for civilisation.
But, and I think this is where we can benefit from his work, we don’t want a mystical explanation for physics, mathematics, or geology either. We don’t believe in magical soil that makes some nations smarter than others, and we don’t ascribe current failures to “four hundred years of oppression” either.
I have no problem reading archaeology, geology, physics, or even philosophy from an atheistic perspective. I have read C. S. Peirce, Baruch de Spinoza, Douglas Hofstadter, and others and never once felt that their perspectives prohibited them from making genuine insights. I also find it helpful to reason through why their perspectives may or may not affect their conclusions.
That said, having finished Tainter’s secular thesis, in order to bring some Christian balance back to my reading, I have retreated into the existential pleasure of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. Expect a post on this hero of mine next.
“I have no problem reading archaeology, geology, physics, or even philosophy from an atheistic perspective.”
A good insight, but it seems that you don’t apply this principle to economics. You can characterize Austrian-school economists as atheistic, money-worshiping Jews, and decry usury as immoral; that doesn’t take away from their valid contributions to the natural science of economics.
Not at all, Logan – I love the contributions the Austrians make to economics. But the claim of the Austrians is that economics is a “value-free” science, i.e. that it has zero moral dimension. Insofar as we are discussing value-free sciences, then I have no problem with the Austrians.
Where you go wrong is when you take the conclusions of a value-free science and let that dictate to you how things ought to be.
That is a monstrous philosophical blunder. You cannot argue from what is to what ought. You want to talk about the laws of supply and demand? Fine. You want to talk about the unstable nature of fiat currency? Great. But from then to decree how the economy ought to be run is logically preposterous. If there is no moral dimension to economics, then you cannot come to any moral conclusions about it. All you can do is tell me what is.
Physics, also a value-free science, tells us that things fall faster in a vacuum. Fine. Can we get from that to the silly statement that things ought to fall faster and that we should therefore create vacuums to make it possible for objects to fall faster? It’s absurd. And yet the Austrians tell us how objective their study of economics is, and then tell us how economies ought to be run.
Sorry, Logan. This is where you usually flee the argument, and I have never gotten a response on this issue. You love to talk about the right to private property, but I’m the only one who actually believes that private property is a Divine right. You just accept it as a valuable construct for making prosperous societies based on economic observations. I actually believe that it is an inviolable right based on Divine Law. The closest you can come to a Divine basis in your understanding of economics is the deification of the Great Market (the Almighty, the Most Merciful), who in your opinion is the only way to right wrongs in civil society.
So when I have the Holy Roman Church telling me that usury is morally wrong, and the best you can come up with is that usury is not the best way to create the most wealth in the least amount of time, yeah, I’m going to mock the atheist jews who created your worldview.
“But the claim of the Austrians is that economics is a “value-free” science, i.e. that it has zero moral dimension.”
To the contrary, Austrians have never made this assertion, nor do I. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can choose to study a phenomenon purely from the perspective of the natural sciences. For instance, for a man to indulge in gluttony over a long period of time is sinful. If I choose to examine solely the physical impact that this has on his body, I am in no way denying the moral dimension, I am simply “specializing” and focusing my research and inquiry.
The study of economics is in many ways an extension of praxeology, the study of human behaviour. Ludwig von Mises’s great treatise bears the title “Human Action”. Now since man is a moral being, every action he does has a moral dimension, but that doesn’t mean we can’t study man’s action under different aspects. Biologists, physicists, neurologists, etc., all examine human action under a specific aspect which does not include the moral dimension. It doesn’t follow that they deny the moral dimension, but rather that they are limiting their study to a different aspect of man’s behaviour.
Economists are no different – we can examine the harmful economic effects of fractional reserve banking, enforced fiat paper money, “quantitative easing”, etc. If we focus on these harmful economic consequences, it doesn’t mean that we deny the moral aspect (e.g. fractional reserve banking constitutes fraud), only that we limit our field of study to the economic principles involved.
“To the contrary, Austrians have never made this assertion…”
I seriously wonder what works of von Mises and Rothbard you have read that you have not encountered the oft-repeated claim that economics is a value-free science.
Roderick T. Long sums up the Austrian view nicely: “There are these two terms that we often hear as characterizing Austrian economics. One is ‘value-freedom,’ or Wertfreiheit. Wertfreiheit does not mean free in a valuable way; it just means a description that doesn’t involve evaluation. To be value-free is simply to describe things, to tell how things are, without advocating any particular point of view.”
This is the fundamental cornerstone of Austrian economics: it has no moral dimension; it is merely a statement of scientific observations on economic behaviour.
“It doesn’t follow that they deny the moral dimension, but rather that they are limiting their study to a different aspect of man’s behaviour.”
Then why all the proscriptions for limited government and lawful money, and against fractional reserve banking and price fixing? For you to say that the former are good and the latter are bad is not something that the Austrian can claim. No evaluation is permitted in value-free sciences. That is only permitted in a discussion of morality, which is independent of sterile economic observations.
So you’re still making the same blunder. You cannot object on moral grounds to socialism or communism, nor can you claim that capitalism is superior to either one (though you are incessantly doing this based on the Austrian principles that form the basis for your worldview).
So all your objections to Distributivism, whose tenets I’ve never once heard you articulate correctly, are without merit when the basis of your understanding of economic matters is that it falls outside any moral dimension and therefore the Church has no authority to make any pronouncements thereon. That is Thomas Woods’ main claim: the Church has no authority to discuss economics. He makes this claim because he denies that economics has a moral dimension.
So as long as you’re observing this or that about economics, that’s all well and good. But you can’t make both claims at the same time. Either economics has a moral dimension and the Church has the authority to speak dogmatically on the matter, or it doesn’t and the Church has no authority and all your observations simply boil down to mere statements. And your preference of capitalism over communism ends up being just that: a preference and nothing more.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant about “value-free” science. Yes, economics is a “value-free” science, like any of the natural sciences. I agree with everything you say in the first three paragraphs.
I think we can agree, then, that there is nothing wrong with studying economics on a purely natural level, as long as we don’t deny the moral dimension. So it would be acceptable for us to study purely economic mechanisms, as long as we don’t make this the ONLY criteria for determining how our body of laws should be structured.
As to the second point, I don’t entirely disagree with you. I would simply make a distinction: when Austrian-school economists perform their “value-free” studies, they are operating as Austrian-school economists. When they go beyond this to argue as to how society should be structured, then they are entering into another field that involves moral, political, and philosophical issues. I agree that many Austrian-school economists call for an end to the Federal Reserve system, dismantling our national-security apparatus, etc., but when they do this, they are perhaps going more into the field of praxeology than economics, strictly speaking.
I don’t think we really disagree, I’m just trying to make a distinction between the natural science of economics (which Roderick T. Long describes) and the more complex question of “what do we do as a result”? I would say, then, that economics as the Austrians understand it is a speculative science. It asks the questions “What is?” When we move to the next question, “what is to be done?”, we are dealing with a practical question which is more holistic, entailing morality, politics, economics, philosophy, etc.
In terms of how I think society should be structured, I believe that the libertarians have a great central principle, which you are probably familiar with – the non-aggression principle (NAP). This view holds that any unprovoked aggression (that is, any use of violence which is not defensive) against another person or their property is unjust. This holds true whether the perpetrator is a private citizen or a state agent. Thus, coercive taxation is nothing more than theft – taxation can only be morally justified if the state has the consent of the citizen. This follows from man’s natural right to private property and to keep the fruits of his labour (hence, the income tax is one of the sins that cries to heaven for vengeance since it defrauds labourers of their just wages).
I don’t have a final answer for how society should be structured – I am still thinking things through and learning about various political systems, but I think that the non-aggression principle is a good place to start. What do you think? Do you have a holistic view as to how society should be structured (at least in certain areas)?
To be honest, I don’t even think we disagree that much at the end of the day. When all the dust of debate has settled, you and I champion the same causes: freedom from oppression from self-engorged States via meddling and needless regulation, the right to private property, and the right to have and to hold such property in quiet enjoyment. The difference is how we get there.
I agree completely that we can study human behaviour apart from moral dimensions, but proscriptions on economics cannot be made based on these observations. The main goal of the typical Austrian capitalist is to demonstrate which economy leads to the most prosperity, and nobody can deny that capitalism does indeed lead to much prosperity. But this – by itself – does not make capitalism better unless the only criterion for determining that which is the best is which programme generates the most material wealth. I think you would agree that there is more at stake in the foundation of a good civilisation than merely the generation of material wealth.
The problem with capitalism is that market forces, whilst being very real, do not and cannot provide any form of useful justice in a Christian society. Ayn Rand’s belief that universal selfishness coupled with untouched market forces would somehow create a just society is rubbish. There are cases where market forces do drive out bad vendors, but this is not always the case and when there are sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance, it is not becoming of a Christian to look at the victim and tell him, “Worry not, friend. Market forces will one day deal with this.” We may as well tell a cold and starving companion, “Be warm and filled,” and send him away from our homes.
Now then, I am not advocating the creation of a state-enforced dole that perpetuates slavery and sloth. I am denying that the state has no role in the economy whatsoever. The right to marry that God grants to all men does not mean that one man may marry all the women in the country. If the state is to punish adultery, it must respect the Divine Laws regarding matrimony, and that includes upholding the dignity of the Sacrament as well as refusing to meddle in the choice an individual man or woman makes regarding the choosing of a spouse.
“[A]ny unprovoked aggression (that is, any use of violence which is not defensive) against another person or their property is unjust.”
I agree. The difference is that I actually believe that justice should be executed by those in authority whilst you believe that justice is automatically carried out by the Ever-Watchful Market.
“This follows from man’s natural right to private property and to keep the fruits of his labour (hence, the income tax is one of the sins that cries to heaven for vengeance since it defrauds labourers of their just wages).”
There you go, touting that Distributivist propaganda again!
“I think that the non-aggression principle is a good place to start. What do you think?”
I think it’s the right place to end up once you recognise the nature of Divine Law as it pertains to human affairs – and then from there you have a decent foundation for a just legislative philosophy.
“Do you have a holistic view as to how society should be structured (at least in certain areas)?”
Well, I certainly don’t have all the answers. I find myself, like you, still searching for answers. But I think Chesterton and Belloc made some great strides in recognising the problems with the systems up in which they had been brought. For some countries, the implementation of Distributivism may seem so far removed from possibility since it would necessarily involve the voluntary action of an entire populace. However, it may not be as far-fetched as you think.
The main principle of Distributivism is that the land belongs to the people (the producers), not the state (the non-producers). That is, no man should ever be deprived of land, much like no man should ever be deprived of air (or made to pay an exorbitant monthly fee for the privileged use thereof). In the Hebrew economy, market forces dictated the cost of goods, just like in any free society. The state owned enough land to have a palace for the purposes of national administration but little more. All the rest of the land was distributed amongst the tribes. And whilst a mortgage was permitted in extreme cases, the land always returned to its owner after seven years. Thus, regardless of the state of the economy, no man would ever be deprived of his ability to tend his land, grow crops, and raise livestock. The concept of homelessness would never exist. Now, if a man were so lazy that he never built himself a house, he would suffer by having to sleep on the ground or under a tree, but he would not be taking up city space, sleeping in front of park benches or whatnot. He would never be without the opportunity to provide for himself.
Now in the United States, this kind of shift would actually be possible since the Federal Government owns a tremendous excess of land. One could start by taking a portion of this land, and returning it to the people. This land would never be taxed, and nobody could be charged money for the privilege of merely having a place to exist.
And taxation would, of course, be voluntary. Should one not decide to have protection from the law, the right to a speedy trial, the permission to request an audience with law-makers, &c., he could very easily opt out and pay nothing. For those who want the benefits that come with being a citizen of a state, they would have the ability to pay such a tax, which would be levied equally to all citizens, regardless of their income.
Interestingly enough, if the US ended 90% of its expenditures (eliminating its costly wars and useless social programmes), returned the land to the people and allowed them to farm, grow, produce, &c. without charge, and taxed each citizen $1,000 per year, it would have a budget of about $300 billion, which is ten percent of its current budget. It is really not that far-fetched at all. The fact is that the current problem with the economy would be a non-issue if people could live on their own land and provide for themselves. But people spend a ridiculous amount of money just for a place to live, and this perpetuates state servitude on a national scale. Distributivism has the same goal as you, but for some reason, you cannot get the insane idea out of your head that Distributivism (a nation owned by a productive citizenry) is the same as socialism (a nation owned by a coercive state).
I agree with 99% of what you’re saying. My question is this – how do you ensure that each person holds and keeps their land? The only way you can do this is through state power (or some other organization which has the power of coercion, which ends up being the same thing). You would then have the state interfering in voluntary contracts, which would end up causing a lot of the same problems.
For instance, what if a family voluntarily chooses to sell their land and rent from a landlord instead? There are many reasons they might want to do this, but again, it seems to me, that if the land is theirs, they have the right to sell it if they wish.
If you agree with me that we all have the right to “secede” or “opt-out” from the state, then how can the state forbid usury or other forms of voluntary exchange that you find sinful? I’m not sure that what you’re proposing is entirely consonant with the non-aggression principle.
I have stated on multiple occasions the difference between our views, and though we generally agree on what a just society would look like, we still disagree on the rôle of the State. There is not a single Catholic theologian or philosopher who has ever taught the non-existence of the State. The entire purpose of the State is based on mankind’s needs as a social creature and civilisations depend on the State for order and peace. I have no problem with the existence of the State, nor even that the essence of the State is coercion. Coercion has just and righteous purposes in the context of a Christian state.
Unlike you, I don’t take my sociological cues from Aleister Crowley, so I have no problem with a State that bears the sword. St Paul even insisted that the State by its very essence is coercive, and that this coercion is Divinely mandated. St John the Forerunner did not tell the Roman soldiers to quit their post because the State was evil but rather that they be content with their pay and do violence to no man. Our Lord did not object to the taxes levied on St Peter, but rather provided him with the means to pay them. St Thomas de Aquin repeatedly mentions the just sentences of robbers and murderers and unmistakably states that they should be executed for their crimes. None of these proscriptions are intelligible apart from the existence of a coercive State.
Generally speaking, the non-aggression principle mentioned above applies: but no Christian in his right mind would assert that the whole of the Law is to do as thou wilt.
But your question is still a good one, and I’m not sure I have a good answer for it yet. As I said above, I’m still in a searching phase, and I think that there is work yet to be done in determining how a just society would deal with these problems.
This statement stuck out at me: “[W]hat if a family voluntarily chooses to sell their land and rent from a landlord instead? There are many reasons they might want to do this.” Can you name one? In what way would it ever be advantageous to sell a piece of land that is owned, requires no payment and no taxes to keep, only to have to pay a monthly fee indefinitely for a place to exist somewhere else?
Also, Chesterton and Belloc mentioned a variety of legislative paradigms that would be non-coercive but would still promote easy land ownership for the common people of a country and dissuade excessive land ownership by just a few people. Thus, some people might choose to sell their land, but getting it back would be easy, whilst the one who tried to buy up as much land as possible would eventually be met with difficulties. Of course, you’re going to take issue with this, but the goal of a Distributivist economy is to ensure that the primary workers in a society receive the most benefits of their work. In a capitalist system, the workers receive the least and do the most, and the owners do the least and receive the most.
So we keep coming back to the same issue: you want a society that exists without government at all, and I want a society that exists where the government does merely what is required to promote peace, order, justice and allows a law-abiding citizen the right to have and hold his property in peace.
For all the discussion we have about the evil of coercion, what do you think ought to happen to all the coercive thieves and murderers who currently occupy the highest seats in the government? I think that they should be tried and if found guilty by a jury of their peers, judged according to Divine Law.
Your only option is to wait for Market Forces to dole out justice to them by removing their source of income, which – to me – doesn’t sound like justice at all.
I don’t necessarily envision a society without government, but I think we need to carefully define what we mean as government. For instance, I believe that a married man has a natural right to rule over his family, to punish his children and enforce rules on his wife and children. This is legitimate government, and I think most of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church would agree that, on a natural level, the family serves as the sole paradigm for government, and that almost all governance should be done by parents over their children.
Beyond the family though, I can’t think of a case in which the initiation of aggression (offensive, not defensive) by a coercive entity would have a net positive effect. I think it is important to recall the Catholic definition of tolerance (yes, I know that word has been hijacked by decidedly intolerant social engineers, but properly understood, it does have its place).
Catholic tolerance, as St. Thomas teaches, is permitting an evil for the sake of a greater good or to avoid greater evils. Two things, then, must be kept in mind:
1. Tolerance ONLY applies to evils. We don’t “tolerate” Christian marriage, since it is a good; however, we might tolerate drug abuse since confiscating drugs would do injury to the right of private property.
2. When we tolerate an evil act, we do NOT condone it. Hence, we would never have official organizations blessing homosexual “marriages”, affirming a “right” to homosexual relations, etc. At the same time, we would tolerate private homosexual behaviour, since in order to enforce a total prohibition of homosexuality would entail violent intrusions on privacy and private property.
St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Paul (among others) speak of tolerating prostitution:
“If you expel prostitution from society you will unsettle everything on account of lusts.” (St. Augustine)
If prostitution should be tolerated, what other evils might not be tolerated? For instance, we assert that false religions have no right to exist since “error has no rights”; however, for the sake of public peace, among other things, St. Thomas says that other religions can and should be tolerated, and it is worth quoting him at length:
“I answer that, Human government is derived from the Divine government, and should imitate it. Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): ‘If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.’ Hence, though unbelievers sin in their rites, they may be tolerated, either on account of some good that ensues therefrom, or because of some evil avoided. Thus from the fact that the Jews observe their rites, which, of old, foreshadowed the truth of the faith which we hold, there follows this good–that our very enemies bear witness to our faith, and that our faith is represented in a figure, so to speak. For this reason they are tolerated in the observance of their rites.”
It is important to keep this distinction clear, so for instance, even were I to grant you that loaning of money to be repaid with interest is evil, it does not necessarily follow that the State should outlaw and regulate it. Whenever the coercive power of the State is brought to bear, we must recall what terrible potential there is for corruption, violence, theft, and every kind of vice and oppression visited upon the people; therefore, we must look not only to the evils associated with immoral acts, but also the attendant evils resulting from state power, and ask ourselves in each instance which is worse.
In answer to your question as to why a family might want to sell their land and rent from a landlord, there are several reasons:
1. They may grow tired or unable to keep up the land (perhaps it becomes overgrown, or inhabited by pests; perhaps they are too poor to afford proper maintenance).
2. Generally speaking, it is cheaper to rent than buy (at least for a period of time). Perhaps they have outgrown their current property, and wish to rent for a time until they can save up the capital to buy a larger house / property.
3. Perhaps they wish to move for a better job offer or for family reasons, but there is no land for sale where they move to.
Although there would be no property taxes in a just society, the upkeep of a property still requires labour and money, and for some, it will be better to rent than buy. In any case, as I said before, even if a man is making a bad decision by selling his property and deciding to rent instead, how can we prevent him from doing so without doing injury to his right to private property? If the land is his, he may dispose of it as he wishes (provided he does no injury to the rights of others).
Sorry for the rather lengthy response, but these issues necessitate a lot of thought. Interested to hear what you have to say.
One more thing – I realize I didn’t reply to your final question:
“For all the discussion we have about the evil of coercion, what do you think ought to happen to all the coercive thieves and murderers who currently occupy the highest seats in the government?”
I am not sure of the final answer, but we must keep a few things in mind:
1. Virtue, like vice, is an act of the will; therefore it cannot come as a result of coercion.
2. We must be realistic – as long as we live in this vale of tears, there will be a certain amount of moral and natural evil. We should do what we can to combat it, but also recognize that we will not finally end it until the next life. We must be cautious, then, not to fall into the mindset of the “social justice” zealots, attempting to set up some sort of utopia. We have seen how every attempt to do so ends up degrading humankind, and reducing human beings to mere cogs in a wheel.
3. There is no reason why courts, police forces, and civil punishment cannot be done by voluntary means. Judges who had a good reputation for honesty and wisdom would be sought after and paid for their services. Likewise for courageous and respectful security enforcement companies, etc. For an interesting exploration as to how law and order would work in a voluntary society, see here:
http://mises.org/daily/4683
4. We must remember that civil order is not an end in itself, nor even one of the higher ends, and justice will never be perfect here. We could have a great deal of order if we imposed totalitarian rule, but obviously, this would come at the expense of our natural rights. Our desire for public order must be balanced against natural rights, the potential for corruption in the State, etc.
I think oftentimes we suffer from a lack of imagination, which sounds simplistic, but is altogether true. Because we have lived all our lives under a corrupt fascist rule (the modern secular nation-state), we find it hard to imagine how society would function in its absence. This wouldn’t necessarily mean the absence of ANY government, but certainly the absence of government as we now know it (which is an organized criminal enterprise, as the League of the South so eloquently put it).
I am familiar with the concept of toleration, and have no issue with a just society tolerating vices since attempting to eliminate vices intrudes on so many other essential liberties such that an enormous amount of time and energy is spent only to accomplish excessive violation of rights to privacy and property (and virtually no reduction in actual vice). But you’re still advocating a stateless society. You continue to avoid the question altogether of what should happen to burglars and murderers. Are you still clinging to the idea that Market Forces are going to drive these savages out of the country so that they have to seek gainful employment elsewhere?
“It is important to keep this distinction clear, so for instance, even were I to grant you that loaning of money to be repaid with interest is evil, it does not necessarily follow that the State should outlaw and regulate it.”
Correct, but that’s not the end of the discussion. It has been established that the state is coercive by its very nature, and that said coercion exists by Divine mandate. So whilst you are correct, its converse does not follow either. The areas in which the state may exercise coercion have not yet been determined thus far in this discussion.
“1. They may grow tired or unable to keep up the land (perhaps it becomes overgrown, or inhabited by pests; perhaps they are too poor to afford proper maintenance).”
If they cannot afford maintenance on a free piece of land that they already own, that requires no money to tend and till (only physical effort), why do you think that they would be able to afford a monthly fee forever at another location?
“2. Generally speaking, it is cheaper to rent than buy.”
Buy? What are you talking about? You’re still operating in our current paradigm where people have to pay for locations to exist. That’s done away with in Distributivism. Zero cost compared to endless monthly fees is the comparison we are discussing here.
“3. Perhaps they wish to move for a better job offer or for family reasons, but there is no land for sale where they move to.”
This is the only reason thus far that has any merit. Though if no land were available where they wanted to go, I question whether the move would even be worth it unless they were set to make an exorbitant amount of money at the new location that would justify the huge spending associated with renting a piece of property. As I said earlier, I wouldn’t think that sale of land would be illegal, only that accumulation of large amounts of land would be difficult and acquisition of smaller tracts of land would be easy and swift.
“Virtue, like vice, is an act of the will; therefore it cannot come as a result of coercion.”
Nobody is talking about making politicians virtuous. What we’re talking about is bringing justice to criminals. Though I would that all politicians reform their actions, if they do not, justice is still required.
“We must be realistic – as long as we live in this vale of tears, there will be a certain amount of moral and natural evil.”
Nobody is talking about ridding the world of evil. We’re talking about maintaining order in society and upholding Divine Law.
“There is no reason why courts, police forces, and civil punishment cannot be done by voluntary means.”
Now you’re bordering on the ridiculous. As long as people are paid money for this service, the possibility of corruption is just as high and the use of coercion is still present. You can pay a judge money to adjudicate a case, but that doesn’t take away the fact that if a death sentence is handed down, a man is still coerced to death. You’ve just moved the payroll to a different location. And if a man were guilty of a criminal offence, why would he even agree to have a judge hear the case? I guess in your society you could just shoot him in cold blood at the date and location of your pleasure and all would be well.
“We must remember that civil order is not an end in itself, nor even one of the higher ends, and justice will never be perfect here.”
Again, nobody is talking about perfect justice. We’re talking about civilisation and society and a balanced approach that involves freedom without anarchy, and civility without tyranny.
“Because we have lived all our lives under a corrupt fascist rule (the modern secular nation-state), we find it hard to imagine how society would function in its absence.”
Not true at all. I have plenty of imagination of how a proper monarchy could exist and I would be glad to be a part of one that operated justly.
“This wouldn’t necessarily mean the absence of ANY government”
Yes, it would. If no coercion is permissible in government, you don’t have a government. You have a body of elected officials who serve no purpose and who can, at most, offer suggestions that people pay back what they stole or kindly ask murderers to kill themselves for the public benefit. You keep pretending that hiring officials privately to keep the order is somehow different from paying taxes and electing officials to do the same. You’re just playing word games at this point; you’re still entrusting coercive power to a third party for a price. And that is what the State is: a third party hired by a group of people to adjudicate its cases.
Fascinating discussion.
Just a couple of thoughts: Where under heaven is this ‘principle’ of non-coercion actually practiced? I contend that such a principle does not exist, at least, not since the fall. Fathers rule their children through love and discipline, on one hand, they wield the carrot and the stick, and if that fails, the rod. In other words, we rule by compelling our children to do right, and by punishing them when they do wrong. And it must always be so, because of sin, until God replaces this earth with a new one.
Now, if this is true of families, that first and most tender government of every soul alive today, how is it that libertarians conclude that adult sinners have no need of government? Greater ability and liberty do not imply less sin loosed upon society, but more. Further, no society has ever existed without law. No laws have ever existed without courts, magistrates, judges and executioners. St. Paul makes the claim that there is no authority under heaven that is not given to men by God. We may not like the way the authorities conduct their ministry. This is most probably so the more the authorities do not feel themselves bound by the Law of God, or look upon themselves as God’s ministers and therefore accountable to Him. Indeed, we may have very good reasons to hate and fear the authorities; but nowhere does Scripture intimate that we may do without them. In fact, we have the roots of civil government established very early in human history, in Genesis 9 to be exact, when God told Noah that every murderer must suffer the shedding of his own blood at the hands of his fellow men. This is unmistakable. God insists that justice, here and now, however imperfect, still ought to be carried out by men. Why would He bother giving to Israel a body of civil law, if this is not so? And anywhere there is law that binds all the people as a body politic, there must of necessity be those who administer it, and those who impose punishment on law-breakers.
The only questions that remain are these: What activities shall be forbidden and punished, and who will have the duty of enforcement? We may well agree to keep the list of crimes small; and the powers of magistrates limited; but no society will last long without law of some kind, and enforcement of same. To sum up, every society needs a government; for even good men often disagree. And bad men will only thrive and become worse, if they need have no fear of the government sword.
” . . . but no society will last long without law of some kind, and enforcement of same.”
Actually there are many examples, all swallowed down the Orwellian memory hole, of societies functioning perfectly well in the absence of government (other than the family unit, which is of course absolutely necessary). The American West, contrary to the Hollywood story, was actually an enormously peaceful and well-ordered society, and only became violent when Sherman and Sheridan began their relentless persecution of the Indian tribes.
For more on the “Wild” West, see here, here and here.
Another good example, which Tom Woods explains is the California gold rush. On the surface of it, it would seem to be a recipe for utter chaos and disaster: first, people came from all over, meaning they had no shared culture, history, or traditions, and probably very widely differing ideas about religion, philosophy, politics, etc. Second, their primary motivation was greed for gold, so we would not expect these people to be extremely respectful of property rights. Third, given that these people were willing to travel a long way from home, they probably did not have very solid roots or families. And yet, in this “worst-case” scenario, in the absence of any coercive governmental structure, there was extraordinary peace and prosperity. These gold-seeking vagrants created an entire edifice of customary law and voluntary institutions which performed remarkably well in keeping the peace and protecting property rights for the duration of the gold rush.
“What activities shall be forbidden and punished, and who will have the duty of enforcement?”
In many ancient societies, the concept of “outlaw” was different from what we know today. If a citizen was convicted of a crime, he was given a choice: submit to the punishment that his fellow citizens demanded in retribution for justice, or be cast out of society. If the man took his punishment (which was usually a physical punishment rather than lengthy imprisonment), he was restored as a citizen. If not, he was banished from the community, although this didn’t necessarily mean physical banishment. The convict could sometimes keep his property (including land), but would not be allowed back into the society and was removed from all the protections and services of that community. Hence, he existed “outside the law”, as it were, hence the term “outlaw”. In almost all cases, men chose to accept their respective punishment rather than be cast out. I think this is a much better way of dealing with serious crime than caging a man up like an animal with other hardened criminals, ensuring a permanent, desperate, and embittered criminal class which perpetuates itself.
“Where under heaven is this ‘principle’ of non-coercion actually practiced? I contend that such a principle does not exist, at least, not since the fall.”
As mentioned above, I think it is practiced at least in certain pockets (we might also include monasteries and seminaries – no coercion is practiced there, I can assure you; those who aren’t called or won’t obey will be asked to leave but never threatened with violence). But, as you point out, the reason this eminently Christian principle is not practiced is because we have fallen nature; hence man, who should love his fellow man, instead injures and robs him for his own benefit. Where the power of violence is not concentrated into a central State, this tendency of man is checked by the potential for retribution from his fellow man. Where such a monopoly does exist, those in the privileged monopoly class (government agents) are not only unchecked, but have a strong incentive to rob and enslave their fellow man as much as possible, since they benefit thereby. In a voluntary society, on the other hand, the only way I can enrich myself is by a voluntary exchange with my neighbour which is mutually beneficial.
If we allow the state to be violent and coercive, how does this work out in practice? Even if we set strict limits, how do we ensure corrupt men never overstep these limits? The common experience of man is that all governments continually grow larger and more corrupt until they either collapse under their own weight or are toppled by revolution.
Why are you bringing up the American West? They had laws, sheriffs, courts, and hangings. All part of the coercive government that you claim shouldn’t exist.
“Even if we set strict limits, how do we ensure corrupt men never overstep these limits?”
You know, if my memory serves me correctly, just a few posts above, you were chiding me for wanting to live in a utopia, a perfect world – merely for wanting to establish justice. And here you are griping that government officials might not be perfect all the time and complaining that it wouldn’t be perfect.
I would take more time to respond to your comment, but the best refuter of your social Crowleyism is you.
Logan,
Volunteerism isn’t ultimate. You and I could agree together that I’m going to sell you cocaine, but that probably wouldn’t be beneficial for you, no matter how voluntary the transaction is. Your peaceful voluntarism can only exist until someone takes advantage of someone else. Then, slowly and inexorably perhaps, a government will be formed to administer laws to which everyone agrees. This is inescapable.
You are right of course that Governments frequently overstep their God-given boundaries, and I must concede that when the power to coerce (ie. a big hammer) is given to them, everything starts to look like a nail. The answer here is to have clearly defined roles and spheres for every legitimate government under heaven, and not to consolidate power in a single place. Even the kings of Europe had to contend with the power and influence of the church, as well as local Lords. Originally, our federal republic was set up so that the State governments retained all rights not explicitly given to the central government in D.C. The answer is to restore a right balance, and frame government as a protector of essential rights while still under the spiritual tutelage and moral authority of the church; not pursue the pipe-dream of peaceful anarchy in a fallen world. What you are describing may work well for a few people in an isolated area, but such conditions never last for long.
What were the other three books he gave you?
He gave me The Tyranny of Tolerance, which was interesting and agreeable, but didn’t contain anything new or challenging, really. The other was The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by the great Leslie Newbiggin. This the only one I didn’t look at yet. The fourth book was How Christ Said the First Mass, but that was mine. And you should read it.