PART 2 ACTION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF SOCIETY
CHAPTER 8 HUMAN SOCIETY
1.
HUMAN COOPERATION
Society is concerted action, cooperation.
Society is the outcome of conscious and purposeful behavior.
This does not mean that individuals have concluded contracts by virtue of which they
They Have Founded Human Society.
The actions which have brought about social cooperation and daily bring it about anew
do not aim at anything else than cooperation and coadjuvency with others for the attainment
of definite, singular ends.
The total complex of the mutual relations created by such concerted actions is called
and Society.
It substitutes collaboration for the, at least conceivable, isolated life of individuals.
Society is division of labor and combination of labor.
In his capacity as an acting animal, man becomes a social animal.
Individual man is born into a socially organized environment.
In this sense alone we may accept the saying that society is, logically or historically,
antecedent to the individual.
In every other sense, this dictum is either empty or nonsensical.
The individual lives and acts within society, but society is nothing but the combination
of individuals for cooperative effort.
It exists nowhere else than in the actions of individual men.
It is a delusion to search for it outside the actions of individuals.
To speak of a society's autonomous and independent existence of its life, its soul and its actions
is a metaphor which can easily lead to crass errors.
The questions whether society or the individual is to be considered as the ultimate end, and
Whether the interests of society should be subordinated to those of the individuals,
or the interests of the individuals to those of society, are fruitless.
Action is always action of individual men.
The social or societal element is a certain orientation of the actions of individual men.
The category end makes sense only when applied to action.
Theology and the metaphysics of history may discuss the ends of society and the designs
which God wants to realize with regard to society in the same way in which they discuss
the purpose of all other parts of the created universe.
For science, which is inseparable from reason, a tool manifestly unfit for the treatment
of such problems, it would be hopeless to embark upon speculations concerning these
matters.
Within the frame of social cooperation there can emerge between members of society feelings
of sympathy and friendship and a sense of belonging together.
These feelings are the source of man's most delightful and most sublime experiences.
They are the most precious adornment of life.
They lift the animal species man to the heights of a really human existence.
However, they are not, as some have asserted, the agents that have brought about social relationships.
They are fruits of social cooperation. They thrive only within its frame.
They did not precede the establishment of social relations, and are not the seed from which they sprang.
The fundamental facts that brought about cooperation, society and civilization,
and transformed the animal man into a human being, are the facts that work performed under
the division of labor is more productive than isolated work, and that man's reason is capable
of recognizing this truth.
But for these facts, men would have forever remained deadly foes of one another, irreconcilable
rivals in their endeavors to secure a portion of the scarce supply of means of sustenance
provided by Nature.
Each man would have been forced to view all other men as his enemies.
His craving for the satisfaction of his own appetites would have brought him into an implacable
conflict with all his neighbors.
No sympathy could possibly develop under such a state of affairs.
Some sociologists have asserted that the original and elementary subjective fact in society
is a Consciousness of Kind. Others maintain that there would be no social systems if there
were no Sense of Community or of Belonging Together. One may agree, provided that these
somewhat vague and ambiguous terms are correctly interpreted. We may call Consciousness of
Kind, Sense of Community, or Sense of Belonging Together, the acknowledgement of the fact
Note that all other human beings are potential collaborators in the struggle for survival,
because they are capable of recognizing the mutual benefits of cooperation, while the
animals lack this faculty.
However, we must not forget that the primary facts that bring about such consciousness
or such a sense are the two mentioned above.
In a hypothetical world in which the division of labor would not increase productivity,
There would not be any society.
There would not be any sentiments of benevolence and goodwill.
The principle of the division of labor is one of the great basic principles of cosmic
becoming and evolutionary change.
The biologists were right in borrowing the concept of the division of labor from social
philosophy and in adapting it to their field of investigation.
There is division of labor between the various parts of any living organism.
There are, furthermore, organic entities composed of collaborating animal individuals.
It is customary to call metaphorically such aggregations of the ants and bees animal
societies.
But one must never forget that the characteristic feature of human society is purposeful cooperation.
Society is an outcome of human action, that is, of a conscious aiming at the attainment
of ends.
No such element is present as far as we can ascertain in the processes which have resulted
in the emergence of the structure-function systems of plant and animal bodies, and in
the operation of the societies of ants, bees and hornets.
Human society is an intellectual and spiritual phenomenon.
It is the outcome of a purposeful utilization of a universal law determining cosmic becoming,
namely the higher productivity of the division of labor.
As with every instance of action, the recognition of the laws of nature is put into the service
of man's efforts to improve his conditions.
2. A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society
According to the doctrines of Universalism, Conceptual Realism, Holism, Collectivism,
and some representatives of Gestalt Psychology, society is an entity living its own life,
independent of and separate from the lives of the various individuals acting on its own
on behalf and aiming at its own ends, which are different from the ends sought by the
individuals.
Then of course an antagonism between the aims of society and those of its members can emerge.
In order to safeguard the flowering and further development of society, it becomes necessary
to master the selfishness of the individuals and to compel them to sacrifice their egoistic
Designs to the Benefit of Society.
At this point, all these holistic doctrines are bound to abandon the secular methods of
human science and logical reasoning, and to shift to theological or metaphysical professions
of faith.
They must assume that providence, through its prophets, apostles and charismatic leaders,
forces men who are constitutionally wicked, that is, prone to pursue their own ends, to
walk in the ways of righteousness, which the Lord, or Weltgeist, or history wants them
to walk.
This is the philosophy which is characterized from time immemorial, the creeds of primitive
tribes.
It has been an element in all religious teachings.
Man is bound to comply with the law issued by a superhuman power, and to obey the authorities
which this power has entrusted with the enforcement of the law.
The order created by this law, human society, is consequently the work of the Deity and
not of man.
If the Lord had not interfered and had not given enlightenment to erring mankind, society
would not have come into existence.
It is true that social cooperation is a blessing for man.
It is true that man could work his way up from barbarism and the moral and material
distress of his primitive state, only within the framework of society.
However, if left alone, he would never have seen the road to his own salvation.
For adjustment to the requirements of social cooperation and subordination to the precepts
of the Moral Law put heavy restraints upon him.
From the point of view of his wretched intellect, he would deem the abandonment of some expected
advantage an evil and a privation.
He would fail to recognize the incomparably greater, but later, advantages which renunciation
of present and visible pleasures will procure.
But for supernatural revelation, he would never have learned what destiny wants him
and to-do for his own good and that of his offspring.
The scientific theory, as developed by the social philosophy of eighteenth century rationalism
and modern economics, does not resort to any miraculous interference of superhuman powers.
Every step by which an individual substitutes concerted action for isolated action results
in an immediate and recognizable improvement in his conditions.
The advantages derived from peaceful cooperation and division of labor are universal.
They immediately benefit every generation and not only later descendants.
For what the individual must sacrifice for the sake of society, he is amply compensated
by greater advantages.
His sacrifice is only apparent and temporary.
He forgoes a smaller gain in order to reap a greater one later.
No reasonable being can fail to see this obvious fact.
When social cooperation is intensified by enlarging the field in which there is division
of labor, or when legal protection and the safeguarding of peace are strengthened, the
incentive is the desire of all those concerned to improve their own conditions.
In striving after his own, rightly understood, interests, the individual works toward an
intensification of social cooperation and peaceful intercourse.
Society is a product of human action, that is, the human urge to remove uneasiness as
far as possible.
In order to explain its becoming and its evolution, it is not necessary to have recourse to a
Doctrine, certainly offensive to a truly religious mind, according to which the original creation
was so defective that reiterated superhuman intervention is needed to prevent its failure.
The historical role of the theory of the division of labor as elaborated by British political
economy from Hume to Ricardo consisted in the complete demolition of all metaphysical
Social Doctrines Concerning the Origin and the Operation of Social Cooperation.
It consummated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind inaugurated by the
philosophy of Epicureanism.
It substituted an autonomous rational morality for the heteronomous and intuitionist ethics
of older days.
Law and legality, the moral code and social institutions, are no longer revered as unfathomable
decrees of heaven.
They are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency
with regard to human welfare.
The utilitarian economist does not say, Let justice be done, though the world be destroyed.
He says, Let justice be done, so the world will not be destroyed.
He does not ask a man to renounce his well-being for the benefit of society.
He advises him to recognize what his rightly understood interests are.
In his eyes, God's magnificence does not manifest itself in busy interference with sundry affairs
Many economists, among them Adam Smith and Bastiat, believed in God, hence they admired
in the facts they had discovered the providential care of the great Director of Nature.
Atheist critics blame them for this attitude.
However, these critics fail to realize that to sneer at the references to the invisible hand does not invalidate the essential teachings of the rationalist and utilitarian social philosophy.
One must comprehend that the alternative is this.
Either association is a human process because it best serves the aims of the individuals concerned and the individuals themselves have the ability to realize the advantages they derive from their adjustment to life in social cooperation.
Or, a superior being enjoins upon reluctant men subordination to the law and to the social authorities.
It is of minor importance whether one calls this supreme being God, Weltgeist, destiny, history, Wotan, or productive forces, and what title one assigns to its apostles, the dictators.
The essential problem of all varieties of universalistic, collectivistic, and holistic social philosophy is,
By what mark do I recognize the true law, the authentic apostle of God's word, and the legitimate authority?
For many claim that Providence has sent them, and each of these prophets preaches another gospel.
For the faithful believer there cannot be any doubt.
He is fully confident that he has espoused the only true doctrine.
But it is precisely the firmness of such beliefs that renders the antagonisms irreconcilable.
Each party is prepared to make its own tenets prevail.
But as logical argumentation cannot decide between various dissenting creeds, there is
no means left for the settlement of such disputes other than armed conflict.
The non-rationalist, non-utilitarian and non-liberal social doctrines must beget wars and civil
wars until one of the adversaries is annihilated or subdued.
The history of the world's great religions is a record of battles and wars, as is the
history of the present-day counterfeit religions, socialism, statolatry and nationalism.
Rights and propaganda by the executioners or the soldiers' sword are inherent in any
system of heteronomous ethics.
The laws of God or destiny claim universal validity, and to the authorities which they
declare legitimate, all men by rights owe obedience.
As long as the prestige of heteronomous codes of morality and of their philosophical corollary,
When conceptual realism was intact, there could not be any question of tolerance or
of lasting peace.
When fighting ceased, it was only to gather new strength for further battling.
The idea of tolerance with regard to other people's dissenting views could take root
only when the liberal doctrines had broken the spell of universalism.
In the light of the utilitarian philosophy, society and state no longer appear as institutions
for the maintenance of a world order that for considerations hidden to the human mind
pleases the deity, although it manifestly hurts the secular interests of many or even
of the immense majority of those living today.
Society and state are, on the contrary, the primary means for all people to attain the
the ends they aim at of their own accord. They are created by human effort, and their
maintenance and most suitable organization are a task not essentially different from
all other concerns of human action. The supporters of a heteronomous morality and of the collectivistic
doctrine cannot hope to demonstrate by ratiocination the correctness of their specific variety
of Ethical Principles and the Superiority and Exclusive Legitimacy of their particular
social ideal.
They are forced to ask people to accept credulously their ideological system and to surrender
to the authority they consider the right one.
They are intent upon silencing dissenters or upon beating them into submission.
Of course, there will always be individuals and groups of individuals whose intellect
is so narrow that they cannot grasp the benefits which social cooperation brings them.
There are others whose moral strength and willpower are so weak that they cannot resist
the temptation to strive for an ephemeral advantage by actions detrimental to the smooth functioning
of the social system.
or the adjustment of the individual to the requirements of social cooperation demand sacrifices.
These are, it is true, only temporary and apparent sacrifices, as they are more than
compensated for by the incomparably greater advantages which living within society provides.
However, at the instant, in the very act of renouncing an expected enjoyment, they are
Anarchism believes that education could make all people comprehend what their own interests require them to do.
Rightly instructed, they would of their own accord always comply with the rules of conduct indispensable for the preservation of society.
The anarchists contend that a social order in which nobody enjoys privileges at the expense of his fellow citizens could exist without any compulsion and coercion for the prevention of action detrimental to society.
Such an ideal society could do without state and government, that is, without a police force, the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion.
The anarchists overlook the undeniable fact that some people are either too narrow-minded
or too weak to adjust themselves spontaneously to the conditions of social life.
Even if we admit that every sane adult is endowed with the faculty of realizing the
good of social cooperation and of acting accordingly, there still remains the problem of the infants,
the aged and the insane.
He may agree that he who acts antisocially should be considered mentally sick and in
need of care, but as long as not all are cured, and as long as there are infants and the senile,
some provision must be taken lest they jeopardize society.
An anarchistic society would be exposed to the mercy of every individual.
Money cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat
of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order.
This power is vested in the state or government.
State or government is the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion.
It has the monopoly of violent action.
No individual is free to use violence or the threat of violence if the government has not
accorded this right to him.
The state is essentially an institution for the preservation of peaceful inter-human relations.
However, for the preservation of peace, it must be prepared to crush the onslaughts of
peace-breakers.
Liberal social doctrine, based on the teachings of utilitarian ethics and economics, sees
Solves the problem of the relation between the government and those ruled from a different
angle than universalism and collectivism.
Liberalism realizes that the rulers, who are always a minority, cannot lastingly remain
in office if not supported by the consent of the majority of those ruled.
Whatever the system of government may be, the foundation upon which it is built and
and rests is always the opinion of those ruled that to obey and to be loyal to this government
better serves their own interests than insurrection and the establishment of another regime.
The majority has the power to do away with an unpopular government, and uses this power
whenever it becomes convinced that its own welfare requires it.
In the long run, there is no such thing as an unpopular government.
Civil war and revolution are the means by which the discontented majorities overthrow
rulers and methods of government which do not suit them.
For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government.
Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution.
On the contrary, it is the very means of preventing revolutions and civil wars.
It provides a method for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.
When the men in office and their policies no longer please the majority of the nation,
they will, in the next election, be eliminated and replaced by other men espousing different
policies.
The principle of majority rule, or government by the people, as recommended by liberalism,
does not aim at the supremacy of average or common men.
It certainly does not mean, as some critics assert, the advocacy of the rule of the mean,
of the low-bred, of the domestic barbarians.
The liberals, too, believe that a nation should be ruled by those best fitted for this task.
But they believe that a man's ability to rule proves itself better by convincing his fellow
citizens than by using force upon them.
There is, of course, no guarantee that the voters will entrust office to the most competent
candidate.
But no other system could offer such a guarantee.
If the majority of the nation is committed to unsound principles and prefers unworthy
by the office seekers, there is no remedy other than to try to change their mind by expounding more reasonable principles and recommending better men.
A minority will never win lasting success by other means.
Universalism and collectivism cannot accept this democratic solution of the problem of government.
In their opinion, the individual, in complying with the ethical code, does not directly further his earthly concerns, but on the contrary, forgoes the attainment of his own ends for the benefit of the designs of the deity, or of the collective whole.
Moreover, reason alone is not capable of conceiving the supremacy of the absolute values and the unconditional validity of the sacred law, and of interpreting correctly the canons and commandments.
Hence it is in their eyes a hopeless task to try to convince the majority through persuasion and to lead them to righteousness by amicable admonition.
Those blessed by heavenly inspiration, to whom their charisma has conveyed illumination, have the duty to propagate the gospel to the docile, and to resort to violence against the intractable.
The charismatic leader is the deity's vicar, the mandatory of the collective whole, the tool of history.
He is infallible and always right. His orders are the supreme norm.
Universalism and collectivism are by necessity systems of theocratic government.
The common characteristic of all their varieties is that they postulate the existence of a
superhuman entity which the individuals are bound to obey.
What differentiates them from one another is only the appellation they give to this
entity and the content of the laws they proclaim in its name.
The dictatorial rule of a minority cannot find any legitimation other than the appeal
to an alleged mandate obtained from a superhuman absolute authority.
It does not matter whether the absolute ruler bases his claims on the divine rights of anointed
kings, or on the historical mission of the vanguard of the proletariat, or whether the
The Supreme Being is called Geist, Hegel, or Humanité, Auguste Comte.
The terms society and state, as they are used by the contemporary advocates of socialism,
planning and social control of all the activities of individuals, signify a deity.
The priests of this new creed ascribe to their idol all those attributes which the theologians
ascribed to God, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Infinite Goodness, and so on.
If one assumes that there exists above and beyond the individual's actions an imperishable
entity aiming at its own ends, different from those of mortal men, one has already constructed
the concept of a superhuman being.
Then, one cannot evade the question whose ends take precedence whenever an antagonism arises, those of the state or society, or those of the individual.
The answer to this question is already implied in the very concept of state or society, as conceived by collectivism and universalism.
If one postulates the existence of an entity, which ex definitione, is higher, nobler and better than the individuals, then there cannot be any doubt that the aims of this eminent being must tower above those of the wretched individuals.
It is true that some lovers of paradox, for instance, Max Stirner, took pleasure in turning the matter upside down and for all that asserted the precedence of the individual.
If society or state is an entity endowed with volition and intention, and all the other
qualities attributed to it by the collectivist doctrine, then it is simply nonsensical to
set the shabby individual's trivial aims against its lofty designs.
The quasi-theological character of all collectivist doctrines becomes manifest in their mutual
conflicts.
A collectivist doctrine does not assert the superiority of a collective whole in abstracto.
It always proclaims the eminence of a definite collectivist idol, and either flatly denies
the existence of other such idols, or relegates them to a subordinate and ancillary position
with regard to its own idol.
The worshippers of the state proclaim the excellence of a definite state, that is, their
own.
The Nationalists, The Excellence of Their Own Nation If dissenters challenge their particular
program by heralding the superiority of another collectivist idol, they resort to no objection
other than to declare, again and again, We are right because an inner voice tells us
that we are right and you are wrong.
The conflicts of antagonistic collectivist creeds and sects cannot be decided by ratiocination.
They must be decided by arms.
The alternatives to the liberal and democratic principle of majority rule are the militarist
principles of armed conflict and dictatorial oppression.
All varieties of collectivist creeds are united in their implacable hostility to the fundamental
Political Institutions of the Liberal System, Majority Rule, Tolerance of Dissenting Views,
Freedom of Thought, Speech and the Press, Equality of All Men Under the Law.
This collaboration of collectivist creeds in their attempts to destroy freedom has brought
about the mistaken belief that the issue in present-day political antagonisms is individualism
versus collectivism.
In fact, it is a struggle between individualism on the one hand, and a multitude of collectivist
sects on the other hand, whose mutual hatred and hostility is no less ferocious than their
abomination of the liberal system.
It is not a uniform Marxian sect that attacks capitalism, but a host of Marxian groups.
These groups, for instance, Stalinists, Trotskyists, Mensheviks, supporters of the Second International
and so on, fight one another with the utmost brutality and inhumanity.
And then there are, again, many other non-Marxian sects which apply the same atrocious methods
in their mutual struggles.
A substitution of collectivism for liberalism would result in endless bloody fighting.
The customary terminology misrepresents these things entirely.
The philosophy commonly called individualism is a philosophy of social cooperation and
the progressive intensification of the social nexus.
On the other hand, the application of the basic ideas of collectivism cannot result
in anything but social disintegration and the perpetuation of armed conflict.
It is true that every variety of collectivism promises eternal peace, starting with the
day of its own decisive victory, and the final overthrow and extermination of all other ideologies
and their supporters.
However, the realization of these plans is conditioned upon a radical transformation
in mankind.
Men must be divided into two classes, the omnipotent godlike dictator on the one hand,
and the masses which must surrender volition and reasoning in order to become mere chessmen
in the plans of the dictator.
The masses must be dehumanized in order to make one man their godlike master.
Thinking and acting, the foremost characteristics of man as man, would become the privilege
of one man only.
There is no need to point out that such designs are unrealizable.
The chiliastic empires of dictators are doomed to failure.
They have never lasted longer than a few years.
We have just witnessed the breakdown of several of such millennial orders.
Those remaining will hardly fare better.
The modern revival of the idea of collectivism, the main cause of all the agonies and disasters
of our day, has succeeded so thoroughly that it has brought into oblivion the essential
Liberal Ideas of Liberal Social Philosophy.
Today, even many of those favoring democratic institutions ignore these ideas.
The arguments they bring forward for the justification of freedom and democracy are tainted with
collectivist errors.
Their doctrines are rather a distortion than an endorsement of true liberalism.
In their eyes, majorities are always right simply because they have the power to crush
and the Cheney opposition. Majority rule is the dictatorial rule of the most numerous party and the ruling majority is not bound to restrain itself in the exercise of its power and in the conduct of political affairs.
As soon as a faction has succeeded in winning the support of the majority of citizens and thereby attained control of the government machine,
It is free to deny to the minority all those democratic rights by means of which it itself
has previously carried on its own struggle for supremacy.
This pseudo-liberalism is, of course, the very antithesis of the liberal doctrine.
The liberals do not maintain that majorities are godlike and infallible.
They do not contend that the mere fact that a policy is advocated by the many is proof
for the common will, they do not recommend the dictatorship of the majority and the violent oppression of dissenting minorities.
Liberalism aims at a political constitution which safeguards the smooth working of social cooperation and the progressive intensification of mutual social relations.
Its main objective is the avoidance of violent conflicts, of wars and revolutions that must disintegrate the social collaboration of men and throw people back into the primitive conditions of barbarism where all tribes and political bodies endlessly fought one another.
Because the division of labor requires undisturbed peace, liberalism aims at the establishment of a system of government that is likely to preserve peace, namely, democracy.
Praxeology and Liberalism
Liberalism is a political doctrine. It is not a theory, but an application of the theories developed by praxeology, and especially by economics, to definite problems of human action within society.
As a political doctrine, liberalism is not neutral with regard to values and the ultimate ends sought by action.
It assumes that all men, or at least the majority of people, are intent upon attaining certain
goals.
It gives them information about the means suitable to the realization of their plans.
The champions of liberal doctrines are fully aware of the fact that their teachings are
valid only for people who are committed to these valuational principles.
While praxeology, and therefore economics too, uses the terms happiness and removal
of uneasiness in a purely formal sense, liberalism attaches to them a concrete meaning.
It presupposes that people prefer life to death, health to sickness, nourishment to
starvation, abundance to poverty.
It teaches man how to act in accordance with these valuations.
It is customary to call these concerns materialistic, and to charge liberalism with an alleged
crude materialism and a neglect of the higher and nobler pursuits of mankind.
Man does not live by bread alone, say the critics, and they disparage the meanness and
despicable baseness of the utilitarian philosophy.
However, these passionate diatribes are wrong because they badly distort the teachings of
First, the liberals do not assert that men ought to strive after the goals mentioned
above.
What they maintain is that the immense majority prefer a life of health and abundance to misery,
starvation and death.
The correctness of this statement cannot be challenged.
It is proved by the fact that all anti-liberal doctrines, the theocratic tenets of the various
Religious, Statist, Nationalist and Socialist parties adopt the same attitude with regard to these issues.
They all promise their followers a life of plenty.
They have never ventured to tell people that the realization of their program will impair their material well-being.
They insist, on the contrary, that while the realization of the plans of their rival parties will result in indigence for the majority,
The Christian parties are no less eager in promising the masses a higher standard of living than the nationalists and the socialists.
Present-day churches often speak more about raising wage rates and farm incomes than about the dogmas of the Christian doctrine.
Secondly, the liberals do not disdain the intellectual and spiritual aspirations of man.
On the contrary, they are prompted by a passionate ardor for intellectual and moral perfection,
for wisdom and for aesthetic excellence.
But their view of these high and noble things is far from the crude representations of their
adversaries.
They do not share the naïve opinion that any system of social organization can directly
succeed in encouraging philosophical or scientific thinking, in producing masterpieces of art
and literature, and in rendering the masses more enlightened.
They realize that all that society can achieve in these fields is to provide an environment
which does not put insurmountable obstacles in the way of the genius, and makes the common
and Man free enough from material concerns to become interested in things other than
mere bread-winning.
In their opinion, the foremost social means of making man more human is to fight poverty.
Wisdom and science and the arts thrive better in a world of affluence than among needy peoples.
It is a purposeful distortion of facts to blame the age of liberalism for an alleged
materialism.
The 19th century was not only a century of unprecedented improvement in technical methods
of production and in the material well-being of the masses.
It did much more than extend the average length of human life.
Its scientific and artistic accomplishments are imperishable.
It was an age of immortal musicians, writers, poets, painters and sculptors.
It revolutionized philosophy, economics, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology.
And for the first time in history, it made the great works and the great thoughts accessible
to the common man.
Liberalism and Religion
Liberalism is based upon a purely rational and scientific theory of social cooperation.
The policies it recommends are the application of a system of knowledge which does not refer
in any way to sentiments, intuitive creeds for which no logically sufficient proof can
be provided, mystical experiences, and the personal awareness of superhuman phenomena.
In this sense, the often misunderstood and erroneously interpreted epithets atheistic
and agnostic can be attributed to it.
It would, however, be a serious mistake to conclude that the sciences of human action
and the policy derived from their teachings, liberalism, are anti-theistic and hostile
to religion.
They are radically opposed to all systems of theocracy, but they are entirely neutral
with regard to religious beliefs which do not pretend to interfere with the conduct
of Social, Political and Economic Affairs.
Theocracy is a social system which lays claim to a superhuman title for its legitimation.
The fundamental law of a theocratic regime is an insight not open to examination by reason
and to demonstration by logical methods.
Its ultimate standard is intuition, providing the mind with subjective certainty about things
Studies which cannot be conceived by reason and ratiocination.
If this intuition refers to one of the traditional systems of teaching concerning the existence
of a divine creator and ruler of the universe, we call it a religious belief.
If it refers to another system, we call it a metaphysical belief.
Thus, a system of theocratic government need not be founded on one of the great historical
of the World, the outcome of metaphysical tenets which reject all traditional churches and denominations and take pride in emphasizing their anti-theistic and anti-metaphysical character.
In our time, the most powerful theocratic parties are opposed to Christianity and to all other religions which evolved from Jewish monotheism.
What characterizes them as theocratic is their craving to organize the earthly affairs of mankind according to the contents of a complex of ideas whose validity cannot be demonstrated by reasoning.
They pretend that their leaders are blessed by a knowledge inaccessible to the rest of mankind, and contrary to the ideas maintained by those to whom the charisma is denied.
The charismatic leaders have been entrusted by a mystical higher power with the office
of managing the affairs of erring mankind.
They alone are enlightened.
All other people are either blind and deaf or malefactors.
It is a fact that many varieties of the great historical religions were affected by theocratic
tendencies.
Their apostles were inspired by a craving for power and the oppression and annihilation
of all dissenting groups.
However, we must not confuse the two things, religion and theocracy.
William James calls religious the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in
their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may
consider the divine.
He enumerates the following beliefs as the characteristics of the religious life.
That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance.
That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end.
That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof, be that spirit God or law, is a process
Religious wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects,
psychological or material, within the phenomenal world.
Religion, James goes on to say, also includes the following psychological characteristics.
A new zest which adds itself, like a gift to life, and takes the form either of lyrical
Social Enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism, and furthermore, an assurance
of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affection.
This characterization of mankind's religious experience and feelings does not make any
reference to the arrangement of social cooperation.
Religion, as James sees it, is a purely personal and individual relation between man and a holy, mysterious and awe-inspiring divine reality.
It enjoins upon man a certain mode of individual conduct, but it does not assert anything with regard to the problems of social organization.
St. Francis of Assisi, the greatest religious genius of the West, did not concern himself with politics and economics.
He wanted to teach his disciples how to live piously.
He did not draft a plan for the organization of production and did not urge his followers to resort to violence against dissenters.
He is not responsible for the interpretation of his teachings by the order he founded.
Liberalism puts no obstacles in the way of a man eager to adjust his personal conduct and his private affairs according to the mode in which he individually, or his church or denomination, interpret the teachings of the Gospels.
But it is radically opposed to all endeavors to silence the rational discussion of problems of social welfare by an appeal to religious intuition and revelation.
It does not enjoin divorce or the practice of birth control upon anybody, but it fights those who want to prevent other people from freely discussing the pros and cons of these matters.
In the liberal opinion, the aim of the moral law is to impel individuals to adjust their
conduct to the requirements of life in society, to abstain from all acts detrimental to the
preservation of peaceful social cooperation and to the improvement of inter-human relations.
They welcome the support which religious teachings may give to those moral precepts of which
which they themselves approve, but they are opposed to all those norms which are bound
to bring about social disintegration from whatever source they may stem.
It is a distortion of fact to say, as many champions of religious theocracy do, that
liberalism fights religion.
Where the principle of church interference with secular issues is in force, the various
Churches, denominations and sects are fighting one another.
By separating church and state, liberalism establishes peace between the various religious
factions and gives to each of them the opportunity to preach its gospel unmolested.
Liberalism is rationalistic.
It maintains that it is possible to convince the immense majority that peaceful cooperation
Human Action within the framework of society better serves their rightly understood interests
than mutual battling and social disintegration.
It has full confidence in man's reason.
It may be that this optimism is unfounded and that the liberals have erred.
But then there is no hope left for mankind's future.
3.
The Division of Labor
The fundamental social phenomenon is the division of labor and its counterpart, human cooperation.
Experience teaches man that cooperative action is more efficient and productive than isolated
action of self-sufficient individuals.
The natural conditions determining man's life and effort are such that the division of labor
increases output per unit of labor expended.
These natural facts are, first, the innate inequality of men with regard to their ability
to perform various kinds of labor, second, the unequal distribution of the nature given
non-human opportunities of production on the surface of the earth.
One may as well consider these two facts as one and the same fact, namely, the manifoldness
of Nature which makes the universe a complex of infinite varieties.
If the earth's surface were such that the physical conditions of production were the
same at every point, and if one man were as equal to all other men as is a circle to another
with the same diameter in Euclidean geometry, division of labor would not offer any advantages
for acting man.
There is still a third fact, namely that there are undertakings whose accomplishment exceeds
the forces of a single man and requires the joint effort of several.
Some of them require an expenditure of labor which no single man can perform because his
capacity to work is not great enough.
Others again could be accomplished by individuals, but the time which they would have to devote
to the work would be so long that the result would only be attained late and would not
compensate for the labor expended. In both cases, only joint effort makes it possible
to attain the end sought. If only this third condition were present, temporary cooperation
between men would have certainly emerged. However, such transient alliances to cope
with specific tasks which are beyond the strength of an individual would not have brought about
lasting social cooperation.
Undertakings which could be performed only in this way were not very numerous at the
early stages of civilization.
Moreover, all those concerned may not often agree that the performance in question is
more useful and urgent than the accomplishment of other tasks which they could perform alone.
The great human society enclosing all men in all of their activities did not originate
from such occasional alliances.
Society is much more than a passing alliance concluded for a definite purpose and ceasing
as soon as its objective is realized, even if the partners are ready to renew it should
an occasion present itself.
The increase in productivity brought about by the division of labor is obvious whenever
Remember the inequality of the participants is such that every individual or every piece
of land is superior at least in one regard to the other individuals or pieces of land
concerned.
If A is fit to produce in one unit of time 6p or 4q and B only 2p but 8q, they both when
When working in isolation, we'll produce together 4p plus 6q.
When working under the division of labor, each of them producing only that commodity
in whose production he is more efficient than his partner, they will produce 6p plus 8q.
But what will happen if A is more efficient than B not only in the production of p, but
also in the production of q?
This is the problem which Ricardo raised and solved immediately.
4.
The Ricardian Law of Association Ricardo expounded the law of association in
order to demonstrate what the consequences of the division of labor are when an individual
or a group, more efficient in every regard, cooperates with an individual or a group less
efficient in every regard.
He investigated the effects of trade between two areas, unequally endowed by nature, under
the assumption that the products, but not the workers and the accumulated factors of
future production, capital goods, can freely move from each area into the other.
The division of labor between two such areas will, as Ricardo's law shows, increase the
of the Productivity of Labor, and is therefore advantageous to all concerned, even if the
physical conditions of production for any commodity are more favorable in one of these
two areas than in the other.
It is advantageous for the better endowed area to concentrate its efforts upon the production
of those commodities for which its superiority is greater, and to leave to the less endowed
The Paradox that it is more advantageous to leave more favorable domestic conditions of
production unused, and to procure the commodities they could produce from areas in which conditions
for their production are less favorable, is the outcome of the immobility of labor and
and Capital, to which the more favorable places of production are inaccessible.
Ricardo was fully aware of the fact that his law of comparative cost, which he expounded
mainly in order to deal with a special problem of international trade, is a particular instance
of the more universal law of association.
If A is in such a way more efficient than B, that he needs for the production of one
One unit of the commodity P, three hours, compared with B's five, and for the production
of one unit of Q, two hours, compared with B's four, then both will gain if A confines
himself to producing Q and leaves B to produce P. If each of them gives sixty hours to producing
P and 60 Hours to Producing Q, the result of A's labor is 20 P plus 30 Q, of B's 12
P plus 15 Q, and for both together, 32 P plus 45 Q. If, however, A confines himself
If he confines himself to producing Q alone, he produces 60 Q in 120 hours, while B, if
he confines himself to producing P, produces in the same time 24 P. The result of their
activities is then 24 P plus 60 Q, which as P has for A a substitution ratio of 3 divided
by Two, Q, and for B, one of five divided by four, Q, signifies a larger output than
32 P plus 45 Q. Therefore, it is manifest that the division of labor brings advantages
to all who take part in it. Collaboration of the more talented, more able and more industrious
with the less talented, less able and less industrious results in benefit for both.
The gains derived from the division of labor are always mutual.
The law of association makes us comprehend the tendencies which resulted in the progressive
intensification of human cooperation.
We conceive what incentive induced people not to consider themselves simply as rivals
in a struggle for the appropriation of the limited supply of means of subsistence made
available by nature, we realize what has impelled them and permanently impels them to consort
with one another for the sake of cooperation.
Every step forward on the way to a more developed mode of the division of labor serves the interests
of all participants.
In order to comprehend why man did not remain solitary, searching like the animals for food
and shelter for himself only, and at most also for his consort and his helpless infants,
we do not need to have recourse to a miraculous interference of the deity, or to the empty
hypostasis of an innate urge toward association.
Neither are we forced to assume that the isolated individuals or primitive hordes one day pledged
themselves by a contract to establish social bonds.
The factor that brought about primitive society and daily works toward its progressive intensification
is human action that is animated by the insight into the higher productivity of labor achieved
under the division of labor.
Neither history nor ethnology nor any other branch of knowledge can provide a description
of the evolution which has led from the packs and flocks of mankind's non-human ancestors
to the primitive, yet already highly differentiated, societal groups about which information is
provided in excavations, in the most ancient documents of history, and in the reports of
explorers and travelers who have met savage tribes.
The task with which science is faced in respect of the origins of society can only consist
in the demonstration of those factors which can and must result in association and its
progressive intensification.
Praxeology solves the problem.
If and as far as labor under the division of labor is more productive than isolated
Labor, and if and as far as man is able to realize this fact, human action itself tends
toward cooperation and association.
Man becomes a social being not in sacrificing his own concerns for the sake of a mythical
Moloch society, but in aiming at an improvement in his own welfare.
This teaches that this condition, higher productivity achieved under the division of labor, is present
because its cause, the inborn inequality of men and the inequality in the geographical
distribution of the natural factors of production, is real.
Thus we are in a position to comprehend the course of social evolution.