WEBVTT NOTE IX. The Role of Ideas 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Chapter 9. The Role of Ideas 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000 1. Human Reason 3 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 Reason is man's particular and characteristic feature. 4 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.000 There is no need for praxeology to raise the question 5 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:22.000 whether reason is a suitable tool for the cognition of ultimate and absolute truth. 6 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:28.000 It deals with reason only as far as it enables man to act. 7 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:37.500 All those objects which are the substratum of human sensation, perception and observation, also pass before the senses of animals. 8 00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:45.500 But man alone has the faculty of transforming sensuous stimuli into observation and experience. 9 00:00:45.500 --> 00:00:53.500 And man alone can arrange his various observations and experiences into a coherent system. 10 00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:57.000 Action is preceded by thinking. 11 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:05.000 Thinking is to deliberate beforehand over future action and to reflect afterward upon past action. 12 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:15.000 Thinking and acting are inseparable. Every action is always based on a definite idea about causal relations. 13 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:25.000 He who thinks a causal relation thinks a theorem. Action without thinking, practice without theory, are unimaginable. 14 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:34.000 The reasoning may be faulty and the theory incorrect, but thinking and theorizing are not lacking in any action. 15 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:40.000 On the other hand, thinking is always thinking of a potential action. 16 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Even he who thinks of a pure theory assumes that the theory is correct, 17 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:53.000 that is, that action complying with its content would result in an effect to be expected from its teachings. 18 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:59.360 It is of no relevance for logic whether such action is feasible or not. 19 00:01:59.360 --> 00:02:03.320 It is always the individual who thinks. 20 00:02:03.320 --> 00:02:07.480 Society does not think any more than it eats or drinks. 21 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:12.480 The evolution of human reasoning from the naive thinking of primitive man to the more 22 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:17.520 subtle thinking of modern science took place within society. 23 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:23.160 However, thinking itself is always an achievement of individuals. 24 00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:26.840 There is joint action, but no joint thinking. 25 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:32.620 There is only tradition, which preserves thoughts and communicates them to others as a stimulus 26 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:34.360 to their thinking. 27 00:02:34.360 --> 00:02:39.940 However, man has no means of appropriating the thoughts of his precursors other than 28 00:02:39.940 --> 00:02:41.800 to think them over again. 29 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:47.220 Then, of course, he is in a position to proceed farther on the basis of his forerunner's 30 00:02:47.220 --> 00:02:49.000 Thoughts. 31 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:53.280 The foremost vehicle of tradition is the word. 32 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:57.600 Thinking is linked up with language and vice versa. 33 00:02:57.600 --> 00:03:00.560 Concepts are embodied in terms. 34 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:05.980 Language is a tool of thinking, as it is a tool of social action. 35 00:03:05.980 --> 00:03:12.420 The history of thought and ideas is a discourse carried on from generation to generation. 36 00:03:12.420 --> 00:03:17.760 The thinking of later ages grows out of the thinking of earlier ages. 37 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:23.380 Without the aid of this stimulation, intellectual progress would have been impossible. 38 00:03:23.380 --> 00:03:29.620 The continuity of human evolution, sowing for the offspring and harvesting on land cleared 39 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:37.080 and tilled by the ancestors, manifests itself also in the history of science and ideas. 40 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:42.640 We have inherited from our forefathers not only a stock of products of various orders 41 00:03:42.640 --> 00:03:46.720 of goods which is the source of our material wealth. 42 00:03:46.720 --> 00:03:53.440 We have no less inherited ideas and thoughts, theories and technologies to which our thinking 43 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:56.060 owes its productivity. 44 00:03:56.060 --> 00:04:01.400 But thinking is always a manifestation of individuals. 45 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:03.680 2. 46 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:06.880 Worldview and Ideology 47 00:04:06.880 --> 00:04:12.040 The theories directing action are often imperfect and unsatisfactory. 48 00:04:12.040 --> 00:04:17.200 They may be contradictory and unfit to be arranged into a comprehensive and coherent 49 00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:19.100 system. 50 00:04:19.100 --> 00:04:23.960 If we look at all the theorems and theories guiding the conduct of certain individuals 51 00:04:23.960 --> 00:04:30.240 and groups as a coherent complex, and try to arrange them as far as is feasible into 52 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:38.080 to a system, that is, a comprehensive body of knowledge, we may speak of it as a worldview. 53 00:04:38.080 --> 00:04:45.420 A worldview is, as a theory, an interpretation of all things, and, as a precept for action, 54 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:50.920 an opinion concerning the best means for removing uneasiness as much as possible. 55 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:57.520 A worldview is thus, on the one hand, an explanation of all phenomena, and, on the other hand, 56 00:04:57.520 --> 00:05:02.520 A Technology, both these terms being taken in their broadest sense. 57 00:05:02.520 --> 00:05:08.280 Religion, metaphysics and philosophy aim at providing a worldview. 58 00:05:08.280 --> 00:05:12.840 They interpret the universe and they advise men how to act. 59 00:05:12.840 --> 00:05:17.760 The concept of an ideology is narrower than that of a worldview. 60 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:25.000 In speaking of ideology, we have in view only human action and social cooperation, and disregard 61 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:30.480 the problems of metaphysics, religious dogma, the natural sciences and the technologies 62 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:33.320 derived from them. 63 00:05:33.320 --> 00:05:40.000 Ideology is the totality of our doctrines concerning individual conduct and social relations. 64 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:47.680 Both, worldview and ideology, go beyond the limits imposed upon a purely neutral and academic 65 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.280 study of things as they are. 66 00:05:50.280 --> 00:05:56.400 They are not only scientific theories, but also doctrines about the ought, that is, about 67 00:05:56.400 --> 00:06:03.160 the ultimate ends which man should aim at in his earthly concerns. 68 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:08.400 Asceticism teaches that the only means open to man for removing pain and for attaining 69 00:06:08.400 --> 00:06:15.100 complete quietude, contentment and happiness is to turn away from earthly concerns and 70 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:19.200 to live without bothering about worldly things. 71 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:25.640 There is no salvation other than to renounce striving after material well-being, to endure 72 00:06:25.640 --> 00:06:31.600 submissively the adversities of the earthly pilgrimage and to dedicate oneself exclusively 73 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:34.800 to the preparation for eternal bliss. 74 00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:40.760 However, the number of those who consistently and unswervingly comply with the principles 75 00:06:40.760 --> 00:06:47.360 of asceticism is so small that it is not easy to instance more than a few names. 76 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:54.000 It seems that the complete passivity advocated by asceticism is contrary to nature. 77 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:57.120 The enticement of life triumphs. 78 00:06:57.120 --> 00:07:00.600 The ascetic principles have been adulterated. 79 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:06.020 Even the most saintly hermits make concessions to life and earthly concerns, which did not 80 00:07:06.020 --> 00:07:09.020 agree with their rigid principles. 81 00:07:09.020 --> 00:07:14.920 But as soon as a man takes into account any earthly concerns, and substitutes for purely 82 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:42.220 Human thoughts about things of which neither pure reasoning nor experience provides any 83 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:48.160 Many knowledge may differ so radically that no agreement can be reached. 84 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:53.380 In this sphere, in which the free reverie of the mind is restricted neither by logical 85 00:07:53.380 --> 00:08:01.360 thinking nor by sensory experience, man can give vent to his individuality and subjectivity. 86 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:06.540 Nothing is more personal than the notions and images about the transcendent. 87 00:08:06.540 --> 00:08:11.860 Linguistic terms are unable to communicate what is said about the transcendent. 88 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:17.560 One can never establish whether the hearer conceives them in the same way as the speaker. 89 00:08:17.560 --> 00:08:22.560 With regard to things beyond, there can be no agreement. 90 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:27.680 Religious wars are the most terrible wars because they are waged without any prospect 91 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:30.300 of conciliation. 92 00:08:30.300 --> 00:08:36.040 But where earthly things are involved, the natural affinity of all men and the identity 93 00:08:36.040 --> 00:08:41.840 of the biological conditions for the preservation of their lives come into play. 94 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:48.040 The higher productivity of cooperation under division of labor makes society the foremost 95 00:08:48.040 --> 00:08:54.920 means of every individual for the attainment of his own ends, whatever they may be. 96 00:08:54.920 --> 00:09:01.800 The maintenance and further intensification of social cooperation become a concern of everybody. 97 00:09:01.800 --> 00:09:07.520 Every world view and every ideology which is not entirely and unconditionally committed 98 00:09:07.520 --> 00:09:13.960 to the practice of asceticism, and to a life in anchoritic reclusion, must pay heed to 99 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:20.400 the fact that society is the great means for the attainment of earthly ends. 100 00:09:20.400 --> 00:09:26.320 But then a common ground is one to clear the way for an agreement concerning minor social 101 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:31.360 problems and the details of society's organization. 102 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:37.180 However various ideologies may conflict with one another, they harmonize in one point, 103 00:09:37.180 --> 00:09:41.680 The Acknowledgement of Life in Society 104 00:09:41.680 --> 00:09:47.600 People fail sometimes to see this fact, because in dealing with philosophies and ideologies, 105 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:52.780 they look more at what these doctrines assert with regard to transcendent and unknowable 106 00:09:52.780 --> 00:09:58.640 things, and less at their statements about action in this world. 107 00:09:58.640 --> 00:10:04.680 Between various parts of an ideological system, there is often an unbridgeable gulf. 108 00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:10.720 For acting man, only those teachings are of real importance which result in precepts for 109 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:17.140 action, not those doctrines which are purely academic and do not apply to conduct within 110 00:10:17.140 --> 00:10:20.440 the frame of social cooperation. 111 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:26.400 We may disregard the philosophy of adamant and consistent asceticism because such a rigid 112 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:32.280 asceticism must ultimately result in the extinction of its supporters. 113 00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:38.120 All other ideologies in approving of the search for the necessities of life are forced in 114 00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:43.540 some measure to take into account the fact that division of labor is more productive 115 00:10:43.540 --> 00:10:45.820 than isolated work. 116 00:10:45.820 --> 00:10:51.020 They thus admit the need for social cooperation. 117 00:10:51.020 --> 00:10:56.020 Praxeology and economics are not qualified to deal with the transcendent and metaphysical 118 00:10:56.020 --> 00:11:02.260 Social Aspects of Any Doctrine, but, on the other hand, no appeal to any religious or 119 00:11:02.260 --> 00:11:08.380 metaphysical dogmas and creeds can invalidate the theorems and theories concerning social 120 00:11:08.380 --> 00:11:15.100 cooperation as developed by logically correct praxeological reasoning. 121 00:11:15.100 --> 00:11:20.980 If a philosophy has admitted the necessity of societal links between men, it has placed 122 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:26.860 itself, as far as problems of social action come into play, on ground from which there 123 00:11:26.860 --> 00:11:33.060 is no escape into personal convictions and professions of faith not liable to a thorough 124 00:11:33.060 --> 00:11:36.820 examination by methods of science. 125 00:11:36.820 --> 00:11:40.220 This fundamental fact is often ignored. 126 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:46.020 People believe that differences in worldview create irreconcilable conflicts. 127 00:11:46.020 --> 00:11:52.300 The basic antagonisms between parties committed to different worldviews, it is contended, 128 00:11:52.300 --> 00:11:54.980 cannot be settled by compromise. 129 00:11:54.980 --> 00:12:00.060 They stem from the deepest recesses of the human soul, and are expressive of a man's 130 00:12:00.060 --> 00:12:04.600 innate communion with supernatural and eternal forces. 131 00:12:04.600 --> 00:12:10.780 There can never be any cooperation between people divided by different worldviews. 132 00:12:10.780 --> 00:12:17.700 However, if we pass in review the programs of all parties, both the cleverly elaborated 133 00:12:17.700 --> 00:12:23.980 and publicized programs, and those to which the parties really cling when in power, we 134 00:12:23.980 --> 00:12:28.300 can easily discover the fallacy of this interpretation. 135 00:12:28.300 --> 00:12:34.100 All present-day political parties strive after the earthly well-being and prosperity of their 136 00:12:34.100 --> 00:12:35.540 supporters. 137 00:12:35.540 --> 00:12:41.740 They promise that they will render economic conditions more satisfactory to their followers. 138 00:12:41.740 --> 00:12:46.540 With regard to this issue, there is no difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the 139 00:12:46.540 --> 00:12:53.400 various Protestant denominations as far as they intervene in political and social questions, 140 00:12:53.400 --> 00:12:58.220 between Christianity and the non-Christian religions, between the advocates of economic 141 00:12:58.220 --> 00:13:05.520 freedom and the various brands of Marxian materialism, between nationalists and internationalists, 142 00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:09.420 and Racists and the Friends of Interracial Peace. 143 00:13:09.420 --> 00:13:15.320 It is true that many of these parties believe that their own group cannot prosper except 144 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:21.420 at the expense of other groups, and even go so far as to consider the complete annihilation 145 00:13:21.420 --> 00:13:28.520 of other groups or their enslavement as the necessary condition of their own group's prosperity. 146 00:13:28.520 --> 00:13:35.280 Yet extermination or enslavement of others is for them not an ultimate end, but a means 147 00:13:35.280 --> 00:13:42.320 for the attainment of what they aim at as an ultimate end, their own group's flowering. 148 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:47.400 If they were to learn that their own designs are guided by spurious theories and would 149 00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:53.480 not bring about the beneficial results expected, they would change their programs. 150 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:58.800 The pompous statements which people make about things unknowable and beyond the power of 151 00:13:58.800 --> 00:14:06.000 of the Human Mind, their cosmologies, worldviews, religions, mysticisms, metaphysics and conceptual 152 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:09.480 fantasies differ widely from one another. 153 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:14.600 But the practical essence of their ideologies, that is, their teachings dealing with the 154 00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:21.000 ends to be aimed at in earthly life and with the means for the attainment of these ends, 155 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.240 show much uniformity. 156 00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:30.140 There are, to be sure, differences and antagonisms both with regard to ends and means. 157 00:14:30.140 --> 00:14:34.600 Yet the differences with regard to ends are not irreconcilable. 158 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:40.720 They do not hinder cooperation and amicable arrangements in the sphere of social action. 159 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:47.120 As far as they concern means and ways only, they are of a purely technical character, 160 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:51.620 and as such open to examination by rational methods. 161 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:55.780 Even in the heat of party conflicts, one of the factions declares, 162 00:14:55.780 --> 00:15:01.380 Here we cannot go on in our negotiations with you, because we are faced with a question 163 00:15:01.380 --> 00:15:04.100 touching upon our world view. 164 00:15:04.100 --> 00:15:09.580 On this point, we must be adamant, and must cling rigidly to our principles, whatever 165 00:15:09.580 --> 00:15:11.800 may result. 166 00:15:11.800 --> 00:15:17.620 One need only scrutinize matters more carefully, to realize that such declarations describe 167 00:15:17.620 --> 00:15:22.360 describe the antagonism as more pointed than it really is. 168 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:28.860 In fact, for all parties committed to pursuit of the people's earthly welfare and thus approving 169 00:15:28.860 --> 00:15:36.280 social cooperation, questions of social organization and the conduct of social action are not problems 170 00:15:36.280 --> 00:15:41.760 of ultimate principles and of worldviews, but ideological issues. 171 00:15:41.760 --> 00:15:48.360 They are technical problems, with regard to which some arrangement is always possible. 172 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:55.480 No party would wittingly prefer social disintegration, anarchy and a return to primitive barbarism 173 00:15:55.480 --> 00:16:00.840 to a solution which must be bought at the price of the sacrifice of some ideological 174 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:02.920 points. 175 00:16:02.920 --> 00:16:08.920 In party programs, these technical issues are, of course, of primary importance. 176 00:16:08.920 --> 00:16:11.880 A party is committed to certain means. 177 00:16:11.880 --> 00:16:17.680 It recommends certain methods of political action, and rejects utterly all other methods 178 00:16:17.680 --> 00:16:20.520 and policies as inappropriate. 179 00:16:20.520 --> 00:16:27.080 A party is a body which combines all those eager to employ the same means for common 180 00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:28.420 action. 181 00:16:28.420 --> 00:16:34.680 The principle which differentiates men and integrates parties is the choice of means. 182 00:16:34.680 --> 00:16:40.260 Thus, for the party, as such, the means chosen are essential. 183 00:16:40.260 --> 00:16:46.540 A party is doomed if the futility of the means recommended becomes obvious. 184 00:16:46.540 --> 00:16:52.340 Party chiefs, whose prestige and political career are bound up with the party's program, 185 00:16:52.340 --> 00:16:58.060 may have ample reasons for withdrawing its principles from unrestricted discussion. 186 00:16:58.060 --> 00:17:03.060 They may attribute to them the character of ultimate ends, which must not be questioned 187 00:17:03.060 --> 00:17:06.120 because they are based on a world view. 188 00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:12.420 But for the people as whose mandataries the party chiefs pretend to act, for the voters 189 00:17:12.420 --> 00:17:18.920 whom they want to enlist and for whose votes they canvass, things offer another aspect. 190 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:24.340 They have no objection to scrutinizing every point of a party's program. 191 00:17:24.340 --> 00:17:31.820 They look upon such a program only as a recommendation of means for the attainment of their own ends, 192 00:17:31.820 --> 00:17:34.860 Namely, Earthly Well-Being. 193 00:17:34.860 --> 00:17:40.900 What divides those parties which one calls today worldview parties, that is, parties 194 00:17:40.900 --> 00:17:47.860 committed to basic philosophical decisions about ultimate ends, is only seeming disagreement 195 00:17:47.860 --> 00:17:50.880 with regard to ultimate ends. 196 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:57.060 Their antagonisms refer either to religious creeds, or to problems of international relations, 197 00:17:57.060 --> 00:18:01.860 or to the problem of ownership of the means of production or to problems of political 198 00:18:01.860 --> 00:18:03.780 organization. 199 00:18:03.780 --> 00:18:11.680 It can be shown that all of these controversies concern means and not ultimate ends. 200 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:16.420 Let us begin with the problems of a nation's political organization. 201 00:18:16.420 --> 00:18:21.660 There are supporters of a democratic system of government, of hereditary monarchy, of 202 00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:27.060 The Rule of a Self-Styled Elite and of Caesarist Dictatorship 203 00:18:27.060 --> 00:18:34.300 Caesarism is today exemplified by the Bolshevik, Fascist or Nazi type of dictatorship. 204 00:18:34.300 --> 00:18:40.420 It is true that these programs are often recommended by reference to divine institutions, to the 205 00:18:40.420 --> 00:18:46.300 eternal laws of the universe, to the natural order, to the inevitable trend of historical 206 00:18:46.300 --> 00:18:51.060 evolution and to other objects of transcendent knowledge. 207 00:18:51.060 --> 00:18:54.900 But such statements are merely incidental adornment. 208 00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:59.460 In appealing to the electorate, the parties advance other arguments. 209 00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:04.820 They are eager to show that the system they support will succeed better than those advocated 210 00:19:04.820 --> 00:19:10.460 by other parties in realizing those ends which the citizens aim at. 211 00:19:10.460 --> 00:19:15.940 They specify the beneficial results achieved in the past or in other countries. 212 00:19:15.940 --> 00:19:20.740 They disparage the other parties' programs by relating their failures. 213 00:19:20.740 --> 00:19:26.180 They resort both to pure reasoning and to an interpretation of historical experience 214 00:19:26.180 --> 00:19:31.660 in order to demonstrate the superiority of their own proposals and the futility of those 215 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:33.820 of their adversaries. 216 00:19:33.820 --> 00:19:40.760 Their main argument is always, the political system we support will render you more prosperous 217 00:19:40.760 --> 00:19:43.080 and more content. 218 00:19:43.080 --> 00:19:48.620 In the field of society's economic organization, there are the liberals advocating private 219 00:19:48.620 --> 00:19:53.940 Ownership of the Means of Production, the Socialists Advocating Public Ownership of 220 00:19:53.940 --> 00:20:00.500 the Means of Production, and the Interventionists Advocating a Third System, which, they contend, 221 00:20:00.500 --> 00:20:04.940 is as far from socialism as it is from capitalism. 222 00:20:04.940 --> 00:20:11.340 In the clash of these parties there is again much talk about basic philosophical issues. 223 00:20:11.340 --> 00:20:17.980 People speak of true liberty, equality, social justice, the rights of the individual, community, 224 00:20:17.980 --> 00:20:21.140 Solidarity and Humanitarianism. 225 00:20:21.140 --> 00:20:28.500 But each party is intent upon proving by ratiocination and by referring to historical experience 226 00:20:28.500 --> 00:20:35.180 that only the system it recommends will make the citizens prosperous and satisfied. 227 00:20:35.180 --> 00:20:40.260 They tell the people that realization of their program will raise the standard of living 228 00:20:40.260 --> 00:20:45.340 to a higher level than realization of any other party's program. 229 00:20:45.340 --> 00:20:50.820 They insist upon the expediency of their plans and upon their utility. 230 00:20:50.820 --> 00:20:56.220 It is obvious that they do not differ from one another with regard to ends, but only 231 00:20:56.220 --> 00:20:58.180 as to means. 232 00:20:58.180 --> 00:21:05.260 They all pretend to aim at the highest material welfare for the majority of citizens. 233 00:21:05.260 --> 00:21:10.460 The nationalists stress the point that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the 234 00:21:10.460 --> 00:21:16.220 and the interests of various nations, but that, on the other hand, the rightly understood 235 00:21:16.220 --> 00:21:21.100 interests of all the citizens within the nation are harmonious. 236 00:21:21.100 --> 00:21:25.900 A nation can prosper only at the expense of other nations. 237 00:21:25.900 --> 00:21:31.740 The individual citizen can fare well only if his nation flourishes. 238 00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:34.180 The liberals have a different opinion. 239 00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:39.020 They believe that the interests of various nations harmonize no less than those of the 240 00:21:39.020 --> 00:21:44.500 and various groups, classes and strata of individuals within a nation. 241 00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:50.620 They believe that peaceful international cooperation is a more appropriate means than conflict 242 00:21:50.620 --> 00:21:56.140 for attainment of the end which they and the nationalists are both aiming at, their own 243 00:21:56.140 --> 00:21:58.340 nation's welfare. 244 00:21:58.340 --> 00:22:04.900 They do not, as the nationalists charge, advocate peace and free trade in order to betray their 245 00:22:04.900 --> 00:22:08.460 own nation's interests to those of foreigners. 246 00:22:08.460 --> 00:22:14.780 On the contrary, they consider peace and free trade the best means to make their own nation 247 00:22:14.780 --> 00:22:16.260 wealthy. 248 00:22:16.260 --> 00:22:22.520 What separates the free traders from the nationalists is not ends, but the means recommended for 249 00:22:22.520 --> 00:22:27.300 attainment of the ends common to both. 250 00:22:27.300 --> 00:22:33.060 Dissension with regard to religious creeds cannot be settled by rational methods. 251 00:22:33.060 --> 00:22:37.900 Religious conflicts are essentially implacable and irreconcilable. 252 00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:43.260 But as soon as a religious community enters the field of political action and tries to 253 00:22:43.260 --> 00:22:50.060 deal with problems of social organization, it is bound to take into account earthly concerns. 254 00:22:50.060 --> 00:22:55.580 However, this may conflict with its dogmas and articles of faith. 255 00:22:55.580 --> 00:23:02.340 No religion, in its exoteric activities, ever ventured to tell people frankly, the realization 256 00:23:02.340 --> 00:23:08.940 One of our plans for social organization will make you poor and impair your earthly well-being. 257 00:23:08.940 --> 00:23:14.060 Those consistently committed to a life of poverty withdrew from the political scene 258 00:23:14.060 --> 00:23:17.780 and fled into anchoritic seclusion. 259 00:23:17.780 --> 00:23:23.420 But churches and religious communities which have aimed at making converts and at influencing 260 00:23:23.420 --> 00:23:30.720 political and social activities of their followers have espoused the principles of secular conduct. 261 00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:35.640 In dealing with questions of man's earthly pilgrimage, they hardly differ from any other 262 00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:37.600 political party. 263 00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:42.500 In canvassing, they emphasize the material advantages which they have in store for their 264 00:23:42.500 --> 00:23:47.560 brothers in faith, more than bliss in the beyond. 265 00:23:47.560 --> 00:23:53.560 Only a world view whose supporters renounce any earthly activity whatever could neglect 266 00:23:53.560 --> 00:23:59.640 to pay heed to the rational considerations which show that social cooperation is the 267 00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:05.420 be great means for the attainment of all human ends. 268 00:24:05.420 --> 00:24:12.120 Because man is a social animal that can thrive only within society, all ideologies are forced 269 00:24:12.120 --> 00:24:16.960 to acknowledge the preeminent importance of social cooperation. 270 00:24:16.960 --> 00:24:24.140 They must aim at the most satisfactory organization of society and must approve of man's concern 271 00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:26.840 for an improvement of his material well-being. 272 00:24:26.840 --> 00:24:32.560 Thus, they all place themselves upon a common ground. 273 00:24:32.560 --> 00:24:38.480 They are separated from one another not by world views and transcendent issues, not subject 274 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:44.120 to reasonable discussion, but by problems of means and ways. 275 00:24:44.120 --> 00:24:49.960 Such ideological antagonisms are open to a thorough scrutiny by the scientific methods 276 00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:54.300 of praxeology and economics. 277 00:24:54.300 --> 00:24:57.140 The Fight Against Error 278 00:24:57.140 --> 00:25:02.940 A critical examination of the philosophical systems constructed by mankind's great thinkers 279 00:25:02.940 --> 00:25:08.780 has very often revealed fissures and flaws in the impressive structure of those seemingly 280 00:25:08.780 --> 00:25:13.500 consistent and coherent bodies of comprehensive thought. 281 00:25:13.500 --> 00:25:19.700 Even the genius in drafting a worldview sometimes fails to avoid contradictions and fallacious 282 00:25:19.700 --> 00:25:21.580 syllogisms. 283 00:25:21.580 --> 00:25:27.220 The ideologies accepted by public opinion are still more infected by the shortcomings of 284 00:25:27.220 --> 00:25:28.780 the human mind. 285 00:25:28.780 --> 00:25:35.060 They are mostly an eclectic juxtaposition of ideas utterly incompatible with one another. 286 00:25:35.060 --> 00:25:39.460 They cannot stand a logical examination of their content. 287 00:25:39.460 --> 00:25:44.740 Their inconsistencies are irreparable and defy any attempt to combine their various 288 00:25:44.740 --> 00:25:49.920 parts into a system of ideas compatible with one another. 289 00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:55.700 Some authors try to justify the contradictions of generally accepted ideologies by pointing 290 00:25:55.700 --> 00:26:01.860 out the alleged advantages of a compromise, however unsatisfactory from the logical point 291 00:26:01.860 --> 00:26:06.380 of view, for the smooth functioning of inter-human relations. 292 00:26:06.380 --> 00:26:12.080 They refer to the popular fallacy that life and reality are not logical. 293 00:26:12.080 --> 00:26:17.740 They contend that a contradictory system may prove its expediency, or even its truth, by 294 00:26:17.740 --> 00:26:24.620 by working satisfactorily, while a logically consistent system would result in disaster. 295 00:26:24.620 --> 00:26:30.860 There is no need to refute anew such popular errors. Logical thinking and real life are 296 00:26:30.860 --> 00:26:39.460 not two separate orbits. Logic is, for man, the only means to master the problems of reality. 297 00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:47.340 What is contradictory in theory is no less contradictory in reality. No ideological inconsistency 298 00:26:47.340 --> 00:26:53.540 can provide a satisfactory, that is, working, solution for the problems offered by the facts 299 00:26:53.540 --> 00:26:55.340 of the world. 300 00:26:55.340 --> 00:27:01.740 The only effect of contradictory ideologies is to conceal the real problems and thus to 301 00:27:01.740 --> 00:27:08.700 prevent people from finding in time an appropriate policy for solving them. 302 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:14.580 Inconsistent ideologies may sometimes postpone the emergence of a manifest conflict, but 303 00:27:14.580 --> 00:27:20.060 But they certainly aggravate the evils which they mask and render a final solution more 304 00:27:20.060 --> 00:27:21.460 difficult. 305 00:27:21.460 --> 00:27:28.580 They multiply the agonies, they intensify the hatreds and make peaceful settlement impossible. 306 00:27:28.580 --> 00:27:35.860 It is a serious blunder to consider ideological contradictions harmless or even beneficial. 307 00:27:35.860 --> 00:27:43.260 The main objective of praxeology and economics is to substitute consistent, correct ideologies 308 00:27:43.260 --> 00:27:47.660 for the contradictory tenets of popular eclecticism. 309 00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:53.100 There is no other means of preventing social disintegration and of safeguarding the steady 310 00:27:53.100 --> 00:27:58.480 improvement of human conditions than those provided by reason. 311 00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:04.600 Men must try to think through all the problems involved up to the point beyond which a human 312 00:28:04.600 --> 00:28:07.720 mind cannot proceed farther. 313 00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:13.200 They must never acquiesce in any solutions conveyed by older generations. 314 00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:18.260 They must always question anew every theory and every theorem. 315 00:28:18.260 --> 00:28:23.580 They must never relax in their endeavors to brush away fallacies and to find the best 316 00:28:23.580 --> 00:28:25.560 possible cognition. 317 00:28:25.560 --> 00:28:32.340 They must fight error by unmasking spurious doctrines and by expounding truth. 318 00:28:32.340 --> 00:28:38.300 The problems involved are purely intellectual and must be dealt with as such. 319 00:28:38.300 --> 00:28:43.900 It is disastrous to shift them to the moral sphere and to dispose of supporters of opposite 320 00:28:43.900 --> 00:28:47.060 ideologies by calling them villains. 321 00:28:47.060 --> 00:28:52.860 It is vain to insist that what we are aiming at is good and what our adversaries want is 322 00:28:52.860 --> 00:28:54.140 bad. 323 00:28:54.140 --> 00:29:01.360 The question to be solved is precisely what is to be considered as good and what as bad. 324 00:29:01.360 --> 00:29:08.160 The rigid dogmatism peculiar to religious groups and to Marxism results only in irreconcilable 325 00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:09.720 Social Conflict. 326 00:29:09.720 --> 00:29:14.120 It condemns beforehand all dissenters as evildoers. 327 00:29:14.120 --> 00:29:16.720 It calls into question their good faith. 328 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:20.000 It asks them to surrender unconditionally. 329 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:25.640 No social cooperation is possible where such an attitude prevails. 330 00:29:25.640 --> 00:29:31.560 No better is the propensity, very popular nowadays, to brand supporters of other ideologies 331 00:29:31.560 --> 00:29:34.320 as lunatics. 332 00:29:34.320 --> 00:29:39.100 Psychologists are vague in drawing a line between sanity and insanity. 333 00:29:39.100 --> 00:29:44.840 It would be preposterous for laymen to interfere with this fundamental issue of psychiatry. 334 00:29:44.840 --> 00:29:51.400 However, it is clear that if the mere fact that a man shares erroneous views and acts 335 00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:57.380 according to his errors qualifies him as mentally disabled, it would be very hard to discover 336 00:29:57.380 --> 00:30:03.360 an individual to which the epithet sane or normal could be attributed. 337 00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:08.960 Man we are bound to call the past generations lunatic because their ideas about the problems 338 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:15.880 of the natural sciences and concomitantly their techniques differed from ours. 339 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:20.640 Coming generations will call us lunatics for the same reason. 340 00:30:20.640 --> 00:30:22.760 Man is liable to error. 341 00:30:22.760 --> 00:30:27.820 If to error were the characteristic feature of mental disability, then everybody should 342 00:30:27.820 --> 00:30:30.520 be called mentally disabled. 343 00:30:30.520 --> 00:30:35.560 Neither can the fact that a man is at variance with the opinions held by the majority of 344 00:30:35.560 --> 00:30:39.560 his contemporaries qualify him as a lunatic. 345 00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:44.160 Were Copernicus, Galileo and Lavoisier insane? 346 00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:50.080 It is the regular course of history that a man conceives new ideas, contrary to those 347 00:30:50.080 --> 00:30:51.880 of other people. 348 00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:56.420 Some of these ideas are later embodied in the system of knowledge accepted by public 349 00:30:56.420 --> 00:30:58.800 opinion as true. 350 00:30:58.800 --> 00:31:04.980 Is it permissible to apply the epithet sane only to boors who never had ideas of their 351 00:31:04.980 --> 00:31:09.500 own and to deny it to all innovators? 352 00:31:09.500 --> 00:31:14.620 The procedure of some contemporary psychiatrists is really outrageous. 353 00:31:14.620 --> 00:31:19.420 They are utterly ignorant of the theories of praxeology and economics. 354 00:31:19.420 --> 00:31:24.860 Their familiarity with present-day ideologies is superficial and uncritical. 355 00:31:24.860 --> 00:31:31.260 that they blithely call the supporters of some ideologies, paranoid persons. 356 00:31:31.260 --> 00:31:36.460 There are men who are commonly stigmatized as monetary cranks. 357 00:31:36.460 --> 00:31:43.260 The monetary crank suggests a method for making everybody prosperous by monetary measures. 358 00:31:43.260 --> 00:31:45.060 His plans are illusory. 359 00:31:45.060 --> 00:31:51.720 However, they are the consistent application of a monetary ideology entirely approved by 360 00:31:51.720 --> 00:31:57.880 by Contemporary Public Opinion and espoused by the policies of almost all governments. 361 00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:03.680 The objections raised against these ideological errors by the economists are not taken into 362 00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:08.640 account by the governments, political parties and the press. 363 00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:14.520 It is generally believed by those unfamiliar with economic theory that credit expansion 364 00:32:14.520 --> 00:32:20.260 and an increase in the quantity of money in circulation are efficacious means for lowering 365 00:32:20.260 --> 00:32:25.700 Building the rate of interest permanently below the height it would attain on a non-manipulated 366 00:32:25.700 --> 00:32:28.460 capital and loan market. 367 00:32:28.460 --> 00:32:31.460 This theory is utterly illusory. 368 00:32:31.460 --> 00:32:37.380 But it guides the monetary and credit policy of almost every contemporary government. 369 00:32:37.380 --> 00:32:43.680 Now, on the basis of this vicious ideology, no valid objection can be raised against the 370 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:50.140 plans advanced by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Ernest Solvay, Clifford Hugh Douglas and a 371 00:32:50.140 --> 00:32:53.140 and a host of other would-be reformers. 372 00:32:53.140 --> 00:32:57.100 They are only more consistent than other people are. 373 00:32:57.100 --> 00:33:03.040 They want to reduce the rate of interest to zero and thus to abolish altogether the scarcity 374 00:33:03.040 --> 00:33:04.940 of capital. 375 00:33:04.940 --> 00:33:10.580 He who wants to refute them must attack the theories underlying the monetary and credit 376 00:33:10.580 --> 00:33:13.500 policies of the great nations. 377 00:33:13.500 --> 00:33:19.780 The psychiatrist may object that what characterizes a man as a lunatic is precisely the fact that 378 00:33:19.780 --> 00:33:23.940 And he lacks moderation and goes to extremes. 379 00:33:23.940 --> 00:33:29.700 While normal man is judicious enough to restrain himself, the paranoid person goes beyond all 380 00:33:29.700 --> 00:33:31.340 bounds. 381 00:33:31.340 --> 00:33:34.740 This is quite an unsatisfactory rejoinder. 382 00:33:34.740 --> 00:33:40.080 All the arguments advanced in favor of the thesis that the rate of interest can be reduced 383 00:33:40.080 --> 00:33:47.940 by credit expansion from 5 or 4 percent to 3 or 2 percent are equally valid for a reduction 384 00:33:47.940 --> 00:33:49.500 to zero. 385 00:33:49.500 --> 00:33:54.940 The monetary cranks are certainly right from the point of view of the monetary fallacies 386 00:33:54.940 --> 00:33:57.800 approved by popular opinion. 387 00:33:57.800 --> 00:34:03.820 There are psychiatrists who call the Germans who espouse the principles of Nazism lunatics 388 00:34:03.820 --> 00:34:08.140 and want to cure them by therapeutic procedures. 389 00:34:08.140 --> 00:34:11.340 Here again we are faced with the same problem. 390 00:34:11.340 --> 00:34:16.980 The doctrines of Nazism are vicious, but they do not essentially disagree with the ideologies 391 00:34:16.980 --> 00:34:22.980 of Socialism and Nationalism as approved by other people's public opinion. 392 00:34:22.980 --> 00:34:28.740 What characterized the Nazis was only the consistent application of these ideologies 393 00:34:28.740 --> 00:34:32.040 to the special conditions of Germany. 394 00:34:32.040 --> 00:34:37.320 Like all other contemporary nations, the Nazis desired government control of business and 395 00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:42.900 economic self-sufficiency, that is, autarky, for their own nation. 396 00:34:42.900 --> 00:34:48.740 The distinctive mark of their policy was that they refused to acquiesce in the disadvantages 397 00:34:48.740 --> 00:34:54.460 which the acceptance of the same system by other nations would impose upon them. 398 00:34:54.460 --> 00:35:00.940 They were not prepared to be forever imprisoned, as they said, within a comparatively over-populated 399 00:35:00.940 --> 00:35:07.140 area in which physical conditions render the productivity of labor lower than in other 400 00:35:07.140 --> 00:35:08.300 countries. 401 00:35:08.300 --> 00:35:14.060 They believed that their nation's great population figures, the strategically propitious geographic 402 00:35:14.060 --> 00:35:20.300 situation of their country, and the inborn vigor and gallantry of their armed forces, 403 00:35:20.300 --> 00:35:26.420 provided them with a good chance to remedy by aggression the evils they deplored. 404 00:35:26.420 --> 00:35:33.020 Now whoever accepts the ideology of nationalism and socialism as true, and as the standard 405 00:35:33.020 --> 00:35:38.740 of his own nation's policy is not in a position to refute the conclusions drawn from them 406 00:35:38.740 --> 00:35:40.260 by the Nazis. 407 00:35:40.260 --> 00:35:46.260 The only way for a refutation of Nazism left for foreign nations which have espoused these 408 00:35:46.260 --> 00:35:50.700 two principles is to defeat the Nazis in war. 409 00:35:50.700 --> 00:35:56.500 And as long as the ideology of socialism and nationalism is supreme in the world's public 410 00:35:56.500 --> 00:36:03.540 opinion, the Germans or other peoples will try again to succeed by aggression and conquest 411 00:36:03.540 --> 00:36:07.060 should the opportunity ever be offered to them. 412 00:36:07.060 --> 00:36:13.580 There is no hope of eradicating the aggression mentality if one does not explode entirely 413 00:36:13.580 --> 00:36:17.800 the ideological fallacies from which it stems. 414 00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:22.660 This is not a task for psychiatrists, but for economists. 415 00:36:22.660 --> 00:36:27.460 What is wrong with the Germans is certainly not that they do not comply with the teachings 416 00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:28.900 of the Gospels. 417 00:36:28.900 --> 00:36:31.020 No nation ever did. 418 00:36:31.020 --> 00:36:36.920 With the exception of the small and uninfluential groups of the Friends, practically all Christian 419 00:36:36.920 --> 00:36:41.200 churches and sects blessed the arms of warriors. 420 00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:46.420 The most ruthless among the older German conquerors were the Teutonic Knights, who fought in the 421 00:36:46.420 --> 00:36:48.060 name of the Cross. 422 00:36:48.060 --> 00:36:53.900 The source of present-day German aggressiveness is the very fact that the Germans have discarded 423 00:36:53.900 --> 00:37:00.400 liberal philosophy and substituted the ideology of nationalism and socialism for the liberal 424 00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:03.880 principles of free trade and peace. 425 00:37:03.880 --> 00:37:10.920 If mankind does not return to the ideas today disparaged as orthodox, Manchester philosophy 426 00:37:10.920 --> 00:37:17.120 and laissez-faire, the only method to prevent a new aggression is to render the Germans 427 00:37:17.120 --> 00:37:22.460 innocuous by depriving them of the means of waging war. 428 00:37:22.460 --> 00:37:28.400 Man has only one tool to fight error, reason. 429 00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:30.640 3. 430 00:37:30.640 --> 00:37:36.360 Might Society is a product of human action. 431 00:37:36.360 --> 00:37:39.840 Human action is directed by ideologies. 432 00:37:39.840 --> 00:37:47.800 This society and any concrete order of social affairs are an outcome of ideologies. 433 00:37:47.800 --> 00:37:54.200 Ideologies are not, as Marxism asserts, a product of a certain state of social affairs. 434 00:37:54.200 --> 00:38:00.520 To be sure, human thoughts and ideas are not the achievement of isolated individuals. 435 00:38:00.520 --> 00:38:05.720 Thinking too succeeds only through the cooperation of the thinkers. 436 00:38:05.720 --> 00:38:11.040 No individual would make headway in his reasoning if he were under the necessity of starting 437 00:38:11.040 --> 00:38:12.800 from the beginning. 438 00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:19.040 A man can advance in thinking only because his efforts are aided by those of older generations 439 00:38:19.040 --> 00:38:24.400 who have formed the tools of thinking, the concepts and terminologies, and have raised 440 00:38:24.400 --> 00:38:26.640 the problems. 441 00:38:26.640 --> 00:38:32.240 Any given social order was thought out and designed before it could be realized. 442 00:38:32.240 --> 00:38:38.360 This temporal and logical precedence of the ideological factor does not imply the proposition 443 00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:44.760 that people draft a complete plan of a social system as the utopians do. 444 00:38:44.760 --> 00:38:50.520 What is and must be thought out in advance is not the concerting of individuals' actions 445 00:38:50.520 --> 00:38:56.820 into an integrated system of social organization, but the actions of individuals with regard 446 00:38:56.820 --> 00:39:02.820 to their fellow men, and of already formed groups of individuals with regard to other 447 00:39:02.820 --> 00:39:04.500 groups. 448 00:39:04.500 --> 00:39:11.300 Before a man aids his fellow in cutting a tree, such cooperation must be thought out. 449 00:39:11.300 --> 00:39:17.100 Before an act of barter takes place, the idea of mutual exchange of goods and services must 450 00:39:17.100 --> 00:39:18.100 be conceived. 451 00:39:18.100 --> 00:39:24.900 It is not necessary that the individuals concerned become aware of the fact that such mutuality 452 00:39:24.900 --> 00:39:31.200 Society results in the establishment of social bonds and in the emergence of a social system. 453 00:39:31.200 --> 00:39:37.740 The individual does not plan and execute actions intended to construct society. 454 00:39:37.740 --> 00:39:44.220 His conduct and the corresponding conduct of others generate social bodies. 455 00:39:44.220 --> 00:39:51.260 Any existing state of social affairs is the product of ideologies previously thought out. 456 00:39:51.260 --> 00:39:58.420 In society, new ideologies may emerge and may supersede older ideologies, and thus transform 457 00:39:58.420 --> 00:40:00.100 the social system. 458 00:40:00.100 --> 00:40:08.740 However, society is always the creation of ideologies temporally and logically anterior. 459 00:40:08.740 --> 00:40:11.920 Action is always directed by ideas. 460 00:40:11.920 --> 00:40:16.360 It realizes what previous thinking has designed. 461 00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:23.040 If we hypothesize or anthropomorphize the notion of ideology, we may say that ideologies have 462 00:40:23.040 --> 00:40:25.940 might over men. 463 00:40:25.940 --> 00:40:30.400 Might is the faculty or power of directing actions. 464 00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:36.500 As a rule, one says only of a man or of groups of men that they are mighty. 465 00:40:36.500 --> 00:40:43.120 Then the definition of might is, might is the power to direct other people's actions. 466 00:40:43.120 --> 00:40:47.980 He who is mighty owes his might to an ideology. 467 00:40:47.980 --> 00:40:55.240 Only ideologies can convey to a man the power to influence other people's choices and conduct. 468 00:40:55.240 --> 00:41:01.640 One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable 469 00:41:01.640 --> 00:41:03.960 and accommodating. 470 00:41:03.960 --> 00:41:10.480 Might is thus not a physical and tangible thing, but a moral and spiritual phenomenon. 471 00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:16.100 A king's might rests upon the recognition of the monarchical ideology on the part of 472 00:41:16.100 --> 00:41:17.960 his subjects. 473 00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:25.040 He who uses his might to run the state, that is, the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, 474 00:41:25.040 --> 00:41:26.480 rules. 475 00:41:26.480 --> 00:41:31.000 Rule is the exercise of might in the political body. 476 00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:38.240 Rule is always based upon might, that is, the power to direct other people's actions. 477 00:41:38.240 --> 00:41:44.760 Of course it is possible to establish a government upon the violent oppression of reluctant people. 478 00:41:44.760 --> 00:41:50.000 It is the characteristic mark of state and government that they apply violent coercion 479 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:55.520 or the threat of it against those not prepared to yield voluntarily. 480 00:41:55.520 --> 00:42:01.240 Yet such violent oppression is no less founded upon ideological might. 481 00:42:01.240 --> 00:42:07.560 He who wants to apply violence needs the voluntary cooperation of some people. 482 00:42:07.560 --> 00:42:13.960 An individual entirely dependent on himself can never rule by means of physical violence 483 00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:14.960 only. 484 00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:21.320 A gangster may overpower a weaker or unarmed fellow, however this has nothing to do with 485 00:42:21.320 --> 00:42:27.120 life in society, it is an isolated anti-social occurrence. 486 00:42:27.120 --> 00:42:33.260 He needs the ideological support of a group in order to subdue other groups. 487 00:42:33.260 --> 00:42:39.620 The tyrant must have a retinue of partisans who obey his orders of their own accord. 488 00:42:39.620 --> 00:42:44.820 Their spontaneous obedience provides him with the apparatus he needs for the conquest of 489 00:42:44.820 --> 00:42:46.700 other people. 490 00:42:46.700 --> 00:42:52.420 Whether or not he succeeds in making his sway last depends on the numerical relation of 491 00:42:52.420 --> 00:42:59.260 the two groups, those who support him voluntarily and those whom he beats into submission. 492 00:42:59.260 --> 00:43:04.820 Though a tyrant may temporarily rule through a minority, if this minority is armed and 493 00:43:04.820 --> 00:43:12.140 the majority is not, in the long run a minority cannot keep the majority in subservience. 494 00:43:12.140 --> 00:43:17.980 The oppressed will rise in rebellion and cast off the yoke of tyranny. 495 00:43:17.980 --> 00:43:24.700 A durable system of government must rest upon an ideology acknowledged by the majority. 496 00:43:24.700 --> 00:43:30.180 The real factor, the real forces that are the foundation of government and convey to 497 00:43:30.180 --> 00:43:36.100 the rulers the power to use violence against renatant minority groups, are essentially 498 00:43:36.100 --> 00:43:40.720 ideological, moral and spiritual. 499 00:43:40.720 --> 00:43:46.560 Rulers who fail to recognize this first principle of government, and relying upon the alleged 500 00:43:46.560 --> 00:43:53.740 irresistibility of their armed troops, disdained the spirit and ideas, have finally been overthrown 501 00:43:53.740 --> 00:43:56.740 by the assault of their adversaries. 502 00:43:56.740 --> 00:44:03.640 The interpretation of might as a real factor, not dependent upon ideologies, quite common 503 00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:08.260 to many political and historical books, is erroneous. 504 00:44:08.260 --> 00:44:15.660 The term realpolitik makes sense only if used to signify a policy taking account of generally 505 00:44:15.660 --> 00:44:23.540 accepted ideologies as contrasted with a policy based upon ideologies not sufficiently acknowledged 506 00:44:23.540 --> 00:44:28.620 and therefore unfit to support a durable system of government. 507 00:44:28.620 --> 00:44:35.660 He who interprets might as physical or real power to carry on and considers violent action 508 00:44:35.660 --> 00:44:41.160 as the very foundation of government, sees conditions from the narrow point of view of 509 00:44:41.160 --> 00:44:46.820 subordinate officers in charge of sections of an army or police force. 510 00:44:46.820 --> 00:44:53.460 To these subordinates, a definite task within the framework of the ruling ideology is assigned. 511 00:44:53.460 --> 00:44:59.420 Their chiefs commit to their care troops which are not only equipped, armed and organized 512 00:44:59.420 --> 00:45:06.460 for combat, but no less imbued with the spirit which makes them obey the orders issued. 513 00:45:06.460 --> 00:45:12.100 The commanders of such subdivisions consider this moral factor a matter of course because 514 00:45:12.100 --> 00:45:19.300 they themselves are animated by the same spirit and cannot even imagine a different ideology. 515 00:45:19.300 --> 00:45:25.620 The power of an ideology consists precisely in the fact that people submit to it without 516 00:45:25.620 --> 00:45:28.140 any wavering and scruples. 517 00:45:28.140 --> 00:45:32.420 However, things are different for the head of the government. 518 00:45:32.420 --> 00:45:37.500 He must aim at preservation of the morale of the armed forces and of the loyalty of 519 00:45:37.500 --> 00:45:39.900 the rest of the population. 520 00:45:39.900 --> 00:45:46.060 For these moral factors are the only real elements upon which continuance of his mastery 521 00:45:46.060 --> 00:45:47.140 rests. 522 00:45:47.140 --> 00:45:53.220 This power dwindles if the ideology that supports it disappears. 523 00:45:53.220 --> 00:45:59.420 Minorities too can sometimes conquer by means of superior military skill and can thus establish 524 00:45:59.420 --> 00:46:01.520 minority rule. 525 00:46:01.520 --> 00:46:04.900 But such an order of things cannot endure. 526 00:46:04.900 --> 00:46:10.220 If the victorious conquerors do not succeed in subsequently converting the system of rule 527 00:46:10.220 --> 00:46:17.140 by violence into a system of rule by ideological consent on the part of those ruled, they will 528 00:46:17.140 --> 00:46:20.340 will succumb in new struggles. 529 00:46:20.340 --> 00:46:25.580 All victorious minorities who have established a lasting system of government have made their 530 00:46:25.580 --> 00:46:30.960 sway durable by means of a belated ideological ascendancy. 531 00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:36.260 They have legitimized their own supremacy, either by submitting to the ideologies of 532 00:46:36.260 --> 00:46:39.820 the defeated or by transforming them. 533 00:46:39.820 --> 00:46:45.460 Where neither of these two things took place, the oppressed many dispossessed the oppressing 534 00:46:45.460 --> 00:46:59.700 Many of the great historical conquests were able to endure because the invaders entered 535 00:46:59.700 --> 00:47:05.220 into alliance with those classes of the defeated nation which were supported by the ruling 536 00:47:05.220 --> 00:47:09.980 ideology and were thus considered legitimate rulers. 537 00:47:09.980 --> 00:47:16.300 This was the system adopted by the Tartars in Russia, by the Turks in the Danube principalities, 538 00:47:16.300 --> 00:47:22.660 and by and large in Hungary and Transylvania, and by the British and the Dutch in the Indies. 539 00:47:22.660 --> 00:47:28.660 A comparatively insignificant number of Britons could rule many hundred millions of Indians 540 00:47:28.660 --> 00:47:34.940 because the Indian princes and aristocratic landowners looked upon British rule as a means 541 00:47:34.940 --> 00:47:39.940 for the Preservation of Their Privileges, and supplied it with the support which the 542 00:47:39.940 --> 00:47:45.980 generally acknowledged ideology of India gave to their own supremacy. 543 00:47:45.980 --> 00:47:51.340 England's Indian Empire was firm as long as public opinion approved of the traditional 544 00:47:51.340 --> 00:47:53.280 social order. 545 00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:58.940 The Pax Britannica safeguarded the princes' and the landlords' privileges and protected 546 00:47:58.940 --> 00:48:04.660 the masses against the agonies of wars between the principalities and of succession wars 547 00:48:04.660 --> 00:48:06.380 is within them. 548 00:48:06.380 --> 00:48:12.820 In our day, the infiltration of subversive ideas from abroad has undermined British rule 549 00:48:12.820 --> 00:48:19.740 and at the same time threatens the preservation of the country's age-old social order. 550 00:48:19.740 --> 00:48:25.380 Victorious minorities sometimes owe their success to their technological superiority. 551 00:48:25.380 --> 00:48:27.680 This does not alter the case. 552 00:48:27.680 --> 00:48:34.280 In the long run, it is impossible to withhold the better arms from the members of the majority. 553 00:48:34.280 --> 00:48:39.760 Not the equipment of their armed forces, but ideological factors safeguarded the British 554 00:48:39.760 --> 00:48:41.760 in India. 555 00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:48.000 A country's public opinion may be ideologically divided in such a way that no group is strong 556 00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:51.360 enough to establish a durable government. 557 00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:54.280 Then anarchy emerges. 558 00:48:54.280 --> 00:48:59.480 Revolutions and civil strife become permanent. 559 00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:05.320 Traditionalism as an Ideology Traditionalism is an ideology which considers 560 00:49:05.320 --> 00:49:12.180 loyalty to valuations, customs and methods of procedure handed down or allegedly handed 561 00:49:12.180 --> 00:49:16.920 down from ancestors, both right and expedient. 562 00:49:16.920 --> 00:49:22.080 It is not an essential mark of traditionalism that these forefathers were the ancestors 563 00:49:22.080 --> 00:49:27.340 in the biological meaning of the term, or can be fairly considered such. 564 00:49:27.340 --> 00:49:32.620 They were sometimes only the previous inhabitants of the country concerned, or supporters of 565 00:49:32.620 --> 00:49:39.360 the same religious creed, or only precursors in the exercise of some special task. 566 00:49:39.360 --> 00:49:44.860 Who is to be considered an ancestor and what is the content of the body of tradition handed 567 00:49:44.860 --> 00:49:51.440 down are determined by the concrete teachings of each variety of traditionalism. 568 00:49:51.440 --> 00:49:57.960 The ideology brings into prominence some of the ancestors and relegates others to oblivion. 569 00:49:57.960 --> 00:50:03.960 It sometimes calls ancestors people who had nothing to do with the alleged posterity. 570 00:50:03.960 --> 00:50:09.440 It often constructs a traditional doctrine which is of recent origin and is at variance 571 00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:14.760 with the ideologies really held by the ancestors. 572 00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:19.820 Traditionalism tries to justify its tenets by citing the success they secured in the 573 00:50:19.820 --> 00:50:26.620 past. Whether this assertion conforms with the facts is another question. Research could 574 00:50:26.620 --> 00:50:32.660 sometimes unmask errors in the historical statements of a traditional belief. However, 575 00:50:32.660 --> 00:50:38.460 this did not always explode the traditional doctrine. For the core of traditionalism is 576 00:50:38.460 --> 00:50:44.860 is not real historical facts, but an opinion about them, however mistaken, and a will to 577 00:50:44.860 --> 00:50:50.660 believe things to which the authority of ancient origin is attributed. 578 00:50:50.660 --> 00:50:53.240 4. 579 00:50:53.240 --> 00:50:57.020 Meliorism and the Idea of Progress 580 00:50:57.020 --> 00:51:02.880 The notions of progress and retrogression make sense only within a teleological system 581 00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:04.540 of thought. 582 00:51:04.540 --> 00:51:10.320 In such a framework, it is sensible to call approach toward the goal aimed at progress 583 00:51:10.320 --> 00:51:14.820 and a movement in the opposite direction, retrogression. 584 00:51:14.820 --> 00:51:20.220 Without reference to some agent's action and to a definite goal, both these notions 585 00:51:20.220 --> 00:51:23.860 are empty and void of any meaning. 586 00:51:23.860 --> 00:51:29.220 It was one of the shortcomings of 19th century philosophies to have misinterpreted the meaning 587 00:51:29.220 --> 00:51:35.300 of Cosmic Change, and to have smuggled into the theory of biological transformation the 588 00:51:35.300 --> 00:51:41.900 idea of progress. Looking backward from any given state of things to the states of the 589 00:51:41.900 --> 00:51:50.300 past, one can fairly use the terms development and evolution in a neutral sense. Then, evolution 590 00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:56.980 signifies the process which led from past conditions to the present. But one must guard 591 00:51:56.980 --> 00:52:03.500 against the fatal error of confusing change with improvement and evolution with evolution 592 00:52:03.500 --> 00:52:10.060 toward higher forms of life, neither is it permissible to substitute a pseudo-scientific 593 00:52:10.060 --> 00:52:16.580 anthropocentrism for the anthropocentrism of religion and the older metaphysical doctrines. 594 00:52:16.580 --> 00:52:23.100 However, there is no need for praxeology to enter into a critique of this philosophy. 595 00:52:23.100 --> 00:52:28.940 This task is to explode the errors implied in current ideologies. 596 00:52:28.940 --> 00:52:34.700 Eighteenth-century social philosophy was convinced that mankind has now finally entered the age 597 00:52:34.700 --> 00:52:36.540 of reason. 598 00:52:36.540 --> 00:52:42.460 While in the past theological and metaphysical errors were dominant, henceforth reason will 599 00:52:42.460 --> 00:52:44.380 be supreme. 600 00:52:44.380 --> 00:52:49.420 People will free themselves more and more from the chains of tradition and superstition, 601 00:52:49.420 --> 00:52:55.160 will dedicate all their efforts to the continuous improvement of social institutions. 602 00:52:55.160 --> 00:53:00.300 Every new generation will contribute its part to this glorious task. 603 00:53:00.300 --> 00:53:06.760 With the progress of time, society will more and more become the society of free men, aiming 604 00:53:06.760 --> 00:53:10.560 at the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 605 00:53:10.560 --> 00:53:16.540 Temporary setbacks are, of course, not impossible, but finally the good cause will triumph because 606 00:53:16.540 --> 00:53:19.380 it is the cause of reason. 607 00:53:19.380 --> 00:53:23.980 People called themselves happy in that they were citizens of an age of enlightenment, 608 00:53:23.980 --> 00:53:29.140 which through the discovery of the laws of rational conduct, paved the way toward a steady 609 00:53:29.140 --> 00:53:32.420 amelioration of human affairs. 610 00:53:32.420 --> 00:53:37.580 What they lamented was only the fact that they themselves were too old to witness all 611 00:53:37.580 --> 00:53:40.220 the beneficial effects of the new philosophy. 612 00:53:40.220 --> 00:53:46.580 I would wish, said Bentham to Filaret-Shall, to be granted the privilege to live the years 613 00:53:46.580 --> 00:54:02.760 All these hopes were founded on the firm conviction, proper to the age, that the masses are both 614 00:54:02.760 --> 00:54:05.600 morally good and reasonable. 615 00:54:05.600 --> 00:54:10.620 The upper strata, the privileged aristocrats living on the fat of the land, were thought 616 00:54:10.620 --> 00:54:12.060 depraved. 617 00:54:12.060 --> 00:54:17.140 The common people, especially the peasants and the workers, were glorified in a romantic 618 00:54:17.140 --> 00:54:20.540 mood as noble and unerring in their judgment. 619 00:54:20.540 --> 00:54:26.220 Thus the philosophers were confident that democracy, government by the people, would 620 00:54:26.220 --> 00:54:29.220 bring about social perfection. 621 00:54:29.220 --> 00:54:35.660 This prejudice was the fateful error of the humanitarians, the philosophers and the liberals. 622 00:54:35.660 --> 00:54:37.780 Men are not infallible. 623 00:54:37.780 --> 00:54:39.900 They err very often. 624 00:54:39.900 --> 00:54:44.780 It is not true that the masses are always right and know the means for attaining the 625 00:54:44.780 --> 00:54:47.220 ends aimed at. 626 00:54:47.220 --> 00:54:51.860 Belief in the common man is no better founded than was belief in the supernatural gifts 627 00:54:51.860 --> 00:54:55.820 of kings, priests and noblemen. 628 00:54:55.820 --> 00:55:00.500 Democracy guarantees a system of government in accordance with the wishes and plans of 629 00:55:00.500 --> 00:55:02.020 the majority. 630 00:55:02.020 --> 00:55:08.100 But it cannot prevent majorities from falling victim to erroneous ideas and from adopting 631 00:55:38.100 --> 00:55:44.100 and State render men more satisfied, although not happy in a metaphysical sense. 632 00:55:44.100 --> 00:55:50.100 Whether or not this condition is given, only the unknown future can reveal. 633 00:55:50.100 --> 00:55:57.100 There is no room within a system of praxeology for meliorism and optimistic fatalism. 634 00:55:57.100 --> 00:56:05.100 Man is free in the sense that he must daily choose anew between policies that lead to success 635 00:56:05.100 --> 00:56:11.140 Progress and those that lead to disaster, social disintegration and barbarism. 636 00:56:11.140 --> 00:56:18.940 The term progress is nonsensical when applied to cosmic events or to a comprehensive worldview. 637 00:56:18.940 --> 00:56:23.180 We have no information about the plans of the prime mover. 638 00:56:23.180 --> 00:56:28.220 But it is different with its use in the frame of an ideological doctrine. 639 00:56:28.220 --> 00:56:34.700 The immense majority strives after a greater and better supply of food, clothes, homes 640 00:56:34.700 --> 00:56:37.580 and other material amenities. 641 00:56:37.580 --> 00:56:43.340 In calling a rise in the masses standard of living, progress and improvement, economists 642 00:56:43.340 --> 00:56:46.740 do not espouse a mean materialism. 643 00:56:46.740 --> 00:56:52.160 They simply establish the fact that people are motivated by the urge to improve the material 644 00:56:52.160 --> 00:56:54.620 conditions of their existence. 645 00:56:54.620 --> 00:57:00.140 They judge policies from the point of view of the aims men want to attain. 646 00:57:00.140 --> 00:57:05.980 He who disdains the fall in infant mortality and the gradual disappearance of famines and 647 00:57:05.980 --> 00:57:12.460 plagues may cast the first stone upon the materialism of the economists. 648 00:57:12.460 --> 00:57:18.900 There is but one yardstick for the appraisal of human action, whether or not it is fit 649 00:57:18.900 --> 00:57:22.460 to attain the ends aimed at by acting men.