Digressions&Impressions

On Humean sovereignty with some Dicey, Schmitt,

A.V. Dicey's life (1835-1922) and work is known almost exclusively for the 'rule of law.' I have some amusing, reductive evidence for this claim: the one and only annotation by Foucault on Dicey is the definition of the rule of law (see here). Presumably the annotation was prompted by Foucault's reading and use of Hayek's Constitution of Liberty, where Dicey's Law of the Constitution is treated as a classic (as the editors of Foucault's Biopolitics lectures note in their endnotes 23-25 on p. 282 in the English translation). One of the best essays on Dicey's significance on thinking about the rule of law to political theory, "Dicey and his Legacy" (Political Theory, 1995) by Julia Stapleton, explores its impact on especially what she calls English liberal-conservative thought.

But it is not impossible that Foucault also read Dicey's Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion for the very passage in his lecture that elicited the editors' comment is this: "the Rule of law is clearly defined as a state in which the state itself does not organize administrative courts which arbitrate between citizens and the public authorities; the Rule of law is a state in which citizens can appeal to ordinary justice against the public authorities. The English say: If there are administrative courts, then we are not living under the Rule of law." (p. 170, 21 February 1979). This echoes the introduction to the second edition of Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion (hereafter LRLPO):

But administrative law has two defects which have till very recent years forbidden its existence in England. Administrative tribunals always tend to exclude the jurisdiction of the ordinary law Courts. Administrative Courts are always more or less connected with the Government of the day. Their decisions are apt to be influenced by political considerations. Governmental officials cannot have the thorough independence of judges....An administrative Court is never a completely independent tribunal. (p. 373 in the Libertyfund edition)

Anyway, as I have noted before (recall; here), Dicey's LRLPO (sorry) had a significant impact on mid-twentieth century neo-Liberal thought (including Lippmann, Milton Friedman, and Hayek (see also this paper by Nathanaël Colin-Jaeger).* But to the best of my knowledge there has been no real attempt to explore LRPLO's political theory in light of some of their theoretical concerns, and the viability of liberalism.

At the very start (pp. 4-5) of LRLPO, while drawing on the opening lines of Hume's "Of the First Principles of Government," Dicey notes that "Hume’s doctrine holds good, and the opinion of the governed is the real foundation of all government." (This Humean stance has been explored in my own scholarship, and also in book-length works by Andy Sabl and Paul Sagar.) Dicey then turns this into a Humean theory of sovereignty that is, as it were, neutral among constitutional forms:

the public opinion which governs a country is the opinion of the sovereign, whether the sovereign be a monarch, an aristocracy, or the mass of the people.

This conclusion, however, though roughly true, cannot be accepted without considerable reservation. The sovereign power may hold that a certain kind of legislation is in itself expedient, but may at the same time be unwilling, or even unable, to carry this conviction into effect, and this from the dread of offending the feelings of subjects who, though they in general take no active share in public affairs, may raise an insuperable opposition to laws which disturb their habits or shock their moral sentiment; it is well indeed, thus early in these lectures, to note that the public opinion which finds expression in legislation is a very complex phenomenon, and often takes the form of a compromise resulting from a conflict between the ideas of the government and the feelings or habits of the governed. This holds good in all countries, whatever be their form of government,--Albert Venn Dicey Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion, p. 10 (libertyfund edition)

So, if I understand Dicey correctly, sovereignty is constituted by the effectual public opinion that governs the country (which we might call 'conventional wisdom') but this opinion is self-limited by considerations of practical wisdom or prudence. I set aside the non-trivial challenges in measuring effectual public opinion in ways that would meet contemporary standards of rigor in political science. Dicey's lectures are a game attempt at exhibiting its existence, but does often flirt with the 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy.+

Now, as is well known, in the preface to the (1934) second edition of Political Theology, Schmitt presented his account of sovereignty as a polemic with 'liberal normativism and its kind of "constitutional state.'  And certain radical-chic scholars with contempt for liberalism have been all too willing to echo Schmitt's three-fold typology: among (i) "the pure normativist [who] thinks in terms of impersonal rules, and [(ii)] the decisionist [who] implements the good law of the correctly recognized political situation by means of a personal decision, and [iii)] institutional legal thinking unfolds in institutions and organizations that transcend the personal sphere" and then associate liberalism exclusively with the proceduralist-normativist (by taking Rawlsian intellectual hegemony as a kind of natural outgrowth of liberalism or the only liberalism left standing).

Now, I would argue that Dicey's Humean approach to sovereignty formally anticipates the Schmittian decisionist, but without Schmitt's focus on the decisive individual leader (or Führerprinzip) because, to put it classically, Dicey's approach also allows for complex, collective forms of (aristocratic and democratic) leadership. So, to put this as a serious joke: Schmitt's approach is a subset of Dicey's analytically purer approach.

In fact, from a liberal perspective, Dicey anticipates the main problem in Schmitt's analysis of sovereignty, the absence of accountability (a word and its cognates wholly absent in Schmitt's Political Theology and Dicey's LRLPO). By contrast, Hume would also emphasize the role of accountability (recall this post inspired by Lazar's States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies; and this earlier post). [I don't mean to suggest Dicey ignores accountability of government officials.]

Now, it's important that in LRLPO, Dicey recognizes that the actions of the sovereign can be balanced and frustrated by the "checks imposed on such opinion by the existence of counter-currents and cross-currents of opinion." Elsewhere in his theorizing Dicey explored other, institutional checks (like referenda) on sovereignty (especially that effected by parliament).* But without mechanisms of accountability (be it symbolic, formal, political, or juridical) Dicey's Humeanism slides into illiberalism. For, it is not sufficient that there are checks and balances or fractured sovereignty even when the form of the law is obeyed; accountability is required from a liberal perspective. Interestingly enough (in light of efforts to claim that Hayek, who is very influenced by Dicey, is a neo-Schmittian), Hayek does emphasize the significance of accountability to the rule of law by quoting this passage in “Declaration of Parliament Assembled at Westminster” approvingly: “There being nothing more essential to the freedom of a state, than that the people should be governed by the laws, and that justice be administered by such only as are accountable for mal-administration." (chapter on the Origins of the rule of law" Constitution of Liberty, p. 251 in Volume XVII of the Collected Works. n.)

These digressions are all very theoretical, I recognize. And perhaps it would help if we put it in more concrete form if we think of a concrete example: President, Donald Trump's attempted usurpation (starting, roughly, with the phone call to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, and culminating in the events of Jan 6, 2021). His actions generated a hasty (second) impeachment on january 13, 2021, by a 232–197 vote. There is no doubt that this conviction had the support of conventional wisdom. But it lacked sufficient votes in the Senate for conviction, primarily, I think, because too many Republican Senators feared the governed, especially their own primary voters' wrath. (Of the seven Republicans who voted to convict only one had to face her voters within two years.) 

The dangerously slow investigation of and legal procedures against Trump's efforts to overturn the Georgia results have undermined accountability and, thereby, help undermine the constitutional order (and risks shifting toward forms of  plebescite despotism). I would be amazed if the delay isn't caused by a general unease felt by prosecutors over the prosecution of a vindictive politician who could return to power and whose supporters are feared. (The perceived odds of his winning again are better than the perceived odds ahead of his first primary run.)

Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom already reflects this shift to some degree by its tendency to deplore the fact that Trump is being prosecuted for mere hush money payments (in a different jurisdiction) without a willingness to urge on prosecution for actions surrounding his attempted usurpation. Noticeably, and in striking contrast, in living memory the French were willing to prosecute (and covinct) former President Sarkozy thereby also derailing any attemp at re-election.

Now, in closing, before you accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome, I don't mean to suggest that lack of accountability is unique to our era or Trump among US presidents. As I have noted in my blogging (recall here; here), since, say, 1940, plenty of US Presidents have committed egregious war crimes (or worse) abroad, including internment of innocent US citizens and assassination of US Citizens on foreign soil, without (symbolic, legal, political,  etc.) accountability. To what degree this gap in American political practice reflects a tacit approval of the American people I leave to the reader.

• This post was first published at my substack account here. Digressionsimpressions’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber there.

 

That Renegade Kautsky, and the fate of Capital and Liberalism

In the matter of defining imperialism, however, we have to enter into controversy, primarily, with Karl Kautsky, the principal Marxist theoretician of the epoch of the so-called Second International—that is, of the twenty-five years between 1889 and 1914. The fundamental ideas expressed in our definition of imperialism were very resolutely attacked by Kautsky in 1915, and even in November 1914, when he said that imperialism must not be regarded as a “phase” or stage of economy, but as a policy, a definite policy “preferred” by finance capital; that imperialism must not be “identified” with “present-day capitalism”; that if imperialism is to be understood to mean “all the phenomena of present-day capitalism”—cartels, protection, the domination of the financiers, and colonial policy—then the question as to whether imperialism is necessary to capitalism becomes reduced to the “flattest tautology”, because, in that case, “imperialism is naturally a vital necessity for capitalism”, and so on. The best way to present Kautsky’s idea is to quote his own definition of imperialism, which is diametrically opposed to the substance of the ideas which I have set forth (for the objections coming from the camp of the German Marxists, who have been advocating similar ideas for many years already, have been long known to Kautsky as the objections of a definite trend in Marxism).

Kautsky’s definition is as follows:

“Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control or to annex all large areas of agrarian [Kautsky’s italics] territory, irrespective of what nations inhabit it.” 

This definition is of no use at all because it one-sidedly, i.e., arbitrarily, singles out only the national question (although the latter is extremely important in itself as well as in its relation to imperialism), it arbitrarily and inaccurately connects this question only with industrial capital in the countries which annex other nations, and in an equally arbitrary and inaccurate manner pushes into the forefront the annexation of agrarian regions.

Imperialism is a striving for annexations—this is what the political part of Kautsky’s definition amounts to. It is correct, but very incomplete, for politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and reaction. For the moment, however, we are interested in the economic aspect of the question, which Kautsky himself introduced into his definition. The inaccuracies in Kautsky’s definition are glaring. The characteristic feature of imperialism is not industrial but finance capital...The characteristic feature of imperialism is precisely that it strives to annex not only agrarian territories, but even most highly industrialised regions (German appetite for Belgium; French appetite for Lorraine), because (1) the fact that the world is already partitioned obliges those contemplating a redivision to reach out for every kind of territory, and (2) an essential feature of imperialism is the rivalry between several great powers in the striving for hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly for themselves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his hegemony....

Kautsky refers especially—and repeatedly—to English writers who, he alleges, have given a purely political meaning to the word “imperialism” in the sense that he, Kautsky, understands it. We take up the work by the English writer Hobson, Imperialism, which appeared in 1902, and there we read:

“The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire the theory and the practice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political aggrandisement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests.” 

We see that Kautsky is absolutely wrong in referring to English writers generally...We see that Kautsky, while claiming that he continues to advocate Marxism, as a matter of fact takes a step backward compared with the social-liberal Hobson, who more correctly takes into account two “historically concrete” (Kautsky’s definition is a mockery of historical concreteness!) features of modern imperialism: (1) the competition between several imperialisms, and (2) the predominance of the financier over the merchant. If it is chiefly a question of the annexation of agrarian countries by industrial countries, then the role of the merchant is put in the forefront.

Kautsky’s definition is not only wrong and un-Marxist. It serves as a basis for a whole system of views which signify a rupture with Marxist theory and Marxist practice all along the line. I shall refer to this later. The argument about words which Kautsky raises as to whether the latest stage of capitalism should be called imperialism or the stage of finance capital is not worth serious attention. Call it what you will, it makes no difference. The essence of the matter is that Kautsky detaches the politics of imperialism from its economics, speaks of annexations as being a policy “preferred” by finance capital, and opposes to it another bourgeois policy which, he alleges, is possible on this very same basis of finance capital. It follows, then, that monopolies in the economy are compatible with non-monopolistic, non-violent, non-annexationist methods in politics. It follows, then, that the territorial division of the world, which was completed during this very epoch of finance capital, and which constitutes the basis of the present peculiar forms of rivalry between the biggest capitalist states, is compatible with a non-imperialist policy. The result is a slurring-over and a blunting of the most profound contradictions of the latest stage of capitalism, instead of an exposure of their depth; the result is bourgeois reformism instead of Marxism.

...

The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) advocacy of conciliation with imperialism, because a “fight” against the policy of the trusts and banks that does not affect the economic basis of the trusts and banks is mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism, the benevolent and innocent expression of pious wishes. Evasion of existing contradictions, forgetting the most important of them, instead of revealing their full depth—such is Kautsky’s theory, which has nothing in common with Marxism....

“From the purely economic point of view,” writes Kautsky, “it is not impossible that capitalism will yet go through a new phase, that of the extension of the policy of the cartels to foreign policy, the phase of ultra-imperialism,” i.e., of a superimperialism, of a union of the imperialisms of the whole world and not struggles among them, a phase when wars shall cease under capitalism, a phase of “the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital.” 

...

Kautsky’s utterly meaningless talk about ultra-imperialism encourages, among other things, that profoundly mistaken idea which only brings grist to the mill of the apologists of imperialism, i.e., that the rule of finance capital lessens the unevenness and contradictions inherent in the world economy, whereas in reality it increases them.--Lenin (1917) Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Chapter VII

Much of Lenin's argument in his Imperialism, The Highest State of Capitalism is directed against that 'renegade' Kautsky's position. But Kautsky's own stance has not generated much enthusiasm nor, it seems, interest from subsequent scholarship (which tends to read Kautsky (1854 –  1938), a major theorist of the second International, explicitly or implicitly, through Lenin's perspective). It is pretty clear why it was important to Lenin's leadership and strategic ambitions to disqualify Kautsky and why, perhaps, there is a sense in which Kautsky's stance on imperialism is not echt Marxist (I have no stake in that debate). But Kautsky's account treats uncorrupted liberalism as the pathway into modern (nineteenth century) imperialism. If Kautsky is right about this (to be explored below) this would be highly salient to the liberal tradition's self-understanding. For, by contrast, Lenin and Hobson put rent-seeking elites at the core of their explanations of such imperialism (even if they diverge on the details--with Lenin ((recall; and here) singling out monopoly capitalism as the late stage of capitalism, while Hobson (recall) points to a too limited franchise that facilitates elite rent-seeking). 

Now, characteristically Lenin does not  literally misrepresent Kautsky. But through his omissions one ends up missing the significance of Kautsky's definition of imperialism quoted above. Kautsky's underlying position is this: once post Cobden, industrialized/industrializing European societies embrace free trade and invest in their comparative advantage in industry and through technological innovations escape the Malthusian trap with growing populations (also, as Kautsky explicitly notes, through immigration from agrarian countries), they will start to need to import a growing number of agricultural goods. Under a regional federation or in pacific times, this state of affairs is splendid with all sides gaining from trade. 

But in the context of great power rivalry the effects of such a liberal free trade policy makes one vulnerable to food blockades or other ways in which the need for food imports can be weaponized. (The risks associated with the experience of the blockade of grain shipments from Ukraine's ports this year was all too common during the nineteenth century.) And so, what Lenin treats as Kautsky's definition of imperialism is de facto a description of the effects of free trade on industrialized wealthy states in an imperfect security environment (or a Hobbesian state of nature in international affairs). And so they will try to control agricultural zones in order (and I quote Kautsky's (1914) Ultra-Imperialism) "to force them to restrict themselves entirely to agricultural production."

As hinted above, what's important about Kautsky's approach to imperialism, is that it foregrounds how as liberalism's political fortunes rise -- as it manifestly did in the middle of the 18th century -- with a peak moment the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Treaty (an Anglo-French free trade agreement, including most favored nation clauses that facilitated more such agreements) -- it generates the seeds for imperialism, absent a wider political settlement. To the best of my knowledge only Kautsky noticed how liberalism's political success generates a dynamic that threatens to become self-undermining. (I don't mean to suggest the lesson wasn't later learned and applied!)

That is to say, domestic liberal economic policies require, once implemented, transnational political responses in order to be managed. And is clear from Lenin's description, Kautsky anticipates this point. I don't mean to suggest Kautsky is the first to notice the need for transnational liberal institutions -- Kant, Mazzini, and others had argued for it --, but rather Kautsky recognizes that such institutions will be needed to solve the political problems that are the effects of embracing free trade.

Here, too, Lenin's approach to Kautsky is literally true, but turns out to be misleading through his omissions. What's key to Kautsky's analysis is not the possibility of international cartels who manage trade in the way Deutsche Bank manages German industry, but rather (and now I quote Kautsky directly), "the result of the World War between the great imperialist powers may be a federation of the strongest, who renounce their arms race." (Recall also here my discussion of Luxemburg's criticism of Kautsky; and especially here where I discuss Kautsky's 1911 proposals). Such a federation would also turn the zero-sum political environment into a context in which the gains from trade would generate mutual prosperity and security. 

And in so far as international institutions like the IMF and World Bank act as 'cartels' for capital/finance, then these, too, serve the same interest. Either way, from a liberal perspective Kautsky points the way toward the future, and turns out to be quite prescient and even helps explain why the internal contradictions of capitalism have not been the ultimate undoing of liberalism, so far.*

 

 

Arendt and the Illusions of democracy

The success of totalitarian movements among the masses meant the end of two illusions of democratically ruled countries in general and of European nation-states and their party system in particular. The first was that the people in its majority had taken an active part in government and that each individual was in sympathy with one's own or somebody else's party. On the contrary, the movements showed that the politically neutral and indifferent masses could easily be the majority in a democratically ruled country, that therefore a democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognized by only a minority. The second democratic illusion exploded by the totalitarian movements was that these politically indifferent masses did not matter, that they were truly neutral and constituted no more than the inarticulate backward setting for the political life of the nation. Now they made apparent what no other organ of public opinion had ever been able to show, namely, that  democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country. Thus when the totalitarian movements invaded Parliament with their contempt for parliamentary government, they merely appeared inconsistent: actually, they succeeded in convincing the people at large that parliamentary majorities were spurious and did not necessarily correspond to the realities of the country, thereby undermining the self-respect and the confidence of governments which also believed in majority rule rather than in their constitutions.

It has frequently been pointed out that totalitarian movements use and abuse democratic freedoms in order to abolish them. This is not just devilish cleverness on the part of the leaders or childish stupidity on the part of the masses. Democratic freedoms may be based on the equality of all citizens before the law; yet they acquire their meaning and function organically only where the citizens belong to and are represented by groups or form a social and political hierarchy. The breakdown of the class system, the only social and political stratification of the European nation-states, certainly was "one of the most dramatic events in recent German history" and...favorable to the rise of Nazism....--Hannah Arendt (1951) The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3: Totalitarianism (Chapter 10: "A Classless Society"), New Edition, pp. 312-313. ]

I often return to the quoted passage. It's not unfair to say that quite a bit of existing normative and deliberative democratic theory (alongside much social theory) tacitly continues to adhere to the illusions diagnosed by Arendt. It's often treated as bad taste or, worse, a sign of one's reactionary sensibility to point this out. And if you don't believe me, recall all the good things that are supposed to flow -- as you probably also believe my dear reader -- from (say) the abolition of the electoral college once pure majoritarianism can work its magic.

While it is easy to be distracted by Arendt's argument for the functionality of social hierarchy to democratic political life, the key historical claim that she makes is that the ideology or commitments of governments (and the minority of rotating elites that can form one) are central to the survival of liberal democracy or parliamentarianism. And she implies that if (ruling) political elites had been less respectful of majoritarianism and more willing to defend constitutional government, the collapse of liberal democracy could have been prevented.

The point is not a historical (or moral one), but rather follows from her observation that [liberal] "democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognized by only a minority." That is to say, that as long as elites are willing to adhere to constitutional norms because these are part of their esprit des corps or shared ideology liberal democracy can survive. Lurking in Arendt's argument are the ideas of Pareto, Michels, Mosca, and Schumpeter. (She cites Michels a few pages before, and mentions Pareto in passing later.)*

Of course, the more fundamental point is that for there to be elites in the relevant sense, society needs to have the right sort of social hierarchy that maps onto political hierarchies as instantiated by political parties and social intermediaries. On her view liberal democracy is compatible with mass society -- notwithstanding Arendt's own recurring nostalgia for the ancient Polis -- as long as social differentiation can be made politically functional. 

I don't mean to deny that one could respond to Arendt's claim by arguing that if liberal democracy is to be secure one could also aim to convince the vast majority that it should adhere to constitutionalism. Surely civic religion -- with ceremonial pledges to constitutions not to monarchs/presidents/flags -- can be organized to promote this. And one may well believe that by serving the interests of the majority, constitutional elites can gain its approbation and support. I don't think Arendt would disagree as long as the elites don't assume that this is sufficient for constitutional survival (that's one of the exploded illusions).

It's pretty clear today that the enemies of liberal democracy are better students of earlier collapses of democracy than its defenders are. For in many countries they aim, while drawing on all kinds of conspiracy theories, to convince the people at large that parliamentary majorities are spurious and do not correspond to the realities of the country.  In fact, they relentlessly aim to show that all kinds of elites (medical, legal, political, academic, etc.) are 'out of touch' or 'in a bubble' or lacking in 'common sense.' (Recall also Michael Polanyi's diagnosis.) This is why the unwillingness to pay lip-service to abide by electoral outcomes, or to suggest that these are fictitious (based on fraud etc.), are themselves signs that one is unwilling to act according to the rules of democratic and constitutional life, but that one stakes one's political fortune on a truer reality.  

In larger context, Arendt is predicting that the spirit of totalitarianism is not defeated permanently in Europe because the grounds of its revival -- "isolation and lack of normal social relationships" (317) -- are not gone with the end of war. (One fears the pandemic may well be an accelerating cause.) In mass society the views of the fundamentally unpolitical majority are shaped by "all-pervasive influences and convictions which [are] tacitly and inarticulately shared by all classes of society alike." (314) And these convictions are even with a robust civic religion never fundamentally about constitutional life; they are about nation, religion, a cult of financial success, celebrity, etc. 

It may seem that Arendt rests her hopes on the prudence or interest of political elites in the status quo to fight off the would-be-usurpers. But as she notes, this cannot be expected when respectability and playing by the rules are treated as naïve (that is, when the gangster's practices becomes admired), and when constitutional order itself is taken to be the barrier to action and the true destiny of society. 

The Origins of Totalitarianism is not a manual for the survival of liberal democracy. In fact, as Arendt explicitly notes in the book there are, in addition to totalitarianism, more ways democracy can end (e.g., fascism, military dictatorships, plebiscitary dictatorship, etc.). But it's very hard not to read chapter 10 without coming away thinking that liberal democracy is doomed. Nearly all the examples she mentions of the anticipations of democratic decay in the arts and social culture can be updated to our age. And if one is familiar with Arendt's essays from the 1960s, one can't help but think this pessimism stayed with her. Yet, it's seventy years on, and European liberal democracy with its re-founded parties turned out to be much more robust in a mass age than Arendt seems to have thought possible. Why this is so --memory of the earlier collapse or a side-effect of cold war, American empire, years of prosperity, or a new kind of stratification (based on education) -- I do not know. Perhaps, social differentiation was made politically functional. But even in our post-post-modern age, dancing on the precipice of environmental catastrophe, it is worth figuring out.

 

The Culture Wars, the Contradictions of our Age, and the Liberalism of Reparations.

Once upon a time the United States of America was a de jure racist society. As was much of the world beyond its borders, controlled as it was by racist European empires. There was a broadly understood and explicitly codified and enforced racial organisation of who could live where, of how individuals could interact, of what sort of jobs were appropriate for whom, of how law and order would operate — or wouldn’t (Wells-Barnett 1895). The science (Morris 2015), sport (Rogosin 2007), and artistic culture of the day (Cooper 1892), were largely carried out in conformity with, if not support of, racist norms. Gross or subtle as it may have been in any given instance, the colour line ran through everything and one crossed it only at great personal peril (Du Bois 1904, 530).

But mountains crumble and rivers disappear, new roads replace the old, stones are buried and vanish in the earth. Time passes and the world changes. So it was that eventually this de jure racist system went the way of all things. The civil war overthrew the slave regime. Racial immigration laws were repealed. The civil rights act made various sorts of explicitly racist laws and practices impermissible. By the latter half of the 20th century it was clear an officially endorsed de jure racial caste system was no longer to hold sway in American life. Likewise abroad the great European empires fell, and in their place sprang up a plethora of nations governed by formerly colonised peoples. All things considered, the 20th century saw de jure racism suffer a world-historic defeat...

Whatever else changed, the people who have the stuff still tend to be white, and blacks must still sell our labour to them if we are to get by.

In this way American domestic politics mirrored the broader global trends of a post imperial world (Táíwò 2022a, ch.2). The European empires despoiled and depopulated nations (Davis 2002, Marschal 2017). What they left in their wake were often under-developed economies (Rodney 1972) and institutional structures ripe to be taken over by local elites who could simply continue the pattern of authoritarian wealth extraction (Fanon 1961, ch.3; Acemoglu & Robinson 2012). But the end of formal colonisation did not generally lead to reparations. For the most part agents based in the former colonial metropoles retained ownership of key resources and even infrastructure (Nkrumah 1965), and if anything inefficiencies in the credit market have led to a net capital flow from the former colonies to the former colonisers (Picketty 2015, 58). Neither domestically nor internationally did a change in cultural attitudes and legal permissions correlate with a change in racial patterns of ownership. As such, many of the material patterns of inequality from the bad old days of de jure racist regimes have survived the demise of their former ideological superstructure.

Returning to the US, these persistent material inequalities have consequences for occupational inequality....

And the political intelligentsia are still largely white, which has arguably affected the content and focus of their work (Mills 2017). This then is where history has placed us. The maddening ambiguity of our position is what leads to the titular white psychodrama. One cannot reconcile oneself to this society because it constantly pulls in two directions - it presents one with an ideological narrative that speaks of equality, and a material structure that witnesses rank inequality. At some level this society just does not make sense to itself, its own ideology out of whack with the plain facts of its own existence. There are those who are tempted to focus only on the positives, and see in this a story of triumphant progress towards racial justice or a post-racial future. And there are those who are inclined to see in it a story of eternal recurrence, racism ever reinventing itself. But both of these perspectives are too tidy to capture the phenomenon. For this story is of a world and a nation in contradiction with itself.

...How then do people respond to the facts relayed in this historical narrative, and what does it mean for their ability to reconcile themselves to their own social order?--Liam Kofi Bright (2022, forthcoming) "White Psychodrama" Journal of Political Philosophy. [Emphasis added]

Kofi Bright introduces his paper (with nods to Hegel and Rawls) with a methodological aspiration: "One might hope that [i] philosophy could reconcile ourselves to our social world and [ii] each other. To entertain this as plausible is to think [iii] there is some perspective one could reach via philosophical inquiry that [iv] shows our life and society to be as they are for good reason, [v] allowed us to see it all as in some sense rational." (Numbers added to facilitate discussion.) And while I have a growing self-awareness that many of these digressions are modest impressions on or an occasional, recalcitrant modest 'yes but' to Liam Kofi Bright's evolving oeuvre, I have never thought of philosophy as a means to [i-v]. Maybe I am too angry or vain to become identical with such a thought, but neither 'reconciliation' nor 'rationality' ever become applied to my conceptualization(s) of our lives and society. And this, alongside my close vicinity to (if not outright membership in) the "political intelligentsia," makes me suspect with growing dread that I may well be (one of the minor cogs that is) the subject matter of "White Psychodrama."

The methodological aspiration that introduces the paper is partially echoed in the question that closes the block quote at the top of this post (which is the culmination of a section titled, "A Narrative Of How We Got Here.") But there philosophy and 'us' are absent. So, lurking in Liam Kofi Bright's paper is a soft opposition, perhaps it's just a matter of degree, between the orientation characteristic of philosophy and that of the political intelligentsia. Both are thought to reconcile themselves to the world, but only in philosophy can we come to understand the world as rational. That is to say, lurking in Liam Kofi Bright's analysis is a traditional (familiar from Plato, Al-Farabi, Smith, Madison, Arendt, etc.) distinction between the opinions (or ideology) of the political intelligentsia and the episteme (or theodicy rationalizations) of the philosophers.

I don't mean to suggest that Liam Kofi Bright engages in the fallacy of the overlooked alternatives. He recognizes "there may not be such a perspective. Perhaps to see the world aright is to recognise it as a jumbled mess, with no progressive tendency towards greater coherence, and no satisfaction to be had in achieving superior insight. Perhaps there is no good end we are collaboratively working towards, no possible reconciliation with each other; maybe we are perpetually on the brink of descending once more into a Hobbesian nightmare." But what's important about this explicit recognition is that it suggests we're in a high stakes context: the inability to even conceptualise reconciliation is to be some way down a slippery slope toward murderous anarchy. Despite the British spelling, there is no option of mere muddling through (or exiting to a desert island) in his set up. Given that the explicit background is slavery, empire, and genocide, this may be fair enough.

Of course, the way the methodological aspiration is formulated might suggest a quietist attitude. But that would be misleading, Liam Kofi Bright also emphatically claims, "We ought then make the social world worthy of reconciliation." Let's call this the 'revolutionary impulse' in his argument. And, perhaps, my alertness to this impulse is my occasion to highlight the claim that the world and nation is in contradiction with itself. In material dialectics such a diagnosis of self-contradiction is, of course, the funnel toward certain kind of revolutionary action. As he puts it (echoing MLKjr's comments to Harry Belafonte, but unusually in a paper dense with references without citation,) "We cannot and ought not reconcile ourselves to a society wrapped up in its own contradictions, no more than we should seek to integrate into a burning house."

Now at this point one may well suspect that one is listening in on a conversation that may not include everyone as agents in the earlier 'we'. I don't think that's right, but it is worth quoting the full passage to see how easy one can misread the essay:

Here I am interested in how our peculiar socio-economic conditions shape the contours and possible points of resolution in the cultural debate around issues of race. It shall be seen that characteristic responses to our social order, which I shall describe through stylised character archetypes, make it impossible for any lasting reconciliation to be had for participants in the culture war. Instead our responses both generate and constitute a kind of racialised psychopathology, that I describe as white psychodrama. Given this analysis of the social order and its sources of psychic incoherence, I will suggest a way forward. My hope is that this will at least help people of colour caught in the midst of this work towards a world we can live in, and by seeing ourselves as so working reconcile ourselves to our actual present social activities. We cannot and ought not reconcile ourselves to a society wrapped up in its own contradictions, no more than we should seek to integrate into a burning house. But we can come to see ourselves as knowingly and self-consciously working to resolve those contradictions, quenching that fire, and laying the foundations for a better structure that we may all live comfortably therein.

One may well think that the intended audience of 'we' here, is "people of colour" or "the PoC intelligentsia." And, if one reads hastily, one may well wonder if all of this isn't just a call to burn it all down.

But I don't think it's the only audience or that the content of revolution here is destructive. After all, Kofi Bright is not advocating letting the fire consume the house, rather he is explicit in calling for the fire to be quenched. And that quenching and rebuilding is only possible, if I understand him correctly, after reparations.* 

Now, at this point -- knowing my bourgeois, liberal proclivities -- you may suspect I will denounce the revolutionary ardor of Kofi Bright. But I don't view reparations or compensation for injustices suffered as a illiberal, a category error, or a radical step too far. After all, (recall) the Federal Republic of Germany, then governed by (relatively conservative) Ordo-liberals explicitly recognized the ideal of reoperations as the start of a proper response to the genocidal atrocities of Nazism and to make living in a common home, however imperfectly, possible. From the liberal perspective, reparations are the ground zero for massive historical injustices in order to make non-zero-sum interactions available to all of us.+ 

As an aside, Rawlsianism and (even more) utilitarianism have a tendency to privilege forward-looking theorizing and to encourage a kind of forgetting of the past. (This is a feature not a bug in much liberal philosophy.) And this leads them to the familiar sophisms that block reparations in their analyses;  that the status quo provides the solid foundations for the future.

So, clearly there is a possible task for the white political intelligentsia lurking in Kofi Bright's analysis and rhetoric: that is, it is to reject the Repenter stance (who leaves structures alone and only focuses on individual racial improvements) as much as the Represser stance (who would like racial bygones to be bygones). Now, from a Marxist perspective this is an invitation to be a race traitor. (There is no doubt that successful revolutions require them.) And one may well suspect that there are many incentives that despite the effectiveness of Liam Kofi Bright's rhetoric prevent the move from Repenter/Represser to pro-reparations (and "to realise racially egalitarian group ideals.")

But to make integration in the same house possible is, as Lea Klarenbeek (building on Haslanger's ideas) has shown, a two-way process. This process is, thus, much easier when the pie that is to be divided is being enlarged (and so liberalism and markets get a toe-hold back in). How to do so without worsening the climate crisis is a real challenge technologically, economically, and politically. But the task of the bourgeois intelligentsia is not to be a source of diversion, but to articulate the real social problems and to amplify the solutions that experts and social movements devise which will strengthen the survival of democratic self-government and rule of law.

So, while I agree that my kind is primarily engaged in "a conflict over how to psychologically manage the results of living in a materially deeply unequal society," I view reparations as the right thing to do and a sine qua non reformist move to make such stress much better manageable. Material and political inequalities are, I suspect, part of the human condition, but partially repairing the past as a means to more solid foundations is in our power, even now. And if advocating reparations is treated as Repenter-on-steroids-syndrome, I accept the moniker. 

 

Hobson on The Referendum and Training in the Art of Government

The final and weightiest claim for the Referendum, as attested by Swiss experience, is the training in the art of government it gives to the people. It may indeed be questioned whether a people whose direct contribution to self-government consists in a single vote cast at intervals of several years, not for a policy or even for a measure, but for a party or a personality, can be or is capable of becoming a genuinely self-governing people. Some amount of regular responsibility for concrete acts of conduct is surely as essential to the education of a self-reliant people as of a self-reliant individual. To the intelligent Swiss democrat it never occurs to base his democracy upon a doctrine of infallibility of the people. The people, he is aware, make mistakes; the Referendum offers more opportunity to make mistakes, and therefore to learn from their mistakes than is furnished under purely representative government. But he holds that the obligation imposed on each citizen to take a direct part in the making of the laws he is called upon to obey is essential to the reality of popular self-government.--John A. Hobson (1909) "The Swiss Referendum" in The Crisis of Liberalism: New Issues of Democracy, pp. 69-70

Since David Hume (here), there is a persistent strain of liberal thought, that looks to Switzerland as a source of inspirational on constitutional matters. And while some authors (like Hume) will emphasize its federalism (or its militia), later authors will also emphasize its history of regular so-called corrective referenda since 1830.

In fact, while neo-liberals of the middle of the twentieth century are often not exactly known for their fondness for democracy and one-man-one-vote, they often celebrate the federated Suisse and their democracy. In fact, Röpke (who lived there in exile for a while), sometimes even modelled his defense of the process of market economies on the positive valence of referenda: "The process of the market economy is like an uninterrupted referendum on what use should be made (at every minute) of the productive resources of the community."* Even Hayek, who allows himself plenty of skeptical comments about democracy, thought that judicial review of the sort practiced Stateside ought to be complemented by a referendum (see The Constitution of Liberty, p. 286).**

Before the neoliberals of the second half of the twentieth century there were the 'New Liberals' of the early half.  Of these Hobhouse and Hobson (1858-1940) were the most famous. And while it is quite possible to emphasize the differences between the left-leaning New Liberals (Mises called them 'moderate socialists') and the later (more right leaning) neo-liberals, it would also be a mistake not to notice some of their important similarities. (There is also a historical fact that the New Liberals shaped, as I first learned from Stefan Kolev and Ekkehard A. Köhler (recall), Herkner and Oppenheimer, the social liberal teachers of the Ordoliberals.) In fact, Hobson's emphasis on the significance of equality of opportunity (which is articulated in a companion piece in The Crisis of Liberalism) is itself an enduring contribution to liberal thought.

Okay, let's turn to Hobson's fondness for the Swiss, corrective referendum. Hobson's argument for the utility of a referendum is rooted in his concerns over rent-seeking practices of concentrated interests facilitated by parliamentary democracy. (I wouldn't be surprised to learn if Mancur Olson had studied Hobson!) This concern, which is key to the ORDOs analysis of monopoly and democracy, is central to Hobson's really famous analysis of late nineteenth century imperialism, and it also shows up in his The Crisis of Liberalism, including the chapter on the utility of the corrective/veto referendum. This chapter is a companion to an essay, "Lords or Referendum," which proposes the reform of the House of Lords alongside a corrective referendum (to be initiated by the reformed upper house as a check on parliament). I quote from both in this post.

In fact, Hobson makes two very important points. First, what makes rent-seeking by the rich and powerful so easy in a modern parliamentary system is that "the real control of our legislation is in the hands, not of the body of elected representatives, but in those of a small Cabinet." (47) The party-whip alongside the effective control of the party by the cabinet makes it easy to lobby for rents through only a few insiders. While in his (1902) Imperialism Hobson emphasizes financial corruption, in these essays Hobson emphasizes that rent-seeking is facilitated by the fact that the Cabinet is recruited "mainly out of of a little aristo-plutocracy with a leaven of successful lawyers" (and supported by a "powerful bureaucracy whose class sympathies" are narrow). This anticipates Schumpeter's account of rent-seeking.

Second, interest groups are often created by government policy and can create the conditions under which parliamentary democracy is undermined:

Wherever powerful business interests are founded upon or supported by legal privileges in the shape of charters, tariffs, or other concessions, wherever lucrative offices are available for party spoils, wherever public expenditure can be made a source of private profit through contracts, loans, and subsidies, this skilled manipulation of the representative system will continue. (Hobson, "The Swiss Referendum, p. 51)

Now, it's important to recognize that Hobson's argument for a corrective referendum is not that it is infallible. He recognizes that it may well allow for the expression of, say, anti-Semitism in the "famous anti-Jewish Slaughter House Law" or "to the unimaginative parsimony of the peasant and the petty bourgeois. (63) 

Rather, he views -- and there is an anticipation of Dewey here -- the habitual exercise of a corrective referendum as an education in becoming a self-governing people. The corrective referendum doesn't just school people in the issues of the day, it also provides a form of feedback loop between voting on the issues and responsibility. Getting things wrong is not without public or social consequence. And because referenda are more focused (and more regular) than parliamentary elections the relationship between the exercise of the vote and outcome is more direct and so more informative.

And so while most contributions to the liberal art of government focus on rulers and their intellectual advisors, Hobson thinks the corrective referendum has the capacity to school 'the people.' And so a referendum is a mechanism to bridge the gap or tension between liberalism and democracy. As my colleague, the political sociologist, Tom van der Meer has argued where they are used frequently, referenda correlate with higher political trust.

All friends of liberalism (left and right) can point to referenda with perverse outcomes. Even in places where the referendum is used regularly and with sober pre-conditions, it may misfire spectacularly. But in an age in which the dangers of the concentrated power of elected presidents (and prime-ministers) and unelected judges and bureaucrats are quite apparent to many, and friends of liberty are often pushed into despair or techno-utopia, it is a mistake to forego the use of one of democracy's most democratic institutions as a countervailing power to the others. In a system of checks-and-balances a corrective referendum would provide a democratic veto in an existing context of extremely imperfect democracy! So, two cheers to the corrective referendum. 

On Ivor Jennings, Hayek, A Federation for Western Europe

It is a great pity that the flood of federalist publications which in recent years has descended upon us has deprived the few important and thoughtful works among them of the attention they deserved. One which in particular ought to be carefully consulted when the time comes for the framing of a new political structure of Europe is Dr. W Ivor Jennings's small book on A Federation for Western Europe (1940).--Hayek (1944 [2001] The Road to Serfdom, p. 239.

Despite Hayek's signal boost Jennings's small book has languished in relative obscurity. This despite the fact that scholars are aware that Jennings (1903 -1965) was a member of the Federal Union Research Institute which included Beveridge, Brailsford, Hayek, Jennings, Robbins, Wilson and Wootton, who worked together on proposals for a European union after the war.* Jennings himself was a constitutional lawyer, and educational administrator (also in the colonies).

Hayek's interest in the book has also not received much attention despite the huge interest in Hayek's ideas on European federalism during the last decade. This is prima facie surprising because as Edwin van der Haar (2009) notes, "it is somewhat puzzling that Hayek also recommended the ideas of the socialist Ivor Jennings." (Classical Liberalism and International Relations Theory: Hume, Smith, Mises, and Hayek, p. 108) It is not obvious Jennings is a socialist when you read Jennings' A Federation, and Van der Haar does not provide any evidence for the claim.

However we can state Van der Haar's puzzle in a modestly revised form. In the proposal, Jennings claims that "the constitutional scheme in this book is not suggested as a mans for protecting capitalism or hindering socialism. Nor, on the other hand, it is suggested as a means for attaining socialism." (A Federation Cambridge University Press [1940 (2016)], p. 122). (In my view Jennings here echoes Lionel Robbins' approach to European federalism; and Robbins was not a socialist.) So, the fact that it does not decisively block socialism may well be raise questions about Hayek's endorsement. For, Hayek's account of European federalism is almost uniformly presented as a means to prevent socialism.**

In addition, Jennings foresees the "extension of trade unionism" in the federation. (P. 130) And he echoes Lippmann in claiming that the age of "strict laissez faire" has "long passed." (p. 131) He believe that the choice for or against socialism should be left to democracy because a "constitution which does not enable the people to try experiments which it wants to try is a faulty instrument." (p. 132) It it is worth noting that Hayek himself is explicitly seeing federalism in democratic terms (again, in general commentators tend to notice Hayek's skepticism about democracy, although I think that because of his association with Pinochet this is not wholly unfair). Here's what he says in the passage surrounding the note to Jennings (I left the footnote mark in):

The form of international government under which certain strictly defined powers are transferred to an international authority, while in all other respects the individual countries remain responsible for their internal affairs, is, of course, that of federation. We must not allow the numerous ill-considered and often extremely silly claims made on behalf of a federal organisation of the whole world during the height of the propaganda for "Federal Union" to obscure the fact that the principle of federation is the only form of association of different peoples which will create an international order without putting an undue strain on their legitimate desire for independence.1 Federalism is, of course, nothing but the application to international affairs of democracy, the only method of peaceful change man has yet invented. But it is a democracy with definitely limited powers.--Hayek (1944 [2001] The Road to Serfdom, p. 239.

I think it's little remarked that Hayek identifies federalism with democracy, and that he stresses it's peaceful nature. This echoes Jennings because for Jennings it is a sine qua non that the members of the federation are democratic and that its institutions are democratic (pp. 17 & 94-100).

Democratic critics of Hayek unsurprisingly seize on the equally clear emphasis of limiting the powers of democracy. Although I think in particular context it is clear that by the limitation on democracy Hayek does not mean a rejection of one-man-one-vote (although he is not especially perturbed by the lack of vote for women as, say, Mill and Hobhouse were), but rather rejection of popular sovereignty such that it could override the principle based rule of law/Rechtstaat that Hayek promotes. As Foucault notes, the rule of law and collective planning, which allows a high degree of arbitrary government control, are explicit antonyms in Hayek (and defined in light of each other in The Road to Serfdom). I return to this below.

Now, Jennings is eager to leave the federal states as much leeway as possible to pursue their own policies (this also echoes Robbins). But he also seems to think, if I understand him correctly, that the kind of judicial extension of a commerce clause familiar from the US where nearly everything comes under federal purview is eventually unavoidable in Europe, too(p. 141). 

I don't mean to suggest there is nothing to like for Hayek in Jennings' proposal. For it is by no means easy to bring about a socialist revolution in the multi-layered democracy Jennings foresees. For, Jennings clearly envisions a transition to free trade in about ten years (p. 119). And he is very much thinking about this along the functional lines set out by Cobden (and (recall) anticipated in Molesworth), that is, the "generalisation of "most favored-nation" clause...common in commercial treaties." (p. 117). And Jennings is very alert to the fact that there are many means for concealed protection by states, and he provides the federal entity with powers to prevent it (pp. 126-128), including a road map to stable currencies and a common currency (pp. 127-128).

But Jennings' vision of federal free trade is constrained by the need to regulate, "health, morals [!], safety, and general welfare of the citizens." (p. 120)+ Jennings calls these constraints the 'police power' a term he claims then used Stateside. (Readers of Foucault and Adam Smith are familiar with this terminology, which is not uncommon in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, especially before the rise of professional police forces.) I suspect Jennings is here also alluding to the US tenth amendment, but in a substantive (and not pro forma) way.

Before I wrap up, I should explicitly note that Jennings is not committed to a slow functional integration of Europe. Rather, Jennings' vision of federalism is organized around the need to avoid future wars in Europe and caused by European rivalry: "not only should we prevent wars in Europe, but also we should prevent European rivalry from leading to wars elsewhere." (p.6; see also p. 104 where the central importance is reiterated.) And so the lynchpin of Jennings' proposal is a willingness of European states to give up independent armies and even local police forces to the Federation (pp. 101-104).++

Above I emphasized Jennings' commitment to democracy. But as he notes with disarming frankness, "necessarily a federation is a "lawyer's paradise". Disputes arise not only under the law about the law." (92) And while Jennings' builds in many precautions to avoid what we would judicial activism or the politicization of constitutional jurisprudence and judge selection, he also recognizes that this cannot be prevented altogether in a federal structure. As he puts it, "Rule or government by law cannot be placed on a firm foundation unless all disputes are determined by judicial decisions." (144 [emphasis added]) And so, in his plan, the democratic institutions are protected and shaped by a relative restrained jurisprudence that (with the exception of preserving democratic institutions) focuses primarily not on outcomes but on legal form. And so Hayek's fondness for Jennings anticipates (see chapters 3-4 of Quinn Slobodian's Globalists) the ordoliberal ideals for international law.

 

 

 

Analytic Political Philosophy Before Rawls with special attention to Morris, Naess, and Oppenheim

This post originates in my interest in finding critical engagements with Leo Strauss within analytic philosophy in the post-WWII era (triggered by (recall here; here; here) an invite by Sander Verhaegh). There is remarkably little of it preserved in historical memory, in part because there seems to be remarkably little of it within analytic political theory, it seems, in Strauss' life-time (I emphasize this because later there is plenty), despite Strauss' significance in political theory of the age and despite my growing up with recurring diss of Strauss (and Straussianism). This is all a bit puzzling in one sense because part of Strauss' fame rested on his thesis of persecution generating esotericism, and since Reisch' magisterial work, How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science To the Icy Slopes of Logic, we know that such persecution was experienced by many in the founding generations of analytic philosophy. So, one might have expected some mutual affinity. One hypothesis would be there simply was no analytic political philosophy in the period so there was no felt need to polemize against Strauss (and Straussianism), or to absorb it.*

Thus, the topic intersects with my continuing reflection (recall here; here; here; here; and here) on Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice, which convincingly shows that Rawls' Theory of Justice creates a kind of light-cone which does not allow us to discern events behind it. She uses archive material and the responses by those whose views were already formed before Rawls to help guide us on Rawls and his reception. Another way to begin to do so is to read reviews and surveys of works blissfully unaware that a Rawlsian tidal wave is about to hit them. 

In 1965 Karl W. Deutsch and Leroy N. Rieselbach published a kind of state of the field, review article, "Recent trends in political theory and political philosophy," in a supplement of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 360.1 (1965): 139-162. I don't know anything about Rieselbach (sorry), but Deutsch is a fascinating character, who is worth reading. Their survey suggests that in the mid 1960s the field of political theory/philosophy is incredibly eclectic and more heterogeneous than it is today. But in this Digression I want to use their review as a means to point us to the existence of pre-Rawlsian analytic political philosophy. 

Before I get to that, I should mention Jo Wolff's (2013) chapter "Analytic Political Philosophy," in a OUP volume on the History of Analytic Philosophy, edited by Michael Beaney. His strategy to get around the Rawls light cone problem I mentioned above, is two-fold: first, he goes through the series Philosophy, Politics and Society, which started to appear in 1956 (then edited by Peter Laslett). This is a clever choice because this series, which (mostly?) republished existing papers was de facto canonizing then recent work. (There is a peculiarity here that I will quietly skip in that Laslett himself was more of a historian.) This is especially evident if you look at the table of contents of the second series edited by Laslett and Runciman.

Second, and in a way it's the same as the first, Wolff uses as a method or criteria of inclusion of a work in analytic political philosophy that they become "part of a tradition of academic political philosophy." This is why Wolff ends up mentioning Popper, but not discussing his views.

My deviation from Wolff's approach is motivated by the fact that his gives slightly too much weight to the contemporary status quo (and our ancestors). And because I take so-called Kuhn losses rather seriously, and also because of non-trivial linguistic isolation (or linguistic imperialism) of much of the tradition, I am slightly more  permissive than him in that I wish to find work using methods of, say, ordinary language philosophy or those popularized by logical empiricism (etc.) even if ignored by the tradition.

Of course, since on my view it is constitutive of analytic philosophy that it sponge-like assimilates new techniques from other fields, there is a lot to be said for Wolff's approach. In fact, he observes that Rawls himself is an exemplary analytic philosopher in this greedy respect. But in virtue of this spong-like character, Wolff's stance generates historiographic challenges. For example, when it appeared The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944) by von Neumann and Morgenstern, certainly did not belong to analytic philosophy. But you might be tempted to argue, as it was developed within political theory (Schelling, Riker, etc.) that game-theory also became assimilated by the analytic tradition after (say) Gauthier. By Wolff's standard we might well then at some point see von Neumann and Morgenstern's work as a key moment in pre-Rawlsian analytic political philosophy. Perhaps, my friend Ryan Muldoon might even be tempted to claim that! (Something like this has started to happen to Hayek as I discovered to my surprise.)

Anyway, Wolff's chapter is lovely. If for example, you want to know more about T.D. Weldon, who I mentioned in my digression last week on Riker's review of Buchanan and Tullock (because he was mentioned by Riker), you should check it out. But because of its reliance on the Philosophy, Politics and Society series, Wolff's chapter does have a modest bias to the English language even British philosophy. (The first series was explicitly insular in geographic/linguistic orientation.) And that can be seen if we read the survey by Deutsch and Rieselbach.

Analytic philosophy barely registers in their account. But the section on the "impact of communication studies," [sic!]closes with the following two paragraphs:

Insofar as the analysis of communications involves the analysis of messages, it leads to a concern with semantics. Insofar as it involves the analysis of communication channels and networks, it soon enters common ground with the theory of organizations. Logical analysis may be relevant for either of these two concerns, for logical analysis clarifies the content and meaning of messages and theories, and logical conjunctions and disjunctions-the "ands" or "ors" of logical discourse-often may correspond to the switching points or points of decision in communication networks or organizations.

Semantics has been developed in ways relevant to political theory and to the analysis of values by Charles Morris, Arne Naess, Charles E. Osgood, and in the semantic portions of the political writings of Anatol Rapoport. Symbolic logic has been used as a tool of political analysis by Robert Dahl in his A Preface to Democratic Theory and more recently by Felix E. Oppenheim in his Dimensions of Freedom. (153-154)

Sadly Weldon is absent, perhaps because he died in 1958.+  The two accompanying footnotes list the following works:

Charles Morris, Signification and Significance: A Study of the Relations of Signs and Values (Cambridge, Mass.: M I.T. Press, 1964) and his influential earlier work, Varieties of Human Value (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956); Arne Naess, Democracy, Ideology and Objectivity: Studies in the Semantics and Cognitive Analysis of Ideological Conflict (Oslo and Oxford: Oslo University Press and Basil Blackwell, 1956); Charles E. Osgood, G. J. Suci, and P. H. Tannenbaum, The Measurement of Meaning (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957); Anatol Rapoport, Fights, Games and Debates (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960), Part III, "The Ethics of Debate," pp. 245-358; and Strategy and Conscience (New York: Harper, 1964), Part III: "The Two
Worlds," pp. 199-288. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956); Felix E. Oppenheim, Dimensions of Freedom (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1961).

Not all of these works would be thought analytic philosophy today.** Of these there are really only three candidates for inclusion: Morris, Naess, and Oppenheim. Charles Morris was really one of the key figures in the scientific wing of pragmatism which welcomed the European exiles who helped bring analytic philosophy to the United States through the unity of science movement. (Today Morris has been disowned by pragmatists and analytic philosophers alike.) I don't know anything about Signification and Significance, but his Varieties of Human Value is explicitly situated in the unity of science program, albeit more towards the empirical end and without (alas) much attention to political theory or politics.

I don't think many people today associate Naess with analytic philosophy given his towering influence on deep ecology (and even a subtle branch of Spinozism), but if you would open up his (1936) Erkenntnis und wissenschaftliches Verhalte you would feel like you had entered a Borgesian world. It's clearly analytic philosophy, but at the same time uncannily unfamiliar because (to bow to Wolff's criterion) it has had no discernable impact on the tradition. (I bet there is a similar aesthetic experience to be had if you read some of the untranslated folk from the Lvov-Warsaw School, and you can read Polish.) 

Naess's book, Democracy, Ideology and Objectivity has rightly been rediscovered (I hope) by XPHI folk (a sub-branch of analytic philosophy, but not especially salient in political philosophy alas, I think, but definitely salient to ethics). It is one of the funkiest books ever with a weird mix of history of ideas and new kinds of snowballing survey techniques to elicit views on the context relative views (of experts) on the meaning(s) of democracy and ideology. (That sentence does no justice to it.) While it seems entirely off the wall to call this 'analytical', it's worth nothing it is pretty contemporary with (recall) Donald Davidson's & Patrick Suppes' and Sidney Siegel' (1957) Decision Making. An Experimental Approach. The early 1950s are really an age of philosophers jumping into doing empirical social science alongside conceptual work. And from that vantage point, Morris actually looks like very much of his age.

Oppenheim's book is really very much how one would imagine a behaviorist, logical positivist analysis (including lots of capital Xs and ordinary y's.) It aims to offer an analysis even explication of 'freedom' such that the concept can be used in, or operationalized for, empirical social science (while still being fairly close to ordinary usage). It also has a normative aim: to make wise discussions about freedom possible. I don't think it had much uptake in either end.

Oppenheim "taught at the University of Delaware (1946–57), was a visiting faculty member in Philosophy at Yale University (1951–52), Research Associate in Philosophy at Stanford University (1954–55), Visiting Lecturer in Politics at Princeton University (1960), faculty member at the New School for Social Research (1960–61), Visiting Professor of Political Science at Amherst College (1963–64), Visiting Professor at Instituto di Scienze Politiche of the University of Turin (1965), Visiting Professor of Government at Columbia University (1967), Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford (1970), and Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst from 1961 until his retirement in 1983." So, in his day he was clearly not obscure. 

While I think Oppenheim's 1944 "Logical Analsis of Law" is the more fruitful original work, Oppenheim's book deserves a more detailed, second look. But I mention all of this here because with Oppenheim I have found an early, analytic critic of Strauss (aside from Ernest Nagel). The criticism is developed in two journal articles from 1955 and 1957. To be continued...

 

 

Hayek, Colonialism, Kantian Perpetual Peace, and a bit of Foucault

It is true that with the formation of such regional federations the possibility of war between the different blocs still remains, and that to reduce this risk as much as possible we must rely on a larger and looser association. My point is that the need for some association of those countries which are more similar in their civilisation, outlook, and standards. While we must aim at preventing future wars as much as possible, we must not believe that we can at one stroke create a permanent organisation which will make all war in any part of the world entirely impossible. We should not only not succeed in such an attempt, but we should thereby probably spoil our chances of achieving success in a more limited sphere. As is true with respect to other great evils, the measures by which war might be made altogether impossible for the future may well be worse than even war itself If we can reduce the risk of friction likely to lead to war, this is probably all we can reasonably hope to achieve.--Hayek (1944 [2001] The Road to Serfdom (Routledge), pp. 243-244

The quoted material are the final paragraph of the final chapter of The Road to Serfdom before Hayek's brief conclusion. It helps explain why, for example, in his account of neoliberalism in The Birth of Biopolitics, Foucault spends so much time on the history of European federalism with special attention  to Kant (recall here; here).

That certain kinds of regional federations can reduce the risk of war among member states and even between federations is a Kantian idea familiar from Perpetual Peace--a book Hayek quotes in (the later) The Constitution of Liberty (but surely familiar from the many allusions and references to it in Mises work). The Kantianism, with its emphasis on gradual growth of commercial republics, is even more explicit in the sentences preceding this final paragraph quoted above:

I believe that these considerations still hold and that a degree of co-operation could be achieved between, say, the British Empire and the nations of Western Europe and probably the United States which would not be possible on a world scale. The comparatively close association which a Federal Union represents will not at first be practicable beyond perhaps even as narrow a region as part of Western Europe, though it may be possible gradually to extend it. (p. 243)

I do not mean to suggest the sources are exclusively Kantian. Lurking in these comments are also the Smithian ideal of a transatlantic federation articulated in the Wealth of Nations, and an ideal revived in the context of (and now I quote Hayek again) "the propaganda for the "Federal Union"" (p. 239) which produced "the flood of federalist publications which in recent years has descended on us" (p. 239 n 1). For an overview of what Hayek may have in mind (and a lot more), I warmly recommend (recall; and here) The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order in Britain and The United States by Or Rosenboim. (I return to this below.)

The Kantianism is not superficial in The Road to Serfdom. There is a huge emphasis on the significance of a Rechtstaat (see, especially, chapter 6) and its Kantian provenance recognized (see p. 85). And, in fact, politically, Hayek defends in The Road to Serfdom what Kant would have called a 'commercial republic.' It is no surprise, then, that in the Birth of Biopolitics, Foucault traces a lineage from Kant to the ordoliberals and Hayek. (The only awkwardness is that Foucault, while not blind to the Scottish sources on Kant, also treats Kant, not unreasonably, as inspired by Rousseau, whereas Hayek has a tendency to treat Rousseau as the source of bad/French rationalism.)

There is also a hint of Mill in these passages because Hayek seems to be presupposing a kind of civilization evolution or development ("more similar in their civilisation, outlook, and standards.") He clearly thinks it would be bad to have a federation that included the Soviet Union, and perhaps much of the former Austrian-Hungarian empire (not all of it foreseeably in the Soviet sphere in 1944). The question is to what degree this also includes Mill's ideas about civilizational superiority.

Now, because of the inclusion of the "British Empire" it is natural to read Hayek  here in light of the his then recent, and recently much discussed, Hayek (1939) "The Economic Conditions of Interstate Federalism." In that essay, Hayek explicitly wishes to keep out socialist countries from the more Atlantic oriented federation. In addition (recall), I have argued that in it (the 1939 essay), Hayek's remarks are naturally read as endorsing continued colonial rule by the federation. So, it is natural to read The Road to Serfdom as echoing this position. And through the founding of the EU, many projects of European federation explicitly or tacitly assumed continued European rule over its colonies (and market access to its dominions).

But there is clear evidence that on the question of colonialism and even (although more ambigiously) racial hierarchy, Hayek's views did evolve non-trivially. This becomes clear in light of two (successive) footnotes earlier in the chapter. I quote and discuss them separately. Both notes are meant to support and illustrate an argument against global planning lead by (an enlightened) Great Britain. There is no doubt that Hayek's main target is global planning (and other forms of 'collectivism'). The first note reads as follows:

The experience in the colonial sphere, of this country as much as of any other, has amply shown that even the mild forms of planning which we know as colonial development involve, whether we wish it or not, the imposition of certain values and ideals on those whom we try to assist. It is, indeed, this experience which has made even the most internationally minded of colonial experts so very sceptical of the practicability of an "international" administration of colonies. (pp. 229-230)

Hayek acknowledges at least two important claims: first, even if a good faith effort is made to assist and develop colonized economies, this is experienced as an "imposition of certain values and ideals on" the colonized by the colonized. Of course, in practice there also was wholescale plunder and unequal privileges. Mises, is (recall) much more outspokenly critical of colonialism. Mises is, not unlike Smith, a fierce critic of the violent extension of liberal society. And Mises has no fondness at all for the idea for the civilizational mission of European colonialism and imperial projects. I mention Mises' (1927) Liberalism 124-125, with its really outspoken critique of colonialism because Mises ends up defending (alas) some kind of role for the league of nations to secure property rights in former colonies (by way of a mandate system).

And, so second, it looks like Hayek now accepts the sceptical position of the practicability of an "international" administration of colonies of the sort that Mises might have favored in a qualified way. So, Hayek goes beyond the position of Mises. And that's not strange because Hayek is a critic of the League of Nations and its expansive ambitions; that is, in fact, the main message of the second to final page of the chapter (p. 243) In 1944 Hayek clearly rejects something like a mandate/trust system. And so, this note both explicitly rejects the settler, colonial enterprise and the trust/mandate enterprise. (I don't mean to suggest that Hayek advocates removal of settlers from places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.)

The placing of the note also suggests that Hayek thought that colonialism is as bad as what Nazi-Germany tried to impose with their "highly immoral" Grossraumwirtschaft on their European sphere of influence (229). And since that is in line of the main argument of the book, Hayek's note actually hints at an implication of the argument that is not a mere aside. If anything, while Hayek's rhetoric is certainly very cautious about the future of the British empire, I think it's pretty clear he now thinks it's immoral and probably doomed.

In fact, the second note is attached to a claim to an argument that is intended to attack the idea that "idealistic and unselfish" (230) planning by the British on a global scale is a desirable possibility. This note reads as follows:

If anyone should still fail to see the difficulties, or cherish the belief that with a little good will they can all be overcome, it will help if he tries to follow the implications of central direction of economic activity applied on a world scale. Can there be much doubt that this would mean a more or less conscious endeavour to secure the dominance of the white man, and would rightly be so regarded by all other races? Till I find a sane person who seriously believes that the European races will voluntarily submit to their standard of life and rate of progress being determined by a World Parliament, I cannot regard such plans as anything but absurd. But this does unfortunately not preclude that particular measures, which could be justified only if the principle of world direction were a feasible ideal, are seriously advocated. (p. 230)

Hayek clearly recognizes that most attempts to impose an Enlightened plan on others are in bad faith (primarily designed to secure advantages to European industry), and will certainly be regarded as such by the colonized world. 

I don't mean to ignore the fact that Hayek casts his argument here in racial terms such that the majority principle (and non-Europeans will outnumber Europeans), which might well disadvantage Europeans, is rejected on a global scale not just from obvious self-interest, but also from a kind of racial consciousness. I think Hayek's intention here is to call attention to such racial and racist consciousness among European populations not to advocate for it (although I completely grant that others may reject this.)

And so while one may well suspect that Hayek's rejection of a world state with planning powers has racist motives or is at least shaped by awareness of the significance of racist views,  the actual position in the footnote, and the previous one, is inimical to colonialism and imperialism that goes well beyond his earlier view. 

And, if anything, this understates Hayek's position. The broader context of the chapter is a defense of the viability and significance of "small countries" (his favorite examples are Holland and Switzerland). He is explicit that "we shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in." (242) These two notes suggest that he is at peace with the possibility of a decolonized world of small states.

I do not mean to suggest that Hayek wishes to promote a decolonialization without constraints. For, he foresees a global order shaped by the rule of law as the Western states understand it. In Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Quinn Slobodian has shown how Hayek and Mises, and the ordoliberals, embraced the idea of a global legal order to defend markets (recall here; here). That's clearly right. But I think this understates how the market order is itself a bulwark to preserve the rechtstaat (and human rights) for these neoliberals. Either way, and in in fact, lurking in this material is the ideal of a pax Americana, for Hayek writes "the great opportunity we shall have at the end of this war is that the great victorious powers, by themselves first submitting to a system of rules which they have the power to enforce, may at the same time acquire the moral right to impose the same rules upon others." (242, emphasis added) 

Hayek does not spell out if this moral right then implies, say, Hume's position who (I  think) clearly advocates the violent extension of the rule of law (as a civilizational enterprise), or if this moral right should be understood more as a duty that cannot be denied once the victors of the war are called upon by their present imperial subjects to secure the fruits of law's empire into their independent future. Either way, Hayek's turn away from colonial empire is not a turn away from civilizational, that is, law-governed, supremacy.

 

 

Hayek's concealed conflict argument (and Foucault), and a bunch of other pro-market arguments

I have been reading more widely in Hayek, and also re-reading stuff I thought I was familiar with (in light of some of Foucault's stuff).. And I want to write about one of his arguments for markets -- I call it the 'concealed conflict argument' below --, and then I realized that it might be helpful to distinguish among his pro-market arguments. So, first I'll list seven of his arguments that one can encounter fairly frequently in his work. I won't scrutinize or evaluate these arguments. I hope to say just enough about them that even novice readers of Hayek have a sense of what I am talking about, and that those familiar with his work have a 'aha' moment. The list is not ranked in importance, and probably not exhaustive. In Hayek, the arguments tend to be contrastive with attempts at top-down planning or what he calls 'collectivism' (so this includes straight up Marxism, market socialism, and Keynesian kinds of planning).

A few more things before I start. Below the arguments are presented as kind of ideal types with a lot of implicit Ceteris paribus conditions; and I won't actually try to spell out or reconstruct Hayek's position as arguments. If that annoys you, you can read them not as 'arguments' but as 'commitments.'  In addition, in many cases the argument actually presupposes well functioning state institutions (connected to law and patents), and Hayek is actually surprisingly explicit about the limitations of each of the arguments (so don't treat my versions as his!) And, in practice, the arguments may be blended. Okay, here goes:

1. The efficiency argument. (See, chapter 7, of The Road to Serfdom, p. 102 in the 1944 edition reprinted by Routledge.) I am always a bit surprised to find this argument in Hayek because I tend to think it fits uneasily with his Austrian commitments. And it's not an argument he rolls out much. But it's pretty clear that he thinks that over time markets are more efficient than various alternatives, especially in the context of multiplicity of ends. This is also an argument attributed to defenders of markets by their critics and not infrequently conceded by the critics.
2. The (epistemic) Engine of discovery argument (recall). This is one of my favorites. And I love the version in his Hayek (1945) The Use of Knowledge in Society The American Economic Review. A well functioning "price system" is a "mechanism for communicating information." (527) In particular, the information is (i) dispersed, and (ii) often hidden from other market participants and spectators (in some versions even the agents principally concerned), (iii) and it may be costly to elicit it. And lurking in here is (iv) the idea that prices are effects of what may be the totality of salient-to-human-causes that relieve any agent from the need to keep track of all these causes, or at least their relative significance. I don't want to overstate what can be discovered according to Hayek because on his official view, prices also collapse a rich modal structure of possible causes ("anything that happens anywhere in the world that might not have an effect") into relatively coarse-grained dimensions. (And, in fact, today's post is also about the information that is occluded by the market.) Anyway, this argument is often presupposed in his other arguments, and some version of it got Hayek the Nobel.
3. The catallactic argument. (I think I first encountered the argument in The Fatal Conceit, but the most elaborate, clear version is probably in chapter ten of volume 2, The Mirage of Social Justice, of his trilogy Law, Legislation and Liberty.) Hayek tends to credit Whately with originating it, and it was especially influential on (recall) James Buchanan (and the Virginia school of public choice). It's the argument that in markets there is voluntary and pacific exchange. (I actually think the spirit of the argument is very Lockean.) And, in particular, that it allows enemies to be friends of a certain kind. (I don't know if Hayek ever mentions Schmitt in this context, but it's pretty clear that it is also part of a battery of different arguments directed against Schmitt one can find in Hayek.) The argument does not require that consumers are sovereign, but it does presuppose that within really competitive markets, agents can shape their own ends without being coerced to some degree. 
4. The coordination argument. (This argument and the following three can also be found in chapter ten of volume 2, The Mirage of Social Justice.) Competitive Markets are mechanism to coordinate the plans of people with very different, even conflicting ends especially in the context of division of labor and large population sizes. Prices act as signals or indicators that facilitate, even guide the coordination. 
5. The (cost-effective) want satisfaction argument. In markets strangers may discover that it's profitable for them to satisfy the needs of people they may never meet in person. 
6. The non-zero-sum argument. The idea that over time, dynamically markets create more wealth for everyone than counterfactually any other system of organization. Despite the fact that at a given time there may be winners and losers in the market-place, and that some people's expectations are necessarily disappointed, over time the pie gets enlarged (such that people who arrive later can benefit from progress) and all benefit.
7. The adaptation argument. Relative changes in supply and demand feed into price changes rather quickly. This means that markets allow one to start adjusting to changing circumstances rather quickly. Market societies are then rather capable of dealing with 'shocks' or sudden changes in external circumstances.

Okay, with those in place I want to get to the trigger of today's post. For, I want to show that in Hayek, there is also (8.) the concealed conflict argument, viz., that markets conceal the latent conflict in a pluralistic society with value conflict. I think that once one is aware of the concealed conflict argument one can probably discern it in the catallactic and coordination arguments, so I don't want to suggest it's entirely free-standing. Anyway, let me quote the passage in The Road to Serfdom that alerted me to it, and then I'll elaborate:

The illusion of the specialist that in a planned society he would secure more attention to the objectives for which he cares most is a more general phenomenon than the term of specialist at first suggests. In our predilections and interests we are all in some measure specialists. And we all think that our personal order of values is not merely personal, but that in a free discussion among rational people we would convince the others that ours is the right one. The lover of the country-side who wants above all that its traditional appearance should be preserved and that the blots already made by industry on its fair face should be removed, no less than the health enthusiast who wants all the picturesque but insanitary old cottages cleared away, or the motorist who wishes the country cut up by big motor roads, the efficiency fanatic who desires the maximum of specialisation and mechanisation no less than the idealist who for the development of personality wants to preserve as many independent craftsmen as possible, all know that their aim can be fully achieved only by planning-and they all want planning for that reason. But, of course, the adoption of the social planning for which they clamour can only bring out the concealed conflict between their aims.--Hayek (1944) The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 4 (The Inevitability of Planning), pp. 56-57. 

The wider context of this passage is a theme to which Hayek returns over and over again throughout his career: that it is the educated and, especially, those with technical knowledge (e.g., engineers, and skilled functionaries) that are likely to favor collective planning and collective or deliberative decision making by way of discussion (which also favors their discursive advantages). My own view is that In the Managerial Revolution (a book Hayek cites later in The Road to Serfdom and which he had reviewed respectfully in Economica in 1942), Burnham had nailed this wider point. 

But my interest here is really only in the final sentence of the quoted passage. For, it clearly implies that in a market economy our conflicting values can stay latent, and (crucially) can be hidden from each other and ourselves. 

Notice, by the way, that the argument can be agnostic on the source of the conflicting values. It can accommodate either the Weberian point that such value conflict is an effect of the advanced division of labor and the diversity of social interests, or the more Platonic point that it is the diversity of our natures and our unruly passions that causes such conflict. It can also accommodate the Marxist point that markets generate class conflict. 

And the mechanism that is lurking here is that the market order prevents certain conversations from happening that are required when there is collective decision-making. That is to say, somewhat jokingly, the market creates a veil of ignorance about other people's aims and so suppresses conflict about these.

To avoid confusion, the argument should not be conflated with the (Kantian) claim that trade generates peace because of shared interest in enrichment or the Doux Commerce thesis that suggests that trade softens or pacifies passions. Rather, it anticipates (as Stefan Kolev reminded) Milton Friedman's (and Rose Friedman's) point (1962) that "the market reduces the strain on the social fabric by rendering [mutual] conformity unnecessary with respect to any activities it encompasses" (Capitalism and Freedom, fortieth anniversary edition, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 24 (see also pp. 117-118)).

Let me close. The concealed conflict argument does not deny that competitive markets may produce conflict of their own. Hayek recognizes that they stimulate groups to seek protection against competition through the political process, and they may induce resentment over riches obtained through the market or fuel wider class conflict. 

Rather, the concealed conflict argument is a reminder that sometimes politics is well-served by -- and now I quote Hayek who in the postscript to The Constitution of Liberty (p. 354) tacitly quotes Walpole -- Quieta non movere (which I prefer to translate as 'let sleeping dogs lie'), that is, don't disturb settled things. Hayek recognizes that the maxim has little standing in (political) philosophy, but that it is often a wise maxim for, and a crucial part of the art of government of, the statesman.*

Foucault pretty much starts the Birth of Biopolitics with this quote (recall), and does name Walpole. And I think the concealed conflict argument helps explain one reason why Foucault treats Hayek and the ORDOs as providing a response to a problematic left to them by Max Weber (recall here), that is (what Foucault calls) 'irrational rationality of capitalist society.' For, part of its rationality is to find ways of non-politicizing what cannot or, perhaps, may not be resolved by politics (even if, in his account of neo-liberalism the market requires constitution by politics).

 

 

On Starship Troopers (and Peckinpah)

Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls has gone through the complete cycle. It was initially received as a notorious turkey, then it became a cult hit that college students watched while playing Showgirls-themed drinking games, and before long it gained a reputation among highbrow commentators including legendary New Wave director Jacques Rivette) as one of the greatest American films of the era.

Good-bad films culture is a space where transgressive movies that are rejected by initial audiences can begin the process of reappraisal and rehabilitation...there is a high degree of overlap between good-bad movie fans and art cinema fans. Film maudit culture emerges from this overlap. I don't mean to say that a legendary film maudit such as Heaven's Gate or Showgirls should be seen as good-bad. Rather, I mean that film maudit sits at the nexus where the concepts of cinematic merit and artistic seriousness are problematized and reshaped.--Matthew Strohl (2022)Why It's Ok to Love Bad Movies, p. 19.

I have been living with Strohl's book for a few weeks now. I avidly search, often without luck, the streaming networks for the movies he discusses and I watch (or re-watch) them in light of his sophisticated and amusing analysis. I quietly mourn the days when my laptop had a DVD player and I could go to the university library or rent from Netflix's once enormous supply. 

The passage quoted above got me thinking of Verhoeven, and especially about (1997) Starship Troopers which has always troubled me. The film has stilted dialogues, an insipid story, but a lot of amazing visual imagery. On Twitter I asked Why think Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is satire? And that went viral with everyone assuring me that it is best understood as a parody/satire of fascism. I am not so sure.

Verhoeven's first major cinematic work was a documentary, Mussert (1968)--Anton Mussert was the leader of the Dutch national-socialists and executed for treason after WWII. I have been unable to find it in order to re-watch it on short notice. But I recall it as an engaging character portrait of Mussert, who is humanized in virtue of the kind of ordinariness of the perceptions of people that knew him. It's important for what follows that I do not mean to say that Verhoeven is interested in defending Mussert's ideology or choices. What is important is that Verhoeven has a documented interest in fascism (no surprise given his biography). 

Soldaat van Oranje (1977) is part of Verhoeven's period of great success in the Netherlands. It's based on a true story. What's distinctive about it (other than the nudity which made all his movies appealing later to my teenage self) is that it starts as a kind of group portrait of students and the choice to collaborate or to resist seems largely arbitrary and driven by ambiguous motives. It's a movie that repays multiple viewings because it's also unusually reflexive about the power of images and the way mutual surveillance is internalized. But I wouldn't call it an antiwar movie because it also treats war as an adventure. (Feel free to challenge this; it's been a while.)

This all by way of prologue. In what follows I want to argue that Verhoeven's Starship Troopers actually expresses a fascist viewpoint. At a high level of abstraction this actually echoes the initial unease about and reception of the film that by now is widely thought inadequate. Since the film also clearly and repeatedly parodies and satirizes a world government that deploys an explicitly fascist aesthetic and propaganda methods most people I know disagree with me.

Moreover, if I am right it also goes against how Verhoeven's claims about the film are usually interpreted (2014). Verhoeven is quoted as follows:

"I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring," says Verhoeven of his attempts to read Heinlein's opus. "It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeier to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing. It's a very right-wing book. And with the movie we tried, and I think at least partially succeeded, in commenting on that at the same time. It would be eat your cake and have it. All the way through we were fighting with the fascism, the ultra-militarism. All the way through I wanted the audience to be asking, 'Are these people crazy?'" Empire. By Adam Smith, Owen Williams

Interestingly enough, Neumeier is on record (see here) of being a huge fan of the novel.

In what follows, I take for granted that Verhoeven's intentions are anti-militarist. Even so, there are two weird things worth noticing about Verhoeven's claims. First, the main points of the first chapter of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, are the fear and adrenaline in the confusion of battle. The first sentence of the narrator is "I always get the shakes before a drop" despite being full of drugs! I am not suggesting Heinlein's Starship Troopers isn't fascist -- that's a different debate --, but it is quite striking that Verhoeven claims he could tell after the first two chapters. (The second chapter is a flashback to the narrator's decision to join the service which is how the movie starts.) So, I want to suggest that this passage is worth being cautious about.

Second, Verhoeven himself explicitly qualifies the success of his own effort, he claims he only "partially succeeded." Verhoeven is not known for modesty, and I suggest that he must have discerned something of the argument I intend to offer.

Now, in the quoted passage fascism and ultra-militarism are equated. And such militarism and fascism are indeed on display in the first visual of the movie with the logo of the federal network (and the soundtrack playing a marching tune). The first scene of the movie is a slick recruitment video for the mobile infantry. Strikingly, this is a racially and gender integrated force. (The US Armed forces did not allow women in combat roles until much more recently.) We also learn that the world is imperiled ("help save the world") and something of the ideology of the federation: "service guarantees citizenship." (I return to this below.)

The second scene is shot as if embedded with the infantry in the process of invading Klendathu (the planet of the bugs), "which "must be eliminated." This invasion turns out to be disastrous not the least for the reporter and camera man embedded with the troops which are destroyed by the local bugs. This scene is not slick at all. 

That Klendathu "must be eliminated" is an echo of Cato's famous genocidal claim about Rome's arch-rival, Carthage (censeo Carthaginem esse delendam). This is important to my argument. For, the political ideology of the federation, as presented (and mocked and satirized) in the film, is a militaristic form of civic republicanism. This is, in fact, explicitly articulated in the third scene.

The third scene is a flashback (partially analogous to the second chapter of the book). And we find ourselves in a high school classroom where we are introduced to the hero -- or (if he you disagree with me) main character -- of the film, Rico, a conventionally attractive young man, who is drawing a picture of a boy and a girl and not paying attention to the teacher (Rasczak) who we learn is veteran missing part of an arm (and later turns out to be lieutenant commandeering an elite infantry unit that Rico joins after his initial unit is largely wiped out).*

In the flashback, Rasczak immediately summarizes the main point of the year: "the failure of democracy and the social sciences who brought the world to the bring of chaos."+ We learn that humanity is united in a federation akin to the United Nations (and Star Trek's federation). This federation has been transformed by a coup d'état of veterans who have created a system characterized by social stability for generations.

As we hear the teacher intone, Rico returns to drawing and we see the girl (Carmen Ibanez), who is his model. And as she smiles to him (into the camera), we clearly see her and a portrait of Spinoza. (I return to this below.) Raszcak switches to a Socratic method, and asks another student why are only citizens allowed to vote? And so the audience gets a civics lesson of the ruling ideology, which has a number of distinct elements:

• A distinction between citizens and civilians. The distinction is political and moral.  
• Citizenship is gained through service, primarily (perhaps exclusively) military service.
• The political distinction is that the voting franchise is limited to citizens.
• The moral distinction is that citizenship is freely chosen, and accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic. (Later, by focusing on Rico's parents, we learn that the life of a civilian is basically hedonist enjoyment without responsibility.) This moral distinction is characterized in terms of civic virtue. 
• Importantly, while the students view citizenship as a means toward social benefits (including college entry), as reward for services rendered, the teacher rejects this. Gifts are never of value.**
• Voting is treated as an expression of political authority, which rests on force, especially violence.
• Violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived. (This is much quoted.)

A student (Dizzy Flores, who is interested in Rico) objects that her mother claims violence does not solve anything. We then get another look at Spinoza, when Raszcak asks Carmen Ibanez (the student who is being portrayed by Rico), what the "city fathers of Hiroshima would say about that," (to which the astute and chilling response is, nothing because they are dead). Near the end of the scene we see a drawing of Hannah Arendt and a bust of Marcus Aurelius. It's not silly to have images of Spinoza, Arendt, and Marcus Aurelius in the classroom if one's ideology is a kind of realist, civic republicanism. 

At the end of the scene -- it's only 90 seconds long -- the question is asked (of Rico) if he believes the ruling ideology and Rico honestly says, he doesn't know. And Raszcak responds that he doubts any of them would 'recognize civic virtue if it bit them in the ass.'

I have spent some time on this because the federation's self-understanding and its structure is formally not fascist. (I don't deny, by the way, that there are important connections between, say, the roman republic and fascism.) We also learn quickly that the federation's military is a meritocracy. And there is some freedom of speech in the federation because there is no suggestion that there will be dangerous consequences for Dizzy Flores' mother doubting of official ideology (and Rico's own lack of conviction). 

Now, the film goes on to show that much of this is sham. The aesthetics of the federation are openly fascist (we see Neil Patrick Harris --  of Doogie Howser, MD fame -- visually transform into a Gestapo officer), it seems committed to open-ended wars of aggression, its claims about citizenship largely a sham because soldiers are treated as expendable; many of the scenes provide us a window into the propaganda that the federation directs at its own citizens. In addition, the federation clearly presents itself as superior to bugs (whose intelligence it constantly underestimates). And it is this fact, this exposure of the militaristic hollowness of the federation, alongside the sheer craziness of its way of life, that is taken as representing the viewpoint of the film and this, in turn, is treated as its anti-fascist message. 

The problem is, however, that exposing that civic republicanism and the duties of citizenship are a sham is itself a feature (not a bug [sorry]) of fascism, or at least what we now call the alt right. In addition, Rico's journey in the film is treated sympathetically. And his species of masculinity is also familiar from contemporary alt right. 

That is to say, while some viewers may end up thinking that Rico is a kind of idiot, I don't think that's the perspective of the movie itself. Initially, his decision to join the service is a rash rebellion against his parents and motivated by his desire to stay near Carmen Ibanez. (This plan fails because Carmen, who is much smarter, is sent to space-force to become a pilot.) He has a change of heart once he is responsible for the death of a fellow trainee (and Carmen far away), but he rescinds his decision to leave the military after his parents (and the city of Buenos Aires) are destroyed by the bugs. After this, this decision is existential. and he devotes his life to killing bugs. 

Rico never questions his decision. And whatever limited growth he shows, it's primarily in the art of killing and military tactics. Rico shows himself to be brave and a good, loyal platoon leader, who rises through the ranks because infantry has a high mortality rate. Importantly, while the smart kids who become officers are uniformly shown to be awful and true believers, in the infantry we see mutual care and comradery of beautiful young people willing to sacrifice for each other and the greater good. 

Now, for some people it's obvious that in virtue of serving an awful regime, which is parodied in the film, Rico and his friends are also so satirized. On social media Liam Kofi Bright suggested, with a knowing nod to Stanley Fish, that it represents a kind of surprised by sin structure. I actually think that's right. For Kofi Bright the lesson is, for the viewer, 'you too can be made to empathise with and root for the villains.' This may be Verhoeven's intention, although it is worth noting that we never root for the senior officers or the federation while watching Starship Troopers. 

My response is that to be surprised by sin just is the human condition. And it does not follow that in virtue of serving an awful regime -- in Kofi Bright's words "objectively what they're doing is aiding a fascist war of conquest...[a]ll their virtues and vices play out against that unquestioned background" -- Rico and his friends are also satirized or parodied. It's not even obvious that Raszcak is satirized in the film. (He turns out to be rather brave and caring of his troops.) In fact, we see Rico taking on the virtues that Raszcak extolls (and exemplifies). 

My position is illustrated by Sam Peckinpah's (1977) Cross of Iron, which appeared the same year as Verhoeven's Soldaat van Oranje. Cross of Iron, which explores the comradery and conflicts of a German platoon on the Eastern front, was a flop Stateside and was panned by critics. (Interestingly enough it did very well in West Germany.) Now, Cross of Iron is very violent, but there is no reason to think that in virtue of coming to sympathize with Corporal Rolf Steiner (James Coburn), whose home is on the front, and who is shown to be courageous and have quite a bit of humanity toward the enemy, we end up admiring the Wehrmacht or Nazi Germany.++ It's pretty obviously an antiwar movie, even though we are shown that for some men war is preferred over domestic life (a good part of the movie explores a romance between Steiner and his nurse Eva, who he ends up rejecting). 

Of course, Cross of Iron is not satire, so structurally it is not identical to Starship Troopers. And whatever aesthetic surrounds Coburn's Steiner, it is by no means fascist. But the aesthetic surrounding Rico and his friends is fascist. The ones that survive keep their beauty. And at the end of the movie Rico even 'gets' Carmen, while the morally superior Dizzy Flores dies. And so while insipid militarism is clearly criticized, Rico's military service is not. 

Now, one might object that Rico's inability to see through the lies and his dedicated service to a corrupt regime make him flawed. Obviously, I am not interested in convincing you otherwise. But I don't think the movie manages to convey this; unlike the smart elites of the federation, he is not obviously "crazy." In fact, he remains likeable and heroic to the end; he is a fascist poster boy. 

If  am right then this episode also illustrates something else: that so many people defend the movie as merely satire also shows something of how difficult it is to distance ourselves from fascism.