The Man vs. the State by Herbert Spencer
Introduction by Albert J. Nock
I
In 1851, Herbert Spencer published a treatise called Social Statics or The Conditions Essential
to Human Happiness Specified. Among other specifications, this work established and made clear the fundamental
It is the fundamental principle that society should be organized on the basis of voluntary
cooperation, not on the basis of compulsory cooperation or under the threat of it.
In a word, it established the principle of individualism as against statism, against
the principle underlying all the collective doctrines which are everywhere dominant at
the present time.
It contemplated the reduction of state power over the individual to an absolute minimum,
and the raising of social power to its maximum, as against the principle of statism, which
contemplates the precise opposite. Spencer maintained that the state's interventions
upon the individual should be confined to punishing those crimes against person or property,
which are recognized as such by what the Scots philosophers called the common sense of mankind,
Enforcing the Obligations of Contract and Making Justice Costless and Easily Accessible.
Beyond this, the state should not go.
It should put no further coercive restraint upon the individual.
All that the state can do for the best interests of society, all it can do to promote a permanent
and stable well-being of society, is by way of those purely negative interventions.
Let it go beyond them and attempt the promotion of society's well-being by positive, coercive
interventions upon the citizen, and whatever apparent and temporary social good may be
affected will be greatly at the cost of real and permanent social good.
Spencer's work of 1851 is long out of print and out of currency.
A copy of it is extremely hard to find.
It should be republished, for it is to the philosophy of individualism what the work
of the German idealist philosophers is to the doctrine of statism, what Das Kapital is
to statist economic theory, or what the Pauline epistles are to the theology of Protestantism.
It had no effect, or very little, on checking the riotous progress of statism in England,
still less in staying the calamitous consequences of that progress.
From 1851 down to his death at the end of the century, Spencer wrote occasional essays
partly as running comment on the acceleration of statism's progress, partly as expedition
by force of illustration an example, and partly as remarkably accurate prophecy of what has
have since come to pass in consequence of the wholesale substitution of the principle
of compulsory cooperation, the statist principle, for the individualist principle of voluntary
cooperation.
He reissued four of these essays in 1884 under the title The Man vs. the State, and these
four essays, together with two others, called Over Legislation and From Freedom to Bondage,
are now reprinted here under the same general title.
2.
The first essay, The New Taurism, is of primary importance just now, because it shows the
contrast between the aims and methods of early liberalism and those of modern liberalism.
In these days we hear a great deal about liberalism, liberal principles and policies in the conduct
of Our Public Life. All sorts and conditions of men put themselves forward on the public
stage as liberals. They call those who oppose them Tories and get credit with the public
thereby. In the public mind, liberalism is a term of honor, while Toryism, especially
economic Toryism, is a term of reproach. Needless to say, these terms are never examined. The
The self-styled liberal is taken, popularly, at the face value of his pretensions, and
policies which are put forth as liberal are accepted in the same unreflecting way.
This being so, it is useful to see what the historic sense of the term is, and to see
how far the aims and methods of latter-day liberalism can be brought into correspondence
Spencer shows that the early liberal was consistently for cutting down the state's coercive power
over the citizen wherever this was possible. He was for reducing to a minimum the number
of points at which the state might make coercive interventions upon the individual. He was
was for steady enlarging the margin of existence within which a citizen might pursue and regulate
his own activities as he saw fit, free of state control or state supervision.
Liberal policies and measures, as originally conceived, were such as reflected these aims.
The Tory, on the other hand, was opposed to these aims, and his policies reflected this
opposition.
In general terms, the liberal was consistently inclined towards the individualist philosophy
of society, while the Tory was consistently inclined towards the statist philosophy.
Spencer shows, moreover, that as a matter of practical policy, the early liberal proceeded
towards the realization of his aims by the method of repeal.
He was not for making new laws, but for repealing old ones. It is most important to remember
this. Wherever the Liberals saw a law which enhanced the State's coercive power over
the citizen, he was for repealing it and leaving its place blank. There were many such laws
on the British statute books, and when liberalism came into power, it repealed an immense grist
Spenser must be left to describe in his own words, as he does in the course of this essay,
how in the latter half of the last century British liberalism went over bodily to the
philosophy of statism, and, abjuring the political method of repealing existing coercive measures,
proceeded to outdo the Tories in constructing new coercive measures of ever-increasing particularity.
This piece of British political history has great value for American readers because it
enables them to see how closely American liberalism has followed the same course. It enables them
to interpret correctly the significance of liberalism's influence upon the direction
of our public life in the last half century, and to perceive just what it is to which that
What influence has led, just what the consequences are, which that influence has tended to bring
about, and just what are the further consequences which may be expected to ensue.
For example, statism postulates the doctrine that the citizen has no rights, which the
state is bound to respect.
The only rights he has are those which the state grants him, and which the state may
This doctrine is fundamental. Without its support, all the various nominal modes or forms of statism which we see at large in Europe and America, such as are called Socialism, Communism, Nazism, Fascism, etc., would collapse at once. The individualism which was professed by the early liberals maintained the contrary. It maintained that the citizen has rights which he or she is entitled to.
which are inviolable by the State or by any other agency.
This was fundamental doctrine. Without its support, obviously, every formulation of individualism
becomes so much waste paper. Moreover, early liberalism accepted it as not only fundamental,
but also axiomatic, self-evident. We may remember, for example, that our Great Charter, the Declaration
of Independence takes as its foundation the self-evident truth of this doctrine, asserting
that man, in virtue of his birth, is endowed with certain rights which are unalienable,
and asserting further that it is to secure these rights that governments are instituted
among men.
Political literature will nowhere furnish a more explicit disavowal of the statist philosophy
than is to be found in the primary postulate of the Declaration.
But now, in which direction has latter-day American liberalism tended?
Has it tended towards an expanding regime of voluntary cooperation, or one of enforced
cooperation?
Have its efforts been directed consistently towards repealing existing measures of state
Coercion, or towards the devising and promotion of new ones?
Has it tended steadily to enlarge or to reduce the margin of existence within which the individual
may act as he pleases?
Has it contemplated state intervention upon the citizen at an ever-increasing number of
points or at an ever-decreasing number?
In short, has it consistently exhibited the philosophy of individualism, or the philosophy
of statism?
There can be but one answer, and the facts supporting it are so notorious that multiplying
examples would be a waste of space.
To take but a single one from among the most conspicuous, liberals worked hard, and successfully,
to inject the principle of absolutism into the Constitution by means of the income tax
amendment. Under that amendment, it is competent for Congress not only to confiscate the citizen's
last penny, but also to levy punitive taxation, discriminatory taxation, taxation for the
equalization of wealth, or for any other purpose it sees fit to promote. Hardly could a single
Again, the present administration is made up of self-styled liberals, and its course has been a contentious triumphal advance of statism.
which puts so formidable a mechanism in the hands of the state
and gives the state carte blanche for its employment against its citizens.
Again, the present administration is made up of self-styled liberals
and its course has been a contentious triumphal advance of statism.
In a preface to these essays written in 1884,
Spencer has a paragraph which sums up with remarkable completeness
The Political History of the United States during the last six years.
Dictatorial measures rapidly multiplied have tended continually to narrow the liberties of
individuals and have done this in a double way. Regulations have been made in yearly growing
numbers, restraining the citizen in directions where his actions were previously unchecked
and compelling actions which previously he might perform or not as he liked.
At the same time, heavier public burdens, chiefly local, have further restricted his
freedom by lessening that portion of his earnings which he can spend as he pleases, and augmenting
the portion taken from him to be spent as the public agents please.
Thus closely has the course of American Statism from 1932 to 1939 followed the course of British
Establish Statism from 1860 to 1884.
Considering their professions of liberalism, it would be quite appropriate and by no means
in our being to ask Mr. Roosevelt and his entourage whether they believe that the citizen
has any rights which the State is bound to respect.
Would they be willing, ex animo that is, and not for electioneering purposes, to subscribe
to the Fundamental Doctrine of the Declaration.
One would be unfeignedly surprised if they were, yet such an affirmation might go some
way to clarify the distinction, if there actually be any, between the totalitarian statism of
certain European countries and the democratic statism of Great Britain, France and the United
States.
It is commonly taken for granted that there is such a distinction, but those who assume
this do not trouble themselves to show wherein the distinction consists, and to the disinterested
observer the fact of its existence is, to say the least, not obvious.
Spencer ends the new Taurism with a prediction which American readers today will find most
The Laws Made by Liberals The Laws made by liberals are so greatly increasing
the compulsions and restraints exercised over citizens that among conservatives who
suffer from this aggressiveness there is growing upper tendency to resist it.
The truth is furnished by the fact that the liberty and property defense league, largely
consisting of conservatives, has taken for its motto individualism versus state socialism,
so that, if the present drift of things continues, it may by and by really happen that the Tories
will be defenders of liberties which the liberals, in pursuit of what they think popular welfare,
trample underfoot.
This prophecy has already been fulfilled in the United States.
These essays following the New Tourism seem to require no special introduction or explanation.
They are largely occupied with the various reasons why rapid social deterioration has
ensued upon the progress of statism, and why, unless that progress be checked, there must
must ensue further steady deterioration ending in disintegration.
All the American reader need do as he goes through these essays is to draw a continuous
parallel with statism's progress in the United States and to remark at every page the force
and accuracy of Spencer's forecast as borne out by the unbroken sequence of events since
his essays were written.
The reader can see plainly what that sequence has run up to in England, a condition in which
social power has been so far confiscated and converted into state power that there is now
not enough of it left to pay the state's bills, and in which by necessary consequence the
citizen is on a footing of complete and adject state slavery. The reader will also perceive
The people would believe, what he has no doubt already suspected, that this condition now existing in England is one for which there is apparently no hell.
Even a successful revolution, if such a thing were conceivable, against the military tyranny which is statism's last expedient, would accomplish nothing.
The people would be as thoroughly indoctrinated with statism after the revolution as they were before,
There have been many revolutions in the last twenty-five years, and this has been the sum of their history. They amount to no more than an impressive testimony to the great truth that there can be no right action except there be right thinking behind it.
and would gain nothing but a mere change of oppressors.
There have been many revolutions in the last twenty-five years, and this has been the sum
of their history.
They amount to no more than an impressive testimony to the great truth that there can
be no right action except there be right thinking behind it.
As long as the easy, attractive, superficial philosophy of statism remains in control of
The Reader may be left to construct for himself whatever conclusions he sees fit concerning
conditions now prevailing in the United States, and to make what inferences he thinks reasonable
concerning those to which they would naturally be leading. It seems highly probable that
But these essays will be of great help to him, greater help perhaps than any other single
work that could be put before him.
Albert J. Nock, Narragansett, Rhode Island, 25th October, 1939